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The state, private sector and market failures

A response to Prof Joseph Stiglitz

Mahmood Mamdani

2012-07-25

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/83875

Your Excellency, Mr. President; the Chair, the Honorable Minister of Finance; the Honorable Governor of the Bank of Uganda and the Honorable Deputy Governor, Bank of Uganda,

I assume that the Bank of Uganda has asked me to be a discussant hoping I would raise questions they do not feel comfortable raising. I will take a cue from them and ask Professor Stiglitz questions hoping he will give responses that I do not quite feel comfortable giving.

I shall focus on four issues and I will ask four questions. The first concerns the Clinton years. The second is about Professor Stiglitz’s definition of the problem, as one of “market failure.” The third question focuses on the contemporary global crisis; I call for a more comprehensive definition of the crisis, from the point of view of society and not just the state and market binary that frames Professor Stiglitz’s discourse. Finally, I ask that Professor Stiglitz situate our own crisis – the crisis of Uganda and East Africa – within an expanded frame.

1. THE CLINTON YEARS

Deregulation of the financial system in the US began with the Clinton administration’s repeal of key sections of the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933. That Act had separated commercial and investment banking since the Great Depression era. The repeal of that Act was key to the deregulation of derivatives. In 2008, Clinton denied responsibility for refusing to regulate derivatives. He changed his mind in 2010, then blaming his advisors, among whom were Treasury Secretaries Robert Rubin and Larry Summers and the Chair of his Council of Economic Advisors, Joe Stiglitz. Larry Summers went on to become President of Harvard University. Joseph Stiglitz went on to be Chief economist of the World Bank and then professor at Columbia University. Summers showed little remorse for his role in the deregulation era. Joe Stiglitz, in contrast, became the best known critic of deregulation.

My first question is not new. Academic reviewers of Stiglitz have often wondered when he saw the light: did Professor Stiglitz oppose deregulation at the time or change his mind when its consequences became clear? Should we understand his critique of deregulation as foresight or hindsight, foresight in 1996 or hindsight after his time as Clinton’s senior policy advisor?

Professor Stiglitz addressed this issue in a book he wrote on the Clinton era, a book titled ‘The Roaring Nineties:
A New History of the World’s Most Prosperous Decade’. The question I am interested in was posed by an academic reviewer of the book, Robert Pollin
 of Department of Economics at University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Let me quote Professor Polin:

“... at what point did Stiglitz, in his role as a senior Clinton policy advisor, become convinced of the severe damage that would result from deregulation? ... As one important example, the general tenor of the 1996 Economic Report of the President, written under Stiglit’s supervision as Chair of the Council of Economic Advisors, is unmistakably in support of lowering regulatory standards, including in telecommunications and electricity. This Report even singles out for favourable mention the deregulation of the electric power industry in California — that is, the measure that, by the summer of 2002, brought California to the brink of economic disaster, in the wake of still more Enron-guided machinations.”

Why is the question important? Like the rest of us, Professor Stiglitz has a right to change his mind. The point of asking him this question is to have some information about how his thinking has evolved on this subject. As the reviewer asked: “Was there a moment of epiphany, like Saul of Tarsus falling off his mule? How many possible disaster scenarios did he really anticipate, and how much has he realized only more recently, after observing and ruminating with hindsight?” Did the crisis authored by the Clinton administration of which he was a leading member just confirm his intuition or did it also teach him something new? The answer to this question would tell us something about his intellectual journey. That would allow us to pose a more contemporary question: Should not the present global crisis lead Professor Stiglitz to develop his thought further? My point is that this question is not just one that should interest Professor Stiglitz’s biographer; it is of theoretical significance. Let me explain in terms that a lay person can understand, which will also allow me to pose my second question.

II. WHY CALL IT MARKET FAILURE?

Professor Stiglitz’s theoretical work is on the economics of information. Traditional economics, both classical and neoclassical, has been dominated by two related assumptions. The first is what Adam Smith called ― the invisible hand, the assumption that free competition leads to an efficient allocation of resources. The second is a related assumption in welfare economics, that issues of distribution should be viewed as completely separate from issues of efficiency. It is this methodological "separation" between growth and distribution which allows economists to push for reforms which increase efficiency, regardless of their impact on income distribution. It is the methodological basis of what we know as the “trickle down” school in economics. Professor Stiglitz’s great contribution has been to challenge both these assumptions. As he has shown, asymmetric information is a pervasive feature of how real-world markets operate. The free market is an ideological myth. In the real world, imperfect information makes for imperfect markets.

For Stiglitz, this means that governments need to strongly and effectively regulate what goes on in markets. The point is to level the information field as much as possible so that markets may function with a modicum of efficiency and fairness. I have simplified the matter but I think it gives you an idea of the contribution for which he justly received the Nobel Prize.

In the three decades that preceded Stiglitz, economists had identified important market failures, but in limited areas, such as externalities like pollution, which require government intervention. But the case they had made was for limited government intervention in limited areas. Professor Stiglitz made a more general case. He showed that markets are always imperfect since they are always characterized by imperfect information, why government intervention has to be a constant presence in the market.

Here then is my second question: Why call this “market failure”? The term “market failure” suggests that markets normally function properly and that “market failure” is an exceptional occurrence. It is an appropriate term to describe the thought of pre-Stiglitz economists who focused on externalities like pollution to call for government intervention in select fields. But it hides the real significance of Professor Stiglitz’s contribution, which is to redirect our thinking away from failure as an exceptional occurrence to imperfection as the normal state of markets. Like its twin term “state failure,” the term “market failure” focuses our attention on the exception rather than the norm. But we are not talking of an occasional lapse in how markets function; rather, we are talking of the regular state of markets, of how imperfect markets are when they function the way they are supposed to function. Information is always imperfect and so are markets. What is involved here is a methodological shift from the exception to the norm. This is a shift of paradigmatic significance. “Market failure” is an unfortunate term because it hides the fundamental character of this shift.

III. THE PROBLEM IS NOT JUST ECONOMIC

Before discussing its limits, I will summarize Professor Stiglitz’s response to the problem he calls “market failure.” Professor Stiglitz attributes “market failure” to “lack of transparency.” He has several recommendations on how to check market failure. The first is that government needs to bridge the gap between social returns and private returns, both to encourage socially necessary investment as in agriculture and to discourage socially undesirable investment as in real estate speculation. Second, the government may set up specialized development banks. In support, he cites the negative example of America’s private banks and their “dismal performance” alongside the positive example of Brazil’s development bank, a bank twice the size of the World Bank, and its “extraordinary success” in leading that country’s economic transformation.

Finally, Professor Stiglitz cautions against liberalizing financial and capital markets as advised by the Washington Consensus. He reminds us that African countries that followed the Washington Consensus like so many faithful converts paid the price for not thinking on their own feet. To quote Professor Stiglitz: “Credit to small and medium sized enterprises went down. More broadly, credit to productive investments went down. ... Not surprising, the result was that growth was lower in countries that liberalized.” The countries that succeeded were those in East Asia; unlike African countries, they regulated financial markets in the interest of their development.

Professor Stiglitz says that the Washington Consensus is an ideology. He has a term for it: he calls it “free market fundamentalism.” It was “ignored in Asia” but “has inflicted a high cost on developing countries, especially in Africa.” He says the crisis of 2008 provides a moment for reflection, on the key importance of the financial sector, and of how ideology — flawed ideas about markets — led to a global disaster.” The lessons are two-fold: first, “more than better regulation is required”; second, “the government must take an active role in providing development finance.”

I am not an economist, but I have been forced to learn its basics to defend myself in the academy and the world. Like you, I live in a world where policy discourse has been dominated – I should say colonized – by economists whose vision is limited to the economy. Professor Stiglitz derides this as “free market fundamentalism” and I agree with him. Like fundamentalist generals who think that the conduct, outcome and consequence of war is determined by what happens on the battlefield, the thought of fundamentalist economists not only revolves around the market but is also limited by it. Just as war is too important an activity to be left to generals, the material welfare of peoples is also too important to be left to economists alone.

I salute the work Professor Stiglitz has done to show the havoc caused by what he calls “free market fundamentalists.” But I have a critique. I have already argued that his definition of the problem as that of “market failure” is inadequate. I will now argue that, in light of the challenge we face today, his response to the problem is also too limited.

To illustrate how deep and pervasive this crisis is, I would like to sketch some key developments starting with the Clinton years. Let us begin with the collapse of the Soviet Union. In the 1990s, the Clinton administration urged on Russia what it called a “shock therapy,” a cocktail of recipes first perfected in African countries in the 1980s, and baptized as Structural Adjustment by the Washington Consensus. That policy practically destroyed essential consumer industries, from pharmaceuticals to poultry, and led to mass poverty in Russia. Fully backed by the Clinton administration, Yeltsin and his fellow conspirators were happy to implement this “shock therapy” as a way to acquire property at the expense of democracy. In the words of a moderate Russian paper, Literary Gazette, the “shock therapy” turned Russia into “a zone of catastrophe.” We may note that none of the architects of this policy in the Clinton administration – neither Larry Summers, nor Jeffrey Sachs nor former President Clinton himself – has every publicly apologized for this.

My second example is more current. The Eurozone was created as a single currency for Europe but without constituting Europe as a democratic polity. The result was that monetary policy was formulated outside the framework of democracy. The states in Europe have done to their own people what the
Washington Consensus did to African peoples in the 1980s. Unelected governments rule Europe; the EU ruling phalanx is not accountable to anyone. By all technical standards, what is taking shape in Europe is dictatorship. Not only are essential mechanisms of democratic systems being eroded or discarded, democracy is rapidly losing credibility. For the third time in a century, Germany is looking to turn Europe into its backyard. Germany is now achieving with banks what it failed to achieve with tanks in World War I and World War II. It is even more interesting that it is Germany that should now propose a democratic solution to the crisis of the Eurozone, calling for a political unification of Europe.

Historically, capitalism – and the market – have been kept in check by democracy. Both the Russian and the European cases show us what happens when you do away with the democratic process in the interest of economic efficiency.

In both the Russian and the European cases – and one could multiply examples – the problem has not been the absence of state activism. If anything, states have reinforced the havoc wreaked by market forces on society. Society is the missing term in the state-market equation that has defined the debate on “market failure” among economists. The tendency of the market, like that of the state, is to devour society. The challenge is to defend society against these twin forces.

Here is my point: The antidote to the market was never the state but democracy. Not the state but a democratic political order has contained the worst fallout from capitalism over the last few centuries. The real custodian of a democratic order was never the state but society. The question we are facing today is not just that of market failure but of an all-round political failure: the financialization of capitalism is leading to the collapse of the democratic order. The problem was best defined by the Occupy Wall Street movement in the US: it is the 99% against the 1%.

Thus my third question: does not this empirical acknowledgement need to be translated into a theoretical insight? Does it not call for a revised theoretical apparatus: one beyond a focus on “market failure”; one that does not limit the frame to the market and the state; one that is more interdisciplinary and more focused on the intersection of the economic, the political, and the social, both to illuminate the depth of the crisis we are faced with today and to shift focus from the state and the market to society?

IV. LESSONS FOR US IN UGANDA, IN EAST AFRICA AND IN AFRICA

I have little doubt that the audience here wants us to go beyond questions of economic theory, beyond a discussion of the global crisis. This audience would like some discussion of the Ugandan crisis. I will ask my fourth and last question on behalf of the audience: What are the lessons for Uganda, East Africa and Africa?

My first observation is that the Ugandan crisis is not really exceptional if you look at the rest of the world. In his more public and less academic observations, Professor Stiglitz has remarked on the depths of the problem in “much of the world”. Take an example from 2007 when Professor Stiglitz wrote of globalization on Beppe Grillo’s Blog in2007: "For much of the world, globalization as it has been managed seems like a pact with the devil. A few people in the country become wealthier; GDP statistics, for what they are worth, look better, but ways of life and basic values are threatened. ... This is not how it has to be."

It would be a shame if this audience is to walk away from Professor Stiglitz’s lecture with a message that the problem is just one of “market failure” and the solution is a robust state that regulates markets and provides development finance. Is the lesson of the Structural Adjustment era simply that we need strong states to defend ourselves from the Washington Consensus? Or does the experience of the SAP era also raise a second question: What happens if developing countries are forced to push open their markets before they have stable, democratic institutions to protect their citizens? Should we be surprised that the result is something worse than crony capitalism, worse than private corruption, whereby those in the state use their positions to privatize social resources and stifle societal opposition?

Social activists in Uganda increasingly argue that the state and the market are not opposites; they have come together in a diabolical pact. Like in the US where the state feeds the greed of the banks, the state in Uganda has become the springboard of systemic corruption. The use of eminent domain clause to appropriate land – from tropical rain forests to primary and secondary schools – is done in the name of development. Even parliamentarians who discuss the oil issue complain, almost on a daily basis, that instead of leveling the information field, the state uses all its resources to keep information secret and muzzle public discussion on how public resources are used. The question is simple: what happens if it is the state, and not just market forces, that hoards information?

I want to broaden our focus to the East African community. The political class in Africa is weak. Often, its vision is clouded by a single-minded preoccupation with the question of it own political survival. The result is a singular lack of imagination, marked by a tendency to borrow ―solutions from the West. The AU named itself after the EU. The East African Community adopted the European process hook, line and sinker: first a common market, then a common currency, before any political arrangement. Here is my question: Will the pursuit of this European recipe – introducing a common East African currency without first creating a common political framework for East Africa, without first solving the question of sovereignty, whether through a federation or a confederation – not invite a Europe-type crisis?

V. CONCLUSION

Let me conclude with two observations, one theoretical, the second political. When I was a graduate student, my economics professor asked me to read a great postwar classic, Karl Polanyi’s ‘The Great Transformation’. Polanyi was the first to point out that self-regulating markets are bound to lead to a social catastrophe. Polanyi began with the observation that the market is much older than capitalism. It has been around for thousands of years. Markets have coexisted with different kinds of economies and societies: capitalist, feudal, slave-owning, communal, all of them. The distinguishing feature of all previous eras has been that societies have always regulated markets, set limit on their operation, and thus set limits on both private accumulation and widespread impoverishment. Only with capitalism has the market wrenched itself free of society. A consequence of this development has been gross enrichment of a few alongside mass poverty. A corollary of this process, we may say, is that regulation is now seen as the task of the state, and not of society.

That solution is rapidly turning into a problem. Not only has the market wrenched itself free from society, the state is trying to do the same. Not only do market forces threaten to colonize society, the state too threatens to devour society. Free markets are not a solution for poverty; they are one cause of modern poverty. State sovereignty is not a guarantor of freedom; it threatens to undermine social freedom. The challenge is not how the state can regulate the market, but how society can regulate both the state and the market.

I thank you.

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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.

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

REFERENCES

1. Stephen E. Cohen, “The Soviet Union’s Afterlife,” The Nation, New York, January 9/16, 2012
2. Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation.
3. Robert Pollin,
 Department of Economics and Political Economy Research Institute University of Massachusetts-Amherst, Review (for Challenge Magazine) of The Roaring Nineties: A New History of the World’s Most Prosperous Decade by Joseph E. Stiglitz, Political Economy Research Institute, Working paper No. 83, 2004
4. Joseph Stiglitz, “Market Failures in the Financial System: Implications for Financial Sector Policies, especially in Developing Countries,” Joseph Mubiru Lecture, Bank of Uganda, Munyonyo Conference Centre, Kampala, July 16, 2012, 28 pp.

How the private sector didn’t solve Ghana’s water crisis

Judith Amanthis

2012-07-26

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/83909

Seventy percent of Ghanaian homes don’t have a WC or a pit latrine. Piped water, if you have it at all, is intermittent, so water in your tap depends on whether you can afford a domestic reservoir. In 2005, the World Bank secured a private sector solution to the water crisis in Ghana – the first independent sub-Saharan African country, and one of the first to be economically adjusted for corporate benefit. But Ghanaian campaigners had different ideas for their taps and toilets.

A remarkable turnaround in Ghana’s water sector occurred in June 2011. After five years of managing Ghana’s urban water services, Aqua Vitens Rand Ltd, a Dutch South African water corporation, failed to renew its contract with the government-owned Ghana Water Company Ltd. Ghanaian opponents to water privatisation had won a resounding victory. They effectively wrong footed the World Bank, private sector advocate and major funder of Ghana’s water sector.

In Accra, you’re unlikely to have a WC plus individual cesspit unless you’re in the elite minority, and pit latrines are largely rural. You therefore have a few options. You can defecate in a bucket or a pan and pay for your 'night soil' to be taken, probably manually and illegally, perhaps twice a week, to a cesspit whose contents are then emptied by sewage tankers. You can walk to and then queue for a public latrine, most likely a subhuman hangover from colonial days where you pay for a bit of newspaper to wipe yourself and where there may be six stalls serving 1,000 people. You can defecate in a plastic bag and deposit it in the storm drains that line your street. You can defecate in a storm drain. You can defecate on the beach. Men often urinate in drains. Women sometimes put a bucket under their skirts. The only area with underground piped sewers is the ex-colonial enclave, round Osu, where the president lives and Ministries are located. At the wittily-named Lavender Hill, near some of the poorest areas in town, sewage tankers squirt raw sewage into the sea. A World Bank and Ghanaian government funded treatment plant is said to be in the pipeline at Lavender Hill.

