Pambazuka News 371: Challenges of democratic transitions in Africa
Pambazuka News 371: Challenges of democratic transitions in Africa
Tajudeen rages against the attempts in Kenya to criminalise African language media. The state should be making laws to protest society and be willing to sanction those who use the media to exacerbate ethnic tensions rather than seeking to ban them.
African Languages should not be criminalised. In this column last week I wrote about the demonisation of the media in Kenya as Kenyans tried to exorcise themselves of their recent ghostly past.
The media is not without its faults but to blame it for the hatred, violence, wanton destruction of property, neighbours killing one another and communities turning against themselves is simply finding a scapegoat. Such a convenient foil will make it possible to let off all the other culprits and in this case the grand architects of the mayhem, the politicians, the political class, and Kenyan ruling class in general who whip up these sentiments and manipulate the genuine grievances of the masses in pursuit of their own personal and class interests.
As the grand coalition government that is increasingly exposing itself as lacking many grand people, struggles to take off the politicians who were only a few weeks ago sprouting all kinds of extremist statements are uniting against everybody else , becoming holier than thou in preaching national reconciliation, peace and trying to outshine one another as ‘the patriotic Kenyan’! Everyone else is guilty except the political leaders.
The Nairobi Star (Saturday May 10) reported on ‘radical proposals’ emerging from the recent bonding retreat of the new government : ‘vernacular radio stations should be closed down, cabinet ministers agreed …’ . The decision according to the report ‘… followed discussions on what role the media played in the post election period…’.
Really? I do not speak nor understand any of the languages of the 42 officially recognised ethnic groups in Kenya. My understanding of the more widely spoken National language, Kiswahili, is still very much ‘kidogo kidogo’ (i.e. little), yet I am acutely aware of the crass hostilities between different communities, charges of ethnic discrimination and allegations of ethnic monopoly of this or that by one group or the other. So which media is poisoning my mind?
The Kenya ruling elite have been quite successful, until recently, in living in grand denial about the injustices, social, economic and political that have made them one of the most prosperous middle classes in Africa but also one of the most unequal societies in the world. The tragic violence on the back of the disputed elections finally punctured deep holes in this class/crass delusion.
Even a casual familiarity with Kenya’s colonial and post colonial history will reveal the extreme violence perpetrated by the British, well thought to the independence elite who perfected their rule through the same divide and conquer of the British and turned Uhuru (independence) into a permanent burden to the masses. Yet somehow the elite swallowed their own propaganda that Kenya is an oasis of peace and stability. They took comfort in the disintegration of their neighbours and somehow believe that civil wars, genocide, military coups, economic meltdown, etc were things that happen to their neighbours, not in Kenya, the country known internationally as the destination of all exotic safari complacent to the tune of ‘Kenya Yetu, Hakuna Matata’!
The decades of violence from independence including ethnic clashes, ethnic cleansing and high level unsolved political murders were minor details conveniently airbrushed from the official self image of the country, until December 2007.
Now that the ideologically manufactured innocence has finally been exposed the rulers are looking for scapegoats for the troubled paradise, a paradise that has always excluded the majority of its peoples whatever their ethnicity, religion or race.
By making the media broadcasting in indigenous languages the enemy the political elite is only showing itself up as the local settler colonial masters that they have always been. In that colonial mindset the majority of the people, their culture, traditions and their languages become objects of attack and persecution.
The colonialists justified their predatory adventures, oppression and exploitation of the colonised as ‘white man’s burden’ to bring civilisation and God to the natives. The post colonial elite continues the same attack on their own peoples in the name of modernisation which culturally translates as westernisation and uncritically aping the language and cultures of wazungu (Europeans) . That’s why our indigenous languages are referred to as ‘vernacular’ and our children are made to feel ashamed of speaking their mother tongues at school and even punished for speaking them!
The current attack on indigenous language media in Kenya is not unique to Kenya. It is not limited to the media but wholesale attack on Africaness. It takes different forms in many other countries but relentless, all the same.
It is not just about freedom of expression but part of a long attack on the mind of the masses that must be resisted. The English language media are no less guilty of xenophobia, ethnic hatred or distortions, misrepresentation or disinformation. So why pick on the indigenous language stations? Is it because English phobias and ideological biases are preferable to indigenous ones?
In the UK, the Welsh are proud to use their local language and insist on having signposts in Wales in Welsh and have mandatory broadcast in their language. In Britain in general ethnic minorities are not ashamed to reclaim and retain their culture including their languages while being part of a vibrant multi cultural society.
And yet in Kenya the politicians want to legislate against ethnic media! Just imagine the ridiculousness of it all. A kikuyu, Luo, Luhya or any of the numerous diaspora of Kenyan communities in the UK can establish a radio station or any other media in their mother tongue, sometimes even with government support but back home in Kenya, if the politicians have their way, such endeavour would be criminalised!
I am very much aware of the role which the media especially radio (which is still the most influential media across Africa because it is virtually accessible to everyone) can play both negatively and positively in our societies. Radio Mille Coline in Rwanda was both orchestrator and perpetrator for genocidaire elements and genocide. But the solution in post genocide Rwanda was not to ban Radio in Kiyarwanda but to change the laws, criminalise hatred broadcast and publications and reorient the content of programmes in a wider public education programme of continuous fight against the ideology from which genocide springs.
The state should make laws that protect the whole of society and be willing to sanction those who violate them whether in the media or politicians or academics instead of blaming indigenous languages. In blaming the language rather than those who instigate these sentiments Kenyan politicians are behaving like the proverbial ostrich man in the Yoruba saying : O fi ete sile on pa lapa lapa (i.e. someone who is suffering from leprosy is busy seeking medicines for eczema!).
*Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem writes this column as a Pan Africanist.
**Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org
http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/371/48136vote.jpgThe challenges confronting Africa's democratic experiments are many and complex and include entrenching constitutionalism and the reconstruction of the postcolonial state, writes Femi Falana. To move Africa forward, emerging democratic governments would have to confront a legacy of poverty, illiteracy, militarization, and underdevelopment produced by incompetent or corrupt governments.
After several decades of colonialism, Zimbabwe became independent in 1980. Having regard to the progressive antecedent of the leaders of the liberation movement expectations were high that the country would witness rapid socio-economic transformation and political stability. Instead of facing the challenge of the development, President Robert Mugabe turned the country into a one party state. Human rights were suppressed whilst some of the colonial laws were refurbished and applied with ferocity. Many opposition figures were either jailed or driven to exile.
Farmlands, which had been illegally acquired under colonial rule, were violently seized by war veterans at the instance of the government when the national parliament controlled by the ZANU-PF could have promoted land redistribution through legislation. The mismanagement of the economy has led to the unemployment, poverty, deprivations and general dislocation, which has virtually brought the country to her, kneels. The silence of African leaders and connivance of the South African regime led the opposition to turn to the West. Ironically, Mugabe’s anti-imperialist rhetoric, in the circumstances, won him sympathy in many African countries. This development has divided government and even civil society groups with respect to taking a united stand against the misrule of President Mugabe.
Recent experiences from Kenya and Zimbabwe illustrate the difficult and daunting task of consolidating democracy on the continent. Available evidence indicates that many of the new democratic regimes remain fragile and some of the euphoria of the early 1990s had evaporated. By the beginning of the twenty-first century, the authoritarianism and statism of the early post-independence years was in retreat, and, where it persisted, was vigorously contested in a context in which democratic aspirations were firmly implanted in popular consciousness and the pluralization of associational life was an integral part of the political landscape. It was indeed a mark of the changed times that, whereas previously development had been regarded as a prerequisite of democracy, now democracy is seen as indispensable for development.
The challenges confronting Africa's democratic experiments are many and complex and include entrenching constitutionalism and the reconstruction of the postcolonial state; ensuring that the armed forces are permanently kept out of politics, instituting structures for the effective management of natural resources; promoting sustainable development and political stability; nurturing effective leadership, and safeguarding human rights and the rule of law.
In Africa, as elsewhere, democratic government and respect for human rights are closely linked. Democracy is the best means the world has produced to protect and advance human rights, based on individual freedom and dignity. In turn, respect for human rights is the only means by which a democracy can sustain the individual freedom and dignity that enables it to endure.
Despite some improvements in some parts of the continent, Africa remains the site of very serious human rights problems. For example, in the Sudan, the armed conflict in Darfur continues and the dismal human rights situation shows no signs of improvement. Both government and rebels commit horrendous abuses. In Somalia, the civil war continues unabated and the human rights situation goes on deteriorating; the civilian population has been the ultimate victim, as recently reported by Amnesty International. Only a handful of countries that hold the regular multi-party elections in Africa are rated as free, and in line with international and regional standards.
In addition, most of the countries in Africa operate ‘semi-authoritarian regimes’ because they have the facade of democracy; that is, they have political systems, they have all the institutions of democratic political systems, they have elected parliaments, and they hold regular elections. They have nominally independent judiciaries. They have constitutions that are by and large completely acceptable as democratic institutions--but there are, at the same time, very serious problems in the functioning of the democratic system.
Semi-authoritarian regimes are very good at holding multi-party elections while at the same time making sure that the core power of the government is never going to be affected. In other words, they are going to hold elections, but they are not--the regime is not going to lose those elections. Semi-authoritarian regimes intimidate voters, as it happened in the recent elections in Zimbabwe. Semi-authoritarian regimes manipulate state institutions for self-ends—governments don’t respect the laws, and don’t work through institutions. Semi-authoritarian regimes amend constitutions anytime they want.
Semi-authoritarian regimes will not introduce fully participatory, competitive elections that may result in their loss of power, and some are even unsure of how far they really want to go toward political pluralism in their countries. African politics is generally speaking, a matter of personality, not programs. For example, during the Obasanjo administration the prevailing idea was that the president was the father of the nation, the big man, or Kabiyesi, that is, no one dared question him.
A strong and effective democratic process should be able to establish a functioning administrative structure; and address the issue of how leaders are chosen; the issue of how different institutions relate to each other; the issues of how officials should act, for example, how the judiciary should act, the independence of the judiciary from other branches of government, and the problem of how the decisions that are taken by these democratic institutions can be implemented.
To move Africa forward, emerging democratic governments would have to confront a legacy of poverty, illiteracy, militarization, and underdevelopment produced by incompetent or corrupt governments. The syndrome of personal dictatorships and the winner-take-all practice as we have in Zimbabwe for example would need to be addressed, and there must be full respect for human rights; constitutional government and the rule of law; transparency in the wielding of power, and accountability of those who exercise power.
The basic rule of the democracy game is that the winners do not forever dislodge the losers. It is important for the consolidation of democracy that losers believe in the system and think that they can get back into the game. African governments must create an enabling environment in which traditions and values of the constitution will be able to take root and where rights and duties are set out. In this process, the separation of powers must be facilitated. Government must allow institutions to work and must allow citizens to exercise their rights, to live in accordance with their religious beliefs and cultural values, without interference. The legal order must be based on human rights, societal awareness of the instrumental and intrinsic values of democracy, a competent state, and a culture of tolerance.
Democracy requires that those who have authority use it for the public good; a democratic system of government begins by recognizing that all members of society are equal. People should have equal say and equal participation in the affairs of government and decision making in society, because, in the final analysis, government exists to serve the people; the people do not exist to serve government. In other words, governments must enhance individual rights and not stifle their existence. Repressive laws on many African countries’ statute books against personal liberty and habeas corpus must be removed from the statute books.
In most African countries, a tremendous amount of information does not circulate beyond a small portion of the urban population, owing to illiteracy, language barriers, and costs. Because the individual ignorance of personal rights and understanding of what democracy means has encouraged authoritarianism in Africa, political education at the grass roots is necessary. If a genuine democracy is to become a reality in Africa, the participation of the masses has to be sought by politicians, and not bought by manipulators.
Politicians should try to understand what the masses know, because they sometimes lack the ability to articulate their interests and grievances. However, politicians also should be educated about human rights and respect for the constitution. Education is crucial to the development of a culture of tolerance, which, it is hoped, would contribute immensely to the creation of an enabling environment for democracy.
We must encourage citizens to learn the habits of civil disobedience on a massive scale. We must encourage people to go out and demonstrate, to show their opinion regarding issues, because we must eliminate the culture of fear.
