Pambazuka News 739: What democracy? Tunisia, Libya and South Africa
Pambazuka News 739: What democracy? Tunisia, Libya and South Africa
The State of the Union (SOTU) and the Southern Africa Trust (SAT) seek to hire a researcher(s) or research team/firm to conduct a research identifying key mechanisms of best practice for monitoring and coordinating full compliance to and implementation of African Union (AU) and Regional Economic Communities (RECs)[1] legal instruments and policy frameworks by African countries at the national level.
Pambazuka News 735: Speaking truth to power: Angola, Ethiopia, Kenya
Pambazuka News 735: Speaking truth to power: Angola, Ethiopia, Kenya
Angolan political activists exercising their constitutional right to peaceful protest face illegal arrest, torture and assassination in the hands of the security forces. The justice system has also been compromised to protect the government of President Jose Eduardo dos Santos.
Rafael Marques de Morais is currently on trial in Angola. His crime? To write a book that detailed the corruption of Angolan military generals. It is now clear that he is not getting a fair trial in a country that has yet to experience genuine democratisation. His experience reveals the dark side of the Angolan oil boom, and the incredible risks that some people take for the love of their country.
Ethiopia is a heavily aid dependent country. Its Western supporters should ask themselves why such a poor country spends millions of dollars a year trying to hack the phones of exiled journalists instead of using the money to feed hungry citizens and provide other essential services.
Global Campaign On Military Spending, GCOMS-Nigeria, welcomes the decision of the President Muhammad Buhari government to sack the country's Service Chiefs.
Will the bloc’s policies and structures be deployed to fight the poverty, ecological destruction and climate change, privatisation and corruption, illicit financial flows and Resource Cursing associated with current global lending, or will they amplify these features?
The original owners in Africa that were supposed to keep the skulls and bones of their Ancestors may not even be aware of the whereabouts of the kota. Does it not matter that what is part of a people’s belief may be decorating the rooms of non-believers elsewhere in the world for aesthetic pleasure?
As world leaders converge in Addis Ababa this week to discuss financing for development, it is crucial that they find ways to stop the billions of dollars Africa losses each years in illicit financial outflows. They must also rethink climate adaptation and mitigation.
What is important for the Kenyan politician today is the economic resources of the state and the ease with which they can be used by them and their accomplices. The Kenyan state provides endless opportunities for this kind of exploitation.
The system of development is broken. The concept remains a shell that hides wasted time, effort and sentiment. Those espousing the development system as it currently exists should carefully consider whether their efforts are bringing around the promised goals.
Kenya’s constitution guarantees freedom of the media, but President Uhuru Kenyatta’s Jubilee coalition has introduced several bills that undermine rather than enforce that principle. Journalists are vulnerable to legal harassment, threats, or attack, while news outlets are manipulated by advertisers or politician-owners. The deteriorating climate comes at a crucial time for Kenya’s democracy, security, and economy. A CPJ special report by Sue Valentine and Tom Rhodes.
Last week, the Addis Ababa dictatorship suddenly released jailed prominent journalist Reeyot Alemu and four bloggers without explanation. Reyoot has vowed to continue her struggle for democracy in her country, where many other journalists, bloggers and political leaders remain in jail.
State repression in the Southern African nation has reached ridiculous lows. President Jose Eduardo dos Santos’ government appears to be paranoid. It boggles the mind how long this surreal state of affairs will go on.
The Igbo genocide was primarily about the protection of strategic British interests in Nigeria. The departing colonialists had secured the collaboration of the northern region, which was vehemently opposed to African independence. Thus Fulani-Hausa elites played a key role in the perpetration of the genocide.
Last week the constitutional deadline of the presidential term in Africa’s youngest nation South Sudan expired, but current President Kiir and his parliament extended their mandates through a constitutional amendment. Is it a prudent move in a country embroiled in a civil war or an excuse to hold on to power?
After three days of high-level summit deliberations, the BRICS group of countries of the world’s five leading emerging nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), have laid out the strategic road map that will tackle challenging development and infrastructure projects, and will seek close economic cooperation under the plan termed "the Strategy of Economic Partnership" that will run till 2020.
It is quite evident that for someone already detained in solitary confinement, these measures amount to mental torture in violation of the International Convention Against Torture, to which Rwanda is a contracting party.
Obama is a master of appearing to do what he doesn’t do. That is not all marketing skill; he also relies on a compliant corporate media and a spineless black misleadership class to fool nearly all of the people all of the time. His sudden desire to look like the Great Emancipator is an ongoing publicity junket.
