Pambazuka News 324: Haiti: The disapearance of Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine
Pambazuka News 324: Haiti: The disapearance of Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine
Amnesty International has announced the unconditional release of its two delegates who had been detained in The Gambia, along with the local journalist detained with them. The organization said that no charges had been brought against any of the three. "The fact that these people were detained solely for their human rights work is deplorable," said Erwin van der Borght, Director of Amnesty International's Africa Programme. "While we welcome the releases, all restrictions on the work of human rights activists in The Gambia must be lifted immediately."
“The latest global maternal death statistics indicate that of the 536,000 women that died in 2005 of childbirth related complications, about half or 261,000 were African women. These figures also indicate that Africa is the only region where maternal deaths have increased since 1990 up from 205,000.
Africa Public Health Rights Alliance Issues Maternal Death Scorecard At Start of Women Deliver International Conference on Investing in Women’s Health.
Relentless Increase in African Maternal Death Could Be Equated To Genocide By Inaction – Says Africa Public Health Rights Alliance “15% Now” Campaign.
* Health financing Scorecard indicates that average annual per capita health expenditure of $13.5 in bottom 10 countries is equal to a night’s cinema expenses in the top 10 countries.
* Health worker scorecard indicates that more developed countries that steal health workers from less developed countries instead of training theirs are culpable for maternal deaths.
In a statement ahead of it’s scorecard to be launched on the second day of the Women Deliver International Conference on Investing in Women’s Health holding in London from 18 to 20 October, Rotimi Sankore Coordinator of the Africa Public Health Rights Alliance “15% Now!” Campaign stated that:
“The latest global maternal death statistics indicate that of the 536,000 women that died in 2005 of childbirth related complications, about half or 261,000 were African women. These figures also indicate that Africa is the only region where maternal deaths have increased since 1990 up from 205,000. Maternal deaths dropped in every other continent over the same period. In Europe from 4,800 to 2,900, and in the America’s from 21,000 to 16,000. We are very concerned that the prevalent maternal death risk also reflects a much bleaker picture of overall reproductive health in Africa.” “The scorecard based on the 2005 figures and latest comparable global health financing and health systems data[1] shows that in the bottom 10 countries globally - all of which are African except Afghanistan, maternal death risk is between 1 in 7 (Niger) and 1 in 15 (Mali). In the top 10 the risk is between 1 in 47,600 (Ireland) and 1 in 13,800 (Switzerland). Possibly every family in the bottom 10 countries will suffer 1 maternal death. Overall 1 in 23 African women have a lifetime risk of maternal death compared with 1 in 2,300 in Europe. This is not acceptable and African governments have to act without delay to end this waste of African women’s lives.” Abiola Akiyode-Afolabi, Director of Women Advocates Research and Documentation Centre (WARDC) and APHRA 15% Campaign partner underlined that: “The scale of maternal death anywhere is tied to two key factors: overall levels of sustainable health financing, and the ratio of health workers to the population especially midwives, nurses and doctors. The scorecard shows graphically how lack of both combine to undermine the lives of African women. In the top 10 countries, government health expenditure far surpasses private expenditure, while in the bottom 10 citizens are mostly left to fend for themselves. If deliberate state action to exterminate a social group is interpreted as genocide, its difficult not to infer that persistent inaction could mean the same. The practice of government without responsibility in Africa must stop” “International human rights law calls for health systems that are available, accessible, acceptable, and of good quality. Governments must make it an urgent priority to build and support public health systems that integrate primary and reproductive health care with guarantees of sexual, reproductive, and all other rights of women. This is the only way we will turn the tide on maternal deaths,” emphasised Frank Donaghue, Chief Executive Officer, of Physicians for Human Rights and APHRA 15% Campaign partner.
“It is also crucial to highlight that women’s health is not only about Maternal Deaths” added Felicita Hikuam Global Programs Manager of the Worlds Aids Campaign and APHRA 15% Campaign Partner. “There is a direct link between lack of sexual and reproductive health and rights and a wide range of issues including HIV and AIDS which is now one of the leading killers of women. Women are still not able to universally uphold their rights to: choose their partner, decide to be sexually active or have consensual sexual relations, have consensual marriage or decide whether or not to have children. Lack of education, economic dependence, poverty and lack of legislation to protect women in many parts of the world means that women, especially young women, are still very vulnerable to sexual abuse, and subsequently, HIV infection. These issues must be addressed alongside issues of maternal deaths and as part of reproductive health and rights.” Key Notes for Editors:
One of the key MDGs is the reduction of maternal death by 75% between 1990 and 2015. The APHRA 15% Campaign scorecard not only shows how bleak the present situation is, it also indicates what needs to be done if the lives and dignity of African women are to be protected and the MDG target for reducing MM is to be met.
The Scorecard underlines that to reduce their disease burden and improve overall public health including reproductive health, African countries must drastically raise investment in health to :
* Meet the 2001 Abuja pledge to allocate 15% or more of annual budgets to health (excluding external resources)
* Increase annual per capita expenditure on health to a minimum of $1000 over 5 years in the first instance.
* Increase and maintain percentage government expenditure on health (as against private expenditure) at between 50% and 90% (excluding external resources) in order to approach similar levels in top 10 countries.
* Ensure that a minimum of 10% of GDP excluding external resources is spent on health.
On Health Systems / Workers - Invest in infrastructure, training and retention of personnel towards ensuring: ü A minimum density of 3 doctors per 1000 between now and 2015.
* A minimum density of 10 nurses per 1000 between now and 2015.
* A minimum density of 1 midwives per 1000 between now and 2015.
* A minimum density of 1 pharmacist per 1000 between now and 2015.
* Appropriate levels of dentists, public health, community health, scientific and technological staff.
The most developed countries must show sincerity in their offers of development aid and:
* Stop subsidising their health systems with African health workers and professionals and immediately end official policies recruiting health workers from where they are most needed.
