Current Issue

The downside of the Kony 2012 video

What Jason did not tell Gavin and his army of invisible children

Mahmood Mamdani

2012-03-15

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/80787

cc K-IA 30-minute documentary about Ugandan rebel leader Joseph Kony has been watched by tens of millions online. But will this mobilization of millions be subverted into yet another weapon in the hands of those who want to militarize the region further?

Only two weeks ago, Ugandan papers carried front-page reports from the highly respected Social Science Research Council of New York, accusing the Uganda army of atrocities against civilians in Central African Republic while on a mission to fight Joseph Kony and the LRA. The Army denied the allegations. Many in the civilian population, especially in the north, were skeptical of the denial. Like all victims, they have long and enduring memories.

The adult population recalls the brutal government-directed counterinsurgency campaign beginning 1986, and evolving into Operation North, the first big operation that people talk about as massively destructive for civilians, and creating the conditions that gave rise to the LRA of Joseph Kony and, before it, the Holy Spirit Movement of Alice Lakwena.

Young adults recall the time from the mid-90s when most rural residents of the three Acholi districts was forcibly interned in camps - the Government claimed it was to 'protect' them from the LRA. But there were allegations of murder, bombing, and burning of entire villages, first to force people into the camps and then to force them to stay put. By 2005, the camp population grew from a few hundred thousand to over 1.8 million in the entire region – which included Teso and Lango – of which over a million were from the three Acholi districts. Comprising practically the entire rural population of the three Acholi districts, they were expected to live on handouts from relief agencies. According to the Government’s own Ministry of Health, the excess mortality rate in these camps was approximately one thousand persons per week – inviting comparisons to the numbers killed by the LRA even in the worst year.

Determined to find a political solution to enduring mass misery, Parliament passed a bill in December 1999 offering amnesty to the entire leadership of the LRA provided they laid down their arms. The President refused to sign the bill.

Opposed to an amnesty, the President invited the ICC, newly formed in 2002, to charge that same LRA leadership with crimes against humanity. Moreno Ocampo grabbed the opportunity with both hands. Joseph Kony became the subject of the ICC’s first indictment.

Critics asked why the ICC was indicting only the leadership of the LRA, and not also of government forces. Ocampo said only one step at a time. In his words: ‘The criteria for selection of the first case was gravity. We analyzed the gravity of all crimes in northern Uganda committed by the LRA and the Ugandan forces. Crimes committed by the LRA were much more numerous and of much higher gravity than alleged crimes committed by the UPDF (Uganda Peoples Defense Force). We therefore started with an investigation of the LRA.’ That ‘first case’ was in 2004. There has been none other in the eight years that have followed.

As the internment of the civilian population continued into its second decade, there was another attempt at a political solution, this time involving the new Government of South Sudan (GOSS). Under great pressure from both the population and from parliament, the government of Uganda agreed to enter into direct negotiations with the LRA, facilitated and mediated by GOSS. These dragged on for years, from 2006 on, but hopes soared as first the terms of the agreement, and then its finer details, were agreed on between the two sides. Once again, the only thing standing between war and peace was an amnesty for the top leadership of the LRA, Joseph Kony and Vincent Otti in particular. In the words of Vincent Otti, the second in command: ‘… to come out, the ICC must revoke the indictment…If Kony or Otti does not come out, no other rebel will come out.’ Yet again, the ICC refused, calling for a military campaign to get Kony, joined by the Ugandan government which refused to provide guarantees for his safety. Predictably, the talks broke down and the LRA withdrew, first to the Democratic Republic of Congo and then to the Central African Republic.

The government responded with further militarization, starting with the disastrous Operation Lightning Thunder in the DRC in December, 2008, then sending thousands of Ugandan troops to the CAR, and then asking for American advisors. The ICC called on AFRICOM, the Africa Command of the US Army, to act as its implementing arm by sending more troops to capture Kony. The US under President Obama responded by sending an unspecified number of advisors armed with drones – though the US insists that these drones are unarmed for now.

Now Invisible Children has joined the ranks of those calling for the US to press for a military solution - presumably supported by a mostly children’s army of over 70 million viewers of its video, Kony 2012. What is the LRA that it should merit the attention of an audience ranging from Hollywood celebrities to ‘humanitarian interventionists’ to AFRICOM to children of America?

The LRA is a raggedy bunch of a few hundred at most, poorly equipped, poorly armed, and poorly trained. Their ranks mainly comprise those kidnapped as children and then turned into tormentors. It is a story not very different from that of abused children who in time turn into abusive adults. In short, the LRA is no military power.

Addressing the problem called the LRA does not call for a military operation. And yet, the LRA is given as the reason why there must be a constant military mobilization, at first in northern Uganda, and now in the entire region, why the military budget must have priority and, now, why the US must sent soldiers and weaponry, including drones, to the region. Rather than the reason for accelerated military mobilization in the region, the LRA is the excuse for it.

The reason why the LRA continues is that its victims – the civilian population of the area – trust neither the LRA nor government forces. Sandwiched between the two, civilians need to be rescued from an ongoing military mobilization and offered the hope of a political process.

Alas, this message has no room in the Invisible Children video that ends with a call to arms. Thus one must ask: will this mobilization of millions be subverted into yet another weapon in the hands of those who want to militarize the region further? If so, this well-intentioned but unsuspecting army of children will be responsible for magnifying the very crisis to which they claim to be the solution.

The 70 million plus who have watched the Invisible Children video need to realize that the LRA – both the leaders and the children pressed into their service – are not an alien force but sons and daughters of the soil. The solution is not to eliminate them physically, but to find ways of integrating them into (Ugandan) society.

Those in the Ugandan and the US governments – and now apparently the owners of Invisible Children – must bear responsibility for regionalizing the problem as the LRA and, in its toe, the Ugandan army and US advisors crisscross the region, from Uganda to DRC to CAR. Yet, at its core the LRA remains a Ugandan problem calling for a Ugandan political solution.

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* Mahmood Mamdani is Professor and Director of Makerere Institute of Social Research in Kampala and Herbert Lehman Professor of Government at Columbia University, New York City.
* This article was first published on the website of the Makerere Institute of Social Research.
* Please send comments to editor[at]pambazuka[dot]org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

The Arab revolutions: A year after

Samir Amin

2012-03-14

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/80745

cc G IArab regimes achieved success within a short period but then ran out of steam as a result of their internal limits and contradictions. The ruling circles have given in to neo-liberal globalization, leading to rapid decline in social conditions. That is what caused the revolts.

WHY THE SO-CALLED ARAB SPRING?

The uprising of Arab peoples in 2011 (Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrein and Yemen, later Syria) was not unexpected, at least by many Arab leftist activists, if not by the Western powers.

During the Bandung and Non-Alignment period (1955-1970) Arab countries were in the forefront of the struggles of the peoples, nations and states of the South for a better future and a less unequal global system. Algeria’s FLN and Boumedienne, Nasser’s Egypt, the Baas regimes in Iraq and Syria and the South Yemen Republic shared common characteristics. These were not ‘democratic’ regimes according to the Western criteria (they were ‘one-party’ systems), nor even according to our criteria, which implies positive empowerment of the peoples. But they were nevertheless legitimate in the eyes of their peoples, for their actual achievements: mass education, health and other public services, industrialisation and guarantees for employment and social upward mobility associated with independent initiatives and anti-imperialist postures. Therefore they were continuously fiercely fought by the Western powers, in particular through repeated Israeli aggressions.

These regimes achieved whatever they could in that frame within a short period, say 20 years, and then thereafter ran out of steam as a result of their internal limits and contradictions. This, coinciding with the breakdown of the Soviet power, facilitated the imperialist ‘neo-liberal’ offensive. The ruling circles, in order to remain in office, have chosen to retreat and submit to the demands of neo-liberal globalisation. The result was a fast degradation of the social conditions and all that had been achieved in the era of the national popular state to the benefit of the popular and middle classes was lost in a few years; poverty and mass unemployment have become the normal result of the neo liberal policies pursued. That created the objective conditions for the revolts. It is curious to note that some of the most vocal supporters of the ‘democratic revolutions’ calling the West to their rescue are some of the former leaders who supported with enthusiasm the neo-liberal alignment!

The revolts were therefore not unexpected and many indicators suggested it, such as the Egyptian mass strikes of 2007/8, the growing resistance of small peasants to the accelerated process of their expropriation by the rich peasants, the protest of new middle classes organisations (such as ‘Kefaya’), etc.

I have attempted to give a picture of the components of both ‘the movement’ and of the reactionary ‘anti revolutionary’ bloc (the leadership of the Army and the Moslem Brotherhood) supported by the Western powers operating in Egypt, in particular in my book published in Arabic in may 2011 (Thawra Misr), in French in September (Le monde arabe dans la longue durée, le printemps arabe?) and coming soon at Fahamu Books under the title of ‘The peoples’ Spring, the Future of the Arab revolutions’.

I also refer here to other similar processes in Bahrain, which were savagely crushed by the army of Saudi Arabia (without the least protest of the West!), and in Yemen (where al Qaeda was ‘introduced’ in order to neutralise the ‘menace’ coming from the progressive forces, particularly strong in the South).

This chapter was concluded with the elections in Tunisia and Egypt.

TRIUMPH OF POLITICAL ISLAM IN TUNISIAN AND EGYPTIAN ELECTIONS

The elections in Tunisia (October 2011) opened the way to crystallisation of the right-wing block that includes Al-Nahda-Renaissance Party (Brotherhood) and personalities who ‘claim’ to be now ‘bourguibists’ (followers of Bourguiba, the first Tunisian president), after their following of the Ben Ali regime. This coalition relies on the majority of the council charged with producing the new constitution.

This new regime is likely to achieve some democratic improvements (respect for pluralism and freedom of opinion and stop the worst types of police repression) along with regression in key social issues (women’s rights, secular education, and the state), in the context of ensuring the maintenance of the status quo in the area of economic development.

It is worth keeping in mind that the revolutionary movement in Tunisia has not challenged the dependent pattern of development of the era of Ben Ali, but considered it as ‘sound’ in itself, and accepted the narrative of the World Bank! And it was merely satisfied in directing its criticism at the repressive police state, and the imposition of ‘royalties’ to all economic activities which were grabbed by members of the family of the president. And the general public (with the exception of isolated left-wing) did not comprehend that this style of dependent development is the cause of the deterioration of social conditions, which prepared the conditions for the uprising of the masses. The new ruling coalition will not modify the pattern of development created by the first Tunisian president — Bourguiba— but rather will infuse it with increased doses to solidify the alleged Islamic particularism.

The president of the new regime in Tunisia, Marzouki, happens to be a former Left activist who suffered real repression by Ben Ali, but who seems not to have understood what is actually economic ‘liberalism’. Curiously, this man organised in Tunis in February 2012 a ‘conference’ on Syria, which supported indirectly an eventual Western intervention in this country.

In Egypt, the results were followed by Islamist victory on a larger scale. What can be expected from the achievements of political Islam and its deep-rootedness in the public and the rise of the echo of the slogan ‘Islamisation of society’, hence its electoral victories? The answer requires a return to uncover the reasons for this success.

Anyway the success of the Islamist parties, in Egypt at least, is certainly not the end of the story. The ‘legitimacy’ of the elected parliament, which the Western powers consider as exclusive, is questioned and counterbalanced by the no less legitimacy of the continuation of the struggles for social progress and authentic democratisation of politics and social life.

Yet the obstacles for the radicalisation of the struggles remain great, as long as the major components of the movement have not reached the required level of awareness with respect to the destructive effects of continuing along a liberal political economy, and the alignment on a US guided globalisation. But progress is to be noticed in the growing of that consciousness.


SUCCESS OF POLITICAL ISLAMIC PARTIES

I argued previously that the de-politicisation of the society due to the modus operandi of the Nasserist regime is behind these achievements. Note that Nasserism was not the only system that took this approach. Rather, most populist nationalist regimes of the first wave of awakening in the South had a similar approach in the management of politics. Note also that the actually existing socialist regimes have also taken this approach, at least after the revolutionary phase, that was democratic in nature, when they solidified their rule.

So, the common denominator is the abolition of democratic praxis. And I do not mean here to equalise between democracy and multiparty elections management. Rather, the practice of democracy in the proper sense of the word, i.e. respect for the plurality of political views and political schemes and to respect its organising. Because politicisation assumes democracy and democracy does not exist only if those who differ in opinion with the authority enjoy freedom of expression. But, the obliteration of the right to organise around different political views and projects eliminates the politicisation, which is ultimately caused the subsequent disaster.

This disaster has manifested itself in the return to the bygone archaic views (religious or otherwise), and this was also reflected in the acceptance of the project of the ‘consumer society’ based on solidification of the so-called trend of ‘individualism’, a trend which spread not only among the middle class that is benefiting from such a pattern of development, but also among the poor masses who call for participation in what appear to be a minima welfare — even though with its maximum simplicity — in the absence of credible real alternative. Therefore one must consider this as a legitimate demand from the popular classes.

The de-politicisation in Islamic societies took a prevailing form that was manifested in the apparent or superficial ‘return’ to ‘Islam’. Consequently, the discourse of the mosque along with the discourse of authority became the only allowed ones in Nasser’s period, and more so during the periods of Sadat and Mubarak. This discourse was then used to stop the emergence of an alternative based on the entrenching of a socialist aspiration. Then this ‘religious’ discourse was encouraged by Sadat and Mubarak to accompany and cope with the deteriorating living conditions resulting from the subjugation of Egypt to the requirements of imperialist globalisation. This is why I argued that political Islam did not belong to the opposition block, as claimed by the Muslim Brotherhood, but was an organic part of the power structure.

The success of political Islam requires further clarification regarding the relationship between the success of imperialist globalisation on the one hand and the rise of Brotherhood slogans on the other hand.

The deterioration that accompanied this globalisation produced proliferation in the activities of the informal sector in economic and social life, which represents the most important sources of income for the majority of people in Egypt (statistics say 60 percent). The Brotherhood’s organisations have real ability to work in these circumstances, so that the success of the Brotherhood in these areas in turn has produced more inflation in these activities and thus ensured its reproduction on a larger scale. The political culture offered by the Brotherhood is known for its great simplicity. As this culture is content with only conferring Islamic ‘legitimacy’ to the principle of private property and the ‘free’ market relations, without considering the nature of the activities concerned, which are rudimentary (‘Bazaar’) activities that are unable to push forward the national economy and lead to its development.

Furthermore, the provision of funds widely by the Gulf states has allowed for the boom of such activities as these states have been pumping in the required funds in the form of small loans or grants. This is in addition to charity work (clinics, etc.) that has accompanied this inflated sector, thanks to the support of Gulf states. The Gulf states do not intend to contribute to the development of productive capacity in Egyptian economy (building factories…etc.), but only the development of this form of ‘lumpen development’, since reviving Egypt as a developing state would end the domination of the Gulf states ( that are based on the acceptance of the slogan of Islamization of the society), the dominance of the United States (which assumes Egypt as a comprador state infected with worsening poverty), and the domination of Israel (which assumes the impotence of Egypt in the face of Zionist expansion).

This axis between an authority that hides behind the ‘Islamic’ slogans and at the same time succumbs to the prevailing imperialist capitalism and the consequent impoverishment of the people is not specific only to Egypt. It is a common feature of most Arabic and Islamic societies. This axis is at work in Iran, where Khumainism insured the dominance of the ‘Bazaar economy’ from the beginning. It is also the cause for catastrophe in Somalia, which is a state that was removed from the list of states of the modern contemporary world.

What then can we expect from the likelihood of political Islam’s rule in Egypt (and in other countries)?

There is a prevailing media discourse, that is extremely naïve, that contends that ‘the victory of political Islam became inevitable because Islamic self-identity dominates the reality of our societies, and it is a reality that some had rejected, and thus this reality imposed itself on them.’

However, this argument completely ignores another reality, namely, that the de-politicisation process was deliberate, and without which no political Islam would have been able to impose itself on these societies. Furthermore, this discourse argues that ‘there is no risk from this political Islam’s victory because it is temporary, for the authority emerging from it is doomed to fail and thus the public opinion will depart from it’. This is as if the brotherhoods are those who accept implementation of the principles of democracy if it worked against their interests!

However, the regime in Washington adopts, apparently, this discourse, as well as the public opinion there, which is manufactured by the media. And there is an ensemble of Egyptian and Arab intellectuals who also became convinced by this discourse, apparently, perhaps opportunistically, or because of lack of clarity in thought.

But this is a mistake. Let it be known that political Islam, in the supposition of taking over the governments/rule, will continue to impose itself if not ‘forever’, at least for a long time (50 years? And let us look at the case of Iran for example). During this phase of ‘transition’ other nations will continue their march of development, and so we will find ourselves eventually in the bottom of the list. So I don't see the Brotherhood as an ‘Islamic party’ primarily, but it is first a reactionary party, and if it managed to take the government, this will represent the best security for the imperialist system.

A WORD ABOUT THE SALAFISM (SALAFIYYA)

Salafism came to complement an obscurantist advocacy by Rashid Reda and the Brotherhood. It openly rejects the idea of ‘liberty’ (and therefore democracy) as it contradicts, in their view, the nature of the human being, as he/she is created as a slave (note the word) to serve his creator-master, like a slave required to serve his/her master. Of course, this doctrine does not explain how we come to know the concrete demands of this master-creator in the modern world. Does he accept or reject the increase in wages for example? This opens the way for a ‘religious Iranian-style rule (wilayat al-faqih),’ and through the dictatorship of the clerics who declared themselves ‘scientists/ulemah,’ who monopolize this knowledge!


The Salafis are the enemies of modernity, as modernity is grounded on the right to human creativity in dealing with earthly matters and questions concerning human society. And creativity requires freedom and free critical thought, which is rejected by the Salafis. What then about Salafi leaders who say that they ‘belong to the modern world’ because they teach their students how to use the computer and ‘business management’ (this by resorting to the mediocre kind of American pamphlets distributed by USAID)? These statements are not only a real farce, but the real master here is the prevailing capitalist imperialism that is in need for ‘servants’ who practice this ‘art’ and not more. The famous British Mr. Dunlop, ‘the expert’ on education during the days of British occupation of Egypt, had realised that perfectly and made it a blueprint that was implemented in schools!

Modernity begins when overcoming these limitations and accepting the principle of freedom, which is conditional for developing the capacity of the nation to be able to belong to the modern world in the actual and active sense.

Moslem Brotherhood and Salafis operate in conjunction, with a division of tasks. The Moslem Brotherhood needed a ‘certificate’ of democracy, which Obama gave them, and to that effect had to ‘separate’ from the ‘extremists’, the Salafis.

ARE THERE CONDITIONS THAT ALLOW FOR A DEMOCRATIC REFORM IN ALGERIA?

Egypt and Algeria are the two Arab countries which have occupied a prominent and leading position during the first wave of ‘awakening of the South’ in the era of Bandung and Non-Aligned Movement. They achieved a successful progress in their building of a state/nation entity that deserves to be considered ‘post-colonial’, accompanied by noticeable progressive economic and social achievements, despite its limitations, which planted hopes for its continuation on the road to liberation. But that process was halted in the two countries, and both moved back to the status of countries and societies ruled by the dominant imperialism.

The Algerian pattern seems to have enjoyed superior consistency to that of Egypt, which was reflected in its ability to limit the subsequent erosion, so that the Algerian ruling class is still divided between a patriotic wing and a comprador one. In some cases, these two contradictory characters are shared in the same one person that belongs to the ruling class. This is unlike the situation in Egypt where the ruling class, during Sadat and Mubarak rule, completely abandoned any nationalist inclination altogether.

There are two reasons that explain this difference.

The war of liberation in Algeria bred naturally a radical trend ideologically and socially. Unlike Egypt, where on one hand Nasserism came after the liberation wave of the revolution starting as of 1919, which went through periods of expansion and retreat, before the seeds of its radicalisation were rooted after World War II. Then came the coup 1952 in an ambiguous character that stopped the development of the radicalisation of the liberation movement. This was followed by the Nasserist coup of 1954, which amended this rightwing trend, but that amendment adopted an elitist approach that excluded the popular classes from actively being involved in contributing to it.

On the other hand, we must take into account the devastating effects that independent Algeria inherited from the pattern of French settler colonialism, where the Algerian ‘traditional’ society had disintegrated so that the new society of independent Algeria has become endowed with a pervasive plebeian nature. Thus the demand ‘for equality’ became a distinguishing feature of the behavior and aptitudes of citizens, a degree unparalleled in all other Arabic countries. This is also in contrast to the history of Egypt as the ruling classes, since the time of Muhammad Ali Pasha, had stirred the evolution of society and the Egyptian project of revival. And the Egyptian project remained under aristocratic leadership calling for modernisation, so that it gradually became a project of an ‘aristocratic bourgeois.’

And these two differences have created different conditions in the challenge posed by the rise of political Islam. As Hocine Bellaloufi explained, in his book (Democracy in Algeria: Reform or Revolution, under print) that political Islam in Algeria revealed early on its ugly face, and then came to failure and defeat. But this did not signify that political Islam has become something of the past and unable to recover. Yet there is a huge difference between Algeria and Egypt from this angle so that political Islam in Egypt still enjoys ‘legitimacy’ among the general public. And the alliance between the comprador bourgeois and political Islam remains representative of the main axis that will ensure long-term rule of the dependent capitalist economic pattern in Egypt.

From this, we can imagine different developments in the face of contemporary challenges in both countries, at least in the short term, because we should not rule out the possibility of controlled reforms in Algeria. At least that this possibility has a portion of realism, unlike the situation in Egypt where it is inconceivable to imagine a development that avoids violent collision between the popular movement and the cluster of reactionary ‘Islamic/comprador’ alliance.

Furthermore, while Egypt and Algeria are the two Arab countries which can be conceived as candidates in the accession to the group of ‘emerging’ states, they also can come to represent a sad model for failure to climb to that level. Although the responsibility of the ruling classes in this failure is crucial, it is not correct to ignore the responsibility of rest of the society and its intellectuals and activists in the political movements.

With regard to the Arab states in the Maghreb generally, it is claimed that the Kingdom of Morocco is another positive example of change based on the achievement of gradual democratic reforms by peaceful means. Let the reader allow me to make my reservations on the likelihood of achieving such goal, as such evolution is conditioned by a Royal Decree that excludes from the start any questioning about the dependent capitalist pattern that frames it.

Furthermore, as long as the Moroccan people remain content with the principle of the rule of religious-monarchial regime (as the king is ‘Amir Al-mu'minin’), these restricted and limited reforms won't open the way for the real democracy required.

Perhaps this is the reason for the impossibility of Moroccans to understand the significance of the problem of Western Sahara, as the free people of Western Sahara are proud of another interpretation of Islam that does not allow them to kneel except before God, and not before any human being, even a king.

THE SYRIAN DISASTER

The Syrian Baathist regime belonged in the past to the cluster of national popular experiences (though not democratic) in the style of Nasserism and other experiences in the era of Bandung. And when the limits of possible real achievements in this framework became apparent, Hafez el Assad turned to a project that sought to combine the preservation of nationalist patriotism that is oppositional to colonialism on the one hand, and on the other hand, to benefit from the right-conservative concessions reflected in the ‘openness’ (liberalisation) similar to the route taken by Nasser following the defeat of 1967.