If you have piped water, it’s not safe to drink, however rich or poor you are. If you can afford it, you buy either sachet water or bottled water to drink. Bottled water is expensive, on average GHc2 (US$1.9) a litre when the minimum wage is GHc4.48 (US$2.66) a day. The media periodically report sachet water scams. In any case, your tap will be dry perhaps 75% of the time, depending on your topological relationship to the local pumping station. If you can afford it, you install a huge polytank (a cylindrical plastic container) on a tower in your garden, plumb it into your domestic system, and fill it up when the taps are running. If you can’t afford it, you store water in jerry cans wherever you have room. You might seek professional help to fix your water meter, illegally. If you don’t have piped water, and you’re not paying bills to the Ghana Water Company, you might employ a professional to plumb you into a mains water pipe, illegally. If you don’t, you must buy from a water tanker, or from a stand pipe, which is more expensive than tap or domestically stored water. Fetching three buckets of water a day can cost you between 10% and 20% of your daily income. Thus, the poorer you are, the more you’re likely to pay for water in absolute terms.
Despite these huge problems, in January 2011 the World Bank was confidently stating that Ghana was ‘making steady progress’ towards the United Nations 2015 Millennium Development Goal for safe drinking water.

Water privatisation in Ghana goes back decades. The 1980s and the Rawlings regime saw external funders, especially the World Bank and the IMF, direct the restructuring of the Ghanaian economy as a condition for receiving desperately needed loans. Water reforms in the 1980s included sacking staff in the publicly owned Ghana Water and Sewage Corporation, attempts to curb non-revenue water and an emphasis on ‘cost recovery’ - as opposed to improving access to sanitation and clean water.

By 1999, the GWSC had been replaced by the Ghana Water Company Ltd. While 100% state owned, it’s responsible neither for rural water services nor for sewage disposal. Sewage generates life and plant growth as well as death and disease, but not profit.

In the same year, the World Bank’s plans snarled up on the issue of national sovereignty: the government objected to the accusation of corrupt tendering practices, and the World Bank withdrew its US$100 million loan – but with an eye to elections the following year. And indeed, the new New Patriotic Party government, far keener on the World Bank’s ‘reforms’ than Rawlings’ National Democratic Congress had ever been, ‘quickly organised an international tender for the [public-private partnership] lease contract, and in 2001 they short listed nine [multinational] companies…’ [1]

At this point, the opposition to the proposed water reforms consolidated. The National Coalition Against the Privatisation of Water was established at an Accra forum in 2001. Members of South Africa’s Anti-Privatisation Forum and Municipal Workers’ Union participated, as well as an activist from Bolivia’s Cochabamba water struggle. They ‘shared their experiences of water privatisation, and the adverse impacts it had had on their communities.’ [2]

Independent research in 2002 found ‘… that implementation of a plan for full cost recovery and automatic tariff adjustment mechanisms [in the water sector] will be a condition for the completion of the IMF’s fifth review of Ghana’s Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility loan. Further, ‘Conditions attached to World Bank lending led to a 95 percent increase in water tariffs in May 2001.’ [3]

By early 2011, the anti-water privatisation coalition had been organising pickets, meetings, and media campaigns for 10 years. It had survived splits and government witch hunts, and had received some (but not nearly enough) international media exposure. NGOs which had previously backed water privatisation were working alongside it. Ghana’s Public Utility Workers Union was now openly campaigning against the renewal of the Ghana Water Company Ltd’s contract with Aqua Vitens Rand Ltd. The Minister for Water Resources, Works and Housing began dropping hints that the contract would not be renewed.

But why? Surely the private sector, with its performance, efficiency and revenue targets, could tackle the huge problem of non revenue water? Non revenue water is any water supplied by the water company that isn’t paid for, because of unpaid bills, water leaking from pipes, or water connected illegally. In the late 1990s, Ghana Water Company Ltd’s non-revenue water stood at 50-51%, way above the World Bank’s 15% target.

On all major contractual obligations, however, Aqua Vitens Rand Ltd failed, a contract, furthermore, that they had got on the cheap because it required no investment on their part whatsoever; it was a management contract, not a lease contract. Aqua Vitens Rand Ltd failed to decrease non-revenue water, they failed to increase the production of water, and they failed to improve bill collection. Service delivery (not surprisingly) failed to benefit from reducing the number of workers, i.e. cutting the cost of wage bills.

Five days after Aqua Vitens Rand Ltd’s contract wasn’t renewed, the Minister of Water Resources, Works and Housing announced the setting up of the 100% state owned Ghana Urban Water Company Ltd, a subsidiary of the Ghana Water Company Ltd, to replace Aqua Vitens Rand Ltd, with a one year tenure ending in June 2012.

Leonard Shang Quartey co-ordinates the Essential Services Programme at The Integrated Social Development Centre (ISODEC), the campaigning NGO which spearheads the anti-water privatisation coalition. ‘This whole idea about Ghana Urban Water Limited, I don’t think it’s necessary,’ Quartey said in June 2011. ’We have to focus our efforts on GWCL [Ghana Water Company Ltd] and make it workable.’ And it’s not as though Ghana doesn’t have water – the mighty Volta Lake is one of the world’s largest reservoirs.

June 2012 and what happens next? The interim Ghana Urban Water Company Ltd still exists. According to Quartey and Oxfam GB’s Alhassan Adam (telephone interviews June and May 2012), the World Bank is pressurising the government to return to the privatisation option. But, Quartey said, any form of privatisation is unacceptable to the anti-water privatisation coalition. They want a strengthened and restructured Ghana Water Company Ltd, that is, a public water authority charged with the provision (as opposed to the cost recovery) of clean water. The issue has very little to do with management, as Aqua Vitens Rand Ltd’s failure proved. ‘The bulk of the problem,’ Quartey said, ‘lies in financing.’

It’s worth remembering that during colonial occupation, African economies were organised primarily for the extraction of raw materials to their northern ‘masters’. Political independence did not bring economic independence, and the advent of IMF and World Bank economic restructuring from the 1980s onwards, driven by conditions on loans and grants, has maintained extractive exploitation. According to Quartey, Public Private Partnership, as in the Aqua Vitens Rand Ltd debacle, is still the World Bank’s preferred privatisation vehicle.

What solutions are there? Quartey and the coalition want increased government spending: the water sector is more than 80% donor funded. But Ghanaians can finance their water sector themselves. Since 2010, the country has produced oil. It’s one of the world’s leading gold and cocoa producers. Taxation needs to be properly regulated, in particular corporate tax loopholes blocked. Last year’s increase in corporate tax on mining companies was a step in the right direction, Quartey said.

Ghana is a wealthy country, as is Africa as a whole. The Ghanaian government, with a little help from the anti water privatisation coalition, need not submit to World Bank pressure. And then there’s China.

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[url=http://www.pambazuka.org/en/friends.php]Friend of
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* Judith Amanthis is a freelance writer and journalist based in London.

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END NOTES

1. Alhassan Adam , ‘Urban Water Policy Reforms in Ghana: Power, Interest and Performance’,
Dissertation for Masters in Public Administration, June 2011

2. ibid

3. Report of the International Fact-Finding Mission on Water Sector Reform In Ghana, August 2002, http://cesr.org/downloads/factfindingmissionGhana.pdf

Shell shrugs off Bonga fine

Nnimmo Bassey

2012-07-25

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/83896

Shell’s reaction to the fine announced by the National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA) over its Bonga oil spill of December 2011 is in line with the oil companies’ stance of avoiding responsibility whenever possible.

We recall the case of the Ijaw Aborigines who took their complaints of years of environmental despoliation by Shell to the National Assembly (NASS) in 2000. The complainants demanded compensation of US$1.5 billion from Shell and this was granted by the NASS. However, Shell rejected the outcome with almost the same reason given in the Bonga case. Shell claimed then that the NASS did not have the powers to penalize it or ask it to compensate the claimants. Their resistance was premised on a claim that the NASS was not a competent body to impose such a fine.

The Ijaw Aborigines went to the courts and obtained a ruling that the US$1.5 billion should be lodged in an account pending appeal. At the appeal, Shell among other pleadings wanted the court to decide ‘whether or not the investigative power or any of the powers of National Assembly under the 1999 Constitution…extends to the exercise of judicial powers and award of damages…Whether or not the Political Resolution of the National Assembly or any of its Committee made pursuant to a petition brought before the National Assembly or any of its committee, or at all, has any legal effect and/or legal consequences whatsoever.’

The appeal was recently decided with the justices agreeing with Shell that the National Assembly had conferred on itself judicial powers only the courts had constitutionally. They also saw the NASS as having breached the Doctrine of Separation of Powers. The oil company must be popping champagne on gaining this reprieve. However, the issue of the damaged environment and livelihoods remains unaddressed and the aggrieved people are still stuck in the mire.

Another case that highlights the way corporations frustrate poor communities is that of the heavily polluted Ejama-Ebubu community of Tai Eleme Local Government Area of Rivers State, Nigeria. The community sued Shell over a spill that occurred in 1970/1 and after a long-drawn and tortuous process won the case in July 2010 with an award of N15.4 billion or US$100 million as compensation for the massive pollution of their community. The case was first filed in 2001. This judgement has not been executed because the powerful oil company can always find a tiny technical point on which to delay or avoid acceptance of responsibility for their actions.

Reacting to their fine on the 2011 Bonga oil spill as announced by NOSDRA, a Shell spokesman reportedly claimed: ‘We do not believe there is any basis in law for such a fine. Neither do we believe that SNEPCO has committed any infraction of Nigerian law to warrant such a fine.’

Ghana is a new player in the oil sector. However, oil spills and oil company impunity started showing up before their first commercial shipment of crude oil. After three oil spill incidents in 2010 that country’s minister of environment set up a committee to review the situation and to aid the government decision on what steps to take. After due reviews the government slammed a $35 million fine on the oil company, Kosmos.

Kosmos’ response was an outright rejection of the fine with the argument that the fine was ‘totally unlawful, unconstitutional, ultra vires and without basis.’ Kosmos argued that they couldn’t find where the Minister derived the power to fine it. They could not find any such authority under the Ghanaian Constitution or any other law of the country to impose a fine on any person on account of an oil spillage incident.

Kosmos’s kicking, screaming and bullying eventually earned it a drastically reduced fine. The company eventually paid US$15 million as a fine for the spills as well as for withholding data information on their operations.

The outlaw nature of the corporations is entrenched by weak regulatory frameworks within which they work. Consider the case of the several attempts in Nigeria to stop gas flaring. The numerous deadlines set for snuffing out the noxious flames have never been respected. And the fines paid for routine gas flaring are both miniscule and suspicious. Attempts by the previous NASS to criminalise the act could not be carried through as only the Senate did any significant work on the issue.

Just when we thought the current executive draft of the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) was setting a December 2012 deadline for halting the harmful practice we hear from the Presidency that the copies in the public space are ‘fake’ drafts of the PIBs. The ‘fake drafts’ also seek to place the burden of spills attributed to sabotage on local and state governments.

Several issues arise from the shifting of burdens. First it would empower the oil companies to make more strident efforts to attribute spills to sabotage when actually they are the result of their faulty equipment and negligence. Secondly, local governments and states do not have control over any of the existing security forces and so cannot be expected to police oil installations. Fourthly, it would further criminalise the victims and leave their environments degraded while the companies and their partner federal government dance to the bank without responsibility for their acts. And more.

A copy of the ‘authentic PIB’ obtained as this piece was being concluded shows that the provisions on gas flaring are hardly different from the status quo. There is no deadline for ending gas flaring and fines can only be as determined by the minister from time to time. The ‘fake’ PIB had stated that offenders would pay the commercial value of gas flared as a clear deterrent. With regard to the duty to restore environments polluted by oil spills due to sabotage, the ‘authentic PIB’ places the burden on local and state governments just as the ‘fake PIB’ provided. A cursory review of the ‘authentic PIB’ shows that there may be further watering down from the draft that went to the Federal Executive Council (FEC). But we cannot say for sure until we obtain the ‘authentic draft’ that went to the FEC.

It is clear that weak regulatory environments do not just happen. They are politically engineered to suit certain players.

We recall that WikiLeaks reports revealed a top Shell official, Ann Pickard, boasting that the company had infiltrated vital government ministries in Nigeria and so had privileged information about the internal workings of government. At another occasion she brashly stated that the company would not accept any new petroleum law that does not suit them and the politicians.

At an Oil and Gas conference in Abuja, Nigeria in February 2010, she stated that Nigeria’s crude production had been dwindling since 2005 and that the proposed PIB would worsen the situation. She described the draft PIB that was before the last National Assembly as a ‘cumbersome document’. Analysts suspect that this posture may have sparked the numerous doctoring that the PIB drafts have seen over the past years.

An analysis of the Oil and Gas Conference noted that Shell’s alarmist position was unfounded. The report informs that Pedro Van Meurs, a world-renowned energy consultant, who was at the conference, dismissed Pickard's alarm as a common past time of major oil companies. He saw Shell's opposition ‘as the natural track taken by a company which mandate is chiefly the making of more and more profit for its shareholders.’ He added that he had ‘been advising governments all over the world for over 40 years and I know that this is a battle whereby the oil company will try to get out of the parliament the highest possible share. So they make loud noise so maybe somebody out there might be listening to them.’

These instances of oil companies shrugging off penalties go deeper than the surface. Nations that depend on export of primary resources for revenue are essentially rent collectors as they often depend on external agencies or corporations to exploit resources found in their territories. As rent collectors they have limited control over what the actual operators do in the field as the operators actually present themselves (and are seen) as benefactors of the rentier states. And the states in turn are ready to pay scant attention to human and environmental rights abuses perpetuated by these operators. Examples abound in the case of Nigeria where human and environmental rights abuses have been documented continuously over the past decades. It is thus no news when these corporations ignore court orders or blatantly challenge government agencies that attempt to enforce any form of redress.

Companies will keep calling the bluff of Nigeria and other countries to which they pose as benefactors while in reality they are rapists. This will only stop with strengthening of citizen-driven democracy, legislative activism and systemic change.

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Pity the financiers in the heart of darkness

It's the people of Africa who are being ripped off

Nick Dearden

2012-07-25

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/83897

There is a deep rooted and pernicious view, amongst those claiming to want to ‘help’ Africa that proves difficult to shake. It says that Africa's impoverishment can be laid primarily at the door of a group of corrupt leaders. The solution, it says, is not to stop giving aid - after all we Europeans have a mission to help those less fortunate, whether their fault or not - but to impose heavy conditions on any aid we provide and any debt we cancel. The implication is that Africans are unable to govern themselves, and that we, who have centuries more experience of running things to a certain standard, need to save them from themselves.

This is the basic argument put forward by Eric Joyce MP (‘Congo's victory against a “vulture fund” is hollow’, The Guardian, 19 July). Joyce is right that vulture funds form part of a much bigger picture of looting. But that doesn’t mean it’s not worth stopping shady hedge funds profiteering from the odious debts of Congo on the grounds that Congo's leaders will be unable to use that money properly anyway. Congo's problems do not, according to Joyce, arise from decades – centuries - of the most horrible exploitation the world has ever witnessed, but from greedy national leaders who actually need to do more to encourage Western financiers into the country to help them use their resources more efficiently.

Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has certainly not had the governments it deserves. But we do not have to go back even to one of the most brutal colonial regimes of the nineteenth century to discover why. In 1960 Congo's first democratic Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba was assassinated with the help of the American and Belgian secret services. Brought to power was one of the most corrupt leaders Africa has ever seen - Mobutu Sese Seko.

Mobutu's corruption was actively supported by his paymasters in the West. When an International Monetary Fund mission to Congo (then Zaire) in 1982 documented the extent of Mobutu's corruption, telling creditors there was 'no chance of getting their money back', they proceeded to increase lending to the autocrat. Little wonder that Mobutu left a mountain of debt to his country. This is the debt that Joyce believes we - who lent the money and fuelled the corruption - should hold against the country now. Where he thinks the moral legitimacy to do this comes from is unclear.

This debt has cost DRC very dearly. Some of it was cancelled two years ago - but only after DRC spent eight years jumping through hoops and spending $2 billion. But even this pales into significance compared to the taxes lost to DRC as multinational corporations have plundered the country of resources, paying laughable amounts of tax on their profits (Heather Stewart, ‘£13tn: hoard hidden from taxman by global elite’, 22 July).

The idea that these companies are put off operating in DRC by the levels of corruption in the government only serves to highlight the double standards in Joyce's arguments. After all corruption takes two. It is not simply that members of Congo's elite benefit from corrupt mining deals, so do those offering the bribes and escaping their taxes. Joyce is right we should look at both sides of corruption - as we’ve done in the recent case of British development funds in the James Ibori trial in Niger delta. But it has to be seen in a wider context.

Joyce does have praise for one African government – a genuine case of the ‘deserving poor’. One government has been good enough to deserve the generosity of the British public. That government is Rwanda, which has developed beyond all expectations since the horrendous genocide it experienced in 1994.

Certainly Rwanda has used a development technique familiar to the corporate interests Joyce appears to applaud: plunder. Rwanda has benefited hugely from plunder of Congo's resources and the continued destabilisation of DRC. It's ongoing role in DRC is a key reason for the succession of venal governments and ongoing war which DRC's people continue to suffer. As time has gone by, Rwanda's government itself has become more and more autocratic. Perhaps it is extraordinary, perhaps it is perfectly explicable that this country has become a poster child of Western ‘aid’.

Joyce is quite right that defeating one vulture fund is going to make little difference to the people of DRC. The issues at stake are far bigger. Vultures are really just a symbol of the forces tearing at Africa's resources – the financiers and businessmen who are not, as Joyce would contend, being ‘ripped off’ but are themselves ripping off a people who have suffered at the hands of the West for a very long time.

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* This article was first published by the New]New Statesman.

