A couple strolling hand-in-hand along a sandy beach in Kenya's coastal city of Mombasa could have jumped straight off the pages of a cheesy romance novel, except for one major difference: the man is local and in his early twenties, while the woman, a tourist, is middle-aged. The young men who trawl Kenya's seaside resorts for wealthy white tourists looking for more than just sun, sea and sand are known locally as "beach boys".

President-elect Kgalema Motlanthe took the Oath of Presidency on Thursday afternoon, swearing faithfulness to the Republic and obedience to the Constitution. Mr Motlanthe, who was elected by a majority vote of MPs in the National Assembly earlier in the day, was officially sworn in by Chief Justice Pius Langa at Tuynhuys, adjacent to Parliament.

For the last two months, investors at the Nairobi Stock Exchange (NSE) have watched in horror as the market dropped to a three years low. The NSE 20 shares index, which is used to gauge the general performance of the market, dipped to a 4,000 low from about 5,400 in mid July (a 26% decline).

Open source software (OSS) has now become a well recognised and utilised brand. A brand that, if we were to get a broad sweeping perception poll on, would generally stand for free, fair and cost effective. However, despite this growth, the battle between open source and traditional software still rages on whereby the pros and cons for each can be endlessly debated.

The Rwandan constitution, ratified in May 2003, states that 30 per cent of decision-making positions are to be reserved for women. This clause has seen Rwandan women make remarkable gains in elective politics. In the last parliament, Rwanda had the highest percentage of women in parliament in the world.

On 26 September, a “pledging meeting” takes place at the World Bank in Washington to encourage donors to channel resources to the World Bank Climate Investment Funds (CIFs). The meeting has been promoted by the UK, and several European governments are planning to attend. The UK and Sweden have already made announcements to channel funds to the CIFs. France and the Netherlands are also likely to pledge money to these funds. And Germany is still considering.

The soaring cost of fuel and basic foods over the past year has left many countries in sub-Saharan Africa unable to adequately fund critical activities, such as health care and the provision of safe drinking water, their leaders told the General Assembly’s annual high-level debate.

At least 12,000 civilian residents of Mogadishu have fled their homes in the Somali capital since last weekend because of a surge in fighting between Islamist insurgents and Government forces backed by the Ethiopian military, the United Nations refugee agency has reported. Half of the newly displaced have found shelter in different neighbourhoods within Mogadishu, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), while the remainder have escaped to the town of Afgooye, about 30 kilometres away.

A former prosecutor was sentenced to life in prison after being found guilty of genocide, extermination and murder by the United Nations war crimes tribunal set up in the wake of the 1994 killing spree in Rwanda. The ICTR found that Simeon Nchamihigo, former deputy prosecutor in Cyangugu Prefecture, instructed the Hutu-dominated rebel group known as the Interahamwe to seek out and kill Tutsis and moderate Hutus with the intent to destroy the Tutsi ethnic group and accomplices of the Tutsi-dominated Rwandan Patriotic Front.

The Congolese Prime Minister, Antoine Gizenga has resigned his position on Thursday. His letter of resignation has been submitted to President Joseph Kabila and awaiting response. He made his disclosure on National Broadcasting Television of Congo.

The Tsvangirai MDC on Thursday filed papers opposing a court challenge to the election of national chairman Lovemore Moyo as speaker of parliament. Independent MP Jonathan Moyo, with support from the Mutambara MDC, have filed a court challenge saying Moyo’s election was not proper, citing a variety of reasons. Arguments from the camp are that the vote was illegal, based on claims that Tsvangirai-MDC MPs showed their ballot to party Vice President Thokozani Khupe.

South Africa's powerful COSATU trade union, which wants the government to tilt away from pro-business policies, called on new President Kgalema Motlanthe on Friday to eradicate poverty and create jobs. Motlanthe pledged after being sworn in on Thursday to keep to the policies of predecessor Thabo Mbeki, who presided over South Africa's longest period of economic growth before the ruling African National Congress forced him to resign.

