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The most tragic day of Igbo history: 29 May 1966

Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe

2011-05-19

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/73417

cc Wikimedia29 May 1966, the Igbo Day of Affirmation, marks both the start of the 1966 genocide against the Igbo people and the day they decided to survive the violence unleashed against them, writes Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe.

For the Igbo, prior to 29 May 1966, three important holidays were high up on their annual calendar: The Igbo National Day, the iri ji, or the New Yam Festival, and 1 October. The latter was the day of celebration for the restoration of independence for peoples in Nigeria after 60 years of the British conquest and occupation. Or, so were the thoughts predicated on this date’s designation.

ORIGINS

The Igbo were one of the very few constituent nations in what was Nigeria, again prior to 29 May 1966, who understood, fully, the immense liberatory possibilities ushered in by 1 October and the interlocking challenges of the vast reconstructionary work required for state and societal transformation in the aftermath of foreign occupation.

The Igbo had the most robust economy in the country in their east regional homeland. Not only did they supply the country with its leading writers, artists and scholars, they also supplied the country’s top universities with vice-chancellors and leading professors and scientists. They supplied the country with its first indigenous university (the prestigious university at Nsukka), with its leading and most spirited pan-Africanists and its top diplomats. They supplied the country’s leading high schools with head teachers and administrators, supplied the country with its top bureaucrats, supplied the country with its leading businesspeople and supplied the country with an educated, top-rated professional officers-corps for its military and police forces. In addition they supplied the country with its leading sportspersons, essentially and effectively worked the country’s rail, postal, telegraphic, power, shipping and aviation services to quality standards not seen since in Nigeria …

And they were surely aware of the vicissitudes engendered by this historic age, precisely because the Igbo nation played the vanguard role in the freeing of Nigeria from Britain, beginning from the mid-1930s. The commentator, Sabella Ogbobode Abidde, couldn’t have been more emphatic in summarising the thrust of the Igbo mission during the period:

‘The Igbo nation ha[s] attributes most other Nigerian nationalities can only dream of and are what most other nations [are] not. The Igbo made Nigeria better. Any wonder then that the Igbo can do without Nigeria; but Nigeria and her myriad nationalities cannot do without the Igbo? Take the Igbo out of the Nigeria equation … and Nigeria will be gasping for air.’

GENOCIDE

The Igbo’s break with Nigeria occurred catastrophically on 29 May 1966. On this day, leaders of the Hausa-Fulani north region (feudal overlords, muslim clergy, military, police, businesspeople, academics, civic servants, other public officials and patrons), who were long opposed to the liberation of Nigeria (there were no comparable clusters of political, cultural, ideational, religious, national or racial groupings anywhere else in the Southern World, during the era, which had a similar, unenviable disposition of hostility to emancipation from the European occupation of their lands as the Hausa-Fulani leadership), launched waves of premeditated genocidal attacks on Igbo migrant populations resident in the north. These attacks were later expanded to Igboland itself – Biafra during the second phase – which began on 6 July 1967, boosted particularly by the robust participation in the slaughter by the Yoruba, Urhobo, and Edo nations of west Nigeria as well as others elsewhere in the country.

The Yoruba support for the genocide as from 6 July 1967, for instance, bears the hallmark of a squelching cadence of opportunism. The Yoruba appeared to have lost, quite spectacularly, the 1930s-1960s Igbo-Yoruba competitive ‘preparatory drive’ to develop the high-level humanpower and ancillary resources required to run the prospective post-conquest state after the British departure. They therefore viewed the outbreak of the mid-1966 Igbo mass killings in the north region and elsewhere as welcome season to ‘avenge’ their ‘loss’ during the great socio-cultural rivalry of those previous three decades. They clutched onto any bomb or missile available from July 1967 on their onward death-march east to lob, remorselessly, into besieged Igboland, into an Igbo home, school, shrine, church, hospital, office, market, farmland, factory/industrial enterprise, children’s playground, town hall, refugee centre…

Benjamin Adekunle, one of the most fiendish of the genocidist commanders of the time had no qualms, whatsoever, in boasting about the goal of this horrendous mission when he told an August 1968 press conference, attended by journalists including those from the international media: ‘We shoot at everything that moves, and when our forces march into the centre of I[g]bo territory, we shoot at everything, even at things that do not move’.

It is astonishing how genocidist cravings and dispositions build on gory precedents so markedly as the following two examples attest. First, in 1891, Karl Peters, the head of the German occupation regime in east Africa, gave the following haunting description of some of the gruesome massacres his forces had recently carried out in the region:

‘I shall show the Vagogo what the Germans are! Plunder the villages, throw fire into the houses, and smash everything that will not burn ... At about three, I marched further south toward the other villages ... [T]orches were thrown into the houses, and axes worked to destroy all that the fire did not achieve. So by half past four, twelve villages had been burned down ... My gun had become so hot from so much firing I could hardly hold it’.

Second, in October 1904, Lother von Trotha, the general officer commanding the German military forces engaged in the genocide of the Herero people and others in Namibia issued the following proclamation, which he unambiguously captioned an ‘Extermination Order’: ‘The Herero people will have to leave the country. Otherwise I shall force them to do so by means of guns ... [E]very Herero, whether found armed or unarmed, with or without cattle, will be shot. I shall not accept any more women and children. I shall drive them back to their people - otherwise I shall order shots to be fired at them. These are my orders to the Herero people’.

The outcome of Trotha’s campaign was cataclysmic. No sectors of the Herero population, nor indeed those of the other nations in the region such as the Nama and the Berg Damara escaped the resultant genocide as the following statistics from Germany’s own 1911 census figures for the area show. In that year, there were 15,130 Herero, compared with a population figure of 80,000 in 1904, indicating that at least 80 per cent were destroyed in the holocaust. For the Nama, their population in 1911 was 9,781 people compared with 20,000 in 1904, recording a 51 per cent German annihilation score. There were no detailed, broken down, figures for the Berg Damara, but the Germans reckoned that about 30 per cent of them were murdered in the genocide

To return to the post-Peters/von Trotha-genocide epoch of the mid-20th century Africa, notably between 29 May 1966 and 12 January 1970, Adekunle and his extended trail of genocidist hordes, starting from the sabon gari-killing fields’ launch pads that were Igbo homes and churches and offices and businesses in north Nigeria to the ‘centre of I[g]bo territory’, 400 miles to the south, did murder 3.1 million Igbo people – a haunting tally which indeed includes those slaughtered during the Adekunleist ‘everything that moves’ –targeting, duly promised in the infamous press briefing.

As for the outcome of the ‘things that do not move’-assault category, the genocidists were hardly off target. Their gratuitous destruction of the famed Igbo economic infrastructure, one of the most advanced in Africa of the era, is indescribably barbaric. This was followed, subsequently (post-January 1970), by the genocidists’ implementation of the most dehumanising raft of socio-economic s of deprivation in occupied Igboland, not seen anywhere else in Africa. The brigandage includes the following:

1. Seizure of the multimillion Igbo capital asset in Igwe Ocha/Port Harcourt and elsewhere.

2. Comprehensive sequestration of Igbo liquid asset in Nigeria (as of January 1970), bar the £20.00 (twenty pounds) doled out to the male surviving head of an Igbo family.

3. Exponential expropriation of the rich Igbo oil resources from the Abia, Delta, Imo and Rivers administrative regions.

4. Blanket policy of non-development of Igboland.

5. Aggressive degradation of socioeconomic life of Igboland (As if another empirical reminder is yet required to underscore this obviously grave situation at stake, the following news item from the Lagos Vanguard [16 November 2009] is typically illustrative: ‘Journalists in … Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, [Enuuwgu] and Imo [central Igboland administrative regions] have threatened to embark on hunger strike to protest the bad conditions of federal roads [there]. They regretted that the failed roads [have] claimed many lives and property worth billions of naira’.)

6. Ignoring ever-expanding soil erosion/landslides and other pressing ecological emergencies particularly in northwest Igboland.

7. Continuing reinforcement of the overall state of siege of Igboland …

These latter measures, which inaugurated phase-III of the Igbo genocide, constitute one of the five acts of genocide explicitly defined in article 2 of the December 1948 UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide: ‘deliberately inflicting upon the group conditions of life designed to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part’.

We mustn’t fail to add, finally, that these measures were drafted and implemented largely by Yoruba economists and lawyers led by Obafemi Awolowo which included, ironically, Sam Aluko who, along with all members of his family, enjoyed the generosity of a political asylum in Igboland when his life was in serious danger during the vicious intra-Yoruba political violence of the early 1960s.

The Harold Wilson-led British government of the day underwrote this devastating stretch of genocide militarily, politically and diplomatically – from its early conceptualisation, liaising continuously with the Gowon-Mohammed-Danjuma genocidist cells of the Nigeria military at varying stages between January and May 1966, to the savage, spiralling aerial, naval and ground onslaughts on encircled Igbo population centres (the ‘shooting everything’-raging inferno) especially between March 1968 and January 1970. London’s strategic goal in supporting the genocide was to ‘punish’ the Igbo for ‘daring’ to spearhead the termination of the British occupation of Nigeria. This foundational genocide of post-(European)conquest Africa and the worst in 20th century Africa would probably not have occurred without British active involvement. It is inconceivable that a contemporary British government would continue to delay any much longer in offering its unreserved apology to the Igbo for Britain’s role in the execution of this genocide and pay reparations to the survivors.

29TH DAY OF MAY

29 May 1966 is undoubtedly the most tragic day in the annals of Igbo history. It was a day that the Igbo were subjected to an overwhelming violence and unremitting brutality by supposedly fellow countrymen and women. Ironically, the atrocity was clinically organised, supervised and implemented by the very state that the Igbo had played such a crucial role to liberate from foreign conquest and occupation. This state, now violently taken over by murderous anti-African sociopolitical forces, had pointedly violated its most sacred tenet of responsibility to its Igbo citizens – provision of security. Instead of providing security to these citizens, the Nigeria state murdered 3.1 million of them. The anthem for the genocide, broadcast uninterruptedly in Hausa on Kaduna radio and television throughout its duration, was unambiguously clear on the principal objective of this crime against humanity:

‘Mu je mu kashe nyamiri
Mu kashe maza su da yan maza su
Mu chi mata su da yan mata su
Mu kwashe kaya su.’

(English translation: ‘Let’s go kill the damned Igbo/Kill off their men and boys/Rape their wives and daughters/Cart off their property’)

Yet 29 May 1966 is also the Igbo Day of Affirmation. The Igbo people resolved on this day, the day that marked the beginning of the genocide, to survive the catastrophe. This was the day the Igbo ceased to be Nigerians forever – right there on the grounds of those death camps in the sabon gari residential districts and offices and rail stations and coach stations and airports and churches and schools and markets and hospitals across north Nigeria. They created the state of Biafra in its place and tasked it to provide security to the Igbo and prevent Nigeria, a genocide state, from accomplishing its dreadful mission. The heuristic symbolism defined hitherto by 1 October shattered in the wake of this historic Igbo declaration. For the Igbo, the renouncement of Nigerian citizenship was the permanent Igbo indictment of a state that had risen thunderously to murder its people.

The Igbo could not have survived the genocide if they still remained Nigerian. They rightly chose the former course of their fate and not the latter, which they cast adrift. Consequently, Nigeria collapsed as a state with any serious prospects for the future. Despite the four murderous years of siege, the Igbo demonstrated a far greater creative drive towards constructing an advanced civilisation in Biafra than what Nigeria has all but wished it could achieve in the past 40 years. ‘Nigeria gburu ochu; Nigeria mere alu’. Surely, Nigeria couldn’t recover from committing this heinous crime – this crime against humanity, this ‘Malebolge’.

29 May is therefore a beacon of the resilient spirit of human overcoming of the most desperate, unimaginably brutish forces. It is the new Igbo National Holiday. It is a day of meditation and remembrance in every Igbo household anywhere in the world for the 3.1 million murdered, gratitude and thanksgiving for those who survived, and the collective Igbo rededication to achieve the urgent goal of the restoration of Igbo sovereignty.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe is an independent scholar on inclusive state systems and the rights of constituent peoples. His new book, Readings from Reading: Essays on African Politics, Genocide, Literature, will be published later in 2011.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

Make a difference: Say something

International Day Against Homophobia

Esther Adhiambo

2011-05-19

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/73421

cc N J‘I challenge every one of us to at least talk to one person you know about homosexuality. I’m not asking you to come
out, just yet, even I am struggling with that. But just try and
 communicate our fears and insecurities as a minority group,’ writes Kenyan sister Esther Adhiambo, in a piece marking International Day Against Homophobia on 17 May.

It is yet another year that the LGBTI communities, their friends and allies mark the International Day Against Homophobia. I say ‘mark’ because we do not celebrate homophobia. Although today we have a reason to celebrate something – because we are still relieved that the Anti-Homosexuality Bill was not discussed in the Ugandan parliament last week, we live to fight another day.

Transgender and gay bashing has become quite acceptable and we have
somehow developed immunity towards it.



Every year we see messages condemning state sponsored homophobia, but
little mention is given about the same within the family unit. But then what happens when we are faced with the same discrimination
from our own families, our own kin? How do we deal with it? How do we
confront our own flesh with our sexual secrets? How do we deal with
that conflict?

For most of us we can’t come clean to our own families because our
very being is something taboo; something seen as a curse. You see Dennis, my friend, keeps telling me that he is tired of being
a victim all the time and that it’s good coming out of the closet where it is dark and lonely. But how many of us can actually do that?

How many of us have the guts to take our dads for coffee and tell them:
‘…so dad I know you’re wondering why we are here but I wanted to tell
you I’m gay…’ or ‘…hey dad meet my partner’. Even if not in those
exact words, but you get my drift, right?



But let me put things into a bigger perspective. I’ll tell you my
other friend’s story. Let’s call her Lorraine.



Lorraine hid in her closet for 15 years and after 15 years she figured
she’s had enough. So she told her sister and all hell broke loose.


What transpired is something she would quickly erase from her memory;
unfortunately things don’t work that way.



She was kicked out, in the middle of the night, by the person she
trusted most with her secret, and raped by guards from whom she sought
protection. For a long time Lorraine felt like she brought it upon
herself.



Her sister took her in after that but physical, verbal and emotional
abuse characterised her stay. She rarely ate because her sister denied
her food. And she took it all in with stride.

I’m going to leave it at that but I admire Lorraine for her strength
and guts. I’m not sure how many of us would survive any of that.


Lorraine also took it upon herself to sensitise her relatives about
her sexuality. She maintains her stand and tries to accommodate all her relatives. Some have taken it in but some still find her strange. But at the end
of the day, she can sleep peacefully at night knowing she is free to
live and breathe.


I won’t lie, homophobia hurts and sucks like hell. We’ve all gone
through it or we know someone who has. But one thing I’ve learnt
through the years is that it makes us stronger individuals.



So as we mark this day, I challenge every one of us to at least talk
to one person you know about homosexuality. I’m not asking you to come
out, just yet, even I am struggling with that. But just try and
communicate our fears and insecurities as a minority group.


Trust me it will make a difference in someone’s life or perception;
maybe not today or tomorrow but some day. And remaining silent is the
bigger tragedy.



Our struggle continues!!!



BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* Esther Adhiambo is a sister, a daughter, an aunt, a friend.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

My love

For David Kato and Eudy Simelane

Musa Okwonga

2011-05-19

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/73438

Musa Okwonga performed his poem 'My love' at a memorial service for murdered Ugandan LGBTI activist David Kato on May 18. Originally written for Eudy Simelane, the South African lesbian footballer who was gang-raped and murdered, the poem also features in the forthcoming 'African Sexualities: A reader', published by Pambazuka Press. Watch the animated version of 'My love' here.

To some people
My love is somewhat alien;
When he comes up, they start subject-changing, and
In some states he’s seen as some contagion –
In those zones, he stays subterranean;
Some love my love; they run parades for him:
Liberal citizens lead the way for him:
Concurrent with some countries embracing him,
Whole faiths and nations seem ashamed of him:
Some tried banning him,
God-damning him,
Toe-tagging him,
Prayed that he stayed in the cabinet,
But my love kicked in the panelling, ran for it –
My love! Can’t be trapping him in labyrinths –
Maverick, my love is; thwarts challenges;
Cleverest geneticists can’t fathom him,
Priests can’t defeat him with venomous rhetoric;
They’d better quit; my love’s too competitive:
Still here, despite the Taliban, Vatican,
And rap, ragga in their anger and arrogance,
Calling on my love with lit matches and paraffin –
Despite the fistfights and midnight batterings –
Despite the dislike by Anglican Africans
And sly comparisons with those mishandling
Small kids, and his morbid inner chattering
My love’s still here and fiercely battling,
Parenting, marrying, somehow managing;
My love comes through anything

© Musa Okwonga

* Musa Okwonga is a poet and musician of Ugandan descent.
* This poem appears in Sylvia Tamale's ‘African Sexualities’, a groundbreaking volume, coming soon from Pambazuka Press (ISBN: 0-85749-016-8).
* Watch the animated version of 'My love' here.

Haiti: Reparations and reconstruction

Horace Campbell

2011-05-19

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/73445

cc N H LThe process that brought Michel ‘Sweet Micky’ Martelly to Haiti’s ‘presidency was a farce that will 'force popular forces to distinguish between processes of democratisation and pseudo-elections without democratic participation’, writes Horace Campell, in an article on the people of Haiti’s two-hundred year struggle to reconstruct their society.

For two hundred years the peoples of Haiti have been struggling to reconstruct their society. Before the Haitian revolution of 1791-1804 could be consolidated, the French and other imperial powers worked to isolate the revolution for fear that the ideas of freedom would be contagious and spread. But they could not turn the tide of freedom. Failing to stem the idea that the African enslaved wanted freedom, the government and political leaders of France demanded reparations from Haiti, thus distorting the essence and meaning of reparative justice for 100 years. Despite this, the fears of the imperial west that the Haitian Revolution would inspire other slaves in Latin America, the Caribbean and the United States came to fruition. Haiti played its role of supporting freedom and independence throughout the region. Simon Bolivar and other revolutionaries from Latin America flocked to seek assistance from Haiti. Every act of freedom by Haiti scared the imperial powers; these powers slowly consolidated the ideas of capitalist exploitation and white supremacy so that these racist ideologies of the 19th and 20th centuries began to take root in Europe and North America.

United States revolutionaries, such as Thomas Jefferson, who internalised chauvinistic ideas about European and male superiority opposed the reconstruction of Haiti and refused to recognise the independence of Haiti. It was only after the bloody US Civil War (1861-1865), when the enslaved in the United States won their freedom that the US government recognised Haiti. This diplomatic recognition was followed by the destruction of the capacity for the Haitians to reconstruct their society. Western bankers, financiers and merchants and Jim Crow architects worked with a small clique inside of Haiti to frustrate efforts for reconstruction. To guarantee that reconstruction did not take place the bankers, financiers and the militarists organised a military occupation of Haiti (1915-1934). This occupation by the US, supported by France and Canada, laid the foundations for brutal militarism to contain the spirit of the people of Haiti. In the book, ‘Haiti: The Breached Citadel’, author Patrick Bellgrade Smith brings to life the epic struggles of the Haitians to be independent and how the forms of peasant agriculture gave them social solidarity outside of the urban centres where the évolué aped France.

Genocide and genocidal violence from the government of the Dominican dictator, Rafael Trujillo, sent a message to Haitians that their lives were meaningless and that the place of Haitians in the Americas was to provide cheap labour for others. Yet, the Haitians struggled for dignity. It is the novelist Edwidge Danticat who has brought us this history in her book, ‘The Farming the Bones’, which is set in the Dominican Republic of the 1930s.

Militarism and genocidal violence was then reinforced by a crude form of chauvinism that manipulated the religious and spiritual values of the people. Francois ‘Papa Doc’ Duvalier, who ruled Haiti from 1957 until his death in 1971, perfected a form of brutal repression with thugs and death squads called the Militia of National Security Advisers. This militia was renamed the Tonton Macoutes by the Haitian people after a mythical Haitian bogeyman who kidnapped children and ate them. Armed with machetes and guns, the Tonton Macoutes rained terror on the Haitian people. Francois Duvalier expired and the external forces propped up his son, Baby Doc, until the people revolted in 1986. From 1915-1986, there was no possibility for reconstruction on Haiti, The people of Haiti revolted and brought a new movement to lay the basis for reconstruction.

The government of the United States organised not one, but two violent interventions to curtail possibilities of reconstruction by removing the first democratically elected president in Haiti, Bertrand Aristide. Aristide was placed at the front of a grassroots movement that gave itself the name ‘Fanmi Lavalas’. The Fanmi Lavalas movement was seeking to work through the inherited contradictions to lay a new foundation. This movement believed that the reconstruction of Haiti could only take place in the context of the reconstruction of the lives of the Haitian people based on the revolutionary history of Haiti. Together with other African descendants from across the world, the people of Haiti supported the World Conference Against Racism (WCAR) in September 2001, seeking to implant on the world a new spirit or reparations so that humanity could heal from the crimes against itself committed during the period of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade and thereafter.

But this national and international effort was nipped in the bud.

A global ‘war on terror’ imposed a different agenda on the world while real terrorism against the peoples of Haiti was supported by the west. Thugs, death squads, drug runners and anti-social elements permeating Haiti were supported by France and the United States. Bertrand Aristide was removed in 2004 just at the moment when the world was being reminded of the 200th anniversary of the Haitian Revolution. The United Nations was brought in to give legitimacy to the erosion of the popular sovereignty of Haiti in the form of an allegedly peacekeeping force called, the United Nations Stabilization in Haiti (MINUSTAH). Money launderers, Drug runners and gangsters flourished in this scheme of recolonisation. In this moment of external domination, the imperial forces had suborned the Organization of American States to support imperial occupation of Haiti. What was baffling was how governments in Brazil and Venezuela that presented themselves as progressives could be part of the OAS front for oppressing the Haitian peoples. Indeed the Wikileaks cables reveal the desire of the United States to keep Aristide out of Haiti and suppressing the Haitian people by pressuring Brazil, which led the MINUSTAH at the time. In 2005, Brazil led MINUSTAH in a deadly assault to suppress the coup and occupation of Cite Soleil, one of Haiti’s poorest communities.

On 12 January 2010 there was a massive earthquake in Haiti. Millions of people were displaced in the capital Port-au-Prince and surrounding areas killing hundreds of thousands. Billions of dollars were pledged for reconstruction. For a brief moment, the popular and democratic forces in Haiti looked to the progressive world to intervene solidly so that all of the international attention on Haiti after the earthquake would support the democratic forces inside Haiti.

Again, reconstruction was opposed by the imperial forces in France and the United States. Cynically, the military and humanitarian occupation of MINUSTAH, by appointing former President William Jefferson Clinton as UN Special Envoy to Haiti to utilise Clinton’s networks that had been in support of the anti-social forces of the nineties. To add to the ruble and distress in the society, an outbreak of cholera served to intensify the pressures on the people of Haiti to keep them down. Progressive Haitians now looked to the Caribbean, Latin America and the new rising forces to become an antidote to humanitarian imperialism.

To block the energetic measures of the people of Haiti, the imperial forces of the US imposed a new president who was clearly enamored by the militarist traditions of the Duvalierists. The inauguration of Michel ‘Sweet Micky’ Martelly as President of Haiti on 14 May 2011, was an affront to the peoples of Haiti and the world. The sham elections of 28 November 2010 that excluded the largest party in Haiti, Fanmi Lavalas, dictated that the people of Haiti would have to find new ways to organise for reconstruction. This reconstruction in Haiti will demand political changes in all parts of the Americas. The struggles for reparative justice is transnational and the lessons of imperial destruction in Haiti dictate that the progressive forces in all parts of the Americas will have to see how the struggles for peace, democracy and reparations are inseparable from the struggles in other parts of the Americas,

THE EARTHQUAKE OF JANUARY 12, 2010

When the massive earthquake struck Haiti on January 12, 2010, it was estimated that over the estimated 222,000 Haitians perished. Close to two million persons were displaced. Hundreds of thousands were homeless. In the midst of the rubble, the United States sent troops, ostensibly to prevent looting. Such was the mindset of international capitalists that in a moment when quarter of a million persons lost their lives, protection of property and material goods came before the lives of the peoples of Haiti.

International non-governmental organisations of all stripes descended on Haiti. Many of these international NGO’s demanded military protection from the people whom they were in Haiti to purportedly serve. Haiti presented a textbook case of disaster capitalism. Together with the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti, these NGOs created a new layer of oppressive governance to isolate the democratic aspirations of the people. International goodwill for the people of Haiti brought promises of support of all forms from all over the world. Bill Clinton and the neoliberal faction of US capitalism established themselves at the head of this wave of popular support for reconstruction. Where clear planning was needed, these forces continued to push the failed reform plans of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank to create a layer of servile imperial allies inside Haiti. Hundreds of thousands of Haitians in the diaspora rallied to form international teams to rebuild the country.

Instead of international brigades going into Haiti to assist the rebuilding and working with the people, Bill Clinton was named Special Envoy to Haiti. Later, Paul Farmer, the renowned physician and anthropologist and founder of Partners in Health, was named Deputy Special Envoy. This ruse was to exploit the good image of Partners in Health, which provided medical services to the poor, in the service of imperial machinations.

Reconstruction after the earthquake required honest government, a solid partnership with those who wanted to see homes, schools, hospitals, public facilities, roads and other infrastructure rebuilt for the people. These were not forthcoming. In the absence of clear support for reconstruction in spite of billions of dollars pledged, there were some section of the people of Haiti and their allies who began to believe that the earthquake was not a natural disaster. Web surfers began to read blogs claiming that a ‘tectonic weapon’ had been unleashed to induce the catastrophic earthquake that hit the country. The US military Project called HAARP was named as the tectonic weapon. HAARP, the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program, is a Pentagon operation in Alaska directed at the occasional reconfiguration of the properties of the Earth’s ionosphere to improve satellite communications. Many writers on this program associate this military capability with the ability to generate ‘violent and unexpected changes in climate.’

Whether such capabilities exist could only be clarified in a context of full disclosure of the role of the drilling of the oil companies in the Caribbean and the by-products of deep drilling below the ocean floor in the Caribbean. The full role of the US military and intelligence services in Haiti over the previous one hundred years ensured that the US military forces did not inspire confidence in the people of Haiti when the Obama administration deployed 13,000 marines in the aftermath of the earthquake.

RACISM AND MIND GAMES AGAINST HAITI

Whether the earthquake was a natural disaster or not, the conservative and racist forces invoked God against the people of Haiti. The racist media had a field day reproducing images of sloth, poverty and hopelessness in Haiti. The media repeated the formulation that Haiti was ‘the poorest country in the western hemisphere.’ Racists and imperialists sought to outdo each other in mobilising stereotypes of Haiti. Kidnappers and child traffickers used the disaster as cover for their trade. Pat Robertson claimed that the Haiti was God’s revenge because Haiti had made a pact with the evil. Robertson said on national TV in the United States that,

‘Something happened a long time ago in Haiti, and people might not want to talk about it. They were under the heel of the French, you know, Napoleon the Third and whatever, and they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, “We will serve you if you'll get us free from the French.” True story. And so the devil said, “O.K., it's a deal.” ‘

Inside the United States and in the Caribbean fundamentalist and born again forces reproduced this tale so that even among some sections of the poor in Haiti, there was a view that the suffering was payback from divine forces. According to this rendition of the revolution in Haiti, the struggles against France and slavery were struggles against Christianity and civilization, because the enslaved were being Christianised by the French. The evil voodoo priests of Haiti had made a pact with the devil in order to in order to secure Satan's aid in expelling the French occupation.

The ranting of Pat Robertson was a new variation of the kind of racism that had developed in the West to oppose black dignity and self-assertiveness. Michael West in the book, ‘From Toussaint to Tupac’ captured the birth and support of the racist ideas of Count Gobineau in France and how these ideas became part of the international arsenal to hold back Haiti and black people.

‘If the Haitian Revolution could not be rolled back, it would certainly be contained. Having won the war, the Haitians would be denied the fruits of victory: they would be made to lose the peace. The cost of throwing off the shackles of colonialism, slavery and white supremacy would be very high, even crippling. European powers and white-run states variously isolated Haiti, embargoed its goods, demanded reparations, and barred from their shores its dangerous achievements and citizens … scientific racism as a mode of securing post abolition global racial hierarchies flourished, initially, and not accidentally, in post-Napoleonic France, most notably in the writings of Count Gobineau, “the father of racist ideology”.’

The crippling of the revolution and the attempt to systematically destroy the Haitian revolution by military occupation and by thugs and drug dealers ensured that the task of reconstructing Haiti would require new political forces, nationally, regionally and internationally. Such forces had begun to coalesce during the presidency of Bertrand Aristide and the international efforts to support the World Conference against Racism.

REPARATIONS AND RECONSTRUCTION

In the first years after the revolution in Haiti, the people were desperate to end diplomatic isolation. The history books tell us that the ‘French government sent a team of accountants and actuaries into Haiti in order to place a value on all lands, all physical, assets, the 500,000 citizens who were formerly enslaved, animals, and all other commercial properties and services. The sums amounted to 150 million gold francs. Haiti was told to pay this reparation to France in return for national recognition. The Haitian government agreed; payments began immediately. Members of the Cabinet were also valued because they had been enslaved persons before Independence.’

Numerous writers have been chronicling how France had worked to systematically destroy the Republic of Haiti. Professor Hilary Beckles, principal of the University of the West Indies, was among the many who added his voice to the exposure of France and the US in the destruction of Haiti. He argued that France had carried out a merciless exploitation, ‘that was designed and guaranteed to collapse the Haitian economy and society.’ Haiti was forced to pay the sum of 150 million francs until 1922 when the last installment was made.

France had used then international balance of power in the 19th century to turn the idea of reparations on its head.

At the end of the twentieth century, the international balance of forces were shifting and in this shift the anti-globalisation forces, the forces of peace, the environmental justice movement and the anti-racist movements had coalesced and came together under the framework of the World Conference Against Racism. Coming together in differing regions of the world over a ten-year period, this WCAR met in Durban South Africa in September 2001. It was in the general international mobilisation to name the slavery and slave trade as crimes against humanity where the peoples of Haiti called on the peoples of France to repay the forced reparative claims of French imperialists of the 19th century.

During the 2001 UN Conference on Race in Durban, South Africa, there were strong representations that reparations were due to the black peoples of the world emanating from the years of enslavement. Additionally, it was in agreed the Durban conference that the government of France had to repay the 150 million francs. ‘The value of this amount was estimated by financial actuaries as US$21 billion.’

Here was a firm basis for reparations and reconstruction.

Neither France nor the United States took these deliberations lightly. It was a historical coincidence that the attack on the US, 11 September 2011, took place two days after the end of the WCAR in Durban. Since that time the resolutions of the meeting were squashed as the world was diverted to the global war on terror. Inside Haiti, the forces of destruction unleashed terror against the peoples of Haiti. When the US invaded Iraq in March 2003, France and the US were at loggerheads. However, when it came to the destabilisation of Haiti, they were in agreement. The president, Aristide was removed from power and another form of occupation took place. Only this time, the French and the USA sought the cover of the United Nations with the installation of MINUSTAH. This devise of hiding behind the United Nations necessitated clarity on the part of the forces opposed to imperial domination. The Caribbean societies and the South Africans rejected the propaganda war against Haiti. Brazil and Venezuela gestured towards the progressive camp but allowed their troops to be caught to in the UN and NGO occupation.

Whatever the conditions of Haiti before the major event of January 2010, there was need for clarity; forces such as Patrick Gaspard, executive director of the Democratic National Committee, who served as director of the Office of Political Affairs for the Obama administration from January 2009 to 2011, and Paul Farmer, world-renowned doctor, had to emerge from the shadows to join the required fight back against the recolonisation and remilitarisation of Haiti.

SHAM ELECTIONS 2010 AND THE CHALLENGES TO THE INTERNATIONAL LEFT

International divisions over the future paths of Haiti simmered as disaster and rubble were reinforced by a massive cholera outbreak. The strain of this cholera was foreign to the Caribbean and instead of seriously investigating, the UN mobilised the international media to demonise the people of Haiti. It was in the midst of these multiple catastrophes that the US form of democracy without elections was imposed on the people of Haiti. The elections were held in November 2010 after the US disenfranchised the majority of Haitians by denying the participation of the Lavalas in the elections. Two candidates who between them received 11 per cent of the vote were nominated for the second round of the elections in March 2011.