* Raise their own domestic expenditure on health, education and training to meet domestic needs.
* Ensure that dependency is ended sooner by asking African governments to match aid by meeting the Abuja 15% pledge to ensure sustainable health financing.
* Ensure that health development aid is holistically targeted at the intertwined problems of reproductive health, child mortality, HIV and AIDS, TB and malaria.
ENDS Support the Africa Public Health Rights Alliance 15% Now campaign for sustainable financing for health in Africa -
For Further Information Please Contact the Following: Internationally / At the Conference in London: Africa Public Health Rights Alliance “15% Now! Campaign Int. office: +44 207 424 5744; Or Africa Office +234 1 4925568, email: 15percent[at]africapublichealth.org.
In the United States: Physicians for Human Rights Barbara Ayotte, Director of Communications w) [617] 695-0041, ext. 210 , email: bayote[at]phrusa.org In South Africa: World Aids Campaign Tel: + 27 21 466 7827, (Or Netherlands International Office Tel: +31 20 616 9045), email: waccapetown[at]worldaidscampaign.org
In Nigeria: Women Advocates Research & Documentation Centre (WARDC):
Tel: +234 1 8197344 , womenadvocate[at]yahoo.com or wardc[at]womenadvocates.org
The Africa Public Health Rights Alliance [and the “15% Now!” campaign] launched on December 10 2006 - International Human Rights Day - is the first to articulate Public Health for Africa as a Rights and Development issue across Africa and beyond. It brings together actors from various key sectors of civil society.
The Campaign is based on the premise that “we all have to be alive and well to exercise any other rights in any meaningful way” and therefore that Right to Health and to Healthcare is arguably the most crucial right of all as articulated by both the constitution of the World Health Organisation and Article 12 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.
Current social development and health indicators from international and African institutions show that over 8 million African lives are lost annually to preventable, treatable and manageable health conditions and diseases. Child Mortality, HIV/AIDS, Malaria, Maternal Mortality, and TB mainly account for these.
Any loss of life to disease is bad enough. The annual loss of populations equivalent to entire African countries - and over a few years greater than the losses from all modern day global wars and conflicts combined is both unacceptable and unsustainable, and brings Africa closer to the slippery slope to collapse of society and extinction.
The key objective of the Alliance is to engage the African Union, sub-Regional Economic Communities such as the East African Community (EAC), Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) etc, their institutions / member countries, and the African public towards: 1) Promoting greater awareness and understanding of African Health Issues and; 2) Adopting Comprehensive Health Policies based on a Public Health Rights and Development philosophy - and mobilising and committing resources for sustainable implementation.
The Alliance will also engage global stakeholders and actors including donors, the UN, EU and their institutions, World Bank, IMF, and international Non-governmental Institutions and organisations especially those concerned with health, social and economic development.
[1] Health Finance, Health Systems and Maternal Death Data from WHO, UNFPA, UNICEF and World Bank. Latest comparable figures are for 2004 and 2005 respectively. Figures have been computed by sources to ensure comparability and are therefore not necessarily official statistics of individual countries, which may use alternative methods.
* The Africa Public Health Rights Alliance (APHRA)
* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at www.pambazuka.org
Ruth Finnegan is renowned as the scholar who has made a whole generation of Africanists realise the singular importance of oral literature. She is the author of the classic "Oral Literature in Africa" and a whole range of other work in Africa. She asks whether Africa can still be considered 'the oral continent'. This book brings together all the contributions to the debate she started.
Africa: Butterflies and Barbarians: Swiss Missionaries and Systems of Knowledge in South-East Africa
The Swiss missionaries played a primary role in explaining Africa to the literate world in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This book emphasises how these European intellectuals, brought to the deep rural areas of southern Africa by their vocation, formulated and ordered knowledge about the continent.
Efforts to change the race-based systems of land ownership and land tenure in Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe have pushed land issues to the forefront of social and economic discourses in Africa. This collection examines the broader context of the reemergence of land reform and resource conflicts.
Today's development agenda is ever more focused on results. This book raises questions about how results and outcomes are evaluated, and reflects on notions of 'success' in colonial and contemporary development policy. The first part of the book examines colonial attempts in Kigezi, in south-western Uganda, to introduce cash crops, soil conservation practices, and tenure reforms.
The International Criminal Court has announced that suspected war criminal Germain Katanga, former senior commander of the militia group Force de Résistance Patriotique en Ituri (FRPI) in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), was surrendered to its detention centre at The Hague. The latest suspect joined Congolese suspect Thomas Lubanga Dyilo, who will be tried on crimes relating to the recruitment of children as soldiers in what is widely viewed as a milestone in international attempts to fight immunity on the issue.
The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has suspended food distribution in the Somali capital after Government forces invaded the UN compound in Mogadishu and abducted the local head of the agency in a move immediately condemned by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
The top United Nations official in Sudan has met with members of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) to discuss its recent decision to withdraw from the Government of National Unity. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s acting Special Representative, Tayé-Brook Zerihoun, travelled to Juba, the capital of Southern Sudan, where he held separate meetings with the Secretary-General of the SPLM, and the President and Vice President of the Government of Southern Sudan, Salva Kiir and Riek Machar.
The head of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has reported that for the first time in years countries in sub-Saharan Africa are actually growing faster than the global economy, but added that conflict and lack of capacity are two of the main challenges faced by the continent in achieving economic progress and development.
On 10 November 1995, the Nigerian military regime, under General Sani Abacha, hanged Ken Saro-Wiwa, the writer and minority rights activist, and eight other members of the Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People (MOSOP) after a judicially flawed trail.
The hangings were a critical event for the Nigerian junta and for Royal Dutch/Shell, the major international oil company operating in Nigeria’s Niger delta, which played a key role in shaping the Ogoni tragedy. When Citizens Revolt re-examines the evidence concerning the Ogoni struggle for self-determination and raises questions about its origins and implications as a case study of the emergence and persistence of ethnic identities and the communal politics they engender in postcolonial Africa.