New report reveals Somalia’s missing millions

Two-thirds of bilateral aid is unaccounted for, says former head of Public Finance Unit

Rasna Warah

2012-07-26

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/83908

The report shows that over the period 2000-2011, the first Somali Transitional National Government and the subsequent Transitional Federal Governments received bilateral aid totalling $308 million that was given mainly by Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Libya, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. (This figure does not include funds that came through the Arab League. It also does not cover multilateral assistance to Somalia, which is managed entirely by the United Nations Development Programme.) Only $53 million was raised domestically during this period, mainly through the Mogadishu port and airport. However, successive governments have only been able to account for $124 million – or one-third – of the total bilateral and domestic funds they received.

The author of the report, Abdirazak Fartaag, who was head of Somalia’s Public Finance Unit in Prime Minister Omar Abdirashid Sharmarke’s office from May 2009 to September 2010 and Prime Minister Mohamed Abdullahi Farmaajo’s office from December 2010 to May 2011, claims that various Somali administrations misappropriated and mismanaged millions of dollars in donor assistance and domestic revenue by under-reporting the amounts received and by utilising funds on personal and other non-government expenses. The Public Finance Unit was initiated by Prime Minister Sharmarke in 2009 in order to enhance the financial reporting of the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) and to coordinate the Central Bank and the Auditor General’s and Accountant General’s offices. The Unit was disbanded by Prime Minister Farmaajo in May 2011.

Fartaag’s report (which has not yet been released , but has been made available to the East African) comes in the wake of another damning report released by the World Bank in late May this year that claims that the TFG did not account for $130 million in revenues and donations it received in 2009 and 2010. The report’s author, Joakim Gundel, said that auditors found that the government had collected at least $94 million in revenue in 2009, but only reported $11 million. The report states that in 2010, the government collected $70 million in revenues but reported just $22 million.

A leaked copy of the 2012 report of the Monitoring Group on Somalia and Eritrea – a group mandated by the UN Security Council to monitor arms embargo violations – shows similar gross under-reporting of finances by the Somali government. (The report is expected to be presented to the UN Security Council sometime this month.) The Group’s own investigations show that an additional $40 million of potential revenue may have gone uncollected or unaccounted for in 2011. President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed is quoted saying that perhaps the money never reached Somalia and was “perhaps in the pockets of other people”. The report further states that one quarter of the funds that can be accounted for are channelled through the offices of the President, Prime Minister and Speaker of Parliament. In 2011, these three offices spent more than $12.6 million, representing almost 23 per cent of total government expenditure – almost as much as was spent on the TFG security forces ($13.4 million) or the expenditure of all the ministries combined ($15.4 million). The report further states that the TFG leaders have generally shunned a funding mechanism managed by Price Waterhouse Coopers, which was established with donor support as a confidence-building measure. It says that the fundamental problem with the Transitional Federal Institutions is that “their leaders have successfully marketed the government’s weakness, fragility and possible collapse as a lure to attract more assistance”. As a result, “corruption, embezzlement and fraud are no longer symptoms of mismanagement, but have in fact become a system of management.”

Fartaag compares the funds that Somalia’s various administrations and the Auditor General’s Office reported the country had received and spent between 2000 and 2011 with his own findings, which reveal huge discrepancies between money received and money declared. From 2000 to 2008 (except 2007 when $32 million from Saudi Arabia was recorded by the Office of the Prime Minister), the Somalia government did not account for any of the funds it received. The Auditor General’s Office, which was established in 2000, only started reporting revenue and expenditure in 2009. There are vast discrepancies between Fartaag’s findings and figures reported by the Auditor General’s Office. Fartaag alleges, for instance, that in 2011, more than $122 million of donor support was received by the government, but the Auditor General’s office reported only $35 million; $87 million remains unaccounted for.

The World Bank report says that not all revenues are deposited in the Central Bank of Somalia and that there is lack of proper accounting on how money is being spent. The report was released when Somalia’s top leadership and civil society representatives had gathered at the second Conference on Somalia in Istanbul. This led to hasty denials by President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, who was quoted on the Somali website raxanreeb.com saying: “It is simple to claim allegations but you (the World Bank) must make it clear and tangible. Where the money has gone is what we want to know also.” President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, along with the current Prime Minister Abdiweli Mohamed Ali and former Prime Minister Abdullahi Farmaajo are contending for the presidential nominations that will take place when a new parliament is constituted in Somalia later this month.

The communiqué emanating from the Istanbul Conference, like that of the London Conference that preceded it, supported the establishment of a Joint Financial Management Board comprising donors and the government in order to stem irregularities. The Board, which is spearheaded by Britain and other European countries, along with the World Bank, aims to improve transparency and accountability in the use of public resources and ensuring that these funds go towards improved security and economic and social development.

Britain’s ambassador to Somalia, Matt Baugh, has stated that the Board will provide a facility whereby the Somali government and its partners can demonstrate that the money it is receiving from a variety of sources if being put to good public use. However, the current government has resisted the idea of the Board. The former government spokesman Eng Abdirahman Omar Osman Yarisow told the Somali website shabelle.net that the current government had rejected the idea of the Board, adding that the government would not allow itself to be financially managed by outsiders and that this suggestion needed to be revisited.

Fartaag’s report paints a grim picture of Somalia’s financial management systems. His report shows how large amounts of money intended for economic and social development were personalised by various top government officials, with the Somali Central Bank and the Mogadishu port often being used as personal ATM machines. He says that misappropriation of donor funds by senior government officials was made easier by the fact that the biggest Arab donors usually paid their contributions in hard cash to individual politicians, rather than depositing it in national financial institutions. These politicians, in turn, often deposited a fraction of the donor funds into the Central Bank, and did not account for the rest. Also, the Mogadishu port is under the control of the president, who can decide how revenue raised from the port is to be allocated. This has created huge opportunities for corruption. In 2009, for instance, the port generated $24 million, according to Fartaag, but the Office of the Auditor General only registered $6.2 million of it. In 2010, the port generated $30 million but only $12 million was reported; of this amount, more than half went to the Office of the President for expenditures that have yet to be disclosed.

In addition, blurred lines of authority and poor accounting practices have led to situations where decisions regarding how funds are to be spent are often made unilaterally by the President, the Prime Minister, the Speaker and the Minister of Finance without the consent of parliament and quite often without informing key ministries. “This informality in the management of public funds made is easy for past and present political leaders to personalise these funds, and has, unfortunately become the model for future leaders,” says Fartaag. “Public funds often bypass financial institutions; even when they go through them, they are manipulated for personal gain.”

Official documents seen by the East African show that one former warlord was paid a whopping $8 million for “reconciliation” in 2007 (during the administration of President Abdullahi Yussuf and Prime Minister Ali Ghedi) and one MP, who later become a minister, was paid $330,000, also for “reconciliation”. Thousands of dollars were also spent on hiring private jets for travel to neighbouring countries.

Skewed allocation of funding to some regions at the expense of others was also rampant during this period. Fartaag found that nearly 14 per cent of Somalia’s budget was allocated to Puntland, compared to 0.13 per cent to Lower Shebelle and 0.07 per cent to Lower Juba with the Banadir region (where Mogadishu is located) getting less than 2 per cent. Some regions, such as Galgadud, South Mudug, Hiraan, Bay and Bakol, Gedo and Middle Juba did not receive a single cent, despite being the most conflict-ridden areas in the country. However, says Fartaag, it’s not even clear whether the allocations were actually disbursed to any of the regions, including Puntland.

Fartaag says that attempts to bring sanity and accountability in Somalia’s finances have been repeatedly thwarted by successive administrations. During his tenure in Prime Ministers Sharmake and Farmaajo’s offices, his attempts to rein in the finances and demand greater transparency led to his eventual (verbal) dismissal. He says that while corruption was widespread in the Somali administration during his tenure, successive administrations have continued with the trend. In 2011, when he was still the head of the Public Finance Unit, Fartaag alerted Prime Minister Farmaajo about gross irregularities, but he was discouraged from investigating them further. After his dismissal, he continued with his investigations, which were published in the media. The government dismissed them as a smear campaign. However, Fartaag was vindicated in May by the World Bank, which conducted its own preliminary investigations that also showed inconsistencies and irregularities in the financial affairs of the Transitional Federal Institutions (TFIs).

Fartaag says Somalia’s potential to generate domestic revenue remains under-exploited, largely because the economy remains unregulated. His audit report for 2009/10 showed that Somalia could generate $48 million a year in taxes from the three largest telecommunications providers, whose annual turnover is conservatively estimated to be over $540 million. Remittances from Somalis abroad – estimated to be around $1.5 billion a year – could generate $45 million while taxes from the Mogadishu port alone could bring in another $35 million a year. With more credible financial institutions in place and a better regulatory framework, the government would also be in a better position to earn revenue from other sources, such as VAT, income tax and licence fees, which are currently non-existent. This could also help make the country less reliant on external assistance, and ensure that revenue collected benefits the people of Somalia.

When asked why he had chosen to release the findings of his audit report at this particular time, in light of the fact that a new (hopefully, more transparent) government will be installed in Somalia in August, Fartaag said: “I am trying to show through my audit that every single government that Somalia has had since 2000 has consistently mismanaged public funds. If the money that was mismanaged and misappropriated was used to build schools and hospitals and to rehabilitate government buildings, Somalia would not be in its current dire predicament. I did the report because I want the personalisation of public funds to stop. I feel that the people of Somalia deserve a better government that uses public funds properly. But in order to do this, Somalia needs the help of the international community; we should not expect the future government to reverse the trend on its own and suddenly become more accountable to its citizens. The establishment of the Joint Financial Management Board is therefore a step in the right direction. The politicians who are resisting the Board in the name of sovereignty are only playing to the domestic gallery.”

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International community 'complicit' in Somali strife

Mohamud M Uluso

2012-07-26

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/83918

The leaked and publicly debated report of Somalia and Eritrea Monitoring Group (SEMG) of the United Nations has uncovered an unimaginable range of predatory activities perpetrated by Somali leaders as well as by a large number of foreign actors against Somalia’s peace, stability, sovereignty, unity and self-governance.

The deep-rooted pervasive corruption and mismanagement of the leaders of the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) and the widespread violations of UN resolutions by states, private security companies (PSCs), and private maritime security companies (PMSCs) have been well documented. The SEMG Report attests that the international community, particularly the United Political Office for Somalia (UNPOS), the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD), and the International Contact Group (ICG) are accomplices to Somalia’s strife.

According to the report, TFG has no control over Somalia’s sea, air and land space. AMISOM, Ethiopia, Civil Aviation Caretaker Authority of Somalia (CACAS), Bancroft Global Development (USA), Pathfinder (SA), Sterling Corporation Services/Saracen International (UAE), numerous PSCs and PMSCs control Somali nominal authority. In one year, close to two hundred unidentified flights arrived and left in Puntland and South Central Somalia for unspecified missions.

The fundamental conclusion of 2012 SEMG report with regard to Somalia is as follows:

1. Under the Transitional Federal Institutions, the systematic misappropriation, embezzlements and outright theft of taxpayer funds have become a system of governance in Somalia, embodied in the popular phrase “Maxaa igu jira?”(“What’s in it for me?”).

2. Somalia’s prospect for stabilization and effective governance have fallen prey to political and commercial “elite” who appropriate, privatize and criminalize the core functions of the Somali State enriching themselves while perpetuating a political economy of State collapse.

For recollection, the 2011 SEMG report stated that: “The principal impediments to security and stabilization in southern Somalia are the Transitional Federal Government leadership’s lack of vision or cohesion, its endemic corruption and its failure to advance the political process.” Both reports have sufficiently discredited the false depiction by UNPOS, IGAD and ICG that TFG is a responsible and legitimate representative government of Somalia. Worse, the comment of Dr. Augustine Mahiga, head of UNPOS, about the findings of the report conveyed a message of indifference and business as usual. The continuation of the Roadmap process for ending the transition under the discredited TFG leaders is inconceivable and without merit.

CORRUPTION AND MISMANAGEMENT BY TFG LEADERS

In 2011, the Parliamentary Standing Committee of Finance, Money and Protection of Public Assets of the Transitional Federal Parliament (TFP) presented its preliminary findings of missing funds to parliament and media after conducting an investigation of government revenue and expenditure. The investigation has been quickly terminated by the top TFG leaders. For reasons to be examined another time, UNPOS and IGAD purposefully decided to disband the parliament and establish instead a new authority composed of six individuals under the fancy name ,“Signatories of the Roadmap process.” Prime Minister Prof Abdiweli M. Ali claims this deceptive process is his brainchild.

Then, the Director of the Office of Public Finance Management Unit (PFMU) in the Office of Prime Minister Mr. Abdirizak Fartag issued an audit report indicating unaccounted and unrealized amount of $278 million dollars in 2009-2010. PM Mohamed Abdullahi “Formajo” under pressure closed down PFMU and fired the director.

For corroboration, the World Bank (WB) [1] conducted Financial Diagnostic Assessment (FDA) of the Audit Investigative Financial Report of 2009-2010 and issued a detailed report dated May 30, 2012. The WB report confirmed that $131 million ($164 million of estimated collection less $33 million declared by TFG) is uncounted for 2009-2010. The report found that the source of mismanagement originated from the fact that the power to collect and disburse public funds constitutionally vested in the Ministry of Finance, the Central Bank, the Accountant General and the Auditor General as institutions was practically exercised by the following officials:

1. Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed: President of TFG
2. Sharif Hassan Sh. Adan: Minister of Finance and Deputy Prime Minister (Speaker)
3. Abdirizak Osman Hassan “Jurile”: Minister for Post and Telecommunication
4. Abdirahman Haji Adan Ibrahim: Minister for Fisheries and Marine Resources
5. Abdirashid Mohamed Hashi: Minister of Commerce
6. Mohamed Ibrahim Habsade: Minister of Ports and Marine Transport

In addition, the 2012 SEMG report identified at least 15 Somali individuals [2] defined as “political and commercial elite” involved in various activities under investigation. The dealings of the group have been branded as cartel-style arrangement for the purpose of personal profit.

As illustrative cases, SEMG concentrated on the investigation of four transactions engaged by the TFG. First, it analyzed, transcribed and endorsed the FDA of the World Bank, which discovered the missing of $131 million. Second, it investigated for evidence the mismanagement of $5 million ($3 million donated by Omani Government to the Somali National Security Agency (SNA), $1 million donated by South Sudan Government for special purpose, and $1 million paid by SKI Air Logistics after it received Mogadishu Airport Contract). Third, it probed the shady process for printing of 5 trillion banknotes in Sudan in defiance of all legal, administrative and technical procedures. And fourth, it described the corrupt handling of the project for issuing new Passport and National Identification Card. The four cases showed how TFG leaders privatized public power, institutions and services.

Surprisingly, in the face of the above revelations, TFG leaders never cared to respond satisfactorily to the accusations of rampant corruption by providing comprehensive detailed explanations of the external and domestic revenues through institutional responsibilities. To the contrary, besides sending a letter to the UN Secretary General in which he designated the Coordinator of SEMG as “Persona non grata in Somalia”, the President accused SEMG of pursuing an anti-Somali agenda. The Speaker denounced the accusations as biased and baseless, aimed at undermining his high chance of being elected to the position of President after his past political performance.

The Prime Minister praised the report and accepted the allegations against him by agreeing to provide documentation only for the $6 million linked to his name. These split reactions among the three top TFG leaders reaffirmed the central conclusion of the report consisting in the absence of TFG collective responsibility and in the lack of adherence to public finance management rules and practices. Because of the letter, SEMG recommended sanctions against President Sheikh Sharif for the obstruction of the enforcement of UN Resolutions.

PUNTLAND MARITIME POLICE FORCE (PMPF)

Puntland State has refused to cooperate with SEMG, which led to the recommendation of sanctions against Puntland authorities as their act of refusal constituted a potential obstruction of the work of SEMG. Nevertheless, the report discussed in detail the operations of Sterling Corporate Services (SCS) (formerly Saracen International) which trains, equips and supervises 1,000 Puntland Maritime Police Force (PMPF) with funds provided by the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Without proper consultation, the Office of the Prime Minister authorized SCS to select soldiers from Somali National Army (SNA) to join PFMP training at their camp in Bosaso. AMISOM overruled PM’s authorization and stopped the selection process.

There are many entities involved in the support of PMPF [3]. The report points out that SCS and other companies are linked to Mr. Lafras Luitigingh, owner of Saracen International. Recently, Col Oliver North visited Puntland. TFG received from Saracen International the medical center - Villa Somalia Emergency Trauma Centre, established in the Presidential compound. The Fund was paid by UAE.

SEMG argues that PMPF represents a profitable enterprise for relatives and close associates of Puntland president who directly controls it contrary to article 94 of Puntland Constitution. Therefore, SEMG considers the external support of PMPF illegal and breach of UN Security Council Resolutions.

SUPPORT TO TFG AND PUNTLAND INTELLIGENCE SERVICES

The report brought to light that the TFG National Security Agency (NSA) commands a 1,500-strong force, well-equipped and trained, that comes under the direct supervision of the president. The US Government supports NSA and Puntland Intelligence Services (PIS). Also Sudan supports NSA. SEMG is of the opinion that the support of NSA and PIS is in violation of UN Security Council resolutions.

VIOLATIONS OF ARMS EMBARGO

More than 15 countries and international organizations are accused of violations against UN arms embargo on Somalia. The presence of Ethiopian forces in Somalia is considered as a violation of UN resolutions. Another violator of UN resolution is the United Nations Mine Action Services (UNMAS) which has contracted a UK-based company, Human Recognition System, to conduct biometric registration including personal details, fingerprints, photograph and DNA, of Somali National Army (SNA) soldiers, aimed at improving payment of stipends.