The Clintons worked overtime to ensure that there was media support for this illegitimate process. Hilary Clinton, the US secretary of state left dealing with the smouldering revolution in Egypt to fly to Haiti to bully the government to accept a fraudulent process. President René Préval of Haiti was promised the same treatment of ouster like that which deposed Aristide if he did not accept the pressure to sanction the illegitimate procedure. In the midst of this farce of preparing for the runoff, the exiled Baby Doc Duvalier returned to Haiti. In a democratic society, Duvalier would have been arrested for the criminal actions and it was significant that there were no drumbeats for his arrest from the western media. Baby Doc is a criminal and pressures must be intensified so that he is brought to trial in Haiti.

Pressures on the people of Haiti did not deter them and they continued to organise. It was this grassroots organisation and pressure that enabled Bertrand Aristide to return. Reports coming out from the grassroots organisation in the country showed that the people were not cowed. Norman Girvan, professor Emeritus of the University of the West Indies, who attended and participated in one such meeting in Haiti, reported on the vibrancy of the grassroots social movements inside Haiti and their call for international solidarity. Girvan reported that approximately one hundred representatives of social organisations from throughout the country – including farmers, women, labour, students, human rights, and professionals – concluded three days of intense debate about the kind of Haiti they want to see, the obstacles they face, and the nature of the financing they need. According to Norman Girvan,

‘Among other conclusions, they agreed on an agenda for collective action that includes creating a permanent Assembly of Social Movements, campaigning for the non-renewal of the Interim Commission for the Reconstruction of Haiti – a veritable parallel government set up a year ago under the tutelage of the U.S., World Bank, IDB and other so-called “international donors”, and reinforcing a regional campaign for the withdrawal of the MINUSTAH military occupation.’
I am in support of the calls from within Haiti for a new path to reconstruction that begins with the people of Haiti.

The installation of Michel Martelly as president of Haiti on May 14 demanded that the left and progressive forces internationally organise to expose and oppose the forces of violence and destruction inside Haiti. The process that brought Martelly to the presidency was a sham, and this farce will force popular forces to distinguish between processes of democratisation and pseudo-elections without democratic participation.

The constellation of class and military forces fighting to oppose reparations and reconstruction in Haiti are the same constellation of forces that hid behind the view that Haiti is cursed. The majesty of the Haitian revolution continues to inspire new forces as we enter a new revolutionary moment. The events of the current revolutionary moment in world politics demand that Haitians and all those in solidarity with Haiti cannot give up on Haiti. I am in agreement with C.L.R James that the people of Haiti and the people of the Caribbean will move again and when they move they will shock the world.

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* Horace Campbell is professor of African American studies and political science at Syracuse University. He is the author of ‘Barack Obama and 21st 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.

Meles Zenawi’s subterfuge on pastoralism

Abebech Belachew

2011-05-19

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/73410

cc C L PEthiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi needs to seriously rethink his ideas around the ‘backwardness’ of pastoralism and the need for ‘modernity’, argues Abebech Belachew.

On 25 January 2011, on the occasion of the 13th anniversary of the Ethiopian Pastoralist Day, Meles Zenawi (il duce dei TPLF (TPLF’s Mussolini)) gave a speech in Jinka about pastoralism and development for pastoral communities.[1] Before we expose the subterfuge in his speech, a bit of the history of the Ethiopian Pastoralist Day is the order of the day here which many in the diaspora may not be aware of.[2]

On 25 January 1998, an Ethiopian NGO working on pastoral development, Pastoralist Concern Association of Ethiopia (PCAE), organised a mass cultural gathering in a place called Filtu, Ogaden, for the pastoral communities in the surrounding area. At the end of the gathering, the pastoral elders resolved that 25 January should be observed every year as the pastoralist day. In 2000, when the Pastorlaist Forum Ethiopia (PFE), a national network of NGOs and of which PCAE is a member, was formed, the responsibility of organising the pastoralist day was passed over to the PFE. Thereafter, all the Ethiopian Pastoralist Days had been organised by PFE, until 2005 when the government of il duce (Meles) nationalised it and made it its own. On that year, the PFE was completely thrown out of the management and Meles started to appear for the first time. From then on, the Ethiopian Pastoralist Day became the occasion through which the regime uses as a propaganda tool to deceive pastoral communities. Let’s now turn to what Meles said in Jinka on 25 January. It should be noted that it is not just Meles Zenawi but a great many Ethiopians, and Africans at large for that matter, who do not understand pastoralism or who do not have the right perception on pastoralism. On the contrary, pastoralism is understood by many Ethiopians in the negative sense, as backward and barbaric. Hence, a brief introduction is required right from the outset.[3]

Pastoralism is, in the first place, a traditional way of life whose livelihood system is ingrained in the livestock production. In the same manner as small-scale farming is a traditional livelihood system to the peasantry, livestock production is also the livelihood system of pastoral communities. There are an estimated 50 million pastoralists spread throughout Africa from Senegal and Mauritania in the west to Ethiopia, Djibouti and Somalia to the east, and to the San people of southern Africa (Angola, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Botswana and South Africa). In some countries, pastoralists constitute a majority and some countries are predominantly pastoral by origin. Sudan, Djibouti and Somalia are 100 per cent pastoral by origin. Pastoralists constitute one huge section of the population in the continent.

However, pastoralists are very much misunderstood and/or viewed with negative perceptions. The misconception or prejudice towards pastoralism emanated from the conflict they always had with farming/highland communities because of competition over grazing land. Colonisation fuelled the prejudice further. Colonialists were resisted by pastoralists in many parts of the continent. As the colonial construction has it, pastoralism is a backward way of life that has to change and pastoralists have to become farmers by changing their livelihood system from livestock rearing to farming. Decolonisation has not undergone a thorough deconstruction in Africa that the colonial construction on pastoralism (like many ideological, religious, social, political and economic constructs for that matter) is taken as the gospel of ‘development’ and ‘modernity’.

In Ethiopia, similar prejudice towards pastoralism was constructed partly due to the fierce rivalry between the kingdoms based on pastoral communities, mainly the caliphates that reigned in Harrar, Afar and Somali regions and that of the Christian kingdoms based on the highlands. The infamous conflict that went in history as the ‘religious war’ of the 16th century between Ahmed ‘Gragn’s’ caliphate and Libnedingil’s Christian kingdom can be cited as an example. Now the various anti-pastoral constructs that emanated in the highland have their origins in these conflicts. In the final analysis, pastoralism is baptised as ‘nomadism’ and the common Amharic word for pastoralists is zelan, which is derogatory through and through. There is a great deal of prejudice among the highland population towards pastoralists and the typical depiction of pastoralists is ‘backward’ and ‘uncivilised’. Even the radical revolutionaries of the 1960s and 1970s who emerged on the political scene in Ethiopia all postulated development and modernity from the Eurocentric point of view – which includes Marxism – and still shared the prevailing prejudicial perception on pastoralism. Woyane swung ideologically from Marxism–Leninism–Mao Tse Tung thinking of the Albanian brand (during the struggle) to the today’s neoliberal Washington consensus, and undoubtedly shares this prejudicial construct on pastoralism, as Meles Zenawi’s infamous subterfuge attests below.

Pastoralism in Ethiopia is strongly related to pertinent issues of development such as environment and climatic-change mitigation, rural development, macro-economic growth, conflict resolution and governance. Seen from these perspectives, pastoralism occupies a crucial position in the development process in Ethiopia. In this regard, needless to say that the policy perspective at the macro level equally occupies a crucial position in the development process of our country and the type of governance that we need. Pastoralists are important components of the category of communities referred to as indigenous that are increasingly assuming huge importance internationally and for whom various instruments of rights (indigenous, pastoral) are already in place, the latest being the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (2007), Agenda 21 (Rio Summit, 1992), ILO Convention 169 (1989), the 2003 Report of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights and many more. In Africa, post-apartheid South Africa is the first to recognise indigenous people’s rights and accord them with legal and constitutional protection. Lately, the Central African Republic has become the first African country to ratify ILO Convention 169 (2010) and the Republic of Congo (Brazzaville) has become the first African country to come up with a special law to protect indigenous people’s rights (February, 2011). In addition, the African Union’s Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights has set up a working group of experts on indigenous issues to specifically focus and work on the protection of indigenous peoples’ rights in the continent. We can see that indigenous peoples issues and their rights in particular are increasingly attracting attention internationally. But the governments in Ethiopia have never ratified any of these international instruments despite the fact that Ethiopia is still the seat of the African Union and the UN Economic Commission for Africa. (We have no idea whether or not Meles Zenawi is aware of these developments. But, let’s see what he says.)

‘CIVILISATION’ AND ‘MODERNISATION’

Referring to the pastoral areas of South Omo, Meles Zenawi flatly states, ‘… this area is known as backward in terms of civilisation’. Now, what makes pastoralism ‘backward’ and what is this gibberish that Meles refers to as ‘civilisation’? Is he really aware of the impact of his statement? I doubt it but, typical of him, he asserts that pastoralism constitutes backwardness and secondly it is backward ‘in terms of civilisation’. The paradox is, however, in the very first sentence of his speech, he espouses to distance himself from the erstwhile positions of his predecessors, Mengistu’s and Haile Selassie’s regime. The fact that he hasn’t moved an inch from his predecessors’ perceptions and policies on pastoralism is clear when he still refers to pastoralists as backward and through his policy of ‘modernisation’ that he prescribes to undo this ‘backwardness’. As an Amharic saying has it, ‘Amed beduket yisikal’ (something like ‘Ash which is worthless compared to grain flour mocks the latter’).

Harry Truman introduced the term ‘under-development’ to describe all developing countries in the Third World, a concept that was heavily criticised later. Who is to say you are developed or under-developed, you are civilised and/or you are not? What does civilisation really constitute? What is the yardstick and who set the yardstick and with what right and mandate? Take the case of the capitalist system. It has brought the countries it reigned in to the brink of collapse and acute crisis more than three times since the 1930s, the latest being the current crisis we are in. On top of that, industrialisation accounts mainly for the destruction of the ozone layer that caused climate change which in turn put many poor countries in acute shortage of rain, affecting their agricultural output. Such is the capitalist system that endangered the existence of the planet earth through industrialisation whose sole purpose is money-making. This is the state of affairs – what Truman called ‘development’ and what Meles calls ‘civilisation’. In Meles’s mind, ‘civilisation’ constitutes sacrificing the world for greed and if you are not part of it you are ‘backward’.

By contrast, the lives of pastoralists are simple and straightforward. It is a traditional system which protects the environment, owns land communally and lives according to the system of governance defined in their indigenous knowledge system. Because pastoral livestock-keeping depends on the availability of water and grazing land, protecting the environment constitutes an important component part of their indigenous knowledge system and traditional system of governance. Some even have traditional customary laws in this regard. In Afar for instance, the pastoral customary law has it that a person who cuts a tree will be fined with animals depending on the kind of tree he cut. Compared to the greedy system that Meles tries to convince us as ‘civilisation’ or modernity, pastoralism is a far more human and eco-friendly traditional system that has done nothing wrong whatsoever. It is a traditional system like the peasant farming system, depending on what nature provides to humans. The only difference is that peasants opt to live by tilling the land while pastoralists opted to keep livestock.

Meles brags about adopting a policy to ‘modernise’ and ‘develop’ pastoral regions, alleging that his predecessors hadn’t done so. As a matter of fact, this is completely untrue. Both Haile Selassie and the Derg had had mega projects financed by the World Bank to ‘develop’ and ‘modernise’ the pastoral regions of Ogaden, the adjacent areas of Afar and Borana. We all know why these mega projects failed. In case Meles doesn’t know, they failed mainly because they were launched to ‘develop and modernise’ and ‘change’ the pastoral livelihood system, because these projects were all planned with the exclusion of the subject, the pastoral community. The World Bank realised its mistakes and adopted a new project called the pastoral community development project but was manipulated by the EPRDF (Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front) government.

In fact we need to reverse what Meles said about backwardness. Who is really backward? The one that refuses to recognise the livelihood system of a huge community (roughly 15–20 per cent of the population) and fails to come up with the right macro-policy on pastoral development? Or is it the pastoralists who only want to lead their lives the way they like and the way they can afford a living?

SEDENTARISATION

An extension of the ‘civilisation v/s backwardness’ subterfuge is the argument for sedentarisation. Both Haile Selassie’s and the Derg’s regimes argued that ‘nomads must settle, otherwise we cannot provide them with services’. It is always with amazement that I recall what a middle-level official at the Disaster Prevention and Preparedness Commission who dealt with NGOs once ‘advised’ me about handling ‘nomads’ as the programme proposal that I submitted was on pastoral development. He literally told me to abandon the proposal because ‘these nomads are completely useless, uncultured and unruly, roaming around the place, pillaging and stealing. If you start a project to help them, they will steal all your stuff and can even kill you.’

This was in 1999, eight years after Woyane came to power and this official was also a TPLF (Tigrayan People's Liberation Front) cadre. I realised that, as far as Woyane is concerned, what I used to hear when I was a child about Afars like ‘the Adals [Afars] will cut your genitals if they catch you’ and all sorts of scary sayings, seem to be still intact in the minds of the new rulers. As far as pastoralism goes, Meles Zenawi and his regime have identical positions with those of Haile Selassie’s and Derg’s regimes, despite Mele’s claims to the contrary. The ancient regimes’ arguments and policy were to settle pastoralists. Is Meles’s policy any different? Listen to this: ‘The pastoralists’ life is nomadic and relies on cattle-raising; because of this it was difficult to provide quality healthcare and education.’ And now? What is Meles trying to do? Exactly the same as the ancient regimes. Pastoralists still have to settle according to Meles’s plan. His plan is to ‘modernise’ the pastoral regions with the grand plans of ‘transformation’ and construction of the Gilgel Gibe dam. The ‘transformation’ is all about large-scale commercial farms belonging to foreign companies who acquired large tracts of pastoral land from Meles’s regime through one of the cheapest land lease offers ever. How are pastoralists expected to be ‘modernised’? Through employment and benefitting from infrastructural developments (telecommunications, roads, etc…) and irrigation dams. This is a replica of the failed World Bank/government projects of the 1970s and 1980s and, in fact, can be worse because the projected ‘modernisation’ now is ‘galvanised’ through foreign companies who care less about national development. This projection still aims at settling pastoralists.

PASTORAL DEVELOPMENT

Meles Zenawi accuses those who advocate for pastoral rights as wanting ‘pastoralists and their lives to remain as a tourist attraction forever’. Is this true? We don’t expect any truthful statement from Meles who is well reputed for not blinking to tell lies on TV. Be that as it may, what are the arguments of pro-pastoral rights? We say that what pastoralist communities need is a policy of pastoral development that starts off from the livelihood system of the pastoralists themselves. Development, social change or whatever change is required must first be defined by pastoralists themselves. No highland do-gooder with an ingrained prejudice towards pastoralists can come and tell them that he is the one who knows best for them. That is where Meles goes into one direction while pastoralists go to the other. What pastoralists want is not abstract. They still demand the same things that they have been demanding of the ancient regimes for the past 50–60 years.

During the Ethiopian Pastoralist Days – i.e., before they were hijacked by the regime – pastoralists held a meeting one day earlier and set out their demands for development and social change. What they have always demanded were: provision of market mechanisms to sell their animals (because some of them travel for days all the way to Kenya and/or Sudan searching for markets), water development, schools for their children, clinics and so on. These are basic development demands that peasants in many parts of Ethiopia also demand. But the governments argue that they have to settle first. And the pastoralists argue back that if they settle they will all perish, and that if they have to settle the government has to provide them with land to be tilled to sustain life because the land they inhabit now is arid and semi-desert unsuitable for farming. At that point, the governments have no argument. This is just the narrative aspect. There is also the social development aspect to this.

What should pastoral development constitute? When Meles came up with his infamous strategy of Agricultural Development-Led Industrialisation (ADLI), the idea was that peasants will work hard, produce more and accumulate wealth and some of them can become millionaires (like in China) to invest in some kind of industry. That way industrialisation in Ethiopia can take off. Twenty years after the ill-thought ADLI, peasants are submerged in more pauperisation let alone accumulating wealth and moving on to invest in commodity production. Now pastoral development must and can start with little support rendered to pastoralists such as setting up market mechanisms (this involves creating markets at various points in pastoral regions, provide water for animals and if possible vaccination for the animals), introduce mobile schools and clinics. Pastoralists need little support just to take the process off the ground. Once they have the market, they can have better income and even support the mobile schools and clinics themselves. With the help of the government and/or NGOs working on pastoral development, pastoralists after acquiring a certain amount of wealth can resort to diversifying their livelihoods, mainly through trade, and emerge out of the transhumance (mobility) way of life and move on to a settled life all by themselves and in their own pace. All the government has to focus on is providing markets, education through mobile schools and clinics.

However, all the three governments proceeded from the arrogance of power and told pastoralists to settle first before they provide any service. That caused the stand-off between the governments and pastoralists. In the final analysis, arguing for pastoral development that starts off with augmenting pastoralists with the structural support they need and arguing against the government insistence for sedentarisation (settlement) does not, in any way, indicate that we are for keeping the pastoral system as it is. No. As a traditional system, just like the peasant system, pastoralism has to undergo a social change the way that is not only acceptable by pastoralists but also possible because poverty has to be abolished and development must come. However, in as much as Meles Zenawi is not asking the peasantry to change their livelihood system (because of recurrent drought peasants may need to start moving, who knows?), he should also not ask pastoralists to settle.

Secondly, pastoral development also can lend to the economic development of the country as a whole. With what asset should development or economic growth start, with something that we have at hand or with something that we don’t? What does Ethiopia have, grain or animals? The whole world knows Ethiopia for famine and recurrent food shortage, but in terms of livestock, Ethiopia is second in Africa next to Sudan. In fact, until the latest drought that killed millions of cattle in 2000–02, Ethiopia used to be number one in Africa in the number of livestock it has. Isn’t it elementary that we need to start the whole process of capital accumulation with the asset that we have, livestock? Why did Meles’s ADLI fail? Because it banked on something that we don’t have, namely grain. In 2003, at the Pastoralist Forum’s third national conference on pastoral development a paper was presented on possibilities for pastoral accumulation and how that in turn can propel the national economy. As far as Meles is concerned, that fell on deaf ears. But in the subsequent years, the idea was picked up by the World Institute for Sustainable Pastoralism based in Nairobi and it launched a major research in the area in five countries 2007 and reached the conclusion that pastoral livestock production system can greatly contribute to national economies. In 2011, Meles Zenawi, as we have seen above, rejected this finding and still argues the way Haile Selassie and Mengistu did.

One of the most likely ways that pastoral development can contribute to the national economy is that it creates space for other potential industries related to livestock production such as meat-processing plants, packing and processing dairy products, tanneries and even exporting live animals. Both the government and the private sector could bank on these economic activities if pastoral development is given the chance to emerge with the adoption of the right policy.

Incidentally, there is no tourism attraction in Ethiopia as far as pastoralists are concerned, except the Hammer community in South Omo and the number of tourists who come to Turmi, Hammer area, South Omo, is too insignificant as compared to the situation of the Massai of Kenya and Tanzania. Meles’s accusation of those who advocate for pastoral rights as ‘wanting pastoralists and their lives to remain as a tourist attraction forever’ is simply groundless and as a born plagiarist, he repeated verbatim what one Kenyan minister said ages ago.

What is the gist of Meles’s ‘development’ plan for pastoralists? ‘Following the good results we have achieved in the Afar region, the government is planning, and working hard to establish, a 150,000 hectare sugarcane development in this area starting this year,’ he says, and ‘When this development work is done, we believe that it will transform the entire basis of the area. This will benefit the people of this area and hundreds of thousands of other Ethiopians, by creating employment. The pastoralists who live around this area will be given some fertile land from this irrigation system, which can be used for their own cultivation. There will be support for the pastoralists to combine agriculture with modern cattle herding.’ This was a replica of the cotton farms in Awash that evicted hundreds of thousands of Kereyu, Itu and Afar pastoralists from the Awash valley. (Incidentally, Kereyu elders submitted a plea to Woyane two years ago to be paid the compensation that Haile Selassie promised them some 50 years ago!)

This agro-industrial project has never benefitted pastoralists and it will not benefit those in South Omo now. The promise of employment is empty as these commercial farms only hire skilled workers and pastoralists have no chance of being employed. The promise that the irrigation system of the commercial farms will benefit pastoralists is also the same fiction promised to the pastoralists of Awash valley some 50 plus years ago when the sugar plantation in Wonji began. Once the farms start operating, pastoralists will be evicted once and for all. What Meles is telling us today in 2011 about pastoralists benefitting by ‘combining cultivation with modern cattle herding’ is the same fiction that pastoralists were told by Haile Selassie’s regime. This is all to pacify pastoralists not to prevent the start of the activities of the farms. Meles’s speech in Jinka avails in the first place, if anything, his ignorance of pastoralism, and secondly the policy that he is following on pastoralism which is consistent with that of his predecessors. No amount of propaganda and lies will change this fact.

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

NOTES

[1] I expect substantive comments, if any, that are reflective and analytical to enrich the discussion on pastoralism. I have no eyes nor ears for those Woyane thugs who are involved in insults and trying to divert the discussion by inserting side issues.
[2] Actually, it is useful for members of the Ethiopian diaspora to know the main issues concerning the development process in their country. A solid perception on social change requires basic knowledge on the fundamentals of the social and economic structures as well as why the policies followed by Woyane are negative.
[3] For further reading on the conditions of Ethiopian pastoralists, see the Proceedings of the National Conferences on Pastoral Development in Ethiopia from 2000–05 published by the Pastoralist Forum Ethiopia in Addis Ababa.

From Nobel to Nobel: A letter to Barack Obama

Adolfo Perez Esquivel

2011-05-19

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/73422

cc TheStirrer‘How can you speak of human rights and the dignity of peoples when you perpetually violate them and block those who don’t share your ideology and must endure your abuses?’, asks 1980 Nobel Prize winner Adolfo Perez Esquivel in an open letter to US President Barack Obama.

Dear Barack,

In addressing you I do so fraternally, and at the same time, to express my concern and indignation after seeing the destruction and death caused in several nations in the name of ‘freedom and democracy’, two words which have been twisted and stripped of meaning. They end up justifying murder, and is cheered on as if it were a sports event.

Indignation at the attitude of some parts of the US population, of heads of state in Europe and other countries who came out in support of the assassination of bin Laden, and by your complacency in the name of supposed justice. You didn’t look to seize and judge him for his alleged crimes, which generates more doubts. The objective was to assassinate him.

The dead are mute, and the fear of the accused who could disclose inconvenient facts for the USA, was turned into assassination, to ensure that the ‘death of the dog would end the madness’, without considering that you have only increased it.

When you were granted the Nobel Prize, of which we are holders, I sent you a letter which read: ‘Barack, I was very surprised by your having been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, but now that you have it, you must use it in the service of peace among peoples, you have all the possibilities of doing it, to end the wars and begin correcting the severe crisis in your own country and the world’.

Unfortunately, you have increased hatred and betrayed the principles assumed during your electoral campaign before your people, such as ending the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, closing the prisons in Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib in Iraq. But on the contrary, you decided to start another war against Libya, backed up by NATO, and the shameful resolution of the UN to support you, when this high organisation, diminished and without its own mind, has lost its path and has been subjugated to the whims and interests of the dominant powers.

The foundational premise of the UN is the defence and promotion of peace and dignity among peoples. Its Preamble begins saying: ‘We, the peoples of the world...’ now absent from this organisation.

I would like to recall a mystic and teacher who has had a great influence in my life: Trapist monk Thomas Merton of the Gethsemane Abbey in Kentucky, who said ‘The greatest necessity of our time is to clean the enormous mass of mental and emotional garbage which blocks our minds and converts all public and social life into a disease of the masses. Without this domestic cleaning we can't begin to see. If we can’t see, we can’t think’.

Barack you were very young during the Vietnam war, perhaps you don’t remember the struggle of North American people to oppose the war. I have shared and accompanied the veterans of the Vietnam war, in particular Brian Wilson and his companions who were victims of this wars and of all wars.

Thomas Merton, analysing a stamp postmark which had just arrived saying ‘The U.S. Army, key to peace’ (‘El ejercito U.S., clave de la paz’) said: ‘No army is the key to peace. No nation has the key to anything which is not war. Power has nothing to do with peace. The more men increase military power, the more they violate peace and destroy it.’
We should protect LIFE to leave future generations a more just and fraternal society, re-establishing equilibrium with Mother Earth. If we don’t react to change the current situation of suicidal arrogance which is dragging peoples down, it will be very hard to come out and see the light. Humanity deserves a better fate.

You know, hope is like the flower which grows in the mud and blossoms in all its splendour, showing its beauty. Leopoldo Marechal, the great Argentine writer, said that: ‘You get out the maze via the top’.

I believe, Barack, that after following your erring way, you find yourself in a maze, unable to find the exit and you are burying yourself more and more in violence, devoured by the domination of power, and you think you possess all the power anyone could have, and that the world is at the feet of the USA. So large are the atrocities committed by different US governments in the world... It is a sad reality, but there is also the resistance of peoples who do not capitulate before the powerful.

Bin Laden, alleged author of the attack of the Twin Towers, has been made the devil incarnate who terrorised the world, identified as the ‘axis of evil’ and this has served you to wage the wars that the military industrial complex needs to place its products of death.

You should not ignore that researchers of the tragedy of September 11 have declared that the attacks were in many ways self-inflicted, such as the crash of a plane into the Pentagon and the prior evacuation of the Towers; an attack which provided a motive to launch the war against Iraq and Afghanistan and now against Libya; arguing based on the lie that all is done to save peoples in the name of ‘freedom and the defence of democracy’. And cynically stating that the deaths of women and children are ‘collateral damage’.

The word is devoid of values and meaning. You dub assassination ‘death’ and finally the US has ‘killed’ bin Laden. I am not in any way defending bin Laden, I am against all terrorism, by both these armed groups and the terrorism of the State which your government exercises in various parts of the world, supporting dictators, imposing military bases and armed intervention, using violence to maintain yourself via terror at the hub of world power. Is there only one ‘axis of evil’?

Peace is a practice of life in relations between persons and among peoples; it is a challenge to humanity's consciousness. Its path is difficult, daily and hopeful; where people build from their own lives and their own history. Peace can't be gifted, it is built. And this is what you're missing lad, courage to assume the historical responsibility with your people and with humanity.

You cannot live in the labyrinth of fear and control, ignoring international treaties, pacts and protocols of governments which are signed and then transgressed once and again. How can you speak of peace if you don’t want to honour anything, except in the interests of your country?

How can you talk about freedom when you keep innocent people in the prisons of Guantanamo, in the USA, in Iraq and in Afghanistan?

How can you speak of human rights and the dignity of peoples when you perpetually violate them and block those who don’t share your ideology and must endure your abuses?

How can you send military forces to Haiti after a devastating earthquake, instead of humanitarian aid to that suffering people?

How can you speak of freedom if you massacre the peoples in the Middle East and foster endless conflict which bleeds the Palestinians and Israelis?

Barack: Try to look at your maze from above; you may find the star that guides you, even knowing you can never reach it, as Eduardo Galeano said so well. Try to be consistent between what you say and do, it's the only way to not lose the path. It's a challenge of life. The Nobel Peace Prize is a tool at the service of the peoples, never for personal vanity.

I wish you much strength and hope, and we hope you will have the courage to correct your path and find wisdom and Peace.

Adolfo Pérez Esquivel

Buenos Aires, 5 May 2011

P.S. On a day like today 34 years ago, I came back to life; I was on a flight to death during the military dictatorship in Argentina supported by the USA… Thanks to God I survived, and had to find my way out of the labyrinth above desperation, and discover in the stars the path to be able to say like the prophet: ‘the darkest hour is when the dawn begins’.

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* Adolfo Pérez Esquivel is an Argentine sculptor, architect and pacifist. He was the recipient of the 1980 Nobel Peace Prize.
* Translated from Spanish by Bob Thomson, Ottawa, 12 May 2011.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

The gods of Africa are not asleep after all

Cameron Duodu

2011-05-19

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/73442

cc D PWith the IMF’s (International Monetary Fund) Dominique Strauss-Kahn in hot water over accusations of sexual assault in a New York hotel, Cameron Duodu revisits the effects of the fund’s structural adjustment programme in his home country of Ghana.

Trust African women not to be politically correct!

Even as speculation raged over the identity of the New York hotel chambermaid who was the victim of an alleged rape attempt by the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Dominique Strauss-Kahn (who has now resigned), a female member of an African internet forum had seen a political dimension to the issue.

She wrote: ‘I hear the chambermaid is an African. There is even a suggestion that she is from Ghana.’

(It turned out that the woman is actually from Guinea, but that is immaterial, since Ghana and Guinea once formed a ‘union’ in 1958).

Pursuing the Ghana angle, the lady writer observed: ‘If that is true, it would give “structural adjustment” a whole new meaning.’

I laughed bitterly on reading that. Ah, yes – ‘structural adjustment’, I reminded myself. No Ghanaian of a certain age can ever forget it. In April 1983, the ‘Provisional National Defence Council’ Government of Ghana, led by Flight-Lieutenant Jerry Rawlings, invited the IMF to come and ‘salvage’ the economy of Ghana. Ghana had run out of most imported goods, especially essential everyday items such as soap, toothpaste, sugar, milk and the tinned foods which constituted the basic diet of boarding schools.

The Ghana currency – the cedi – was also extremely weak. Officially, its value was C2.75 to US$1. But in the unofficial ‘branches’ of the Bank of Ghana operating at suitably picturesque suburbs of Accra – with such names as ‘Zongo Lane’, ‘Mallam’ and ‘Chorkor’ – money-changers offered 20 cedis per dollar or more.

To combat the black market, the IMF ordered a devaluation. Despite our government’s aversion to ‘devaluation’, our government increased the exchange rate to about 15 cedis to the dollar.

But the IMF had no antidote to what happened next. The black market rate also rose! And the two rates of exchange began to chase each other like hounds and rabbits engaged in a ‘dog race’. At one stage, the exchange rate reached 5,000 cedis per dollar. This represented a gargantuan devaluation that recalled the legendary Latin American devaluations of the 1950s and 1960s. Many Ghanaians began to suspect that the IMF was using Ghana to conduct an experiment into how much hardship the people of a developing country could be made to endure, without causing a social implosion.

The fall in the value of the currency affected every aspect of life in Ghana. Whereas government officials could benefit from fringe benefits – such as the use of officially provided transport – the privately employed middle class was faced with creeping penury. To buy a car, which had previously been within the means of many middle-income groups, was now almost out of the question.

Worse, inflation in food prices began to have an effect on the physical appearance of many in the population. Adolescents in particular began to display something called the ‘Rawlings chain’ – a clear definition of the collarbone under the neck – caused by emaciation of the normally fleshy cover of the collarbone.

Added to this was the introduction of hospital charges and school fees. Every subsidy that could be identified was withdrawn – from the cost of utility services to the cost of petrol. The IMF also insisted that debts to Western companies, no matter how corruptly they were incurred, must be repaid. Protection of infant local industries was abolished. Trade was ‘liberalised’, even if the stifling of local industries created unemployment.

Bitterly, Ghanaians were quick to notice that IMF officials and their World Bank counterparts, who made periodic visits to Ghana to prescribe a bitter economic potion for them, could live it up in Ghana if they chose to, as their ‘per diem’ allowances were denominated in hard currencies.

It is therefore no exaggeration to say that the IMF has attracted more resentment from the literate section of Ghana’s population than any other international body. And it is this pent-up contempt which, as soon as the Dominique Strauss-Kahn affair blew up, made them to re-experience in their minds the hardships that ‘structural adjustment’ brought upon their heads only a few years ago.

Of course, no one knows whether Strauss-Kahn will be found guilty when he goes on trial in New York or not. But one suspects that for the people of countries which have had to swallow the bitter pill of IMF structural adjustment programmes, such as Ghanaians, the mere sight of him in handcuffs, surrounded by tough New York City police officers, being denied bail and forced to spend days in the isolation section of Rikers Island detention centre (‘In the wing reserved for inmates with contagious diseases’) will generate almost sadistic satisfaction.

Indeed, whether the woman is a Guinean or a Ghanaian is of no consequence. She is African. And many countries in Africa will be mentally clapping their hands and saying: ‘The gods of Africa have used an African woman to reap vengeance for us. The gods of Africa are not asleep after all!’