Role of civil society
It is unrealistic to expect that African countries will suddenly reverse course without internal pressure from civil society groups and institutionalize stable democratic government. The significance of a strong and energetic civil society in the transition to democracy cannot be over-emphasised. Perhaps one reason that Africa has not crumbled into total absolutism is because civil society has managed to survive, providing a mode of expression against authoritarianism, despite systematic efforts by the state to destroy it.
It is incumbent upon civil society to promote socialization by moving people away from thinking about the state and encouraging them to think what they want without fear. The public must fully participate in the affairs of state, with the state protecting their rights to be recognized. In this context, the value of the role of citizens and civil society is to organize and articulate the interests of local communities and the grass roots to the highest levels—even bringing about the change of laws—by serving as effective pressure groups.
Many governments are not willing to create an enabling environment. But by standing up, civil society organizations can insist and force governments to create a space. We must keep the culture of resistance alive and continue to question authoritarian rule especially on the important issues of human rights, constitutionalism and rule of law.
Political parties, human rights organizations and other civil society groups should mobilize the people to reject economic policies dictated to African governments by the World Bank (WB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which have exacerbated poverty in Africa. The demand for participatory democracy should not be limited to conduct of free and fair elections only. It must also include the management of the economy in the interest of the people, otherwise, the fragile democratic process in bound to collapse.
With the pending elections in Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana and Guinea, civil society organizations in West Africa gathered in this forum should unite in sending a clear message to the ECOWAS and AU that the subversion of democracy under whatever guise. Following this meeting, our engagement should be to immediately commence sensitization and mobilization of the population against the manipulation of constitutions and electoral laws, as well as the electoral process.
* Femi Falana is President West African Bar Association
* This article is based on a presentation at the West African Bar Association held in Abuja, Nigeria, 13 May 2008. The final communique from thetwo-day regional dialogue on the political situation in Zimbabwe can be found at the link shown below
* Please send comments to or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/
When the Government of Kenya began resettling more than 10,000 Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) on Monday, thousands of them who have been camping at the Nakuru Agricultural Society of Kenya (ASK) show ground, some displaced persons said the Government should have reconciled them with the neighbouring communities first instead of rushing to resettle them.
Mzee Ibrahim Githatwa, 76, was among the IDPs who vowed never to go back to Keringet in Kuresoi where he had lived since the 1942 but was forcefully told to leave the premises. This is where he left when their houses were burnt in January with all the properties destroyed.
Mzee Githatwa is not only a widower, but also a father of 13 children some of whom are still depending on him. This is the man who has suffered a great deal under Moi regime and now Kibaki. During Moi he lost seven houses in the 1992 ethnic violence. Even after he could manage, together with some of his children to built five houses, they again got burnt down in January during the pos-election violence.
Even 13 farms where some of them are going to be resettled which include Sirikwa, Kiambogo, Githirika, Muthenji, Nyota, Kangawa and Lagwenda, Sasumua, Willa, Muchorwe, Karirikania, Kadonye and Nyaruai have history of violence every five years when they have general elections.
These are some of the areas that have been the scene of periodic violence since 1992. Since then fighting has not only intensified during general election years – held in 1992, 1997, 2002 and 2007 - and in 2005, when the national referendum on the country's constitution was held, but also leading to loss of properties worth million of shillings, deaths and turmoils.
The lad dispute around these areas, especially in Molo and Kuresoi is between the Kalenjin, Kikuyu and Kisii - against one another. Not forgetting that last year’s violence, in the run up to the 27 December elections intensified in affecting the Kuresoi divisions Keringet, Kuresoi, Kamara and Olenguruone as opposed to other years.
The government is forcing them back when high-ranking politicians who have been consistently implicated in organizing political violence since the 1990s have never been brought to book and continue to operate with impunity.
According to the annexes to the Ndung'u land dispute report released in 2004 the families of former presidents Jomo Kenyatta and Daniel arap Moi feature prominently in the list of prominent high ranking politicians and people who matter in Kenya government as those who have grabbed public land that was recommended for repossession.
Mr Moi and five of his children, Mzee Kenyatta's widow Mama Ngina and scores of MPs, top civil servants, military officers, High Court judges and former Cabinet ministers featured in the report now and then.
Then Lands and Housing minister Amos Kimunya who releasing the report on grabbed land compiled by the Paul Ndung'u Committee without the names, can tell a lot why the issue of lad in Kenya will always remain a big problem even after forcing the displaced to go back to their disputed lands.
The report contained in the two massive volumes is measuring 10 centimetres, of which at 2,017 pages are thicker than two telephone directories. The reports were released by the Government Printer and since then no action has been taken by the government to repossess the lands.
If the government were to take action it would mean that names of all those who have been irregularly allocated public land in urban areas, settlement schemes, forests and reserves, with Moi alone owning 937 hectare farm in Narok hived off Trans Mara Forest be repossessed, then this would at least solve some of the land problems in the country.
According to the report, among President Moi's children who were illegally allocated land includes former Baringo Central MP Mr Gideon Moi and his wife Zahra, Raymond Kiprotich, Doris Choge and Jonathan Toroitich.
The problem would even be more resolved if the government were to go by the Ndungu recommendation that allocation of various parcels to Mama Ngina Kenyatta be revoked. It includes 38 hectares hived off the Kikuyu Escarpment Forest in Kiambu District in 1965, including another 36 hectares in Thika District from the same Kikuyu Escarpment forest allocated to her in 1980 for farming, which Ndungu also recommended to be reclaimed, as well as another 24 hectare parcel allocated in 1993.
Among the cabinet ministers, judges and top soldiers listed to be among beneficiaries of settlement schemes carved out of Agricultural Development Corporation farms include then minister of State William ole Ntimama (now ODM minister of Heritage), assistant minister Kipkalya Kones (now ODM minister for Roads), Court of Appeal Judge Emmanuel O'Kubasu and deputy chief of general staff, Lt Gen Nick Leshan.
Mr Ntimama who claims to be the spokesman of the Maasai communities, also human right activists, was allocated 34 acres of Moi Ndabi Farm where Mr Leshan got 233 acres. Mr Kones got 145 acres in the Agricultural Development Corporation Sirikwa scheme where the average allocations were five acres, according to the report. While Mr Justice O'Kubasu got 40 acres of ADC Jabali also in Nakuru, his land in the ADC Sirikwa scheme in Nakuru District, a public figure that got more than the average that is, Mr Justice William Tuiyot who has since died got 85 acres in the ADC Sirikwa scheme.
Other according to the report include retired Judge Mbito who was also allocated 50 acres of the ADC Zea, while a former commissioner of prisons, Mr Edward Lokopoyit got 90 acres of the land.
According to Daily Nation, December 17, 2004, story by David Okwemba ad Mburu Mwangi, former MPs Joseph Kimkung (Mt Elgon) and Jesse Maizs got 30 and 15 acres respectively in the ADC ZEA area. Former Principal Immigration Officer Henry ole Ndiema got 50 acres and a house in the same area.
A former permanent secretary, Mr William Kimalat got 80 acres of ADC Jabali, while a former top policeman Stanley Manyinya got 130 acres in the same area. Former PC Ishmael Chelang'a (since dead) got 90 acres.
Former MPs G. G. Mokku, Japheth Ekidor, Immanuel Imana, Mr David Sudi, Boaz Kaino and Francis Mutwol also benefited. Mr Kaino got 50 acres, Mr Imana 25, Mr Ekidor 20, Mr Mutwol 10 and Mr Sudi 20 from the ADC Milimani land.
The report also implicates many top soldiers and also clerics as among those listed as having been allocated the land. Most of the Moi Ndabi land was allocated by the director of lands.
Another prominent figure in the list is Kerio Central MP Nicholas Biwott who if could lose the 161 hectares in Kaptagat forest allocated to him in 1994 for the Maria Soti Education Trust was going to benefit thousands of landless people.
Other prominent politicians whom Ngungu recommended that their illegally acquired lad could be repossessed included former minister, a former head of the civil service and a former permanent secretary who stood to lose about 1,170 hectares of land hived off South Nandi Forest in 1999.
The three, Mr Henry Kosgey (the ODM chairman and minister), Dr Sally Kosgei (also ODM minister of Higher Education) and Mr Zakayo Cheruiyot were to exchange the land with farmers on a hilly terrain, even though according to the report there was conflict in the exchange as the Ngerek community, which was supposed to benefit, was left out.
The family of former Lands and Settlement minister Jackson Angaine, was expected to lose more than 900 hectares of land hived off from Mount Kenya forest in 1975 and 1977 if the recommendations were to be taken seriously by the government.
Former Limuru MP Mr Kuria Kanyingi was also named as the beneficiary of a 24 hectare farm carved out of Kiambu Forest in 1984. The report also noted that a title deed was issued for only 15 hectares to Kama Agencies in 1995. It recommends that the allocation to the MP should be revoked.
Those allocated parts of the Ngong forest and Karura Forest in the 1990s that Ndung'u Committee recommended that should all be revoked included former Mathioya MP Joseph Kamotho, former Cooperative Bank of Kenya chairman, Hosea Kiplagat, former Commissioner of Police Shedrack Kiruki and Maj-Gen Humphrey Njoroge.
Also named in the report was former Comptroller of State House John Lokorio who appeared as a beneficiary in settlement schemes in Nakuru District including the Nakuru/Olenguruone/Kiptagich extension.
Also in the same scheme is Mr Kiplagat, Mr Samson Cheramboss who once headed President Moi's security detail, former nominated MP Mr Mark Too, former Moi aide Joshua Kulei and former head of Presidential Press Service Lee Njiru.
Others named include former CID boss Mr Francis Sang, former managing director of Telkom KenyaMr Augustine Cheserem, former minister William Morogo and Eldama Ravine MP Mr Musa Sirma and his wife.
Former MD of the National Cereals and Produce Board Major (Rtd) Wilson Koitaba, former land commissioner Mr Sammy Mwaita received 10 plots and the deputy governor of the Central bank Dr Edward Sambili was allocated 7 hectares. Mr Gideon Moi and his wife got the biggest chunk of 44 hectares.
Other beneficiaries are former PS Dr Nehemiah Ng'eno, Dr Julius Rotich who had been named as one of the anti-corruption authority assistant directors, another former PS Mr Mark Bor, Cooperatives PS Mr Solomon Boit, Deputy police commissioner Mr David Kimaiyo and the chaplain of Kabarak high school Rev Jones Kaleli.
Baringo North MP William Boit, director of Motor Licensing Simon Kirgotty, director of survey Mr H. H. Nyapola, security intelligence deputy director Mr Shukri Baramade and Administration Police commandant Kinuthia Mbugua also got land illegally.
Even after former Kitale Catholic Justice and Peace Commission Director, Father Gabriel Dolan, a year later told the Government to implement the recommendations of the Ndung’u Land Report, nothing has ever happened since.
Dolan was quoted by the Standard Newspaper (March 5, 2005) as saying the Government had promised to effect the proposals by the end of February, but this did not happen.
His suggestion that the Government should restore the faith of its citizens by immediately acting on the findings of the land report landed on the deaf ears. He wanted all grabbed and illegally allocated land should be repossessed and re-distributed to the landless instead of a few people managing all the land resources in the country when the larger population is landless.
* Fr Joachim Omolo Ouko, AJ, People for Peace in Africa (PPA),
* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/
Acclaimed writer and activist Naomi Klein is speaking in London, hosted by War on Want as part of the Hands Off Iraqi Oil coalition, and tickets are going fast! The event is the London launch of the paperback edition of her latest book, Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. Klein, award winning journalist and author of the renowned anti-globalisation manual No Logo, will be at Friends Meeting House on 19 May. War on Want has criticised Gordon Brown for involving corporations that have been widely attacked for deepening poverty and undermining human rights in his latest scheme to combat global poverty.
The 3rd Universal Periodic Review of the Human Rights Council (HRC) will be taking place from 1 - 12 December 2008. The countries that will be reviewed at this session are: Botswana, Bahamas, Burundi, Luxembourg, Barbados, Montenegro, United Arab Emirates, Israel, Liechtenstein, Serbia, Turkmenistan, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Colombia, Uzbekistan, Tuvalu.
