Pambazuka News 475: Angola: The politics of demolition and eviction
Pambazuka News 475: Angola: The politics of demolition and eviction
The UN World Food Programme has denied a claim that up to half the food aid to Somalia was being diverted to Islamist militants and corrupt contractors. WFP officials said there was no evidence to back up the claim made in a report by a UN monitoring group.
An Islamic court in Nigeria has banned a rights group from hosting debates on the Twitter and Facebook websites on the use of amputations as a punishment. The court, in the northern city of Kaduna, backed a case brought by a pro-Sharia group arguing that the forums would mock the Sharia system.
A group of international campaigners has launched an online petition against Ethiopia's huge Gibe III dam project. The group wants to put pressure on Western donors and banks not to fund the dam, saying it would destroy the livelihoods of some 500,000 people.
Welcome to the Communauté Financière de l'Afrique ( CFA ), where this is how things have been working for over sixty years. The January 2008 edition of the pan-African magazine, New African, reports that "the tale of this currency is extraordinarily mind-numbing!" and inspires this special commentary
Mob attacks on suspected criminals in Burundi, often with official complicity, led to at least 75 killings in 2009, Human Rights Watch and the Association for the Protection of Human Rights and Detained Persons (APRODH) said in a report released today. The government of Burundi should end official involvement in "mob justice" and should hold perpetrators accountable, Human Rights Watch and APRODH said.
The Ethiopian government is waging a coordinated and sustained attack on political opponents, journalists, and rights activists ahead of the May 2010 elections, Human Rights Watch said in a report. On May 23, 2010, Ethiopians will vote in the first parliamentary elections in Ethiopia since 2005, when the post-election period was marred by controversy and bloodshed.
This 59-page report documents the myriad ways in which the ruling Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) has systematically punished opposition supporters. Since the 2005 polls, the party has used its near-total control of local and district administrations to undermine opponents' livelihoods through withholding services such as agricultural inputs, micro-credit, and job opportunities.
Rape victims will no longer need a case number before getting treatment at health institutions said Health Minister, Dr Aaron Motsoaledi. Motsoaledi said when a rape victim arrives at a health institution, they won't be asked to produce a case number before being treated.
The only solution for the conflict over Morocco's occupation of the Western Sahara is to do what the Sahrawi people decide regarding their future, Zahra Ramdan, president of the Association of Sahrawi Women in Spain has said.
They endure stigma, discrimination, violence and extreme poverty, but Ugandan women living with disabilities say the greatest challenge facing them centres on their reproductive health. "In addition to the impacts of physical, mental, intellectual and sensor impairments, we are double discriminated (against), first as women, and then as disabled," said Beatrice Guzu, executive secretary of the National Organisation of Women with Disabilities in Uganda.
HIV-positive Bupe Mwamba, 22, lies next to her newborn baby girl at the rural clinic she just gave birth in and wonders if her baby is HIV-positive too. She has been for counselling throughout her antenatal check-ups and knows there is a chance her baby girl may be HIV-negative. But it still does not eliminate her fears and anxieties.
The world's most water-deprived countries are also receiving some of the least help from the World Bank to improve conditions, according to a study that the bank's independent evaluators released on Monday. The study said water shortages, being felt in more than 40 countries, are at risk of getting worse.
African and British human rights campaigners rallied outside the Commonwealth’s head quarters in London on Monday 22 March. They were protesting against the prosecution and imprisonment of the Malawian same-sex couple, Steven Monjeza and Tiwonge Chimbalanga, on charges of homosexuality, and against the Commonwealth’s failure to condemn their arrest and detention in Chichiri prison.
The efforts of Central African nations to consolidate peace and further development are being thwarted by weapons trafficking, top United Nations officials warned today, calling on Member States to do all they can to eradicate this scourge. “Central Africa is awash with illicit weapons – exacerbating inter-communal violence, increasing cross-border crime and threatening ongoing peace and national reconciliation processes,” Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro said in her remarks to a debate in the Security Council.