Pambazuka News 737: How the West under-develops Africa
Pambazuka News 737: How the West under-develops Africa
This prestigous degree is presented by the Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria in partnership with 13 leading African universities.
APPLY ONLINE:
http://www.chr.up.ac.za/index.php/llm-mphil-online-application-2015.html
Nominations for the 2015 Drivers of Change Awards are now open! Nominate individuals, businesses, civil society organisations and government agencies that are making a real impact to end poverty.
In 40 years of self-rule Mozambique has undergone drastic political and economic changes, from a socialist one-party state and to a neoliberal democracy. The people of Mozambique have been plunged into – and survived – a civil war, political crisis and now the neoliberal appropriation with high economic growth but persistent poverty.
In a scenario reminiscent of the slave era, workers at this farm jointly owned by Zimbabwe and China have been exposed to high levels of a toxic chemical without adequate protection, in contravention of both local and international laws. Complaints have been met with deaf ears and some worker leaders have been dismissed for airing their grievances.
Burundi has received far greater vilification from the West compared to Rwanda which has supported rebels in neighbouring countries and whose government is accused of widespread assassinations and forced disappearances targeting the opposition and the media. Burundi appears to provide perfect cover for the odious Kigali regime and its backers abroad.
In the world of post-disaster funding, good intentions are at best simply not enough, and at worst, actually harmful. The crux is to be an engaged ally as much as a funder.
In Kenya, Obama pledged over a billion dollars in investments from the U.S. government along with U.S.-based businesses. Half of the investments will go to women and young people to promote entrepreneurship. Yet U.S. policy in Eastern Africa has been militaristic along with extraction of minerals, exploiting labor and agricultural commodities.
Joseph Kabila, the president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, faces a historic choice: Does he step down when his constitutionally limited two terms in office come to an end in December 2016, or does he succumb to the delusion of indispensability that is making the rounds in parts of Africa and try to cling to power?
The cause of Africa’s underdevelopment is well known: Imperialism. Yet heads of state, ministers and representatives have been strutting on the world stage promising to beat the old horse of poverty to death in Africa. Loaners and donors get on their high horses and with great fanfare issue the same old empty promises, sweep up their old broken promises under the rug and recycle the same old pledges about sustainable development and the rest of their meaningless litany.
The fight for the Palestinians is our fight. If the Palestinians are not liberated none of us will be liberated. We cannot pick and choose which of the oppressed are convenient or inconvenient to defend. We will stand with all of the oppressed or none of the oppressed.
US foreign policy vis-à-vis Africa has always been transactional. The bottom line is that the value of Africa for the United States is essentially how to mitigate global terrorism and other issues like AIDS and Ebola that could harm US national security.
The young black woman from Illinois, an activist with Black Lives Matter, was stopped for a minor traffic violation, beaten, jailed and found dead two days later in her cell. The official explanation about her death is unacceptable.
In this interview, Devlin Kuyek, Senior Researcher at GRAIN, talks about a report that reveals how a Canadian agribusiness company, Feronia, financed by American and European development institutions, is involved in land grabbing, corrupt practices and human rights violations in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
In order to understand the broader significance of President Barack Obama’s July 2015 visit to Ethiopia more fully, we must put it in a historical perspective, argues Professor Seifudein Adem, associate director of the Institute of Global Cultural Studies at Binghamton University, United States. Tracing back the history of Ethio-American relationship is one step in that direction.
With about one billion people, Africa contributes very little to cause the climate problem but its people are among the most seriously harmed. The US, which accounts for nearly a third of greenhouse gas emissions now causing climate change, should lead efforts to heal the Planet.
The rare display of groundedness and humility by a sitting African head of state was enough to catapult Nyerere on to the path to canonization. His daring socialist experiment and the decision to leave office at the end of his term, something that remains difficult for African presidents, are significant highlights of his pro-people politics.
The East and Horn of Africa Human Rights Defenders Project marks ten years of its founding this year. In that period, the organization has done extensive work in providing protection for human rights defenders, advocating against repressive laws and building capacities to strengthen regional civil society.
Pambazuka News 733: White supremacy and the great seed war
Pambazuka News 733: White supremacy and the great seed war
The man who walked into the Emmanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church with a gun and murderous intent may well end up on death row. But white terror against black people goes back many centuries. It won’t be over until the material basis for inequality, in terms of the exercise of economic and political power, is undone.