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

Memories on African liberation (1956 - 1975)

A personal experience from Egypt

Helmi Sharawy

2011-05-19

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/73404

cc S CHelmi Sharawy takes Pambazuka News back to 1950s Cairo, remembering the host of African liberation movements that had offices in the Egyptian city. In part one of this two-part article, the second of which will be published by Pambazuka News next week, he reflects on the role of Egypt in the liberation struggle.

INTRODUCTION

The need for oral history, as exemplified in personal narratives of the actual actors in the history of Africa in particular, is obvious in view of the scarcity of authentic sources for that history. The same is true for social and cultural histories of societies in periods of social transformation. These personal narratives fill the many gaps that are sure to occur if we rely solely on official documents that may be biased by the interests and policies of the people in power.

My own experience in Egyptian politics - and probably in others - shows that official history is often subjected to processes of deconstruction and reconstruction of the facts to suit the changing moods of the main actors in power, or those who follow them. Thus, the multiplicity of narratives may be a source of control rather than a cause for confusion.

The relations between Egypt and the rest of Africa, before or after the 23 July revolution in 1952, are a model for the importance of oral history of those relations, whether in the fields of political and economic development or in the common struggle against foreign domination. The radical change of policy of the Anwar Sadat regime in 1971 immediately after the death of President Gamal Abdul Nasser resulted in an obvious lack of adequate documentation of the Nasser regime and hence the need for the contributions of oral history.

My present contribution in this area is a modest addition that needs to be complimented by contributions from other actors in this field, either from Egypt or from the Arab North of Africa. Indeed I have had the chance to record the memories of Mr. Mohammad Fayek, the assistant of President Nasser for African Affairs (2002). I also had a long interview with the late Kwame Nkrumah in Conakry in 1970 after he was ousted from power, and with former President Ben Bella (Algeria) in Bamako. Add to this my direct personal relations with a number of the leaders of African liberation movements that are exposed in this paper, or were referred to in previous contributions of mine.

The scope of this paper will not allow a detailed expose of all the events that took place after the end of World War II that led to the involvement of the Nasser regime in the process of national liberation. I believe this was prompted more by the course of events rather than by any prior belief of that nationalist leader as expressed in his booklet ‘Philosophy of the Revolution’ published in 1955, where he mentioned three spheres of interest of Egypt’s foreign policy.

After the end of World War II, the nationalist fervor in Egypt was very high. At the same time imperialist projects in the Middle East tried to create imperialist military bases and include our countries in anti-Soviet blocs. Confronting the popular attempt to gain full independence from Britain, we were confronted with the occupying British troops in the Suez Canal zone, and the attempts to lure Egypt into membership of the Bagdad Pact and then the Cento Pact. We also had to face imperialist bases in Tripoli in Libya and Canio Station in Ethiopia, apart from direct colonial rule in Africa. At the same time, Sudan was nominally under joint Anglo-Egyptian rule, while it was in fact a simple British colony.

The new ‘revolutionary’ regime allowed forms of resistance against British troops, while negotiating for the evacuation of those troops from both Egypt and the Sudan. However, it was careful to keep away from all imperialist military pacts in the region and not to become implicated in the Cold War, taking into consideration that Israel was one of the forward bases of imperialism in the Arab region.

Therefore, to write the national history of Egypt after World War II we should consider the ‘free officers’ led by Nasser in 1952 as part of a nationalist movement, and not as founders of the independence movement.

JOINING UP

One may consider the effects of this atmosphere on a young man born in 1935 and later joining the university in Cairo with a background of Wafdist and Moslem Brotherhood influences, beginning his studies in philosophy and sociology in a leftist atmosphere. Amid the wide nationalist propaganda of the free officers, he started frequenting the African Association in 1956, where he met young African students of Islamic studies, many of whom had rallied to the popular defense of Egypt against the Anglo-French-Israeli aggression that year. That aggression was to punish Egypt for its Nationalist spirit, its insistence on getting rid of all occupation troops, its breaking of the monopoly of the West for arms supply, and its nationalisation of the Suez Canal Company.

In his long sessions of dialogue in 2002, Fayek told me of Nasser’s instructions during the Sudan negotiations with Britain in 1953 to deploy much effort against the British and American influence and to gain the support of Sudan’s neighbours in Ethiopia and East Africa. At the time the Egyptian Broadcasting System started its dedicated transmissions in Tigrean (for Ethiopia and Eritrea), and in Swahili (for East Africa). By the 1960s these transmissions were extended to cover 30 African languages.

The central pole of attraction for those youth was the late Mohammad Abdel Aziz Ishak, the well known intellectual. They also met Mohammad Fayek, who was keen to keep in touch with African youth, mostly Azhar students, with a few from Cairo University. For me, this experience of getting acquainted with these youth, who were full of enthusiasm to go back to their respective countries to help in their liberation and development efforts, was very instructive. Needless to point out that their activities were much influenced by the fervor of the Nasserist media.

I have always pointed out that Nasser’s mention in his booklet ‘Philosophy of the Revolution’ of the three spheres of interest in Egyptian politics (Arab, African and Islamic, in this order) did not indicate the real priority given to our relations with Africa. Indeed, in 1955 Nasser was exploring the Asian experience when he met in Bandung with the leaders of China, India and Indonesia (as well as Ethiopian and Ghanaian representatives).

Until that time his interest in Africa was mainly concerned with securing the situation of the newly independent Sudan, and hence he saw fit to support the independence efforts of the Nile basin countries: Kenya, Uganda, Eritrea and Congo. The regime had created the Tahrir publishing house to publish its own newspapers: Al Gomhouria daily and the weekly Al Tahrir Liberation. In the latter, we read about American military bases, and the Kenyan ‘Mau Mau’ revolution under Jomo Kenyatta. Between 1956 and 1958 there were many African and Asian developments that were followed by the Syrians asking for unity with Egypt and thus shifting our priority once more to the Arab sphere.

Thus the interaction with the Nile countries and the rest of Africa came before this talk about the three circles of interest. It seems to me that this latter theory was the brain child of some petty bourgeois intellectuals who were obsessed with the role of Egypt and its influence.

It was a period of rich experiences for Egypt and for a youthful student of Cairo University, who witnessed, among his newly acquired African friends (many of whom undertook military training with the Egyptian National Guard) the defeat of the imperialist aggression of 1956. Soon after came the first Afro-Asian Peoples’ Solidarity Conference (held in December of 1957 and January 1958) where scores of young delegates from African and Asian Countries thronged through the premises of the Cairo University’s halls.

Together with my African friends, I accompanied many of those delegates and thus improved my previous superfluous information about their countries. Such contacts prompted my increased interest in the African Association, and acceptance to contribute some modest articles to the new periodical ‘African Renaissance’ about African journalism as well as African music and sculpture. This periodical (1957) was the best known about Africa at the time, and an issue in English soon followed to make it more accessible to a wider audience. At the time I was also a researcher of the Egyptian Folklore Institute.

The period 1956 - 1960 was rich in nationalist fervor, both in Egypt and Africa where the struggle for independence was the first priority. Contacts with the Socialist powers (the Soviet Union and China) were needed in the struggle against Colonialism in its various manifestations. Thus the Youth Festival in Tashkent saw many participants from African countries, but many of them were among the students in Cairo because of the obstacles put up by the colonial powers against travel to the Soviet Union. So it was decided to hold the Afro-Asian Peoples’ Conference in Cairo, and it was attended by hundreds of young delegates, although many of them also came from countries of voluntary exile.

Some of these extended their stay in Cairo, while many more left permanent representatives to establish offices in Cairo, their best opening to the outer world. The rule was for the leader to hold a personal meeting with Nasser before leaving the country, and he would obtain Nasser’s instructions for founding that new office, and allotting time on the broadcasting system. Some other members of the office would be posted at the secretariat of the Afro-Asian Peoples’ Solidarity Organisation (AAPSO). Thus Zamalek was crowded with many Africans. It became a refuge for revolutionaries and a venue for many students in Egypt and sometimes some nationalist leaders such as Fathi Radwan, Helmi Murad and friends of our delegate assassinated in Somalia, Kamal Ed Dine Salah.

INVOLVEMENT

Among the leaders received by Nasser in 1957/58 was Sheikh Ali Mohsen Al Berwani, the leader of the Zanzibar National Party (ZNP), who pointed out to Nasser his dilemma as a nationalist leader, but was accused by the Africans as being an Arabist. Nasser rallied to his support by allotting a special guest house named ‘The East Africa House’ to accommodate some 40 students from all East African countries (including Zanzibar). I was appointed as supervisor of this group in 1958 after graduating from university. My background with the African Association must have been taken into account for this appointment. I spent two years in this job (1958 - 1960) and this was very useful to my later work.

The declarations of self rule or independence came one after the other from the African French colonies, while the Algerians kept up their armed struggle against France with full Egyptian support.

Opposition to French and British colonialism flared up by the end of 1958, such that within a few months we saw Felix Mome, the leader of the Union du Peuple du Cameroun (UPC), visit the African Association, followed immediately by Mosazi, the leader of the Ugandan National Congress (UNC), who left the brilliant John Kaley to manage their office in Cairo. Then came Oginga Odinga to start the office of the Kenya African National Union (KANU), followed by Oliver Tambo to open the office of the African National Congress (ANC) of South Africa.

At the same time or a little earlier came Wold Ab Wold Mariam, who directed the Tigrean broadcasting programme, followed by Adam Mohammad Adam and Sheikh Ibrahim Soltan, the leaders of the Eritrean liberation front before they fired their first shot. They had come to present their demand for self determination status for Eritrea to the United Nations. As for Haj Mohammad Hussein, who belonged to the Ogadin (part of Ethiopia populated by ethnic Somalis), he led the Somalian Liga that called for grouping all Somalis in a Greater Somalia. He solicited Egypt’s support for his cause in view of the assassination of Kamal Ed dine Salah, Egypt’s representative in the Somali Council of Trustees. We also received Harbi and his comrades in Djibouti, Joshua Nkomo and his comrades in Southern Rhodesia, and Kenneth Kaunda and his comrades of the United National Independence Party (UNIP) from Northern Rhodesia.

As a young man, I was really overworked by my duties in the East Africa House and the African Association. The sources of information about Africa were very scarce in Egypt at the time, and Fayek, in his reminiscences, told me his only source of information about Africa in the fifties was John Gunther’s book ‘Inside Africa’ together with a few booklets in Arabic. Thus I was happy when he instructed me to translate certain articles in some African newspapers he had managed to subscribe to. I was also happy to lay hands on Lord Healy’s book ‘Survey of Africa’ (1958) that was later updated in Colin Legum’s treaties in the 1960’s. Afterwards the information authority translated books by Kenyatta and Nkrumah and others. And the Sudanese Studies Research Institute was transformed to become the African Research Institute.

We had the feeling that Israel was trying hard to circumscribe Egypt’s role in the Nile Basin and we countered this by deep solidarity with all liberation movements in the region. The close alliance between Israel and the racist regime in South Africa was a clear warning to Egypt of the similarity between the settler colonisation systems in both Palestine and Southern Africa. This was a lesson for me about the various systems of colonisation.

At the time I was getting involved with the leftist trend in Egypt, and I knew from our friends in the African Association that most African liberation movements were also leftist. Thus it was an unpleasant surprise when George Padmore visited Egypt as an advisor to President Nkrumah. This author of Pan-Africanism, whose anti-communist trends were very pronounced, did not fit in the guise of advisor to Nkrumah, who championed the liberation movement and the unity of all African people. Indeed, Padmore met with little welcome among the delegations in Egypt, especially as the Soviets and the Chinese had established friendly relations of cooperation with all these movements, and had their representatives in the secretariat of AAPSO in Cairo. I overcame my ambiguous feeling only after coming into close contact with David DuBois and his mother Shirley DuBois, who explained the leftist content of the Nkrumah concept. They had come to Egypt after the great Pan Africanist William DuBois had passed away in Accra in 1963, and we read together the poem where that great man had celebrated the ‘Triumph of the Nile Pharaoh (Nasser) over the British Lion’ in 1956. We also reviewed William DuBois’s concept of African unity and his influence on Nkrumah, who considered him the father and teacher of all African nationalists. Strange to note that few African intellectuals give much attention nowadays to this internationalist Marxist thinker. I also noted how George Padmore tried to eradicate the influence of DuBois on Nkrumah, and even tried to sow discord between Nkrumah and Nasser over the Afro-Asian People’s Solidarity Conference (AAPSO) by holding the All African People’s Conference in Accra only one year after the AAPSO conference in Cairo (1958).

I was surprised when the delegates returning from Accra told me of the non violence policy announced in that conference which Frantz Fanon had opposed. I decided to study the effect of Fanon’s teachings in Africa and whether the presence of Asian citizens had spread Gandhi’s policies of non-violence. Indeed, we were concerned in Egypt that some of Nkrumah’s advisors may have led him to believe that Nasser was competing with his policy of African unity in favour of Arab leadership. Such ideas were manifested by Padmore’s concept of Black Zionism (when talking about the return of American Blacks to Africa), and Kogo Botsio, Nkrumah’s advisor, disapproving of the so-called Arab influence. Indeed, we always suspected in that atmosphere that any anti-Arab policies in Africa were the outcome of Israeli instigation.

Yet we were all pleasantly surprised when Nkrumah asked Nasser to help him marry an Egyptian lady. As Fayek told me, this was done in a very friendly manner, and disproved all rumours about competition for influence between the two men. Indeed, we jokingly called this marriage a marriage of Pan-Africanism with Pan-Arabism. Later, Mrs DuBois chose, in 1966, to stay in Cairo after the coup against Nkrumah, and I found her a nice flat overlooking the Nile that Dr. DuBois had been fond of during his stay in Cairo in 1958. She was so happy with that flat and treated me as a close member of the family. Her son, David DuBois, lived in that flat until his death some five years ago when he bequeathed it to an Egyptian friend.

During the Nasser era, the political culture of liberation did not have a monopoly as some may believe, but conservative cultures also flourished because of the depth of religious feeling among the people. The big changes Nasser applied to the scope of study by introducing secular and scientific curricula did not alter significantly this situation, but on the contrary increased its role in the higher education system. Thus the number of African students seeking education at Al Azhar University in the mid-1960s exceeded 20,000. The non Moslem African countries complained that their students could not easily follow studies in other branches of higher education, and Nasser decided to remedy this shortcoming by founding new institutes of higher education where tuition was carried out in English and in French.

Bureaucracy too was an obstacle for any insertion of the representatives of liberation movements into Egyptian society, despite their acceptance by some responsible people. Indeed, the efforts of our Bureau of African Affairs were decisive in this direction, and it did not suffer from the internal political strife within other offices such as those concerned with Arab or Sudanese affairs. The different members of the Free Officers Movement sometimes competed for influence in such a way as to adversely affect the various spheres of activity. African Affairs sometimes suffered when we had to solve problems in cooperation with the myriad of centres of influence such as the centres in charge of foreign students (in Azhar or elsewhere), or the secretariat of AAPSO, or the Federation of Labour, or the Nasr Company for Export and Import, or the Higher Islamic Council, or Parliament, or the Socialist Union, or the deputies to the president. The young and responsible man that I was, I would sometimes feel dizzy trying to unravel such entangled connections. Even the African Affairs Bureau sometimes suffered from internal differences of opinion that needed a presidential decision.

The above is some sort of auto criticism of a period rich in movement where the objectives were always greater than the movement itself. This criticism was directed at the Egyptian system, but it also applies to many of the participants of the African movements themselves. Indeed, few of them were ambitious enough to study Egyptian society, or even raise their own political consciousness to make known their society in revolution against colonialism. Only a few, were those with whom I managed to make rich intellectual dialogue. However, my personal and human relations were very fruitful with many of those leaders as my home was always a welcoming venue, and my wife and children were familiar with many of those friends. It seems to me that this lack of political culture among many of those cadres of the liberation movements may explain many of the setbacks that befell some of the countries liberated through the struggle and led by well-established movements. In many cases internal ethnic or communal strife wasted much of the gains of independence and hampered development efforts. Such reflections may need a detailed study well outside the scope of these memories, and may explain the preponderance of the military action over the political during the liberation struggle.

We could assess the effectiveness of the particular liberation movement by the activity of its office in Cairo and the effectiveness of its representation. Thus Dr. Moumie, the president of the UPC of Cameroun headed in person their office in Cairo, and he was a well-known opponent of the French colonial policies, such that his assassination was obviously imputed to the French Secret Service. John Kaley was the deputy president of the Uganda Congress Party, and Rubin Kamanga was elected as deputy president of the Zambia Independence Party while resident in Cairo. Similarly Alfred Nzo was elected secretary general of the ANC of South Africa while resident in Cairo, and later was appointed minister of foreign affairs in Mandela’s first administration after apartheid.

These close political - and personal - relations with such well-accredited leaders of their countries were a cause for pride to all of us in the African Affairs Bureau, and to me in particular. All these leaders occupied modest offices beside my own modest office at the African Association, but they were all a model of activity and vitality. The financial help given to such powerful parties in their respective countries was generally modest. (I remember that all that was given to a liberation leader to carry out a country wide election campaign before independence in 1964 was equal to 25,000 dollars).

The concept of national liberation at that moment immediately after independence still needs some deep thought. Indeed, I never attended any real debate during those two decades (1955 - 1975) about the real content of Fanonism, Guevarism, Nasserism or Nkrumaism. We were all the time taken up by the day to day events and the progress of this insurgency or revolt in this colony or the other, but we never had the leisure to debate the theoretical or social content in a methodical fashion. We might discuss the actions of the different leaders and the rivalries or cooperation that affected their action, or we might invoke the memories of Fanon or Guevara as nationalist leaders to be emulated. We never debated their political or social thought in order to follow their example or otherwise.

Thus the armed struggle as the sole means for political liberation, and the rivalries that sometimes led to fratricidal strife in pursuit of supremacy after independence was the salient facet of the picture. However, there were exceptions where some leaders had enough social and class consciousness, as in the case of South Africa, and the thinking of Amilcar Cabral and a few other leaders. Indeed, it is hard to expect that the concepts of the necessary social transformations not developed during the period of national unity during the liberation struggle, can be seriously addressed during the less exacting situations after independence. I recall that when I met the late Nkrumah in Conakry in 1970 after his ousting, he exposed in length his views about such matters in retrospect and had written a book entitled ‘The Class Struggle in Africa’. He gave me a copy of that valuable book exposing the state of the classes and the role of intellectuals in Africa, and even the conditions for successful guerilla warfare in Africa and the social background for such success.

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

Tanzania: Killings and toxic spill tarnish Barrick Gold

Zahra Moloo

2011-05-19

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/73405

Zahra Moloo investigates the impact of a Canadian-based gold mine on the North Mara region in Tanzania. Villagers in the area complain about deaths and ill-health due to pollution of the Thigithe River.

The Thigithe River in North Mara, Tanzania, meanders through scattered villages and clumps of trees in a vast expanse of land ringed by hills close to the Kenyan border. Nearby, an enormous, sprawling mound of rocks and stones several metres high reaches up from the earth. This is the region’s notorious gold mine, operated by African Barrick Gold, a subsidiary of the Toronto-based Barrick Gold Corporation. The mine has a reserve of an estimated 2.95 million ounces of gold.

In May 2009, toxic sludge from the mine seeped into the Thigithe River. Reports from the surrounding villages alleged that the toxic material led to the deaths of about 20 people and to fish, crops and animals dying from the contaminated water. The following year, controversy raged in Tanzania’s parliament as activists, villagers and human rights organisations tried to have the mine shut down.

In the village of Weigita, David Mwita Magige described how his brother died after drinking the water, shortly after the spillage. ‘My young brother went to the farm across the river. He felt thirsty so he drank water from Thigithe. Not a long time after, his head began to hurt and his stomach was aching so he decided to come home. Before long he was dead. He had started to vomit a lot of water for quite some time before he died.’ Magige said his family notified the village authorities, but no action was taken. He said the company did not offer compensation for the death of his brother, nor for the deaths of relatives of neighbouring villagers. ‘I know many people who have died from using water from Thigithe for showering, drinking and other domestic consumption,’ he added. His wife reportedly had a miscarriage after two months of pregnancy, an incident that he claimed occurred amongst women who used Thigithe's toxic waters.

CONTINUED REPORTS OF DEATHS FROM SPILLAGE

In 2009, Barrick acknowledged that the mine had caused a spillage, but claimed it had been cleaned up. Barrick’s spokesman at the time, Teweli Kyara Teweli, said that allegations that people had died were lies.

Almost two years later, African Barrick's spokesperson, Charles Chichester, said in response to a request for an interview that the Thigithe River incident was no longer an issue of concern. But villagers living in Tarime district in North Mara have a different story to tell.

Village chairperson Abel Kereman Nyakiha said more than 40 people from the three villages of Weigita, Nkerege and Nyakunguru have died since the spillage occurred in 2009, 20 of them in the months from June to October 2010. ‘Many people have died. From June to October, we have seen about 20 deaths,’ he said. ‘We don’t yet have an official record at the village level, but we have asked each hamlet to record all the deaths that have taken place. The problem areas are three and these are the areas that are primarily using Thigithe river water in their everyday life.’

Nyahiri Ryoba Mwita, a farmer from Weigita, says that he lost 39 heads of livestock in the aftermath of the spill and that they continued to die afterward. ‘My life has not been the same because out of the cows that I lost, five were used for plowing,’ he said. ‘We have complained, but our complaints were not listened to. The company has never been here to talk to the villagers who have been affected by the spillage.’

HEALTH-RELATED EFFECTS

A short distance away from Weigita in the village of Kiwanja, villagers said they have been suffering severe health effects from the contaminated water. Omari Bina, a former security guard who used to work for Barrick, said he was laid off by the company in 2007 without compensation after he was injured in an attack. His daughter, now two years old, has a white pigmentation on her head, legs and arms which appeared when her sister took her to the river to wash, following the spillage. Her skin broke out in rashes and small spots. Fearing for her life, Bina took her to the nearest hospital in Tarime, but didn't have the funds to take her to another doctor for proper diagnosis.

‘It took a long time before the company responded to our needs so that our daughter could have some treatment. For about a year I tried to talk to the public relations officer, but he never listened to us,’ he said. Finally, about a year later, the company took Bina's daughter to Buganda hospital in Mwanza where she was given medication. ‘The doctors who treated my daughter come from the company. They come, they take my daughter, they go with her to the hospital and they bring her back here.’ In Mwanza, the doctors diagnosed her with a fungal infection, but Bina does not believe his daughter has fungus. ‘When my daughter used to lie down, before she had started the medication, there was a lot of fluid material oozing from her head. I don’t believe this is fungus.’

Other villagers were also affected, including Andrew Thomas Marwa who developed white spots on his face and head. He tried to treat his illness with medication, but to no avail.

MEDICAL EVIDENCE

Marwa said the hospital doctors and local authorities refused to acknowledge that the illnesses were related to the contaminated water. Instead they insisted that the illnesses were skin infections, an explanation corroborated by Barrick on its website.

The company said medical experts concluded that the illnesses were ‘caused by genetics, immunological or other conditions. They were not caused by impacts associated with the North Mara operation over the past year.’

The Tanzanian government, likewise, insisted that the seepage from the river has not had any health effects. Aloyce Tesha, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Energy and Minerals, said that contrary to the villagers’ allegations, no fish or other creatures died from the chemical spillage into the river. ‘Given that no aquatic living thing was found dead following the incident; it becomes difficult to attribute claimed diseases and illnesses of people around the river as being caused by this seepage,’ he stated in a report. Based on these suppositions, ‘the government cannot give compensation to the villagers given that it is difficult to ascertain if these deaths and losses really occurred and if they did, what was the cause.’


But despite the government’s and the company’s insistence that reported deaths and illnesses were not related to the mine's operations in Tarime, an investigation sponsored by a number of religious groups in June 2009 assessing heavy metals around the North Mara gold mine found levels of trace metals and cyanide higher than what is considered permissible by World Health Organisation standards. Water samples taken from the river found nickel, lead and chromium levels had increased by 260, 168 and 14 times respectively.

The report highlights cancer, heart disease, genetic problems, respiratory complications, reproductive problems and brain damage as possible effects of exposure to toxic chemicals like cyanide.

Villagers are worried about the long-term effects, since water from Thigithe River flows into other rivers including River Mara and eventually, Lake Victoria, shared by Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. The company says spill-prevention measures such as protective lining are put in place whenever there is an ‘accidental release of chemical solutions’.

But villagers said that the company took no steps to prevent spillage from the mine's tailings dam. ‘They said they were going to put in place a kind of protective carpet to ensure that water does not leak out of the tailings dam, but they didn't put anything there,’ said Esther Mugusuhi, a resident of Matongo village. ‘Now they are alleging that it is local people that stole the carpet.’

ALLEGATIONS OF KILLINGS

Aside from the toxic spill, another disturbing set of reports that has emerged from North Mara's Tarime district concerns allegations of indiscriminate killings of villagers by security forces belonging to the company. In a small patch of land at Kiwanja village, Muruga Chacha sits in a chair outside her home. Two meters away lies a mound signifying her son's grave. Charles Ganyi Chacha, a farmer, brick-maker and father of four, was killed on 19 December 2010 by a car his mother claimed belonged to the gold company.

‘My relatives told me, “your son has died,”’ said Muruga Chacha. ‘I didn't understand what happened. I went home. They said he had gone to see his friend in Nyangoto. But then a car owned by Barrick came and he started to run. When he ran, the car ran over him and then reversed over him again, killing him. I went there and found that he was dead. He was 35 years old.’

A similar incident occurred earlier in March 2010 when the husband of Deborah Paul, Paul Muhere Biraro was killed inside the gold mine. ‘It was 16 March 2010 in the morning,’ said Deborah Paul. ‘Somebody came to tell me, “your husband is in the dispensary”. We found him lying there half-dead. He died after half an hour. We don't know what happened. The incident happened in the mine. We were informed by witnesses that the men who were in the company car beat him and this resulted in his death, so we don't know what really happened.’

Andrew Thomas Marwa from Kiwanja village said that killings occur many times within a single month in Tarime. He named three people he saw killed by the company car, but said he did not know the reasons for the deaths. ‘There are other incidences,’ he added, ‘one at Kiwanja, someone was shot from behind by security guards belonging to the company and another person was also shot in the same way, but there was no reason given by the company. Someone else from Kiwanja called Muhere was also killed. After they got him, he was stabbed with knives.’

When asked whether the families were given compensation, he said, ‘No compensation has been given. They just say that they will assist with the funeral and compensate the deceased family, but after the burial, they just vanish and nothing is taken care of.’

Journalist Cam Simpson carried out 28 interviews in October 2010, which revealed a total number of 15 people injured and seven killed over the course of the past two years in the mining area.

African Barrick declined direct requests for interviews about the killings, as well as about the continued reports about the toxic materials in the Thigithe River. In response to a query from the Tanzanian Ministry of Energy and Minerals to African Barrick, Mining Manager Samuel Eshun and Security Manager Arthur O’Neill refuted allegations of killings by Barrick’s security officials. They stated that they only knew of two accidents occurring on 3 December 2010 in which ‘illegal miners died when they fell down and landed on the ramp’ in Nyabirama pit.

The regional police commander for Tarime and Rorya regions, Mr. Massawe, also refuted the allegations and claimed he was only aware of two incidents in which four miners had died in mine-related accidents.

On 19 November 2010, Barrick announced that it had signed onto a set of voluntary guidelines on human rights and security to ‘ensure that human rights principles are reinforced’ and that in their security guidelines, protection of people ‘is first and foremost’.

According to human rights groups, the company is not adhering to its own commitments. Chacha Wambura, executive director of Foundation Help, an organisation that works in the mining-affected areas in Tarime district, said that the killings are a form of intimidation to enable the company to do as it wishes. ‘The authorities want to justify that the people in Nyamongo are hard people to live with and they don't want investment in their area. But actually it puts the company in a very bad situation where at the end of the day, no serious shareholder would want to be associated with this company.’

A campaign group called Protest Barrick held a protest outside Barrick Gold’s Annual General Meeting in Toronto last April to bring attention to injustices committed by Barrick in different countries. A spokesperson at the protest on behalf of Lawyers Environmental Action Team/Friends of the Earth Tanzania accused Barrick of ‘non-adherence of environmental standards and serious abuse of peoples’ rights’. At the same time, African Barrick has seen a 20 per cent increase in its revenue from 2010, producing 173,097 ounces of gold in the first quarter of 2011 from its Tanzania gold mines.

For more information and to take action visit: Protest Barrick.

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

ANC Youth League and economic transformation of South Africa

Sehlare Makgetlaneng

2011-05-19

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/73407

cc A SSouth Africa continues to be the most unequal social formation in the world. Sehlare Makgetlaneng reviews proposals by the African National Congress Youth League to radically overhaul the economic structure of the country.

Has the South African national economic policy since 1994 been successful in transforming the South African economy? Has it enabled the South African state to effect structural economic transformation? Has it enabled it to decisively confront the dialectical and organic link between capitalism and racism within the socio-historical structural imperatives of the South African political economy? To what extent has the African National Congress attempted through its political administration of South African society since 1994 to change its socio-economic direction in the interests of its masses of the people? These are some of the key questions which inform the ANC Youth League in its economic transformation discussion document for its 24th National Congress.

Concerning structural or ‘real economic transformation’, the ANC Youth League in its economic transformation discussion document maintains that the state since 1994 ‘has not achieved anything substantial due to the fact that the economic policy direction taken in the dawn years was not about fundamental transformation, but empowerment/enrichment meant to empower what could inherently be a few black aspirant capitalists.’[1]

These few black capitalists are not ‘engaged in real industrial and manufacturing entrepreneurship and economic development, which could have rightfully empowered them and created job opportunities for the majority of the people of South Africa.’[2]

According to the ANC Youth League, despite ‘the ANC’s political leadership of society, the state and government, there is currently little or no effort’ on its part to ‘provide progressive and consistent leadership’ to the structural transformation of ‘the economy’.[3]

It is for these key reasons, among others, that the ANC Youth League is proposing expropriation of strategic sectors of the South African economy without compensation in its economic transformation discussion document for its 24th National Congress. These sectors include ‘minerals, metals, banks, energy production, and telecommunications’.[4] In calling for expropriation of strategic sectors of the South African economy, the ANC Youth League maintains that:

‘The state should expropriate strategic sectors of the economy without compensation because paying for all the key and strategic resources stolen from the black majority and Africans in particular, will take more than a lifetime to realise.’[5]

Is there an alternative to the expropriation of strategic sectors of the economy without compensation by the state? The ANC Youth League continues in its document that:

‘The state has no other option but to decisively transfer wealth, particularly natural resources from those who currently own [them] for public purposes and in the public interest’.[6]

Progressive proposals to structurally transform the South African economy have been harshly criticised in the name that they will either scare investors, particularly those who are foreigners, or if they become official policy existing investors will divest from the country or those who wish to invest will not because of this policy measure. Responding to this view in advance, the ANC Youth League points out that:

‘The myth that such a policy framework will scare foreign direct investment should be dismissed because investors are never discouraged by definite concrete policy and legislative provisions. Investors are mainly discouraged by uncertainty and unpredictability of the laws and regulations related to business in a country.[7]

The ANC Youth League justifies its call for the expropriation of strategic sectors of the economy without compensation by maintaining that expropriation should be the official policy measure for the state to construct and develop infrastructure such as roads and dams and provide services such as quality education, water, housing, electricity, healthcare, transport, sanitation, and telecommunications, and for it to have a greater level of economic and political sovereignty.[8]

Constitutional and legal measures should serve not as obstacles to the structural transformation. It is for this strategic reason that it proposes amendment to the property clause in the constitution to give the state power and authority to expropriate strategic sectors of the economy for ‘public purpose and public interest’.[9] Mindful of the reality that the South African society cannot be structurally transformed without the active participation of its majority, it calls upon the revolutionary movement to galvanise the masses of the South African people to be ready to defend the revolutionary programme of action the movement will take in its efforts to achieve socio-economic liberation.