CONCLUSION

The Parliamentary Committee, the PFMU, the World Bank and SEMG have graphically presented the pervasive corruption and mismanagement within TFG. But UNPOS and IGAD backed by IC successfully flouted those accusations and stuck with their corrupted TFG leaders to implement a divisive Roadmap process. The Security Council and the IC must re-examine the facts and problems identified in the SEMG report for course correction and new policy prescription that will help peace, security and stability in Somalia. The predatory activities underway in Somalia must be stopped and the focus should be shifted to State building that delivers State functions throughout Somalia.

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Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma: Any real change at the AU?

Patrick Burnett

2012-07-26

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/83919

The appointment of Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma against the incumbent, Mr Jean Ping, as chairperson of the African Union Commission (AUC) at the Summit in Addis Ababa on 15 July has been greeted with enthusiasm in many quarters. We are told that it will herald a period of new and decisive leadership. That it heralds a reformist agenda. That it highlights the promotion of gender equality and thus will impact nationally.

All of this would, of course, be welcome and is not to be quibbled with. But there is good reason to believe that the AU is indeed the sum of its parts and that Dlamini-Zuma - far from coming up with a new mathematical formula - will work with a familiar equation.

In his must-read article published in this week’s Pambazuka News, well-known scholar Mahmood Mamdani, in critiquing former World Bank economist Joseph Stiglitz’s views on ‘market failure’, makes a compelling argument. He writes in conclusion: ‘Not only has the market wrenched itself free from society, so is the state trying to do the same. Not only do market forces threaten to colonize society, the state too threatens to devour society. Free markets are not a solution for poverty; they are one cause of modern poverty. State sovereignty is not a guarantor of freedom; it threatens to undermine social freedom.’

It’s a compelling argument and the AU can’t escape the analysis because the link between markets and states extends to unelected regional bodies such as the European Union or AU, who are charged in their rhetoric with the betterment of the human condition. Made up of representatives from member states, many of whom do indeed threaten to ‘devour society’ and all of whom are beholden to the logic of the free market, on this basis alone it is very hard to see that Dlamini-Zuma will be able to make any fundamental changes and so we can expect more of the same.

Nor does the South African development model – which Dlamini-Zuma soundly represents as the only surviving cabinet minister under four successive presidents since 1994 – offer any hope of anything other than an elite development party. It certainly hasn’t in South Africa - just ask those behind the waves of protest that permanently sweep the length and breadth of South Africa. And if that anecdotal evidence doesn’t convince you, do some research on the statistics on inequality in the country. Is it really realistic, then, to suggest that greater South African influence through the deployment of a senior member of the ruling South African elite to the AU will improve the lot of the continent’s people?

Indeed, there are actually fears that Dlamini-Zuma’s position could further South Africa’s position as a sub-imperial power, with the speculation that South Africa used ‘economic diplomacy’ to muster support from states that initially supported Mr Ping, following the earlier and failed attempt to shuttle Dlamini-Zuma into the job. And the captains of industry are already frothing at the prospects. ‘There is no better time than now to drive an African investment programme with a South African elected as the head of the African Union (AU) Commission, but it is critical to use this opportunity responsibly,’ Public Investment Corporation (PIC) CEO Elias Masilela told Business Day immediately after Dlamini-Zuma’s appointment. ‘SA’s growth depends on the development of the rest of the continent, therefore it is important that we start looking at investment opportunities for SA’s businesses in the rest of the African continent,’ Mr Masilela said. The problem here is that big capital – although it is astonishingly seen as an important development partner in certain quarters – has an appalling record in Africa. Land grabs that dispossess local people, pollution that destroys livelihoods, massive capital extraction, tax evasion and corruption, are all justified under the guise of attracting foreign direct investment.

Then of course there’s the issue of security. We’re told that the situation on the continent has never been better. Fewer wars, that is. But anyone who follows Africa will know that while there may be fewer full-scale conflicts, the situation is on tenterhooks in many countries. Throw in the ramped up role that the United States sees for itself on the continent in combating ‘terrorism’/securing energy supplies and you have a recipe for insecurity. Will the AU stand in the way of US meddling? Far from it. In fact, they’ll facilitate it, as do many leaders that remain kingpins within the AU – just like Meles Zenawi, who presides over probably one of the most undemocratic states on the planet thanks in part to historical US support. If you haven’t already read ‘The increasing US shadow wars in Africa’, which Pambazuka News gave prominence to last week (http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/83724), it gives a fascinating insight into the increased US military involvement in Africa. This is done through states and with the involvement of the AU. And lets not forget the embarrassing role of South African diplomacy in supporting the bombing of Libya.

So lets not pretend. Let’s see this all for what it really is. Our states are hopelessly compromised by a market logic that is mostly divorced from society. Our leaders talk some of the talk, but they don’t walk much, not really, not for us. They’re walking for other interests, for a toxic and dangerous cocktail of state and corporate interests that has become intertwined; poisonous snakes that have become impossible to separate and whose fangs are sunk deep into our beings, our institutions, every facet of our life. That’s the real issue here. In another article published in Pambazuka News this week about the impunity with which oil companies destroy communities and livelihoods in Nigeria, activist Nnimmo Bassey writes: ‘Companies will keep calling the bluff of Nigeria and other countries to which they pose as benefactors while in reality they are rapists. This will only stop with strengthening of citizen-driven democracy, legislative activism and systemic change.’ And that, it seems pertinent to add, won’t happen through the AU.

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A new era for the African Union

Jakkie Cilliers and Jide Martyns Okeke

2012-07-26

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/83920

After several delays to the original starting time for the elections, Dr Dlamini-Zuma secured a simple majority in the first three rounds before clinching the vote in the fourth and final round. Unofficial results indicate the following for Dr Dlamini-Zuma and Mr Ping respectively: 27-24 (first round), 29-22 (second round) and 33-18 (third round). In the confidence vote, during which the candidate with the least number of votes is required to withdraw, Dr Dlamini-Zuma achieved more than two-thirds with a respectable 37 out of 51 votes.

Commentators will continue to debate the reasons that explain something of an unexpected victory after the initial electoral deadlock during the January 2012 Summit of the African Union (AU) in Addis Ababa. For instance, it has been speculated that Dr Dlamini-Zuma’s victory was an outcome of South Africa’s (and SADC’s) persistent bi-lateral efforts, involving extensive travel by senior officials to various countries across the continent. There has been much speculation that South Africa used ‘economic diplomacy’ to muster support from states that initially supported Mr Ping, especially to gain support from Francophone Central and West Africa, and it is important that these perceptions be laid to rest as rapidly as possible. But eventually it was only necessary for two or three countries that had voted for Mr Ping in January to change their votes to Dr Dlamini-Zuma for her to triumph.

Whereas 53 countries voted then, only 51 were able to vote in July since an additional two countries (Guinea Bissau and Mali) were under sanctions and barred from participating in the elections. In addition, neither Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan nor Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, both opposed to the South African candidate, attended, possibly providing something of a leadership vacuum that eventually turned a potential stalemate to triumph for Dr Dlamini-Zuma. Timing is everything and above all, African leaders provided the best possible outcome for a beleaguered AUC – a clear result that sees a highly capable, hard-working and respected female candidate assume the leadership of the AUC.

The outcome of the election is also positive for the global image of African states as it demonstrated that African countries were able to overcome some of the starker colonially inherited divisions that are often used to characterise the continent – particularly those between so-called Francophones and Anglophones. In the process South Africa was able to assert its role as a dominant voice in Africa, despite much commentary to the contrary.

Heads of State also did not amend or violate the Rules despite the claims that the failure to elect Commissioners following the initial electoral deadlock in January created a lame-duck AUC and strident calls by many to amend the Rules or to resort to a political solution that would have violated the same.

The election of the first female AUC Chairperson is a hugely positive development. It highlights Africa’s commitment to the promotion of gender equality within the AUC and hence will impact nationally, where much work remains to be done in this regard. Eventually the election of two of the remaining Commissioners (Economic Affairs, and Human Resources, Science and Technology) was deferred because of the limited availability of male candidates for these positions and the need to maintain the AU’s gender equality and regional representation.

Beyond these immediate gains, the election of Dr Dlamini-Zuma has set a precedent for the future interests of Africa’s ‘big powers’ in putting forward their own candidates for the top position within the AUC. One such controversy was the unwritten rule that big powers do not seek election for the position of Chairperson of the AUC – a view contested by South Africa. In the wake of the outcome it is possible that influential countries such as Nigeria, Algeria, Egypt, Kenya and Senegal may nominate candidates for the 10 Commission seats in future elections. Therefore smaller countries may struggle for representation and relevance and have to seek more innovative ways to remain relevant within the AUC and the AU in general. This is a trend to watch in the future.

Accordingly, it appears that the foremost task confronting the newly elected AUC Chairperson is to promote reconciliation with AU member states that did not vote for her. Without doubt, such divisions contributed to the electoral deadlock that characterised the January Summit when South Africa led the anti-Ping alliance and refused to vote for Mr Ping even after he had gained more votes than Dr Dlamini-Zuma in each of the first three rounds. Eventually Mr Ping could only gather 32 votes during the fourth and final ‘confidence round’ – three short of the required 35. These divisions were compounded by allegations of negative campaigning by both camps. Although Dr Dlamini-Zuma received the support of the majority of AU member states, the fourteen countries that failed to endorse her candidacy during the confidence vote constitute a significant minority. This limited support for Dr Dlamini-Zuma contrasted with the full endorsement by the Assembly of Heads of State and Government accorded to Mr Erastus Mwencha in his re-election as Deputy Chairperson of the AUC. Mr Mwencha, a Kenyan, was admittedly the only candidate and held in universal high regard, but his election violated, according to some, a second unwritten rule, namely that either the Chair or the Deputy should be Francophone – although this ‘rule’ has also previously been violated by the mercurial former AUC Chairperson Alpha Omar Konare. The spectre that haunts the AU is that linguistic divisions may be replaced by extreme regionalism.

Ironically one of the most celebrated qualities of Dr Dlamini-Zuma is that she is one of the few survivors from the era of the former South African President, Thabo Mbeki, who remains highly regarded in much of Africa. She has managed to connect with the two administrations despite the deep acrimony between the two leaders (President Jacob Zuma and former President Mbeki). Her pedigree as former South African Foreign Minister and the very effective current Home Affairs Minister suggests that she has much to offer in bringing both competent management and far-sighted political leadership to the Commission.

The practical challenge facing Dr Dlamini-Zuma is how to deliver on her reformist agenda that aims at achieving a more effective AU, and improve on the global representivity and voice of Africa. A priority in this respect is to promote the implementation of, and adherence to, the numerous policies formulated by the AU and its predecessor, the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) during the last half-century. In 2012, the AU celebrates the first decade of its existence, the OAU having existed for a previous 40 years. In the past ten years, the continental body has made tremendous progress in the formulation of norms geared towards political stability and economic development in Africa. The AU has, however, not been able to effectively see to the implementation of many of its decisions and it remains to be seen if Dr Dlamini-Zuma will be able to improve on this poor record. Specifically, the emphasis of the anticipated AU Strategic Plan for 2014-2017 should focus on achieving the implementation and adherence of previous decisions and policies. Perhaps, as some have remarked, the first decision of the next Summit of the Assembly in January 2013 would be not to take any more decisions until its previous decisions had been implemented.

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* Jakkie Cilliers is the Executive Director at the Institute for Security Studies and Jide Martyns Okeke is Senior Researcher, Conflict Prevention and Risk Analysis, Pretoria and Addis Ababa.
* This article was originally published at: http://www.issafrica.org/iss_today.php?ID=1517
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The real tasks ahead for Dlamini-Zuma

Chika Ezeanya

2012-07-26

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/83921

Before her election, when asked how she will bring about change if elected, Dlamini-Zuma responded, “I don’t think my contribution is about doing different things from the incumbent.” One must excuse the experienced diplomat and medical doctor by classifying that statement as the measured speech of one who wants to maintain the favour of the incumbent and his supporters, prior to the final votes being cast. Now that she has clinched the wheels to steer the ship, Dlamini-Zuma must immediately embark on far-reaching transformation of the regional body to meet the yearnings and aspirations of the over 1 billion inhabitants of the continent.

Since its christening as the African Union, the organization has failed to come up with ideas and strategies that will herald the desperately needed transformation across the continent. Africans now wait on Dr. Dlamini-Zuma to come up with novel ideas in all sectors the African Union is involved in, and to add-on more areas of intervention.

In articulating her strategic action plan, Dr. Dlamini-Zuma, first and foremost, must be cautious of advice and suggestions from outsiders on how to run the African Union. On the heels of her victory, several Euro-American leaders in sending congratulatory messages stated that the greatest threat to Africa is insecurity of lives and property. In apparent agreement, one of Dlamini-Zuma’s first comment after her victory was that a major task of hers would be to “strengthen the AU’s Peace and Security Council so that it [could] deal effectively with conflicts and security matters affecting Africa’s stability.”

Nothing can be more distracting for the chairperson, and farther from the truth about the major needs of the continent. Dlamini-Zuma’s statement can be likened to the Association of South East Asian Nation’s (ASEAN) Chairperson saying that the greatest threat to East Asia’s development is the South China Sea; or President Obama saying that the greatest threat to the United States’ advancement is insecurity, occasioned by the shooting incidents. Conflicts are at an all time low across much of Africa. A United Nations recent report notes that as against 14 African states embroiled in armed conflicts in the end of the 1990s, only four states are currently embattled, and in very limited degrees.

Of course, security is important to the growth of every economy, but by overplaying that singular issue, Dlamini-Zuma will be diverting precious energy that should be focused on building the continent in more strategic areas. Focusing on security when it has long ceased to be an issue plays back to the age-old perception of the African as a barbarian and forever wielding the sword. It was the same perception and rhetoric that fuelled slavery and colonialism and supported the proxy wars fought on the continent during the Cold War.

Ulterior motives cannot also be discounted in this clarion call, especially with the United States determined to establish Africom in Africa. Focusing on security further implies patronizing the west, China, Russia and other countries in purchasing arms for the AU troops.
The areas that call for Dlamini-Zuma’s innovative, in-depth and sustained interest and focus can be grouped under four categories: trade, education, health, and the drive towards a united Africa, in no particular order.

The strengthening of intra-African trade - discouraged by colonial divisions, which favoured asymmetrical trade relationships with the colonial masters - must be strategically embarked upon. The AU should actively support trade missions among African states and establish platforms such as an annual African trade exhibition/fair for made-in-Africa goods and services. More sea ports should be constructed in pre-determined locations across the region and more road networks should be built to connect countries. More efforts should be invested in dismantling the numerous tariff and non-tariff barriers that continue to hinder trade among African nations. Tax rebates for transcontinental airlines should be championed across countries. Kenyan Airways and Precision Air Services of Tanzania are currently negotiating with the IFC for funds, and taking on substantial debt that may cripple their operations. The AU must find ways to build strategic partnership with African-owned companies that operate in core sectors of the continent’s economy. In the airline sector, the AU may want to start by mandating its numerous staff, consultants and all whose air travel are remotely funded by the agency to fly only African owned airlines.

Still on trade, AU should come up with an African trade policy that should guide trade in goods and services between African countries and the rest of the world. Since several African leaders are at their wits end on how to address the continued unequal trade that exists between them and the West, China, India and just about any other country outside Africa, the AU should utilize its expertise and generate a guiding document that should be a novel approach to the form of trade relationship that should exist across Africa. This document will include details of operations in the extractive industry; agriculture with as much emphasis as possible placed on land acquisition, cash crop export and other forms of investment; intellectual property rights; transnational higher education etc.

Related to trade is the issue of aid harmonization. It is mandatory for African countries to wean themselves off dependence on aid, but while that is being seriously implemented, aid harmonization is an urgent task across the continent of Africa. Despite the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness (2005), and the Accra Agenda for Action (2008), aid fragmentation is still routine across much of sub-Saharan Africa. The African Union must champion the call for all aid flowing into a country to be channeled through one single body to make for effective distribution. In Rwanda, this has been achieved through the creation of the Aid Coordination Unit; from 85% percent dependence on aid, the country is currently at 45%. Under the auspices of the AU, the rest of Africa should actively pursue this first step towards ending dependence on aid.

In the area of education, it has perplexed the world that despite the number of graduates churned out of the continent annually, most African countries are still lacking in a critical mass of entrepreneurs and required skilled labour. But the perplexity is limited to only those who have not glanced at the curricular of study across African schools and colleges. Subjects and courses, case studies and examples, text books and languages that bear little resemblance to the reality of the African student’s environment are the norm. The effect is that students graduate, still clueless as to how to contribute their knowledge to societal advancement. African education trains students to believe in the west, and not in themselves and their environment. From the kindergarten to the Ph.D. level, and across disciplines, education in Africa in terms of content is lacking in almost all the six basic functions of education; socialization, social control, social placement, transmitting culture, promoting social and political integration and as an agent of home-grown change.

The education that Africans need should, among others, focus on building fiercely independent, critically conscious, innovative and creative minds that look to their environment for inspiration and not to the west. . Paulo Freire would argue that “projecting an absolute ignorance onto others, a characteristic of the ideology of oppression, negates education and knowledge as processes of inquiry.” Freire’s abhorred form of education has thrived across Africa since the first missionaries stepped foot on the continent. The particular kind of education needed in Africa should build the self-worth of students, and not shatter it by making them feel like mere recipients in the global generation of knowledge. Informally, formally and non-formally, such education should also aim at promoting the concept of a united Africa by breaking down the numerous superimposed mental barriers to inter-ethnic and inter-state cooperation.

