Pambazuka News 468: The new American imperialism in Africa
Pambazuka News 468: The new American imperialism in Africa
Onyekachi Wambu reviews a ‘really useful’ new collection of essays that looks at how governments can integrate the contributions of their diaspora communities into national development programmes and policies, drawing on detailed examples from India, the Phillipines, Mali and Mexico. ‘Closing the Distance’ demonstrates what has always been clear in this area, writes Wambu – that ‘while countries can learn from each other, it is their own national priorities and understanding of the needs of their migrants and diasporas that should drive policy.’
A new ‘bling’ culture, pervasive among South Africa’s ruling political, business and public administration elite, which sees lavish lifestyles as the standard for achievement, is encouraging people to use shortcuts to get rich quickly rather than working or studying hard, writes William Gumede.
Khadija Sharife looks at how commercial and political interests in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s mineral and natural resources have shaped the country’s history, with devastating consequences for its people, wildlife and environment. Will a new concession with China enable the Congolese to ‘really feel what all that copper, cobalt and nickel is good for’, as President Joseph Kabila says, or will the country continue to be seen as ‘a resource-rich bargain bin, open for business’?
'I was very happy to read "" by Hilary Beckles because it exposed a reality that the vast majority, and even African-Americans have no idea of,' writes Kwaku O. Kushindana.
While initiatives seeking to address ‘negative ethnicity’ in Kenya are ‘potentially useful and well meaning’, L. Muthoni Wanyeki believes that they fail to get to the core of the problem. There is, she argues, no real understanding of what equality and non-discrimination actually mean. Wanyeki deems there to be a misplaced focus on ‘whether or not we like each other’. She holds rather, that tensions in Kenya have arisen because there is an unhealthy cycle of discrimination and stereotyping that has become normalised. The focus in remedying this cannot then be on making Kenyans ‘like’ one another, Wanyeki argues, but on how to ‘regulate whether and how those feelings translate into actions; into discrimination’.
In this week's review of the African blogosphere, reports of a foiled coup plot in Burundi raise the spectre of instability and Cameroonians are seemingly overwhelmed by an influx of Chinese goods. There's also a response to Rajoelina's recent accusations of international interference, and 'sovereignty expenditures' by African states come under the spotlight.
This urges all to speak out against the death penalty for Mumia Abu-Jamal, and all the men, women and children facing execution around the world. This ultimate form of punishment is unacceptable in a civilized society and undermines human dignity. (U.N. General Assembly, Moratorium on the Use of the Death Penalty, Resolution 62/149, Dec. 18, 2007; reaffirmed, Resolution 63/168, Dec. 18, 2008.)
The Urgent Action Fund-Africa, a Pan-African women’s human rights organisation, notes with great concern Uganda’s draconian Anti-homosexuality Bill 2009, the ongoing parliamentary debates and the suggested amendments to the Bill.
Jason Hickel asks whether ‘environmental determinism’ – the theory that Africa’s development has been hindered as a result of ‘the environmental conditions that Africans inhabit’ – accurately explains Africa’s poverty. While he commends its attempt to stop blaming underdevelopment 'on the presumed genetic inferiority of black people’, he finds the theory and motives behind environmental determinism to be seriously lacking. Hickel asserts that environmental determinism is both ahistorical and apolitical: ‘Poverty is not a problem of nature, it is a problem of power.’ Furthermore, he argues that to tackle the real issues behind Africa’s slow development and poverty would mean to go against Western economic interests and to radically change the world system in which we exist. ‘The wealth of the West’, Hickel reminds us, ‘is intimately bound up with the poverty of Africa, and vice versa.’
A recent fatwa banning female genital mutilation/cutting in Mauritania will help reduce the practice only if religious leaders take the message to the people, scholars and anti-FGM/C activists say.
Zimbabwe Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai is pressing the world to end sanctions on his country as it climbs out of a political and economic abyss but wherever he goes the shadow of Robert Mugabe follows.
From 3 to 14 May 2010, the International Service for Human Rights (ISHR) will organise a training course on the treaty monitoring bodies and the universal periodic review (UPR). The course will be conducted in parallel to the 44th sessions of the Committee against Torture (CAT), the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) and the 8th session of the UPR.
Howard Zinn, social activist, historian and playwright, passed away at the age of 87, on 27 January 2010. The Oakland Institute remembers him: ‘the world has not only lost a legendary historian but an individual, whose commitment to social and economic justice, peace and internationalism, and passion for telling the truth, can be matched by few others… Indeed the world has lost one of its best teachers.’