The ANC Youth League is critical in its economic transformation document of the Black Economic Empowerment policy. It maintains that it has failed profoundly or dismally to empower the majority of South Africans. Referring to South Africa’s control, domination and exploitation by imperialism and the structural and fundamental need for socio-economic liberation, it points out that:

‘Whilst politically liberated, South Africa remains economically semi-colonised concerning the control, ownership and orientation of the economy…Ownership of the financial sector and services is still a reservoir of white people and this applies to other strategic sectors of the economy such as agriculture, retail and manufacturing. The economy continues to be controlled by those empowered by colonial-cum-apartheid circumstances and policies. The approach adopted by the democratic government in the first 17 years will never change these realities.’[10]

It is in this context that the ANC Youth League concludes that the state has failed to ‘transfer the economy to the majority’ of the South African people. In raising the question as to where are we, it maintains that the ‘majority of the political decisions taken in the past 17 years by the ANC government somewhat suggests that the ANC lost the liberation struggle to the semi-colonial/apartheid forces and their imperialist masters’[11] and that it is ‘quite apparent that the approach of the ANC government to strategic economic transformation issues somewhat suggests that the ANC lost the liberation struggle for political, social and economic emancipation of the black majority and Africans in particular.’[12]

Central to the ANC Youth League’s economic transformation document is the position that the ANC’s efforts to structurally transform South Africa economically and ideologically have been very limited. South Africa continues to be characterised by a high level of unequal socio-economic relations and distribution of human, natural, material and financial resources not only in terms of class, but also in terms of race. The integration of blacks into a capitalist social order in terms of ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange, particularly through the Black Economic Empowerment policy measures, has been very limited in the sense that those integrated are extremely few. This minority of the black majority depends on the state for its further advancement.

Its advancement is limited by its being beneficiary of the reallocation of rights in the mining sector of the South African economy. Black capital has not yet articulated a clear, coherent and strong ideological commitment to capitalism. It is not active in the strategic manufacturing and agricultural sectors of the South African economy. Despite the strategic importance of land reform in the South African political economy and unequal control, ownership and distribution along racial lines and the consequent structural need for their transformation, the new black capitalists are not practically active in terms of engagement in land. They are also not theoretically active in terms of being vocal in demanding the transformation of control, ownership and distribution of land. They are also not vocal in ensuring that the South African state political power and authority and public capital be used in directing South Africa’s external economic and trade interests in conjunction with foreign policy in their interests. Their ownership of companies controlling South Africa’s leading newspapers has had no impact on content. Briefly, they are not active in the productive activities of the South African economy and social life, including on matters relating to black South Africans.

This brutal reality is supportive of the fact that the control, ownership and domination of the South African economy by white South African capitalists in alliance with imperialism has not been negatively affected by the end of the apartheid rule. The constitutional security of the property rights and the transformation process, incorrectly viewed as the task to widen the boundaries of privilege, have helped to protect and entrench the control, ownership and domination of the South African economy by white South African capitalists. Related to their intensified internal expansion, is their intensified external expansion through the internationalisation of their corporate operations. Their corporate presence has become more pronounced not only in Southern Africa and Africa, but also in the rest of the world in general and the advanced capitalist countries in particular.

South Africa continues to be the most unequal social formation in the world. It has one of the highest unemployment rates in the world. The misfortunes and benefits of capitalism are in the form of mass poverty for the majority of its people and increasing material conditions for a minority.

One of the profound contradictions of the post-apartheid South Africa is that wealth and privileges of the beneficiaries of apartheid have been protected through the end of apartheid rule. This is supported by the ANC Youth League when it points out in its economic transformation document: ‘vestiges of apartheid and colonial economic patterns, ownership and control remain intact despite the attainment of political freedom by the ANC led liberation movement’[13] or that the ‘colonial feature of the South African economy remains intact 17 years after the democratic breakthrough.’[14] The fact that the end of apartheid rule has so far been protecting wealth and privileges of the beneficiaries of apartheid raises the fundamental question as to how the post-apartheid state can effectively de-racialise capitalism and make qualitative achievements in the material conditions or living standards of the majority of the South African people.

The beneficiaries of apartheid have been promoting legal, moral and constitutional imperatives at the expanse of socio-economic issues such as socio-economic justice. Political issues are raised in such a way that state political power should not be exercised as a social organ to promote equitable redistribution of human, natural, material and financial resources. The obsession with legal, moral and constitutional issues and political issues as a means to defend the socio-economic status quo has become a political culture even among some blacks who are beneficiaries of the incomplete project for socio-economic liberation in the country.

This struggle is supported by the fact that the advancement of material and financial interests through access to the country’s natural resources, particularly those of the mining sector of the economy, has become more important than the structural socio-political and economic transformation for a considerable number of South Africans who used to regard themselves and were regarded as revolutionaries. This struggle confirms the political, economic and ideological importance of Bob Marley’s statement in one of his songs that ‘soon we would find out who are true revolutionaries’ upon the achievement of political independence. Central to this statement is that revolution is not the task of widening the boundaries of privilege, but of eliminating socio-political and economic inequalities.

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* Dr Sehlare Makgetlaneng is a chief research specialist and the head of the Governance and Democracy research unit at the Africa Institute of South Africa in Pretoria, South Africa.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

NOTES:

[1] African National Congress Youth League, A Clarion Call to Economic Freedom Fighters: Programme of Action for Economic Freedom in our Lifetime, Johannesburg: African National Congress Youth League, April 2011, p. 3.
[2] Ibid., p. 6.
[3] Ibid., p. 2.
[4] Ibid., p. 11
[5] Ibid., p. 9.
[6] Ibid., p. 9.
[7] Ibid., p. 10.
[8] Ibid., p. 9, p. 12 and p. 14,
[9] Ibid., p. 10.
[10] Ibid., p. 3 and pp. 3-4.
[11] Ibid., pp. 1-2.
[12] Ibid., p. 2.
[13] Ibid.
[14] Ibid., p. 3.

Can youth show the way?

Zodwa Nsibande

2011-05-19

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/73436

© abahlali.orgThe fall of apartheid in South Africa has not yielded genuine representation and opportunities for the country’s poor majority, writes Zodwa Nsibande. With political parties happy to remain ‘anti-poor’, it falls upon South Africa’s youth to revolutionise wider society in the struggle for equality and opportunities for all, Nsibande stresses.

Can youth show the way? Yes we can. In isiZulu we have a saying that says ‘Inkunzi isematholeni’ – ‘The bull is in the calves.’ If we are talking about the youth that have made a mark in our history we should not end the conversation without talking about the youth of 1976. And then you will ask the question ‘Where are youth of today?’ You will get the answer within the blink of the eye: ‘They are in the taverns.’ Yes some of them are there. But they are not all there by choice. Many are there due to this capitalist system that is governing our country and puts some of us in heaven on earth and others in hell on earth. Many people are drinking to dull their pain in a world that offers them no future. But there are others who are committed to uplifting their communities. In our movement, Abahlali baseMjondolo, and in many of the struggles around the country that have made the rebellion of the poor, young people have been in the forefront.

In our days being involved in the struggle for change is no longer as popular as it was before simply because many people believe that because we had got rid of the oppressive government everything is now ok. But freedom was never just a case of replacing a white government with a black government. It was a case of building a different kind of society – a society that put human beings at the centre, a society in which there would be decent homes, decent work, decent schools and decent healthcare for everyone. It was a case of building a participatory democracy in which everyone’s voice and life would count the same, regardless of whether they were a woman or a man, black or white, gay or straight or poor or rich. In fact it was a case of building a society where poverty would be ended.

Those who think that the time of struggle is over are forgetting that we are still living under a kind of apartheid but that in this apartheid the difference is the people are divided by class. The gap between those who have and those who don’t have is huge and it is getting worse. Those who say that we must be patient are forgetting that things are getting worse for the poor and not better. We are now the most unequal country in the world. The people’s revolution of the 1980s was hijacked and privatised. Patience will not get us houses or jobs or a police force that is there to protect the people. Patience will only drive more of us into the taverns.

The majority of the people who are suffering are youth. It is said that 50 per cent of young black people have never worked. They cannot progress with their lives. They are stuck. If people talk about the youth of today they refer to us as the ‘lost generation’. Why? Because we don’t want to be involved in the work that will make us dirty or unpopular. Many young people have the voice but lack the courage to speak out. Many of those who happen to speak lack the ears to listen to the voices of those who you are not able to speak out in public.

But if we as the youth can be able to take up the initiative and be the change that we all want to see in our society, indeed we can show the way.

In our days democracy is being portrayed to us as being limited to the power of X. Democracy is being portrayed as being limited to choosing which elites will represent us. To me democracy is deeper than that. It’s about taking charge of our destiny. In the communities that we are living in there are many problems that are facing our own communities. We need to involve more young people in the development committees in our communities. Instead of complaining that there are no jobs, why don’t we as the youth take the challenge and help our own communities towards changing our society? The youth of 1976 that even today we are still remembering didn’t become famous because of how big their wallet is. They became heroes because they fought against the oppressive system.

Democracy is not just about voting every few years. Democracy is a day-to-day practice. It is about democratising our communities. It is about building our own power as the poor and as youth.

All the political parties are anti-poor. They are all capitalist. They all support evictions. They all support transit camps. They all send out the police to attack the poor. There is not one political party that has taken a side with the poor. There is not one political party that has joined the rebellion of the poor. There is not one political party that has encouraged young people and poor people to really build their own power for themselves and by themselves. When the police come to evict us or to attack our protests the political parties are not there. We only see them at election time when they come to lie to us. Then they disappear again.

But our families, our friends, our neighbours, our communities and our comrades are always with us. We have to rely on each other. We have to organise ourselves and build our own power so that whoever is elected will be forced to answer to the people. Karl Marx called this ‘subordinating the state to society’. Which is why we say: ‘No land, no house, no dignity, no vote’.

So as the youth of today let us stand up and be the change we want to see in our society. We, as the youth of today, we need to make the history that the next generation can learn from, like us as we heard a lot about the youth of 1976. We are called upon to raise certain basic questions about the whole society. We must recognise that we cannot solve our problem now until there is a radical redistribution of economic and political power. This means a revolution of values and other things. We must see now that the evils of racism, sexism, economic exploitation, economic exclusion and militarism are all tied together. We cannot get rid of one without getting rid of the others. The whole structure of South African life must be changed. South Africa is a hypocritical nation and we must put our own house in order.

In the new film about our movement that is called ‘Dear Mandela’, Mnikelo Ndabankulu says that when we die we mustn’t have a small obituary that says you were born, you ate and you died. You need to be counted as a man amongst men. Mnikelo is right. Life is a precious thing. We have to make it matter. We have to be men amongst men, women amongst women, heroes amongst heroes. We have to be a generation of young people that can proudly take our place in the history of the struggle for a just and democratic South Africa in which every person’s life and voice counts the same.

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* 'No Land! No House! No Vote! Voices from Symphony Way'is published by Pambazuka Press.
* A trailer from 'Dear Mandela' is available here.
* This article comes from a talk given at the 'Democracy Forum', University of Kwa-Zulu Natal, Pietermaritzburg, on Friday 13 May 2011.
* To subscribe to the Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign list write to aec@antieviction.org.za.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

Wal-Mart South Africa deal 'a race to the bottom'

Khadija Sharife

2011-05-19

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/73408

cc ColleenMultinational Wal-Mart is trying to acquire South African retailer Massmart. Khadija Sharife explains why the deal would be bad for the country and bad for workers.

There is nothing like a R16.5-billion merger to put South Africa on the map as a safe geopolitical investment jurisdiction, not least when the world's largest company and private sector employer, Wal-Mart, is the company giving you the nod. Provided the South African government steps up and ensures that conditions are conducive to a win-win situation, this may not be a bad idea.

But Wal-Mart's retail model of category management - allowing for one mega-multinational like Procter & Gamble (P&G) or Coca-Cola - to determine shelf space, pricing and promotion almost certainly threatens to undermine the framework of ‘free market competition’ that Wal-Mart claims to uphold. In the process, it will also violate South Africa's own Competition Act (such as Section 4.1).

Yet Jeremy Gauntlet, acting for the merging companies, was probably spot on when he claimed that SA's Competition Tribunal did not have the power to exempt South Africa from international ‘obligations’ - not so much because it cannot be rightly contested that the economy is unlocked to foreign investors in various disadvantageous ways, but because there is little chance of being triumphant.

The expert planning of companies like Campbell's (occupying 70 per cent of the space allocated to canned soup) and P&G (who, along with Colgate-Palmolive controls over 80 per cent of the toothpaste market) consolidates cartels - transforming the relationship from adversarial to collusive - between both suppliers and retailers; and squeezes out 'independent' producers who do not source cheapened goods and labour in countries like China and Bangladesh (the former supplying at least one component to over 70 per cent of Wal-Mart goods) through a process known as 'global procurement', which has the effect of 'exporting jobs' through destabilising domestic manufacturing industries. Currently, Massmart sources 60 per cent of goods from domestic suppliers. As has been well publicised, losing just 1 per cent would generate 4,000 job losses.

'All American' goods like Nabisco's famed Oreos contain multiple ingredients such as Chinese gluten, but many products, like Ritz Crackers, are now manufactured in Chinese factories such as Danyahng Day Bright Co. Over 80 per cent of Wal-Mart's supplier factories are Chinese, where workers earn between $100 - $250 dollars a month, depending on the legal minimum wage of the province. Some Wal-Mart facilities in China provide as much as 40 per cent of the 'base legal wage' in subsidies, ensuring that the company does not need to annually increase the whole salary, just 60 per cent of it.

Wal-Mart has been compared to a private government. If it were, it would be China's eighth largest trading partner - one every bit as repressive as the regime under China's Communist Party leader Deng Xiaopeng that facilitated Wal-Mart’s operations in the corporate paradises of 'special economic zones' as early as the 1980s.

But how does Wal-Mart treat its own citizens, called associates? As former vice-president of Wal-Mart, Andrew Bond revealed that none of the American stores have unions. It gets slightly worse: in 2008, the Wall Street Journal reported that Wal-Mart feared a Democratic win may 'change federal law to make it easier for workers to unionise companies’. One of Wal-Mart's leaked 'confidential' toolkits advised managers on early 'warning' signs of union activity:

‘Most union organising will begin as "covert" (undercover) activity. By keeping all union activity covert, the organiser is hoping management will not be alerted to his/her organising efforts. The Labour Team has identified two categories of early warning signs. If you suspect any of these early warning signs of union activity are occurring at your facility, call the Union Hotline immediately.’

The document titled ‘A manager toolbox to remaining Union free’ states:

‘Early warning signs – Category 1

- An increase in associate phone calls in and out of the facility.
- Increased curiosity in benefits and policies.
- Associates receiving unusual attention from other associates.
- Abnormal amount of absenteeism.
- Excessive turnover.
- Slowdown in work productivity.
- An increase in errors in associates' work.
- Exit interviews indicating associates are in conflict.
- Surge of complaints by associates against management.
- Associates confront management.
- Associates ‘bait’ management into discipline or termination.
- Abuse of restroom visits.
- Argumentative questions are asked in departmental/facility meetings.

Category 2:

- Confidential information being misplaced or removed from files.
- ‘Strangers’ spending an unusual amount of time in the associates' parking areas at the
beginning or end of shifts.
- Associates spending an abnormal amount of time in the parking lot before and after work.
- Frequent meetings at associates' homes.
- Associates coming back to the facility to talk to associates on other shifts.
- Open talk about unions among associates.
- Reports from associates of the union visiting their homes, calling them, or sending them literature in the mail.
- Union literature found around the facility.
- Associates using union terms such as arbitration, grievance, and seniority.
- Interest in obtaining names and addresses from schedules or associate listings.
- Associates leaving work areas on a frequent basis to talk to other associates.
- Associates who are never seen together start talking or associating with each other and begin forming strange alliances.

Without a union, workers have little collective muscle with which to challenge the 'structural systemic underpayment' that Wal-Mart has become renowned for, according to the US National Employment Law Office. Other union-busting tactics include surveillance, intimidation, threats and illegal firings.

Much evidence has been documented about the way Wal-Mart approaches 'associates': a study (2005) by the UC Berkeley Centere for Labour Research and Education found that Wal-Mart's entry into metropolitan areas eliminates similar jobs that pay 18 per cent more than Wal-Mart. Studies from the UFCW - union workers in the US food industry, reveal that ‘the average Wal-Mart sales associate earns 32 per cent less than the average wage of a comparable UFCW worker at one of the three major supermarkets under the current contract for Southern California in 2011.’

While corporate governance is fast becoming a big-money industry, in countries like China, evidence strongly suggests that the company games CSR by encouraging factories to keep their workers in line through brutality and intimidation.

South Africa's strong union culture presents an entirely different situation. But aside from the direct and lethal threat to the local manufacturing industry, impacting employment beyond direct Wal-Mart employees as well as the life of our national productivity, South Africa will be further integrated into a system of exploitation, facilitating a race to the bottom for the 12 other African countries in which Massmart operates. In just over a week, the Tribunal will deliver a judgment. It is a decision that reaches far and wide - all the way to China.

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* Khadija Sharife is southern Africa correspondent for The Africa Report.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

Taking land and votes without payment

Ronald Wesso

2011-05-19

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/73419

cc A SANC Youth League leader Julius Malema can only get away with unconstitutional statements calling for black South Africans ‘to take the land without payment’ because there are no social movements strong enough to put his words into action, writes Ronald Wesso.

‘We have to take the land without payment,’ said Julius Malema to a crowd at a recent election rally, ‘because the whites took our land without paying and transformed them into game farms. The system of willing seller and willing buyer has failed.’ In his usual manner Jacob Zuma remained quiet while Malema continued amid loud applause, ‘We all agree they stole the land. They are criminals, they should be treated like that.’

Malema here was not just attacking white landowners but also South Africa’s constitution and ANC policy. The constitution of course guarantees property rights and compensation and makes criminals not of white landowners but of people who would try to ‘take the land without payment’. Consistent with this, successive ANC governments have carefully protected the property rights of white farmers and supported their business ambitions to compete for export markets. This is why Kgalema Motlanthe was quick to reassure predictably upset white reactions to Malema’s call. He explained that the ANC is non-racial and Malema’s statements were based on ‘wrong logic’. Motlanthe also said that it is not right to say that all white people were criminals, ‘It can’t be correct to generalize like that. It is not scientific or healing.’

These exchanges were reported on the website news24.com and the first reader to comment wrote, ‘Give Motlanthe a Double Bells and Zuma has no Balls!!!!’ Others took up the discussion portraying Malema as desperately anti-white, Zuma as either a spineless puppet or an expert manipulator using young Julius, and Motlanthe as a rather feint voice of some kind of reason. There was an almost universal consensus that Malema is a total idiot, as clueless in politics as in woodwork.

The fact is, Julius Sello Malema might struggle to knock together a kitchen cupboard, but in politics he knows exactly what he is doing. He knows how to play to an audience, white or black. Even his genuinely stupid comments are probably deliberate, like that of Reagan and Bush, designed to endear him to a particular constituency. Did you hear what our Juju has said now? Revolutionaries must make lots of babies, so we can outnumber the whites. Hahaha. Let the whites choke on that one. They really believe we don’t know about birth control.

So although these comments of Malema are attacking the constitution and ANC policy – which both protect white wealth – he did in this instance express an opinion that is popular among blacks. An opinion that goes something like this: Although white people have been selling and buying the land for a long time, and the present owners probably bought it from other whites, as a community they got the land through the racist violence and robbery that made up colonialism and Apartheid. Even the money that changed white hands during these transactions came from exploiting blacks. They are the beneficiaries of systematic crimes against generations of blacks and therefore should have no right to the ownership of the land or to compensation for that ownership.

Supporters of this opinion are not necessarily slavish followers of Malema. It is perfectly possible to support particular statements or acts of a politician without supporting the power of that politician. In this case it is even advisable. Malema was campaigning for votes for the ANC, he showed a willingness to break away from the constitution if it means more votes and power for his party, but the ANC is not about to declare white landowners criminals whose land must be taken without payment. Ask them and they will tell you that they are thinking of ways of speeding up land reform, but they will stay within the framework of the law and constitution that guarantees white land owners their rights to property and compensation. In other words, they will continue their long time approach. Indeed, a few days after Malema’s comments Jacob Zuma was reassuring white farmers in Elgin, Western Cape that they had nothing to fear.

The ANC has long had this practice of multiple personalities that it rolls out as the occasion demands: Malema to charge up blacks into voting ANC, Kgalema to calm white property owners from here to Washington, while policy remains geared to building South Africa’s white dominated neoliberal capitalism. In fact, Motlanthe once, briefly, had the role Malema has now perfected. He became secretary general of the ANC at a time when they had just adopted the pro-capital, neoliberal Gear policy and coolly announced it non-negotiable, much to the outrage of black working class organisations. Motlanthe, having just come from the unions, felt the pressure of this outrage particularly and at his first May Day rally in his new capacity he caused a Malema-like round of media/white panic and ANC statesmen’s reassurance by calling on the workers to hate capitalism and declaring that the ANC would always support their efforts to overthrow this system. Of course the ANC remained as committed to capitalism as ever. Same roles, different actors, same pro-capitalist neoliberal policies.

One reason why Malema can safely make this statement is the absence of strong social change movements. Had such strong movements existed among the landless and rural poor, he would have to be much more circumspect. Activists would no doubt have used his verbal break with the constitution as an opportunity to break with property rights in action by occupying white-owned land without payment. Malema would find it impossible to play his role as his party and state rush to the defence of white landowners. All over the world, wherever strong movements of the rural poor and landless exist, they are using illegal land occupations and expropriations as a strategy. They have found that staying within the laws and constitutions of capitalist societies means staying oppressed, frustrated, excluded and exploited. They have found that to achieve self-management over their land and lives they have to be prepared to take on the revolutionary challenge of mounting direct actions against the rights of capitalist property and the authority of the capitalist state.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

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

'How to insult your own people'

Random notes from across the continent

Dibussi Tande

2011-05-19

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/73416

cc C CEthiopia’s abortion laws, Uganda’s walk to work campaign, the Zambian Patriotic Front’s new manifesto, why Gbagbo’s statues had to go, Malawi’s ‘grumpy old man in State House’, and the plight of Gambia’s Hassan Touray feature in this week’s review of African blogs, compiled by Dibussi Tande.

Ethiopian Feminist praises Ethiopia’s abortion laws and argues that restrictive abortion laws do not prevent abortion but only push it underground, increasing the risks to women and girls:

‘The procurement of unsafe abortion is amongst the leading causes of death of women and girls in Ethiopia. According to IPAS, around 100 hundred women die in health facilities from abortion-related complications. And these figures only capture those that actually make it to health centers to follow-up on back-alley procedures gone wrong. In 2008 alone an estimated 52, 600 women received care at a health facility due to complications arising out of unsafe abortions. In desperation, women and girls self-induce abortions by thrusting metallic objects, sticks and other materials up into their uterus. Others utilize a leafy plant named abawela, pulling it out from the ground by its roots, trimming it and pushing it up their uterus to induce bleeding… Many health care professionals who now provide post-abortion care reiterate that the women and girls who come in to the health clinics show signs of infections and invasive injuries, most notably a perforated uterus...

‘Until 2004, the procurement and administration of abortion was a criminal offence and punishable by imprisonment according to Article 545 of the 1957 criminal code. The criminal code was revised in 2004 [and] “permits the procurement of abortion by a recognized medical institution under certain conditions”...

‘I am of the belief that abortion services should be readily available to any woman or girl aside from the confines placed by the above-stated conditions. Yet I am still very glad that Ethiopia has not batted an eyelash in amending a moralistic law and adopting what is one of Africa’s most progressive and life saving abortion law.’

Voices of Uganda highlights the shortcomings of walk to work campaign initiated by the opposition in Uganda:

‘Undoubtedly, the protests were an excellent idea where the Ugandan opposition rallied around an issue of common interests that affects the Nation as a whole instead of rallying around individuals and personalities. Even though the Idea isn’t original, the fact that it works is what mattered the most; participating in an activity that isn’t illegal but drives a point home. The biggest problem with the protests is their violent nature. As much as they claim to be peaceful, we have seen shops looted, businesses abandoned government cars set on fire among others as certain elements use the confusion to perpetrate crime…

‘First and foremost, the opposition should denounce all forms of violence … They should clearly state that any individuals who engage in any form of violence or crime shall be disowned and are not a part of what the cause is trying to achieve…

‘As accountable leaders, they should take responsibility for all their actions even when things go wrong. The opposition should keep a record of all deaths during the protests and should offer any possible help to the grieving families in their time of despair.’

The Zambian Economist reviews the recently unveiled manifesto of the Patriotic Front (PF) – Zambia’s largest opposition party:

‘The Patriotic Front (PF) has adopted "change" as their core theme for their campaign this year. Indeed, their recently unveiled manifesto promises a significant departure from virtually all policies implemented by the ruling part - the Movement for Multi-party Democracy (MMD) - in the last 20 years...

Beginning with the foreword by the PF president, the promise of the PF manifesto is a Zambia where jobs are plenty, individuals (and companies alike) pay low taxes (even lower for families with children), while the value of incomes and savings is protected by a low inflation rate and a fixed exchange rate. For those that want to borrow, there will be government assured low interest rates…

‘You could be forgiven for mistaking this idealistic picture the PF manifesto creates with the biblical description of paradise…

‘What fascinates - or worries - most about this manifesto is not what it says, but rather, what’s missing; the details of how this PF utopia can be achieved! Exactly how would PF simultaneously (and vastly) increase public sector spending, while lowering taxes and refusing to borrow from external partners?

‘The PF manifesto is heavy on "good-to-hear" sound bites, but incredibly thin on detail - the "how?" question. Without the details, and specifics, the PF manifesto is nothing more than hollow rumblings aimed at exciting the uninformed and unsophisticated masses!’

West Africa wins always sheds light on the perplexing destruction of statues constructed by ex-President Laurent Gbagbo in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire:

‘The statues Gbagbo erected across the city to celebrate the glorious superiority of Ivory Coast were, as it turns out, diabolical instruments to consolidate his grip on power. Human sacrifices are said to have been buried under the statues to cast a powerful magic spell on Gbagbo’s presidency, which of course his wife considered a god-given position no human being could take away. It is only when Ouattara’s troops smashed two of the biggest ‘monuments’ that they were able to break Gbagbo’s spiritually enhanced resistance and enter the hide-out under the presidential residence to arrest him. This is what one of Ouattara's soldiers told me, and he was not joking. Destroying the rest of the statues was one of the first acts of government Ouattara carried out before his inauguration. A bulldozer was removing the remainders of the Saint Jean roundabout today.’

Rising Africa highlights the plight of Hassan Touray who is currently in prison in The Gambia because his company sued the government for non-payment and breach of contract:

‘In the murky gloom of Gambia's dictatorial regime, and Jammeh's misrule and tyranny, a few beacons of light stand out with purpose. None other than Hassan Touray, a man who gives us hope that values like honesty, integrity are not outdated and extinct in today's world.

‘What is clear is that Yahya Jammeh is not the only culprit in The Gambia, he just happens to be the most visible face of its misery. The Mafia families, the patronage networks, the cronies of the regime are equally culpable. Tackling just Jammeh and letting all his associates go scot free, would just mean replacing one crook with another. Which is what happened in Russia, all the ex Communists, ex KGB, ex Comissars, went and joined the Russian Mafia or became oligarchs themselves, replacing one form of tyranny with another.

‘Hassan Touray had a succesful, comfortable consulting career in the US, he could have happily lead a peaceful life, like most other immigrants. But he choose to give it up, all come back to his home nation, to build a better future. Which is why it is imperative, that people like Hassan Touray receive our support, these are the kind of leaders that not just Gambia, but the entire world needs. People of integrity, honor and values. People willing to sacrifice for the sake of their nation. Hassan Touray, for all his sacrifice, has been charged and arrested by the Gambian Government. He needs our support, not just him, but every Hassan Touray in Africa needs our support. For too long, we have allowed the continent to be manipulated by self seeking leaders who looted the countries.’

Danniso provides a scathing analysis of the performance of President Bingu wa Mutharika of Malawi:

‘He’s got no clue how to khala bwino, how to properly interact, with his own people. One day he’s calling Northerners arrogant ungratefuls for their anti-quota system stance (even as he doles out plum parastatal and civil service posts only to members of his ethnic group), the next he’s calling all Malawian drunks because they couldn’t understand the reason our flag had to be urgently changed.

‘Our president brooks no criticism and doesn’t tolerate complaints. Dare criticize and in his eyes you’ll be nothing but an unemployable fool. Dare slight his performance on governance and he’ll take to the podium to rant that you're a nkhwezule, an insignificant being. If you happen to be an ambassador, better not let the president get wind of what you privately report to your bosses about him lest your country gets labeled a stupid donor that listens to an equally stupid opposition.

‘Ironically, our grumpy old man in State House whines that he’s the most insulted Malawian president ever. Yet the truth is that he's rewriting the thesaurus on presidential insults. How to Insult Your Own People may be hitting the shelves not too long from now.

‘Is the president's grumpiness a result of his incompetence to run the country? Indeed, some pundits have argued that the president has lost his way because his eyes are primarily focused on how to play his cards so that someone he favors succeeds him in 2014. Yes, it’s possible that haunted as he is by indiscretions that he doesn’t want uncovered by an unfriendly regime, he can hardly focus on the problems that bedevil the country. Nightmarish visions of a Malawian prison cell can indeed knock a president off his stride.’

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

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

Journalist in a paper democracy

Interview with Eskinder Nega

Ron Singer

2011-05-12

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/73174

cc S AIn a series of two interviews, Ron Singer engages with dissident Ethiopian journalist Eskinder Nega about the EPRDF (Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front), how his wife was forced to give birth while in prison and the politics of identity.

Understandably, the democratic risings in the Middle East and North Africa make the rulers of neighbouring countries very nervous. Since all of these rulers have at least a skeleton or two in their own closets, they worry about anything that looks as if it might spark discontent.

Ethiopia, a democracy on paper, is actually under the autocratic rule of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi and his party, the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Party (EPRDF). Recently, riot police briefly detained and threatened long-time dissident journalist Eskinder Nega. According to an email Eskinder sent me on 14 February, here is what happened:

‘Meant to respond earlier but heavily armed riot police picked me up last Friday and took me to their second in command. He accused me of trying to incite an “Egyptian like protest in Ethiopia” and warned me that the government is losing patience with me. “We are tired of imprisoning you,” he told me. “This time it will not be imprisonment." And I just don't know if he is bluffing or not. Since then, they have made it a point to be visibly present wherever I am.’

The content of some of Eskinder’s recent blogs suggests the government’s motives for this threat. First, there was Eskinder’s implied call for the armed forces not to obey government orders to put down hypothetical protests, and for diplomats to defect:

‘The military is all the EPRDF has in Ethiopia … In the unlikely event that it will remain fiercely loyal to the EPRDF in the face of nation-wide mass protests, civilian fatalities that run in the low hundreds, as is officially the case for the 2005 post-election riots, will be too much for the international community. This is not 2005…

‘EPRDF could count on even less officials to stay faithful to it. This will be particularly true of its diplomats …Perhaps the only faithful embassy left will be the one in Beijing. But nothing is certain even there.

‘All in all, the message to the EPRDF from Libya is crystal clear: don’t fight change. You will not win.’ (Addis Voice, 11 February 2011, http://addisvoice.com/2011/02/libyas-gaddafi-and-ethiopias-eprdf/)

Then, there was his open letter to Meles, suggesting that he resign forthwith:

‘You have essentially wasted the two decades with which you were blessed to affect change. In place of pragmatism dogma has prevailed, in place of transparency secrecy has taken root, in place of democracy oppression has intensified, and in place of merit patronage has been rewarded.

‘Ato [Sir] Meles Zenawi: the people want—no, need—you to leave office. The people are closely watching events in North Africa as I write this letter. They are debating the implications for Africa, including Ethiopia. And they have been inspired by the heroism of ordinary Libyans.

‘Listen to them before it’s too late.’ (Addis Voice, 7 March 2011, re-posted on Ayyaantuu Oromiyaa)

In the February post, Eskinder referred to the watershed events of 2005–06, when the press covered peaceful student protests in the aftermath of rigged elections. More than a dozen journalists were arrested, including Eskinder and his wife, publisher Serkalem Fasil. Some wound up spending as long as 18 months in jail, and their newspapers’ licences were revoked. In the aftermath, the independent press in Ethiopia, which had blossomed between 2000 and 2005, all but disappeared.

Eskinder was one of those hardest hit. In the course of two long interviews in Addis Ababa in February, he told me the horrific story of the circumstances attending the birth of his son in prison. This story goes well beyond previous accounts of the same events by Human Rights Watch, the Committee to Protect Journalists and Amnesty International. (For those accounts, see, for instance, http://www.ethiomedia.com/above/2050.html.)

Surprisingly, our interviews ended on a very optimistic note. Eskinder, who has suffered ruinous fines and has not been licensed to publish a newspaper since 2005, predicted a peaceful course leading to a democratic future for his country. This prediction gives the lie to the government’s perception of him as a destructive rabble-rouser.