The subsequent history of this project became apparent. In Egypt, it led immediately after the death of Nasser in 1970 to surrender without reservation to the demands of the reactionary axis consisting of the United States, the Gulf and Israel.

In Syria, this ‘opening’ led to the same results as it happened in other countries. That is, to serious rapid deterioration of social conditions for poorer classes and which eroded the legitimacy of the regime.

In the current developments, the Syrian regime has faced protests with repression and nothing else. The Brotherhood took advantage of the opportunity to appear as the ‘opposition’. Thus a coherent plan crystallised under the leadership of imperialism and its allies that sought not to ‘rid the Syrian people of a dictator,’ but to destroy the Syrian state, modeled on the United States work in Iraq and Libya.

Here also where the profound relationship of the tripartite interests is apparent as the goal 1) for the U.S. is the breaking of the Iran/Syria/Hezbollah alliance, which is an obstacle to U.S. entrenching of its control over the region, 2) for Israel to have Syria fragmented into sectarian mini-states, and 3) for the Gulf Arab states, it is the entrenching of a ‘Sunni’ dictatorship in the Wahabbi style, although this dictatorship will be established on the massacres and criminal elimination of Alawis, Druze and Christians. In the face of danger of this possible fate, the Assad regime remains unable to respond with the only needed and effective method, which is supposed to exclude the use of violence and to engage in genuine reforms, as the only acceptable solution assumes the opening of the way to genuine negotiations, which is conditional for the strengthening of a democratic front whose components are present in the ground, despite the effort to mute its voice. Simply opposing State terrorism to the so called “ Islamic/Salafi” terrorism leads nowhere.

SOME CONCLUSIONS

1.The strategy of contemporary imperialism for the region (the ‘great Middle East’) does not aim at all at establishing some form of ‘democracy’. It aims at destroying the countries and societies through the support of so-called Islamic regimes which guarantee the continuation of a ‘lumpen development’ (to use the words of my late friend A G Frank), i.e. a process of continuous pauperisation. Eventual ‘high rates of growth’, praised by the World Bank, are meaningless, being based on the plunder of natural resources, associated with fast growing inequality in the distribution of income and pauperisation for the majorities.

Iraq provides the ‘model’ for the region. The dictatorship of Saddam Hussein has been replaced by three no less (even more) terror regimes, in the name of ‘religion’ (Sunna and Shia) and of ethnicity (the Kurds), associated with the systematic destruction of the infrastructures and industries, and the planned assassination of tens of thousands of the elite citizens, in particular engineers and scientists, as well as the destruction of the education system (which was not bad in the time of Saddam) to reduce it to the teaching of religion and business!

Those are also the targets for Syria.

Isn’t it a curiosity that we see now the Emir of Qatar and the King of Saudi Arabia among the most vocal advocates of ‘democracy’. A farce.

2. Turkey plays an active role, along with the US (never forget that Turkey is a Nato member) in the implementation of that plan. It has established in the Hatay province camps for the recruitment and training of killers (so called ‘Moslems’) who are infiltrated in Syria. Refer here to the book of Bahar Kimyongur ( Syriana, la conquète continue, Couleur Livre, Charleroi, 2011).

3. The US was ‘surprised’ by the Tunisian and Egyptian popular revolts. They now plan to ‘preempt’ possible similar movements by initiating armed revolts of small groups supported by them. This strategy was tested with success in Libya (now a disintegrated country), and now in Syria. The reader can refer here to my papers on Libya (Lybia could break up like Somalia, Pambazuka, 07/09/2011) and Somalia (Is there a solution to the problems of Somalia?, Pambazuka, 17/02/2011 ).

The following target is Iran, under the pretext of its nuclear development, using to that effect Israel, which is unable to do the job without the active implication of the US forces. Iran, whatever one may think of its regime (in fact associating ‘Islam’s rule’ and market economy!) does constitute an obstacle to the deployment of the US military control over the region. This country must therefore be destroyed.

4. The final real target of contemporary imperialism is ‘containment and then after rolling back’ by preemptive war the most dangerous emerging countries (China first). Add here Russia, which, if it succeeds in modernising its army, can put an end to the exclusive military power of the US.

That implies the total subordination of all other countries of the South with a view to ensuring exclusive access to the natural resources of the whole planet to the benefit of the societies of the triad (US, Europe and Japan), their plunder and waste. It implies therefore more of lumpen development, more of pauperisation and more of terrorist regimes. Contemporary capitalism has nothing else to offer.
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* Samir Amin is director of the Third World Forum. A selection of his books is available from Pambazuka Press.
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Egypt: Year of the SCAF

A timeline of mounting repression

Wael Eskandar

2012-03-15

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/80778

cc G IA year has passed since the military assumed power after President Hosni Mubarak was ousted. But is Egypt any closer to the freedom and justice it sought when its people rose up against the Mubarak regime?

The ruling Supreme Council of Armed Forces (SCAF) has implicitly acknowledged some injustices committed since it took the reins of power. The military council for instance issued an apology to Egyptian women after a furore surrounded the part-stripping and beating of a female protester by military soldiers. Prime Minister Kamal El Ganzouri also acknowledged that the victims of the Maspero massacre in October and the confrontations in Mohamed Mahmoud Street in November were indeed martyrs of the revolution.

The head of the military judiciary announced on 13 October that the armed forces alone would investigate what is known as the Maspero Massacre — the clashes that took place 9 October, leaving 28 people dead and at least 325 injured, when Coptic Christians marched from Shubra to the State TV building at Maspero to protest the burning of a church in Aswan. The announcement came despite warnings by human rights groups that the killing by the military of Coptic protesters should not be covered up and must be subject to independent and open investigations.

In spite of these acknowledgements and decisions, no army or police personnel have as yet been held accountable for their actions. This may be due to a fear that if some are convicted, others may not follow orders in the future.

Since the military assumed power the investigations conducted under its reign have fallen short of standards of open and transparent scrutiny.

Most of the military’s claims with regard to the major events that have occurred contradict video evidence and eyewitness testimonies. According to human rights lawyer Gamal Eid, director of the Arab Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI), “military investigations are unacceptable. They are not independent and it is very clear they are biased.”

There are over 15 major incidents that still need to be properly investigated Many other charges of misconduct and abuses filed before and after military rule have also not been dealt with.

POST PORT SAID FOOTBALL CLASHES

Mass protests in response to the Port Said football clashes took place in the vicinity of the Ministry of Interior on Mohamed Mahmoud Street and in the city of Suez. At least 15 people were killed as police responded by heavy use of tear gas and birdshot. Even after walls were erected around the ministry, police attacked protesters chasing them into Bab El Louk. The Minister of Interior, Mohamed Ibrahim, claimed much like his predecessor Mansour El Essawy that no shots were fired.

THE PORT SAID FOOTBALL MASSACRE

At least 74 people have died in football clashes on 2 February in the city of Port Said following a match between Ahly and Al Masry football teams. Witnesses hold the police responsible for having failed to secure the match. There are accusations of gross negligence and some activists have accused the ruling military council of instigating these clashes. Parliament is currently overseeing investigations.

THE CABINET ATTACKS

A military crackdown on a sit-in outside the cabinet buildings resulted in 19 killed and 750 injured. Around one hundred of 250 arrested remain in custody; of the released 70 were minors. The events started on 16 December and continued throughout 17, 18 and 19 December making it the longest period of direct military-led violence against protestors since the revolution started.

The period also produced the most scathing body of video evidence incriminating the military, filmed mostly by citizen journalists.

The most notable exampleof this violence caught on camera was of the female protester in Tahrir who was part-stripped, beaten and dragged by military forces. In their press conference the SCAF spokesperson said that the incident was under investigation.

THE BATTLE OF MOHAMED MAHMOUD

The Mohamed Mahmoud Street clashes which took place between 19 and 25 November left 41 dead and over one thousand injured, according to the Egyptian Ministry of Health. Despite the presence of incriminating video evidence, the minister of interior denied that forces had fired any ammunition of any kind at protesters. One video shows a truce broken unilaterally by Central Security Forces (CSF). Bothdoctors and journalists were targeted in the events of Mohamed Mahmoud.

The onslaught of attacks on protesters by the police was not preempted despite evidence of targeting protesters in the eye and public pressure. There have been no serious investigations into the actions of the army or the police.

ESSAM ATTA

On 27 October 2011, 24-year-old Essam Atta was reportedly tortured to death by prison guards. Despite Atta’s family testifying that a prison officer called Nour was involved in Atta’s torture, the police have not investigated these allegations and concluded that Atta died as a result of ingesting drugs. The Ministry of Interior statement and the forensic report are reminiscent of the official story on Khaled Said, who was murdered in plain view and whose autopsy report had been falsified. The case is currently being examined by the general prosecutor.

THE MASPERO MASSACRE

The Maspero Massacre took place on 9 October 2011 when Coptic Christians took to the streets joined by Egyptian Muslims to protest the destruction and burning of a church in Aswan. Tracing the march provides a body of evidence in terms of videos and eyewitness testimonies that implicate the military in the killings of protestors.

Despite these implications, (SCAF) insisted on conducting investigations alone and ended by exonerating the army. Instead of a full-fledged investigation, revolutionary activists have been summoned to appear before the military prosecution. Activist Alaa Abdel Fattah was detained by military prosecution on serious charges yet no evidence has been presented to the public. General Mohamed El-Assar claimed that army personnel were unarmed and yet one of the charges against Abdel Fattah is theft of a weapon belonging to military forces. In addition, according to Bahaa Saber, another activist who was summoned but released after questioning, the army has Mina Daniel’s name on the list of those accused. Mina Daniel was one of the activists killed on 9 October. His autopsy reports the cause of death as: “projectile entered into the upper chest, exiting the lower back”.

So far there has been no announcement of the names of officers or soldiers investigated or reprimanded, despite clear video evidence and autopsy reports indicating that 12 protesters were run over by Armoured Personnel Carriers. The incitement of violence by the media has not been investigated and no investigation of Minister of Information Osama Heikal has been announced despite charges being filed against him.

THE CHURCH IN EL-MARINAB, ASWAN

The destruction and burning of Mar Girgis Church in the village of El-Marinab, Edfu, in Aswan on 30 September triggered a wave of angry protests. Despite recommendations to remove the governor of Aswan and take corrective action, nothing was done. This deliberate inaction led to the protests that ended in the Maspero Massacre.

TORTURE OF TWO MEN BY ARMY AND POLICE

In the latter half of September 2011, a video of policemen and army personnel torturing two detainees was circulated over the Internet. The military promised a swift investigation, and swift it was. The findings were that the video was fake, and the army officers were released.

THE BATTLE OF ABBASIYA

On 23 July, thousands of protesters tried to march from Tahrir Square to the Ministry of Defense to decry the unmet demands of the 8 July sit-in. Attacks on the protesters resulted in the death of activist Mohamed Mohsen.

On 30 July, state owned Akhbar Al-Yom published the findings of the National Council for Human Rights’ investigation into the incident, according to which the battle of Abbasiya was planned thuggery while video evidence has been presented to the prosecutor general documenting the attacks.

General Hassan El-Reweiny was accused of incitement when he went on air with Dina Abdel Rahman on the Dream TV satellite channel before the march and claimed that protesters would be armed with Molotov cocktails. Charges have been filed against him with the general prosecutor. The case was transferred to the military prosecution office and no action taken.

ASSAULT ON MARTYRS’ FAMILIES

On 28 June 2011, clashes broke out between protesters and the police after families of martyrs killed in the January 25 Revolution were attacked near the Balloon Theatre in Agouza. The fact finding committee suggested that the clashes were premeditated, yet no action was taken to bring about justice.

Mohamed Gad, known as “Sambo”, was sentenced to five years imprisonment despite activists insisting he did not intend to take possession of a firearm he was photographed holding and actually returned it to the Omar Makram Mosque in Tahrir Square on 29 June. Despite the use of excessive force by the police, officers have not been investigated.

NAKBA DAY PROTESTS

Nakba Day on 15 May witnessed protests outside the Israeli embassy in Cairo in solidarity with Palestinians. Demonstrators were dispersed using live ammunition, tear gas and rubber bullets leaving 350 people injured. Over 150 arrests were made. It is unclear until today why the army used excessive force.

RAMY FAKHRY

Despite promises to investigate the death of Ramy Fakhry, we have yet to hear the results of the investigation. Ramy Fakhry was a 27-year-old electrical engineer who was allegedly killed by the army on his way to work on 13 May 2011. “An investigation could reveal who was present at the time of the shooting,” Eid told Ahram Online, but so far no results have been announced.

THE IMBABA CHURCH ATTACKS

7 May 2011 marked another case of sectarian violence when a church in Imbaba was attacked and set ablaze. Twelve people died in the ensuing clashes and 186 were injured.

Despite the arrest of over 190 people, results of the investigation have not been announced to the public. A large number of those arrested were released and the investigation did not include charges of hate speech. The incompetence of the military prosecution in bringing to light any investigation results casts doubt on the validity of charges against those in custody.

8 APRIL OFFICERS

On 8 April a group of army officers joined Tahrir square protesters in solidarity with the revolution’s goals. In the early hours of 9 April the military dispersed the protesters violently. Witnesses say live ammunition was used, in addition to tasers, batons and teargas. Egyptian human rights organisations called for an immediate investigation into the excessive violence and shootings. According to Gamal Eid, an investigation was promised but no results have been announced, nor is there reason to believe an investigation did take place.

ZAMALEK VS AFRICAIN MATCH

On 2 April 2011 thousands of angry Zamalek fans stormed the pitch in a match between Egypt’s Zamalek club and Tunisia’s Africain club. The military council vowed to investigate the events of the match. We have yet to hear the results of these investigations.

TORTURE AND VIRGINITY TESTS

On 9 March, the sit-in at Tahrir Square was dispersed violently with reports of mass arrests and torture in the vicinity of the Egyptian Museum. Virginity tests were also carried out on female detainees as reported and documented by the El-Nadeem Centre for the Rehabilitation of the Victims of Violence and Torture, Amnesty International, The Washington Post and CNN. The army initially denied that the tests had been carried out, and then promised to launch an investigation. Numerous calls to bring those responsible to justice have been ignored despite numerous eyewitness accounts and evidence.

THE CHURCH OF ATFEEH

In early March, the church in Sol, Atfeeh, in the governorate of Helwan was set ablaze and demolished as a result of sectarian tensions. There have been calls for an investigation into the events so that the perpetrators are held accountable. However, in an interview with Amr Adeeb, SCAF General Hassan El-Reweiny alluded to how preposterous it was to ask for the investigation results after the church has been rebuilt. No one has been held to account for the attack to date.

CORRUPTION, ABUSES AND MISCELLANEOUS OTHERS

No justice has been realised in cases like the killing of protesters, the Battle of the Camel, the bombing of the church in Alexandria and many others. Nobody has been held accountable to numerous incidents as SCAF chooses to turn a blind eye to these crimes.

Civilians caught in the military trials system are tried and convicted in days and sometimes hours with little to guarantee a fair trial while perpetrators of the crimes listed here have yet to be brought to justice. Many charges remain uninvestigated even after being submitted to the prosecutor general.

“Military prosecution only targets activists and the poor, as if it is a trap for revolutionaries and activists,” Eid told Ahram Online. “All investigations and trials under the army serve political ends.”

[Jadaliyya Egypt Editors’ note: This post was originally published on 17 December 2011, under the title "SCAF: A History of Injustice". It has since been updated and retitled. The original and updated versions of this post were originally published on Ahram Online.]

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Thinking Fanon, 50 years later

Fanonian translations in and beyond ‘Fanon Studies’

Nigel C. Gibson

2012-03-14

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/80744

cc C NTranslations are not neutral; they are products of history and are highly charged politically. Yet despite this, Fanon’s thought in his translated works has remained clear, inspiring people from Steve Biko to Abahlali baseMjondolo.

In the Cheikh Djemal’s film ‘Frantz Fanon: His Life, His Struggle, His Work,’ Rehda Malek, one of the co-editors of El Moudjahid at the time, recalls how he was ‘impressed by Fanon’s intellectual vivacity and the speed in which he could write papers,’ adding that ‘he could write an article almost without crossing out a word in a direct and spontaneous way.’

In a sense the same can be said of his writing of L’an 5 de la révolution algérienne and Les damnés de la terre which were ‘written’ orally, so to speak, with Fanon speaking and his assistants writing down or typing his ideas. Though we know that Fanon gave much thought to each work, they were of the time and written very much for the time, and in the latter case very much against the time. Fifty years later, we consider these works as part of the oeuvre of a brilliant man, to be pored over and taken apart, every phrase scrutinised. And yet, when it was published, Les damnés was roundly criticised by the French liberal and left intelligentsia. Communists and liberals agreed: Fanon’s analysis was flawed; his insights were simply insights not theory; he made wild generalisations; he didn’t understand Algeria, or Islam, or the peasantry, and so on.

It was in the United States of America, that land of lynchers as Fanon puts it, where his books became famous. The Americas were Fanon’s first resting place. Born in the Caribbean, he died in a Bethesda Hospital and was reborn in the 1960s revolts. And yet in his soon to be republished ‘Fanon: A Life’, David Macey’s richly detailed and valuable biography of Fanon, Macey is dismissive of Fanon’s knowledge of America which he says is not particularly empirical since it is ‘derived primarily from literary sources … based on novels’ (193). Is Fanon’s understanding of the US problematic? Certainly Richard Wright’s ‘Native Son’ tells more about the ‘Negro’ in the United States of 1940 then any empirical work.

But Macey insists that it is not only the fact that Fanon understands America through novels but also that his understanding of the novels themselves is suspect. Of Fanon’s reading of Chester Himes’ ‘If He Hollers Let Him Go’ Macey argues that his own ‘analytic schema, and perhaps at some level his own desires, almost forces him to misread the [book]’ (194).

Macey’s criticism is not, however, confined to Fanon’s understanding of the US. Macey contends that in ‘Black Skin’ Fanon ‘confuses’ Jean Veneuses’ story with Germaine Geux’s notion of abandonment, and more damningly he insists that Fanon really didn’t understand Freud and ‘misrecognizes’ psychoanalysis (192, 194). [2]

These are not new criticisms. The British Communist Party critic Jack Woodis said the same thing in the early 1970s arguing that Fanon was given to ‘exaggeration’, ‘unscientific judgments’, ‘over-simplification’ and often ‘carried away by his own eloquence’ (1972: 25, 27, 28, 34). [3]

What is at stake in Macey’s criticisms? A sense of ‘objectivity’? A criticism of sloppy research directed at Fanon and also postcolonial Fanon studies?

But then also in the conclusion, one is taken aback when Macey proclaims that Fanon had ‘certainly had a talent for hate’ (505). Certainly? On what basis? That almost certainly is without empirical knowledge.

And yet these kinds of schoolmaster’s comments also appear in a footnote to the new translation of ‘Black Skin White Masks’. One wonders why Richard Philcox chooses to correct Fanon in a note on page 131 that Joel Chandler Harris, the author of the Uncle Remus stories, was from Georgia not Louisiana. Certainly Fanon could have been misinformed even if Harris did work in New Orleans.

But what is more important is the internal audience. Philcox adds: ‘It is interesting for Fanon scholars to know that Fanon was not very rigorous in his scholarship.’ The concern with scholarship has little to do with Fanon but represents tensions and pretensions within postcolonial studies as an academic field. This is not to say that Fanon was not concerned with correct data. Indeed, his articles on sociotherapy at Blida hospital and on day-hospitalisation in Tunis reflect his concern with empirical veracity.

The tension is best understood instead as a stress between text and context, that is to say between Homi Bhabha and David Macey, but it is one where everyone agrees first in principle that Fanon’s political writings have little contemporary relevance. [4] This governing attitude to Fanon is evident in Bhabha’s 2004 foreword to Philcox’s translation of ‘The Wretched’ titled ‘Framing Fanon’ which quite literally frames Fanon by throwing Fanon’s decolonial revolutionary humanism into the garbage, reducing his contribution to violence, and thus ends up with nothing to put in its place but a kind of wishful ethics against the IMF and World Bank.

Translations are not neutral; they are both products of history and are also highly charged politically. Translations therefore take on lives of their own. Tellingly, Macey and Philcox also tell us when they first read Fanon. Macey bought copies of his work in 1970 in France, quickly adding that after reading ‘Althusser, Lacan and Foucault[,] Fanon began to look naive.’ Like other Marxists of the British new left, Macey was drawn to French structuralism, and Fanon’s work seemed decidedly dated and passé.

Macey’s description of Fanon as naïve is reminiscent of Bhabha calling Fanon’s humanism ‘banal and beatific’ in his now seminal piece ‘Remembering Fanon.’ Attracted to Lacan through structuralism, both Bhabha and Macey are, in a sense, products of the same intellectual trajectory. So Macey’s ‘return’ to Fanon could only be refracted through a postcolonial academic discourse that is in fact indebted to and read through French theory – Althusser, Lacan and Foucault. In other words, Macey’s biography is intimate with Bhabha’s ‘Remembering Fanon’ even if he is at pains to disagree with its consequences; the unquestioned assumption, as I mentioned earlier, is that the historical Fanon has almost no resonance with British postimperial realities.

In ‘On Retranslating Fanon, retrieving a lost voice’, the afterword to ‘The Wretched’, Philcox more self-consciously writes about his reading Fanon and tellingly quotes Macey, ‘“it was his anger that was so attractive.’ After all,” continues Philcox, “we Brits have a long history of angry men.”

I wouldn’t necessarily include myself among ‘we Brits’, but I was introduced to Fanon through a pamphlet by John Alan and Lou Turner, ‘Frantz Fanon, Soweto and American Black Thought’. Fanon was immediately connected to a ‘Black world’ and most concretely to Biko and Black consciousness in South Africa. Sure, I was angry in 1981; you could say that about many Black and White youth in Britain’s Thatcherite ‘inner cities’ facing the racist violence of the British nationalists and criminalisation by the British police.

But it wasn’t anger that drew me to Fanon. What interested me in how Steve Biko used Fanon’s theory was the way in which theory could become concrete in different situations. I was interested in how and why revolutions had gone wrong and in the context of the Irish question (the hunger strike was just about to begin) I was drawn to thinking about the relationship between national liberation and internationalism. Early in 1981, before the Brixton ‘riot’ and the 1981 inner city rebellions in England, I got hold of a copy of ‘The Wretched of the Earth’ in New York for a dollar from the Barnes and Noble annex on 16th street. [5]

It was the 1968 mass market Black Cat edition, the one with a black image of people in motion set against an orange background. Black Cat: I thought it had something to do with the Black Panthers (which I later found out from Charles Denby was named after the Black Panther of the Lowndes County Freedom Democratic Party in Alabama). For me it was always the Black Panther edition. 1968. The year of revolutions. In France, Czechoslovakia, Mexico and in the United States [6]… It was Fanon who had been right there.