The emphasis on sound curricular is expected to go hand in hand with what has been done for the past 60 years with minimal success - the building of schools, training of teachers and the drive towards higher enrollment figures. The later is still important as a stop-gap measure, but has not, and will not be able to transform the mind of Africans from dependency to creativity and innovation. The AU must immediately start to reverse the foreign laden content of Africa’s education, which is one of the greatest impediments to the continent’s advancement.

Health is wealth. The African Union must take active steps, beyond the provision of primary healthcare, to make Africans a healthy people. In Development as Freedom, Nobel prize winner, Amartya Sen contends that the foundations of development is founded in the removal of such “unfreedoms” as high mortality rate. In other words, the establishment of adequate healthcare to free citizens to pursue their dreams, should be top priority.

One of the surest paths to transforming Africa from a consumer of foreign healthcare products and processes to an industrial giant in healthcare is to begin to take the research into indigenous African medicine seriously. There is no justification as to why African countries should still be importing malarial drug, for instance, from India, China and Europe. Aside from the exorbitant costs, emerging news reports indicate that the continent is increasingly exposed to fake and adulterated medicine from these sources.

Euro-America has contributed much to medical advancement, but it is increasingly failing in several areas. Severe and deadly side-effects, absence of cure for several diseases, treachery of pharmaceutical companies, lack of interest in tropical diseases, greedy and uncaring medical practitioners, to mention few have combined to make “alternative” medicine an imperative field of research.

One of the last bastions of indigenous knowledge and forests still remaining in the world, Africa appears to hold the key to the numerous incurable diseases that now plague humanity. The African Union should actively support and encourage, in fact, should institutionalize the study and dissemination of research findings on indigenous medical knowledge, practices and systems.

Of course, this emphasis on empowering indigenous healthcare research in Africa is not meant to substitute the age-long efforts to make healthcare more accessible, through the construction of more hospitals and clinics, and the training of doctors and nurses and other temporary actions. These actions remain important to save lives in the interim, but can never establish Africa as an industrial giant in the field of medicine. It can only slightly ameliorate symptoms, but will indeed make the continent more dependent on the west, China and India for her healthcare.

On the issue of strengthening African unity, the words of Nelson Mandela, spoken to African leaders in 1998 at the OAU summit in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso must form Dlamini-Zuma’s policy text: “…we charge you with the responsibility to lead our peoples and Continent into the new world of the next century – which must be an African Century – during which all our people will be freed of the bitterness born of the marginalization and degradation of our proud continent of Africa.” Since its inception as the Organization of African Unity, and after most of the continent obtained its freedom from the colonialists, the AU has paid a little more than lip-service to the active promotion of unity across the continent.

One of the first practical ways to unite Africa is by declaring 18th July a mandatory public holiday across Africa – Mandela Day. On that day, the media should focus on broadcasting the numerous positive aspects of pre-colonial Africa, the evils of colonialism, and discussions and debates should be held - in the villages and cities - on how Africa can indeed become free, mentally, culturally, economically, socially, and yes, even politically.

The AU must champion the promotion of Continental figures as Africans, and not just as Zimbabwean, or Nigerian or Ghanaian. Further, Swahili as the most widely-spoken language in Africa should be promoted by the African Union and advocacy should be made for it to be included as one of the United Nations languages. The AU should also consider the setting up of a platform, like Nigeria’s National Youth Service Corp, where young Africans will be required to spend a mandatory amount of time in another African country in order to advance their career. The above are only some of the numerous ways – apart from routine, costly, ill-devised and low impact conferences and workshops– that the AU can embark upon in order to unite the continent of Africa.

Speaking to the Association of Commonwealth Universities in 1998, Mwalimu Julius Nyerere declared that “decades ago, as President of my country, I told Tanzanians that the choice before them was to change or be changed. I was wrong. There was no choice. They had to change, and would still be changed.” The task of radically transforming the AU is not optional for Dlamini-Zuma. There are several forces already transforming Africa, whether the African Union recognizes it or not. It is to its advantage and continued relevance to identify these centrifugal and centripetal forces of change and act accordingly.

In the words of Joseph Shabala of Ladysmith Black Mambazo, “the tasks ahead of us can never be greater than the power within us.” The tasks ahead of Dlamini-Zuma must be addressed with a singleness of purpose. She must focus on the more pertinent issues of building a strong and solid foundation for the transformation of Africa, and in advocating for an end to the exploitation of the continent by the rest of the world.

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Confiscation of condoms from sex workers compromises public health

Chi Mgbako

2012-07-25

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/83874

This year’s New York State legislative session recently ended, and by failing to vote on and pass the “no condoms as evidence of prostitution” bill, lawmakers missed an opportunity to be national and global leaders in ensuring that counterproductive policing and prosecuting of sex workers does not compromise disease prevention and public health. Passage of the bill would have prevented police officers and prosecutors from confiscating condoms from suspected sex workers and using them as evidence of prostitution in criminal proceedings.

This practice impedes public health by discouraging sex workers — who are at higher risk of contracting sexually transmitted infections and HIV — from carrying condoms out of fear of arrest and police harassment. The passage of the “no condoms as evidence” bill would have ensured that New York will no longer engage in the hypocritical action of flooding the public with free condoms while allowing the police to confiscate them for use as evidence against sex workers.

New York could have distinguished itself by definitively ending this troubling practice, setting an example for other cities and countries. Human Rights Watch researchers have documented how the practice in several U.S. cities, including Los Angeles, San Francisco and Washington, D.C., undermines disease prevention efforts. It’s also a global problem. The Open Society Foundations’ multi-country survey found, for instance, that 80% of Russian sex workers reported having their condoms confiscated by police and 75% of Namibian sex workers who had their condoms destroyed by police later had unprotected sex during the course of their work. My students and I documented the public health ramifications of the practice while working on a sex workers’ rights campaign in South Africa.

During a town hall meeting with South African sex workers in Cape Town, we asked about impediments to condom use with clients. “If the police find condoms in my pocket, they arrest me,” a sex worker quickly responded, as others nodded in agreement. Outreach workers at the Sex Worker Education and Advocacy Taskforce (SWEAT) based in Cape Town echoed this and reported that South African police often take away boxes of condoms from sex workers to use as evidence of prostitution. The head of the African Sex Worker Alliance noted with frustration the hypocrisy of a state giving away free condoms in a bid to promote public health only to tolerate police confiscating these same condoms to use as evidence against at-risk populations.

This hypocrisy is also evident in New York where last year New York City distributed more than 37 million condoms, only to have the NYPD undercut this effort by seizing condoms from individuals they suspect of engaging in prostitution. A 2010 New York City health department survey of 63 sex workers found that 36 had had their condoms confiscated by police, as harassment or a basis for arrest. In 2011, a network of sex workers’ rights advocates conducted a survey that produced similar findings, in which 42.8 percent of the sex workers surveyed stated that police confiscated or destroyed their condoms, and 46% percent confirmed that at some point they had not carried condoms with them out of fear that it would prompt abusive interactions with police.

States should never take action that discourages safe sex practices. As New York distributes free condoms to promote public health while arresting those suspected of engaging in sex work for possessing them, the state wastes resources and muddles public messaging about the necessity of practicing safe sex. New York can still reject this hypocrisy, which impedes disease prevention, by becoming the first state to ban the confiscation of condoms as evidence in prostitution cases.

There is sustained and growing support for the practice’s abolition in New York and elsewhere: numerous New York City-based human rights and public health organizations publicly backed the “no condoms as evidence” bill; San Francisco officials have begun to express misgivings about the practice in their city; and recent and upcoming events are exploring the practice’s harmful effects in other parts of the country and the world. We must keep pushing our representatives to pursue policies that safeguard public health.

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* Chi Mgbako is clinical associate professor and director of the Leitner International Human Rights Clinic at Fordham Law School in New York City. She writes on sexual and health rights, access to justice, and women’s rights in Africa. Follow Chi Mgbako on Twitter, @chiadanna.

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The perambulation continues in Nigeria’s oil sector

Uche Igwe

2012-07-26

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/83904

I was invited to a roundtable on the Nigerian Petroleum Industry Bill organised by the Africa Studies Department of the Johns Hopkins University in Washington DC on the 3 November 2010. During the panel discussion, I alerted the audience that what the Nigerian government intended to do (at that time) was simply a Petroleum Industry Perambulation (PIP). I explained that the government wanted to take unsuspecting citizens through a deceptive, torturing, time consuming and money guzzling journey in the name of reforms. The journey, I warned, would begin from point A and after many months (even years) of rigmarole, travellers would find themselves back at point A, where they started.

Almost two years have passed since I made that speech and, sadly, I still find no reason whatsoever to review my position. My view still remains that contrary to its rhetoric, the Nigerian government has no intention of reforming the oil and gas industry. The recent submission of the Petroleum Industry Bill is yet another calculated effort, by a government whose credibility and legitimacy is waning by the day, to hoodwink Nigerians. Let me give you three reasons that led me to this sad conclusion.

The first is to draw your attention to the personality who is supposedly heading the reform team on behalf of Nigerian government – Mrs Diezani Alison Madueke. This Petroleum minister is a former director of Shell Petroleum Development Corporation. This is a clear conflict of interest, as Madam Minister will be torn between favouring her former employers and the government that she is currently serving. For a sector that is the heartbeat of our national economy, how can we rely on such a person to be fair and patriotic in the conduct of such a sensitive assignment? Close observers in the industry believe that Shell is one of the biggest beneficiaries of the murky state of the Nigerian oil industry that an effective PIB seeks to sanitize; they will therefore stop at nothing to resist any reform. The still-birth attempt of the sixth National Assembly to pass the Petroleum Industry Bill was allegedly truncated in a guerrilla ambush that had strong foot prints of the International Oil Companies. In 2010, leaked US cables quoted Ann Pickard, the then Vice President of Shell for Africa, as having boasted about how Shell sent employees to infiltrate all relevant government agencies, to know everything going on in the inner circles. Pundits are already pointing fingers as to those who could be on this unpatriotic assignment.

My second point is on the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC). Some misguided optimists suggest that the expected reforms will convert NNPC from its current form as a cost centre to a profit centre. Until the NNPC ceases to be an appendage of the executive arm of government and an epicentre of patronage, no such reform can see the light of day. The KPMG Report of 2010 details manipulative opacity, deliberate duplicity, self-inflicted inconsistencies and corruption within the NNPC network. In the name of data mismanagement, variable crude oil sales and exchange rate fluctuations, millions of dollars are siphoned daily from the coffers of NNPC to elsewhere. Is it not myopic to expect the alleged beneficiaries of the status quo to reform their biggest source of income and influence? Anyone who wants to reform NNPC should first consider reforming our politics. Under the nose of these same characters, trillions of naira leaked away in the name of fraudulent fuel subsidy payments. Even when part of what transpired is now in the public domain, those allegedly indicted have not been prosecuted. How can we rely on the same government that could not do the right thing in the downstream subsector to now perform miracles upstream? Is this not an imprudent effort to douse the odour already oozing out the industry? The depth of decay discovered so far appears too colossal for the brand of tokenism touted by these ‘reformers’.

My third and final point is about the National Assembly. I have tremendous respect for parliament as an institution; however, the recent conduct of affairs in the hallowed chambers has inspired little confidence among observers. By parliamentary procedure, the Petroleum Industry Bill handed over by the executive becomes the property of parliament. It is expected that in their wisdom they will include or exclude whatever they deem necessary and consistent with national interest. As things stand now, can anyone comfortably attest to the fact that our parliamentarians will rise above personal greed in pursuit of what will benefit the nation and the common good of citizens? For many, the antecedents of the current Nigerian parliament point to the contrary. Farouk Mohammad Lawan and the ostrich game on the subsidy probe bribery saga is the sad picture that an average member of the Nigerian parliament conjures. How can we then rely on them to deliver an Act that will reform the most important source of revenue to our national economy? Do the legislative and executive arms of government converge on such matters of urgent national importance? Can we trust them to muster the level of commitment and vigilance such an impactful law demands? I have looked at other bills that have been passed and they lack both depth and seriousness and some of them are filled with avoidable inconsistences, as if the drafters were reached and compromised by those who do not wish this country well.

It is very depressing that Nigeria remains the global poster child for the resource curse and our leaders are completely impervious to its implications to our national life. As the uncertainty in our oil and gas industry persists, oil thirsty investors continue to move to other parts of Africa with new discoveries and a predictable legal and regulatory atmosphere. History is beckoning on President Jonathan. He should assign a minister with minimal baggage to lead the oil and gas reforms and immediately loosen the executive grip on NNPC, if he wants Nigerians to take him and his reform seriously. The current executive-legislative disharmony must thaw as both arms of government unite around issues of urgent national importance such as this PIB. Our parliamentarians yet have another golden opportunity to restore their battered image before the citizens by prioritising national interest above primordial antics and sincerely delivering to us a Petroleum Industry Act that will comprehensively reform the sector and move our nation forward. They must seize it. The other option of course, is to continue the unfortunate perambulation.

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* Uche Igwe is a governance expert at the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex. He can be reached on ucheigwe@gmail.com

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Humanity, its beauty and absurdity: the Ethiopian case

Elyas Mulu Kiros

2012-07-26

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/83910

One of the defining characters of human beings is our awareness of our own existence either as an independent individual or as members of groups that we create based on bloodlines or cultural, economical, political, religious, and sexual associations.

Indeed no (wo)man is an island. Whether he or she likes it or not, the individual is forced or chooses to be associated with a nation, a community, a group, an identity, a species, or the universe as a whole. I, for example, am a being, a human being, born from Ethiopian parents whose ethnic identity is Tigrayan, whose country is part of Africa; my skin color is black, thus am called a black man; I am a blogger, therefore, I have developed a sense of connection with other bloggers, especially with those I met on wordpress.com.

We often form bonds easily with those we associate ourselves with. Why? It’s safer. It feels like home. You consider yourself a family. And family is the smallest unit of anything bigger: an ethnicity, a race, a province, a nation, a continent, a religion, a philosophy, a planet, etc.

When I, for example, miss Ethiopia, I call home to know first how my parents and siblings are doing (my blood relatives); then I ask about my extended family; then my neighbors, and about my friends; then about the town’s people in general; finally I try to keep up with every news on the country. What I do is more or less similar to what every human being does. Through our associations with these various options we have, we develop a sense of belonging.

When negative things happen in the name of the association we embrace, we may try to disassociate. Or even if we have nothing to do with the negative thing, due to our association, those who are victims may blame us and expect us to confess a sin we haven’t committed. As a result, we may either resent the blamers and become aggressive to defend ourselves, and those we are associated with; or, we may feel guilty and try to hide or negate our association.

As I stated above, here is one my associations: I identify myself as an Ethiopian born from Tigrayan parents. Neither my parents nor I chose to have that identity. My parents inherited the identity from their parents, and those around them also identified them with it. As a child, I remember, kids from different ethnicity used to call me: Tigray Lirgetih BandEgre, meaning: hey, Tigray dude, let me kick your ass! As children, of course, they said it without fully understanding its implication or future effect on me; however, they were fully aware, or were told by their parents, that I was different from them, that I was a Tigrayan; otherwise, why would they bully me?

I have forgiven, but will never forget, for instance, this kid who persistently bullied me to the point my parents had to get involved and fight with his parents. By the way, this has little to do with the fact the then fledgling current government was officially starting to promote ethnic federalism; I mention this because some have the tendency to attribute any problem related to ethnicity to the regime. Tigrayans or others have always been identified by their ethnic identities. And ethnic stereotypes have existed throughout the country’s history.

After the bullying incident that forced my parents to get involved, political tensions brewed at the national and regional levels, especially after the rebel groups that participated in removing the former dictator couldn’t agree with each other on power sharing. The governing party, Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), was founded by Tigrayan rebels, organised under Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), that ousted the Mengistu junta in coalition with other rebel movements such as Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF), Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (EPLF), and Amhara National Democratic Movement (ANDM). Following that tension came a skirmish.

The most visible rebel group from my region, OLF, accused the TPLF-led EPRDF party of unfairness and went back to armed struggle. It was then when it became obvious that the bullying I faced in elementary school was a foreshadow to what awaited me, my family and a few other Tigrayans in the town, where we found ourselves as easy targets for grievance. We were treated as scapegoats because of our ethnic association with those in power. None of us, however, had any influence in national, regional or local politics whatsoever.

My parents, for example, are poor peasants who only minded their business just like every other peasant. Nor were they given any special treatment by the state. In fact, we were one of the first internally displaced communities whose stories never got reported. We were considered ‘outsiders’ in our own country and were driven out of our homes, forced to relocate and live in another town, renting a basement first and moving into a shack next since that was what we could afford. It was better than sleeping in the street, though we were technically homeless.
Now, as a grownup twenty-something guy, the childhood bullying by association has yet to leave me alone. Some unashamedly want me to feel guilty or sorry for party wrongdoings that have also made my family and other families victims. Not to mention I was once denied an internship opportunity at a supposedly ‘independent’ US-based international organisation. One of the associates informed me through email that I could potentially be ‘a regime infiltrator’, after I told them about my ethnic background and what I think of the politics in Ethiopia during an interview.

I will wait for the right time to expose their blatant bias and unprofessionalism. By US law, it is illegal to discriminate based on race or ethnicity. It is not fair too to accuse someone without evidence, an action that contradicts their protest against the Ethiopian regime for doing exactly the same. I could have reported it, but I saw no point. Regardless, it was a great lesson for me that showed me how the so-called independent organisations function and how the ‘experts’ can be easily influenced or can bank on selling prejudice to make a living. For those who may doubt this, I have their email saved. I am still astonished they openly expressed their bias.

