Pambazuka News 322: South Africa: Silencing the right to speak
Pambazuka News 322: South Africa: Silencing the right to speak
http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/322/43547.jpgS’bu Zikode of Abahlali baseMjondolo in Durban recalls the peaceful march by residents on the 28th September which ended with the local police attacking demonstrators with batons, rubber bullets, fire cannons and the arrest of 15 Sydenham residents. He raises the questions, “do the poor have a right to life, a right to speak and ultimately a right to citizenship of South Africa?”
Not only as a leader of the Movement of Abahlali, but also as an ordinary South African Citizen, as a parent, as a father and mostly a human being I am extremely hurt. My heart is torn apart when in my own country, in a broad daylight like on Friday the 28 September 2007, it is made so clear that the poor are not Citizens. When they try to sweep up us out of the cities it is clear that we are not citizens. When they beat us to stop us speaking it is clear that we are not citizens.
It is of a great concern that thousands of Abahlali baseMjondolo members have marched peacefully to the eThekwini municipal mayor Obed Mlaba and have been received with such violence. We marched to demand no power, no position no fame, nothing from his family. We only marched for the Right to life of the shack dwellers, the farm dwellers and thousands of forgotten citizens of this country in the name of democracy, in the name of a better life for all.
What a life without shame, without conscience, without respect for vulnerable groups in our society the elderly women and children. The presence of church leaders amongst the poor has had a far-reaching reason to those in need of a church. The biggest curse is that while praying, the innocents were started to be flooded with heavy forces of water, the strong church leaders stood very firm to shield the innocents. The heavy armed members of the SAPS started assaulting the church leaders, throwing teargas, beating helpless women, shooting old women and men at the back while running to their homes.
This event took place at about 12:15pm when the innocent marchers were still waiting for the mayor to receive the memorandum of demands as arranged with him. The march had complied with the Gathering Act of SA. Without any provocation or unruliness the police decided to act on the instructions of the Mayor of non compliance with the South African Law, because he thinks being at that position means being the law unto himself.
The incident took place in my presence. I had offered myself to represent the helpless so that they may see many more, so that they may not be alone while taking their pain for as long as they still believe that we all have all the Right to life. I think this is a difficult leadership style one needs to adopt to save so many lives. Thus I think it is enough that many of us are born and die in shack fires in jondolos, that we die through various diseases associated with unhygienic conditions from the poisonous air we breath in the jondolos, that we live and die with TB and HIV/AIDS as the research confirms that the shack settlements have the highest infection of the virus. People die because of crime, floods and storms; they die while trying to find toilets in the night. We are seeing no future to our children except to the children of those in authority like Mayor Mlaba. Some of us die while trying to speak truth to power, as we get shot while marching.
After a long shooting I had received a call from the Municipality saying that a representative is on his way to receive the memorandum. But already fourteen members were arrested, four were heavily shot and two were badly wounded. This was quite disturbing. Who was going to hand over the memorandum as the police under the command Sydenham Glen Nayager had already chased everyone? In the next ten minutes I received a call saying that I must bring the Memorandum in Baig’s office as the official was very scared to come out. Then I said he must come out as most comrades have fled, wounded and harmless, and most police were gone still chasing people away down the roads. I had remained with a small group of less than one hundred with elderly people and pregnant women you couldn’t flee.
Then we had no other choice but to face the remaining police and I read the memorandum loudly to Mr. Mzi Magubane who described himself as a senior Manager from the Dept. of Housing in eThekwini municipality. Magubane has been described by System Cele as another old liar. She said that when she was still a child ‘this man used to deceive my father when he was still alive working in the Kennedy Road Committee, today he has come to bluff me.’ So Bahlali your message was sent with another dishonest man with a history of lies.
Today we have to take care of our comrades who for no reasons were imprisoned; today we have to look for money to pay bail and lawyers to represent them in court for nothing. Today like other days we have to run around doctors and hospitals to try and support the shot and hurt comrades. Today like any other day we have stood together and planned an alternative, as we shall not allow any forces to force us silent. So as long as Amandla belongs to us we shall not fear. As long as democracy is used to further the political scores of the minority and as long as there is great inequality in our society Abahlali will stand together for the dawn of true democracy where everyone matters.
As challenges increase every day for the Movement one is for us to seek for justice to take its course. I will soon be writing to the Amnesty International for a wide range of legal support on this dirty behaviour of SAPS. But all of this will not compromise any demands. We will make a follow up and engage the city in a progressive manner that seeks to see a remarkable social change for all. Our city and our country still need true leaders that do not run away from their responsibility like Mlaba. We need leaders that will act, as servants of the public and not expect to be masters over the public like eThekwini Mayor Obed Mlaba.
* S’bu Zikode Abahlali baseMjondolo -
* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at www.pambazuka.org
http://www.pambazuka.org/images/authors/Pius-Adesanmi.jpgPius Adesanmi questions the omission of African feminists scholars from the Norton Anthology** and challenges the editors as to why “an entire continent is seen to have produced nothing of feminist theorizing “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.”
