Current Issue

Libya must not be partitioned

Horace Campbell

2011-04-14

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/72590

cc BRQ NetworkThe debates raging at the highest levels of the US National Security establishment and NATO over the military ‘stalemate’ in Libya conceal an even more competitive effort on the ground in Libya, by petroleum interests keen to divide up the territory to ensure access to the country’s vast oil resources, writes Horace Campbell.

The raging debates at the highest levels of the US National Security establishment and various interests within NATO over the current military ‘stalemate’ in Libya conceals an even more competitive effort on the ground in Libya by petroleum interests who are keen on dividing up the territory to ensure access to the vast oil resources of Libya. At the forefront of this aggressive partitioning effort is the French military, political and oil establishment that has not only recognised the transitional government in Benghazi but has also been the most pushy on advancing military options even in the face of opposition from other NATO members such as Germany, Greece, Spain and Turkey. Although in public the US military and the opportunistic force of the US Africa Command are supporting the military option, in Congressional testimony and in press reports in the United States, the secretary of defense, Robert Gates has stated that any oresident who would commit ground troops to a place such as Libya ought to have his head examined. Gates has also noted that the events in Libya were ‘a real formula for insecurity.’ These comments were restated by the ‘New York Times’ in the same paragraph where the paper stated that ‘Mr. Obama’s decision to join the military intervention in Libya may well be judged a failure if the initial result is a muddle or a partition of the country.’

Who will benefit from partitioning Libya? Why did the same US foreign policy establishment pour cold water on the peace initiatives of the African Union? Why did the head of the CIA proclaim early after the start of the rebellion that Gaddafi and his family will prevail? These questions are urgent in the face of the clear political and ideological weaknesses of the transitional authority of Benghazi who have failed to inspire the urban oppressed inside Tripoli to rise up and demand freedom. Instead, this political leadership continues to call for support from the military forces of NATO, even after NATO bombed their convoy, claiming ‘mistaken identity.’ Some sections of this rebellion hope to overcome inexperience and disorganisation through the involvement of ground troops and Special Forces from NATO. These ‘rebel’ leaders have forgotten the most recent history of the Chalabis and those Iraqis who pushed vigorously for US military involvement in Iraq. Those sections of the US military who understand clearly that the United States cannot afford to be seduced into another creeping war are opposed to the current NATO military exercise while those sections of the military/intelligence forces allied to Israel and the oil interests view the Libya operation as forward planning to be able to thwart the maturation of the Egyptian revolutionary process as it unfolds.

The tinderbox of the evolution of the changed politics of Africa and the Middle East contain the seeds of a wider conflagration if peace and justice forces do not actively oppose the partitioning of Libya and the planning for war and counter-revolution. I will join with those forces in Africa calling for the African Union to be more forthright in its initiatives for peace and call upon Brazil, Russia, India, China and Vietnam to press the Security Council to withdraw the open ended mandate of Resolution 1973 that called for ‘all necessary measures to protect civilians.’ France, Britain and the USA have gone beyond the mandate and Africans at home and abroad must rein in the NATO forces and call on the UN Secretary General to replace NATO with UN peacekeepers that are not compromised by petroleum interests. This secretary general is coming up for re-election and should be aware that European and US political interests are not the same as those who want peace. The partitioning of Libya will not support peace and reconstruction in Africa and it is in the face of this partitioning where the forces of pan African unity and peace must advance the ideas of people centered unity to isolate militarists within and outside Africa.

FRANCE’S DOMESTIC AND REGIONAL IMPERATIVES FOR WAR AND RE-COLONISATION

At the same time while the French political establishment was pretending to support democratization and rebellion against injustice in Libya, the French society was in the midst of implementing laws that targeted the dress of women who followed the Islamic faith. President Sarkozy who has not hidden his racist ideas about Africans and Arabs had given the green light to the neo-conservative and far right elements within France by courting the support of the neo-fascist National Front electorate. In a society where the impact of the economic recession was taking its toll on French workers with manifestations all over the country, Sarkozy was championing anti-immigrant sentiments and claiming that French involvement in Libya was to prevent a flood of Africans from crossing the Mediterranean Sea. Sarkozy is facing re-election in the coming year and is setting out a robust domestic and foreign policy based on xenophobia and French imperialism in Africa and the Middle East.

In his vision of Grandeur, France had proposed a Mediterranean Union to counter the growing influence of the United States in North Africa after Libya moved dramatically to cooperate with the neo-conservatives in Britain and the United States. Former US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had brought in Gaddafi on behalf of the US oil company Chevron to thwart German and Italian influence, and after 2005 US oil companies were awarded most of the contracts on offer at the first open license auction in Libya. France seethed in the face of this competition and sought to build an alliance with Lebanon in the east and Morocco in the West to counter the United States. France proclaimed to the Islamic world that it could end the Israeli-Palestine struggles. This posture belied the fact that France was the most forceful in opposing the independence of the peoples of the Western Sahara. In order to buy Morocco’s support, France opposed all efforts of the UN to bring an end to the colonial status of the Western Sahara also known as the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic. The United States on the other side remained neutral on the question of full independence for the peoples of Western Sahara because the US wanted cooperation from Algeria in the claims to fabricate terrorism in the Maghreb. With a firm foothold in Tunisia, France wanted to achieve more influence in both Egypt and Libya. In order to curry favor with Libya, Sarkozy had invited Gadaffi to France for a grand state visit with the ‘brother leader’ shining in pomp and grandeur with a delegation of more than 500 strong.

FRENCH AND ITALIAN STRUGGLES IN LIBYA

But the diplomatic issues over the proposed Mediterranean Union paled into insignificance when compared to the urgency of French oil companied to get a bigger share of the oil from Libya. As a former colonial exploiter, the Italians had maintained close ties with the Gaddafi regime even during the years when Gaddafi was accused of being a sponsor of terrorism. Oil was discovered in Libya in 1959 and Italian capitalists were never far from the exploitation of the oil resources. Ten years later, King Idris was overthrown in a coup led by the 27-year-old Muammar Gaddafi, and the Italians showed clearly what their permanent interests were. These interests were based on oil and commercial ties. During the rise of the semi-fascist Berlusconi government, Libya embarked on a radically new chapter in its history of relationship with the former colonial power. Gadded visited Italy on 8 state visits and the Italians emerged with the largest stake in Libyan oil. By the time of the rebellion in February there were estimates that 32 per cent of Libyan oil went to Italy, 14 per cent to Germany, 10 per cent to France and China, 5 per cent to the United States with smaller percentages going to Austria, Canada, Norway, Spain, Brazil, India, Australia, Turkey, United Arab Emirates and others. Other writers have written extensively on the skillful ways in which the Libyan National Oil Company learnt from the Malaysians and Indonesians to play different countries in the oil business.

Berlusconi worked hard to ensure that Italian capitalists remained a force within Libya to the point where Italy publicly apologised for the crimes committed by Italians during the colonial era. In 2008, this was a small price to pay when US oil companies were gaining most of the contracts for new explorations. The Berlusconi regime not only apologised for the crimes of colonialism, it returned stolen artifacts and pledged US$5 billion for infrastructural and housing projects in Libya. The Italian prime minister could pledge this US$5 billion with the full knowledge that this was a pittance compared to what was being reaped from the Italian oil companies in the Libyan desert. Moreover, as soon as Libya earned the money, it was recycled back to Europe with Italian companies being the beneficiaries of the wealth of its former colony. This recycle was through the Libyan Investment Authority (LIA), a ‘sovereign wealth fund’ set up in 2006 to spend the country's oil money, which has an estimated US$70 billion of assets. Italy received more opportunities to glean wealth out of Africa. Gaddafi and his family ploughed billions into strategic Italian enterprises. It is not yet known how much stake the Libyans had in Italy's biggest oil company, Eni. The LIA invested in the Italian aerospace and defense group, Finmeccanica; Lafico is thought to retain more than 2 per cent of Fiat and almost 15 per cent of a quoted telecommunications company, Retelit. Before the rebellion, the Libyan state capitalists also owned 22 per cent of the capital of a textile firm, Olcese, with the best known investment as a 7.5 per cent stake in the Serie A soccerside Juventus. There was also s another 7.5 per cent interest in Italy’s largest bank, Unicredit.

Anglo-American capital salivated as they worked vigorously to compete with Italy in Libya and Tony Blair, former British prime minister, became the emissary for BP, construction and university enterprises. US hedge fund managers also joined the queue to Tripoli as Gaddafi signaled preference for US oil companies so that after 2005 US oil majors were the most successful in the bids to enter the Libyan oil market. Occidental, in conjunction with different consortiums, had a total of nine successful bids, while Chevron (the company associated with Condoleezza Rice) was not far behind. Other US oil companies, including Marathon, ConocoPhillips, and Occidental were busy bidding even though the Libyan leaders made it clear that the promised compensation for the families of the Lockerbie plane bombing would be paid from monies from US oil companies.

France under Sarkozy watched and seethed as Gaddafi supported a robust African Union while opposing the Mediterranean Union. When the Tunisian revolution removed the Ben Ali family, the political leadership was caught on the wrong side of history by promising early to send reinforcements to crush the revolution. Conservative and counter-revolutionary forces in France represented the revolution in North Africa as the openings of floodgates of immigrants from Africa in order to counter the inspirational images and lessons that were coming from Tahrir Square. When the rebellion in Libya exploded seven days after the departure of the Mubarak family, France jumped in to support the rebellion and was the first and only country to recognise the government in the east.

LIBYA EFFECTIVELY PARTITIONED?

French forward planners and strategists had been in touch with opposition elements in Libya and it was the calculation of Sarkozy that a quick application of power from the air would tip the balance, and the Libyan rebels would do the drive triumphantly into Tripoli. Britain succumbed to French activism not wanting to be left out and tried to find a middle ground between the Pentagon and France. Inside Europe, German, Turkey, Spain, Greece and Austria seethed and dithered as Italy supported the aerial bombardment while at the same time supporting the Gaddafi family with logistics and other forms of support under the radar. When it was reported that the Transitional Council was starting to export oil from terminals on the East at Tobruk, Italian oil interests not wanting to be left behind traveled to Benghazi to secure the dominance of the Italian companies in the oil business. Eni chief Paolo Scaroni flew to Benghazi, where he ‘had contacts with the Libyan National Transitional Council to restart cooperation in the energy sector and get going again the collaboration with Italy in the oil sector.’ After the start of the bombing campaign on March 18, an interim government was formed by the council on 23 March 2011. This interim government has so far been officially recognised by France, Qatar, The Maldives and Italy.

The Italians had to move swiftly because the US Treasury had made clear that opposition oil sales would not be subject to the sanctions imposed on Col Gaddafi’s government. With the full understanding of the potential from France to seek to have oil from the east sold in the Euro currency, US Treasury officials have cautioned leaders of the Transitional Council that the dollar should be the currency for the oil trade. Of course, the US Treasury was too sophisticated to say this openly, instead used language that ‘the rebels would have to create a payment mechanism’ that was acceptable.

The Obama administration was caught between three competing interests. The first was represented by the oil forces that have experience in working on both sides of partitioned societies. Their position had been echoed quite early by the head of the CIA who had contradicted Obama when he said that Gaddafi had to go. James Clapper told the US Senate that Gaddafi's superior military force would prevail over the long term. Also, Mr Clapper said one possible outcome could be the splitting of Libya into three autonomous states. The same CIA that was deploying Special Forces to Libya to fight beside the ‘rebels’ was sending a signal to its assets in the Gaddafi circles that the CIA would still be keeping in close touch with them. The head of the CIA predicted that Gaddafi would prevail even while the head of Obama’s NSC was on the phone every day calling on Moussa Koussa to defect. The anticipation was that this defection would trigger internal opposition to Gaddafi. Moussa Koussa predicted a Somali type partitioning if there was no political solution to the uprising.

The second position of the Obama administration came from the sectors of the Pentagon who did not want to fight for oil companies. The opposition to the US involvement came clearly from chairperson of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mullen and Robert Gates, who had testified before Congress that he US military capabilities were too high to be involved with the training of the opposition army. Yet, nearly a week after boasting of their satellite capabilities, the NATO forces bombed a convoy of tanks that had been used by the transitional authority in the East. After boasting of their capabilities there were attacks on the rebels involving at least two deadly friendly-fire airstrikes. Rear Admiral Russ Harding from NATO Joint Force Command ‘apologised’ and said ‘it was hard to tell rebel fighters apart from Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's troops - after all, they generally wear the same uniforms and have similar weaponry and vehicles.’

The third position of the US administration came from the Humanitarian hardliners, Samantha Power, Susan Rice and Hilary Clinton. These were the forces who have been trumpeting the call for the exit of Gaddafi even though the US does not have a mandate for ‘regime change’ under the UN resolution. The Obama administration in the absence of leadership to oppose the partitioning of Libya gave publicity to professors who warned that, ‘Humanitarian wars, like all wars, tend to escalate.’ From inside Africa Mahmood Mamdani underlined the farce of this so called humanitarian bombing and pointed to the farce of the NATO position. He rightly noted:

‘Iraq and Afghanistan teach us that humanitarian intervention does not end with the removal of the danger it purports to target. It only begins with it.

‘Having removed the target, the intervention grows and turns into the real problem. This is why to limit the discussion of the Libyan intervention to its stated rationale - saving civilian lives - is barely scratching the political surface.

‘The political and diplomatic leadership offered by the Africa Union must now be supported in light of the partitioning of Libya between Western oil companies, especially in the struggles between France and Italy.’

THE PEACE INITIATIVE OF THE AFRICAN UNION IN LIBYA

At the outset of the uprising in Libya the Africa Union was divided over its response, primarily because many of the leaders feared rebellions in their own societies while others had been compromised by their close and fawning relationship with Gaddafi. As the rebellion changed its form and character from urban street protests to armed confrontation, peace forces in Africa sought answers to the question of the ideological and political orientation of the would be revolutionaries. Answers were not far off when there was no organisation, no clarity of ideas or clear leadership lines as emerged from the ranks of the workers and students in Egypt. Because of the treatment of millions of workers from sub-Saharan Africa who worked in all parts of Libya, there was soon clarity that those fighting to remove Gaddafi were not anti-racist in their own ranks. African workers who were caught in the crosshairs of this battle between Gaddafi and his opponents were labelled as ‘mercenaries’ and persecuted. Tales of this persecution percolated across Africa as those who were fortunate to leave reached their homes from Nairobi to Accra.

Despite this information, the peace and justice forces opposed the massacres by Gaddafi and called for humanitarian assistance in the cities that were under siege. It was this call for assistance that persuaded the African Union Peace and Security Council to support efforts by the United Nations to offer humanitarian assistance even while deliberating a collective African response. When France called the meeting in Paris to give diplomatic cover for the impending military bombing campaign, the AU Commission chairman Jean Ping refused to participate in the meeting, stating in public that he was not going to Paris for a photo opportunity.

This was a clear criticism of the stamp of approval given by the Arab League to the Paris meeting. Days after the massive bombing campaign of the British, French and US forces; even the Arab League recoiled from its earlier endorsement of the open ended UN Security Council Resolution. Those members of the UN Security Council such as Brazil, Russia, India and China who had abstained during the discussion of ‘all necessary measures to protect civilians’ belatedly opposed the bombing campaign without offering concrete alternatives for humanitarian assistance.

The Peace and Security Commission of the African Union did not retreat but worked patiently to deliver an alternative to the NATO military campaign that led to the (permanency of the military stalemate between the forces of Gaddafi and those of the Transitional National Council in reality) a de facto partition of Libya. Initially when the rosy images of NATO military missions were being sold to the world, the forces of NATO opposed the request of the African Union to fly into Libya to mediate. However, as the partitioning became clearer with the implications for creeping war, sections of the US National Security Council overrode the objections of France and gave permission for the AU mission to fly to Libya. This they did on 10 April 2010. At once, the Libyan leadership that had been desperate in the hour of isolation accepted the African Union plan. The plan called for: The cessation of hostilities, stoppage of the aerial bombardment of Libya, opening of safe corridors for delivery of humanitarian aid and talks between Libyan authorities and the rebels.

The roadmap had been drawn up following a meeting Saturday 9 April in Nouakchott, Mauritania, after which the delegation proceeded to Libya. The delegation included presidents Jacob Zuma of South Africa ,Denis Sassou N'Guessou (Congo), Amadou Toumani Toure (Mali), Mohamed Ould Abdelaziz (Mauritania), Ugandan Minister of Foreign Affairs Henry Okello Oryem, AU Commission Chairman Jean Ping, and the AU Commissioner for Peace and Security, Ramadan Lamamra. After discussions in Tripoli, the delegation flew to meet the leaders of the Transitional National Council in Benghazi. The political leaders of the rebellion rejected the African Union saying it did not meet their basic demand that Muammar Gaddafi, his sons and his inner circle leave immediately. These same leaders did not demonstrate what mechanisms other than Western military involvement that they were going to mobilise to ensure the immediate departure of Gaddafi and his lieutenants. The French press gave publicity to this rejection as France continued to be the only state that gave diplomatic recognition to the Transitional National Council.

Despite the rejection of the AU mediation efforts, the permanent members of the Security Council, especially Russia and China, along with the other non-permanent members such as Brazil, Nigeria and South Africa can collectively act to end the disproportionate bombings and the so called ‘mistakes. If Gaddafi is to be removed because of his oppression of the Libyan people, it is the task of the Libyans to lead their own rebellion.

Obama must lead the opposition to the partitioning of Libya and support the United Nations to pursue diplomatic and political alternatives to the NATO bombing campaign. Obama was reminded by one section of the media that hope is not a strategy.

A strategy for peace will undermine the forward planners who are deadly afraid of the outcomes of successful revolutions in North Africa and the Middle East.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* Horace Campbell is professor of African American Studies and Political Science at Syracuse University. He is the author of ‘Barack Obama and Twenty First Century Politics: A Revolutionary Moment in the USA’. See www.horacecampbell.net.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

The lies behind the West's war on Libya

Jean-Paul Pougala

2011-04-14

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/72575

cc NASAAfricans should think about the real reasons why western countries are waging war on Libya, writes Jean-Paul Pougala, in an analysis that traces the country’s role in shaping the African Union and the development of the continent.

It was Gaddafi’s Libya that offered all of Africa its first revolution in modern times – connecting the entire continent by telephone, television, radio broadcasting and several other technological applications such as telemedicine and distance teaching. And thanks to the WMAX radio bridge, a low cost connection was made available across the continent, including in rural areas.

It began in 1992, when 45 African nations established RASCOM (Regional African Satellite Communication Organization) so that Africa would have its own satellite and slash communication costs in the continent. This was a time when phone calls to and from Africa were the most expensive in the world because of the annual US$500 million fee pocketed by Europe for the use of its satellites like Intelsat for phone conversations, including those within the same country.

An African satellite only cost a onetime payment of US$400 million and the continent no longer had to pay a US$500 million annual lease. Which banker wouldn’t finance such a project? But the problem remained – how can slaves, seeking to free themselves from their master’s exploitation ask the master’s help to achieve that freedom? Not surprisingly, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the USA, Europe only made vague promises for 14 years. Gaddafi put an end to these futile pleas to the western ‘benefactors’ with their exorbitant interest rates. The Libyan guide put US$300 million on the table; the African Development Bank added US$50 million more and the West African Development Bank a further US$27 million – and that’s how Africa got its first communications satellite on 26 December 2007.

China and Russia followed suit and shared their technology and helped launch satellites for South Africa, Nigeria, Angola, Algeria and a second African satellite was launched in July 2010. The first totally indigenously built satellite and manufactured on African soil, in Algeria, is set for 2020. This satellite is aimed at competing with the best in the world, but at ten times less the cost, a real challenge.

This is how a symbolic gesture of a mere US$300 million changed the life of an entire continent. Gaddafi’s Libya cost the West, not just depriving it of US$500 million per year but the billions of dollars in debt and interest that the initial loan would generate for years to come and in an exponential manner, thereby helping maintain an occult system in order to plunder the continent.

AFRICAN MONETARY FUND, AFRICAN CENTRAL BANK, AFRICAN INVESTMENT BANK

The US$30 billion frozen by Mr Obama belong to the Libyan Central Bank and had been earmarked as the Libyan contribution to three key projects which would add the finishing touches to the African federation – the African Investment Bank in Syrte, Libya, the establishment in 2011 of the African Monetary Fund to be based in Yaounde with a US$42 billion capital fund and the Abuja-based African Central Bank in Nigeria which when it starts printing African money will ring the death knell for the CFA franc through which Paris has been able to maintain its hold on some African countries for the last fifty years. It is easy to understand the French wrath against Gaddafi.

The African Monetary Fund is expected to totally supplant the African activities of the International Monetary Fund which, with only US$25 billion, was able to bring an entire continent to its knees and make it swallow questionable privatisation like forcing African countries to move from public to private monopolies. No surprise then that on 16-17December 2010, the Africans unanimously rejected attempts by Western countries to join the African Monetary Fund, saying it was open only to African nations.

It is increasingly obvious that after Libya, the western coalition will go after Algeria, because apart from its huge energy resources, the country has cash reserves of around €150 billion. This is what lures the countries that are bombing Libya and they all have one thing in common – they are practically bankrupt. The USA alone, has a staggering debt of $US14,000 billion, France, Great Britain and Italy each have a US$2,000 billion public deficit compared to less than US$400 billion in public debt for 46 African countries combined.

Inciting spurious wars in Africa in the hope that this will revitalise their economies which are sinking ever more into the doldrums will ultimately hasten the western decline which actually began in 1884 during the notorious Berlin Conference. As the American economist Adam Smith predicted in 1865 when he publicly backed Abraham Lincoln for the abolition of slavery, ‘the economy of any country which relies on the slavery of blacks is destined to descend into hell the day those countries awaken’.

REGIONAL UNITY AS AN OBSTABLE TO THE CREATION OF A UNITED STATES OF AFRICA

To destabilise and destroy the African union which was veering dangerously (for the West) towards a United States of Africa under the guiding hand of Gaddafi, the European Union first tried, unsuccessfully, to create the Union for the Mediterranean (UPM). North Africa somehow had to be cut off from the rest of Africa, using the old tired racist clichés of the 18th and 19th centuries ,which claimed that Africans of Arab origin were more evolved and civilised than the rest of the continent. This failed because Gaddafi refused to buy into it. He soon understood what game was being played when only a handful of African countries were invited to join the Mediterranean grouping without informing the African Union but inviting all 27 members of the European Union.

Without the driving force behind the African Federation, the UPM failed even before it began, still-born with Sarkozy as president and Mubarak as vice president. The French foreign minister, Alain Juppe is now attempting to re-launch the idea, banking no doubt on the fall of Gaddafi. What African leaders fail to understand is that as long as the European Union continues to finance the African Union, the status quo will remain, because no real independence. This is why the European Union has encouraged and financed regional groupings in Africa.

It is obvious that the West African Economic Community (ECOWAS), which has an embassy in Brussels and depends for the bulk of its funding on the European Union, is a vociferous opponent to the African federation. That’s why Lincoln fought in the US war of secession because the moment a group of countries come together in a regional political organisation, it weakens the main group. That is what Europe wanted and the Africans have never understood the game plan, creating a plethora of regional groupings, COMESA, UDEAC, SADC, and the Great Maghreb which never saw the light of day thanks to Gaddafi who understood what was happening.

GADDAFI, THE AFRICAN WHO CLEANSED THE CONTINENT FROM THE HUMILIATION OF APARTHEID

For most Africans, Gaddafi is a generous man, a humanist, known for his unselfish support for the struggle against the racist regime in South Africa. If he had been an egotist, he wouldn’t have risked the wrath of the West to help the ANC both militarily and financially in the fight against apartheid. This was why Mandela, soon after his release from 27 years in jail, decided to break the UN embargo and travel to Libya on 23 October 1997. For five long years, no plane could touch down in Libya because of the embargo. One needed to take a plane to the Tunisian city of Jerba and continue by road for five hours to reach Ben Gardane, cross the border and continue on a desert road for three hours before reaching Tripoli. The other solution was to go through Malta, and take a night ferry on ill-maintained boats to the Libyan coast. A hellish journey for a whole people, simply to punish one man.

Mandela didn’t mince his words when the former US president Bill Clinton said the visit was an ‘unwelcome’ one – ‘No country can claim to be the policeman of the world and no state can dictate to another what it should do’. He added – ‘Those that yesterday were friends of our enemies have the gall today to tell me not to visit my brother Gaddafi, they are advising us to be ungrateful and forget our friends of the past.’

Indeed, the West still considered the South African racists to be their brothers who needed to be protected. That’s why the members of the ANC, including Nelson Mandela, were considered to be dangerous terrorists. It was only on 2 July 2008, that the US Congress finally voted a law to remove the name of Nelson Mandela and his ANC comrades from their black list, not because they realised how stupid that list was but because they wanted to mark Mandela’s 90th birthday. If the West was truly sorry for its past support for Mandela’s enemies and really sincere when they name streets and places after him, how can they continue to wage war against someone who helped Mandela and his people to be victorious, Gaddafi?

ARE THOSE WHO WANT TO EXPORT DEMOCRACY THEMSELVES DEMOCRATS?

And what if Gaddafi’s Libya were more democratic than the USA, France, Britain and other countries waging war to export democracy to Libya? On 19 March 2003, President George Bush began bombing Iraq under the pretext of bringing democracy. On 19 March 2011, exactly eight years later to the day, it was the French president’s turn to rain down bombs over Libya, once again claiming it was to bring democracy. Nobel peace prize-winner and US President Obama says unleashing cruise missiles from submarines is to oust the dictator and introduce democracy.

The question that anyone with even minimum intelligence cannot help asking is the following: Are countries like France, England, the USA, Italy, Norway, Denmark, Poland who defend their right to bomb Libya on the strength of their self proclaimed democratic status really democratic? If yes, are they more democratic than Gaddafi’s Libya? The answer in fact is a resounding NO, for the plain and simple reason that democracy doesn’t exist. This isn’t a personal opinion, but a quote from someone whose native town Geneva, hosts the bulk of UN institutions. The quote is from Jean Jacques Rousseau, born in Geneva in 1712 and who writes in chapter four of the third book of the famous ‘Social Contract’ that ‘there never was a true democracy and there never will be.’

Rousseau sets out the following four conditions for a country to be labelled a democracy and according to these Gaddafi’s Libya is far more democratic than the USA, France and the others claiming to export democracy:

1. The State: The bigger a country, the less democratic it can be. According to Rousseau, the state has to be extremely small so that people can come together and know each other. Before asking people to vote, one must ensure that everybody knows everyone else, otherwise voting will be an act without any democratic basis, a simulacrum of democracy to elect a dictator.

The Libyan state is based on a system of tribal allegiances, which by definition group people together in small entities. The democratic spirit is much more present in a tribe, a village than in a big country, simply because people know each other, share a common life rhythm which involves a kind of self-regulation or even self-censorship in that the reactions and counter reactions of other members impacts on the group.

From this perspective, it would appear that Libya fits Rousseau’s conditions better than the USA, France and Great Britain, all highly urbanised societies where most neighbours don’t even say hello to each other and therefore don’t know each other even if they have lived side by side for twenty years. These countries leapfrogged leaped into the next stage – ‘the vote’ – which has been cleverly sanctified to obfuscate the fact that voting on the future of the country is useless if the voter doesn’t know the other citizens. This has been pushed to ridiculous limits with voting rights being given to people living abroad. Communicating with and amongst each other is a precondition for any democratic debate before an election.

2. Simplicity in customs and behavioural patterns are also essential if one is to avoid spending the bulk of the time debating legal and judicial procedures in order to deal with the multitude of conflicts of interest inevitable in a large and complex society. Western countries define themselves as civilised nations with a more complex social structure whereas Libya is described as a primitive country with a simple set of customs. This aspect too indicates that Libya responds better to Rousseau’s democratic criteria than all those trying to give lessons in democracy. Conflicts in complex societies are most often won by those with more power, which is why the rich manage to avoid prison because they can afford to hire top lawyers and instead arrange for state repression to be directed against someone one who stole a banana in a supermarket rather than a financial criminal who ruined a bank. In the city of New York for example where 75 per cent of the population is white, 80 per cent of management posts are occupied by whites who make up only 20 per cent of incarcerated people.

3. Equality in status and wealth: A look at the Forbes 2010 list shows who the richest people in each of the countries currently bombing Libya are and the difference between them and those who earn the lowest salaries in those nations; a similar exercise on Libya will reveal that in terms of wealth distribution, Libya has much more to teach than those fighting it now, and not the contrary. So here too, using Rousseau’s criteria, Libya is more democratic than the nations pompously pretending to bring democracy. In the USA, 5 per cent of the population owns 60 per cent of the national wealth, making it the most unequal and unbalanced society in the world.

4. No luxuries: according to Rousseau there can’t be any luxury if there is to be democracy. Luxury, he says, makes wealth a necessity which then becomes a virtue in itself, it, and not the welfare of the people becomes the goal to be reached at all cost, ‘Luxury corrupts both the rich and the poor, the one through possession and the other through envy; it makes the nation soft and prey to vanity; it distances people from the State and enslaves them, making them a slave to opinion.’

Is there more luxury in France than in Libya? The reports on employees committing suicide because of stressful working conditions even in public or semi-public companies, all in the name of maximising profit for a minority and keeping them in luxury, happen in the West, not in Libya.

The American sociologist C. Wright Mills wrote in 1956 that American democracy was a ‘dictatorship of the elite’. According to Mills, the USA is not a democracy because it is money that talks during elections and not the people. The results of each election are the expression of the voice of money and not the voice of the people. After Bush senior and Bush junior, they are already talking about a younger Bush for the 2012 Republican primaries. Moreover, as Max Weber pointed out, since political power is dependent on the bureaucracy, the US has 43 million bureaucrats and military personnel who effectively rule the country but without being elected and are not accountable to the people for their actions. One person (a rich one) is elected, but the real power lies with the caste of the wealthy who then get nominated to be ambassadors, generals, etc.

How many people in these self-proclaimed democracies know that Peru’s constitution prohibits an outgoing president from seeking a second consecutive mandate? How many know that in Guatemala, not only can an outgoing president not seek re-election to the same post, no one from that person’s family can aspire to the top job either? Or that Rwanda is the only country in the world that has 56 per cent female parliamentarians? How many people know that in the 2007 CIA index, four of the world’s best-governed countries are African? That the top prize goes to Equatorial Guinea whose public debt represents only 1.14 per cent of GDP?

Rousseau maintains that civil wars, revolts and rebellions are the ingredients of the beginning of democracy. Because democracy is not an end, but a permanent process of the reaffirmation of the natural rights of human beings which in countries all over the world (without exception) are trampled upon by a handful of men and women who have hijacked the power of the people to perpetuate their supremacy. There are here and there groups of people who have usurped the term ‘democracy’ – instead of it being an ideal towards which one strives it has become a label to be appropriated or a slogan which is used by people who can shout louder than others. If a country is calm, like France or the USA, that is to say without any rebellions, it only means, from Rousseau’s perspective, that the dictatorial system is sufficiently repressive to pre-empt any revolt.

It wouldn’t be a bad thing if the Libyans revolted. What is bad is to affirm that people stoically accept a system that represses them all over the world without reacting. And Rousseau concludes: ‘Malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium – translation – If gods were people, they would govern themselves democratically. Such a perfect government is not applicable to human beings.’ To claim that one is killing Libyans for their own good is a hoax.

WHAT LESSONS FOR AFRICA?

After 500 years of a profoundly unequal relationship with the West, it is clear that we don’t have the same criteria of what is good and bad. We have deeply divergent interests. How can one not deplore the ‘yes’ votes from three sub-Saharan countries (Nigeria, South Africa and Gabon) for resolution 1973 that inaugurated the latest form of colonisation baptised ‘the protection of peoples’, which legitimises the racist theories that have informed Europeans since the 18th century and according to which North Africa has nothing to do with sub-Saharan Africa, that North Africa is more evolved, cultivated and civilised than the rest of Africa?

It is as if Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Algeria were not part of Africa, Even the United Nations seems to ignore the role of the African Union in the affairs of member states. The aim is to isolate sub Saharan African countries to better isolate and control them. Indeed, Algeria (US$16 billion) and Libya (US$10 billion ) together contribute 62 per cent of the US$42 billion which constitute the capital of the African Monetary Fund (AMF). The biggest and most populous country in sub Saharan Africa, Nigeria, followed by South Africa are far behind with only 3 billion dollars each.

It is disconcerting to say the least that for the first time in the history of the United Nations, war has been declared against a people without having explored the slightest possibility of a peaceful solution to the crisis. Does Africa really belong anymore to this organisation? Nigeria and South Africa are prepared to vote ‘Yes’ to everything the West asks because they naively believe the vague promises of a permanent seat at the Security Council with similar veto rights. They both forget that France has no power to offer anything. If it did, Mitterand would have long done the needful for Helmut Kohl’s Germany.

A reform of the United Nations is not on the agenda. The only way to make a point is to use the Chinese method – all 50 African nations should quit the United Nations and only return if their longstanding demand is finally met, a seat for the entire African federation or nothing. This non-violent method is the only weapon of justice available to the poor and weak that we are. We should simply quit the United Nations because this organisation, by its very structure and hierarchy, is at the service of the most powerful.

We should leave the United Nations to register our rejection of a worldview based on the annihilation of those who are weaker. They are free to continue as before but at least we will not be party to it and say we agree when we were never asked for our opinion. And even when we expressed our point of view, like we did on Saturday 19 March in Nouakchott, when we opposed the military action, our opinion was simply ignored and the bombs started falling on the African people.

Today’s events are reminiscent of what happened with China in the past. Today, one recognises the Ouattara government, the rebel government in Libya, like one did at the end of the Second World War with China. The so-called international community chose Taiwan to be the sole representative of the Chinese people instead of Mao’s China. It took 26 years when on 25 October 1971, for the UN to pass resolution 2758 which all Africans should read to put an end to human folly. China was admitted and on its terms – it refused to be a member if it didn’t have a veto right. When the demand was met and the resolution tabled, it still took a year for the Chinese foreign minister to respond in writing to the UN Secretary General on 29 September 1972, a letter which didn’t say yes or thank you but spelt out guarantees required for China’s dignity to be respected.

What does Africa hope to achieve from the United Nations without playing hard ball? We saw how in Cote d’Ivoire a UN bureaucrat considers himself to be above the constitution of the country. We entered this organisation by agreeing to be slaves and to believe that we will be invited to dine at the same table and eat from plates we ourselves washed is not just credulous, it is stupid.

When the African Union endorsed Ouattara’s victory and glossed over contrary reports from its own electoral observers simply to please our former masters, how can we expect to be respected? When South African president Zuma declares that Ouattara hasn’t won the elections and then says the exact opposite during a trip to Paris, one is entitled to question the credibility of these leaders who claim to represent and speak on behalf of a billion Africans.

Africa’s strength and real freedom will only come if it can take properly thought out actions and assume the consequences. Dignity and respect come with a price tag. Are we prepared to pay it? Otherwise, our place is in the kitchen and in the toilets in order to make others comfortable.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* Jean-Paul Pougala is a Cameroonian writer.
* Translated from the French by Sputnik Kilambi.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

Swaziland: Mswati, you are on your own...