PART ONE

RON SINGER: … And then [2005–06] you’re back in prison, and your son is born. How long were you in prison that time?

ESKINDER NEGA: A year and a half. Both of us. My wife was less than a month pregnant when we went in. We didn’t know she was pregnant.

RON SINGER: When the child was born, did your mother care for him?

ESKINDER NEGA: Born in prison. I’ll tell you why… I struggle with this experience every time my child catches cold. I’ll tell you why. About 15 days after we went into prison, a cellmate of mine who met Serkalem in a police hospital told me that she had tested positive for pregnancy. I was surprised, I was happy, this was our first child. I was 100 per cent sure they would let her go.

RON SINGER: She hadn’t been in prison before, right?

ESKINDER NEGA: No, no, her first time.

RON SINGER: Another reason to let her go.

ESKINDER NEGA: Plus, they were careful about not imprisoning husbands and wives at the same time. Except us. Her brother was there, too.

RON SINGER: A family reunion!

ESKINDER NEGA: They knew the minimum those they arrested would get for the charges were life sentences. So they didn’t want to destroy a family. But they were particularly angry at us. Despite pleas from everyone, including Mary Robinson, [UN High Commissioner for Human Rights], to [Prime Minister] Meles [Zenawi], he specifically refused. So she gave birth in prison. That’s not the worst part: I could understand that…

RON SINGER: Please go on.

ESKINDER NEGA: We’re not complaining about that. If someone is a suspect, pregnancy is not a legal reason, at least, to release them. This is a political case, so the question is if the government should have behaved like this. But, as far as the legal framework is concerned, they are within their rights.

RON SINGER: Okay.

ESKINDER NEGA: But that’s not the point. What they did was, before she gave birth, they denied her a…

RON SINGER: … pre-natal exam?

ESKINDER NEGA: No exam up to the seventh month. Though we insisted several times. Finally, and this is when Meles’s office intervened, her blood pressure was so dangerously high that they insisted she should stay at the hospital. They admitted her and had to do a Caesarean. They took the baby out prematurely because they said it was a choice between his life and hers. About eight months, plus he was underweight, because she wasn’t eating properly, she was under stress. So the baby came out, and she was under anaesthesia. Before she woke up, the doctor decided the baby needed to be put in an incubator. This was a life-saving decision.

RON SINGER: Do you know how much the baby weighed?

ESKINDER NEGA: No. Since there was no incubator at the police hospital, they took the baby to Black Lion Hospital, the largest in the country. Serkalem didn’t wake up. At the hospital, they wanted to know who the parents were. They said, ‘The mother’s in the hospital.’ The Black Lion people said, ‘Okay, someone needs to sign for this baby to be placed in an incubator, either the father or mother. In case something happens to the baby.’ The response of the police officers that were in charge of the baby was, ‘You know, the father is in prison.’ So they said, ‘Let the father sign.’ But they said, ‘No, the father is in prison.’ Then, they wanted to know why the mother and the father were in prison at the same time. And they said, ‘Because of the election.’ Now the Black Lion panicked. They said, “Unless one of them comes here, we’re not going to take the baby. Take back the baby!” Imagine!

RON SINGER: And you didn’t know any of this, you found it all out later?

ESKINDER NEGA: Months later. So they took the baby back to the police hospital. When the doctor asked what happened, they said one of the parents had to come to sign. They couldn’t take Serkalem, she was a prisoner, with three heavily armed guards outside of her room. So the police hospital called the prison and told them, ‘You know, this is an emergency, we need one of the parents to go there and sign, this is a life-saving situation.’ Since Serkalem couldn’t come out of the hospital, it had to be the father. The prison officials said it was a very difficult decision for them, that ‘We have to seek guidance from higher authority.’

RON SINGER: And they didn’t mean get down on their knees and pray.

ESKINDER NEGA: Exactly. We have no idea who they asked. But the permission was denied, and the baby was denied an incubator. They were so frightened about the baby dying in his mother’s embrace that they took the baby and put him in a separate room. Imagine! In a separate room, in a bed, alone. They shut the door and left. When Serkalem woke up, there was no baby. So she got out of bed and tried to walk out of the room. She wanted to know where the baby is. The guards wouldn’t let her out, but they told her, ‘You know, talk to the nurse.’ The nurse was called, and Serkalem said, ‘Where’s my baby?’ The nurse said, ‘It’s in the next room.’ Serkalem said, ‘Why is it in the next room?’ She couldn’t give her an answer. Serkalem wanted to go out to the next room, but the guards said, ‘You can’t go, this is not allowed.’ Serkalem said, ‘Shoot me!’ She opened the door and went to the next room and opened the door. There was our baby, all alone in a bed.

RON SINGER: A little baby.

ESKINDER NEGA: A little baby in there. Can you imagine that? So she took the baby without asking permission of the nurse or the guards, went back into her room, and kept the baby, put it on her chest. She didn’t know about the details.

RON SINGER: About the incubator, the going back and forth…

ESKINDER NEGA: No. It was so tiny she was startled. But her maternal instinct … she kept the baby there, and the baby survived.

RON SINGER: It started to eat. It’s lucky it was strong enough to do that.

ESKINDER NEGA: Yes. And it survived, despite the odds, despite the pessimism of the doctors.

RON SINGER: How much does your child know about this story?

ESKINDER NEGA: He’s only four years old, he wouldn’t understand. But … he’s all right. And … I’ll tell you what happened. About a year and a half ago, one morning he got up, and he had this facial paralysis. We went berserk, there’s no other word for it. We lost it. I blame the government. But, fortunately, he’s a child, he just needed physical therapy, he recovered 100 per cent.

RON SINGER: Did he have to take medicine?

ESKINDER NEGA: No, no medicine.

RON SINGER: Did they have any idea what caused it?

ESKINDER NEGA: No, no idea. Anything happens to him now … this was the most serious health crisis that he had. In other ways, his health is perfect, by the way.

RON SINGER: That’s wonderful.

ESKINDER NEGA: He’s never been sick, he’s the healthiest little boy you could think of.

RON SINGER: He’s a survivor.

ESKINDER NEGA: Yes, but every time he catches cold, we have to struggle with what happened to him. Our only child, by the way.

RON SINGER: You must be tempted to leave the country.

ESKINDER NEGA: The first time I was ever tempted to leave was when he had his facial paralysis. That was the only time I really thought about leaving. But, if anything happens to my child … I believe in forgiving, by the way, that we shouldn’t have any grudge against the EPRDF [the ruling party], despite what it has done. I believe that the best thing for the country is reconciliation. I believe in the South African experience, that model.

RON SINGER: Do you think this party, though, could ever turn to becoming a really good party for the country?

ESKINDER NEGA: That’s the only way. We have to hope against hope.

RON SINGER: You know, I always come back to the fact that Meles is a very pragmatic man. If he were sure enough of his power, his pragmatism might make him realise, ‘I’d better go in that direction.’

ESKINDER NEGA: I hope so. But it wouldn’t be because of his shift of attitudes. There has to be pressure on him from the ground.

RON SINGER: He’s also an authoritarian, he has the combatant’s mentality. [Meles was a leader in the brutal war against the previous regime, the Derg.] But it’s possible his good angel will get the better of the other one.

ESKINDER NEGA: Maybe. But, if you look at the South African example, it wasn’t the architects of apartheid that changed it. It took de Klerk, someone within the system, but who had a different perspective.

RON SINGER: There are others in the system here, too?

ESKINDER NEGA: I hope so. But, ultimately, what I think will make the difference is great pressure from the ground, from the people, as we are witnessing in Egypt now. And then I hope the EPRDF will be pragmatic enough to realise reform would be the better option, even for itself. I hope we’ll be able to avoid a revolution.

RON SINGER: If there was a referendum in the country today…

ESKINDER NEGA: I think there’s a consensus for democracy, even among farmers. People deep in the countryside, people who are not literate, even, are now conscious that the government needs their votes to be legitimate. This is a revolution in thought.

RON SINGER: And it’s very hard for the people, because of the way the kebeles [local administrative units] have been taken over by the government. It’s dangerous for them to think that.

ESKINDER NEGA: Exactly. But the belief that the government, any government, needs the people’s vote to be legitimate, is a new phenomenon. This is what democracy is all about.

RON SINGER: So change is not a matter of whether, but when.

ESKINDER NEGA: Yes. I have to go now.

RON SINGER: Just in case we’re being photographed, I’ll give you a cold handshake, instead of a hug.

ESKINDER NEGA: Very American. It’s been nice talking to you.

RON SINGER: A pleasure. Thank you.

This interview, which took place at the Jerusalem Hotel, Arbegnoch (‘Patriot’) district, Addis Ababa, was recorded by a government spy, presumably a policeman or member of the security services. After we started talking, a very ordinary-looking man sat down at an adjacent table in the nearly empty hotel restaurant and used his cell phone to capture the entire interview, including the patriotic and optimistic conclusion.

PART TWO

Part One of this article ended with Eskinder Nega’s optimistic prediction about Ethiopian democracy. Earlier, he had presented a theory that buttresses this prediction. His thesis: ‘Because of identity, the question of who is an Ethiopian and what my place is in Ethiopia, democracy is very important here.’

RON SINGER: How important is it to the country that it has viable democratic institutions, like a free press? I’ve heard people say that if you develop the country – support the farmers, build roads, build infrastructure – no one will give a damn about a free press or free elections. Except for a small elite and interested parties. The other part of this argument is that we can’t afford to have freedom in this country, because we have such a legacy of instability and violent conflict. And because the opposition is so irresponsible. Paul Henze has been an apologist for that view. [Layers of Time: a history of Ethiopia. New York: Palgrave, 2000.]

ESKINDER NEGA: All politics are the outcomes of history. Ethiopia has a unique history in Africa, much as, say, the Balkans, in Europe, or Japan or Thailand, in Asia, have had a unique history. The content of our politics is different from everywhere else in Africa. At the core of our politics is, as left-wing intellectuals define it, the national question. That’s the bone of contention in our politics.

RON SINGER: What do you mean?

ESKINDER NEGA: We could call it, as the left also does, the ethnic question. But that’s not a good description, either.

RON SINGER: It’s also about federalism, sovereignty, borders?

ESKINDER NEGA: Federalism. It’s about identity. That’s a non-ideological description of it. Elsewhere in Africa, the dominant political class has accepted the nation state, as has the Left. Except for a minority of Somalis, the overwhelming majority of Kenyans accept the idea of Kenya.

RON SINGER: Even though they killed each other over the last elections.

ESKINDER NEGA: But within Kenya: it’s about taking a larger piece of the cake. But not about identity in the way it is in Ethiopia. A similar example would be before the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian empire or the pre-1917 Russian empire. It’s about Ukrainian, Georgian, and Armenian nationalism. Because of identity, the question of who is an Ethiopian and what my place is in Ethiopia, democracy is very important here. Our state was not created by Europeans. It was created by indigenous forces. It started from the North and expanded to the South.

RON SINGER: And, except for the two Italian wars, the significant conflicts were between elements within Ethiopian society, right? Like the conflict between Yohannes lV and Menelik.

ESKINDER NEGA: Exactly.

RON SINGER: But wasn’t that an ethnic conflict?

ESKINDER NEGA: No.

RON SINGER: But it had to do with [the Amhara king] Menelik’s trying to establish a Greater Ethiopia with himself in charge, opposing Yohannes, who was the reigning Emperor, a Tigrayan.

ESKINDER NEGA: It was about primacy, a power struggle, nothing to do with ethnicity. The basis of Yohannes’ power wasn’t only Tigray.

RON SINGER: And now you have an uneasy ethnic federalism.

ESKINDER NEGA: That’s why democracy is so important to Ethiopia. Because we need it to moderate the differences between civilisation and civilisation, to use [Samuel] Huntington’s term [‘the clash of civilisations’] There are three: the East, which you could call an Islamic civilisation; the south, African; and the North, the Abyssinian.

RON SINGER: And one of the most important functions of democracy is to moderate among them.

ESKINDER NEGA: Yes.

RON SINGER: Well, the government tries to moderate them in some ways, such as giving certain rights and more and more autonomy to the Oromo [as a way of disarming secessionist groups]. But those who don’t like what is going on there –a reporter is not even allowed to speak with them, under the treason law. So you can’t have the development of democracy.

ESKINDER NEGA: They’re trying to dictate the pace of democratisation. The EPRDF acknowledges that Ethiopia needs federalism [i.e. some decentralisation of power]. For all the ethnic groups. Luckily for us.

RON SINGER: But the EPRDF insists on controlling the system. By claiming the country is not ready [a claim supported in Assefa Fisseha’s Federalism and the accommodation of diversity … Nijmegen, the Netherlands: Wolf Legal, 2007]


EESKINDER NEGA: Yes. And, after 2005, there’s been backsliding. Ethiopia is still a highly centralised country.

RON SINGER: In the revised edition of his book, Marcus talks about how the people of this entire region have to get beyond the old divisions: The feudal mentality, defending Abyssinian interests, Eritrean nationalism, and so on. The region will only become peaceful when democratisation occurs and people see their common interests.

[Marcus, Harold G. A History of Ethiopia (Berkeley: University of California Press, updated ed, 2002]

ESKINDER NEGA: Exactly.

RON SINGER: He sees the war and separation of Eritrea and Ethiopia as disastrous for the former, not good for the latter. But what’s the likelihood that these changes will occur?

ESKINDER NEGA: The alternative [to democratization] would be the break-up of Ethiopia.

RON SINGER: Nationalisms become virulent if there’s no democratisation.

ESKINDER NEGA: Exactly. That’s what makes our experience unique, the danger that our history creates if democratisation does not occur.

RON SINGER: Without it, you’re stuck with the old model of the country.

ESKINDER NEGA: Yes. The longer this change is delayed, the more likely the country will explode. I think what the EPRDF is doing, willingly or not, I don’t know, is repeating the mistake of the Derg in Eritrea [using force to resist local nationalism].

RON SINGER: I see.

ESKINDER NEGA: There’s no alternative to bringing in the OLF [Oromo Liberation Front, the separatist group] and the ONLF [Ogaden National Liberation Front,a Somali separatist group].

RON SINGER: Are there people in government telling Meles this?

ESKINDER NEGA: Unfortunately, not.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* These two interviews with Eskinder Nega will be incorporated into a chapter about the press in Ethiopia in Ron Singer’s book, ‘Uhuru Revisited’ (Africa World Press/Red Sea Press).
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

NOTES

* In a 1999 interview, pro-democracy activist Chief Anthony Enahoro (1923-2010), made a somewhat similar argument about Nigeria, where the British installed the Northerners, who are still trying to keep power in order to control resources, and where democracy would mean more federalism – i.e. decentralised economic and political control. The recent re-election of the Southerner, President Goodluck Jonathan, has been said to signal the end of a half-century of neocolonial Northern hegemony in Nigeria. But, to use Eskinder’s (and Huntington’s) terms, even if the Nigerian clash involves culture and religion, it is not quite a clash of civilizations. And fifty years is not fifteen-hundred. (See Ron Singer, "Champion of Democracy: An Interview with Chief Anthony Enahoro," Friends of Nigeria Newsletter, Spring, 1999 (reprinted in African Link, Vol 9, #2, 2000). [www.friendsofnigeria.org/Newsletter_files/vol3_4.htm – Cached]

Hubert Harrison: In tribute

Event in London

2011-05-19

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/Announce/73440

Event: Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem: 2011 Memorial

2011-05-19

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/Announce/73437

MEMORIAL DANCE DRAMA

A Feast of Return, a dance drama by Odia Ofeimun and sponsored by the Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem Educational Trust Fund, will be staged at the Cyprian Ekwensi Cultural Centre, Garki, Abuja from 6:30pm.

A Feast of Return is a masterpiece dance drama written by Odia Ofeimun. It draws from the anti-colonial struggle as well as the struggle against apartheid and on to the fight against military rule in Africa to tell the story of perseverance, unity and hope with so much energy and zest. The play also combines the themes of good governance, women emancipation, participation of the youth and calls for mass action as a means to demand accountable and transparent governance and the delivery of public goods. The play could indeed be described as the literary rendition of Tajudeen Abdul- Raheem’s call of ‘Don’t Agonise, Organise”!

The play will be rendered from 6:30pm; it is a play Tajudeen wouldn’t have wanted to miss and he would have graced it with his thunderous and infectious laughter. A Feast of Return is indeed a fitting tribute to the late activist in whose Brixton flat in London, the text of the dance drama was actually written.

ABOUT TAJUDEEN ABDUL-RAHEEM

Dr. Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem (1961-2009) was born in Funtua, Katsina State. He graduated with First Class Honours in Political Science from the Bayero University Kano and went on to win the Rhodes Scholarship to the Oxford University where he earned his Ph.D in Political Science.

Over the years, he worked in many organisations; serving as the Secretary to the Organising Committee of the Seventh Pan African Congress in which was held in Kampala, Uganda in 1994. Although Tajudeen was a prolific writer; journalist and columnist to leading African dailies; social critique; human rights activist; political scientist and a civil society activist among others; he will perhaps be remembered first and foremost as a husband to his wife, Mounira, a father to his two daughters and indeed a friend to the thousands of his friends. Until his death in a traffic accident in Nairobi on Africa Day, May 25, 2009, he was the Africa Director of the United Nations Millennium Campaign – the MDGs campaign organ of the United Nations.

Why the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa is important to youth

Essay competition

SOAWR coalition

2011-05-19

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/Announce/73411

In October 2010, the African Women’s Decade (2010-2020) was officially launched in Nairobi, Kenya. The decade is a critical moment for the advancement of women’s rights and gender equality on the continent. The Solidarity for African Women’s Rights coalition (SOAWR), a coalition of 37 organizations based throughout the continent, is committed to ensuring that African Union (AU) member states ratify and implement the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa as an instrument that will play an important role in the realization of the Decade’s objectives. Yet, unfortunately, not all Africans are aware of the Protocol and its significance.

In Malabo, Equatorial Guinea, this June, African heads of state and government will gather at a summit with the theme, “Youth empowerment for sustainable development”. Youth action is critical to the continent’s development, and more specifically, in ensuring that girls and women can make equally valued contributions to this development. As such, the SOAWR coalition would like to invite youth to reflect on the importance of the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa. Contestants are asked to respond to the question, “Why is the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa important to you?” in an essay of a maximum of 2000 words.

The four best essays will receive a copy of African Women Writing Resistance: An Anthology of Contemporary Voices edited by Jennifer Browdy de Hernandez, Pauline Dongala, Omotayo Jolaosho, and Anne Serafin. The winning essays will also be published on the Pambazuka News website (www.pambazuka.org). In addition, the writer of the essay awarded first place will be given the opportunity to attend the AU Summit in Malabo with her or his basic expenses (ticket, accommodation, etc.) covered.

The competition is open to citizens of all African countries aged between 18 and 25.

Entries can be submitted in English or French. The deadline for submission is May 25th, 2011, at 12 noon, GMT. Essays should be typed (1.5 line spacing and 12 point font) and sent in Word or PDF format to the SOAWR Secretariat through bkombo@equalitynow.org with the subject “SOAWR Essay Competition”. Along with the essays, contestants should indicate the email address where they can be reached and provide their age, nationality and country of residence.

SOAWR COALITION MEMBERS

African Centre for Democracy And Human Rights Studies (ACDHRS), African Women’s Development and Communication Network (FEMNET), African Women’s Development Fund (AWDF), Akina Mama wa Afrika (AMWA), Alliances for Africa, Association des Juristes Maliennes (AJM), BAOBAB for Women’s Human Rights, Cellule de Coordination sur les Pratiques Traditionelle Affectant la Sante des Femmes et des Enfants (CPTAFE), , Centre for Justice Studies and Innovations (CJSI), Coalition on Violence Against Women (COVAW), Collectif des Associations et ONGS Féminines de Burundi (CAFOB), Eastern Africa Sub-regional Support Initiative (EASSI), Equality Now, FAHAMU, FAMEDEV, Federation of Women Lawyers Kenya (FIDA-Kenya), Forum Mulher, Girl Child Network (GCN), Human Rights Law Service (HURILAWS), Inter- African Committee on Harmful Traditional Practices (IAC), Inter-African Network For Women, Media, Gender and Development (FAMEDEV), Legal and Human Rights Centre (LHRC), NGO Gender Coordination Network (NGOGCN), Oxfam GB, People Opposing Women Abuse (POWA), Sister Namibia, Strategic Initiative for the Horn of Africa (SIHA), Tomorrow’s Child Initiative (TCI), Uganda Women's Network (UWONET),Union Nationale des Femmes de Djibouti (UNFD), University of Pretoria Center for Human Rights, Women Direct, Voix de Femmes, Women of Liberia Peace Network (WOLPNET), Women and Law Southern Africa (WLSA), Women in Law and Development in Africa (WiLDAF), Women’s Rights Advancement and Protection Alternatives (WRAPA), Women NGO’s Secretariat of Liberia (WONGOSOL)

Africa Centre politics: Microcosm of failed democracy

Chipo Chung

2011-05-19

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/73441

The Africa Centre was founded in 1962. Its home, at 38 King Street, Covent Garden, London, was gifted to the African people in perpetuity by the Catholic Church. Over four decades the building has been a refuge, a meeting place and cultural beacon for the likes of Desmond Tutu, Kenneth Kaunda, Wole Soyinka and Walter Rodney, and an iconic landmark for Africans in Britain. In March 2011, news leaked that the Africa Centre’s Board of Trustees were engaged in a secret deal to sell a 125 year lease of 38 King Street to Capco, a property developer. A campaign to save it quickly emerged, demanding a public consultation with the community on the sale of the centre and garnering the active support of Desmond Tutu, Mo Ibrahim and Youssou N’Dour amongst others, together with over 1,000 petitioners. Thus far, the Board refuse to meet with the community and the sale of the iconic landmark is imminent.

For me, as for most Africans in Britain, as soon as I walked down the stairs into the Africa Centre I had that feeling I was home. The disgruntled woman behind the bar cracked open a Castle lager; in the corner the red-eyed drunkards spouting Marxist theory were a friendly fixture, like spiders on a wall or another piece of ratty furniture. Its bar could be in downtown Nairobi, a cosy shebeen tucked in a forgotten corner of Harare, Addis or Lagos. Its darkness hid the mucked up carpet, the same upholstery that graced the tired feet of Athol Fugard, Ben Okri, Desmond Tutu, after many an event in the legendary Auction Hall. For decades its restaurant, The Calabash, was the only place in London where you could have your choice of a Pan-African menu.

It was in that same building that Herbert Chitepo, one of the founding fathers of my home-country Zimbabwe, made his address on Rhodesian Independence, in 1966. In the heart of London, this is a place where African history resonates. Back then it was a necessary hub for many living in exile as their countries tore off the shackles of colonialism. In the eighties, Jazzie B’s Soul II Soul created a vibe that reached beyond Africans to embrace a wide-ranging community of music lovers. With the millions of Africans who have immigrated to Britain since, it isn’t hard to imagine what the Africa Centre could be for my generation.

Yet in 2006, the restaurant and bar closed and the Africa Centre went dark. Rumours were that this was for refurbishment and we waited with baited breath for the great unveiling. But Desmond Tutu’s recent plea in the Times begging for reconsideration of the sale of 38 King Street internationally exposed that the plan to renovate had been chucked in the bin and replaced with a muddled ‘get-rich-quick’ option. The Board responded with a slogan, “Programmes not property!” claiming the deal to sell would provide funding for programming in a new building. There was no consultation on the decision or a detailed plan of how any proceeds would be used.

Black British theatre companies like Talawa have bewailed the fact that they lack the leverage to own a building, but the Africa Centre’s Board is letting go of prime real estate in Covent Garden and a history which makes 38 King Street priceless. Of course we know buildings in themselves are not important, but what goes on inside them. Many of the great schools in Africa started under trees. It’s the stories told in the circle, the dancing, the laughter, and the rituals of meeting and eating that keep places alive: its people. Year after year, young Africans have approached the Africa Centre’s Board declaring the benefit they would like to contribute, yet the Board has failed to harness this goodwill and create the necessary social capital that would make 38 King Street a viable, vibrant and income-generating cultural centre because of its programmes.

We don’t mind that the building is a dive - what interests us is if there is a vibe. The recent pop-up Double Club in Islington, which celebrated Congolese culture while raising funds for charity, is a model of social enterprise, of ‘happenings’ that could take place. There are more Africans in London and people interested in Africa now than at any time in the past. They are not only refugees and exiles, but are contributing to British society through their work, taxes, talents and creativity. The trustees should realise the Africa Centre will not be saved by a fund that could be mismanaged by poor business acumen. What will save the Africa Centre are its members and beneficiaries in Britain working together across sectors and cultures, building brick by brick the social capital that makes a movement and a market.

So far the petition, from workers, playwrights, artists, entrepreneurs, actors, has been stonewalled. The Board claims a legal right to sell its asset, ignoring the social contract between themselves and the community they serve. As a diasporan from the young republic of Zimbabwe, I avidly study the practice of democracy both at home and in the city in which I now live, London. The drama unravelling at the Africa Centre reveals a management ignoring the new leadership theories that create effective social change: that is, consulting stakeholders, listening to and working with intended beneficiaries. Not only has the campaign been ignored, but the request from the Africa Centre Members’ Association, calling for an Extraordinary General Meeting, has been unjustifiably denied. Without the Members’ Association, some of whom are past trustees, the charity’s governance structure provides no checks or balances; the trustees become a self-selecting board with no accountability. According to a constitution which has hardly been revised in fifty years, a quorum of only 3 out of 21 trustees listed on the Charity Commission files are required to agree sale of assets. If the Centre ran a successful programme, the issue of sale would be secondary to the social capital they had developed by fulfilling their remit. Unfortunately, because the Board has failed to prioritize programming, the building on King Street is the only asset they have.

For Africans like myself, who are not members of the Board but engaged and willing to contribute, it’s frustrating to see the opportunities that have been missed in the charity’s building. It’s the same frustration I feel for citizens in countries where being a member of the ruling party is the only way to contribute to government. Although we, as Africans in the diaspora, have an emotional attachment to the building and its heritage – the site of ANC meetings; the first home of writers like Ben Okri; the gigging venue of Angelique Kidjo – and a vision of what it could be, we have been given no voice in the decision to sell. And we are meant to be the beneficiaries.

When the 38 King Street building goes, the ethos and philosophy of the Africa Centre will go with it. And on the torn roots of our history in Britain, an up-market high-street store will be built. This is the state of democracy in our little Africa, in the heart of Covent Garden.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* Chipo Chung is an actor and social activist working with a number of social change charities operating in Africa (Peace Direct, SAFE, Envision Zimbabwe). She is a council member of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and a member of the Save the Africa Centre campaign.
* This article was first published by openDemocracy.
* Save the Africa Centre's blog is at http://savetheafricacentre.wordpress.com/
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

Burning of shops in Zanzibar

Abdul Sheriff

2011-05-19

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/73406

cc P BWhile the burning of shops in Zanzibar is being interpreted as a criminal and political act, ‘nobody has asked where the root of the problem may lie in the economic and social sphere,’ says Abdul Sheriff.

The burning of the mabanda belonging to ‘Wabara’ at Pwani Mchangani in Zanzibar has become a big story, treated as a criminal or a political act by Zanzibaris against mainlanders. It may be both, but nobody has asked where the root of the problem may lie in the economic and social sphere.

The first question that may be asked is whether all these 80 or so shops indeed belonged only to mainlanders, and there were not any belonging to local people. From the picture that I have seen, the whole area was swept clean. If this was the case, then the second question is how such an odd situation could have arisen in a fishing village in Zanzibar, that suddenly there should be such a flood of the ‘wabara’, without providing any opportunity to the local people to benefit from any development there.

The answer may lie in the way tourism has invaded Zanzibari villages, and how it has undermined local economy and society. I remember going to nearby Nungwi village in 1979 before the tourism invasion. It was not a rich village, but it was to a considerable extent a neat village and a comfortable self-reliant community subsisting on local agriculture and fishing, selling the surplus to the town. When I visited the same village last year, it had been turned upside down, and I could not recognise it at all. It has been flooded with shops blaring loud music, with bars and mabanda selling all sorts of things to tourists and others. It resembles Kariakoo.

A couple of years ago there was a conflict there where women of the village came out demonstrating against the huge inflow of prostitutes who they said were breaking up their families there. Some years previously, a politician extended his bar into one of the streets of Zanzibar Stone Town against the existing law, with drunkards and prostitutes blocking the street such that even a self-respecting man would not dare to pass, let alone women. He was approached by one of the European neighbours, but he was rudely told to shove off. Other neighbours approached the police, but they did nothing to enforce the law. Where everything failed, some disgruntled person resorted to the bomb. Overnight, the bar went indoors where it was supposed to be according to the law in Zanzibar.

More recently several bars that had sprung up in the middle of peaceful residential communities in Zanzibar were burnt. In the recent case also there have been complaints that the mabanda were haunts of bars and prostitutes.

Did the government or the police take any action to deal with the grievances of the local villagers to prevent the destruction of these communities for the sake of the tourist dollars and those pursuing them? Therefore, should we be surprised that some local villagers would resort to be taking law into their own hands when those responsible fail to fulfil their duties?

We should not be surprised, without necessarily condoning such acts. This has been taken by the authorities as a criminal act, and they have promised the ‘full force of the law’ to suppress it. It has been interpreted by those affected as hatred by Zanzibaris against wabara. If there is such ‘hatred’, there must be a reason.

In the persisting widespread discontent in Zanzibar against the union, which many see as not having benefited the smaller partner, but on the contrary, to be destroying local communities, why should we be surprised that it may become a demonstration of the underlying political problem?

Some people on the mainland have raised the spectre of a similar treatment against Zanzibaris on the mainland. If Zanzibaris become responsible for a similar disruption of the local economy and society in their new homes on the mainland, they may suffer a similar backlash.

However, this should not stop us from asking some fundamental questions about our economic policies, especially about tourism, to the neglect of everything else, without considering the social, cultural and even political consequences to our country and its people.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* Professor Abdul Sheriff is executive director of the Zanzibar Indian Ocean Research Institute (ZIORI).
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

Kenya: Citizens hold politicians to account

Kamukunji constituency by-election debate

Odhiambo Okecth

2011-05-19

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/73425

cc DemoshIn what is possibly ‘the first session of its kind in Kenya’s election history’, Bunge La Mwananchi (People’s Parliament) brought together aspiring candidates for Kamukunji constituency at a forum where people could question their would-be MPs. The '[t]ime for lethargic service for Political Leaders and Public Officers is up,’ writes Odhiambo Okecth. (Coverage of the debate is available from Kenya Citizen TV).

First, it was the open session in search of a new Chief Justice and the Deputy Chief Justice in a cast whose star undoubtedly was Mr. Ahmednassir Abdulahi. He asked all the right but irritating questions.

Then yesterday, Bunge La Mwananchi scored another first. They brought a few aspiring candidates for Kamukunji Constituency to a People Forum where the people interrogated their potential Member of Parliament.

These are scenes that you could not imagine some years back.

What does this tell our leaders and civil servants? The die is cast and time for actual Service Delivery is now. You will remember that the Government has come up with a Management System that puts premium to Service Delivery and Performance.

This has been captured through the introduction of Performance Contracts and the Rapid Results Initiatives Waves. Many senior public officers have been subjected to this regime and slowly, we are seeing a new face in the Public Service. But more must be done.

At the Ministerial Level and at the Local Authorities, we are seeing ordinary Kenyans being invited to sit in panels that evaluate the performance of Public Officers. We must take this call to the next level and the Ahmednassir Team and the George Nyongesa Team have set the ball rolling.

I would like to see the Media roll up a campaign where talk shows are hosted by ordinary Kenyans be invited to be among the panelists that ask questions. Many Morning Talk Shows are a pre-arranged affairs where the hosts handle the invited Guests with kids gloves. They are not as prodding and irritating as the Ahmednassir group has shown us.

Time has come when we must put all political leaders and Public Officers to a strict regime. They must answer to the public and be responsive to our questions as they work for us. We have several issues that someone must answer to; poor roads, poor education system, poor lighting across the country, lack of water in many parts of the country, including Nairobi, poor health services, poverty that is rampant across the land. The list is long.

50 years into Independence, we must ask our political leaders and public officers what magic they are using to make themselves super rich and Kenya slides into more debt. It is time we hanged a few people for the sake of Kenya. Just like Jesus Christ died on the cross for humanity, a few leaders who steal from the public should be hanged in public to help save Kenya.