The Africa Freedom of Information Centre (AFIC) welcomes the steps taken by Liberia to adopt a Freedom of Information law for the country and calls on the National Legislature to expedite action in passing the Freedom of Information Bill submitted to it last month by a coalition of ordinary citizens, media and civil society organizations.
The Open Society Fellowship supports outstanding individuals from around the world. The fellowship enables innovative professionals—including journalists, activists, academics, and practitioners—to work on projects that inspire meaningful public debate, shape public policy, and generate intellectual ferment within the Open Society Institute.
Unity Radio, a station run by the Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP), was on May 8, 2008 shut down on the orders of the Minister of Information and Communication, Alhaji Ibrahim Ben Kargbo. Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA)’s correspondent reported that the closure according to Kargbo, was due to the installation of an illegal antenna which disturbed the transmission of other radio stations, and the fact that SLPP did not go through the right procedures to register Unity Radio.
This is an exhibition being organized by Communion and Liberation (CL), an
international Catholic organisation that has as part of its objectives the
promotion of culture and education. In Kenya, CL is affiliated to AVSI
Foundation, Companionship of Works Association (CoWA), St Kizito
Vocational Training Institute and Cardinal Otunga Secondary School among
others.
The Director–General of the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) in Guinea, Alfred Saury Guilarogui and two of his officers on May 8, 2008 stormed Nostalgie FM, a privately-owned radio station in Conakry and forcibly interrupted the station’s broadcasting.
Whereas: Given the role of the Senate as a collective conscience of AUC, expressed in the many resolutions adopted over the years denouncing Israeli brutality and systematic racist policies against Palestinians and their basic rights, we propose the following resolution in support of Palestinian academics and institutions of learning:
The Director-General of the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) in Guinea, Alfred Saury Guilarogui and two of his officers on May 8, 2008 stormed Nostalgie FM, a privately-owned radio station in Conakry and forcibly interrupted the station's broadcasting.
Along with its economic presence, China has rapidly expanded its environmental footprint in Africa. An important objective of China's Africa strategy is to extract natural resources which have so far not been accessible. Such resources are often located in fragile ecosystems and countries plagued by corruption and conflict. As a long-term partner in Africa's development, China has an interest in addressing the environmental impacts of its projects. The Chinese government has issued guidelines on the impacts of overseas investments, but will need to strengthen them further.
A new report by Dr. Fareda Banda, “Laws that Discriminate Against Women,” reveals the harsh realities of these discriminatory laws around the world, and explores possibilities for new processes to eliminate such discrimination. Dr. Banda used existing UN mechanisms and national data on the subject to inform the report, which finds that the female half of the population continues to experience state-sanctioned and state-condoned discrimination.
Shell-headquarters in the Netherlands is held liable by Friends of the Earth Netherlands/Nigeria and four Nigerians, for the massive damage that oil spills are causing to villages in the Niger Delta of Nigeria. Last Friday, Dutch lawyers representing the plaintiffs summoned Shell to clarify its role concerning oil spills. In early June, based on Shell-headquarters' response, the plaintiffs will decide whether to proceed with the lawsuit.
Shell says it requires an additional $3 billion (N375 billion) and the resolution of the Niger Delta crisis to be able to end gas flaring in the country, insisting that it will be unable to meet the December 2008 deadline due to insecurity in the oil-rich region and funding shortfalls.
Beyond the Book: Integrating alternative media into publishing plans A participatory workshop at the Cape Town Book Fair (16 June 2008) for all people involved in generating, producing, distributing, promoting and using information for development.
The EISA has availed information on the proportion of women in the lower house of parliaments of Southern African countries. As far as is possible, every effort has been made to exclude nominated and ex officio members from the tallies.
Kenya’s draft bill to establish a Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission is flawed and should be amended, Human Rights Watch has said. Human Rights Watch urged parliament to revise the bill before it becomes law. “The national dialogue and reconciliation process was supposed to create institutions that can address Kenya’s historical injustices and bring criminals to book for their crimes,” said Georgette Gagnon, Africa director at Human Rights Watch.
The consultation proposed by the WSF International Council (IC) is already online at It aims to identify objectives of action that will allow us to reinforce even more the dialogue and the construction of alliances between various organizations, movements and networks from the Pan-Amazon region and from the world.
We, South Africans who faced the might of unjust and brutal apartheid machinery in South Africa and fought against it with all our strength, with the objective to live in a just, democratic society, refuse todaynto celebrate the existence of an Apartheid state in the Middle East. While Israel and its apologists around the world will, with pomp and ceremony, loudly proclaim the 60th anniversary of the establishment of the state of Israel this month, we who have lived with and struggled against oppression and colonialism will, instead, remember 6 decades of
catastrophe for the Palestinian people.
When tens of thousands of people staged demonstrations in Mexico last year to protest a 60 percent increase in the price of tortillas, many analysts pointed to biofuel as the culprit. Because of US government subsidies, American farmers were devoting more and more acreage to corn for ethanol than for food, which sparked a steep rise in corn prices, says Walden Bello.
Two years after a United Nations committee requested that Senegal prosecute or extradite the former dictator of Chad, Hissène Habré, no action has been taken, six human rights organizations has said. Habré fled to Senegal after he was deposed in 1990. Senegal has an unambiguous legal obligation to prosecute or extradite the former dictator to face charges of torture, said a joint statement by several human rights groups.
An inter-departmental task team is being urgently set up to investigate the causes underlying the recent attacks on foreign nationals in Alexandra township and elsewhere, Government Spokesman Themba Maseko said Thursday. He was briefing reporters on the outcome of the latest cabinet meeting, held on Wednesday.
Do ethnically dominated party systems affect the quality of democracy? This Afrobarometer paper measures levels of ethnic voting and tests its relationship to the quality of democracy. The evidence suggests that the extent to which party systems in sub-Saharan Africa are ethnically dominated negatively affects certain measures of the quality of democracy
With the ascendance of China as a robust force on Africa’s economic and political scene, plans are afoot in the European Union (EU) to pre-empt the Asian nation’s dominance on the continent by forming a trilateral partnership that places Europe squarely in the centre. The idea of a multilateral triumvirate was conceived by Louis Michel, the EU’s commissioner for development and humanitarian aid, and seeks to lay out common ground in what has occasionally been a contentious relationship between these three actors.
Imagine that it is May 25, 2063, the 100th anniversary of Africa Day, a day for reflecting on Africa’s successes and failures. The newspaper headline announces, “Last Remaining Oil field in West Africa’s American Territory Dries Up.” The article continues: “The last patch of rainforest will soon be empty land scarred by oil pipelines, pumping stations, and natural gas refineries. Wholesale pollution will be the environmental legacy for future generations.
For a long time woman’s place in the political landscape has been too rough especially in Africa. For a woman to feature in politics, she must be having a skin as thick as that of an elephant as Wangari Maathai Nobel laureate equips it in her memoir Unbowed.
The Digital Standards Organization (Digistan) and its supporters are calling on governments around the globe to use only free and open standards. The organisation, which was set up to defend and promote open digital standards, plans to adopt the Hague Declaration on May 21. Organisations and individuals supporting the effort are also being asked to sign the declaration.
When Jacinta Marete discovered that she was pregnant, she was in her first year in one of the public universities in the country. Having been among the chosen few who secure themselves a place in these institutions of higher learning, her dream of becoming a pharmacist was slowly shaping up.
A growing number of women around Senegal, choose to take charge of their reproductive health with the help of something that looks like a necklace. That decision may keep them from ever being counted among the millions of women globally who are seriously injured or die during childbirth.
May 17th is the International Day against Homophobia. ILGA, the International Lesbian and Gay Association, has chosen this date to launch a yearly report on State-sponsored homophobia around the world. The impressive collection of laws presented in this report is an attempt to show the extent of State-sponsored homophobia in the world.
The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has called on the Ethiopian authorities to drop charges against Alemayehu Mahtemework, the editor of monthly entertainment magazine Enku, and three others who were arrested with him after the publication of a cover story about a jailed popular singer.
The United Nations has evacuated most of its staff from the Sudanese town of Abyei, located in a disputed oil-rich area, amid continued shooting between Government forces and the former southern rebels with whom they reached a peace deal in January 2005.
The United Nations refugee agency has expanded its repatriation operation to the town of Moba in south-eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) by launching road returns this week from Zambia.
Political parties in Sierra Leone have underscored their commitment to holding peaceful local council elections in July at an inter-party dialogue meeting hosted by the United Nations. The main political parties in Sierra Leone have agreed to refrain from engaging in “any activity which is detrimental to the holding of a peaceful election.”
The governments of Malawi and China have signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) which would now engage the private sector from the South Asian country to invest in the southern African country's various investment sectors including cotton and tobacco.
Three African trade blocs plan to harmonise trade policies so Africa can compete more effectively on world markets.Analysts say analogous regimes would help increase intercontinental trade, make the blocs more attractive for foreign investment and make trade negotiations less complicated.
he One Laptop Per Child project is about to find out whether Microsoft, a rival the nonprofit group once derided, is the solution to its problems in spreading inexpensive portable computers to schoolchildren. Microsoft and the laptop organization announced today that the nonprofit's green-and-white "XO" computers now can run Windows in addition to their homegrown interface, which is built on the open Linux operating system.
The runoff for Zimbabwe's presidential election will be held June 27, Zimbabwe's Electoral Commission said Friday. The runoff is the second round of voting after the March 29 election, which saw opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai receiving more votes than President Robert Mugabe.
The brutal murder of MDC activist Beta Chokururama in Murehwa on Sunday and the abduction of Tonderai Ndira from Mabvuku on Wednesday highlight the country’s spiralling crisis of political killings and kidnappings. Chokururama was abducted with three other activists’ 10km after Juru growth point on his way to Ngwerume village in Murehwa, to say goodbye to his mother. The group had planned to flee the country the following day and seek refuge in South Africa.
Reports from around the country indicate that the army is at the forefront of the violence against innocent civilians and opposition officials. Not only have army officers been instructed to vote for Robert Mugabe in the runoff election, they are also being used to intimidate the electorate at huge gatherings that they call “re-education” rallies. Each army violence unit has been assigned a group of over 30 youth militia, who are now reported to be uniformed and are being paid for their brutal deeds. But voters around the country say no amount of violence or intimidation will ever make them vote for ZANU-PF.
Justice Ben Hlatshwayo of the High Court judge has deferred until Monday the bail ruling on the case involving the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions leaders. Their lawyer Alex Muchadehama said Secretary General Wellington Chibebe and President Lovemore Matombo are being accused of communicating falsehoods, when they allegedly told workers during May Day celebrations this year that two teachers had been murdered at Kondo School in Guruve. Both deny that they ever said this.
Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete has urged the country's main opposition party to return to talks to break deadlock of more than a year in forming a power-sharing government in semi-autonomous Zanzibar. Talks between the ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM, or Party of the Revolution) and the opposition Civic United Front (CUF) faltered earlier this year, leaving the Zanzibar islands, where politics have often turned violent, in limbo.
In the wake of every new racist assault Black people worldwide, along with those who have joined our struggle in solidarity, spend countless hours responding to other people's hate and ignorance. Yet, this continual drain on our time and intellectual energy is one of the least recognized casualties of the racism propagated against us, writes Karina Ray.
One by one, they come. They talk about the incessant beatings, the water that was poured over their nose and throat until they couldn’t breathe and the bricks that were tied to their testicles. One says a soldier cocked a gun in his mouth and said “Now you’re dead.” Another recounts how a bagful of chopped, fresh red pepper was pulled over his head, how his eyes and skin felt like they were on fire and he couldn’t breathe. A young man says dead bodies were dropped off in his room, and he was ordered to clean off the blood. Right, demonstration of torture in Karamoja.
Mount Elgon residents have begun disclosing the atrocities meted on them by a criminal gang that has been terrorising them before the joint military and police ´Operation Okoa Maisha´ was launched early this year. The Saboti land Defence Force militia employed methods of torture reminiscent of West Africa in the 90s, including chopping off their victims´ ears on flimsy accusations like drunkenness, cutting down maize stalks, refusing to join the SLDF or paying membership fee.
