The United Nations announced that it will close its human rights office in Angola, after authorities in the southern African nation decided not to sign an agreement that would have formally established the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in the country. OHCHR, which has had a presence in Angola since 2003, has been asked by the Government to cease its activities in the country by 31 May, according to a news release issued by the Geneva-based Office.

A United Nations-backed campaign to stamp out rape in Liberia, the highest reported crime in the West African country as it recovers from a devastating civil war, has been extended to the north with a senior UN official calling for full implementation of the law.

Gangs of Zanu-PF youths, labelling themselves war veterans, have unleashed a reign of terror in Umguza on the outskirts of Bulawayo. Our Bulawayo correspondent Lionel Saungweme told us the youths are believed to be loyal to Obert Mpofu, the Zanu-PF MP for the area and they also attacked and seriously injured the MDC senatorial candidate there, Moses Sivalo.

Police in Sierra Leone have detained a former government ombudsman on corruption charges, authorities said on Friday, in the first high-level arrest since a new government took office last year pledging to tackle graft.

Just over two months after the latest major eruption of fighting in Sudan's West Darfur region, the UN refugee agency has transferred some 5,400 new Sudanese refugees to two camps in eastern Chad. But UNHCR estimates that another 8,000 people remain scattered in several villages along the volatile Chad-Sudan border.

Wading through the chest-high grass outside of this hamlet in north-eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, Mathieu Nyakufa gestures to the bones -- still bleaching in the sun -- of those who have been lost to the country's wars. "I was living just down here in the valley," the 52-year-old farmer says of one terrible morning in February 2003. "They were killing people with guns, with machetes, with spears and arrows. I escaped because I saw people running in my direction. Three of my children were killed in my own house."

A Norwegian cement company wants to evict an estimated 3,000 Tanzanian farmers it says are trespassing on its land. The farmers say their families have lived there for generations, and that they were not consulted when the land was sold. After 16 years of conflict Tanzania's highest court is due to reach a verdict soon.

Ethnic Somali separatists have been fighting government forces in the east of Ethiopia for more than 13 years now, but the long-running conflict has been largely invisible as Addis Ababa has restricted access to the region. There have been numerous clashes between the Ogaden National Liberation Army (ONLF) and the military in recent months, with both sides claiming successes.

Reporters Without Borders called on the Sudanese government to lift its almost three-month censorship of the privately-owned press in Khartoum which has intensified in recent days with the seizure of six daily newspapers.

Investment in health systems — not just in specific health intervention projects — is key to achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) on maternal and child health, say experts. The 'Countdown to 2015' initiative — which tracks progress in reducing child and maternal deaths under the MDGs — cites Tanzania as an example of a country that manages its health investment well.

Amnesty International (AI) has expressed worry over the deteriorating human rights situation, including reported claims of detention without trial or charged, torture and killing of political opponents in Equatorial Guinea government, ahead of the parliamentary and local elections scheduled for 4 May 2008.

Josephine Akello had hoped the peace talks between the Ugandan government and the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) would finally end with rebel leader Joseph Kony signing a peace accord on 10 April. Then she heard that the elusive Kony had failed to show up at a much-publicised signing ceremony due in Ri-Kwangba, near the border between Southern Sudan and Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

In 2000 the Malian government signed up to UN Education for All goals to help 50 percent more adults become literate by 2015, but eight years on still only 30 percent of Malian adults can read or write, and the government is yet to outline its strategy to address the problem.

Kenya swore in a power-sharing government on Thursday to soothe fury over a disputed election that plunged the East African country into a bloody crisis. "Our people are now in the process of reconciliation," President Mwai Kibaki said at the ceremony, nearly four months after the December 27 poll that triggered what was arguably Kenya's darkest moment in its post-independence history. "We can and must bring the cycle of violence to an end."

A British schoolteacher, her two female Kenyan colleagues and a Somali headmaster were killed in an overnight attack in central Somalia blamed on Islamist insurgents, witnesses said on Monday. The four were killed when suspected rebels attacked and briefly took control of Beledweyne, the capital of Somalia's Hiraan region located about 300km north of the capital, Mogadishu.

Andrew Mushita and Carol Thompson
Africa World Press, 2008

A new book co-written by veteran Zimbabwe agronomist Andrew Mushita and United States-based political economist Carol Thompson, titled Biopiracy of Biodiversity -- Global Exchange As Enclosure, is a path-breaking work on one of the most important issues in the near future.

The work by Mushita -- a director of the Community Technology Development Trust, and Thompson, a professor of political economy at Northern Arizona University in the US -- is a timely and critically important contribution that examines biopiracy in Africa, indigenous knowledge systems, biodiversity and international instruments on trade and intellectual property rights.

This book, published recently by Africa World Press, also focuses on sustainable farming, the limitations, successes and dangers of industrial agriculture, US trade relations in Africa, the land issue, food security and international instruments on seed and the need to preserve biodiversity as a policy for food security.

