Pambazuka News 767: From capitalist greed to a culture of sharing
Pambazuka News 767: From capitalist greed to a culture of sharing
The abuses appear to have increased as public protests and demonstrations escalated following the Arab uprisings, the secession of South Sudan in 2011, Sudan’s economic downturn, and the proliferation of new wars in Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile.
Pambazuka News 765: "Are women human beings?"
Pambazuka News 765: "Are women human beings?"
UAF Supporting Women Human Rights Defenders working on Extractives: Field Experience Sharing Session
Diana Kendi is the winner of the inaugural Efua Dorkenoo Pan African Award for Journalists reporting on FGM across the African continent. The award is intended to increase media awareness and engagement on FGM within community, national and regional media outlets. Diana shares her views on the suesses and challenges of ending FGM in Kenya.
The drama surrounding Nigerian kid, Ese Oruru, is the result of failed parenting. The girl is not the last of her kind around even though many would wish her case was a bad dream that will soon go away. A bad dream, yes, but this one is not about to go away in a hurry.
A new report maps the growth of LGBTQ organizing in West Africa, highlighting challenges and opportunities.
Young feminists are organising across movements in an intersectional way, locally, nationally and regionally, and they are using artivism and technology as core tools in their work.
Women’s emancipation is never possible under imperialism. Women must continue to expose and oppose the ruling bourgeoisie and the state for feeding them lies about the goodness and permanence of capitalism and imperialism. The goriest manifestation of imperialism is the ceaseless outbreaks of war, destruction of lives and property and displacement of millions of people.
How far have we come as a species, in terms of our spiritual and intellectual development, if in the 21st century some can question: “Are women human beings?” The reality is that globally, whilst women may have made great strides, patriarchal attitudes prevail in a male-dominated world.
Plans for real estate development, tree planting, and new cash crops for economic up-liftment in the area of Mwireri/Gitugi and its neighbourhood in Laikipia County, have been dealt a severe blow by the illegal siting of a stone crusher and quarry on land earmarked for agricultural and residential development.
Since 1975, 8 March has been a rallying point for feminists worldwide. Established by the UN, it has traditionally been a moment to celebrate women’s achievements while highlighting serious inequalities between the sexes. But 41 years later, is it still necessary?
Find a movement, get involved, start a campaign, participate in an action, build an alternative system, and find ways to make change right where you are.
Woineshet is now 27 and living in relative safety. This week's ruling means that she can finally complete the horrific chapter in her life and move on in the knowledge that she has helped to make life better for future generations of Ethiopian women and girls.
As a musician, Mama Africa enthralled millions from Cape Town to Nova Scotia. As a woman, her struggles to find love and selfhood speak to women worldwide. As an indigenous South African, she always used her voice as a weapon in the struggle against apartheid.
South African Finance Minister Gordhan’s 2016 Budget Speech compels the South African Government to adopt a Leadership style that is oriented toward being inclusive, collaborative and of service to individuals and society at large.
To mark International Women's Day, Professor Naila Kabeer looks back over the history of feminist economics and outlines her reasons why it matters for the future.
The unprecedented contagion of what President Zuma has called ‘gossip and rumour’ around his inner circle threatens the internal stability of the Pretoria regime. The loyalty of many key individuals is being tested. Indeed the ANC’s schizophrenia was amplified recently Zuma himself finally agreed to repay some of the $16 million spent on upgrading his rural palace, Nkandla.
It is necessary to look into indigenous African knowledge for solutions to the problems of food security and sovereignty. Purikeria Tindikahwa knew a wide variety of indigenous foods and how to produce and prepare them. There are millions of ordinary women across Africa who do exactly what she did. They feed the continent. We need to celebrate these women and learn from them.
Nigeria’s policy framework on gender parity is ten years old this year. The National Gender Policy adopted in 2006 embraces a system-wide approach of promoting gender mainstreaming and women’s empowerment in all public and private policies and programming priorities. The 2016 International Women’s Day provides yet another opportunity to reflect on past failures of the policy’s implementation and prepare for future progress.
Berta was indefatigable. Unflappable. Even as she served her community, Berta rose to become an international people’s diplomat. She was a heroine to many global movements, a critical player in many struggles, a keynote speaker at many venues. Berta was someone consulted by government officials, by international networks, and even, a few months ago, by Pope Francis.
Ethiopia’s kangaroo courts have repeatedly handed harsh sentences to innocent people, simply for raising their voices against injustice. There is little reason to believe that Mr. Okello’s case will be any different. His hope lies with the international community.