A group of university students in Nairobi has developed tallying software that could cut costs and eliminate errors at the Electoral Commission of Kenya. The students said the software could enable the controversial electoral body record and process results electronically at individual polling stations across the country.

The University of the Western Cape (UWC) and the African Virtual Open Initiatives and Resources (AVOIR) project have released version 1.0.1 of the Chisimba/KEWL3 Realtime Virtual Classroom. Avoir is a collaboration of 13 African universities specialising in creating free software relevant to African users.

A group of 16 refugee families have moved into rehabilitated houses in the Liberian town of Bensonville as part of a process to locally integrate some 3,500 Sierra Leoneans who cannot go home or are unwilling to repatriate.

Reporters Without Borders condemns the detention of journalist Lewis Medjo for the past two days in the western city of Douala. The publisher of the Douala-based Détente Libre weekly, Medjo was arrested by the head of the local plain-clothes police as he left a dinner in a Douala hotel on the evening of 22 September.

A lack of emphasis on agricultural research in development policy over the last quarter of a century is one of the main reasons for the deterioration of African farming, according to a UN report released this month (15 September). The UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) report on Africa's economic development also cites the small size of each country's research stations, isolated researchers and high staff turnover as other factors that helped "prevent the attainment of a critical mass of scientific and technical staff".

Zambia government, has called upon all broadcasters, both commercial and community, to desist from live phone-in broadcast programmes that involve members of public.

After years of calling on the owners of South Africa's oil refineries in Durban to upgrade their facilities to reduce pollution, local residents of the eastern port city have decided to take their case to the courts to secure a legal remedy.

Rather than encouraging enrollment, schools in Zimbabwe are asking children not to report for lessons. "We have received, with concern, continuing reports that some children [in Zimbabwe] are not going to school because there are no teachers," said Roland Monash, deputy representative of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF). UNICEF keeps 150,000 Zimbabwean children at school by paying their fees.

In the ancient Spartan democracy, the all the citizens were directly involved in major decision-making processes. As populations and perhaps egos grew, it became impossible to involve everyone in the day to day running of state affairs. A class of fulltime governors who made decisions for the rest of the society evolved. Thus representative democracy was born. This brought about a class of people who by the virtue of their leadership positions acquired (and controlled) more information than the rest of the society.

As societies become more complex, governance processes generate more and more information. Those higher in the governance hierarchy are entrusted with higher levels of information and are privy to key decision making processes. Often, some of this access translates to personal privileges like business opportunities, personal influence and political power. This state of affairs has created a struggle between the rulers and the ruled over access to information. The rulers can only maintain their privileges by limiting access while the ruled have to protect their common good by accessing more, quality and timely information.

Despite what has been called an “explosion” in the passage of FOI laws with more than seventy developing countries passing the laws in the last decade, Africa has largely been absent.

There is a vast new body of experience on how to implement an FOI regime in the context of challenging institutional, resource and other socio-economic constraints, but in the African context this experience is limited only to South Africa, which remains the only African country that has passed and implemented an Access to Information law. Uganda and Angola have also passed FOI legislation but these have not been brought into force yet. The Zimbabwean Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act is a classic example of what an FOI law should not be.

During that era when only Sweden and the USA had FOI legislation, these laws created an understanding of FOI as being merely a part of the right of freedom of expression which in and of itself had come to be perceived as a right that only affects journalists and political activists. However, there has been a major paradigmatic shift in the past decade. Freedom of Information or the Right to Know, properly implemented, is now regarded as a multi-dimensional human right that can make a huge difference to both people and their governments, backed by international legal instruments.

In 1946 the United Nations General Assembly adopted Resolution 59(1), which stated that: “Freedom of information is a fundamental human right and is the touchstone of all the freedoms to which the UN is consecrated.” Other international human rights instruments enveloped the right of access to information within the broader and fundamental right of freedom of expression. For example, the UN General Assembly’s Resolution 217 A (III) on the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights which states that: “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.” Subsequently, the UN General Assembly’s Resolution 2200 A (XXI) on the 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights states that: “Everyone shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of his choice.”