In many ways, the book, persistently works to advance public understanding of complex issues related to biopiracy, biotechnology, indigenous knowledge systems, World Trade Organisation instruments on patenting and strategies to deal with food insecurity and the rampant and unsustainable exploitation of natural resources.

Mushita and Thompson argue that the essence of seed exchange is sharing and not to profit as is happening in the world today. They say the current tendency to sell seed, pollute and put the dollar first can be damaging to the traditional important ways of life that seek to share seed to grow plants across the world and protect the environment.

"Yet the terrible other side of the story is that all this richness, beauty and wealth -- germinating from sharing is now threatened," the authors say in the opening chapter titled, The Ancient Future.

"It is being destroyed by refusal to share, by hoarding for a false, ephemeral prosperity. It is being destroyed in the name of science, of law and 'just reward' in the name of innovation, power and of profit."

The book is enjoying rave reviews worldwide.

"This book provides vital information to a cross-section of stakeholders for understanding challenges posed by international agencies and highlights the need for strategic policy alternatives to sustain biodiversity. I recommend it for reading by all those practitioners involved in economic development and food policy issues," said Godwin Mkamanga, director of the Sadc Plant Genetic Resources Centre in Lusaka, Zambia.

The authors also contribute to a vital dialogue about the effects of globalisation on traditional farming systems in Africa, the use of food aid as weapon of domination by powerful countries and the dwindling use of African grains.

They say the US government sent genetically modified (GM) maize kernels to Southern Africa in 2002 as food aid, without bothering to care about the high risk or uncertainty that the shipments would pollute the local genetic maize pool.

ZAMBIA, ZIMBABWE AND MALAWI REJECTED THE GMO MAIZE

"The view from the inside of the continent looking out is that aliens have responded to drought and famine with inappropriate technology, expensive (highly profitable to some) unsustainable inputs, trade barriers against African goods and more loans than grants for so-called food 'aid'," Mushita and Thompson point out.

The authors also argue vehemently for the protection of Africa's biodiversity which is now increasingly being poached by Western countries. They say indigenous knowledge is a key weapon for the survival of the people on the continent.

Mushita and Thompson say the demise of traditional medical knowledge was due to slavery, colonialism, neo-colonialism and globalisation. For long, they say, indigenous communities used their own traditional knowledge to treat successfully ulcers, asthma, diabetes and sickle cell anemia among a string of other ailments.

Bio-resources have been shared freely for centuries as people exchanged seed, plants and animals for breeding and the writers say, what is new and disturbing is the patenting of the seed "whether an offered gift or stolen cultural secret" into private property.

In many parts of the developing world agricultural diversity is an important part of people's culture. Researchers say this diversity helps to provide stability for farmers who grow a range of crops.

If one particular crop or variety fails, the others help make up the difference. But today, Africa's large and diverse biological diversity is now at risk with many plant and crop species under threat of extinction owing to pollution, unsustainable use practices, climate change, introduction of exotic species, civil conflict, intensified human activities and other factors.

Mushita and Thompson give an in-depth historical overview on biopiracy relating this colonial legacy to piracy in the 21st century.

A 2005 report by the US-based Edmonds Institute and the African Centre for Biosafety indicates 34 examples of Western laboratories developing drugs, cosmetics and industrial products using material from African plants, animals or microbes.

Researchers expressed concern that a lot of materials have been exploited from Africa without public accounting and any permission from the communities involved. The report detailing 36 cases of biopiracy in Africa titled "Out of Africa: Mysteries of Access and Benefit Sharing" generated heated debate at international meetings on negotiations of fair deals for developing countries to benefit from their genetic resources and traditional knowledge.

The report outlines 36 case studies of medicines, cosmetics and agricultural products that originate from biodiversity (including plants, marine life and microbes) in African countries and that have been patented by multinational companies without there being evidence of benefits accruing to the countries of origin.

The 2005 report's author, Jay McGown, says in the introduction: "It's a free for all out there, and until the parties to the CBD solve the problems of access and benefit sharing, the robbery will continue. They've got to declare a moratorium on access until a just protocol is finished and implemented."

The new book by Mushita and Thompson take the debate on biopiracy further, arguing that biological resources exploited for medicinal, agricultural, horticultural and cosmetics uses show no evidence or even information of benefit sharing agreements.

They also discuss the debate about intellectual property rights and analyse new and different laws under the WTO before moving on to propose that the extension of intellectual property rights over seeds and plants challenges scientific logic and threatens biodiversity.

The book speaks out in a simple and captivating way explaining how plants, roots and seeds define the community through healing.

"Most often, women are the keepers of the seeds, tucked away among the beams in the thatched roof, protected from pests by smoke from cooking fire. Others are stored in tins in another location. Villagers volunteer labour to build storage buildings for seed banks, protecting the treasure within the public trust," the authors wrote.

The same happens when African farmers choose seed from the best plants in the field using traditional farming "genetics" that takes into account seed yielding the most grain, preferred colour, pest resistance and drought resistance.