‘And then there is the way he has been treated,’ writes Philcox, ‘pulled in all directions by postcolonial scholars, made to fit their ideas and interpretations — and a great sense of injustice comes to mind every time Fanon is mentioned’ (2004, 244). For Philcox, his translation of ‘The Wretched’ is an attempt to give back Fanon’s voice, his ‘tone, intensities, rhythms, and pauses’ (2004 245). And though this is not the place to delve into the translations (and I have spoken about the translations by the African-American poet, Constance Farrington and by Richard Philcox elsewhere [7]) I do want to make one point about ‘Black Skin White Masks’.

Published first by Grove in 1967, it is forgotten that it was an American translation for a popular market. One example: while ‘Y a Bon Banania’ refers to a popular breakfast cereal in France (with ‘the obvious connection between blacks and apes through the mediating symbol of banana flour [See Gordon 2005 17], it meant nothing to most people in the US. Markmann’s translation ‘Sho good eatin’ certainly made sense and conveyed a similar meaning to what Fanon was saying (see Turner 2011).

The thing about translations is not only that they take on a life of their own but they also reflect different contexts. Homi Bhabha’s ‘Remembering Fanon’, which became the introduction to the 1986 Pluto Press British edition (Markmann translation) of ‘Black Skin’ has become a canonical re-reading of Fanon for postcolonial studies. It doesn’t refer to the French text at all, but is explicitly connected to a dig at English leftism: ‘In the popular memory of English socialism’, Bhabha begins, ‘the memory of Frantz Fanon stirs a dim deceiving echo … a polite English refusal.’

If in France in the 1970s Fanon was found only in obscure second-hand bookshops, in the United States his works were being newly minted in mass market editions and becoming essential to discussions and intellectual debates foundational to the evolving Black and antiwar movements (and embryonic Black studies programs). And yet along with the US translations, we should also remember the groundedness of ‘Black Skin’ in the American drama. If, for example, the ‘lived experience’ or ‘fact of blackness’ [8] expressed by America’s ‘native son’ at the end of chapter five drives Fanon to weep, the reference to ‘twelve million black voices’ (a title of Wright’s later book) reflects the American drama ‘cast in a different play’, he says: a play in utter contrast to the French tragedy; a play of struggle and war, the defeats, truces, and victories (1967a 221) with which Fanon identifies. [9]

Still involved in the French drama, a whole different play would begin with the Algerian revolution. If the real context for sociotherapy at Blida-Joinville Psychiatric hospital was a dynamic and living society, he logically could not carry on the work in a society that had become the asylum, with the medical profession intimately connected to the production of pathologies which rationally pursue the torture ‘inherent in the whole colonialist configuration’ (1967b 64). Thus, in one of his first articles for ‘El Moudjahid’ (October 1957), Fanon questioned the humanist commitment of the European left and liberals to a society which, using medical terminology, is a ‘gangrene germ and the source of an epidemic’ and whose essence is torture, violation and the inauguration of an ‘unconditional reign of justice’ (1967b 64-66). In other words, there was no middle ground, no space for an intellectual’s autonomy. Such a society had to be opposed.

Fanon’s own break with the ‘French drama’ is a product of the objective situation. 1 November 1954 dates the beginning of the Algerian liberation struggle. He often refers to the date as a historical dividing line — a before to which there is no going back. The struggle requires an absolute commitment, as he puts it in his 1956 speech to the first congress of Black writers. And just as he demands, in ‘The Wretched’, that intellectuals practically aid the revolution through commandeering resources snatched from colonial education, he works concretely, counseling those scarred by torture, harbouring guerillas on the run and training fighters in how to take care of the wounded (see 1967c), and directly aiding the armed struggle by teaching the bombers how to remain calm. As De Beauvouir recounts: ‘he taught them to control their reactions when they were setting a bomb … and also what psychological and physical attitudes would enable them to resist torture best’ (315).

Fanon had been recruited into the FLN by Ramdane Abane, the Kabylian leader who became Fanon’s mentor. Abane was a key figure behind the battle of Algiers and the conference at Soummam in 1956 held to create a coherent political program for the FLN, which was essentially a united front of different tendencies. Soummam declared that the military wing be brought under collective political control and put forward a vision of a future Algeria that remained Fanon’s. [10] They both believed in the ‘revolutionary dismantling of the colonial state’ (Cherki 105). Explicitly critical of theodicy, the principle adopted as the Soummam platform was for a future democratic Algeria with the ‘primacy of citizenship over identities (Arab, Amazigh, Muslim, [Jewish] Christian, European, etc.)’ (Abane 39). Soummam, in other words, represented a political position and vision, which Fanon acknowledged in ‘Year 5 of the Algerian Revolution’, arguing that ‘in the new society that is being built there are only Algerians. From the outset, therefore, every individual living in Algeria is an Algerian … We want an Algeria open to all, in which every kind of genius can grow’ (1967c 152, 32). By 1958 Abane was dead, liquidated by the FLN.

Fanon refused to be publicly critical of the FLN even after the murder of Abane. This he later regretted, recounts De Beauvoir, but at the same time he needed to work out his thoughts through writing (Cherki 106). Despising some FLN leaders and militarists who reduced the struggle for independence to a simple equation of power, ‘Year 5’ was interesting in that it says almost nothing about the FLN or about political organisation but concentrates instead on the radical changes that had taken place in Algerian society since November 1954. He first titled the book ‘the reality of the nation,’ [11] but even so felt that that did not reflect the specificity and fluidity of the revolutionary moment.

But Fanon balked when Maspero later changed the name to the ‘sociology of revolution’ saying, as publishers do (when they get overly concerned about marketing), that it was no longer the fifth year of the Algerian revolution. Fanon recoiled because ‘sociology’ was too intimately connected to an imperial project (1967c 37). The problem with sociology, including an ethno-sociology, is not that it doesn’t contain an element of truth but that it has a false premise taking a situation arising out of colonialism as a dehistoricised cultural fact. Fanon insists that colonialism throws all elements of society into confusion, distorting and subverting all cultural relations. The first thing the colonised learn is to remain in place, argues Fanon.

Similarly, the anticolonial revolt can throw everything into confusion in a new way, fundamentally upsetting colonised society and ‘upsetting its limits’ (2004 15). Under the most severe conditions — bombardments and raids on civilians — new attitudes and new relations emerge in what Fanon calls the ‘drama of the people’ (1967c 142), and the militant intellectual’s role is to aid this unfolding and avoid ‘erecting a framework … which follows an a priori schedule’ (2004/1968 113). In other words, though organisation is absolutely essential to help bring together scattered and local rebellions against colonial society, the organisation can itself become a pathology which suffocates thinking. Fanon warns against the brutality of revolutions, not only the brutal violence and counter-violence that worries him in ‘Year 5’ (see his introduction) but also the ‘sclerosis’ that knee-jerk anti-imperialism brings.

In ‘The Wretched’ he is explicitly critical of what he calls the fetish of organisation often along military lines whose goal is to silence political discussion, calling the militant who wants to take shortcuts in the name of getting things done not only an anti-intellectual but atrocious, inhuman and sterile. Instead, gesturing to organisation as organic, he insists that the search for truth is the ‘responsibility of the community’ (2004 139) with the local, fully inclusive and democratic meetings the practical and ethical foundation of the liberated society. These ‘liturgical acts’, he writes, ‘are privileged occasions given to a human being to listen and to speak … and put forward new ideas …’ (2004 195) to become self-determining and decolonise the mind. Connected to everyday life and decision making, these daily acts are seemingly banal, but in the local engagements time becomes ‘space for human development,’ as Marx puts it, is ‘no longer … of the moment or the next harvest but rather of the rest of the world’ (2004 135).

Critics have dismissed Fanon’s claims as romantic, but they are based on experience not flights of fancy. Fanon gives the example of lentil production during the liberation struggle, writing of the creation of production/consumption committees among the peasants and FLN, which he says encouraged theoretical questions about the accumulation of capital: ‘In the regions where we were able to conduct these enlightening experiments,’ he argues, ‘we witnessed the edification of man through revolutionary beginnings’ because people began to realise that ‘one works more with one’s brain and ones heart than with one’s muscles’ (2004 133; 292).

Talking of the political economy of food he adds, ‘We did not have any technicians or planners coming from big Western universities; but in these liberated regions the daily ration went up to the hitherto unheard-of figure of 3,200 calories. [But t]he people were not content with [this] …. They started asking themselves theoretical questions: for example, why did certain districts never see an orange before the war of liberation, while thousands of tons are exported every year abroad? Why were grapes unknown to a great many Algerians whereas the European peoples enjoyed them by the million? Today, the people have a very clear notion of what belongs to them.’ It would not be surprising to hear questions about the objectivity of these enlightening experiments.

In ‘Black Skin White Masks’ Fanon decries social science research methods, saying that they should be left to the botanists. Why? Because scientific objectivity was barred to him (1967a 14, 225), he was part of the research. Here, in ‘The Wretched’, he talks about ‘objectivity’ always being directed against the colonised. And then there is the revolutionary ‘objectivity’ of the enlightening experiments, and in ‘Year 5’ he posits himself as part of the ‘we.’

At the time of its publication, ‘Year 5’ did not cause much of a stir in France; even Pierre Bourdieu recognised in his work that radical changes were taking place in Kabylia. [12] The government, however, found the book particularly incendiary and banned it as it was continually reprinted by Maspero. And yet in the wake of Algerian independence and the 1965 English translation by Haakon Chevalier (a Berkeley professor of literature, friend of Robert Oppenheimer’s and Communist Party member who left the United States in 1950 after being accused of ‘anti-American activities’), the divide between Fanon’s descriptions and post-independence Algerian reality became the source of new criticisms from Marxists (and later from feminists [13]) that Fanon was a romantic conservative.

Discounting Fanon’s ‘enlightening experiments’, a British Marxist, Ian Clegg, argued in his book ‘Workers’ Self-management in Algeria’ that Fanon simply ‘lacks a critical and dialectical analysis of the process of the formation of consciousness.’ It is an argument repeated by Neil Lazarus, who while generally sensitive to Fanon’s work finds, in his recent ‘Postcolonial Unconscious’, that Fanon ‘often phras[es] subaltern thought in the elitist-idealist vocabulary of negation, abstract totalisation and self-actualisation’ (2011 177). Lazarus references James Scott to emphasise the disconnection between the intellectual’s romanticism and the local movement’s concern with the concrete immediate. Beyond the tired vanguardist notions of saving theory for theoreticians, Fanon was concerned in ‘The Wretched’ that the work of intellectuals and militants was to patiently explain to the people that the future depended on their self-conscious and collective work. At the same time, Fanon rejected as populist and opportunist the idea that put an end to theoretical. In other words, isn’t dialectical movement — engaging practice and theory — exactly what is at stake, not simply in what is living and what is dead in Fanon but what is living and dead in our period?

It is the latter question that calls for us to approach Fanon’s thinking not as an a priori application of theoretical categories but as always dedicated to the practical matter of changing the world. In other words, the fact is not only that Fanon would, as Edouard Glissant put it, act on his ideas by joining a revolution [14] but that for Fanon ideas were at one and the same time influenced by practice and themselves transformative. What Lazarus elsewhere calls Fanon’s ‘remarkable’ essay, ‘The Pitfalls of National Consciousness,’ is precisely the product of a critical and dialectical analysis, a summing up of the experience of decolonisation. And yet, interestingly, in one of those ‘snares of history’ that Fanon speaks of, the American rebirth of Fanon — in the context of King and Malcolm, and debates about non-violence and self-defense — was made famous by the book’s first chapter ‘On Violence.’

‘The Wretched of the Earth’ became essential reading for Black revolutionaries in America and profoundly influenced their thinking’, remarks Kathleen Cleaver (214), adding, ‘Fanon’s analysis seemed to explain and to justify the spontaneous violence ravaging across the country, and linked the incipient insurrections to the rise of a revolutionary movement.’ The colonial world that Fanon wrote about ‘bore a striking resemblance,’ she continues (215), ‘to the world that American blacks lived.’ [15] For Cleaver (216), the special relevance to the Black Panthers ‘was Fanon’s analysis of colonialism and the necessity of violence.’ This is not to suggest that there were not other discussions of Fanon in the US in the 1960s, [16] but Cleaver’s summation suggests that was powerfully attractive to young American revolutionaries was the clarity of Fanon’s descriptions of colonial manicheanism, the problem remains how to get beyond a Manichean reaction toward a new politics.

Associating Algeria with Fanon, some Panthers fled to Algeria in the late 1960s and thus it was through the Panthers that Fanon returned momentarily to Algeria. But noticeably shorn of his internal critique of the liberation movements and postindependence, Fanon became reduced to the status of just another anticolonial figure. Yet, just as Eldridge Cleaver was opening the First Pan African Cultural Festival in 1969, Fanon had made his way across the Limpopo into the heart of settler colonial Africa — apartheid South Africa with US Black theology intellectuals like James Cone providing an important link between Fanon and the emergent Black Consciousness movement.

The situation in South Africa was Manichean, but recognising that ‘The most potent weapon of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed,’ Biko took from Fanon a critique of alienation and interiorised fear as the basis for a new politics of solidarity, and a notion of Blackness not reducible to claims to indigeneity or a politics of identity but an “attitude of mind.’ Linking Black consciousness to national consciousness and grounding his analysis in Fanon’s ‘Pitfalls of National Consciousness,’ Biko argued in an interview with Gail Gerhart in 1972 that it was possible to create a ‘capitalist black society, [a] black middle class,’ in South Africa, and ‘succeed in putting across to the world a pretty convincing, integrated picture, with still 70 percent of the population being underdogs’ (Biko 42).

Biko’s prediction became painfully true. And a Fanonian critique of post-apartheid South Africa now seems quite obvious. And yet it is in the responses to the crises of contemporary South Africa and the liberation party’s social treason that the high point of the struggle recognised by Fanon can be recast. The maturity of our age means that a non-state directed politics based in what Fanon calls ‘the rationality of revolt,’ which begins in the refusal to remain quiet and stay in place, can as a movement in motion, ‘uncover unknown facets,’ ‘bring to light new meanings … underline contradictions … [and] decipher social reality.’

This is not simply voluntaristic; the struggle, he says, is the work of the muscles and brains of African collective working out politics from the ground up. This is the school of the struggle, and the challenge for each generation is to think with it and inside it. It is in this context that we can also call on Fanon’s work to help illuminate and aid new political subjectivities and spaces to develop autonomous politics. Rather than reducing Fanon to the past or to a politics of the experiential, perhaps we can take Fanon’s writings as interlocutions in which different historical moments and movements bring out new resonances and explicate new insights.

The damnation of the world’s majority inscribed in the Manichean geographies so well described by Fanon in ‘The Wretched of the Earth’ obviously did not end with the negotiated settlement and the withdrawal of formal colonial rule. The violence that orders colonialism, the violence that follows the colonised home and enters every pore of their body, is reconfigured in the contemporary world of razor wire transit camps, detention zones, and prisons, in rural pauperisation and in the shanty towns and shack settlements. It is the silent scream of much of the world’s population, who appear most of the time without solidarity, without agency, without speech. Beyond the gated citadels, beyond the zones of tourism, in the zone of often bare existence, there seems no way out. And yet, at a moment like ours in 2012, all of a sudden the rationality of rebellion is made absolutely clear. So too the relevance of a Fanonian political will.

Yet more than a simple us and them, the ‘we’ for Fanon was not simply a commitment but a creative ‘we,’ a we of political action and praxis, thinking and reasoning. Indeed this was not only his critique of colonialism but also of the neocolonial afterlife. ‘Colonialism is not a thinking machine,’ Fanon argues, but all too often its aftermath, the new nation, is mired in the same mindlessness, indeed stupidity created by the nationalist party’s will to power often mediated by crude force and in crude colonial ideologies against the very people who made liberation possible. In contrast, Fanon’s ‘we’ is wonderfully articulated in Derek Walcott’s poem, ‘the Schooner Flight’: ‘Either I’m nobody or I’m a nation.’ It is the nobodies, the damned, the impoverished and the landless who for Fanon become the source, the basis, the truth of the ‘reality of the nation.’ As S'bu Zikode from Abahlali baseMjondolo in South Africa first said, ‘we are poor in life but not in mind.’ The movement stresses that collectively ‘we think our own struggles.’

In the context of the continuing legacy of apartheid’s spatial politics, so clearly articulated in ‘The Wretched of the Earth’, it is not surprising that one of the largest and most sustained social movements in post-apartheid South Africa is a movement of shack dwellers called Abahlali baseMjondolo, people who live in shacks.

I speak of Abahlali because it is a movement I have worked with, bringing it into conversation with Fanon, as Zikode puts it in the preface to ‘Fanonian Practices in South Africa’.

Like other grassroots movements, their struggle was not the result, as Fanon puts it in ‘Black Skin’, ‘of a Marxist or idealistic analysis but quite simply because [they] cannot conceive of life otherwise than in the form of battle against exploitation, misery, and hunger’ (1967a 223). In the same vein, James Scott’s argument that resistance begins ‘close to the ground, rooted firmly in … the realities of daily experience,’ expressed the birth of Abahlali. Their initial goals were, as Scott continues, ‘modest.’

The revolt began in one shack settlement in Durban in 2005 in response to seeing the land promised to the settlement cleared for commercial use. They wanted the promised-land, they wanted the politicians and city officials to speak with them not about them, and they wanted the promises of housing in the city that had been made by Nelson Mandela to be realised. And as Scott notes, they were not ‘aiming at large historical abstractions such as socialism’ or criticisms of the World Bank and globalisation. They deplored these ‘isms’ as detrimental to building solidarity and as they grew politically they became skeptical of leftists and researchers who said they supported them but only wanted to use them for their own organisations, ideologies, research programs or careers.

Unlike NGOs like the Shack Dwellers International, which claim to represent settlements to the housing department, Abahlali is a grassroots movement that grew from one settlement to settlements across the city based on local democratic inclusivity. Their meetings began to include discussions of socialism or what they call ‘living communism’ alongside inclusive and careful readings of the provincial slums act, which Abahlali later defeated at the constitutional court in 2009 with the help of lawyers who, in a Fanonian sense, took their orders from below. The victory came at a cost. Nothing is ever given for free, to paraphrase Frederick Douglass. Two weeks before the formal decision, armed men attacked Abahlali’s office in Kennedy Road destroying the library that included all of Fanon's titles and violently evicting many Abahlali members from the settlement. Over 1000 people fled as the local ANC branch took over the settlement.

In contrast to Scott’s intimation, Abahlali was never anti-intellectual, and they made the very subtle distinctions between the demand for things needed to live — such as electricity to prevent shack fires and struggles against removal to peri-urban areas far away from the city — and life. Life as creative, social, and fully human; life, in other words, as the struggle against what Fanon called a daily ‘living death’ (1967b 11) which meant subverting space and place. ‘When Abahlali began to resist evictions it created a crisis,’ argues S’bu Zikode, Abahlali’s former president, and ‘when we began to take our place in the discussions and political life in our cities it created a[nother] crisis because,’ he adds in a Fanonian vein, ‘we as shack dwellers should have known our place.

We should not live or think or speak or act outside that place’ (Zikode 2011). In other words, by refusing their place in life (as things) they become political subjects as they break out of the confines of place, becoming ‘human during the same process by which it frees itself” (Fanon 2004), and in doing so ‘they make that oppression visible and force a rethinking of conceptual categories’ (Neocosmos 2012).

In ‘Black Skin’, Fanon argues that a Black intellectual is not only a contradiction in terms [17] but a threat. The same can be said for the ‘shack intellectual.’ The shack dweller is seen as smelly, dirty, uneducated, lazy, feral and criminal and so the idea of a shack dweller who is also an intellectual is seen as a priori absurd, as outrageous, even as fraudulent. [18]

And yet Fanon has becomes part of Abahlali’s library, which begs Abahlali’s implicit challenge to militant middle class and university trained intellectuals who are committed to social change. This is a question addressed in my book ‘Fanonian Practices in South Africa’ (which I don’t have the space to rehash here); it touches critically on the massive academic corporation and its reproduction (citation industries, think-tanks, funding, grants, all of which reproduce themselves hegemonically, i.e. allowing for criticism promoting calculation and ulterior methods) and the effort of trying to find spaces, sensitive to thinking beyond place, to do something different.

It is not good enough to herald the movement; aiding it begins by being sensitive to thinking outside of place and thus being wary, as I put it in ‘Fanonian Practices’, that ‘the idea that radical intellectuals should abandon critical intellectual work to become ‘one with the masses’ is just as unrealistic and detrimental to a grassroots movement as to think that to really be critical the intellectual must become ‘autonomous’ from all grassroot movements’ (Gibson 2011 219, conclusion). Thinking Fanon fifty years later offers new beginnings for thought and praxis.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. Abane, Beläid. “Frantz Fanon and Abane Ramdane: Brief Encounters in the Algerian Revolution,” in Nigel C. Gibson, editor, Living Fanon. New York: Palgrave, 2011.
2. Bhabha, Homi. 1986. “Remembering Fanon,” reprinted in Nigel C. Gibson, editor, Rethinking Fanon Amherst: Humanity Books
3. Biko, Steve. “Interview with Steve Biko” in Andile Mngxtama, Amanda Alexander and Nigel Gibson editors, Biko Lives. New York: Palgrave, 2008.
4. Cherki, Alice. Fanon: A Portrait. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2006.
5. Clegg, Ian Workers’ Self-management in Algeria
6. Cleaver, Kathleen, Neal. “Back to Africa: The Evolution of the International Section of the Black Panther Party” in Charles E. Jones eds. The Black Panther Party Reconsidered. Baltimore MD: Black Classic Press, 1998.
7. DeBeauvoir, Simone. 1992. The Force of Circumstance. New York: Paragon.
8. Fanon, Frantz. Black Skin White Masks. Translated by Charles Lars Markman. New York: Grove, 1967.
9 __________. Black Skin White Masks. Translated by Richard Philcox, New York: Grove, 2008.
10 __________. Toward the African Revolution. Translated by Haakon Chevalier. New York: Grove, 1967.
11. __________. A Dying Colonialism. Translated by Haakon Chevalier. New York: Grove, 1967.
12. __________. The Wretched of the Earth. Translated by Constance Farrington. New York: Grove, 1968.
13. __________. The Wretched of the Earth. Translated by Richard Philcox. New York: Grove, 2004.
14. Gibson, Nigel C. 2011. Fanonian Practices in South Africa: From Steve Biko to Abahlali baseMjondolo New York: Palgrave.
15. Glissant, Edouard. Caribbean Discourses: Selected Essays. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1999.
16. Gordon, Lewis R. 2005. “Through the Zone of Nonbeing: A reading of Black Skin White Masks in celebration of Fanon’s Eightieth Birthday,” The C.L.R. James Journal 11, no.1.
17. Helie-Lucas, Marie-Aimeé. 1999. “Women, Nationalism, and Religion in the Algerian Liberation Struggle” in Nigel C Gibson eds. Rethinking Fanon Amherst: Humanity Books.
18. Lazarus, Neil. 2011. Postcolonial Unconscious. Cambridge: Cambridge UP
19 Macey, David. 2000. Fanon: A Life. London: Picador
Neocosmos, Michael. 2012. “Thinking Emancipatory Politics: displacement, subaltern consciousness and the limits of a history of the (neo-)colonial world,” Forthcoming Journal of Asian and African Studies.
20. Sayles, James Yaki. 2010. Meditations on Frantz Fanon’s Wretched of the Earth Montreal: Kersplebedeb
21. Scott, James. 1985. Weapons of the Weak. New Haven: Yale U
22. Turner, Lou. 2011. “Rage and Reason: Specters of Fanon in African American Radicalism,” paper given at the National Council for Black Studies 35th Annual National Conference Cincinnati, Ohio March 18.
23. Woddis, Jack. 1972. New Theories of Revolution: A commentary on the views of Frantz Fanon, Régis Debray and Herbert Marcuse. New York: International Publishers.
Zikode, S’bu. 2012. “Upgrades v Evictions” www.abahlali.org/node/8734 accessed Feb 20, 2012.
24. Zouligha. 1999. “Challenging the Social Order: Women’s Liberation and Contemporary Algeria,” in Nigel C Gibson eds. Rethinking Fanon Amherst: Humanity Books.