In the Commonwealth, the issue of access to information was first given expression within the Commonwealth in 1980 when the council of Law Ministers issued a statement recognizing the fact that: “public participation in the democratic and government process was at its most significant when citizens had adequate access to information”. However this was given more detail in 1999 when the Commonwealth convened an Expert Group on freedom of information which confirmed that: “Freedom of information should be guaranteed as a legal and enforceable right permitting every individual to obtain records and information held by the executive, the legislative and the judicial arms of the state, as well as any government owned corporation and any other body carrying out public functions.”

This principle was adopted by the council of Law Ministers who went on to formulate further principles which started that; a) member countries should be encouraged to regard freedom of information as a legal and enforceable right, b) there should be a presumption in favour of disclosure and Governments should promote a culture of openness, c) the right of access to information may be subject to limited exemptions but these should be narrowly drawn, d) Governments should maintain and preserve records, and e) in principle, decisions to refuse access to records and information should be subject to independent review. The Ministers also called on the Commonwealth to promote these principles among its member states.

On the African continent the Organisation of African Unity’s (predecessor to the African Union) African Charter on Human and People’s Rights also upheld the right of access to information wherein Article 9 of the Charter states that: “a) Every individual shall have the right to receive information, and b) Every individual shall have the right to express and disseminate his opinions within the law.”

Decades later, at the 32nd Ordinary Session of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights ( Banjul, The Gambia, 2002) African countries adopted a Declaration of Principles on Freedom of Expression in Africa which states that:

“Public bodies hold information not for themselves but as custodians of the public good and everyone has a right to access this information, subject only to clearly defined rules established by law,” and that “the right to information shall be guaranteed by law in accordance with principles” set in the declaration, which include the following among others: “everyone has the right to access information held by public bodies, everyone has the right to access information held by private bodies which is necessary for the exercise or protection of any right; any refusal to disclose information shall be subject to appeal to an independent body and/or the courts; public bodies shall be required, even in the absence of a request, actively to publish important information of significant public interest; no one shall be subject to any sanction for releasing in good faith information on wrongdoing, or that which would disclose a serious threat to health, safety or the environment save where the imposition of sanctions serves a legitimate interest and is necessary in a democratic society; and secrecy laws shall be amended as necessary to comply with freedom of information principles.”

The declaration precedes the AU’s African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance - adopted at the AU Assembly of the AU on 30 January 2007 - which states as one of its objectives “(the promotion of) the establishment of the necessary conditions to foster citizen participation, transparency, access to information, freedom of the press and accountability in the management of public affairs”. The Charter states that member states shall implement the charter in accordance with, among others, the principle of “transparency and fairness in the management of public affairs”. In Article 12 it also calls on member states to: “promote good governance by ensuring transparent and accountable administration”. Article 19 of the Charter calls on each member state to “guarantee conditions of security, free access to information, non-interference, freedom of movement and full cooperation with the electoral observer mission.”

Following these international standards various countries have attempted to codify these access to information rights either in statutes or in constitutions. A country’s constitution should always be the most supreme law of the land and its highest standard on matters of law and rights. In southern Africa six SADC countries have expressly guaranteed the right to information within their constitutional framework, namely; South Africa, Malawi, Mozambique, the DRC, Tanzania and Madagascar. Eight other SADC countries have only protected this right within the context of the broader right of freedom of expression which normally includes the right to “seek, receive and impart information”. These countries are Botswana, Lesotho, Angola, Zambia, Mauritius, Zimbabwe, Namibia and Swaziland. Of these countries, besides Angola and Zimbabwe, only Zambia has a bill at advanced stages. The Zambian bill – a product of a healthy and successful partnership between the government and civil society - was tabled before parliament in 2002. However the bill was soon and unceremoniously withdrawn by the government during its second reading. Six years later, in early 2008 the late Zambian President, Levy Mwanawasa reintroduced the bill in parliament during the official opening of the assembly.