I am happy that we are seeing some changes in how the Public Officers are approaching their duties. It has not been easy for them either, but as things change, we must appreciate and acknowledge Public Officers and Political Leaders whose approach to duty justifies our approval.

The Judicial Service Commission and Bunge La Mwananchi have set the bench mark and standards that we must uphold and replicate all across Kenya.

Time for lethargic service for Political Leaders and Public Officers is up. Kenyans will be following all you do day and night and at the right time, we will have many Ahmednassirs and Nyongesas asking you to account for your past.

Kudos to the Judicial Service Commission and Bunge La Mwananchi.

If it is to be, it is up to me. A Clean Kenya Starts With me. A Peaceful Kenya is my Responsibility.

* Odhiambo T Oketch is the CEO of KCDN and Nairobi Nationwide Coordinator of the Monthly Nationwide Clean-up Campaign.
* Coverage of the debate is available from Kenya Citizen TV).
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

Why high food prices will continue in Kenya

Okoth Osewe

2011-05-19

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/73446

cc N D SAs Kenyans take to the streets in protest against the high cost of living, Okoth Osewe lays the blame for the food crisis on the government’s ‘liberalised’ economic policy.

Eventually, the high cost of living in Kenya has began to force the victims into the streets to demand that the government take action to address the crisis. Today, 10 million Kenyans are facing starvation while over 20 million others are increasingly finding it difficult to put food on the table.

Millions of youths have no jobs while millions of workers are living on starvation wages that cannot now enable them to live from hand to mouth. The country is slowly becoming one big prison where millions are threatened with death because there is no food to eat. In the meantime, a few thieves in control of the wealth of the country are enjoying life as if Kenya is a small heaven on earth. They collaborate with their Western allies to ensure that the Kenyan masses are kept ignorant, deprived, begging and perpetually in a state of want.

Between January and April this year, the cost of 400gms of bread rose from Ksh 35 to Ksh 40 (14% increase) while a 2kg packet of maize floor, the staple food, rose from Ksh 75 to Ksh 93 (24% increase). During the same period, the price of a 2kg packet of cooking oil shot up from Ksh 385 to Ksh 425 (10% increase) while a 500ml milk pack rose to Ksh 30, up from Ksh 25 (20% increase). Likewise, 10 gms of tea leaves is now more expensive after prices rose from Ksh 30 to Ksh 40 (33% increase) while the price of a 2kg pack of rice also rose from Ksh 310 to Ksh 340 (10% increase). A 2 kg pack of wheat-floor rose from Ksh 90 to Ksh 135 (38% increase). These price increases are unprecedented and causing argony to millions of Kenyans across the country.

The uncontrollable spiral of food prices in Kenya is not new. What is new is that poor Kenyan workers and millions of unemployed youths who can no longer put food on the table are beginning to wake up to the fact that something is seriously wrong with the institution called government. Demonstrations organized by consumer organizations and Civil Society groups have been witnessed across the country. The Central Organization of Trade Unions (COTU) has warned that the government must increase the minimum wage or face unspecified consequences. Social movements like Bunge la Mwananchi have teamed up with youth groups to demand government intervention to save Kenyans from starving to death.

To show that it is addressing the crisis, the government moved to implement cosmetic measures to try and appease the starving millions in Kenya. Through Finance Minister Uhuru Kenyatta, the government announced that it would reduce kerosene and diesel taxes by 20 and 30 percent respectively but this move failed to reduce public rage. As an extra measure, Raila Odinga, the Prime Minister, announced that the government would abolish taxes for fuel and kerosene to force prices down so that food can become affordable. However, there is one important equation in the food crisis that millions of Kenyans are not being told.

The high cost of fuel, which is being blamed for rising prices of food, transport and other commodities is just the tip of the iceberg. Fuel prices are being increased by agents of greedy capitalists seeking to enrich themselves by ruthlessly exploiting poor Kenyans. What Kenyans are not being told is that the government is part of the conspiracy to ensure that the wealth grabbers will continue stealing from the poor even in the face of cosmetic changes which have so far had no impact in food pricing.

NO SOLUTION ON A CAPITALIST BASIS

Raila Odinga stated clearly that “This is a liberalised economy and we would want the market to be the main determinant of prices”. In simpler terms, Raila was saying that Kenya has a capitalist economic system of government and that the situation is unlikely to change in the near future because the government belongs to a group of wealth grabbers. It is the greed of the capitalist class that drives their members to engage in corruption. The haphazard price increases that benefit the rich are part of this corruption and the victims are the millions of poor Kenyans.

During demonstrations to protest against high food prices, there was not a single political party (represented in Parliament) that joined the demonstrators to show solidarity. Both ODM and PNU did not try to take advantage of the demos to increase their political profiles by being seen to be on the side of the poor. Why?

Because these parties are the main agents of capitalism at the ruling class level and joining the protesters could have been the same as drinking poison to commit political suicide. When the six Ocampo criminals returned from The Hague earlier this month, they were met by a “mammoth crowd” at the airport before they proceeded to Uhuru park to engage in verbal political diarrhea. Where was Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto when their supporters were protesting against high food prices? The answer is that they made tactical retreats because the demonstrations pitted the rich against the poor. Just like members of the ruling class, both Ruto and Uhuru have nothing in common with the poor who are unable to afford unga.

Under the system of capitalism, the government has no say in prices of essential consumer commodities because under the system, the market dictates. Unfortunately, there is no solution to the high food prices under the system. What Kenyans will continue to witness are cosmetic changes aimed at soothing public anger while the status quo remains.

Once Kenyans understand this arrangement, they will begin to look elsewhere. The only known option to sort out the crisis is revolution, not just to remove the thieving capitalist class from power but to change the system of government so that the State can take control of prices of key consumer commodities without being held hostage by the wealth grabbers. There is no short cut.

The reason why a few rich thieves have managed to take control of the wealth of millions of Kenyans is because they have control of the State machine which is at their disposal. Although many Kenyans believe that the country has a government in place, there is no government. If you have no food to eat, no clothing, no access to medical care or you have no shelter, then you are deceiving yourself when you think that you have a government. What the country has is a Committee of wealth grabbers calling itself government and whose members are accountable to nobody but themselves.

These are realities that Kenyans will have to accept before they can begin to understand or examine the politics of revolutionary change. Any Kenyan still looking at the so called leaders expecting that when one of them comes to power, he/she will change the situation is politically unconscious. The revolution will have to be organized from below and the current ruling class will have no role to play in this revolution because this ruling class owns the system that needs to be overturned so that a new beginning can be set in motion.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* This article first appeared on Kenya Stockholm Blog.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

Why the educated African stands alone

Neema Ndunguru

2011-05-19

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/73448

The educated African is the privileged African. For through her education, she has gained knowledge. And knowledge, as we – the educated – know, is power. There she sits, in her position of power, perched on the pedestal of privilege, cushioned by a false sense of pride. From this pedestal she looks upon those who know not as much as she and expects recognition for her intellectual prowess.

The educated African is the crippled visionary. Having descended from his pedestal, he sits on his comfortable couch and sips on his imported beverage. So quick is he to criticise the current state of his country, yet he does little to change the status quo. So perfectly laid out are his plans of what should be; critically analysed from all angles. If only the system had room for minds as great and practical as his. If only it did.

The educated African is the selfish philanthropist. Touched by the turmoil surrounding her, she longs to ‘do something’ to help those in need. But first, her needs must also be met. For how can she help others when she has not yet helped herself? Though her intentions are good, her direction leads to distress. For her gains cause grief amidst those who have none. Eventually, she gives of her share. The people rejoice! As does she at the thought of her social elevation.

The educated African is the diverted pioneer. Overflowing with ideas and vast opportunities to exploit, negotiation is the name of his game. Gaining access and influencing decisions, he uses his vantage point carelessly. Guided by his sense of know-how, at times, he stumbles over his sense of know-when. Maybe next time, he sighs. The people are not yet ready for this opportunity. Tomorrow, however, little will be done differently.

The educated African is the frustrated individual. Overwhelmed by the responsibility bestowed upon her, she withdraws to her comfort zone, writing thoughts that run through her mind. Thoughts of where we have gone wrong. Thoughts of why we do not learn. Thought after thought, she plays with words, and wishes in vain, that these words could only reverse the damage done.

No longer is it enough to simply remember what the true role of the educated African ought to be. For in remembering, we – the Africans – cover but one mile in the journey towards freeing ourselves from the mis-education trap; from the bondage of pride. United we have stood – alone. Divided we shall grow apart. Perhaps the time has come, to re-educate ourselves; to re-focus our energy on righting our wrongs. Perhaps the time has come, to face our complexities, and, despite these, regard each other as one, regardless of one’s education.

Perhaps...no – indeed...the time has come, to redefine the educated African.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* Neema Ndunguru is an educated African.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

12 Burkinabe MPs call for inquiry into Sankara assassination

2011-05-18

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/advocacy/73391

Since October 1997 – for more than 13 years – the International Justice Committee for Thomas Sankara has called for judicial procedures to be launched in Burkina Faso around the assassination of Thomas Sankara. In the face of delays within the Burkinabe justice system, a procedure has also been launched at the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights (UNCHR).

In April 2006, the UNCHR – petitioned by the legal collective of the International Justice for Thomas Sankara Campaign (CIJS) on behalf of his family – supported these calls and called for the Burkinabe state to clarify the circumstances around the assassination of Thomas Sankara, to offer impartial justice for the family, to correct his death certificate, to prove his place of burial, to compensate his family for the trauma suffered and to publically reveal the verdict of the committee.

On 21 April 2008, the UNCHR – completely contradicting the previous decision – closed the case without initiating an investigation.

A new initiative was launched in October 2009 to call for genetic fingerprinting of the body in the tomb believed to be Thomas Sankara’s. The state rejected the call.

Running in parallel with these efforts within the Burkinabe justice system, there are press articles and testimonies pointing towards France’s responsibility in the assassination.

In December a group of organisations is launching a new campaign called ‘Justice for Thomas Sankara, Justice for Africa’, supported by a call for the opening of archives from several countries, including France. This call has been signed by some 6,600 people and has already received the backing of many figures and associations of various countries. In France this includes the NPA, Les Verts Europe Ecologie, the PCF and the Parti de Gauche, along with numerous associations and other figures.

The letter calls for a parliamentary inquiry. It has already reached the presidents of the Senate, the National Assembly and various parliamentary groups. Those behind the petition have begun steps with particular French parliamentarians to make a call for an official parliamentary report, the first stage towards an ultimate parliamentary inquiry.

This letter, dated 26 April 2011 and under the auspices of the leader of the opposition Benéwendé Sankara (president of the UNIR PS and the Sankara family lawyer), has been signed by 12 MPs from different parties. Among the signatures are Arba Diallo, second in the last presidential elections in Burkina Faso with 8 per cent of the vote, with Benéwendé Sankara coming third with 6 per cent.

The French parliament must now face up to its responsibilities. Approving such an inquiry would be a clear gesture of friendship towards the Burkinabe people, who have risen up for some two and a half months against the current regime, especially the youth, among whom Thomas Sankara remains very popular.

Here you will find a list of links for the all of the documents related to the Thomas Sankara case and the struggle for truth and the end of impunity in Burkina Faso.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* This statement was originally published in French on thomassankara.net.
* Join the ‘Justice for Thomas Sankara, Justice for Africa’ campaign on Facebook.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

Backyarders hosting 'Anti-Vote Election Summit' on 14 May

Mandela Park Backyarders

2011-05-18

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/advocacy/73392

To Abahlali baseMjondolo,
To Anti-Eviction Campaign,
To the SNI and Blackwash,
To Andries Tatane and all victims of police violence,
To all progressive movements,
To supporters and friends of the poor,
To politicians and government officials,
To enemies of our movements,
To everyone who is not quite sure yet where they stand,

The Mandela Park Backyarders intent to remind you that we will be holding an Anti-Vote Election Summit at 09h00 on Saturday the 14th of May. In attendance will be people from as close as across the street and supporters from as far as Johannesburg.

Click here to see Abahlali baseMjondolo's statement in support of our event.

See also the attached letter from ANC alligned Khayelitsha Human Settlement's Forum and the well-written reply by fellow Backyarder Mabhuti Matyida.

The purpose of the event, as explained in our previous statement, will be as follows:

The summit objective is to expose the housing crisis in Mandela Park that is leading to a serious attack and violation of people’s dignity. We challenge all political parties (all of whom have ignored us or attacked us) to explain why they think we should vote on the 18th of May.

- In Mandela Park, the City is still cutting our water and installing anti-poor pre-paid water meters. The City seems to have no intention to meet with the community to resolve this issue
- In Mandela Park, even though people qualify for housing subsidies from the state to settle their bills, there are still banks that ignore this and prevent us from using our subisidies. In the name of profit, they evict us instead of trying to negotiate a solution with residents.
- In Mandela Park, there still houses built in 2006 with no electricity. Phambili Nombane which is a subsidiary of Eskom refuses to electrify our houses. They are claiming that the developers did not pay for installation of electricity and therefore people should pay for themselves in order to get installation. This contradicts the housing code and is an illegal refusal of service delivery by Eskom.

We will have testimonies of victims of the above circumstances telling their painful suffering at the hands of our government and how this has affected their lives. We will then discuss why these circumstances have led the people of Mandela Park not to vote in upcoming local government elections.

We invite all government officials, bank officials, and media to come and attend. We challenge all politicians and political parties to explain why they have been ignoring our communities for 15 years and only coming to us during election-time.

Our votes are conditional. We want quality public schools, hospitals, RDP houses, not broken schools, probek hospitals, broken houses, and broken promises.

For comment or directions, contact:

Loyiso: 0737662078
Slu: 0736200781
Nomonde: 0781862142

Our Website: mpbackyarders.org.za
Email us: admin@mpbackyarders.org.za
Call us: mpbackyarders.org.za/contact-us
Follow us: twitter.com/backyarders
Join us: Backyarders Facebook Page


LETTERS

10 May 2011

TO: ABAHLAI BASEMIJONDOLO
MANDELA PARK BACKYARDWELLERS
GET UP STANDUP NGO
PROGRESSIVE YOUTH MOVEMENT
SEPTEMBER NATIONAL IMBIZO

Dear Sir/Madam

RE: OPEN LETTER OF REQUEST FOR THE SUSPENSION OF THE CALL FOR “ANTI-VOTE ELECTION CAMPAIGN”

Once again I feel obliged to write this letter of response to you as you are Khayelitsha residents, and I am the chairperson of the Khayelitsha Human Settlement Forum under Khayelitsha Development Forum and all of us coming from this disadvantage poor community about the forthcoming local government election to be held on the 18th May 2011.

We do not want to take for granted as Khayelitsha Human Settlement Forum your call to “Anti-Vote Election Campaign” this is a simple appeal to you to suspend this call with immediate effect. The Khayelitsha Human Settlement Forum is the legitimate body to represent the interest of the Khayelitsha community and advocate any call a campaign to embark on and as stakeholders of our forum you should convince us first.

We are requesting you to defend, secure and advance the gains of the 1994 breakthrough of democracy, and stop cutting out the community of Khayelitsha from the city and from their rights to vote for the government of their choice. It is also very disturbing ,surprising and too suspicious to find that the call is done in areas of black communities particularly in Khayelitsha while the white areas remain intact ready to vote in numbers. It must be borne in your minds that the white people benefited in the previous apartheid government until 1994 and currently in this racial Western Cape government, and this call gives the unfair advantage to the white communities and posses the high risk include disadvantage to black communities particularly Khayelitsha community as the budget is given proportional as per the number of the people according to the census result for the period of ten years, and according to the number of the voter turn out I that particular area.

Therefore if the Khayelitsha community does not vote it will mean that the slice of budget which is suppose to get into Khayelitsha development will never come to this community for progress and development. It is imperative to record that the action of the none voting will be like cutting the nose in order to spite the face and that will make a huge celebration to the white community as they will enjoy the fruits of the huge budget in their communities as it is currently happening in the Western Cape racial development will happen for a long time to come, that can cause the generations to come will find us as failures who are suppose to be unforgiven and Sell-Outs for the centuries to come.

We do not want the Third Force actions implemented in our black communities especially in the Khayelitsha community as it was the experienced during the apartheid era, and we would like you to immediately distance yourselves to this third force hand tricks which is resulting to the wealth, development and delivery accumulated by white communities in the Western Cape while the black communities especially Khayelitsha facing atrocities, consistent under development, crass detoriation and further destruction of our black communities in particular the Khayelitsha.

It is crucial to note that before 2006 there was a progress of 55% of development coming to the black areas especial in Khayelitsha but after 2006 we have faced a decline of development by 5% to 50% even more during the past five years, and the question is whether we need a progress or none progress in Khayelitsha. When we point out this gain prior 2006 we are not in any way suggesting that the government of the Western Cape prior 2006 have not been having problems and challenges. Of course there were many problems but if we look at that particular government prior 2006 and was still ruling progress on a number of arrears could have been faster. We must try not to score a political own goal which will result in even these progress that still exist which were done prior 2006 and declined in the past five years to be reversed further as per the current conjuncture.

With all of this we are appealing to each one of you not to forget the bigger picture. Boycotting elections and the worse part of not voting for a party of our own choice and allow the party that its policies seek to reinforce the power and control of a wealthy and racist white minority in the society will be a huge mistake.

We hope that you will adhere to our request which is raised after thorough consideration of many factors and result to the issuing of this open letter of request to you to go and participate in the voting process on the 18 May 2011.

Khayelitsha Development Forum hereby humble requests your organization / Departments to send two representatives (with a voting status) to the launch of the Khayelitsha Human Settlement Forum (KHSF) as per discussions on the 25 September 2010.

On 25 September 2010 Plenary Meeting we resolved to proceed with the launch on 02 October 2010. The launch will discuss the Human Settlement challenges within the district of Khayelitsha and strategically explore possible solutions. Furthermore, the launch will in the main be characterized by the election of a new leadership to champion the Human Settlement objectives.

Yours in the struggle for a proper Human Settlement Development.

Bongani Vakele
Chairperson of KHSF
072 313 5295

Dear Mr. Vakele and all the other interested stakeholders,

Thank you Mr. Vakele for responding to our invitation. It is rare for community leaders to even acknowledge communication that comes from communities they claim to represent.

However, before one even gets into detail of responding to the said letter, it is interesting to note that you also sent this communication to the SACP and ANC of the Western Cape, which is suggestive of the parties with which you and the KDF [Khayelitsha Development Forum] are aligned. This does lead one to assume that the position you are articulating is in resonance with the position of these parties. This would be an unfortunate turn of events as the organizers had communicated with all the relevant parties, including political parties standing in this election, with the view of articulating the position we as the Mandela Park Backyarders, Abahlali baseMjondolo WC, the SNI, the Progressive Youth Movement, Get Up Stand Up, and BlackWash has adopted ahead of the fast approaching elections.

Your non-participation in our event is viewed as an opportunity lost on your part to do your usual electioneering and attempting to convince us why we should vote. You should attend our summit which is an chance for you to outline your achievements and challenges of the recent past.

Be that as it may, let me get into the core of this response:

In your letter you make sweeping statement of who we are and what we stand for. You go into detail on why not voting would mean less for the development of Khayelitsha. This is unfortunate because you were with us at the Welcome to Hell March when we made it clear that as long as we live in these Sub-Human conditions, we shall find our own way to redemption without the help of any political party. As long as parties are part of the architects of our condition, we will not vote. This includes the current and bosses of the Western Cape. Therefore you of all people should note who we are and what we stand for. So if you intended on making our Movement a political toy by being in front with Pastor Xola and Andile at the march...well, you have come to the wrong place mhlekazi. A DA flag and t-shirt was burnt at the Welcome to Hell March and if there was an ANC flag or t-shirt, it would have been burnt too. But I'm sure you did at least see the Helen Zuma poster? I hope this answers your question in this regard.

You mention, also, that we should first Convince KDF why NOT VOTING is an option of protest for the poor. But the question remains: why should we convince KDF? KDF does not own us in Khayelitsha or anyone in the Western Cape for that matter. We did not elect you. We do not need permission from KDF to do whatever we deem necessary as a response to our condition. We think it necessary to make that very clear.

You go further to suggest that this call we are making is part of a Third Force. If this is what you call the poor who refuse to continue to vote till horses grow horns, who instead choose to challenge the whole system as it exists today, then go ahead and call us the Third Force. If the ANC is the First Force, and the DA the Second Force (both of who had done nothing for us), then maybe it is true that we are Third Force. We are a Force to force all government officials, state agencies, local councillors, etc to use public serviecs (like we do) before they can even think of ever coming to us wit the promise of a better life or a promise of service delivery. We are a force that says: no more private schools, private health care and private cars for government officials. We are a force for the abolishment of that evil ministerial handbook with no author!

The assertion that a small voter turn out will mean even less services for the Townships is neither here nor there because even the 55% development you are taking about is news to us because we are where we have been for the past 55 years and more! In fact what is 55% development? What does that mean in real terms? To us, this development does not even exist!

We would still appreciate your presence if at all possible Dear Sir because the Summit is going ahead with or without KDF or any other politicised body that feels that our cause of ending our hellish condition is nothing but political grand standing. In which case you will be missing the point of our engagement completely!

We still maintain: No House, No Vote! No Dignity No Vote!, etc etc etc..

Yours,

Mabhuti Matyida
Mandela Park Backyarder Activist

Dear Mr. Vakele

It is very sad that, you and what you claim to represent, clearly appears to be distanced from the objectives of the call we made. Furthermore, housing problem at Mandela Park did not start as a yesterday's issue, but yesteryears in fact. How convenient that only now the Khayelitsha Human Settlement Forum (KHSF) is about to be launched...

Secondly, coming to the racial realities, it an inescapable reality that we still live in a racially and economically divided society in South Africa including land ownership, and the list goes on... However, you demand to be convinced, while all along the evidence is right under your nose.

Without going any further in discussion, as my colleagues have already tabled some aspects in response. I will rather say that the KHSF and ourselves need to find establish a form of communication space and channels, through which a clear understanding amongst of all parties involved. Unfortunately, this is what we have been struggling to get from not only local authorities, but all the way up to the Human Settlements Ministerial office.

Any disregard of the people's conditions calls for necessary measures, until the dire and excruciating conditions of the people are properly addressed. As such, this Ant-Vote call is simply one of them.

We reiterate, No House, No Vote!!!

Thank you,

Loyiso Qanya
Mandela Park Backyarder Activist

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

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

South Africa: Road Blockade in Grahamstown

Unemployed People’s Movement

2011-05-19

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/advocacy/73449

Tuesday, Tuesday, 17 May 2011

FIVE HUNDRED PEOPLE BLOCKADE ROAD IN GRAHAMSTOWN THIS MORNING

This morning five hundred people from eThembeni and Transit Camp in Grahamstown blockaded the N2. The eThembeni people were demanding housing, electricity and water. The Transit Camp people were demanding the completion of their houses. The project has stalled due to non-payment of the contractors.

The road was successfully occupied, fires were lit and posters declaring a refusal to vote were raised. The police, acting with their usual aggression and insults, managed to clear the blockade and put out the fires. When the television crews arrived the police behaviour became less aggressive and it was possible to reoccupy the road. But once they left the people were driven off the N2 and the road blockade moved into Joza where it was broken up again. The protest continued on the pavements until three in the afternoon. There were no arrests.

Aluta Continua.

The statement below was drawn up in a meeting last night but could not be issued until today due to a lack of access to email.

Monday, 16 May 2011

NATIONAL ROAD TO BE BLOCKADED TOMORROW IN GRAHAMSTOWN

It is that time of elections, a season of lies and deceptions. Political parties and political leaders are visible and some visit our homes. If they find us cooking or eating, they take some and eat, let alone that there after they will get to their five star hotels, take a bath and wash their teeth, making sure their hands are clean because they were greeting us the unemployed and the poor. Elections are a time for free booze, free entertainment, free t-shirts and free pretences.

The people of eThembeni will be barricading the national road tomorrow, the N2 intersection that is between Extension 5 and Extension 6.

They will be barricading the road because they do not have access to water, roads, electricity and housing. Makana municipality’s backlog on housing is estimated to be 13 800. Recently a fire erupted and a couple was trapped in the fire. They died trying to escape. The power lines run over the burnt out remains of their shack on the way to the brick factory. But they were never seen as good enough to have electricity. In eThembeni the people live with snakes. There are number of cases reported where some residents were bitten by snakes. A snake is a cold blooded animal and when people collect woods and create fire to cook, the snakes are many times found next to the fire.
These residents have been voting, their votes have not translated into anything. The only translation they can see is their Councillor Rachael Madinda becoming a fat cat, affording two cars, one house in the township and another one in town. The voters are stuck in permanent poverty as the councillors rise into riches.

Councillor Rachael Madinda is on the ruling party candidates list for the district. This is promotion. Promotion for what, only the ruling party can explain. She is not the only one, Councillor Peter is also on the list for a mayoral candidate while people in his ward don’t have water, houses, unemployment is the order of the day, the dam level is said to be on 5,0 in his community, meaning its only mud. He has done absolutely nothing for his community. Now we know what the criterion for promotion is in the ruling party. We must be denied and stripped all of our basic rights. Those in power must enrich themselves, steal and plunder our resources. Politicians are rewarded for keeping the people under control while they are excluded from society. Any politicians that tried to represent the voters would soon be sidelined.

If indeed voting is the democratic right then we must remember that words acquire meaning in action. We can no longer allow ourselves to be fooled by the kleptocratic elites by imposing fancy words on us. Democracy means our voice. It means that we govern ourselves and we determine our destiny. It does not mean that every few years we give permission for a new set of politicians to rule us in our own name while we are excluded from all decision making.

We are rebelling because we are poor and because the political and economic elites in this country are united in their contempt for the poor. All over South African and all over the world the poor and the unemployed barricade roads as a means of protest. We cannot strike and therefore the road blockade is the logical tactic for us. We are rebelling because the better life for all is better life for the few elite. We are rebelling because those in power do not care for us; we are only voting cattles to them. We are rebelling because we are fed up and sick and tired of the elite, they are suppose to be looking after our interests and now they are jackals and we are sheep. Sheep is all we are to them. How can we entrust our lives to such heartless and cruel people?

Our destiny is in our hands. This is a realisation that we are our own liberators. Nobody will liberate us but ourselves.
Xola Mali – 072 299 5253 – xola.mali@yahoo.com
Ayanda Kota – 078 625 6462 – ayandakota@webmail.co.za

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

Kenya: Disruption of Starehe Unga Rally

Open letter to the Commissioner of Police

2011-05-19

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/advocacy/73434

From:
The Unga Revolution
Convening Committee
Tel: 0702 655596
Email: ungarevolution@gmail.com

To:
Mr Mathew K Iteere
The Commissioner of Police
Kenya Police Headquarters
Vigilance House, Harambee Avenue,
PO Box 30083,
Nairobi, Kenya.

Dear Sir,

REF: DISRUPTION OF STAREHE UNGA RALLY ON 8/05/2011

We bring to your attention the deliberate move by your officers to abruptly and illegally cancel the above mentioned rally in Starehe constituency, an action contrary to Article 37 of the Constitution of Kenya which allows citizens, to assemble, to demonstrate, to picket and to present petitions to public authorities.

We, as members of the public, are part of a campaign called the “Unga Revolution”- a people-driven, non-violent movement aimed at realizing all the rights enshrined in the Kenyan Constitution especially those mentioned in Article 43; the Economic and Social Rights. We are currently building awareness among the general public and rallying support to petition the government and for further action through the judiciary, or for any other means, as may be considered necessary.

We are called into being by the government’s responses to the rising cost of living and on the general unavailability of basic commodities to the average Mwananchi, developments which are anachronistic and ill-willed since they are moving us further and further away from the entitlements that were considered granted with the promulgation of the current constitution.

It is on this premise that a rally had been organized to build awareness among residents of Starehe on the Bill of Rights and on the actions being developed and for which, their consent and involvement is required in this constitutionally protected process.

Contrary to the provisions in the constitution, this rally was arbitrarily and illegally called off by your officers and a lot of unnecessary tension created on the ground by the great number of uniformed and armed General Service Unit personnel who were in at least three lorries, and accompanied by police dogs.

We are hereby expressing our deep concern on the attitude of your officers and on their move, which was not only unconstitutional but also goes against our fundamental human rights as articulated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

This action is a relic of the old constitution and reminiscent of the dark days when peaceful gatherings were violently dispersed. It can also set a bad precedence for future engagements between peaceful citizens and law enforcement officers; in as far as exercising of democratic rights is concerned.

Since our campaign to petition the government to implement article 43 is nationwide in scope and grassroots in nature, we are hoping that your forces will allow Kenyans all over the country to assemble, discuss and push for the implementation of their rights and that you will accord them ample security as we all strive to work within our rights and responsibilities as set out in the supreme law of the land.

We hope this incident will not be repeated and that reference is made to the meeting and discussion we had with your officers who were on the ground on the day of the last event; 8th of May, 2011.

We expect full cooperation from all your officers.

Thank you.


Hillary Okumu
Co-convenor
Unga Revolution

Sidi Otieno
Co-convenor
Unga Revolution

Gacheke Gachihi
Bunge La Mwananchi

Francis Sakwa
Convenor
Unga Revolution
Mathare Committee

CC:
Mwai Kibaki
President of the Republic of Kenya

Raila Odinga
Prime Minister of the Republic of Kenya

Anthony Kibuchi
Provincial Police Officer, Nairobi

Officer Commanding Police Division, Starehe

Kenya National Commission on Human Rights

UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Association and Assembly

The resurgence of the ‘Hottentot Venus’

H. Nanjala Nyabola

2011-05-18

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/panafrican/73388

In 1827, Georges Cuiver, an eminent anatomist in his day, published the book ‘Animal Kingdom’ in which he claimed to have developed a ‘scientific’ method of studying the relationship between different races. By allegedly evaluating individuals of different races against a measure of perfection – based on the Greek ideal that he believed was inherited by Caucasians – he argued that white men represented the apex of evolution, and black women the lowest level. Cuiver’s pseudo-scientific blabber peaked in the exploitation of a Southern African woman – the ‘Hottentot Venus’ – whom he described as a ‘wild woman’, who was ‘exhibited’ in different parts of western Europe for almost five years, including a stint in France which involved an animal trainer. After she passed, Cuiver dissected her, using a study of her reproductive organs as a basis on which to study the ‘exotic’ black female sexuality.

You would think that almost 200 years since Cuiver’s racist tome was published, and several decades since its assertions have been routinely disproven that the world would have moved on from such eugenic observations about other people. If you happen to be on Twitter or to read Psychology Today, you would be proven wrong. In a disturbing pseudo-scientific epithet, London School of Economics professor Satoshi Kanazawa launches a tasteless, crude and derogatory attack on black women and their apparent ‘attractiveness’ (the original article has been removed but cached versions are available through Google). Kanazawa uses a series of interviews conducted three times over three different interviewers over seven years to collect data on how attractive different individuals of different races are relative to each other. Note that he never claims to be measuring how attractive members of different races are perceived relative to each other. Rather, even though he is using a qualitative study based entirely on perception, Kanazawa asserts that his findings are facts equal to why things fall down and not up (gravity).

There are too many things wrong with Kanazawa’s article to assess in any great detail here. His method is faulty, his research question is poorly defined, his conclusions are incorrect, he misidentifies the direction of causality in his hypothesis and the ‘facts’ that he uses to back up his findings are dodgy at best and downright wrong at worst. There already exists a vast literature criticising this brand of eugenic grandstanding masquerading as science and it is impossible to do justice to it in a short article like this. Two things are worth considering further however.

One is the editor who thought that it was a good idea to run the story in the first place. What does it say about the society in the US that a person can fail to appreciate a horrifically racist discourse when presented with one? Kanazawa is not arguing that individuals’ perceptions of attractiveness are race-dependent; he is arguing that black women are inherently and genetically the least attractive group of individuals in the world, based on nothing more than asking a group of individuals, who have been socialised to think of attractiveness along certain lines, what they think. The editor of an eminent journal should have been able to pick up on the holes in Kanazawa’s argument in a heartbeat – is it that he or she was asleep on the job or is it that they implicitly agreed with Kanazawa’s argument?