The Congo conundrum: Truth catches up with Obama

Antoine Roger Lokongo

2012-03-15

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/80773

cc StuartAfrica is being recolonised. American interventionist activities in the continent’s Great Lakes region provide a perfect example. African peoples must rise up to protect their own interests by demanding a new relationship with the West.

As US President Barack Obama’s re-election bid approaches, his supporters are making sure that ‘the wretched of the earth’, the Africans, accustomed to unending plights (HIV/Aids, ‘civil wars’, poverty, resource curses, corruption, militias…) in their ‘hopeless continent’, as Western media depicts it, boost the chances of the ‘first African president in the White House’ to secure a second term. The supporters are exploiting Obama’s ‘militarisation policy’ of expanding America’s role in Africa not only to secure Africa’s abundant natural resources needed to revive the American economy hit by the global financial crisis caused by the corruption within the Anglo-Saxon financial system, and for which the whole world is paying a price; but also in order to monitor ‘aggressive’ China in Africa, as secret US diplomatic cables released by Wikileaks in December 2010 confirmed. [1]

President Obama announced on 14 October 2011 that 100 troops would help Uganda track down the Lord’s Resistance Army rebel chief Joseph Kony and other senior LRA leaders. The fight against the LRA has brought together in the US Congress a consensus from all wings of the political process – from one extreme to the other. The legislation was sponsored by Senators John McCain and Russ Feingold and involved almost every humanitarian NGO and outraged citizen groups arrayed against the depredations of the LRA. [2]

This prompted African analyst Dr Gary Bush to raise legitimate questions regarding the new US deployment in Africa: Why now? Why is the US suddenly interested in being militarily involved in the pursuit of the LRA’s Joseph Kony, when in fact the most vicious period of the LRA rampage is years behind? Why now when in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) worst atrocities occur daily, committed by militias far more brutal than the LRA, which were created and sustained by Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni and Rwanda’s Paul Kagame? These two US-backed dictators have been able to siphon billions of dollars of Congo’s wealth by sponsoring mayhem — massacres, mass rapes and mutilations – in the vast country through their allied militias. Rwanda still harbours one of the most sadistic of these killers, Laurent Nkunda. Long considered one of Africa's most brutal rebel groups, the Lord's Resistance Army began its attacks in Uganda more than 20 years ago. But the rebels are at their weakest point in 15 years. Their forces are fractured and scattered and the Ugandan military estimated earlier in 2011 that only 200 to 400 fighters remain. In 2003 the LRA had 3,000 armed troops and 2,000 people in support roles. Their history is brutish, violent and criminal. [3]

In fact, it is Congo now that is teaching America a lesson. In late 2008, the National Security Council authorised African Military Command (AFRICOM) – or rather Africoma, because it puts African people into a coma; if your only weapon is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail, they say – to support a military operation (one of the first publicly-acknowledged AFRICOM operations) against the LRA, which was believed to be in Congo at the time. AFRICOM provided training and $1 million in financial support for ‘Operation Lightning Thunder’ – a joint endeavour of the Ugandan, Congolese and South Sudan forces in Congolese territory launched in December 2008 to ‘eliminate the threat posed by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA)’. According to the United Nations, the offensive ‘never consulted with partners on the ground on the requirements of civilian protection. Stretching over a three-month period, it failed in its mission and the LRA scattered and retaliated against the Congolese population. Over 1,000 people were killed and up to 200,000 displaced. [4] After this disastrous failure, which led to additional massacres of Congolese civilians, the Congolese army on its own managed to chase the LRA out of Democratic Republic of Congo to the neighboring Central African Republic; so much so that the LRA no longer poses a threat in Congo.

‘We have reduced the capacity of the LRA. For us it’s no longer an issue of defense. It’s a public order issue. The Americans are supporting the Ugandans (against the LRA) and the Ugandans want to benefit from that support,’ General Jean Claude Kifwa, who is in charge of fighting the LRA in Congo, told journalists in the capital Kinshasa. [5] The comment followed a complaint by nearby Uganda that Congo was obstructing its US-backed hunt for Kony. [6]

Despite the many civilian casualties and the Ugandan government’s poor human rights record, NGOs such as Resolve Uganda, the Enough Project and Invisible Children have been lobbying Congress for a renewed military operation to help the Ugandan government ‘finish the job.’ ‘Given the close US relationship with key actors in ‘Operation Lightning Thunder’ — in particular Ugandan President Museveni and Southern Sudanese President Salva Kiir — the United States is uniquely placed to support better targeted military efforts’, wrote Enough and Resolve Uganda in a joint policy brief in January 2009. [7]

And while the above-named US lobby groups characterise LRA leader Joseph Kony as the spoiler who refused to sign a final peace deal, they fail to acknowledge that the Ugandan government itself has not yet signed the agreement. President Museveni has consistently thwarted peace efforts (1985, 1994, 2003) when he sensed that they did not serve his interests, which centre primarily on maintaining power. He has used his close ties to Washington to build and maintain a favourable image, hiring the DC lobby firm The Whitaker Group (TWG) to do his bidding. Between November 2006 and June 2007, Museveni paid the firm $75,000 to publicise the government's commitment to peace. Jendayi E. Frazer, former US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs under Bush, now works for TWG under a $1 million contract with the Ugandan Ministry of Finance. In an August 2009 Wall Street Journal editorial entitled ‘Four Ways to Help Africa’, she called on President Obama to ‘galvanise US efforts to end the militia violence of Rwandan and Ugandan rebel groups still operating in the Congo.’ As a paid consultant for the Ugandan government, Ms Frazer is clearly suggesting Museveni’s preference for a military solution. [8]

As the US presidential election campaign is approaching, San Diego-based ‘not-for-profit group’ Invisible Children does not want to miss a share of the cake out of the billions of dollars American billionaires are pouring into the Obama campaign to support his re-election bid. Invisible Children has just re-ignited a new ‘Stop Kony’ campaign, under the pretext of bringing awareness about the Ugandan warlord Joseph Kony by uploading a 30-minute documentary called ‘KONY 2012’ to the YouTube website on 5 March 2012. Celebrities such as actor George Clooney and comedian Chelsea Handler were quick to chime in and voice their support on Twitter using the hashtag ‘STOPKONY.’ [9]

But the reality behind this ‘raging inferno or firestorm spread across the Internet’ as Invisible Children puts it, [10] is that the US wants to have a share in the newly-discovered abundant oil reserves in Uganda, in the Lake Albert fields. Dr Gary Busch suggests that ‘despite being a ruthless and corrupt dictator the US has decided to anoint Museveni’s head with oil; perhaps hoping that he will share the oil with the United States of America’. [11] Yes, Kony is killing in Congo, but so are Museveni and Kagame and as a Congolese, my aim in writing this article is to denounce in the strongest terms possible the United States of America’s selective ‘humanitarian justice’, not just in the Democratic Republic of Congo but also all over the world.

The US-backed National Transitional Council (NTC) is now ethic-cleansing Libya of black Africans; yes, in Libya where Obama has deployed 12,000 troops to safeguards the United States of America’s oil interests. [12] Those black Africans whom the NTC goes so far as caging in a zoo, force feeding them flags, [13] are not the concern of the ‘first black African president in the White House’. Only oil is.

More than 5 million Congolese have been killed as a result of Rwanda and Uganda’s invasion and aggression against Congo. In fact several UN reports have used the word ‘genocide’ in Congo. Why is Barack Obama not lifting a finger to back a special criminal tribunal for Congo to try and punish those responsible for crimes against humanity in Congo? Isn’t it because he is shielding Museveni and Kagame from accountability?

Moreover, we are still waiting for a congressional inquiry following an incident in Congo where Kase Lawal, an Obama-appointed US trade adviser, was linked to an illegal deal in Congolese gold. Lawal, a Nigerian-born US oil tycoon, orchestrated a deal to buy gold worth millions of dollars from the notorious rebel leader Bosco Ntaganda and transferred millions of dollars to him between December 2010 and February 2011 as part of the deal, as a report by the UN’s Group of Experts on the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) states. If true, this would be a contravention of UN resolutions banning individuals or organisations from financing illegal armed groups in the war-torn eastern DRC. [14]

Coincidence? A Manhattan federal jury on 2 November 2011 convicted Russian arms trader Viktor Bout of four counts of conspiracy to sell antiaircraft weapons and other arms to purported Colombian rebels to kill Americans. [15] Bout was also involved in many wars in Africa, including in Sierra Leone and Congo but that is Africa, not the US. Moreover, Ukraine is now supplying the UN Mission in Congo with strategic helicopters, but that mission is also involved in the trafficking of minerals and abuses of Congolese women.

Ironically, to safeguard its interests in Congo, the United States has not hesitated to use warlords, terrorists, mercenaries and dogs of war to safeguard those interests. There has been a massive US air presence in Africa, especially in the Congo. After the fall of Stanleyville (now Kisangani) in the hands of Lumumbist forces, the US was prompted to expand it capabilities. This included the delivery of four C-130, a group of B-26 bombers (totaling seven or eight by January 1965), and arms and equipment for Mobutu’s ground troops. Fast patrol boats were provided to intercept arms shipments (and personnel movement) across Lake Tanganyika. Even maintenance was provided, with a staff of 50 to 100 Europeans employed by another CIA proprietary, the Liechtenstein-registered company WIGMO (Western International Ground Maintenance Organization).

The US air power and weaponry supported a force of some seven hundred mercenaries (Europeans, South Africans, and Rhodesians) assembled by Katangan secessionist leader Moise Tshombe, the CIA and the Belgians. Some of the better-known of the Congo mercenaries, like the former French NCO Bob Denard, who took over command of the French-speaking Six Commando that had fought for the Katangans in the war of secession, were later recruited by the United States to work in Angola. The exiled Cuban pilots (anti-Castro) based at WIGMO flew regular bombing runs in B-26 bombers across the Congo and later against regular Cuban forces in Angola. This militarisation extended to the anti-MPLA fortresses in the Caprivi Strip. [16]

Africa is being recolonised under the cloak of humanitarianism in the broad-day light and Africans do not even see it! An exceptional insight about this tragedy came from Ugandan journalist Andrew Mwenda who raised this issue with former South African President Thabo Mbeki following his address at the Makerere University, Uganda in January 2012. He asked:

‘Whether it is in literature, philosophy, politics, economy or art, there is very little output about Africa by Africans themselves. Our ‘freedom’ today is fought for by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International; our ‘press freedom’ is fought for by the Committee to Protect Journalists and Reporters without Borders; our ‘civil wars’ are ended by UN peacekeepers; our ‘refugees’ are fed by UNHCR; our ‘economic policies’ are determined by the World Bank and IMF; our ‘poverty’ is fought by Bill Gates, Bono and Jeffery Sachs; our ‘crimes’ are adjudicated upon by the ICC; our ‘liberation’ is achieved through NATO war planes [our ‘elections are monitored by Europe and America’ and they are the judges]’. [17]

Where is the change after all? Who are the drivers of the ‘African stability’ fought for on our behalf? Are Africans themselves the drivers of that stability? And if they are not, whose interests is that stability safeguarding? $50 billions is siphoned out of Africa every year. Do we have to believe that that money is stolen by ‘African corrupt governments’ alone without Western accomplices? No! Isn’t it like a person who steals the food, eats it to his satisfaction and then rubs the oil around the mouth of a hungry person whom he accuses of having stolen the food?

After Libya and Ivory Coast, we have to change the nature of our relations with our former colonial powers before it is too late and regain our place in the world. We have got to work with China (China has already stood up). I believe we can do it because during this global financial crisis it is China and Africa who are saving the world. China with its huge foreign reserves and natural resources like rare earth and Africa with its abundant natural and energy resources. China is now the second most powerful economy in the world and Brazil has just kicked out Britain to become the world’s sixth largest economy. The Chinese have succeeded because they had to face the pains of relying on themselves after independence (1949). Unless Africa goes through the same pain China went through to determine our own future, we will remain forever last on the queue.

China invests its own money in Africa. I am not sure where the money of Western investors comes from. I am convinced that Western powers who looted Africa for centuries and are still looting the wealth of Congo and other African countries, got very rich out of Africa’s wealth, and now are coming back to Africa with money generated in Africa to 'invest' in Africa. We have to live with these contradictions as if there is nothing we can do about it! And what investment are we talking about? They just have to bribe African elites and they get what they want.

We have to speak with one voice and refuse to be used one against the other – divide and rule - as Rwanda and Uganda backed by US and Britain have just invaded Congo, killing 5 million people, looting Congo’s wealth and raping women; and that war was aimed also at kicking China out of Congo; we have to reject the Washington consensus, rely on ourselves in cooperation with our true friends, China, South America…) in order to bust those mechanisms (Churches, IMF, World Bank structural adjustment mechanism, Africom - again, I call it Africoma because it puts Africa into a coma - civil societies and NGOs both local and international all financed from outside , aid agencies...) which have been put in place to keep Africa always down and last on the queue. And as the financial crisis bites, cunning Western powers are adding new mechanisms such as telling African countries ‘to ensure a better environment for business’. That is a ploy, because they want to revive their economies, and as Libya and Ivory Coast demonstrate, they will not hesitate to use military power to grab African resources in order to revive their economies hit by the global financial crisis.

We have to go the South America way. South American countries are succeeding exactly because they have reached their own consensus instead of trusting the Washington Consensus. As Noam Chomsky puts it, in the past decade, for the first time in 500 years, South America has taken successful steps to free itself from western domination, another serious loss for America. The region has moved towards integration, and has begun to address some of the terrible internal problems of societies ruled by mostly Europeanized elites, tiny islands of extreme wealth in a sea of misery. They have also rid themselves of all U.S. military bases and of IMF controls. A newly formed organization, CELAC, includes all countries of the hemisphere apart from the U.S. and Canada. If it actually functions, that would be another step in American decline, in this case in what has always been regarded as ‘the backyard’. [18]

Where are the African Krumahist, Lumumbist, Laurent Kabilist, Mondlaneist, Gaddafist, Sankarist … progressives?

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* Please do not take Pambazuka for granted! Become a Friend of Pambazuka NOW and help keep Pambazuka FREE and INDEPENDENT!

* Antoine Roger Lokongo is a journalist and PhD candidate at the School of International Studies, Centre for African Studies, Peking University, Beijing, China.
* Please send comments to editor[at]pambazuka[dot]org or comment online at Pambazuka News.


END NOTES

[1] BBC. 2010.Wikileaks: US monitors “aggressive’ China in Africa. BBC World-Africa news.
[2] Al-Bulush Samar. 2011. US legislation authorises military action against the LRA in Uganda. Pambazuka News. Pambazuka News.
[3] Busch Gary. 2011. The United States and the Lord’s Resistance Army. Ocnus.net.
[4] Ibid.,
[5] Hogg Johnny. 2012. Kony’s LRA rebels mostly out of Congo, general says. Reuters.
[6] Biryabarema Elias. 2012. In spotlight, Uganda says Congo slows hunt for Kony. Reuters.
[7] Busch Gary, Op. Cit.,
[8] Ibid.,
[9] Santiago, Brandon. 2012. ‘Stop Kony’ campaign ignites firestorm.Hanfordsentinel.com.
[10] Ibid.,
[11] Busch Gary, Op. Cit.,
[12] Algeria-ISP.com. Libye – 12.000 soldats Américains en attente à Malte pour rentrer en Libye. Algeria-ISP.com.
[13] RT.com. 2012. Libyan rebels cage black Africans in zoo, force feed them flags (SHOCK VIDEO). RT.com.
[14] Jones Pete. 2012. Obama-appointed US trade adviser linked to illegal deal in Congolese gold. 5 February.The Guardian. World. News. UK Edition.
[15] Lynch Colum. 2012. Arms dealer Viktor Bout convicted. 3 March. The Washington Post. Word News. Home Edition.
[16] Busch Gary 2012. Uncivil Aviation in Africa. Nigeriavillagesquare.com.
[17] Gyezaho Emmanuel. 2012. Africa: Thabo Mbeki Speaks On African Problems... The Monitor.
[18] Chomsky, Noam. 2012. The Imperial Way: American Decline in Perspective. TomDispatch.com.

A mother's fears for her lesbian daughter

Akinyi M. Ocholla

2012-03-15

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/80783

cc T MA mother is not easily convinced that her daughter is okay in the head when she admits to being gay. She thinks that there must be some underlying psychological and emotional problems.

I feel extremely fortunate to have a little brother (okay he is older than me, actually 29 years old - so perhaps not so little) who is accepts me as a lesbian and my work in the human rights world.

The day I came out to him, many years ago, on a Sunday afternoon, he simply told me that he already knew. Then he asked me if I was seeing anyone, which I wasn't at the time. Since then he has made three statements with regards to my opinions and my work that have given me food for thought.

Once, not long after I came out to him, he and I were watching Sadaam Hussein's capture, trial and execution on television. I admit to having had double standards with regards to capital punishment, justifying it on people who have done heinous criminal acts whilst being against it for more 'innocent' people. I voiced my approval of Saddam’s execution that day.

Then my brother turned to me and said something I would never forget. He said that I should be careful how I judged others, because capital punishment is in some countries also used against people like myself.

I was temporarily lost for words. He had a point - though at the time it seemed to me that his logic was a little off. His point was of course that, whereas some of us may see justice in executing persons charged with numerous human rights violations, other people may feel equally justified in executing gay and lesbian people because of the perceived 'moral degradation and threat to society' that they pose.

A moderate, sensible thinking person might see huge differences between crimes against humanity and 'moral crimes' but the main point is the taking of life, which, in a just and ideal world, should not be allowed to take place - ever.

The second thing that my brother told me was over Christmas in 2008 after our mother had passed away three months earlier (our father had passed away two years before). He complained at my getting involved in this 'dangerous' human rights work - wasn't it enough for him to have lost both his parents? He didn't want to lose me also. I was deeply touched.

The third thing he said to me was when I shared my CV with him not very long ago. He was helping me format and improve it. He was hugely impressed with the contents and he said so - three times. I was very proud and happy.

That having been said, mothers are a different matter altogether. A mother doesn't always understand or accept her daughter being lesbian or bisexual. Neither do all fathers, siblings and extended family for that matter. When I decided to come out to my mother, it was after my secret had weighed on my mind for a long time. I was in my late-twenties and had decided that I was ready emotionally and psychologically for the consequences of possible rejection and the long challenge ahead trying to make her understand me. How I thought that I could possibly be ready for rejection is beyond me - considering how close I was to her at the time. It would have been crushing. Still I pushed ahead cautiously.

I asked her if her love was unconditional. She said it was, though perhaps not completely. I wasn't sure what she meant. Anyway, I proceeded to ask her to sit with me and then told her that I was gay. She was quiet for a while. Then she asked me if I meant that I was bisexual, to which I nodded.

Perhaps a daughter being bisexual is a softer landing for a mother to digest than the fact that her daughter is an absolute lesbian. Somehow it conjures up the image that her daughter is not completely lost to her - that there is a possibility for the young woman to 'come back' or 'come to her senses'. That, perhaps, she is only trying to find her way around the sometimes difficult, sometimes confusing, often misunderstood and perplexing phenomena called sexuality.

Still it is often a shock to many mothers to hear for the first time that their daughters are lesbian, that they love women or prefer them to men. One of the biggest fears mothers have is that they didn't raise their daughters right - that they failed them in the process, in some way.

My mother actually asked me later if she had done something wrong in raising me. I was very surprised, of course, considering how well-rounded I felt I had become and how fortunate I was to have had such great parents. I assured her that she had done nothing wrong.

Then she asked if my dad had done something wrong in raising me. Again I couldn't think of a single thing that he had done. He had been the typical hardworking, kind, gentle and generous father that many daughters have the good fortune of having.

A mother is not easily assured that her daughter is okay in the head when she admits to being gay. A mother thinks that there must be underlying psychological and emotional problems that even the daughter doesn't know or understand.

Often the first thing that the mother proposes is that the young woman goes for counseling. She thinks that the daughter is probably more traumatized than she (the mother) is. It does not occur to a mother that pushing the girl into counseling might not help much. Many counselors are not well equipped to handle issues of sexual orientation. In fact, a young woman going for counseling for the first time feels that she has been sent there because she has serious 'issues'. It scares her.

It scared me, though I put on a brave face. I had felt perfectly 'normal' till I saw my mother's reaction. After a while, my mother calmed down. There were many days of not talking about it and several when we did discuss it. She would ask questions and I would answer the best way I could. Sometimes she would tell me what she thought and I would listen. I felt that my mum put up a brave front both for me and herself. She said that she had acquaintances and friends who either had gay colleagues at work or gay daughters and sons.

I think it gave her some comfort to know that there were numerous gay people out there and that her daughter wasn't the only one. Still, it must be a mother's big dream to see her daughter get married. I wonder why. I feel I have personally drifted away from the mainstream of hoping, expecting and planning for the day when that will happen to me. Somehow it seems so out-of-reach.

But a mother never stops hoping to seeing the wedded daughter living with a good man in a decent house and having her first baby. Perhaps because she herself went through it and it seems like the natural cycle of things. A mother fears that her daughter will grow up and be lonely.

She feels that other women cannot possibly give her daughter the kind of comfort, security and joy that a big, cuddly, warm man can give. She fears that her daughter may never have children and if she does, that the children will not be raised right or grow up missing something.

Is she right? I'm not sure. I suppose it depends a lot on circumstances and the efforts that we, as women, put into our relationships. Perhaps last but not least are the fears a mother has for her daughter's safety, status and general comfort in society.

She probably wonders, and rightfully so, how society will treat her daughter. Will it be kind to her or mistreat her? Will her daughter be subjected to violence and discrimination on account of having chosen a different path? Will she be accorded the same respect as others? A woman's journey through life seems so fraught with risks and challenges. How will the young woman manage, with this added 'disadvantage'?