Three Ugandan journalists were arrested by the Police over an alleged seditious story concerning the Kasubi tomb fire. The three, Dalton Kwesiga, Ben Byaruhanga and Johnson Taremwa work for The Red Pepper. Their troubles stem from a story titled ‘Police quizzes Mengo ministers over Kasubi fire’.
As voter registration kicked off all over the country in Kenya, the Internally displaced people, especially in Eldoret were considering to boycott the whole process altogether due to what they term as lack of confidence in the electoral system in kenya.
Following bloody fighting between Senegalese forces and rebels, in recent days, the rebel Movement of Democratic Forces of Casamance (MFDC) have issued a statement, calling for negotiations with the government.
Somali government forces have destroyed some 500 homes near the main airport in Mogadishu, capital of the lawless and war-torn nation, Somalia, because of security concerns. About 1000 displaced people, who were demolished their houses on Thursday, are homeless and sitting the open in the Afisoyoni villag
Eight hundred people displaced by excessive flooding and intense rains in Lusaka, the capital of southern African country Zambia. More than 60 families evacuated from their waterlogged shacks to a temporal resettlement campsite on higher grounds out of the Independence Stadium in Lusaka Nort
A photo exhibition organized by the Zimbabwe Human Rights Association went ahead in Harare on Wednesday evening after the High Court ordered police to return the photographs they had seized the previous day. But that same evening the police returned to the art gallery to try and confiscate the pictures again.
Togo's government has outlawed further demonstrations against the results of a March 4 presidential election, which opposition leaders say was rigged to favour the incumbent. The decree came a day ahead of a scheduled opposition rally in the seaside capital of Lome, escalating tensions in the West African state whose election had been widely seen as a test for regional democracy.
Egyptian state security prevented activists from holding a symbolic "trial" of Egypt's ruling party on Thursday, using force to disperse those who tried to resist, activists said. Security men in civilian clothes beat some of the activists who gathered to hold the event at a lawyers' club south of Cairo.
A strike by mineworkers at South Africa's Gold One stretched into a fourth day after workers and management failed to agree on a pay rise. About 1,000 mineworkers at the company's Modder East mine, some 30km east of Johannesburg, downed tools on Tuesday night in a wage protest.
ith a democratic touch rare in a region better known for dictators, Ghana is asking its citizens what it should do with the windfall from oil production due to start later this year. In a questionnaire entitled “The Use and Management of Oil and Gas Revenues – A Survey of Public Choices” posted on the finance ministry website this week, Ghana says oil-producer nations face major questions.
South Africa's antiretroviral treatment guidelines have been updated. The guidelines offer a range of improvements over the 2004 guidelines including new, more tolerable antiretrovirals, immediate ARV treatment for drug-resistant TB patients and improved prevention of mother to child transmission procedures.
Male circumcision modestly reduces the risk of an HIV-positive man transmitting HIV to a female sex partner, an analysis of the Partners in Prevention study published in the journal AIDS suggests. The risk of contracting HIV was 40% lower for the partners of circumcised men than uncircumcised men, but this reduction in risk was not statistically significant.
HIV prevalence among Tanzanians who attended secondary school fell sharply between 2004 and 2008, while remaining stable among the country's least educated people, a new study has revealed. "National HIV prevalence has fallen recently in Tanzania. However, the improvements have not been spread evenly throughout the population," James Hargreaves, senior lecturer in epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and lead author of the study, said.
Dozens of families on the outskirts of Bamako, the capital of Mali, are under threat of being evicted from their lands by the Government in favour of a housing project. The cultivation ban, ordered in July 2009, jeopardizes their right to adequate food. Moreover, if the eviction is realized, it will hinder the ability of the families to feed themselves in the long run.
As the world marks World Water Day, the Gana and Gwi Bushmen of Botswana are marking eight years without access to a regular supply of water in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve.
African cotton-producing countries hope that Brazil’s intended retaliation after its success at the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) dispute settlement body will have a positive spin-off for them but seem reticent about pursuing a similar course of action against the U.S. for its continued use of subsidies in cotton production.