Ike Okonta disagrees with the arguments of such leading Africa scholars as Mahmood Mamdani and Donald Horowitz regarding the provenance and dynamics of ethnic politics on the continent and submits that ethnicity is not necessarily antithetical to democracy, and indeed that it may be a necessary aspect of democratic citizenship in multiethnic states like Nigeria and elsewhere in Africa. The Ogoni story, he contends, is the classic case of a people, who in order to secure their civic rights as citizens in a state increasingly resorting to rapine despotism, became “tribesmen” in their struggle to become citizens.
Africa World Press, Inc. & The Red Sea Press, Inc. 2007
http://www.pambazuka.org/images/broadcasts/Madame-Auguste.jpgVoudou Priestess Madame Evonne Auguste spoke to Sokari Ekine last August, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Madame Auguste is a member of Famm Voudou pou Ayiti (Voudou Women for Ayiti). In the interview she explains that Voudou is both a religion and a philosophy and speaks about the relationship between voudou and liberation theology. She also discusses some of the reasons behind the demonetisation of the religion and why Famm Voudou pou Ayiti want to establish their own school.
Music in this podcast is brought to you by Busi Ncube from Zimbabwe and kindly provided by .
38 families from Amaveni in KweKwe were last week left homeless after council officials from the town, accompanied by heavily armed police officers, used sledgehammers to knock down their homes. The latest crackdown against ‘illegal’ housing by the Zanu-PF led council in the town has met with harsh condemnation from the local MDC MP Blessing Chebundo, who described it as ‘heartless’ and politically motivated.
The two sides in Sudan's national coalition met on Thursday to try to salvage their fragile peace deal after former southern rebels walked out of the government, but the talks adjourned with no resolution. "There was agreement to complete discussions on the outstanding problems in the deal," presidential spokesman Mahjoub Fadul said after the meeting in Khartoum. He did not specify when the talks might resume.
Human Rights Watch has named four members of Nigeria's ruling party who it said should face criminal investigation over their role in sponsoring armed thugs to rig elections. Nigeria held elections in April but political violence and vote-rigging were so widespread that international observers described them as "not credible".
Brazil has announced that it would nearly double a $1.3 billion credit line to Angola in a move to drum up business for Brazilian firms and help the African nation rebuild its economy. Brazil, keen to expand its influence in Africa and tap into the impoverished continent's vast mineral wealth, has been providing a revolving credit line to oil-rich Angola since 1995.
A Rwandan genocide suspect accused of coordinating the massacre of up to 25,000 people in one incident has been arrested in France, the United Nations said on Thursday. Dominique Ntawukuriryayo was detained by French police in the southern town of Carcassonne earlier this week and is due to be transferred to the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in Arusha, Tanzania, in the coming days.
Chadian rebels attacked government troops in the eastern town of Goz Beida on Thursday, humanitarian workers said, just two days after the government declared a state of emergency in the remote border region. "Since 5 p.m. (1600 GMT) there has been shooting on the streets and fighting in town," said one Goz Beida resident who works for a foreign aid agency.
Less than 100 days to the Presidential election Transparency International’s flagship Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) for 2007 has been published. Kenya’s score of 2.1 out of 10 (rank 150 out of 180) would be classified by Transparency International as indicating rampant corruption within the Government of Kenya. Not for the first time Kenya is the lowest ranked East African Community country, but what will shock some is that Kenya is for the first time lower ranked than Nigeria and apparently as badly regarded as Zimbabwe.
The decision of the Nobel Literature Prize committee to name Doris Lessing as this year’s laureate should raise red flags in the minds of those concerned with the integrity and cultural autonomy of African literature, writes Wandia Njoya. The fact that Lessing has finally received one of the most prestigious literary prizes in the Western hemisphere comes as no surprise, since she has been proposed for this award before but has been bypassed by previous laureates. What should raise eyebrows, however, is the historical and political context within which the committee finally decided to recognize the octogenarian.
The developing world’s stance towards the question of the environment has often been equated, writes Walden Bello, with the pugnacious comments of former Malaysian Prime Minister Mohamad Mahathir, such as his famous lines at the Rio Conference on the Environment and Development in June 1992: When the rich chopped down their own forests, built their poison-belching factories and scoured the world for cheap resources, the poor said nothing. Indeed they paid for the development of the rich.
City councils had a moral duty to spend money rolling out broadband networks to cover all their citizens, in the same way that they had a duty to provide water, sewerage and electricity, speakers at a technology conference have said. The right to broadband Internet access and affordable phone calls was just as great as the right to other municipal services. Any government that did not fulfill that need was doing its citizens disservice, speakers said.
Up to 40% of all patients receiving anti-HIV drugs in sub-Saharan Africa are thought to have either died or discontinued treatment within two years, according to a systematic review of African ART (antiretroviral treatment) treatment programmes published on October 16th in the journal PLoS Medicine.
Moroccan Prime Minister Abbas El Fassi's newly-announced government includes a record number of female ministers. A total of seven will lead ministries ranging from energy to culture, compared with only two in the previous government.
The Algerian government plans to reopen debate of the country's law on journalists, Minister of Communications Abderrachid Boukerzaza announced on October 3rd. Despite the appearance of private-sector media and numerous promises of a new law, there has been a legal vacuum in the industry since a 1990 information code failed to regulate the profession.
The FOSS Awards were inspired by a love and appreciation of Free Software., and a desire to share this with more people. Ian Gilfillan, who conceptualised the idea, writes: “As a student, I only learned proprietary software. It was only much later in my own explorations that I began to explore the world of FOSS. The openness, spirit of sharing and willingness to assist were an inspiration, and allowed me to learn much more, and to create for myself, than would otherwise have been possible.