The absence of last mile equipment and high cost of bandwidth have been identified as the major reasons why broadband Internet access penetration is low in Nigeria. Latest figures released by Internet Statistics, a global Internet usage measurement firm, put the number of broadband users in Nigeria at just 500, compared to over 800,000 in South Africa.
The death rate among adults in rural Malawi has declined by 10% since the introduction of antiretroviral therapy, and in areas with the highest death rate, it may have declined by up to 35%, according to findings from a London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine study published in the May 10th edition of The Lancet. The study also showed a much higher death rate and lower treatment access among those who lived in more remote areas, suggesting that the chief gap in equity of treatment access is between those who live in rural areas and those who live in larger villages or close to highways, rather than along the lines of gender.
Qatari satellite TV news channel Aljazeera was ordered by Moroccan officials on Tuesday (May 6th) to cease broadcast operations from its Rabat studios. The pan-Arab news station aired daily news bulletins on the Maghreb.
Women in Ndele, a remote town in northern Central African Republic, are making a stand for their rights. The local chapter of the national women’s organisation, OFCA, has launched a campaign to alert women to their rights on issues such as female genital mutilation/cutting, early marriages and polygamy.
Elizabeth Kineelwe, the cook at a drop-in centre that provides meals and support to orphans and impoverished families in Soweto, Johannesburg's largest township, is on the frontlines of a nationwide struggle to cope with rising food prices. The cost of basic foods like bread, rice and maizemeal is climbing, but the amount of money the organisation, called Nanga Vhutshilo (Choose Life in the Venda language) Positive Living, receives from the Department of Social Development is not.
Two agreements signed since the end of 2007 offer some hope for an end to more than a decade of violence in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), even if fighting has continued and a lasting solution has yet to be found to the presence in the region of Rwandan Hutu rebels, according to analysts. Since the DRC government and various armed groups in the chronically unstable North Kivu province signed a ceasefire in January, the truce has been repeatedly violated and the number of displaced civilians in the province has increased.
According to Vía Campesina, an international movement that coordinates farmer organizations from Asia, Africa, America and Europe, food sovereignty is the right of all peoples, their nations or unions of States to define their agricultural and food policies, without dumping involving third-party countries. Food sovereignty goes beyond the more common concept of food security, which merely seeks to ensure that a sufficient amount of safe food is produced without taking into account the kind of food produced and how, where and on what scale it is produced.
When in August 2002, the government of Zambia rejected a shipment of humanitarian aid because it contained genetically modified corn, it unleashed a new debate: Is the use of genetically modified foods justified in the alleviation of hunger in the world’s poorest countries?
More than 300 Kenyan refugees have returned home from Uganda weeks after fleeing their homeland in the wake of the inter-ethnic violence that followed last year's presidential election in Kenya.
Botswana’s government is this week promoting the Central Kalahari Game Reserve as a top tourist destination, but it has banned the reserve’s Bushmen from accessing their own water. At this week’s INDABA tourism fair in Durban, the Botswana Tourism Board is promoting Botswana as a top travel destination, and the government has just awarded a safari concession in the reserve to a South African tourist company, the Safari & Adventure Company, close to the Bushman community of Molapo.
The World Bank says it is recalibrating its financing for anti-AIDS efforts in Africa, which shoulders more than two-thirds of the world's HIV/AIDS burden. Some 22.5 million Africans are HIV-positive, and AIDS is the leading cause of premature death on the continent, according to the bank. Hardest hit are productive young people and women. So much so, that many private firms recruit two workers for every job in anticipation of losing staff to the disease.
Within the vast literature on decentralisation, there is little attention on one important aspect of decentralisation – namely the creation of new sub-national administrative units. This despite the fact that governments of developing countries such as Benin, Burkina Faso, Republic of Congo, India, Indonesia, Nigeria and Vietnam, among many others, have created a slew of new units since the 1990s. In an attempt to fill this gap, this paper tries to understand what underlying motives lie behind the creation of new districts in the African country of Uganda and how widely applicable these motives may be in other contexts.
A positive twist towards human rights for Zimbabwean citizens, including lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) community, seems imminent if elections favour the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). While President Robert Mugabe has over the years condemned homosexuality in Zimbabwe, MDC spokeperson Nelson Chamisa revealed that the his organisation will build a new Zimbabwe for all its citizens irrespective of their social associations or even sexual orientation.
The declining humanitarian assistance in the Sahrawi refugee's camp in Algeria leaves children with severe malnutrition. According to a Norwegian Church Aid report to be published next week, one out of five children who have grown up in refuges camp in Algeria are suffering from acute malnutrition
The government of Sudan has announced suspension of dialogue with the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), a Darfur rebel group accused of unleashing fatal attacks on Omdurman at the weekend. Sudanese officials said the international community is already informed about the decision, and is at the brink of consulting it regarding negotiations with other Darfur armed groups.
Johannesburg townships Alexandra and Diepsloot were tense on Thursday morning in the wake of xenophobic violence that has killed a number of people since the weekend, police said. Captain Louise Reed said one man was injured in a suspected mob attack in Diepsloot on Wednesday evening.
A human rights group said on Thursday that 800 000 residents of the Nigerian capital, Abuja, were forcibly evicted over a four-year period as town planners sought to clear space for the fast-growing city. The Swiss-based Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions said in a new report that many of those removed from their homes by authorities between 2003 and 2007 were not given due notice or afforded other usual rights. The group said some evictees were tear-gassed or beaten.
The United Nations is investigating allegations that its peacekeepers sexually abused children in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), its mission in the war-scarred country said on Wednesday. The mission (Monuc) "is deeply concerned by allegations that surfaced recently of sexual exploitation and abuse against some of its Blue Helmets, in the province of North Kivu", spokesperson Kemal Saiki told reporters.
Progressio has a policy of recruiting nationals for Country Representative posts. For this post, we can only consider applications from Zimbabwean nationals. Educated to a degree level in a relevant field, the postholder will have a minimum of fiveyears of direct experience in NGO management, strategic planning and project appraisal, as well as financial management. In addition, s/he should have relevant work experience in Zimbabwe and/or in the Southern Africa region; and experience of fundraising and of recruitment.
The VIII Colloquium seeks to bring together a diverse range of young activists and scholars, interested in acquiring new skills, exchanging experiences and constructing of collaborative human rights networks among nongovernmental organizations, universities and the United Nations.
Pambazuka News 368: Why South Africa will never be like Zimbabwe
Pambazuka News 368: Why South Africa will never be like Zimbabwe
http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/368/47585aids.jpgPambazuka News continues to serialise William Gumede's chapter on Mbeki and the controversies surrounding his AIDS policies. This is from his book 'Thabo Mbeki and the Battle for the Soul of the ANC'. Be sure to look for the last part in the next issue.
For COSATU, the link between HIV and AIDS was irrefutable. General secretary Zwelinzima Vavi pointed to the success of Brazil, a country with similar income disparities to South Africa, in providing medication to its infected citizens, and called on the government to declare a national emergency in terms of TRIPS so that ARV delivery could start.
Formal criticism from inside the ANC was slow to emerge, with those who differed from Mbeki scared of reprisals if they spoke out. Most criticism was uttered in hushed tones, but Madisha’s and Vavi’s relentless public attacks on Mbeki’s AIDS stance opened the way for other prominent black figures to join the choir.
Some had kept their own counsel for fear of being lumped with white conservatives who had taken up the AIDS cudgel only because they could use it to bash the ‘inept’ black government. Thanks to Madisha, Vavi and prominent scientist William Makgoba, the Mbeki-ites could no longer charge that criticism was confined to white reactionaries bent on undermining the black government.
Once the wall of silence had been breached, the AIDS policy came under fire from within. Some of the harshest critics were members of the ANC’s health committee, one of the party’s constitutional structures, while former health minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma told Mbeki privately that his stance was undermining not only the government’s own policy, but his presidency.
The most serious opposition came from individuals serving on the ANC’s powerful NEC, but only as late as mid-2000. At an NEC meeting in Johannesburg, Dlamini-Zuma and Shepherd Mdladlana cautiously warned that Mbeki’s high-profile international advisory panel on AIDS was adding to confusion over the official AIDS message. They couched their arguments in a way that spared Mbeki from direct criticism, emphasising that the government’s message was not being effectively conveyed. They also warned that AIDS had the potential to undermine the ANC’s efforts in the 2000 local elections, given that opposition parties and civil movements were threatening to make AIDS, as well as slow social delivery to the poor, central campaign issues.
Mbeki loyalists such as Essop Pahad and Manto Tshabalala-Msimang responded dismissively that government was doing enough, within its capacity, to deal with the AIDS crisis. They listed AIDS education programmes and the amounts spent on them, arguing that it would cost too much to accede to calls by NGOs, trades unions and churches for the government to supply ARVs to all AIDS sufferers. Tshabalala-Msimang reiterated that the toxicity of ARVs had not been unequivocally determined, and cited warnings by the American government that some ARVs were believed to be so toxic that their use could prove fatal.
Mbeki was adamant that he would not backtrack on any of his AIDS statements, and continued to believe that his views were correct.
But he did agree, albeit reluctantly and unhappily, to refrain from further public comment on AIDS, at least until after the municipal elections. His chief policy guru, Joel Netshitenzhe, was assigned the unenviable task of extricating Mbeki from the hole he had dug for himself, without repudiating anything the president had previously said on the subject of HIV and AIDS.
Fully aware of the damage that had been done to the government’s reputation, Netshitenzhe fell back on the spin doctor’s hardy annual and attacked the media for colluding with critics of the official AIDS policy. Insisting that the government’s programmes were fully effective but not ‘on message’, he got the go-ahead for a R2-million advertising blitz that would somehow make it clear that neither the president nor anyone else in a position of authority had ever said that there was no link between HIV and AIDS.
‘We want to put the theorising behind us and programmes to fight the pandemic in front of us,’ said one senior NEC member optimistically. Mbeki’s international AIDS advisory panel would continue to meet, but behind the scenes, and the president would avoid all public reference to the pandemic until the local government ballots were cast.
The advertising campaign failed to clear up the confusion, not least because no one could admit what lay behind Mbeki’s withdrawal from the public AIDS debate. And since the dissidents continued to use his name in support of their own agenda, his silence was widely interpreted as confirmation that he did not agree with the messages imparted by official government policy.
In the wake of the NEC meeting, members of the ANC’s parliamentary wing became emboldened enough to make their voices heard on a range of issues, including the economic policy, Mbeki’s ineffective ‘quiet diplomacy ’with Zimbabwe and AIDS.
Nelson Mandela tried to meet with Mbeki to raise his concerns over the AIDS policy, but the president was smarting over what he saw as his predecessor’s constant criticism on the subject, and refused to take Mandela’s calls.
At a special meeting of the ANC’s parliamentary caucus in October 2000, Mbeki raged against senior leaders who criticised him in public, specifically on AIDS and Zimbabwe, and slammed the media for its coverage of the AIDS debate.
In contrast, he spoke approvingly about a conference in Uganda the previous month, where some 60 dissident scientists had argued convincingly that there was no scientific proof that HIV caused AIDS. He quoted from a document stating that the virus had never been isolated, and said reports that Uganda had scored significant successes in the fight against AIDS were untrue.
He told the gathered MPs that if one agreed that HIV causes AIDS, it followed that the treatment lay with drugs manufactured by Western corporations. The pharmaceutical companies therefore needed people to believe that HIV and AIDS were linked, in order to peddle their products. One drug company, which he did not name, had confessed, he said, that it had spent vast amounts of money on the search for an AIDS vaccine, but had abandoned the effort after failing to isolate the virus. This fact remained hidden from the public, Mbeki claimed, because the company’s share price would plummet if the truth were told.
He accused the CIA of being involved in a covert plot to spread the belief of an HIV/AIDS link, and cited statistics showing that 10 per cent of Africans died of AIDS. It made no sense, Mbeki argued, to focus the bulk of a state’s resources on this 10 per cent, to the detriment of the remaining 90 per cent. Drug companies continually urged governments to pay attention to a growing number of AIDS orphans, but how, asked the president, were the authorities to distinguish between the needs of AIDS orphans and orphans of any other kind?