With a request for a $3.75 billion World Bank loan for a new coalfired power plant, South African political leaders seem determined to entrench a policy on climate change that disregards clear evidence of catastrophic consequences, echoing the earlier disastrous policies of former President Thabo Mbeki on AIDS. But opposition is mounting to the current plan, which would consolidate South Africa's Eskom as the continent's leading producer of greenhouse gases.
Commemorating Freedom Day on 27 April, the Lesbian and Gay Equality Project (LGEP) will be hosting a “Freedom for all Rally” at the Eudy Simelane Memorial Park (Kwa – Thema), celebrating constitutional freedoms by remembering all victims of hate crimes and demanding full liberation in South Africa.
Attacks on rebels by government troops and African Union peacekeepers in Somalia kill and injure many civilians and should be much more discriminate, human rights group Amnesty International said on Thursday. Islamist rebels have been fighting the Horn of Africa state's fragile government since the start of 2007. African Union's (AU) force AMISOM is supporting the U.N.-backed administration, which controls just parts of the capital, Mogadishu.
Reporters Without Borders is baffled by the fact that Albert Yangari, the publisher and editor of the newspaper L’Union, and Jonas Moulenda, one of his reporters, have been summoned three times in connection with a libel suit brought by Alfred Nguia Banda, the former director-general of the Gabonese Shippers Council (CGC), which oversees maritime traffic in Gabon.
China will flesh out the details of its joint research programme with Africa at a meeting in Beijing next week. The Forum on China–Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), which includes 49 African countries, plans to implement several large-scale science and technology projects across Africa in the next three years
As technological obstacles to the efficient use of solar energy diminish, economic and political challenges remain to its widespread adoption by the poor. "The sun occupies centre stage, as it should, being literally the original source of all energy," said India's prime minister, Manmohan Singh, describing an action plan for India's national strategy on climate change, in June 2008.
Google Code Jam is a coding competition in which professional and student programmers are asked to solve complex algorithmic challenges in a limited amount of time. The contest is all-inclusive: Google Code Jam lets you program in the coding language and development environment of your choice.
Poor governance and management are jeopardising efforts to provide quality basic education in seven African countries according to a new report published today by Transparency International (TI).
Major corruption loopholes are jeopardising Egypt’s attempts to combat the problem despite the existence of a broad range of anti-corruption laws and regulations, according to a new report released today by Transparency International (TI).
Western nations, employing the best equipped armies in the world, are increasingly dropping their support for UN peacekeeping missions in Africa, rather focusing their efforts on Afghanistan. Even the Darfur and Congo crises are neglected.
Countries across the globe have been challenged to better manage and conserve the forests in their areas as one of the commitments to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). According to a comprehensive forest review released today by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the rate of deforestation has slowed over the last 10 years, but each year an area roughly the size of Costa Rica is still destroyed.
Up to 11,000 students from various schools in Msambweni and Kwale districts on Kenya's coast have been forced to go home before the Easter holidays after an outbreak of cholera in the region. Bridgide Wambua, the Msambweni District Education Officer, told IRIN the department decided to close down the schools to prevent more students from contracting cholera and other waterborne ailments that had also been reported.
Thick dust clouds obscure the horizon as the convoy of UN military observers sets off to patrol the oil-rich, yet desperately underdeveloped Unity State in Southern Sudan. In these borderlands, monitoring a 2005 deal that halted decades of war between north and south is a major undertaking.
Diarrhoea- inducing waterborne microbes often go undetected in parts of the world with the highest rate of under-five deaths from gastrointestinal infection. According to the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), lack of water safety regulations, inter-ministerial coordination and surveillance can paint a deceptively benign portrait of water quality.
In this week's roundup of emerging actors news, CNN pioneers its Africa business programme Market Place Africa, China-Nigeria trade ties continue to strengthen, 60 Indian firms express interest in Zambia for investing, and BRICs unlikely to push for a new global reserve currency.