That ethnocentric paranoia is also one of the reasons why many Tigrayans reserve themselves from giving their support to the oppositions because they know that no matter how genuinely they want to support, they will always be doubted by those who self-appoint themselves as the ‘real Ethiopians’, ‘real oppositions’, the only ones entitled to rule or speak about Ethiopia. First of all, regarding the Ethiopian identity, everyone who carries an Ethiopian passport is Ethiopian, whether one despises that or not. There is no such thing called real, unreal, unless one wants to inflate one’s self-importance. It is a delusion to think that one is less trustworthy than the other because either one comes from a certain ethnicity or one refuses to write or say only negative things about the regime and by extension about Ethiopia twenty four seven. For me, this kind of attitude is an insult, very patronising and counterproductive.

The trust issue also explains why the opposition groups remain ineffective, giving the ruling party an easy ride on the political highway. Let alone trust Tigrayans who by default are considered TPLF loyalists, though there are more than enough people from the community that no longer support it; the opposition, composed of ethno-nationalists and mostly ultranationalist groups, can’t even trust each other.

Mainly because of my ethnic background, some have made it a habit to stalk me online and call me a regime sympathiser to silence me from expressing my view, criticising the opposition parties as objectively as I criticise the ruling party. Thankfully, their extremism hasn’t made me a full time ruling party sympathiser, or its member, or a blind opposer to appease or be accepted by those who profess to liberate Ethiopia from the party’s rule without acting any different from it.
The funny part of my ethnic association is that I haven’t even seen Tigrai yet, the region that gave my parents their Tigrayan identity. Next time I go back to Ethiopia, visiting Tigrai will be my first assignment. After all, I deserve it. I have paid a price for it.

Lastly, I am always going to be an Ethiopian whose parents were born in Tigrai, which has made me a Tigrayan Ethiopian, given what I have been through, though I was born in Oromia, and my mother tongue is Amharic. And I am okay with that. I will embrace it. But I will oppose ethnocentrism and ultranationalism. And, of course, outside the Ethiopian world, I am just another African, black guy; none of the complicated stuff that continues to rock Ethiopians really matters to the foreigners I randomly encounter.

And when you think of all of that from a microscopic or macroscopic level, it is quite irrelevant. At the microscopic level, I am composed of atoms, and soon or later, I will die and decompose; at the macroscopic level, I am part of the Milky Way, which itself is part of the universe, whose vastness or mysterious existence makes earthly dramas insignificant. Sounds a cliché, right? But it is a fact.

Beauty and absurdity. That is humanity.


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Remembering Ingelosi Yomhlaba

A tribute to Muntu Myeza

Veli Mbele

2012-07-25

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/83898

Throughout human history, there is a special category of human beings who emerge from among us and through the substance of their character infuse us with the confidence to embrace the possibility that, not only can we become better human beings, but it is in fact possible for us to build a world that is qualitatively better than the one we live in.

One such special human being was Muntu Myeza. A man whose contribution to the cause of human freedom is perhaps aptly encapsulated in the words of the realist writer Nikolai Ostrovsky, who once wrote that: ‘Man's dearest possession is life. It is given to him but once, and he must live it so as to feel no torturing regrets for wasted years, never know the burning shame of a mean and petty past; so live that, dying he might say: all my life, all my strength were given to the finest cause in all the world - the fight for the Liberation of Mankind.’

This month marks 22 years since the mysterious passing of Muntu on 3 July 1990. He was a committed member and leader of the Black Consciousness Movement (BCM) in South Africa. While a student at the University of Zululand, at Ongoye, he joined the BCM through the South African Students’ Organisation or SASO (the first black consciousness organisation in South Africa).

Following in the gigantic footsteps of Steve Biko, in 1974, at the tender age of 24, he was elected general secretary of SASO and it was in this capacity that he helped conceive and execute the epoch-making Viva Frelimo Rallies in September 1974.

These rallies were part of SASO’s national political campaign to give impetus to the liberation efforts of blacks in South Africa and were aimed at celebrating the defeat of Portuguese settler-colonialism by the people of Mozambique under the leadership of Samora Machel.
This act by SASO obviously annoyed the apartheid regime and as a consequence, the then justice minister, Jimmy Kruger, banned the rally planned for 25 September 1974 - which was a futile act because the rallies had already been well publicised and scores of people turned up for them in Durban and Turfloop.

Following these rallies, the apartheid police hunted the BPC/SASO leadership down and arrested and detained Muntu Myeza, Pandelani Nefolovhodwe, Zithulele Cindi, Saths Cooper, Terror Lekota, Aubrey Mokoape, Strini Moodley (the late), Nkwenkwe Nkomo, Kaborone Sedibe, Sadecque Variava, Reuben Hare, Solly Ismail and countless others.

Most of them were charged under the notorious Terrorism Act, while others were detained for long spells under the same hideous piece of legislation. This trial became one the longest in South Africa's political history, dragging on through most of 1975 and all of 1976.

One of the memorable episodes during this trial was when Biko was called to give evidence on behalf of the accused. Instead of giving a typical witness testimony, as would be expected by any court of law, with breath-taking clarity, calmness and effortless eloquence - he instead turned the whole trial into a lecture on the meaning of BC and the mission of the BCM.

It is this character of the trial that inspired some historians and writers to conclude that it was actually the BC philosophy that was on trail, and not so much the accused.

After the charges were dropped against some of the accused, nine remained, and so the trial that was, according to apartheid laws, known as the State vs Saths Cooper and others, became known as the BPC-SASO Nine Trial.

All the nine accused - Muntu Myeza, Pandelani Nefolovhodwe, Zithulele Cindi, Saths Cooper, Terror Lekota, Aubrey Mokoape, Strini Moodley (the late), Nkwenkwe Nkomo and Kaborone Sedibe - were found guilty and later sentenced to serve various prison terms on Robben Island.

While on Robben Island, some of the accused, like Terror Lekota, decided to desert the BCM and join other organisations. This naturally upset the rest of his comrades (at the time) and not suprisingly, Muntu was one of those who didn’t hide his displeasure at what he considered to be an act of betrayal.

Despite this and the incessant attempts by some of the older prisoners from the other components of the liberation movement who were intent on luring them way from the BCM, Muntu and the rest of the BC leadership remained obstinately committed to the BCM.
At the time of his release from Robben Island, in December 1982, both SASO and the Black People's Convention (BPC) were still banned organisations so like his comrades who had been released earlier, Muntu logically continued his activism under the auspices of the new BC organisation, the Azanian People’s Organisation (AZAPO), which was formed on 28 April, 1978 and led by among others by Lybon Mabasa and Ishmael Mkhabela.

For tactical reasons, AZAPO was the BPC under a new name and just like its predecessor organisations, its leadership and that of its formations had to contend with the reality of unrelenting police harassment, detention without trial and even death.

Just as with SASO, Muntu served AZAPO in a number of capacities. As publicity secretary, not only was he meticulous in his use of words, but he also showed incredible depth of analysis and clarity of thought.

So committed to the cause of revolution was Muntu that he believed that, if needs be, one had to defend it with one’s own life. For this reason, he didn’t wince when AZAPO instructed him to serve as secretary for defence - a position he held with distinction until his untimely passing in 1990.

This perhaps explains why he is acknowledged by those who worked with him as one of those who, under the most hostile conditions, defended the names AZAPO and Steve Biko with his bare hands.

Muntu was a principled and thinking radical, who did not countenance any form of cowardice or political liberalism. Had he been alive today, he would want the conscious element of the black intelligentsia to account for the anomaly wherein our public intellectual space is dominated by analysts and academics, whose preoccupation is to defend the economic interests of the black and white elite.

He would regard it as a national scandal that those who rule over us could instantly mobilise bus loads of their supporters to remonstrate against a painting, but didn’t show the same urgency and anger when their comrades failed to do something as basic as delivering textbooks on time to the right schools. And to add to our depression, the same people authorise something as primitive as the burning of textbooks. All of this happens in a country that has some of the most frightening illiteracy levels.

He would remind us that irrespective of what the managers of the neo-colonial project want us to believe, the face of poverty, landlessness and economic deprivation remains black. And that ‘The Second Phase of The Transition’ theorisation is essentially intended to manage the economic powerlessness of the black majority and not change it.

Because he was pan-Africanist in his outlook, he would want to us to stop and ask ourselves whether the mere fact that South Africa is now chairperson of the African Union will put the African continent in a position to prevent similar situations as the ones that recently arose in Libya and Côte d'Ivoire, when the armed forces of western imperialism carried out the targeted assassination of Muammar Gaddafi and capture of Laurent Gbagbo?

As a firm believer in revolutionary praxis, Muntu would expect his beloved AZAPO to explain why it seems so calm when so much injustice is being meted out against the poor black majority in our country.

Muntu was a freedom fighter in word and deed. A tireless defender of black dignity. A remarkable human being, who dedicated every ounce of his being to the cause of human freedom. Yes! He was a paragon of noble virtues, whose selflessness has earned him the honour of being affectionately called Ingelosi Yomhlaba! He was indeed one of our brightest hopes.

There is no other way of honouring the legacy of Muntu, except to confront the contemporary suffering of the black majority in a direct and radical manner. Anything less would be a monumental betrayal of what people like Muntu, Biko, Tiro and others lived and died for.
In honouring his memory, AZAPO has accordingly declared the month of July Muntu Myeza Memorial Month and to conclude a series of commemorative activities. A memorial lecture will be held at South West Gauteng College in Molapo, Soweto. This event will be addressed by, among others, Prof Itumeleng Mosala, Lybon Mobasa and Dr Don Mattera.

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Celebrating Tajudeen: Horace Campbell reflects on Pan-Africanism

Fatoumata Toure

2012-07-26

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/83906

On 25 May 2009 we were awakened by the shocking news of the passing of a great son of Africa, a great pan-Africanist, an intellectual, a friend, a father and husband; the Secretary General of the Global Pan-African Movement, Dr. Tajudeen Abdul Raheem. May his soul rest in peace.

On Monday 28 May 2012 the Global Pan-African Movement Secretariat based in Kampala organised a memorial public lecture to honour him. The key note speaker was a renowned pan-Africanist, teacher and writer, Prof Horace Campbell from Syracuse University.

Hon. Kahinda Otafire, the Chairman of the Global Pan-African Movement and also Minister of Justice and Constitutional Affairs in the Ugandan Government gave the opening remarks, stating that Dr. Tajudeen had volunteered his youthful years after his doctorate at Oxford University to come and serve at the Pan-African Secretariat as a Secretary General since 1994. He was confirmed in this position by the seventh Pan-African Congress that took place in Kampala in April 994. Chairman Kahinda Otafire further stated that the Pan-African Movement will forever be indebted to Dr. Tajudeen

Prof. Horace Campbell in his introductory remarks said that pan-Africanism came about as an effort to restore the dignity and values of the African people in Africa and the diaspora, who had been dehumanised. He mentioned great pan-Africanists who had paid the ultimate price for this cause and these included Mohammed Bouzazi of Tunisia who demanded dignity as a human being and Dr. Tajudeen Abdul Raheem – the Secretary General of the Pan-African Movement. He further mentioned the African leaders that were assassinated and these included Patrice Lumumba in 1961 and Gaddafi in 2011. He made reference to a book by Dr. Tajudeen – Speaking Truth to Power – and asserted that an idea can never be assassinated.

He highlighted the following dimensions of pan-African freedom, including: the multifaceted nature of transformation; transformation of material conditions; transformation of consciousness; transformation of political relations; women and definition of pan-Africans; knowledge systems and breaking fundamentalism; lessons from the reconstruction of Africa, environmental repair and the ideas of Cheik Anta Diop towards a federated peoples of Africa; what does freedom mean in the 21st Century?

The evolution of pan-Africanism was traced to the times of W.E.B Dubois who called the four Pan-African Congresses (between 1919-1945) and left a legacy of the struggle for intellectual integrity. Popular movements in Africa include: the anti/apartheid struggle in South Africa and other parts of southern Africa; struggles against imperialism and military destabilisation; balkanization and wars and the popular April 6 Movement which made clear demands of ending poverty and unemployment.

He went on to talk about the effect of Egypt, which was defined as a sudden overthrow of the existing social, economic and political order. Nkrumah once stated that “when the spirit of the oppressed people revolts against its oppressors, that revolt continues until freedom is achieved. We have not the arms with which to fight as the Americans did against the British, but we have the moral and the spiritual forces at our disposal which outnumber all the physical weapons.”

Horace highlighted what pan-Africanism looked like yesterday and the challenges today by pointing to the the Aids pandemic; the role of women and youth and the necessity to redefine pan-Africanism; the Pan-African Congress and pan-African Leaders of yesterday and how thegeneration of the anti-colonial period managed to resist colonialism.

He further stated that there is a need for Africa to reposition itself in the 21st century and utilise technologies like the new concept of energy where humans will control computers and appliances; will be able to re-arrange the shape of objects and scan DNA cells for signs of danger, amongst others. With bio-technology, Africa will have the goal of replacing the petrochemical industry and becoming a major source of new energy. There is an urgent need for Africans to undo medical apartheid on the continent in the name of Aids and mass deaths. This can only be achieved through promoting the concept of health for all. This would also address the issue of mothers dying while giving birth, a passionate topic for Dr. Tajudeen.

Prof Horace expressed the need to address the challenges of global warming in Africa. This he said needs a binding agreement bridging the emissions gap through the Pan Africa Climate Justice Alliance. The cascading negative effects of global warming will affect agricultural productivity. He further stated that global warming requires earth democracy: the right to live and to exist; the right to be respected; the right to regenerate its bio-capacity and to continue its vital cycles and processes free of human alteration; the right to maintain their identity and integrity as differentiated beings, self regulated and interrelated; the right to water as a source of life; the right to clean air and the right to comprehensive health.

He emphasised that “any pan concept is an exercise in self-definition by a people, aimed at establishing a broader redefinition of themselves than that which had so far been permitted by those in power. Invariably, however, the exercise is undertaken by a specific social or class which speaks on behalf of the population as a whole.”

Prof Campbell noted that other countries like China and Japan are cooperating to secure their economies against dependence on the collapsing United States dollar through the Yuan –Yen trade plan, 2011; African countries also need to come together and secure their economies. Setting up a United African Bank and creating an African currency were some of the suggestions he gave. African Unity is more important today than before as it is the only viable weapon against the imperialist forces.

He said current outstanding issues for pan-Africanism to include Haiti and reparations; independence in the Caribbean; independence for the Western Sahara; the situation of Afro-Latin Americans and the anti-racist agenda of the 21st century; Pan-African Health networks; sharing knowledge and investing in care, not death. The crucial challenge facing the young people now is manipulation through the social media. A case in point is the Kony 2012 viral video that has since been accessed by millions of young people yet it is a public relations document for AFRICOM and pan-Africanists should fight back.

On a positive note, Prof Campbell said that 2010-2020 is Africa’s decade. Africa is the only continent experiencing high economic growth rates and is projected to grow further and is now the fastest growing region in the world! It also has the highest population growth, the majority of which are youth – a productive stage. This is also a decade of revolution and unity for Africa, as the examples of Egypt and Nigeria demonstrate. He mentioned the alternatives available to Africa to include socialising the ownership of monopolies, de-finacialising the management of the economy and de-globalising international relations.

He examined the priorities for Africa and these include: agriculture and fisheries, infrastructure, water and energy, health care, housing, education, telecommunications, transport, ICT, preservation of languages and cognitive skills.

He concluded by setting the research agenda for Africa for the 21st century to include transformation of water and energy resource, the great green wall and engineering for unity, the bio-economy and solar democracy – implications for the reorganisation of agriculture, repair and reparations for environmental democracy, infrastructure for pan-African unity, health networks and coordination of access to medicine and social services and Africa canal and water transfer systems.

The lecture ended with an announcement of the great green wall of Africa campaign where the young people will plant trees covering 7,775 km of trees, an inspiration from the late prof. Wangari Muta Maathai.

The master of ceremonies, Maj (Rtd) Okwiri Rabwoni then announced that it was time for questions and answers from the audience. The audience was a charged one, full of young pan-Africanists who were passionate about the status quo, the future of Pan-Africanism and issues of accountability by leadership.

Key questions were about the war in Somalia, the rights of gays and the stand of pan-Africanism; the divisions in the Ugandan national chapter; the relevance of the Egyptian revolution and implications for other African democracies; maternal health; integration of African economies and the rights of Ugandan workers.

In response, Prof. Campbell asserted that the Egyptian revolution will change the world at the cross roads of humanity between the Pan-Arab and Pan-Arab-African world. He re-affirmed the need to address the health and reproductive rights question in Africa, especially by addressing mental health issues, and the need to promote people-friendly public priorities. On the integration of African economies, he stated that it was advantageous in Africa because the ordinary people have integrated ahead of their governments and all that the governments need to do is to make people-friendly policies to facilitate this integration and economically transform the quality of their lives. An example of the Lamu project in Kenya was given and this project will greatly improve the transport networks amongst the countries of East Africa. He further remarked that East Africa is a centre for destabilization because the United States can no longer compete with China, India and Brazil. Africa has an advantage of diversity with examples like the 2004 languages; religious tolerance, and respect for African religions. On the war in Somalia, Horace stated that there is need for a pan-African approach and not a foreign mooted approach on resolving the Somalia question. On the rights of Ugandan workers, Prof Campbell stated that the Ugandan government should have laws, which protect the rights of Ugandan workers and their trade unions. This should include the health, safety, well being, and food, nutrition of the Ugandan workers; the youth and the women.