The UN refugee agency has successfully redeployed transport resources and aid supplies from Liberia to southern Mauritania after a gruelling 25-day cross-country journey. The 20 UNHCR trucks and their cargo of humanitarian assistance arrived at Rosso in southern Mauritania on Monday. They will be used to support the voluntary repatriation and reintegration of Mauritanian refugees from Senegal and Mali, which is due to start later this month or early next month.
As a pan-Africa network of women organisations, FEMNET has continued to play a vanguard role in promoting African women’s rights and development. Through our bilingual Newsletter Femnet News, our members and partners have a platform to communicate and share diverse information, experiences and ideas related to women’s empowerment as well as showcase their individual and organisational activities in promoting women’s rights at national, regional and global arenas. Our next issue of Femnet News (September-December 2007) will focus on Enhancing African Women’s Leadership.
Disabled people in Zimbabwe are more likely to experience poverty and discrimination due to social and cultural norms as well as problems with accessing health, education and employment. Legislation makes no provision for affirmative action or positive discrimination and policies remain vague or unenforced. Where rights have been enshrined by law, professionals in health and education, employers and disabled people themselves remain largely unaware of what these are.
Despite a peace agreement with the south and a fast-growing economy, Sudan faces critical environmental issues including land degradation, deforestation and the impacts of climate change, that threaten the Sudanese people’s prospects for long-term peace, food security and sustainable development. Furthermore, the ongoing conflict in Darfur is evidence of how conflict and environmental degradation fuel one another.
Given the experience of Africa over the last half century, it is clear that trade reform and openness alone is not sufficient to sustain economic growth and poverty reduction, say the authors of this paper published by the African Capacity Building Foundation. Commitments made to developing countries under the Doha Development Agenda, to help them participate in negotiate and implement WTO agreements have not been backed by adequate resources.
This InBrief presents a preliminary overview of some methodological issues linked to the design of a monitoring mechanism for the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) between the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) states and the European Union (EU) countries. The authors conclude that there is no ready-made approach for monitoring EPA negotiations and implementation.
Reggae musician Lucky Dube was shot dead in a hijacking on Thursday in Rosettenville, Johannesburg police said. Captain Cheryl Engelbrecht said the incident took place at about 8.20pm when Dube (43) was driving a blue Volkswagen Polo in the Johannesburg suburb. She said Dube was dropping off his son in the area when he was attacked. "His son was already out of the car. When he saw what was happening, he ran to ask for help."
War-ravaged northern Uganda is to be reconstructed at a cost of $600-million, according to the government. The rehabilitation, announced by President Yoweri Museveni on October 16, is intended to restore stability to the region after 20 years of warfare pitting the Ugandan government against the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), a brutal insurgency that often targeted civilians for murder, maiming and abduction.
The government in the West African state of Mali plans to abolish the death penalty, three decades after it carried out its last execution, it said on Thursday. A Cabinet meeting on Wednesday adopted a Bill that "stipulated that the death penalty be abolished and ... that it is replaced by life imprisonment", said a statement.
A delegation of rain forest peoples from Democratic Republic of Congo will fly to Washington this week to complain to the World Bank about its support for wholesale logging to help rebuild the war-ravaged economy. The visit follows a leak of a report last week by the bank's inspection panel that criticised it for backing a number of logging projects without adequate consideration of their sociological or environmental impact.
Landmark weekend parliamentary elections in Togo were "free, fair and open", observers from the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) concluded in a report on Tuesday. "In spite of a few shortfalls, the legislative elections on Sunday were free, fair and open," stated the 15-nation group, which sent 152 military and civilian monitors to the small country to track Sunday's poll.
Côte d'Ivoire President Laurent Gbagbo has called for an investigation into long-standing accusations that cocoa and coffee boards have embezzled funds meant to aid the producers of the country's lucrative crops, a spokesperson said.
Sierra Leone's recently elected leader on Saturday released a complete list of his 20-strong government ministers, consisting mainly of technocrats and his party's stalwarts. Three women - heading the foreign affairs, energy and social welfare portfolios - are on the list that is still subject to parliamentary approval.
Zimbabwe will not allow foreigners to own broadcasting stations but could relax rules and licence locals who have been battling to meet stringent requirements, the information minister said on Monday. "On the issue of ownership we cannot compromise," Information Minister Sikhanyiso Ndlovu told a committee of lawmakers.
The Aids virus is killing more than 1,000 teachers each year in Mozambique, adversely affecting the education of a generation of students, the country's education minister has said. Aires Aly said that the disease is the single biggest threat to the development of the education sector.
Reporters Without Borders condemns the kidnapping of Moussa Gueye, the editor of the privately-owned daily L’Exclusif, who was arrested, beaten and taken off to an unknown location by plain-clothes police on 8 October after being lured into a trap. His abduction came just hours after he published a story headlined “President’s nighttime escapade.”
Reporters Without Borders has published a list of the first 68 people to sign the petition, which will remain open until Moussa Kaka is freed. Send a message of support to this address to sign : [email][email protected] The manager of Radio Saraouniya and Niger correspondent of Radio France Internationale and Reporters Without Borders, Kaka was arrested on 20 September and charged with “complicity in a conspiracy against state authority” because he had been in frequent contact with the Tuareg rebels of the Niger People’s Movement for Justice (MNJ), including one of its leaders.
Although there have been limited improvements in education, healthcare and agricultural productivity in a few countries, the overall trends for poverty reduction, access to clean water and basic healthcare are continuing to plummet, says Ravinder Rena.
As World Bank President Robert Zoellick prepares for his first meeting with the Bank’s shareholders this weekend, a new IRN report reveals that the Bank approved more than US$ 800 million for nine hydropower projects in fiscal year 2007. This is more than it provided for renewable energy and efficiency projects combined. As the Bank jumps back into the big dam business and neglects better energy and water solutions, the legacy of its past dam projects tragically lives on.