The message from the dark deed of Charleston, at which nine African American people were shot while worshipping God, demonstrates that the myth of “white supremacy”, which is equivalent to Adolf Hitler’s Aryan claims, has become more eccentric and dangerous.
It is quite obvious that, in targeting the Mother Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church that was founded by the movement against slavery and for self-determination as early as 1818, Dylann Storm Roof was well aware of the long tradition of African people fighting their oppressors.
Photos have surfaced of the gunman Dylann Roof wearing White supremacist iconography and reportedly telling his Black victims: ‘I have to do it. ... You rape our women and you’re taking over our country, and you have to go.’
By seizing intellectual property rights to Africa's seeds, western corporations are attempting one of the greatest thefts in human history: the theft of the entire agricultural base of all the countries of Africa.
This draft framework was the subject of a high-level meeting in Arusha, Tanzania, this week. The Protocol erodes farmers rights as it outlaws centuries-old practices of farmers freely using, exchanging and selling seeds/propagating material.
Global pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline and the US National Institutes of Health announced in January the start of clinical trials of an Ebola vaccine in Ghana. Local scientists and the public have raised questions about this project.
Corporate media, humanitarian agencies and NGOs evoke the imagery of helpless, passive victims when describing refugees to appeal to Western societies for compassion while demonstrating self-affirmation to guard the status quo, rather than depicting them as people with abilities, agency and knowledge facing extraordinary circumstances that need to be addressed.
The world today groans under the weight of predatory white supremacy that has condemned the majority of the people to poverty and hopelessness. But a new order is emerging, heralded by South-South solidarity to overthrow Empire.
Like many trade agreements, the draft Protocol is more about protecting and consolidating corporate profits than it is about trade or development. The process has systematically excluded farmers from the deliberations.
Front Line Defenders continues to be concerned at the freezing of the bank accounts of MUHURI and Haki Africa despite the lack of evidence for the terrorism-related allegations against them.
Promises to fund and deliver decent education, nutrition and boost agriculture have often been made. Africa’s people have been made so many promises. The challenge has been in the delivery.
Experts verified that Cuban women receive more than 10 consultations during their pregnancy and health institutions provide HIV/syphilis testing, with competent laboratories to ensure correct results, a model for other countries.
The twin struggle to end gender-based violence and achieve equal rights for women cannot be won without the efforts of men. Gwain Colbert, co-founder of A Common Future, challenges men to work toward a more just society by challenging their own problematic views on women.
In a culture that privileges men, everyone relies on the Somali woman because she is loyal and responsible but there are very few she can rely on - many around her have never developed their sense of responsibility because she is given all the responsibilities.
In the Al-Bashir case, South Africa was caught between two conflicting arms of international law: the obligation to execute a warrant issued by the International Criminal Court and the obligation to respect the protocols governing mutual diplomatic relations between South Africa and Sudan.
Linus Mavimbela is a Swazi opposition politician who recently visited Denmark to observe elections there. He shares his views about that election and the state of politics in his country and Africa.
Most people oppose dual citizenship because they think that people in the Diaspora already enjoy life there. As such, the addition of dual citizenship is seen as a bloated advantage. This is not correct.
Social justice activist organisation Amandla.Mobi and Gun Free South Africa are deeply disappointed that the Farlam Commission of Enquiry’s report into the 2012 Marikana massacre makes no recommendation to prohibit R-5 rifles – the assault weapon used by police to kill 34 miners – in Public Order Policing.
Pambazuka News 732: Legislooters, axis of shevil and white terrorism
Pambazuka News 732: Legislooters, axis of shevil and white terrorism
The University of Ghana School of Law, in collaboration with the Open Society Global Drug Policy Program and Open Society Initiative for West Africa, is inviting applications for its intensive 6-day 2nd West Africa Executive Course on Human Rights and Drug Policy to be held at the University of Ghana, Legon between July 27 and 1 August, 2015.
Politically aware members of the Afrikan Canadians should not be embarrassed by the alleged behaviour of a man who supports a capitalist system and the exploitation of the natural resources of Afrika by imperialist foreign interests.
Sexual violence remains one of the most pressing problems faced by the IDPs who live in insecure areas controlled by armed militias in the Somali capital. The rainy season has already started and those forcefully evicted by the government are once again suffering from the cold weather.