Hon Otafire during his response stated that the Pan-African Movement organises public lectures to allow ideas to flourish to the advantage of budding pan-Africanists. They are a means of passing on the torch to the young generation. On homosexuality, Kahinda stated that homosexuality long existed in African societies and this is justified by the existence of corresponding local words in our languages. But he, however, differed with the advocacy campaign to promote and further spread the practice given that, in his estimation, sexuality is a private matter. On the divisions in the national Pan-African Chapters, he advised the warring parties to stop exposing their bankruptcy of ideas and hold dialogues to resolve their differences. He affirmed that pan-Africanism concerns the idea that we should “organise ... not agonise with one struggle on many fronts,” and that is should move away from intrigue and in-fighting.

The meeting resolved that a Dr. Tajudeen Scholarship fund should be set up and this fund should be used to sponsor young people to study pan-Africanism in universities. It was also resolved that the government of Uganda should support Tajudeen’s family in recognition of the many years he worked for the Pan-African Movement without a salary.

In his closing remarks, Hon Otafire thanked Prof Campbell for a visionary presentation on Pan-Africanism and hoped that the participants had benefited from the profusion of ideas.


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Call for boycott of SA company complicit in Israeli Occupation

Muhammed Desai

2012-07-25

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/83873

Karsten Farms sells dates, amongst other produce, under brands such as "Kalahari Medjoul Dates" and have a trade agreement with an Israeli cooperative, Hadiklaim - a company operating, against international law, in the illegal Israeli settlements.

The decision by the two human rights organizations to support the boycott of Karsten Farms only came after first engaging with Karsten Farms, undertaking investigations and consulting relevant stakeholders. (A copy of email correspondence with Karsten Farms can be made available on request).

In fact, Palestinian solidarity organizations have been in communication with Karsten Farms since 2009. Three years ago Karsten Farms spokesperson, Pieter Karsten, said that he was concerned with ‘the plight of the Palestinians’ and that they would reconsider their relationship with Israel's Hadiklaim. However, the international consumer watchdog organization, Corporate Watch, spoke to Karsten's in 2010, and found that the SA company was still selling dates to Israel's Hadiklaim and, although Pieter Karsten reiterated that he would consider “revising the [Israeli] relationship”, there was no sign of any movement (www.corporatewatch.org/?lid=3725).

This week Wednesday (18 July 2012), Pieter Karsten again confirmed, on South African radio, his company's continued collaboration with Israel's Hadiklaim. Campaigners now feel that Karsten Farms has deliberately been delaying matters in an attempt to ignore calls for Karsten Farms to terminate their Israeli relations.

The decision by the two human rights organizations to support the boycott was communicated via an email circular over the weekend: "Karsten Farms have indeed violated the Palestinian BDS call by having a trade agreement with an Israeli cooperative, Hadiklaim (which also operates in Israel's illegal settlements). Thus, we support and encourage the boycott of Karsten Farms and call on the company to immediately end its Israeli relations." In 2005 Palestinians issued a call for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel until it abides by international law and basic human rights (www.bdsmovement.net/bdsintro).

Karsten Farms and Israel's Hadiklaim have a trade agreement whereby Karsten Farms exports South African Kalahari Medjoul dates to Israel's Hadiklaim cooperative, the cooperative then packages and markets Karsten Farms' Medjoul dates before it enters European and other markets (through the Israeli cooperative and under Israeli brands such as Jordan River, King Solomon, Kalahari etc.). Thus, campaigners argue that Karsten Farms has a formal agreement with an Israeli company, Hadiklaim, in clear violation of the Palestinian BDS call. Furthermore, beyond just being an Israeli company, the Israeli cooperative, Hadiklaim, also directly profiteers and is complicit in the Israeli Occupation of Palestinian lands and the oppression of the Palestinian people. (See below Press Statement for detailed information on Hadiklaim).

Mbuyisen Ndlzoi of BDS South Africa has commented: "In light of the above evidence, and given our own country's history, it is unacceptable that a South African company continues to trade with an Israeli cooperative directly complicit in the Israeli occupation of Palestine and in violation of the Palestinian BDS call."

SIGNIFICANT BOYCOTT OF ISRAEL VICTORY BY PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH - RELATED TO KARSTEN FARMS

Providing motivation and a boost to campaigners is the recent decision by the Presbyterian Church in the USA to also boycott Hadiklaim, the Israeli cooperative that SA's Karsten Farms has a trade agreement with.

The 220th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the USA, comprising of over 2 million members, voted earlier this month (on the 08th of July 2012) to boycott Israel's Hadiklaim - the same company that SA's Karsten Farms has chosen to trade with. The vote to boycott the company was taken by an overwhelming majority, 457 to 180.

Another reason that campaigners feel they will be able to apply sufficient pressure on Karsten Farms to end their Israeli relations is because one of the largest consumers of Karsten Farms's dates is the Muslim community. The Muslim community has just entered the holy month of Ramadhaan in which Muslims fast from sunrise to sunset and traditionally break their fast with a date. Many Muslims identify with the Palestinian cause and this is set to become a major issue.

Campaigners have called on the public to play a role by:

1. Refusing to buy products from Karsten Farms;
2. Informing store-owners of one's decision and requesting them to communicate this to Karsten Farms;
3. Writing directly to Karsten Farms informing them of one's decision and insisting that their Israeli relations are immediately terminated
4. Campaign tools and material are also being made available online at www.bdssouthafrica.com

FUTHER DETAILED INFORMATION ON HADIKLAIM

Karsten Farms has a trade agreement, in violation of the Palestinian BDS call, with Israel's Hadiklaim cooperative. Hadiklaim also directly profiteers and is complicit in the Israeli Occupation of Palestinian lands and the oppression of the Palestinian people:

- Hadiklaim (the Israeli company which SA's Karsten Farms is in partnership with) openly admits to sourcing its dates --against international law-- from the illegal Israeli settlements of Almog, Beit Ha'arava (close to the Dead Sea), Mitzpe Shalem, Kalia, Vered Yeriho, Patza'el, Messua, Mehola and Tomer (http://corporateoccupation.wordpress.com/2010/08/12/hadiklaim-in-the-jordan-valley/)

- Hadiklaim's CEO stated in the Israeli newspaper, YNet News, that the occupied Palestinian Jordan Valley is an "important area" for Hadiklaim. The Israeli occupation of the Palestinian Jordan Valley is illegal under international law. (www.corporatewatch.org/?lid=3694)

- Hadiklaim's dates are labeled as Israeli produce, without any indication that some of the dates are grown in the Occupied Palestinian territories. This is against international labeling requirements. (www.whoprofits.org/sites/default/files/agricultural_export___flash_report_0.pdfwhoprofits.org/sites/default/files/agricultural_export___flash_report_0.pdf)

- In Europe, South Africa's Karsten Farms' Kalahari Medjoul dates have been packaged and sold under Israeli brands and in Israeli packaging. This has caused consumer confusion, and allegations of boycott-busting by Karsten Farms and Hadiklaim. BDS campaigners claim that joint ventures like this (between SA's Karsten Farms and Israel's Hadiklaim) are deliberately attempting to confound the international boycott against Israel movement (www.corporatewatch.org/?lid=3694)

- Israel's Hadiklaim is also complicit in subjecting Palestinian workers to hazardous labor conditions. For example, workers are hoisted into trees with a date picker and are often left to work on a platform high above the ground for the entire duration of the day without meals or toilet breaks. The majority of workers are Palestinian or Thai migrants – who are uniformly paid below the minimum wage. In a recent documentary, one Palestinian worker commented that workers are treated like "monkeys" made to hop from tree to tree. (www.leedspsc.org.uk/?p=1671leedspsc.org.uk/?p=1671)

Issued By BDS South Africa spokesperson, Muhammed Desai: +27 (0) 84 211 9988

Office 915 | 9th Floor | Khotso House | 62 Marshall Street | Johannesburg
PO Box 2318 | Houghton | 2041 | Johannesburg
T: +27 (0) 11 241 7813 | M: 084 211 9988 | F: +27 (0) 86 650 4836
W: www.bdssouthafrica.com | E: administrator@bdssouthafrica.com
www.facebook.com/bdssouthafrica | www.twitter.com/bdssouthafrica

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Vozes d’África, uni-vos!

Brasília, de maio de 2011

2012-07-25

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/83899

As novas estratégias se mostram ainda mais perversas do que no passado: não se explora mais o trabalho escravo das minorias traficadas para as Américas e alhures. Agora a “bola da vez” é a promoção, o acirramento das antigas rivalidades tribais. As guerras com armas brancas do passado levavam homens aos campos de batalha onde sempre foram medido o valor e a coragem dos guerreiros. Hoje nações ricas usam e insuflam as antigas tensões para − no lugar de lanças-escudos, arcos-e-flechas − vender fuzis, metralhadoras, canhões, mísseis, tanques, aviões. Hoje a tecnologia da morte resulta no maior alcance e poder de destruição das armas. O combatente africano muitas vezes não vê quem está matando, ou quem vai matá-lo. E surge a pergunta: onde está a honra e a coragem em disparar um míssil... E tirar a vida de desconhecidos?

Mas... Se o colonizador promove guerras entre irmãos, por que não fazê-lo experimentar do seu próprio veneno? Se a ciência e a tecnologia são o poder, e a África ainda não os tem, por que não aproveitar as rivalidades entre as nações tecnológicas que saqueiam este continente?
Sabemos das diferenças históricas, culturais e governamentais de cada nação, porém a estratégia do não-alinhamento já foi apontada por um grande africano, o Presidente egípcio Gamal Abdel Nasser junto com seu colega indiano Nehru e o Presidente Tito da antiga Iugoslávia. Isso numa época em que o mundo só tinha dois senhores. Hoje a independência ideológica se tornou mais viável pela emergência de novas potências.

Propõe-se que cada país africano permita a exploração de suas riquezas no regime de contratos temporários entre nações concorrentes. Ex.: um país que possua petróleo na sua plataforma continental deve “fatiar” essa riqueza entre diferentes empresas (Shell, Chevron,Texaco, gigantes chinesas, Petrobras etc). A competição entre as nações ricas diminui o poder de cada uma delas no país hospedeiro e garante a este maior poder de negociação. Outra condição para a exploração das riquezas é a exigência contratual da formação da tecnologia e da capacitação africana nas áreas de interesse das respectivas nações. Trata-se de receber o estrangeiro para fazer o seu jogo e lutar com as suas armas, exemplo competentemente dado pelo Japão.

Resumindo: dividam os exploradores, promovam competição e rivalidades entre eles (é só acentuar as que já existem). Esta é uma das formas do soft Power contraposta ao hard Power do passado e do presente praticado pelas potências ocidentais.

A continuidade e o desenvolvimento do Fundo Monetário Africano é vital para este continente. Recursos gerados PELO continente e PARA o continente. Trata-se de gerar e administrar a parte financeira antes do avanço da onda consumista sobre a África.
O Coronel Kadhafi foi mártir a apontar caminho; manter a direção por ele indicada é ainda mais importante do que honrá-lo. Homens da sua estirpe e da de Nasser serão vitais para o desenvolvimento africano.

* Attila Blacheyre, Universidade de Brasília

African Americans for Justice in the Middle East & North Africa: Solidarity statement

Black activists and scholars

2012-07-26

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/advocacy/83905

INTRODUCTION

For far too long African Americans have been compelled, by mainstream USA, to remain either silent on international affairs or only speak out on matters relative to Sub-Saharan Africa. With this statement by "African Americans for Justice in the Middle East & North Africa" a process unfolds of breaking the silence. In breaking the silence the signatories are stepping forward as advocates for peace, justice and sovereignty in these regions, and as such we are speaking out very directly, whether in opposition to the Moroccan occupation of the Western Sahara; in support of the democratic uprisings that began in Tunisia and spread to much of the Arab World; in solidarity with the Palestinian people's struggle for national self-determination; or against the various forms in which the US militarily--covertly and openly--intervenes in the internal affairs of sovereign nations. This statement also represents a recognition that the unique experience of African Americans in the USA can play a significant role by lending a hand to support the dynamic change sweeping the region and meaningfully contribute to bridging the cultural divides between the USA and the Middle East and North African regions at large.

This statement is an opening salvo. The signatories of this statement are committed to being outspoken and active in the cause of peace, justice and sovereignty in North Africa and the Middle East. African Americans for Justice in the Middle East and North Africa, then is a process rather than an organization. We invite further signatories. We also invite questions and principled, constructive dialogue. And we look forward to building bonds of solidarity.

We can be reached at aajmena@gmail.com

In solidarity,

Felicia Eaves, Co-chair of US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation

Bill Fletcher, Jr., writer/activist

Mark Harrison, Director, Peace with Justice Program, United Methodist General Board of Church and Society

Reverend D.A. Lams


******

AFRICAN AMERICANS FOR JUSTICE IN THE MIDDLE EAST & NORTH AFRICA — UNITY STATEMENT

"African Americans for Justice in the Middle East & North Africa” is an initiative that has been created in order to build solidarity, in a true Pan-African and Black Internationalist tradition, with the peoples and progressive social movements in North Africa and the Middle East that have been engaged in struggles for democracy, justice and national liberation. We come together from different organizations, institutions and movements, and some as simply individuals of conscience, who have concluded that silence in the face of injustice and oppression is unacceptable. We believe that African Americans in the United States of America have a special role in speaking out against enemies of peace, justice and democracy, both foreign and domestic.

The entire expanse of the African American experience in the USA has been one that has involved our fight for freedom and justice on the national and international planes. In addition to opposing slavery and the slave trade, African Americans in the 19th century expressed solidarity with the Irish struggle for freedom from Britain and Haiti’s continuous struggles for sovereignty. In the 20th century African Americans were not only central to the creation of a global Pan-Africanist movement, but also situated ourselves in struggles around Irish liberation, opposition to the US occupation of Haiti, opposition to the Italian invasion of Ethiopia, supporting (and serving in) the anti-fascist struggle in the Spanish civil war, supporting the independence struggle of the Indian subcontinent and those of African former colonies in the aftermath of World War II, solidarity with the Cuban people, opposition to US involvement in Indochina, the struggle against South African apartheid and the list could go on to delineate numerous other struggles and efforts.

Despite white supremacist attempts—liberal and explicitly right-wing—to restrict the African American voice to matters of domestic race and African American issues, African Americans have regularly broken free of the mold. Though this has often come at some cost, such as when Dr. Martin Luther King spoke out against US aggression in Vietnam in 1967, it has largely been inconceivable for African Americans to remain silent in the face of global injustice.

With this as background, African Americans for Justice in the Middle East and North Africa has emerged as another voice for global peace and freedom that is united by the following:

We support all genuine, progressive struggles for national liberation, national sovereignty, justice and democracy in the Middle East and North Africa.
The Arab democratic uprising—often referenced as the “Arab Spring”—has been a global altering process that has unleashed forces in struggle against neo-liberalism, neo-colonialism, and despotism, It has served as an inspiration for resistance movements in Sub-Saharan Africa, as well as in Europe (against neo-liberal/austerity economics), and here in the USA with the Madison, Wisconsin demonstrations in early 2011 and more recently the Occupy Wall Street/Occupy Together movement.

Central to the struggles in the Middle East and North Africa has been the struggle of the Palestinian people, a struggle for national liberation, the right of return, equality and justice. AAJMENA is deeply committed to this struggle and wish to more fully integrate this into the lives and struggles of the African American people.

We recognize that the USA has historically played an unhelpful and, indeed, backward role in the Middle East and North Africa. This has included supporting despots, the crushing of nationalist, progressive and left-wing movements and governments, providing near unconditional support for Israel’s oppression of the Palestinian people, covert operations that infringe on national sovereignty, and direct military provocations and invasions. The USA must be called upon to repair the damage that it has done in this region by first doing no harm, and must instead recognize and respect the aspirations of the peoples of the Middle East and North Africa for sovereignty, justice and democracy.

We see the struggles in the Middle East and North Africa as struggles that have much in common with those conducted in Sub-Saharan Africa and in the African Diaspora. As such we are duty bound to address them and integrate them into the larger fight for global justice and peace.

We are, therefore, committing ourselves to:

Promoting education and discussion within Black America regarding the issues and struggles facing the people of the Middle East and North Africa.
Building solidarity with genuine, popular democratic struggles in the Middle East and North Africa for justice, democracy and national liberation and national sovereignty.

Organizing a vocal constituency of African Americans to take up this banner.

Promoting a clear demand for justice for the Palestinian people as central to peace and stability in the Middle East. In doing so we join together with non-African Americans, people of different faiths, including but not limited to Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, animists and others, who are committed to justice for the Palestinian people. We believe that there is a special significance to working with progressive Jews in the USA and Israel who share our abhorrence to the system of oppression experienced by the Palestinian people.

Advancing the demand for a democratic foreign policy on the part of the USA that is based on mutual respect, non-intervention in the affairs of other nation-states, recognition of national self-determination and repairing the damage that it has created through its imperial foreign actions

Building links with progressive social movements in the Middle East and North Africa.

