The media is replete with images from Niger of dying children grappling with emaciated breasts that have long dried from starvation.The famine in Niger exposes the sham of G8 pledges to end poverty in Africa during and after their recent meeting in Gleneagles, Scotland and the complicity of those aid agencies who said not a word about this when they had accesses to millions of viewers watching geriatric jives during the Live8 concerts.

There is evidence that G8 leaders and international agencies (www.dec.org.uk) knew about the crisis brewing in Niger for nearly a year. They must have known that at the same time in Niamey shops and markets were (and are still) flooded with food for the rich.

Why were G8 leaders and international agencies silent? Why was the issue not raised by them at the G8 meetings? Conspiracy theorists may have a viable case for suggesting that the famine was “delayed” as a media event: that a famine in the middle of a G8 summit would have been an embarrassing example of how G8 policies are responsible for denying people food so that they slowly wither and die.

People don’t voluntarily starve themselves to death. Famine has clear early warning signals. Populations are made more vulnerable to famine by inequities in the global order like unfair terms of trade, onerous debt and skewed aid, to say nothing of the sheer looting of wealth by the West.

In our edition at the time of the G8 summit (see http://www.pambazuka.org/index.php?id=28865), we argued that “economic and social policies of African countries have been subverted to serve the interests of the west - the repayment of debt, and the opening up of countries to the needs of voracious international capital.” In short, Africa is not poor because of some freak of circumstance, but because the continent had been systematically looted. Yet the silence over this looting persists – as does the silence over its endgame such as the famine in Niger, and the growing crisis in Mali.

If famine is avoidable, if existing policies maintained by rich countries contribute to famine, then surely there is a strong case to be made that those responsible for these policies be held accountable: that in a very real sense, famine is a crime against humanity.

And if what has happened to people in Niger should be viewed as a crime against humanity, then – at the very least - shouldn't the silence of G8 leaders and international agencies be viewed as acts of complicity?

Links to more reading on Niger:
- Humanitarian Policy Group Briefing Paper
http://www.odi.org.uk/hpg/papers/HPGBriefingNote4.pdf
- Don't let Niger overshadow hunger in Mali
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L02209618.htm
- IMF and EU are blamed for starvation
http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/article302913.ece
- Does US Care About Niger Now?
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=2&ItemID=8404

Pambazuka News was founded as a platform for social justice in Africa. Since its establishment in December 2000, the newsletter has sought to be a vehicle for commentary, debate and information for those committed to the cause of social justice in Africa. The newsletter is now 200 editions old. This article explains the history of the newsletter, its future plans and contains a listing of messages in support of the newsletter.

>>>>>

Today, more than half of sub-Saharan Africa’s 600 million people still live on less than $1 a day. Two hundred million go hungry every day. This year at least a million Africans, most of them young children, will die of malaria. More than 28 million Africans, many of them young children, are living with HIV/AIDS. Forty per cent of children never go to school in Africa – the only region in the world where the number of children out of school is rising. Malaria, HIV/AIDS and preventable maternal mortality are estimated to kill one million people per year (or 2,800 per day) in Africa. Add to these the numerous ongoing conflicts, each claiming hundreds of thousands of lives every year and there may be justification in characterising Africa as a wasteland of conflict, disease and poverty.

Africa continues to be portrayed as the object of pity, a ‘basket case’, a 'scar on the conscience of the world'. Charity, not justice, governance, not self-determination, appear to be the watchwords of the West. Although the Blair Commission on Africa report calls for 100% debt cancellation instead of debt relief, the fine print makes clear that such cancellation of debt remains, as ever, conditional. Africa faces once again an externally driven agenda for social development that combines a narrowly defined programme of privatisation with a broadly defined program of globalisation – the recipe of structural adjustment programmes and poverty reduction strategy papers that have become so tediously familiar over the last two decades and which, many would claim, have exacerbated the destitution of the region.

But as Nelson Mandela so aptly put it at a public rally in Trafalgar Square, London, in February 2005: ‘Like slavery and apartheid, poverty is not natural, it is man-made and it can be overcome and eradicated by the actions of human beings. And overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity. It is an act of justice.’

And that encapsulates the basic premise upon which Pambazuka News was founded - to be a platform for social justice in Africa. Since its establishment in December 2000, Pambazuka News has sought to be a vehicle for commentary, debate and information for those committed to the cause of social justice in Africa.

The newsletter came into existence in response to the demands of human rights and other civil society organisations in Africa where access to the internet – and in particular the worldwide web – was limited, slow and expensive. Fahamu, the organisation that publishes Pambazuka News, and whose mission it is to put the technologies and the resources of the internet at the disposal of the movement for social justice in Africa, responded by providing a service which summarises each week current contents from key websites, lists, and other materials sent to the newsletter for publication. In addition to these summaries, we commission and publish editorials on key issues related to social justice in Africa.

Over the last four years, we have provided a regular stream of information for social justice organisations. The email newsletter now has a subscriber base that exceeds 15,000. Pambazuka News is widely forwarded and reposted, and it is estimated that the newsletter therefore reaches between 60-70,000 people on a weekly basis. This number excludes those who read the newsletter online at (receiving more than 250,000 visits a month) or at Allafrica.com where the newsletter appears in full each week.

Responses from our readers and supporters tell us that we’re doing something right. Pambazuka News, writes one supporter, acts as “a confluence for scholarship and activism that does neither sacrifice the rigour of analysis not the optimism of commitment”. Another reader writes, “Information is power and when you send to us the news it is like you send to us some power, the power to know what's happening”. Lastly, we are told from the DRC that Pambazuka News “allows militants for a better Africa to find and proclaim the conditions of that politics on the basis of fidelity to the daily defense of peoples' rights, people's resistance to inhumanity and thus to the fidelity to the equality of humanity”. You can read the full responses below.

Since our beginnings we have been enthused by the way in which information from the newsletter has been used to advocate, lobby, inform, educate, debate and change. We are proud to have been associated with a variety of advocacy efforts, including the ongoing campaign for the ratification of the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa and an earlier campaign for freedom of expression

There is much work that needs to be done to optimise the power of information. We plan to expand our readership with French and Arabic editions of the newsletter. Internet access is still extremely low in Africa and we would like to produce audio versions of the newsletter for broadcast via local radio stations. We also hope to expand our use of SMS services to reach those without internet access. This year we have already begun producing a series of ‘social justice readers’ on peace and security, regional integration, gender, trade, debt and the millennium development goals. You can help support us and make these plans possible by donating at http://www.pambazuka.org/en/donate.php

To mark the 200th edition of Pambazuka News, we have published a collection of editorials that appeared in the newsletter during 2004. ‘African Voices on Development and Social Justice’ can be ordered directly from the publishers (see details below) for only US $15. If you can’t afford that, you can always read the editorials for free at http://www.pambazuka.org/

Pambazuka News has been successful because of our readers. So a big thank you and congratulations to you all on this 200th edition.

COMMENTS ON 200TH EDITION OF PAMBAZUKA NEWS

1. I consider Pambazuka News an indispensable source of news and analysis for anyone interested in Africa. I've enthusiastically recommended it not only here in Canada but to all my contacts and listservs around the world. It's an invaluable service, and I never fail to put aside time for it each week. I'd be lost without it. – Gerald Caplan

2. Thursday evening/Friday morning is Pambazuka time. A weekly source of information and inspiration, offering a wealth of facts and a variety of opinions on a wide range of relevant issues. Pambazuka News has become a regular part of my intellectual diet in office, through which I access insights into African affairs otherwise difficult to obtain. I am particularly proud to have the honour to be associated as one of the active contributors to this truly African discussion forum. It offers me a forum to share my analyses and views with thousands of committed activists, who all have the people of Africa at their heart and in their mind. - Viva Pambazuka!" - Henning Melber, Research Director at the Nordic Africa Institute, Uppsala/Sweden

3. On the occasion of the 200th edition of Pambazuka News, I must congratulate you all for your continued commitment and dedication by giving the readers excellent analytical editorials and information, not merely related to Africa, but relevant to the rest of the world, also. – Reggie Gomes

4. I find the Pambazuka News extremely well done. It contains a lot of interesting reading and useful information. Please continue! - Bosse Hammarström

5. I would like to congratulate the editorial team of Pambazuka News on the important land mark of reaching 200th edition. The online magazine has become required reading and a reliable reference point, but above all a very useful forum not just for those who are interested in social justice and social change in Africa but those directly engaged in the struggles. It is an interface between, to paraphrase a Philosopher not often quoted these days, Karl Marx, 'those who interpret the world' and those who have taken up the challenge of 'changing it'. A confluence for scholarship and activism that does neither sacrifice the rigor of analysis not the optimism of commitment. Aluta continua. - Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem

6. Congratulations on reaching the 200th issue of Pambazuka News. Being in the publishing business, I know what it means not only getting material to publish but also getting it right and disseminating it in time to beat the deadlines. All people interested in African issues must, as I do, find Pambazuka News an indispensable resource for clear, concise and engaging discussions as well as background analyses to contemporary African issues. Now that we have published Pambazuka’s editorials for 2004 (African Voices on Development and Social Justice), it is an added resource for researchers and activists wishing to keep up with events. Pambazuka News is to be congratulated for a job well done. - Walter Bgoya, Mkuki na Nyota Publishers, Tanzania.

7. Bon Anniversaire, I'm glad to wish to Pambazuka News many, many good things and a long long life in cyberspace - Your work is very important for me because I have some difficulty to have real information about the human rights situation in the world and you give me more opportunity to express my point of view and to know what others are thinking. Information is power and when you send to us the news it is like you send to us some power, the power to know what's happening. I'm from a French country, but the effort I make to understand what you write and to say what I want to tell makes me so happy, it's a good exercise!!! May God bless all staff of Pambazuka news. Kisssssssssss from Kinshasa in DRC (the heart of Africa) - Christy-A. Masamba

8. There is no richer source of breaking information and analysis about Africa than Pambazuka. Thanks for your 200 gems, they are required reading at our Centre for Civil Society in Durban! - Patrick Bond, director, CCS (http://www.ukzn.ac.za/ccs)."