Sokari Ekine

2011-04-14

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/72563

cc WHL TravelsHundreds of Swazis have been arrested after they took to the streets on 12 and 13 April, to demonstrate against the monarchy. Swaziland’s King Mswati has presided over a ‘system of governance’ that protest organisers say has left the country’s ‘people divided, poor and powerless’. Sokari Ekine reports on southern Africa’s first uprising and provides updates on the situation in Djibouti, Algeria, Morocco, Egypt, Côte d'Ivoire and Libya.

I am at the point where I have the utmost respect for those who have or are considering engaging in some level of protest against their governments. I can only think of a few countries on the continent that don't need to be overthrown or at the very least need a complete overhaul – possibly the same thing. Swaziland is the site of the first uprisings in southern Africa, so it will be interesting to see if there is any overspill into South Africa and Zimbabwe, which have had many uprisings over the past few years.

SWAZILAND: COMMONERS, UNITE! MSWATI, YOU ARE ON YOUR OWN!

Tuesday 12 April was the planned day of protests in Swaziland. The Facebook page of Swaziland Solidarity Network Forum has been an important source documenting and reporting on the Swazi uprisings. The forum reported as early as 4 April that the Swazi government was going to target trade unionists and student organisations in the lead up to the 12 April protests.

Richard Rooney notes that: ‘Labour unions and civic society organisations in Swaziland have placed themselves on alert after what is being described “as credible information” was received that they are about to be raided by Swazi state authorities in an attempt to disrupt the “uprising” scheduled for next Tuesday (12 April 2011).’

This was later confirmed to be true as reports began to emerge of the arrest and torture of one of the activists:

‘A Swazi activist said Thursday that he had been detained and beaten as police interrogated him about plans to organise protests next week against King Mswati III, Africa’s last absolute monarch. Nkolisi Ngcamphalana, national organiser for the youth wing of the banned opposition People’s United Democratic Movement (PUDEMO), told AFP that he was detained Tuesday night and held for 24 hours. He said police beat him, placed plastic bags over his head, and then interrogated him about calls for national protests on Tuesday. “They grilled me about the April 12 uprising, and they kicked and beat me,” he said shortly after his release. “Right now they are outside my house. They are intimidating my family,” he said. “They threatened me with death.”’

On 11 April, Swazi Shado blog wrote: ‘Where is Maxwell?’, referring to Maxwell Dlamini ‘one of the main organisers’, who had gone missing. He had gone to South Africa to plan the demonstrations and was last seen at a police roadblock.

The government’s – or rather the King’s – response has been to try and intimidate people by publishing photos of the armed forces on the front page of the Swazi Observer which he partly owns.

Swazi April 12th blog provide some background to the Swazi uprising which is turning into the most organised and sustained protests outside of North Africa:

‘The only eternal and total enemy of our people is the system of governance which has rendered our people divided, poor and powerless. This system, administered by a family which labels itself “closer to god:” than all Swazis, is the Absolute Monarchy orTinkhundla. Playing One Swazi Against the Other....The monarchy plays ordinary Swazis against themselves by being perched at the summit of power. It keeps a large percentage of the population literate but untrained for quality jobs. This is the reserve of poor people from which the security personnel are hired.

‘In a country with no unemployment and no poverty, this system would fail because no sane Swazi would willingly offer himself to be used to guard the royal family’s privileged position against members his own class and family.’

@SwaziMedia posted regular updates on the April 12 uprisings: The army were deployed along with the police in the capital Manzani; the University of Swaziland was closed down and 40 students on their way to the protests were briefly detained; a group of some 200 were picked up and dumped in a forest 100 km from the city with no transport to return; many leading activists were arrested and the police reportedly used rubber bullets, water cannons and teargas to disperse protestors.

The protests continued on Wednesday with an estimate of hundreds of people arrested.

@SwaziMedia: 'Pro-democracy activists estimate number of arrests so far in Swaziland to be in the hundreds.’

‘Swazi police hunt down and continue to brutalize democracy advocates’.

StiffKitten blogger Peter Kenworthy’s post on the Swazi protests further reinforce the understanding that the uprisings across the continent are self-identifying and self-organising, as, despite the arrest of the entire leadership including Mario Masuku of the banned People’s United Democratic Movement, the protests continued throughout 12 and into 13 April:

‘After the entire leadership of the Labour Coordinating Council was arrested, the labour unions simply continued with their protest as planned. When they entered the centre of Manzini city, ordinary people from all walks of life joined them to voice out their support for the uprising.

‘Swazi security forces are trying to shut down the uprising with water cannons, tear gas and random beatings and arrests, but have so far only managed to shut down Manzini’s shops and businesses. “Freedom Square [in Manzini, Swaziland] is under siege by the state security forces. In fact there is no business in the city today,” said Thamsanca Tsabedze from the Foundation for Socio-Economic Justice.’

A really interesting development is a threat from COSATU (Congress of South African Trade Unions) [Video], who marched on the Swazi border demanding the unbanning of political parties, the return of all opposition leaders in exile and media freedom. If their demands are not met they will blockade the border.

DJIBOUTI: WHY NO ONE CARES

Whilst the world was watching Cote d’Ivoire, Egypt and Libya, Djibouti had an election on 8 April. With no opposition, a state-controlled media and no civil society movement, it was easy enough for President Omar Guelleh to change the constitution allowing him to run for a third term – thereby continuing 35 year rule by the same family. But this little dictatorship is strategically central to the US Africa Command (2,000 US troops are based here) and the NATO countries. Unlike in Libya, Djibouti's 1 million population can expect no support from the West in their small attempts to have a voice.

ALGERIA HAS AWOKEN

On the same day as the Swazi protests, large numbers of Algerian students [10,000 estimation] demonstrated in the capital Algiers [Video] and were violently dispersed by the police.

@thanku4theangertweets on the awakening of Algeria: ‘Algeria has awoken. Allah Akbar! #Algeria #Libya #Feb17 #ُُEgypt #Jan25”

@zeggar: The Algerian #students break the forbidden and defeat the authority #Algeria http://bit.ly/i8Wwlw

MOROCCO: IS THE FEBRUARY 20 MOVEMENT STILL ALIVE?

Morocco has been quiet since the few days of protests in early February. There does not seem to be any real challenge to the King’s rule and the split in the movement is over the degree of constitutional change. Mostafa Chtaini writing on MoroccoBoard believes Morocco is different from other North African countries in that the King is working towards increasing the democratic process and creating a constitutional monarchy.

EGYPT: THE ARMY AND THE PEOPLE ARE NO LONGER ONE

Egypt’s revolution is far from over as protests now focus on the Supreme Military Council (SMC) who have become increasingly repressive since taking over from the Mubarak regime. Leil-Zahra Mortada recently reported on the passing of a draft law criminalising demonstrations:

‘The Egyptian cabinet approved today a draft law criminalizing “some strikes, sit-ins, demonstrations and gatherings” as a spokesperson said. This coming at a time when the Emergency Law enforced by the Mubarak regime is still active, and brutal crackdown on liberties is more than frequent. .........The cabinet affirmed the necessity of an immediate end of all demonstrations and strikes happening nationwide after they allegedly responded to a huge amount of the demands they received. (!!!!!!!) The statement also mentioned that the government is working to respond to the demands and concerns over“policies of employment and incomes”

In retrospect it is quite possible that their refusal to take action against the protesters during the initial demonstrations to remove President Murbarak was part of plan to take over the government themselves. On Friday, 8th April, hundreds of thousands including some rebel army officers, gathered in Tahrir Square calling for an end to the SMC. The army tried to disperse the demonstrators by blocking the streets and firing live ammunition into the air. The demonstrators fought back and have since returned to occupying Tahrir Square.

Egyptian Chronicles blog post ‘Tahrir is Officially Back’ describes the protests before the army attacks:

‘Today officially was the “The purification and trial Friday”, we are insisting of purifying the country from the old Mubarak’s regime remnants and the trial is a clear demand to start the trial of former President Mubarak Hosni. We want Hosni Mubarak to get a fair trial in front of the whole world.’

She also comments on the presence of some army officers who criticized General Tantawy, head of the army and deputy prime minister:

‘The young men attacked Tantawy and called for a presidential council which I refuse more and more “as the military representative will have the final word”. They went down and mingled with the public, they were small ranked officers, some said that they were fired while others said there were other officers were in the square without their uniform. Journalists spoke about that army officer who spoke enthusiastically to the public.’

The Arabist posts a video of the rebel army officers and posts an account of the army crackdown in Tahrir Square:

‘At 3.20am, a huge number of army special forces (sa3ka) , military police and central state security (amn markzi) supported by 20-30 army armored vehicles and tanks stormed the square, thousands of rounds of ammunition have been used, soldiers beating and attacking the civilian demonstrators , some of them were families with children.

‘Many were injured and others got arrested and many others dispersed running for shelter in the roads around were the army had forces surrounding the main entrances, many ran to hide in buildings in the area.

‘The shooting continued till 5.20 am, off course everybody in the garden city area and down town area were awaken by the shooting sounds, and went to their windows and balconies to check it out , some got their window, or balcony ceiling or A/C shot at, in an attempt to scare them back inside.

‘Around 4am, the army seemed to be setting up the scene for their own spin on events. After they dispersed the protesters we saw them go into the square, break chairs and tables, and other items, basically destroying items , burning banners and tents and then we saw them step away from the broken items and bringing in their own camera and actually taking footage (not sure if it's video or photography) of the broken items.’

Democratizing Egypt summarises a lecture by Dr Amr Hamzawy on atmosphere of fear amongst young people and the need for a new political awareness in Egypt and the concerns:

‘“We must be organized as Egyptians. We need more knowledge about politics in Egypt. The youth should care about this. We need a lot of political awareness all over Egypt. Awareness, Awareness, Awareness. We have to create awareness to make people feel secure".

‘1. Make Egyptians Feel that they have freedom of choice
2. Social Media. We can use nontraditional media in an organized way to handle our fear. Discuss our fears in a written format, verbally, online.
3. Organize events like the one we are sitting in now. Encourage people to have events in the villages. Go outside Cairo, go outside Alexandria. Have an organization to teach people about democracy all over Egypt.

’Each person has his own society, his friends, his family, his mosque. Teach them. Some people are asking for things to calm down. [Tell them that we need to ask for our rights] Discuss with family, neighbors. People are asking for their rights.’

The similarities between the Mubarak regime and the SMC were highlighted as the army attacked protestors, detained them and subjected them to military tribunals. Just days after the mass protest in Tahrir Square, Egyptian blogger, Maikel Nabil was sentenced to three years in prison by a military tribunal for criticising the army’s torture of revolutionaries.

@ghalyshafik: The sentence of #MaikelNabil is so disgusting. Reminds us all of mubarak days. #jan25 #egypt #tahrir

Blogger Abassiouny sets out the key reasons behind the revolution one of which was the demand for freedom of speech which is now worse than under Mubarak:

‘Back in Mubarak’s days, they would have to cook something up on the guy who pissed them off. For example, in Ayman Nour’s case, they had to cook some bogus fraud charges to give him a few years in jail, they couldn’t just straight up convict him of spreading “false” information about Mubarak’s regime’s corruption and all that.’

Finally the Egyptian Blog for Human Rights publishes a letter from the army to the Egyptian newspapers not to publish anything on the military:

‘On February 22, Gen. Ismail Etman, head of the Morale Affairs Directorate of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, sent a letter to editors of Egyptian newspapers telling them "not to publish any articles / news / press releases / complaints / advertising / pictures concerning the armed forces or the leadership of the armed forces, except after consulting the Morale Affairs directorate and the Military Intelligence since these are the competent parties to examine such issues to protect the safety of the nation.’

As of Wednesday 13 April, the arrest of protestors by the army in Tahrir Square continues:

@LeilZahra: ‘Leil-Zahra Mortada - back in the square. We r cordoned off the street. No explanation given.group of soldiers just walked by. Seems still Lookin for ppl#tahrir’

‘I just got a call from #tahrir. There is another wave of arrests. Call ppl u know there & tell them to get out.’

‘I'm already in adjacent streets, still running into soldiers with "civilians" they look like they r looking for someone.’

‘Speaking to a shop owner, he says he saw someone point people out. Saw ppl standing alone yet in the masses being fished out.’

Early Wednesday morning @SultanAlQassemi tweeted: ‘Breaking Al Jazeera: Husni Mubarak's two sons have been detained for 15 days for questioning.’

CÔTE D'IVOIRE: GBAGBO STRIPPED OF DIGNITY AND POWER

Captured dictators have a certain look. Disorientation, confusion, they are often caught in their underwear or looking wretched after days spent hiding in bunkers. Koluki’s post ‘When Dictatorship Falls from Grace’ pictures the transformation from bejewelled smiling dictator to pathetic man caught in his vest, ‘stripped of dignity, stripped of power’.

The capture of Laurent Gbagbo by French special forces is only the first step in ending five months of conflict. First there are disagreements on who really caught Gbagbo, the French in a ‘Neo-Colonialist Coup d’etat’, the UN or Alassane Ouattara’s forces and of course the question does it matter who was behind his capture?

‘So, what is the essence of sovereignty when it is increasingly being mocked by a so-called international community that only steals from Africans who cannot protect themselves? Under no circumstance must one nation use its military against another nation which is not at war with it. At least, this is the theory which the U.S., France and Britain have been so good at deriding.

‘Presently, French Special Forces are reported to have arrested the president of Ivory Coast, Laurent Gbagbo. The French News Agency reports that it was Alassane Ouattara's rebel forces that arrested President Gbagbo, but BBC's correspondent in Ivory Coast, Mark Doyle, believes the French military was in the lead’

However the French deny they were involved, claiming they only played a supportive role to Alassane Ouattara’s republican forces. President Sarkozy continues to show signs of megalomania in his self-important, self-assigned role of Africa’s saviour. NewsTime Africa reports that he has offered €400 million aid package to Cote d’Ivoire just 24 hours after the capture of Gbagbo.

Then there are various reports that the French committed crimes ‘against humanity’ in the process of capturing Gbagbo. There are also deep concerns on what happens to Gbagbo – will he be protected, arrested, tried for war crimes and if so by whom?

The UK Independent reports that the International Criminal Court (ICC) is set to investigate Laurent Gbagbo for war crimes. In an interview with CNN, Kenyan Prime Minister, Raila Odinga – who must be influenced by his personal friendship with Gbagbo – has asked he not be tried publicly by the ICC, the excuse being his trial might add to the existing religious and ethnic divisions. Clearly the conflict is far from over and there is much work needed to rebuild the country but dictators who commit war crimes and selfishly refuse to accept election results thereby causing the deaths of thousands of people must not be allowed to go free.

At the time of writing he remains in the Golf Hotel in Abidjan under UN protection. He has since called for his followers to lay down their arms and stop fighting and according to this report, some members of his militia have begun surrendering. Nonetheless there are probably thousands who remain armed.

Nii Akuetteh, African political analyst, provides an excellent historical analysis of the past four months war in the country. In this interview, he explains that fault-lines exist which can be traced back to colonial occupation and independence thereby making reconciliation extremely difficult.

Akuetteh emphasises that Gbagbo has used intimidation and xenophobia as a weapon against his enemies, and committed war crimes. At the same time, however there are suspicions that forces loyal to Ouattara have also committed war crimes against civilians.

As in many countries on the continent, explanations based on religion and ethnic differences and even settler communities, are insufficient and simplistic. They do not account, for example, for the struggle for access to land and employment – particularly in the cocoa farming sector, which is by far the largest resource-based occupation. All of these are further compounded by exploitative working conditions and poverty.

LIBYA: FRENCH AND BRITISH LOOK TO HUMANITARIAN AID

The French and British governments are discussing the possibility of intensifying the bombing campaign. Germany has opted out but says it will opt in again if the action is on ‘humanitarian’ grounds. How the word ‘humanitarian’ has been manipulated in the Libyan campaign! No doubt very much aware of this, Libyan twitter users have been highlighting Gaddafi forces’ attack on the city of Misurata:

@Liberty4Libya: ‘NATO, do Misurata school children have to go through min 4.45 http://goo.gl/1dWWT @NATO #Libya’

‘This is what happens to the children of Misurata if left to Gadafi (Carnage)http://goo.gl/1dWWT #Libya’

@ShabbaLibya: ‘Mass Peaceful Demos in ALL of #Libya at sunset on Thurs Apr 14th & Fri Apr 15th in support of all those kidnapped and killed by Gaddafi’

The French are complaining of NATO forces ‘not pulling their weight’ and President Sarkozy is due to meet British Prime Minister Cameron on 13 April for further talks. These two countries seem to be the only two seriously engaging with Libya.

@Liberty4Libya: ‘NATO allies not pulling their weight in Libya, should do more to destroy Gaddafi's forces - French minister’

Finally @EnoughGaddafi announces peaceful protests planned for 14 and 15 April.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

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

Swaziland's brutal clampdown reveals true face of Mswati regime

Peter Kenworthy

2011-04-14

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/72593

cc M A HAfrica Contact's Peter Kenworthy tracked the 'April 12 Swazi Uprising', providing a series of updates as events unfolded. While the government has branded the protests a 'failure', Kenworthy notes that now 'all ordinary Swazis … have seen the true face of the regime, if they hadn’t seen it already'.

14 APRIL

10:40 AM (GMT+1): SWAZI REGIME’S 'VICTORY' IS A PYRRHIC ONE

Swaziland’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Lutfo Dlamini, called the brutally crushed peaceful protest or uprising against Swaziland’s absolute monarchy, that lets a small elite live in luxury while two thirds of the population live below the poverty line, a “failure” yesterday.

I beg to differ. In fact, the so-called “victory” of the regime against the demonstrators, whose call for democracy and rule of law in the absolute monarchy that is Swaziland, may turn out to be a pyrrhic one, making Swazis less likely to accept reformist measures once the inevitable change that most people want comes.

Because while the demonstrators didn’t manage to amass the numbers they had hoped for, this was mainly due to the intimidation, blocking tactics and violence of the police and security forces that did everything they could to stop people from assembling in Manzini.
 
And while the regime might thus claim a victory in terms of numbers – there were an unprecedented amount of police and armed forces patrolling the width and breadth of Swaziland – their “success” was something of a public relations disaster, both within and outside Swaziland.

Now all ordinary Swazis, who don’t normally associate with the democratic movement that the regime brands “terrorists” for simply calling peacefully for democratisation, have seen the true face of the regime, if they hadn’t seen it already.

Ordinary people were stopped at road-blocks, denied access to Manzini, beaten up for no apparent reason, or driven to far-flung areas of Swaziland and left to walk home, simply for going about their daily business.

And with the unparalleled amount of press coverage of the brutal clamp-down on both demonstrators and the  press, newspaper readers all over the world have also been alerted to the true nature of a Swaziland normally seen as a peaceful tourist retreat.

“Workers have exposed the undemocratic nature of Swaziland government, and clearly sent a message to our people and the entire world that the time for multiparty democracy in Swaziland is now,” said Secretary General of the Labour Coordinating Council, one of the organisers of the protest, Mduduzi Gina today.

Who would disagree? The Swazi regime might have won the battle in the streets, preliminarily at least, as the unions have called of what would have been a third day of protest today, fearing for the lives of their members. But the regime is losing the war of the hearts and minds of the Swazi people and the international community.

13 APRIL

9:12 AM (GMT+1): SWAZI POLICE HUNT DOWN AND CONTINUE TO BRUTALIZE DEMOCRACY ADVOCATES

“I escaped arrest by a hairline,” Swaziland United Democratic Front Project Coordinator, Sikelela Dlamini said this morning. He was feared arrested yesterday, as Swazi police and security forces arrested, detained, beat and assaulted everyone that looked like joining yesterday’s Egypt-inspired march for democracy. Several of the leaders of the democratic movement are still held incommunicado by police, and there have been many reports of police brutality against both demonstrators and detainees.

“Cops raided SUDF office where Mary Da Silva [of the Swaziland Democracy Campaign] and I were relaying info on the march to the world. I had luckily briefly locked myself in the still empty room for a telephone interview with a South African journalist when cops pounced at 1245hrs. Docs and my digital camera (and an empty USB flash drive) were confiscated, however,” Dlamini told me.

His colleague, Mary Da Silva, who was in the same office, was less lucky. “Mary was severely assaulted. She needed medical attention after her release late in the day. Cops are still out looking for both me and Mary, perhaps following whatever they thought of camera photos. We can't leave our respective houses and yet we want to be able to get feedback from the streets in order to continue reporting until we get arrested, if it gets to that.”

The march is to continue today, says Sikelele, and until the demands of the demonstrators for revoking the state of emergency, unbanning political parties, discontinuing the ‘Tinkundla’ system that allows the King to control government and land allocation and cancelling the cut-backs, redundancies and pay-freezes have been met, although with the mayhem and mass arrests yesterday, there is understandably some confusion within the ranks of the democratic movement. “The march ought to have continued this morning, but I still await info.”

12 APRIL

1:57 PM (GMT +1): LEADERLESS SWAZI UPRISING CONTINUES

The Swazi uprising is continuing, despite the fact that the entire leadership of the organising movements and organisations have been detained, according to a statement by the Swaziland Solidarity Network.

”After the entire leadership of the Labour Coordinating Council was arrested, the labour unions simply continued with their protest as planned. When they entered the centre of Manzini city, ordinary people from all walks of life joined them to voice out their support for the uprising. ”

Swazi security forces are trying to shut down the uprising with water cannons, tear gas and random beatings and arrests, but have so far only managed to shut down Manzini’s shops and businesses. “Freedom Square [in Manzini, Swaziland] is under siege by the state security forces. In fact there is no business in the city today,” said Thamsanca Tsabedze from the Foundation for Socio-Economic Justice.

Police are also still busy arresting members of the organisations who planned the demonstrations. Sikelela Dlamini, Project Coordinator of the umbrella organisation the Swaziland United Democratic Front, and many others with him were arrested in this latest spate of arrests.

12:58 PM (GMT+1): SWAZI POLICE VIOLENTLY DISPERSE DEMONSTRATORS; DUMP THEM 100 KM FROM TOWN

Swazi police are trying to crush the Egypt and Tunisia-like uprising in Swaziland by teargasing and firing rubber bullets at demonstrators, according to Swazi journalist Manqoba Nxumalo, who is reporting from Swaziland. And the increasingly chaotic situation “has prompted the state to send in the Red Barrettes, a special branch of the Swazi Army,” according to a statement from the Swaziland Solidarity Network.

Other sources report that security forces are rounding up those that they arrest, and drive them to far-flung areas, where they are left to walk home.
“More than 80 democracy activists were detained and abducted by a team of heavily armed security personnel to a remote place, about 70 miles away from Manzini,” according to Thamsanca Tsabedze from the Foundation from Socio-Economic Justice. “They were questioned and all their names taken by police. They are presently meeting and trying to find a way home.”
“As many as two hundred people have been taken from the streets of Manzini and Mbabane and taken to forests far from the city. The protesters are expected to find their own way back to their homes. This is really terrible behaviour as it targets any individual forty and below. Every young Swazi is suspected of being a part of the uprising,” said a Swaziland Solidarity Network statement.

11:33 AM (GMT+1): SWAZI REGIME TRIES TO CRUSH PEACEFUL UPRISING: 'ALL PROGRESSIVE FORCES HAVE BEEN ARRESTED’

The police in Swaziland continue to arrest, detain and generally try and scare people from joining the announced mass demonstrations in Swaziland today, in the latest African mass uprising against a dictatorship.

”All leaders of progressive forces have been arrested this morning and the President of PUDEMO [Swaziland’s biggest illegal opposition party, Mario Masuku] is under house arrest. Police have detained over 100 people around Manzini and they are loaded into police trucks,” according to Foundation of Socio-Economic Justice (FSEJ) Project Coordinator Dumezweni Dlaimini.

There have also been several reports of police mistreatment of the many detainees. "Detainees are being mistreated and tortured,” reported a source from the Swaziland Solidarity Network, which makes pressure for their release increasingly urgent.

“There is still no word on the whereabouts of Maxwell Dlamini and the other democracy activists,” Thamsanca Tsabedze of FSEJ said half an hour ago, “including our administrator at the FSEJ offices Miss Sebenzile Nxumalo who was arrested this morning and detained at the regional police headquarters as she was coming to the office for her usual daily duties."

“The city is relatively quiet with not much activity, save for a few paramilitary security forces that are parading the streets in full riot gear, rounding up and detaining almost everyone that walks the streets,” according to Thamsanca Tsabedze.

The police have blocked of the inaptly named ‘Freedom Square’ in Manzini, where the protests were to have taken of, and indiscriminately arresting anyone standing in groups.

10:56 AM (GMT+1): PRO-DEMOCRACY DEMONSTRATIONS TO CONTINUE IN SWAZILAND

Despite the heavy-handed approach of the Swazi police and security forces, in detaining, beating up, teargassing, and shooting at peaceful pro-democracy demonstrators in Swaziland today, and the unconfirmed rumours of the killing of several demonstrators circulating on Twitter and Facebook, the organizers say they will not be intimidated.

“I will not be intimidated by these bullish antics of the government. Bashing me only strengthens my resolve in the role that I play in the democratic movement in Swaziland,” said Mary Pais Da Silva, Swaziland Democracy Campaign spokesperson.

She had been punched and slapped in the face by police officers, who barged into the room where she was in the middle of a live interview with a South African radio station and taken for questioning, where she was insulted and threatened.

Union leaders, most of whom had been detained for hours during the morning and afternoon, also declared their intent to carry on the protests, according to Free African Media reporter Manqoba Nxumalo.
 
The fate of other detainees, particularly the four members of the democratic movement detained Sunday evening and held incommunicado ever since, is as of yet unknown, according to several sources. “All union leaders have been released. We are not sure about other comrades yet,” Swaziland Solidarity Network spokesperson Lucky Lukhele stated Tuesday evening.
 
What is certain, however, is that the extensive news coverage of the brutal initial crushing of the Swazi uprising ensures that Swaziland’s democratic movement will have the sympathy of the world in days to come, regardless of the inaction of world leaders in intervening on their behalf so far.
 
A statement from PUDEMO, Swaziland’s main banned opposition party, issued late Tuesday evening summed this up. “PUDEMO salutes the workers and the people of Swaziland for standing up to the hostile regime and press through with their demands. We also salute our international allies for their undying show of solidarity to the struggling masses of Swaziland.”

9:37 AM (GMT+1): SWAZI POLICE MAKE INDISCRIMINATE ARRESTS

According to a press release from the Swaziland Democracy Campaign, paramilitary police are detaining people right, left and centre in and around Swaziland’s largest town, Manzini, where today’s mass demonstrations for democracy, inspired by events in North Africa, are to take place.

”The paramilitary police in full riot gear are chanting and marching along the streets of Manzini. Passing through Manzini’s Freedom Square, where the march is supposed to start from this morning. All buses coming from Big Bend have all been detained at the Police Station there and irrespective of who the passengers are. Four buses and six mini-buses from Simunye and Mhlume have also been detained.

Buses from Mananga, ferrying teachers to the march have been detained.
As we write, over fifty marchers/protests have been arrested and detained and it is not known where they have been taken to. The security forces are literally grabbing everyone they can lay their hands on from the streets and detaining them. The latest we are getting is that at Moneni, as you enter Manzini from the Eastern part of Swaziland, comrades are being forcefully ejected from all vehicles, deprived of their cell phones and loaded into police vehicles to unknown destinations,” the press statement said.

8:33 AM (GMT+1): SWAZILAND: POLICE ATTACK PEACEFUL DEMOCRACY ADVOCATES AND PRESS ON EVE OF UPRISING

Swaziland’s police and security forces have detained, and probably manhandled, several members of the Swazi democratic movement and several members of the international press even before today’s announced uprising in Swaziland, inspired by similar events in North Africa, has begun.

Amongst those detained were Maxwell Dlamini, President of the Swaziland National Union of Students, and Themba Mazuba, National Organizing Secretary of the Swaziland United Democratic Front. Both were arrested on April 10 together with several other members of the democratic movement at a roadblock in Sidvwashini near Swaziland's capital Mbabane, coming back from neighboring South Africa, where they had attended a meeting on preparations of today’s demonstrations.
Both are being held incommunicado, even though lawyers representing them have sought relentlessly for them since their abduction. Their mobile phones have been switched of, even though they had agreed to be in constant communication with members of the democratic movement, usually an indication of police misconduct or mistreatment.

April 12, the date chosen for today’s demonstrations by both the “April 12 Swazi Uprising” Facebook campaign inspired by similar Tunisian and Egyptian movements and the broader democratic movement in Swaziland, has immense symbolic value in Swaziland. April 12 1973 was the day that the present King’s father, Sobhuza II, introduced a state of emergency that dissolved parliament and banned all political parties.

Additionally, the more recently introduced 2006 Constitution, which effectively declares all political parties terrorist organisations, and the Suppression of Terrorism Act, which defines terrorism in very sweeping terms, allows the police to detain and charge practically anybody.

And just to ensure that everybody was suitably intimidated, Swaziland’s Prime Minister, Barnabas Dlamini, had warned potential demonstrators beforehand that the regime would deploy all its security forces to “crush protests” and police Commissioner Isaac Magagula, whose police force have raided the homes or arrested and manhandled members of the democratic movement in the days leading up to April 12, had stated that “everyone is a suspect until proven otherwise.”
The behaviour of Swaziland’s security forces and police, today and on many previous occasions where they have violently disrupted peaceful demonstrations, is therefore not surprising. There has been a massive presence of police and security forces throughout the country in the days running up to April 12, patrolling the streets, setting up road blocks and making security checks to ensure that everyone got the message.

The dissatisfaction with the undemocratic regime and the absolute monarch, King Mswati III, who has ruled by decree with increasing disregard for his subjects, has reached a climax in recent months. The mass demonstrations in March, together with today’s demonstration, are unprecedented for Swaziland in their scale and show that ordinary Swazis feel they have nothing to lose anymore.
This is due to the recent economic chaos in Swaziland, that has seen pensions go unpaid, health sector cutbacks, salaries slashed, and public employees fired – all while the King, who lives in a luxury that the two thirds of his subjects who live for under a dollar a day can only dream of, has given himself a rise. 
But it is also due to a more long-term dissatisfaction with an all-powerful and undemocratic regime and elite that not only owns most of the land and assets in Swaziland, but also decides where ordinary Swazis may or may not live.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* Peter Kenworthy is an activist with Africa Contact's Swaziland group. He blogs at Stiff Kitten
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

Nigeria: True power ‘lies in the shadows’

Sokari Ekine

2011-04-14

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/72561

© IRINNigeria’s elections got off to a bad start, postponed by the electoral commission chairman after some citizens had already cast their votes. Is it just incompetence, or are there more sinister forces at play, asks Sokari Ekine.

The Nigerian elections started off badly, very badly. On Saturday 2 April at approximately 1pm, Mohammed Jega, the INEC (Independent Nigerian Electoral Commission) chairman, announced the National Assembly elections would be cancelled due to administrative failures. The necessary paperwork and voting materials had failed to reach all the polling stations in the country. Jega said the elections would now be held on Monday 4 April – but within 24 hours the new election date was changed for a second time to Saturday 9 April. The federal and state government elections were also postponed to 16 and 23 April respectively. What is even more disgraceful is that only the day before, Jega had announced with much pomp and ceremony that INEC were ready for the elections. Surely he must have known INEC was NOT ready and would not be ready for at least another week. Worse still, the voting process had already begun and in some places people had actually cast their votes. The words ‘gross incompetence’ easily come to mind but the last minute announcement and Nigeria’s horrendous record of election fraud created the suspicion that there was something else at play here too.

Nigerian/American attorney, Franklin Otorofani on Focus Nigeria dismisses ‘incompetence’ as solely to blame, despite the fact that the civil servants in charge do not possess the ‘requisite skills’ or that ‘INEC has gone digital with its logistics still in the Stone Age!’. Otorofani is scathing in his criticism of Jega:

‘It would be recalled that when Jega got the job in June, 2010, he didn’t even allow himself to settle down at his desk to understand the problems of the agency before he went on the lecture circuits pontificating on free, fair and credible elections like the academic that he is, and at the same time doing his best to malign and utterly discredit his predecessor-in-office who had been disgraced out of office to clear the way for him to ascend the electoral throne.

‘And while he was at it the nation was salivating like a mesmerized victim of a con-man, totally oblivious of the dangers that lay ahead. While he was on the public lecture jamboree virtually no preparations were made for the elections and when he returned from his lecture circuits he suddenly remembered that the agency needed N90bn for the voter registration exercise. He threatened the nation with failed elections should he be denied what he asked for. Pronto, he was handed N87.7bn apparently as down payment because he wasted no time coming back to ask for the balance with additional request for N6.7bn made to the NASS’.

Five months later the registration process began and yes that was a mess too and should have been a warning sign that all was not well. Apart from the fact that registration had to be extended, (timing seems to be a real problem for INEC) there were complaints:

‘…ranging from inadequacy of materials, lack of competence on the parts of the handlers of the registration machines, allegations of manipulation of the exercise by politicians and in some cases, with the connivance of INEC officials, poor logistic judgment, failure of the machines to perform or perform at an abysmally low speed, among so many other allegations.’

Nonetheless registration went ahead, flaws included. Otorofrani further implies that Jega’s choice of contractors to supply election materials was not above board and that secret meetings with the Congress for Progressive Change were inappropriate.

There is no evidence, however, to believe there was anything sinister in the cancelling of April 2 polling day. Nigerian Curiosity also asked why wait until half way through election day to inform the country it was unprepared and concluded it was a matter of ‘sheer incompetence’ of the INEC officials. However the cancellation did raise questions about where power lies in Nigeria.

‘Secondly, the forced delay highlights that true power in Nigeria lies in the shadows. It is incredible that Jonathan, as president, would allow such an incident to happen on his watch. After all, he repeatedly made himself the guarantor of credible elections the minute he became acting president during the confusion caused by late president Yar'Adua's 2009 absence and eventual death in 2010. So, if the president of Nigeria is not competent or powerful enough to indeed guarantee credible polls, then how can he be strong enough to stand up to the challenges of the position he seeks? Worse still is that none of the so-called leaders that claim they can rule Nigeria, be they Buhari, Ribadu, Atiku, Babangida or anyone else is right for Nigeria at this time or ever. Anyone with enough sense to be of political value is not dipping their foot into the hornet's nest that is Nigerian politics.’