Information technology company Hewlett Packard (HP) has donated US$5 million to non-profit organisations to help businesses in low-income countries. The HP Microenterprise Development Program provides equipment, cash and training resources to help microenterprises — businesses with five or fewer employees, minimal start-up capital and little to no access to the traditional banking sector — develop and succeed.
There is now growing evidence of the role that ICT can play in enhancing development. In spite of this enabling potential and role, ICT is yet to be widely mainstreamed to assist developing countries in addressing traditional development problems with innovative solutions and approaches that are both effective and more easily scalable and replicable.
The Swazi media faces a new threat following a call by Parliament for government to pilot the contentious Media Council Bill within eight weeks. A Parliament Select Committee recently constituted to probe Times Sunday editor, Mbongeni Mbingo, on charges of contempt of Parliament, whilst clearing Mbingo on the charges, called on government to pilot the Media Council Bill within eight weeks of the adoption of its report by Parliament.
Good journalism can shape public opinion and act as a lever for policy change. Based on findings from six countries in Africa and South Asia, Making poverty the story analyses the serious political, commercial and professional obstacles to stronger media coverage, highlights where the media have played a part in raising debate, and identifies what civil society and other policy actors could do to support more effective reporting.
Eritrea has ranked last in an index measuring the level of press freedom in 169 countries throughout the world. This is contained in the worldwide press freedom index 2007 report published by the Paris-based media rights watchdog, Reporters sans frontières (RSF).
Police on Tuesday severely assaulted and injured more than 30 members of the National Constitutional Assembly (NCA) political pressure group for attempting to march to Parliament to protest against constitutional reforms agreed between President Robert Mugabe and the opposition last month.
The home affairs department's refugee offices in Cape Town was a "chaotic" place where refugees were treated like animals, a parliamentary committee said. The MPs, on an unannounced visit to the refugee offices on the Foreshore, found that officials illegally detained refugees.
Yemeni policemen are stealing money and jewellery from African migrants arriving to Yemeni coasts on a daily basis, say refugees and locals. Somali and Ethiopian refugees at the Mayfa'a district of Hadhramout, about 800km south-east of Sana'a, said policemen stole their money after their arrival last week.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reports that the rate of smuggling boats reaching the shores of Yemen after crossing the Gulf of Aden has increased during the first half of October, along with the appalling death toll. More than 38 smuggling boats – an average of three a day – have been recorded arriving along Yemen’s coast during the first 13 days of October, carrying nearly 3,800 people, UNHCR spokesperson Jennifer Pagonis told a news briefing in Geneva. A total of 38 people were known to have died while 134 remained missing.
Aid agencies working in Sudan's Darfur hope incoming United Nations and African Union peacekeepers will help protect them, but there are also fears they could spark new violence against unarmed relief staff. The 26,000-person hybrid force is due to arrive in Darfur in the coming months against a backdrop of escalating violence targeting the world's largest humanitarian relief operation.
The head of the U.N.'s refugee agency has welcomed an EU decision to send 3,000 peacekeepers to eastern Chad, saying it would contribute to efforts to help civilians fleeing violence in neighboring Sudan. "It is a key instrument to allow for the security of the refugees ... and for the possibility of a more effective humanitarian operation," said Antonio Guterres, the U.N. high commissioner for refugees.
Around half a million women die annually before, during or shortly after giving birth - and almost all of these deaths occur in developing countries. Campaigners argue that these deaths are both preventable and have repercussions that echo far beyond the woman's immediate family and community.
South Africa is in danger of losing the battle against HIV/Aids, the United Nations children's agency has warned. Unicef's South Africa representative, Macharia Kamau, said infection and death rates were outpacing treatment.
Malawi's government is calling on all sexually active people in the country to take an Aids test, saying this would help it combat the pandemic. About 14% of Malawi's 12m people are believed to be HIV-positive but more accurate figures would help planning and enable people to get treatment.
In its bid to catch up with the world in embracing and in using information and communication technologies (ICTs), the Botswana government has sent a delegation of high-ranking officials to harness more knowledge at an ICT forum in Califronia. And as explained by a government official who is part of the delegation, their brief is simple. It is to go and identify suitable partners to assist Botswana to become ICT compliant; quicken her pace in entering the information highway.
Pambazuka News 323: Thomas Sankara: Chronicle of an organised tragedy
Pambazuka News 323: Thomas Sankara: Chronicle of an organised tragedy
A burial ground for African slaves, which had been forgotten for almost two centuries, has been opened to the public in New York. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and poet Maya Angelou attended a dedication ceremony for a monument at the site. The late 17th Century burial site was gradually built over as New York expanded, but was rediscovered during an excavation in 1991.
President Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal Friday named 65 new senators, more than half of them women, for the predominantly conservative Muslim country in West Africa. Wade, who names two-thirds of the revamped parliament, released a list of 65 senators, 36 of them women. Added to four from the 35 elected members, there are now 40 women in the 100-strong chamber, more than double the previous one that had only 18.
The Doris Duke Charitable Foundation (DDCF) has announced a major new initiative to address the most critical obstacles to the delivery of effective and essential health services in sub-Saharan Africa: fragile and fragmented health systems and a dire shortage of health care workers. The foundation’s African Health Initiative (AHI) will provide $100 million over five to seven years to African-led partnerships working on innovative strategies to overcome barriers to integrated primary health care delivery.
SaferAfrica is proud to partner with the International Quality and Productivity Centre (IQPC) on the presentation of the Practical Solutions To Small Arms Control In Africa 2007 Conference. It will take place from 14 to 16 November 2007 at the Holiday Inn, Pretoria, South Africa. The theme of the conference is how to practically tackle the scourge of small arms and light weapons in Africa.
AIDS, like poverty, has a disproportionate impact on women and girls. Worldwide, of the 1.2 billion people living on less than $1 a day, 70% are women. Women own a minority of the world’s land, and yet produce two thirds of the food in the developing world, are the primary caretakers for children, orphans, and the sick, and represent almost half of those living with HIV globally – nearly 60% in sub-Saharan Africa.