The second thing that is worth considering further is what the running of this article says about the way in which black female sexuality continues to be an object of fascination and ridicule. Anyone with an ear to the ground in African and African-American circles will tell you that as of the last few years, academics and pop psychologists alike have expended a great deal of energy in explaining what exactly is wrong with black women. Like the Hottentot Venus, the sexual proclivities and perceived failures of black women have brought out and paraded for public debate on the blogosphere, in the printed press and even on mainstream television for the sake of ratings or infotainment. Last year, I laughed at a piece that ran on US television on why black women in the US were more likely to remain single than their white counterparts, but in the context of Kanazawa’s assault, even that absurd piece takes on a chilling resonance with the eugenics of Cuiver and his ilk.

Indeed, it seems that no matter how far humanity advances we are determined to continue to find new ways of holding ourselves back. You would think that decades after slave owners and colonial masters stopped keeping and taking their female slaves or domestic workers as trophies or sexual objects that the world would have finally gotten to a place where women of all races were discussed on the basis of their personhood rather than their sexual ‘attractiveness’. This article to me was a stark reminder that this is clearly not the case. Furthermore, Kanazawa’s article is not only offensive to women or to people of African descent. Anyone with even the briefest knowledge of social sciences will tell you through a cursory read that it is an offence to the label ‘science’ as well. It’s great that the public pressure mounted on Twitter and other social networking sites forced Psychology Today to take the article down. The onus now falls on the academy to take Kanazawa and the publication to task for sacrificing rigour at the altar of sensationalism.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

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

When the devil plays human what do you expect?

Ebrahim Hussein’s ‘Mashetani’

Anthony Muchoki

2011-05-19

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/books/73426

In Kenya during the Moi regime when revolutionary books had been banned, Ebrahim Hussein’s play ‘Mashetani’ somehow escaped Moi men eyes. It was not outlawed. It became a bible of a kind for the Mwakenya movement. Almost all the people I knew who were fighting against Moi regime had a copy of ‘Mashetani’. I was in class four when I first saw the book. Someone had translated it into my mother tongue Kikuyu and made photocopies. The book was one of the tools used to open our eyes about the repressive Moi regime. Actually it was a recruitment tool and despite being children we understood its message.

When people enquired about the banned Ngugi Wa Thiongo’s play, ‘I Will Marry When I want’, they would be told there is something better – Hussein’s ‘Mashetani’. Later the book became a set book (‘fasihi’) for many years in secondary schools in Kenya. To many Kenyans of my generation, Hussein is the greatest Kiswahili playwright of all time. He is held in awe and equated to Shabaan Robert, Tanzania and the world should honour him while he is still alive.

Unwittingly, Hussein, through his work, he was embroiled in the Kenyan struggle for second liberation. Today in the struggles within coalition government, ‘Mashetani’ is being re-played again and again, new constitution notwithstanding. ‘Shetani’ and ‘Binadamu’ – how in private all the politicians want to be ‘Shetani’ and in public they play ‘Binadamu’… With those kind of politicians, no African country needs enemies… And when the devil plays human what do you expect?

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* Ebrahim Hussein’s ‘Mashetani’ is published by Oxford University Press East Africa (ISBN: 978 019 572027 3).
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

Statement on the reopening of the land claims process

Association for Rural Advancement (AFRA)

2011-05-18

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/letters/73390

The Association for Rural Advancement (AFRA) supports the demands of South Africa’s landless people for the land claims process to be re-opened, and supports the suggestion that this process should include restitution of land lost prior to 1913.

However, AFRA condemns, in the strong possible terms, the manner in which this issue has been handled thus far, creating unnecessary confusion, and raising and then dashing expectations.

The initial position, stated via Government spokesperson, Mtobeli Mxotwa, to the effect that Government will initiate the process of creating a new law or an amendment to the Land Restitution Act, and the subsequent about-turn, reflect the current dysfunctionality of Government in dealing with land reform.

AFRA and the Land Rights Legal Unit (LRLU) have firsthand experience of literally thousands of land claims in KZN that have still not been finalised. This is due either to the systematic failure on the part of Government to deal with these claims or because, through ignorance, confusion or misunderstanding, the claims were not lodged in the first place.

The question of restoration of land rights and access to land is a highly emotive one and is a fundamental right entrenched in the Constitution. It is clear that Government’s attempts to deliver in this respect have been an abject failure. Thus, Government needs to urgently reconsider the entire land reform process, instead of attempting to cover up this failure by sowing confusion that results in promises being made, on the one hand, that the entire claims process will be reopened, and on the other the retraction of these promises the very next day.

Cabinet needs to review the entire situation as a matter of urgency — taking into account the desperate plight of countless claimants whose claims have not been settled over all these years. In addition, Cabinet must bear in mind that any move to push the cut off date beyond 1913 will entail an amendment to the Constitution, since this date is entrenched in s 25 (7).

Making promises in this regard without taking this into consideration reflects either ignorance or misunderstanding on the part of the Government.

With the elections looming, this raises the question of who is attempting to fool whom?

Issued by: The Association For Rural Advancement (AFRA) and the Land Rights Legal Unit
Contact: Thabo Manyathi or Mike Cowling on 033 347 7607 for more information.
Nokuthula Mthimunye, Communications Officer
Tel: 033 345 7607/8318/8007
Cell: 076 754 7110
Email: nokuthula@afra.co.za
123 Jabu Ndlovu Street, Pietermaritzburg
Website: www.afra.co.za

Justice for the people of Kenya

Daisy Diaz

2011-05-19

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/letters/73435

I am revolution

Lance Constantine

2011-05-18

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/African_Writers/73389

* Copyright © all rights reserved.
* www.lanceconstantine.com
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

My sweet baby, my wife

Dennis Dancan Mosiere aka Grand Masese

2011-05-19

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/African_Writers/73447

I was eleven perhaps ten when I met her
When I was introduced to her
She whose voice was rhythmic
In the mountains of Gusiiland
When she spoke, she drew people from far and wide
They came running and walking
Standing and sitting down, listening
To her soothing rhythmic voice
Her words were music
Her words were stories, they were songs
They danced to her cry
They danced in her happiness
They watched her,
Everybody loved her, everybody wanted to court her
She made them kneel down,
They were united in their collective epiphanies
That defined their destinies
She consoled, she taught
She narrated and she preserved

I loved her too
I was smitten and I wanted her
I wanted her to be my companion
She, who I could cherish all my life
I wanted her to be with me
Even in the turbulent of times
To be me and me to be her
I wanted to sing my story
The story of my life
I wanted her to console me and protect me
Tender to me as a mother does to the baby
I fall in love with her
She reminded me of times immemorial
And made me dream of great times to come
I was young, yes
But this was as real as the blue sky
Clear of clouds

Then one day, before all the people
Before every eye that was present
As my witnesses
As the trees were swaying to her rhythms
That evening I went to her as she sang
And I begged for her hand of affection
Because she had stolen my heart
And I wanted to steal hers
I wooed her with my gentle pleas
She didn’t accept and she didn’t refuse either
We began seeing each other
It was difficult for two years
Trying and trying
She was older than me
But smitten by my juvenile love

For ten years I never saw her again
I was forced into exile for reasons, unknown
But my heart was hers
The rhythms of her voice never left me
They stayed caged in my heart
I guess it was same story, even with her
Then one day, I met her again
I was twenty, and we married there and then
I went home with her, happy and healed
Of the fatigue of my long loneliness
We connected and her rhythmic chords
Fused evenly with my vocal chords
We became an ensemble of melodies
A sound so musical, a sound so poetical
That is how I married my wife-OBOKANO
She who I met at ten and married at twenty
We were then declared a musical couple
Grand Masese and Obokano
We are blessed with many children.

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* Dennis Dancan Mosiere aka Grand Masese is a performance poet/writer/actor and musician based in Nairobi. He is also a Fahamu Pan African Fellow for Social Justice.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

Pambazuka News 189: De Soweto 1976 à Tahrir 2011 : Les continuités d'une lutte

2011-05-19

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/summaryfr/73433

Pambazuka News 38: A falácia da transição democrática em Moçambique & Angola

2011-05-18

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/summarypt/73387

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

South Africa: Presidency wants Zim report kept secret

2011-05-17

http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/Presidency-wants-Zim-report-kept-secret-20110517

The Presidency tried to convince the Constitutional Court in Johannesburg on Tuesday (17 May) that it should not be compelled to release a report on the 2002 presidential elections in Zimbabwe to the Mail & Guardian newspaper. However, the Mail & Guardian argued the release of the report was in the public interest because it would throw light on whether President Robert Mugabe legitimately remained in office after the elections. Both the North Gauteng High Court and the Supreme Court of Appeal agreed with the newspaper. The Presidency had now turned to the Constitutional Court in an attempt to keep the report secret.

Zimbabwe: ZANU PF demands reversal of SADC resolutions

2011-05-23

http://bit.ly/iumFKi

ZANU PF has demanded that recent strong resolutions on Zimbabwe, adopted by the regional security organ the Troika, be overturned, calling on the Summit of Southern African Development Community (SADC) leaders to reverse the position. Dewa Mavhinga from the Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition, which is attending the summit, told SW Radio Africa that SADC leaders were set to discuss recent resolutions adopted by the SADC Troika in March. That summit in Livingstone, Zambia, had condemned the lack of progress in the unity government, in the first meaningful criticism of ZANU PF the region has ever issued. The Troika called for an end to violence and intimidation, and called for the drafting of an election roadmap towards a credible and violence free poll in Zimbabwe.

Africa: Report calls for new forms of contraception

2011-05-23

http://bit.ly/mrrAKq

Women in the developing world need new methods of contraception that meet their needs and lifestyles, according to a Guttmacher Institute report. The study focused on sub-Saharan Africa, south central Asia and southeast Asia, which 'are home to 69 per cent of women in the developing world who have an unmet need for a modern method'. The report said new forms of contraception are needed in the three regions 'where there are 49 million unintended pregnancies every year resulting in 21 million abortions'.

Egypt: 'Pushing women back to the zero point'

The Egyptian Coalition for Civil Education and Women's Participation statement

2011-05-18

http://www.wunrn.com/news/2011/05_11/05_16/051611_egypt.htm

While experts are working with the military council to amend the political rights law, news has leaked about the cancellation of the allocation of seats to women, known as the 'women's quota' and which is one of the positive types of discrimination in law. The women's quota is not the only type of positive discrimination. There is another type: the quota of workers and farmers which is 50 per cent of the elected seats. However, there is not any news on canceling this quota, which raises the question on the validity of canceling the women's quota.

Global: A 'Libyan Logo' For the women of east Libya

2011-05-23

http://bit.ly/mytoe6

In late March, 29-year-old Libyan student Eman Al-Obeidy caught the world’s attention when she burst into a Tripoli hotel to inform Western media of her alleged detention, torture, and rape at the hands of Gaddafi’s forces. Eman Al-Obeidy has subsequently fled Libya. In this Q&A on the website of the Association for Women's Rights in Development, 22-year-old Amany Mufta Ismail, a woman activist in rebel-controlled East Libya, describes her reactions to the story of Eman Al-Obeidy.

Global: The IMF, violating women since 1945

2011-05-23

http://www.fpif.org/articles/the_imf_violating_women_since_1945

For many in the developing world, the IMF and its draconian policies of structural adjustment have systematically 'raped' the earth and the poor and violated the human rights of women, says this article about the arrest of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). It appears that the personal disregard and disrespect for women demonstrated by the man at the highest levels of leadership within the IMF is quite consistent with the gender bias inherent in the IMF’s institutional policies and practice.

Guinea: Guineans in New York to march in support of Strauss-Kahn’s alleged victim

2011-05-23

http://www.africareview.com/News/-/979180/1165656/-/ho0blnz/-/index.html

The President of the Union for the Development of Fouta Djallon, a region in Guinea where the alleged victim of IMF boss Dominique Strauss-Kahn originates from, has expressed indignation over the alleged attempted rape of the lady (name withheld). Speaking to Radio France International (RFI), Mr Souleymane Diallo said that the ethnic Fula community in the United States will shortly undertake a 'massive demonstration' in support of the 32-year-old woman.

Uganda: Women’s representation on the rise

Philippa Croome

2011-05-23

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/wgender/73517

Members of Uganda's ninth Parliament were sworn-in this week, with female representation in the House reaching an all-time high. Women in the East African country are now sitting in 35 per cent of 375 available MP seats, up from the previous 30 per cent.
Uganda: Women’s representation on the rise

Philippa Croome

Members of Uganda's ninth Parliament were sworn-in this week, with female representation in the House reaching an all-time high.

Women in the East African country are now sitting in 35 per cent of 375 available MP seats, up from the previous 30 per cent.

This increase in Uganda comes as South Africa is likely to see a drop in women's representation following local government and municipal elections. Other Southern African countries have recently slid backwards leading many to call for legislated quotas to protect women's gains.

Uganda's jump was largely due to an increase in the number of districts, which was a controversial move. Critics say the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) government's continued creation of new districts (more than 60 over the past decade) simply feeds into a system of patronage and makes the costs of running government unnecessarily high.

Regardless of potential drawbacks, former MP Jane Alisemera, outgoing chair of the Uganda Women's Parliamentary Association (UWOPA), says the current system benefits women.

‘It's working - and we women MPs are making things happen.’

Directly elected woman MPs are guaranteed district positions in Uganda, but can also run to represent constituencies on top of that. Without the district factor, the number of women in politics would be considerably lower, as patriarchal tendencies and economic inequalities are still very much alive.
In neighbouring Tanzania - which reserves 30 per cent of parliamentary seats for women and allows them to run in all other seats - women's representation went from 30.3 per cent in 2005 to 35 per cent in elections last year.

However, numbers in Namibia dropped from 31 to 22 per cent after the 2009 elections and Botswana has become the worst regional performer in terms of women's representation in parliament, dropping to 6.5 per cent in 2009 from 18 per cent five years earlier. Neither country uses a quota system to ensure women are elected.

South Africa is closest to meeting the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Protocol on Gender and Development targets of 50/50 representation by 2015 with 45 per cent women in parliament. However, it is still lagging in local government, with only 37 per cent female candidates of the 53 000 running in this week's vote.

Noting these backward slides in other parts of Africa, many gender activists in Uganda are celebrating. Others are more cautious, worrying that if increases in women's participation at all decision-making levels are not protected by better legislation they will also be at risk in future.
Earlier this month, chief electoral officer Pansy Tlakula reportedly called for a quota system to improve women's representation in both the public and private sector.

Despite the positive strides in Uganda, the effectiveness of affirmative action is still debated. Some people say giving women guaranteed district spots ups their profile and responsibility, but fails to provide the corresponding funding.

The Tanzania Gender Networking Programme (TGNP) says quotas must be met with equal political will, financial support for women and autonomous women wings or committees.

UWOPA's successes are a testament to this. Its initial establishment positioned women with the resources and networks, which in turn established partnerships with civil society and ‘gender sensitive’ male MPs, Alisemera says.

The constitutionally-mandated quota system was the initial boost UWOPA needed to ultimately push key pro-gender legislation through. Domestic violence, female genital mutilation, and trafficking persons bills have all gone through with their backing in the past several years.

Uganda's recently-passed domestic violence bill was the most contentious, with many traditionalists saying parliament was not the place to debate domestic issues. This despite 2006 National Demographic and Health statistics which found that almost three quarters of Ugandan women have experienced domestic violence.

Many thought the issue should be left to families and tribal clans to sort out. However, intense lobbying from UWOPA and other women's groups helped push the bill through and it was signed last year by President Yoweri Museveni.

Such examples underscore the need to have equal, pluralistic representation in parliaments, local government and other sectors. Getting women's numbers up is the first step, keeping them there is the next. Both stages are usually followed by real, tangible results for everyone.

* Philippa Croome is a Canadian journalist currently based in Uganda. This article is part of the Gender Links Opinion and Commentary Service, bringing you fresh views on everyday news.

DRC: Human rights violations case filed before African Commission

2011-05-23

http://www.ihrda.org/2011/03/ihrda-acidh-and-raid-file-communication-against-drc/

The Institute for Human Rights and Development in Africa and its partners l’Action contre l’impunité des droits humains (ACIDH) and Rights and Accountability in Development (RAID) have filed a communication before the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights against the Democratic Republic of Congo. The complainants allege that the events that took place in the south-eastern remote town of Kilwa and the subsequent failure of the DRC state to ensure reparations to victims are in violation of several guarantees of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights.

DRC: Protecting indigenous forest dwellers

2011-05-18

http://bit.ly/kkDNX6

The indigenous forest dwellers of the Republic of Congo are in danger of extinction, warns David Lawson, UNFPA Representative in that country. His work with national and provincial leaders to promote and protect their rights will be the subject of a discussion at a side event of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. Advocacy on behalf of the Congo’s indigenous peoples culminated last February with passage of a bill protecting their rights in the Republic of Congo. It marked the first such legislation in Africa and has been called a ‘best practice’ by the Secretary-General Special Representative for Indigenous People, Mr. James Anaya.

Kenya: British rights defender deported

2011-05-17

http://wapo.st/joo32K

A Kenyan official says a British human rights investigator looking into the illegal deportations and detentions of terror suspects from Kenya to Uganda has herself been deported. Hassan Omar Hassan of the government-funded Kenya National Commission on Human Rights says lawyer Clara Gutteridge was deported on government orders.

Kenya: Mau Mau torture files were 'guilty secret'

2011-05-19

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13336343

Documents revealing the torture of Mau Mau Kenyans directed by the British authorities were a 'sort of guilty secret', a report says. UK Foreign Secretary William Hague said the papers should now be made public. The internal review found some Foreign Office officials had chosen to ignore the documents' existence. It comes as the High Court is due to rule on a compensation case brought by four Kenyans over alleged human rights abuses in the 1950s and 1960s.

Kenya: Probe on Ocampo Six on, Kenya tells ICC

2011-05-17

http://bit.ly/jcRkx4

The government says it is investigating the Ocampo Six, reports Kenya's The Daily Nation. It has dismissed claims by International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo and post-election violence victims that police and judicial reforms in the country could hinder it from trying the six locally. While defending its admissibility case at the ICC, the government said the elements necessary for success of its complementarity challenge to the court’s admissibility are in place, providing it with the right to investigate and prosecute.

Libya: The ICC and Gaddafi

2011-05-18

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/may2011/pers-m18.shtml

The request by chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo that arrest warrants for war crimes be issued against Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, his son Saif al-Islam, and the head of Libya’s intelligence service, Abdullah al-Senussi, only confirms the role of the International Criminal Court as a tool of the imperialist powers, says this article on the World Socialist Web Site. 'The warrants are, in effect, being issued on behalf of the United States, Britain and France—the chief architects of the ongoing bombardment of Libya. Moreno-Ocampo has gathered his evidence against the three accused with the aim of preventing any possibility of a negotiated end to the war, and to further isolate Gaddafi and pave the way for regime-change.'

Rwanda: UN court hands Rwanda's ex-army chief 30 years for genocide

2011-05-17

http://bit.ly/kAnR1g

The Arusha-based United Nation's court for Rwanda handed a 30-year prison sentence Tuesday (17 May) to former army chief Augustin Bizimungu for his role in the country's 1994 genocide. The court also convicted Augustin Ndindiliyimana, the former head of the paramilitary police, of genocide crimes but ordered his release as he had already spent 11 years behind bars since his arrest. Two other senior generals were each sentenced to 20 years in prison.

Southern Africa: SADC Tribunal future uncertain

2011-05-18

http://www.swradioafrica.com/news170511/sadc170511.htm

The future of the regional human rights court remains uncertain, amid reports that justice ministers from across Southern Africa have agreed that the court’s decisions are null and void. The court was effectively suspended over Zimbabwe’s refusal to honour its 2008 ruling that Robert Mugabe’s land grab campaign was unlawful. The court ordered the then ZANU PF government to protect farmers from further attack, but Robert Mugabe and his party have repeatedly snubbed the court.

Chad: Refugees from Libya 'in critical situation'

2011-05-23

http://bit.ly/mJjOse

Almost 4,000 Chadians who have returned home from strife-torn Libya via Niger are in a critical situation in the border town of Zouarke, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) has warned. 'According to the Chadian government, more than 3,800 migrants including 310 women and children are in a very difficult situation in Zouarke with limited food, no water and transport to make their journey south,' the IOM said in a statement. Most of the migrants are Chadians, of whom 25,000 have already fled the Libyan conflict and made their way to the northern towns of Faya and Kalait, but the latest batch lacks the means.

DRC: Return delayed for 120,000 refugees

2011-05-23

http://www.IRINnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=92712

Eighteen months after fleeing across the riverine border separating the two Congos, some 120,000 refugees seem to have little prospect of returning home soon. The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) had scheduled an organised repatriation from the northern Likouala region Republic of Congo to the Democratic Republic of Congo’s (DRC) Equateur Province in late April, but this was indefinitely postponed because of logistical and financial issues. The exodus from DRC took place in late 2009 following conflicts over natural resources, such as fish ponds, between the Enyele and Munyaza communities.

Kenya: Refugee camps at capacity

2011-05-18

http://reliefweb.int/node/402358

Facilities in refugee camps in northeastern Kenya have been stretched to the limit, aid workers say, as more and more Somali refugees flee the conflict at home. 'Dadaab refugee camps continue to receive a significant number of new arrivals who are often very tired and exhausted, having travelled very far, sometimes from as far as [the Somali capital] Mogadishu, in some cases on foot [over 1,000km],' said Emmanuel Nyabera, spokesman for the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), in Kenya. As of 15 May, Nyabera said, Dadaab, the world's biggest refugee complex, was home to at least 348,605 people.

South Africa: Foreign traders face threats, intimidation

2011-05-23

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportID=92772

Foreign traders in many Johannesburg townships have closed their businesses and put their livelihoods on hold in response to a campaign of threats and intimidation launched in recent weeks by a group of local business people calling themselves the Greater Gauteng Business Forum (GGBF). In late April, the GGBF started distributing letters to immigrant shopkeepers in at least nine townships, giving them seven days to pack up and leave. The letter threatened drastic action against those who did not comply.

Zambia: UNHCR gives refugees September deadline to leave

2011-05-23

http://bit.ly/kTTcZr

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees has set September as the deadline for the over 25,000 Angolan refugees to voluntarily leave Zambia for their homeland, failure to which they lose their refugee status at the end of this year. UNHCR representative in Zambia Joyce Mends-Cole, announced in Lusaka that Angolan refugees wishing to repatriate with the assistance of UNHCR had only until the end of September 2011 to do so, following the recommencement of organised Angolan repatriation.

South Africa: Survey shows 2011 quiet year for service protests

2011-05-23

http://bit.ly/kwHOEB

Municipal elections appear to have had a dampening impact on service delivery protests, according to research by Municipal IQ, which carries out a Municipal Hotspots Monitor. Municipal IQ reported that there were 10 protests in 2004. This jumped to 34 in 2005, dropped to just two in the last municipal election year in 2006, rose again to 32 in 2007, dropped slightly to 27 in 2008, but jumped steeply to 105 in 2009 and to 111 in 2010. There have been 23 so far this year.

Africa: Economic crisis opens up potential for discrimination at work, says ILO

2011-05-18

http://www.wunrn.com/news/2011/05_11/05_16/051611_ilo.htm

In the new Global Report on Equality at Work 2011, the International Labour Office (ILO) notes that in spite of continuous positive advances in anti-discrimination legislation, the global economic and social crisis has led to a higher risk of discrimination against certain groups such as migrant labour. 'Economically adverse times are a breeding ground for discrimination at work and in society more broadly. We see this with the rise of populist solutions,' said ILO Director-General Juan Somavia, adding that 'this threatens painstaking achievements of several decades'.

Latest Edition: Emerging Powers News Roundup

2011-05-23

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/emplayersnews/73510

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

Tanzania looks to ‘free zones’ for economic growth
Tanzanian Prime Minister Mizengo Pinda on Wednesday said Free Zones concept is today recognized as an effective instrument for economic development. Pinda made the remarks at the opening ceremony of the three-day Africa Free Zones Association Convention 2011 in Dar es Salaam under the theme of “The Role of Free Zones in Achieving Millennium Development Goals in Africa”. “The concept puts in place all necessary machinery to accelerate economic growth in order to alleviate poverty, create employment, generate revenue and improve quality of life. These are key indicators of the Millennium Development Goals.” Pinda said.
Read More

China attracts USD 38.8 billion FDI in four months
China continues to attract foreign direct investment (FDI), which grew 26.03 per cent year-on-year to reach USD 38.8 billion during the first four months of this year. FDI in China climbed 15.21 per cent to USD 8.46 billion in April, down from March growth of 32.9 per cent, Yao Jian , the spokesman of the Ministry of Commerce (MOC), told the media here today. While March saw 2,538 new foreign-invested companies being approved to operate in China, 2,215 foreign-invested companies were approved last month, up 8.21 per cent from the same period in 2010.
Read More

2. China in Africa

China lends Zambia $180mln for regional trade road
A state-owned Chinese bank will lend Zambia $180 million to upgrade a road that should help boost trade with Africa's Great Lakes countries, an official said on Monday. The region, loosely defined as Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo and western Tanzania, is a key market for Zambian sugar and cement exports. Watson Ng'ambi, head of infrastructure development at the Works and Supply ministry, said China's Export and Import Bank was ready to disburse the funds at once.
Read More

Uncertainty in Egypt hits Chinese companies
China's investment in, and exports to, Egypt will probably decline sharply this year. That's after the recent turmoil in the African country dampened investor confidence and added the specter of trade protectionism, said a senior official from China's Ministry of Commerce. However, from a long-term perspective the prospects for Sino-Egyptian economic and trade ties will become more positive, when the political situation in Egypt stabilizes and the investment environment improves for foreign companies, said Ma Jianchun, a minister counselor at the Chinese embassy in Cairo.
Read More

Youth urged to go farming
Farmers are expected to benefit when China becomes the market for their agricultural products, a leading brewer has said. “Now is the time for the Youth in Uganda and Africa to consider Farming, because the Chinese will soon start taking cereals and milk for breakfast,” Mr Baker Magunda the East Africa Breweries Limited (EABL) MD told students attending a youth forum at Kyambogo University in Kampala, recently. The forum was organized by AISEC, a global platform of university students that prepares youths in school to gain relevant skills that will help them either get jobs or set up lasting businesses.
Read More

3. India in Africa

PM going to Ethiopia, Tanzania next week
Serious threats posed by terrorism and piracy will be high on the agenda of the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, during the talks with African leaders on his six-day visit to Ethiopia and Tanzania next week. Dr Manmohan, who leaves on May 23 for Addis Ababa, the seat of the African Union, will discuss the twin challenges during the Second Africa-India Forum Summit to be attended by 15 African countries.
Read More

4. In Other Emerging Powers News

BRICS health ministers warm up from Beijing meeting
Health Ministers from Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa met here on Tuesday, to prepare for the BRICS Health Ministerial Meeting which is to be held in Beijing on July 11, 2011. The preparatory discussion was convened on the sidelines of the 64th World Health Assembly, which have gathered health authorities from 193 member states of the World Health Organization (WHO).
Read More

Brazil holds Talks With Agriculture Ministry
A delegation from Brazil has held discussions with Officials at the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MOFA) to discuss ways of improving agricultural production in the country. The Deputy Minister for MOFA, Hon. Nii Amasa Namoale, briefing the press, said that Brazil is granting Ghana a loan facility of 95 million dollars to purchase tractors and farm machinery to aid the mechanisation process of the agricultural sector.
Read More

5. Blogs, Opinions, Presentations and Publications

Russia Targets African Resources as Reserves Run Out, AFDB Says
Russian companies are increasingly looking to tap Africa’s mineral wealth, as reserves in their home market become depleted and more expensive to extract, according to a study by the African Development Bank. “Africa’s underexploited mineral reserves, which account for about 30 percent of global resources, will be strategic complementaries to Russia’s depleting natural-resource base,” the lender, based in the Tunisian capital, Tunis, said in an e- mailed copy of the study today. “The costs of exploration and production are much lower” in Africa than in Russia.
Read More

India's hour in Africa
I was privileged to have separate opportunities of interaction, the past two months, with the Prime Minister of Mozambique, the Vice-President of Kenya and the Delhi-based High Commissioner of one of the most important African countries. These meetings and other conversations with knowledgeable people from the continent have led me to make three important conclusions.
Read More

Egypt: Five socialist parties unite

2011-05-19

http://links.org.au/node/2308

Five Egyptian political parties and movements have united to form the Coalition of Socialist Forces, they announced in a meeting on 10 May 2011. The newly formed coalition is made up of the Social Party of Egypt, the Democratic Labour Party, the Popular Socialist Coalition Party, Egypt Communist Party and the Revolutionary Socialists. It aims to include under its umbrella other socialist movements in Egypt, which are considered fragmented.

Gabon: Parliamentary immunity removal could spark protests

2011-05-17

http://globalvoicesonline.org/2011/05/10/gabon-parliamentary-immunity-removal-could-spark-protests/

The central African Republic of Gabon has been facing a latent political and social crisis since 26 January. André Mba Obame, president of the now banned opposition party ‘National Union', took his oath as the country's president, claiming that he had won the June 2009 election which was officially won by Ali Bongo, son of the former president Omar Bongo. The crisis has since deepened, with protests from students and recently oil workers, despite the exit of Mba Obame from the UNDP (United Nations Development Programme) building where he had sought refuge for a month.

Madagascar: The young want the Malagasy political scene to be rebuilt

2011-05-17

http://www.africareview.com/Special+Reports/-/979182/1164054/-/10sujxkz/-/index.html

Tired of the picturesque island's debilitating political crisis, Malagasy youth are reading the riot act to their politicians and have asked them to put their act together. But with limited access to the corridors of power, Madagascar's young population have so far been reduced to airing their grievances at public forums. 'The young have been pushed to take part in many political battles. But once the backed people seized power, they always failed to solve our problems,' said Mr Désiré Ranaivoson, the head of the National Platform of the Young (PNJ) and one of Madagascar's interim president's right-hand men.

Morocco: February 20 movement plans new Casablanca protests

2011-05-19

http://www.magharebia.com/cocoon/awi/xhtml1/en_GB/features/awi/features/2011/05/18/feature-02

Morocco's February 20 Movement, which spearheaded demonstrations across the kingdom, is preparing for fresh protests in Casablanca. The next one is set for 22 May in Sebata and Ben M'sik. On 29 May, a demonstration will take place in the city centre. The march will be followed by a five-hour sit-in which the young people describe as a warning to the authorities to meet their demands.

Morocco: Police beat up protesters

2011-05-23

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2011/05/2011522204645915126.html

Police in Morocco have violently dispersed protesters who defied a ban on demonstrations, beating them up with batons and taking several into custody. Sunday’s police action in the capital, Rabat, and Casablanca seemed to suggest a tougher government response to the increasingly defiant protests that first erupted in February.

Seychelles: Democracy Without Freedom

2011-05-17

http://thinkafricapress.com/seychelles/seychelles-democracy-without-freedom

Elections for the presidency of the Seychelles will be held from 19 -21 May 2011. A Commonwealth Expert Team has been sent to observe the poll. The opposition leader, Wavel Ramkalawan, told Think Africa Press that the Seychellois people are 'ready for democracy' – a strange phrase to use in a country that has officially been a multi-party democracy since 1993. The current government has been in power since a military coup in the mid-70s overthrew then president, Sir James Mancham.

South Africa: DA growing, but ANC firmly in charge

2011-05-23

http://n24.cm/k6fnP3

South Africa's local government elections were officially declared over on Saturday night by the Independent Electoral Commission in Pretoria. At a closing ceremony attended by political leaders from across the spectrum, the governing African National Congress remained firmly in charge of the nation's municipalities, taking just under 62 per cent of the vote nationally. The opposition Democratic Alliance took just under a quarter of all votes - 23.94 per cent.

South Africa: Open toilets symbolise lack of delivery

2011-05-17

http://www.publiceyenews.com/2011/05/14/open-toilets-symbolize-lack-of-delivery/

The so-called 'cabriolet' became a powerful symbol of failed service delivery ahead of local government elections last week. 'There is nothing more powerful than the image of a woman sitting on a toilet without an enclosure,' said Judith February, head of the political information and monitoring service at the Idasa democracy institute. 'Those are very powerful images and they show the lack of compassion there is when politicians are simply not listening to people. It’s a graphic description of local government failure.'

South Africa: Woman navigating a tough political system

2011-05-18

http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=55670

There was a slight increase in the number of women running for elections in this year’s local government elections. More than 19,700 women stood as candidates, compared to 15,718 in the 2006 local elections. This means that 37 per cent of the candidates were women, a two per cent increase from 2006. Women remained the majority on the Independent Electoral Committee voters' roll, which has more than 24.5 million South Africans registered.