One of the main discussions around the 2011 elections has been the use of social media to encourage participation in the election process from registration to voting and to monitoring the elections. Organisations such as Enough Is Enough(EiE) and Reclaim Naija have been at the forefront of these campaigns. It is too early to tell how successful they have been both in the process and outcomes. However I am concerned that the Ushahidi map used by Reclaim Naija contained election (voting) numbers prior to the National Assembly elections on 9 April. Nor does there appear to be any separation between the three elections and only 0.22 per cent of logs have been verified to date. More clarity and accuracy are needed in order to fully appreciate and trust the data. EiE is using a Nigerian designed application called ReVoDa which allows mobile phone users to report incidents and for them to receive updates from the service. Altogether, along with Twitter and Facebook, this is the first time there has been a comprehensive social media approach to monitoring the elections and already one is beginning to get a sense of what is working and where things are going wrong or right. For example a number of Twitter users posted on the irregularities in the Niger Delta states: Delta and Bayelsa [the incumbent President’s home state]:

@reclaimnaija: ‘Delta, Bayelsa and Imo record highest cases of ballot snatching’
@eggheader: ‘GEJ says: I've delivered on my promise of free and fair elections" DAILY SUN: "Bayelsa tops states with cases of stolen ballot boxes"’
@rmajayi: ‘#NigeriaDecides #ReVoDa Reports: 43% of "violence" incidents were sent from polling units in Delta State. See reports at http://is.gd/YCeOLJ’
@ahniy101: ‘Who u 4 blame? RT @Sir_Daf: I guess Delta state is going to top the list of state with election violence. #nigeriadecides i blame it on PDP!’

There were also reports on election fraud:

@nigerianewsdesk: ‘FLASH: Soldiers in Adamawa arrest three in possession of 500 ballot papers. #NigeriaDecides’
@eggheader: ‘FLASH: Truckload of fake electoral materials intercepted in Igueben, Edo State earlier today. #nigeriadecides’

Despite the numbers of Nigerians in Nigeria using Twitter to report on the elections being extremely small it has enabled conversations and improved the overall reporting of Nigeria’s mainstream media. I am still unsure of the reach of mobile phones for reporting and monitoring but so far it seems an improvement on the 2007 elections and no doubt will be even more effective in future local and federal elections.

Akin’s Blog, which has been closely following INEC for the past few months, provides a short review of the election process so far:

‘INEC is supposed to be the final arbiter of the elections and their representative officials at different levels of government representation were supposed to announce the results at their respective posts and pass that on to the higher levels within the INEC hierarchy.

‘Patience can only be exercised for so long before it breeds resentment, suspicions and a sense of injustice brewing towards the corridors of power as the goodwill won by the INEC in the seemingly free, fair and transparent conduct of the elections is slowly being sapped away with the lack of alacrity to a critical stage of the process which is the authorised and validated announcement of results.

‘LOSING GROUND BUT NOT THE FOOTPRINT

‘The National Elections Coalition has however released a list of results [1] at the time of this writing that shows that out of the 94 contested Senate seats 86 results have been declared and out of the 312 contested House of Representatives seats 89 results have been declared.

‘This does not augur well for the expectations for the next set of elections for the Presidency, the State executives with their legislatures and the postponed National Assembly elections for 15 Senatorial Districts and 48 Federal Constituencies neither does it engender confidence if INEC does not do all in its power allay the fears of Nigerians of a results being cooked up in some backrooms that favour people who have not won the popular and expressed will of the electorate.’

Akin’s point is well taken as the results so far show the ruling PDP party has lost some ground.

Think Africa Press asked six ‘experts’ whether the Nigeria the election delays have compromised the voting process. The response was fairly balanced. Whilst everyone admitted the postponement had tarnished the image of INEC they remained confident that the elections could still be trusted:

‘Immediately I heard the elections were cancelled I got on the phone to Nigeria to find out about turnout and general impressions. From what I was told, in places where there were no glitches, turnout was quite impressive, and things were pretty much orderly. I also asked whether they would go for the elections on the new dates; they replied in the affirmative, enthusiastically. For a lot of people, as long as the postponement means that the elections will be conducted properly, freely and fairly, it is worth the wait. Let's hope that the feeling is general.’ (Olumide Abimbola)

‘However the new revelation from Saturday is this: the actual voting at polling units is merely one half of the process. The less glamorous second half – collation of results – has turned out to be ridden with inefficiency and confusion. For an election marked by considerable spending on technology (an unprecedented computerised voter database for instance), the data collation process we’ve seen since Saturday clearly belongs to a bygone and utterly discredited age. The electoral commission ought to urgently do something about this, so Nigerians can have faith that the elections will be won and lost on the field, and not in the referee’s quarters.’ (Tolu Ogunlesi)

I feel the responses were rather generous and I wonder if there will be an independent investigation into both the failures in the registration process as well as the postponement. Should Mohammed Jega resign after the elections are over? I believe so. Unfortunately I doubt the outrage felt by many on 2 April will last long enough for these failures to become the subject of serious discussion let alone an investigation.

The Nigerian elections can be followed through ‘Now #NigeriaDecides Bi Daily’, a twice daily aggregate of Twitter #NigeriaDecides.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

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

Oil politics: Charge them with manslaughter

Nnimmo Bassey

2011-04-14

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/72584

cc US Coast Guard‘People who have suffered the impact of unjust practices and those who have been victims of abuse from corporate impunity will heave a sigh of relief the day directors of such companies are brought to court from behind their corporate shields,’ writes Nnimmo Bassey, amidst talk that ‘top guns at BP’ may be charged with manslaughter over the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

People who have suffered the impact of unjust practices and those who have been victims of abuse from corporate impunity will heave a sigh of relief the day directors of such companies are brought to court from behind their corporate shields. The spins and the twists in legal tangos that play out so impassively will become a thing of the past.

Whereas corporations do not sweat in the dock, their directors, who are human like the rest of us, may. It is also possible that pleas from the dock would be couched in humane terms and that actions and reactions would become more or less equal as they usually are in physical matters.

In sum, people would sense that justice is reachable in many cases of confrontation between them and corporate entities.

These are some of the hopes being raised by the possibility of top guns at BP being charged for manslaughter over the Gulf of Mexico oil spill of April 2010. If this happens, it will send a strong signal to leaders of companies that expose their workers to extreme personal risks.

It will also send signals to companies engaged in reckless activities that severely impact people and degrade their environment. In addition, it will offer a glimpse to what may become the norm if an international environment or climate crimes tribunal is set up for cases of ecocide.

It has been reported that investigators are pawing over documents and emails that may indicate whether Tony Hayward, former BP chief executive, and other top management officers made decisions or played key roles in what led to arguably the most horrendous environmental disaster in US history. That incident killed 11 workers and spewed yet unknown barrels of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico.

The internal investigation carried out by BP immediately after the disaster showed that their managers misread pressure data and authorised workers of the Deep Water Horizon rig to replace drilling fluid in the well with seawater – one of the moves in cost cutting suspected to have triggered the disaster.

BP has admitted to having made some mistakes but sticks to the claim that they were not ‘grossly’ negligent.

There is something quite gross about that word ‘gross’ before the word ‘negligence’. If it sticks, the possible fines to be slapped on BP may rise from about $5 billion to $21 billion. It will also complicate things for BP in their dealings with the partners on the rig, as they seek to share the costs of the clean up expected to reach about $42 billion.

The significance of this case would also be found in the fact that the directors of BP would be unable to hide behind the corporate shield, as is often the case with corporate entities who are persons before the law only for as much as capacity to earn income is concerned; and are phantoms when it comes to responsibility for acts of impunity.

Think how instructive it would have been to line up the directors of Chevron for the environmental crimes in the Ecuadorian Amazonia or those of Shell, Exxon, Chevron, Agip and the rest for their human rights and ecocide in the Niger Delta. If manslaughter charges are pressed against officials of BP, then the days of companies only being fined and the directors avoiding the dock will soon become history.

Obviously, BP and other corporations will not take kindly to this move. Their arsenal is loaded with tools with which to frustrate legal procedures. Some of them have batteries of lawyers with whom they harass hapless victims and keep the wheels of legal suits spinning.

There is no need to wonder how come corporations have got away with murder all the time. One fact is that governments have over the years become largely privatised in the sense that they depend on corporations for revenue and for monetised solutions to virtually every problem.

While suing directors of companies may be a daunting prospect, considering their propensity to keep cases dragging endlessly, it is nevertheless a necessary step towards giving companies a truly human face and maybe a human heart.

We cannot avoid reaching the conclusion that companies behave in a heartless manner because they are fashioned to be unaccountable and can carry out inhuman acts without blinking an eyelid.

Are you not struck by the fact that oil company leaders are ordinarily nice and personable persons, but that this genial nature changes once they put on their corporate toga?

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* This article first appeared on 234next.com.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

West makes Côte d'Ivoire safe for cocoa chocolate soldiers

Kalundi Serumaga

2011-04-14

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/72587

cc NestleGiven Côte d'Ivoire’s history, 'Alassane Ouattara’s entry into State House… will no more prove a cure than Laurent Gbagbo’s presidency ever was,’ writes Kalundi Serumaga.

The best indication of the depth of the crisis in the Ivory Coast lies in its very name.

Much as it is now known as perhaps the primary global supplier to the cocoa industry, it started life as a place where ivory was found.

This was of course right next to a coast where gold was found and in the general coastal area where slaves could also be obtained. Only commodities. Never people.

Today there is optimism that the county will go back to being the region’s economic powerhouse.

However, the realities of the country’s history indicate that Alassane Ouattara’s entry into State House there will no more prove a cure than Laurent Gbagbo’s presidency ever was.

If it is indeed true that some 54 per cent of the electorate voted for Ouattara, then it means that nearly half the electorate – the 46 per cent who voted for Gbagbo – voted against.

Talking glibly to impoverished citizens about winners and losers in these circumstances can therefore actually become counterproductive, especially when they feel that the outcome puts their livelihoods at stake.

The current crisis seems to carry the old historical resonance: That the economic goods of the region have always held more importance to the world than the people actually living there.

This could help explain why, despite the fact that the people are politically split nearly fifty-fifty, the Western powers are for once determined to see an African election result, however marginal, implemented to the fullest extent of whatever military might can be mustered.

All this in defence of not even an economy, but of a commodity to which some wretched African voters find themselves harnessed.

This outcome however masks a much deeper malaise that could see the country headed towards decades of instability if the more fundamental questions about its origins are not honestly addressed.

The Ivorian cocoa economy became much bigger than the capacity of the original population to work it, and so there began decades of an increasing reliance on labour from informal migrants from the neighbouring countries. This is where the real story of the crisis begins.

The northern support base for the man declared winner of the ill-fated November elections comprises descendants of generations of migrants who came to the country to feed the cocoa industry’s labour needs.

Now totalling nearly half the population, their status in the country has been subject to legal scrutiny and policy U-turns anywhere between being deemed illegal immigrants to being declared new naturalised citizens.

This vacillation revealed a deeper problem of ‘status anxiety’ among the original peoples who first found themselves Ivorians at the start of the colonial project, and now nearly outnumbered by gastarbeiten, and whom Gbagbo, in his desperation, increasingly claimed to represent.

The two armies that faced each other in the land of elephant tusks were conducting a twin march towards the death of those two contradictory and ultimately sterile narratives of contemporary African citizenship.

The autocratic culture created by the French need for the post-colonial strongman Houphouet Boigny meant that there would be few mechanisms to politically moderate and defuse this problem.

The African Union for their part remained true to their goal of keeping all the former European plantation-states as they were when the Europeans left, and so their stance here is a familiar one.

It helped them to appear to be standing on the respectable side of history, and insisting that the beleaguered Gbagbo accept the voice of the voters, and step aside.

Certainly Gbagbo had no business insisting that he is the president over people who – by his own admission – even he does not know for whom they voted, be it him or his opponent.

Furthermore, if at all he is the champion of the indigenes of southern Ivory Coast – as he now claims be – then he probably also had no business aspiring to be president of the colonial machine that sought to progressively erode any such pre-colonial identities so as so make colonial and post-colonial plunder much easier.

African presidential offices offer all the wrong tools with which to try to comprehend – let alone solve – the huge historical complications brought about by the Arab and European imperial adventure in Africa.

Presidential contestants therefore increasingly fit the description of
‘two bald men fighting over a comb’.

In demonstrating a lack of strategic foresight through failing to reorient his politics to something that did not derive its whole legitimacy from the very state that swallowed up the natives he claims to represent, Gbagbo found himself comprehensively outmanoeuvred.

He was left with no standing among the important centres of international political, diplomatic, and financial decision-making.

The real political challenge is not so much to work out who won the conflict as it is to work out what will become of the losers.

Ouattara’s war was itself born of the northerners losing out in the earlier contestations.

At the heart of this lies that great unmentionable of African politics: Should Africans embrace the artificialities in which they live for the sake of preserving the foreign-owned economies that underpin them, or should they find a way of reasserting their actual identities?

If the latter, what happens to the modern African migrant? And will it deliver a better standard of living for all?

So Africans are first denied any right to belong, and then offered one only at the expense of disenfranchising others.

Regular elections were supposed to solve this dilemma. But Ivory Coast is not the only African country where unsolved questions of citizenship, identity and therefore the right to civic participation neuter that aspiration.

In Uganda, President Museveni was forced to officially concede this very point due to popular pressure when the indigenes of oil-rich Bunyoro demanded that migrant labourers from other parts of the same country be barred from elective posts in the region.

The ultimate tragedy for Cote d’Ivoire is not that Gbagbo had to be driven out by force of arms, but that someone else has replaced him by the same means.

And we still do not know the real electoral register.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* This article first appeared in CounterPunch.
* Kalundi Serumaga is a political and cultural activist based in Kampala.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

Haiti: Joyous victory in a bitter time

Before and after Aristide's return

Robert Roth

2011-04-14

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/72588

cc E IRobert Roth describes Haiti’s joy at the return of Jean-Bertrand Aristide after seven years in exile, despite the ‘bitter taste’ left by country’s ‘dismal elections’. ‘So many, in and outside of Haiti, had worked for this moment. Not because Aristide is a savior or can solve all the problems in Haiti. This was a basic issue of justice and self-determination. A democratically elected president had been illegally removed from office and banished from his homeland – and the majority of Haitians never accepted his removal. They wanted him home.’

On April 4, Haiti’ s electoral council announced that, according to preliminary results, Michel Martelly had been selected Haiti’ s new president. A kompa singer and long-time proponent of Jean-Claude Duvalier, Martelly worked with the dreaded FRAPH death squads that killed over 5000 people in Haiti after the first coup against President Jean- Bertrand Aristide in 1991. Martelly supporters had announced they would “burn down the country” if he were not selected.

Only a small number of Haitians – around 20% by most estimates – voted in the elections, the smallest percentage in 60 years to participate in any presidential elections in the Americas. Fanmi Lavalas, the party of Aristide and by far the most popular in Haiti, was banned from participation. Why should people vote? It was a “selection,” not an “election,” we were told over and over again. By the second round on March 20th, Haitians had to choose between Martelly or Mirlande Manigat, a right-wing member of Haiti’ s tiny elite. One Haitian friend told us, “This is a choice between cholera and typhoid. You cannot make such a choice.”

Yet the bitter taste of the dismal elections could not diminish the joy of “the return.” As the plane carrying President Aristide and his family back from a 7-year forced exile in South Africa approached the Port-au-Prince airport on March 18th, there were about 50 of us in the inner courtyard of his home. A day before, we had watched quietly as dozens of Haitians methodically painted walls, swept the same floors over and over again to make sure they were spotless, and fixed any last remnant of the destruction that took place at this house after the coup on February 29, 2004.

We had heard that President Aristide (called Titid throughout Haiti) would arrive at the airport around noon, but we had gone to the house earlier to avoid the crush. I had come with a dear friend, Pierre Labossiere, representing the work of the Haiti Action Committee. We were both honored and overwhelmed to be there.

Rumors spread via cell phone: “He’ s at the airport, making a speech.” “The car is coming.” We heard a roar. “Lavalas” means “ flash flood”: the flood of the poor, who can accomplish wonders when they feel their strength. Thousands were climbing over two sets of walls, rushing past security, engulfing the courtyard. Within minutes, the roofs and trees were filled. There was no room to move. Yet in the midst of total chaos, there was discipline and restraint. “Get off the roof,” someone shouted. “It’ s Titid’ s roof.” “Don’ t damage the trees.” Then the singing and the chanting began. “We will not vote in the election. We have no candidate. Welcome back Titid. Welcome back schools. Welcome back hope. Lavalas – we bend, but we do not break.”

I was standing next to a Haitian grass roots organizer and school director. Her school had been under attack since the coup, but she had persevered and kept up the work. She has been the heart of earthquake relief in her community. She had tears in her eyes. “I’ve been working in the movement since I was 15. I am so happy. So happy.”

We saw another friend, who had been imprisoned during the last terrible years of Duvalier, and now lives in one of the internal refugee camps. We asked her, “Are you going into the house?” She said, “No, I can always see the President. It’ s more important to hand out water to the people. They are so thirsty.”

I could only imagine the reaction of the U.S. State Department, which tried so hard to stop this moment. President Barack Obama had made a last-minute call to President Zuma of South Africa demanding that he prevent the return until after the new round of presidential elections. What did he think of this scene? Was he even watching?

Finally, it was possible for some of us to get in the house. The people outside stayed and stayed, pressed against the windows – and then left, but not until cleaning the courtyard, picking up what had been dropped.

Mildred Aristide greeted us at the door. “Isn’t it beautiful out there?” she asked.

So many, in and outside of Haiti, had worked for this moment. Not because Aristide is a savior or can solve all the problems in Haiti. Not because his return will end cholera, or bring the 1.5 million people out of those terrible earthquake camps. This was a basic issue of justice and self-determination. A democratically elected president had been illegally removed from office and banished from his homeland – and the majority of Haitians never accepted his removal. They wanted him home.

Why? Under Lavalas administrations, more schools were built than in the entire history of Haiti. The government opened 20,000 adult literacy centers, prioritizing the education of women. Health clinics sprung up in remote rural areas. A powerful AIDS treatment and prevention program was launched. The hated military was disbanded. The minimum wage doubled. The tiny group of rich people who have run Haiti forever were actually asked to pay taxes – and, if they didn’ t, their names were read over the radio. The Aristide administration demanded restitution from France for the $21.7 billion that France had extorted from Haiti as its price for Haiti’ s abolition of slavery. With the first payment on this debt in 1830, Haiti had to close its public school system. Aristide raised the issue forcefully in 2003 and said that justice should be done.

Slowly, even as the Bush Administration blocked needed loans, financed an elite opposition, and organized paramilitary operations against the government, Aristide was fulfilling his promise to move the nation from “ misery to poverty with dignity.” It was a start, but an historic one.

At the January 1, 2004 bicentennial celebrations of the Haitian Revolution, hundreds of thousands of Haitians filled Port-au-Prince with banners and flags celebrating the first black republic, the only nation to successfully break the bonds of slavery, raising five fingers to demand that Aristide be able to serve his full five-year term. They were poor, they were black, and they knew that the movement they had fought so hard to build was under frontal attack. As reported in Randall Robinson’ s book, An Unbroken Agony, his wife, Hazel Robinson, looked out at the crowd and commented on the power of the scene to the OAS Ambassador sitting next to her. “ Well, he does not have the support of the real people,” the OAS official responded. “ He has 80 to 90%, but they’ re not the ones that matter.”

For the U.S. government, these Haitians didn’t matter. Unable to manufacture an “uprising” against Aristide, the United States took direct action on February 29th, swooping in special operations forces and kidnapping – yes, that is the word Haitians use to describe what happened – the President and his wife Mildred, taking them on a long journey to the desolate French neo-colony of the Central African Republic. The long exile had begun.

Haiti solidarity activists denounced the coup. We demonstrated, educated, and organized, attempting to counter the drumbeat of lies about Aristide, the myth of his “resignation,” the notion that “popular upheaval” had overthrown him. We raised funds to support organizers who were now in grave danger. And we sent delegations to Haiti, to learn from Haitians whose powerful voices had been silenced and dismissed on the international level.

Visiting Haiti in late June of 2004, we watched as the United Nations force (MINUSTAH), headed by the government of Brazil, took over the military occupation of the country from the troops of the U.S., France and Canada. Now it was a multilateral operation, like Iraq, like Afghanistan – with the imprimatur of the United Nations. A “ peacekeeping force,” we were told.

Yet the people we met said the UN soldiers were disrespectful and, at times, brutal – blue helmeted soldiers pointing guns. We saw hundreds of political prisoners locked up in overcrowded cells with no water. We talked to people whose houses had been burned in the Central Plateau. We saw schools that had been destroyed, clinics ransacked, the Medical School at the Aristide Foundation taken over by UN troops and 247 medical students forced to flee their campus. And we saw demonstrations – small ones in such a dangerous time – demanding the release of political prisoners.

Father Gerard Jean-Juste, a legendary fighter for human rights in Haiti, was still there, feeding children at his church in St. Claire. He told us, “ I receive many death threats. But I will not leave Haiti. I left under Duvalier, but they will not force me out again.” He would later be arrested and beaten in a church, and then imprisoned – released only after developing the leukemia that would lead to his death in 2009.

From 2004-2006, MINUSTAH. in coordination with Haiti’ s coup government, launched search and destroy operations to root out Lavalas bases in Port-au-Prince and the surrounding areas. According to a study published in The Lancet, over 8000 deaths and 35,000 rapes (many thousands committed by security forces) occurred during this period. A delegation from the San Francisco Bay Area was in Haiti right after one of those raids. 350 heavily armed UN forces had attacked the pro- Lavalas shantytown of Cite Soleil. Sixty people were killed, houses were destroyed, and bullet holes were everywhere. The delegation took pictures, interviewed residents, and came home. They went directly to the offices of the New York Times with all their documentation. But The Times would not take the story. The UN had told them it wasn’t true.

The presidential election of 2006 was held under foreign military occupation. When Rene Preval, who had been a Lavalas president after Aristide, entered the campaign, the base of Lavalas swept him into office. They believed that Preval would bring back Aristide, would free the political prisoners, and develop new economic and social initiatives for the poor.

Not much changed. Preval had developed strong ties to the United States and the UN. He had no interest in bringing back Aristide, and moved to deepen the structural adjustment programs (privatization of the telephone company, new contracts for elite import-export barons, reduced social investment) demanded by the international authorities and the Haitian elite. The price of rice and gas soared. There were more raids into Cite Soleil. The U.S. State Department proclaimed that Haiti was “more stable.”

When we returned to Haiti in 2007, many Lavalas organizers were through with Preval. They said it plainly: “He’ s in the arms of the Americans, he does their bidding.” He had broken all communication with the base that elected him. Aristide had always talked to the people – and had always listened.

During our visit, we spent days with Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine, a psychologist, Lavalas leader and human rights activist. At a demonstration in front of UN headquarters, he spoke on a small bullhorn while French and U.S. military personnel took pictures of him and the other protestors. He called for a halt to privatization, an end to the UN occupation, and the return of President Aristide. Two weeks later, Lovinsky was kidnapped and disappeared. Preval said nothing. The UN was silent. There was no investigation.

By 2009, the Preval government had lost any legitimacy among the poor in Haiti. As the cost of food spiraled upward, thousands of Haitians marched on the Presidential Palace. “Food riots,” the press called them.

Then the earthquake hit. We saw the terrifying images of destruction, the 300,000 dead, the unbearable conditions in the camps, the courage and dignity with which Haitians faced the impossible. Haiti touched hearts around the world. But a devastating Haitian tragedy presented opportunity for others. NGO’ s descended. Bill Clinton and George Bush announced a joint fund and visited the country. The U.S. took charge of the “reconstruction.”

Five months later, Haiti looked as if the quake had hit the day before. We met with people in two different camps. They spoke with urgency: “We have received no aid from the United Nations or the Red Cross since March.” “We need food.” “We need work.” “The NGO’ s pay themselves and give us nothing.” “ Preval does not care for us.” “Bill Clinton is not our president.” “Titid must come home.”

The Aristide Foundation, created in 1996 as a center for grass roots social, educational and economic development, was buzzing with activity. With no government or NGO assistance, the Foundation was doing what it could: setting up mobile health clinics and schools in the refugee camps, training mental health workers to provide “relief for the spirit.” Young educators and activists told us that their generation was “motivated,” that they would do anything for Haiti. Fifteen hundred people – three quarters of them women – packed into the Foundation’ s main auditorium for a “Democratic Debate.” Women in and out of the Foundation had passed around a petition to Barack and Michelle Obama calling for Aristide’ s return and, within days, 20,000 women had signed it. 10,000 Haitians took to the streets in Port-au-Prince on July 15th, Aristide's birthday. The time had come.
Now Aristide has returned, in defiance of the United States; brought home by his people and a determined international campaign.

The task is daunting. Barred from elections, Lavalas has no representatives in the legislature, and will have no official power within the state. Partnering with the Haitian elite, the U.S. is setting up sweatshops in the Port-au-Prince area and preparing to dig up the country’ s mineral wealth. Bill Clinton co-chairs an on-going Interim Haiti Recovery Commission, sitting on over $10 billion. U.S. AID pours money into U.S.-based NGO’ s that pay more for staff than for projects. Thirteen thousand UN soldiers and police maintain a seemingly permanent foreign occupation. Cholera – introduced to Haiti by UN forces from Nepal – has spread. A Harvard/UCSF study now predicts 800,000 cases. Marrtelly plans to reestablish the military and sharpen the attack on Lavalas. And his compatriot, Duvalier, is there – a spectre haunting the country anew.

Still, the return means so much. The fundamental goal of coups and counter-insurgency is to sever the connection between a popular movement and the people, to destroy even the belief that transformative social change is possible. At Aristide’ s house, in the streets of Port-au-Prince, it was clear that the coup and occupation have not been able to do this. Fueled by a hard-won victory, grass roots organizers - who have never stopped their work - have already taken heart. There will be powerful initiatives in education and health care, and the steady incorporation of a new generation into a movement that has bent but not broken. And a trusted voice of the poor is now back, whatever may come.

In his speech at the airport, as he and his family re-touched Haitian soil, Aristide commented on the undemocratic and exclusionary elections. He focused on the need to include everyone in the life of the country: “Every Haitian without exception, because every person is a human being, so the vote of every person counts.” Visiting friends and family in New York a short time after returning from Haiti, I had a chance to meet with Haitian community organizers in Brooklyn. I asked one woman, now an assistant teacher in a second grade class, why she had joined Lavalas. What struck her, she said, was Aristide’ s slogan, “Tout Moun Se Moun.” She translated it as, “Every one, each person counts.” And she said, “I am filled with joy that he is back home.”

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* This article was first published in CounterPunch.
* Robert Roth is an educator and co-founder of the Haiti Action Committee. He is also on the board of the Haiti Emergency Relief Fund.

The reconstruction of Haiti: A record of failure

Colette Lespinasse

2011-04-14

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/72566

cc UN PhotoLast March, donors pledged billions of US dollars for the reconstruction of Haiti, after an earthquake devastated the country. But a year later, a group of 40 Haitian organisations finds that ‘nothing significant has really been undertaken’. Instead Haitian players have been excluded from strategic decision-making and the ‘millions of people affected directly or indirectly by the earthquake continue to face the consequences in destitution, and with no support whatsoever.’

On the first anniversary of the conference of donors on the "Reconstruction of Haiti", held at UN headquarters in New York in late March 2010, we, the representatives of some forty organizations and sectors of Haitian society, meeting in Port-au-Prince on March 26, 2011, have reflected on the path travelled by the country since this conference. 
A year after the promises of reconstruction based on pledges of billions of US dollars, we find that nothing significant has really been undertaken. No rupture was initiated with the approaches and practices which have, over the years, impoverished and rendered so vulnerable the Republic of Haiti. Quite the contrary, we are witnessing an acceleration of all phenomena reflecting the collective decline and regression. The millions of people affected directly or indirectly by the earthquake continue to face the consequences in destitution, and with no support whatsoever. The extraordinarily vigorous inter-Haitian solidarity movement, which emerged in the aftermath of the earthquake, has been completely marginalized by the dominant forces.

During the March 26 day of reflection, harrowing testimony was given about the deterioration of living conditions in the country by displaced persons, poor peasants, women, actors from the communication, religious, and health sectors etc. They all evoked the lack of responsiveness of the State to the most urgent social problems, the precarious living conditions, particularly that of displaced persons, the forced evictions, the trend toward the increasing privatization of health services, of education, of the provision of clean drinking water.

The analysis and evidence led us to the conclusion that collectively Haitian society continues to be locked into the same traps of exclusion, dependency, total ignorance of our strengths, of our resources, of our identity, as outlined in our statement issued March 19, 2010. Systemic structures of domination and dependence have been reproduced and reinforced with the establishment of a strategic gathering of MINUSTAH, the IHRC, and large international NGOs.


It is now these bodies, particularly the Interim Haiti Reconstruction Commission (IHRC), which guide the destiny of our country, and take all of the decisions for us. We are witnessing a complete marginalization of Haitian players in all of the strategic decision-making areas. Through the IHRC, a double exclusion is effected: that of State institutions and of the social movement. The existence of the IHRC contributes to the process of the destruction of institutions, and of the Haitian economy.


We demand the removal of the IHRC whose existence is an affront to our collective dignity. Budgets for specific projects for the rehabilitation and development of new infrastructure should be managed by the competent organs of the State in each of the areas concerned. We must put an end to the creation of parallel bodies, which accelerate the destruction of the State. We call instead for the introduction of new and effective mechanisms of social control to ensure the participation of the country’s majority social sectors in decision-making, and in strategic orientation.


We reaffirm that the alternative construction of our country, and the viability of a future different from what obtains today, involves a process of radical break with current trends: 
 


- A BREAK WITH THE EXCLUSION which is expressed in the relationship between the rural and the urban sectors, between Port-au-Prince and its hinterland, between men and women, and in the refusal to build accessible and universal social services. It is unacceptable that in the 21st century nearly 50% of the population is illiterate, almost 700,000 children are not enrolled in school, and 630 women die per 100,000 live births.


- A BREAK WITH THE DEPENDENCE which is expressed through an almost total submission of much of the political class to the great powers, a de facto tutelage brought about by the establishment of MINUSTAH in 2004, which is moving towards a process of unbridled recolonization with the introduction of the IHRC in April 2010. The role played by the international community in decisions regarding the presidential and legislative elections of 28 November 2010 and March 20, 2011 contributes to this increased dependence.


- A BREAK WITH THE HYPER-CONCENTRATED, EXTROVERTED, ANTI-PEASANTRY, AND ANTI-NATIONAL growth model expressed through the model of international outsourcing, over-exploitation, speculation, monopolies, and a predatory State. We need to build a development model based on agriculture and agro-industry geared to the priority needs of the domestic market in order to meet our food and energy needs. We need an economic model which breaks with the logic of speculation, and the hijacking of our economic resources by a predatory regime of cronies, and focuses on the production of wealth, the promotion and development of our national culture, and the recovery of our forestry capital.


- A BREAK WITH THE PREVAILING RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN STATE AND NATION AND PROPERTY RELATIONS, which must be expressed through the establishment of a State which cares about its people, which redefines the collective space, and effects land tenure and agrarian reform in both rural and urban areas.


- A BREAK WITH THE COLONIAL READING OF OUR COUNTRY which must be expressed through the elimination of a discourse that conveys an utter contempt for our culture and our historical path.


In the name of all victims of the January 12, 2010 earthquake, we demand the definition and implementation of a new social project in Haiti. The current plan called the National Reconstruction and Recovery (PARDN), concocted by experts without the participation of vital sectors of the nation, cannot lead us in that direction.


We, the signatories to this declaration, commit ourselves more than ever into a dynamic of proposals and of mobilization, in order to achieve the realization of a genuine alternative construction plan for Haiti.


For the organizations which participated in the meeting:

Colette Lespinasse GARR
Camille Chalmers PAPDA
(32 Signatory Organisations)

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

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

Uprisings, revolution and democracy in Africa

Firoze Manji

2011-04-14

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/72565

cc S CFiroze Manji, founder and editor-in-chief of Pambazuka News, explores the ongoing uprisings, imperialism’s new outreach, and the possibilities of revolution and democracy in Africa [audio]. He talked with AfrobeatRadio’s Samar al-Balushi and Wuyi Jacobs during his visit to New York to attend the recently concluded Left Forum.

This interview, part one of three, was broadcast on April 9, 2011 on AfrobeatRadio on WBAI at WBAI 99.5 FM, New York.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

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

International war crimes: Whose truth? Whose justice?

Jeanne M. Woods

2011-04-14

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/72556

cc US ArmyThe international criminal justice project is gaining momentum but ‘do we even agree on what kind of justice we are asking for?’ asks Jeanne M. Woods. ‘If Africa is ever to determine its own destiny, Africa must build its own institutions, tailored to its own history and realities, as slow and as painful a process as this might be.’

The theme of this conference essentially calls into question many of the truisms associated with the project of building an international criminal justice regime. Such an inquiry is urgent in light of the momentum that the international criminal justice project has gained since the creation of the Yugoslav and Rwandan Tribunal, the International Criminal Court for Sierra Leone and the ratification of the Rome Treaty creating the International Criminal Court (ICC).

The problem is whether the project of universal impartial justice is even conceivable in a hegemonic world order undergoing a neoliberal globalisation process. Arguably, such a project would not have been undertaken without globalisation. And yet, do we even agree on what kind of justice we are asking for? Is it retributive or restorative? Compatible with or irreconcilable with peacemaking? Which approaches will most further the goal of human dignity? And – most importantly – who gets to decide?

In April we celebrate the 17th anniversary of the first democratic elections in South Africa, ending a system of racial oppression that was declared a crime against humanity by the international community.[1] The process that ultimately ended apartheid included internationally brokered negotiations[2] and constitutionally-entrenched amnesties for politically motivated crimes[3] promoted by the United Nations itself.

Thus, a system of institutionalised forced labor, forced removals, denationalisation, disenfranchisement, torture, massacres, disappearances, impoverishment, international terrorism, assassinations, and military destabilisation, was ended in a process that saw only token prosecutions. And it has been hailed as a ‘miracle.’[4]

Justice in South Africa was defined as ‘truth’: Full disclosure of the relevant facts. Truth was enlisted as part of the state-building process in a country whose stability was deemed critical to global capital.

While South Africa’s sovereignty was protected, however, sovereignty in other states undergoing civil wars has been superseded by international mechanisms. We should not be under the illusion that such mechanisms are apolitical. These institutions are established in the context of political compromise, where neither opposing side in a civil war has won an outright military and where key figures of the old regime share power, as F.W De Klerk did in South Africa.

What then, can be the role of human rights discourse where glaring disparities of power and wealth persist after political transformation? Can the discourse be deemed fair and impartial? Even the post-WWII tribunals that launched the international criminal justice project were tainted by racism, as the Allies refused to persecute Italian forces for war crimes committed against civilian populations in Ethiopia, including widespread use of mustard gas.[5]

Prosecutions were not pursued in Namibia or Zimbabwe, other white minority settler regimes, nor in Mozambique, Angola, or Guinea-Bissau, former Portuguese colonies liberated in the post-post colonial period.

So while I must say that I was, and remain, highly critical of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) process in South Africa,[6] shouldn’t we at least be asking ourselves whether there are any lessons to be learned from this model for the rest of Africa?