Mourad Bencheikh looks at why the Middle East question – with the Palestinian problem at its core – is in deadlock, as Western “silence” on Israeli policy towards the occupied territories engenders mistrust and suspicion in the Muslim world. The wisest approach, says Bencheikh, would be ‘for Israel to build bridges and not walls’ between the Jewish and Palestinian communities. ‘They both know what suffering means, they are gifted, well-educated, hard working and should work hand in hand towards the stability, development and integration of the whole region.’
In March 2010, the 54th Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) will undertake a fifteen-year review of the implementation of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action and the outcomes of the twenty-third special session of the General Assembly. Gender Links, the African Woman and Child Feature Service, Gender and Media Southern Africa and the Gender and Media Diversity Centre will be collaborating to produce a conference newspaper for the event.
11 February 2009 is the 20th anniversary of Nelson Mandela's release from prison. Tell us about what this historical event meant to you and what it means for you today. Send a paragraph or more about your thoughts to . We'll publish a selection in the next issue of Pambazuka News.
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Michael Schmidt reveals the alarming extent of American military expansion in Africa. This article was written four years ago, but still holds strong relevance today in the context of United States Africa Command (AFRICOM). Schmidt describes three avenues that the US is taking to increase its military foothold in Africa in pursuit of its ‘War on Terror’: ‘piggybacking’ off already strong French military presence, creating an unofficial ‘School of the Africas’ in the guise of the African Centre for Strategic Studies, and with its Africa Contingency Operations Training Assistance (ACOTA) programme ‘aimed at integrating African armed forces into US strategic (imperialist) objectives’. Schmidt places blame beyond the US, however, and uncovers the role that African countries, particularly South Africa, are playing in strengthening US military presence through ‘secret pacts’. In light of all this, Schmidt concludes with a warning: ‘It would be naïve to think that bourgeois democracy… will protect the working class, peasantry and poor from state terrorism.’
‘Behind the smoke, rubble and unending drama of human tragedy in the hapless Caribbean country, a drama is in full play for control of what geophysicists believe may be one of the world’s richest zones for hydrocarbons-oil and gas outside the Middle East,’ writes F. William Engdahl. Engdahl adds ‘oil’ to Haiti’s story, highlighting the increasing evidence that behind the rescue mission in Haiti, there perhaps lies a stark ulterior, but familiar, motive.
Ethiopian judge sentenced a journalist to prison on Friday in connection with a January 2008 column that criticized Prime Minister Meles Zenawi's statements about religious affairs in Ethiopia, according to local journalists. Federal High Court Judge Mohammed Omar sentenced Editor Ezedin Mohamed of the Muslim-oriented newspaper Al-Quds to one year in prison.
Three flow stations in the oil-rich Niger Delta have had to be closed after a pipeline was sabotaged, according to Royal Dutch Shell. The company said the Jan. 30 leak on the Trans Ramos oil pipeline was due to sabotage, but no group has so far claimed responsibility for the attack. A represnetative of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta told a Nigerian newspaper at the end of January that it was ending a truce agreed in October 2009.
A surprise intervention at the weekend by Ban Ki-Moon, the United Nations secretary-general, has drawn warnings from senior officials in south Sudan that any outside efforts to influence a referendum next year could lead to further conflict. Mr Ban told an African Union summit at the weekend that he would “work hard” to avoid the secession of south Sudan following the referendum.
The Second Feminist Leadership and Movement Building Institute is a week-long course designed to strengthen feminist leadership, strategies and collective power for social transformation in Africa. The Institute which will take place in Kampala, Uganda from 10 – 15 April 2010, and is the second institute convened by CREA and Akina Mama wa Afrika (AMwA). The first institute took place in Entebbe, Uganda in 2008.
The peace agreement which ended years of war between north and south Sudan could unravel unless immediate steps are taken to salvage it, two key former diplomats say. "Today, five years after the historic Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) was signed between North and South Sudan, there is a real threat of an all-out war returning to Sudan and still no permanent resolution to the Darfur conflict," Lt-Gen Lazarus Sumbeiwyo and John Danforth warned.
Twenty kids, five weddings (and more to come?) and a whole lot of polygamous loving going on, marital and extra-marital. Some say it is a private matter, but like it or not, just as with any celebrity, Zuma’s sexual behaviour is not private.