Dear Sandra and Susan, I salute you both in the name of feminism, women's liberation, gender equality, and, most importantly, global sisterhood. The publication of your much-anticipated Feminist Literary Theory and Criticism: A Norton Reader is such an epochal event that I must interrupt the blissful and well-deserved eternal sleep that was eventually accorded me when the people and government of France, ever so fatherly and motherly when it comes to taking care of poor Africa, graciously returned my brain and backside to the South African government for burial in my ancestral homeland a few years ago. I join the American and the global feminist family in congratulating the two of you on the publication of this truly wonderful volume. It is obvious that feminist intellectual labor will never ever be the same again. Resounding success, I must say, has become synonymous with the long history of intellectual collaboration between the two of you. Afterall, The Mad Woman in the Attic, the first gift of your collaborative efforts to humanity, has remained the only inevitable, unavoidable bible of feminist scholarship ever since it was published.
The reference to the magnanimity of France in returning my remains to the government and people of South Africa should have given my identity away by now. However, it is always safe and wise to swear by the natural invisibility of Africa and Africans in matters of global import. And in your immediate context in the United States, it is outright foolish to assume that anybody considers anything about Africa worth knowing. Except, of course, hunger, starvation, poverty, wars, AIDS, famine, and Western charity or "giving" (apologies to President Bill Clinton). I must therefore assume complete ignorance of my identity and introduce myself. I hope you will find it in your hearts to pardon my presumptuousness if you are both already familiar with my story.
http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/322/43548.jpgMy name is Sarah Baartman, also famously known internationally as "the Hottentot Venus". I will spare you the sassy details of my story and focus only on the essential. I was lured to London in 1810 where I soon became a prisoner of Europe's rapacious and capitalistic voyeurism. I'm sure I don't have to tell you the story of 19 th century Europe and its treatment of its Others in Africa and other places. No doubt, you still remember your Orientalism - Edward Said has been a very good friend since he got here. The Europe of this period was also a formidable theatre of all kinds of exhibitions.
Zoophilism was in the air. The colored Other needed to be displayed publicly and regularly in London, Paris, and Lisbon as colonial fauna.
As fate always manages to arrange these things, I was what Europeans called – and still call- an "African tribeswoman" gifted with an exceptional backside. Europe's science promptly concluded that my buttocks suffered from a biological deformity known as steatopygia.
The lips of my womanhood were also considered to be too huge and elongated for the civilized global standards determined by the labia of white women. And so from Britain to France my backside and the lips of my womanhood became objects of visual consumption in the public spheres of White patriarchy. For an extra fee, White men could even touch my behind while I was on display.
Death eventually came calling. You must know that where I come from in Africa, death is no finality. I merely transitioned to ancestor hood in the worldview of my people, hence the reverence with which Africans treat the dead. Not so Europeans. They took their knives and carving objects, carved out my brain, the lips of my womanhood, and my backside, put them in bottles, and kept them in public display at the Musée de l'Homme in Paris. Yes, I can see you cringe. You should. All sensitive feminists should. The idea, just the idea! The bitter tragedy of a woman's most vital parts captured by men, carved out of her dead body by men, and stored in the Museum of Man! Of all places!
My parts remained in public view in that museum, ultimate evidence of patriarchy's victory over feminism, until 1974 when they were withdrawn into a private sanctuary. Finally in 2002, France returned her precious conquest to the people of South Africa.
Dear sisters, the significance of my story to the feminist cause and to global feminist intellectual labor should be quite obvious by now.
For nearly two centuries, I was an international feminist cause célèbre, the very embodiment of patriarchal control over African female sexuality, black female sexuality, and, I daresay, female sexuality. Let me be clear: the story of my body in the international economy of meaning is the story of your own bodies, the story of every woman's body. The difference lies merely in the detail or what your postmodernist colleagues would call local particularities.
Given the fact that my narrative has become one of the most formidable sites – I hate it when I sound like you academics! – of global feminist contestation and intellection, it stands to reason that any reasonable person would expect me to make a grand, celebrated entrance into your Norton volume through the work of any of the numerous African feminist scholars of international repute who have written about me. At the risk of sounding immodest, nobody would expect to pick up a summation of five centuries of feminist intellectual labor – which your Norton anthology represents - and draw a blank with regard to the story of Sarah Baartman. After all, I've been theorized, postcolonized, and postmodernized in all the faddish versions of feminisms out there. I didn't think it was possible for me to be disappeared in any serious historiographical account of feminist theory. I didn't expect to be Ralph Ellisoned.
Trust me my dear sisters, I was not motivated to write you by any narcissistic self-indulgence. You will admit, from what you now know of my story, that I am quite used to being silenced, being disappeared. I am actually more worried by the broader, deeper ideological implications of your having disappeared me softly from your Norton volume. 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.
Some people may praise you for making this volume truly global and representative by including the multi-layered voices of the Other.
They would be right if they did that. After all, you included essays by bell hooks, Hortense Spillers, Alice Walker, Toni Morrison, and Audre Lorde, evidence of your awareness of Africana feminist voices and practices; you included essays by Gayatri Spivak and Chandra Mohanty, evidence of your awareness of the expansive field of Third World/postcolonial/transnational feminist voices and practices; the entry by Paula Gunn Allen saved the day for Native American feminisms; Gloria Anzaldua – another good friend of mine here – thankfully guarantees the presence of Chicana feminisms in your volume. In essence, the presence of these Other voices, strategically sprinkled in the text, is a laudable proof of the fact that you paid attention when Hazel Carby screamed in an article: "White Woman Listen"! You listened. You agreed with her that feminism could and should no longer be the gospel of the White western female according to Betty Friedan, Germaine Greer, Gloria Steinem, Kate Millett, Judith Butler, Diana Fuss, Elaine Showalter and others too numerous to mention. You agreed with Carby that the narratives of the French delegation – Simone de Beauvoir, Luce Irigaray, Hélène Cixous, Monique Wittig, and Julia Kristeva – should no longer be deemed universal. You agreed that Chinese women are probably better positioned to speak for and about themselves than be represented and spoken for by Julia Kristeva's About Chinese Women.