Though Zimbabwe has passed a law called the Access to Information and Protection of Personal Privacy Act (AIPPA), it is difficult to consider this legislation as a proper Right to Information Law because of the numerous and very broad exemptions on the exercise of the right to information and its draconian provisions aimed at controlling the exercise of journalism in the country.

In the eastern part of Africa only Uganda has the right of access to information specifically guaranteed in the constitution (section 41) and the country remains the only country in the region that has passed legislation that gives effect to the right of access to information. Regulations have not yet been passed in order to bring the legislation into force. In Tanzania and Kenya the right to information is only established in the constitution as part of the right to freedom of expression. The draft bills on Freedom of Information law are at advanced stages in both countries. In 2007 a Kenyan government delegation undertook a study tour to South Africa to learn from the experiences there on drafting and implementing a Freedom of Information in the context of a developing African country.

Article 29 of the Ethiopian constitution expressly established the right to information but also within the broader freedom of the press, mass media and artistic creativity. A draft bill on Freedom of Information law is also being considered by the Ethiopian government.

In the western part of the continent, Gambia doesn’t have constitutional protection either of the right of access to information specifically or the right to freedom of expression generally. Gambia is infamous for being one of the most dangerous places for the practice of journalism on the continent. On a more positive note, the constitutions of Ghana, Cameroon and Senegal expressly guarantee the right to information while in Nigeria and Sierra Leone the right is constitutionally established as part of the freedom of expression. The Nigerian draft bill was passed by both houses of Parliament in 2007 but the former President, Olusegun Obasanjo, refused to sign it into law, which was quite a set back for the campaign for Freedom of Information law in Africa. There are presently draft laws in Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone and Liberia. The Liberian draft was tabled before parliament in April 2008 and stands a good chance of being signed into law after supportive remarks made by President Sirleaf-Johnson and key ministers in her cabinet. However there are currently no draft bills in Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Mali and Senegal.

In North Africa, the Moroccan constitution established the right to “freedom of opinion and freedom of expression in all its forms”. Morocco has the only draft bill on Freedom of Information legislation in North Africa.

It is evidently still early days in the enactment of Freedom of Information laws on the African continent. Freedom of Information advocates have a formidable task ahead of them, which is nothing short of changing the culture from that of secrecy to that of openness. Access to information is an important tool for promoting accountability and transparency in public service delivery and should continue to be championed. There is a need to for activists and advocates to remain forever vigilant that countries that have taken bold steps of enacting these laws such as Uganda, Angola and South Africa do not regress into secrecy but are encouraged to strengthen implementation of these laws. Campaign groups and lobbyists must continue to learn from the examples on law advocacy that have come from South Africa, Nigeria, Zambia, Ghana and Kenya. Lastly, civil society and progressive governments in the continent should be encouraged in making Freedom of Information part of the discourse in consolidation of democracy and promotion of socio-economic justice.

* Mukelani Dimba is the Deputy Chief Executive Officer of the Open Democracy Advice Centre . This is based a paper given by the author on the occasion of the regional conference on the Right to Information, organized by the African Network of Constitutional Lawyers, 17 – 18 June 2008, University of Cape Town, South Africa.

* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/

The first Freedom of Information legislation in the world was passed in 1766 when Sweden passed her Freedom of the Press Act. This action would only be followed by the United States of America almost two-hundred years later with the passing of the Freedom of Information Act.

In a review of the current state of philanthropy on the African continent, Bhekinkosi Moyo argues that African organisations are becoming progressively more autonomous from northern donors and able to pursue their own agendas. With organisations such as TrustAfrica and the African Women’s Development Fund (AWDF) taking the lead on independent, local solutions, the challenge remains to take a conscious political step to build the sustainability, independence and autonomy of civil society across the continent.