Today, China is indeed a world power in every sense of the word and it is unimaginable that up till now, the country is still being referred to as an emerging economic power. China seems not bothered about the appellation out of conviction that if she continues with her developmental efforts and gets more countries, especially those in the third world, to come along with her in terms of patronage; she too would continue to be a force to reckon wit
For a number of years now, particularly in the period of globalisation, trade unions have been faced with major challenges which call for strategic responses. These challenges include building trade union internationalism in the period of mobile capital, assessing relations with left political parties as these have been dragged towards the political centre, tensions between collective bargaining and defensive struggles and strategic, revolutionary unionism and so on. This, the first of a new series of Annual Conferences, hosted by ILRIG and other partners, is an opportunities for activists and analysts - trade unionists as well as those involved in social movement campaigns - in South Africa to debate experiences of organising in South Africa, and elsewhere, whilst hearing of other forms of trade unionism in South Africa and elsewhere.
Pambazuka News 474: The failures of Nigerian democracy
Pambazuka News 474: The failures of Nigerian democracy
Fatima Meer, ‘a champion of human rights, an advocate of the poor and disenfranchised, an outstanding academic and author and a woman of impeccable integrity and principles', sadly passed away on 12 March 2010 after a stroke. Lubna Nadvi reflects on her legacy: ‘While there can only be one Fatima Meer, she ignited the imagination of so many others that she came into contact with to fight for a better world. That is perhaps her most enduring contribution.’
Oludolapo Onajin asks why Nigerians continue to suffer and smile. He argues that Nigeria, with its own great minds, should not ‘be under the yoke of a ruling class illiterate in resourcefulness’. He asserts that while Nigerians are paying for their politicians’ education, healthcare, services and lavish lifestyles, these politicians are denying them decent standards of living and access to services. Onajin concludes that Nigerians need to break away from their current accepting and placid attitude and must ‘rewrite their futures’ themselves.
While excitement around South Africa's forthcoming World Cup continues to build, South Africa's poor are seeing none of the supposed economic benefits associated with hosting the tournament, argue Azad Essa and Oliver Meth.
While debate on Kenya's constitution could theoretically be open, L. Muthoni Wanyeki laments the lack of honest discussion around taking it forward.
walk with me to the statue of Kimathi
be distracted not by sounds of sirens
or the hurrying hues of city humanity.
walk with me to the statue of Kimathi
then lift your eyes like begging hands
to the rifle he clenches like his destiny
then perhaps you will learn not to ask
why i ask to die with fists full of stone
after i take to the jungle of concrete
to resist those who muzzle my mouth
then you pump gas above the street
before pumping bullets into my youth.
Responding to an Economist article on a perceived battle between Israel and Iran for friends on the African continent, S.H. Razavipour stresses that suspicion around Iran's motives merely highlights Western hypocrisy.
Efforts to portray Nigeria's Acting President Goodluck Jonathan as a positive alternative to Umaru Yar'Adua are strongly misplaced, writes Kola Ibrahim. While the current power tussle and political crisis have granted a range of players the opportunity to 'loot the nation blind', Ibrahim contends, the inclination of labour movement leaders to cuddle up to Jonathan in a mutually profitable alliance is deeply treacherous to the working people they purport to represent.
Used to evoke poorer nations' continual domination at the hands of the rich of the world, the phrase 'global apartheid' gained prominence when used by former South Africa president Thabo Mbeki in 2001. Drawing on Africa's economic experience over the past 50 years, Yash Tandon stresses that while this is certainly a valid conceptual term, African states themselves have played a key role in intensifying their own countries' victimisation.
While the data within the World Bank's latest 'Africa Development Indicators' report is certainly rich in highlighting the poor standard of living endured by many in Africa, its focus on the 'quiet corruption' of absentee public officials belies the damaging historical effects of its own structural adjustment programmes (SAPs), writes Stephen Marks.
