features
African world view on revolutionary ruptures and pace of change in 2012
‘Egypt's popular revolution will change the world’
Horace Campbell
2012-02-02, Issue 568
cc M HProgressives must brace for intensified struggles in 2012 because people in all continents are seeking alternatives beyond neo-liberal domination. The current European struggles will sharpen the struggles in Latin America and Africa.
President Wade vs. the people: Senegal is in danger
Arame Tall
2012-02-02, Issue 568
cc G PThe deadly violence that has broken out in Senegal seems surreal even to the most seasoned analysts of the West African nation’s political evolution. Angry Senegalese believe President Wade has executed a coup to stay in power.
Angola: CNN accepts ads from corrupt regime
Rafael Marques de Morais
2012-02-01, Issue 568
The company contracted to market Angola overseas is owned by the president’s children. While two-thirds of the population survives on less than $2 a day, the president and his protégés plunder the country.
Angola: Public official goes shopping with state money
Rafael Marques de Morais
2012-02-01, Issue 568
cc C RThe new hypermarket is one of many businesses belonging to a fast-growing empire owned by senior public officials, which over the last three years has become the biggest player in the national economy.
DRC: What next after corruption of truth and justice?
Jacques Depelchin
2012-02-01, Issue 568
cc WikimediaAs in other parts of the world, there are signs of revolt of ordinary people against many decades of oppression and dispossession. The dictators leave, but the system which bore them remains.
Debate: Critiquing the critique on China in Zambia
Human Rights Watch and labour abuses in Chinese state-owned copper mines
2012-02-01, Issue 568
cc P S 2011In December, Pambazuka News carried an article that critiqued a Human Rights Watch report that had exposed labour abuses in Chinese state-owned copper mines in Zambia. Here, Human Rights Watch responds to that critique.
Beyond ICC and Kenya’s divisive politics
Uche Igwe
2012-02-01, Issue 568
cc M C FTime has come for politics of accountability and inclusion. The country’s top leaders need to move away from their ethnic enclaves and promote reconciliation and healing as Kenya heads to the next election.
Time to focus on post-election violence victims
Rasna Warah
2012-02-01, Issue 568
cc A PWhat should concern Kenya is not the political and personal fate of the suspects whose charges have been confirmed by the International criminal Court, but the lives of the thousands of victims who are still nursing their wounds four years later.
The new landlessness and the lessons of Biafra
Abena Ampofoa Asare
2012-02-01, Issue 568
cc C HUnlike the Biafra experience, indigenous peoples confronting land dispossession are looking beyond the nation-state for justice.
What Westerners don't understand about modern economy
Jean-Paul Pougala
2012-02-01, Issue 568
cc W E CWhy is the Chinese economy thriving while that of the West is in crisis? The answer is of great relevance to Africans who have for decades embraced development models created in the boardrooms of Western capitals.
We blacks are failing our own people
Veli Mbele
2012-02-01, Issue 568
cc DplanetIn just under two decades of liberation, South Africa is now gripped by the deadly politics of character assassination, rapacious self-enrichment and factionalism. The ideals of the anti-apartheid struggle have been lost in public life.
In defence of the new AU headquarters
Okello Oculi
2012-02-01, Issue 568
cc C CHow genuine is the anger that has been expressed in some quarters about Africa accepting a gift of the new African Union headquarters from China? There are so many other issues of urgent concern around the continent that the critics should direct their wrath to as well.
New AU headquarters: A tribute to China-Africa relations
A response to Chika Ezeanya
Antoine Roger Lokongo
2012-02-01, Issue 568
cc PZNWhich other friend of Africa would be willing to fund, design, build and maintain a new $200 million AU headquarters in the middle of a global financial crisis?
LGBT: David Kato Award goes to Jamaican activist
Maurice Tomlinson
2012-02-01, Issue 568
cc C DThe winner, who fled Jamaica a year ago following homophobic death threats, vows to continue with the struggle for LGBT rights in honour of the the fallen Ugandan activist.
Ethiopia: Concerns about Gibe 3 Dam
David Turton
2012-02-01, Issue 568
cc I RThere is a powerful economic argument for Gibe 3 Dam. But there are also powerful arguments for ensuring that large-scale river-basin development projects provide genuine and sustainable development opportunities for the affected people.