Through a program of fellowship competitions, regional workshops, and peer networking, the African Humanities Program provides support to the humanities in five African countries, including Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, and Uganda. The program is supported by a grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York. Deadline for receipt of applications at ACLS: December 1,2008.

Ishmael Noor, a 37-year-old shepherd from the Ogaden region in Ethiopia, looked up with tears in his eyes. He said that in 2004, Ethiopian forces—who had already killed his mother, father, brothers, and sisters—murdered his wife days after they were married. They then slaughtered his goats, beat him unconscious, and slashed his shoulder to the bone. Noor’s story fits a larger pattern. In early 2007, at least 90 people were rendered from Kenya to Somalia, and then on to Ethiopia.

The debate over abortion has gone on for decades in Kenya as pro-life and pro-choice camps lock horns over the thorny issue of legalisation. But in the midst of the storm one scientist stands undeterred by attacks from opponents, firm in his resolve that every woman has the right to determine her own reproductive life. Talk about the ever-controversial subject, and Dr Solomon Orero will be happy to explain the surgical practice as well as the wider issue.

Is Ethiopia under Prime Minister Meles Zenawi a worthy ally against extremism in the Horn? Roughly 800 U.S. troops are stationed in Djibouti and working closely with troops from the Ethiopian government. U.S. Special Forces have been providing training to the Ethiopian military. US troops have trained with Ethiopian troops that patrol the border with Somalia.

The foreign ministers of the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States (ACP Group) renewed their support to the Sudanese President, Omer Hassan Al-Bashir, against his indictment by Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC). In a meeting held in the capital of Ghana, Accra, where the six summit of ACP Group will start morrow, the foreign ministers of the 79 state members reiterated their position against efforts to sue the Sudanese President over Darfur crimes.

Mererani in northern Tanzania is the only place on earth where the precious stone tanzanite is mined. Every day thousands of children risk their lives in poorly constructed mine shafts for barely a meal a day. Despite efforts to curb this deadly practice, the global thirst for tanzanite continues to drive these children underground.

When liberation movements take power, their governments are often marked by military mindsets, categorising people as winners and losers and operating along the lines of command and obedience. Such trends are evident in southern Africa. Democratic discourse in search of the common good would look quite different.

A knee-jerk reaction of ‘Tiers-Mondisme’ is to show solidarity with the struggle for freedom among the ‘wretched of the earth’. Sometimes, struggles are glorified, as was the case back in the 1960s. Frantz Fanon’s book ‘Les damnés de la terre’ (the wretched of the earth) was paradigmatic. His manifesto became a call to battle for the Algerian resistance movement against France, the colonial power.

Jean-Paul Sartre wrote the introduction. He was quite selective in his argumentation, tending in some spots to glorify violence as an act of emancipation. Indeed, he seemed to see violence as a purifying force that would turn the colonised into full citizens. Fanon himself however spoke out against excessive post-colonial authoritarianism. In penetrating analyses and withering criticism, he described what he had seen, mainly in West Africa, up to his death in 1961.

Fanon critisised the authoritarian attitudes of the African elite, which usurped young states in the course of decolonisation, and their abuses of power when securing privileges for themselves and turning entire states into instruments of control. His early warnings went largely unheeded, however. Not until the 1990s, when the shortcomings of revolutionary movements could no longer be ignored, did Fanon’s analyses come back into the foreground.

VICTORY IN PEOPLE’S STRUGGLE?

When liberation movements in the so-called third world took up arms, they enjoyed support from the socialist countries as well as solidarity movements in the West. Organisations such as the PAIGC, MPLA, and FRELIMO challenged Portugal’s colonial power. Their resilience in Guinea Bissau and Cape Verde, Angola, and Mozambique even had repercussions in the Lisbon metropole. They triggered the Carnation Revolution, bringing an end to Portuguese colonialism in Africa in the mid-1970s.