While African states were the most supportive bloc for the establishment of an International Criminal Court, much controversy has been generated by the prosecutor’s exclusive focus on conflicts in African countries. True, some of these were technically self-referrals, but in a civil war context, isn’t a ‘self-referral’ outcome-determinative, or at a minimum victors’ justice? What are the implications for Africa of the empowerment of a permanent judicial criminal mechanism in the political context of neo-liberal globalisation?

Africa has been the subject of two prior globalisations: The trans-Atlantic slave trade from the 15th-19th centuries, and the global economic expansion dating from approximately 1870-1914 – the first Scramble for Africa. Neo-liberal globalisation means the following:

- The further erosion of the already emaciated states’ power to protect and provide for the welfare of their people. State authority has been forcibly transferred to
1) International financial institutions and their most powerful Member States;
2) Transnational corporations;
3) International investors and banks;
4) A variety of non-state actors, including private contractors, international NGOs, rebel groups, militias, and mercenaries.

- Neo-liberal globalisation means a new Scramble for Africa’s wealth and resources. This involves traditional booty such as diamonds and gold, old and new strategic and economic minerals. The Scramble has recently been intensified by the discovery of oil and gas deposits across the Continent, fueling conflicts of incredible brutality.[7]

- Globalisation means for Africa a process of economic and political destabilisation that invites foreign military intervention under the guise of the failed state doctrine, the war on terror, and, perhaps, enforcement of the arrest warrants of the International Criminal Court.

Is the Nuremberg paradigm of individual accountability the only, or the best, route to post-conflict justice? To what extent does the liberal paradigm of individual responsibility – whether under a reconciliation or prosecution model – obscure systemic, structural crimes like apartheid, occupation, colonialism, or the neo-liberal global trade regime? Indeed, might it be said that the Rome Statute itself reflects a form of victors’ justice in the crimes it chose to codify?

Why isn’t production of weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear weapons, a crime against humanity under the Statute? What about arms trafficking to conflict areas? Trade in conflict minerals? Recruitment of former child soldiers by private contractors, a subject currently being debated in Britain?

Is the ICC’s legitimacy, and hence its efficacy, irreparably undermined as long as nationals of powerful States remain off-limits to the Court’s jurisdiction, while the elite, undemocratic, and highly politicised Security Council can haul in non-parties to the Rome Statute?

Although the US is not a party to the Rome Statute, the legal advisor to the United States Department of State led a delegation to the ICC Review Conference in Kampala. Reportedly the Obama Administration is considering a request from Prosecutor Luis Ocampo to deploy AFRICOM – the US military command for Africa – to ‘assist’ in the enforcement of ICC warrants.[8] As Harold Koh reportedly stated, the US, while still unwilling to become a party to the Rome Treaty, would cooperate with the ICC when it is in the interest of the US to do so.[9]

AFRICOM’s genesis can be traced to a December 2000 CIA report in which analysts speculated about the future supply of African oil. In his May 2001 report on US energy policy, former vice-president Richard Cheney highlighted the new significance of African oil for US markets.[10] Eight months later, the Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies (IASPS), a neoconservative think-tank based in Israel, held a symposium in Washington, D.C. entitled ‘African Oil: A Priority for U.S. National Security and African Development.’ Speakers included US diplomatic and intelligence officials, members of Congress, and energy industry executives. The symposium spawned a working group, the African Oil Policy Initiative Group (AOPIG), which issued recommendations for US policy.

Asserting a convergence of US energy security interests and African economic development goals, the group proposed an ‘historic, strategic alignment with West Africa,’ with the Gulf of Guinea emerging as a ‘vital U.S. interest.’ The goal is a US-West Africa relationship defined by: 1) a focus on US military engagement in sub-Saharan Africa; 2) large scale US capital investment in regional oil and gas infrastructure projects; 3) creation of a US-Africa free trade agreement; and 4) conditioning debt forgiveness upon free market reforms in critical sectors.[12]
In 2002, the Bush Administration’s National Security Strategy, in which the doctrine of preemptive military action was announced, asserted that Africa’s ‘disease, war, and desperate poverty’ threatens a U.S. strategic priority: ‘combating global terror.’[13] A senior Defense Department official reportedly commented in 2003 that ‘a key mission for U.S. forces (in Africa) would be to ensure that Nigeria’s oil fields … are secure.’[14] In 2004 a Congressionally-appointed panel proposed a ‘conceptual shift to a strategic view of Africa.’[15] The Administration’s 2006 National Security Strategy identifies Africa as ‘a high priority’ and – in a resurrection of the doctrine of terra nullius – ‘recognizes that [U.S.] security depends upon … strengthening fragile and failing states and bring[ing] ungoverned areas under the control of effective democracies.’[16] In February 2007, President Bush announced the formation of AFRICOM,[17] a new unified combatant command to ‘protect U.S. national security objectives in Africa and its surrounding waters,’[18] and to promote ‘peace … development, health, education, democracy, and economic growth in Africa.’[19]

Will AFRICOM further peace and justice in Africa? Far-away proceedings in The Hague, or an expensive show-trial in Sierra-Leone? Is impunity the only alternative?

If Africa is ever to determine its own destiny, Africa must build its own institutions, tailored to its own history and realities, as slow and as painful a process as this might be. There are some efforts underway under the authority of the African Union, ECOWAS, and other fledgling institutions. These institutions and independent entities must be strengthened. Moreover, vigorous conflict resolution will require the legal and political empowerment of minority sub-State groups so that they have a stake in peace.

Some of these measures might include:
- Equitable resource distribution;
- Reconsideration of the Cairo Declaration;
- Consideration of the value of international legal personality for sub-State groups subject to their willingness to lay down arms;
- Experimenting with various forms of autonomy;
- Elevation of respect for language rights.

At the same time, Africa’s friends in the West must continue to fight for the right of Africa to control and use its own resources for the well-being and advancement of her people, and for the building of Afro-centric institutions that use Africa’s rich history and traditions to solve Africa’s problems.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* This paper was presented at the International War Crimes Conference in London, UK, 3-6 March 2011.
* Professor Jeanne M. Woods is the Henry F. Bonura, Jr. Distinguished Professor of Law at Loyola College of Law, New Orleans, USA.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

NOTES

[1] Apartheid Convention, G.A. Res. 3068 (XXVIII) at 75, U.N. Doc. A/9233 (Nov 30, 1973).
[2] The Convention for a Democratic South Afirca (CODESA), held in late 1991, was the first round of formal negotiations on South Africa’s political transition from minority rule. Timothy Sisk, The Democratization of South Africa 201-225 (1995).
[3] AZAPO v. President of South Africa, 1996 (4) SALR 671 (CC).The families of anti-apartheid activists Steve Biko, Griffiths Mxenge and Fabian Ribeiro argued that the Commission's power to grant amnesty deprived them and an entire class of victims from their right to recover damages from those who committed gross atrocities against their loved ones. The Court ruled that the national unity and reconciliation provision in the Interim Constitution contemplated amnesty in its "most comprehensive and generous meaning." Id. at 698. The Interim Constitution provided that "in order to advance such reconciliation and reconstruction, amnesty shall be granted in respect of acts, omissions and offenses associated with political objectives and committed in the course of the conflicts of the past." The Court pointed out that according to the language in the epilogue of the Interim Constitution, "Parliament not only has the authority ... to make a law providing for amnesty to be granted ... but ... is in fact obliged to do so." Id. at 683. The Court stated that the Act was established as a means to encourage truth-telling and to "create[] the emotional and structural climate essential for [South Africa's] reconciliation and reconstruction." Id. at 684. The Court added that "but for a mechanism providing for amnesty the "bridge' itself might never have been erected ... the terms of the transition required not only the agreement of those victimized by abuse but also those threatened by the transition to a "democratic society based on freedom and equality.'" Id. at 685.
[4] Truth and Reconciliation Commission Final Report, Volume 1, p. 5, South Africa (1998). See also David Everatt, Policy Brief: Yet Another Transition? Urbanisation, Class Formation an d the End of the National Liberation Struggle in South Africa, p.1, available at pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/PNACL306.pdf.
[5] Richard Pankhurst, Italian Fascist War Crimes in Ethiopia: A History of their Discussion from the League of Nations to the United Nations (1936-1949), 6 NE. AFRICAN STUDIES 83, 84 (1999), citing A. Gingold Duprey, De l’invasion à la libération de l’Ethiopie, Paris (1955), 340, 365-6, 572, 596, 627, 630-1, 647-52. Available at http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/northeast_african_studies/v006/6.1pankhurst.html
[6] See Jeanne M. Woods, Reconciling Reconciliation, 3 UCLA J. INT’L L & POL’Y 81 (1998).
[7] Africa Policy Institute Background Paper, The 21st Century Global Scramble for Africa and the Recession: Implications for Africa’s Security and Democratic Crisis, available at www.africapi.org/.../BACKGROUND%20PAPER%20SCRAMBLE%20FOR%20AFRICA
[8] Samar Al-Bulushi and Adam Branch, AFRICOM and the ICC: Enforcing International Justice in Africa? Pambazuka News, Issue 483, posted May 27, 2010, available at http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/64752
[9] Harold H. Koh and Stephen J. Rapp. US Engagement with the International Criminal Court and the outcome of the Recently Concluded Review Conference.US Department of State. June 15, 2010. Available at http://www.state.gov/s/wci/us_releases/remarks/143178.htm
[10] National Energy Policy Report, Office of Vice President Richard Cheney, May 16, 2001.
[11] According to the website of the IASPS, its mission is to save Western society from the “convergence of Western Elites and Islam.” See http://www.iasps.org/mission.php (last visited 9/28/07).
[12] Report of the African Oil Initiative Policy Group at p. 18, available at http://www.iasps.org/strategic/africanwhitepaper.pdf (last accessed 10 Nov. 2007).
[13] The National Security Strategy of the United States of America (2002) p. 7, available at http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nssall.html (last accessed 10 Nov. 2007).
[14] Greg Jaffe, “In Massive Shift, U.S. is Planning to Cut Size of Military in Germany,” Wall Street Journal, June 10, 2003.
[15] Walter H. Kansteiner III and J. Stephen Morrison, Rising U.S. Stakes in Africa: Seven Proposals to Strengthen U.S.-Africa Policy, May 2004, available at http://www.allafrica.com/sustainable/resources/view/00010230.pdf (last accessed 10 Nov. 2007).
[16] The National Security Strategy of the United States of America (2006) p. 37, available at http://www whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss/2006/ (last accessed 10 Nov. 2007).
[17] The White House Office of the Press Secretary, “President Bush Creates a Department of Defense Unified Combatant Command for Africa,” Feb. 6, 2007.
[18] Congressional Research Service, Africa Command: U.S. Strategic Interests and the Role of the U.S. Military in Africa (summary), July 6, 2007 (hereinafter “CRS Report”).
[19] White House Press Statement, supra n. 30.

The transformation of the global system and its implications for Africa

Dani Wadada Nabudere

2011-04-13

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/72529

cc D PThrough the eyes of protestors who have filled the streets of North African protests, what might a new society look like? Dani Wadada Nabudere, drawing on the meaning of social network use and principles of Ubuntu, explores.

The global capitalist crisis that occurred in 2007-8 has changed the way we shall relate to the future. Mass democratic pressures such as those we are witnessing in the Arab world are already indicative of the way countries will try to cope with problems of equality in economics and freedoms in political life.

The economic meltdown that occurred is deep and it is amazing that when the crisis struck the majority of mainstream economists did not see its magnitude and its long-term implications. Indeed, some economists at first viewed the meltdown as purely an American phenomenon. It was, they argued, a ‘sub-prime mortgage crisis’.

Others, who saw deeper elements in the crisis, called it a ‘credit crunch’, but soon realised that it was not a ‘credit crunch’ related only to the ‘sub-prime’ mortgage crisis, but a ‘financial crisis’ as well.

Even with this broadened understanding, the crisis was still regarded as mainly a US problem and not a global one. The events that have occurred since the beginning of this year in North Africa have demonstrated the widespread effect of the global capitalist crisis.

THE REVOLTS IN THE ARAB WORLD AND NORTH AFRICA

The conditions of desperation that global capitalism has created in the world were behind the uprising in Tunisia. It will be recalled that Mohamed Bouzizi was an unemployed young man who was trying to sell some vegetables on the street to earn a living. Bouzizi was arrested and beaten up by the police for daring to earn a living on the streets and refusing to pay a bribe to be let free. This, in the eyes of the population, symbolised the ‘heartlessness’ of a state that had lost all human contact with its citizens. Instead of empathising with Bouzizi’s plight, Bouzizi was instead harassed on several occasions by agents of the state, assaulted, humiliated and prevented from attempting to engage in some income generating activity on which he and his family could depend. It was out of the desperation of this harassment that Bouzizi, in an act of defiance, set himself on fire and killed himself.

This act of bravery triggered demonstrations on the part of his family in Sidi Bouzid, which were joined by hundreds of supporters in defiance of the ‘heartless’ state, which called on them to disperse. It is this act of defiance on the part of the people and in empathy with Bouzizi’s action that spread like wild fire and finally brought down the 23-year corrupt, authoritarian, pro-Western, and crony capitalist regime of Zine Al-Abadine Ben Ali and his family from power. But before his downfall, Ben Ali and his regime had been lauded and held out to be successful. He was hailed as a wealthy head of a fast-growing economy in Africa, even when the population were suffering under the burden of repression.

But this very ‘competitive’ economy was a monopoly of French interests, for it was also true that France alone accounted for 72.5 per cent of the country’s imports and 75 per cent of its exports to the European Union. This was the kind of ‘success’ that the Western world praised and held out to the people of Tunisia as the basis of their existence. In fact, the economy was dependent on the interests of the European and American monopolies and their local cronies, which required an iron-fisted regime to maintain. It constituted the bedrock of inequality between the very opulent and rich class and the impoverished, poor classes agonising over high levels of the unemployment and political repression. This included many jobless university graduates such as Bouzizi, who were the victims of a lop-sided economy. This was the capitalism that the Tunisian people knew, not the imagined capitalist world of ‘successes’ of a few cronies who ran the Tunisian neo-colonial state. The revolt was an attempt by the people of Tunisia to reconstruct a state that had feelings for its people and not one that was merely instrumental in oppressing them.

The events in Tunisia were quickly followed by those in Egypt, which has been dubbed the ‘Youth Revolution’. They were very much ignited by these developments, which included the use of FaceBook and other social networks as a trigger but not as a cause. These networks are the products of technological changes that have occurred in the capitalist world and which are highly connected with the global economic situation discussed above. This is because of the role the electronic media, especially mobile telephony, FaceBook, Twitter and other social networks have played in these events. These revolts have challenged the rights of dictators who have ruled their countries for decades under ‘emergency’ conditions in order to prevent their citizens enjoying their freedoms, including the right to employment.

THE IMPLICATIONS OF THE REVOLTS

We can now recall the 1964 work of Marshall McLuhan, in which he predicted that the visual and individualistic print culture that characterised the early period of capitalism would be brought to an end by what he called ‘electronic interdependence’ in which the electronic media would replace the visual media with an aural/oral culture.

In this new age, McLuhan predicted, humankind will move from individualism and fragmentation to a collective identity, with a ‘tribal base’. McLuhan called this emerging social organisation the ‘global village’, but this village was to be a product of capitalist ‘economic globalisation’, which McLuhan and the world had as yet not seen in the 1960s. ‘Economic globalisation’, as we now know it, dawned on us in the 1980s.

In order to understand the force behind these revolts, let us again recall the origins of the revolt in Tunisia and the reasons behind them. As we have seen, the revolts arose as an expression of solidarity in empathy with Bouzizi and his family in the way the agents of the state had treated Bouzizi. There are several elements from which we can draw a kind of résumé of his revolt: unemployment, lack of food and other necessities of life, lack of opportunities of advancement, corruption on the part of the state officials, brutality of the police and other security agencies, demand for dignity, demand for equality, demand for citizenship, lack of empathy for the sufferings of the masses of the people by the state, capitalist cronyism, kleptocracy on the part of the ruling family, authoritarianism and dictatorial governance.

If the elements in this résumé are put together, analysed and synthesised, it becomes clear that these concerns and demands of the people are qualitative in nature rather than quantitative. This can be illustrated by an incident which occurred during the Tahrir square demonstrations when the then president Hosni Mubarak tried to calm down the tempers of the demonstrators by increasing the salaries of public workers by 50 per cent. The gesture was rebuffed and laughed at by the crowd, who responded by stating that what they were demonstrating against was his despotic rule and not salaries and that in any case the majority of them were unemployed.

They retorted that what they were demanding was his immediate departure and towards this demand they declared one Friday in February to be his ‘Day of Departure’. They were demanding, they retorted, ‘freedom’, ‘dignity’, and ‘equality’. These were all qualitative demands, which imply a demand for a completely new world free of exploitation and repression.

WHAT KIND OF A NEW WORLD?

In Marshall McLuhan’s analysis, there was a spiritual transformation in the emerging of new ‘holistic individuals’ who together with others are united in empathy and solidarity in these demands. McLuhan argued that the very speed of electronic change, which was occurring during his time, but which had become speedier and speedier with the passage of time, tended to force the individual to forsake processing of reality in an analytic, sequential way. This was essential, he added, in order to take the process ‘mythically’ all at once, using all our senses. In this situation, the state of mind, tended to emphasise ‘field consciousness’, which in turn encouraged identity to be derived from the mind rather than from the contents of the mind. Such a healthy, balanced relationship to the information explosion, which such media brought about, encouraged holistic individuals to go beyond the mere processing of innumerable bits of information towards seeing and feeling. Such a healthy balance of mind and body also tried to identify the patterns of the flow of knowledge and reality in their contexts.

This development implies a human spiritual transformation towards Ubuntu - the African philosophy of recognising others as part of one self. McLuhan’s analysis also provides us with a glimpse of the new kind of society that the holistic individual is seeking.

What then can we say about what the people in Tahrir Square were demanding when they talked of a new democracy that respects their human dignity and equality? Can it not be surmised that what they were really demanding was a state that has feeling and empathy for their needs and concerns? Can we say that perhaps they were demanding a new state that has feelings like a human being, which moreover can demonstrate its feelings for the people rather than through dictates? Can we say that such a state is possible because by its very nature a state monopolises all means of violence, which it has invariably used against its citizens without any feelings for those citizens. In short, a modern state (especially the post-colonial state) brutalises its citizens and at the same time claims to represent them, which is a contradiction in terms.

Perhaps if such a new state that has feelings for its citizens is impossible to imagine, then what the demonstrators were really demanding was that they themselves should constitute a ‘state’ or ‘community’ in which the functions of the state were assumed by the individuals themselves. This happened in the ‘tribal’ societies, but also in the polis in Athens. Is this perhaps what Marx meant when he predicted the ‘withering away of the state?’ But Marx regarded such a situation as leading to ‘communism’ in which there was equality for everyone. Is this perhaps the kind of ‘communal’ society that is imagined by the social networks? If so how can it be actualised beyond the virtual communities that the social networks have created? This is perhaps the task that is implied by the current revolutions.

THE IMPLICATIONS FOR AFRICA

It is clear that despite the fragmentation and marginalisation that modernity has imposed on the people of Africa, elements of Ubuntu still exist in African societies through languages, cultures and knowledge systems. Ubuntu seeks a restoration of balance in relations between individuals inter se and between individuals and nature. In the new situation in which the holistic individuals now find themselves united in solidarity - no longer alienated and isolated - they find Abantu in existence with elements of Ubuntu still with them. The holistic individuals find themselves already embedded in the culture of Ubuntu in a new form, which McLuhan’s analysis seems to suggest. Such a new environment requires that in order to fit in the new combined human environment of interconnectedness and wholeness, such new combined individuals have to make their rules of a restorative society on an on-going basis.

Already academic researchers are beginning to examine this new situation by exploring the parallels between online social networking and the practices of ‘tribal’ societies that McLuhan envisaged. In the collective profile-surfing essential for ‘face-booking’ and ‘my-spacing’ in which they try to engage in ‘friending’, they begin to see the resurgence of ancient patterns of oral communication. Lance Strate, a communications professor at Fordham University and devoted ‘myspacer’ has argued that ‘orality, which is characteristic of African communication, is the basis of all human experience’. He is convinced that the popularity of social networks stems from their appeal to deep-seated, prehistoric patterns of human communication and points out that humans evolved with speech and not with writing. This is in fact what we have called Afrikology. Can this be the basis on which the African heritage can provide humanity new beginnings? As Archbishop Desmond Tutu once declared about the philosophy of Ubuntu, which he called ‘this thing’:

‘Africans have this thing called Ubuntu…the essence of being human. It is part of the gift that Africans will give the world. It embraces hospitality, caring about others, willing to go the extra mile for the sake of others. We believe a person is a person through another person, that my humanity is caught up, bound up and inextricable in yours. When I dehumanise you I inexorably dehumanise myself. The solitary individual is a contradiction in terms and, therefore, you seek to work for the common good because your humanity comes into its own community, in belonging.’

Is this the way the ‘holistic individual’ that McLuhan talked about should go? It is clear that the new society cannot reproduce a society that lived by the principles of Ubuntu for that was a qualitatively different society. But surely there are some lessons that can be learnt from that experience for the new society that those engaged in revolts seem to be demanding.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* This is the text of a public lecture delivered at the University of South Africa, College of Law, on 10 March 2011.
* Professor Dani Wadada Nabudere is the executive director of the Marcus Garvey Pan-Afrikan Institute (MPAI). Nabudere@gmail.com
* 'The Crash of International Finance-Capital and its Implications for the Third World' by Professor Dani Wadada Nabudere is available from Pambazuka Press.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

Mozambique: Will new measures curb popular anger?

Alcino Moiana

2011-04-14

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/72551

cc L RThe Mozambican government has just introduced new subsidies to cushion the blow of rising food prices. But will they be enough to deflate popular protests? Alcino Moiana thinks not.

Last September, Mozambique experienced violent riots due to food price increases. The government of Mozambique yielded to the social pressure and came up with some short term austerity measures. These were condemned by the majority, but somehow praised by those who were the main beneficiaries, since all they wanted was to see their living costs minimised. The condemnation was centred on the financial and economic sustainability of those measures, taking into consideration that the country is highly dependant on foreign aid, which sustains close to 50 per cent of the total state budget.

Some of the measures implied that the government was going to subsidise the bakeries, which claimed the rise in wheat price on the international market had forced them to scale up the price of bread. Besides this measure, the government was to subsidise the petrol price in order to avoid an increase in public transport costs, which is dominated by the private sector.

However, all those measures were designed for the short term, since new studies were to be carried out by the government in order to come up with effective measures to minimise the cost of living.

With the new events in the international political arena forcing an increase in the price of crude oil, the price for basic commodities worldwide have increased tremendously and poor countries like Mozambique have seen their measures to minimise the cost of living being threatened. This is because the government cannot continue maintaining the subsidies due to the implications for national expenditure.

However, feeling the rope getting tighter around its neck just six months after the initial riots, the government last week announced new measures, which consist of introducing a food basket and transport subsidy to the most vulnerable households. The difference between these measures and those of last September lie in the fact that the previous measures targeted institutions (bakeries) and the owners of public-private transport companies, but the new measures are directly targeting individuals.

The planning and development ministry has stated clearly that these measures are intended to free the government from high expenditure on subsidies. So the question then becomes, where was the government getting the money it used to subsidise the bakeries and petrol stations for the last six months and how was it thinking that it was going to survive, being highly dependent on foreign aid?

The other issue is on the extent of confidence in the government being ble to implement these measures. How will the government select the beneficiaries? Does the government have technical expertise to monitor the implementation of the measures and to make sure that the beneficiaries are reached? Again, since these measures look at those who are low income households whose monthly income is below US$67, what will be the criteria of selection since the majority of the population that are earning below that amount are in the informal sector, which is disorganised and where there is a lack of data on how much of the work force this sector absorbs?

The government says they will introduce a pass for public transport, so that those who are eligible (students, low waged workers) will pay less than others. How about the unemployed? The public transport system in Mozambique is dominated by small 15 and 29 seat mini-buses. Has the government analysed how their plan will work when ordinary citizens already face harassment from those who operate these mini-busses, who first strive to make a daily amount that they have to give to the transport owner.

The other decision which was taken by the government was to scale up the price of petrol by 10 per cent each month for the next five months, which means that by the month of August 2011, the price of petrol will have increased by an increment of 50 per cent. This will reduce the capacity of those who own private vehicles to continue to use their vehicles daily, forcing them to resort to public transport to reach their destinations. Again, the transport sector will be put to the test and even now it is failing to absorb the population that use it, especially at rush hour times.

By introducing these so-called innovative measures, did the government make a thorough study about their applicability or have they just tried to cover the sun with a sieve, because the implementation of all these measures will surely show the low capacity of the government to solve the social problem of the poor. Once again, it must get ready because new social riots are at the door, unless a miracle can help the hearts of many poor be dominated by the spirit of peace.

* Alcino Moiana is a Mozambican social activist, based in Zambia and FK fellow with Norwegian Church Aid, seconded to the Council of Churches in Zambia.

Who is a non-racial South African?

Vishwas Satgar

2011-04-13

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/72546

cc M T SVishwas Satgar examines the concept of non-racialism in South Africa, calling for a radical and people-centred non-racial nationalism.

In a recent newspaper article, Trevor Manuel took on Jimmy Manyi’s remarks on race. Manuel correctly concentrated on exposing the insidious and racist nature of Manyi’s labour market machinations. The public commentary that has followed has amplified the debate. However, in itself Manuel’s critique does not give us an appreciation of what is at stake at this moment in South Africa. Putting it sharply, non-racial nation building is in crisis in South Africa. The Manuel-Manyi issue is merely one of many symptoms of this crisis.

The other symptom is how we are failing to talk about race in a way that addresses the racist inequities we have inherited from apartheid and have been further exacerbated by 17 years of neoliberal ANC rule. There is a lack of political leadership coming to the fore to lead this conversation in South Africa. Instead, race talk is used in a banal, simplistic and undemocratic way. Critiquing Zuma, the failings of the government, the shortcomings of the ANC or even voting for a party other than the ANC is reduced to being racist.

Those who think we can rescue nation building by being colour blind also exacerbate the nation building crisis. South Africa is far from being post-racial. Believing that legal prohibitions of racism and discrimination resolve the race dimension of nation building is naive to say the least. Individualising social change, championing an abstract and formal legal equality and punting an individualised opportunity structure will not transform South Africa. Instead such an approach reproduces racial bias because of its assumption that individuals can rise above generations of racialised dispossession, systemic exclusion and exploitation without state intervention. Essentially, without state intervention, the possibility of massive redistribution and transformation is a fiction.

Rather than the above two approaches - non-racism as shown through support for the ANC and naïve, ahistorical colour-blindness - I want to suggest that we look back to the Freedom Charter for a richer account of non-racialism. The Freedom Charter proclaimed a non-racial South Africa as realisable through a social construction of race equality.

Moreover, such a nation-building project has to go to the roots of systemic racism constructed by decades of segregation and apartheid. Through its declaratory statements, the Freedom Charter is explicit that political and economic power are necessary to confront the nature of racial oppression endured in South Africa. The Freedom Charter is a people’s dream of a society in which a race awareness is informed by a historical understanding of institutionalised racism and a constant striving to challenge reverse racism. In its essence it is about making racism socially unacceptable. Such a radical understanding of non-racialism is being lost in South Africa.

The demise of such a radical understanding of non-racialism is happening because of the degeneration of the ANC’s non-racial nationalism. Such a degeneration can only be appreciated by understanding the contradictions and limits of the key props that organise the ANC’s non-racial nationalism: (i) national liberation ideology; (ii) the Mandela icon; (iii) the state and (iv) the ANC as a political party. It is this degeneration that is also narrowing the non-racial political base of the ANC.

The formation of a non-racial nationalism and its contribution to nation formation has happened through the struggle against apartheid capitalism. Crucial in this regard were key moments in the development of national liberation ideology and contributions within National Democratic Revolution theory. Looking back there are two lines of thinking about non-racial nationalism: a people centred non-racial nationalism versus the ANC’s version of non-racial nationalism. The former is grounded in the Freedom Charter in which there is a conscious social construction of racial equality as expressed through the notion that, ‘South Africa belongs to all who live in it, Black and White’.

The ANC’s non-racial nationalism is about a qualified non-racial nationalism. This exists beyond the Freedom Charter through various elaborations within its Strategy and Tactics documents. In such documents there is an explicit articulation of different ‘degrees of oppression’ amongst the oppressed. This formulation is empirically correct, given that Africans in particular where the most oppressed under apartheid.

However, translated into the post-apartheid context this formulation sets up a hierarchy of liberation and talks about liberation for ‘blacks in general but Africans in particular’. The ideological and political effect of this has been to tie other race groups to the African majority in an instrumental way. This is expressed in a shift away from the solidaristic concept of ‘black’ which came to the fore in the 1980s to unify Africans, Coloureds and Indians, but which has been subsequently displaced with a representation of non-Africans (Coloureds and Indians) as ‘minorities’.

Are Coloureds, Indians and Whites, who have embraced a people-centred non-racialism, now merely strangers in their own country that have to be tolerated? The Ngema song ‘AmaNdiya’, produced in 2002, is one of many racist assertions that have formed the grammar for a new grassroots racism, which has been documented as alive and well, despite his apology. In this context, an ANC non-racialism seems increasingly like a pseudo universalism, which is not about a genuine emancipatory humanism and a consistent striving against reverse racism. Instead, the ANC’s non-racial nationalism is easily put aside for a more explicit African nationalism today, despite having a few non-African faces in the leadership of the ANC and in the ANC cabinet.

The inflections of this African nationalism are expressed through the rise of traditionalism, ethnic cleavages and increasing uncertainty with an emergent authoritarian populism in ANC ranks and even xenophobia. Rising greed, accompanied by widening inequality, provides the sub-soil for African nationalism to be articulated in extremely dangerous and divisive ways.

Nelson Mandela is correctly characterised as being part of the generation of ‘great deeds’. He brought a morality into South African politics which has not been surpassed and which is a challenge to all of us in the present. Moreover, the symbolic value of Mandela the icon was crucial to give expression to the practice of a people centred non-racial nationalism. He unambiguously showed that reverse racism had no place in a new South Africa. Our South African identity was anchored in a collective humanism. This symbolic value of the Mandela icon provided the basis for forgiveness and reconciliation with white South Africa.

Sadly, this did not work. Most of white South Africa appropriated Mandela ‘rainbowism’ and reconciliation to mean the past can be left behind and there was license to be colour blind about the present and the future. Paying taxes and promoting corporate social responsibility was understood as sufficient to deal with our inherited racial inequities. Moreover, Mandela emboldened this opportunistic and false consciousness by ensuring neoliberal economic policy was placed on the national agenda and implemented in a colour blind way.

The effects of neoliberal policies have not been colour blind. Generally white capital has been at the vanguard of a job shedding growth path inducing a crisis of social reproduction amongst mainly the black (African, Coloured and Indian) working class. The Mandela moment did not lead to South Africa’s ‘economic CODESA’. White monopoly capital was not drawn into a national consensus in which its own sacrifices and contributions to nation building were clarified to address our inherited racial inequities, from which white capital benefited. Instead, capital merely demanded economic management on its terms and this was conceded. This has not worked for South Africa’s nation building project.

The post-apartheid state is central to nation building and our South African identity. The state has an important educative function to actively promote a people centred non-racial identity. The Mbeki moment took us the furthest with its advocacy of an African identity that was all embracing and non-essentialist. However, at the same time and in practice Mbeki effectively Africanised the state. The demographic profile of the South African state is essentially African. This is an important achievement and must be celebrated. However, this state has two important short-comings in relation to promoting a people centred approach to non-racial nationalism.

First, the current state has not developed a public discourse that enables talk about racial inequities in a way that unifies and gives a common purpose to nation building. Instead race talk in policy is fixated on elite formation through BEE, affirmative action and procurement. While this has an appeal to aspirant elites, it does not speak to the race inequities endured by the black working class and particularly working class women.

Why is the state not foregrounding the obscene post-apartheid wage gap that reveals how high white (and some black) executive pay is in comparison to black working class wages? Should not the labour department report on this regularly in parliament and in the media? Should not the labour department report on the racial identity of who is losing their jobs, who is less likely to obtain a job, which farm workers and labour tenants are being evicted and who is more casually employed? Why can’t the Treasury report on the racial profile of loans given by South Africa’s banks and which black working class communities banks are red-lining? Why can’t the DTI report on the investment impact of companies in terms of our racial inequities? Moreover, why can’t the state report on the public goods it is supplying like healthcare, housing and education and how this is changing racially skewed patterns? Africans and Coloureds are the most poor in income terms in post-apartheid South Africa and we need to talk about this as the basis to find radical people centred non-racial solutions. Without a social scientific approach to measuring and studying race inequities as part of a state led public discourse we are drifting away from a people centred non-racial South Africa.

A second nation-building shortcoming of the current state relates to its institutional failings. Despite the normative commitment of the ANC to a ‘democratic developmental state’ the actual practice of the state is far from being developmental. One of the essential preconditions for a developmental state is a meritocratic, rule centred and technically capacitated state. Comparative experiences teach us that such a state is staffed by the best in the country. Currently, education, health care and most local governments, for example, don’t seem to be working. While the failures are complex, for some this is the basis of racist critique. However, for many (non-Africans and Africans) who want to contribute to the state as part of making a difference to the country and nation building it is not clear how they can contribute. Many do not have and do not want to be part of the patronage links to the ANC political apparatus. Moreover many cannot relate to and do not want to be part of the ‘deployment culture’ of the ANC. Instead they would prefer to be embraced by the state as professionals, who want to contribute to the professional ethos of the state. The narrowing of space for such a non-racial effort to address the failings of the state is also undermining post-apartheid nation building.

Finally, and ironically, the ANC itself has become a threat to South Africa’s nation building. Its ideologues have found it increasingly difficult to speak the language of the National Democratic Revolution with genuineness as it has increasingly become enmeshed in managing a neoliberal capitalism and class formation. Its dominance in the political system has taken it away from a politics of hegemonic consent and hence it does not seek to strengthen its legitimacy through moral authority, intellectual leadership and a sense of common purpose grounded in the common sense of everyday life. This was there once upon a time in the early days of South Africa’s transition and even during the struggle against apartheid. Currently the ANC uses its electoral machine and sleek marketing campaigns to reproduce its electoral majority, while its elite leadership is increasingly detached from the pulse of a shifting and complex society.

Moreover, its internal divisions span a wide axis and are fuelled by careerist impulses and various ideological cleavages from ‘communist versus nationalist’, ‘right versus left’, ‘traditional versus modern’, amongst others. In this context an organisation wracked by internal conflict and lacking in internal coherence easily breaks the ‘unbreakable thread of non-racialism’. This was most evident with the factional rise of Jacob Zuma. Moreover, with Julius Malema and Floyd Shivambhu openly racist and sexist towards non-African journalists, one wonders what non-racialism really means in the ANC today. Hence the question: are the future leaders of the ANC up to the task of non-racial nation building?

In many ways the ANC’s non-racial nationalism is unravelling and it is increasingly difficult for ordinary South Africans to call themselves non-racial within the ANC’s conception of nation building. This has very serious consequences for South Africa and the search for a unifying South African identity that is emancipatory.