Tunisia: Curfew lifted after mass arrests

2011-05-18

http://af.reuters.com/article/topNews/idAFJOE74H0C420110518

Tunisia lifted an overnight curfew in the capital on Wednesday (18 May) saying security had improved since authorities arrested 1,400 people linked to the latest anti-government protests. Protesters at recent demonstrations in Tunis have said they fear democratic change is not coming quickly enough and many complain about unfair working conditions in a country where unemployment runs at around 14 per cent.

Egypt: Suzanne Mubarak freed after handing over assets

2011-05-17

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-13420327

The wife of ousted Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, who was being held on corruption charges, has been released on bail after handing over assets. Suzanne Mubarak turned over a villa in a Cairo suburb and $3m (£1.9m) held in bank accounts in Egypt, officials said.

Tanzania: Report on corruption out after delay

2011-05-17

http://www.nation.co.ke/News/africa/-/1066/1163830/-/12ld0eb/-/index.html

The Prevention and Combating of Corruption Bureau (PCCB) has bowed to the pressure by donors and Monday (16 May) released a much awaited National Governance and Corruption Survey report. The report shows generally that corruption is still a serious problem in the country, with respondents listing the police force, judiciary and education sectors as areas which they perceive to be the most corrupt in the country.

Africa: Africa told to hasten economic integration

2011-05-19

http://www.tralac.org/cgi-bin/giga.cgi?cmd=cause_dir_news_item&news_id=103848&cause_id=1694

African leaders have been asked to speed up regional economic integration so the continent can play its rightful role in the global economy. African Union Commission Deputy Chairperson Erastus Mwencha said African states must pay greater attention to economic integration. 'By fostering strong regional trading blocs, African economies could accelerate diversification, generate economies of scale, and mitigate the fallout from any global economic shocks,' he said.

Africa: Tripartite African trade talks show progress

2011-05-19

http://www.tralac.org/cgi-bin/giga.cgi?cmd=cause_dir_news_item&news_id=103838&cause_id=1694

Ministers from countries within the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), the East African Community (EAC) and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) met recently in Lusaka to discuss the progress made towards the proposed tripartite free trade agreement (FTA). The meeting’s discussions centred on the ways to establish a single market by way of a tripartite FTA and thereby promote and attract both cross-border and foreign direct investment. COMESA, SADC and EAC include a total of 26 countries, some of which are already members of more than one of the region’s trade blocs, and a tripartite pan-regional FTA would open up a market of 580 million people.

East Africa: 25bn needed for infrastructure projects

2011-05-23

http://www.trademarksa.org/news/eac-seeks-25bn-infrastructure-projects

More than $25 billion is needed to implement roads infrastructure projects in East Africa in the next 10 years. The amount covers the cost of massive upgrading, modernisation and construction of roads to improve intra-regional connectivity and also link up EA with countries outside the bloc. 'The estimated cost of these roads infrastructure development in the next 10 years is in excess of $25 billion,' disclosed Ms Hafsa Mosi, the Chairperson of the East African Community Council of Ministers, when unveiling the Community's 2011/12 budget.

Southern Africa: Very little 'extraordinary' about latest SADC summit

2011-05-23

http://bit.ly/k2wmKg

Inaction marked the Extraordinary Summit of Southern African Development Community heads of state in Windhoek, despite an agenda covering Zimbabwe elections, political deadlock in Madagascar, the suspension of the regional court and allegations of corruption within SADC itself. In the days leading up to the summit, there was the chance that it might not take place at all, with the South African president, Jacob Zuma, pulling out at the last moment, preferring to concentrate on local elections in his own country. In the end, eleven heads of state and their representatives met in Windhoek, but deliberations lasted only a few hours before the summit was ended.

Global: Drug price cuts secured amid growing funding fears

2011-05-23

http://www.plusnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=92760

Three international organisations have negotiated reductions on key first and second-line, and paediatric antiretrovirals (ARVs) that will help countries save at least US$600 million over the next three years. The Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI), the international drug purchasing facility UNITAID and the UK Department for International Development (DFID) made the announcement on 18 May. The deal expected to affect most of the 70 countries comprising CHAI’s Procurement Consortium, features notable reductions in the prices of tenofovir (TDF), efavirenz, and the second-line ritonavir-boosted atazanavir (ATV/r) used in HIV patients who have failed initial, or 'first-line', regimens.

Global: Study shows ARVs can protect the uninfected

2011-05-19

http://www.health-e.org.za/news/article.php?uid=20033149

A multi-national study shows that if an HIV-positive person starts taking antiretroviral therapy early on, that is, when their CD 4 count is still high, their chances of infecting their HIV-negative partner can decrease by as much as 96 per cent. The results of the study are viewed as confirmation of untested wisdom among clinicians who have for a number of years thought that people on combination antiretroviral therapy have a lower chance of transmitting HIV to their uninfected partners.

Kenya: Profits hamper malaria drug subsidy

2011-05-23

http://www.ips.org/africa/2011/05/kenya-small-profit-margin-hinders-access-to-subsidised-anti-malarial-drugs/

In order to reduce instances where pharmacists are inflating the cost of subsidised malaria drugs, the Kenyan government has embarked on awareness campaigns through the media to inform Kenyans of the availability of the drugs, and the recommended prices per dose. According to Dr John Logedi, the deputy program manager at the Division of Malaria Control, the awareness campaign will help consumers make an informed choice and enable them to seek outlets that sell the drugs at the right price.

Kenya: Public hospitals ‘on the sick bed’

2011-05-17

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

The rot in public hospitals in the country has been exposed in new reports by the anti-graft agency. Two studies conducted by the Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission (KACC) between 16 October and 20 December 2009, found that provincial general and district hospitals are on the sick bed, plagued by staff shortages, corruption and poor facilities. Cartels, in collaboration with management, have taken over the supply chain as overworked and demoralised staff merely watch, according to the reports. The majority of Kenyans, unable to afford health services, mainly go to these health institutions.

South Africa: A look back at 10 years of HIV treatment

2011-05-18

http://www.plusnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=92743

Ten years ago, Khayelitsha, in Cape Town, was the first place to make antiretroviral drugs available to the public sector, marking a milestone in the beginning of the end of AIDS denialism and the fight for treatment in South Africa. With more than half its population unemployed, Khayelitsha is one of South Africa's largest and fastest-growing townships, and home to one of the highest burdens of HIV and TB infection nationally and globally. In 2009, antenatal HIV prevalence was 30 per cent. Alarming as the figures may be, Khayelitsha is a beacon of hope for the AIDS epidemic in South Africa, where the provision of ARVs had been fraught, marked by a bitter stand-off between AIDS activists and government over the slow pace of the rollout.

South Africa: Women with AIDS conspiracy beliefs half as likely to use condoms

2011-05-23

http://bit.ly/l7qIzs

In Cape Town, African women who think that AIDS is man-made are half as likely as other African women to have used a condom during their most recent sexual encounter, researchers report in the journal AIDS and Behavior. In addition, African men who believe that HIV is harmless while antiretroviral drugs are harmful are half as likely to use condoms as other men. There are important differences in the findings for men and women, which suggests that gender is crucial to understanding AIDS conspiracy and denialism in South Africa.

Botswana: Schools closed due to violence

2011-05-17

http://www.iol.co.za/news/africa/botswana-schools-closed-amid-violence-1.1069825

Botswana's government closed all primary and secondary schools on Monday (16 May) after violent clashes between police and students angry over a strike by teachers and other public workers. The violence began last week at a secondary school in Molepolole, a village 60km south-east of the capital Gaborone, and spread to schools across the country. Students have missed most of their classes since teachers and other public-sector workers went on strike on 18 April. Public service employees are demanding a 16 per cent salary increment, while government is offering five per cent.

Kenya: Child labour and school attendance

2011-05-19

http://zunia.org/post/child-labor-and-school-attendance-in-kenya/

Sub-Saharan Africa has the highest incidence of child labour in the world and estimates show that it continues to grow. This paper examines the causes and magnitude of child labour in Kenya. It finds that socioeconomic status and structure of the household have a strong effect on child labour. Also, a large proportion of working children attend school.

Zambia: The dangers of unsupervised school accommodation

2011-05-18

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportID=92746

An absence of boarding facilities for high school pupils in Zambia's northern province of Luapula is forcing children to share lodgings with their peers - unsupervised by adults - leading to teenage pregnancies and HIV/AIDS infections. Many children live a long way from school and prefer to rent accommodation nearby. Wamunyima Chingumbe, a Health Ministry director in Mansa District, said the absence of boarding facilities at day schools had led to teenage pregnancies and made pupils vulnerable to contracting sexually transmitted infections (STIs). After malaria, STIs were the most common ailments recorded at makeshift boarding high schools.

Cameroon: ‘Sodomy’ law violates basic rights

2011-05-18

http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2011/05/17/cameroon-sodomy-law-violates-basic-rights

The March arrest, conviction, and sentencing of Roger Jean-Claude Mbede to three years in prison for being homosexual is a gross violation of Mbede's rights to freedom of expression and equality guaranteed by the Cameroonian constitution, Alternatives-Cameroun, Association pour la Defense de l'Homosexualitè (ADEFHO), and Human Rights Watch said in a letter to Cameroon's top leaders. Under section 347, a person who engages in 'sexual relations with a person of the same sex' can face a prison term of up to five years. Mbede was sentenced after admitting to his sexual orientation while in police custody. However, the law directly contravenes international human rights treaties, which, the Cameroonian constitution states, apply directly in the country.

Global: Speak out against discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation

2011-05-18

http://bit.ly/m5umK6

On the occasion of International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia, ARTICLE 19 has called on states to combat violence, discrimination and stigma directed against lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender persons around the world by protecting and promoting freedom of expression and the right to information. ARTICLE 19 observes that lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender persons around the world face heightened levels of discrimination simply for expressing their sexual orientation and gender identity.

Global: State sponsored homophobia 2011 report out now

2011-05-18

http://ilga.org/ilga/en/article/mZ9yrEp19R

From the adoption of marriage laws in Argentina and Iceland, and the decision of the Brazilian Supreme Court recognising rights of same-sex civil unions, to the issuing of a statement signed by 85 countries at the UN Human Rights Council condemning persecution on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity, a lot of progress has been made the last year on recognition of LGBTI rights in the world. Though the number of countries criminalising same-sex sexual activities between consenting adults is still the same as last year, namely 76 (including the five which have the death penalty), it is becoming more and more difficult for homophobic states to defend their laws on the international stage. This was one of the conclusions of ILGA’s (The International Lesbian, Gay, Trans, Bisexual and Intersex Association) co-secretary generals Gloria Careaga and Renato Sabbadini in their foreword to the State Sponsored Homophobia report 2011.

Africa: Call for fair EU-Africa fishing deal

2011-05-17

http://www.afronline.org/?p=15840

Greenpeace Africa has appealed for a fairer and sustainable fishing partnership that protects the livelihoods of West African fishing communities. The appeal by Greenpeace Africa was directed to fisheries ministers who are set for a meeting in Brussels to discuss the future fishing agreements. Almost one quarter of all the fish taken by the European fishing fleet is caught outside EU waters especially in the once rich West African waters. This number is set to increase as European fish stocks decline because of overfishing.

Global: Civil society to WHO, UN - Reject corporate conflict of interest

2011-05-23

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/environment/73515

As health experts gathered in Geneva to attend the 64th World Health Assembly (WHA), global civil society organisations called on World Health Organisation (WHO) Director General Dr. Margaret Chan to address widespread concerns about corporate conflicts of interest regarding global water governance, health and nutrition policy.

Kenya: Legal lacuna while biotechnology is sneaked in

2011-05-18

http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=55648

Farming with genetically modified organisms (GMOs) is becoming more widespread in Kenya due to the promotion of biotechnology through clever schemes, exacerbated by the lack of a legal framework for the commercialisation of these controversial products. The Syngenta Foundation is a not-for-profit organisation attached to the Syngenta Company that researches and produces GM seeds. The foundation is involved in the 'Safe Biotechnology Management' (SABIMA) project aimed at promoting GM technology among small-scale farmers in Ghana, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Kenya, Uganda and Malawi.

Liberia: Agreement signed to stop illegal logging

2011-05-17

http://bit.ly/mNkxlD

The Government of Liberia and the European Union have signed an agreement to end illegal logging in Liberia. The deal, in the form of a Voluntary Partnership Agreement, will ensure that all timber exported from Liberia to the EU comes from legal sources. It also contains provisions to ensure that the trade will benefit the Liberian people. Illegal logging was common during the country’s civil war in the 1990s. Former President of Liberia, Charles Taylor, was accused of selling timber to fund his regime. Much of this illegal timber found a market in the EU. In response, the United Nations placed sanctions on timber exports in 2006.

South Africa: Group slams SA nuclear energy

2011-05-17

http://www.news24.com/SciTech/News/Group-slams-SA-nuclear-energy-20110516

SA is not in any kind of energy crisis, despite the unfolding crisis at nuclear plants in Japan, an activist organisation has said. 'It's [the energy crisis] a complete fabrication. Of our total capacity, domestic users account for 18 per cent,' Muna Lakhani, Cape Town branch co-ordinator for Earthlife Africa told News24. Recently the government has announced that it intends to move toward a green energy production, but has come under fire from environmentalists for continued discussions on nuclear energy.

Africa: Bangladesh rents African land to boost food output

2011-05-17

http://farmlandgrab.org/post/view/18621

Bangladesh has leased tens of thousands of hectares of farmland in Africa as part of a government drive to improve food security in the poverty-stricken South Asian nation, an official said. Two Bangladeshi companies have leased 40,000 hectares of land in Uganda and Tanzania and another firm will sign a deal for a further 10,000 hectares in Tanzania this week, foreign ministry director Farhadul Islam said.

Africa: Fueling the destruction of African agriculture

2011-05-23

http://www.foodfirst.org/en/node/3432

The head of the US Department of Agriculture recently announced an incentive program that would subsidise up to 75 per cent of the costs for establishing new US agrofuel plantations, in an 'effort to promote production of fuel from renewable sources, create jobs and mitigate the effects of climate change'. This 'incentive' is a hand-out to agribusiness, and despite the industry’s 'green' fuels hyperbole agrofuels could actually have a negative impact on atmospheric carbon when land use changes are factored in. These subsidies are a public handout to Monsanto, Cargill, BP and Chevron, says this article on the website of the Institute for Food and Development Policy.

Kenya: Farmers using agriculture to fight climate change

2011-05-23

http://www.standardmedia.co.ke/InsidePage.php?id=2000024027&cid=4

Thousands of farmers in Western Kenya are attracting global attention after being the first group in Africa to win financing from the World Bank (WB) to use agriculture to fight climate change. The farmers, spread in 45,000 hectares of land in Bungoma, Malakisi, Bondo, and Kisumu, will receive Sh28 million (US$350,000) from WB's BioCarbon Fund to adopt environmentally-friendly agricultural practices that cut carbon emissions to the atmosphere.

Africa: African Journalists welcome African Commission action to protect safety of journalists

2011-05-18

http://bit.ly/jqauFW

The Federation of African Journalists (FAJ), the African regional organisation of the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), has welcomed the historic move of the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights (ACHPR) to adopt a landmark resolution on the safety of journalists and media practitioners in Africa. The resolution, which expressed concern over 'declining safety and security situation of journalists and media practitioners in some African countries', noted that 'killings, attacks and kidnapping of journalists, which are contrary to international humanitarian and human rights law, are often committed in an environment of impunity'. To ensure the protection of journalists’ safety, the African Commission appealed to member States of the African Union 'to fulfil their obligation of preventing, and investigating crimes against journalists, as well as bringing the perpetrators to justice'.

Angola: Angola set to gag media freedom, says Human Rights Watch

2011-05-17

http://bit.ly/jWrpwQ

Urging the Angolan government to withdraw a cybercrime bill before parliament, Human Rights Watch said it would undercut both freedom of expression and information, and pose a severe threat to independent media in the country. Human Rights Watch expressed its apprehension that the bill would help security forces to confiscate data and create harsher penalties for crimes in electronic information technology. Daniel Bekele, Africa director at Human Rights Watch, said, 'This bill fails to establish clear safeguards to protect the public's right to know and right to speak and deepening the existing restrictions in Angola's media environment, where many Angolans have turned for open debate on matters the government wants to restrict.'

Libya: SA angry over dead journalist

2011-05-23

http://mg.co.za/article/2011-05-20-hammerl-death-sa-heaps-blame-on-libya-govt

Libyan officials lied about photojournalist Anton Hammerl to the South African government, international relations and cooperation Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane has said. 'We kept getting reassured at the highest level that he was alive until his colleagues were released and shared the information yesterday [Wednesday],' she told reporters in Pretoria. It was revealed last week that Hammerl has been killed while covering the Libyan conflict.

Tunisia: Draft election decree must protect freedom of expression

2011-05-18

http://bit.ly/m8gG5o

The Draft Decree is an essential step in preparation of the Tunisian elections for the Constituent Assembly, set for 24 July 2011, which will in turn be responsible for drafting the new Constitution. ARTICLE 19’s analysis of the Draft Decree calls for an improved framework that would fully incorporate relevant international standards on freedom of expression.

Uganda: Museveni lashes out at 'media enemies'

2011-05-18

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-13438336

Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni has lashed out at the media for their coverage of recent opposition protests over the cost of living. In a letter published in the state-owned New Vision paper, he called them 'the enemies of Uganda's recovery'. He named Al-Jazeera, the BBC, regional NTV and Uganda's privately owned Daily Monitor as cheering on those behind the month-long 'walk-to-work' campaign.

Egypt: Child abuse and its long-term consequences

2011-05-19

http://bapauk.com/pdf/Child%20Abuse%20paper%202011.pdf

The subject of child abuse and its long-term implications in adulthood has been widely studied in literature in different areas of the world and across different cultures, notes this article in the The Arab Journal of Psychiatry about a study that looked at Egyptian university students. It found that a large proportion of the sample reported both child abuse and several long-term pathological consequences of abuse in adulthood. 'The problem seems to be serious in this middle class sample and it remains possible that these problems could be worse in lower social classes.'

Mozambique: Cheaper new food subsidy coming

2011-05-17

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportID=92679

Mozambique's government will again attempt to curtail subsidy expenditures for essential foods and services, but this time its approach will be more nuanced so as to avoid a repeat of the cost-of-living protests in 2010. Antonio Cruz, director of policy analysis in the planning ministry, recently told local media that subsidies on fuel, bread and rice, estimated to cost the donor-dependent government millions of dollars each month, would be phased out by the end of June 2011. Planning and development minister Aiuba Cuereneia told the state-run newspaper, Noticias, that savings accrued from discontinuing the generalized subsidies would enable the introduction of a new food basket and transport benefits for families earning less than two dollars a day.

Haiti: Venezuela will 'repay it’s debt' to Haiti

2011-05-23

http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/6191

Hector Rodriguez, vice-president of the 'Social Area Council of Venezuela', confirmed the Venezuelan government’s commitment to maintaining its reconstruction efforts in Haiti and sent a message of solidarity to the Haitian people on behalf of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez. In an interview with Latin American news channel TeleSUR, following the inauguration ceremony of the newly elected Haitian president, Michel Martelly, Rodriguez said that they would 'continue working for the dignity, the life, of this brother nation', so that Haiti would 'keep moving forward'.

Algeria: Libya border security boosted

2011-05-19

http://www.magharebia.com/cocoon/awi/xhtml1/en_GB/features/awi/features/2011/03/30/feature-02

Amid growing concern about al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) acquiring weapons from Libya, the Algerian army launched a large-scale surveillance and security operation along the joint border. Algerian military leaders met in Djanet to discuss ANP preparedness for possible security problems along the border with Libya, El Khabar reported. The defence ministry tasked the Ouergla and Tamanrasset regional commanders with monitoring security and humanitarian issues related to the influx of refugees.

Libya: 'We Don't Want Our Revolution Stolen'

2011-05-23

http://bit.ly/k2HdSw

s the Libyan uprising enters its fourth month, people in the liberated eastern part of the country are playing a waiting game, and for many, patience is running thin. The spontaneous jubilation that marked the early days of the revolution is all but gone. In its place, an unmistakable sense of weariness and uncertainty fills the cool springtime air. Concerns of a civil war or an Islamist takeover do not predominate here; most people laugh these off as overblown Western fears that are not grounded in Libyan realities. Now that the fate of the uprising is almost wholly in the hands of those with the best weapons, foremost on people’s minds is how much longer they must wait for the regime to fall.

Nigeria: Disband joint task force, Jonathan told

2011-05-23

http://justiceinnigerianow.org/uncategorized/disband-jtf-now-n%E2%80%99delta-monarchs-urge-jonathan

Traditional rulers from the oil producing communities of the Niger Delta region have called on President Goodluck Jonathan to re-examine the activities of the Joint Task Force (JTF) operating in the Niger Delta region. The call was the outcome of a two-day meeting in Port Harcourt and contained in a communiqué jointly signed by Eze Young Ogbonna and Pere Stanley Perediegha Luke, national president and national secretary respectively.

Nigeria: Post-election violence killed 800

2011-05-18

http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2011/05/16/nigeria-post-election-violence-killed-800

Deadly election-related and communal violence in northern Nigeria following the April 2011 presidential voting left more than 800 people dead, Human Rights Watch said 16 May. The victims were killed in three days of rioting in 12 northern states. Nigeria's state and federal authorities should promptly investigate and prosecute those who orchestrated and carried out these crimes and address the root causes of recurring inter-communal violence.

Somalia: Somali pirates to be attacked on the ground

2011-05-23

http://bit.ly/iSktV2

According to Dutch Defense Minister Hans Hillen, in an interview with Dutch business news radio station BNR: 'It is a disgrace and it truly annoys me that a bunch of Somali pirates with their $2000 dollar fishing boats, a few Kalashnikovs and some RPG’s (rocket-propelled grenade) can keep the western world’s high-tech navy ships and commercial fleet busy for months and months. Of course those small boats and those pirates don’t stand a chance with the modern navy ships and our well-equipped navy sailors, but the sea at that location is so huge, that it is impossible to guard it all.' When the interviewer Niels Heithuis of BNR asked the minister if sending ground troops to Somalia might be the answer to this problem, Minister Hillen reacted: 'No, please don’t call our plan sending ground troops. That would be overly exaggerated. We just want to order some marines to go to the Somali beaches and "play a little bit with the pirates’ boats". When they are finished, the pirates won’t bother us anymore'.

Sudan: UN-AU mission investigates fresh round of Darfur air strikes

2011-05-18

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=38423&Cr=darfur&Cr1=

Sudanese armed forces have carried out another round of air strikes against a village in Darfur, this time striking a settlement in the north of the war-torn region, the joint United Nations-African Union mission in Darfur (UNAMID) reported on 18 May. Government aircraft struck the village of Sukamir, about 100 kilometres northeast of El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur state.

Tunisia: Tunisia demands Libya stop cross border shelling

2011-05-18

http://af.reuters.com/article/topNews/idAFJOE74H0AB20110518

Tunisia threatened to report Libya to the UN Security Council if it fired into Tunisian territory again, after Libya's three-month-old conflict spilled beyond its borders. Tunisia's state-run TAP news agency said the government would threaten Libya with diplomatic action over the 'continuing firing of rockets by Libyan forces towards Tunisian territory'. 'The Tunisian government views those acts as belligerent behaviour from the Libyan side who had pledged more than once to prevent its forces from firing in the direction of Tunisia and has failed to respect its undertakings,' TAP quoted a foreign ministry source as saying. On Tuesday at least four Russian-made Grad rockets fired from Libya landed inside Tunisia, according to a Reuters reporter at the scene.

Global: Facebook launches non-profit resource centre

2011-05-19

http://zunia.org/post/facebook-launches-non-profit-resource-center/

Facebook is launching a resource center to help non-profits use the social network. The site will include educational materials, tutorials and a downloadable non-profit guide geared toward raising awareness and funds for causes specifically through the social network.

Rwanda: Kagame takes on journalist via Twitter

2011-05-17

http://www.monitor.co.ug/News/National/-/688334/1164002/-/c1i6opz/-/index.html

British journalist Ian Birrell got into a spirited exchange with Rwandan President Paul Kagame on Twitter recently. Rwanda’s Minister of Foreign Affairs & Cooperation Louise Mushikiwabo also joined the discussion. The Daily Monitor has published the full transcript on their website.

Rwanda: My twitterspat with Paul Kagame

2011-05-19

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/may/16/my-twitterspat-with-paul-kagame

Journalist Ian Birrell writes in the London Guardian: 'Returning home from a Saturday afternoon walk with the dog, I did what has become almost a reflex action and checked Twitter. Bizarrely, there was the president of Rwanda having a go at me over disparaging comments I had made about an interview he gave that morning. This was strange enough - not least since his missives to me were peppered with the sort of text abbreviations used by teenagers (such as "Wrong u r..."). Even stranger, we then traded tweets over human rights and repression in his central African nation, his foreign minister even joining the fray.'

Who represents the Arab world online?

2011-05-23

http://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/research/projects/?id=70

There are obvious gaps in access to the Internet, particularly the participation gap between those who have their say, and those whose voices are pushed to the sidelines. Despite the rapid increase in Internet access, there are indications that people in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region remain largely absent from websites and services that represent the region to the larger world. A research project is assessing the connection between access and representation - click on the URL provided to read more on this topic.

Global: Subscribe to challenging the green revolution in Africa

2011-05-23

https://www.thedatabank.com/dpg/199/personal2.asp?formid=aaagrrrr

The Institute for Food and Development Policy/Food First shapes how people think by analysing the root causes of global hunger, poverty, and ecological degradation and developing solutions in partnership with movements working for social change. You can subscribe to their newsletter by clicking on the URL provided.

Issue 2, 2011 of The Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung Southern Africa newsletter

2011-05-23

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/530/RoSAfrica Issue 2 2011.pdf

Issue 2, 2011 of The Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung Southern Africa newsletter contains opinions on South Africa's municipal elections and articles on Wal-Mart, decent jobs and Mauritius.

Women in Action

Rural Women's Movement winter newsletter 2011

2011-05-23

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/529/leaflet.pdf

The winter edition of the Rural Women's Movement (RWM) newsletter contains articles on a strategy to resolve hunger and unemployment in Africa, halting rape and abduction of girls, and news of RWM's activities and achievements.

Global: New website tracks IMF leadership race

2011-05-23

http://imfboss.wordpress.com/

The Bretton Woods Project and partners from around the world are launching imfboss.org, a new website dedicated to tracking the leadership selection processes at the International Monetary Fund (IMF). With the IMF's current Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Khan involved in a media storm, the debate over the IMF's anachronistic and unfair selection process has been reopened.

Dr. Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem 2011 Memorial

25 May

2011-05-23

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/courses/73540

Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem was born on 6 January 1961 in Funtua, Katsina State, Nigeria. He died tragically on African Liberation Day, 25 May 2009 in a motor accident in Nairobi Kenya.
Tajudeen’s Reflection on the Current African Crisis*

Moderators:

1) Muthoni Wanyeki

2) Girmay Haile

Performance:

- Ndungi Githuku

Screening of Documentary:

- Khamis Ramadhan

Venue: The All African Conference of Churches (AACC) *

Date: 25th May 2011

Start Time: 5.30 p.m – 7:30 p.m

Tajudeen was born on 6 January 1961 in Funtua, Katsina State, Nigeria. He died tragically on African Liberation Day, 25 May 2009 in a motor accident in Nairobi Kenya.

Even in death, Tajudeen still speaks and is recognized for his tremendous contributions to development of the continent. The next generation will not grow up to see Tajudeen, therefore we must work together to create a better society such that we can say to the next generation: this is the world Tajudeen helped to build. Perhaps if we take a moment to reflect on the most popular and most emphasized piece of advice Tajudeen ever offered, we will find in it lessons that still speak to us as individuals, to our countries and to our world today; it is his email signature ‘Don’t Agonize: Organize!’

Fellowship programme for people of African descent

Call For Application

2011-05-19

http://bit.ly/l6YCTc

In the context of the International Year for People of African Descent, the Anti-Discrimination Section of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights is launching a Fellowship Programme for People of African Descent from 10 October to 4 November 2011. The Fellowship Programme will provide participants with the opportunity to deepen their understanding of the United Nations Human Rights system and its mechanisms, with a focus on issues of particular relevance to people of African descent.

Communications Officer

The Open Society Initiative for Eastern Africa

2011-05-19

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/jobs/73429

POSITION AVAILABLE: COMMUNICATIONS OFFICER

Search closes: June 10, 2011

TO APPLY: Send resume and cover letter to jobs@osiea.org

The Open Society Foundations works worldwide to build vibrant and tolerant democracies whose governments are accountable to their citizens.

We are seeking a creative and energetic Communications Officer who can promote our work using multimedia, new media, the internet, and publications.

QUALIFICATIONS

• 6 years of experience as a communications professional
• Excellent written, verbal and organizational skills in English as well as editing experience Extensive multimedia skills, including the ability to make short documentaries
• Extensive contacts in the East African and international media
• Knowledge and a passion for governance and human rights issues in East Africa, and for covering these issues from a human rights perspective
• Self-motivation and creativity as well as the ability to work independently when necessary, as well as a member of a team;
• Ability to manage several simultaneous projects in a fast-paced environment;
• Ability to listen and communicate clearly and effectively with diverse array of people;
• Integrity and professional discretion essential.

RESPONSIBILITIES

• Advise on media, communications, and publications strategy on issues of concern to OSIEA and its grantees
• Produce OSIEA publications in cooperation with the program staff, including one magazine and two e-newsletters annually
• Update website and intranet and produce short videos showcasing work
• Organize press events, maintain media contacts list, and liaise with key journalists
• Within the framework of OSIEA’s organizational values, promote inter-office communications, though office intranet and regular meetings

For more information: www.soros.org

COMPENSATION: Competitive salary, with good benefits package

No phone calls, please. Only successful candidates will be contacted.

Executive Director

Young Women's Leadership Institute

2011-05-23

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/530/YWLI_Executive_Director_call_for_applications.pdf

We are seeking a dynamic, highly motivated and creative young feminist to serve as our executive director. Reporting to the board of directors, the executive director will provide overall leadership in the strategic direction of the organisation through its office in Nairobi.

Regional Programme Officer

The Open Society Initiative for Eastern Africa

2011-05-19

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/jobs/73430

POSITION AVAILABLE: REGIONAL PROGRAMME OFFICER

Search closes: June 10, 2011

TO APPLY: Send resume and cover letter to jobs@osiea.org

The Open Society Foundations works worldwide to build vibrant and tolerant democracies whose governments are accountable to their citizens.

We are seeking a Program Officer to promote state compliance with governance and human rights standards at the East African Community (EAC) and African Union (AU). The position reports to the directors of OSIEA and AfriMAP (OSF’s Africa Governance, Monitoring and Advocacy Project).

QUALIFICATIONS

• A proven commitment to the protection of human rights and knowledge of the EAC and AU mechanisms. Familiarity with civil society networks within Eastern Africa.
• Experience with research and writing for publication.
• Extraordinary initiative, creativity and capacity to think strategically
• Team spirit and respectful working and decision-making style
• Strong organizational skills and close attention to detail
• Integrity, diplomatic manner and professional discretion essential
• Willingness to travel as needed
• Relevant advanced degree and/or extensive experience in human rights work

RESPONSIBILITIES

• Serve as the focal point for research, monitoring, and advocacy work pertaining to the EAC and AU, especially in relation to NEPAD and the African Peer Review Mechanism. Conduct relevant legal and policy analysis for internal and external audiences.
• Write and/or commission reports and advocacy documents. Oversee AfriMAP research and publications for the region. This will entail identifying and contracting researchers, reviewing and editing drafts, and organizing for publication of AfriMAP reports.
• Develop and support institutions and networks working on these issues through convenings and grant giving.
• Integrate the OSIEA organizational values into the performance of duties and tasks on a daily basis and participate in in-house working groups designed to uphold the values and foster healthy inter-office communication.

OSIEA promotes public participation in democratic governance and respect for human rights by awarding grants, developing programs, and bringing together diverse civil society leaders and groups.

AfrMAP monitors and promotes compliance by African states with AU standards of good governance, democracy, human rights and the rule of law.

For more information: www.soros.org

COMPENSATION: Competitive salary, with good benefits package

No phone calls, please.

Only successful candidates will be contacted.

Fahamu