In Rhodesia – today’s Zimbabwe – the ZANU and ZAPU liberation movements fought the white minority regime under Ian Smith, which had declared unilateral Independence (UDI) from the British Empire. Colonial rule came to an end in 1980 when the Lancaster House Agreement was signed and ZANU subsequently won the elections.

In Namibia, the United Nations negotiated a transition period for independence, which was ultimately implemented in 1989–90. South Africa had occupied the country in violation of international law. SWAPO fought against this illegal occupation for a quarter of a century.

Four years later, the Namibian model of controlled change helped South Africans hold their first free elections, which were won by the ANC. The former liberation movement thus assumed political responsibility, and it did so in a legitimate fashion.

One must bear in mind that armed resistance was part of the solution both in South Africa and Namibia. It led to negotiations for transitional arrangements towards majority rule. The compromises required from all sides contributed to the transitional periods working out. At the same time, a decidedly patriotic form of writing history turned the independence struggle soon thereafter into a myth.

ZIMBABWEAN TRAUMA

It bears repetition that the unscrupulously violent character of Zimbabwe’s ZANU regime already revealed itself in the early to mid-1980s, when a special unit killed an estimated 20,000 people, mainly in Matabeleland, where the opposition ZAPU had most of its supporters.

The soldiers of the fifth brigade trained by North Korea, took no prisoners. They killed, tortured, raped and humiliated anyone who seemed suspicious (and it was enough to be Ndebele); men, women, and even children. The only organisation to protest was the local catholic church, which raised its voice to protect the victims. The rest of the world, including those who had originally shown solidarity, had little to say; after all, it simply couldn’t be true.

The violence did not stop until ZAPU agreed to sign a pact with the ruling party. ZANU basically took them over. None of this hurt the Mugabe government’s bilateral and multilateral standing. To the contrary: up to the late 1990s, Zimbabwe was considered a success story, an example of successful transition. Indeed, in 1994 Queen Elizabeth II personally bestowed knighthood upon President Mugabe, who had assumed comprehensive executive powers in the meantime. Not until June of this year was his knighthood revoked.

WOUNDS OLD AND NEW

When a new opposition party, the MDC, took to the political stage in Zimbabwe and turned out to be a serious competitor at the end of the 1990s, the ‘Chimurenga’ (struggle) became a permanent institution. Violence became the customary response to political protest. As political power shifted away from Mugabe after he lost a referendum in 2000, his regime became only more violent.

In 2005, Mugabe and his people launched Operation ‘Murambatsvina’ (Drive Out Trash) in raids on pockets of opposition in Harare and other major towns: more than 2 million people are estimated to have lost their already meagre livelihoods in the process. There is no need to delve into the recent escalation of violence, since the election troubles were reported in detail worldwide.

An estimated third of Zimbabwe’s people has fled the country for political and economic reasons; from exile, they try to support family members who have stayed home. All of this is sad proof that life under a liberation movement is not automatically better than it was under colonialism. The human-rights violations of SWAPO have also been downplayed. In the 1980s, the organisation imprisoned thousands of its own members in dungeons in southern Angola, accusing them of spying on behalf of South Africa. These people lost their liberty in spite of never having been proven guilty; indeed, they were not even brought to trial. Many of them did not survive the torture. Those released are scorned even today.

It could have been different in South Africa. The ANC government’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission talked about human rights violations committed by its own members. But the final report containing these findings was never published in its original form. So far, ANC omissions have not been discussed openly.

VICTIMS BECOME PERPETRATORS

There is nothing new about military movements that are supposedly justified in ethical and moral terms quickly losing their legitimacy. Since the French Revolution, liberators have often turned into oppressors, victims into perpetrators. It is not unusual for a new regime to quickly resemble an old one. That has happened time and again around the world.

The Indian psychologist and sociologist Ashis Nandy, one of the founders of critical post-colonial studies, has dealt with this issue in depth. The Intimate Enemy, his book of 1983, discusses how liberators tend to reproduce the past rather than offering genuine alternatives. In this light, the “anti-imperialist” Robert Mugabe turns out to be merely the final executor of the policies of the racist colonists Cecil Rhodes and Ian Smith. Armed combat merely created new repressive institutions of the state for the dominant group within anti-colonial resistance. Former PLO activist Yezid Sayigh argued 1997 in Armed Struggle and the Search for State that this was also happening in the Palestinian liberation movement.