One possible way forward is to reclaim a radical people centred non-racial nationalism. This entails four crucial tasks. First, a radical people centred non-racialism has to be understood as belonging to the people. The Freedom Charter as a document and its non-racial legacy belongs to the people. It does not belong to any single political organisation and has to be claimed as such. Moreover, is the necessity of claiming a people’s history of struggle against racial oppression. The demise of apartheid was a complex process and entailed a role for various social forces.

Second, a new politics of citizenship and rights has to be struggled for. Such a struggle has to take us beyond abstract citizenship and towards an empowered notion of citizenship grounded in the values of the constitution. Such a conception of citizenship should advance the substantive nature of civil, political and socio-economic rights for all who live in South Africa. In other words we need to construct a rights-based political discourse and practice that shapes the public policy agenda in a manner that addresses race-class inequities through social scientific understandings. This has to be part of furthering rights and class based transformation for those at the bottom of society: the black working class (African, Coloured and Indian).

Third, we have to openly challenge and call for the end of provinces. Besides the parasitic nature and fiscal waste associated with provinces, this political construct was the product of a political compromise with the racist National Party and allows for regionalised racist and ethnic identities to undermine a unified South African identity. Such a challenge to provincial government must be linked to deepening democracy where it counts the most, that is, through strengthening local government through representative, associative and participatory forms of democracy. Abandoning provinces should not be used to further centralise power at the national level.

Fourth, civil society has to become a re-invigorated terrain to defend and advance a radical people centred non-racial nationalism. In this regard we need to bring back through a reclamation of a people’s history of struggle, conversations about racial oppression both in South Africa and beyond and how struggles against racial injustice have been waged. We also have to bring into popular conversations understandings of what is racism, how it works and how we should actively combat it. We assume in South Africa that we understand racism or some of us are just beyond it, but yet the racist ghost of apartheid still haunts all of us. The conversation that played out in the media between Manuel and Manyi is a spectacular example of the ANCs failings with regard to non-racial nation building. While Manyi was racist, Manuel held up a version of ANC non-racialism that is not working. South Africa needs a grassroots nation building activism so we can secure the South African dream; a people’s dream.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* The author was the speaker at the Harold Wolpe Lecture, 5 April 2011, Cape Town. Dr. Vishwas Satgar is a senior lecturer in the International Relations Department at the University of Witwatersrand. He is also a long-standing activist currently involved in building the solidarity economy movement in township communities and writing about transnational alternatives.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

‘Sustainable Development’ and ‘Youth Empowerment’ in an African context

Eyob Balcha

2011-04-14

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/72592

cc A CThe theme of the next African Union general assembly, scheduled for June 2011, is ‘Accelerating Youth Empowerment for a Sustainable Development’. But how far do existing development policies and programmes at national and continental level take into account the ‘multiple realities that African youth are living in?’ asks Eyob Balcha.

The next African Union general assembly theme is ‘Accelerating Youth Empowerment for a Sustainable Development’ and the summit scheduled to happen in the last week of June 2011, in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea. The purpose of this reflection is to maintain the sharing of ideas and concerns among interested actors on the topic of the summit and initiating further dialogue and discussion. The core focus will be on the two main and somehow ‘fancy’ concepts of the theme, namely ‘youth empowerment’ and ‘sustainable development’. There will be an attempt of briefly reviewing what has been done in the past with regard to the two issues and how can we ensure their combination both at conceptual and practical level. An attempt will be made to give enough emphasis on some notions that are sometimes taken for granted and used to make high level policy decisions. For instance, the concept of ‘development’ itself needs a thorough reflection and critical analysis before being attached with another concept of ‘sustainability’. Hence, this short piece will follow a simple structure of dwelling on these issues both separately and jointly before making additional reflection in the current context across the continent.

To start with, the concept of ‘development’ still remains the most controversial and easily manipulated term both in the academia and political arena. It is not uncommon to see that people take the idea of ‘development’ for granted and as something that can be realized so long as there is a good will and a capacity to do so. What is not usual, most of the time, is to consider the fact that it is also a political and ideologically driven concept and practice since its inception as a catchy concept in the discourse of practitioners and intellectuals in the ‘post World War II period’. From the attempt of crafting a stage-by-stage process of achieving it [development] in the works of Rostow, to the ambition and supposedly ‘philanthropic’ mission as asserted by Harry Truman in the 1960s; from the establishment of the Breton Woods Institutions (WB, IMF) to the execution of the structural adjustment programs; from the Needs Based Approach to the Rights Based Approach, from the attempt of crafting a ‘different path’ in the African Alternative Framework to the structural adjustment programs (AAF-SAP) to the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD); and finally to the Millennium Development Goals of the UN, one can witness that the context in which ‘development’ is idealized, operationalized and practiced is not on a neutral ground rather within the realm of highly political, ideological, hierarchical, deterministic and institutionally structured system.

It is political simply because it is one of the main criterions against which most governments are evaluated and try to win the heart of citizens. It has also been used as an excuse and ‘legitimate’ entry point in influencing and thwarting political decisions to meet diversified interests. It is ideological and hierarchical because of the supposedly ‘natural’ assertion and essentialism on societies and countries across a universalistic category and uni-linear continuum where ‘underdeveloped’, ‘less-developed’, ‘developing’ and ‘developed’ are the scales of measurement. It is also equally deterministic in exclusively adhering (at least in the mainstream discourse of development) to economic aspects and the associated numerical manifestations (free market, liberalization...) as the only means of achieving and measuring development. The increasing institutional and structural establishments that claim to contribute to the process of realizing ‘development’ including; bilateral relations, regional and sub-regional groupings, continental organizations, international and global institutions, private foundations, civil society organizations and NGOs that are running multi-trillion dollar business under the pretext of achieving ‘development’ makes it even more complicated and uneasy to grasp. These multiple actors including the media and the academia that also have a significant impact in producing and maintaining the image of the ‘less developed’, shaping and reshaping the discourse of development, the existing power relation and contestation for dominance among them makes the concept of ‘development’ hardly easy to grip and conceptualize. In addition to the inherent complexities that we have with the concept of ‘development’, making a better sense out of it in terms of its ‘sustainability’ will certainly need another serious examination.

Historically speaking, the concept of ‘Sustainable Development’ first appeared into the mainstream discourse strongly after the launching of the report by the Brundtland Commission under the title: Our Common Future in 1987. The commission defined and introduced the concept as ‘...development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’. This definition has been used as a benchmark in efforts to make it more comprehensive and accommodative of the changing discourses that emerged into the agenda of development from the socio-economic, political and environmental perspectives. With this regard, one can mention the attempt of the International Law Association (ILA) which came up with a broad conceptualization of sustainable development. In the 2002 New Delhi Declaration, the ILA defines the objective of sustainable development as ‘…a comprehensive and integrated approach to economic, social and political processes, which aims at the sustainable use of natural resources of the Earth and the protection of the environment on which nature and human life as well as social and economic development depend and which seeks to realize the right of all human beings to an adequate living standard on the basis of their active, free and meaningful participation in development and in the fair distribution of benefits resulting therefrom, with due regard to the needs and interests of future generations’. This definition gives more room to manoeuvre and to link the concept with other pressing issues. The previous definition somehow overlooks the political and economic aspect of the subject matter or at least did not include these issues in an explicit manner. I can’t argue that this is a ‘perfect’ definition rather a better conceptualization within which core spheres of society: the social, political, economy and environment are addressed in a fair manner in relation to nature, equality, civic participation, human rights and, of course, the ‘future’ generations.

The other strong point that the latest conceptualization of sustainable development offers is the focus on the human-to-human relations at the present time rather than the human-to-nature or the relation with the ‘future’ generations in hypothetical level. If it is a process in the social, economic and political process of a given society, the issues of power, participation, rights, equality, conflict of interest, domination, and activism etc… are always there in the real context. Hence, the intensity of the interaction at the human (society) level, who has the power in deciding the process and the approach, whose ideas are prioritized and taken into consideration at the expense of others (and why), who is benefiting from such decisions … are the likely questions that should to be asked. Given the problematic nature of the mainstream discourse of ‘development’ as a path of ensuring economic growth which is supposed to be ‘trickled down’ to the mass, and the unbalanced focus given to the replication of the western model of ‘development’ into the African context is a vital question to raise with regard to its reliability and sustainability.

Coming to the issues of ‘youth empowerment’, as I have always been arguing everything starts from the way we conceptualize youth. Indeed, it seems easy and manageable to take the age-based category as a framework for analysing youth issues with regard to development policies and programs. This statistical categorization can help us in witnessing how significant is the young population in African context in demographic terms and also in economic terms as having a wider group of productive population. But in addressing the broader issues of ‘empowerment’ and ‘development’, in grasping the complicated challenges and opportunities that African youth have, the actual and potential qualities they acquire and contribute needs a broader conceptualization beyond the age group. Youth is not a homogenous group of people between the age of 15 -35 (as per the definition of the African Youth Charter). An 18 year old Ethiopian farmer has a different challenges and opportunities than an 18 year old Somalian. The means of livelihood, the socio-cultural setting, the political and economic system, gender, as the assumed and given role within family and society are immensely different for people of the same age (be it 18 or 24) irrespective of their categorization under the same concept of youth.

Youth is more of a social position whose roles and responsibilities are always negotiated and influenced within the broader framework of society. The relational and generational features of being youth are vital also elements in commanding power and exercising their agency to influence the course of the social, economic and political process to their advantage. Unless there is a broader conceptualization of youth which accommodates the various realities they are living in like; a situation in which they are leading players of societal transformation, a system in which they are co-opted to sustain dictatorship and clientalist political system, a condition in which they are depoliticized and marginalized from meaningful decision making spheres, a context in which they are merely recognized as economic assets of society …, all the attempts of realizing youth empowerment ‘…will remain in but a fleeting illusion to be pursued, but never attained’, to use the words of His Majesty.

Hence, the nexus of sustainable development and youth empowerment is not something we can simply play with because it is about two catchy concepts but rather an assignment for us to deal with it carefully. First of all, how empowering, responsive and flexible are the state structures that we have with regard to youth? How legitimate are most of African governments which are led by dictators and their fellows clinging to power for more than a decade? Do they have the moral ground to talk about youth empowerment where the majority of their population (young people) never saw a different face till they turn 20 even more? How considerate are development policies and programs at national and continental level to the multiple realities that African youth are living in? How open is the system at the national and continental level to accommodate the various issues of youth rather than to narrowly defining them just as objects of ‘development’ to be acted on? Very often youth are considered as people in the becoming by calling them ‘tomorrow’s leaders’ or ‘tomorrow’s hope’. What is bizarre about it is the fact that in most African countries context, the youth are denied of their ‘being’ of the present through the marginalization in the economic and political sphere, depoliticized and co-opted to be part of a system for their numerical value not for their youthful contribution, and manipulated into the struggle and lust for power; and at the same time they are equally denied of their ‘future’ by the development model that most African states follow which prioritizes economic growth by opening their doors for neo-colonialists that are scavenging and extracting resources with little or no benefit for citizens. The Land grabbing cases of Ethiopia can be considered with this regard.

To conclude, the AU Summit is just an event and I don’t expect a miracle to happen at the summit or afterwards. But the issues that will be discussed need to be considered with serious reflections from all sides. For that matter, I honestly don’t think that the African heads of states that may head to the summit will have the time to discuss the issue in their agenda. In the context of what has been happening between the last session in January and the up-coming one; the elimination of their fellow dictators (in Tunisia and Egypt), the case of Libya and Ivory Cost and who knows another African country in the meantime, will definitely be the major issues of discussion. I certainly believe that what they have as a theme for the summit can be accommodated within the urgent issues of these countries but I don’t think that they will dare to approach the issues of youth empowerment or sustainable development in the context of Egypt or Ivory Cost. For them, existing in office and deliberating on the threats and the lessons to learn from the failure of their beloved fellows is too important to be side-lined and talk about untouchable and unrealizable issues of sustainable development and youth empowerment. What a pity!

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* Eyob Balcha blogs at Reflect, Share and Re-reflect!!.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

UK event: The assassination of Patrice Lumumba

50 years on, what future for the Congo?

Jubilee Debt Campaign, Pambazuka News & Tipping Point Film Fund

2011-04-14

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/Announce/72560

50 years ago Democratic Republic of Congo’s (DRC) first Prime Minister, Patrice Lumumba, was assassinated as part of Belgian and US plots only 10 weeks after he took power. The event has been described as "the most important assassination of the 20th century".

Lumumba was a freedom fighter who overturned decades of brutal Belgian rule in the Congo and fought to give the Congolese people control over their own resources. His assassins handed DRC to the kleptocratic Mobutu regime which stole from and indebted the country, turning what should be amongst the richest countries in the world into one of the poorest.

Today, after one of the most horrific wars in modern history cost the lives of 4 million people, we assess the legacy of Patrice Lumumba and look at the hopes and prospects for DRC in the twenty-first century.

More details.

Social media: Weapons of choice for the Nigerian revolution

Rosemary A. Ajayi

2011-04-14

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/72597

Nigeria’s 2011 general elections are high up on the list of my ‘most anticipated events’. For the first time in Nigeria’s history, twenty- and thirty- year old Nigerians across the world have been granted an opportunity to take active roles in the conduct, reporting, monitoring, scrutinising and documentation of the elections.

I am one of many who have been afforded the chance to be more than just a voter in these elections; I am actively involved in EiE Nigeria, a project to mobilise and empower young Nigerians to participate positively in the upcoming elections. I am also involved in a study, which tracks and analyses the impact of social media on the Nigerian elections. The Social Media Tracking Centre is supported by EiE Nigeria, the International Republican Institute, the International Foundation for Electoral Systems and the Shehu Musa Yar’Adua Foundation.

Despite recording only 44 million Nigerians (out of an estimated 150 million) as having access to the internet, it is impossible to imagine elections in Nigeria without tools such as Facebook, Twitter, SMS, mobile phones, mobile apps or cameras. These have fast become the weapons of choice for the Nigerian revolution.

Some interesting observations on the use of social media by key stakeholders include:

USE BY INDEPENDENT OBSERVERS: REPORTING AND INVESTIGATING ELECTORAL MALPRACTICE

On the eve of the parliamentary elections, US-based Nigerian and international observer, MsChika411 (https://twitter.com/mschika411) received local reports of misconduct in Owerri, Imo State and published them on Twitter. She received over 200 retweets and mentions, including abuse and praise. This led to the deployment of CSOs to the area to investigate. A national newspaper also tailed, Kema Chikwe, the alleged offender. Reports from these additional sources supported MsChika411’s claims.






USE BY INEC: RECRUITING AND EMPOWERING CITIZEN MONITORS

The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, https://twitter.com/inecnigeria made up for its absence from Facebook and Twitter during the voter registration and verification stages by recruiting 4 social media interns.

In the afternoon of April 9, when I relayed questions from twitterers to IFES asking if voters could tweet results from their polling units, I would never have imagined that within hours INEC would be asking Nigerians to tweets results as well as photographs of the result sheets.







USE BY VOTERS: PROTECTING THEIR VOTES AND COLLECTING DOCUMENTARY EVIDENCE

Ordinary citizens like Ibrahim Lawal were empowered by INEC’s directive to remain behind and send in photographs of results:






ABUSE BY CANDIDATES: DECLARING FALSE VICTORIES AND CAUSING CONFUSION

Prof Dora Akunyili, the past Minister for Information & Communication, used her Facebook page and Twitter account (no longer available) accounts to announce her victory over her rival in the Anambra Central senatorial district, Chris Ngige. INEC would later announce Dr Ngige as the winner.






BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

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

Ethiopia: The art of war by mass distraction

2011-04-13

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/72528

cc A FAnother war with Eritrea? A water war with Egypt? Alemayehu G. Mariam deconstructs Meles Zenawi's latest war talk.

At the Nuremberg Trials in 1945, Hermann Goering, Hitler’s right-hand man, told his interrogator:

‘Naturally the common people don’t want war. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along…Voice or no voice [democratic or non-democratic government], the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.’

Lately, Meles Zenawi, the dictator-in-chief in Ethiopia, has been beating the drums of war. He charged:

‘Recently, Eritrea is training and deploying Al Shabab and locally grown destructive forces to terrorize our country. But Egypt is the direct force behind these destructive elements that back them. Until now, our strategy has been defending our sovereignty by speeding up our development. Now, we found that we could not go any longer with passive defense. It’s not possible to take passive defense as the only alternative. Therefore, we have to facilitate ways for Eritrean people to remove their dictatorial regime. We have no intention to jump into their country but we need to extend our influence there. If the Eritrean government tries to attack us, we will also respond proportionally.’

In December 2006, Zenawi used the exact same logique de guerre (war logic) at the onset of his unsuccessful 843-day war to dislodge the Islamic Courts Union and crush the Al Shabab in Somalia. He said:

‘With regard to physical attacks or physical acts of the invasion, what has happened since last summer is that the Islamic courts have been training, equipping and smuggling armed opposition elements into Ethiopia. These elements have been engaged in activities of destabilization in Ethiopia. Hundreds of these have been smuggled and they have been involved in clashes with security forces in Ethiopia. To the extent that the Islamic Courts have trained them, equipped them, given them shelter and transported them to the border for smuggling. To that extent, they are directly involved in an act of aggression on Ethiopia. And that has been going since summer. It is still continuing.’

Zenawi asserted the legal doctrine of pre-emptive self-defence (the right to use force in anticipation of an attack, Art. 51, UN Charter) to clothe his naked aggression against Somalia:

‘Ethiopian defence forces were forced to enter into war to protect the sovereignty of the nation. We are not trying to set up a government for Somalia, nor do we have an intention to meddle in Somalia’s internal affairs. We have only been forced by the circumstances.’

In 2009, a humbled Zenawi waxed philosophical and struck a grudgingly conciliatory tone as he ordered his defeated troops out of Somalia:

‘If the people of Somalia have a government, even one not positively inclined to Ethiopia, it would be better than the current situation. Having a stable government in place in Somalia is in our national interests.’

Zenawi now bangs the drums of war and says there will no longer be ‘passive defense’ against the ‘dictatorial regime’ in Eritrea and its Egyptian ‘puppet masters’ who are working in collusion to ‘destabilise’ and ‘terrorise’ Ethiopia.

Since ‘stability’ is the hallmark of Pax Zenawi, one could reasonably ask whether ‘a stable government in place in Eritrea is in our national interest’. The undeniable fact is that Zenawi invaded Somalia to pander to the Bush Administration’s reflexive obsession with terrorism and to deflect criticism for his theft of the 2005 election and the post-election massacre of innocent demonstrators and mass imprisonment of opposition leaders.

Zenawi’s three-year occupation of Somalia created more instability in that country, and the so-called transitional government remains weaker than ever. The very elements Zenawi sought to vanquish in Somalia, including Al Shabab, are today stronger than ever. Somali pirates have become a maritime scourge on the Indian Ocean. Somalia is considerably worse off today than it was before Zenawi’s invasion in 2006.

That invasion created the worst global humanitarian crisis in the first decade of the 21st Century. In the end, Zenawi did not save the Horn from Al Shabab, Al Queida, the Islamic Courts or whatever phantom enemies he was chasing. If Zenawi could not dislodge a ragtag army of ‘terrorists’ from Somalia after three years of all-out war, it is illogical to expect a different result against a well-entrenched ‘dictatorial regime’ in Eritrea.

The fact to keep in mind is that Zenawi is recycling the exact same set of arguments he used to justify his invasion of Somalia. But hidden deep in his justification for war against the ‘dictatorial regime’ in Eritrea and Egypt are a complex set of geopolitical and domestic issues.

At the geopolitical level, Zenawi is floating a trial balloon to see if the Americans will fall for the threat of terrorism. The US will not fall for this again. Obama is neither shopping for war in the Horn nor is he willing to bankroll one. So, there will be no war for regime change in Eritrea or a water war with Egypt.

PATRIOTISM, THE LAST REFUGE OF THE SCOUNDREL

So, what is the real reason for all the talk about regime change in Eritrea and a looming water war with Egypt? It is all political theatre, part of a three-ring propaganda circus intended to distract the Ethiopian population and diaspora critics from talking about the winds of change that will surely blow southward from North Africa. All the talk of war and regime change is bravado intended to cover something that is deeply troubling Zenawi and his ruling class. It is part of a strategy intended to project invincibility and outward confidence that Zenawi still runs the show in Ethiopia and the upheavals taking place in North Africa will not occur under his watch. But all of the pretentious war talk betrays Zenawi’s obvious preoccupation with loss of control and power as a result of a spontaneous popular uprising. Careful analysis of his public statements reveal the deep anxieties and profound political angst of a delusional and isolated man trapped in a siege mentality.

There is substantial psychological literature which suggests that dictators often resort to bombast and self-glorification to cover up their paranoid obsessions. For instance, dictators who are fearful of losing power will project that fear on their opponents as a way of reducing their own anxiety. More to the point, a dictator fearful of regime change will threaten others with regime change just to deal with his own anxieties. The wind-bagging about war is intended to conceal Zenawi’s vulnerabilities from public view and enable him to suppress the psychological discomfort of consciously admitting that he could realistically become a victim of regime change in a popular uprising.

Metaphorically speaking, the constant fear and nightmare of dictators who ride the back of the proverbial tiger is what the tiger will do to them if they stop riding it. As President Kennedy observed, ‘In the past, those who foolishly sought power by riding on the back of the tiger ended up inside.’

Ending up inside the tiger’s belly is what keeps dictators from sleeping at night and war talk during the day. Suffice to say that the winds of change blowing over the Horn from North Africa must be spreading sheer panic about a lurking hungry and angry tiger in the land of ‘thirteen months of sunshine’.

Professor Jerrold Post’s research in leadership trait analysis is particularly instructive in understanding the techniques dictators use to project false confidence, conceal their anxieties about losing power and reassure themselves that they are omnipotent, invincible and untouchable.

Typically, they begin by making grandiose public statements about war and enemies hoping to boost popular support. They magically discover love of country and wrap themselves in the flag and become jingoistic (super-patriotic). They even propose to reverse territorial losses incurred by their country in an attempt to open the floodgates of popular patriotic emotion. They brazenly pander to the population using nationalistic and chauvinistic sensationalism and try to mobilise public support with cheap sentimentality by manufacturing hysteria about imminent attacks, invisible enemies, lurking terrorists, loss of sovereignty and the rest of it.

Every chance they get, they try to trigger paroxysms of public anger against the enemy and inflame public opinion with provocative and outrageously concocted stories designed to make themselves look patriotic and all others unpatriotic. When all else fails, they openly incite fear and hysteria to distract public attention from their crimes and dictatorial rule.

By ‘facilitating ways for Eritrean people to remove their dictatorial regime’, Zenawi hopes to lay a credible groundwork for a just, moral and humanitarian intervention in Eritrea.

But he is only pandering to the Eritrean people by promising to free them from a ‘dictatorship’ just as he pledged to the Somali people four years ago liberation from the clutches of Al Shabab and Al Qaeda terrorists and the Islamic Courts Union. By proposing ‘to extend our influence there’, he is pandering to elements in Ethiopia who still chafe at the secession of Eritrea and generate war hysteria to punish a ‘historic’ enemy.

There is nothing new in this war propaganda game. From the time of the Roman emperors to the present day, the lords of war have played the ‘war card’ and stirred up patriotic fever in the population to cling to power. Over the millennia, the technology of war may have changed but the deceit, ploys, chicanery, treachery and modus operandi of war-makers has remained the same. Dictators, like schoolyard bullies, are experts in the art of taunting, intimidation, bluffing and teasing. They start a war of words and flood their population with lies, fabrications and half-truths. More often than not, the war of words will not amount to much more than declarations of bravado and hyperbolic accusations and recriminations.

Time will show if there will be war or intervention in Eritrea, and a water war with Egypt. We will monitor the rumours of war over the coming weeks and months. We shall listen to the oratory of war and why it is necessary for two of the poorest countries on the planet to slaughter each other twice in less than 15 years. Isn’t the 100,000 deaths of the 1998-2000 Ethio-Eritrea war enough? We shall read the dramatic propaganda narratives to be written to create war fever and observe the war hysteria that will be drummed up to bring more misery and suffering to the unfortunate people of the Horn of Africa. If there is war, we shall see the masses of poor people marching to a war they do not want. But for now, no one needs to lose sleep over that prospect. The only war being waged today by Zenawi is a war of mass distraction.

HOLIER-THAN-THOU DICTATORS

It is the scholarly duty of historians, political scientists, journalists, lawyers and others to throw light on repeated historical patterns of war deception to enhance public understanding, and to debunk and unravel the tangled webs of lies and deceit of the war-makers. Herr Goering said, ‘Voice or no voice the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders.’ Herr Goering is wrong. The people of North Africa are refusing the ‘bidding of their leaders’. Is it unreasonable to suppose that the people of the Horn of Africa will also refuse the ‘bidding of their leaders’ to become cannon fodder for their dictators?

The common people of Ethiopia do not want war. If there is war, it will be Zenawi’s war. Zenawi has done one ‘fantastic Somalia job’. Another fantastic job in Eritrea is not needed. In any case, there needs to be some serious accounting for the war in Somalia in 2006 and the 1998-2000 war with Eritrea before starting a new war in 2011.

The holier-than-thou dictators ought to remind themselves that, ‘The camel cannot see the crookedness of its own neck.’ Before they go all out to remove other regimes, they should contemplate the simple wisdom of the scriptures: ‘You hypocrite! First take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.’ In less sublime terms, ‘people who live in glass houses should not throw stones’.

On the other hand, is it possible that when two elephants fight, the grass could come out as the real winner?

It’s difficult to comment on the situations in Libya and Côte d'Ivoire without sounding like you are in favour of either side. As both crises deepen, the cut and dry actions that underpinned the need for intervention are muddied by significant loss of civilian life and large refugee movements in both countries.

In order to avoid any confusion, however, allow me to categorically state that neither Laurent Gbagbo nor Muammar Ghadaffi are objects of sympathy or support in my view. That said, the US and European governments and agencies that are currently opposing both men and their machines aren’t exactly doing themselves any favours.

For one, there has to be a better way to end the suffering of civilians than bombing them into oblivion. When the insurgency in Libya began to take shape, no one was wringing their hands in fear for Ghaddafi’s legacy, but when the NATO headed military campaign hesitates to apologise for bombing the rebels they nominally support, we have to question what exactly they are fighting for.

Similarly, we accept the legitimacy of the Ouattara government, but we recall that the role of United Nations peacekeeping missions in conflict is to maintain peace and security, and not to support either one of the actors militarily. In a post-Iraq and post-Afghanistan world, have no lessons been drawn about the folly of underestimating the reach of an embattled but determined leader of disorganised but loyal troops? Or should we brace ourselves for more wars that start with a bang and simmer on indefinitely?

One government in particular has been pushing for a more aggressive stance on both crises, which in the context of historical developments may lead one to conclude that there is more at stake here than stability in Libya and Cote d’Ivoire.

The aggressive posturing of the French in both cases is a development of concern to anyone who believes that violence should be a tool of last resort in international diplomacy. In Côte d'Ivoire as in Libya, the French government has been on the forefront of demanding direct military intervention, some would say, without giving diplomacy or discussion a fair try. It was France that struck first in Libya, and as the former colonial power, France remains deeply intertwined with the UN mission in Côte d'Ivoire. More sympathetic observers argue that the aggressive tack is in part due to a desire to avoid a second Rwanda; the more cynical amongst us find it far too coincidental that the increasingly unpopular president, caught underfoot in Tunisia, is pushing for a war with a government that apparently helped finance his presidential campaign and another that has consistently rebuffed his attempts at intervention.

Beyond the curious coincidences, it is no secret that the Sarkozy government has failed to develop a comprehensive foreign policy, especially towards former colonies in Africa. Oscillating between palpable disregard and ersatz sycophancy, the French failure to read the writing on the wall is perhaps the best argument for reform of the UN Security Council, within which some form of consistency is needed for legitimacy. Indeed, Sarkozy set the tone for his country’s policy on Africa in his speech at the University of Dakar in 2007. Fumbling and bumbling his way through addressing the gathered crowd, he finally concluded that ‘the tragedy of Africa is that the African has not fully entered into history…they have never really launched themselves into the future’.

It may be that the belief that Africans had somehow been overlooked by the march of time underpins the Sarkozy government’s inability to read the mood of African people. Perhaps Sarkozy genuinely believes that everything that could be learnt about Africa has already been learnt, and what remains is to mould the continent into a more tolerable image.

This would go some way towards explaining the lack of finesse in the French approach to resolving issues on the continent. The world’s eyes may now be trained on Libya and Côte d'Ivoire, but consider the French conduct towards Chad, where the French government saw no contradiction between selling £11.8 million worth of arms - making Chad the second largest consumer of French military exports - days after negotiating the release of French ‘aid workers’ caught apparently smuggling children out of the country.

Never mind that Idriss Déby (president of Chad) has been implicated in everything from the crisis in Darfur, to brutally suppressing the rebellion seething in Chad, to pulling one of the most remarkable bait-and-switches in history in the construction of and allocation of resources from the Chad-Cameroon pipeline by the World Bank. A more measured approach would have considered the implications of arming a man who has proven time and again that his personal needs outweigh any national concerns, but a Sarkoziste approach only sees a potential ally in a global war for influence or cultural superiority that France has already lost.

To be sure, a concrete foreign policy is no guarantee of good behaviour - look at Obama’s tentative foray into the crisis in Libya. Still, there is some measure of cold comfort in knowing that it is only a matter of time before a US president flies half way around the world to start or extend a war only months after a British prime minister has sold that country a vast cache of weapons.

In contrast, the wild oscillations between interventionism and blatant neglect that characterise the French approach to international relations, worsened by Sarkozy’s own short sightedness and braggadocio, has introduced an unnecessary wild card into international conflict resolution, that seems to be itching for overly aggressive behaviour. Maybe it’s time we heard a little more from Germany or Japan.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* Alemayehu G. Mariam is professor of political science at California State University, San Bernardino.
* Past commentaries of the author are available at The Huffington Post
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

Bolivia enshrines natural world's rights with equal status for Mother Earth

John Vidal

2011-04-14

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/advocacy/72594

Bolivia is set to pass the world's first laws granting all nature equal rights to humans. The Law of Mother Earth, now agreed by politicians and grassroots social groups, redefines the country's rich mineral deposits as 'blessings’ and is expected to lead to radical new conservation and social measures to reduce pollution and control industry.

The country, which has been pilloried by the US and Britain in the UN climate talks for demanding steep carbon emission cuts, will establish 11 new rights for nature. They include: the right to life and to exist; the right to continue vital cycles and processes free from human alteration; the right to pure water and clean air; the right to balance; the right not to be polluted; and the right to not have cellular structure modified or genetically altered.

Controversially, it will also enshrine the right of nature "to not be affected by mega-infrastructure and development projects that affect the balance of ecosystems and the local inhabitant communities".

"It makes world history. Earth is the mother of all", said Vice-President Alvaro García Linera. "It establishes a new relationship between man and nature, the harmony of which must be preserved as a guarantee of its regeneration."

The law, which is part of a complete restructuring of the Bolivian legal system following a change of constitution in 2009, has been heavily influenced by a resurgent indigenous Andean spiritual world view which places the environment and the earth deity known as the Pachamamaat the centre of all life. Humans are considered equal to all other entities.

But the abstract new laws are not expected to stop industry in its tracks. While it is not clear yet what actual protection the new rights will give in court to bugs, insects and ecosystems, the government is expected to establish a ministry of mother earth and to appoint an ombudsman. It is also committed to giving communities new legal powers to monitor and control polluting industries.

Bolivia has long suffered from serious environmental problems from the mining of tin, silver, gold and other raw materials. "Existing laws are not strong enough," said Undarico Pinto, leader of the 3.5m-strong Confederación Sindical Única de Trabajadores Campesinos de Bolivia, the biggest social movement, who helped draft the law. "It will make industry more transparent. It will allow people to regulate industry at national, regional and local levels."

Foreign Minister David Choquehuanca said Bolivia's traditional indigenous respect for the Pachamama was vital to prevent climate change. "Our grandparents taught us that we belong to a big family of plants and animals. We believe that everything in the planet forms part of a big family. We indigenous people can contribute to solving the energy, climate, food and financial crises with our values," he said.

Little opposition is expected to the law being passed because President Evo Morales's ruling party, the Movement Towards Socialism, enjoys a comfortable majority in both houses of parliament.

However, the government must tread a fine line between increased regulation of companies and giving way to the powerful social movements who have pressed for the law. Bolivia earns $500m (£305m) a year from mining companies which provides nearly one third of the country's foreign currency.

In the indigenous philosophy, the Pachamama is a living being.

The draft of the new law states: "She is sacred, fertile and the source of life that feeds and cares for all living beings in her womb. She is in permanent balance, harmony and communication with the cosmos. She is comprised of all ecosystems and living beings, and their self-organisation."

Ecuador, which also has powerful indigenous groups, has changed its constitution to give nature "the right to exist, persist, maintain and regenerate its vital cycles, structure, functions and its processes in evolution". However, the abstract rights have not led to new laws or stopped oil companies from destroying some of the most biologically rich areas of the Amazon.

Coping with climate change

Bolivia is struggling to cope with rising temperatures, melting glaciers and more extreme weather events including more frequent floods, droughts, frosts and mudslides.

Research by glaciologist Edson Ramirez of San Andres University in the capital city, La Paz, suggests temperatures have been rising steadily for 60 years and started to accelerate in 1979. They are now on course to rise a further 3.5-4C over the next 100 years. This would turn much of Bolivia into a desert.

Most glaciers below 5,000m are expected to disappear completely within 20 years, leaving Bolivia with a much smaller ice cap. Scientists say this will lead to a crisis in farming and water shortages in cities such as La Paz and El Alto.

Evo Morales, Latin America's first indigenous president, has become an outspoken critic in the UN of industrialised countries which are not prepared to hold temperatures to a 1C rise.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* This article first appeared in The Guardian.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

Memorandum on Access to Clean and Safe Sanitation Services in the City of Cape Town

To be delivered to Cape Town Mayor, Dan Plato on 27 April 2011

2011-04-12

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/advocacy/72517

'As activists, health professionals, technicians, researchers, lawyers and other individuals and organisations concerned about the adverse consequences of inadequate and poorly maintained sanitation services, we hereby commit to working with local government to ensure that every person living in the City of Cape Town has their right to Basic Sanitation realised.'
Memorandum on Access to Clean and Safe Sanitation Services in the City of Cape Town

To be delivered to Cape Town Mayor, Dan Plato on 27 April 2011

Issued by The Social Justice Coalition

As activists, health professionals, technicians, researchers, lawyers and other individuals and organisations concerned about the adverse consequences of inadequate and poorly maintained sanitation services, we hereby commit to working with local government to ensure that every person living in the City of Cape Town has their right to Basic Sanitation realised.