He claimed he had the support of the editor of South Africa’s conservative daily newspaper, the Citizen, but said it was less clear that members of his own cabinet stood with him on this issue. They should declare their positions, he said, and the ANC’s MPs should join him in fighting off attempts by international forces to undermine him and the government’s agenda.
Those within the ANC who criticised him were playing into the hands of the local and foreign media – some of whom had dared to describe his views on AIDS as deranged – and unwittingly supporting the campaigns of the powerful drug companies and their allies, Western governments opposed to Mbeki’s vision of success for developing countries.
Before launching his tirade, Mbeki had made it clear to caucus chair Thabang Makwetla that he would take no questions. Deeply shocked by the virulence of his attack, none of the ANC MPs challenged anything he said. According to one, ‘there was a stunned silence in the room’.
Throughout his presidency, Mbeki’s Achilles heel has been his uncompromising ‘you are either with us, or against us’ attitude. He sees all criticism of government policy as a personal attack, and those who dare express views that contradict his own are categorised as secretly hating him, or, worse, wanting to topple him.
His censure of the AIDS critics choked any further criticism of the government’s policy. Not even the bravest ANC leaders would risk being labelled allies of a hostile ‘white’ media, greedy drug manufacturers or covert Western intelligence conspiracies.
In October 2001, during question time in parliament, it emerged that a number of ANC parliamentarians were taking ARVs, paid for by their state medical aid. The inescapable conclusion among activists was that the government could afford to pay for medicine for its own officials and representatives, but such help was too costly for the masses. Former opposition Pan Africanist Congress firebrand Patricia de Lille openly denounced the government’s ‘absolute hypocrisy’, but Mbeki’s response was merely to warn the ANC MPs that the drugs could be toxic. Having successfully drawn a curtain of silence over AIDS critics within the ANC, the president broadened his attacks to include black intellectuals, activists and individuals of all political persuasions who agitated against the government’s policies. A particularly vicious campaign was launched against outspoken physicist and political analyst Sipho Seepe, while Essop Pahad slammed local medical experts as ‘pseudo-scientists’.
Mbeki accused William Makgoba of deliberately leaking a long-awaited MRC report on the devastation wrought by AIDS in South Africa to the media before it was handed to him or the cabinet. Tshabalala-Msimang ordered a forensic audit to sniff out the source of the leak.
Achmat and TAC activists, many of them ANC cadres, were next to face Mbeki’s ire. He refused to meet any TAC representatives, telling confidants: ‘I will not give them the credibility of my presence.’ The vilification of Achmat as a pawn in the hands of Western interest groups intensified, and he was publicly accused of defying ANC discipline.
Achmat had infuriated Mbeki by travelling to Thailand in late 2000, buying 5000 fluconazole pills for 28 cents each, and bringing them back to South Africa in a well-publicised stunt. The government had him arrested for smuggling, and the attacks on the TAC only let up after Mandela visited a very sick Achmat at home in 2002 to plead with him to take ARVs.
Mandela lauded Achmat’s commitment to the ANC and praised him as a role model and loyal member, pledging to ensure that his protests were heard in the right government circles. ‘We were really under siege', Achmat later reflected, ‘and Nelson has given us protection. It was not for us that he did it. He’s not interested in opposing the government. He’s interested in doing what is right.’ Mandela had visited a clinic where the international humanitarian agency, Médicins Sans Frontières, was treating 400 patients with ARV and achieving a compliance rate that exceeded that of most AIDS clinics in America. After his emotional meeting with Achmat, the former president broke his own rule of non-interference with his successor’s governance and increasingly began criticising both Mbeki and the official AIDS policy in public. Mandela was greatly concerned about a growing perception that ‘the ANC does not care about the death of millions’.
He tried again to arrange a meeting with Mbeki, hoping to advise him that he and the First Lady, Zanele, should lead the anti-AIDS campaign. But every time Mandela called, Mbeki’s aides would say he was not available.
In November 2001, Mandela, frustrated at his inability to see Mbeki, used a speech at an ANC rally in the Cape Town settlement of Khayelitsha to extend the challenge to Mbeki and his wife to be the visible faces of government’s attempts to combat AIDS. ‘We have wasted time,’ he said, ‘but the more vigorous and focused we are in what we do, the greater the chance we have of moving forward.’ Mbeki was outraged. Yet again, he took the criticism personally, and privately accused Mandela of overstepping the line. He instructed aides to telephone Madiba and demand an explanation. Mandela denied that he had been attacking the president, and Mbeki finally agreed that they should meet, along with the ANC’s national working committee, to discuss the subject.
At the appointed time and place, however, Mbeki was conspicuously absent. Mandela joked that Mbeki was ‘too busy’, and told the committee that the government’s AIDS policy was creating the impression that it did not care if millions of South Africans died. He urged the immediate introduction of ARVs for pregnant women, as a start.
Jacob Zuma, standing in for the president, assured Mandela that the government was serious about the pandemic, but was not ready to roll out the ARV programme because the effectiveness of the drugs was still being tested in a pilot project. The only problem the government would admit to was one of communication, in keeping with Netshitenzhe’s earlier strategy.
Mandela agreed to reserve his doubts and questions for the next NEC meeting, which Mbeki would hopefully attend, but urged Zuma to play a leading role in the fight against AIDS, because Mbeki’s busy schedule frequently took him abroad.
Archbishop Tutu, just as exasperated as Mandela over the government’s vacillation on AIDS, went public with what was undeniably a rebuke of Mbeki:
'It would be tremendous if our president said this is the common enemy. The stance adopted by the president has harmed his image. He has done wonderfully well – the world thinks the world of him, I want to see him succeed. I think it is silly to hold on to positions that are untenable. At the present time, everybody recognises that the president’s position is undermining his stature in the world. When the New York Times is constantly bashing us over this issue, it is not good for us or for him. He has so much going for him.'
Tutu threw his full support behind efforts to prevent mother-to-child transmission of the virus. ‘Yes, this means the use of Nevirapine if that is what is available. It is irresponsible of us not to save lives we could save. It makes us appear hard-hearted where we are not. We are seen to be lacking in compassion and [seem] uncaring. Women who are raped should be put on a course to ensure that they are not infected.’
He also made the point that, whereas AIDS was considered a chronic condition in the United States, it was tantamount to a death sentence in South Africa. At a January 2001 cabinet meeting, Mbeki finally acknowledged that negative perceptions of South Africa’s AIDS policies were based not on bad communication, but on a lack of consensus over what the government’s message should be. A year later, he and his cabinet accepted, for the first time, that confusion over the policy was no longer a medical or scientific matter, but a major issue that was undermining the country’s interests.
The opposition Inkatha Freedom Party leader, Mangosuthu Buthelezi, decried the lack of leadership on the AIDS front and proposed more stringent monitoring of the activities of Mbeki’s international AIDS advisory council. In his State of the Nation address at the opening of parliament, Mbeki hinted at finally putting the issue to rest when he spoke of government’s intention to ‘intensify its comprehensive programme against AIDS’.
Ahead of the NEC meeting in March 2002, Nelson Mandela was attacked by a number of Mbeki-ites, including one of the president’s loudest cheerleaders, Dumisani Makhaye, a KwaZulu-Natal ANC leader. Thami Mazwai, the black entrepreneur in charge of a publishing house, also launched a broadside against Mandela in the mass-circulation Sunday newspaper City Press, accusing him of unprecedented interference in government affairs.
The NEC spent a whole day discussing the government’s AIDS policy. All the provincial health MECs had been invited to the meeting, but members of the ANC’s health committee, who had been critical of the failure to make ARVs freely available, were barred. When Mandela voiced his concerns, he was heckled and jeered by Mbeki supporters.
The loyalists urged Mbeki to bulldoze ahead with the controversial AIDS policies rather than reverse or revise them, lest this be seen as caving in under pressure from Mandela and others. After hearing impassioned arguments from the likes of Peter Mokaba, the NEC resolved that rape victims, health workers and pregnant women should not be provided with ARVs, because the effectiveness of the drugs remained unproven. The hardliners also pushed through a bizarre decision that the government would appeal against the recent judgment by Judge Chris Botha in the Pretoria High Court ordering that Nevirapine be given to pregnant women.
This was one of several truly extraordinary reactions by the government to a high court ruling. Immediately after it was handed down, then justice minister Penuell Maduna, a trained lawyer, said the judgment could be enforced only in the province where the case was heard. He later retracted his statement, but Tshabalala-Msimang said on national television that the government would not obey the court order. For Mandela, the NEC’s decision to appeal against the ruling was the final proof that people were justified in seeing the ANC as a party that did not care about those who were dying of AIDS.
*William Gumede is the author of Thabo Mbeki and the Battle for the Soul of the ANC - Published by Zed Books (http://zedbooks.co.uk). His latest book, 'The Democracy Gap - Africa's Wasted Years', will be published later this year.
**Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org
Bill Fletcher looks at the hypocrisy surrounding the United States' misadventures into Somalia.
Bush’s so-called war against terrorism entered a further, cynical stage with the recent classification of a Somali group as alleged ‘terrorists’. Al Shabab, the military wing of the Union of Islamic Courts, was declared by the US State Department to be a terrorist organisation. The Bush administration claims that ‘some’ members of Al Shabab are affiliated with Al Qaeda.
In order to understand the cynicism of this move it is important to remember that Somalia was a basket case for over a decade after the overthrow of the dictator Siad Barre. Filled with clan-based warlords, the country had no stable government. An international attempt to forge a transitional national government resulted in no further stability or end to the violence. The rise of a right-wing Islamist group known as the Union of Islamic Courts, however, brought about a period of relative stability and internal peace. While the group was and is ultra-conservative in many of its tenets, it was successful in crushing or co-opting many of the warlords. Further, it was an indigenous group to Somalia and not an arm of another country or an external social movement.
Using the pretext of an alleged - and unproven - connection between the Union of Islamic Courts and Al Qaeda, Ethiopian troops - encouraged and backed by the Bush administration - invaded Somalia in 2006 with the stated objective of supporting the Transitional Federal Government, an institution that was on its last legs and had little support within the population. Although the Ethiopians defeated the UIC in formal battle, the situation in Somalia devolved into guerrilla war and chaos. It has been going downhill ever since.
Al Shabab, whether one supports them or not, is an armed resistance movement. It has been carrying out military actions against troops of the country that invaded Somalia. One does not have to support the UIC or the actions of Al Shabab to recognise that a people have a right to oust those who invade their land.
The Bush administration’s action in classifying Al Shabab as ‘terrorists’ further complicates an already difficult situation. Instead of recognising that Al Shabab is the military wing of a legitimate movement, classifying them as alleged terrorists makes efforts towards a political resolution of the conflict unlikely, if not nearly impossible, just as has happened in Iraq. One does not have to like Al Shabab, or agree with its objectives, as long as it can be demonstrated on the ground that it is a movement that has a real constituency and is militarily confronting an occupying army.
The Bush administration, as it has done in other parts of the world, e.g. in Turkey with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), or in the Philippines with the Communist Party of the Philippines (and their New People’s Army), selectively chooses when to classify an insurgency or resistance as terrorists, based almost solely according to whether the target of the insurgency/resistance is a friend of the Bush administration. In the case of Somalia, the Ethiopians are doing the bidding of the Bush administration as well as serving their own regional ambitions.
There is another piece to this which is worth noting. Throwing around the label of ‘terrorist’ is also aimed at suppressing dissent here at home in the USA. Whether one is a Somali émigré, Somali American, or simply someone who supports Somalia’s right to national self-determination, the label of terrorist has a chilling effect on one’s willingness to speak out. As witnessed during the Cold War with the manner in which the charge of ‘communist sympathiser’ was used to suppress dissent, the suggestion that someone is either soft on terrorism or, worse, aiding and abetting an alleged terrorist group shuts down all reasonable discussion.
So, let’s be clear: the Bush administration is not interested in reasonable discussion. We, however, should be, so we need to push back against this latest outrage.
*Bill Fletcher Jr. is executive editor of The Black Commentator where this article first appeared [www.blackcommentator.com">. He is also a senior scholar with the Institute for Policy Studies and the immediate past president of TransAfrica Forum.
**Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org
Thanks for the excellent piece [The Complexities of Zimbabwe, by Chido with which I am very much in agreement. Perhaps there is one small element not addressed though in the line up of the players. Whilst of course there is massive Western (and indeed African) leaders' hypocrisy in relation to Zimbabwe, there is also a strong element of Western (Northern?) civil society that is often conflated by outsiders into an undifferentiated 'West'. Although solidarity and anti-imperialism have been massively undermined, it is entirely consistent to be anti the Iraq war as well as the excesses of Mugabe etc - as indeed Pambazuka testifies. Indeed it seems only correct to be opposed to both neo-liberalism and authoritarian economic nationalism - which seem the different sides of the same coin
A luta continua.
http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/368/47866zim.jpgIn this plea, Maxwell V Madzikanga argues that Zimbabwe belongs to the many ‘courageous daughters and sons of Zimbabwe who in their prime paid the ultimate price in the inaugural Chinhoyi battle, in Tanzania, Nyadzonya, Chimoio and Tembwe, and across the breadth of Zimbabwe during the war for liberation.’
I read about the situation in Zimbabwe and saw images of what is happening there in the 23 April edition of the Zimbabwean newspaper. l cannot continue to betray my country by keeping silent on the need for total respect of human rights and human dignity in Zimbabwe. The reports and pictures show the extent of the shocking degradation of our humanity as peace-loving and civilised Zimbabweans. I feel that this enjoins me to visit a number of historical and current issues relating to the situation in Zimbabwe.
The UN must intervene immediately and comprehensively in Zimbabwe rather than holding meetings as if everything is okay. It does not help for the UN and world leaders to sit around gold-plated tables and diamond-coated chairs, sipping wine and salivating for and savouring fat cheques of per diem allowances while Zimbabwe goes up in smoke, burning the dried remnants of humanity. Hiding behind diplomatic nuances does not help either; the situation in Zimbabwe is a crisis of unimaginable proportions. The position taken by President Thabo Mbeki is very disheartening. The call that he step down as mediator in the crisis is valid. President Mbeki has let Zimbabweans down over the last two years of ‘quiet diplomacy’. I am, however, quite encouraged by the mature and courageous (albeit unpopular) comments made by the ANC President, Jacob Zuma. These are words for progress and for the future, not just for South Africa but for Zimbabwe, SADC and Africa as a whole.
Zimbabwe does not and will never belong to Morgan Tsvangirai; Robert Mugabe will never own Zimbabwe’s title deeds. This sacrosanct country belongs to our forefathers, to ourselves, and to future generations. Our forefathers had a deep respect for human rights that is reflected in our culture, traditions and customs. They worshipped the sanctity of human life and dignity in every aspect of our society. They were noble people who understood that leadership is not a lifetime calling but a duty and responsibility that had to be cherished and perfected for passing on to subsequent generations. So why are our current leaders refusing to acknowledge this, and to play their part in upholding our age-old democracy in Zimbabwe?
Zimbabwe belongs to those many fine and courageous daughters and sons of Zimbabwe who in their prime paid the ultimate price in the inaugural Chinhoyi battle, in Tanzania, Nyadzonya, Chimoio and Tembwe, and across the breadth of Zimbabwe during the war for liberation, majority rule and human rights. Zimbabwe belongs to all of us Zimbabweans. It is our duty to uphold values of life and dignity and responsible leadership for our generation and for generations to come. None of us owns these values. We are custodians and conduits for the evolution of the history of our people from the last to the next generation.
There is no justification for inflicting the amount of fear, pain, and injury on innocent women, men, grandmothers, grandfathers, girls and boys that has been witnessed in Chiwundura, Musana, Murehwa or Zvimba communal areas simply because they voted for MDC or Zanu-PF. Every Zimbabwean who has attained the age of suffrage has the constitutional right and freedom to select representatives and leaders of their preference without fear of reprisal whether before, during or after the election process. Zimbabwe belongs to the many invisible millions who should exercise their right to vote freely and to live dignified lives. Unfortunately our leaders do not see this, beyond political rhetoric.
The leadership in SADC in general has been a great disappointment. Despite isolated utterances, very little has come by way of tangible action, making all the regional initiatives ineffective. There is a clear need for more action, openness and courage from SADC, otherwise Zimbabwe will continue to bleed socially and economically – but not because Gordon Brown is tightening his grip on Zimbabwe. Harare is burning because we have turned against each other, torched our beautiful home, maimed innocent villagers and killed for no justifiable cause. We have turned Zimbabwe into a land of mourning, fear and uncertainty where painful, unnecessary and undignified death has become an ever-attendant reality.
Torture in all its forms is an abomination to human existence, whether perpetrated by the military, war veterans, Zanu-PF or MDC. A day of reckoning will come when all human rights violators will be called to account. Running to the east or flying to the west will not help. Going down into the abyss will not save the perpetrators from inevitable justice. This resonates with Zimbabwe’s culture, traditions, and beliefs, according to which no crime can be concealed forever, the truth will always out, and justice will be served. Zimbabweans are intricately bound by blood, tradition, ethos, totem, region, history and race. To decimate such a rich and strong heritage is an unforgivable crime; it is anti-Zimbabwe. Our children should be able to admire and be proud of the beauty of our land. Every citizen should be able to cross the breadth and explore the depth of our beautiful country without fearing the cruelty and harm now associated with the darkness. Zimbabwe’s youth should be able to hold hands in the spirit of brotherhood and sisterhood and enjoy bright prospects for their future.
Zimbabwe’s schools need to function again and achieve the high standards and reputation that they are capable of attaining and so richly deserve. The health system needs to be rejuvenated to deliver effective, equitable and sustainable services for all citizens in urban and rural areas. The clergy and worshippers of all persuasions should be able to worship in genuine peace and security. The army, police and other security agencies should carry out their roles professionally and impartially. One should be able to stand under and salute the Zimbabwean flag in the full knowledge and confidence that it represents the sovereignty of the country, and that all our political leaders respect and value this sovereignty and conduct their duties with integrity. Our economy should be resuscitated so that prosperity starts flowing through its arteries and veins again. Our rivers should flow with freedom and life. That to me is what our people are asking for from their political leaders, not the violence and abuse of human rights that resulted from the March elections.
I cannot underscore the importance and significance of breathing life back into all spheres of Zimbabwean society, a society l love and am attached to so deeply. My father was tortured for a long period during the liberation struggle. As he lies in his grave, I wonder what he makes of the Zimbabwe of today. I guess one question he would ask is whether it was worth his suffering for the liberation of the country. Josiah Magama Tongogara, the late freedom fighter, famously implored the liberation military wings to return home and rebuild Zimbabwe when the war was won. What happened to the liberation slogan ‘we are our own liberators’ that we chanted from an early age? Do our leaders now want us to be liberated from ourselves? We must always cherish our liberation from oppression and tyranny.
I write with passion because the situation in Zimbabwe tortures me and l cannot remain silent. Nor can I be silenced. Our leadership has made glaring mistakes and continues to act as if they own our people, as if only they can and will determine our people’s destiny. They continue to transact hatred and hate speech. They continue to grandstand, whether from the safety of exile or of government.
We need a new Zimbabwe: a Zimbabwe that upholds basic and fundamental human rights, a Zimbabwe that reflects on its past and present experiences with wise counsel, a Zimbabwe that breathes life into the future, a Zimbabwe that values the life and dignity of the poor, impoverished and marginalised members of its society.
Zimbabwe deserves a visionary leadership that carries out its role of national stewardship – a leadership that can swallow its pride and say, ‘Morgan, you are my brother. I know we have fought for supremacy in the past, but our people are bleeding. For their sake let us sit together at the table of brotherhood and plan for the future of our beloved country.’ A leadership that can swallow its pride and hatred and say, ‘Robert, you are my brother. I know we have fought viciously and bitterly for dominance and caused suffering to our people because we neglected our responsibilities as leaders. Let us sit down as brothers, put our differences in the past and create a legacy for future generations – a legacy for them to cherish and be proud of, a legacy that will make our country a great nation again.’ Zimbabwe deserves a leadership that acts with humility, courage, honesty and wisdom – a leadership that is God-fearing and peace-loving and that identifies with the suffering, wounded and dying. Are our leaders suggesting that these values are beyond them?
We all love our beautiful country. Let us all play our part in accepting the mistakes we have made and start rebuilding the ruins. We must negotiate with sincerity, persuade honestly, pray humbly, advocate with conviction, live our daily lives with integrity and honour and treat our sisters and brothers with fairness and compassion. If we don’t, there will be a Zimbabwe that we will neither be proud to talk about nor identify with. Let us remember that this is not about Thabo Mbeki declaring that Zimbabwe is crisis-free, or Levy Mwanawasa, Kofi Annan and Gordon Brown declaring that the crisis exists. It is about Zimbabweans, with the support of the international community, standing up and saying that the current Zimbabwe is not what we as Zimbabweans want or yearn for – that we as Zimbabweans long for a genuinely free, peaceful and prosperous Zimbabwe where all its citizens are respected and can live in dignity.
I would like to end by calling on the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) to execute its mandate fully and impartially. Sooner or later the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission will be called to collective and individual account for the deeds it has done. It is not too late to avert total erosion of the trust placed in this august body by the people of Zimbabwe.
In conclusion, let us not tire in seeking justice, freedom and prosperity for our country, and in seeking to serve our country with commitment and integrity. Zimbabwe belongs to the dead and the living, to you and to me, but more importantly to the ‘invisibles’ among us and to posterity.
*Maxwell V Madzikanga is a senior HIV/AIDS and human rights researcher at the Human Rights Centre, Colchester, Essex, United Kingdom.
**Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org
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http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/368/47869hospital.jpgAs the people of Equatorial Guinea continue to die from AIDS and other diseases, Agustin Velloso highlights the fact that the elite in power receive their medical care abroad. Spain, one of the country's more important trading partners, turns a blind eye to Equatorial Guinea's corrupt health-care industry.
In Madrid at the end of October 2007, President Zapatero promised to give 0.7% of GDP for development aid during workshops promoted by the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID) and presided over by Queen Sofía. As he did so, a boy we can call Miguel, sick with AIDS in Equatorial Guinea, lay dying in his mother's arms in the hospital in Malabo, the country's capital.
One of the objectives of the AECID is to train doctors in Equatorial Guinea to treat AIDS and to advise their clinical work with AIDS patients. So one is not dealing with witchdoctors here but doctors trained by the AECID. Yet they gave Miguel an extract of tree bark rather than the internationally recognised treatment, antiretrovirals. Antiretrovirals are available in Equatorial Guinea; international agencies donate them.
The reason Miguel did not receive the right treatment is corruption by the people responsible for caring for his health. According to ASODEGUE, the Association for Democratic Solidarity with Equatorial Guinea, the prime minister called a meeting several months ago of the national coordinators of the campaign against AIDS and of international agencies working in the country. Among them were delegates from the World Health Organisation (WHO) and AECID's experts who advise Equatorial Guinea's health ministry. A niece of President Obiang also took part. She is not a doctor but a businesswoman. She presented the meeting's participants with a project to produce the bark extract (called Fagaricine) to market as an AIDS treatment. She also asked their opinion about the project.
In its January 2008 Republic of Congo WHO Office Information Bulletin, the WHO notes ‘Fagaricine is not an AIDS drug’[1]. Whatever the experts’ opinion may have been, a tragedy took place shortly afterwards when a group of patients, including Miguel, attended their routine appointments in Malabo hospital to collect their antiretrovirals. Instead, they received Fagaricine. This group of guinea pigs included children and adults and at least one expectant mother. No explanation was given; most of the people did not even know.
The group soon began to get worse. Some died. The population became concerned. Despite foreign aid and government propaganda, AIDS treatment in the country is a disaster. Fagaricine is currently no longer prescribed in Malabo hospital but it is still sold in a few pharmacies.
Meanwhile, Obiang and his circle receive their medical care abroad. Some pay astronomical bills in private clinics in the United States, while others are treated for free in Spain's public hospitals. At the same time private clinics flourish in Equatorial Guinea, but only the very well-off can afford their services. President Obiang's wife owns several of them; most have his family members as partners.