Mphutlane wa Bofelo mourns a South Africa in which critical thinking, thoughtful strategy and creative minds are marginalised. What is reified instead, he argues, is thoughtless action, the dismissal of theory and analysis and ‘the racist, sexist, violent-peddling hate-talk of Julius Malema’. Wa Bofelo holds that the lionisation of rash and unthinking youths in the past has led to a culture of crime and violence, disrespect for life and intolerance for dissent in South Africa. The media and academia, he states, have played a large role in this: They have always placed spectacle well above cautious and calculated action. Wa Bofelo believes that the youth of South Africa is not ‘the lost generation’, but ‘the generation in search of role models’. He concludes that ‘glorifying mediocrity, recklessness, violence and idiocy today is investing in the doom and damnation of the future… Malema’s is [as such] a serious act of injustice against the youth and posterity.’
Ann Njogu delivered her acceptance speech at the International Women of Courage (IWOC) awards held in Washington DC on 8 March 2010. Her speech was a portrait of the struggles and achievements, injustice and poverty in Kenya. Amongst others, she dedicated her award ‘to all the human rights defenders in Kenya’, stating that ‘They are the true champions and heroes of our struggle for change. They continue to put their lives in harm's way because they are convinced that a different and better Kenya is possible. A different and better Africa is possible and a different and better world is possible.’
There’s an assumption that despite multiple deprivations, Nigerians can ‘take solace in the knowledge’ that they have democracy, writes Moses Ochonu. But the kind of democracy practised by Abuja has delivered neither improved standards of living nor abstract benefits such as press freedom or human rights, instead providing the perfect cover for ‘massive corruption’, says Ochonu. It is ‘not what Nigerians signed up for in 1999; if we do not act urgently, it will consume us all,’ Ochonu warns.
As much as those who identify themselves as social progressives would like to believe otherwise, writes Dale McKinley, ‘the reality is that South Africa is a bastion of social conservatism'. One of the most glaring contradictions of South Africa’s post-apartheid ‘transition’, says McKinley, ‘is that the widely acknowledged – and regularly celebrated – social progressiveness of the country’s constitution is, in large part, at fundamental odds with the beliefs and views of the majority of South Africans themselves'.
Sir Bob Geldof may not wish to believe recent BBC reports alleging the misuse of famine relief funds in Ethopia in 1984, but, writes Alemayehu G. Mariam, he needs to ‘face the truth’ that ‘aid is stolen and diverted for…corrupt purposes in Africa everyday’. The famine that needs to be cured, argues Mariam, is the ‘famine of democracy, justice, accountability, transparency, rule of law and human rights.’
As the cultural and political world of the old ruling forces in Nigeria collapses, Horace Campbell calls for the country to look to the work of visionary leaders like the late Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem to create ‘new definitions of independence and emancipation’. Nigerians of all classes should ‘tap into the inherent strength of their linguistic and religious diversity,’ says Campbell, ‘and organise from the grassroots’ to bring about the ‘transformation that the country yearns for’.
Asymmetric negotiations on Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) between African countries and the European Union, with the power balance in favour of the latter, have created a sense of helplessness among ‘concerned citizens, government circles and indigenous business interests’ that stand to lose out if comprehensive EPA is signed. But all is not lost, says Yash Tandon – there’s ‘still plenty of scope and space to save the situation’.
Faced with rising levels of unemployment in towns and cities across South Africa, and the growing trend of well-connected individuals continuing to enrich themselves at the expense of the poor, the Unemployed People's Movement issues a call to arms in the struggle for equal economic rights.
Fatima Meer, one of South Africa’s most senior civil society scholar–activists, died on Friday 12 March. Patrick Bond and Orlean Naidoo pay tribute to the ‘always nimble’ community organiser, with her ability to ‘think and act locally, nationally and globally’, noting: ‘With this beautiful voice silenced, surely our responsibility now is to stand up and shout louder still’.
In this week's review of the African blogosphere, Jeune Afrique and New African are under fire for publishing fawning and inaccurate articles about Presidents Ali Bongo of Gabon and Faure Gnassingbé of Togo, while there is also a look at International Women's Day on the continent and thoughts on the recently-launched iHub and ICT University.
Fahamu is one of the ten civil society organisations that supported International Rivers Network dialogue with Sinohydro and the need for the company to advocate a more responsible environmental policy that adopts people centred and environmental friendly operations in Africa.