On a daily basis, men, women and children face a number of challenges – including but not limited to health and safety – in attempts to use toilets or access clean water. We must work together if we are to successfully address this crisis. Sanitation is a local government function. The Social Justice Coalition (SJC) is a Cape Town based movement with members living in Khayelitsha – Cape Town’s most populous informal settlement carrying the burden of crime and ill health. We, the undersigned, call on the City of Cape Town to meet its obligations, as prescribed in the Water Services Act. Let us work together to set a model example in Khayelitsha, and the municipality at large, which can then be replicated elsewhere.

The right to access water, including basic sanitation, is entrenched in the Constitution as well as national and local government legislation. However, the reality is that these rights are violated on a daily basis in informal settlements across the country. Over the past 17 years, the different spheres of government have invested considerable effort to supply approximately 14 million people with access to basic sanitation. However, significantly more effort is needed to eradicate the backlog. Currently there are at least 10.5 million people living without access in South Africa[1], and 500 000 in Cape Town[2]. Improved access will enable more people in South Africa to live more dignified, healthier and safer lives.

According to the City of Cape Town’s review of the 2007-2012 Integrated Development Plan (IDP), approximately 400 000 people have expressed a need for formal housing by placing their names on the City’s housing database. However, the City has funding for and aims to only provide approximately 8500 houses a year. Many informal settlements in Cape Town have existed for more than twenty years without access to basic services such as sanitation. It is apparent that while housing should be an ultimate objective, many informal settlements will exist for many years to come and access to basic services must be expedited. The City’s water and sanitation policies must therefore recognise this reality in its forward planning.

The Water Services Act (Act 108 of 1997) is the primary legal document relating to the provision of water services, and requires the state to ensure that every person has access to basic sanitation. The Act empowers municipalities to undertake their role as water services authorities, and to provide these services. It is the duty of local government to implement a plan to provide basic sanitation.

'Basic Sanitation' is defined in The Strategic Framework for Water, produced by the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry in 2003 as “[t]he infrastructure necessary to provide a sanitation facility which is safe, reliable, private, protected from the weather and ventilated, keeps smells to the minimum, is easy to keep clean, minimises the risk of the spread of sanitation-related diseases by facilitating the appropriate control of disease-carrying flies and pests, and enables safe and appropriate treatment and/or removal of human waste and wastewater in an environmentally sound manner.”

The City of Cape Town continues to provide sanitation technologies in informal settlements that do not meet basic sanitation standards. In many areas of Khayelitsha, the ratio of toilets to dwellings exceeds accepted standards and in other areas, residents are unable to access toilets because they are concentrated in certain sections of the settlement. Pit latrines without ventilation, bucket toilets and container toilets do not qualify as basic sanitation options and must be replaced with alternative systems. While chemical toilets have been a suitable sanitation system, they are expensive and should only be considered temporary and/or emergency options.

The City of Cape Town has not developed a policy that clearly defines the authority and exact roles of various players in the provision and maintenance of sanitation services in informal settlements. As a result of the lack of inter-sectoral collaboration, the flush toilets that are installed in informal settlements are not properly maintained by the City. Breakages which arise as a result of high usage are not repaired timeously. Grey water is often left to gather in wells beneath standpipes for many months before being cleaned, resulting in contamination and unhygienic water sources. Sewerage often flows out of broken manholes and pipes over and around standpipes and through people’s homes. Where monitoring of toilets and water sources does take place, Environmental Health Officers report breakages but do not have the authority to ensure their proper repair. As a result, toilets often remain broken for weeks or months. Collection of solid waste is often irregular, which contributes to poor hygiene conditions, polluted water sources, and blockages in sewerage infrastructure.

A lack of adequate sanitation directly impacts on health. The poor state of toilets and water services in many informal settlements results in a very high prevalence of waterborne diseases, parasites and gastroenteritis of infectious origin – including Hepatitis A and Rotavirus. The latter is one of the leading causes of death for children under five. Although the Metro District Health Services has made a concerted effort to address the high incidence of diarrhoeal disease during the season, through promoting hand washing and other behavioural interventions, vulnerable areas that lack decent water, sanitation and refuse removal continue to experience the greatest burden. Khayelitsha continues to report high levels of diarrhoea in the peak season, despite a strong health promotion, prevention and treatment campaign. Advice on basic food and personal hygiene becomes impossible to follow if the environment is permanently dangerous and unhygienic.

A lack of adequate sanitation directly impacts on personal safety. The SJC’s members have cited a lack of sufficiently clean and safe toilets as being one of the largest risks of being exposed to crime. On an almost daily basis people of all ages and both sexes are robbed, assaulted, raped and murdered whilst walking to the nearest functioning toilet or water source. Households that have been left empty are often burgled whilst residents go the toilet. Khayelitsha has the highest pedestrian fatality rate in the City of Cape Town, partly due to people being hit by cars walking to and from toilets or empty clearings that are located beyond busy roads. Women, children and the elderly are the most vulnerable and easy targets for criminals whilst using a sanitation facility.

We believe that the Constitutional rights to dignity, health, a clean environment and safety are violated by a failure to meet basic sanitation standards. This includes the provision of technologies that do not adhere to norms and standards, but also the failure to include a regular, ongoing and adequate maintenance and monitoring system. Such conditions directly contribute to ill health, threats to safety, exposure to crime, sewerage leaks, spills and/or overflows, and/or the discontinuity of the toilet facility. We believe that it is in everyone’s interest for the City to respond by meeting its human rights obligations for provision of basis services to the community of Khayelitsha.

We therefore call on the City of Cape Town to:

Recognise – as a matter of urgency – the need for the development and implementation of adequate maintenance, monitoring, and coordination of existing sanitation services in Khayelitsha’s informal settlements. The City must develop, within its own structures, effective mechanisms for inter-sectoral coordination so as to ensure that the multiple departments involved in water and sanitation provision and monitoring are able to work together effectively to improve the living conditions of people in Khayelitsha. This will greatly and immediately contribute to improved health and safety.

Initiate a public consultation period during which an implementation plan and budget is developed to ensure that every household in Khayelitsha’s informal settlements has access to a basic sanitation and access to water within an agreed upon timeframe. This would include discussing which technologies currently being utilised do not meet Basic Sanitation standards and how to replace them. We, the undersigned, hereby offer assistance in any consultation process established to address the above challenges.

Issued by The Social Justice Coalition

Endorsed by:

[1] Department of Water Affairs; http://www.dwa.gov.za/dir_ws/wsnis/default.asp?nStn=introduction, 25 August 2010.

[2] Water Dialogues (2010)

Palestine: Faith under circumstances of gross injustice

Kairos Southern Africa

2011-04-14

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/advocacy/72558

The Palestine Kairos Document was launched on Monday evening 4 April 2011, at a meeting of Kairos Southern Africa in Bredell near Johannesburg. The document is called: ‘A moment of truth – A word of faith, hope and love from the heart of the Palestine suffering.’

The notion of a Palestine Kairos Document was inspired by the South African Kairos Document as a Christian testimony of faith during the dark and last days of apartheid. Palestinian lay people, theologians and church leaders came together to express a testimony of faith in relation to their experience under the occupation of Palestine by Israel.

In response to the message of the Palestine Kairos Document, Christians from South Africa and countries in Southern Africa gathering at the conference decided to state the following:

We fully honour this faith commitment and courageous witness as expressed by Christian brothers and sisters in Palestine. This testimony of faith, hope and love is a profound expression of Christian faith under circumstances of gross injustice.

We feel seriously challenged by the Palestinian witness of faith in general as well as by their Kairos document and consequently we:

• Affirm with the Palestinians that the core of the “conflict” between Israel and Palestine is the occupation of Palestine by Israel. We affirm with them that the occupation of Palestine is a fundamental evil to be resisted as an obligation of faith. Moreover, we also consider the Christian theological justification of this occupation based on Zionism as a heresy. We have to deal with our own complicity towards putting the credibility and integrity of the Christian gospel at stake in the Holy Lands. We will have to challenge our own reading of the Bible in lending support to the death and destruction in Palestine today. Consider the Zionist ideology as racist. Furthermore we consider the State of Israel to be an apartheid state. For South Africans, the similarities between the situation faced by Palestinians and the situation faced by us under apartheid are clear, striking and extremely painful.
• Accept our complicity to the injustices suffered by Palestinians albeit through widespread ignorance, silence and apathy in our society.
• Will challenge our society, government, political parties, businesses community, civil society, and indeed the churches and the Christian community in general about their complicity regarding this. Stand in solidarity with Palestinians in their commitment towards non-violent resistance against the occupation. We support the call towards boycotts, divestments and sanctions (BDS) against the Israeli government. promote an ethical code of conduct about pilgrimages and other tours to the Holy lands. We are concerned that, as things stand now, such tours obscure the present-day realities in Palestine under the Israeli occupation.

Just as the white community in general and supporters of South African apartheid locally and abroad were challenged to change, we also challenge the conscience of all who support the Israeli occupation of Palestine. This change is possible.

Whilst we reject the racially exclusive solution of Zionism to the holy land, we pray for an inclusive and just peace where the dignity and equality of all the inhabitants are upheld.

On behalf of Kairos Southern Africa
Rev. Moss Nthla
Chairperson

For further information please contact:
Stiaan van der Merwe 0825746201

Visit: www.palestinekairos.ps

Cancel treaties with Eritrean dictator Iseyas Afewerki

Appeal to the Italian government

Comitato per la solidarietà con i popoli del nord Africa in rivolta

2011-04-14

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/advocacy/72567

A day doesn’t go by without news of the recovery of dozens or even hundreds of dead bodies of refugees/immigrants fleeing from countries ruled by dictators and trying to reach the island of Lampedusa on rickety boats. Many of them came from Eritrea, a country that has been dubbed “an open pit gulag” ruled for the past twenty years by Iseyas Afewerki, a despot who has the dubious honor of being named the most vicious dictator of the whole of Africa. Among the numerous injustices and abuses that plague that country and have been reported by human rights organizations one should mention the sawa, i.e., forced indefinite conscription, the persecution of dissidents and journalists, the total lack of freedom of the press, and the persecution of religious minorities. On the foreign policy front, the UN has imposed sanctions “an arms embargo against Eritrea, which has been accused of supporting Islamist militias in Somalia”.

Mainly it is the youth who are escaping from Eritrea, in search of a better life and dignity. In the majority of cases these attempted escapes are intercepted by the regime’s police and the young people are sentenced to the “open pit gulags” where they are subjected to every imaginable form of torture. In other cases, when they contact human traffickers to help them escape, they often become victims of blackmail and kidnappings, as was the case for the 80 Eritreans who are still held by desert marauders in the Sinai desert after their capture in July of last year. They are still in chains and will be released only after each of them pays an 8000 dollar ransom.

The bodies filling what has been dubbed “the Mediterranean cemetery” belong to the “lucky ones” who managed to escape the gulags, crossed the whole of the Sudanese desert, and were able with great difficulty to reach Libya (the documentary “Like a Man on Earth” provides a dramatic testimony of these trips). Typically, there they were faced with yet another challenge, meaning, trying to escape Gheddafi’s henchmen and then board a rickety boat directed to Lampedusa.

When the conflict erupted in Libya, first the revolts, then the air raids by Western powers, the young Eritreans were faced with additional problems, such as:

1. Escape the air raids;
2. Hide so as not to be mistaken, because of their black skin, for Gheddafi’s mercenaries from Subsaharan countries;
3. Avoid being captured by Libyan rebels, who are aware that Iseyas sent between 200-300 Eritrean troops to support his friend Gheddafi.

Thus, one must recognize how unlucky these young people were, considering that they had overcome so many challenges just to end up drowning on the last leg of their journey towards Lampedusa. And the more shameful the responsibility and complicity of Western countries, especially Italy. Just like it did with Gheddafi, Italy signed several economic treaties with Iseyas Afewerki, obtaining favorable conditions based on the cheap, slave labor provided by the young men interned in the gulags and starving peasants. We can consider ourselves fully complicit in the misfortunes of these young Eritrean over the whole range of their vicissitudes. First because our country supports the Eritrean dictator, then because it supports Gheddafi and its “gendarme of the Mediterranean” policies preventing the refugees from reaching Italy via the sea. We are responsible for the practice of “respingimenti”, at-sea-deportations carried out by the Italian Coast Guard for refugee boats in the Sicilian Channel, not to speak of the detention in special jails called “Centers for Identification and Expulsion” of Eritreans caught undocumented on Italian soil.

If we want to draw any lesson from the whole Libya debacle, we are still in time to appeal to our government to cancel the treaties with Iseyas Afewerki, thus breaking the first link in the chain of misfortunes that befall young Eritreans. We are also called to act on all the other links, meaning struggle for their right to be granted political asylum in Italy, a country that ranks last in Europe for the number of applicants who are granted refugee status. We are called to struggle against the Bossi-Fini law and the emergency law packet, which are the basis for turning an undocumented status into a crime in itself, the practice of at-sea-deportations and the special detention centers (Cie).

Considering the historical ties that unite Italy and Eritrea, its former colony, it is essential that all those who care about human rights understand the importance of acting in a timely manner at the political level by pressuring our government to act in such a way as to promote real change in Eritrea, and the restoration of basic democratic rights such as free elections, a multi-party set up, universal suffrage, etc. There is no doubt that this is the time to act, to avoid more dead bodies turning up in the Mediterranean, before more Eritrean blood be spilled because, unlike most f its neighboring countries in North Africa and the Middle East where revolts have taken place, it is next to impossible for the Eritrean people to rebel, on account of the tight hold the dictatorship has on the country.

Without the shadow of a doubt, Italy will be forced to reckon with the situation and pay a high price - in economic, terms, as far as its image internationally, in terms of conscience and conflict- if it does not face the picture described above at its point of origin. If it fails to do so, these damned of the earth shall continue to persecute our consciences.

We ask you to sign this appeal which will be delivered to Italian Secretary of the Interior, Roberto Maroni and to Secretary of State, Franco Frattini.

Comitato per la solidarietà con i popoli del nord Africa in rivolta
(Committe for solidarity with the peoples of North Africa rising up)
For information contact:
Hamid Barole Abdu: 339.5919387
Pina Piccolo: 338.6268250
Patricia Quezada: 339.1923429

Open letter to President Barack Obama on the crisis in Libya

National Conference of Black Lawyers

2011-04-14

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/advocacy/72569

Dear President Obama:

In 2002 you made the following statement: “I don’t oppose all wars. What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war.” As Commander-in-Chief of U.S. military forces you ordered use of force against the sovereign state of Libya, and there are many who are asking whether you commenced an armed conflict of the very kind that you condemned in 2002.

The framers of the Constitution and the Congress established guidelines for use of the military that are designed precisely for the prevention of rash, ill-advised wars. Article I, Sec. 8 of the Constitution gives the power to declare war solely to the Congress. Recognizing that there are occasions when use of the military is necessary in the absence of a formal declaration of war, Congress passed the War Powers Resolution. That resolution gives a President the authority to use the military under only three very specific circumstances: (a) when the Congress has declared war; (b) when there is specific statutory authorization to use the armed forces; or ( c ) when the U.S. has been attacked.

In the case of Libya, Congress neither declared war nor passed legislation giving you authority to use force in that country. That means that the only circumstance that could have given you authority for your actions would have been an attack of some kind against the U.S., its territories or possessions, or its armed forces. To our knowledge, the U.S. was in no way attacked before you ordered attacks on Libya’s soldiers and weaponry. Consequently, there was no lawful basis for commencing a military campaign in that country.

United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973 has frequently been cited as justification for your actions. It calls for a no-fly zone, an asset freeze and other measures intended to “protect civilians and civilian populations under threat of attack” by the Libyan government “while excluding a foreign occupation force of any form on any part of Libyan territory.” We object strongly to any suggestion that this can in any way be regarded as a substitute for Constitutional and Congressional guidelines for use of force. Nevertheless, we believe it is worth noting that even if Resolution 1973 were a legitimate basis for U.S. military action, this Resolution is limited in its scope, and it does not, in either its letter or spirit, suggest that the Libyan crisis can or should be addressed solely by military means.

Specifically, the Resolution: “[s]tresses the need to intensify efforts to find a solution to the crisis which responds to the legitimate demands of the Libyan people and notes the decisions of the Secretary-General to send his Special Envoy to Libya and of the Peace and Security Council of the African Union to send its ad hoc High-Level Committee to Libya with the aim of facilitating dialogue to lead to the political reforms necessary to find a peaceful and sustainable solution.” (emphasis added)

The absence to date of any significant U.S. attempts to engage in dialogue, along with your own rhetoric that demands that “Qaddaffi must go” all prompt reasonable conclusions that U.S. objectives extend well beyond the protection of civilians, and may well be focused on what has become popularly referred to as “regime change.” If that is the case, we are compelled to urge that you not cherry-pick those institutional aspects of the U.N. that you believe will support such an agenda. The U.N. Charter stresses the importance of: self-determination [Art.1(2)]; peaceful settlement of disputes [Art. 2(3)]; and a duty to refrain from use of threats or “use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state...” [Art. 2(4)].

Finally, we must remind you that your actions do not occur in a vacuum. The U.S. and other western countries have a long, shameful history of imperial intervention and domination of countries in Africa and in other underdeveloped regions. Whatever your objectives may be in Libya, they are considered against that historical backdrop. In the interest of respecting the rights of the people of that country to determine their own destiny, we urge in the strongest terms that you respect the rule of law as you address the challenges presented by the Libyan conflict.

The National Conference of Black Lawyers (NCBL) thanks you for considering our thoughts on this matter, and we will remain available to respond to any of your concerns or questions.

Sincerely,

Mark P. Fancher, Coordinator
NCBL AFRICOM Task Force

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* Mark P. Fancher is coordinator of the National Conference of Black Lawyers AFRICOM Task Force.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

Violations and abuses of academic freedom in Malawi

International colloquium for Thandika Mkandawire postponed

CODESRIA

2011-04-14

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/advocacy/72577

There is no better place than Malawi to hold such a colloquium organised in celebration of the life and works of Professor Mkandawire. There is also no better institutional partner with which CODESRIA can organize this colloquium than the University of Malawi. However, the recent gross violations of academic freedom at the University of Malawi give reason to CODESRIA to postpone the colloquium, until such a time when our Malawian colleagues feel less threatened in the exercise of their rights as scholars and the enjoyment of the freedom of research and expression, without fear of being persecuted because of their ideas.

One of the African countries where the democratic revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt have both galvanized the social movements for the deepening of democracy and provoked authoritarian, knee-jack reactions from the State and from the authorities of the main University, is Malawi. The Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa, CODESRIA, and indeed, the entire African intellectual community, have been closely following events in Malawi, where threats, intimidation and dismissals of academic staff members of the University of Malawi, are becoming too frequent. One recent victim of these threats and intimidations is Dr. Blessing Chinsinga, Associate Professor in the Department of Political and Administrative Studies at Chancellor College, University of Malawi (UNIMA). Dr. Chinsinga was summoned to the Zomba Police station for interrogation over the contents of one of his class lectures in which he gave examples of reasons for popular protest taken from Egypt and Tunisia. He was subsequently dismissed. So were Chancellor College Academic Staff Union president Dr. Jessie Kabwila-Kapasula, her Secretary General Franz Amin and legal advisor Dr. Garton Kamchedzera on Wednesday 30th March 2011. Fortunately, the decision to sack these colleagues was set aside by the Malawian courts. The threats and dismissals of academic staff of UNIMA constitute gross violations of academic freedom, and a violation of several dispositions of the Constitution of the Republic of Malawi, which inter alia provides for academic freedom.

CODESRIA is a pan African organization that promotes academic freedom, which is part and parcel of the struggle for democracy and social justice. CODESRIA has therefore has been monitoring the contradictory developments in Africa since the beginning of this year very closely. Indeed, the year 2011 will go down in history as a year when Africa would have displayed both the most beautiful and the ugliest of its faces. The “Jasmin Revolution” in Tunisia and the fall of dictatorships in Tunisia and Egypt as a result of the relentless popular struggles for democracy, jobs and better living conditions have made the promise of democracy much more real in Africa. On the other hand, the crisis in Cote d’Ivoire, the massacres perpetrated by the Libyan Guide Momar Qhadafi and the bombings by NATO are reminiscent of some of the darkest pages of Africa’s history. During the World Social Forum held in Dakar in February this year, CODESRIA, the Third World Forum, and ENDA Third World jointly organized eleven (11) roundtable discussions on some of the greatest challenges facing Africa and, more generally, the Global South, with panelists drawn from all across the South and from Europe. The democratic revolutions unfolding in Tunisia and Egypt, and the crisis in Cote d’Ivoire were among the issues discussed at length.

CODESRIA struggles for the rights of African academics and researchers, and for all Africans to have better living and working conditions without any externally imposed restrictions. This means not only decent conditions of work and an environment conducive for research on campus, but also the freedom of research and the freedom of academics to express their thoughts and conduct teaching and research activities on topics of their choice. Therefore CODESRIA cannot remain indifferent to threats and intimidation acts perpetrated against members of the academic and the larger intellectual communities. Such silence would be contrary to the principles of academic freedom and solidarity that CODESRIA has been fighting for since its inception in 1973. No modern university can properly function, let alone develop under close police surveillance. Dr Chinsinga’s class was infiltrated by informants hired by the Malawian state police, a practice renascent of the worst days of the Kamuzu Banda Dictatorship.

In recognition of his contribution to the development of CODESRIA and to the advancement of knowledge production in Africa and around the world, CODESRIA was about to holde an international colloquium in honour of one of the greatest African scholars, the Malawian born Professor Thandika Mkandawire. This event, organised by CODESRIA in collaboration with the University of Malawi, and the South African based Intellectual Heritage Project, was scheduled to take place in his home country Malawi on 2-4 May 2011. Prof. Mkandawire is currently a professor at the London School of Economics, after having spent many years as the Director of UNRISD in Geneva (1998-2009) and Executive Secretary of CODESRIA (1985-1996). He celebrated his 70th birthday in October last year. For someone who has been such a remarkable friend, mentor, inspiration, vigorous interlocutor, one who shared in our tribulations and triumphs, to use the late Archie Mafeje’s phrase, the occasion is not merely an anniversary of the birthday of an individual; it is gives us an opportunity to celebrate a community, that is as global as it is African. His 70th birthday is a milestone that we would like to turn into a collective celebration of a life; that of someone who has been a veritable gift to us as individuals and as a community.

There is no better place than Malawi to hold such a colloquium organised in celebration of the life and works of Professor Mkandawire. There is also no better institutional partner with which CODESRIA can organize this colloquium than the University of Malawi. However, the recent gross violations of academic freedom at the University of Malawi give reason to CODESRIA to postpone the colloquium, until such a time when our Malawian colleagues feel less threatened in the exercise of their rights as scholars and the enjoyment of the freedom of research and expression, without fear of being persecuted because of their ideas.

Furthermore, CODESRIA and the entire community of African social researchers would like to appeal to the Government of Malawi to take urgent steps to reinstate the academic staff of UNIMA who have been dismissed, ensure that academic freedom is respected and guaranteed, in compliance with the Constitution of Malawi, and respond positively to the demand of the Chancellor College Academic Staff to assure them in writing that no such actions shall be repeated by any official authority, or agent connected with the office of the Police. We hope the Council of the University of Malawi would also refrain from practices that make the academic staff of the university feel insecure. Lastly, CODESRIA wishes to assure our Malawian colleagues of our solidarity with them in their struggle to make UNIMA a thriving centre of excellence in teaching and research and knowledge production dissemination that is university heavily involved in the development of Malawi and of the African continent.

Statement issued in Dakar, on 8 April 2011.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

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

How do you solve a problem like Sarkozy?

H. Nanjala Nyabola

2011-04-12

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/panafrican/72525

It’s difficult to comment on the situations in Libya and Côte d'Ivoire without sounding like you are in favour of either side. As both crises deepen, the cut and dry actions that underpinned the need for intervention are muddied by significant loss of civilian life and large refugee movements in both countries.

In order to avoid any confusion, however, allow me to categorically state that neither Laurent Gbagbo nor Muammar Ghadaffi are objects of sympathy or support in my view. That said, the US and European governments and agencies that are currently opposing both men and their machines aren’t exactly doing themselves any favours.

For one, there has to be a better way to end the suffering of civilians than bombing them into oblivion. When the insurgency in Libya began to take shape, no one was wringing their hands in fear for Ghaddafi’s legacy, but when the NATO headed military campaign hesitates to apologise for bombing the rebels they nominally support, we have to question what exactly they are fighting for.

Similarly, we accept the legitimacy of the Ouattara government, but we recall that the role of United Nations peacekeeping missions in conflict is to maintain peace and security, and not to support either one of the actors militarily. In a post-Iraq and post-Afghanistan world, have no lessons been drawn about the folly of underestimating the reach of an embattled but determined leader of disorganised but loyal troops? Or should we brace ourselves for more wars that start with a bang and simmer on indefinitely?

One government in particular has been pushing for a more aggressive stance on both crises, which in the context of historical developments may lead one to conclude that there is more at stake here than stability in Libya and Cote d’Ivoire.

The aggressive posturing of the French in both cases is a development of concern to anyone who believes that violence should be a tool of last resort in international diplomacy. In Côte d'Ivoire as in Libya, the French government has been on the forefront of demanding direct military intervention, some would say, without giving diplomacy or discussion a fair try. It was France that struck first in Libya, and as the former colonial power, France remains deeply intertwined with the UN mission in Côte d'Ivoire. More sympathetic observers argue that the aggressive tack is in part due to a desire to avoid a second Rwanda; the more cynical amongst us find it far too coincidental that the increasingly unpopular president, caught underfoot in Tunisia, is pushing for a war with a government that apparently helped finance his presidential campaign and another that has consistently rebuffed his attempts at intervention.

Beyond the curious coincidences, it is no secret that the Sarkozy government has failed to develop a comprehensive foreign policy, especially towards former colonies in Africa. Oscillating between palpable disregard and ersatz sycophancy, the French failure to read the writing on the wall is perhaps the best argument for reform of the UN Security Council, within which some form of consistency is needed for legitimacy. Indeed, Sarkozy set the tone for his country’s policy on Africa in his speech at the University of Dakar in 2007. Fumbling and bumbling his way through addressing the gathered crowd, he finally concluded that ‘the tragedy of Africa is that the African has not fully entered into history…they have never really launched themselves into the future’.

It may be that the belief that Africans had somehow been overlooked by the march of time underpins the Sarkozy government’s inability to read the mood of African people. Perhaps Sarkozy genuinely believes that everything that could be learnt about Africa has already been learnt, and what remains is to mould the continent into a more tolerable image.

This would go some way towards explaining the lack of finesse in the French approach to resolving issues on the continent. The world’s eyes may now be trained on Libya and Côte d'Ivoire, but consider the French conduct towards Chad, where the French government saw no contradiction between selling £11.8 million worth of arms - making Chad the second largest consumer of French military exports - days after negotiating the release of French ‘aid workers’ caught apparently smuggling children out of the country.

Never mind that Idriss Déby (president of Chad) has been implicated in everything from the crisis in Darfur, to brutally suppressing the rebellion seething in Chad, to pulling one of the most remarkable bait-and-switches in history in the construction of and allocation of resources from the Chad-Cameroon pipeline by the World Bank. A more measured approach would have considered the implications of arming a man who has proven time and again that his personal needs outweigh any national concerns, but a Sarkoziste approach only sees a potential ally in a global war for influence or cultural superiority that France has already lost.

To be sure, a concrete foreign policy is no guarantee of good behaviour - look at Obama’s tentative foray into the crisis in Libya. Still, there is some measure of cold comfort in knowing that it is only a matter of time before a US president flies half way around the world to start or extend a war only months after a British prime minister has sold that country a vast cache of weapons.

In contrast, the wild oscillations between interventionism and blatant neglect that characterise the French approach to international relations, worsened by Sarkozy’s own short sightedness and braggadocio, has introduced an unnecessary wild card into international conflict resolution, that seems to be itching for overly aggressive behaviour. Maybe it’s time we heard a little more from Germany or Japan.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

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

Will the Eagle soar?: A Nigerian television classic?

Okello Oculi

2011-04-12

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/books/72526

On Sunday, 20 Match 2011, the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) broadcast the first of ten one-hour documentaries made by Ms. Debrah Ogazuma, winner of the 1991 edition of the Union of National Radio and Television Organisations of Africa (URTNA) ‘Nelson Mandela Prize for Television Drama’. She is also known for an epic NTA production of 43 weekly episodes of ‘Magana Jari Ce’, an adaptation of Abubakar Imam’s book of tales.

‘Will The Eagle Soar?’ was telecast back-to-back for ten days in a row.
The television documentary was shot in six African countries and the home-country Nigeria. With its focus on the vital role that must be played by Africa’s women if the continent is to achieve development in each country, Ogazuma interviewed women and men politicians, top government officials and female university students in Kenya, South Africa, Uganda, Rwanda, Liberia, Ghana and Nigeria.

The eagle is Nigeria’s national bird, and its brilliant animation by computer artist Wale Olaiya carries on its combative head a narrative that runs through each episode of the documentary. Shown as ever resolute and, at one point, even dropping a sweat as it struggles to take off into flight, the lame one-winged and desperate bird (whose lone tool of flight has pictures of Nigerian men engraved into it), repeatedly falls on its back. That drama is given angry meaning by Senator Patricia Akwashiki - who is seeking re-election by her constituency in Nasarawa State in central Nigeria - when she angrily proclaims that Nigeria’s male-dominated political and economic system will continue to crash and fail to take-off so long as women do not achieve equity.

With a rich script reflecting voices of Mau Mau freedom fighter Muthoni Likimani in Nairobi, Kenya; legendary teacher Sarah Ntiru in Uganda’s capital Kampala; Professor Bolanle Awe, Ambassador Judith Attah and Professor Felicia Ogunsheye from Nigeria; Queen Mother of Efutu and Krontihemaa of Oguaa of Ghana’s Cape Coast, the documentary celebrates authoritative voices of Africa’s pioneer post-colonial generation of women intellectuals.

The current generation of women articulate victories won by women in the alleys of power through political struggle and enlightened constitutional provisions. Other voices reveal a rich undergrowth of combative insights about women’s aspirations for their own and Africa’s progress that has a most educative commonality across the continent.

Explaining to me, in an interview in Abuja, her use of Fatima Abbas- Hassan as the series’ narrator, Ogazuma says: ‘It was as if the script was made for her. Her voice is so many things: authoritative, probing, and sonorous; and invites you to objectively analyse the issues.’

Fatima’s voice, the director of the documentary says, ‘does not at all give the impression that you will not agree with her, will not accept her position; she tells you that you and her are going along on this exploratory journey; and, somehow, she does not provoke a rebellion in you.’

Ogazuma, who wrote the script, sees her own background in drama productions as enabling Fatima Abbas-Hassan’s narration to engage viewers, while ‘the scripting style and the dialogue of characters that speak are all one movement’. With an obvious satisfaction, she says, ‘I want to believe that it is bringing the Brechtian style of drama in which the viewer is invited to critically analyse what is going on.’

The documentary, funded by Amina Az-Zubair as presidential assistant on Millennium Development Goals, through Nigeria’s Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development, has a distinctly Nigerian focus. According to Ogazuma, its message is ‘to let us (Nigerians/Africans) see what other countries in our own region are doing. Nigerians are supposed to benefit from what other African countries are doing, what their experiences are, where there are shared experiences, what are the ways in which these experiences have been creatively applied to solving problems, helping the women and the countries to grow, develop.’

Ogazuma is expected to visit African countries to speak about the documentary series.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

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

From Gbagbo to Mugbagbe

Gado

2011-04-14

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/cartoons/72596

Gbagbo swears before the courts...

Gado

2011-04-14

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/cartoons/72595

Zimbabwe: Badly beaten MDC vice chair finally released

2011-04-14

http://www.swradioafrica.com/news130411/badlybeaten130411.htm

Shakespeare Mukoyi was released on free bail on Tuesday (12 April). The MDC Harare province vice chairperson was arrested and beaten by police, who crushed a prayer for peace church service on Saturday in Glen Norah. Mukoyi was brutally assaulted by police in the church building and denied access to medication after an X-ray examination which showed the need for urgent treatment. Police took him to Harare Hospital during the evening where he was attended to briefly. He was however unceremoniously seized from the hospital and re-detained at Harare Central Police Station.

Zimbabwe: Court orders halt to grave exhumations

2011-04-12

http://mg.co.za/article/2011-04-08-court-orders-halt-to-zimbabwe-grave-exhumations/

A court has ordered militant supporters of Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe to stop exhuming hundreds of skeletons they say were the victims of colonial-era massacres. The judge said the exhumations violated all international protocols on investigating suspected human rights violations and amounted to 'interference or tampering with crime scenes'.

Zimbabwe: Mourners attacked

2011-04-12

http://www.iol.co.za:80/news/africa/mourners-attacked-in-zimbabwe-1.1053890

The party of Zimbabwe’s prime minister said on Thursday (07 April) that 14 people were hurt after youths attacked scores of mourners at a memorial service. The ceremony was being held to remember four party activists slain during the election violence in 2008. An independent Christian group known as Heal Zimbabwe Trust organised the ceremony. It has held services for victims of political violence across the country since the 2008 poll.

Zimbabwe: SADC leaders finally corner Mugabe

2011-04-11

http://www.africareview.com/Special+Reports/-/979182/1140374/-/10u6clqz/-/index.html

Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe could be plotting his own downfall by attacking regional leaders who have in the past shielded him against mounting world pressure to leave office. President Mugabe last week appeared to be taking badly a mini SADC summit that encouraged him to respect the power sharing deal. He was also told to stop politically motivated violence, end the arrest of his opponents and follow a roadmap for fresh elections backed by the regional body. The veteran ruler appeared stunned by the rebuke.

Global: Export Processing Zones and women

2011-04-18

http://www.wilpfinternational.org/economicjustice/EPZ/epzindex.html

Export Processing Zones are increasingly used as a governmental strategy to promote exports. Many of the workers in EPZs are women, who are considered flexible labour that can be paid lower wages than men. Women in EPZs suffer from additional forms of discrimination including sexual harassment, fewer opportunities for career development and no maternal protections (including layoffs as a result of pregnancy).

Global: Gender, IFIs, and the global food crisis

2011-04-18

http://www.genderaction.org/publications/fdsec/primer.pdf

In March 2011, The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) Food Price Index, which tracks the price of 55 food commodities for export, rose for the ninth consecutive month. The index has now reached its highest level in both nominal and real terms since the inception of the index in 1990 (FAO, 2011). While higher food prices have benefited food corporations, they have contributed to a stark increase in poverty in developing countries. A recent World Bank (WB) report revealed that an additional 44 million people have been forced into poverty due to the drastic rise in food prices since June 2010 (WB, 2011). Having already surpassed the levels witnessed during the 2008 food crisis, the recent upsurge in food prices suggests that yet another food crisis has struck poor women, men, girls and boys.

Global: Realising sexual and reproductive justice

2011-04-18

http://www.pambazuka.org//images/articles/525/RESURJ.pdf

The 'Realizing Sexual and Reproductive Justice (RESURJ)' alliance is an international alliance of feminist activists seeking full implementation of international commitments to secure all women's and young people's sexual and reproductive rights and health by 2015. 'RESURJ by 2015' is a 10-point action agenda that places women's and young people's human rights, particularly sexual and reproductive rights, participation in decision-making, and accountability at the center of health programs and development efforts. Click on the link to read more.

Kenyan Woman Issue 16

2011-04-14

http://www.awcfs.org/new/component/content/article/3-newsflash/848-kenyan-woman-issue-16-

The latest issue of the Kenyan Woman is available. Highlights of this issue include:
- In a state of stagnation: wrangles have derailed the constitution implementation process in Kenya.
- Employers told to embrace affirmative action.
- Linah Kilimo, a fighter who wears the FGM Eradication belt.
- Men fighting for women’s rights.

South Africa: Strengthening women's participation in local governance

2011-04-14

http://www.gsdrc.org/go/display&type=Document&id=4041

To what extent do South Africa's municipal participation mechanisms enable meaningful engagement in development planning and local governance by poor or marginalised women? What interventions or alternative approaches are required? This article, 'Strengthening Women's Participation in Local Governance: Lessons and Strategies', from the Community Development Journal, finds a disconnect between women's experience and knowledge and state policy and programmatic responses. It proposes the creation of women-only forums, supported by training, to enable women to develop recommendations.

Equatorial Guinea: US state department documents ongoing abuses

2011-04-13

http://www.egjustice.org/?q=us-state-department-documents-ongoing-abuses-equatorial-guinea

A new report released by the US Department of State documents the ongoing violation of human rights and basic freedoms by the government of Equatorial Guinea against its citizens, the group EG Justice has said. The report’s findings strongly contradict the Equatoguinean government’s claim that it has 'turned the page' and disassociated itself from the abuses that have marred the country for decades, EG Justice says.

Kenya: Activists denied Uganda entry

2011-04-13

http://www.nation.co.ke/News/-/1056/1143624/-/10yf37dz/-/index.html

A group of human rights activists led by Kenya National Commission on Human Rights commissioner Hassan Omar have been denied entry into Uganda. The four were detained at Entebbe Airport by immigration officials despite having secured an appointment with the Ugandan Chief Justice over the continued detention of activist Al-Amin Kimathi.

Malawi: Ngoma in hiding after threats

2011-04-13

http://www.ansa-africa.net/index.php/views/news_view/malawi_ngoma_in_hiding_after_threats/

The personal security noose seems to be tightening on Malawi’s civil society leaders, with Dorothy Ngoma, who has fled her home after receiving threats, being the latest target. Ngoma, who is executive director of the National Organisation of Nurses and Midwives, said she suspected the cause of the threats could be rooted in her close association with activist Undule Mwakasungula, executive director of the Centre for Human Rights and Rehabilitation (CHRR) - whose offices were attacked last month.

South Africa: Footage reveals abuse in Kimberley prison

2011-04-12

http://www.youtube.com/user/MGOnlineVideo

South Africa's the Mail&Guardian newspaper has obtained access to surveillance footage taken inside the Kimberley Prison, showing beatings and the humiliation of prisoners at the hands of warders. Visit their Youtube page to view the footage.

South Africa: Protestor beaten to death

2011-04-14

http://www.iol.co.za/capeargus/we-saw-our-friend-die-1.1056750

The man who died after being beaten by police at a service delivery protest in Ficksburg was trying to help an elderly man when he was attacked. The brutal beating and shooting of Ficksburg resident Andries Tatane, 33, was screened to millions of South Africans last night on SABC News. The footage showed police officers cornering him during the protests in the Free State, and then several police officers beating him with batons.

South Africa: SABC footage shows beating of protestor

2011-04-14

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IiZ-ehzZRCM

This footage from the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) posted to www.youtube.com shows the beating of a protestor during a protest in Ficksburg in the eastern Free State.

South Africa: Six cops in court for protestor death

2011-04-18

http://mg.co.za/article/2011-04-18-six-cops-due-in-court-for-tatane-murder/

Ficksburg Magistrate's Court on Monday (18 April) for the death of protester Andries Tatane. Outside the court on Monday morning, a few police cars had arrived in anticipation of the appearance of the men from the public order police unit in Bloemfontein.

Africa: Israeli town rallies against African refugees

2011-04-18

http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/features/2011/04/2011412102514350535.html

In Eilat, the small city in Israel, refugees find their children barred from municipal schools. And in a move that has alarmed both human rights organisations and the local branch of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the municipality has hung red flags throughout the city as part of a municipal campaign against African migrants - initiated by employees of the state of Israel and financed with public funds.

Côte d'Ivoire: UN protection needed for displaced, says UN

2011-04-14

http://bit.ly/faKvta

The UN mission in Côte d'Ivoire (UNOCI) must protect the tens of thousands of civilians displaced by the conflict who wish to return to their home villages but are afraid to do so, Amnesty International has said. 'Thousands of people are hiding in the bush in life threatening conditions and without any proper food or sanitation. They need to be reassured and to be allowed to return to their homes,' said Gaëtan Mootoo, Amnesty’s Côte d’Ivoire researcher who is currently in the west of the country.

DRC: Some 162,620 African refugees live in DRC

2011-04-18

http://bit.ly/gWPDHi

About 162,520 refugees from various African countries are residing in DRC, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (HCR) said. An estimated 79,626 Angolans are by far the largest number of refugees in the country, followed by Rwandans and Burundians who number 67,707 and 11,259 respectively. Ugandans are the lowest number, 16, behind the Central African Republic, estimated at 700 refugees.

Libya: Displaced once again

2011-04-14

http://bit.ly/e5woVe

'My father died when I was three years old. Armed bandits killed him one evening as he was coming home. Every night I remember this scene before falling asleep,' says Mariam Ibrahim, a 20-year-old Somali who grew up amid civil war. Mariam is one of 170,000 refugees of the Libyan conflict who were able to cross the Tunisian-Libyan border. She was nine months pregnant when she arrived in Choucha refugee camp accompanied by her husband. Mariam has since given birth to her first child, a girl, in a tent set up by the Red Crescent.

Libya: Exodus shrinks remittances

2011-04-13

http://ipsnews.net/newsTVE.asp?idnews=55236

The exodus of migrants streaming out of Libya due to ongoing unrest has highlighted the heavy dependence of some countries on remittances from their citizens working abroad. In several countries this flow has now become choked. 'With thousands returning home the economic impact of the unrest in Libya is that remittances will be reduced,' Dr. Mizanur Rahman, economist and research fellow at the National University of Singapore told IPS. Recent World Bank statistics indicate that developing countries got more than 325 billion dollars last year from migrant worker remittances, outstripping foreign direct investment and development assistance combined.

Libya: Fleeing conflict and finding shelter under the Tunisian desert sun

2011-04-18

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/refugees/72655

Since the Libyan conflict began only a few short weeks ago, some 236,000 people have crossed Libya’s western borders in search of safety and protection, including Libyans fleeing for their lives and many foreign nationals who had gone to work in Libya as migrants, reports an Amnesty International blog post. Already, around 100,000 of them have been able to return to their homes through the joint efforts of the two main international agencies that exist to assist migrants and refugees, IOM and UNHCR.

Libya: Refugees escaping 'found in sea with gunshot wounds'

2011-04-18

http://ind.pn/esQFd9

The bodies of sub-Saharan refugees who tried to escape Libya by boat have been found in the sea with gunshot wounds according to an Eritrean priest who tracks migrants as they make the perilous journey across the Mediterranean. Father Mussie Zerai, a Catholic cleric based in Rome, told The Independent that his contacts in Tripoli have seen five bodies in a hospital that were recently washed back onto the Libyan coast. Human rights groups have called on the international community to investigate the killings and have blamed Nato for not doing more to try and locate boats that have gone missing in a corner of the Mediterranean that is now bristling with international vessels.

Tunisia: France rejects North African migrants

2011-04-18

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/175004.html

Despite widespread opposition, France's Parliament has approved a law which seeks to ensure that refugees from the unrest in North Africa stay outside of the republic. Under EU laws, the country of arrival is responsible for dealing with any asylum seekers, but nearly all of the migrants are Tunisians who wish to join the 600,000-strong Tunisian community in France. France has responded by unveiling plans for barely-legal border checks and new sea patrols, which have already turned back more than 1,000 exiles.

South Africa: Cape Town protests set to continue

2011-04-18

http://www.abahlali.org/node/7963

Residents have vowed to continue their protest against the eviction of a poor family and against Thursday’s (14 April) police brutality that has left three residents seriously injured, says a Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign press statement. Residents will submit a petition to police and fight for the rights and dignity of resident’s vulnerable to greedy banks and politicians, says the statement.

South Africa: Open Letter to MEC for Human Settlement, M.R Bonginkosi Madikizela

2011-04-14

http://www.abahlali.org/node/7942

'Abahlali baseMjondolo Western Cape has observed with great concern...unlawful activities on demolishing people’s structures and evicting people without any order from the court. This tendency seems to be growing... this undermines the prevention of illegal eviction from and unlawful occupation of land act 1998 (Act 19 of 1998).'

Mozambique: Police attack protesting workers

2011-04-13

http://globalvoicesonline.org/2011/04/13/mozambique-police-attack-protesting-workers/

On 6 April, officials of a branch of the Police of the Republic of Mozambique (PRM) - the Rapid Intervention Force (FIR) - used violence to put an end to a protest by the employees of the private security firm Group Four Security (G4S). Allegedly, reports Global Voices, G4S has been illegally discounting employees' salaries, and they were now complaining about an worsening situation since June 2010. At the demonstration, workers appealed for payment of unreasonable discounted pay by the employer, as well as for the payment of holiday bonuses and overtime.

South Africa: Rise in mine deaths

2011-04-12

http://www.iol.co.za/business/rising-sa-mine-deaths-need-urgent-attention-1.1055349

Deaths at South African mines increased by 27 per cent in the first three months of the year, compared with the same period last year. Department of Mineral Resources spokeswoman Zingaphi Jakuja said that there were 38 fatalities reported from 1 January to 31 March compared with 30 for the first quarter last year.

Latest Edition: Emerging Powers News Roundup

2011-04-18

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/emplayersnews/72640

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. BRICS Summit

China Development Bank ready to pump 10 bn yuan to BRICS
China Development Bank, which just signed a local currency credit deal with its BRICS counterparts, is ready to pump up to $10 billion yuan as loans into Brazil, Russia, India and South Africa, the bank's governor said. Chen Yuan, the bank's head, said the yuan loans, as part of the BRICS efforts to reduce the use of U.S. dollar in bilateral trade and investment, would focus on big projects in oil, natural gas and infrastructure fields.
Read More

China, Russia support India's UNSC 'aspirations'
China and Russia Thursday joined fellow leaders of the five fastest growing economic powers in calling for comprehensive UN reforms and supported the "aspirations" of India , Brazil and South Africa for a permanent place in the Security Council. The two permanent UNSC members - China and Russia - in a joint statement of the BRICS grouping , said they "support their (India, Brazil and South Africa) aspiration to play a greater role in the UN".
Read More

BRICS targets dollar, call for global monetary revamp
The five BRICS nations took another step towards cementing their global influence on Thursday, calling for a broad-based international reserve currency system "providing stability and certainty". In a statement released at a summit on the southern island of Hainan, the leaders of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa said the recent financial crisis had exposed the inadequacies and deficiencies of the current monetary order, which has the dollar as its linchpin.
Read More

BRICS leaders see volatile commodity prices danger
Leaders of the top emerging economic powers meeting in China Thursday warned volatile commodity prices posed risks for the global recovery and voiced fears about capital inflows. Inflation has been rising on higher food, energy and metal prices due to Japan's nuclear disaster and the Libya conflict, while investors worried about the global outlook have poured money into fast-growing emerging economies. "Excessive volatility in commodity prices, particularly those for food and energy, poses new risks for the ongoing recovery of the world economy," Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa - or BRICS nations - said in a joint summit communique.
Read More

India, China, Brazil, SA for balanced conclusion of Doha round
Opposing protectionism and seeking a rule-based multilateral trading system, India and three other fast growing economies pushed for a "comprehensive and balanced" conclusion of the Doha round of trade talks that addresses the development agenda effectively. India, along with China, Brazil and South Africa, also advocated the case of Russia's early accession to the World Trade Organisation.
Read More

Africa infrastructure needs $480bn – Zuma
Africa needs $480-billion for infrastructure development over the next ten years, President Jacob Zuma said on Thursday. "Over the next ten years, Africa will need $480-billion for infrastructure development which should interest the Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (Brics) business communities," he said in an address for delivery at the third Brics leaders meeting at Hainan island in China.
Read More

SA small, but strategic partner for BRICS – Busa
SA might be small compared with Brazil, Russia, India, and China, but it is a "strategic" partner for these countries, Business Unity SA president Futhi Mtoba BusinessLIVE today. SA has officially joined the BRICS grouping of the world's fastest-growing economies. BRICS held a summit on April 14 in Sanya on Hainan Island in China. The summit was preceded by a few meetings, including that of business representatives from all member countries in what is referred to as the BRICS Business Forum.
Read More

South Africa looks for new investment opportunities in China
South African executives in the energy, engineering and telecommunication sectors said Thursday they were looking for investment opportunities in China as well as other BRICS economies. "With South Africa joining the BRICS countries, we hope our coal-to-liquids (CTL) project in Ningxia can get approval from Chinese government officials," said John Armstrong, president of Sasol China.
Read More

BRICS not only on economic cooperation, but political voice of the South: minister
South Africa's entry into BRICS, a group of emerging economies, not only provides opportunities for economic development in Africa, but also demonstrates the voice of the South can not be ignored in global politics, a South African minister has said. "BRIC countries are largely, I say largely, products of our forebears in the Bandung Conference of sole solidarity in 1955, so we are elated to see such South-South solidarity coming up with such economy giants emerging from this," International Relation and Cooperation Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane said in a recent interview with Xinhua.
Read More

2. China in Africa

Take firm stand against China - Malema
ANC Youth League president Julius Malema has accused China of using South Africa to extract Africa’s wealth of mineral resources without offering anything in return. South Africa’s foreign policy has shifted significantly in favour of China and is poised to become a member of the Bric economic grouping of Brazil, Russia, India and China. But Malema, speaking in Cape Town on Friday night, also questioned South Africa’s participation in what will be known as Brics, saying he was yet to be convinced about the role South Africa would play in it.
Read More

Hisense to change SA perceptions
Chinese technology company Hisense has launched a South African operation which includes a technical skills transfer programme at the firm's local factory. The company is also determined to change the negative perception of Chinese consumer goods. "We want to bring the latest technology to South Africa because our R&D [research and development] centres produce products for the global market," Hisense SA general manager Jerry Liu told News24.
Read More

Chinese firm elates mine suppliers
LUANSHYA-based mine suppliers have praised the China Non-Ferrous Metal Corporation Luanshya Copper Mine (CLM) for coming up with a deliberate policy to give 75 per cent of the contracts involving locally sourced goods to local companies. And CLM public relations officer Sydney Chileya confirmed that Luanshya based mine suppliers were already enjoying the benefits of the policy. Luanshya Mine Suppliers Association information secretary David Lloyd said mine suppliers were happy with the CLM management’s recent resolve to start giving preference to local mine suppliers.
Read More

Bank of China, IDC to fund undersea cable
Lawrence Mulaudzi, the CEO of eFive Telecoms, which is a shareholder in the cable system, said yesterday that the project officially received backing from the Brics governments this week at their summit in China, but there would not be funding from these governments. The cable network will also link North America through GlobeNet, which provides capacity through its fibreoptic submarine cable connecting North and South America. Mr Mulaudzi said the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) and the Bank of China have agreed to fund the project.
Read More

Tobacco rakes in US$220m
EXPORTS of processed flue-cured tobacco have so far raked in US$219,7 million since the beginning of the year as China remained the biggest buyer of the country's golden leaf. The money was raised from the sale of 18,8 million kg sold at an average price of US$5,24. Normally, tobacco bought in any particular year is sent for processing, which, in some cases, includes the stripping off of the stem from the leaf or any other condition that may be prescribed by the buyers. The processed tobacco would then be exported the following year at almost double the price at the floors. According to figures released by the Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board, China bought 18,8 million kg worth US$140,72 million at an average price of US$7,48 per kg. Current prices are hovering just above US$3 per kg.
Read More

Dangote, Sinoma in $3.9bn African Cement Deal
Dangote Group and Chinese firm Sinoma have jointly entered into a fresh $3.9 billion contract to be executed in six African nations, including Nigeria. The contract which was signed in Lagos by the President of Dangote Group, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, and President of Sinoma, Mr. Wu Shoufu, will see Dangote cement’s output across Africa rise to about 50 million metric tonnes per annum in two and a half years. Dangote said the move is in line with his company’s overall objective of boosting cement production and supply within the African continent to the end of making the product accessible and affordable for the ordinary person.
Read More

Senegal, China to enhance strategic partnership
Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade met here Thursday with visiting senior Chinese legislator Chen Zhili to further develop a new type of strategic partnership between the two countries. Wade praised the cooperation between the two sides and said Senegal is proud that China attaches great importance to bilateral relations despite huge differences in the sizes of territory and population between the two countries.
Read More

3. India in Africa

India, S Africa to conduct joint Naval exercise
India and South Africa on Thursday decided to hold joint Naval exercises and fixed a new trade target of $15 billion to be achieved by next year as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President Jacob Zuma met in Sanya and discussed ways to boost overall ties. During the 45-minute meeting on the sidelines of the BRICS Summit, Zuma also informed Singh about his government's intention to invite President Pratibha Patil and Congress chief Sonia Gandhi to his country.
Read More

4. In Other Emerging Powers News

BRICS, IBSA focus on different issues: India
Ahead of PM Manmohan Singh's visit to China for the BRICS summit, India on Monday allayed concerns that with South Africa too joining the four-nation economic powerhouse, the IBSA grouping comprising India, Brazil and South Africa is going to lose its sheen. Singh will fly to Sanya, a coastal resort town in China, on Tuesday to attend what is the first BRICS summit meet after South Africa joined the group. "BRICS focuses on economy but it is slowly moving towards other areas. However, IBSA is based on democratic values and other similar causes which are common to the three countries. There is a difference between the two. South Africa joining BRIC is not going to diminish IBSA," MEA secretary (economic relations) Manbir Singh said, in what was apparently a dig at China.
Read More

Doha trade negotiations on the verge of collapse
The Doha trade negotiations are on the verge of collapse due to unrealistic demands by leading industrialised countries that want China , India , and Brazil to "harmonise" a large percentage of their industrial tariffs well below current applied rates, sources said. World Trade Organisation director general Pascal Lamy today informed members of the G-90 coalition that there are "unbridgeable" differences over "sectorals" in Doha industrial goods, sources said. The G-90 includes countries from Africa, Pacific and Caribbean as well as least-developed countries. Lamy said his meetings with the US, China, India, and Brazil over the last fortnight revealed that the gaps in positions among members are too wide and not amenable for any closure at this juncture, an African trade envoy told PTI.
Read More

SA key in international world: Zuma
South Africa is assuming an increasingly important position in the international arena, President Jacob Zuma said on Friday. "SA is ideally placed in the shifting poles of power, not only as an emerging market, but also as a leading economy in a continent that is home to approximately fifteen percent of the world's population," Zuma said in China during the Boao Asia Forum Meeting. "We actively participate and contribute to positions formulated in global policy making and are supportive of the G20 agenda." He said domestically, SA was implementing programmes aimed at promoting inclusive growth through expanding development and access to social services for all, especially the poor, in order to improve their living conditions.
Read More

5. Blogs, Opinions, Presentations and Publications

Sino - Zimbabwe relations – who benefits?
This question can be answered in one sentence – the Chinese, Mugabe, his cabal of generals and their hangers on. Of course the Chinese, being shrewd businessmen, get the lion’s share. Although they do try to put a positive spin on their aggressive global expansion – for example Heilongjiang Beidahuang Nongken Group, China's largest agricultural company, said recently that it plans to acquire or lease 495,000 acres of farmland in Latin American countries as well as Russia, the Philippines, Australia and Zimbabwe. The group's chairman Sui Fengfu told the Chinese official newspaper China Daily that: "In Venezuela and Zimbabwe, the Chinese group mainly supplies machinery and labour, and takes about 20 percent of the harvest in return.” I would be very surprised if this is indeed the case with China’s involvement in Zimbabwean agriculture.
Read More

India dazzles, but China ahead in Africa
The story, already part of diplomatic lore in the capitals of sub-Saharan Africa, goes like this. In July 2006, the erstwhile president of the African Union commission, Alpha Oumar Konare, announced the decision to hold India-Africa summits on a regular basis. Two months later, Konare summoned the ambassadors of India, China and Brazil to ask them about their nations’ interests in Africa. The Brazilian and Indian envoys are said to have gotten off reasonably lightly, but the Chinese diplomat was allegedly cross-questioned by Konare over China’s state-led development model of resource extraction across Africa in exchange for Chinese goods. Beijing is believed to have been so upset by the hectoring that it sought to pacify matters by immediately sanctioning $150 million to build the AU headquarters in Addis Ababa.
Read More

China in Africa part 3: Mozambique
Shortly after dawn, just as early rising tourists were sipping coffee and preparing for a day in the water, Mozambican fishing boats started coming ashore, discharging local fishermen and their catches. Sea turtles were beheaded, rays lay bloodied on the sand, and sharks - especially sharks - had their fins hacked off and were then chopped into chunks. Shark fins, apparently, were the order of the day. What the more curious among the visitors knew was that nobody in Mozambique wanted those fins; they're exclusively a Chinese delicacy. To the horror of the Europeans, Australians and South Africans who had come to enjoy these creatures in their natural habitat, it seemed as if the beaches of Mozambique had become a killing field for everything scientists describe as Elasmobranchii - mostly predatory fish which have skeletons of cartilage instead of bones.
Read More

Cameroon: Cameroon trims electoral body's powers before vote

2011-04-12

http://af.reuters.com/article/topNews/idAFJOE73804420110409

Cameroon's parliament stripped its electoral body of the right to announce provisional results in future elections, and opposition parties called the move a 'foul game' by President Paul Biya to steal another term. The government proposed the change in light of the violent post-election crisis in Ivory Coast, where electoral commission results showing incumbent Laurent Gbagbo's loss were quickly reversed by the country's highest court.

Guinea: Opposition leader threatens civil disobedience campaign

2011-04-12

http://www.africareview.com/News/-/979180/1141936/-/hpb4ddz/-/index.html

The runner-up in last year’s Guinean presidential elections is threatening a nationwide civil disobedience campaign if 67 members of his party are not released from detention by the newly elected government of President Alpha Condé. Cellou Dalein Diallo warned that the opposition in Guinea will not allow the government of President Alpha Condé 'to trample on the rights of citizens' as the military dictatorship did in the past.

Nigeria: Fighting in north over election results

2011-04-18

http://bit.ly/hFD6KV

Angry opposition supporters in Nigeria's Muslim north set fire to homes bearing ruling party banners Monday as election officials released results showing the Christian incumbent had gained an insurmountable lead. Witnesses said youths in the northern city of Kano were setting fires to homes that bore Jonathan party banners. Heavy gunfire also could be heard.

Nigeria: Nigeria's youth are silent no more

2011-04-12

http://thinkafricapress.com/nigeria/nigerias-youth-silent-no-more

As Nigeria goes to the polls to elect a new president, a wind of change is moving through the political landscape of this emerging democracy. Young Nigerians are adamant that it is time their voice and vote counted. 'Our culture has used the issue of respect to silence the youth for a long time. I don’t think it was intentional but it’s a case where if you are young, you are seen and not heard and you only speak when spoken to,' says Nosariemme Garrick, 26, the co-founder of Vote or Quench, a non-partisan youth empowerment organisation that uses social media to engage young Nigerians, at home and in the diaspora.

Nigeria: President heading for re-election

2011-04-18

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2011/04/201141861014635999.html

Results from Nigeria's Independent National Electoral Commission indicate that the incumbent president looks set to keep his job after winning in 21 of the 29 states whose votes have been counted. Goodluck Jonathan's ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) took an early unassailable lead in Saturday's presidential elections, though results from the remaining seven states had not been declared by early Monday.

Nigeria: Stakeholder Democracy Network releases interim report on elections

2011-04-18

http://www.stakeholderdemocracy.org/election-2011.htm

This interim report from the Stakeholder Democracy Network (SDN) in Nigeria focuses on immediate issues that merit the attention of the Independent National Election Commission (INEC) and other actors. SDN noted significant variations in the atmosphere and conduct of elections in the three states (Rivers, Bayelsa, Delta). The breakdown is intended to give an indication of the overall tenor of the polls in these states as well as highlight key incidents.

South Africa: Time for change in Swaziland, ANC says

2011-04-18

http://mg.co.za/article/2011-04-15-time-for-change-in-swaziland-anc-says/

The African National Congress (ANC) on Thursday (14 April) broke its silence over the violent suppression of protests in Swaziland, calling for moves towards democratisation. 'We call on the government of Swaziland to work towards the normalisation of the political environment by unbanning opposition political parties, releasing political activists and engaging in a meaningful dialogue with opposition political and trade union leaders to find a collective solution to the socio-economic situation faced by that country,' Ebrahim Ebrahim, the deputy international relations minister, said in a statement.

Swaziland: Alarm at security clampdown

2011-04-13

http://www.idasa.org.za/our_products/resources/output/idasa_responds_to_swaziland/

As the protest campaign grows in Swaziland, and alarming reports grow of a security clampdown, African democracy institute Idasa has called on Swaziland to avoid further bloodshed and a repeat of the crises in conflict-ridden Libya and Ivory Coast – urging parties in the mounting conflict in that country to aim towards building an environment that is conducive to dialogue and negotiations. Idasa says it recognises citizens’ right to protest and make their voices heard, and sees the demonstrations as a clear indication of the determination, commitment and willingness of the people of Swaziland to pursue democratic reform.

Uganda: Arrests spur hunger strike, future protests

2011-04-13

http://bit.ly/fP5AZk

Rather than backing down after the arrest of two Ugandan opposition leaders for staging a 'Walk to Work' protest against high fuel and food prices on Monday, Ugandan activists have responded by announcing a hunger strike and planning more demonstrations, reports Global Voices. According to the Uganda Talks Blog: 'Mukono North MP Betty Nambooze told journalists today that the leaders have decided not to eat anything as they go about their duties at Parliament. She said that there was no point for them (leaders) to eat when the public can hardly afford food.'

Uganda: Police tear gas 'walk-to-work' protesters

2011-04-14

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-13078400

Ugandan police have fired tear gas during a walk-to-work protest in the capital, Kampala, and arrested several opposition politicians behind it. For the second time this week, people were asked to walk to work to protest against rising fuel and food prices. Police tried to arrest opposition leader Kizza Besigye, but a group of his supporters shielded him.

Angola: Angola denies billions diverted by graft

2011-04-13

http://www.ansa-africa.net/index.php/views/news_view/angola_denies_billions_diverted_by_graft/

Angola, Africa's second-biggest crude oil producer, has denied a report that it lost almost $6 billion in illicit capital flows in 2009. Calculations provided to Reuters by Washington-based watchdog Global Financial Integrity (GFI) suggest funds equivalent to nearly a sixth of the annual budget went missing in the last year for which data are available. In a rare response from the usually tight-lipped government, the finance ministry denied there was anything suspicious about the discrepancies highlighted by GFI.

Egypt: Mubarak and sons detained amid corruption probe

2011-04-13

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-13058855

Egypt's prosecutor general has ordered the detention of former President Hosni Mubarak, ahead of an investigation into corruption and abuse allegations. He is reported to be in an 'unstable condition' a day after being admitted to hospital with heart problems. He has been ordered detained for 15 days. His sons Alaa and Gamal have also been detained.

Kenya: Suspended minister cleared of graft charges

2011-04-12

http://bit.ly/hU65mn

Kenya's suspended Higher Education minister William Ruto has been cleared of graft charges involving irregular allocation of a forest land. Also acquitted were Ruto's co-accused Baringo Central MP Sammy Mwaita and Joshua Kulei.

Africa: Draft UN resolution on external debt sustainability and development

2011-04-14

http://bit.ly/egA0nr

The Second Committee of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, which focuses on economic and finance policy, released in January a draft resolution on external debt sustainability and development. The text of the draft resolution on external debt sustainability recognises the important role of debt relief, debt restructuring and debt cancellation for the purpose of debt crisis prevention as well as for mitigating the adverse impact of the world financial and economic crisis in developing countries.

Africa: Economic report recommends increased development state role

2011-04-14

http://www.ilo.org/public/english/region/afpro/addisababa/pdf/era2011_en.pdf

The 2011 Economic Report on Africa (ERA) from the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa and the African Union Commission recommends that African countries adopt a developmental state approach that uses the market as an instrument rather than a sole mechanism for fostering long-term investment, rapid and sustained economic growth, equity and social development. This in the context, it states, of many African countries not experiencing high economic growth rates over extended periods.

Africa: Lift the secrecy on oil agreements

2011-04-13

http://www.independent.co.ug/column/guest-column/4074?task=view

Development is accelerated when a country is able to use its own resources effectively and efficiently, say the authors of this article. 'That is why the decision by the UK government, with France and Germany, to support reform of obscure European Union rules on financial reporting for oil, gas and mineral companies will have such far-reaching consequences,' they say. 'The importance of extractive industries to African development cannot be understated. In 2008, exports of oil, gas and minerals from Africa were worth about nine times the value of international aid to the continent ($393bn versus $44bn), and over 10 times the value of exports of agricultural produce ($37.9bn).'

Africa: Plans for an African Free Trade Area

2011-04-14

http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/publications/papers/view/-/id/1042/

There is a wide recognition that regional integration is crucial for the prosperous future of African countries' economic progress, with some of the highest tariffs facing African countries being imposed by their neighbours, regional economic integration remains a challenge and only a very small percentage of African countries exports are being traded regionally. Visit the Chatham House website for a document summarising an event held at Chatham House which explored the prospects for an African free trade area.

Africa: World Bank development report released

2011-04-13

http://bit.ly/id6IsT

Some 1.5 billion people live in countries affected by repeated cycles of political and criminal violence, and no low-income fragile or conflict-affected country has yet to achieve a single Millennium Development Goal. Fixing the economic, political, and security problems that disrupt development and trap fragile states in cycles of violence requires strengthening national institutions and improving governance in ways that prioritise citizen security, justice, and jobs, according to a new report from the World Bank. The World Development Report 2011 notes that at least 1.5 billion people are still affected by current violence or its legacies.

Global: IMF report points to global economic fragility

2011-04-14

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/apr2011/pers-a14.shtml

Two years into a supposed recovery, not only have none of the underlying contradictions that sparked the deepest economic and financial crisis since the Great Depression been resolved, but new problems are emerging, reports the World Socialist Website. The latest World Economic Outlook (WEO) report notes that 'the pace of activity remains uneven, with unemployment lagging'. Growth was 'insufficiently strong to make a major dent in high unemployment rates' with the number of jobless having increased by 30 million since 2007.

Libya: All about oil, or central banking?

2011-04-18

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article27881.htm

So is this new war all about oil or all about banking? asks Ellen Brown, an attorney and president of the Public Banking Institute. 'Maybe both - and water as well. With energy, water, and ample credit to develop the infrastructure to access them, a nation can be free of the grip of foreign creditors. And that may be the real threat of Libya: it could show the world what is possible.'

North Africa: Economic failures, revolutions and the role of the World Bank

2011-04-14

http://www.bicusa.org/en/Article.12405.aspx

The recent uprisings that have affected almost every country in the Middle East and North Africa region are indicative of deep structural issues that are facing societies in these countries. Calls for democracy, economic reforms, employment opportunities and greater accountability require us to question the development model pursued in the region by institutions like the World Bank and the underlying assumptions that may have led to the failure of this model, says this article from the Bank Information Centre.

Swaziland: 'Swaziland uses IMF monitoring programme to fight fiscal crisis'

2011-04-18

http://trademarksa.org/news/swaziland-uses-imf-monitoring-programme-fight-fiscal-crisis

IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn has approved a staff-monitored program for Swaziland to help the southern African country enact tax reforms and at the same time protect social spending. The program entails IMF staff scrutiny of the authorities’ policies, but does not include formal backing of the program or any financial support. Swaziland is facing a serious fiscal crisis, with an overall budget deficit estimated around 13 per cent of GDP for the 2010/11 fiscal year ending on 31 March 2011. The crisis came from structural imbalances in both government expenditures and revenues.

Burundi: 'Die-in' to protest lack of HIV care

2011-04-18

http://www.plusnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportID=92363

Hundreds of Burundians living with HIV/AIDS recently staged a demonstration in the capital, Bujumbura, to protest against a lack of treatment. Men, women and children lay on the ground for 10 minutes to 'show the government that if nothing is done rapidly - this week, this month - we will all die', said Jeanne Gapiya, a leading Burundian HIV activist. The protest was staged on 29 March by REMUA, Reseau de Reinforcement Mutuel des Acteurs de la Première Ligne, a network of six NGOs providing HIV treatment to more than 9,000 people.

Côte d'Ivoire: Medical students demand access to medicines

2011-04-13

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/hivaids/72527

The International Federation of Medical Students' Associations (IFMSA), representing over 1.3 million medical students worldwide, has expressed its solidarity with the students of health sciences in Côte d'Ivoire in opposing the months-long embargo of medications imposed on the West African nation. Concerns have been raised by the IFMSA regarding this restriction of access to essential medicines, while reminding the international community of their responsibility to uphold health as a human right.
Medical Students Worldwide in Support of Access to Medicines and Healthcare for the People of Côte d'Ivoire

Date of release: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact person: Dr Chijioke Kaduru, IFMSA President, and Mr Joško Miše, IFMSA Director of the Standing Committee on Reproductive Health and AIDS

Contact e-mails: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it (Dr Kaduru); This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it (Mr Miše)

Contact telephone number: +233 265187737 (Dr Kaduru); +385 998608027 (Mr Miše)

Highlights: Medical students from 96 countries speak out against embargo on Côte d'Ivoire; Embargo on Côte d'Ivoire likely to deny millions the right to access essential medicines

Main text:

The International Federation of Medical Students' Associations (IFMSA), representing over 1.3 million medical students worldwide, expresses its solidarity with the students of health sciences in Côte d'Ivoire in opposing the months-long embargo of medications imposed on the West African nation. Concerns have been raised by the IFMSA regarding this restriction of access to essential medicines, while reminding the international community of their responsibility to uphold health as a human right.

Côte d'Ivoire, a developing country1 with a population of about 20 million inhabitants has been a site of internal political turmoil, severe outbreaks of violence and general unrest in the most recent months. The country's political crisis stems from the presidential elections held in 2010, which resulted in increasingly intense armed confrontations over recent weeks, together with political gridlock that has had serious consequences on the country's population2. Outbreaks of fighting, street blockades and major population movements are continuously escalating. Cases of extrajudicial killings and disappearances have been reported. Reports from Reuter describe widespread civil unrest that resulted in numerous deaths and injuries3. Violence is additionally fuelled by ethnic and political loyalties1.