The government is unable to provide health care to the population. As opposition leader Plácido Mico noted at the National Economic Conference in November 2007 ‘the health care situation in Equatorial Guinea, a multimillionaire country, is without doubt the best example of our deep inequalities, injustices and social exclusion, as is the distribution of wealth in the country. Apart from Mongomo, no general hospital in the country permits even a straightforward x-ray.’ [2]
Equatorial Guinea is one of the main producers of oil and gas in Africa and has been a most favoured beneficiary of technical and economic aid from Spain for decades. The AECID implements its health work there ‘via various projects with one common denominator: the formation of a framework permitting the institution building of the National Health System’. One of these projects, the control of endemic diseases, is carried out for AECID by Spanish state bodies – the National Centre of Tropical Medicine and the Carlos the Third Health Institute. With formidable funding they aim ‘to achieve the training and improvement in operative capacity of local technical personnel in the Health System and in the National Programmes’[3]. The main endemic disease is AIDS.
The argument used by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs and Cooperation in Equatorial Guinea to justify their expenditure is that it is being used to build ‘local capacity’ for each of the ‘National Programmes’.
Tuberculosis and AIDS are allowed to get out of control while discriminatory laws are issued against people who are HIV positive, such as Presidential Decree No. 107/2006 of 20 November 2007, which ordains ‘the requirement of an HIV/AIDS test certificate in order to obtain certain public services’.
During the recent electoral campaign in Spain, María Teresa Fernández de la Vega, the Spanish government's First Vice-President and Presidency Minister, promised, alongside Miguel Angel Moratinos, Minister for Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, and Leire Pajín, Secretary of State for International Cooperation, that Spain would ‘make history in the next four years’ and be ‘a leader in solidarity’. She also stressed that Spanish socialists believe in politics ‘as a means to make the world a better place’ and that, since we are the eighth biggest economy in the world ‘we have to take on the responsibility demanded by our place on the world stage’.[3]
Despite the sonorous propaganda about international aid, more resounding still is the silence about the Obiang family's corruption and the consequences of Spanish development cooperation in Equatorial Guinea.
*Agustín Velloso is professor of education sciences at the National University of Education in Madrid. This article was translated by Toni Solo, an activist living in Nicaragua.
**Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org
*** For notes and references please click here
This article [Complexities of Zimbabwe, is right on the money. Yes, it highlights, 'the various competing interests in Zimbabwe, the MDC, Zanu-PF, Mugabe and the West in relation to what the Zimbabweans are hoping to get out of democracy'. The core of the matter is ‘what is in it for the people of Zimbabwe?' I pray for the people of Zimbabwe to be rescued from all those devouring animals. Let the world know that there are those despots and their cronies who seek not just power but use that power to subdue, intimidate, beat/ torture/ abuse and kill their own people – our brothers and sisters in many parts of Africa: Zimbabwe, Kenya, Ethiopia, Somalia, Eritrea, Sudan … People PRAY! Do not be prey.
Reading this brought back many painful memories. When will it ever stop?
www.pambazuka.org
http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/368/47874congo.jpgWithin the context of an elusive peace in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo and an ongoing assault by the government against the fundamental rights of the people of the Lower Congo Region, it has come to our attention that Professor Ernest Wamba dia Wamba and the Honorable Deputy Kiakwama have been targeted for assassination.
Both individuals have been actively defending the rights of the people of the Lower Congo to express themselves freely. They, like many other Congolese from other regions of the country, have condemned the wanton violence of government police forces against members of the Bundu dia Kongo (BdK), a movement for the cultural and spiritual emancipation of the Congo people. They have condemned the manner in which, since February 2008, brutal repression has led to the deaths of innocent people, including infants and older people. BdK is working to find a way for all sides to come together, so that a healing process can be initiated.
Ota Benga Alliance for Peace, Healing and Dignity calls on the DRC government to protect Wamba dia Wamba and Deputy Kiakwama from threatened assassinations.
If the information regarding the threats against the lives of Professor Wamba dia Wamba and Deputy Kiakwama is correct, we call on all those in the government who are directly and indirectly responsible for the maintenance of safety and peace for all Congolese citizens to do everything in their power to prevent the execution of such a plan.
Should the above threat against the lives of Prof Ernest Wamba dia Wamba and Honorable Kiakwama take place, we shall hold the government of the DRC responsible and accountable, and do all that is necessary to ensure that the institutions and/or individuals are brought to justice.
**Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org
I love your news articles [The Complexities of Zimbabwe; They are very fairly written and balanced. Please continue the good work.
alubsey
Pambazuka News 366: Zimbabwe: Three strikes but not out
Pambazuka News 366: Zimbabwe: Three strikes but not out
Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem looks at the the Africa Public Health Development Trust (APHDT) campaign to hold African governments to their commitment of allocating 15% of their annual budgets to health.
There are many people who used to be firebrand revolutionaries who have retreated into NGOs and are adapting guerrilla strategies to their advocacy, ambushing governments and others who hold power over what we eat, what we drink, our leisure and pleasures, be they corporate shirks, religious establishments or other powers that may be.
Many are moving away from inertia-inducing cynicism to active engagement and strategic infiltration of global, regional and sub-regional multilateral meetings, and influencing their agenda both from within and without. A downside of this, of course, is the constant danger of being incorporated, of popular ideas being hijacked and subverted, or of becoming too respectable and ineffectual.
There was resistance among many of Africa's leaders about opening up their summits and other regional multilateral meetings. Many of them were bent on keeping the business of government the exclusive preserve of 'sovereignty and territorial integrity' of largely unelected and mostly unelectable dictators. However, due to the persistence and perseverance of pro-democracy forces and continuing democratic gains, the spaces that opened up at national levels gained complementary spaces at sub-regional and continental levels. In some cases rights, conventions, charters and other politico-legal instruments agreed at the continental level have become a catalyst for reform at national levels. The engagement by human rights and other pro-democracy groups with the African Commission for Human and People's Rights (ACHPR) is one good example.
A major consequence of entering the corridors of power is that many of us are ceasing to be active revolutionaries and becoming expert RESOLUTIONARIES, adept at tracking these events, plodding through voluminous and sometimes unreadable documents.
But this no longer true among a growing brigade of African Resolutionaries. They read these documents and use them as entry points to engage with our governments, policy makers, multilateral agencies and developments partners at various levels. One group that is likely to be more influential in the long run is the Africa Public Health Development Trust (APHDT), a coalition of health advocacy groups across Africa being coordinated by the indefatigable Rotimi Sankore, a veteran in Africa's social movement. As we gain more legitimate space for civil and political rights, socio-economic and cultural rights, rights to development will become more central to our social movements, superseding the 'sexy by default' traditional human rights groups and the protest by per diem that some of them have become.
Some of the contradictory dynamics in engaging with governments are evident in APHDT's campaign to get African governments to meet their commitment to allocate 15% of their annual budgets to health. The APHDT and its allies are campaigning that they honour their commitment. However, at the recent AU/ECA joint meeting of African finance, planning and economic development ministers between 31 March and 2 April this commitment was going to be quietly dropped, but for the presence of the APDHT and its allies, including the UNMC.
The agenda was packed, but both APDHT and the UNMC shadowed the meeting to guarantee finance for Africa's capacity to meet the MDGs, and in particular to ensure that the public health commitments in relation to the four health-related goals, as well as the Abuja 15% commitment, remain.
Of the four points suggested by the CSOs that were persuasive to the experts, only the following two, in modified language, made it to the ministers' final resolutions:
1.That towards actualising the implementation of the AU Africa Health Strategy and associated health plans, including those on HIV, TB, malaria and reproductive health, African countries must urgently meet the AU Abuja pledge to allocate at least 15% of national budgets to health, combined with a consistent upward review of percentage expenditure on health and per capita expenditure on health, to ensure that the necessary levels of expenditure to increase life expectancy by 2010 and to meet the health-based MDGs by 2015 are achieved.
2.That African ministers of finance, planning and economic development organize a joint conference by 2008 or early 2009 to agree on the specifics for sustainable health financing to implement the Africa health frameworks and meet the health-based MDGs.
The recommendations that ministers adopted under paragraph 153 of the draft report, which also informed resolution 7 bullet 5 of the same report, were silent on the 15%.
There was discontent among the finance ministers regarding the feasibility of achieving the 15% target when there are so many competing priorities in the budget. Fiscal conservatism is the norm for finance ministers in these ideologically driven days of neo-liberalism. However, ministers have no right to refuse to implement their political bosses' decisions. They can only do so if their political bosses have forgotten their own commitments and the citizens are not aware of them. Citizens have a duty to remind them and also demand that these commitments are met.
It is most scandalous that according to the APDHT ‘…Africa currently loses over 8 million people a year mainly to TB, HIV, malaria, maternal mortality… This tragic loss, which is the equivalent of whole countries dying out and greater than losses from all modern conflicts combined, is a result of weak or collapsed public health systems.’
It goes without saying therefore that ‘…the long-term sustainable financing of public health as a whole should be recognised as a top social and economic development priority for the ECA and AU Member States.’ And indeed anyone seriously interested in Africa's development.
If you are outraged that millions of our peoples die annually in most cases from preventable diseases you have a duty to challenge your minister of finance to stop robbing the sick and causing more unnecessary deaths by balancing books against lives. The recommendations will be going forward to the next summit in Cairo. Be sure that your president recommits himself or herself to the Abuja pledge and not renege on them as the ministers are suggesting.
Our heads of state, ministers of finance, health, education and international partners express commitment to meeting the MDGs, yet they are unwilling to put their money where their mouth is. It must be that their hearts are not in it.
African governments are quick to partner with anybody, and cry their hearts out when it comes to aid, trade and debt, but are reluctant to be accountable to their own citizens about their own budgeting and spending commitments. Africa cannot insist (rightly) that the richer countries meet their commitment to increase aid to 0.7 % of their GDPs and then renege on specific commitments to their own peoples.
The 2001 Abuja 15% pledge is not just a number that can be conveniently erased from documents or dropped quietly. It is not just another statistic. It is a betrayal of the dead and the living. It is a choice between life and death.
*Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem writes this column as a Pan Africanist.
**Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org
Pambazuka News continues to serialize William Gumede's chapter on Mbeki and the controversies surrounding his AIDS policies. This is from his book "Thabo Mbeki and the Battle for the Soul of the ANC." Be sure to look for parts three through five in upcoming issues.
In 1996,researchers linked to Pretoria University and representing a biotech company called Cryopreservation Technologies claimed they had found a cure for AIDS.[10] Zigi Visser and his ex-wife Olga lobbied senior officials in the department of health and in the ANC, who put them in touch with Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma.
The go-between, Joshua Nxumalo, a former MK cadre, played a crucial role in setting up meetings between the Virodene drug researchers, Dlamini-Zuma and eventually Mbeki. Nxumalo was later part of a BEE consortium that bought the rights to Virodene. Dlamini-Zuma was sufficiently impressed with the Vissers’ report on their research to secure a quicker meeting with Mbeki, then deputy president and whose diary was notoriously almost always full. The Vissers were looking for government endorsement and money. Their scientific peers had been sceptical. The Medical Control Council had refused to issue the company with a licence to produce Virodene. Following a review of their research, the MCC, Gauteng health department and senior scientists at the University of Pretoria had rejected the application for a licence on the basis that the drug was ineffective, even dangerous. The Pretoria group hoped that Mbeki would prove more receptive. Shortly before Christmas 1996,Dlamini-Zuma and Mbeki set aside protocol and convention and secured for the researchers a cabinet hearing for their preliminary findings, which had not been subject to peer review.
The Virodene researchers arrived at the Union Buildings in January 1997 with a posse of ‘cured’ patients who testified to the ‘positive’ effects of the treatment. An excited Mbeki had primed his colleagues well. The cabinet received the group warmly, and almost without question accepted the researchers ’claims[11] and their accusation that the MCC had rejected them because it was in cahoots with inter- national pharmaceutical companies.[12] Jakes Gerwel, Mandela’s cabinet secretary, said later that ministers were overwhelmed with ‘awe and pride ’as the Virodene researchers’ ‘patients’ related tales of miracle cures.[13] Mbeki would later write in the ANC’s journal Mayibuyewhat a ‘privilege’ it had been to hear the moving testi- mony of AIDS sufferers who had been treated with Virodene,with seemingly very encouraging results.[14]
The Virodene team’s sales pitch was that not only was the product much cheaper, but it was also home-grown. The latter particularly aroused Mbeki’s interest. At the time, he and most of the cabinet ministers saw themselves as being under siege from a vast conspiracy of local white critics, black trade unions and civil society activists, Western governments and international business. The Virodene researchers appeared to be a godsend. The deputy president had already just about settled on an idea (after much contemplation) that would define his upcoming presidency.[15] Mbeki hoped his term of office would be defined by an African Renaissance, which would see the continent, under the leadership of a democratic South Africa, undergoing social, political and economic renewal that would finally make it an equal partner ofmore prosperous regions, especially the West. An important component would be African solutions for African problems.[16] Mbeki latched onto the Virodene proposal as a possible African solution to one of Africa’s greatest challenges.