Pambazuka News 766: World Bank racism, sham elections and interventions
Pambazuka News 766: World Bank racism, sham elections and interventions
INGOs moving their HQs to the Global South will not alter the management problems with international development and human rights work, manifest in elitist decision-making and unequal resource distribution.
The invented “Rodney” as human rights activist and advocate of economic development is reconcilable with a sense of wonder that, had he not been assassinated, he may have become a future president of Guyana. Why have there been silences in recent years avoiding the matter that Rodney was a revolutionary who wished to overturn nation-states and ruling classes above society?
Archie championed the pan-Africanist ideal that Africans should speak for themselves and understand themselves through their own efforts. As an anthropologist he made immense contributions to a better understanding of African people, their achievements and struggles. In a continent where the academy is often oupied by fence-sitters and academic cowards, Archie’s thought is an outstanding challenge.
The US-NATO intervention was allegedly undertaken on humanitarian grounds, after reports of mass atrocities. But Hilary’s emails reveal that the chief concern was not about the security of the people. It was about the security of global banking, money and oil.
The overlords in the World Bank, who are protected by absolute immunity from lawsuits, do not realize that racial discrimination is not all about rejected positions and denied promotions. It is a traumatic experience because it chips at people's human dignity. It costs lives.
Dr. Kim has taken an uncompromising stance protecting violators of human rights and denying their victims aess to justice, even in the most egregious cases involving those who are battling cancer and depression. Dr. Kim has only one honourable thing to do: Resign. If he fails, the Bank’s Board of Governors should force him out.
The latest phase in the war of containment, domination and control of the resource-rich Horn of Africa state is approaching ten years since Washington attempted its renewed efforts to impose a political dispensation on the country beginning in 2006.
The whole point of the freedom struggle was the repossession of land by African people from the hands of Europeans who had grabbed it. But the ruling ANC will never resolve land question in South Africa. Its “Freedom Charter” long renounced the land question in 1955. Its “willing seller and willing buyer” policy is an unmitigated disaster.
By all aounts, Uganda’s elections last month were far from free and fair. Many people find it difficult to aept that the declaration of Museveni as winner reflected the will of the people. Irregularities were massive. Repression of the opposition was shocking – to the extent that leading Museveni opponent Kizza Besigye was placed under house arrest to prevent him from lodging a petition at the Supreme Court. It is not clear how the post-election period will unfold.
One year after their arrest on March 15, 2015, three food, land, and human rights defenders continue to languish in an Ethiopian jail. After several court hearings, the prosecution has yet to present any evidence to support the spurious charge of “terrorism” under Ethiopia’s controversial counter-terrorism law. A March 1 hearing was once again adjourned and rescheduled for March 15, due to the failure of witnesses to appear in court.
The New York City Bar’s Committee on African Affairs and the Leitner Center for International Law and Justice cordially invite you to a presentation by REED BRODY, Esq., Counsel and Spokesperson for Human Rights Watch, who specializes in pursuing abusive leaders for atrocities and human rights violations.
Monday, April 11, 2016 at 6:30 p.m.
Fordham Law School, Classroom 3-02
140 West 62nd St., New York, NY (between Columbus and Amsterdam Avenues)
Dubbed the "Dictator Hunter" in one of the four documentaries about him, Reed has worked since 1999 as counsel for the victims in the case of the exiled former dictator of Chad, Hissène Habré, who was finally tried in Senegal after a 25-year campaign to bring him to justice. The historic trial is the first time a deposed ruler has been tried by a court of a country other than his own for human rights violations. It also marks the first time that a trial in Africa has relied on the international law principle of universal jurisdiction a trial in Africa has relied on the international law principle of universal
jurisdiction which allows a court to hear a case concerning serious crimes committed by foreign actors against foreign victims.
Reed has also worked with the victims of Augusto Pinochet and Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier. He is the author of four Human Rights Watch reports on U.S. treatment of prisoners in the “war on terror”.
The presentation is free and open to the public.
Sponsored by the NY City Bar’s Committee on African Affairs (co-Chairs, Elizabeth Barad and Jason Spears) and the Leitner Center for International Law and Justice at Fordham Law School (Executive Director, Elisabeth Wickeri) and co-sponsored by the NY City Bar’s Committees on International Human Rights (Chair, Anil Kalhan), and International Law (Chair. Caline Mouawad), Council on International Affairs (Chair, Martin Flaherty) and the Cyrus R.Vance Center
for International Justice (Alexander Papachristou, Exercutive Director).