But when international aid agencies come in, the writers quote one Zimbabwean plant scientist, they come with advice and an agenda that focuses more on "yield, yield, yield" ignoring taste because the American industry manufactures taste with additives of sugar and citric acid.

"On the farms in Africa, the choices are complex and subtle and learned from the older generation. Farmers with the reputation for having good seed will be sought out and will harvest more seed, ready to exchange it," Mushita and Thompson say.

They say at one time, over 3 000 species were used as human food but now, the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation estimates that only 150 plant species are cultivated, 12 of which provide approximately 75 percent of food needed and four of which produce over half of the food people eat across the world.

The writers respond proactively to this challenge and say: "The future of the planet depends not so much on military power nor capital speculation but on each one becoming informed, debating and making choices about global exchange or enclosure of seed and plants -- our collective nourishment, our wealth."

This book refers both to the African continent and to the region of Southern Africa and captures the experiences of the people as it pertains to biodiversity, biopiracy and traditional knowledge systems.

The emotive land issue in Southern Africa is also discussed in detail showing its importance when it comes to food security and food self-sufficiency. There is a section which compares and contrasts international protocols for seed exchange from agencies trying to reconcile the demand for patenting, the respect for indigenous knowledge and the need to preserve biodiversity as a policy for food security.

The final chapter summarises policy recommendations relevant both to other developing countries and the US. In contrast to current international policies which have reduced the role of the state, the recommendations include the public sector as a vital player in preserving biodiversity and delimiting piracy.

Mushita and Thompson call for the fostering of new patterns of relationships through seed exchange and sharing of information. The Western world continues to infringe on human rights and the ecological balance of nature in Africa through the export of seed GM, seed hybrids, biopiracy and promotion of unsustainable technologies in agriculture.

And this book, which argues against the commercialisation of science and the commodification of nature, is a clarion call that should be widely read and discussed by everyone concerned with biodiversity. It advances public understanding on issues related to the environment and development which are happening in the world but are not getting reported in the mainstream media.

* Sifelani Tsiko is an award winning Zimbabwean journalist. This review first appeared in the Herald, Zimbabwe.

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

Following is a video that the Kenyan media has 'censored' It is an artistic response to the situation our BELOVED thieves have put us in the song was recorded on 3rd Jan 2008. Some of the excuses by some of the media houses were that it has been overtaken by events

Nominations are now being sought for the 2008 United Nations Prize in the Field of Human Rights.The prize will be awarded at an event at United Nations Headquarters in New York on 10 December 2008, as part of the annual commemoration of Human Rights Day.

The United Nations Prize in the Field of Human Rights was instituted by the General Assembly in 1966 (Res. 2217/XXI of 19 December 1966), and was awarded for the first time on 10 December 1968 on the occasion of the commemoration of the twentieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Thereafter, the prize has been awarded in 1973, 1978, 1988, 1993, 1998 and then in 2003. The prize is honorary in nature and is awarded approximately every five years to individuals and organizations in recognition of outstanding achievement in the field of human rights.

A special committee has been entrusted by the General Assembly with the selection of laureates from nominations sought from Member States, specialized agencies and non-governmental organizations in consultative status and from other appropriate sources, in accordance with the above-mentioned resolution. This committee is composed of the President of the General Assembly, the President of the Economic and Social Council, the Presidents of the Human Rights Council, the Chair of the Commission on the Status of Women and Chairman of the Human Rights Council Advisory Committee.

The Prize is an opportunity not only to give public recognition to the achievements of the awardees themselves, but also to a send a clear message to human rights defenders the world over that the international community is grateful for, and supports, their tireless efforts to promote all human rights for all.

Compelling and thought-provoking, Amartya Sen’s latest offering, Development as Freedom, is Nobel Prize winner for Economic Science in 1998. Sen provides a comprehensive summary of his thoughts on a key issue that has in recent decades, become a global debate: development.

What began as a widespread call for a general strike ended Sunday as the police cracked down across the nation, dispatching thousands of riot troops, arresting more than 200 demonstrators and fighting with protesters in the north. While two schools were burned and more than 150 people were reported injured in the northern town of Mahalla al-Kobra, it was the eerie emptiness of the normally teeming streets of Cairo that signaled the depth of discontent with President Hosni Mubarak’s government.

Regarding the article on China and Africa - - compared with Europe and the US, both China and India are small players in Africa. But just as recent reports from the Economic Commmission for Africa said, cooperation with Asian countries, such as China and India, boosts Africa's economies.

Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly - Refugee Advocacy and Support Program (hCa - RASP) released a recent report entitled "Unwelcome Guests: The Detention of Refugees in Turkey’s Foreigners Guesthouses." The report is based on interviews held between October 2006 and September 2007 with 40 refugees from 17 different countries - most of them African - who had been detained in ten “foreigners’ guesthouses” in Turkey.

The Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa has issued an open letter on behalf of “the many people within SADC [the Southern African Development Community] increasingly alarmed at unfolding events in Zimbabwe” to heads of state and government, members of parliament in the respective countries and senior leaders with the SADC and African Union Secretariats, asking them to take urgent action to ensure that the Zimbabwean people, who on the 29 March exercised their right to vote, now have the results of that vote recognised and respected. Although initiated by OSISA, signatures from individuals and organizations within the region and globally have been collected - the deadline for signing on is on Friday, 11 April. AU Monitor subscribers wishing to sign on should forward their name and contact details to [email][email protected]

While the presidential election results are still pending in Zimbabwe, the SADC Electoral Observer Mission was the first to issue a preliminary statement on the day after the elections, stating that these were "peaceful and credible" and calling on all parties to accept the results. Legislators from East Africa joined other observers in praising the elections as democratic and fair. Clarkson Otieno Kalan, head of the observer mission from the East African Community (EAC) and a Kenyan member of the East African Legislative Assembly, said his country and region have much to learn from the conduct of the polls in Zimbabwe. However, concerns have mounted given the delay in issuing presidential results, prompting civil society observers to draw parallels between the contested election process in Kenya and Zimbabwe. Muthoni Wanyeki of the Kenya Human Rights Commission notes that “the unfolding of events in Zimbabwe for the last week, following polling the previous weekend, provoked an alarming sense of déjà vu. The familiarity of being forced to wait for official results to be released - for a week and counting. The out-of-sequence release of results, with presidential results being retained instead of being released first. The rise in public expectations of change as parliamentary results showed a majority of seats being won, finally, by the opposition Movement for Democratic Change. The claims of victory by the MDC. And then the signs of intimidation.”

Further, despite a high-profile campaign for election of women candidates, only 28 were elected to the lower house, representing 13 percent of the total, a decrease from the previous 15.8 percent. These figures fall short of the 1997 SADC Declaration on Gender and Development which “proposes that by 2005 at least 30 percent of positions in political and decision-making structures in the public and private sector should be held by women. At the 2005 SADC Summit in Gaborone, Heads of State and Government endorsed the African Union position which provides for 50 percent target of women in all political and decision-making positions by 2015.”

In economic news, the Indian Prime Minister, Dr. Manmahon Singh has announced, during the India-Africa summit, that India has established a duty free tariff preference scheme for Least Developed Countries (LDCs) under which India will provide preferential market access for exports from LDCs. Meanwhile, Alex Vines and Elizabeth Sidiropolous provide analysis of India’s policies and interests in Africa noting that “its Africa policy is driven by economic interests. But competition, particularly with China, is also pushing New Delhi to deepen its presence on the continent”. Considering India’s view of Africa merely as a source of natural resources, the authors underscore the need for investment in Africa’s human capital and capacity building, exemplified by India’s funding of the Pan-African e-Network Project in partnership with the AU. Also entrenching ties with the continent, Russia has pledged 500 million US dollars in development assistance to Africa. According to Ambassador M. Afanasiev, who was speaking at the first session of the joint annual meeting of the AU and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), Russia also plans to write off half a billion US dollars of African debt this year, having already forgiven US$ 16 billion.

Further, according to the Economic Report on Africa launched this week by UNECA and the AU, forecast growth for African economies will be an average 6.2 percent in 2008, however, the report “also notes that economic growth has not yet translated into meaningful social development and has not benefited vulnerable groups”. Indeed, the price of basic commodities has risen by as much as 30 percent in some countries, prompting strikes and protests. Hamadou Tidiane Sy reports that these “protests against high fuel and food prices have forced governments in West Africa to use repressive methods of yesteryears, hence reversing the gains made in the democratic arena over the past two decades”.

In peace and security news, the United Nations Security Council will hold an unprecedented meeting with the AU Peace and Security Council at which the proposal of UN Secretary General, Mr. Ban Ki-Moon, for the formation of an AU-UN panel to consider how to support peacekeeping operations undertaken by regional organisations will be discussed. African heads of state have been invited to attend the joint meeting and open debate which will be chaired by South African President Thabo Mbeki.

As the World Health Organisation marked the global day for health on April 7th, the African Development Bank’s (AfDB) Thomas Hurley talks of the “ever growing threats to global public health security” and the need “to place health at the centre of the global dialogue about climate change” pledging that the AfDB will strengthen key features of member countries’ “public health systems such as the control of neglected tropical diseases, primary health care (including clean water, environment and sanitation) and enhance women’s and vulnerable groups’ welfare”. It is under the theme of water and sanitation that the upcoming AU summit is expected to take place in June/July in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt. The Executive Council session of the summit will decide on the election of new members of the African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, members of the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights and members of the Advisory Board on Corruption. State parties are expected to submit their proposed candidates to the AU Commission before April 30.

The West Africa Network for Peacebuilding (WANEP) would like to announce the start of admissions to the West Africa Peacebuilding Institute (WAPI) for 2008. This year’s Institute will be held from September 1 – 19, 2008 at the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre (KAIPTC) in Accra, Ghana. WAPI is a three-week intensive training program that aims to strengthen the capacity of civil society-based peacebuilding practitioners and institutions across the West Africa sub-region and beyond in order to promote the development of indigenous responses to conflict.

The Kanifing Magistrates Court will on April 16, 2008, hear the case of Fatou Jaw Manneh, a US-based Gambian journalist on trial for an alleged sedition. Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) sources reported that this followed the retrieval of Manneh’s file, which was reported missing at the last hearing on March 17, 2008.

The Africa Regional Sexuality Resource Centre has recently published a book “Human Sexuality in Africa: Beyond Reproduction”. The book is structured into four parts comprising of some papers presented at the quarterly ARSRC organized Understanding Human Sexuality Seminar Series from seasoned professionals from across Africa. Many topical issues are highlighted in this book, such as the access to sexuality education, sexuality and social institutions and sexuality beyond reproduction.

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/361/47258piracy.jpgIn this wide ranging Pambazuka News interview, Mariam Mayet, the director of the African Center Biosafety speaks about biopiracy, which she calls "the last frontier", the Alliance for a Green Revolution and its impact on Africa, and food and agriculture as social justice justice.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: I am here with Mariam Mayet, the director of the African Center for Biosafety (www.biosafetyafrica.net). Can you tell us about your organization?

MARIAM MAYET: We are based in Jo’burg and we have four main programs. We campaign against genetic engineering in food and agriculture. We campaign against bio-piracy particularly the theft of indigenous knowledge in the context of medicinal plants and new areas around marine bio prospecting.

We also work on the green revolution in Africa – and Agro-fuels. Basically we do a lot of cutting edge research, exposes of what multi-national companies are doing in Africa, and on the bio-tech industry. We look at the seed industry and where the GM-Agro fuels push is coming from. We work with a large network of other groups and communities.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: Can you talk a little more about bio-piracy – and patenting systems?

MARIAM MAYET: Pharmaceutical and cosmetic companies want to bring in new products to the market. They have to find the active ingredient to be able to produce a particular medicine (sometimes they stumble into things accidentally). But the way to get to the plant and the use of the plant is through local people. And when they come into our countries and they appropriate our knowledge and resources, without people’s consent, we call it theft or bio-piracy.

The last frontier of resources base is really our people’s knowledge in regards to medicinal plants and agriculture. And these are highly sought after. When a company finds a particular plant, and the useful properties in the plant they make a product from it, and then register a patent in regards to the use of that plant. And where they duplicate existing uses, we are able to challenge those patents.

For example, we found a company in Germany trying to patent two endemic species in South Africa and Lesotho but they are duplicating local uses. We were able to challenge this. So even in a European patenting system which is very neo-liberal and capitalist, it does not allow to register a patent over the use of something, if a community anywhere in the world has the same use. So we use the small margins to challenge bio-piracy. This was one case, but there are there are thousands of cases like this in Africa.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: Can you give Pambazuka readers other examples of bio-piracy?

MARIAM MAYET: Yes. Last year we published a booklet called “Out of Africa: Mysteries of Benefit Sharing.” We published 36 cases of dubious acquisitions in Africa, such as theft of the people’s knowledge to produce skin whitening cosmetic by the cosmetic industry.

The hoodia gordonii, a hunger suppressing plant gives us the quintessential case of bio-piracy. This is where the knowledge of the San to stave off hunger when trekking through the Kalahari was appropriated by Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) in South Africa and passed onto Phytopharm. Phytopharm registered a patent claiming that there were no indigenous people in South Africa, that the San had died off. Stealing knowledge is extremely rife in Africa.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: Let’s change gears a little and turn our attention to philanthropy, which Cecil Rhodes once called, philanthropy plus five-percent - which is to say that philanthropy paves way for profit making, or what others call the philanthropy-industrial complex. Can you talk a little about the role of Western philanthropy in Africa?

MARIAM MAYET: Philanthropy in Africa has some history especially in relation to the Rockefeller family. The Rockefeller foundation has a much longer history than the Gates Foundation for example. Gordon Conway who became one of the presidents of the Rockefeller Foundation published a book called the New Green Revolution in 1999. The Green Revolution push we are seeing in Africa is really his brainchild. Their philanthropy has come in the context of pushing a very distinct corporate agenda – to open markets for US corporations. For example in Kenya the Rockefeller Foundation has been involved in sponsoring Florence Wambugu’s sweet potato project because they want to open Africa up to GMOs. So if you give the impression that a genetically modified sweet potato can work because it is the poor person’s crop, there will be more willingness to accept GMO’s. So it is not philanthropy. It’s a form of investment, a corporatized agenda for resource extraction from Africa.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: There was an expose in the LA Times [http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-gatesx07jan07,0,682... on the Bill Gates Foundation where it was found that the foundation invests money in companies and corporations that cause the very same problems it is trying to solve, companies such as Shell. So the philanthropy arm is trying to save the environment, while the investment arm is making profit from its destruction…

MARIAM MAYET: Exactly, the Rockefellers made their money from Exon, which later became Chevron – so they have old oil money - this wrecked a whole lot of havoc environmentally and in terms of human rights.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: And also the idea of telescopic philanthropy, a telescopic philanthropy that sees far but not what is under its feet – for example there are a lot problems in the United States amongst minority communities…

MARIAM MAYET: Yes, why didn’t they give money to Hurricane Katrina victims? Why do they feel they have to come and rescue Africa? We say that the Green Revolution is a white man’s dream for a black continent. And this dream… this savior mentality is very missionary, very colonial, and imperialistic – and yes they should leave us alone. If they take away all the developmental aid, if they take all the food aid, and the military aid – we would be like Cuba. We would struggle for a while but eventually we would find our way. We would build our own local economies and vibrancy because all these development aid is also an industry unto itself, and it feeds off itself.

Who are the world’s biggest agri-business players? Take Cargil, which owns shares in seed companies, buys the harvest from farmers and transports it all over the world – they are more powerful than some governments because they are in charge of the international prices of grains and trade in grains. You have to really understand this whole capitalist agri-business system in order to understand the logic of the green revolution.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: AGRA, according to its website, is and “African-led partnership working across the African continent to help millions of small-scale farmers and their families lift themselves out of poverty and hunger. AGRA programs develop practical solutions to significantly boost farm productivity and incomes for the poor while safeguarding the environment. AGRA advocates for policies that support its work across all key aspects of the African agricultural “value chain”—from seeds, soil health, and water to markets and agricultural education. AGRA is chaired by Kofi A. Annan, the former Secretary-General of the United Nations”. They say that they are African led and now they have Kofi Annan who is serving as the chairman of AGRA – your response?

MARIAM MAYET: I think they are African followed because the vision was put in place by Gordon Conway from the Rockefeller Foundation. The Rockefeller Foundation brought in the Bill-Melinda Gates foundation, then started to recruit willing and compliant Africans – the coup de grace was Kofi Annan.

If it was African led we would not be asking for consultation and transparency. It would be coming from our farmers, coming from the ground-up. What is African led, are the local struggles, where people are clearly saying this is what we want. Go to speak to the people affected and they will tell you what they want – that would be African led.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: Can you talk a little bit about the packaging of AGRA? You have Kofi Annan, who has UN credentials, gentle spoken yet charismatic and Bill Gates who appears harmless. There is a lot of star power and money…

MARIAM MAYET: The things is the Green Revolution is a very a violent package because it puts powerful toxic chemicals into Africa. It displaces and destroys local knowledge and seeds. It favors those farmers who will be able to access the system, the more powerful farmers. This will divide the African peasantry.

AGRA also creates a lot of dependency and debt. It is violent. But the geeky sexy richest man who brought us wonderful technology, and gentle Kofi Annan – this is the savior face, our last hope. It is a very strategic move to push a very agri-business, corporatized market driven package – but it will fail in Africa because they do not understand Africa.

We are a very diverse people, we need local solutions that are multi-dimensional and multi-faceted – built on local knowledge and local seeds. You need to speak to people about how they adapt to harsh climates. To have a one-size fit all solution for Africa will be disastrous for us. Even in one country we have different eco-systems, different farming communities, different cultures, different eating habits.

We do not need to grow more foods for exports. We need to build on food sovereignty principles and give people equitable access to land, allocate the water fairly, support traditional farming methods, and create local vibrant economies, before we start exporting coffee, cocoa, and grow maize for export.

We are not saying that everyone must live on the land, or farm – we are talking about a local economy that is also integrated into the national economies. You cannot have two economies. We are talking about a vibrant whole.

I have to say that we are also unhappy with the agricultural systems in Africa and this is why we are saying – that we have to stop talking about food security because this perpetuates the existing paradigms. We have to tell our governments - what the hell are you doing? You have messed up badly, and left a vacuum for the philanthropist to walk in - and take over our countries, in a way.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: So there are ways in which the African governments have been absent in the debate completely…

MARIAM MAYET: None of our governments are going to say no to resources because they are corrupt, and despotic – we have had very few democracies but have huge class differences.

In terms of Agri-ecology we can do a lot of work with peasant movements but we have to always bear in mind that our struggle is a social justice struggle – and we need to hold our governments accountable.

We have to keep demanding from our governments the same things - We want justice in rural areas, equality for women, access to lands, support of traditional farming, we want you to protect our seeds, we do not want GMO’s, we want you to listen to farmers, we want you to build agricultural schools for them, and put money in research and development. I mean look at Nigeria. Once the oil industry took off, it mortgaged its oil to international oil companies, but it stopped developing its own agriculture.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: What is at stake? Food systems?

MARIAM MAYAT: Food systems, social systems, our culture - the dynamics in the rural areas will change, there will be more debt, more dependency, and there will be a small commercial class of farmers.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: Can we talk a little bit more about food as social justice? What has the ANC government been doing in this regard?

MARIAM MAYAT: The ANC started off by giving up its many demands articulated in the Freedom charter and through the liberation struggle for nationalization of our mineral and energy companies. They made a deal with the industries, big business and the old government that we will not take the whole cake and nationalize it. What we will do is ask for a small slice of it, and we will call it Black Economic Empowerment (BEE). So it has been pre-occupied with BEE.

Yes we have a lot of political freedoms, we have a democracy - but it has a very neo-liberal agenda and very pro-industry orientation to all its policies. So for example, it is now allowing huge smelters to draw excessive amounts of electricity thereby increasing our carbon-emissions. We are building more coal-fired industries at the cost of 80 billion rands, but we are also going into nuclear technology. It is as if we are taking a big step back.

And along they way they failed to redistribute land back to the landless people, they failed miserably in terms of service delivery to the poor and that has seen a lot of violent protests. And it has failed dismally on its AIDS and HIV policy.

There is a lot of struggle fatigue, it is very hard to get the people mobilized beyond AIDS/HIV and service delivery but I think the time will come when we shall see a resurgence of social movements in Africa.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: Would it be fair to say that we need to redefine what democracy means to us and inject a component of social justice?

MARIAM MAYET: As I said, we are never going to achieve social justice within a neo-liberal paradigm because it is always going to be favoring certain classes. So we really need to think beyond political rights, we have to think about our social economic rights. We can only be free once we achieve social justice.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: One last question: Your thoughts on the 2010 South Africa world cup?

MARIAM MAYET: The world cup is going to be a drain of our resources – and we cannot justify the enormous carbon footprint we shall leave behind - where all these people from all over the world take flights to come to watch a soccer match – we will need 2 billion litters of water for all these visitors – we shouldn’t be hosting such an event. We have other priorities.

It is not that I do not care for soccer, I do – but really Africa should not be hosting mega-events like this, for only two sectors will gain – airlines and people who already have a lot of money. The money that is coming in will not filter down to the people. How is the world cup going to benefit the poor people? I do wish African countries all the best in the world cup but we also need to take care of our people and our resources.

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

In late November of 2007, in a small village in Selingue Mali, I joined over 100 small-scale farmer, pastoralist, organic and civil society organizations from 25 African and 10 non-African countries at a conference that questioned the relevance of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation initiative, the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA).

Together with the Rockefeller Foundation, the Gates Foundation has pledged a total of $150 million "to help millions of small-scale farmers and their families lift themselves out of poverty and hunger" in Africa. AGRA has promised do this by overhauling Africa's agricultural industry, from planting seeds to restructuring local and national markets.

What struck me during that conference taking place with much of the world unaware was the audacity and courage of these organizations. Abandoned by African governments hungry for the $150 million-purse, it was brave of them to question AGRA – a gift boasting the support of arguably the most powerful philanthropic machinery in world history.

Here was a side of Africa that the rest of the world does not see – Africans gathered not to ask for help from the West, but to discuss alternatives to that help in very serious, informed and fraternal ways, with their own knowledge, science and experiences as a key part of the solution.

AGRA's chairman is former UN General Secretary, Kofi Annan, hence AGRA's claim that it is an African initiative. But we tend to forget that Africa is huge – the continent can fit the United States three times and leave room for China, and houses over 680 million people! A truly African initiative needs to have the mandate of those whom it will affect the most.

AGRA with its super scientists is missing the point. Hunger in Africa is mostly a political and economic disparity problem. To end hunger, political stability, proper distribution of food and land within nations, and less emphasis on cash-crop farming and more on food- crop farming will be more effective, friendlier to the environment and less costly than the super-seeds that will require tons of pesticides - and eventually, cost a lot of money.

Also take the example of US farm subsidies that result in African farmers losing millions of dollars each year. Oxfam reports that in 2001 Malian cotton farmers lost $ 43 million dollars while US foreign aid was 37.7 million that same year. Why not lobby for fair competition and equal international trade rather than throw more aid and pesticides at the Malian farmers?

AGRA has not taken a definitive stand against genetically modified seeds. Instead it states that it does "not preclude future support for genetic engineering as an approach to crop variety improvement" leading many to understand it as Trojan horse for GM seeds.

It is important that AGRA takes a definite stand against GM seeds, which if introduced will create mass dependency on corporate engineered seeds, and at the same time make farming more expensive. This in turns means that poor farmers will be perpetually in debt. A similar tightening cycle of dependency on the one hand, and expensive seeds and pesticides on the other has recently led to thousands of farmer suicides in India.

The conclusion here is one that might seem like a paradox of a beggar having choice - AGRA will do more harm than good. Understanding this, the participants committed themselves to, amongst other things, demanding "transparency, and accountability from all Green Revolution institutions and seed, chemical and fertilizer companies."