On January 15, 2011 the EU adopted a Council Regulation (No 25/2011) which took immediate effect in EU Member States4. The newly sanctioned parties consist of 87 individuals and 11 entities3 said to be associated with the government of President Gbagbo5,6. This embargo is part of a series of economic, diplomatic and health-related sanctions. The EU hopes to obtain the departure of President Laurent Gbagbo from presidency.. The commercial and financial sanctions have been widespread – ultimately affecting the supply of medicines.

Médecins Sans Frontières states that the commercial and financial sanctions imposed by the international community against Ivory Coast, coupled with transportation problems, have led to shortages in medicines and medical supplies7. Health facilities in many regions of the country lack basic medicines and treatment supplies for chronic and acute illnesses, particularly kidney dialysis2.

As of December 2010, MSF has increased its presence in Côte d'Ivoire by providing primary health care and medicine in abandoned facilities. This week MSF reported that only one hospital continues to function normally in Abidjan's Abobo district, home to approximately two million residents. The western part of the country, as described by MSF, is on a par with the capital region, where fighting has forced most health care workers to abandon health facilities - now running low on medicines - and forced many people in the area to seek refuge in neighboring Liberia. The instability is causing difficulty in accessing populations, particularly in areas close to the front lines8.

In February 2011 UNICEF reported that the state pharmacies in northern and western regions, which supply hospitals and clinics, are beginning to run out of essential medicines. The same UN agency also confirmed their intervention through the supply of anti-retroviral drugs, including the support of the Global Fund for the insecticide-treated nets9. The WHO and UNAIDS staff members whom we have consulted reported stock-out problems, explaining that they vary by region and type of drug, but openly expressed concerns on the long term effects of this embargo.

On February 24th, students from SYNESS (National Union of Students in Health Sciences of Côte d'Ivoire) held a demonstration10 in white coats and a sit-in in front of the headquarters of the World Health Organization's Country Office in Abidjan, rising up against this "arbitrary" measure that prevents patients from access to medication7. The students protested with placards stating "Free our drugs", "SYNESS says no to the embargo on drugs" or "Providing care is what only we can do best". They intend to keep protesting in front of the office of all of the international organizations that are represented in Cote d'Ivoire, until the embargo is lifted. Nando Serge, the National Secretary of SYNESS stated that the consequences of this embargo could be catastrophic for the population.

Although SYNESS is not a member organization of IFMSA, the actions and messages launched by our colleagues, medical students in Côte d'Ivoire, resonated strongly within our constituency. Our mission is to offer future physicians a comprehensive introduction to global health issues as well as to improve the education of tomorrow's doctors. Through our Standing Committee on Human Rights and Peace, we have dedicated our work extensively, on local and international levels, to raise awareness about conflicts and health. Health is a vital and indispensable component of any community and nation, essential for the overall well-being of every man, woman and child.

Through our policy statement on access to essential medicines, adopted at the IFMSA 59th General Assembly, we reaffirm our belief that equal access to essential medicines is a fundamental right and an integral part of the attainment of health care for all - regardless of age, gender, resources, religion, political opinions, race or country of origin.

We strongly advocate and support efforts that aim to ensure proper access to healthcare and medication, as well as to stress the importance of humanitarian actions in the state of emergency and ongoing conflict. We strongly value peace and universal access, and thus we would like to support openly our colleagues in Côte d'Ivoire. Our hopes are that peace will be bestowed on Côte d'Ivoire and that the healthcare professionals and facilities will be treated in accordance to international laws – allowing people access to health care and medication.

We hope that the international community, governments and institutions, will acknowledge their obligations to recognize health as a fundamental human right and to take all necessary steps to ensure its fulfilment – addressing the problem of this particular embargo on access to healthcare and medication for the people of Côte d'Ivoire at this time of clear humanitarian crisis.

The International Federation of Medical Students' Associations (IFMSA) is an independent, non-governmental and non-political federation of medical students from 103 National Member Organizations on six continents. The IFMSA was founded in 1951 and is run for and by medical students on a non-profit basis. It is officially recognized as a Non Governmental Organization within the United Nations system, and is recognized by the World Health Organization as the International Forum for medical students. It exists to serve medical students all over the world. IFMSA is built around six standing Committees: Human Rights and Peace, Reproductive Health including AIDS, Public Health, Professional Exchange, Research Exchange and Medical Education.

References:

(1) U.S. Department of State, 2005. 2004 County Reports on Human Rights Practices – Cote D'Ivoire [online] Available at http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2004/41599.htm [Accessed 21 March 2011]

(2) Medecins sans frontieres, 2011. Ivory Coast population trapped in conflict [online] Available at http://www.msf.org/msf/articles/2011/03/ivory-coast-population-trapped-in-conflict.cfm [Accessed 21 March 2011]

(3) Reuters, 2011. EU imposes sanctions against Ivory Coast [online] Available at http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/01/15/ivorycoast-sanctions-eu-idUSLDE70E04A20110115?pageNumber=1 [Accessed 22 March 2011]

(4) Council Regulation (EU) No 25/2011 of 14 January 2011 amending Regulation (EC) No 560/2005 imposing certain specific restrictive measures directed against certain persons and entities in view of the situation in Cote D'Ivoire

(5) UK P&I Club, 2011. EU Sanction Regulation in respect of Ivory Coast [online] Available at http://www.ukpandi.com/knowledge-developments/article/eu-sanction-regulation-in-respect-of-ivory-coast-2380/ [Accessed 22 March 2011]

(6) INCE & Co International Law Firm, 2011. New EU Ivory Coast Sanctions [online] Available at http://www.incelaw.com/documents/pdf/Strands/International-Trade/new-eu-ic-sanctions [Accessed 22 March 2011]

(7) World AIDS Campaign, 2011. Côte d'Ivoire / Shortage of Medicines: MSF accused the "international community" [online] Available at http://www.worldaidscampaign.org/en/Cote-d-Ivoire-Shortage-of-Medicines-MSF-accused-the-international-community [Accessed 21 March 2011]

(8) Medecins sans frontieres, 2011. MSF responding to latest violence in Abidjan, Ivory Coast [online] Available at http://www.msf.org/msf/articles/2011/03/msf-responding-to-latest-violence-in-abidjan-ivory-coast.cfm [Accessed 21 March 2011]

(9) UNICEF, 2011. Warnings on shortage of essential drugs amidst crisis in Côte d'Ivoire [online] Available at http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/cotedivoire_57599.html [Accessed 21 March 2011]

(10) DirectScoop.net, 2011. Côte d'Ivoire / Shortage of Medicines: MSF accused the "international community" [online] Available at http://directscoop-en.net/2011/03/16/cote-divoire-shortage-of-medicines-msf-accused-the-international-community/ [Accessed 20 March 2011]

Ethiopia: Bid to boost ART adherence

2011-04-18

http://www.plusnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportID=92461

A three-month campaign by Addis Ababa's health bureau hopes to boost adherence to antiretroviral (ARVs) drugs in the Ethiopian capital by improving communication between patients and health service providers. A 2009 study by the HIV/AIDS Prevention and Control Office found that on average, 72.3 per cent of patients on ARVs were still on first-line medication one year after starting treatment. 'The remaining are lost...it could be due to any number of reasons such as death or an unannounced change of location but it is a cause for concern,' said Addis Akalu, head of the disease prevention and control department at the Addis Ababa Health Bureau.

Kenya: AIDS activists battle tax increase on medicines

2011-04-18

http://www.plusnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportID=92381

Kenyan AIDS activists are furious about a plan by the government to implement a two percent tax increase on medicines, which they say will hurt poor people living with HIV. In November 2010, Kenya's Minister for Medical Services issued a gazette notice imposing the new tax on drugs to help fund the Pharmacy and Poisons Board, the government body mandated to regulate drugs in the country. The Kenya Revenue Authority already collects a 2.75 per cent tax on medicines.

South Africa: US project planning to sterilise HIV+ women

2011-04-14

http://www.health-e.org.za/news/article.php?uid=20033141

A controversial US project that pays drug users and alcoholics to undergo sterilisation or long-term contraception, is setting its sights on women living with HIV in South Africa. Founder of Project Prevention Barbara Harris has confirmed that they were making plans to offer similar services to women living with HIV in South Africa as well as drug users. However, Professor Eddie Mhlanga, Chief Director for Maternal, Child and Women’s Health in the health department said they would approach the Human Rights Commission if the project started operating in South Africa.

Zimbabwe: New treatment guidelines rolled out – a year later

2011-04-13

http://www.plusnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=92452

Zimbabwe's government adopted new guidelines set by the World Health Organisation (WHO) for treating people living with HIV almost a year ago, but funding constraints have made it difficult to implement them - until now. On 1 April 2011, Zimbabwe started phasing out the combination antiretroviral treatment (ARV) Stavudine, Lamivudine and Nevirapine as its first-line option for the national programme, replacing it with the less toxic Tenofovir-based regimens for adults and Zidovudine-based regimens for children, as recommended by the 2010 WHO guidelines.

Zimbabwe: Threat of waterborne disease from unsafe water

2011-04-18

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportID=92487

Jennifer Madongonda, 43, shares a seven-roomed house with three other families in the low-income suburb of Budiriro, about 15km southwest of the Zimbabwean capital, Harare. Seven months ago the municipality cut off water supply because they couldn’t pay the bill. Budiriro was regarded as the epicentre of the cholera epidemic that began in August 2008 and lasted for a year before it was officially declared at an end in July 2009. Chris Magadza, a researcher at the University of Zimbabwe, told participants at a recent workshop that 'clinical studies carried out on Harare's water supplies, and the results obtained, revealed that the water bodies carry a significant amount of pollutants, which pose a potential health risk'.

Uganda: Makerere wants fees raised to sh6m

2011-04-13

http://www.newvision.co.ug/D/8/12/751890

Makerere University wants the government to quickly approve a proposal to raise fees to sh6m, up from sh3m per student per year, a public accounts committee has heard. Committee members Nandala Mafabi, Oduman Okello and Grace Oburu argued that Makerere tuition fees were still high and expressed worry that if implemented, the proposed fees structure would affect the poor. 'Sh6m per student? Parents and students should now brace themselves for hard times ahead. I don’t know why Makerere charges high fees despite the fact that it is a public university,' Mafabi said.

Kenya: Gay Kenya April issue out

2011-04-18

http://www.pambazuka.org//images/articles/525/GayKenya_Issue.pdf

Gay Kenya is pleased to bring you their 8th newsletter edition. The headline feature is named ‘The Law is an Arse’ and is on the de-criminalisation process, so far undertaken by the Gay and Lesbian Coalition of Kenya (GALCK) that seeks to make private, consensual same sex activity between adults not criminal.

Zimbabwe: Mugabe blasts 'British Gaydom'

2011-04-14

http://mg.co.za/article/2011-04-14-mugabe-blasts-british-gaydom-in-funeral-rant

Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe on Thursday (14 April) condemned gay 'filth' in Europe, as he lambasted Western powers for maintaining their asset freeze and travel ban on him and his inner circle, and vowed to press ahead with the takeover of foreign firms. 'About the unnatural things happening there, where they turn man-to-man and woman-to-woman. We say, well, it's their country. If they want to call their country British Gaydom, it's up to them. That's not our culture. We condemn that filth.'

South Africa: Brothers in court after race abuse claims

2011-04-14

http://www.iol.co.za/capeargus/brothers-in-court-after-race-abuse-claims-1.1056775

Ravensmead brothers who are alleged to have subjected three black workers at a factory in Blackheath to sexual, verbal and physical abuse appeared in court today (14 April) amid high drama. About a hundred people protested outside the Blue Downs Magistrate’s Court. The charges relate to claims by the three workers that the brothers, owners of a timber company in Blackheath Industria, had beaten, sexually assaulted and hurled racial remarks at them after they reported for work last Tuesday night.

South Africa: Malema 'threat' to AfriForum protest

2011-04-12

http://www.sowetanlive.co.za/news/2011/04/12/malema-threat-to-afriforum-protest

AfriForum youth leader Ernst Roets on Monday (11 April) testified that ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema promised his delegation a repeat of the Shell House massacre if they marched to his offices to complain about the singing of the song Dubul' ibhunu. Malema, who is facing charges of hate speech in the Johannesburg high court, publicly sang the contentious liberation song repeatedly during March and April last year.

Burkina Faso: GM cotton halts spread of organic cotton

2011-04-12

http://bit.ly/fQmjVY

There are concerns about the future of organic cotton in Burkina Faso, reports Farm Radio Weekly. The concern is caused by a jump in plantings of genetically modified or GM cotton. By 2009, genes from GM crops had been found in organic cotton. At that time, only 10 per cent of conventional cotton farmers were growing GM varieties. But with the massive spread of GM cotton in 2010, almost 90 per cent of conventional producers now grow GM cotton.

Global: Bolivia enshrines natural world's rights with equal status

2011-04-18

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/apr/10/bolivia-enshrines-natural-worlds-rights

Bolivia is set to pass the world's first laws granting all nature equal rights to humans. The Law of Mother Earth, now agreed by politicians and grassroots social groups, redefines the country's rich mineral deposits as 'blessings' and is expected to lead to radical new conservation and social measures to reduce pollution and control industry.

Global: Deforestation by stealth

2011-04-12

http://bit.ly/eWg8Tj

Management consultancy McKinsey & Co has been accused of giving inaccurate and unethical advice to countries such as Papua New Guinea and Indonesia, potentially driving deforestation while allowing the countries to generate revenue from new UN-backed forestry protection schemes. A report released by Greenpeace claims McKinsey has drawn up strategies that could help rainforested nations continue with logging practices, while still gaining access to millions of dollars from the United Nations Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) and REDD+ schemes. McKinsey has denied the accusations.

South Africa: Minister delays mine appeal decision

2011-04-13

http://www.lrc.org.za/lrc-in-the-news/1355-2011-04-17-minister-delays-mine-appeal-decision

Mineral Resources' Minister Susan Shabangu has told Pondoland opponents of a titanium dune mining project that she needs another month to consider their appeal against the Xolobeni coastal dune mining project. Amadiba Crisis Committee spokesman Sinegugu Zukulu said the mining project 'has become an ever more menacing threat to the unique biodiversity of the Wild Coast and traditional way of life of the amaMpondo'.

South Africa: Refugee tells of Shell hell

2011-04-12

http://www.iol.co.za/news/south-africa/western-cape/refugee-tells-of-shell-hell-1.1052840

When Nigerian political refugee Barry Wuganaale heard on television that Shell would be fracking for gas in the Karoo, he nearly choked on his dinner. 'I was shocked. I didn’t need to think twice about opposing this. South Africa has no experience of Shell operating upstream. You know them at the pumps here, but not drilling,' Wuganaale said. 'I am from the Ogoni people in the Nigeria. We know Shell. What Shell has done to the Ogoni people and to the Nigerian state, I don’t wish to be repeated on anyone.'

Egypt: Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed in land dispute

2011-04-13

http://farmlandgrab.org/post/view/18436

Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, the richest man in the Middle East, had a grand vision for turning a swath of land in southern Egypt into an agricultural marvel. Since 1998 Alwaleed has invested $127 million in 100,00 acres (40,470 hectares) of land in the Nile River delta Tushka agricultural project (also known as Toshka). Egypt’s public prosecutor’s office said Sunday (10 April) it froze the land controlled by Alwaleed because the original sale of the land violated the law, Reuters reported.

Global: 'There can be no justifications for land grabbing!' social movements and CSOs tell World Bank

2011-04-18

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/land/72663

On the International Day of Peasant Struggles, prominent farmers, fisherfolk, human rights and research organisations have sharply criticised the World Bank, three UN agencies and governments for promoting agricultural investments that are resulting in land grabbing on a massive scale.
There can be no justifications for land grabbing!" social movements and CSOs tell World Bank, UN agencies and governments

17 April 2011

Today, on the International Day of Peasant Struggles, prominent farmers, fisherfolk, human rights and research organisations have sharply criticised the World Bank, three UN agencies and governments for promoting agricultural investments that are resulting in land grabbing on a massive scale.

From 18-20 April, investors, government officials and staff of international agencies will gather in Washington DC for the Annual World Bank Conference on Land and Poverty to discuss how to operationalise a framework called Principles for Responsible Agricultural Investment (RAI). Formulated by the World Bank, International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), RAI consists of seven principles which investors may choose whether or not to abide by when conducting large-scale farmland acquisitions.

A statement released by Centro de Estudios para el Cambio en el Campo Mexicano, FIAN International, Focus on the Global South, Friends of the Earth International, Global Campaign on Agrarian Reform, GRAIN, La Via Campesina, Land Research Action Network, Rede Social de Justiça e Direitos Humanos and World Forum of Fisher Peoples calls instead for an outright ban on land grabbing.

According to Henry Saragih from La Via Campesina, 'The food price crisis happened because of the commoditisation of food. RAI will legitimise land grabbing worse than in the colonial era. All sizes and types of land will be taken by TNCs; there will be no place for peasants, peoples and communities to live. This type of agricultural production is creating a way of life that is highly dependent on a few TNCs.'

'Large-scale land acquisitions are designed to open up new spaces for export oriented, industrial, plantation agriculture,' said Henk Hobbelink of GRAIN. 'There is no point in sanctioning that through any set of investor 'principles' or code of conduct. This is not an agriculture that feeds people in a just and sustainable way.'

Accounts pouring in from Asia, Africa and Latin America reveal that local communities are being dispossessed as never before of their sole sources of food and livelihood security. Reports indicate that at least 50 million hectares of good agricultural land – enough to feed 50 million families in India – have been transferred from farmers to corporations in the last few years alone. Investment brokers estimate that US$25 billion have already been committed globally, and boast that this figure will triple in a very near future. RAI will offer such large-scale land deals a cloak of respectability.

'RAI is dangerously deceptive,' said Shalmali Guttal from Focus on the Global South. 'Corporations and governments will win, but local communities, eco-systems and future generations will lose; the takeover of rural peoples lands is completely unacceptable no matter what guidelines are followed.'

'The breaching of international human rights law is an intrinsic part of land grabbing,' stated Sofía Monsalve from FIAN International. 'Forced evictions, the foreclosure of vast stretches of land for current and future use by rural peoples, the introduction of models of land use and agriculture that destroy natural environments, the blatant denial of information, and the prevention of meaningful local participation in political decisions that affect people's lives are all human rights violations.'

'The new wave of land grabbing will have a devastating effect in the Amazon and Cerrado by giving the green light for illegal activities of large cattle ranchers, agribusinesses, mining and lumber companies to destroy protected forests and biodiversity in food production by small farmers and indigenous land,' said Maria Luisa Mendonça, Network for Social Justice and Human Rights, Brazil.

According to Ibrahim Coulibaly from the National Coordination of Peasant Organisations in Mali, member of La Via Campesina, 'Land grabbing is state banditry; it's about seizing or taking over the only resource that poor people have left and giving it those who already have too much, those who are already extremely rich. And that is not acceptable.'

The joint statement calls instead for a renewed focus on genuine agrarian reform and agricultural investment that supports small-holder farmers to produce on their own lands through agro-ecological means.

The statement, 'It's time to outlaw land grabbing, not to make it 'responsible'!' can be found online in English at http://www.grain.org/o/?id=111

Contacts:
Henry Saragih, La Via Campesina, Indonesia: +62-811655668
Devlin Kuyek, GRAIN, Canada: +1-514-5717702
Shalmali Guttal, Focus on the Global South, Thailand: +66-2-2187383/4/5
Kirtana Chandrasekaran, Friends of the Earth Interantional, UK : +44-79-61986956
Sofia Monsalve, FIAN, Germany: +49-62216530030
Maria Luisa Mendonça, Network for Social Justice and Human Rights, Brazil: +55-11-81679951

Madagascar: Community resistance to corporate land theft

2011-04-13

http://farmlandgrab.org/post/view/18406

In Madagascar, grassroots struggles against corporate-driven land grabbing have emerged as a political point of focus in the growing global spotlight on land grabs throughout the global south, a process that the UN special rapporteur on the right to food says has 'negative effects on the right to food as well as other human rights'. Mass scale corporate land occupations are expanding throughout Africa, and Madagascar is an example of the intensity of the corporate push for national lands but also on the ability for communities to resist such land grabbing.

Angola: Journalist released on bail

2011-04-11

http://bit.ly/gpHxWd

An Angolan journalist who was convicted for reporting on a local judge has been released on bail of $2,400. The Voice of America’s Armando Chicoca was sentenced on 3 March 2011, to one year in prison for criminal defamation against a judge in the coastal town of Namibe.

Egypt: Blogger jailed for three years

2011-04-12

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/04/2011411135325204241.html

An Egyptian military court has jailed a blogger for three years for criticising the armed forces, ruling the country since president Hosni Mubarak''s ouster in February. The verdict is likely to cause concern among Egypt's large network of bloggers who had hoped the overthrow of Mubarak in a popular uprising would usher in a new era of freedom of expression.

Gambia: Newspaper to resume publishing after five months of censorship

2011-04-12

http://www.mediafound.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=661&Itemid=1

The privately-owned Standard newspaper which was in 2010 banned by the Gambia authorities has been given the green-light to operate. Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) sources reported that the decision was announced by the newly appointed State House Press Secretary, Fatou Camara, during a rare interaction between President Yahya Jammeh and media owners and editors in the country.

South Africa: Opposition parties push for narrowing of Info Bill

2011-04-12

http://www.timeslive.co.za/local/article1014072.ece/Opposition-parties-push-for-narrowing-of-Info-Bill

Political opposition parties have tabled submissions calling for the scope of the Protection of Information Bill to be whittled down after progress on the legislation appeared to stall in recent months. In its document, the Democratic Alliance called for the scrapping of entire chapters of the bill, which is widely seen as a regressive bid to prevent scrutiny and criticism of the state.

Swaziland: Security forces target journalists

2011-04-14

http://www.cpj.org/2011/04/swaziland-security-forces-target-journalists.php

Authorities in the kingdom of Swaziland should allow the news media to report freely on anti-government protests, the Committee to Protect Journalists said after security forces harassed at least 10 local and international journalists covering a mass demonstration demanding political and economic reform after more than two decades of rule by King Mswati III. Police stopped reporter Niren Tolsi and photographer Lisa Skinner of the South African daily Mail & Guardian, confiscated their notebooks and Swazi contact books, and threatened to deport them if the journalists reported anything negative about the country or the king, Africa's last absolute monarch, Nic Dawes, the paper's editor-in-chief, told CPJ.

Zimbabwe: What online news means for Zimbabwe

2011-04-12

http://www.freeafricanmedia.com/article/2011-04-05-what-online-news-means-for-zimbabwe

These days there are dozens of online news websites focusing on Zimbabwe. However, many of them are produced in exile, sometimes making them vulnerable to inaccuracies. But a growing number of reputable websites are able to publish news that would otherwise be censored, providing a voice to the voiceless, writes Vladimir Mzaca on www.freeafricanmedia.com

Global: Report says 7,000 babies stillborn every day worldwide

2011-04-14

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-13068787

Around 7,000 stillbirths occur globally every day, with the poorest nations worst affected, a series of papers published in The Lancet suggest. An overwhelming 98 per cent of the 2.6m stillbirths each year strike middle and low-income countries, they say. Better clinical care and monitoring could halve stillbirths in poorer countries by 2020, the paper adds.

Kenya: Slum fires highlight urban preparedness gap

2011-04-18

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportID=92488

According to the UN Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat), 60 per cent of Nairobi’s population lives on five per cent of the land. The city’s overcrowded slums and informal settlements, constructed from cheap materials like corrugated iron and connected to hazardous electricity lines, make them particularly vulnerable to fire. Access roads are few, making passage difficult for fire trucks.

Libya: Benghazi cares for its own

2011-04-13

http://bit.ly/f15xGB

In the two months since pro-democracy rebels rose up, eastern Libya has faced food and fuel shortages, media blackouts, power outages and the total disruption of social services. And with a long-time government prohibition on all NGOs and international humanitarian agencies barred from filling the void, the citizens of Benghazi are on their own and have set up their own structures to provide for themselves.

South Africa: Unemployment, South Africa's 'Ticking Time Bomb'

2011-04-14

http://www.sacsis.org.za/site/article/357.19

Rising unemployment in South Africa is spelling disaster for the country's black population, reports Al Jazeera in this video, as it highlights the prevalence of unemployment amongst youth both with and without educational qualifications.

Africa: Africa defies gloom to spend $30bn on arms

2011-04-13

http://bit.ly/hLrhBE

In defiance of a global recession that halved Africa’s growth, military spending on the continent rose by 5.2 per cent, a new study shows. The region's total military expenditure in 2010 in real terms was an estimated $30.1 billion, according to new analysis from the Stockhom International Peace Research Institute. Angola, recovering from three decades of civil war, set the pace with a 19 per cent increase in real terms, or $600 million in 2009 prices.

Burkina Faso: Soldiers mutiny

2011-04-18

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2011/04/2011417103043486641.html

Mutinous soldiers have rampaged through a southern town in Bukina Faso as the revolt against Blaise Compaore, the West African nation's ruler, enters its fourth day. Soldiers at a military garrison in Po, near the Ghana border, fired in the air, looting and seizing private vehicles, residents told the AFP news agency. Compaore, who came to power in a 1987 military coup, has faced a series of protests since February, staged first by students and then by soldiers. He won a new five-year term in office after taking 80 per cent of the votes in November elections.

Chad: Children conscripted by poverty

2011-04-13

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportID=92444

Dozens of minors interviewed by Amnesty International for a new report had joined the Chadian army and armed opposition groups in the east. The report found that 80 per cent of the estimated 7,000-10,000 child soldiers recruited in Chad are associated with armed groups, while the remaining 20 per cent are involved with the country’s armed forces. These UN estimates also indicate that they may have been used as combatants.

Côte d’Ivoire: Ouattara may struggle to pay his debts

2011-04-14

http://www.saiia.org.za/diplomatic-pouch/cote-d-ivoire-ouattara-may-struggle-to-pay-his-debts.html

The cohesion of the coalition of 10 rebel commanders - termed 'Ouattara's forces' by the international media - may yet turn out to be fragile, says this article from the South African Institute of International Affairs. 'The former rebels will want to be rewarded for ousting Laurent Gbagbo, firstly with posts in the new army, and secondly with guarantees of impunity. And they will be reluctant to start any disarmament, a pre-requisite to any meaningful security reform.'

Côte d’Ivoire: Rebuilding begins

2011-04-18

http://mg.co.za/article/2011-04-15-cte-divoire-rebuilding-begins

After four months of a growing crisis which threatened to tip Côte d’Ivoire into civil war Gbagbo was detained at the presidential compound on Monday (11 April) by forces loyal to Ouattara. French troops and UN peacekeepers, who had struck Gbagbo’s home in Abidjan from the air earlier, provided crucial support. The president-elect of Côte d'Ivoire has heralded 'the dawn of a new hope' since the arrest of his rival. In a television address to the nation, Alassane Ouattara said his predecessor would receive 'dignified treatment' and called on all fighters in Côte d’Ivoire to lay down their arms.

Libya: Rebels resist Ajdabiya assault

2011-04-18

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2011/04/2011417192411769432.html

Rebel fighters in eastern Libya fought off an attack by government troops in the town of Ajdabiya on Sunday, a day after retreating from a key oil facility around 100 kilometres farther west. Forces loyal to longtime leader Muammar Gaddafi advanced on Ajdabiya under a heavy artillery barrage in the morning and fought at close range with rebels on the town’s southern outskirts before a counterattack forced them back, witnesses said.

Libya: Zuma's Libyan pax implodes

2011-04-11

http://mg.co.za/article/2011-04-11-zumas-libyan-pax-implodes

An African Union (AU) bid to halt Libya's civil war, led by South Africa's President Jacob Zuma, collapsed within hours on Monday (11 April) after Muammar Gaddafi's forces shelled a besieged city and rebels said there could be no deal unless he was toppled. The rebel rejection came less than 24 hours after Zuma, head of the AU's mission, said Gaddafi had accepted the plan, including a ceasefire proposal for the conflict in this North African desert state.

South Sudan: Over 800 killed in south Sudan since January

2011-04-14

http://reliefweb.int/node/396158

More than 800 people have died in south Sudan violence since January and almost 94,000 people fled their homes, posing a major challenge for the fledgling state, the top UN aid official for the region warned. The nation in waiting has seen an upsurge in bloody clashes since January's largely peaceful referendum, in which southerners voted almost unanimously to split with the north. The number of people displaced by violence has doubled in the past month to 93,780 people, according to figures released by Lise Grande, the UN humanitarian coordinator for Sudan.

Africa: Increased use of mobile phones for internet access

2011-04-14

http://www.balancingact-africa.com/reports/telecoms-and-interne/mobile-internet-in-a-0

Mobile phones in Africa are increasingly being used as a media to get information and use value added services, according to the Mobile Internet in Africa report. Whether it's checking market prices, transferring money or simply checking the latest news, Facebook or Wikipedia, mobile phones are transforming life in Africa. Inevitably, the African mobile Internet market is due to explode. The number of mobile Internet subscribers in Africa has increased dramatically in the last 12-18 months, particularly in East Africa.

Africa: New cable to boost internet access

2011-04-18

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2011/04/201141844545225913.html

Work has begun to lay undersea communications cable along the coast of West Africa. The cable is set to give more Africans a fast internet access for the first time. The West Africa Cable System, known by its acronyms (WACS), runs 14,000 kilometres from London to South Africa.

South Africa: Mathematics education via cell phones and the web

2011-04-14

http://ictupdate.cta.int/en/Feature-Articles/Count-on-cell-phones

A project in South Africa supports mathematics education in schools using the web, social networking and mobile apps to deliver learning material directly to students’ cell phones. Teachers can also use the content in their classroom lessons. Students can practise mathematics exercises from a cell phone at any time and receive immediate feedback, while teaching staff only need a two-day training course to learn how to use the new service.

Videos on the recolonisation of Africa

2011-04-18

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Re-colonization+of+africa&aq=f

The videos of six panelists who addressed the topic of the re-colonization of Africa at a Left Forum panel in the US are now online on www.youtube.com The speakers include Firoze Manji, Andre Kangni Afanou, Eben Valentine, Tseliso Thipanyane, Kassahun Checole and Sowore Omoyele.

Nigeria: Information for Change

11 May 2011, Lagos

2011-04-18

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/courses/72639

Information for Change
Digital Publishing in West Africa: Technology and the future of the book

A free whole-day workshop at the Nigeria International Book Fair, Lagos, for all interested in information for social change

Wednesday 11 May 2011. 09.00-17.00 in the Book Fair Halls

Keynote Address from Bibi Bakare-Yusuf, Cassava Republic

Panel Speakers | Case Studies | World Cafe | Participation

Organised by Oxfam, IDRC, and CTA in collaboration with the Nigerian Publishers' Association and CODESRIA.

To register for the full-day FREE workshop, go to www.informationforchange.org/registration.asp

Registration closes 4 May 2011

For more on the Information for Change workshops, visit www.informationforchange.org

April/May edition of Amandla! Magazine is now available

2011-04-18

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/publications/72641

The April/May edition of Amandla! Magazine is now available in bookshops across South Africa. The issue focuses on two major issues confronting progressives and left activists: the up-coming local government elections and the revolutions in North Africa and the Middle East.
The April/May edition of Amandla! Magazine is now available in bookshops across South Africa.

The issue focuses on two major issues confronting progressives and left activists: the up-coming local government elections and the revolutions in North Africa and the Middle East.

With the collapse of so many of our municipalities, the crisis of provision of basic services, rampant corruption and conflict in the ANC over election lists, doubts exist as to who to vote for or if one should vote at all! Amandla covers the crisis facing local government and gives space to young voices from powerful movements such as the Young Communist League, the Unemployed People's Movement and the Abahlali baseMjondolo on how they see the local government elections.

The revolutions in North Africa and the Middle East have inspired millions around the world including in other parts of Africa, Europe and even the United States. We hear authentic voices from activists inside these revolutions who provide insights into what is taking place as well as providing an overview of the prospects for radical change in these relatively closed societties. To read Nawal El Saadawi's account of how women have thrown off the chains of conservatism and entered the terrain of struggle and politics is truly inspirational. Fathi Chamkhi gives us an analysis of the on-going revolutionary processes in Tunisia and Irish socialist Helena Sheehan provides an on the spot account of the rupture in Libya. All those interested in the Palestinian struggle will find John Rose's, (author of the Myths of Zionism) account of the impact of the Middle East revolts on the possibilities for Palestinian liberation fascinating.

Other exciting articles in this issue of Amandla include an intriguing interview with award winning writer, poet and philosopher Breyten Breytenbach, an exposure of profiteering in the building industry and the politics behind the crisis of acid mine drainage.

Amandla can be obtained by subscription for just R120 per year or purchased from most leading book sellers.

For more information contact Feroza Phillips on 0214475770 or email feroza@aidc.org.za For more visit www.amandla.org.za

Information, Society & Justice (ISJ)

Call for Papers

2011-04-18

http://www.pambazuka.org//images/articles/525/ISJcall.pdf

Information, Society & Justice (ISJ) is producing a special issue with equal emphasis on ideas, policies and practice that can liberate bodies and minds from the imposed market solutions. The special issue of (ISJ) will also mark an international exchange of library staff and students during July-August 2011. You are invited to submit articles for consideration for publication in the December 2011 issue. Click on the link for more information.

Director: Middle East and North Africa Programme

Amnesty International

2011-04-20

http://www.pambazuka.org//images/articles/525/Amnesty_Director MENA_online_final.doc

In this high profile role, you’ll lead both the day-to-day running and strategic development of our programme in the MENA region. Managing a substantial budget and a dedicated 30-strong team split between London and our regional office in Beirut, you’ll provide the strategic and political analysis that shapes and drives our human rights agenda across the region. In doing so, you’ll make sure that our work – from the way we approach research and membership campaigning to government lobbying and the content of our own publications – meet the organisation’s standards and are closely aligned with its wider objectives. Please click on the link for further details about this job.

West Africa: Researcher

Amnesty International

2011-04-20

http://www.pambazuka.org//images/articles/525/Researcher_March 2011_final.doc

We’re looking for a Researcher to join our West Africa team, specifically focusing on Liberia, Sierra Leone and Gambia, to help the work of the team by providing country and thematic expertise, excellent research skills and sound political judgement. Your task will be to monitor, investigate and analyze political, legal and social developments and human rights conditions, give authoritative advice on these areas and prepare human rights action materials. Please click on the link for further information.

Nigeria: Ripe for a WikiLeaks revolution?

2011-04-18

http://bit.ly/gIYYkg

It is only months since the US diplomatic cables released by whistleblowing website WikiLeaks made headlines around the world with their revelations about Nigeria. Among them, allegations that Nigeria's government dropped legal action against pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, which is accused of running a clinical trial that killed and disabled children, after the drugs company threatened to investigate the attorney-general. But as voters head to the polls for presidential and regional elections, how many will be influenced by the material published over the last few months, and could such revelations bring about real change?

Fahamu