Such power structures often revolve around individual commanders who act to the benefit of their crony supporters. Resistance movements normally adopt rough survival strategies and techniques while fighting an oppressive regime. That culture, unfortunately, takes root and is permanently nurtured. In sum, it becomes questionable whether there is a true difference between the political systems they manage to throw out and what they establish in their place.

In May 1990 Albie Sachs had already spoken of this trend in respect to South Africa. In a lecture at the University of the Western Cape, this South African lawyer, who was crippled by a parcel bomb in Mozambique during his 24-year exile, expressed his doubts about ANC activists being ready for freedom. He worried about the habits they had cultivated. As Sachs put it, the culture and discipline of resistance may have served a survival strategy in the underground, but these skills were certainly not those of free citizens.

Maybe this is why Nelson Mandela became a global icon in his lifetime; the many years he spent in prison kept him away from the daily intrigues and power plays prevalent in an organised liberation movement. Mandela preserved a spirit of human compassion and tolerance that a life of struggle and exile might not have afforded him.

This may sound cynical but might be close to reality. Jacob Zuma, a product of the struggle, cultivates a ‘Zulu warrior culture’. He emerged as a populist alternative to the more intellectual, somewhat aloof Thabo Mbeki, and will probably soon be South Africa’s next president. Zuma has an international reputation for various allegations of corruption, charges of sexual abuse and martial rhetoric (his favourite song is ‘Bring me my machine gun’).

Disappointed by the limits of the liberation they have experienced, many people are looking for substitute saviours. Fortunately, the number of those for whom fundamental values of democracy, liberty and human rights matter more than submissive loyalty to an organisation is growing.

Raymond Suttner is an example. He used to operate underground in South Africa as a member of the ANC, and spent years in solitary confinement as a political prisoner. As a member of parliament and later as ambassador, he represented the ANC government before returning to the academic world from which he originated. In November 2005, he pointed out that ANC ideology and rhetoric do not distinguish between the liberation movement and the people. He thus argues that the liberation movement is a prototype of a state within the state, one that sees itself as the only legitimate source of power.

‘END OF HISTORY’

As we now know, post-colonial life looks a lot like the colonial era did in respect to day-to-day life, the reason being that socialisation factors and attitudes from armed struggle have largely shaped the new political leaders’ understanding of politics, and their idea of how to wield power.

In governmental office, liberation movements tend to mark an ‘end of history’. Any political alternative that does not emerge from within them will not be acceptable. This attitude explains the strong sense of camaraderie between the Mugabe regime and the governments of Angola, Mozambique, Namibia and South Africa over many years. Typcially, any political alternative cropping up in these countries as a result of disillusionment with post-colonial life will be discredited as part of an imperialist conspiracy designed to sabotage national independence.

These governments never seem to even consider the possibility that their own shortcomings may be the reason why opposition forces are becoming stronger. Instead, they only think along the militaristic dichotomy of friend/foe, leaving no legitimate alternative to their own hegemony.

At the same time, the sad truth is that the opposition forces that do stand up against such governments tend to only add to the problem, rather than to provide a solution. All too often, they only want to share the spoils of the state apparatus and its bureaucracy among their cronies once they are strong enough to constitute a true power option. Again, the relevant categories of thought are only winners and losers.

Democracy however is about something completely different: compromise, and even the search for consensus, in pursuit of the public good. To achieve that, one does not need military mindsets, but rather a broad political debate.

* Henning Melber is Executive Director of the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation in Uppsala, Sweden. This text was published first in Development and Cooperation, October 2008.