Please R.S.V.P. to [email][email protected][/email]
On February 16, 2016, Pambazuka News carried an article by Yonas Biru, a former World Bank staff, titled, compares African staff to animal in official report’[/url]. The article precipitated an exchange among three former senior staff of the Bank, which we reproduce here. We have withheld their names and edited their comments slightly to protect their identities.
With opposition candidates roughed up, arrested and held in house detention for fear they might ‘disrupt’ the electoral process, the man who once preached that staying too long in power would lead to corruption has been “re-elected” for an incredible fifht term to stretch his 30-year reign - and now himself lives under a cloud of corruption and abuse of power. What can Ugandans do?
Women’s exclusion from public spaces, and particularly the political realm, is systematic. It is structural in nature and is intensified by attitudes, cultures, norms and practices that seek to explain rather than address their exclusion from positions of power.
March 5 marked the third anniversary of the death of the revolutionary Venezuelan leader Hugo Chávez. Revolutionaries are rare. Chávez’s socialist thought and visionary policies aimed at radically transforming his country and meeting the needs of the majority of his people have vital lessons for Africa and the rest of the Global South.
As Kenya prepares for its next general elections in 2017, the parallels to previous violent elections are staggering. The electoral commission and the courts have lost credibility in the eyes of the public. Already the country is polarized along ethnic lines. The ruling party insists it will win a second term. The opposition says there are rigging plans afoot and that it will not aept a fraudulent outcome or go to court to seek redress. The signs are ominous.
Lagos, 17th March 2016 - The rejection of the Gender and Equal Opportunities Bill (GEOP) by members of Nigeria’s Senate on Tuesday the 15th of March 2016, did not come as a surprise, given the consistent indications of trivializing gender related issues observed in the present political dispensation in Nigeria which also has the lowest representation of women in key elective and appointive decision making positions since 2007. The Nigerian parliament as presently constituted has roughly 4% of female members of parliament. The overwhelming rejection of the Gender and Equal Opportunity Bill by a male dominated legislature is a clear indication of why more women are needed in decision making positions in order to safeguard the erosion of their rights and welfare.
Pambazuka News 764: Africa: Our glorious heritage of struggle
Pambazuka News 764: Africa: Our glorious heritage of struggle
Politicians of the ruling Jubilee coalition in Kenya and public officials routinely lie to citizens, and the public has come to aept that as normal. This has led to a debilitating cynicism and resignation to the inevitability of deception. When the lies are not just expected but aeptable, when they no longer arouse outrage and when national policies can be built around them, it is evidence that the nation is sick.
The government of President Uhuru Kenyatta in Kenya has lost credibility in the eyes of citizens because of extensive corruption by people that are very close to the seat of power. New scandals are coming to light every other day. While Uhuru keeps talking about fighting the scourge of graft, nothing is happening on the ground.
The refugee crisis in Europe continues to deepen, with knock-on effects around the world. Recently, NATO sent warships to the Aegean Sea in a very opaque manoeuvre – what could be the real intent of this? And what are the implications for the fleeing refugees?
A chance meeting in a hotel and a missed opportunity… How one journalist, with nothing to talk about, had his love of music transformed by a guitar riff and a drum beat. Cameron Duodu shares his memories from four decades ago.
When the African American freedom fighter, Malcolm X, visited Kenya in 1959, he found he had a lot in common with Pinto. They planned a common strategy to deal with the daily humiliation and indignities suffered by both Africans and African-Americans. Malcolm X was assassinated on February 21, 1965, three days before Pinto.
March 1 marks the 120th anniversary of the Battle of Adwa, a decisive victory of Ethiopia over Italian colonialism. This great victory has been a source of inspiration for struggles for freedom throughout the pan-African world. Adwa has important lessons for Africans in their resistance against new forms of oppression.
The Ethiopian dictatorship has sueeded to transform an ordinary teacher and journalist into an international symbol of press freedom, resistance to tyranny and courage under fire. Reeyot’s story of commitment to truth, sacrifice, virtuousness, honesty, decency and humanity should inspire all young people in Ethiopia and Africa to stand up for their beliefs.
Eminent scholars from around the world have written to the president of Sierra Leone to intervene to save the career of Prof. Ibrahim Abdullah of the University of Sierra Leone. His treatment by University authorities could terminate his career or tarnish his hard-earned academic reputation.