9. Pambazuka News is for me a real site of a politics from the point of African peoples, from a distance from African states; it is a site which allows militants for a better Africa to find and proclaim the conditions of that politics on the basis of fidelity to the daily defense of peoples' rights, people's resistance to inhumanity and thus to the fidelity to the equality of humanity. The site allows people to read the infinity of situations facing African peoples in view of sorting out possibilities of the ways out. – Ernest Wamba dia Wamba

10. We have found Pambazuka to be an invaluable source of commentary and news about Africa from an African point of view. We are proud to be associated with your initiative and wish you every success in the coming years. - Sarah Hobson, Executive Director, New Field Foundation

11. On March 31, Pambazuka News will release its 200th edition. Their staff deserves a hearty congratulation. Published by Fahamu, the substantive well-written weekly e-newsletter unites civil society across Africa with coverage of regional policy and politics, plus development, gender and human rights issues. Pambazuka means arise or awaken in Kiswahili. Pambazuka now has over 15,000 subscribers across Africa and around the world. If you are a social entrepreneur in Africa--or work on African issues--you should be reading this free newsletter. - Michael Chertok (http://www.socialedge.org/socialsector/)

POEM READ OUT BY HUGH BAILEY, UK MP, AT THE OCCASION OF THE LAUNCH OF ‘AFRICAN VOICES ON DEVELOPMENT AND SOCIAL JUSTICE: EDITORIALS FROM PAMBAZUKA NEWS 2004’

Albert and Elsie Ramsbotton
Went to Scarborough for the day.
A cold wind blew along the beach.
The sky were overcast and grey.

The place was about as miserable
As a seaside place can get.
Their hands were froze, the pubs were closed,
And their fish and chips got wet.

“I’m right fed up with England,”
Said Albert to the wife.
“Let’s take a package to the sun
And see a bit of life.”

They’d only been abroad before
On a weekend trip to Bruges
And that were not to broaden minds
It were more for fags and booze.

It were Elsie’s life ambition
To see a wild elephant
So they safaried to Malawi
Although it broke the bank.

And as they drove around the place
On their big game package tour
They saw the animals had lots to eat
But the people were very poor.

A beggar boy called Cholo
Showed Mrs. R. his stump.
“Get out of it!” said Mr. R.
He gave the lad a thump.

But Elsie’s heart were tender.
She overcame her fears.
“Take this,” she said, “a crust of bread.”
Her eyes were filled with tears.

Then up jumped little Cholo
And this is what he said,
“I want a proper breakfast.
“You can stuff your crust of bread.”

“The bugger’s got no manners,”
Said Albert, quite put out.
He turned bright red. He grabbed the bread.
The little lad got nowt.

But, like us all, the Ramsbottoms
Were kindly folks at heart.
They never thought perhaps they’d got
The horse behind the cart.

When they got home to Yorkshire
Albert went out to get some beer
So Elsie put on t’telly
And this is what she heard:

The news from Africa was bad.
The people had no food.
A church group were protesting
But it wouldn’t do much good.

The vicar guy went on and on
About basic human needs.
It were all above her head
About GMOs and seeds.

But one thing stuck in Elsie’s mind
About the rich world’s aid.
We’ve lent so much to Africa
It’ll never be repaid.

Pambazuka News had summed it up.
With a two liner from a hack,
“For every pound we give to them
Our banks take two pounds back.

Now Albert and Elsie Ramsbottom
Are trying to work out
What death disease and refugees
And life are all about.

So this story has a moral,
Although it’s rather strange you see,
The people who have got to change
Are really you and me.

Hugh Bayley MP
(After Alistair Beaton)

ORDERING INFORMATION FOR ‘AFRICAN VOICES ON DEVELOPMENT AND SOCIAL JUSTICE’

SPECIAL PROMOTION FOR PAMBAZUKA NEWS SUBSCRIBERS

Readers in Africa can obtain a copy of the book from Mkuki na Nyota Publishers (see below) for US$ 15.

Subscribers elsewhere can buy the book for UK Pounds 10 (normal price 17.95 pounds) for a limited period ­ until 30 April ­ provided you can prove that you are a subscriber to Pambazuka News. You must quote the words "Pambazuka News Subscriber Offer" and include your email address (so we can check whether you are a subscriber) and send your order to [email][email protected]
ISBN 9987417353 304pp. 2005 Mkuki na Nyota Publishers, Tanzania (Editorials
from Pambazuka News series, 1)

North America: $34.95
UK, Europe, rest of the world: £17.95

Ordering information

Africa: $15
Mkuki na Nyota Publishers
PO Box 4246, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
Tel/fax: +255-22 2180479
Email: [email][email protected]

North America: $34.95
Michigan State University Press
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25 Manly Miles Building
East Lansing, MI 48823-5245, USA
Tel: +1-517 355 9543
Fax: +1-517 432 2611, 800-678 2120
Email: [email][email protected]
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