We are building a new way of organising
Jared Sacks
2012-02-02, Issue 568
cc K N‘While as a young movement we try to build radically new forms of direct democracy within by challenging the old guard, we will also be able to strengthen accountability and the authority of the decisions we make as a collective.’
South Africa: Charges against protesters withdrawn
Benjamin Fogel
2012-02-01, Issue 568
cc V P‘While supporters of the protest argued that their meeting posed no threat to public safety, the city had declared the movement a threat.’
Kenya: Bunge la Mwananchi movement and its challenges
Julius Okoth
2012-02-02, Issue 568
cc N HAlthough it remains one of the best known pro-poor social movements in Kenya, Bunge la Mwananchi faces serious internal challenges that hamper its effectiveness in mounting collective action. The problems need urgent attention.
Libya and Syria: Lizzie Phelan on her reporting
Lizzie Phelan
2012-02-02, Issue 568
cc MREBRASIL‘I have been accused by some of being a mouthpiece for the [former] Libyan government but now the truth is coming out. We know that the essence of the former Libyan government's analysis has been proved correct.’
Somaliland and the London conference on Somalia
Ahmed M.I. Egal
2012-02-01, Issue 568
cc A WListening to Somaliland – and deploying some of its methods in achieving stability – is crucial to addressing the crisis in Somalia.
Will neoliberalism make a comeback in Africa via Tunisia?
Patrick Bond and Khadija Sharife
2012-02-02, Issue 568
cc A GIMF held up Tunisia under Ben Ali as a model, yet ordinary people fed up with his excesses overthrew the regime. Now IMF appears to be courting the new leadership.
‘This is not the democracy that we fought for’
Jeff Conant, for GJEP, interviews South African member of La Via Campesina
Ricado Jacobs
South African member of La Via Campesina.
2012-01-26, Issue 567
© abahlali.org‘The uprisings in Egypt and everywhere remind us that direct action is an important pillar for the poor and the oppressed all over the world.’
Nigeria: Was it a 14-day dream?
Sokari Ekine
2012-01-26, Issue 567
© Nairaland.comIt may appear like business as usual but people do not experience such an outpouring of solidarity and power and remain unchanged. The apathy barrier has been broken and there has been a shift in consciousness.
South Africa: People's land, housing and jobs summit
City of Cape Town tries to ban poor people from the commons
Jared Sacks
2012-01-26, Issue 567
© abahlali.orgBy taking back the commons, thousands of poor and working-class people, together with many middle-class allies, are saying that they no longer want to live in a city which remains segregated.
South Africa: The reign of thugs
Pedro Alexis Tabensky
2012-01-26, Issue 567
© abahlali.orgOne way of measuring the quality of a democracy is to assess the behaviour of its police. The recent brutal attack on the Unemployed People’s Movement leader Ayanda Kota reveals the sad state of democracy in South Africa.
South Africa: State of emergency 2.0
Christopher McMichael
2012-01-26, Issue 567
© abahlali.orgJoint operations between the police and military are becoming increasingly commonplace. But maintaining a strict demarcation between the police and the military is essential to the protection of democracy.
ICC Kenya ruling: Deep democratic shifts and blow to impunity
Onyango Oloo
2012-01-26, Issue 567
cc O SThe confirmation of charges against four Kenyans, three of them wealthy and powerful elites, is welcome news for the victims of the 2007/8 post-election violence. But there are thousands of other perpetrators who are still walking free.
Old Sudan and new Sudan
Political crisis and the search for comprehensive peace
Christopher Zambakari
2012-01-26, Issue 567
cc UN PhotoNorth and South Sudan will not find durable peace so long as the marginalised population in the border States continues to die. There must be stability in Abyei, Nuba Mountains, Blue Nile, Eastern Sudan and Darfur.
‘Aid is a dirty word, like colonialism’
Interview by Welt-Sichten (World-Views)
Yash Tandon
2012-01-26, Issue 567
cc FMSCThere are at least a million people in the West who live off the aid industry. They have a vested interest in perpetuating it. But it will disintegrate over time and die slowly.
Africa, steer clear of this Ponzi climate scheme
Michael Dorsey and Patrick Bond
2012-01-26, Issue 567
cc OxfamClimate gamblers have been led astray since 1997 when the Kyoto Protocol was amended to let corporations buy the right to pollute in exchange for endorsing the treaty. Predictably, Washington has refused to honour this ever since.