Many societies lag behind in the provisions they give to single women, not to mention single lesbians or lesbian couples. And so the fears of a mother go on and on. If only mothers would stop killing themselves over-thinking the circumstances that caused the homosexual orientation, or the many important 'opportunities' the young woman will miss, or the hardships to come.

Mothers should rest assured knowing that their daughters are remarkably resilient, much as they themselves were. Lesbian daughters will keep getting up every time they have fallen down. They will fight back at a society that is unjust. They will create alternative opportunities when others pass them by. They will find love in other women and they will create homes that are filled with warmth, colour and laughter.
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* Akinyi M Ocholla is Executive Director of Minority Women in Action, a Kenyan LBT women's organisation.
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The Ethiopian LGBT community

Elyas Mulu Kiros

2012-03-15

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/80776

cc F MIt has been reported frequently that clandestine homosexual groups exist in Addis Abeba, many of whom lead double lives, since being openly gay or lesbian could cost them their lives.

I recently discovered EthioLGBT.com, a website dedicated to the Ethiopian lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) community. I was never aware of it. As you may or may not know, being a homosexual is illegal in Ethiopia, where the majority of people are conservative Orthodox Christians and Muslims that consider homosexuality a sin, a crime, a heinous act; and homosexuals inside the country have to wear a mask to protect themselves from attacks.

I was raised Orthodox Christian, and I too at one point believed that homosexuals were criminals that God will burn in hell, just like what happened in Sodom and Gomorrah. And I only understood homosexuality as sodomy between male persons, as it was described in the Bible. In all honesty, I discovered words like gay, lesbian, transsexual, and bisexual once I left the country as a teenager; that may have to do with the fact that I grew up in a small town where my exposure to the outside world was quite limited. When I entered high school, I did hear about women having sexual or romantic affairs with other women in the West, but I didn’t know they were called lesbians, and the possibility of Ethiopian women being homosexuals had never crossed my mind.
The reality is that being gay or lesbian cannot be limited to one race, region, or country. Wherever there are human beings, regardless of their race or location, they are going to be faced with the question of sexuality. We Ethiopians, are not special creatures, we are not unique from the rest of humanity that we too cannot be affected by issues that other humans experience.
Having said that, one thing that Ethiopians can’t deny today is the fact there are a lot of homosexuals both inside and outside of Ethiopia. It has been reported frequently that clandestine homosexual groups exist in Addis Abeba, many of whom lead double lives, since being openly gay or lesbian could cost them their lives. Meron Tekleberhan discusses homosexuality in Addis Ababa in an interesting article entitled Revelation of Homosexual Life in Ethiopia (Tekleberhan 2011).

I question: Is it too early or too late for Ethiopia to address homosexuality? I do acknowledge that Ethiopians in Ethiopia may not be ready to face it, especially in the rural areas where the majority of the people live. I can just imagine how my parents would react if I were to tell them I am homosexual. My father would surely disown me, no doubt. And I don’t think I would even tell them if I were one; I wouldn’t expect them to understand or tolerate it. I would just want them to pass away with a peaceful mind, without bitterness against me. Let alone the people in the rural areas; even those in larger cities are not yet ready. Forget homosexuality, even sex itself is such a taboo subject in almost 99.99% of Ethiopian households. It is a very difficult position to be a homosexual in Ethiopia. But when will it be a good time? 50 years from now? 200 years? And till then these people have to live in shame for being who they are?

On the Ethiopian LGBT community website I discovered, the author makes a claim that the Agaw people of Ethiopia had a history of same-sex marriage way back in time; even before the West began to tolerate homosexuality, which obviously is a statement made to contradict the general belief in today’s Ethiopia that homosexuality is an imported, Western idea. But can the author back it up? What is his source of information? I don’t know. If you are Ethiopian or a foreigner who knows Ethiopian history, are you aware of this part of the country’s history? Are there any historical documents that can attest to the claim?
With the growing LGBT community in Addis, there is also a growing concern that has become a major headache for the general public: the growing sex industry and sexual exploitation of young boys (and girls), often by Westerners or foreigners who use their dollars as a buying power. And poverty is the primary reason for such prostitution.

Before Ethiopia becomes the next “Thailand in Africa”, do you think it’s better for it to acknowledge the existence of the minority LGBT community and protect their civil and human rights, thereby averting or reducing crimes that happen in their names? For how long can Ethiopia ignore the existence of the elephant in the room while the problems that are related to it multiply each day? Can the government crack down on illegal child prostitution without addressing the LGBT concern? What has the government done so far to aggressively fight the increasing exposure of boys and girls to prostitution and HIV/AIDS?

As Tekleberhan outlines in her article, even some of the LGBT members don’t want homosexuality to be legalized in the country, at least in the near future (Tekleberhan 2011); but they do want society to accept their existence and help them out of homosexuality—they apparently believe they can be cured from homosexuality since they relate their homosexuality to being abused or raped (when they were young boys) and to their premature exposure to the internet and Western media. But is that the reality for all the homosexuals in Ethiopia? How about the women? What made them become lesbians or bisexuals? Is it only rape, premature exposure to the internet, Western porn movies and magazines, or curiosity? What if they never had any interest in the opposite sex to begin with, and if that is the case how are they going to be “cured” from it? In a country where the information on homosexuals is so scarce, it’s really hard to make any kind of statement about their case. And society can only accept them if their sexuality is legalized. Otherwise, it’s naïve to expect that people will just accept them and will help them out of it.

I couldn’t help but think of such questions and thoughts when I came across the Ethiopian LGBT website. I hope you don’t mind that I shared with you my thoughts and questions. If you are wondering, no, I am not gay- and talking about homosexuality has never made any person a homosexual. But I do sincerely believe that Africans, and Ethiopians in particular, need to discuss this topic. You may not be gay or lesbian, but surely, you may know someone who belongs to the LBGT community (either by choice or not), who may be stigmatized because of his or her sexual identity, living a double life in order to avoid social ostracism, facing depression, self-hatred, guilt, worthlessness, blackmail, HIV/AIDS infection, or perhaps even suicidal.

Tackle this: What would you do if your (future) son or daughter declared he or she is a homosexual, bisexual, or transsexual?

If you visit Ethiopia or Eritrea and travel from region to region, you may come to the conclusion that these countries are a heaven for gays and lesbians, based on your pre-conceived notion of how same-sex couples display affection in public- by holding hands, hugging and leaning on each other.

In Ethiopia/Eritrea, it is common to see either young men or young women holding hands or hugging in public with other men and women, respectively. It is a way of expressing friendship, and has nothing to do with sexuality. But now not everyone does it, especially those who understand its sexual implication. How times/events change!

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REFERENCES

1. Tekleberhan, M. (2011) (Part 1)
2. Tekleberhan, M. (2011) (Part 2)

President Obiang and kleptocrats in Africa

Uche Igwe

2012-03-14

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/80746

cc E E GAfrica’s greedy rulers have looted the immense resources of their own countries, leaving the people poor and desperate. The continent’s people must rise up and hold the rulers to account through proper governance mechanisms that will ensure transparent management of national resources.

The prospect of economic emancipation and development in Africa was the biggest motivation that drove the struggle for independence. African people generally believed that the change in managers of the state and its resources could translate to greater access, participation, equity and development. However, it was not to be. Many scholars continue to associate the lingering failure of the development project in Africa to the character of the post-independence political class. Corruption permeated the political elite and became one of the biggest impediments obstructing African citizens from realising their objectives.

Overwhelming evidence points to natural resource-rich countries as a sanctuary of primitive accumulation at very huge costs to a hapless citizenry. The same natural resource abundance that provided the foundation for enviable development and economic growth in countries like Norway, Canada and Brazil has not done the same in Africa. Why? A new chapter of the governance dilemma opens every day. It is repeatedly amazing, sometimes amusing and often unpredictable. This cancer seems to be most manifest in Africa’s largest oil producers; otherwise how can one rationalise the scenes playing out regularly from amongst them?

On 29 September 2011, in far away Paris, French police swooped into a compound allegedly belonging to one of the longest serving dictators in Africa, President of Equatorial Guinea and current Chairman of African Union, Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, and seized eleven luxury cars. Amongst the cars seized were two Buggatti Veyrons, three Ferraris, one Porsche Carrera GT and Bentleys with a total value of 5 million US dollars.

Global Witness, the foremost UK-based corruption watchdog recently published a mindboggling report on Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue or TNO, a son of the president. TNO holds the title of Minister of Forestry, Fisheries and Environment in his father’s government with an official salary of $4000-5000 US per month. However, he is globally famous for mindless squandermania and recently paid $35 million for a stupendous, sixteen-acre estate in Malibu, California, equipped with swimming pools, tennis courts and a four-hole golf course. He is also said to own several luxury cars and boats with ship tank inside, including a gulfstream jet valued at $35 million.

Last February news broke that TNO (as he is popularly called) commissioned the building of another 387-foot long luxury super yacht valued at $380 million. The boat is expected to house a moving theatre, a bar, restaurant and swimming pool. Sometime last year it was reported that he hired Microsoft billionaire Paul Allen’s luxury yacht Tatoosh for more than $680,000 US for a short cruise with his girlfriend and US rapper Eve. A report monitored by UK group Global Witness indicates TNO bought an estate in Cape Town in 2004 at $7 million and once went on a shopping spree in Paris where he bought 30 designer suits in a single afternoon.

During the week of February 14, 2012, the French police again seized tens of millions of dollars worth of antiques, art work and luxury wood from Obiang’s Avenue Foch residence including a $1.5 million Louis X1V desk, in a house worth more than 500 million Euros.
In Nigeria – Africa’s highest old producer, a few nautical miles away — politicians within the ruling People’s Democratic Party allegedly benefited from a bribery bonanza totalling more about $180 million from KBR, a subsidiary of US-based Halliburton Energy Company between 1995-2004, in order to win a Liquefied Natural Gas(LNG) contract. An investigation in 2009 unearthed issues and a report available online alleges that three former presidents of Nigeria, a former vice president and many high level politicians might have benefited. However, both investigation and possible prosecution of the alleged beneficiaries have been stalled since then.

Both countries have become text book cases of the resource curse as many of their citizens still live below the poverty line.

The case of Equatorial Guinea is particularly pathetic. With a population of about 700,000, this country was one of the most isolated in the world and a destitute pariah state until she found oil and became the third highest producer in sub-Saharan Africa, with a very high per capita income of about $37, 200. Yet 77 per cent of the country lives in poverty, 35 per cent of the population die before the age of 40, 57 per cent lack access to safe water. Between 1990 and 2007, infant mortality rate rose from 10 to 12 per cent per annum.

Mohammed Bello Adoke, Attorney General and Minister for Justice of Nigeria recently confirmed that about $20 to $40 billion of global inflow of proceeds of corruption and criminality originate from monies handed as bribes to public officials in developing countries. Most recently the global watchdog, Transparency International reported that Nigerian civil (and public) servants took bribes amounting to 450 billion naira ($3 billion ) in 2010 alone.

How do these monies develop wings and fly out of developing countries and how can we stop the flow?

There are several levels of action but I will highlight five entry points. The first is that African politics is in dire need of auto-purification. This cannot be achieved by mere democratic events like conducting elections but by a conscious effort by citizens to overcome laissez-faire complacency to demand genuine participation in a deepened democratic process. The second level is the review of public procurement laws to ensure watertight and committed implementation. Political interference in public procurement is the single biggest driver of public sector corruption in many African countries. The political will necessary to achieve this can hardly be availed willingly by the vampire elite until it is demanded by a vigilant media and committed citizenry.

A few African countries have established regulatory commissions in charge of the fight against corruption. Those who have not at the moment must be pressured through the peer review mechanism like the NEPAD to follow suit. There is also a need to insulate such agencies from political manipulation through enabling laws – if we must go beyond lip service and public relations.

The fourth action point is for a committed international community to cast a searchlight on both banks and recipient countries to enforce regulations like the OECD anti-bribery laws that prohibit and punish such behaviour. The framework of the United Nations Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC) provides a robust opportunity for confiscation and repatriation of dubious assets hidden by unaccountable rulers. Increased commitment to mutual legal assistance could assist to navigate conditions of secrecy and facilitate speedy asset recovery.

It is disgusting and unacceptable to imagine that Africa’s rulers are squandering Africa’s resource patrimony when citizens die daily due to penury and curable diseases. Obiang and his co-kleptocrats must be stopped for our own sake and that of generation that will follow. If the enormous natural resource endowment in Africa does not translate to economic progress and better quality of life, Mo Ibrahim, billionaire philanthropist and fellow African warns that there may be more revolutions beyond the Tahir Squares of Egypt erupting from the turbulent bellies of discontent in many corners of the continent.

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* Uche Igwe is a governance expert and member of the Coordinating Committee of UNCAC Civil Society Coalition. He can be reached at ucheigwe@gmail.com.
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Lamu Port may slow down sustainable development

Erick Komolo

2012-03-15

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/80777

cc C MThe notion that modern day development is achievable purely through mega projects is perhaps misplaced as it ignores the place of technology and, for Africa, the contribution of ‘small’ industries at this stage in achieving sustainable industrialisation.

The fanfare accompanying the recent groundbreaking ceremony of the intended construction of a new port in Lamu and the wider Lamu Port-Southern Sudan-Ethiopia Transport Corridor (LAPSSET) infrastructure development corridor could have easily concealed other equally important dimensions to it. That the ceremony was attended by the presidents of Ethiopia, Kenya and Southern Sudan confirmed its priority in development programming of the region.

In that respect, it’s hardly surprising that many reputable comparative studies long ago identified poor infrastructure and lukewarm intra-African trade as some of the biggest challenges to the continent’s competitiveness. It’s, therefore, on the face of it a plausible step that countries of the region break these historical barriers through joint infrastructure projects in which stakes are shared and political commitment guaranteed. Arguably, political dynamics in South Sudan with its rich oil deposits and Ethiopia’s protracted tension in the north presented that much needed incentive to commit.

Yet it’s the irony of development that projects like this potentially stagnate development itself. Apart from the realistic possibility of under-utilisation, which then means that economic returns to service applied funds is inadequate and possibly passed to the next generation, its environmental and domestic industry impact demand caution. Besides, as a signatory to the Convention on Biodiversity and related multilateral agreements, Kenya must exercise the utmost restraint on initiatives whose environmental damage is predictable.

The economic benefits of Lamu as a world heritage site and the natural habitats that this project will inevitably disrupt, if properly harnessed, far outweigh its projected revenue arising primarily from oil and unsustainable agricultural exports from Southern Sudan and Ethiopia respectively. In addition, we are yet to fully explore alternatives. The notion that modern day development is achievable purely through mega projects is perhaps misplaced as it ignores the place of technology and, for Africa, the contribution of “small” industries at this stage in achieving sustainable industrialisation. In any case, the problem for Kenya has never been really a question of infrastructure but rather their inefficiency to deliver in tandem with national economic planning due to institutional lethargy and blatant corruption.

To a degree, this is the problem with the port in Mombasa, which is consistently performing below par compared to even smaller ones, geographically speaking, like Hong Kong and Singapore. Unbelievable as it may sound, with technological modernization and the elimination of the multiplicity of vested players with narrow focus of the port’s utility, Mombasa port’s turnover can accommodate more than ten times the expectations of Lamu. Complimented with modernised and competitively managed railways, then you probably don’t need another transport corridor.

Assuming for a moment that the above environmental concerns are immaterial, it’s still difficult to ignore the impact of cheap imports always dumped in Africa’s markets. In fact, it’s indisputable that Africa’s path to sustainable development has largely been frustrated by unnecessary and cheap imports that prematurely harm local industries. Consequently, basic industries such as textile, manufacturing and other value-addition sectors, collapsed long ago, leading to unsustainable joblessness. Priority must thus be accorded by all African governments to supporting revival of these sectors, first, so that we have value-added products to export before allowing in competing imports. Unless this is done, the curse of exporting cheap, raw materials only to import them back in value-added form will be here to stay.

Toward this end, available statistics show that the East African Community (EAC) and other LAPSSET partners have simply not done enough to revive local industries that collapsed in the 1980s. A clear testimony to this is the number of dilapidated go-downs in Nairobi’s industrial area that used to be the embodiment of Kenya’s manufacturing sector. Farther west, Kisumu railway remains idle because sustainable industrial production long ceased in the region. As my recent experience revealed, the only active rail service is for exports to Uganda from Mombasa.

The real and rather weird risk is that unless these challenges are addressed strategically, Lamu port will just be another route for dumping products into our markets once Sudanese oil runs out. Much as Africa needs to improve her interconnectivity; local production support ought to take priority over economically incoherent projects. In any case, being a tropical zone project premised on oil exports to alternative clean energy sources might jeopardise sustainability of the region’s development.

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* Eric Komolo is an advocate and doctoral candidate at Hong Kong University.
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Remembering General Ojukwu

Conversation with my stream of consciousness

Cameron Duodu

2012-03-15

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/80785

© Wikipedia‘We’ve agreed to so many things before – but it’s always in the implementation that we get bogged down.’

When I heard that General Odumegwu Ojukwu, who led Biafra into secession from Nigeria in 1967, had been buried on 2 March 2012 (he died on 26 November 2011 at the age of 78) my stream of consciousness went into overdrive.

STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS: Why overdrive? Why not first gear? Are you suggesting that I am a speed addict? That I start where everyone else ends up? That implies that I am an incompetent driver. Suppose I am in overdrive at the brow of a hill? Won't I be swept into reverse by force of gradient power?

ME: Okay, I misspoke. Let’s hear about Ojukwu, please.

STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS: All right: before the secession of the Eastern Region of Nigeria from the Federation of Nigeria on 30 May 1967, to become the Republic of Biafra, a conference was called at Peduase Lodge, Aburi, in Ghana, in January 1967.

ME: Peduase Lodge, Aburi? Remember the story my late wife, Beryl, told me about the place? She was then working at the Ambassador Hotel in Accra and was asked to go and do the interior decoration of the place for the president, Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah. She said the workers used to be paid in the garden. As each was called by the accountant, he responded ‘Yessoh!’

But there was this one guy who was so pleased at the prospect of pocketing some money at last that when he was called, he replied ‘Lovely!’ So I adopted that response whenever Beryl called me with annoyance in her voice – say, when my food was getting cold whilst I chatted endlessly on the phone. As soon as I yelled: ‘Lovely!’ she would immediately double up with laughter and forget her anger.

STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS: Ha! That Peduase Lodge! Do you remember how after the former Chief Justice, Mr Edward Akufo Addo, was elected president in 1970 by Members of Parliament, his wife, Mrs Adeline Akufo Addo, invited you to come and have tea with her? That woman was polished bright eh!

Doing PR on behalf of her husband? How many wives would be so concerned with their husbands’ image as to invite the editor of the Daily Graphic to come and have a one-to-one with her? Remember the day of her funeral at Kyebi, 15 May 2004? Everyone who was someone in Ghana was there: [then] President John Agyekum Kufuor….

ME: Please don’t let’s go there!....

STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS: Okay. Now, the second time you went to Peduase Lodge was when the then head of state of Ghana, General Kutu Acheampong, held a party there in January 1973 for delegates to the OAU Liberation Committee Conference in Accra. Remember the Reverend Ndabaningi Sithole of Zimbabwe? And the other delegates from Zimbabwe – Noel Mukono? James Chikerema? George Nyandoro? Bishop Muzorewa? Robert Mugabe? Simpson Ntambanengwe? Who was to know that Robert Mugabe would emerge on top?

ME: Not so fast! Do you remember how I met Acheampong for the first time circa 1969, at the Ambassador Hotel? He was Regional Commissioner for the Western Region and he was having a quiet drink by himself when I went and joined him! Who was to know he was to become our head of state only four years later?

STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS: What about the time YOU were a delegate to a Liberation Committee meeting in Lusaka, Zambia, in 1974? Remember Jonas Savimbi’s foreign Secretary, Jorge Sangumba, coming to lie to the committee that Savimbi wasn't co-operating with the Portuguese forces in Angola, and how Savimbi eventually rewarded Sangumba by having him murdered? What about the Zimbabwe Liberation army leader, Josia Tongogara, whom you met there? Herbert Chitepo, who was blown up by a bomb shortly after you'd met him? How the leader of the Unity Movement of South Africa (UMSA) Dr Isaac Tabata was denounced to the committee by his own men, when you visited them in the ‘camp’ without any facilities, in which they claimed he had dumped them, while he lived it up in Lusaka?

ME: Oh please! Let’s just do Peduase Lodge, ok? The party was in honour of the Liberation Committee delegates, most of whom you’d interviewed for Ghana TV. Remember the interview with Samora Machel of Mozambique? He came across as the most charismatic leader of the lot, right? I also did Aghostinho Neto of Angola and Amilcar Cabral of Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde – a truly historical series of interviews, wasn't it? If only the library of Ghana Television had not burnt down!

STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS: I can’t let you pass over Amilcar Cabral like that. Tell us about him, right now!

ME: With pleasure. Acheampong’s Commissioner for Foreign Affairs, Col Kwame Baah, was my good friend. It was I who telephoned him with the news that Cabral had been murdered in Conakry, Guinea, on 20 January 1973, shortly after Cabral had returned from the OAU Liberation Committee meeting in Accra at which I’d interviewed him. Kwame Baah invited me to accompany him to Cabral’s funeral in Conakry. We flew to Sierra Leone and travelled from Freetown by road to Conakry. His Permanent Secretary, Mr E M Debrah was our companion…

STREAM OF CONCIOUSNESS: Don’t you have a nice story to tell about Debrah and the former UN Secretary-General, Mr Kofi Annan, both of whom were serving in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in 1966, when you visited there?

ME: I beg oh! We're on the way to Cabral's funeral in Conakry! There was a dreaded pontoon on the road between Freetown and Conakry. But what I remember most is how hungry I was on that journey. I was almost at the point of fainting by the time we got to Conakry. I’d foolishly neglected to eat breakfast in Freetown, my habit being to ignore breakfast. Well, the drive to Conakry took us about 5-6 hours and we didn’t stop anywhere to have a drink because we wanted to get there before the funeral ceremony ended. And the silly chaps at the Ghana High Commission on Freetown had neglected to pack us anything for the trip. I mean, your immediate boss, the Foreign Minister and your Permanent Sec are travelling by road to Conakry and you give them a car without even one bottle of coke in the boot?

When we got to Conakry, we drove straight to the sports stadium, and were taken to the podium to sit next to President Sekou Toure of Guinea, who was very pleased that a delegation from Ghana had come. But they neglected their African traditional duty and didn’t welcome us with either water or kola! And then, we discovered that Guineans love to make long speeches. ‘Maintenant, la parole est par ….’ And they would launch another speaker on his long-winded way. We were trapped there for another three hours before we got to our hotel. They were laying the tables when we got there. I swear I made straight for the bread slices on the side-plates. I heard a Guinean waiter whisper to another in astonishment: “Pain sec?!” (Dry bread?) If only he knew that to me at that moment, it was the most delicious thing in the world!

STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS: Now, can we go back to Ojukwu please?

ME: Yes, okay. You know that Nigeria used to train some of its military officers at the Ghana Military Academy at Teshie? General Olusegun Obasanjo, the former Nigerian head of state, for instance, was trained there…. I met him...

STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS: No! We don’t want Obasanjo right now…. Just Ojukwu!

ME: Okay! Okay! The Nigerian military government in power in Lagos on 1967 was composed of officers, many of whom had Ghanaian course mates they’d met either at Teshie or abroad – at such British military establishments as Sandhurst or Camberley or Mons. So General Ankrah, our head of state, was persuaded to bring the Nigerians over to Aburi and chair a conference aimed at ironing out their differences and preventing the civil war that was looming.

I was Accra correspondent for the London Observer at the time and although no journalists were allowed near the Nigerian delegates, I went and had a drink in the VIP lounge at Accra airport, where I had friends, and waited. Sure enough, who should show up a little later but Colonel Odumegwu Ojukwu! He was in the company of Mr E H Boohene, of the School of Administration, whom he’d met at Oxford University. Boohene introduced me and not knowing how long I would have with Ojukwu, I went straight for the kill: ‘Is there any chance that these talks at Aburi will prevent a civil war from actually breaking out?’ I asked.

In his quiet, measured voice, Ojukwu said: ‘We’ve agreed to so many things before – but it’s always in the implementation that we get bogged down.’

Just then, his minders, the Ghana protocol officers came and whisked him away to the aircraft that was taking him back home. Just as Ojukwu had told me, the ‘Aburi Accord’ was never fully implemented. As soon as the delegations arrived back in Nigeria, the Accord began to unravel. The Federal Government's civilian advisers claimed that Ojukwu had drawn rings around General Gowon and his Federal colleagues at the conference and outwitted them. And they began to pull away from the ‘concessions’ they said Ojukwu had ‘cleverly’ wrung out of the Federal side. On 31 May 1967, Ojukwu, disgusted with the prevarications in Lagos, declared Biafra’s secession. The civil way that ensued lasted until 15 January 1970. It cost over 1 million lives.

STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS: Okay, you also know that Alex Ibru, publisher of The Guardian newspaper of Nigeria, has passed?

ME: Yes, but that will have to be for later.

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Ojukwu: Did they notice his simplicity?

Uchenna Osigwe

2012-03-15

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/80784

cc E PBiafra secessionist leader Odumegwu Ochuku has left a legacy for a new generation of Nigerians who must now see personal sacrifice as a prerequisite for public service.

There is something about Emeka Odumegwu Ojukwu that many who thronged different parts of the country, nay different parts of the world, faithfully following his numerous funeral processions, seemed to have overlooked. It is something that Nigeria needs desperately now.

Forget the fact that he took a merely symbolic title of ‘Ezeigbo Gburugburu’ (King of all the Igbos), for as Ndigbo would say, ‘Igboenweze’: Ndigbo don’t have kings. Of course we do have pockets of chiefs (many non-hereditary) throughout Igboland, but nothing remotely resembling the Oba, the Sarduana, the Emir, or the Oni. No, it’s not the titles he acquired — no matter how grandiose some of them may sound — that endeared the Ikemba Nnewi to his numerous admirers, and would further endear him to future generations.

Queen Bianca, Ojukwu’s wife — the one person closest to him — was the one who really captured the simplicity of the man. In her tribute, she said this, addressing her late husband: ‘Your disdain for money was novel - sometimes funny, other times quite alarming. It mattered not a whit to you.’

The retired Catholic bishop of Orlu echoed same in his homily at the funeral mass at Ojukwu’s home parish: ‘Here lies a man who had the chance to live a glamorous life, but rather chose to sacrifice his life for his people.’ Indeed, the wealth of Ojukwu’s father was legendary. In the New York Times obituary, Robert D. McFadden had written this of Ojukwu’s privileged background: ‘From modest beginnings, his father, Sir Louis Phillipe Odumegwu Ojukwu, had made fortunes in transportation and real estate, and was Nigeria’s wealthiest entrepreneur when he died in 1966.’

Louis Phillipe made history when he loaned his Rolls Royce to the Queen on her 1956 visit to Nigeria. Unlike his father, Emeka had no need for things like Rolls Royce. So, I suggest we focus on Ojukwu’s simplicity — even though he was not in any way a simple man — for that’s what endeared him to Ndigbo and to his numerous fans throughout the world, despite his disastrous political moves.

In that homily, Bishop Ochiagha called on Nigerians, especially the young, to emulate Ojukwu’s sense of service to the fatherland. For Ojukwu, that was what came first. The retired prelate affirmed that Ojukwu has left a legacy for a new generation of Nigerians who must now see personal sacrifice as a prerequisite for public service: ‘Leadership should be seen as genuine service to the people, not an avenue for accumulating wealth.’

He called for a redefinition of the concept of assets declaration as enshrined in the constitution of Nigeria. Ochiagha advocated that the assets to be declared must now include ‘love, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, truthfulness, gentleness and self-control.’ For a start, the prelate suggested that the ‘so-called development should no longer be on the pages of newspapers or television alone, but must be on ground for all eyes to see and acknowledge.’ For instance, instead of telling us on the pages of newspapers that electricity supply has ‘greatly’ improved, the people being served should be the ones pointing out the improvement.

It’s very remarkable that the bishop was saying all these in front of President Goodluck Jonathan, a man who swore to respect, defend and protect the constitution, but has adamantly refused to declare his assets as stipulated by same constitution, thereby running on a deficit of truthfulness.

Ojukwu’s life reminds one of that of Siddhārtha Gautama, popularly known as the Buddha, who, like Ojukwu, was also born into unbelievable opulence. The young Buddha, who was a crown prince, was virtually a prisoner in his father’s palace. One day, goes the legend, he happened to have ventured outside the luxurious confines of the palace, and was shocked by the magnitude of the suffering he saw. He decided there and then to find out the cause of the suffering. He gave himself over to meditation and to a life of asceticism.

In the illumination that followed, he discovered that the cause of suffering is the belief that one cannot be happy without x, y or z. He called it attachment, and all his teaching was centred on how to free oneself from attachments. It was said of the Buddha that one day, when he entered the capital of King Pransanjit, the King who had been a friend of Buddha’s father came out in person to greet him. He attempted to persuade Buddha to give up his life as a wandering beggar and return to the palace. The Buddha reportedly looked the king in the eye and told him to answer truthfully if, for all his outer merriment, his kingdom had brought him a single day of happiness. King Prasanjit was said to have lowered his eyes and was silent. Ojukwu’s disdain for money and material accumulation is similar to Buddha’s renunciation.

Being a fiercely free mind, Ojukwu knew that money and all that usually accompany it could easily imprison one. Indeed it has many people firmly locked in its prisons in Nigeria currently, especially those in public office. Nothing can be a killer of service to the fatherland than the love of money. If in doubt look at Nigeria as it is presently!

Ojukwu wisely freed himself from that, refusing his father’s entreaties, threats and promises, to either join in his vast business empire or to become a high ranking civil servant, both seen as avenues to a life befitting a man of his background. The younger Odumegwu, with his Master of Arts degree from Oxford, chose instead to start off as a lowly Assistant District Officer in Udi in 1955. That was when the young graduate, like the Buddha, first came into direct contact with the poor conditions in which most of his people were living.

Unlike Buddha, Ojukwu’s incurable penchant to be of service to his people was something that manifested at a very early age. The first time he was detained he was barely 11 years old. He had slapped a white man who was maltreating a Nigerian woman in Lagos. Our people say that you know a chick that would grow into a rooster from the day it’s hatched. He meted out similar treatments to some Nigerians whom he perceived as enemies of the people.

As a civil servant, his father was still interfering with his career with his vast influence, determining where he would be sent on transfer, for instance. So he decided to join the military to get away from his father’s influence. It was a decision that earned him banishment from his father’s luxurious household. The father also used his vast influence to make sure his son didn’t enter as a cadet, just to frustrate him out of the military career.

But the younger Ojukwu was clearly determined and instead entered as a lowly private where his duties included sweeping the barracks and cleaning the toilets. But he persevered. Once his British superiors saw his determination, they stopped listening to his father and Ojukwu rose swiftly in ranks, for in the military he found fulfilment in his calling to be of service to his fatherland. He wasn’t a pretender. In no time, he saw destiny thrusting itself upon him.

There’s no doubt that he made disastrous political decisions, but that would be for another day. Were I in the room, I most likely would have disagreed with him on many of the political decisions he took, but I’d not have in any way questioned his honesty and integrity. Suffice it to say that the people who looked up to him as their leader saw his transparent honesty and his selflessness, and so it was very easy for them to follow him, even if some of them might not have had absolute faith in the cause.

When he joined the NPN, ran errands for Abacha, consorted with IBB, or went to meet Buhari and both agreed to work together, it was most likely in the belief that it would eventually serve his Igbo people who are still being marginalized in the country, even as the Nigerian authorities pretended otherwise in their hypocritical honour bestowed on him at death.

The relative sanity we have today in the politics of Anambra state owes a lot to Ojukwu. Ojukwu is probably the only Nigerian who left government much poorer than he was before he went in, having used up most of his father’s vast wealth in the defence of his beleaguered people. In Nigeria today the opposite is the case. The quickest way to become moneyed in Nigeria is to go into politics.

As President Jonathan and many other politicians and civil servants sat in the pews of that church beside Ojukwu’s compound in Nnewi, listening to the prelate extol Ojukwu’s virtues as a servant of the people, one wonders if they heard anything. Would they commit themselves to a selfless service to the people? Would President Jonathan start by publicly declaring his assets, if not as a sign that his much touted ‘rule of law’ posture isn’t a farce, but at least as a mark of respect for the man who, unlike him, was born into opulence but shunned it in favour of genuine service to his fatherland?

Personally, I felt so ashamed that a man of Ojukwu’s calibre should die in a foreign land because there was no good hospital in his fatherland, a land for which he sacrificed all he had, to take care of him in his hour of greatest need. The reason is because those who have been ruling us believe that ‘service’ to the fatherland means stealing as much as they could, and living in scandalous opulence. It’s pathetic! Genuine service goes hand in hand with simplicity.

Ojukwu, who could easily have joined the thieving elites in Nigeria, didn’t. And he died poor, in monetary terms. No wonder his wife found the (in)security that comes with such principled stance sometimes ‘quite alarming.’ But Ojukwu has become the wealthiest in death, setting an example that those who aspire to leadership would do well to emulate, as bishop Ochiagha pointed out. Simplicity is the opposite of vanity. In simplicity there’s genuine courage and genuine bravery, qualities that immensely helped Ojukwu to gallantly lead his people when destiny came calling.

Did our politicians notice Ojukwu’s simplicity?


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* Uchenna Osigwe writes from Quebec, Canada. uchennaosigwe@gmail.com.
* Please send comments to editor[at]pambazuka[dot]org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

20 years ending torture: literary evening with prominent human rights authors

2012-03-19

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/Announce/80878

http://bit.ly/FR5GCe

Fahamu call for applications

Journalist visit to the 19th African Union Summit- Lilongwe, Malawi, June 2012

2012-03-12

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/Announce/80660

South Africa: Protest against Zim activist charges

2012-03-19

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/Announce/80861

http://bit.ly/FPRsoQ

Talk with Anuradha Mittal

The Oakland Institute

2012-03-15

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/Announce/80771

Thursday, May 3rd
6:00 – 7:30 pm

Land Grabs in Africa: Economic Growth or Re-colonization?
Anuradha Mittal of The Oakland Institute

At the James Irvine Foundation Conference Center at the
East Bay Community Foundation, 200 Frank Ogawa Plaza, Oakland
12th Street/City Center BART

[url=http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&sugexp=frgbld&gs_nf=1&cp=12&gs_id=21&xhr=t&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.,cf.osb&biw=1366&bih=579&q=200+frank+ogawa+plaza&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hq=&hnear=0x808f80b163999679:0xc3b27d9b5c7f806a,200+Frank+H+Ogawa+Plaza,+Oakland,+CA+9461Map/directions[/url]

RSVP requested.

African countries are recording unprecedented economic growth while income
inequity is higher than ever. The current model of economic structure is considered a success as countries compete with one another to open up their markets to foreign investors buying mass acres of land and extracting resources.

When land is owned/leased by foreign investors, what happens to communities forced off their ancestral homes? Many are internally displaced
while others migrate in search of better opportunities elsewhere. These considerations are challenging traditional concepts of nationhood
and sovereignty, examining historic experiences of colonialism of the past and present.

The talk will provide an overview of the reality of land grabs in Africa, based on extensive research and advocacy conducted by the Oakland Institute. Learn about resistance from impacted communities, grassroots and national organizations in Africa, and solidarity networks.

Anuradha Mittal is founder and executive director of the Oakland Institute.
Starting 2011, the Institute has unveiled land investment deals in Africa which reveal a disturbing pattern of a lack of transparency, fairness, and accountability. The dynamic relationship between research, advocacy, and international media coverage has resulted in an amazing string of successes and organizing in the U.S. and abroad.

Sponsoring Organizations:

African Immigrant Social & Cultural Services (AISCS)
African Women's Development Fund, USA
Black Alliance for Just Immigration (BAJI)
Center for African Studies, U.C. Berkeley
International Development Exchange (IDEX)
Global Exchange
Global Fund for Women
New Field Foundation
Oakland Institute
Pambazuka News

A constructive comparison of Israel and apartheid South Africa

Kenya Palestine Solidarity Committee

2012-03-15

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/80768

cc S HComparisons between Israel’s control over the Palestinians and apartheid South Africa can yield crucial clues on how to move towards the end of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

How legitimate are comparisons of Israel’s control over the Palestinians and apartheid South Africa’s treatment of blacks? As Israeli Apartheid Week sweeps through university campuses across the world, renewed attention is drawn to the parallels in the policies of both countries. This year, the frenzy generated by Israeli Apartheid Week is that much more intense due to recent conferences at two American Ivy League universities concerning the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement and the one-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Naturally, both conferences drew heavily on the history of apartheid South Africa by claiming that Israel is on its way to or has already become an apartheid state. The argument goes that Israel is a country based on ethnic privilege and a large number of people under its control, i.e. the Palestinians in the West Bank, are deprived citizenship and are oppressed, which amounts to a fundamental condition of apartheid. This is not to mention the institutionalised discrimination which Palestinian citizens of Israel face in virtually all aspects of civil life.

Reactionary self-described ‘Pro-Israel’ groups and individuals have been quick to keep this rhetoric at bay. Israel is guilty of many things including racism, the standard line goes, but it is not apartheid South Africa. This engrained and expected position has taken on an incredibly ironic tone given the repeated comments by former Israeli prime ministers who have publicly warned that the gulf between the two countries is not as wide as we might think, and the publication of ‘The Unspoken Alliance: Israel’s Secret Relationship with Apartheid South Africa’.

Yet there are many Israelis that agree that their country has no choice but to implement a programme of separation in order to protect the Jewish character of the state. With a heavy dose of cognitive dissonance, arguments are often put forth that there is no inherent problem with Israel as a ‘Jewish and democratic state’ and the state harbours no choice but to grant privilege on the basis of ethnicity.

At a time when the standoff between Iran and Israel seems more and more like a manufactured crisis designed to keep the Palestinian issue off the radar, Palestinian activists and their supporters are doubling down on efforts to reformulate the narrative of the conflict. The desire is to highlight the deprivation of Palestinian human rights, as opposed to the carefully managed narrative of security, which has become commonplace in the Western understanding of the conflict.

This rights-based discussion necessitates a review of the methods which Israel employees to safeguard its unique programme of enforced separation between Jewish Israelis and Palestinians, both inside the occupied territories and inside Israel. It is here that the comparison between Israel and apartheid South Africa can be of constructive use.

Perhaps the best way to fully understand and learn from the similarities between apartheid South Africa and Israel is to simply read the daily news coming out of Israel. For example, the recent mainstream news cycle has devoted unusually high attention to Israel’s controversial use of administrative detention because of a non-violent Palestinian protest. Khader Adnan, a 33-year-old father of two and spokesman for the militant Palestinian group Islamic Jihad, launched a 66 day hunger strike – the longest in Palestinian history – against his administrative detention which began last December after Israeli soldiers raided his northern West Bank home in the middle of the night.

At issue in Adnan’s case was not his involvement in the extremist group Islamic Jihad, but rather his detention without trial. Prominent American pundits unravelled Israeli administrative detention by comparing it to recent American legal provisions driving the ‘War on Terror’, but few noticed the obvious and shocking parallel between administrative detention and apartheid South Africa’s detention without trial. I wrote about the two in last Friday’s Mail & Guardian:

‘The main goal of apartheid detention without trial was to control the non-white population by creating a façade of justice. Using the language of pre-emptive security, apartheid South Africa created legal provisions that served the regime’s efforts to crush any protest. There is a growing body of evidence that Israel’s military-legal system in the West Bank serves a similar purpose.’

At a time when Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and its institutionalised discrimination of Palestinians seem to be reaching fever pitch, revisiting the structures of apartheid South Africa and their similarities to Israel’s current governing procedures is greatly needed. Comparing Israel and apartheid South Africa is not about singling Israel out for undue condemnation. Rather, comparisons can yield important historical lessons which can be implemented to improve the situation on the ground in Israel and Palestine. Such treatment will likely unveil painful comparisons but also crucial clues on how to move towards the end of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.


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Kony 2012: Widening the cracks, letting the light in?

Mildred K Barya

2012-03-15

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/80769

cc LSJForget that the Kony 2012 video has flaws. Rather, bring on the help and catch Joseph Kony.

With all the questions and buzz around me about Kony 2012, I can't help but add my say. And am going to offend some people, I know, but can't help it.
This is one of those moments when I can claim my Ugandaness in full--as if it is contested! Just to show my perspective. And here I'll add a disclaimer and say this may not be the view of all Ugandans. Am glad if some folks can partake in it, but it really is my individual analysis. That's all am standing on. So yes, I've watched the 30 mins documentary that's garnered 50 million hits/views. That is amazing. We are angry--Ugandans and other Black folks--because the man behind it--Jason Russell, White--reminds us of the terrible narrative in which the west attempts to save Africa without acknowledging the local people's efforts and initiatives. The documentary is also simplistic but not bad enough. Russell has left out some important facts--mainly what the locals have been doing for the last 20 years to end the Northern Uganda bloody war. But can we step outside ourselves a little and say perhaps that's not his story to tell after all. That is our story to tell? He's only doing what he can from his perspective. With just a few editorial tweaks that documentary will be fine. And if we so very much want to correct the facts, why can't we? Why should it be him to tell it the way we want the story to be told?

Before you get me wrong since I'm writing from the margin, I know there are Ugandans who have been involved in trying to end the Kony war. I know journalists--me included once upon a time--tried our best to write about what was going on hoping we could change the situation through our pens, our media campaigns and what not. We never got 50 million hits, not even 1 perhaps, but we tried. Most of our politicians and policy makers were busy benefiting from what was going on, and I remember President Yoweri Museveni appearing on the TV when Kony was gaining momentum and saying: 'Kony is just a jigger in the foot. We will stamp him out of Northern Uganda.' That jigger grew and worsted itself five years, ten years, twenty years...where was the president then? What was the Ugandan Army doing all that time? This is an army that prides itself in training from Sandhurst, Cuba, Russia, US...and I'm told it really is a competent army. If it needed to catch Kony it would have caught him a long time ago, but it didn't. Instead, Kony abducted, maimed, raped and killed women, and indoctrinated the children to take up guns and kill. Wanton massacres. The newspapers printed the horrific images until we screamed no. We do not want to see them.

Today, there isn't active fighting in Uganda especially since Southern Sudan became liberated. Kony spilled into the Central African Republic and some parts of Congo where he continues to wreck havoc on the ordinary people. He was our responsibility as Ugandans and look what we've done. I do not understand therefore why some Ugandans are suggesting that since Kony is no longer in Northern Ugandan, he is no longer Uganda's problem. I do not understand why they're angry that the Invisible Children documentary used night commuters--who are no longer night commuting--as a continuing Kony problem. I would like to ask: Where are these children? Who is taking care of them? Are they in school? Are they being provided for? Those who have been maimed and raped, how many of them are being rehabilitated? How many have access to the necessary plastic surgery to try and restore their beautiful images that are now defaced? If we cannot answer these questions, or if we realize that the effects of Kony's war on the children haven't been sufficiently addressed, then we have no right to say we are doing our best to solve our own problems. And when do we accept failure? When do we accept help?

We get consumed with 'saving Africa,' and how we Ugandans are in fact trying to save Uganda...bullshit. There's no 'saving' but there is helping. There is service. There is duty and there is responsibility. Not the same thing as saving. The moment you have it in your head that you're involved in saving a country, a continent, when perhaps you're the one who needs saving, you run the risk of believing delusions. This is what I know: When I cry out for help, I do not care whether that help comes in form of my mother, my friends, ants, goats, trees, Whites, Blacks, Yellows, Browns, stones...the whole spectrum. I only care that I've cried out and I've been heard. That someone appears to help. Back to the affected children and people, they've been calling for help and some of us heard and helped the best way we could, but not enough. I don't care if the boy, Jacob, in the documentary, asked Russell to remember him and help those still in suffering. I'm happy that he did. In fact, if we ask the kids in Northern Uganda who have escaped from Kony what they think of the documentary, I'm 100% sure that they will embrace it and say it's what they've been waiting for. They'll realize that maybe they're not alone after all. That maybe the 'world' might help. My only fear is to create false hope, but most other things that some of us are worried about--like getting the facts right--won't matter to these kids because they've been through hell and they know help is all that they need.

Therefore, whose opinion should we consider? The kids who are still trying to cope and understand what happened to them, the people who want to feel safe that Kony won't show up again, or a few privileged Ugandans with permanent internet connection, who can watch the documentary and pass it on to their friends asking for opinions, most of them living in the US, in Europe, and in safe African countries away from the conflict territories? Should we trust the views of the pot-bellied politicians and the government officials belching after sumptuous meals, rubbing their full tummies and releasing a statement demanding that facts be made right? At least the Invisible Children Initiative has a budget, a plan, and a sense of direction, whether it works out or not. Which Ugandan official or Ministry has ever said; Look, this is our budget, this is what we are going to spend trying to catch that bastard Kony? Which Ministry can say, Here, we got this money to resettle all those in refugee camps. We've restored their land and we are providing some education...

I don't like the name Invisible Children. They are not invisible. They are people who need to be assured of their dignity and integrity. I think it destroys their self-esteem to call them invisible. I don't like the part in the documentary where Russell shows his young son a picture of Kony and says this is the bad guy. I would have preferred him to have images of Hitler, Gaddafi, Bin Laden, and any other well known bad guys so the child can know evil exists in many faces and colors, not just black. I was imagining this kid standing on the street and seeing a black guy approaching and the kid running, screaming the bad guy is here because the only bad guy shown to him happens to be a black man. But I still think the documentary isn't bad enough. If only we can look at it through the eyes of those who have suffered, who have experienced the war first hand and bear the effects on their bodies and memories. When Martin Luther King Jr. was fundraising for his civil rights movement, he was questioned about some of the money that he received from 'suspicious' corporations known to have contributed to the enslavement of the Black people. Those critical of his efforts said he was accepting tainted money. He said, 'the only problem with tainted money was that it wasn't tainted enough.' I feel the Invisible Children documentary isn't tainted enough. And here I'm being influenced by Leonard Cohen's Anthem lyrics: Ring the bells that still can ring/Forget your perfect offering/There is a crack, a crack in everything/That's how the light gets in.