The International Criminal Court is to review its earlier decision not to add genocide to the charges against Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir. "It was a legal error to reject the genocide charges against President al-Bashir," said prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo in a press statement.
Interface is a new journal produced twice yearly by activists and academics around the world in response to the development and increased visibility of social movements in the last few years – and the immense amount of knowledge generated in this process.
The Open Society Institute (OSI) seeks a full-time Program Officer in its New York office to work jointly with the Sexual Health and Rights Project (SHARP) and the Law and Health Initiative (LAHI).
Berlin, Germany. Lusaka, Zambia. How have mobile phones, the Internet and computers changed people's lives on the African continent? To find out, eLearning Africa has launched an online photography contest. The organisers are inviting people from Africa to submit images that show how they live, learn and work with Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs).
Networks of people living with HIV in southern Sudan are trying to overcome deficiencies in the limping health system and broken infrastructure by spreading information about the pandemic and reducing stigma and denial.
At the moment Jon Qwelane is in the middle of controversy for being appointed Ambassador to Uganda. Before focusing on the present, let us rewind to the 1980s when Qwelane was a reporter for the Star. At that time a fake priest, Ebenezer Maqina, purporting to represent the Azanian People's Organisation (Azapo), who later disowned him, repeatedly claimed attacks by United Democratic Front (UDF) supporters. He was awarded honours by cities and similar recognition.
UNICEF and the Graduate Program in International Affairs (GPIA) at The New School will host an international conference on adolescent girls in April 2010. With an emphasis on reviewing existing evidence and policies, the conference will focus on the role and potential agency of adolescent girls in meeting emerging global challenges.
Arriving at the airport in Senegal’s capital, Dakar, you have a fair chance that the newish-looking taxi taking you into town will not be the usual French or Japanese model, but Iranian. And it will not have been imported, as most cars in Africa are, but assembled in nearby Thiès.
The Horn of African region remains the locus of some of the long-running wars and local conflicts which are becoming sources of domestic turmoil and regional instability. Specially, the years 2010-12 will be extremely critical for the sub-region.
The government seeks to create a land bank which businesses and investors can tap into and has sent out a second appeal to Kenyans to offer their property for sale. The move follows investors’ growing appetite for land to build houses, warehouses and put up businesses.
The Egyptian government has announced that it would be sending a committee to assess farmland in Uganda to grow wheat to then import back into Egypt. Egypt is the leader in wheat consumption and has historically relied mostly on imports. According to the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics, Egypt consumes 14 million tons of wheat a year but is only able to produce 8 million tons.
An Italian village is hoping to reverse its population decline by welcoming refugees from around the world. The immigrants get free room and board and are expected to work and learn Italian in return. The project is proving highly successful - but the local Mafia aren't happy.
Ethiopia’s recent history is punctuated by famine. Severe droughts, on-going conflicts and stagnating agricultural growth have been reproducing widespread food insecurities for decades. Compounded by cereal prices doubling over the last year, many people are struggling to meet even their most basic food needs. Concurrently the World Food Programme has had to reduce emergency food rations due to the high global food prices.
Nigeria's long-drawn political impasse, caused by the failure of President Umaru Yar'Adua to transfer power to his deputy while on a prolonged medical treatment in Saudi Ara bia, may soon be over, if assurances given Thursday by one of his aides are anything to go by.
The African Union Commission Chief Jean Ping, has informed Eritrea to send an ambassador to represent it in Addis Ababa, the seat of the African Union (AU), despite Eritrea's frosty relations with hosts, Ethiopia.
Women human rights activists in Mauritius, under the umbrella Women in Politics (WIP), have asked political parties to field women as one-third of their candidates in the next general elections. They said one woman should be among the three candidates that each party shall field in each of the 20 constituencies of the island.
Against the backdrop of continued widespread gender discrimination worldwide, the European Union (EU) has urged Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to "urgently" speed up the creation of the proposed new U.N. agency for women.
The World Bank has joined the push to make 2010 a conflict-free year for the African continent, Bank President Robert Zoellick, has said here.'We recognize the pioneering role African regional organizations have played in managing conflict across the continent and we can learn from them,' said Zoellick, who led America's trade diplomacy before moving to the World Bank as President.
Employees of the African Union (AU) have demanded that the new AU Chairperson should address outstanding demands for benefit and security. The staff urged the new AU Chair, Malawian President Bingu Wa Mutharika, who would be presiding over the 53-member continental organization for the next 12 months, to make sure that they would be beneficiaries of attractive benefit packages.
Angolan head of state, José Eduardo dos Santos, formed a new government marked by the creation of the post of Vice-president of the Republic which will be occupied by the incumbent speaker of the National Assembly, Fernando da Piedade Dias dos Santos "Nando", according to official sources.
Cancer control programmes - Up to 40 per cent of all cancers could be prevented through changes in lifestyle and improved prevention and screening policies, the WHO Regional Office for Europe said ahead of the World Cancer Day on 4 February.
A UN report sys the number of people in southern Sudan in need of food quadrupled during the past year. "The conflicts and drought have increased the number of southerners in need of food aid from 1 million in 2009 to 4.3 million at the beginning of 2010," the report released by the UN World Food Programme (WFP) on Wednesday, said.
A Ghana High Court, sitting in Accra, has dropped a four-year-old defamation suit brought against 'Akosua', a cartoonist with the privately-owned Accra-based Daily Guide newspaper.
African leaders have called for an end to detention of political opponents and reiterated the need to end an African era dominated by the grabbing of political power. African Union (AU) Chairman, President Bingu wa Mutharika of Malawi, said key among the decisions reached during the Addis Ababa Summit which ended Tuesday was to call for an end to the political crises in Guinea, Madagascar and an end to illegal takeover of power in Africa.
The African Union has weighed in again on the vexed question of Western targeted sanctions on Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe and other officials of his former Zanu PF administration, Harare sources said.
Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe and Prime Minister (PM) Morgan Tsvangirai are locked in a fresh power struggle after the former instructed government ministers to report to his two vice-presidents by-passing the Premier – a clear breach of the former foes' power-sharing agreement.
Zimbabwe may have to import over half the maize it needs this year to cover a deficit after drought has destroyed crops and left the country facing a severe food shortage, a farmers' group has said. The former regional bread basket has relied on food aid and imports since 2001, after President Robert Mugabe's government seized commercial farms from whites to resettle landless blacks, most of whom were poorly equipped and underfunded.
Uganda's controversial Anti-Homosexuality Bill is likely to be changed, according to Deputy Foreign Minister Henry Okello Oryem. However, he did not give details of how he thought the final bill would be different to the current proposals.
A ruling by the African Commission on Human and People's Rights condemning the expulsion of the Endorois people from their land in Kenya is a major victory for indigenous peoples across Africa, Human Rights Watch, WITNESS, and the Endorois' lawyers have said.
When people buy diamond jewellery, they often want to convey love or commitment to someone dear and special. But, this jewellery, if it contains diamonds from the Marange diamond fields in eastern Zimbabwe, could have a bloody past signifying mistreatment and abuse.
The Obama administration should adopt recommendations in a report issued to help stop the flow of stolen money into the United States, Human Rights Watch said.
An estimated 5.23 million people will require emergency food assistance up to December 2010 with the net food requirement including TSF needs being 290,271 MT estimated to cost around USD 231.3 million according to the Joint Government and Humanitarian Partners' Humanitarian Requirement Document released on 2 February 2010
The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has condemned today the continued harassment and intimidation of the reporters of the Plateau Radio and Television Corporation (PRTVC) by soldiers in Jos, Plateau State, Nigeria. Three reporters of the media house were molested by soldiers in Jos on Thursday, January 21, 2010, while on Sunday, January 24 PRTVC reporters were again repeatedly manhandled by soldiers in the exercise of their duties.
The United Nations refugee agency has reported that a sharp rise in violence in Somalia in January left nearly 260 civilians dead, in addition to uprooting over 80,000 and causing widespread destruction. According to local sources, intense clashes between Government forces and militia groups fighting in the strife-torn central regions have also left 253 civilians wounded.
Dozens of African leaders met in Ethiopia to tackle the challenges facing the continent in the effort to meet the United Nations target of ensuring universal access to malaria control measures by the end of this year. Some 26 heads of State convened the first working session of the African Leaders Malaria Alliance (ALMA) during the annual African Union (AU) summit, which got under way in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa.
Students Partnership Worldwide (SPW) demonstrates and promotes a youth-led approach to development, implementing internationally recognised programmes across sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. SPW is looking for a Country Director with relevant professional experience and a passion for SPW’s mission to place young people at the forefront of change and development. Closing date for applications: 18th February 2010, 5pm GMT (UK time)
Egyptian border police shot dead two African migrants who tried to escape into Israel through the Sinai border, bringing the number of migrants killed this week to four. Police sources say they refused orders to stop. They were a 26-year-old Eritrean and a 27-year-old migrant of unknown nationality.
Two Ugandan journalists with the Daily Monitor newspaper - Henry Ochieng, editor and Angelo Izama, a staff writer - were yesterday charged with criminal libel at the Makindye Chief Magistrates Court over an article the State claims defamed President Museveni.
The Zimbabwe National Students Union (ZINASU) is demanding the arrest of a security guard from the University of Zimbabwe, after a student leader was ‘severely’ beaten in a crackdown by police and security guards on a public students meeting.
Infighting in one of Darfur's rebel groups has driven at least 10,000 people from their homes in the restive Jabel Marra area, deepening the humanitarian crisis in Sudan's west, officials said. Darfur's rebels have fractured into dozens of groups since their rebellion began in early 2003, hindering peace efforts and increasing insecurity in Sudan's west, where the United Nations estimates a humanitarian crisis has claimed 300,000 lives.
One of Nigeria's most politically turbulent states goes to the polls on Saturday to elect a new governor in a vote seen as a test of the country's ability to hold credible national elections in 2011. vThe governorship vote in southeastern Anambra state is the first in a cycle of state and federal polls culminating in presidential elections next year.
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has given a grant of $7 million over five years to the American Cancer Society to lead and coordinate the African Tobacco Control Consortium, a global coalition of public health-oriented organizations focusing on using evidence-based approaches to stem the tobacco epidemic in Africa.
Researchers have reported results of a clinical trial showing that a new vaccine - Mycobacterium vaccae (MV) - is effective in preventing tuberculosis in people with HIV infection. The DarDar Health Study, named for Dartmouth and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, found that MV immunization reduced the rate of definite tuberculosis by 39 percent among 2,000 HIV-infected patients in Tanzania.
The humiliating ritual has become a way of life for the 19-year-old, who lives in a shack with her parents in a section of the sprawling township of Khayelitsha in Cape Town. There are no toilets for the hundreds of families crammed into the shantytown known as QQ section.
The latest national survey from market research company Synovate shows Kenya’s Internet market is growing fast and on the basis of this growth will soon reach “critical mass”. The growth in users is coming from both urban and rural areas and is predominantly amongst the young and well educated.
An Ethiopian judge sentenced a journalist to prison on Friday in connection with a January 2008 column that criticized Prime Minister Meles Zenawi’s statements about religious affairs in Ethiopia, according to local journalists.
Morocco has strongly criticised a recent Human Rights Watch (HRW) report, and the response to the document in Moroccan civil society has been divided. Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia were among 15 North African and Middle Eastern countries, and over 90 countries worldwide, discussed in the 612-page World Report 2010, HRW's 20th annual review of human rights around the globe.
HIV-positive Justine Kirumira* is a mother torn between doing what is right for her daughters and her own fear of HIV/AIDS. She suspects that her eight and 12-year-old daughters may also have the virus. But she may never know the truth of their status because she refuses have them tested.
A stalemate between labour unions and business associations is preventing Egyptian authorities from setting a minimum wage that could improve the lot of millions of citizens living in poverty.
The threat by influential Christian leaders to mobilise a vote against Kenya's draft constitution if it does not explicitly prevent any expansion of abortion rights appears to have succeeded.
Even though the global economy appeared to start growing again during the closing months of 2009, labour markets showed little sign of improving. The number of unemployed persons is estimated at 212 million in 2009, representing an increase of almost 34 million over the number of unemployed in 2007, with the bulk of this increase occurred in 2009. This issue of Global Employment Trends analyses the impact of the global economic crisis on labour markets worldwide.
In this week's emerging powers news roundup, are Chinese investments in Africa a ploy for the Asian nation to take away Africa's natural resources? India steps up to challenge China's primacy in Africa, and South African companies aim to become the continent's corporate captain.
This AfricaFocus Bulletin contains a letter from 80 U.S. organizations to U.S. Treasury Secretary Geithner calling for cancellation of Haiti's debt, a background paper on Haiti's debt by Jubilee USA, and a brief description by historian Alex von Tunzelmann on the historical origin of Haiti's debt.
Rights of Zimbabwean sexual minorities to HIV treatment and prevention could see light as the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is currently coordinating a study that will characterise sexual minorities, their association to HIV and identify opportunities for intervention.