“I am a victim of circumstances”, says activist Mphandlana ‘Victim’ Shongwe of the nickname he is known by because of the decades of state harassment he has endured in his homeland, Swaziland. “But what has kept me going is the desire to be free”.
Claudia Jones' Pan-Africanism led to her advocacy for freedom of Caribbean and African peoples from colonialism. She used the organizational space of the Communist Party to advance the cause of anti-racism, world peace, decolonization and the class struggle.
The BVR system worked well in Uganda’s recent elections. But BVR is not a silver bullet in solving all electoral issues. Inadequate voter education was a major problem as well as state interference and harassment of the opposition. The electoral commission was also perceived to be partisan in favour of Yoweri Museveni.
The International Union of Socialist Youth (IUSY) passed a resolution at its 31st world congress that called for a process that would unban political parties, remove repressive legislation and introduce multi-party democracy in Swaziland.
Kenya is now the third most corrupt country in the world, aording to a survey on prevalence of economic crimes released in Nairobi last week by audit firm PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PwC). Kenya only fared better than South Africa and France. The Jubilee government's numerous pledges to deal decisively with graft remain just that - pledges. Public despair is growing.
Guyana’s President Granger has dismissed the report of the Walter Rodney Presidential Commission of Inquiry, without making the findings public. The Justice for Walter Rodney Committee insists that the report should be released to Dr Rodney’s family, lawyers representing all sides and to the people of Guyana.
The women say that presidential election data are impossible to explain logically and warrant immediate independent scrutiny by patriotic Ugandan citizens.
Popular Kenyan politician Josiah Mwangi Kariuki is widely believed to have been assassinated by agents of the regime of Kenya’s first president Jomo Kenyatta, whose son, Uhuru, is now head of state. JM was a sharp critic of Kenyatta’s corrupt ethnic state. The truth about his murder – like several other political assassinations in Kenya – has never been fully known.
How the National Constitution treats minorities is a good test of a nation’s maturity. How government applies their rules is a good test of the state’s maturity.
Over the past few years, Russian authorities have been prioritizing media cooperation and the use of soft power to address the falling image of Russia among the political and business elites in Africa.
In a ‘Requiem for Amílcar Cabral’, which is full of praises and admiration for Cabral, the Sao Tomean poet Espirito Santo underlines the important position of the Guinean leader in Africa before the barbarous act of his ambush and assassination and calls him the ‘Guevara of Africa’, an allusion to the great historic leader of the Cuban guerrilla warfare that overthrew the US- supported corrupt regime of Batista in 1959.
Nkrumah wanted to industrialize Ghana within a generation, and everything was on course until the Americans and their British cousins used some disgruntled and self-serving Ghanaian soldiers to stage that terrible coup on 24 February 1966. It was a major setback, not only for Ghana but the whole of Africa!
The battle - and the greater narrative of Ethiopia’s independence – is a powerful symbol of African resistance to European imperialism. “Ethiopianism” has often served as a basis for other black and African peoples’ visions of political and spiritual liberation from colonial forces, both formal and informal.
The struggle of African Americans against national oppression and economic exploitation has continued through the 20th century up until the anti-racist struggles today against police terrorism and the demands for self-determination in the workplace, public service, education and cultural affairs. 2016 being an election year makes it appropriate to review some of the important historical developments that continue to shape the politics of the second decade of the 21st century in America and the world.
Pambazuka News 762: Pushing back: Protests and uprisings against oppression
Pambazuka News 762: Pushing back: Protests and uprisings against oppression
African American political organizations played a key role in influencing Nkrumah from the 1930s, until his removal from power in 1966 and beyond. Although the coup was designed by the U.S. to halt the advance of the African Revolution and the internationalization of the struggle of African Americans, solidarity efforts accelerated from the late 1960s through the 1990s when the last vestiges of white-minority rule were eliminated in South Africa and Namibia.
Under president Kim, racism against black staff has worsened at the World Bank. He is the first president to be personally accused of racial discrimination. But as an elite member of the Democratic Party, Kim, appointed by President Obama with the endorsement of Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, enjoys political protection to continue his nefarious ways.
To be poor means to live with death as a constant presence. It means that daily life is a struggle for survival. That is the reality of the shack-dwellers in South Africa. Amidst this depresseing state of affairs, still members of the Abahlali baseMjondolo movement are able to find strength to build their solidarity and continue in the struggle for social justice.
This year’s alternative to mining conference in South Africa was a failure in many ways. It shied away from critical discussions over the intersections between the energy crises, the escalating looting of Africa’s resources, its deepening poverty and food insecurity and especially its disproportional vulnerability to global warming. Why were these burning issues not prominent on the programme?