It is your awareness of these things that makes your excision of African feminist theories and theorists from your volume all the more alarming. Could it be that you imagined that the voices of the African American women you selected adequately speaks 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. Perhaps you imagined that African women would be better served to find some space inside the Third World/postcolonial/transnational feminist umbrella you represented with the voices of Gayatri Spivak and Chandra Mohanty? Possibly. Could it be that you are simply unaware of the considerable body of African feminist intellection, right there in your back of the wood in the US academy? Possibly. Could it be that you just simply elected to disappear them like you disappeared me? Possibly.
I'm sure you know that Bill O'Reilly, the famous rightwing fundamentalist talkative on Fox News – has only just discovered in 2007 that African Americans are capable of eating properly with fork and knife, you know, like real, normal people. Now, I don't want you to travel that path. I don't want you to discover, in 2007, that continental African women have been theorizing feminism for a very long time in US academe and have produced a considerable body of work, one or two of which should deservedly have passed through the eye of Norton's needle. Since you included work by Alice Walker, I take it that you both know how well her theory of "womanism" has traveled in US and global women studies programs and departments. Trouble is, in 1985, before Walker used the term, Chikwenye Okonjo Ogunyemi, a US-based Nigerian feminist scholar, had published an essay in Signs entitled: "Womanism: The Dynamics of the Contemporary Black Female Novel in English". Now, Signs is not a journal the two of you could have missed. It's the most prestigious peer reviewed journal of feminist studies in the United States. But let's assume you somehow missed it, Ogunyemi subsequently published a very important book, African Wo/Man Palava, with the University of Chicago press in 1996.
Did you also miss that? We're talking U of Chicago Press for God's sake!
There is also Obioma Nnaemeka, a formidable feminist theorist based in Indiana University. Her reputation is global. Secure. Frankly speaking, her essay, "Feminism, Rebellious Women, and Cultural Boundaries" has no business not making your Norton Reader. There is of course her formidable work on female circumcision in Africa. By the way, isn't female circumcision in Africa – genital mutilation in Western parlance – supposed to be a subject of sensational predilection for western feminists and NGOs? If not a single excerpt from Obioma Nnaemeka's edited volume, Female Circumcision and the Politics of Knowledge: African Women in Imperialist Discourses, made it into your volume, don't you think that something is awfully wrong?
There is also Oyeronke Oyewumi, an important US-based feminist theorist. The University of Minnesota Press published her book, The Invention of Women: Making an African Sense of Western Gender Discourses, to critical acclaim in 1997. Not even a chapter in this book is worthy of inclusion? There is also Ifi Amadiume. She teaches at Dartmouth. Her Male Daughters, Female Husbands: Gender in an African Society is a priceless classic. Did you also miss that? There are Molara Ogundipe and Nkiru Nzegwu. How about the Egyptian, Nawal El Saadawi and the Algerian, Assia Djebar? These two global figures of women's writing and feminist intellectual labor have written nothing that could have made the cut and rescued an entire continent? You will notice that I have refrained from mentioning any of the numerous important feminist thinkers based in Africa. I do not want to bore you. It is also better to cite those whose alterity in US academe one would have believed you couldn't conceivably have missed.
I read sadly in your preface that "our own conversations about the construction of this book has been enhanced by many colleagues and friends who have shared syllabi with us, discussed their teaching practices, and made suggestions about possible inclusions". A long list of names follows and this is where the sadness lies: that not once in all these conversations with this expansive cast of consultants did my story and the story of Africa's contribution to feminist theorizing crop up. Not one person, not one colleague across the feminist studies landscape in the US pointed out this ominous oversight – if indeed it was an oversight – to you? Obioma Nnaemeka is Susan Gubar's neighbor in Indiana for Christ's sake!
There is some good news though. There won't be a shortage of happy African intellectuals who will query the wisdom of even expecting Africa to have been included in your work in the first place. Why do we always whine and complain when Westerners ignore us, they will say?
It is not their responsibility to include us. We should include ourselves by creating our own structures, period! After all, Oyeronke Oyewumi, as if anticipating what would happen with your Norton project, had edited African Gender Studies: A Reader in 2005. Such opinions would of course ignore the simple fact that your work has a universalizing underpinning in terms of its historical breadth and its thematic scope and Africa has been excluded from this picture. They would ignore the fact that this is Norton and who says Norton says canons! They would ignore the fact that even if we were to adopt the reductionist approach that all you have done here is to reflect the multiple voices that have inflected feminist, gender, and women studies in the American academy over the years, the end product conveys the fallacious message that no African woman has been part of this process.