Bring on help and catch the bastard. Forget that the documentary has flaws. Mission is everything. I think the greatest fear here is not failure but rather possible success. Uganda will be 'shamed,' if indeed a bunch of enthusiastic White kids manage through their initiative to catch Kony, who has eluded Ugandans these 20 plus years. It will reveal the government's inefficiency, selfishness, and lack of commitment to helping the people. That is what some 'influential' Ugandans don't want to acknowledge. Success frightens them since it shines a light on their failed duties.

I hope the documentary folks aren't in bed with someone else. Latent motives. We now have oil, brothers and sisters.

As for Ugandan leaders and NGO's who are involved one way or another in resettling the war victims, like Hope North, keep up the good work. When it is necessary, invest more in documentaries that bring the stories and local initiatives to life. I remember when Betty Bigombe was influential in negotiating the peace process. I feel she did a lot. Why can't we do a documentary featuring her efforts instead of complaining that she's left out of the acknowledgment? Where's our budget for this? And remember the Hollywood crap: The Last King of Scotland? We were so angry that it left out the efforts and complexity of the ordinary folks who were fighting Idi Amin. Yet, we still haven't come up with a movie showing how the Tanzanians liberated us from Idi Amin's rule. All we know is how to criticize and complain. If we feel angst and righteous that we have a narrative, that we care, we would do whatever it takes to document it and thank our heroes. Since we don't, bring in the tainted and the flawed. Make the cracks wider and let the light stream in.

* BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* Mildred Barya is a poet and activist.

* Please do not take Pambazuka for granted! Become a Friend of Pambazuka NOW and help keep Pambazuka FREE and INDEPENDENT!

* Please send comments to editor[at]pambazuka[dot]org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

New Zimbabwean constitution not a panacea for free and fair polls

Dewa Mavhinga

2012-03-15

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/80775

cc A-BA new constitution for Zimbabwe is only one step in a series of fundamental reforms that are needed before Zimbabwe can hold elections.

The high level of attention given to Zimbabwe’s crafting of a new constitution as a key step towards fresh elections necessarily calls for a word of caution about the unjustified great expectations that a new constitution will solve Zimbabwe’s governance and electoral challenges. There is a real danger that president Mugabe and his Zanu PF party may demand elections on the basis of the new constitution but without further critical electoral reforms.

Yes, Zimbabwe needs a new constitution. But to deliver democratic, non-violent, free and fair polls, much more needs to be done. The existing Lancaster-brokered constitution is not, in and of itself, a problem. Disregard for constitutional principles including respect for the rule of law and separation of powers are the major challenges which a new constitution would not necessarily cure. The subversion of state institutions by partisan individuals acting with impunity outside the constitutional framework is a deeper governance crisis that calls, not only for legislative and institutional reforms, but also top-level personnel changes in compromised institutions.

The MDC led by prime minister Morgan Tsvangirai correctly stated, in their ‘Minimum Conditions for Free and Fair Elections’ document, that to deliver credible elections the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) must be staffed by new and civilian employees recruited by the current Commission. Highly partisan employees currently working for ZEC, many of them drawn from the military and state intelligence agents, cannot be expected to run a transparent and impartial electoral process. The MDC must remain resolute and steadfast in their categoric demand that no member of the central intelligence organization (CIO), the police or the army should be involved in the management of any election.

The voters’ roll must be cleaned up to remove ghost voters and ensure greater transparency under the direct and exclusive management of ZEC. To minimize chances of vote-rigging, there is need to address the challenge of extreme voter apathy and encourage citizens, particularly young people, to register to vote. The electoral law must make provision for all electoral stakeholders, including civic groups, to be allowed to freely and impartially conduct voter education across the country.

The coalition government must move with haste to genuinely free the airwaves to bring on board truly independent radio and television broadcasters while transforming state-owned media into a public broadcaster that serves the interests of all Zimbabweans and not one political party as is currently the case. The improperly constituted Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe (BAZ) has sought to hoodwink Zimbabweans into believing that it is opening up the airwaves by granting two radio licenses to the state-owned media - Zimpapers and to a bunch of political activists aligned to Zanu PF.

But perhaps the most critical outstanding reforms are around the prevention of state-sponsored electoral violence and ensuring the security of persons. Without the institution of interim mechanisms to prevent the security forces, particularly the military, the police and state intelligence agents from unduly influencing the electoral process through use of violence, intimidation or manipulation of the results, it would be pointless to go for fresh elections. Comprehensive transformation of the security sector will undoubtedly take a considerable amount of time, but for now, in the short–term, it is critical that the political leadership of the security forces publicly declare that they will respect democratic processes and not act in a partisan way towards Zanu PF.

The Southern African Development Community (SADC), as guarantor of Zimbabwe’s coalition government, must be brought on board to provide a peace-keeping force to complement the efforts of the police to deal with cases of political violence. The presence on the ground of an external uniformed force will certainly go a long way in building public confidence that violence will be minimized and action taken against the perpetrators of abuses. There should be a provision for long-term deployment of domestic and international election monitors and observers to all parts of the country.

In the absence of these critical reforms tackling media freedom, independence of the electoral management body and security forces, mechanisms to prevent violence and unfettered domestic and international election observation, a new constitution alone will not create the right conditions for democratic elections. What must be avoided is the elaborate trap woven around the flawed argument that once a new constitution is in place, Zimbabwe is ready for fresh elections that are transparent, free and fair.

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* Dewa Mavhinga is regional coordinator, Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition.
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Abahlali members who were displaced in September 2009 still homeless

Abahlali baseMjondolo Press Statement

2012-03-15

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/advocacy/80779

Two weeks ago IFP members fought with NFP members at Hostel 17 in Umlazi Township. That political violence left one person dead and it left some people homeless. The Minister of Safety and Security intervened to mediate between the two parties that were fighting. This is very good and is something which we welcome. We also acknowledge that the new Mayor of the eThekwini Municipality took the Umlazi violence into his attention and is working on it. However this activism of the Minister and the Mayor is raising so many questions.

This is not the first incident of political violence in Durban. On the 26 September 2009 a political attack took place in Kennedy Road leaving 2 people dead and more than 100 people homeless and permanently displaced. During that incident 12 members of AbM who were staying in Kennedy Road were accused of murder. They were acquitted on that case which took 2 years. Since 2010 the AbM leadership with Kennedy displacees have had a number of engagements with the City (eThekwini) to try and find some solution to this problem of displacement.

Till today nothing has been offered by eThekwini municipality to Kennedy victims who lost their homes, everything that they own and had to leave the community under the threat of death. Nothing has been done to mediate a solution so that the displacees can return in safety and that everyone in Kennedy Road can be free to organise freely and safely according to their own choices.

The Mayor’s response to the problems at Hostel 17 is welcomed but it raises a lot of questions because after the political violence in Kennedy he only sided with one side. So we are wondering if in this democratic country the people that matter are only people who are party aligned. If you are not aligned to party politics does it mean that you don’t need to be protected?

Since 2009 the elected leadership of the Kennedy Road shack settlement have been left homeless, due to the attack that took place in September 2009. Since then they have been left homeless, without anyone from the government to help with anything. The Kennedy displaced have been trying to engage with the municipality for quite some time to discuss the issue of being offered some kind of a relief due to their displacement. However they have made no progress.

Abahlali baseMjondolo Movement SA, together with the displaced, have been meeting with the Mayor however the Mayor has neglected their issues. The eThekwini municipality has not responded or even given some hope to the displaced. Therefore it was quite surprising to hear that the eThekwini Municipality have promised to assist in Umlazi while there are people who have been displaced since 2009 until to date.

On 28 February 2012 at 02:17pm in the Daily News the Mayor said ‘I am going there to call for calm, to see the extent of the damage and to try to assist people who have been affected by violence.’ If he does have the capacity as the eThekwini Mayor, we therefore ask when will the Kennedy displaced be assisted? When will political freedom and safety for all be assured in Kennedy? Is he assisting in Umlazi because the political violence there is caused by the
oppositions parties and he is trying to buy their hearts into ANC. The political attack in Kennedy Road in 2009 was engineered by ANC and the mayor is not even mediating into restoring peace or assisting them in terms of housing.

Abahlali will use this month to screen the film ‘Dear Mandela’ which narrates the story of our struggle against the Slums Act. The first screening will be in Johannesburg at Wits University on the 19 March followed by a discussion. The following screening is on the 23 March 2012 at the Nelson Mandela School of Medicine; also there will be discussions afterwards. Everyone
is welcome to participate in one of the screenings. The film clearly shows that Nigel’s Gumede’s response to the attack on our movement in Kennedy Road was not to condemn the violence against our movement, the destruction of the homes of our leadership that went on for months after the attack or the attempt to ban our movement from Kennedy Road on the threat of death. His response was to attack us for taking the government to court. According to Nigel Gumede this, and not the attack on our movement, was the real political
crime.


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Canada opposes right to water at World Water Forum

Brent Patterson

2012-03-14

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/advocacy/80742

It is becoming clearer from multiple sources that Canada was the country that pushed to have language that explicitly affirmed the United Nations recognized right to water and sanitation removed from the Ministerial Declaration of the World Water Forum – the ‘Davos of water’ – now being held in Marseille, France.

The Council of Canadians was inside the World Water Forum yesterday for its opening ceremonies and has spoken with a number of people that have named Canada as the prime instigator of the removal of the explicit recognition of the right to water and sanitation in the Ministerial Declaration.

Council of Canadians chairperson Maude Barlow commented, “Here we have an example of a country like Canada that is using the World Water Forum, a non-democratic forum run by multinational water corporations, to try and negate what has been achieved at the United Nations General Assembly.”

The Council of Canadians played key role in winning the recognition of the right to water and sanitation at the United Nations, overcoming the opposition of the Harper government.

“Like it or not, Canada is legally obligated to write a right to water implementation plan," adds Barlow. “But the Canadian government is using the illegitimate space at the World Water Forum to try to negate the right to water."

Earlier media reports have noted Catarina de Albuquerque, the UN special rapporteur on the right to water and sanitation, warning that, “the right to safe drinking water and sanitation will be sidelined at the 6th World Water Forum… ‘It comes as an unwelcome surprise that the draft ministerial declaration…still does not recognize the human right to water and sanitation that has been explicitly recognized at the UN.'"

In a February 28 media statement, Amnesty International and WASH-United expressed their deep concern that the draft Ministerial Declaration of the 6th World Water Forum fails to commit States to implement the human rights to water and sanitation. They highlight, “The draft Declaration commits signatories only to implement 'human rights obligations relating to access to safe and clean drinking water and sanitation'. This formulation was insisted upon by a small number of States, such as Canada, that have persistently opposed recognition of the rights to water and sanitation at the international level over the last decade.”

The Council of Canadians/ Blue Planet Project are in Marseille to intervene in the forum and participate in the Alternative World Water Forum, organized by global civil society groups. The Council is demanding that the Canadian government recognize the human right to water and sanitation and fulfill its international obligation to deliver on this human right in Canada.


For more information or to arrange interviews:

Dylan Penner, Media Officer, Council of Canadians, 613-795-8685, dpenner@canadians.org.

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Jobless people speak on the right to sanitation and basic services

Unemployed People’s Movement

2012-03-15

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/advocacy/80770

As the Unemployed People’s Movement (UPM), we are pleased to make this submission to these public hearings. We are not able to send delegates to physically attend these hearings as our financial resources do not allow for this. We thank the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) for this opportunity. We have also keenly followed your work on investigating the insulting and undignifying open toilets in Macassar and Moqhaka. We fully endorse your findings, which condemn these open toilets as a human rights violation and an affront to the dignity of poor people.

We make this submission in order to tell you about the plight of thousands of poor people in Grahamstown townships and informal settlements. We also write this submission in order to invite you and other SAHRC officials to institute a formal and legal enquiry on the following:

1. The state of access to basic water and sanitation services in Grahamstown;

2. Progress in eradicating the bucket system in Grahamstown;

3. Documentation of the continued use of the bucket and pit-latrine systems in Grahamstown;

4. Documentation of, and action against the Makana Local Municipality’s failure to ensure universal access to running water to all households;

5. Unfair water cut-offs to communal taps in the poorest areas of Grahamstown;

6. The violation of the right of the poor to freely organise and undertake disciplined social protest against the local municipality; and

7. Illegal, repressive and anti-democratic actions by the local South African Police Services (SAPS) against UPM activists.

In Grahamstown there is, after years and years of inaction, sudden commitment from the municipality to eradicate the bucket system. This sudden commitment is a response to popular struggles by the UPM and, especially, an expose on the bucket system in Grahamstown on the television programme ‘Cutting Edge’. Once the television programme was screened we began to see a change in attitude. However we need to make it clear that the television programme was only screened because there had been a popular struggle against the bucket system in Grahamstown.

Right now the municipality is working to replace the bucket system in KwaNdancama in Grahamstown. However we must note that in many parts of nearby areas, like Qaqawuli in Port Elizabeth, the bucket system is still in place and there are no moves to replace it with proper sanitation. We have spoken to residents of Qaqawuli and they have been repressed in their protests to highlight the issue of bucket system. We have been repressed too, shot with rubber bullets and detained. How are we expected to fight for the restoration of our dignity if both the government and the police repress us? We are quite certain that there are many people and areas in the Eastern Cape that continue to use bucket system, such that they know the price of organizing against the bucket system.

And in many parts of Grahamstown people are still using the pit-latrine system. This is the system in which people dig their own pits and once they are full they have to dig new ones somewhere else. This system is also undignified, unsafe and it is unsustainable as you can only dig a certain number of pits in one yard. The pit-latrine system remains in use in Extension 6, in Phaphamani, eThembeni, eHlanani, Zolani and eTuthwini. In Eziphunzana part of East London people cannot access toilets after 18:00. The public toilets are locked as per instruction of the municipality. People must cross free way to go and relieve themselves at the nearby bushes. One man died while crossing the freeway, he was hit by a car. He left behind a wife and children and he was a sole bread winner.

And there are also serious problems with taps. In eThembeni a couple died in a fire while the water was off – something that often happens. In Joza, two couples died, they could not be saved from fire because there was no water in taps. A student from Mrhwetyana High School died due to contaminated water. In my area where I stay in E street, Fingo Village we did not have water for the whole past weekend. No notice that we will not have water, absolutely nothing. In other areas like Joza Street people can only access water in the early hours of the morning, they must wake up at 02:00 otherwise in the morning, like 07:00 there are frequent problems in accessing water.

When we organised a speak-out campaign against water crisis and scarcity, both the ANC and ANCYL disrupted our meeting, calling us names.

All of these problems are made worse for people that continue to live in shacks or in RDP houses that are falling apart.

But this commission will be very aware of the material conditions that people are forced to live with. What we would like to stress to the SAHRC is that there has only been progress in Grahamstown after popular activism in the face of suppression.

However the right to organise is under serious threat in Grahamstown. I repeat when the UPM organised a meeting on the water crisis we are labelled as agents of the DA and the AWB. We were publically subject to death threats and our meeting was broken by the ANC. Later our leaders were arrested, beaten and given unlawful bail conditions that banned them from political activity.

Much of the discussion around services assumes that the problems are technical. But they problems are in fact political. Municipalities have become highly politicised. They are places for people to get rich and for the ruling party to cement its power. The only way to challenge this is through popular organisation but popular organisation faces serious repression.

There can be no technocratic solution to political problems – there can only be political solutions to political problems. If the Human Rights Commission really wants to get to the bottom of the service delivery crisis it must take a clear stand in support of the right of the poor to organise. I repeat, if the Human Rights Commission really wants to get to the bottom of the service delivery crisis it must take a clear stand in support of the right of the poor to organizs. Our movement, like the Landless People’s Movement and Abahlali baseMjondolo, has faced serious repression while trying to raise issues around services. We need to be able to organise freely and safely

We also extend invitation to Human Rights Commission to visit our places in order to initiate the formal enquiry that we have asked for above.

In defence of human rights and for peoples’ power!

Ayanda Kota, UPM Chairperson. 0786256462

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Land grabbing shows the urgent need to protect peasants' rights

La Via Campesina

2012-03-14

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/advocacy/80743

It's a red alert now.

The government of Saudi Arabia currently owns 1.6 million hectares (ha) of land in Sudan and Indonesia. In Madagascar around 1.3 million ha were leased, bought or transferred to private corporations of South Korea.

The High Level Group of Experts of the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) estimates that between 50 and 80 million ha of land in poor and developing countries have been negotiated, acquired or leased by international investors.

Large-scale land transactions are undermining food security, livelihoods and the environment of local populations. Along with a history-long discrimination against rural people, this wildly spreading global phenomenon has been the reason why there have been so many reports of human rights violations in rural areas recently, especially with regards to land rights.

While the United Nations Human rights Council is planning to discuss a declaration of the rights of peasants in the coming days, FIAN International together with La Via Campesina has organised a parallel event to the 19th session of the UN Human Rights Council on Thursday (8/3).

The event, entitled "Land Grabbing and the Urgent Need to Protect the Rights of Peasants", is acting as a warm up event for the current session of UN Human Rights Council. The objective is to lobby and connect parties who are supportive to the peasants´ rights initiative. State members, Advisory Committee members, as well as experts and NGOs are invited to participate in the event.

"Land grabbing is clearly a gross violation of the rights of peasants," said Jean Ziegler, former special rapporteur on the right to food. "Most of these land grabs are not even for food production but for agrofuels, which are destroying our land, society, environment and our food sovereignty.”

"We have to forbid land grabbing, if we want to protect our food system," concluded Mr. Ziegler, currently a UN Human Rights Council Advisory Committee member.

Henry Saraigh from La Via Campesina argued, "We have been saying this for 11 years already; land grabbing is not a new phenomenon, however it is getting worse.”

"If this trend continues, it will not only affect rural people in Southern countries, but it will also affect Northern countries, as land grabs will undermine the whole food system," the General Coordinator of La Via Campesina emphasized.

Angelica Navarro, Ambassador of Bolivia to the United Nations has an interesting perspective: "States have an obligation to protect the rights of rural people and peasants. These efforts in Bolivia can act like best practices and the initiative [on the rights of peasants and other people working in rural areas] is complementary to our national efforts," she continued.

In this 19th session, the Advisory Committee will present final report on the advancement of the rights of peasants and other people working in rural areas (document A/HRC/19/75).

Besides the focus on the rights of the most vulnerable people working in rural areas, the study discusses the need to create a new special procedure to improve the promotion and protection of the rights of peasants and develop a new international human rights instrument for these rights. A declaration, based on the La Via Campesina Declaration of the Rights of Peasants Women and Men is attached to the study and could serve as a model.

"The inequalities in land tenure as well as for other productive resources, discrimination against rural women peasants, the increase in hunger and malnutrition, and the difficulties in meeting the Millennium Development Goals are all very good reasons why we need a breakthrough in dealing with the food situation," said Jean Feyder, Ambassador of Luxembourg. The recommendations in the final study are meant to serve this objective; business as usual definitely will not solve the problem.

"Food is not a commodity, food has cultural and social dimensions too,” Ana Maria Suarez Franco from FIAN International said. "Therefore, our food, our culture, and our social cohesion will be destroyed should the land grabbing phenomenon persist."

Ana Maria further explained, "Food produced by peasants is as important as peace and security in the world."

"Peasants and other rural people are now claiming their rights and offer real alternatives to improve the food system and human rights mechanisms. It is about time for the international community to respond to this," she concluded.

The final study will be discussed with states on March 13 and 14 on item 5 in the 19th session of UN Human Rights Council.

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* Via Campesina is an international movement of peasants, small- and medium-sized producers, landless, rural women, indigenous people, rural youth and agricultural workers. We are an autonomous, pluralist and multicultural movement, independent of any political, economic, or other type of affiliation. Born in 1993, La Via Campesina now gathers about 150 organisations in 70 countries in Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Americas.

International Operational Secretariat:
Jln. Mampang Prapatan XIV no 5 Jakarta Selatan 12790, Indonesia
Tel/fax: +62-21-7991890/+62-21-7993426
Email: viacampesina@viacampesina.org

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A wife's neck saved

George Chijioke Amadi

2012-03-14

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/books/80741

‘Beyond the all-too-familiar message of violence against women, Amadi's epigram-clad poem is like the very best straight out of a Holy Book’- Akwasi Aidoo
Ijeoma's mind, a course pounds,
mercilessly, fears, pains, rushes.
Her every emotion, in a shambles,
hardly, to a prying eye, shows;
intimacy, a quality, she dreads!

Anger, on her face, a route plies,
a black eye, unjustly inflicted, cries,
A hope, by courage planted, thrives
a childless mom often a party gives
a farmer true, tasty dishes, rustles.

Her explanations, sorrow-drenched,
with charming wit, slowly executed
ears biased, at last, out, bowled.
Yet, in lust, sat elders, sullen-faced
dying, an innocent person, to bleed!

Asked her, at last, an elder, Pa Sid,
by his own self-restraint, subdued:
"Where's hunter, your husband?"
"Of where, I know nothing, I plead".
"Liar, murderer," yelled Bro. O-Zed.

Sinewy sticks, thorny, on her rallied
elders, a nose innocent, bloodied.
Hovered vultures, a trio unfancied;
often in meat, their breaks buried,
need now, for supper, be worried

Alas, from Evil Forest, dreaded,
Nnodi's return, hardly expected,
old liars, his darling's foes, dazed,
in anonymity, disperse, shammed;
a good wife's neck, in time, saved!

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New book: ‘Remunicipalisation: Putting Water Back in Public Hands’

2012-03-15

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/books/80780

Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO), the Municipal Services Project (MSP) and the Transnational Institute (TNI) are launching the groundbreaking study ‘Remunicipalisation: Putting Water Back in Public Hands’ on Thursday, March 15 in Marseille, France.

The book explores the growing ‘remunicipalisation’ trend in the water sector that largely stems from the adverse effects of poor private water services in cities around the globe. Unequal access for the poor, unkept investment promises, environmental hazards, and scandalous profit margins are prompting municipalities to act to guarantee this essential service. Case studies analyse the transition from private to public water provision in Buenos Aires, Dar es Salaam, Hamilton and Paris as well as Malaysia’s national experiment.

“This long-awaited study highlights the successes and ongoing challenges of remunicipalisation, and shows that public water providers can outperform private companies,” says David McDonald, co-director of the MSP, a research project on alternatives to privatisation. “We hope it can help deconstruct a deeply entrenched neoliberal ideology that puts profits before people.”

In the South, privatised water services continue to be promoted as a solution to increased investment needs in water services by international financial institutions. But evidence from the case studies shows that privatisation has come at a high social cost and has not resolved operational and infrastructural problems, with companies reaping high profits while governments shoulder substantial risks without democratic checks.