A programme aired this week by the BBC reveals that Pope John Paul II, now a saint of the Catholic Church, had an intense relationship spanning three decades with a married Polish-American woman. The details are contained in secret letters and pictures kept in a library in Poland, the pope’s country of birth. The Vatican has dismissed the programme. But the affair raises many puzzling questions.
The ICC Chief Prosecutor will attempt to establish the existence and execution of a secret plan to keep President Gbagbo in power. But the defendants will tell the world how global political actors, some African countries and some multinational companies destroyed Ivory Coast. They will emphasize that the “Ivorian crisis” is a crisis of globalization, sparked by Gbagbo’s plan to end the 1961 France-Ivorian treaty of cooperation.
Against the backdrop of past and continued efforts by white supremacists and their institutions to keep us down, Black people must stand up together as one to fight back just as Dr. Woodson did in his time. We must continue to research and write our own rich and diverse histories.
The opposition party in exile has condemned the decision by President Kagame to seek a third term in office. The party warns that pressure is building in Rwanda under the weight of Kagame’s autocracy and that the country could explode in a catastrophe worse than the 1994 genocide.
Forty years after his death, Nigerians who see General Murtala Muhammad as their country’s ‘best gift to the world’ are clamouring for the anniversary of his death to be declared Heroes’ Day.
Nineteen million indebted South Africans are exploited and oppressed, sacrificing, officially, up to 75% of their salaries to service bank debt. This is economic violence - as brutal to the soul and as prejudicial, inhumane and unjust as racism. Here’s is one woman’s story.
The government has lifted its ban on oil exploration on Lake Malawi in the hope of entering the seemingly lucrative business of oil export. But a number of reasons, including falling oil prices, predict that the people of Malawi will not profit from this undertaking.
Does Ethiopia really need resorts for relaxation and entertainment of the corruptly rich and foreign sex fiends when over 80 percent of the population lives in tattered thatched-roof tukuls?
Last year news that medicalization of FGM is an increasing trend in Kenya went online. Considering that Female Genital Mutilation is outlawed in Kenya, there’s a huge need to build a national and transnational strategy to tackle and address the issue in order to eradicate it.
Peacekeeping deployments are essential to the U.S. and its Western allies’ interests, but they are also an economic opportunity for soldiers from the Global South and for troop contributing nations.
As this most unfortunate and shameful incident shows, all that talk about the Nigerian military being a disciplined institution is balderdash. What you get, in the end, is a military bursting at the seams with impunity and heavily laden at the top with corruption. This unwholesome, putrid mix is the definite make-up of Nigeria’s military.
Ethiopia is in the grip of a terrible crisis. The recent widespread popular protests must be understood in the context of an atrociously repressive regime and near total capture of the state by ethnic elites, who are now the sole beneficiaries of national resources. The people are bitter. If this mass frustration is channeled into properly organized popular resistance, Ethiopia could see a revolution.
Nigerian soldiers are notorious for their brutality against civilians whenever they encounter them. This possibly has something to do with the militarized nature of power in the country since independence. The soldiers hit a new low with the emergence of a video showing a group of cadets thoroughly brutalizing hapless citizens – and enjoying it.
Drama unfolded in the Guyanese capital Georgetown as the official commission of inquiry into the assassination of celebrated Pan-African intellectual and activist, Dr. Walter Rodney, handed over its report to the government. The commission has encountered numerous difficulties designed to sabotage its work since inception in 2013. It remains to be seen whether the President of Guyana will release the findings.
Why do African countries continue to export raw materials only to buy them back in the form of finished products? It is high time African countries focused their efforts on building up industries, skills and technologies so they can produce their own high quality products, creating much-needed jobs and income for their people.
Pambazuka News 760: Brutal invasions: War, trade and Orwellian terror
Pambazuka News 760: Brutal invasions: War, trade and Orwellian terror
The terrorists’ goal was to destabilize Burkina Faso. But why now? The most plausible hypothesis is that they wanted to regain a rear base they lost when a popular uprising overthrew Blaise Compaoré in November 2014.
A member of the armed wing of South Africa’s Pan Africanist Congress party recently rejected a government offer of conditional release from prison. Kenny Motsamai, condemned to two life sentences and 19 years, insists that he is a political prisoner who was arrested and convicted under apartheid, a system declared by the UN as constituting a crime against humanity. Why can’t the ANC government release him and his fellow Black nationalists?