I know you are already wondering how an African woman, who died so many years ago with no evidence of having attended any University, happens to be so familiar with academic language and procedure. You should know the answer to that: I'm now an ancestor, a spirit. I'm not human. I'm supposed to know everything. That is what sanctions my intervention in the affairs of you mortals!
Peace and love, Sarah Baartman
**Feminist Literary Theory and Criticism: A Norton Reader (Paperback)
by Sandra M. Gilbert (Author), Susan Gubar (Editor)
* Pius Adesanmi is Associate Professor of English and Director, Project on New African Literatures ( at Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada. Apart from his academic work, Dr. Adesanmi publishes opinion articles regularly in various internet fora. He runs a regular blog for The Zeleza Post ( www.projectponal.com
* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at www.pambazuka.org
The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) applauds the efforts taken by coalitions to promote Freedom of Information (FOI) Laws in Africa and reaffirms its unflinching support and collaboration with the stakeholders involved in the process. As the world commemorates the International Right to Know Day, the IFJ reiterate its support to the FOI coalitions in Africa and calls on its affiliates to join the movement in order to guarantee access to information and protection of sources in Africa.
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Reporters Without Borders have strongly condemned the action of the Zimbabwean intelligence services in compiling a blacklist of at least 15 journalists working for independent news media who are to be subjected to "strict surveillance" and other unspecified "measures" in the run-up to next year's presidential and parliamentary elections.
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Egyptian security forces have detained a Shi'ite Muslim activist who campaigned for more rights for Egypt's tiny minority Shi'ite population, security sources and the man's lawyer said on Wednesday. Mohamed el-Derini, who runs a Shi'ite group called the Supreme Council for the Care of the Prophet's Family, was taken from his home on Monday, and is the second Shi'ite activist arrested in two months in Egypt, lawyer Hossam Bahgat said.
A recent capacity development program on Anti-Corruption and Good Governance held for 13 East Africans was an eye opener on public discourse, accountable leadership but above all, about ethical leadership. Drawn from the Government and Civil Society, the training conducted by Marquette University’s Les Aspin Center for Government in Washington DC, provided participants with knowledge and skills in preventive, proactive, multi-pronged, institutional support strategies for improving accountability and other good governance practices in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania.
Ahead of the upcoming Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) this November, Maja Daruwala says that African heads need to lead on issues of concern to the Continent and not leave it to others to finger point.
http://www.pambazuka.org/images/authors/Joseph-Yav.jpgThe exploitation of natural resources has played a central role in the conflict in the Great Lakes region and the DRC. Joseph Yav, offers a perspective on how to transform conflicts by using resources as “tools for reconciliation and and reconstruction in the Great Lakes region.
“I hope they don’t discover oil. Then we will be in real trouble”. [Blood Diamond]
Introduction
To adapt an old metaphor, one could say, when the Great Lakes Region of Africa sneezes, the entire world including Africa catch a cold. Several interconnected elements shaped conflicts in the Great Lakes region, including the interests of neighbouring countries, competition over natural and economic resources concerns over instability and lack of security, and ethnic chauvinism, to name but a few.
The oil prospects of the Great Lakes region appear at once more dangerous. Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo are sitting on what prospectors believe could be oil reserves of up to one billion barrels in the Albertine Basin which they share. At the time of writing, the oil region of the eastern DRC was the theatre of clashes culminating in killing of civilians and militaries by the Ugandan and Congolese armies. This is now leading to fears that the lake Albert conflict may spread and make a renewed cross-border conflict involving other negative forces and countries.
This may lead to another case of conflict over resources and well described in a recent movie named “ Blood Diamond” where the old man sighs: “I hope they don’t discover oil. Then we will be in real trouble”.
Yes, one could say that the old man of the above-mentioned movie is right; the Great lakes region of Africa is in real trouble. If realistic possibilities for conflict resolution and transformation are to be developed, concerns about oil and other resources will have to be addressed. This article will focus only on the issue of resources as a source of conflict or a resource for peace and reconstruction and will offer a perspective on how to transform conflicts by using resources as tools of reconciliation and reconstruction in the Great Lakes region.
History of conflict over resources in the Great Lakes Region
One of the most perplexing issues in the Great Lakes region of Africa and especially in the DRC conflict has been, and still is, that of the exploitation of the DRC’s natural resources. Illegal exploitation of the DRC’s mineral resources has been a constant feature in discussions about the war in general and especially in the eastern part of the country. There is a debate about whether the exploitation of mineral resources is a main aim for foreign intervention or whether mining initiatives is a way of financing the war effort. It has long been established that the exploitation of these resources, including ‘coltan’ (columbite-tantalite), gold, and diamonds in the eastern Congo, and diamonds, copper, cobalt, and timber in central DRC, contributed to and exacerbated the conflict in the country. Concerned with reports of pillaging of resources by the foreign forces, the UN Security Council mandated an independent panel to investigate these allegations.
In fact, in its presidential statement dated 2 June 2000 (S/PRST/2000/20), the Security Council requested that the Secretary-General establish a Panel of Experts on the illegal exploitation of natural resources and other forms of wealth of the DRC. The objective was to research and analyze the links between the exploitation of the natural resources and other forms of wealth in the DRC and the continuation of the conflict. In its four reports, the UN Panel of Experts has named senior Ugandan and Rwandese armed forces officers and senior government officials and their families, who are allegedly responsible for illegal exploitation of the DRC's natural resources and other abuses.
It has also proposed that measures be taken against the states, individuals and companies most implicated in the exploitation, including travel bans, financial penalties and reductions in aid disbursements. In January 2003, in response to complaints raised by companies and some governments, the Panel's mandate was extended to 31 October 2003. In its final report from October 2003 the Panel largely documented the nexus of economic exploitation, arms trafficking, and armed conflict, stating that illegal exploitation remains one of the main sources of funding groups involved in perpetuating conflict. The Panel of Experts also listed companies based in Belgium, China, France, Germany, Israel, Spain, the UK, and the United States, that were allegedly involved in the illegal arms trade in the DRC.
Regional actors have been accused of aggression and ‘foreign adventurism’ with regard to Congolese territory and natural resources. In other words, while parties to the conflict in the DRC may have been motivated originally by security concerns, their continued presence in the DRC can be attributed to economic gains derived from the DRC. The report further stated that criminal groups linked to the armies of Rwanda, Uganda and Zimbabwe and the Government of the DRC have benefited from such conflicts. This is critical to the peace process, because according to reports, these ‘groups will not disband voluntarily … they have built up a self-financing war economy centred on mineral exploitation’.
The rationale for intervention by neighbouring states became self-enforcing and the localised conflicts became regional. As such, the conflicts within and among the countries of the Great Lakes region require regionally based and targeted solutions, along with the cooperation of other, relevant neighbouring states.
Current situation: Oil wars in the Great Lakes of Africa?
Uganda and the DRC share Lake Albert, which has become an important new frontier in the search for oil on the continent. Lake Albert, also Albert Nyanza and formerly Lake Mobutu Sese Seko, is one of the Great Lakes of Africa. It is Africa's seventh largest lake, and ranks as the world’s twenty-third largest lake by volume. It is located in the center of the continent, on the border between the DRC and Uganda. It is the northernmost of the chain of lakes in the Great Rift Valley; it is about 160 km long and 30 km wide, with a maximum depth of 51 m, and a surface elevation of 619 m above sea level. In 1864, the explorer Samuel Baker discovered the lake; he named it after the deceased Prince Albert, consort of Queen Victoria. The late and former Congolese president Mobutu temporarily named the lake after himself.
http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/322/43557_oil.jpgConflict is arising over oil found in Lake Albert. Reserves are estimated at less than 100,000 barrels a day for about 10 years when production starts. Tensions began to rise at the end of July beginning of August when a unit of Congolese Armed Forces (FARDC), captured four Ugandan marines who had apparently strayed towards the Congolese west bank of Lake Albert. But on August 3, the situation grew serious. FARDC soldiers patrolling the lake attacked an oil exploration barge belonging to Canada's Heritage Oil Corporation and killed a British contractor working for Canada's Heritage Oil Corp. The Ugandan army retaliated and a Congolese soldier died in the short shoot-out while a Ugandan soldier was wounded.
Since then, tension has been mounting along that part of the Uganda-Congo frontier that runs north-south down the 160 kilometre-long lake - although the alignment of the border has never been precisely defined. Following the discovery of oil in the Albertine Basin, both the Ugandan and Congolese armies have been deploying heavily around the shores, with some observers saying there is now a threat of all-out war.
To ease the tensions, Congolese president Joseph Kabila and his counterpart, Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni, held a one-day summit meeting in Tanzania on September 8 in an attempt to sort out the border dispute. They signed an agreement to immediately pull back their troops 150 kilometers from the border to ease tensions over an oil-rich border lake. They agreed to work together to explore and exploit oil in the Lake Albert area and to lay a joint pipeline to distribute any oil and they signed the agreement in the presence of Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete, diplomats and journalists. They also agreed that a joint team will begin work to demarcate the contested area of the lake. Further, they agreed to meet once a year and to raise their diplomatic missions to ambassadorial level to help improve relations.
However, few days after the meeting and agreements another military clash erupted on the lake on September 24. Reuters reported that six civilians were killed when Ugandan soldiers opened fire on a Congolese passenger boat on Lake Albert. In a conflicting version of the shooting incident, Uganda's military reported two soldiers killed, one from each country, in what it said was a gunfight during a dispute over an oil exploration vessel working on the border lake.
There is therefore an urgent need of transforming resources from source of conflict to options for reconciliation and reconstruction in the Great Lakes region.
Concluding remarks: Transforming the Oil concern from the Source of Conflict to a Resource for Peace in the Great Lakes Region
Reconciliation and reconstruction are essential elements of peacebuilding. The key to transforming conflicts is to build strong, equitable relations where distrust and fear were once the norm.
In the Great Lakes region, as in many other African countries, violent conflict has become the ‘normal’ state of affairs. Control of economic resources has become an important factor in motivating and sustaining armed conflicts. Complex political economies, which often hide behind the outward symbols of statehood and national sovereignty, have been rooted in the pursuance of conflict. The challenge therefore is to transform regional and national political ‘parasite’ economies that rely on violent conflict into healthy systems based on political participation, social and economic inclusion, and respect for human rights and the rule of law.
Accordingly, any attempt at transforming conflicts to ensure reconciliation and reconstruction in the region requires stimulating positive developments in the region. Such developments will reassure the affected countries that their security and economic interests are better served through fostering stability and improving relations with their neighbours than through allowing their neighbours’ turmoil to deflect them from their objective of peace, reconciliation, democracy, and economic development.
Moreover, in terms of ensuring security, ignoring the tensions and misunderstanding among the DRC and Uganda will have far-reaching implications for the stability and socioeconomic development of the region because resources will be diverted from human and economic development to warfare. For this reason it is important for these countries to cooperate towards the restoration of peaceful dialogue and cordial interstate relations. In this regard, armed incursions and clashes can lead to rising tensions and full-blown interstate armed conflict which, if not promptly addressed, will affect the long-term well-being and socioeconomic development of both populations.
The Great Lakes region is rich in the natural resources that are at stake for many actors in the conflict. However, natural resources also harbour potential for post-conflict rehabilitation and development. Countries should therefore examine ways of limiting the exploitation of such resources -especially oil in this case- for the purpose of funding conflict. They should furthermore seek to identify and promote the means by which such resources can be safeguarded and managed in a way that will reduce conflict and ensure benefit to the population. Equally, there is a need to develop institutions and frameworks for the integration and transformation of the informal economy to a formal economy, governed by a reasonable rule of law, transparency and efficiency, without marginalising local and regional actors.
* Dr. Joseph Yav is a lecturer at the Faculty of Law, University of Lubumbashi, Democratic Republic of Congo. He is also the executive director of the CERDH (Centre d’Etudes et de Recherche en Droits de l’Homme, Democratie et Justice Transitionnelle/Centre for Human Rights, Democracy and Transitional Justice Studies.) and Coordinator of the UNESCO Chair for Human Rights. Email: [email][email protected] and [email][email protected]
* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/
Freedom House has announced the release of new reports on the state of democracy in four Southern African countries: Angola, Mozambique, Swaziland, and Zambia. The in-depth biennial reports, part of the recently published Countries at the Crossroads 2007 report, analyze governance issues and provide recommendations to those governments that are at a crossroads in their political development.
The UN refugee agency has reported it was facing a critical shortfall of US$11.1 million for its refugee return and reintegration operations budget in South Sudan for this year. "We are in a very dire situation because if we don't get this additional support we will have to scale down or even halt our operations with serious consequences for all our activities," said Chris Ache, the UNHCR representative in Sudan. "I implore donors to give us the money we need to continue our work," he added.
The 15-member U.N. Security Council, which remains paralysed over the killings and military repression in Burma (Myanmar), joined hands Tuesday to condemn the "murderous attack" last weekend that killed 10 African Union (AU) peacekeepers in South Darfur, Sudan. A presidential statement, reflecting the views of the entire membership, condemned the attack and demanded "that no effort be spared" to identify and bring the perpetrators "to justice".
The violence, corruption and generalised poverty marring more than three decades of independence in Portugal’s five former colonies in Africa, and five years of independence in East Timor, have been the main obstacles for development in these countries, but not the only ones. Brain drain is another phantom that is slowly but inexorably destroying hopes for progress and wellbeing for the people of Guinea-Bissau, which became independent in 1974, Angola, Cape Verde, Mozambique and Sao Tomé and Príncipe, which became independent in 1975, and East Timor, independent since 2002.
Environmentalists and tour operators appear to be losing the battle against mining companies in Mpumalanga, a province in the east of South Africa. This confrontation - which also pits two ministries against each other - will determine the future of hundreds of lakes and rivers, and has implications for the economic sustainability of the province. All parties in the long running dispute argue that they are working towards the economic development of the province in general, and of the Mpumalanga Lake District in particular. They differ fundamentally, however, over methods of achieving this goal and over the long term sustainability of their respective plans.
The executive director of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) is urging action as concerns the transmission of HIV to children through sexual abuse, incest and early teenage sex. Many outreach programmes target HIV-positive pregnant women and young children, and progress is being made in this arena, Peter Piot told IPS during a recent conference at Harvard Medical School in the eastern U.S. city of Boston.
This article published by the Poverty and Economic Policy Network serves as a toolkit for policy makers addressing transient and chronic poverty in Kenya. It urges that poverty targeting criteria must take into account household sizes, gender of household head, dependency ratios, farm sizes, education attainment and geographic characteristics. The authors suggest that in Kenya, the success of education in reducing poverty depends on primary graduates excelling beyond primary schools.
This International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) report provides insight into the local management of conflict over natural resources between herders and farmers in north-western Mali. The study finds that social, economic and environmental change within the region has led to growing pressure on natural resources and a marked deterioration in relations between farmers and herders. The paper warns that because this conflict is based on ethnicity, there is potential for serious escalation.
This report by Adam Smith International sets out an ambitious 100 Day Agenda for a new Zimbabwean Government. Although it is not known when a new Government will take office or what kind of government this will be, the paper argues that any new Government will face a host of extremely severe problems that have resulted from the policies pursued by the government of Robert Mugabe. In order to address these problems, it argues that Zimbabwe will need a clear plan , as well as advice and assistance from the international community.
In this week’s AU Monitor, Michael Deibert argues that regional trade and integration are key to African development, while President Abdou Diouf, Secretary General of la Francophonie and former President of Senegal, speaking at the African Development Bank (AfDB) Eminent Speakers bureau, stated that “Africa’s regional integration should not be in service of globalization but in service of the continent’s development”. Further, the UN Security Council supported strengthening ties between the UN and the AU with the aim of enhancing capacities to deal with conflicts. This, after the AU peacekeeping mission suffered the loss of ten personnel and the wounding of ten others in South Darfur. AU Commission Chairperson Alpha Oumar Konare has said the assailants will bear the consequences of the heinous act.
In trade news, African Development Bank (AfDB) Group President, Donald Kaberuka, called for more effective channelling of these resources noting that remittances from the Diaspora amount to figures comparable to the Official Development Assistance (ODA) of many States, and in some cases remittances are as high as 750% of ODA. Also from AfDB, macroeconomist Hyacinthe Kouassi says that limited relevance of structural reforms financed by aid are the missing link in the analysis of aid effectiveness. While the World Bank has intervened on the issue of Economic Partnership Agreement negotiations, requesting that the European Union extend its end of year deadline.
In analysis on the global actors vying for influence in Africa, French President Nicolas Sarkozy is attempting to raise support for a Mediterranean Union, which would increase France’s geopolitical and economic influence in the region, while the United States increases its military presence in Africa with Africom becoming fully operational this week. Further, Penny Davies of Diakonia analyses China’s development assistance policies in a new report.
In event news, the Pan African Parliament ordinary session will be held in Midrand, South Africa from 15-26 October. The AU Monitor will bring you information, news and analysis from this meeting as soon as they become available.
How do firms decide to provide HIV/AIDS prevention services? In this CGD Working Paper, Visiting Fellow Vijaya Ramachandran analyzes data from 860 firms and 4,955 workers in Uganda, Tanzania, and Kenya. She finds that larger firms, and those with more highly skilled workers invest more in AIDS prevention. Firms in which more than 50 percent of workers are unionized are also more likely to do more prevention activity.
Although a lot still needs to be explored, one thing is certain: there is a strong will to identify ways in which the latest participatory web-based tools, for example Web 2.0, can be used to improve collaboration and share experiences for the benefit of rural development. More than 300 participants from all over the world shared their experiences with Web 2.0 tools at the first Web 2.0 conference for the development sector which was held in Rome, Italy from 24-26 October 2007.
Four Chadian rebel groups initialled a peace agreement with the government on Wednesday at talks in Libya, a Chadian official said, but the leader of the main faction said there were many points left to resolve. "The contents are secret. An agreement should be officially signed very soon in a ceremony that will bring together heads of state in Tripoli," a senior Chadian government official, who asked not to be named, told Reuters in Chad's capital N'Djamena.
Ethiopia on Thursday pledged 5,000 troops to a U.N.-African Union peacekeeping mission in Sudan's war-ravaged Darfur region. The 26,000-strong joint mission is to replace a hard-pressed AU force that lacks experience, equipment and cash and has been unable to stop the conflict that has caused a humanitarian crisis in which some 200,000 people are estimated to have died.
Morgan Tsvangirai has said he will not take part in national elections next year if the Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe continues political "repression" in the country. "There is no point in participating in repressive elections if the environment is not conducive," the Movement Democraticfor Democratic Change leader told supporters. But he said it was important to talk to Mugabe's Zanu-PF party "to create a free and fair election environment in this country" and denied allegations he had betrayed MDC supporters by making compromises with the ruling party.
Reporters Without Borders calls for the release of reporter Ahmed Aadan Dhere, who was arrested four days ago in the city of Berbera, in the east of the northern breakaway state of Somaliland, and has been held ever since at Berbera police headquarters. Dhere is the correspondent of Haatuf, a privately-owned daily based in the Somaliland capital of Hargeisa.
In Niger, a combination of recurrent drought and widespread poverty leaves the most vulnerable people unable to cope when environmental shocks occur. Now, a new type of bank provides poor farmers with access to cereal grains when there are seasonal or unexpected food shortages. The banks, managed exclusively by women, are improving nutrition, keeping families together and gathering interest in the form of grain in the warehouses.
Senior officials from a number of developing countries have called for greater international cooperation to help the world’s poor and vulnerable States respond to climate change – the central focus of this year’s annual high-level debate of the General Assembly. Marco Hausiku, the Foreign Minister of Namibia, said climate change is a global issue with serious implications for economic growth, sustainable development and the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), a set of global anti-poverty targets toward the year 2015.
Universities in developing countries should ditch the 'ivory tower' legacy of colonialism and enhance their links with the world outside, according to David Dickson, Director, SciDev.Net. Too many universities in developing countries sustain an image of themselves as elitist institutions, cut off from the needs and interests of the society that surrounds them.
Researchers are calling for enhanced healthcare for HIV-infected mothers after they give birth, following a study showing that in the two-year period after birth, mothers with HIV have a high incidence of infectious diseases. The study findings were published this week (1 October) in the Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes.
The Government has conceded to the demands made by Zimbabweans to amend the Public Order and Security Act (POSA). Since its inception in 2000, POSA has been used by the ruling party to infringe on the fundamental right to freedom of association, and has been selectively applied to prohibit opposition party rallies and civic organization meetings. This has been viewed as an act of blatant disregard to the right to freedom of expression and association within a democratic society.