The primary purpose of these guidelines is to enable communities, governments and humanitarian organizations, including UN agencies, NGOs, and CBOs, to establish and coordinate a set of minimum multi-sectoral interventions to prevent and respond to sexual violence during the early phase of an emergency Twenty-five action sheets have been developed in 10 functional/sectoral areas.
The Educational Research Network for West and Central Africa (ERNWACA) calls for scientific articles in all areas of education for the maiden edition of the Journal of Educational Research in Africa (JERA), a social science review. JERA, a long time objective of ERNWACA, will help promote quality research relevant to African contexts and should help teachers, educational administrators and policymakers gain analytical in-depth understanding of contemporary educational issues.
The Leadership and Advocacy for Women in Africa (LAWA) Fellowship Program was founded in 1993 at the Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, D.C., in order to train women's human rights lawyers from Africa who are committed to returning home to their countries in order to advance the status of women and girls throughout their careers. Over 50 women's human rights advocates from across Africa have participated in the LAWA Program, and we hope to include Fellows from additional countries in the future. The application deadline for the 2008-2009 LAWA Fellowship Program is November 30, 2007.
Pambazuka News is a prize-winning electronic newsletter on social justice. It is produced by a pan-African community of some 300 citizens and organisations - academics, policy makers, social activists, women's organisations, civil society organisations, writers, artists, poets, bloggers, and commentators. We are seeking an a dynamic and energetic editor whose primary task will be leading on the development of Pambazuka News as the principal platform of progressive and critical political analysis in Africa.
For further details see the link below.
This week’s AU Monitor brings you analysis of South Africa’s role in Darfur from the Darfur Relief and Documentation Centre. Abdelbagi Jibril argues that by South Africa “providing unconditional political and diplomatic support to the government of Sudan in its attempts to cover up the crimes it has wilfully committed in Darfur amounts to certain complicity in the commission of these crimes”.
In news and analysis from Pan-African civil society, Nanjakululu Wasai urges the East African Community to use TRIPS flexibilities as enshrined in the WTO 2001 Doha declaration to ease access to HIV treatment in the region. Further, a network of Freedom of Information advocates has launched a regional centre in Nigeria to galvanize the campaign for the adoption of access to information laws on the continent. The International Civil Society Steering Group for the Accra High Level Forum launches a policy paper aimed at providing the basis for further discussions about the aid effectiveness agenda towards regional and national consultations planned for September-November 2007. It is hoped that these discussions will help to develop and prioritise the positions and recommendations of CSOs on aid effectiveness. The South African Institute for International Affairs also launches downloadable resources on the African Peer Review Mechanism for civil society to effectively engage the process. With two weeks until the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, mobilization against poverty and inequality and in support of the Millennium Development Goals is geared to take place in almost 90 countries. Lastly, the Coalition for an Effective African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights provides an update from the sixth session of the Court which was held in Arusha on the 17-28th of September.
At the conclusion of the “Mobilizing Aid for Trade: Focus on Africa” conference convened by the African Development Bank in Dar es Salaam, delegates called on African countries to include trade in their national development plans. Also in official AU news, the draft agenda for the eighth ordinary session of the Pan-African Parliament to be held in Midrand, South Africa between October 15 and 26th, 2007 is now available for download. While the ECOSOCC credentials committee has launched an urgent call for applications from African civil society groups in twenty-three African countries from the Central, Northern and Southern regions for elections to the ECOSOCC Assembly.
This week, the AU Monitor is calling for your contributions toward a Peoples’ Audit of the African Union (AU) (www.aumonitor.org/comments/413/).
The Audit Review panel was set up by the African Union in July in order to identify the areas where significant improvement has to be made to accelerate the African integration process. Having launched an official invitation for contributions to the review, the AU Monitor is asking our readers to contribute to this important review. We have uploaded the official terms of reference of the review as well as a background summary for your attention.
We ask that you forward this invitation for submissions, contributions, debate and discussion far and wide so that CSO, including and particularly social movements, grassroots organizations, trade unions and women’s rights groups etc., as well as citizens’ perspectives on the African Union and the Union Government influence the policy recommendations of the Review Panel.
Please submit all contributions directly to [email][email protected] with the subject heading “Peoples’ Audit” before October 26th, 2007.
Auxillia Chimusoro HIV and AIDS awards 200: Call for nominations Individuals and organizations who have excelled in their contributions to mitigate HIV and AIDS in Zimbabwe have a chance to win awards at the annual Auxillia Chimusoro HIV and AIDS Awards ceremony to be held in Harare on November 29th 2007.
I appreciated Dr Adesanmi's imaginative way of offering a critique ( see ) of the absence of African feminist/womanist thought from the Norton Anthology of Feminist Literary Theory: A Reader, but I'm not sure how it would sit with Sartje to know that when she is given voice in the twenty-first century, she is not allowed to speak the names of her continental sistren unless they have relocated to the States. I wonder if Ms Bjartman would like it that when she speaks from Canada, her countrywoman Rozena Maart is not mentioned. I'm sure she would like the world to know about her sister's book: The Politics of Consciousness: The Consciousness of Politics. When Black Consciousness Meets White Consciousness. Volume One. The Interrogation of Writing. Awomandla Publishers 2006
The Regional Office for Africa of the International Cooperative Alliance (http//www.ica.coop) is organising a Co-operative Gender Forum on November 12 to 16, at the Maseru Conference Centre in Lesotho.
http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/323/43627-disllusioned-african.... time ago, in 1993, a forum of Anglophone Cameroon writers held under the auspices of the Goethe Institute of Yaounde produced, among many excellent articles, a reflection by Tatah H. Mbuy on "The Moral Responsibility of the Writer in a Pluralist Society". Every such writer, says Mbuy, is to see himself as a spokesman for his society. He must seek the truth, propagate it and defend it. He is to be the prophet and soothsayer of his society, pricking the consciences of all and trying to correct faults where these are to be found. Elsewhere in this forum other participants described present-day Anglophone writing as concerned with "deconstructing victim hood", through a discourse revolving around shared values or reference points.
This also entails the need to move on, into reconstruction of heritage that Cameroonians, and indeed all Africans, are clinging to precariously, in the pluralist era of Africa's democratisation.
It is in the new, post-election scene, which Nyamnjoh has described elsewhere as "a decline to one-dimensionalism", that "The Disillusioned African" takes his bearings on the world. Its framework is the ongoing politico-economic process of the 1990's with its own peculiarly African 'fin-de-siècle' flavour, seen from the distancing haven of an imaginary trip to Britain. The vehicle of communication is the letters of the philosopher-hero to his friend Moungo back home. The air-flight and touch-down, the first sight of London, the brief stay in academic Manchester, and an interlude in hospital, laid low with malaria, provide the author with a variety of jumping-off points from which to view both British society and his own.
Part One, situated in the "Mandela Hotel", evokes reflections on leadership, class systems and the universal greed for wealth - or what may be called "officially-sponsored theft".
Part Two provides much paradoxical comment on the foibles and attitude of what Nyamnjoh refers to throughout as the "Queendom" of Britain.
Part Three chronicles life as the only student of a university department of philosophy, bringing in its train wry observations on the ambiguous cross-cultural influences that followed in the wake of colonisation and including an appalling, scarcely credible specimen of official memoranda from the Belgian government to the departing missionaries to what is now Zaire.
From his hospital ward in Part Four, the narrator muses on the demise of Communist autocracies and their effects on the world balance of power: "Today, people have got to find new enemies, which isn't easy... The truth is, people have simply got to have something they fear, for people are united more by FEAR than by LOVE." After drawing a parallel between leftist dictatorships such as that of the Ceasuscus, and the present modes of government of various African leaders, the book takes a helter-skelter, tumble-down free fall to the present day, to the chicanery of the 1992 Cameroon elections, and the hero's flight from the central critical arena into his native Grasslands village.
The book was written before the accession to power of Nelson Mandela, the Rwandan genocide or the depredations of devaluation in the economies of francophone Africa could provide further examples of both the best and the worst scenarios for a problematic future.
Satirical writing has an honourable history among Anglophone Cameroonians, whose use of language as a political instrument is as powerful as any polemicist in nineteenth century England. Readers of Nyamnjoh's previous work have grown to expect, beneath the racy, humorous style, an incisive and merciless analysis of social ills. Here is indeed a seeker after truth. However, where the previous book, Mind Searching, adopted the light-hearted and hilarious device of an extended daydream taking place in church, as a vehicle for his observation of the Yaounde bureaucratic and religious scene, this work seems to fish in murkier waters altogether. By the medium of an apparent, tongue-in-cheek naivety, by repeated digressions and diverse literary and historical parallels, Nyamnjoh's subversive intent remains constant: to strip pretensions, to explode phoniness and humbug, to expose the sores that underlie the veneer of Africa modernity, particularly among the elites and their sad counterparts, the under classes. The vigour of expression reveals the bitterness that underpins the author's surface urbanity:
The African elite today loves kingly life so much that, at independence, what mattered to him most was political power, not economic power. The economic power was largely retained by the Europeans and expatriates, which is why the leaders suck the peasants like ticks in order to sustain their kingly appetites. Had the African leaders been sensible enough to think seriously of economic power as well, African countries today would certainly not be this dependent upon the unmechanised efforts of the peasants. And they would also be in a position to carry out their own development efforts, without necessarily posing as "les Mendiants du monde"."Beggars of the world, unite," Marx is likely to have written, had he been born in Africa." As he remarks elsewhere: "Nothing man-made is neutral, and this includes language..."
A counterpart to the African dimension is the book's extended commentary on life in the UK. Here is no innocent anthropologist. Charles's uproarious tour of London, in the company of those unlikely twins, Thompson and Thompson, and compared by him to circumcision or an initiation rite, occasions a mixed bag of comments on the British world view. A few well-worn themes come up for comment: the behaviour of the British on trains; the national meal of fish-and-chips; and, inevitably, the weather:
"The sun has not shone since I arrived in this Queendombut the English say this is the best summer they've had in decades."
Many in his host country would share his reaction to instant foods, to the paradoxical attempts on both sides of the racial divide to change the colour of one's skin. Though they might be puzzled by other assertions, such as the inferiority of the Queendom's methods of washing-up, or the supposed inability of its subjects to dance? No doubt many a Dark Continental visitor will have suffered the same frustration at the Western doctor's ignorance of malaria; even in the "Hospital for Tropical Diseases." Better not to go in the first place, but to stick with the traditional healers!
Keba, like many other tourists, is ambivalent about Britain; not without his own 'idées reçues '. At times, indeed he could be regarded as throwing the baby out with the bathwater: when, for example, he deplores the impact on Africa of Western education, or is disgusted by the publicity methods of aid agencies launching Third World disaster funds. In his search for inconsistencies, everything is grist to Charles's mill; but one cannot be a universal sender-up without falling at times into inconsistencies of one's own.
In the wide spectrum of contemporary Anglophone writing Nyamnjoh's genre stands somewhere between the sardonic humour of the political lampoonist and the anguished cry of prophecy. Bernard Fonlon, in his open letter to African students, declares:
"Still I persist in the belief that it is necessary, even imperative, that at least some intellectuals should steel their will and brace themselves and enter the arena of politics in order to usher in and further though and conscience and righteousness and integrity in the conduct of public affairs."
Is Charles's withdrawal, at the end of the book, into his Menchum peasant community an admission of defeat, or a case of 'reculer pour mieux sauter'? Is there hope for the future? Does Nyamnjoh, in the terms of his fellow-authors quoted above, provide any ways forward to the reconstruction of the African heritage? Coming as it does at a moment of even greater economic peril, political passivity and mendacious propaganda than that prevailing at the beginning of the story, one is bound to say that the vision is indeed sombre, the sense of despondency profound.