Virodene was later shown by an independent panel, led by the South African Medical Research Council, to contain dimethylformamide,a toxic industrial solvent used in dry-cleaning. A month after the Virodene researchers so persuasively addressed cabinet, the MCC announced that Olga Visser and her associates were flouting accepted testing norms, and promptly banned them from testing their product on humans. Mbeki and Dlamini-Zuma were severely embarrassed. Oppo- sition parties and the media hit out at the government. DA leader Tony Leon accused Mbeki of being obsessed with finding African solutions to every problem’.[17] He said Mbeki’s support for Virodene amounted to resorting to ‘snake oil cures’ and ‘quackery’.[18] The Sunday Times lashed out at a cabinet whose ‘combined technical knowledge of the HI Virus fits on the back of a postcard’.[19]Both Mbeki and Dlamini- Zuma viewed the attacks as racist, if made by whites or the political opposition, or personal, if made by blacks or those associated with the ANC family. Mbeki called Leon ‘the white politician’ who ‘practices in Africa’.[20] Dlamini-Zuma said bitterly:‘If they [Leon and the DA] had their way, we would all die of AIDS.’[21]
Sadly, neither Mbeki nor Dlamini-Zuma admitted to being wrong, instead persistently presenting themselves as victims of racist baiting, and nursing grudges against their critics. In fact, Mbeki would continue to support Virodene’s pro- moters, later even mediating in a feud between the biotech company’s leading researchers.[22] Mbeki and Dlamini-Zuma now also saw the MCC, especially its chairman Peter Folb, as representatives of the ‘racist conspiracy’ against which battle must be joined. Folb was fired a year later.[23]Partly as a result of the Virodene conflict, Dlamini-Zuma abolished the MCC in March 1998 on the recommen- dation of a review team she set up to evaluate the council’s operations, which concluded that the MCC was too intimately linked with the pharmaceutical industry. A new institution, the Medicines Regulatory Authority, replaced the MCC in September 1998.In June 1998,a group of investors, including Nxumalo, who had originally introduced the Vissers to Dlamini-Zuma and Mbeki,bought the rights to their AIDS ‘cure’.[24] Virodene is not officially registered in South Africa, but it is still punted on the Internet as a cure for HIV/AIDS.[25]
However dubious these early government forays into the AIDS field were, they were based on the accepted scientific consensus that HIV is the principal carrier of AIDS, rather than the dissident argument that the virus is a ‘harmless’ passenger, and that symptoms associated with AIDS are due to ARV therapy, malnutrition and poverty. From the Virodene saga onwards, the AIDS issue became racially charged in South Africa, and it has remained so. All future responses would be coloured by race, as had already happened in some parts of greater Africa, and even among some Afro-American groups who gave credence to the urban legend that the deadly virus had been brewed in a laboratory as part of a covert Western intelligence plot to decimate blacks – the CIA’s ‘final solution’. For example, a study conducted by the Rand Corporation and the University of Oregon revealed that almost half of all African-Americans believe that the virus that causes AIDS is man-made; more than a quarter believe it was produced in a US government laboratory; and one in eight thinks it was created and spread by the CIA.[26]
Bizarre as they were, such rumours were fuelled by revelations from the mid-1990s that the apartheid defence force had run a top-secret germ warfare programme, which included experiments on ethnic-specific killer bugs. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission heard senior former security policemen confess that HIV-positive agents had been instructed to have unprotected sex with black prostitutes as part of a diabolical state-sponsored plan to spread the infection. In 1995,the South African government launched a battle against international tobacco companies by instituting stringent anti-smoking laws, and with the pharmaceutical giants over the high price of essential medicines.
The ANC had worked hard to make medication more accessible and more affordable to the majority black population. This led to repeated skirmishes with drug manufacturers, and a protracted trade dispute with America and various countries in the European Union. At the heart of the matter was an amendment to the Medicines and Related Substances Control Act, which gave government the power to fast-track compulsory licensing and parallel imports of medicines.
The government argued, correctly, that this was consistent with the World Trade Organisation’s Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights Agreement (TRIPS), which stipulates certain exceptions to normally strict commercial regulations. In times of health emergencies, for example, poor countries are allowed to circumvent patent laws in order to produce cheaper generic versions of desperately needed drugs. Compulsory licensing allows a country to manufacture a drug in such circumstances without the permission of the patent holder, provided that ‘adequate remuneration’ is paid to the company. Parallel importing permits a country to buy a drug from the lowest bidder without the consent of the patent holder. But there is huge resistance from developed countries and pharmaceutical companies to these concessions, and South Africa was placed on an American ‘watch list’ of potential offending countries. The drug manufacturers exerted enormous pressure, both directly and indirectly, on the South African government, outraging Mbeki, Dlamini-Zuma and the ANC leadership.[27]
The pharmaceutical industry in the US lobbied the Clinton administration, which threatened sanctions if South Africa went ahead with plans to push through legislation to facilitate the import of cheaper generics. American vice-president Al Gore found support in the South African media and with opposition parties for his demand that the amendment be repealed.
It was particularly galling for Mbeki, his policy guru Joel Netshitenzhe, his ‘enforcer’ Essop Pahad and his trusted ally Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma to have their political opponents and the predominantly white-owned media support foreign opinion against what they saw as South Africa’s interests.[28]
The tussle ended when thirty-nine companies joined forces under the banner of the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers’ Association of South Africa and took the government to court. They poured millions into their campaign, which was vigorously opposed by the government and, importantly, the TAC and several trade unions.
Dlamini-Zuma herself was an energetic campaigner against both international pharmaceutical and tobacco companies. This made her very unpopular with busi- ness groups, so much so that many business leaders view the possibility that she could replace Mbeki as leader of the ANC at the end of 2007 with undisguised horror. Shortly before the 1999 elections, she told members of the TAC: ‘If you want to fight for affordable drugs, then I will be with you all the way.’[29] Marking the end of his first six months as president of South Africa, Mbeki launched a tough attack on pharmaceutical companies:‘(A)s long as [AZT] is only available at exorbitant prices, it is impossible for the government to make it available to ordinary people.’[30]
In the face of local and international protests organised by the TAC, the pharma- ceutical companies reached an out-of-court compromise with the government and withdrew their legal action. By that time, the amendment to the Medicines Act, which applied to all drugs, not just ARVs, had become law.
Finally, government seemed to waken to the gravity of the AIDS crisis. Billboards were erected, condom distribution increased and the ABC (Abstain, Beware, Condomise) campaign put in place. Yet, despite what amounted to a victory against the pharmaceutical companies, the government still refused to make ARVs available to the masses.
Activists were enraged when the health department announced that AZT would not even be given to pregnant women as a matter of course. There was ample evidence that the drug greatly reduced the risk of foetal HIV infection, but the government stuck to its claim that AZT was both toxic and unaffordable.
In December 1998, Zackie Achmat announced that he would go on a hunger strike until ordinary South Africans could be given ARVs at state hospitals. ‘On principle, I won’t take ARVs until they are freely available to the poorest,’[31]he said. His decision coincided with the TAC’s launch of a campaign to prevent mother- to-child infection. By 1999,an estimated 40 000 babies were being born with HIV in South Africa annually, their mothers too poor to pay $75 for a short course of AZT,which would lower the risk of transferral by half. The TAC would maintain its relentless pressure on the pharmaceutical companies for the best part of a year, with NGOs in America staging solidarity protests at various points on US vice- president Al Gore’s campaign trail until the threat of sanctions was withdrawn.
The TAC’s sustained efforts to shame Western governments and highlight their indifference to the plight of AIDS victims in South Africa compelled President Bill Clinton to pledge in 2000 that the US would ensure that ‘people from the poorest countries won’t have to go without medicines’. His announcement came as the United Nations revealed that it had negotiated a deal with five multinational pharmaceutical companies to reduce the price of AIDS drugs in the developing world.
The South African government’s response was guarded. Mbeki, Pahad, Netshitenzhe, Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, who had replaced Dlamini-Zuma as minister of health, and trade and industry minister Alec Erwin now argued that price reductions negotiated with manufacturers were neither substantive nor a permanent solution. If costs could not be decreased any further, it would be better to obtain the drugs through local generic production or parallel importation from Brazil, Thailand or India, where they were successfully being made at a fraction of even the discount price.
In the event, it soon became clear that the high-profile offers of cheaper drugs from the US administration came with punishing strings attached. South Africa could avail itself of some $1.5 billion in the form of export–import loans, at commercial interest rates, to buy American drugs at market prices. In addition, by May 2001, five of the world’s biggest pharmaceutical companies had agreed to enter into talks with African nations on reduced prices, provided the countries concerned agreed to health action plans being drawn up by McKinsey, a leading business consultancy!
The offers were turned down, but they had reinforced suspicions that Western governments and the drug manufacturers were locked in a conspiracy against Africa. As Mbeki’s views hardened, the relentless pressure applied by the TAC and various NGOs was starting to pay dividends. Drug companies squirmed under accusations of greed, and some began privately to offer significant discounts on their products. By mid-2001,Boehringer Ingelheim was offering Nevirapine, a drug commonly used by HIV/AIDS sufferers, free for a limited period to pregnant women in South Africa. Glaxo offered AZT at 30 per cent of the average inter- national price.
But government still refused to buy the drugs, claiming they were toxic. According to some of Mbeki’s close advisors, the offers were seen as a piecemeal strategy to stave off production of cheaper generics. Yet no moves were made to launch local production or import generics. In fact, keen to play a leading role in the global economy and to be seen as playing by the market rules, the government started back-pedalling on earlier threats to import generics.
In November 2001, British trade minister Richard Caborn wrote to the London-based Action for Southern Africa, an organisation that campaigns for Thabo Mbeki and the battle for the soul of the ANC peace, democracy and development across the region: ‘I don’t believe that this or related measures such as parallel importing are the answer here.’[32]
South Africa had had the option all along of circumventing TRIPS by citing ‘national emergency’, but Mbeki had come to believe that the pharmaceutical companies were greatly inflating the AIDS threat in order to exploit developing markets.
*William Gumede is the author of Thabo Mbeki and the Battle for the Soul of the ANC - Published by Zed Books (http://zedbooks.co.uk). His latest book, "The Democracy Gap - Africa's Wasted Years", will be published later this year.
**Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org
Comment on Gala Gabirondo article
Thank you for the helpful analysis! It shows well the Gates contradictions. A major point missed in the article, however, is that AGRA capitalists do not only want to position themselves, against China, to be the suppliers of seed and agricultural inputs to poor African farmers. They are also advancing full speed ahead in stealing African bioresources. AGRA will greatly assist the theft and patenting (biopiracy) of African indigenous strains, something already happening in Kenya as they genetically modify sorghum.
Corporations with falling rates of profit from overproduction, as Gabirondo correctly points out, need new markets. But they also need lower cost or free inputs, such as biodiverse food crops. This theft of seed ('accumulation by dispossession' - David Harvey) adds to profit more quickly than dreams of future markets.
Further, rather than allowing them to use the word, 'philanthropy,' let's call it private ownership of Africa's gene pool. The corporations are financing research after African governments have been systematically removed from agricultural extension, research and marketing since 1981, according to the neoliberal agenda. African agriculture does need assistance, but what the Gates Foundation is doing is not a gift, for the program is taking genetic wealth much more valuable any billions of dollars.
*For further analysis, please see Andrew Mushita and Carol B. Thompson. 2007. Biopiracy of Biodiversity – International Exchange as Enclosure. Africa World Press.