* Please send comments to or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/

A year on from Ethiopia’s new millennium, Mammo Muchie highlights the country’s historic role as the cradle of African nationalism. Arguing that reparations remain due from the period of fascist Italy’s occupation in the 1930s, Muchie stresses that it is only through rediscovering her essential civic-nationalism that Ethiopia will locate her glory and re-energise African nationalism.

P
eople with the voice, is what they see,
Voices of the people, is what they don't heed,
They chained our doors, but forgot our thoughts,
Today am here, please try to adhere,
To the voices of the people, don't look at the people with the voice

E
xperiences that we go through, they say it can't be true,
Yet we live below a dollar, to them it can be impossible under the solar,
Amongst us are financial controllers, but they insist they are still in control,
Life here is apart, life there is at par,
So life can't be like hell, if only they stop being cruel,

N
ever heard the police, arrest sons of `pot bellies`,
But run us the streets, and make our hearts` get no beat,
Yes, leave but they cant, before a toy gun they plant,
Oh! No!, we are humans`, oops! Where do you live you humans?,
Please stop this cuffs, it's not a bluff-it's enough

S
uppressed are we for how long?, tell us-it wont take a day long,
We suffer under the living standards, while U promised better living stands
When will the abuse stop, don't U think we need a hand from the top?
Stigmatization of where we are from!, is that much to ask for,
am not a beer actor, it's just the fear factor

L
et us show our positivity, why dwell on the negativity,
If I live in a slum, it doesn't mean am dumb,
Am also a person, try to show us passion,
Not if I say where I come from, the myth is am a crook in short form,
So try to reform, cause we'll shout in unison

U
nder us, provide medication for us,
Not if we ask, we have to bribe-that's a hard task
When we don't react, you leave us to see the cask,
May I say it's a must, cause if it were U-you would have burst
Prevention shouldn't be a hard task, or will it if I may ask?

M
y dear, U don't have the Idea
If only you could spare, we know for U its hard to share,
But down lower your Bragg without despair, would U dare?
That's why am putting with pen the slum
Call it if you can -the pen slum

* Bonface Ochieng Owuor is a Kenyan poet.

* Please send comments to or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/

Amandla Publishers agrees with Archbishop Emeritus and the Nobel Peace Laureate Desmond Tutu that ‘[i]f South Africa was a democracy, there had to be certainty that those who led it were as uncorrupt as possible. It is a court of law that will ultimately decide whether [leaders are or not].’ Through publishing its bi-monthly Amandla! magazine, Amandla Publishers contributes to building left and working class organisations and debates.

The Gender Training CoP aims to bring together practitioners from all over the world with a diversity of knowledge and experiences, in order to take stock of the present situation of gender training; what the real successes and failures have been and how gender training can be strengthened as a component of gender mainstreaming and sustainable development.

With the World Bank’s recent recalculations on the number of global poor going unnoticed within the majority of mainstream media channels, Adam W. Parsons laments the absence of external scrutiny of the Bretton Woods institutions. The author illustrates the extent to which the bank’s faith in the Millennium Development Goals remains misguided, and asks whether the bank’s figures can be taken as indicative of any real improvement in the plight of the poor.

The Kenya National Youth Convention (NYC) considers the ongoing MV Faina incident to be an exemplar of the reckless and dangerous conduct of national affairs by elements within the Government of Kenya, and calls for an end to the importation of offensive weaponry into the East African region. Such transactions endanger regional security rather than enhancing it.

Lovers of literature and human rights will gather across the world this Sunday, October 5th, for commemorative readings of the poems of Mahmoud Darwish. In Africa, readings will take place in Kenya, Sudan, Senegal, South Africa, Egypt and Zimbabwe.

One of the most eminent poets in the history of world literature, and a leading voice of the Palestinian people, Darwish died on 9 August, 2008. This worldwide day of commemoration, initiated by the Berlin Literature Festival, will honor his work and his lifetime commitment to promoting peaceful and just coexistence between Israelis and Palestinians. More information, and a full listing of reading and activities around the world, can be found at: