Pambazuka News 333: Special Issue on Kenya Elections: A Democracy at a Cross-Road
Pambazuka News 333: Special Issue on Kenya Elections: A Democracy at a Cross-Road
Homophobic laws are still in place in many African states, violating the fundamental rights of gay, lesbian, bisexual, trans and intersex (LGBTI) people. On the occasion of the Europe-Africa meeting in Lisbon, Pan Africa ILGA, (African region of the International Lesbian and Gay Association), ILGA-Europe and ILGA together with a number of human rights organizations call on European and African governments to clearly state that LGBT rights are human rights and to adopt the Yogyakarta Principles, which are an authoritative compilation of those fundamental rights.
The global campaign against the death penalty secured a landmark victory on Tuesday when the United Nations General Assembly endorsed the call for a worldwide moratorium (suspension) on executions. In a landslide result, 104 UN member states voted in favour of the ground-breaking resolution. 54 countries voted against, while there were 25 abstentions.
One person in every 35 lives outside the country in which they were born. Many of those are migrant workers or their family members. Reasons for migration can vary between the need to escape poverty, inequality and conflict, the desire to pursue better work and educational opportunities, or even wanting to live in a cleaner environment or better climate. People often migrate for a combination of reasons and in sometimes complex circumstances.
Amnesty International has revealed that secret executions have taken place in Nigeria’s prisons. Despite the country’s recent assurances that no one has been executed there “in years”, Amnesty International has uncovered evidence of at least seven executions in the last two years. It is feared that more may have taken place.
The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has backed the call of the Press Union of Liberia (PUL) for journalists in the country to stand in solidarity with six colleagues and a newspaper accused of libel by Ambrose Nmah, the general manager of a media group. Nmah, who also presents a news program on the radio, is suing the journalists after they published a statement calling on the PUL to investigate him for allegedly making comments on his radio program justifying physical attacks on journalists by police officers.
The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has condemned the detention of a newspaper editor in Chad, who was held illegally by authorities for four days in connection with an article he wrote accusing the President of ethnic cleansing, and called on authorities to drop charges against him alleging he has incited “tribal hate.”
The Security Council has called on all sides in Somalia to use peaceful means to consolidate peace in the East African nation that has not had a functioning national government since 1991. Foreign Minister Massimo D’alema of Italy, which holds the Council’s rotating presidency this month, read out a statement urging “all Somali parties to reject violence and… to enter into substantial dialogue aimed at achieving a full and all-inclusive national reconciliation.”
With more than 1,400 people having lost their lives this year while illegally crossing the Gulf of Aden, the United Nations refugee agency has started a new campaign in the Horn of Africa to highlight the dangers of making the perilous voyage to Yemen. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is distributing colourful leaflets containing drawings and text printed in Somali and in three Ethiopian dialects throughout Somalia’s Puntland region, while radio spots have been broadcast since October.
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres has called for an end to fighting in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and pledged to help improve conditions in camps there for tens of thousands of internally displaced persons (IDPs).
Patrick Bond asks the question: With Jacob Zuma's election, shall we see a significant change in South African neoliberal policies?
Congratulations are due Jacob Zuma – apparently far more Machiavellian than even his arch-opponent since 2005, Thabo Mbeki – and the tireless band of warriors from the Congress of SA Trade Unions, SA Communist Party and African National Congress Youth League who kept his political life support on when everyone else declared him dead.
But after his election as ANC president on Tuesday, the disintegration of his voting bloc is not far off. As Brian Ashley of Amandla magazine explains, Zuma commands “a broad coalition of disgruntled elements within the ANC. A period of political instability awaits. The 'dreaded' two centres of power have materialised and given rise to a lame duck President.”
This is promising indeed, after 13.5 years of unrelenting neoliberalism mixed with triumphalist nationalism (often, in turn, flavoured with 'Breshnevite Marxism', as the ANC's left discourses have been termed in rare moments of autocritique). Indeed amongst the general public, there is a widespread conviction that a new balance of forces within the ANC presages a genuine left policy turn. To make this impression more palatable to bourgeois society and those near-mythical foreign investors, a seductive – yet incorrect - line of analysis also arises now to explain the logic behind Zuma's landslide victory. The first period of ANC rule (1994-2001) required 'macroeconomic stabilisation', so the argument goes, and subsequently a 'developmental state' with a strong welfarist bias has been under construction. Hence Zuma's victory will not change anything, really.
Actually, Zuma's huge (nearly 20%) margin reflected not a heroic new ruler, but rather a ruling regime out of touch with the misery experienced by its mass base, no one denies. The SA Police recently revealed that the rate of social protests has risen from 5800 in 2004-05 (when it would have been the world's highest per person, I reckon) to more than 10 000/year since, and no doubt even higher numbers will be released for 2007/08 given the long public workers' strike.
Zuma wasn't an instigator of more than a few of these, such as when disgracefully in May 2006 he let his rape trial devolve into an orgy of misogyny, with effigies of his victim burned outside the courthouse. No, indeed, the grassroots protests were largely against the ANC's neoliberal economic policies, prior to and after Zuma's firing as deputy president in mid-2005 in the wake of his friend Schabir Shaik's conviction on corruption charges.
Zuma was subsequently harrassed no end by Mbeki's vindictive state. This meant that at the ANC conference and in the words of commentators, the angry rumble from below was readily channeled away from structural critique of neoliberal nationalist rule, and into the song Umshini Wami ('Bring me my machine gun'). The prodigious venality of the Zuma-Mbeki squabble threw copious amounts of toxic dust high into the air, blinding most to what's really at stake here: class struggle, to borrow a worn but potent phrase.
Indeed the tone of the internecine battle with Mbeki was sufficiently vicious as to require cries of 'unity' immediately from both camps immediately afterwards, as well as from Zuma's speech on Thursday afternoon. But like much that happens in this party, the lovely rhetoric concealed yet more brutal power plays.
The other major ANC vote – for 80 positions on the ANC National Executive Committee – confirmed that the Zuma majority took no prisoners, leaving Mbeki's most trusted allies in the political wilderness. Although six cabinet ministers were elected in the top 20, those who lost their NEC places and are now ANC outsiders include some formidable names: Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka (who replaced Zuma), Mbeki's top state official Frank Chikane, his top political advisor and hatchet man (and Minister in the Presidency) Essop Pahad, Intelligence Minister Ronnie Kasrils, the man who served as ANC chairperson until Monday, Terror Lekota, the head of the Mbeki's office at ANC headquarters Smuts Ngonyama, and Safety and Security Minister Charles Nqkula (formerly SACP chairperson).
The top vote-getter was veteran and often flamboyant populist Winnie Madikizela-Mandela (ex-wife of Nelson), who gets counted out as irrelevant by the mainstream media periodically and makes comebacks worthy of the Zuma camp.
There really has been a change of the guard. But is it a move left? SACP intellectual leader Jeremy Cronin - who was #5 in the ANC vote – offers this spin about the party's ideological direction. The ANC conference just complete witnessed a “deepening and consolidation” of the progressive trajectory already underway, says Cronin. Hence under a President Zuma, “There would be no dramatic U-turn” on matters already under contestation: Pretoria's tight monetary policy, chaotic credit market regulation, and the liberalised trade and industrial policies which have killed a million jobs. For those like Cronin, the recent revival of the “National Democratic Revolution” is already undermining the neoliberal bloc within the ANC.
Is it? In reality, many on the centre-left – Cronin too - have been rather lukewarm about the Zuma campaign, because as national deputy president starting in 1999, Zuma was nowhere visible with workers and the poor (or women, needless to say) pulling against Mbeki and the other weighty neoliberals: Trevor Manuel (finance), Alec Erwin (trade/privatisation), Tito Mboweni (central bank governor), Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi (public service) and Sydney Mufamadi (local government). Of these, only Manuel retained an NEC seat, voted in at #57 after having been #1 in the 2002 vote.
In his first speech to the ANC as its president, Zuma himself intoned that there was “no reason why the business or international community or any other sector should be uneasy.” Quite so; after all, a mealy-mouthed Zuma made this clear last month in closed-door meetings organised by officials of two New York banks, Citi and Merrill Lynch, which are themselves making the world markets rather uneasy with their financial shenanigans.
Still, even Manuel, in a Mail & Guardian interview last week, condemned the private outsourcing of state services, something he himself has promoted harder than anyone since 1996 as keeper of the ever-tightening SA fiscus, notwithstanding that this 'New Public Management' technique is the root cause of many a fierce protest. Bizarrely, Manuel even endorsed the core legal argument put forward by the Soweto left-left in constitutional case earlier this month against Johannesburg Water (whose policies were products of Paris-based Suez's eco-social engineering during a failed 2001-06 outsourcing), namely, that the key water problem for the poor is the inordinate access that rich people enjoy at a too-cheap price.
With such rhetoric in the air these last few days, South African society does indeed feel like a 'post-Washington' semi-liberated zone. Free marketeers, who still run many a Pretoria ministry's policy units and finance departments, have had to hunker down.
But like so much other 'talk left walk right' activity here, that's precisely where the problem of seduction emerges, in illusions that Zuma's long and winding road to the country's presidency in 2009 (when Mbeki must retire) will generate conditions for social change along the route. We all witnessed how most of the US progressive movement fell flat on its face in 1993, suckered by Bill 'Slick Willy' Clinton – whose defeat of an elite incumbent (George Bush Sr), rural roots, home-boy humility, traditions of Southern patriarchy (and promiscuity) and apparent empathy for ordinary people presaged Zuma's own character flaws – and I think this is probably going to be the fate of a large portion
of the SA centre-left.
South Africa's left-left forces don't buy it, though. No one from the new social movements believes that a small increase in anti-poverty grants and other social wage improvements – amounting to less than 3% of GDP over apartheid-era stats – represents more than tokenistic welfare. With a 14% increase in electricity prices set for next year, and privatisation of 30% of generation capacity also on the cards, any suggestion of expanding basic services runs up against a contrary, commodified logic.
And then looking at the vast ($60 billion) spending planned for what amounts to a small herd of white elephants – 2010 soccer stadiums, big dams largely for mining houses, dicey nuclear power plants, aluminum smelter co-investments, speedy trains for the rich (who won't use public transport) and the rearmaments craze replete with corrupting German, French and British weapons dealers – it is hard to see anything 'developmental' about this crony-capitalist state.
Because of this week's momentous events, though, the centre-left's hard reality check lies a couple of years away, after Zuma takes power (if he is not in prison for bribe-taking, a distinct possibility, according to the National Prosecuting Authority in a statement on Thursday) and reverts to his militarist roots. Those who are championing his cause now may have reason in 2009 to renew their disgust at what we thought was 'Mbekism' – as Ashwin Desai has termed local neoliberalism - but can soon be renamed Zumism. We could well see the deepening of macroeconomic policies that do not deliver 'stability' (the currency has crashed four times since 1996 after all) but instead one of the world's highest current account deficits (trade shortfalls and financial outflows) at 8% of GDP, and hence repeated hikes in interest rates to draw in global financial assets, which are in turn making the credit-saturated middle-class scream in pain.
Unless I'm mistaken (and I really hope I am), there's simply no basis for believing Zuma is lying to Citi, Merrill or his audience when he says none of Mbeki's economic policies will change. So the root cause of the rebellion against Mbeki's malgovernance of the ANC – which is described too often as haughty style but which is grounded in a commitment to a haughty new class apartheid socio-economic structure – will reassert itself within weeks or months.
Only then will South Africa enjoy the possibility of a fully liberatory, post-Mbeki set of politics, not personalities, as the far-sighted left-left makes common cause with serious comrades in labour and the Communist Party, egged on no doubt by increasingly angry feminists and other democrats. This week's Polokwane theatrics will be looked back upon as a bit of distraction, at that stage in the making of South Africa's real history.
* Patrick Bond directs the Centre for Civil Society at the University of KwaZulu-Natal:
* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at www.pambazuka.org
Zambia and India signed an agreement in September that will see India fund Zambian training centres to train researchers and the public in information and communication technology (ICT) skills. Zambia needed to embrace science and technology to develop economically, said Peter Daka, the Zambian Minister of Science and Technology.
The Boards of Executive Directors of the African Development Bank (ADB) and African Development Fund (ADF) have approved a proposal to clear Liberia's arrears, paving the way for normalization of relations with the West African country for the first time in nearly two decades.
The first pan-African satellite worth $380M is due for launch this week and is considered a turning point for the development of the continent is the sectors of new technologies and telecommunication. The project was co-financed by continental and regional banks.
Kenyans go to the polls to elect leaders that they hope will help them improve their welfare. They have one powerful instrument against which to judge their performance, writes Calestous Juma: the Constituency Development Fund (CDF).
In a predictable show of force, Kenyan voters have consigned a large number of sitting parliamentarians to political oblivion in party nominations. Attempts by Kenya’s Youth Affairs Minister Mohammed Kuti to change the legal definition of youth to include people up to 50 years old was a clear sign of political panic. But there is an easier alternative to panic, argues Calestous Juma: incumbent leaders should start to transfer power to younger generations in an orderly manner. One way to do so is to lower the voting age from 18 to 16 at most.
Media organisations and civil society have questioned the sincerity of the opposition in the SADC-initiated political talks, following the “fast tracking” through parliament of amendments to contentious media and security bills, without debate, this week. Amendments to the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA), the Public Order and Security Act (POSA) and the Broadcasting Services Act (BSA) were rushed through Parliament with only one opposition legislator raising objections.
The interim committee of the MDC-UK is set to suspend defiant ‘rebels,’ led by former chairman Ephraim Tapa, from the party for alleged gross misconduct. The entire national executive of the MDC-UK led by the former trade unionist, was dissolved on 13th October and replaced by a co-coordinating committee led by John Nyamande.
Police in Harare have launched a massive investigation into allegations that Premier Finance Group, chief executive officer Raymond Chigogwana has siphoned about Z$926 billion from the bank through alleged foreign currency deals using shelf companies of friends and family members. The crime is alleged to have been committed in October and has sucked Zimbabwe's central bank, whose governor, Gideon Gono has summoned Chigogwana to explain the circumstances surrounding the disappearance of was could turn out to be Zimbabwe's biggest corporate fraud.
The XYZ Show, a unique African political satire web-series created by artist Godfrey Mwapembwa (Gado) and produced by Communicating Artists Ltd in Kenya is making waves by putting a humorous spin on the upcoming general elections. Please visit to view or download episodes.
Cenya Ceyendi agues that for the sake of democracy itself, Kenyans should vote for Raila Odinga.
Whilst the political scenario in Kenya is as turbulent and exciting as one may ever wish it to be, the entry into the playing field of Kenyan politics between three leading contenders has been interesting to watch during this count-down to elections which will take place on the 27th December 2007. Although I was born outside Kenya, I maintain a keen interest in the developments there and am intrigued by just how the Kenyans will vote between the three contending players and the numerous parties which have been cobbled together in the last five years and some as late as the last few months.
On the one hand is the seasoned Kibaki who hurriedly formed PANU, hoping to recreate the same effect as NARC which was elected into power into 2002 but which rapidly crumpled. Mwai Kibaki , who was sidelined by Daniel Arap Moi in the pre 1990 elections, found his roots back to the desire for democracy which had catapulted him into Kenyan politics since the early 1960’s when he returned from Makerere to join Kenyatta’s government as a junior Minister. Although he had served in the Kenyatta and Moi governments, he was the unlikely contender yet Kenyans coalesced behind him to make him the de facto president of Kenya from 2002 – to 2007. His incumbency gives him an edge as does his long experience.
On the other, are Raila Odinga of the ODM and Kalonzo Musyoka of ODM- Kenya which splintered from each other earlier this year after delivering a blow to the Kibaki-led referendum last year. ODM splintered from the former NARC after internal wrangling, most of them dating to KANU years where Raila, Musyoka and Kibaki had all served at one point. So it could be said that the ODM, ODM-KANU and PANU are all part of a KANU wrangle.
Kalonzo Musyoka does not really seem to be a genuine contender for this two horse race. He does not have a track record, having quietly worked with Moi for several years and is tarnished by this track record although he served as the foreign minister and drew appeal for his smooth appearance/operations both in the region and internationally. However, until recently when he splintered from ODM thus showing himself to be bold and determined, he is not recognised as a heavy weight and was rescued by Julia Ojiambo, another long standing colleague from the Kanu legacy.
There are several other contending parties, but for the moment, these three players appear the most interesting and significant although the entry into the presidential field by the clergy and women frustrated for being “outsiders” from the original KANU group of contenders brings vivid colour to the game and there are and the stakes to play for a high at least at the local level.
Many young Diasporic young people like me have been watching and debating who we would choose of the three leaders and many of my friends are dismayed that I would choose Raila Odinga, not because I believe he will bring much change to Kenya or he and his party are above the allegations such as those of corruption, but because I believe that he has the greatest potential to change. Change, which my friends convince me is not always the antidote to the misery of millions of people and maybe, continuing treading the known path and maintaining “stability” might be.
I tend to differ and argue that if this is their reasoning, then that would give me even greater reason to vote for Raila since we can always come back to the tried and tested path which we already know and detest! Besides, as the saying goes, nothing ventured, nothing gained.
Odinga promises change by addressing amongst other things, the neglected regions and the question of decentralisation which has tended to favour the already favoured ethnicities of the Central region which also benefits from its close proximity to Nairobi and its very large population. I have nothing against all this, but, this is not itself a reason to govern for eternity and could set a bad precedent from which we may never recover.
I am one of those people who is tired of this whole polarisation around the myth of ethnicity which has been taken to new heights through the Kibaki years which has sunk to new depths. The spell has to be broken symbolically so that “other” communities can feel released from the yoke of the unstated Kikuyu supremacy in Kenya which belongs to all the nations of Kenya and also from the Muthaiga types who do not see the contradiction of their actions and the wars that their relatives and ancestors died for!
No person is better placed to break this spell than Raila who is seen to hail from the “rival” ethnicity of the Luo. I know that this is not a good argument, but it is one which is playing on many people’s minds and will be used to determine who wins or loses the elections. Besides, I have a multiethnic identity and this has never bothered me. My parents come from two ethnic communities in Kenya and have managed not only to have a long harmonious relationship but to also produce me in the bargain. For many young Kenyans, despite what we have heard, we do not want to be dragged into past myths about the differences between the ethnicities in Kenya. We do not understand or believe in the myths which I understand were started as part of the divide and rule policies of the British colonials.
On this front, Kalonzo Musyoka is compromised by being Kamba, not through any fault of his own, but through association as the Kamba nation has close traditional, social affiliations to the Gikuyu who are their distant cousins from what I am told.
More seriously however, has been Raila’s capacity to steer the political focus of the country towards a democratic agenda, whether through his activities as a student, through his political activism or through his engagement with the political process. He ensured the toppling of Moi through fortuitous footwork or through genuine political genius. His desire not only to become a politician in his own right, but to also continue the tradition of Jaramogi Odinga Odinga whose legacy was NOT YET UHURU is formidable. Raila could have gone to become a business man or engineer but choose to risk his life several times to bring about change in Kenya. This is a man of courage and holds the longest record of detention in Kenyan history.
Finally, the real reason I would elect Raila is because of the three candidates, his vision for change genuinely seems to stem from deep inside him. I believe that Raila represents the best unifying factor for divided nations but also has the potential for seeing through the changes for which Kenyans are so hungry. He has also represented the urban people, some of them the poorest in the country. He is also respected internationally in Africa and beyond for his Pan African ideas. He represents the possibility for a unified nation and between the three contenders; he has the best possibility of confronting the legacy against myopic ethnicity and regionalism.
He is the best hope for change in Kenya and this is the measure on which I have made the decision why I would cast my vote for him. If he can commit to rid corruption and this is genuine, to unite the nation, to deliver the constitution, to decentralise resources for the marginalised and poor communities, I am confident, he will make it to the State House in a few days time. I have bet my friends who have decided to ostracise me: Then he said Kibaki Tosha and now he says Kibaki Toka.
I hope that the issue of dual citizenship is resolved as I intend at minimum to vote or run for office next time. I think the older generation will be retired by then and we in the Diaspora can bring freshness to the processes. Bring those elections on and may Raila win for change.
*Cenya Ceyendi is an activist of Kenyan origin living in London
*Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org
New programs and policies aimed at preventing HIV in Africa should focus on providing earlier and more comprehensive sex education and reinforcing national health care systems to better serve youth, according to important new research released last week, and published by the Guttmacher Institute and institutional partners in Burkina Faso, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi and Uganda.
This booklet published by UNESCO's education sector is the first in a series of publications on good practice in responding to the impact of HIV and AIDS on education. Aimed primarily at government, donor and NGO policymakers, planners and managers, the series presents ideas, research results, and policy and programmatic examples from both formal and non-formal learning environments.
The United Nations Economic Commission for Africa has published a new report defining fundamental geospatial datasets for Africa. The report is the first attempt to provide a continental common definition of what constitutes a minimally necessary core of geospatial data and information products to which policy makers can add other sectoral datasets to ensure geographic consistency in making decisions on socio-economic development issues.
South Africa's top prosecutor believes there is enough evidence to bring renewed graft charges against Jacob Zuma, newly elected head of the ruling ANC, a local radio station reported on Thursday. Talk Radio 702 quoted prosecutor Mokotedi Mpshe as saying a decision was imminent on whether to take action against Zuma, who ousted President Thabo Mbeki as ANC leader on Tuesday.
Western Sahara's independence movement Polisario will vote in six months on whether to resume an armed struggle with Morocco over the desert territory, an official of the group said on Thursday. "We will have a conference in six months to decide that," Mohamed Beissat told Reuters after a policy-making congress held in the Polisario-controlled outpost of Tifariti this week.
Democratic Republic of Congo has called a peace summit for Dec. 27 to try to end fighting between Tutsi dissidents, government forces and other fighters in its North Kivu province, officials said on Thursday. Several mediation efforts and military campaigns have failed to end years of fighting in the eastern province, where the presence of Rwandan Hutu fighters accused of leading their country's 1994 genocide has provoked conflicts, including Congo's 1998-2003 war.
Government troops in Niger have executed civilians and committed other abuses in reprisal for rebel raids in the Saharan country's uranium-mining north, international human rights organisations say. In separate reports, UK-based Amnesty International and U.S.-based Human Rights Watch denounced rights violations by the army as it confronts a rebellion by the Niger Justice Movement (MNJ).
the French Court in Paris postponed a decision on the request of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) to try Wencelas Munyeshyaka and Laurent Bucyibaruta before French courts for their alleged participation in the Rwandan genocide in 1994. The decision was postponed to 30 January on formal grounds. Both are accused of genocide and crimes against humanity and both have been living in France since the genocide.
A voluntary counselling and testing (VCT) project developed in Africa has the potential to be successfully translated to the UK and could help reduce the high levels of undiagnosed HIV infection in the UK’s African community, according to research published in the December edition of Sexually Transmitted Infections.
Claiming they lost their contracts for political reasons, three Tunisian secondary school teachers launched a hunger strike five weeks ago to compel the education ministry to restore their jobs. Attention to their protest has mounted, along with concern about their deteriorating health.
A day after the dramatic ending of the Bali climate talks, many are wondering if the result was indeed best outcome possible given the circumstances, writes Walden Bello. The US was brought back to the fold, but at the cost of excising from the final document--the so-called Bali Roadmap--any reference to the need for a 25 to 40 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from 1990 levels by 2020 to keep the mean global temperature increase to 2.0 to 2.4 degrees Celsius in the 21st century.
A new energy and development model that proposes leaving oil underground is presented as the only sensible way to confront the today´s challenges and oppose the emissions market scheme as a way to confront climate change. It is an ecological model to replace the “eco-illogical” model, imposed under the free market paradigm of unlimited growth.
Recently AWID launched a new primer series entitled "Aid Effectiveness and Women's Rights". The aim of the series is to share critical information and analysis with women's rights advocates about the new aid architecture that has emerged as a result of the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness — the most recent donor-recipient countries agreement designed to increase the impact of aid.
It was before dawn in Zambia's Kala camp when a truck began collecting refugees who had registered for voluntary repatriation. An enthusiastic Marie Kizyala Sandwe headed to the vehicle waiting outside her one-roomed thatched hut, clutching a small bag holding her personal belongings: clothes, kitchen utensils and a sleeping mat. For 32-year-old Marie, the seven years she lived in Zambia under the protection of the government and the UN refugee agency felt like an eternity.
The UN refugee agency has resumed the repatriation of Sudanese refugees from western Ethiopia after a six-month hiatus due to the rainy season and poor road conditions. A convoy of buses and trucks carrying 610 Sudanese refugees – more than half of them born in Ethiopia – left Bonga Camp on Saturday on a 820-kilometre-long journey to Sudan's Blue Nile state via the border crossing of Kurmuk.
The spectre of regional fragmentation is haunting the negotiations on the finalisation of interim economic partnership agreements (EPAs) between the European Union (EU) and the African, Caribbean and Pacific countries. This is despite one of the stated goals of the EPAs being "regional integration".
Sierra Leone’s economy has, over the years, relied heavily on the mining sector in general and diamonds in particular. However, between 1991 and 2000 the country was comprehensively destroyed in a brutal civil war that engulfed the West African state. Seven years after the war was declared over, the country is still struggling to reactivate economic activities from yesteryear - despite praise from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund for its economic progress during the post-conflict transition.
When a pregnant woman arrives alone at a clinic in eastern Uganda, she returns home with a "love letter" to her husband or boyfriend inviting him to join her. It's designed to enlist more men in the African battle on AIDS and maternal mortality.
Smallholder agriculture is the dominant occupation in many sub-Saharan African nations. The influence of World Bank policies on this sector is well-doucmented, particularly with reference to Structural Adjustment policies of the 1980s and 90s. Despite wide-spread criticism of the World Bank's agriculture policy prescriptions, its major annual publication, the World Development Report (WDR), remains largely focussed on this economic sector. This paper offers a critical reflection of the WDR’s portrayal of world agriculture with respect to Africa.
Human Rights Watch has called for the release of six men sentenced to prison for homosexual conduct in Morocco, arguing that the convictions violate the men’s rights to privacy. The Court of First Instance in Ksar el Kbir (north of the country) convicted the men for violating article 489 of Morocco’s penal code, which criminalises ‘lewd or unnatural acts with an individual of the same sex.’
A new publication released by the Open Society Justice Initiative describes the organization's recent activities, accomplishments, and ongoing efforts. 'Report on Developments 2005-2007' surveys the Justice Initiative's work in promoting open societies through legal reform, emphasizing the organization's impact on the ground. The 72-page book uses feature stories to illustrate major challenges confronted by the Justice Initiative in its six major program areas: Africa, equality and citizenship, freedom of information and expression, international justice, legal capacity development, and national criminal justice reform.
The recently held Connect Africa Summit in Kigali, Rwanda had two aims: to bring connectivity to Africa and to promote ‘Connect Africa’, a new partnership that seeks to expand the ICT infrastructure in Africa, especially Internet broadband. By the end of the two-day summit, investment commitments worth USD 55 billion had been secured and 2012 had been targeted for connecting all African capitals and major cities and strengthening their connectivity with the rest of the world.
Don’t Be Negative About Being Positive is a campaign that aims to fight discrimination against people living with HIV/AIDS in Zimbabwe. Since May 2005, the campaign has used personalised messages from people living positively with HIV, disseminated through television, radio and print media, to raise awareness and discourage stigma.
The Africa Regional Sexuality Resource Centre (ARSRC) calls for applications from Africans and scholarship applications from citizens of Egypt, Kenya, Nigeria, or South Africa, to its annual Sexuality Leadership Development Fellowship (SLDF) Programme. The Fellowship is scheduled to take place in Lagos, Nigeria, from July 7-26 2008.
Launched in 2002, Dramatool is a web-based platform described as "an international meeting point for drama/theatre education". Available in Amharic, Chinese, English, French, Kiswahili, and Spanish (as of this writing), this website is an effort to empower drama and theatre practitioners through networking. Run by the Eastern Africa Theater Institute (EATI) and the Swedish National Organisation for Authorised Drama Pedagogues (RAD), the site serves as a meeting point for those who are interested in how drama/theatre can be used as a tool for change.
For some time now, there's been talk of a new Green Revolution for Africa – because "Africa missed the first Green Revolution" or because "the first Green Revolution missed Africa". Now a new project, the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), is trying to put the concept into operation. This paper aims to describe what a Green Revolution really signifies, why such projects haven't worked before and why AGRA won't work either, in order to help people trying to take positions at the local, national and regional levels.
The struggle for control of biodiversity is passionate: Corporate leaders assume they can make billions; many scientists aspire to manufacturing “new” species; the promise of new cures tantalizes. But no scientist, no patent lawyer, or economist can depict the whole picture. This book gives voice to those in Africa who know better—and are willing to help others see the horror of the biopiracy and enclosure behind the camouflage of advancing “innovation,” “land reform,” and “free trade.” Sharing bioresources requires not only different views of science, of law, of trade, but also of community.
In the 2007 list of the World's Richest People, 946 named billionaires had a combined wealth of approximately $3.5 trillion. The collective net worth of the richest Americans in 2007 is $1.54 trillion. Each of these men and women, says Chinua Akukwe, has enough resources to make a major difference in the fight against the global epidemic of H.I.V./AIDS.
Corruption is illegal everywhere in Africa, but still deeply woven into the fabric of every day life. Corruption in Africa causes and deepens poverty and its impact is felt most by the poor. To assess the situation at the national level, Transparency International (TI) undertook National Integrity System (NIS) country studies in seven Southern African countries: Botswana, Democratic Republic of Congo, Mauritius, Mozambique, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
Fire fighters have so far recovered the bodies of at least 17 people who were killed as a result of three separate explosions in the centre of the capital Freetown. The blasts also caused the hospitalisation of five other seriously injured people. It is not clear what might have cause the explosion which happened in shop belonging to a Lebanese trader jammed with people busy buying second-hand clothing. Early reports said a gas leakage might have caused the blasts. Most Sierra Leoneans depend on gas cookers for cooking.
An international network organisation working in solidarity with the Sahrawi people, Western Sahara Resource Watch, has swiftly reacted to reports that a subsidiary of the Libyan state oil company [Tamoil] is on the verge of investing between US $100 and $150 million in the occupied Western Sahara. "If this is true, it would mean a serious betrayal of the Sahrawi people's legitimate struggle against occupation," Western Sahara Resource Watch protested.
President José Eduardo dos Santos of Angola has revealed that as soon as he gets the final report from the National Electoral Commission, he will announce the date of next year's legislative elections. However, President dos Santos, who made the assurance at the opening of the XXVth session of the Council of the Republic in the capital Luanda, did not say anything about the presidential elections scheduled for 2009. During the session, a draft report and study on local elections will be presented to the Council.
Slim Boukhdir, a jailed Tunisian journalist has again gone on a hunger strike in protest against deplorable prison conditions. Boukhdir, who is serving a year's prison sentence at Sfax, 231 km South of the capital Tunis, started the strike on 13 December. Slim's wife who visited him told the Paris-based Reporters sans frontières (RSF) that her husband is kept in an unlit cell with common prisoners purposely to allow prison authorities to monitor him as well as prevent him from resuming his reading.
Fifteen-year-old Hadjo Garbo’s child-like features belie a history more tragic and life-altering than many adults four times her age will have experienced. Two years ago this petite girl, who likes to fiddle with her elaborately braided hair and once dreamed of being a housewife, was married to one of the older men in her village in the Dosso region of southwest Niger. She was just 13 years old.
Floodwaters in central Mozambique have displaced at least 100 families and the death toll in neighbouring Zimbabwe has risen to at least nine as heavy rains lashed the neighbouring southern African countries, according to media reports. Sergio Moiane, administrator of the district of Buzi in Sofala Province, in central Mozambique, told local media at least 100 families had been evacuated from their homes in the low-lying area of Bandua after experiencing consistently heavy rainfall since 7 December. He said floodwater had swept away about 188 hectares of crops, although water levels in the Buzi River had begun to recede.
The high level of gender-based violence in Zambia is preventing many women from accessing HIV/AIDS services, according to a new report by global watchdog Human Rights Watch. The researchers warned that the ability of Zambian women to get HIV/AIDS counselling, testing and information has been "seriously impaired by the perceived and real control of men [particularly intimate partners] over their lives".
Saico Djau is a very frustrated laboratory technician and HIV counsellor. After testing people for HIV and informing them of their status there is nothing else he can do for them if they are HIV-positive, because there is no antiretroviral (ARV) treatment available on Guinea Bissau's Bijagos Islands. He has to give them the bad news and then send them back to their villages.
On December 14 2007, the Zimbabwean government published proposed amendments to the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA), the Public Order and Security Act (POSA) and the Broadcasting Services Act (BSA). In its analysis, the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) Zimbabwe has come to the conclusion that the proposed amendment Bills contained in the extraordinary gazette reflect no serious intentions on the part of government to democratise the laws in question.
Uganda's government is to buy a $48,2-million Gulfstream jet for President Yoweri Museveni, media reported on Wednesday, and critics questioned whether the poor East African country could afford it. A committee of lawmakers endorsed the proposal, moving it closer to parliamentary approval, the state-owned New Vision newspaper said.
Ethiopia will begin exporting electricity to neighbouring Sudan and Djibouti by 2010, after its series of hydroelectric power projects underway get accomplished. These include a dam construction in Mekelle by 3 Chinese companies, which is nearing completion.
Civilians fleeing violence in east Democratic Republic of Congo are facing a shortage of medical care as disease outbreaks begin to plague the troubled region,
the charity Médécins Sans Frontières (MSF) said on Wednesday. Fighting between government troops and forces loyal to renegade general Laurent Nkunda have pushed civilians from their homes several times in ongoing flare-ups which have intensified since August.
Telecom Namibia and the Xnet Development Alliance Trust announced the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to provide subsidized Internet access to more than 1 500 schools as well as other educational establishments in Namibia.
This week's AU Monitor brings you updates from the African Union, whereas the Commission announces the launching of its 'Panel of the Wise', five eminent regional personalities chosen to advise the Peace and Security Council on conflict prevention and peace promotion matters in Africa. Further, the AU and the League of Arab States held their third consultative meeting to brainstorm on the Revitalization of the Afro-Arab Cooperation and devise concrete activities for the Afro-Arab Development Forum in 2008. Lastly, Participants of the recent EU-Africa Summit present the Lisbon Declaration and resolve to "build a new strategic political partnership for the future, overcoming the traditional donor-recipient relationship and building on common values and goals in our pursuit of peace and stability, democracy and rule of law, progress and development".
In economic news, African countries are succumbing to pressure from the European Commission, signing interim economic trade pacts that are said to fragment regional integration. Also, the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (Comesa) is expressing its criticism after the East African Community (EAC) signed an interim economic partnership agreement (EPA) with the EU, stating that the EAC is "dividing Africa and undermining the continent's integration efforts". Lastly, as criticism grows, the EAC is facing "political seclusion" , but defends itself by saying the interim agreements with the EU were signed to "avoid disruption of trade between the two blocs".
As preparations are being made to transition the African Mission in Sudan (AMIS) to UNAMID as the peacekeeping force in the region, the groups are attempting to clarify what the functions of various AU mechanisms will be following the shift.
In other peace and security news, the Institute for Security Studies analyses the efforts in establishing the African Peace and Security Architecture (APSA), highlighting the setbacks of other African peacekeeping efforts and reframing the discussion on homegrown security tactics.
In climate-related news, the Global Call to Action Against Poverty (GCAP) alliance expressed frustration at the lack of binding agreements arising from the UN Climate Change Conference in Bali . GCAP Campaign Manager Irfan Mufti says "The US has acted like a playground bully in these crucial negotiations" and delaying the development of an agreement on stringent binding emission targets will disproportionately affect the world's poorest people. Further, the UN Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) has announced plans for its African Centre for Climate Policy Studies to provide African countries with the capacity to respond to climate-related concerns in the framework of development policies.
Lastly, EU agricultural ministers have finally adjusted their sugar pricing rules to adhere to global frameworks, abolishing subsidies that are expected to benefit African sugarcane producers.
Pambazuka News 332: Routes and possibilities of South-South subversive globalization
Pambazuka News 332: Routes and possibilities of South-South subversive globalization
Today’s global development challenges demand experts who are able to think systemically and who can use dynamic tools to analyze complex and interdependent social, economic, and environmental systems that influence sustainable development. Millennium Institute’s six-week System Dynamics-based Development Planning Course equips participants with the knowledge and skills required to effectively analyze these challenges and determine the best approaches to mitigating them.
The Bread Loaf Writers Conference, which was founded by Robert Frost in 1925 and is the oldest and most distinguished writers’ conference in America, is offering a fellowship to either an African or Caribbean poet, fiction or nonfiction writer to attend the 2008 conference, August 13-24. Named after Michael and Marylee Fairbanks, the Fairbanks International Fellowship is in its third year of existence. The previous winners have been Glaydah Namukasa, a novelist from Uganda, and Stanley Gazemba, a writer from Kenya .
Well said on the issue of remittances . If the money inflow was used to invest in infrastructure development or similar uses then maybe it would be beneficial. Furthermore, the funds are used to purchase goods that are possibly supplied by the same multinationals that remit dividends to the 'North'.
In April 2008, UNICEF and the Graduate Program in International Affairs (GPIA), at The New School will jointly host an international conference to review and mobilise the international agenda on ending child poverty and reducing disparities. The conference, will create a space for consultation and exchange between academics, professionals and government officials working on different aspects of the fight against child poverty.
EASSI is an eleven year old sub-regional support initiative for women that boasts of having a hand in the implementation of Government commitments to women and girls’ advancement. This program targets women from the ages of 18 to 35 from any of the eight countries of the sub-region, Burundi, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Somalia, Tanzania and Uganda. Every year we target four women. In 2008, we specifically seek women from Eritrea, Kenya, Somalia and Tanzania.
ICTE is now accepting applications for the 2008-09 cycle of its International Guest Program. The International Guest Program brings Human Rights and Tolerance advocates and educators to New York City for a period of one to three months for a residency at the International Center for Tolerance Education (ICTE). All applications are due Monday, January 21st, 2008.
The Government of Kenya is in the concluding stages of privatizing Telkom Kenya. The winning bidders France Telecom will take Board control by December 21, 2007.
The government is also planning to offload shares of Safaricom through an Initial Public Offer (IPO) before the end of this year. However there are reasons to be wary of this privatization exercise.
Tajudeen to Africa and EU leaders: Who is fooling who?
In spite of all the controversies and mountains of news reports the final outcome of the Africa-EU Summit in Lisbon is nothing if not an anti climax. The joint declaration signed by the 67 leaders promised to be a new partnership that will propel both continents to ‘a new, strategic level’ which will forge ‘a new and stronger partnership that builds on their new identities and renewed institutions , capitalizes on the lessons of the past and provides a solid framework for long term cooperation’.
Why should the EU and Africa be looking for a new partnership when the much touted NEPAD (New Partnership for Africa’s Development) has been in existence for the past five years?
Why are the same African leaders who claim that NEPAD is our economic blue print and the AU our political means of achieving its aims signing new partnerships? Why should other regional blocks who claim to support African initiatives using all kinds of carrots and sticks to induce us to sign new ones while making ritual commitment to support ‘African solutions to African problems’.
The Yoruba have a saying : ‘ Enia meji ki pa adanu iro, bi eniti an tan o ba mo o ye ki eniti ntan’ ni o mo’ (i.e. two people cannot both lose out on a lie, if the one being deceived does not know it is a lie , at least the deceiver should know it is a lie). The irony of Lisbon is that one is not sure who is fooling whom?
What is so new about this promised partnership which was dictated at all levels by the EU? It should rightly be called Europe’s strategy for Africa instead of the deceitful tag of EU-Africa Strategy. The basic principles, contents, negotiations and processes were dictated by the Europeans with the Africans playing catch up or merely reacting as reviewers of papers drafted by the EU and their consultants. I should know what I am talking about because I was partly involved in the CSO (more appropriately NGO) process. Instead of the European NGOs talking and partnering with their African NGO counterparts they were dealing directly with the AU bureaucrats, principally the African Citizens Directorate (CIDO). CIDO (which should be more appropriately called Centre for disempowering African Citizen Participation in the AU) then proceeded to cherry pick which African NGOs and NGIs (like myself) that they can involve. Things were not that different in the governmental processes. So bad did it become that there were deliberate leaks to NGO activists by concerned Ministers especially on EPA by African finance Ministers despairing at the bullying of African governments by the EU and their governments to force Africa to sign up by the time of the Lisbon summit.
It is obvious that the same divide and rule tactics which Europe successfully used to conquer us as slaves and later colonize and balkanize the continent into mostly non viable states was at play. How can we be negotiating with the EU as EAC, ECOWAS, SADC, etc when they were negotiating with us as the EU? Perhaps it is most appropriate that the venue of the Summit was Lisbon, capital of Portugal. Portugal was the first European country to set foot in Africa and the last to leave its colonies forced by armed struggles in its colonies. Indeed it was revolution in its colonies that precipitated revolution in Lisbon itself that freed it from Military dictatorship.
We really cannot blame the Europeans for leading us by the nose. We should ask our selves why our noses are so readily available. Why are we so ready and willing to respond to other people’s agenda with no respect for ours? Is it that we cannot refuse any invitation to dinner even if the food is not palatable or when we may be full?
Respect is not given on demand but earned by the way one respects oneself. If African leaders can sign up to NEPAD, AU, RECs and other intra African multilateral agreements and conveniently forget them whenever extra African powers come calling we cannot blame others for over writing them.
There is no amount of agreements that our leaders can sign with other regions of the world that will deliver social progress and development to our peoples unless we put our house in order and learn to deal with the rest of the world with a united front in spite of the contradictions between us. Others have their own internal contradictions too but they know where their best interest and what their long term strategies are.
If we say the AU is our primary diplomatic and political organ for Africa’s shared interests then we need to give it the essential power to do so on our behalf instead of constantly running around sucking up to any powers that claim to have interest in Africa.
The politics of the process that led to Lisbon is yet another demonstration of the ugly truth that we are yet to be taking our selves seriously and hence we belittle our own institutions and through that ourselves and privilege others in our affairs. It is time to stop this circus of Executive mileage and saver miles across the world. The leaders should just stay at home and implement all the agreements we already have to accelerate regional and continental integration. Anybody interested can come and join us as we rebuild this continent from Cape Town to Cairo. We do not need new agreements. We just need to fulfill existing ones we made among ourselves. Without this all agreements will just be like one between cats and Mice. Is there any wager who the mice are?
* Dr Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is Deputy Director, Africa, for the UN Millennium Campaign, based in Nairobi, Kenya. He writes this column in his personal capacity as a concerned Pan Africanist.
* Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org
Jacques Depelchin reflects on the growing economic, political and cultural relationship between Brazil and the Africa and urges for a solidarity from below that is cognizant of black revolutionary history.
Almost everyone knows about Brazilian football, especially Pelé; but, it is a fair bet that a very tiny percentage of the same people will know about one of the foremost intellectuals of Brazil in the 20th century: Milton Santos (MS), winner in 1994 of the Vautrin Lud prize given to the most outstanding geographer (sometimes known as the nobel prize for geography). Others have described him as the Noam Chomsky of Brazil. One could go on with the accolades. Thanks to a recent documentary (directed by Silvio Tendler) on and around his ideas, MS’ reputation (1925-2001) is likely to gain greater recognition among Brazilians as they begin to realize how far ahead his visionary understanding of humanity’s plight and challenges was.
This is not an essay on MS, it is an encouragement to those who already know him or of him and those who do not, to get to know him better. It is also an appeal to those who have the wherewithal to contact the film maker and make it available in other languages, including Kiswahili since he did teach in the geography department of the University of Dar es Salaam in the mid-seventies.
The main reason for this essay is to reflect on the growing convergence (economic, political and cultural) between Brazil and the Africa which is not delimited by its geographical borders. To paraphrase MS’ view: surely, another kind of globalization is not only possible, but a must if humanity is going to be born [1]. Inexorably, it will be thought and led by the poor, or the Wretched of the Earth, as Franz Fanon long ago, saw it coming. Will African intellectuality join them or prefer to carry on their mimicking of the West?
1. Mimicking or thinking? 1804 or 184?
In one of his interviews (and in the documentary), MS lamented the fact that most Brazilian intellectuals were more interested in copying what is happening in Europe or in the USA, rather than thinking from where they are, where they have come from and where they would like to go. Calling it intellectual laziness, he pointed out that it is easier for people to consume than to produce. Obviously, he is not the first to have said so [2], the question however, for all thinking Africans, as we enter the era of 50th anniversaries of Independence, is what happened after Independence? Is it something one could reasonably describe as an event? One which could or should have mobilized fidelity to what it meant? Were they events on the same scale as other previous emancipatory events , e.g.Quilombo de Palmares in Brazil(1597-1695), Haiti (1791-1804), and so many other unknown feats of resistance. Which kind of subject emerged out of such a collective birthing event? Did Independences rupture the colonizing enterprise, like truths puncture lies? Did there emerge an emancipated subject in our individual and collective consciousness? Which kind of consciousness prevailed in our countries, 50 years after Independence? We can point to heroes and heroines who did all they could to maintain fidelity to the emancipated subject which emerged out of that event. Each reader can fill in the dots.
In Haiti today, 184 is the number of people and institutions who signed a petition against President Aristide, denouncing him in a manner reminiscent of the Congolese who colluded with external forces to eliminate Patrice Lumumba, back in 1960/1. Could 184 coincidentally be an apt metaphor of what came to be of 1804 [3]? The shrinking and squeezing of freedom, equality and fraternity to the point of a group of 184 whishing it never happened? Could it be said that the same process has occurred in many African countries, namely that of reducing Independence not to an event, but to a transition used and abused by a small group to enrich themselves while the largest part of the population remained poor or got poorer? Shouldn’t what happens to every single Haitian today, because of that transition from 1804 to 184, be of concern to all thinking human beings?
On December 12, 2007 it will be 4 months since the disappearance of Pierre Antoine Lovinsky [4]. Kidnapping (or rendition?) might be a more appropriate word. How many (among those who knew of it) have done even a symbolic gesture calling on his kidnappers to let him free? Kidnapping used to be one of the ways people were ripped from the continent and dragged to the forts and slave ships. Wherever he is, Lovinsky could be asking himself why there has not been greater efforts to get him back from where he is. He must wonder, like many others, why the Brazilian government, headed by a president who visited Gorée and, more or less [5], apologized for slavery, does not go out of its way to go and find Lovinsky. Or, as some have speculated, is it part of the agenda of the UN mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) to silence, completely, all those who have vowed to continue calling for the return of President Aristide to Haiti?
It is impossible to think of Africa 50 years ago without, at the same time, thinking about its history from 500 years ago, because it is only by looking over the entire period that one can only begin to guess at the magnitude of the crime which has been committed with unimaginable, relentless impunity. If the Brazilian government, through its President, really meant to apologize for slavery, should it not be seen thinking and acting in a manner which is aimed at restoring the Haiti of 1804 rather than allying itself with the 184?
2. Brazil-Africa: South-South or South-North-South?
As more and more thinking Africans clamor for greater and greater South-South cooperation, it is encouraging to observe how the Brazilian government is willing to tread where its ruling clique would not like to go. The ruling clique is only interested in so-called Real Politik, and not at building a Planetary future through healing emancipatory processes. Even if, as everyone can see from the climatic changes, such a course is the only viable one. The ruling clique is more interested in fitting in the world as it is, rather than trying to build a different world, in which solidarity with Africa (and Asia) would loom large. But the world as it is, as seen from G8 Meetings and places like Davos is not interested in solidarity with Africa [6]; Africa and all of the poor of the world –they tell us in their own way-- shall be rescued by charity [7]. The charitable option is the most logical given that even the G8 and Davos have lost their grip on world decision making processes as these have been eroded by the weight and impact of financial decision centers via “the markets”. Described as self regulatory, these financial monsters are beginning to show growing signs of being out of control. How could it be otherwise given that the few regulatory leashes in place have been removed…so that these financial monsters could –so the logic went—even better self-regulate themselves [8].
The pressure for greater solidarity with Africa, in Brazil, comes from its African ancestry population and its allies (indigenous, landless, working, jobless people). Even the ruling clique cannot completely ignore the fact that more and more people in Brazil are clamoring for greater justice, and so, on occasion, it has to be seen as responding to these demands. As an emerging country, Brazil wants to have a permanent seat at the UN Security Council. This is one of the objectives which has driven President Lula’s foreign visits, including the visits to Africa, including his recent stop in Burkina Faso, on October 15.
As readers of Pambazuka News know very well, October 15 2007 was the 20th anniversary of Thomas Sankara’s assassination (along with 12 of his comrades). One can only presume that the ruling clique decided that one additional vote for the quest of a permanent seat at the UN Security Council, should be achieved by any means necessary, and, therefore, accepted the Burkina Be invitation to “celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Burkina Be revolution”. In the eyes of Sankara’s foes such an accolade from Brazil would help bury Sankara one more time. Or for good!
However, this cynical collusion to treat African history like a serviceable walking mat does help illustrate the longer process of how the splitting apart of humanity has been carried out by the very ones who apologize in one venue and do the exact opposite in another. Most academics are likely to condemn these colluders. And yet, again, should one not ask the same question raised with regard to the 184 in Haiti? However inconvenient it might sound, is it not the case that, overall, 50 years since Independence, African people have been betrayed by those who were supposed to be thinkers and who, on paper at least, always like to be seen and heard as being on their side? Independence as a truth, as an event, has been treated like a mere happening, one which did not seize intellectuals to change their world view of the past, the present and the future. Yes, however uncomfortable it might make one, each one of us should be able to ask: did I do all that could/should have been done, and more, to turn that emancipatory event into a real transformation of the colonial situation? If one thinks one did, then the result should tell one that it was far from enough.
Now and then the daily routine of the last 50 years has been ruptured by someone like Thomas Sankara who did try to live in fidelity of that Independence as an Event. As MS might have said, Sankara’s courage was to think. Thinking, in a context dominated by mimicking, submission, keeping quiet, is the most courageous act, suggested MS. Pushing further: are intellectuals in Africa, of Africa, from Africa, thinking? Over the past 50 years, have we become, more or less, like the 184 of Haiti? Faced with either catechizing or thinking, which way has been the easier road to follow? What happens when a so-called “discovered” (e.g. Lumumba, Aristide) “discovers” something the “discoverer” does not want discovered? Ever since 1804, that question has been answered unilaterally in only one way, over and over, almost like a silent but persistent internal prescription: Shrink that 1804 to 184, from the outside and from within.
3. Lumumba (1960) Sankara (1987) Aristide (2004)
Certainly none of these three would have passed the catechist exam for mimicry. In the world of African spirits, one could imagine Sankara’s spirits, from wherever they are circulating, letting us know how they understand the difference between mimicking and thinking, between a revolution and its fake. Listening attentively, one might be able to hear the following from Sankara’s spirits:
“Why and how is it, that starting with resistance to dehumanizing practices, structures, mentalities, from the beginning of humanity, but especially since our Independence, our leaders (not just in Burkina Faso) have colluded with their worst enemies to liquidate those who were trying to change course? More importantly, why not have an open dialogue so that our own voices could be heard, against those whose version of events is patently self-serving?
Right after they got rid of my comrades and I, they began to say that they were the real revolutionaries. I would not have minded if, indeed, they went on pursuing (reaching new heights) what we had started together, but, instead they started describing the revolution from the moment of my liquidation, as they went on liquidating many of the projects we had initiated. Those we had planned were archived never to be heard of again. As singers have sung before why is it that we get rid so easily of those who struggle with the poorest of the poor, and in their place put the defenders of the richest of the rich?”
And Sankara’s spirits continue: “ From where I am, it is easy to meet with fellow victims of liquidation, including those who faced their fate after liquidating countless of their own people themselves. One with a very long name from somewhere at the centre of our continent told me, crying like a child that he wished he could be back and bring back to life the leader whose punishment was so severe that they dissolved his body in an acid bath. These liquidizers or liquidationists, after coming here, were confronted with the real history of our continent, one which, given what happened, is impossible to measure even by the standards imposed by those who claim no one has ever suffered more than themselves. These spirits are in such pain for what they did that it is difficult not to sympathize with them. Here is what one of them said (there is no point naming names, but he is one of the main characters in Ahmadou Kourouma’s Waiting for the Vote of the Animals): I knew our situation was bad, but first I really believed the stories of the experts on development who kept repeating that sooner or later tickling (sic) down would get everybody laughing all the way to the bank (just like it happened to me), but then it kept getting worse, and it is only after coming down here under ground that I could see (literally from below) how bad the suffering has been. I had seen some of it above ground, but from down here, I could not imagine how extreme the level of suffering has been. It is only now --continued this crying spirit-- that I understood how terribly, and horribly wrong I was. Somehow I bought into the notion that our suffering is lightweight, so trivial, not worth talking about, let alone, complaining. No one, not even some of our best griots, has been able to convey, in words what really happened, the terror, the fear that was inflicted through those wars of hunting for slaves. Those who escaped the brutal fate, either by luck or choice (becoming part of the hunters, in exchange of a few cowries, alcohol, cloth and/or guns), and their descendants, did their best to ensure that their own role did not get to be known. In short, what we are witnessing today, is a repeat of what has happened before: it is not the first time that our kin has colluded in and with self-liquidation.”
Again in the world of the African spirits, one would hear the spirits of Zumbi (the hero of the Quilombo de Palmares) and the spirits of Sankara meeting and commenting on the systematic downsizing, downgrading of the history of the continent, leading the 184 from Haiti and from other places to the point where downgrading would coincide with denigration and, finally, simply denial. Zumbi would say to Sankara: “You know, my spirits tried to talk to Lula about that choice and making him see that doing that visit on that day would be the equivalent of laughing at our own 20th of November which has been chosen by the African brothers and sisters to commemorate when I was killed on November 20th, 1695 [9]. But there was so much interference, there was no way he could have heard me. Of course, part of the problem is that he is trying to satisfy everybody.”
Not long ago, France, under Chirac passed a law calling slavery a crime against humanity, but in a world where the nation-state has become one more instrument of the financial oligarchy, the mind set which emerged out of slavery has been reinforced rather than weakened. Every time it looked like one was about to correct the history of the continent, one goes the other way, as if the ruling principle is to keep laundering it until it becomes unrecognizable. With forces trying to negate what happened and others deforming it beyond recognition, is it surprising that 50th anniversaries or any attempt to recognize a truth, an event is turned into its opposite, like the ruling clique of Burkina Faso celebrating the assassination of Thomas Sankara as the birth of something they call a revolution.
Undoubtedly, some readers will take issue with the raising of these discomforting questions. Others might even condemn it as a disguised way of celebrating afro-pessimism or useless self-flagellation. The vast majority of Africans will not even be able to access these words, and yet, it is this vast majority which has been robbed of what could have happened, had there been more thinking than mimicking within African intellectuality.
To carry on as the African brothers and sisters (by now ancestors) did in Haiti, from 1791 through 1804, without any help from outside, without human rights organizations cheering on the sides, took a kind of courage which is difficult to imagine today. Yet, one must nurture the courage to say, as MS did in the documentary, that there has been no humanity, so far; only now is it being built, little by little. Universalism has always been preached as coming from the Enlightenment. To which MS replicated: “we, Brazilians, are not universal because we fail to be thoroughly (sufficiently) Brazilians”. The same could be said of Africans. The failure has been one of not keeping at it: trying and trying to be sufficiently (i.e. more and more) Africans.
4. Brazil and the 10.639/2003 Law
In a context dominated by hesitations and vacillations, those who have most benefited from the systematic laundering of African wealth/history would like to keep on laundering it after each new phase, even if it means reducing the entire Planet to an unlivable place for all of its inhabitants. Those who have been cowered into submission still know that they were right to resist, but are running out of the courage of 1804. They do see the 184 waving at them to join their side, which, from the distant, does look like paradise on earth. Among them a half-despairing Congolese mutters: “do not get fooled”. “Back home”, he continued, “we had someone who also built a so-called paradise in the equatorial forest at a place called Gbadolite. Nature has returned. He and his paradisiacal Zaïre are gone.”
On the other hand, thanks to the work of people battling to carry on the spirits of Zumbi in Brazil, a law was passed in 2003, calling for the teaching of Africa and people of African ancestry in elementary and secondary schools (NB pre-primary and tertiary/higher levels are not mentioned). As its passing, the implementation will depend on keeping alive the spirits of Zumbi, Sankara and so many other known and unknown truth discoverers. In and of itself the law will not change the mindset, but it is arguable that the mindset will change faster, provided that on the African side there is the courage to respond to this law –10.639/2003. There is no point spelling out the possible multiplicity of responses because each individual, each collective can generate emancipatory thoughts/responses aimed at transforming the current situation for the better for everyone[10].
More than laws will be needed. No thoughts will be too small, no thoughts will be too big once total and complete emancipation from the remaining shackles of 1804 are turned into the single minded objective for humanity wherever people of African descent live, which is everywhere on the Planet.
* Jacques Depelchin works with the Ota Benga Alliance for Peace Healing and Dignity. He is currently visiting Professor at the Centre for Afro-Oriental Studies at the Federal University of Bahia, Salvador, Brazil
* Please send comments to or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/
Jesús Chucho García calls for a greater recognition of Afro-Venezuelans in the country's constitution.
Afro-Venezuelans are not satisfied with how they are recognized in the constitution:An open letter to members of the national assembly
Esteemed members of the National Assembly,
Last Tuesday, you began to discuss the Constitutional Reform article by article. Days beforehand, Social Communicator Modesto Ruiz, an Afro-Venezuelan member from Barlovento, had expressed the feelings of the Afro-Venezuelan movement as none other had done in the constitutional history of Venezuela. It wasn’t simply the voice of Ruiz speaking, it was the voices of African ancestors and their descendants, who—after the abolition of slavery in 1854—were making a historic claim before the injustice, racism and discrimination to which we had been subjected, just as our decisive contributions to the irreversible social advancement for more than 200 years of this country’s history have done. For the first time after more than 25 constitutions discussed in that same room where you sit, the reason why we should be “legally” recognized in the Venezuelan Constitution was being explained in our own symbols, our own language, and our most profound feelings.
Each one of you knows that the Constitution should be the reflection of the people, with an understanding of how Amilcar Cabral expressed them, “The people are the principal actors and beneficiaries of the liberation struggle. This concerns a political notion that should be defined in the given historical moment.”
Who built the economies in the colonial era? Who was it that paid with their blood, intelligences and bare struggle in the Independence and Federal Wars? Who contributed to the fight for Revolutionary Democracy in the 1970s and 1980s with their blood? Perhaps it wasn’t Barlovento, Veroes (in Yaracuy state) and the most impoverished ghettoes of Caracas—where afrodescendants live—that saved the country during the 2002 coup and oil stoppage?
How can esteemed members and the President of the Republic Hugo Chávez Frías try to reduce us to one Article—number 100—of the Constitutional Reform (which, by the way, was badly written and historically decontextualized)? How can you oppose the proposals that we have made to 11 of the 33 articles proposed by President Chávez, wherein we are demanding our historical character to be an integral part of the Venezuelan people?
Esteemed members, if this is how things will be, then we are facing new, subtle forms of racism and discrimination. Your names will be forever stamped in the history of Venezuelan hypocrisy, just as in 1830 and 1854, when the names of National Assembly members who mocked the aspirations of our ancestors—who demanded citizenship, land and recognition of their cultural particularities - were stamped with hypocrisy in that same room. If the Constitutional Reform is ratified with a reductionism towards afrodescendants, then from the point of view of respect toward diversity, pluralism and the advancement to the total integration of our country, we would even be below an ultra-rightist state such as Colombia, and we would be very much below the Brazilian, Nicaraguan and Ecuadorian Constitutions.
The historic debt definitely continues, and it will depend on you and the President of the Republic, because we as afrodescendants already made our proposals for a newly articulated Preamble and technical contributions to the 33 articles, along with two street mobilizations, throughout which, by the way, the doors to that same room were never opened for us to enter. Our welcome by the highest authorities of the National Assembly and of the Presidential Committee for Constitutional Reform has thus far only been in the streets.
* Jesús "Chucho" García is a leading activist against and researcher of racism in Venezuela
* Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org
Ramesh Shah looks at the evolution of political discourse in Tanzania
Recently, Mr. Kabwe Zitto of opposition party Chama cha Demokrasia na Maendeleo (CHADEMA) faced a four month suspension in the Tanzanian Parliament. The opposition expressed disappointment on suspension of Mr. Zitto as a move by CCM legislators to conceal the “Truth”. The issue was very simple. It was regarding the Buzwadi mining contract between the present Tanzanian government and Barrick Gold Corporations in London. The opposition believed that by blocking Zitto’s motion, the government failed to show the transparency.
On the other hand, Mr. Zitto believed that he had an obligation to “defend the Nation’s resources in the interest of “Wananchi””. Perhaps, President Kikwete saw some truth, perhaps he was honest, perhaps he wants to use the best people and their ideas to lead the nation through the maze of globalization: Whatever the case may be, he made Zitto one of the members of inquiry into mining contract. But then came another surprise. In one of the newspapers, it was reported that the Karatu legislator, Wilbrod Slaa also wanted to disclose secrets on Bank of Tanzania when he felt that the Government would also block his private motion in the Parliament. It was interesting to see the first page of this paper. The top headline was about Mr. Slaa’s remarks regarding suspicion of corruption in the Bank of Tanzania. The lower headline was about the Vice President Mr. Shein asking people to avoid luxuries and invest at home. This showed nothing much except that in the process of fighting extreme poverty in the mineral rich Tanzania, the time had come and some people had risen to ask for greater transparency.
People are asking for more than parliamentary democracy. They are taking a closer look at the parliamentary laws and rules and asking how and for whom they work. Could all this be connected to another problem? Recently, Mr. Warioba said that it was high time that Tanzania had a Constitution that separates the legislative and executives arms. Mr. Masekwa also said that there was a need to amend the Constitution in order to avoid any situation whereby the executive could simply muzzle the parliament.
Tanzania still has to solve many other problems arising recently. The new Prevention and Combating of Corruption Act [2007] is expected to protect the PCB, journalists, and the public in fighting graft. But actually the media will be prevented from independent investigations from the PCB. Yet today’s crime in the world is such that it needs simultaneous investigations from all sides. In India, media plays a major role in the investigations and show their progress to the people on their media channels. Kenya also has similar problem in a Media Bill where it is legally mandatory for media to reveal its source of information in the court. If this Bill becomes effective, no one will give information to the media. Law Society of Kenya [LSK] has promised to go to court to stop this Bill.
A few months ago, some university student leaders were not allowed to continue their studies. I ask myself, when do “leaders” become “ring-leaders” in our country? When I was a student at this university, I always saw our leaders as “leaders”. My point is not on whether Mr. Zitto or the students were right or wrong. When Tanzania wanted to go democratic, the first thing CCM did was to propose the multi-party approach. It was the CCM that was to lead us into democracy. The second thing it tried to do was make the democracy more vibrant and asked the opposition to become more active. At this stage, Mr. Zitto was not an individual but he represented a trend of thought. He was not one but many. He was part of a new trend now emerging in all developing countries. He was not opposing as a party, but just trying to set up a new trend of transparency. Like many academics, and citizens, I have been dreaming of effective arguments and transparency. I did not look at our parliament as a “party” but as a “nation”. ??
When I was a student of economics at the university, I read a book called “Four Essays on Philosophy” by Chairman Mao. One of the essays was on “Contradiction”. When there is a major contradiction, we come to-gather as nation and try to solve it. This is when we fought for and achieved our independence. Then a new minor contradiction arose, and this was party politics. Since then, we have been struggling between different major [national] and minor [party] and still minor [individual] contradictions. Mr. Zitto’s approach showed a major [national] contradiction but many understood it as a minor contradiction, and he was suspended!!! It would have been a plus for the CCM members to respect Mr. Zitto's move if we agree that the CCM wants to increase the level of democracy and transparency. Democracy and transparency cannot be strengthened by merely setting up more human rights institutions, but rather by the people rising to make the use of them. Mr. Zitto may have done exactly that. ??
Amartya Sen has written a book on “identity”. In it he raises the question of how we identify our-selves. Do I identify myself as a national, or CCM, or as an individual, or as a Hindu, or as a socialist or as a capitalist or as a fan of a particular politician? What we are going to do depends on how we identify ourselves. Very often, issues of national interest may conflict with the party interest or religious interest and vice-versa. An issue of national interest may not resonate for the individual or the party. ??If we are to introduce the philosophy of a “majority” decision then it means that the majority can impose their decisions. Nowhere in the world or in history, is it ever said that the majority is always right. Majority is just numerical superiority.
Similarly, the minority is not always wrong, and yet she may loose her view due to the numerical strength of the “majority”. Very often, the law may contradict justice, and that is why we often call upon our nation to be just and not just legal. Laws emerge from the bills that are passed in parliament. A bill is drafted by the national legal persons and passed by the parliament. A Bill will not be just if drafted in the interest of a small influential group. Most of the third world was colonized some time ago.
The colonial “masters” used all sorts of unjust laws, fears, force and techniques to justify colonization. When we became independent, we inherited similar structure, and we also continued playing the same game towards our own people. The events following 1789 in revolutionary France were nothing but terror followed by Directorate and the Consulate. All this may suggest that the old oppression had merely been replaced by the new kind. For many philosophers, the aftermath only reinforced that a man’s true nature was as savage as it was wicked and vengeful. In this way, the social revolution got out of hand because many people wanted liberty before order, while others wanted to put order before liberty.
We should always ask, what is the best order to maximize liberty? If we talk of evil, then we may be talking about religion. The issue of evil troubled Plato greatly. If we use Leibniz’s idiom, God has made the best of all possible worlds. Among the many goods, He gave us, the good of freedom. He may not have liked the world without freedom, because the freedom itself is a necessary part of goodness. But freedom cannot exist without the possibility of abuse. The evil entered the world through our abuse of freedom. Beyond this, nothing else is evil. Some people think that evil itself is the necessary part of the global beauty in the same way the catastrophe is part of the beauty of a tragedy. ??I give regular lectures on Ethics at the University. At one time, while all good ethics may also contain good laws, not all laws absorb ethics. But today many laws are in contradiction to ethics. ??Then we end up with the use of power. When our thought is joined to will, we call it power; this means that if one has got power, one must manifest it to action.
The accumulation of power is likewise as important as its diffusion. An ounce of practice is worth more that a ton of theory. Talking is neither politics nor religion, parrots may talk, and machines may also talk. Each nation, each leader has a mission for the world. There is no power higher then power of purity. ?
* Dr Ramesh Shah is an Economics and Export Consultant and has given lectures on Ethics at the University of Dar-es-Salaam
* Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org
We, African and European Civil Society Organizations, having met at the Lisbon Euro-African Forum, state that partnerships are the cornerstone of development. However, building a new partnership between Europe and Africa takes time. It requires more coherence and taking power unbalances into account. It also requires the effective implementation of the principles on which this relation must be based, such as mutual accountability and trust.
It was not with routine interest that I opened a copy of the book volume on “Transitions in Namibia”. This year has towards its end brought visible efforts to redirect the way Namibia is going politically, and thus redirect the lives of Namibians. The recent congress of the ruling SWAPO Party made important decisions, that were already in advance challenged by a new party formed by people with a background of the very core of SWAPO for the last three decades. We do not know what happens with the Rally for Democracy and Progress (RDP). Will it experience the same as the Congress of Democrats, founded less than ten years ago, or will it be able to create enough support to really influence the way Namibia is developing? I would simplify the choices as either following the Zimbabwe way to disaster, or to find another, essentially more democratic and economically just and viable way of development.
Every analysis is based on history. I have found by experience that the government of Namibia is not really interested in history at all. They want something, which Chris Saunders calls “patriotic history”. The idea is to produce “the one and only” history. The right one, giving the only truth of what has taken place. It is almost written already. Sam Nujoma has published a book called “Where Others Wavered”, which aims to enshrine armed struggle as the decisive factor in bringing freedom and independence. As Saunders points out, the aim is to cement the arm of exile leaders in the present and coming power struggles in the power struggle establishing “liberation credentials” and labelling deviating opinions as unpatriotic and imperialist.
In writing about the centrally important issue of land, Phanuel Kaapama discusses also the surprising way SWAPO turned its coat from a quite rigid soviet version of socialism to all out capitalism just before the 435-process commenced at the end of the 1980’s. I do not question the wisdom of Hidipo Hamutenya, when he said in 1990: “democratisation of Namibian society was necessary before the process of socialist transformation could commence”. But contrary to what happened in South Africa, there was almost no public discussion whatsoever on this tremendous change of basic political line. Even the labour leaders adopted with little resistance a so-called “social partnership”.
Namibian leaders have repeatedly expressed their admiration of the Zimbabwean land distribution policies. I do not believe, however, that Namibia will in this question follow the disastrous footsteps. The government knows well the experience of the couple of hundred farms which have been bought by state or individuals through Affirmative Action Loan Scheme. The experience shows how all important is the professional competence of the new farmers. Instead of becoming prosperous, new farmers have impoverished and become dependent of continuous government support for survival. Some have found paid work in neighbouring farms. Some owners have rented the farm back to the previous owner. Without training and slowly accumulating expertise farms do not produce the expected returns. In this issue, Mr Kaapama is somewhat too optimistic, I suspect, in indicating that the experience gained in the communal areas is broadly sufficient for the task.
As a trade unionist, I was particularly interested to read Herbert Jauch’s account on labour policies. The Labour Research and Resource Institute, LaRRI, which would not exist without Jauch’s initiative and commitment, has produced invaluable analysis and data for trade unions and the general public. I remember in 1987 having to defend in a United Nations workshop in Lusaka the idea of a highest pay differential of 1:10 in the independent Namibia. It is about the actual situation in the Nordic countries. SWAPO leaders present said that they cannot accept such a large differential. Today the difference between the national minimum wage of a Ramatex worker’s salary, relates to the pay of managers in the civil service to something like 1 to 50, and more than 1 to 100 for managers of parastatals.
The Namibian elite wants to earn as much as their peers in USA and Europe, although the carrying capacity of the economy and productivity of work does not warrant it. It does not leave much money for anything else, especially when the civil service is relatively large. In his chapter on the new black Namibian elite, Henning Melber shows this in figures: the top 20% earn almost 80% of all income: “Independence did not produce a national bourgeoisie, but a crypto-capitalist self-enriching elite, which expends its energy on exploiting the public purse, a truly parasitic class.“
A long time issue in the labour movement in Namibia is the affiliation of the largest trade union federation NUNW to the ruling party. Just as has been argued, it has led to stagnation of efforts to defend the rights of workers. It has also led to spreading the internal struggles of SWAPO inside the NUNW. It has gone very far and contributed to an erosion of understanding of where the labour leaders belong. It is quite astonishing to read that trade union leaders have accepted board and management positions in private and parastatal enterprises. This way they adopt neo-liberal policies and with that, the NUNW loses its mass base, as Jauch states.
Logically enough, workers have had to take their mass power into their own hands and away from their compromised leaders. Volker Winterfeldt gives a very good account of what happened in the biggest single employer in Namibia, the Ramatex textile factory. Fed up with the stagnant wages, four years of inaction by their trade union and constant exposure to bullying by the management and the government, workers voted for strike. Surprisingly easily, after three days, they won a raise almost doubling their income and benefits. In a neo-liberal economy Ramatex has been able to exploit the opportunities offered by the Namibian state and its Asian and Namibian employees to an extent Karl Marx could vividly describe in his book The Capital. - And in addition to pollute the ground water.
On my latest visit to Namibia a year ago I was really astonished of the impressive Chinese presence in the country. In a very few years Chinatowns have emerged, bringing construction, shopping areas, investment for energy production. Obviously this has happened with the full consent of the government, tenders have been won, work permits and retail shop licences have been granted. Gregor Dobler has taken the trouble of finding out how the process works, including bribing the decision makers. The cost of a work permit is between 20,000 to 100,000 Namibian Dollars.
Dobler’s work is admirable. It came into my mind that the political system in China could be the ideal in the eyes of the present government of Namibia: One party in absolute power, enjoying the fruits of a free-wheeling capitalism, no real trade unions or effective opposition. - Preferably, no critical media either.
Lalli Metsola describes and analyses the situation of ex-combatants. It certainly deserves research. It is a rather safe prediction to say that the newest definition by the ministry of a war veteran will cause endless controversy and court processes. Even I myself qualify as a war veteran, according to the definition. Lalli Metsola describes the fate of the former SWATF/Koevoet members as being still pariahs. They are out from war-veteran definition because they were not members of liberation forces. On the other hand, it will be problematic to draw lines between those who have been in exile, but participated in different activities. Lots to do for lawyers, I bet.
Mattia Fumati is afraid of the vision of youth in uniform coming from Zimbabwe style training camps, marching before the President chanting SWAPO songs. We have seen it in Europe before. On the lighter side, he describes accurately the activities of the Shinyewile club in Rundu. The aspiring young elite organises activities that depict their capabilities as future leaders, taking care not to offend the present ones, although mocking them softly. And the club is the best way to have a good time together.
Wolfgand Zeller and Bennet Kangumu Kangumu have dug deep into the strange geography of the Caprivi strip, with which its problems are intimately bound. The separateness and particular identities have not given the Caprivi region and its people much chance to live common history with the rest of Namibia. The old modus vivendi between the Mafwe and Subia and their associates was shattered by the new power relations in independent Namibia. But now, with the construction of the Trans-Caprivi Corridor with bridges over Zambezi a real common blood vein has been established and with it, new economic and political structures may emerge.
Graham Hopwood explores the problems encountered in the effort to create a regional level of administration between central government and local authorities. Regional structures carry a bias from the Bantustan era. The central authorities are also otherwise reluctant to give away power from their own hands. On the other hand, administrative capacity to handle coordinating functions and especially accounting seems to be lacking. As a consequence progress to really delegate tasks to regional level has been slow, in spite of public pronouncements of intentions.
The book has a very strong gender equality tendency. It ends with three weighty analyses of where Namibia stands now in this important respect. Dianne Hubbard goes through the most important gender-related legislation and shows in detail, how traditions and opinions have found expression in the laws. She shows the difficulty in applying Western juridical concepts in another cultural environment. As an example we can mention parental leave, which is not really at home in Namibians social structures.
Lucy Edwards looks into the HIV/AIDS disaster from the female perspective and argues powerfully how it is linked to inequalities and gender relations. It was a surprise for me to read that only 13.4 % of Namibians are formally married and together with cohabiting 15.5% this kind of couples make up only 29%. The figures ridicule an effort to control HIV/AIDS through restricting sex life inside marriage.
Suzanne LaFont describes the real, rather promiscuous, sexual behaviour in Namibia. It is actually the tradition.
The legislation believes, however, that female sexuality needs to be contained and, if possible, controlled. Among lawmakers reverence of tradition and nostalgia compete with politically correct gender equality. Political corrected does not weigh much in the speeches of Sam Nujoma, who threatened homophiles with arrest, deportation and imprisonment, all illegal threats. Suzanne LaFont notes, however, that the HIV-pandemic has forced a discussion on sexuality, which would otherwise not be happening.
Now, as much as ever, we need to understand what is going on in Namibia. This book is therefore timely, clearly written for giving us tools for analysis today. I commend its editor for recruiting top-level researchers contributing to this book, and for his further commitment to the ongoing task.
Henning Melber (ed.), Transitions in Namibia. Which changes for whom? Uppsala. The Nordic Africa Institute 2007.
* Pekka Peltola lives in Helsinki/Finland. He is a long-standing trade union activist, who worked years in support of SWAPO in exile in Cuanza Sul and elsewhere. He published a PhD thesis on the Namibian trade union movement (“The Lost May Day”) in 1995 and together with Iina Soiri (in 1999) the book : “Finland and the Liberation of Southern Africa”.
Mukoma Wa Ngugi speaks to the dangers surrounding the Bill Gates initiative - Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA)
"Food sovereignty is the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define their own food and agriculture systems. It puts the aspirations and needs of those who produce, distribute and consume food at the heart of food systems and policies rather than the demands of markets and corporations. It ensures that the rights to use and manage lands, territories, waters, seeds, livestock and biodiversity are in the hands of those of us who produce food" – Declaration of the Forum for Food Sovereignty, Nyeleni , February 2007
From November 25th to December 2nd African farmer-, agricultural-, and pastoralist organizations from over 25 countries gathered at the Nyeleni Center in Selengue, Mali to, amongst other things, discuss the pitfalls of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) -- the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Rockefeller Foundation initiative now chaired by former United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan. With around 100 organizations present, thousands of Africans concerned with social justice and agriculture were represented.
Now, the theme of the conference might at first glance seem outrageous. After all, we are talking about Bill Gates here – a man who has become the poster child of good philanthropy. But this is precisely my point: because AGRA is a Bill Gates initiative with widely respected Kofi Annan as the chair, most of us are not going beyond the first glance. But it is important that we send a second glance AGRA’s way because what is at stake here is the very future of the continent’s agricultural practices - what is grown, how it is grown, who gets to grow it, who processes it, who sells it and where and how much the African consumer will pay. Simply put, if food is the basis of life, what is at stake is the very sustenance of the continent.
But in order to fully appreciate the role the sweet sounding Alliance for a Green Revolution is playing in Africa, we need to take a step back and situate AGRA in the context of other international and national forces that are undermining the well-being and sovereignty of African nations – forces that are in fact part of the problem, even as they present themselves as part of the solution.
Amongst the international forces undermining Africa’s well being is an overt US foreign policy whose goal is to consolidate a growing Empire through the pipeline of the war on terror – under the guise of spreading democracy. We have seen how well this is working in Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia. But even more insidious is the arm-twisting of African governments to pass anti-terror bills that tie African domestic policies to US foreign policy goals.
On top of this we must add US foreign policy-led organizations such as the USAID, and the International Republican Institute, currently active in over 40 African countries. Organizations such as the IRI build on the tracks laid down by missionaries. The missionaries came to Christianize and civilize, the IRI types come to democratize, liberalize and westernize. The missionaries paved the way for the colonialists our history teachers were fond of saying. In the future, they will be saying that organizations such as the IRI paved the way for the US Empire.
Lest this seems far-fetched, here is an example of these seemingly disparate forces at work. The IRI in 2006 helps Africa’s first woman president, Liberia’s Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf into power. So instrumental is the IRI that when receiving a Freedom Award from them, she declares that the “IRI was particularly active in promoting these elections. Very quickly an office was established. They came, they did workshops. They brought political groups together. They worked with the media. They educated. They instructed. They supported. They assisted the process.” [1] But even before the democracy solidified, Liberia becomes the first country to offer the United States a military base for its African Command Center. There are no coincidences here – the IRI paved the way for US further militarization of Africa using Liberia as a launching pad.
Meanwhile in Liberia, Firestone has the gall to invite the Liberian people into its website with a photograph captioned “since 1926 we have succeeded together and we have suffered together, now that peace has returned, learn how we are working for a better future for Liberia.” [2] Firestone, much like Shell, has a philanthropic arm used to cover up the actions of the other heavy, hungry and brutal arm. Under the exploitation of colonialism, industries and corporations served the nation-state. Today it is the other way around: the nation-state serves industries and corporations.
It is into this mix that we need to throw initiatives such as AGRA. An outcome statement produced by the Selingue conference organizers states that “AGRA is actually the philanthropic flagship of a large network of chemical-seed, and fertilizer companies” and is designed to “attract private investment, enroll African governments, and convince African farmers to buy new seeds and fertilizers.” [3]
Waiting at the wings, or more correctly, waiting in the AGRA boardrooms, are seed and fertilizer organizations such as Syngenta (with total sales of 1.2 billion dollars in 2004) and Monsanto (a multi billion dollar seed company), amongst other players. AGRA claims that it will help “millions lift themselves out of poverty and hunger by dramatically increasing the productivity of hundreds of millions of small-scale farmers and improving livelihoods.” [4]
AGRA further states that it will “develop and strengthen Africa’s small and medium-scale seed companies to develop and sell appropriate seeds to farmers, [it will also] develop rural agro-dealers (small rural shops, mainly owned by women) and work with local food processors that can add value to products [and] and with local micro-finance institutions.”
Pointing to Asia, AGRA claims that the green revolution there lifted millions from poverty. This claim was refuted by the Mali conference participants who pointed out the tragic case of Indian farmers. In India, farmers initially flourished under the green revolution because millions of dollars were used to buoy up the farms. But as soon as the money stopped being pumped, Indian farmers found that they could not afford hybrid seeds, or the high price of pesticides, and they entered into debt, eventually losing their land to banks. The green revolution in India really was the pauperization of the poor Indian farmer. AGRA’s promise of Agro-dealers in Africa, and its promise to follow the Asian model means small scale African farmers will be strangled by ever widening circles of dependency and debt.
AGRA claims to be African led because it appointed Kofi Annan as its chair. In Selengue, conference participants responded by saying Kofi Annan surely cannot be seen as speaking for over 50 countries and 680 million people. In any case as African American poet Sonia Sanchez, quoting Martin Luther King Jr. said in response to a question on Condoleezza Rice and Clarence Thomas “We should not fight for equal rights in order to do wrong with them.”
In this same sense, women presidents (as in the case of Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf) and African UN Secretaries General (as in Kofi Annan) do not automatically do good for the continent. With Kofi Annan as the chairman of AGRA, AGRA will still do harm. And it will not be any better because he is African.
AGRA’s critics contend that the alliance will not take a definitive stand against Genetically Modified Foods. This was of grave concern to the organizations in attendance at Selengue. The AGRA website leaves a lot of wiggle room when it states that “Introduction of genetically engineered crops are not part of AGRA strategy at this time” but a little later states that “AGRA will not shy away from considering the potential of bio-technology in reducing hunger and poverty and we do not preclude future support for genetic engineering as an approach to crop variety improvement…”
Soon after he was appointed chair, Kofi Annan declared that AGRA will not use GMO’s – a statement that is contradicted in the website statement quoted above – and which he and AGRA retracted. [5] In a sense then, AGRA critics are right when they call it a “Trojan horse” for GMO’s.
Once the mask of philanthropy is removed, we find profit-hungry corporations vying to control the seed market in African countries, create a path for Genetically Modified seeds and foods and to pry open a market for chemical fertilizers – which in turn will have an adverse effect on African indigenous seed populations and destroy bio-diversity, not to mention the devastation of the environment and the salination of the soil. The philanthropic arm that Africa welcomes is in real terms paving the way for further exploitation of our resources.
In his latest novel, Wizard of the Crow, my father Ngugi Wa Thiong’o aptly talks of a corporony – a colony run by a corporation. Fiction is not so strange after all, because with AGRA we are looking at the corporatization of the food industry, from planting to production to selling and buying. With AGRA, what and how we plant and eat, and how much we pay for it will be decided in western corporate offices.
Africans should grasp what is at stake here and mobilize against AGRA. African leaders have already sold off the land and the right to natural resources. They have sealed off some parts of the continent into export processing zones. They have allowed foreign military bases onto African soil. They have given organizations such as the International Republican Institute free reign to determine the very nature of African political institutions. But here it should stop. Africans simply cannot let them sell off the right to food sovereignty. Because if they do, they will be selling off the very future of Africa.
* Mukoma Wa Ngugi is Co-Editor of Pambazuka News. He is also the author of Hurling Words at Consciousness (AWP, 2006) and a political columnist for the BBC Focus on Africa Magazine
* Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org
For notes, see link below
On 18 October 2007, the Human Rights Committee completed its review of Libya’s fourth periodic report, which was due for consideration in 2002. Libya not only submitted its report five years after the deadline but also, more importantly, did not comply with the recommendations of the Committee made in 1998 on the conclusion of the review of the country’s third periodic report. In the words of the Committee, “the recommendations of 1998 have not been fully taken into consideration and [the Committee] regrets that almost all subjects of concern remain unchanged”.
RESPECT is a growing institution that aims both to deliver educational opportunities and at raising awareness of refugees’ desperate need for higher education in the global south.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu has accused the United States and Britain of pursuing policies like those of South Africa's apartheid-era government by detaining terrorism suspects without trial. At an event to commemorate the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UNDR) today, the Nobel laureate said the detention of suspected al-Qaeda and Taliban members at the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, was a "huge blot on a democracy".