SIGNATORIES

Dr. Makungu Akinyela
Kali Akuno
Dr. Jared Ball
Ajamu Baraka
Carl Bloice
Herb Boyd
Rev. Dr. Carolyn Boyd
Dr. Gloria W. Brown
Rev. Heber Brown
Christopher Cathcart
Felicia Eaves
Bill Fletcher, Jr.
Patricia Ann Ford
Dr. Angela Gilliam
Rev. Graylan Hagler
Dr. Jennifer Hamer
Dr. Jesse Hargrove
Dr. James H. Harris
Lela Harris
Mark Harrison
Dr. James Jennings
Theon Johnson III
Dr. Joseph Jones
Dr. Joseph Jordan
Dr. Robin Kelley
Mel King
Rev. D.A. Lams
Dr. Clarence Lang
Rev. Philip Lawson
Gerald Lenoir
Dr. Clarence Lusane
Rev. Brandon McAfee
Rev. John McCullough
Leila McDowell
Dr. Anthony Monteiro
Rev. Bernard Mwepu
Dr. Premilla Nadasen
Rev. J. Herbert Nelson
Rev. Mulenga Nkole
Rev. Mark Norman
Dr. Suleiman Nyang
Garry Owens
Rev. Jonathan Pemberton
Rev. Christopher Pierson
Dr. Charles “Cappy” Pinderhughes
Dr. Barbara Ransby
Jamala Rogers
Rev. Dr. Boykin Sanders
Rev. Quincy Shannon
Dr. Robyn Spencer
Dr. William (Bill) Strickland
Dr. Cornel West
Dr. Johnny Williams
Hashim Yeomans-Benford
Rev. Ronnie Yow

Police repression of service delivery protests in Khayelitsha

Press Statement

2012-07-26

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/advocacy/83901

What the SAPS allege against our members is not true: Nqingo and Fotoyi did not intimidate or attack workers and trucks that delivered portable toilets to the SST section of Khayelitsha. Nqingo and Fotoyi were part of the PYM and SST community protest against portable toilets and that called for community consultation and decent sanitation. Nqingo has been in police custody since Wednesday (18 July 2012). Fotoyi was arrested this morning at the Harare police station when he was part of a PYM delegation accompanying Nqingo’s lawyer. Nqingo was refused release yesterday as the responsible SAPS officials claimed to have lost her docket. Surprisingly, the same SAPS officials managed not to lose the docket of Nqingo’s 8 assailants. Yesterday, these same SAPS officials were preparing to release Nqingo’s 8 assailants from police custody until the prosecutor objected against this on grounds of clear bias. To arrest and keep Nqingo and Fotoyi in custody for their engagement in legitimate protest is to violate their freedom of association and to entrench the violation of their dignity by the imposition of indecent and disease-causing portable toilets. This is against the clearly expressed will of the people of SST.

As part of the ongoing community action, the local ANC ward councilor (Amos Komeni) has ridden roughshod over the community. He has refused to consult and meet with the community. He has mobilised a small number of local goons to terrorise those residents active in community mobilisation against the hated portable toilets.

As the PYM and the DLF, we call on the SAPS management to take action against SAPS Sector Commander for Harare, Commander Nyalambisa, for his biased conduct. On Wednesday, Commander Nyalambisa allowed the assault of Nqingo by 8 people who are associated with the unaccountable Komeni. In other words, this assault took place in front of Commander Nyalambisa. Nyalambisa took no action to stop the assault. Instead, Nyalambisa stopped PYM members who were intervening to stop the assault on Nqingo. Commander Nyalambisa’s actions are biased and fall short of his service commitments in the SAPS. Indeed, the SAPS is increasingly becoming the primary tool in the state’s response to the public expression of popular discontent with failing service delivery. The 8 assailants included individuals with tenders for the provision of the hated portable toilets. Some of these tenderpreneurs include members of the Komeni-led ward committee. In effect, these 8 assailants were there to physically enforce the imposition of these toilets. Through Nyalambisa’s actions, the SAPS colluded with this imposition. Nqingo’s 8 assailants were only arrested after the PYM and Nqingo laid a complaints and charges with the police.

The PYM and the DLF call on the SAPS to immediately release Nqingo and Fotoyi. We call on the SAPS to desist from using its force and power to stop legitimate public protest. We call on the ANC’s Amos Komeni and the DA-controlled City of Cape Town to respect the wishes of the people of SST not to impose portable toilets but to immediately install decent sanitation systems. Despite their apparent political differences, the SST case confirms the neo-liberal, anti-poor and authoritarian convergence of the DA and the ANC as governing parties. As the PYM and the DLF, we reaffirm our commitment to provide support and leadership to the sustained community struggles for decent sanitation in SST. Despite the arrest of Nqingo and Fotoyi, we will not lose focus in building community power and action for social justice, decent services and accountability.

Finally, we call on all progressive organisations and individuals who stand for social justice to write letters of protest to the SAPS Harare Station Commander as follows:

- Colonel Adams, Station Commander, Harare Police Station, Khayelitsha, Fax – 021 363 0396

The letters must call for the immediate release of Nqingo and Fotoyi, action against Commander Nyalambisa, action against SAPS officials involved in the loss of Nqingo’s docket, an end to biased anti-constitutional actions of the SAPS.

The PYM is an affiliate of the DLF.

For comments, contact:

- Mabhelandile Twani (PYM) – 083 886 1831
- Andiswa Bhabha (PYM) – 073 417 0049
- Zama Timbela (PYM) – 076 731 6157
- Mazibuko K. Jara (DLF) – 083 651 0271

South Africa: Shackdwellers invite Cape mayor to meet them

Abahlali baseMjondolo of the Western Cape

2012-07-26

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/advocacy/83900

As leaders of Abahlali baseMjondolo Western Cape, a social movement representing shackdwellers, we are the delegates elected from our poor communities. We have followed all the required government channels trying to have these grievances resolved - from sanitation, to toilets, to housing allocation, to lack of electricity, to evictions. However, we have never had our issues adequately engaged with and very rarely have even received even a response from government officials.

Hence, our movement has decided to take the initiative to write to the Mayor of the City of Cape Town, once again, and request that she personally come down to our communities and address us directly. Specifically, you are requested to come to Langa Temporary Relocation Area where there is a crisis of corruption and misallocation of government built shacks. Rightful residents are being evicted (such as in the documented case of Thandeka Ngcelwane) and political party connected individuals are being allocated multiple shacks and RDP homes in the N2 Gateway project.

We expect your visit within the coming month. As you and your predecessors have ignored our previous requests for engagement, we expect you to respond within seven days with your suggested date of attendance.

If you do not attend to our grievances personally, we will decide collectively on what alternative action we should take to have our voices heard and our grievances address.

Yours in the struggle of the poor,

Thembelani Maqwazimo (General Secretary) – 0712604119
Mbongeni Mkhaliphi (Chairperson) – 0769816945
Cindy Ketani (Abahlali baseLanga TRA) – 0760866690

Abahlali baseMjondolo of the Western Cape
Address: QQ 305 ~ Site B ~ Khayelitsha, 7784
E-mail: abahlalibasemjondolo@telkomsa.net
Website: http//www.abahlali.org

If God were A ninety-five-year-old ebony Black Swahili woman

Shailja Patel

2012-07-26

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/books/83907

Kwani Trust announces new literary prize for African writing

Kwani Trust

2012-07-26

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/books/83923

Timbuktu: The far place

Ishaq Imruh Bakari

2012-07-26

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/African_Writers/83902

Swaziland: Swaziland in crisis

2012-07-30

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/podcasts/83954

http://bit.ly/MVioEV

Zimbabwe: Civil servants protest over poor pay

2012-07-25

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/zimbabwe/83876

http://bit.ly/Q2ic4d

Zimbabwe: Draft constitution 'a flawed compromise'

2012-07-24

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/zimbabwe/83854

http://bit.ly/MEXwj7

Africa: AU urged to do more for women's rights protocol

2012-07-25

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/wgender/83881

http://bit.ly/QjuOty

Côte d’Ivoire: Punish those carrying out FGM, say campaigners

2012-07-30

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/wgender/83962

http://bit.ly/QXWNOq

Egypt: A case study on the rights of women

2012-07-26

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/wgender/83917

http://bit.ly/LPxTPg

Global: Securing women’s rights and gender equality through an arms trade treaty

2012-07-30

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/wgender/83983

http://bit.ly/N6t4gA

Global: Strategies of feminist bureaucrats

2012-07-26

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/wgender/83915

http://bit.ly/QJxDTv

Kenya: Kenya shines at sex workers freedom fest

2012-07-25

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/wgender/83864

http://bit.ly/Oht5Bq

South Sudan: The biggest threat to a woman's life

2012-07-25

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/wgender/83859

http://bit.ly/QiJrNL

DRC: The London Stock Exchange, a haven for laundered conflict assets?

2012-07-25

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/rights/83865

http://bit.ly/LNdSEd

Gambia: Global rights body urges Gambia to free jailed anti-government activist

2012-07-25

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/rights/83882

http://bit.ly/Qjv5fU

Kenya: Court overturns ban on separatist group

2012-07-25

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/rights/83893

http://bit.ly/Pny1Vv

Mali: Security forces ‘disappear’ 20, torture others

2012-07-25

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/rights/83870

http://bit.ly/MHu3Fm

Rwanda: Kagame warned he may be charged with aiding war crimes

2012-07-26

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/rights/83903

http://bit.ly/MJU1Z0

Senegal: AU, Senegal strike trial court deal on Chad dictator Habre

2012-07-25

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/rights/83877

http://bit.ly/NJyWi6

Africa: Launching an African regional network on immigration detention

2012-07-25

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/refugees/83886

http://bit.ly/NUkjda

Global: Forced displacement and gender violence against boys

2012-07-25

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/refugees/83891

http://bit.ly/QjyBXL

Global: The age and sex of migrants

2012-07-26

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/refugees/83916

http://bit.ly/O0Q1T9

Kenya: Asylum under threat

2012-07-30

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/refugees/84004

http://bit.ly/Q41G6L

Kenya: Increased population in Kakuma camp

2012-07-30

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/refugees/83968

http://bit.ly/MO2w8X

Mali: 400,000 displaced

2012-07-25

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/refugees/83894

http://bit.ly/MmtxMm

Somalia: Somalis stranded in Mediterranean off Libya 'rescued'

2012-07-30

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/refugees/83961

http://bbc.in/M47San

South Africa: Court orders Cape Town to process asylum applications

2012-07-25

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/refugees/83880

http://bit.ly/MH3ML3

Egypt: One worker killed, three injured during protest

2012-07-25

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/labour/83866

http://bit.ly/PjBZPc

Zambia: New minimum wage pits employers against government

2012-07-25

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/labour/83889

http://bit.ly/Q4GCdo

Angola: Public protests planned

2012-07-24

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/elections/83856

http://bit.ly/LKST9B

Ethiopia: Zenawi’s exit? Why EAC should worry

2012-07-30

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/elections/83957

http://bit.ly/MNXidz

Ghana: Interesting days ahead for Ghana after Atta Mills death

2012-07-30

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/elections/83955

http://bit.ly/ND4ZCX

Madagascar: Landmark talks

2012-07-24

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/elections/83853

http://bit.ly/NSsJia

Mali: Interim president urges unity government

2012-07-30

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/elections/83978

http://aje.me/PeXHA1

Sudan: Who's who in the opposition

2012-07-30

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/elections/83973

http://bit.ly/OwIoEI

Zambia: Opposition minister quits

2012-07-25

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/elections/83883

http://bit.ly/LOoMto

Zambia: Sata and Banda in ethnicity spat

2012-07-24

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/elections/83857

http://bit.ly/NHWFPu

Nigeria : The great $6.8bn oil scandal

2012-07-25

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/corruption/83878

http://bit.ly/NJAj08

Nigeria: Opposition asks ruling party chair to resign over fuel subsidy scam

2012-07-30

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/corruption/83979

http://bit.ly/OBnx4T

Africa: Foreign firms loot hard currencies worth USD1.5 trillion yearly

2012-07-30

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/development/83980

http://bit.ly/QYkyGc

Malawi: IMF approves $156.2 mln loan

2012-07-24

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/development/83858

http://bit.ly/OkJRxN

Mozambique: World Bank admits blame for Beira railway fiasco

2012-07-30

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/development/83958

http://bit.ly/T0vlOA

Swaziland: Reignited Swazi bailout raises hackles

2012-07-25

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/development/83892

http://bit.ly/NY3efz

DRC: Concerns over cholera mount amid clashes

2012-07-30

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/hivaids/83975

http://bit.ly/PajTM1

Global: First-ever study of HIV treatment policies in 23 countries

2012-07-25

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/hivaids/83895

http://bit.ly/MH8jwZ

Global: Free trade deals, drug patents derail AIDS fight

2012-07-26

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/hivaids/83911

http://bit.ly/QaNiGU

Global: Hope for more effective TB treatment

2012-07-25

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/hivaids/83887

http://bbc.in/MIqrD2

Global: New investment in HIV point-of-care evaluation

2012-07-25

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/hivaids/83861

http://bit.ly/PHvLt8

Global: New ways to fund the HIV/AIDS fight

2012-07-25

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/hivaids/83860

http://bit.ly/N1HzkI

Kenya: Keeping children in school shows impact on HIV risk behaviours

2012-07-26

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/hivaids/83913

http://bit.ly/OoNfrt

Morocco: Moms benefit from maternal health revolution

2012-07-26

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/hivaids/83914

http://bit.ly/Olc9Kr

Uganda: Outbreak of Ebola kills 13

2012-07-30

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/hivaids/83960

http://bbc.in/P9Ox88

Zambia: Why Zambians don't test and treat

2012-07-26

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/hivaids/83912

http://bit.ly/QJvjMj

Zimbabwe: Typhoid and cholera return

2012-07-30

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/hivaids/83974

http://bit.ly/NQmL2Z

Egypt: University staff fired for participating in peaceful demonstration

2012-07-25

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/education/83867

http://bit.ly/NJlWcl

Kenya: Education minister unveils 'ideal skirt'

2012-07-30

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/education/83971

Education Minister Mutula Kilonzo has introduced his model skirt that is just two inches below the knee in a bid to quell the storm over the miniskirt row. Mutula’s new move unveils a skirt length which appears long enough to sooth the anger of clerics and conservatives, and short enough to appease the teenagers. He chose Rwathia Girls Seconday School to unveil the official skirt length recommended by his ministry. Mutula said that the Rwathia administration erred in imposing changes without consulting students, and that is why he supported the students. The Rwathia students who went on strike three weeks ago had complained that their new purple skirts were too long, ugly and not meant for their age.
http://bit.ly/PeVYKU

Zimbabwe: Virtual lectures to help cope with brain drain

2012-07-25

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/education/83872

http://bit.ly/QiNE45

Cameroon: The SMS that sent a gay Cameroonian to jail

2012-07-25

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/lgbti/83869

http://bit.ly/Nuvyu8

Kenya: Bishop says gays are worse than terrorists

2012-07-30

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/lgbti/83972

http://bit.ly/OecvQT

Malawi: Debate on gay rights revived

2012-07-25

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/lgbti/83879

http://bit.ly/NXSiOU

Africa: Africa must earn its climate change adaptation finance

2012-07-30

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/environment/83963

http://bit.ly/T0vKR7

Global: Decline of honey bees now a global phenomenon, says UN

2012-07-25

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/environment/83871

The mysterious collapse of honey-bee colonies is becoming a global phenomenon, scientists working for the United Nations have revealed. Declines in managed bee colonies, seen increasingly in Europe and the US in the past decade, are also now being observed in China and Japan and there are the first signs of African collapses from Egypt, according to the report from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). The authors, who include some of the world's leading honey-bee experts, issue a stark warning about the disappearance of bees, which are increasingly important as crop pollinators around the globe.
http://ind.pn/MW6reF

Senegal: Licences of foreign fishing trawlers revoked

2012-07-30

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/environment/83970

http://bit.ly/Q25ntq

Global: Building a new vision for agrarian reform

2012-07-25

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/land/83868

http://bit.ly/OZbkTP

Global: Land and gender database

2012-07-30

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/land/83981

http://bit.ly/N6sOOJ

Nigeria: Thousands forced from floating slum

2012-07-30

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/land/83976

http://aje.me/T0zVfI

Zambia: ‘Public should be consulted over GMOs’

2012-07-30

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/food/83969

http://bit.ly/Q23FbC

Ethiopia: Newspaper blocked for reporting on Meles’ health

2012-07-30

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/media/83977

http://bit.ly/Q3LrXI

Global: Women journalists in the eye of the storm

2012-07-30

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/media/83982

http://bit.ly/QqXpwY

Mauritania: A journalist behind bars

2012-07-25

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/media/83888

http://bit.ly/SUefSn

Sudan: CPJ accuses Sudan of cracking down on press

2012-07-25

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/media/83885

http://bit.ly/OEqmhM

Africa: Record aid shortfall abandons millions to their fate

2012-07-25

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/welfare/83890

http://bit.ly/NY16o8

South Africa: Education the only way to reverse inequality, says World Bank

2012-07-30

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/welfare/83953

http://bit.ly/Os2seP

South Africa: Welfare sector in crisis

2012-07-24

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/welfare/83855

http://bit.ly/NHKYIS

DRC: Fighting prompts UN intervention

2012-07-25

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/conflict/83862

http://aje.me/OhsjEp

DRC: We need your help, DRC tells Angola

2012-07-30

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/conflict/83959

http://bit.ly/OdURMT

Ethiopia: 20,000 flee Moyale clashes, says Red Cross

2012-07-30

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/conflict/83956

http://bit.ly/Q1rSi9

Kenya: Pentagon eyes drones for Kenya to fight militants nearby

2012-07-30

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/conflict/83967

http://bit.ly/Q3CZrD

Nigeria: Dozens killed in central Nigeria floods

2012-07-25

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/conflict/83863

http://aje.me/MHrItZ

Rwanda: Germany suspends aid

2012-07-30

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/conflict/83952

http://bit.ly/QHCAbc

Africa: Right to know fact sheet

2012-07-25

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/fundraising/83884

http://bit.ly/MWLLmO

Africa: Sex, gender and childhood

Call for ABSTRACTS for 2013 AGENDA Journal

2012-07-30

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/publications/83965

http://bit.ly/LY3RZz

Africa: Youth and Fitness Online Magazine

2012-07-30

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/publications/83966

http://bit.ly/PeSmc1

Career Opportunities

Femnet

2012-07-30

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/jobs/83964

http://bit.ly/QqT5hb

Fahamu