Private provision has also failed citizens in the North. “The case of Paris shows how expensive, opaque and short-sighted private water management usually is,” says Martin Pigeon of Brussels-based CEO. “Two years into remunicipalisation, public managers have made major savings and they run the system more transparently with a long-term vision. This victory is all the more important as dozens of water concession contracts are up for renewal in 2012 in France alone, raising hopes for nation-wide change. At the EU level, lessons from this experience advocate strongly against the austerity drive to force Greece, Portugal and Italy to privatise their water.”

According to TNI expert Satoko Kishimoto, “water struggles provide a real opportunity for citizens not only to end privatisation but to help shape public water companies that are democratic and responsive to their needs. We hope this book can help draw lessons from these experiences to guide future action in favour of public services.”

Co-editors Martin Pigeon, David McDonald and Satoko Kishimoto will present research findings during an Alternative World Water Forum workshop convened by the MSP.

LAUNCH EVENT

Thursday, March 15 from 15h30 to 18h
Docks des Suds, Cabaret Rouge 1, Marseille, France

Workshop information and full list of speakers available at here.

BOOK DOWNLOAD

Free access on MSP, TNIand CEO websites.

For more on cases of remunicipalisation around the world, click here.

INTERVIEWS

Contact Madeleine Bélanger, MSP Communications Manager
+33 (0)6 99 89 17 75 or m.belanger.dumontier@gmail.com.

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On ‘A wife’s neck saved’

Akwasi Aidoo

2012-03-14

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/books/80740

This is one sad, but energising, poem I discovered today (by George Chijioke Amadi). Political poems tend to be a bit hackneyed, I've come to conclude, but this is one of the few that make you want to say: ‘Please give me more!’

It's the story of a woman called Ijeoma, which in Igbo means ‘the journey is sweet and good.’ In this life, however, her journey is anything but sweet and good, until the very end of a horrid patriarchal encounter.

Her hunter-husband is lost in ‘Evil Forest’ for a time and taken for dead. She gets a tearing black eye from slaps for it. The elders call her to a council, where she sorrowfully but smartly explains her innocence. But the elders call her a liar and murderer, more beatings follow with thorny sticks and she's left out for the hovering vultures' supper. Then, the godly moment comes (the gods must be long-departed women!): Nnodi, her husband appears, ‘hardly expected’, from the dreaded ‘Evil Forest’. Her shamed foes disperse, fazed and dazed; and ‘a good wife's neck, in time, saved.’

Ijeoma survives because she doesn't give up. She holds her own, in dignity, against the onslaught. ‘Her every emotion, in shambles’, ‘hardly shows’ to even a ‘prying eye.’ ‘A hope, by courage planted, thrives’ in her.

Ijeoma is ‘childless’ but a ‘mom’, a philanthropic identity that is at the very core of the African saying, ‘It takes a village to raise a child.’ She feeds all (‘often a party gives’). What better way to capture the maternal resilience that is Africa!

Beyond the all-too-familiar message of violence against women, Amadi's epigram-clad poem is like the very best straight out of a Holy Book, and it made me think: ‘Hmm.. who said our Griots don't have the divine word?’

And, oh, how sweet the turn of words and lines; the striking mix of rhythmic energy even at the end of each dramatic line: pounds, rushes, shambles, shows, dreads, plies, cries, thrives, rustles, sorrow-drenched, executed, bowled, bleed, subdued, rallied, bloodied, dreaded, saved, etc...

In the end, questions remain: Will the battering elders change? What else would it take to make that happen? They better do, right? Or else, as the delightful feminist joke goes: ‘God is coming, and boy is she pissed!?’

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Paper on Philippine water sector identifies critical situations; presents models for water service provision

2012-03-15

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/books/80781

‘Treading Troubled Waters’ by the DRTS Thematic Working Group on Water identifies several critical challenges faced by the water sector that includes government, communities, public utilities, regulators, civil society and academe. The paper points to the failure to have coherence and integration in government’s policy orientation, one consequence of which a Mining Act passed in 1995 that had since undermined the ‘entitlement of local communities’ and progressively caused Philippine communities’ ‘loss of access to traditional water sources’. Anecdotal experiences from the central (Visayas) and southern regions (Mindanao) have a common story to tell: that mining companies have been ‘encroaching on their watershed areas and affecting not only water supply or access…but also (water) quality.’

Uneven access, the presence of a large number of waterless areas throughout the Philippines and poorly-resourced small water systems - this last one resulting on overpricing and corruption - have been identified as well as key and interrelated situations.

Underscored as well, and pertaining to primarily to governmental role and function, are the vulnerability to privatization of public utilities and fragmented and weak regulatory system. Meanwhile, the lack of recognition of small water services providers as key actors/agents filling the huge gaps in water service/provision is not at all helping address these critical challenges.

Another strength of the paper, as well as the process that paved the way for this integrative paper, can be found in the recommendations. The discussions do not stop at identifying problems, but point also to ways for moving the results of the process toward policy reforms and other forms of action.

On top of calls to action addressing government, such as the ratification of the United Nations Resolution on the Right to Water and Sanitation, strengthening of the role of the National Water Resources Board as main regulator and improvement in management information systems, the paper also presents case studies that serve as ‘innovative models’ for providing water and managing water resources that are already being practiced by different groups and communities. Such cases lessen government’s room for making excuses for not doing its job; for these on-the-ground models, government only needs to lend support to ensure their sustainability.

The report can be downloaded at: http://www.focusweb.org/content/treading-troubled-waters


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Somalia: Getting Somalia right

2012-03-19

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/podcasts/80866

http://bit.ly/FR4cZv

Uganda: Kony 2012 hides US support for repressive Ugandan regime

2012-03-19

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/podcasts/80876

http://bit.ly/wZsLu4

Zimbabwe: Activists sue over torture

2012-03-15

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/zimbabwe/80760

http://bit.ly/w7gPtR

Zimbabwe: Full compensation ‘unlikely’ after Implats indigenisation deal

2012-03-15

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/zimbabwe/80761

http://bit.ly/AzyrcT

Zimbabwe: Mugabe party escalates mediation spat with Zuma

2012-03-14

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/zimbabwe/80735

http://bit.ly/zuGNfW

Global: A critique of the World Bank's 2012 gender report

2012-03-14

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/wgender/80759

http://bit.ly/xDXmUv

South Africa: The ANC centenary and women's leadership

2012-03-14

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/wgender/80727

http://bit.ly/wjhFQn

Cote d’Ivoire: The lost innocence of Cote d’Ivoire’s children

2012-03-19

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/rights/80893

http://bit.ly/x1Vt7E

DRC: ICC finds Congo warlord Lubanga guilty

2012-03-14

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/rights/80734

http://bit.ly/x9XKV6

Egypt: Revolution's injured still seek their rights

2012-03-13

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/rights/80719

http://bit.ly/AkJOy2

Libya: UN faults NATO and Libyan authorities in report

2012-03-19

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/rights/80873

http://nyti.ms/xdDBp4

Malawi: Rights activist released on bail

2012-03-19

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/rights/80891

http://bit.ly/wq5lX1

Namibia: Acknowledging the German colonial crimes in former German South-West Africa

Motion tabled by Members of the German Bundestag

2012-03-19

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/rights/80868

http://bit.ly/zBVAxq

Namibia: No amnesty on genocide

Appeal to the members of the German Bundestag

2012-03-19

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/rights/80867

http://bit.ly/xfBCyL

Africa: Israelis build the world's biggest detention centre

2012-03-14

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/refugees/80729

http://ind.pn/xLGIPg

DRC: What does the future hold for IDPs living in camps in Centre Masisi?

2012-03-14

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/refugees/80758

http://bit.ly/zgJmNc

Uganda: Rwandan refugees still reluctant to repatriate

2012-03-14

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/refugees/80739

http://bit.ly/x6IgUD

Global: Facing the World Water Forum

2012-03-19

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/socialmovements/80885

http://bit.ly/zwI8Kp

Swaziland: New union presses for democracy

2012-03-13

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/labour/80709

http://bit.ly/zSokFy

Latest edition: emerging powers news roundup

2012-03-19

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/emplayersnews/80869

1. China in Africa

Chinese delegation’s advice to Tanzania
Tanzania will attract more investment from China if it addresses insecurity and improves its physical infrastructures, according to the Chinese Business Chamber. The chairman of the chamber, Mr Janson Huang, said Tanzania has many potentials but was losing billions of dollars from Chinese investments. This is because of concern about insecurity among investors from the Asian economic giant coupled with the poor infrastructure, especially roads, he said.
Read More

Tanzania China sign deal to improve trade
The government has signed a memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT) in a bid to improve trade and investment between the to countries. The signing of the MoU was one of the outcomes of the Tanzania-Zhejiang Business Forum held in Dar es Salaam over the weekend. The two parties said the agreement seeks to improve business and investment relationship between Tanzania and China’s Zhejiang Province for the mutual benefit of both sides.
Read More

South African team visiting India to boost bilateral trade
A trade delegation from South Africa led by its Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry, Ms Elizabeth Thabethe, will be in India to boost bilateral trade. The delegation, which is part of Investment and Trade Initiative (ITI) of their Government, will be in Chennai and Mumbai between March 19 and 23.
Read More

China promotes dialogue between Sudan, South Sudan
China said Tuesday that its special envoy's visits to Sudan and South Sudan were aimed at promoting amity between the two countries, in an effort to safeguard regional peace and stability. Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Weimin made the remarks at a regular press briefing in Beijing. Special Representative of the Chinese Government on African Affairs Zhong Jianhua visited Sudan and South Sudan from March 10 to 13, said Liu.
Read More

ECOWAS intensifies preparations for Second China Business Forum in Accra
The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) will hold an inaugural meeting of Presidents of Regional Business Associations (RBAs) as well as a joint meeting with the Inter-Ministerial Private Sector Organizing Committee to intensify preparations for the Second Business Forum with China from March 20–21 in Accra.
Read More

China’s Africa Centre nears completion
An African business and culture centre in Shanghai, China, is set to open later this year, with representation of at least 30 African countries. The Africa Centre is part of Shanghai’s new Touchroad Diamond Innovation Park, set to be opened by September this year.
Read More

Zambia, China revive ties
ZAMBIA and China are actively putting their bilateral and trade relations back on a firm footing after doubts arising from the election of a new government in Zambia. There was feverish activity as 2011 drew to a close with a quickening of high-level contacts between the two countries. By then there was already a standing invitation to President Michael Sata from his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao to visit the People's Republic of China.
Read More

2. India in Africa
India-Africa conclave to discuss projects worth $30 billion
Industry leaders and government representatives from 36 African countries and at least 3 non-African countries would be congregating at the 8th CII-EXIM Bank Conclave on India-Africa Project Partnership. They will discuss 250 projects worth $30 billion. The event being organised in New Delhi during March 18-20, 2012, has Central African Republic as the Guest Country and Zimbabwe as the focus Country.
Read More

NIRD to set up rural tech parks in Africa
The National Institute of Rural Development, a training, research and consultancy organisation under the Ministry of Rural Development, headquartered in Hyderabad, is setting up rural technology parks in five African countries, including Zimbabwe, Republic of Congo and Malawi. This is part of the Government of India's contribution to the India-Africa engagement to promote trade and friendship.
Read More

Workshop on how to set up small business aims to foster Indo-African relationship
In an attempt to strengthen the partnership initiative between India and Africa, the All India Management Association (AIMA) in collaboration with the Chandigarh Management Association (CMA) organised a two-day workshop on enterprise development for African students titled ‘Don’t Hunt for a job, Be your own boss’ at PhD Chamber, Sector 31 on Friday. The workshop is being supported by the Ministry of External Affairs.
Read More

African nations back India on emissions
A tectonic shift in the global climate negotiations got underway with the African group of countries siding with India in demanding that equity and 'common but differentiated responsibilities' be embedded in the talks for a future climate regime. The re-alignments became evident with several key groups of nations submitting their views on how countries should increase their ambition levels for cutting emissions in the coming years.
Read More

African students seek education in India
Dulce Vania from Mozambique is studying for a management degree in India and is also a budding entrepreneur - she exports human hair to her homeland. "I have stated a small-scale human hair export business. Back home, it is used for making various accessories," Vania told IANS. Studying for a management course in finance from the Punjab College of Technical Education (PCTE) at Baddowal, close to the industrial hub of Ludhiana, Vania says that African students studying in India are trying to pick up entrepreneurial skills.
Read More

India's Ranbaxy opens Morocco unit
Ranbaxy Laboratories Ltd, India's top drugmaker by sales, said its Moroccan unit has started functioning, giving it direct access to a $1 billion pharmaceuticals market. The unit, Ranbaxy's third in Africa, will also help the company supply products to other north African countries in future, it said on Monday.
Read More

3. In Other Emerging Powers News

Sasol moves ahead with 140 MW gas-fired Moz power plant study
JSE-listed energy group Sasol says it is well advanced with a feasibility investigation into a 140 MW gas-fired power plant, which could be developed near Ressano Garcia, in Mozambique. The project, which had not yet been board sanctioned, could be pursued in joint venture between Sasol and State-owned utility Electricidade de Moçambique. The output would be consumed within the borders of the fast-growing Southern African country, which is keen to diversify its power mix and reduce power imports from South Africa.
Read More

4. Blogs, Opinions, Presentations and Publications

China’s Libya Problem
The Arab Spring hasn’t been kind to China – it has drawn significant international criticism for its decision to veto U.N. Security Council resolutions censuring Syria’s brutal crackdown on peaceful protesters demanding increased freedoms. But it’s in Libya where China is most likely to feel the economic pains of its rigid foreign policy.
Read More

3Qi: China’s landmark Sicomines deal in the DRC
The controversial 2007 Sicomines infrastructure-for-natural resources deal between China and the Democratic Republic of the Congo is a milestone in Sino-Africa ties as it’s one of the largest agreements of its kind on record. Originally valued at 9 billion dollars (it has seen been reduced), the deal stunned many in the West, particularly at the International Monetary Fund, as it was widely interpreted as a direct challenge to the half-century old order that governs Western management of aid and development assistance in Africa.
Read More

China's CSR leaders named
Haier, Lenovo and Huawei are among the Chinese brand owners demonstrating the strongest corporate social responsibility credentials on the global stage, a study has argued. The World Economic Forum, a Swiss not-for-profit foundation, and the Boston Consulting Group, the consultancy, assessed 95 leading Chinese firms and interviewed 130 experts to identify the country's CSR leaders.
Read More

Sino-African cooperation to grow
Standard Bank Group Ltd, Africa's biggest lender by assets, said on Thursday that China and Africa will experience a "honeymoon" period during the next 10 years in terms of investment, and their areas of cooperation will be extended. "From my perspective I see Sino-African cooperation moving beyond political expediency to a point where it will be driven by 'Africa needing China and China needing Africa' - a good basis on which to build trust and expand cooperation," said Craig Bond, chief executive of the bank's operations in China.
Read More

Angola: Opposition leader laments police cruelty

2012-03-13

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/elections/80707

http://bit.ly/wfOtBF

Egypt: Israel is Egypt’s no. 1 enemy, MPs declare

2012-03-13

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/elections/80717

http://bit.ly/wL18BL

Gambia: Six opposition parties out of parliamentary polls

2012-03-14

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/elections/80751

http://bit.ly/xRYsor

Guinea-Bissau: Country votes for president

2012-03-19

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/elections/80892

http://bit.ly/zIxGvL

Malawi: CSOs call on president to withdraw threat

2012-03-13

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/elections/80708

http://bit.ly/zbX1qp

Mauritania: Opposition parties press for end to military rule

2012-03-14

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/elections/80752

http://bit.ly/zuCkft

Morocco: Police violently break up protest in capital

2012-03-15

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/elections/80764

http://bit.ly/zHVour

South Africa: Judge defends judicial dissent after Zuma criticism

2012-03-13

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/elections/80711

http://bit.ly/zN9uNz

Uganda: Opposition MPs sign up to impeach President Museveni

2012-03-14

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/elections/80747

http://bit.ly/Apuz3N

Libya: Gaddafi's finger found in Sarkozy's presidential pie

2012-03-13

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/corruption/80712

http://bit.ly/zRkOL3

South Africa: Deputy president refers claims to public protector

2012-03-13

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/corruption/80713

http://bit.ly/wgS4ly

Africa: The Arab spring and international debt

2012-03-15

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/development/80766

http://bit.ly/AqCGKh

Global: Challenging the World Water Forum to protect water from corporate control

2012-03-19

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/development/80864

http://bit.ly/FPDq2A

Global: Defanging the NGOs

2012-03-19

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/development/80875

http://bit.ly/FPWgIf

Global: Putting water back in public hands

2012-03-19

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/development/80863

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=107074

Global: Report warns western firms on 'resource nationalism'

2012-03-14

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/development/80730

http://bit.ly/yi1ia8

Global: South Centre seminar warns of effects of economic downturn

2012-03-19

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/development/80886

http://bit.ly/zxSX30

Global: Unmasking the IMF

The post-financial crisis imperative for reform

2012-03-15

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/development/80765

http://bit.ly/wT3E2L

Malawi: Mutharika bashes World Bank mission

2012-03-13

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/development/80710

http://bit.ly/AEQCYL

Africa: Sex workers top HIV infection list

2012-03-19

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/hivaids/80890

http://bit.ly/FRaTKh

Cote d'Ivoire: Struggling to rebuild the health system

2012-03-14

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/hivaids/80756

http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=107062

Cote d’Ivoire: Men still make the decisions on reproductive rights

2012-03-19

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/hivaids/80894

http://bit.ly/FPZonB

Global: The avoidable crisis of maternal death

2012-03-15

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/hivaids/80762

http://bit.ly/wJ7v7C

Kenya: Malaria drug effectiveness hit by under-dosage

2012-03-19

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/hivaids/80888

http://bit.ly/yVxrFy

Kenya: Sack threat splits striking Kenyan nurses

2012-03-13

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/hivaids/80715

http://bit.ly/AEzwVQ

South Africa: What the world's largest preventative TB study taught us

2012-03-14

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/hivaids/80738

http://bit.ly/x5a12P

Tanzania: Doctors suspend strike after president steps in

2012-03-13

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/hivaids/80699

http://bit.ly/AeyRHz

South Africa: NGO hauls education minister to court over school infrastructure

2012-03-14

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/education/80750

http://bit.ly/yC3f7a

Swaziland: Activists may lose scholarships

2012-03-13

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/education/80716

http://www.swazimedia.blogspot.com/2012/03/activists-may-lose-scholarships.html

Global: German government study promotes campaign against immigrant communities

2012-03-14

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/racism/80755

http://bit.ly/zF56HU

Somalia: Bribery accusations and local demand for Somali spazas puts paid to 2008 agreement

2012-03-14

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/racism/80757

http://bit.ly/xqVazE

Ethiopia: The Omo Valley, a global heritage under threat

2012-03-14

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/environment/80749

http://bit.ly/yHc7np

Global: Civil society meets with governments, UN at World Water Forum

2012-03-19

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/environment/80879

http://bit.ly/A86jZq

Global: Emissions set to surge 50 per cent by 2050, says OECD

2012-03-19

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/environment/80865

http://reut.rs/FPNYzr

Mozambique: Investments shut down over green concerns

2012-03-13

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/environment/80704

http://bit.ly/x8EXRn

Ethiopia: Leaked map reveals Ethiopia’s mass evictions plan

2012-03-15

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/land/80786

http://bit.ly/w7EftS

Global: Negotiations on food security completed

2012-03-14

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/land/80728

http://bit.ly/xsrYpb

Global: The long term value of land

2012-03-19

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/land/80877

http://bit.ly/xHEZhS

Uganda: Police disperse land protest

2012-03-14

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/land/80748

http://bit.ly/z7tq2E

Global: For farmers everywhere, small is (still) beautiful

2012-03-14

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/food/80737

http://bit.ly/y9KEVC

Angola: Protest and media crackdown

2012-03-13

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/media/80706

http://bit.ly/wgP7bT

Egypt: internet freedom 'under surveillance,' says media watchdog

2012-03-13

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/media/80720

http://bit.ly/xovMLF

Global: Al Jazeera losing staff over ‘bias’

2012-03-14

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/media/80731

http://bit.ly/ydjyHQ

Liberia: Woman journalist in hiding for reporting on FGM

2012-03-14

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/media/80733

http://bit.ly/x3lAlt

Mozambique: The People's Wall of Maputo

2012-03-13

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/media/80702

http://bit.ly/zQG2df

Nigeria: AG advocates for regional free expression framework

2012-03-14

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/media/80732

http://bit.ly/A6zd3d

Swaziland: Diets downsized by financial crisis

2012-03-19

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/welfare/80889

http://bit.ly/y8pTl6

Zimbabwe: Unemployment drives clash over vending licenses

2012-03-13

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/welfare/80718

http://bit.ly/ysf3m3

United States: Long Distance Revolutionary

2012-03-19

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/diaspora/80872

http://huff.to/zTPHro

Africa: Oz troops operating secretly in Africa

2012-03-14

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/conflict/80754

http://bit.ly/wf5evr

Africa: Sudan and South Sudan leaders agree basic freedoms

2012-03-14

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/conflict/80753

http://bbc.in/A7ghc1

Eritrea: Ethiopia stages fresh attacks inside Eritrea

2012-03-19

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/conflict/80895

http://aje.me/yhFbiI

Ethiopia: Gunmen kill 19 people in Ethiopia, abduct five women

2012-03-14

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/conflict/80736

http://bit.ly/w3lmm2

Mali: Mauritania denies collusion as Mali rebels advance

2012-03-15

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/conflict/80763

http://bit.ly/zHNjB2

Sudan: Villages razed in Sudan's South Kordofan

2012-03-19

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/conflict/80887

http://aje.me/zJGIKE

Africa: $75,000 search for Africa’s top young innovators

2012-03-19

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/internet/80884

http://bit.ly/zDRPzg

Horn of Africa: Digital media, conflict and diasporas

2012-03-19

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/internet/80874

http://bit.ly/zWzXVZ

Global: Gender equality in journalism

2012-03-15

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/fundraising/80767

http://bit.ly/wjb2gm

Fifth South-South Summer Institute on Rethinking Development

Global and Regional Alternatives for the Development in the South

2012-03-12

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/courses/80673

Senegal: Call for Applications - Climate change and environmental governance in Africa

06 – 18 August, 2012

2012-03-19

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/courses/80870

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/574/Environmental Politics Institute.pdf

University of Oxford: Part-time Masters in International Human Rights Law

Admissions open for five scholarships for candidates from African Commonwealth countries

2011-11-03

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/courses/77659

The Department for Continuing Education and the Faculty of Law at Oxford University are very pleased to announce that admissions are now open for five scholarships for candidates from African Commonwealth countries to study for the part-time Masters in International Human Rights Law at the
University of Oxford, starting September 2012. The course website can be found at http://bit.ly/s37dHr and details about the scholarships, including eligibility criteria and how to apply, can be found on the Fees and Funding pages at http://bit.ly/ugKcPf

Africa: Before we set sail

2012-03-19

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/publications/80896

http://bit.ly/zfE5cx

Fahamu