CONTENTS: 1. Features  2. Announcements  

Features

It’s time for youth to deliver South Sudan to lasting peace

Peter Biar Ajak

The economy is destroyed. Inflation is the highest in the world. Fertile land has been left fallow because the danger of a violent death has kept farmers from tilling their soil. Food is so scarce and food prices so high that onions are cut into quarters for sale in markets in Yei! South Sudan is in desperate need of leadership.

The Pan-African spirit

Hannah Boakye

The 2nd Kwameh Nkrumah Pan-African Intellectual and Cultural Festival was held in Accra, Ghana, 25 June to 1 July 2017. The festival served as a vehicle for reflection and a springboard for new efforts to promote Pan-Africanism and transformation of the African world. Here is the experience of one youth volunteer at the event.

AU summit held amid economic decline and social instability

Abayomi Azikiwe

Growing youth populations are placing social and political pressure on their governments to address the need for employment opportunities. But the dependence upon foreign markets for the export of natural resources and cash crops systematically undermines strategic planning within the present world economic order.

Thoughts on Malawi at 53: History, education and human dignity

Steve Sharra

Only a quarter of Malawian children who enter primary school finish the eight-year course. And almost 70 percent of Malawians aged 15 years and above do not have a secondary school education. The numbers are worse for girls, at 74 percent. This is part of Malawi’s colonial legacy.

Inclusive development and responsible leadership are Fidel Castro’s legacy to Africa

Paresh Soni

Betrayal of the liberation struggle by post-independent regimes and elites in many African countries is the reason I am making a clarion call to civil society, in particular my contemporaries, the youth, and the electorate to reconceptualise their thoughts about state governance and leadership. Corruption, cronyism, looting of the national purse, state capture and service delivery strikes are a stark reminder of this reality.

Kenya: Why I will not mourn Joseph Nkaissery

Simba Hasheem

Kenya’s Cabinet Secretary for Interior Maj. Gen. (rtd) Joseph Nkaissery died suddenly on Saturday, 8 July 2017. Nkaissery is certainly a notorious symbol of human rights abuse and his death brings to an end one of the saddest chapters in Kenyan history.

Uganda’s refugee hospitality is exemplary

Yohannes Woldemariam

Instead of being locked in crowded camps surrounded by barbed wire, the 1.2 million refugees in Uganda are given large plots of land in sprawling settlements to build homes or, if they like, small farms. If agrarian life isn’t for them, they can move freely around the country, traveling to towns or to the bustling capital of Kampala, which 95,000 refugees call their home.

Israel and Rwanda, partners in persecution

Ann Garrison

Despite Kagame’s totalitarian regime being infamous for horrendous human rights abuses inside the country and in DR Congo, Rwanda is now a member of the UN Human Rights Council. Rwanda has signaled that it will use its seat to defend its friend, the colonial state of Israel.

Role of the legal profession in social justice struggles in Africa

Yves Niyiragira

Lawyers should claim their place in society by espousing Pan-African ideals. They should stop defending and colluding with corrupt African elites. A remarkable example is Henry Sylvester Williams, the Trinidadian barrister who, together with other Pan-Africanists, organised the first Pan-African conference in London in 1900.

How markets undermine African development

William Gumede

The rules, institutions and operations of global markets, unchanged since the end of formal colonialism, are among the greatest obstacles to the development of African countries.

South Africa: An open letter of SAFTU to the Communist Party

Why we are unable to honour the invitation to your Congress

Zwelinzima Vavi

The South African Federation of Trade Unions turned down an invitation to the congress of the South African Communist Party. SACP is an ally of the ruling African National Congress. SAFTU says SACP is as guilty as the Jacob Zuma government in implementing a neoliberal programme that is anti-poor, anti-working class, pro-capitalist and anti-socialist.

The 4th July parliamentary coup in Nigeria

Chido Onumah and Godwin Onyeacholem

The call on Bukola Saraki, the senate president, to assume the position of acting president because the president and acting president were allegedly out of the country, was not only contrary to the provisions of the constitution but had all the elements of a coup d'état.

Charter of the North African Network for Food Sovereignty

Various

Activists from anti-capitalist militant organizations in North Africa met in Tunis on 4^th and 5^th July 2017 to set up the North African Network for Food Sovereignty. The network is a unifying structure for struggles in the region and will be involved in local, continental and international mobilisation.

Canadian media misleads public about country’s role abroad

Yves Engler

Imagine if the media only reported the good news that governments and corporations wanted you to see, hear and read about. Unfortunately, that is not far from the reality of reporting about Canada’s role internationally.

If North Korea didn’t exist the US would create it

Nizar Visram

There is only one reason why the US is obsessed with North Korea. It allows the US to maintain a massive military presence in East Asia. If not for tensions on the Korean peninsula, the US would lose its rationale for its network of military bases in the region, which are primarily meant to threaten and contain China.

Announcements

Africa-Europe relations: Towards a different future for the two neighbours?

Call for papers for a special issue of Pambazuka News

The Editors

As African and European leaders plan to meet in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire, late November 2017 to assess the status of the Africa-Europe partnership, Pambazuka News is calling for a broad range of papers analysing, from various perspectives, relations between Africa and Europe and how they might evolve in the coming decades.
 

Pambazuka Android App is now on Google Play Store

As a way to reach more people and to make your experience with Pambazuka News better, we have developed an android app as another tool to create a better reading experience with mobile devices. The app will have periodic updates to cater for changing readers' requirements and experiences.
App download Link

DONATE AND SUPPORT PAMBAZUKA!

Kindly forward this email to family and friends to help spread the message.
Thank you for your support. Click here to donate.

Henry Makori and Tidiane Kasse - Editors, Pambazuka News

Yves Niyiragira - Executive Director, Fahamu

Websites: Fahamu.org, Pambazuka.org