China's Information Office of the State Council published a report titled "The Human Rights Record of the United States in 2009" .
Solidarity from churches in Germany has made it possible for South African shackdwellers movement Abahlali baseMjondolo to elect a delegation to attend the World Urban Forum in Rio de Janeiro, the theme of which is ‘the right to the city’. In a preparatory meeting for the forum, Abahlali notes that 'if there is a "right to the city", it is a very difficult right to actually get. And it is we, the poor who struggle for it, who are paying the price for this right… For the right to the city to be real what will have to count will be people and not money.’
A farming ban imposed on Rwandan refugees in southwestern Uganda is raising concerns for their food security, while proposed cash transfers could boost both food prices and theft, warn aid workers and local officials, who are urging the government to rescind the directive.
Stephen Marks reviews Deborah Brautigam’s book ‘The Dragon's Gift: The Real Story of China in Africa’ on China’s involvement and policies in Africa. Marks finds it to be ‘an account at once scholarly and accessible, combining the puncturing of prevalent myths with a realist approach that does not rely on rosy assumptions.’
Japan International Cooperation Agencyis building a new development model to encourage increased agricultural production in Africa, both to help prevent another global food crisis and to deter a land grab by foreign enterprises across the continent, according to Senior Vice President Kenzo Oshima.
Pambazuka Press is planning to publish a Pan-African activists' diary for 2011. The diary will be a handbook of key information about Pan-African history, quotations from thinkers and activists (women and men) in Africa and the diaspora, pictures of critical events in our past, information about key events during 2011, and lots more.
EVENTS
If you would like us to include events – meetings, conferences, festivals, actions, courses, publications etc - that your organisation is planning to hold in 2011, please send details to panafdiary [at] pambazuka [dot] org.
QUOTATIONS
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Help make this diary the essential handbook for all activists in Africa and the diaspora. Make sure you get your recommendations in to us by 14 April 2010. Don’t be left out – let us know what events you are planning for 2011.
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The 2011 Pan-African Diary: the essential tool for freedom and justice!
Alex Kawakami calls himself an agronomist, but really he’s a revolutionary. He works for the landless people’s movement Movimento dos Trabalhardores Rurais Sem Terra (MST), a social movement of some 370,000 people organizing in over 1,000 settlements in Brazil, in addition to 90,000 families living in camps. For them, agricultural reform is more than organic farming – it’s an answer to land inequality, global food shortages and climate change.
Burundian refugees in Mtabila refugee camp in Tanzania are being deprived of their basic human rights by the Tanzanian government. Some 37,000 men, women, and children are being denied access to needed medical care, primary education, and attending worship services in the camp. Please to help these refugees and remind Tanzanian officials that caring people like you around the world are watching.
Madagascar's history is marked by a struggle for political control. By 1700, France and England had attempted to establish settlements, while the rulers of the island's many kingdoms fought among themselves for dominance. Madagascar gained independence in 1960, but since then it has been plagued by assassinations, military coups and disputed elections.
“Kenya’s Hunger Crisis – the Result of Right to Food Violations” is the title of a report launched today by FIAN International and RAPDA. These words also capture the main findings of a mission report by a joint international delegation of the African Network on the Right to Food (RAPDA) and FIAN International. The mission was carried out in September 2009 and investigated the implementation of the human right to food against the background of drought and wide-spread famine in some parts of the country.
An Eritrean refugee in Halifax killed himself in late February after losing an asylum appeal to Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Board. Habtom Kibraeb, 40, was found dead, hanging from a tree in the Clayton Park area. Kibraeb had spent several years on the run from Eritrea’s military, says Beku Feshaye, who owns Kilimanjaro Café, a store on Titus Street in Halifax.
Cases of anxiety and depression, two leading mental health illnesses, are on the rise among women in some African countries, thanks to the current difficulties in the economy, gender roles and violence, writes Arthur Okwemba. Findings of study done at Kenyatta National Hospital in Nairobi by the African Mental Health Foundation shows that 42% of adults and 41% of children who went to the facility were diagnosed with depression. This likely reflects what is happening in other African countries.