The Liberian government’s refusal to recognize and respect rural people’s customary land rights is marginalizing and destabilizing local communities. The state has handed out millions of hectares to investors in recent years. Now emotions are flaring into full-scale conflict.
African Americans are slowly coming to the conclusion that it does not matter whether it is the streets of Baghdad or Ferguson: the non-white-other is the enemy who must be stopped.
South African democracy spans two very different worlds. In one, people complain loudly but enjoy full democratic rights – in the other, most remain unheard and battle for the right to speak. In both, life is difficult for those who do not conform.
America knows pretty well that the regime in Addis Ababa is dictatorial and repressive down to its core, but US officials will never say so openly. Ethiopia is an important ally for the pursuit of US interests in the region.
Why is the American government constantly at war with one enemy or another abroad and at the same time failing to foster peace and stability inside the country? It has everything to do with US imperialist militarism around the world and systemic racism at home.
This Declaration contains some of the salient ideas from delegates who hailed from across the continent, as well as from the rest of the world, to articulate what is required for the creation of a united, liberated, renascent and prosperous Africa.
Despite having clear policies to protect whistleblowers, the UN’s internal system of justice hardly implements those policies. Some whistleblowers have been fired or demoted; others have been subjected to subtle forms of abuse like non-renewal of contracts or sudden transfer to distant duty stations. Many others have been forced to leave the world body to save their livelihoods, health and reputations.
The first Freeman lecture will be held on 31 July 2015 in India. This year’s theme is “Chris Freeman's Enduring Contributions to the Economics of Innovation.”
Schools are places where girls should feel safe, supported and nurtured, rather than at risk of violence – particularly by teachers or school administrators, who owe them a particular duty of care.
Europe and NATO are responsible for the huge crisis of refugees attempting to enter Europe. Having destabilised other countries through militarism and plunder of resources, they are now converting the Mediterranean Sea into a mass grave for poor people fleeing the turmoil they created.
Umi communicates a straightforward political message: People have the right, even the duty, to defend themselves and their communities against racist terrorist violence. And white people should not sit by idly, but instead, join this struggle.
The newly signed Tripartite Free Trade agreement bears great opportunities, especially in the areas of information technology, agriculture, social and intellectual capital. However, as with previous and future agreements its success depends highly on political will and stability in the countries involved.
Nigerian lawmakers will soon pocket $45 million as “wardrobe allowance.” All that - and a lot more - in a country with a minimum wage of about $80 and where more than half the states have not paid workers for months. Pathological greed!
Without the support of America's top women Smith, Sherman and Rice, many African dictators would not remain in power for a single day. Smith's appointment to head USAID is a boon to the despots.
Former US President George W Bush and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair destroyed entire countries in their military adventurism. Yet they are free men enjoying their retirement without any fear of international justice. The ICC must have the substance and manifestation of justice and fairness.
As South Africa celebrates 39 years since the June 1976 Soweto Uprising, more needs to be done to ensure that young people are educated, employed and empowered.
Pambazuka News 731: Agenda now, now: Africa’s total liberation
Pambazuka News 731: Agenda now, now: Africa’s total liberation
The bank will invest primarily in infrastructure projects in both BRICS and non-BRICS countries. The establishment of its first regional office in Johannesburg will give access to the Africa, where infrastructure development needs are highest.
After years of resistance, some governments and local producers appear convinced that GM technology will boost competitiveness of African cotton. But a look at how GM cotton has fared where it has been tried, particularly its socio-economic impact on smallholder farmers, reveals a tragic tale of crippling debt, appalling market prices and a technology prone to failure.
More than 130 civil society organisations have written to the African Union urging the continental body to call upon the South African government to take concrete steps to end attacks against foreigners, prosecute perpetrators and protect migrants and refugees living in the country from violations of their human rights.
Nigeria’s new leader is the subject of much hype. He is being hoisted up to the status of a cult figure. Apparently, he is the man Africa’s giant needs to solve its extensive problems. But Muhammadu Buhari’s history and thinking suggest otherwise.
The election of Muhammadu Buhari is an overwhelming expression of the will of Nigerians. Sometimes depicted by his critics as a dour, rustic disciplinarian with poor oratorical skill, the new president’s message of change and his personal commitment will transform the country.
The fate of Western Sahara, under brutal occupation by Morocco and whose resources are plundered by this colonial power working in cahoots with Western and even some African governments, remains a big shame in Africa’s quest for total liberation and unity. Africa is not free as long as the Saharawi people remain under colonialism.