In this Pambazuka News special issue on AGRA, in addition to our regular features, we are pleased to bring you an article by Galés Gabirondo - a development scholar and food sovereignty activist who looks at the Bill Gates philosophy of philanthro-capitalism. That is philanthropy that is also profit driven. We also interview Mariam Mayet, the director of African Center for Biosafety and Dr. Regassa Feyissa, the co-founder and Director of the Ethio-Organic Seed Action (EOSA).

In the next few issues, we shall be bringing you more interviews with food sovereignty and agra-ecology activists – all conducted at the Selingue conference.

Finally, over the years Pambazuka News has carried quite a number of articles on the Green Revolutions, climate change, agri-ecology and food sovereignty. For you easy referencing we have compiled some of them here below:

Africa: Food sovereignty declaration

Will Bill Gates’ Millions Save Us?
Jacqueline Tanaka

Sacrificing the right to food on the altar of free trade
Jagjit Plahe

African food sovereignty or AGRA
Mukoma wa Ngugi

African Agriculture and the World Bank: Development or impoverishment?
Kjell Havnevik, Deborah Bryceson, Lars-Erik Birgegård, Prosper Matondi & Atakilte Beyene

GM technology: a new panacea or another false dawn?
[email protected] or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

Three years after adopting the Poverty Reduction Strategy (PRS) approach, Tanzania will be taking another step, embarking on the second phase with a nationwide framework putting poverty reduction high on the country’s development agenda. The National Strategy for Growth and Reduction of Poverty (NSGRP) or Mkukuta as it is known in its Swahili acronym builds on the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) of 2000, which was linked to debt relief under the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative (HIPC).

"Dambudzo Marechera: A Celebration" is intended as a multi-media festival to celebrate the avant-garde work of Dambudzo Marechera (1952-1987), to be staged in Oxford in the spring of 2009. Its additional aims are to promote world literatures in English, foster interest in the issues of postcoloniality, and encourage an inter- disciplinary approach to the study of literature. We are looking for actors, musicians, film-makers, fine artists, cartoon animationists, and others who would like to pay a tribute to Marechera through their art. Please direct all enquiries and project proposals to [email][email protected]

A new study "Gender Remittances and Development: Preliminary Findings from Selected SADC Countries " focuses on female migration from and between six SADC countries, namely Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland and Zimbabwe, principally to South Africa. “In the past, women in Southern Africa were often prohibited from migrating. Today, with an increasing number of African women migrants, traditionally male-dominated patterns of migration are changing. Overall, women now encompass 37.4% of regular migrants from the SADC region to South Africa,” stated Hilary Anderson, Information Officer at UN-INSTRAW.

The Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa
(CODESRIA) invites abstracts and proposals for paper presentation at the second international conference it is organising on development as part of its revamped Economic Policy Research Programme. The conference will take place in Lusaka, Zambia, from 25 to 27 July, 2008.

Humanity United and Ashoka's Changemakers launched a global online competition to identify innovative approaches to exposing, confronting and ending modern-day slavery. Today over 27 million children and adults are in slavery or bonded labor around the world—more than any other period in human history. As one of the fastest growing criminal industries in the world, slavery remains largely hidden from the public eye and thrives on the rising global demand for inexpensive, unskilled labor and commercial sex. Deadline: June 18, 2008.

How can aid effectiveness in Sierra Leone be improved? This European Network on Debt and Development (Eurodad) report reveals piecemeal progress in improving aid effectiveness. It focuses on issues of accountability and ownership to analyse who sets the policy agenda and identify obstacles to the development of an accountable, democratic and country-driven aid system.

Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa has called an emergency meeting of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) to discuss the Zimbabwean presidential poll delay. This is the first move by Zimbabwe’s regional neighbours to intervene since the elections on 29th March 2008. President Mwanawasa is the current Chairman of the 14-nation South African Development Community.

Women are discriminated against in almost every country around the world, a UN-commissioned report says. It says that this is despite the fact that 185 UN member states pledged to outlaw laws favouring men by 2005. It adds that 70% of the world's poor are women and they own just 1% of the world's titled land. The report, which was prepared for UN Human Right Commissioner Louise Arbour, says rape within marriage has still not been made a crime in 53 nations.

Following its interim statement of 31 March on the 2008 Harmonised Elections in Zimbabwe, EISA has continued to monitor the unfolding events in Zimbabwe in anticipation of the announcement of the final and complete election results. This statement is a follow-up which highlights issues in the post-election phase that deserve urgent attention.

The new Country Assistance Strategy for the Democratic Republic of Congo, which the Bank has kept secret, suggests a continued emphasis on the natural resource sectors as sources of growth going forward and predicts at least $1.4 billion in new lending over the next three years.

Kenya's Centre for Training and Integrated Research for Development (CETRAD) and NETWAS Uganda are among the four winners in the inaugural nGomobile competition. The winning projects were selected from a pool of over seventy entries that came from Kenya, Uganda, Mexico and Azerbaijan.