Yet this is a fighting literature and the analysis of victimhood is not wholly pessimistic. As witness the final, dream-letter from Keba to Moungo's wife:
"What we are witnessing are the signs of a crumbling system, one deaf and blind to the needs and wishes of our people. One in which the stomach has for thirty years been the only political compass. The violence and bloodshed show the tyrant as cornered and desperate, and with a little more effort and coordination on our part, tyranny would have met its Waterloo. Whenever the rays of change do at last penetrate the darkening thickness of our suffocating jungles, it shall be the result of a massive all-involving effort, the fruit of our collective suffering."
Whatever the imagined future for Africa, this courageous book will certainly provide, for both its foreign readers and the young generation of Cameroonians, a provocative insight into the complex web of despair, frustration, paradox and hope that, on the eve of the twenty-first century, constitutes the "downtrodden and forgotten bulk of the Darkened Continent."
One such young man, recently encountered in the North-West province, voiced his surprised discovery, rapidly growing into a conviction, that the liberation of Africa was not, as he had always thought, a process that would come upon it from outside, but a deep transformation to be wrought by each one from within.
To all who have Africa's interests at heart, the heartfelt cry of "The Disillusioned African" will come as a powerful incentive to set about the task of 'redeeming the time' and, whether from without or from within, of building a better future for the Continent.
* Published by Langaa Publishers, 2007 and available on amazon.com
* Reviewed by Louise Cuming - Catholic University of Central Africa, Yaounde
* Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org
http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/323/blogs_01_zeleza.gifWriting on Pius Adesami adopts the persona of Sarah Baartman, the so-called "the Hottentot Venus", to ask why no African feminist theorist is included in the recently published Feminist Literary Theory and Criticism: A Norton Reader (by Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar) which traces the evolution of feminist writing from the middle ages to the 21st century:
“I am interested in the stories told – or untold – by your editorial choices and options, the instinct to include and the impulse to exclude. I am interested in the conscious and the subconscious processes that led you to the conclusion that Africa, an entire continent of fifty-four countries and over a billion people, has contributed nothing, absolutely nothing, to five centuries of feminist theorizing. After all, as seasoned academics in the United States, you both know that exclusions tell much louder stories than inclusions. I know we are on the same page here.
..
Could it be that you imagined that the voices of the African American women you selected adequately speak for those of their continental sisters? Possibly. If this is the case, I must tell you that African American women cannot be made to stand in and speak for continental African women. According to an African proverb, the monkey and the gorilla may claim oneness, monkey is monkey and gorilla gorilla.”
http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/323/blogs_02_kenya.gifIn the first part of an article on the peculiarities of the Kenyan political system, Thinker’s room looks at the Kenyan electoral system and political parties:
“During elections the incumbent expects to be challenged by the leader of the Official Opposition and h(is/er) Government In Waiting...But in Kenya we have a situation where the official opposition will support the incumbent in the next elections…
Political Parties in Kenya are largely meaningless entities. Very few political parties if any actually have a coherent vision and manifesto. Only a handful can actually describe what they are all about. At last count there are 144 currently registered political parties. 144. A good chunk of these are briefcase parties, hoping to cash in at some point in time when the correct political wind blows.”
http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/323/blogs_03_congo.gifhttp://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/323/blogs_04_mugabe.gifhttp://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/323/blogs_05_wordsbody.gifThe Literary and Arts blog, Wordsbody, reviews the eagerly-anticipated second edition of the pan-African literary magazine, African Writing, which is now available online:
“The new issue of African Writing is now online, in a bumper package that you will read and read and read and hardly ever finish. Literary news, interviews, profiles, fiction, poetry, reviews, and stunning visual art. And where do we start with the contributors? Best not to start.”
http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/323/blogs_06_sotho.gifSotho returns to the controversial and widely condemned decision by officials of the University in St. Thomas to bar South African Nobel Peace laureate, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, from speaking at that university because he has been critical of Israel:
“It is indeed a pity that those who made the decision to bar him from speaking at the school feel Israel cannot be criticized, or that people’s faith cannot be questioned.
A professor at the university who was pushing for the invitation to be accepted by the school has been “removed as director [of] the university’s justice and peace studies program.” Someone was very strongly against inviting Tutu to the school, which says that Tutu “has been critical of Israel and Israeli policy regarding the Palestinians, so we talked with people in the Jewish community and they said they believed it would be hurtful to the Jewish community, because of things he’s said.”
http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/323/blogs_07_scribbles.gif[email protected] or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org
We are pleased to inform you that, for the third consecutive year, Pambazuka News has been voted by subscribers and voters around the world to be amongst "The Top 10 Who Are Changing the World of Internet and Politics" in an award organised by PoliticsOnline and World E-Gov Forum.
The judges stated: "This prestigious award seeks to recognize the innovators and pioneers, the dreamers and doers who bring democracy online. This year marked the toughest year ever in choosing the 20 finalists."
Thank you to all of you who voted for Pambazuka News, our readers, writers and contributors. This is your award. Congratulations to you all.
Conflicts in Africa since the end of the Cold War have cost the continent $306-billion, equivalent to all the foreign aid it has received over the same period, according to a report released by The research released on Thursday by Oxfam, Saferworld and the International Action Network on Small Arms, estimates that conflict shrinks economies by 15% on average. The study, Africa's Missing Billions, says that almost half of the countries on the continent have been involved in some form of conflict since 1990.
Over 20,000 girls under 15 at high risk of FGM in England and Wales A study published by FORWARD, the UK charity which leads the campaign to eliminate female genital mutilation (FGM), reveals that over 20,000 girls under 15 could be at risk of FGM in the UK.
The East African Sub-regional Support Initiative for The Advancement of Women (EASSI)is proud to announce the publication of the September edition of Women's Lexis.