Dire shortages of such essentials as electricity and water are forcing Zimbabweans living with HIV/AIDS to combat the country's hardships with new and novel approaches. According to the Zimbabwe Demographic and Health Survey, 18.1 percent of the population of about 11.5 million are infected with HIV - the sixth highest prevalence in the world.
President Umaru Yar'Adua's administration has halted an initiative of his predecessor to privatise 102 elite public secondary schools across Nigeria. “The manner and rush in which the pubic-private partnership arrangement was put in place did not give room for consideration of wider views and ideas on how best the schools could be effectively and efficiently managed,” said Education Minister Igwe Aja-Nwachukwu in a 27 September statement.
Assurances by President Bingu wa Mutharika's government that it has adopted a zero-tolerance approach to corruption have not altered the view of a leading international monitoring body that graft in Malawi is worsening. Transparency International (TI), the global corruption watchdog, said in its latest Corruption Perception Index (CPI) that Malawi had dropped 28 places from 90 in 2004 to 118 this year, a three-year time-frame mirroring Mutharika's assumption of the presidency in 2004 on an electoral ticket that promised to clean up the administration.
Eastern Africa could face dry conditions early next year, with the possibility of seasonal rains being delayed by the effects of a climate phenomenon called La Niña, climatologists say. "The second rainy season starts now for the Horn of Africa and Eastern Africa - we expect the rains to be near normal over much of the Greater Horn of Africa," said Bwango Apuuli, deputy director of the Nairobi-based Climate Prediction and Application Centre (ICPAC) of the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD), the regional grouping.
The death of a 14-year-old girl from female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) has sparked shock and anger in Burkina Faso, which has been seen as far ahead of other African countries in the fight against the practice. “Sorrowful and shocking" is how Aïna Ouédraogo, permanent secretary of the National Committee for the Fight against Excision (CNLPE), described the girl's death.
A new focus on healthcare in South Africa's most densely populated inner-city suburb, is to help regenerate a community hard hit by HIV/AIDS, poverty and crime. Hillbrow used to be the most trendy and cosmopolitan area in Johannesburg; today it is thought to be one of the most tightly packed places on the continent.
Zimbabwe's economic woes have taken their toll on Thembelihle House, (meaning 'Good Hope' in Ndebele) an HIV and AIDS nursing home in Mpopoma, a high-density suburb in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe's second largest city, but the severe water shortage has been even more crippling. "This is the ninth straight day that we have gone without [running] water," Priscilla MacIsaac, Thembelihle's sister-in-charge, told IRIN/PlusNews. "It makes us feel so helpless."
Ivorian children in a Liberia refugee camp have been deprived of an education based on their home country curriculum in a school that opened there over three years ago. “This is really paining our hearts,” said Aisha Berete, mother of five of the 387 children attending the Saclepea Refugee Primary School in eastern Nimba County. “[The children] are losing their Ivorian identity and how will they fit in to the Ivorian school system once we return home?”
On 2 October 2007, Ibrahima N'diaye, a journalist of the privately-owned Nostalgie FM radio station, was clubbed and punched together with other journalists by Red Berets of the Presidential Security Battalion of Guinea. The Red Berets also prevented them from covering the event. A Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) correspondent reported that the journalists were supposed to cover a ceremony being held at the National Communications Council (CNC) hall to celebrate Guinea's 50th Independence anniversary, when they had an encounter with the gun-wielding red berets.
Controversial both inside and outside the institution, the International Monetary Fund's (IMF) strategy in low-income countries was debated at a recent panel that questioned whether or not the IMF should exit low-income countries. The role of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in low-income countries (LICs) is a highly controversial issue both inside and outside the institution, as reported in the findings by the external committee on World Bank-IMF collaboration, known as the Malan Committee.
Fierce clashes erupted in Mogadishu between Ethiopian-backed Somali forces and Islamist fighters, with both sides claiming to have inflicted heavy casualties, officials and witnesses said on Wednesday. The overnight fighting was focused around the former Defence Ministry building in southern Mogadishu and resulted in a fire in Bakara market, where the Islamist insurgents often ambush police patrols.
Sudan's president has promised to pay $300-million in compensation to the country's war-torn Darfur region, tripling a previous pledge, former United States president Jimmy Carter said on Wednesday. Carter spoke during a tour of Darfur which was marred by a heated exchange between the former president and Sudanese security who prevented him visiting a Darfur tribal leader.
The World Bank encouraged foreign companies to destructively log the world's second largest forest, endangering the lives of thousands of Congolese Pygmies, according to a report on an internal investigation by senior bank staff and outside experts. The report by the independent inspection panel also accuses the bank of misleading the Democratic Republic of Congo's (DRC) government about the value of its forests and of breaking its own rules.
Ten African Union (AU) soldiers were killed and 50 were missing after armed men launched an assault on an AU base in Darfur, the worst attack on AU troops since they deployed in Sudan's violent west in 2004. The AU called it a "deliberate and sustained" assault by about 30 vehicles, which overran and looted the peacekeepers' camp on Saturday night.
Rwanda has joined other countries in appealing for a global moratorium on executions, saying that if its government could abolish the death penalty while perpetrators of the 1994 genocide still await sentences, no country should use it. Diplomats and human right organisations met at the United Nations to push for a global moratorium on executions with the goal of ending the death penalty altogether.
Ugandan troops looted truckloads of valuable trees from south Sudan when they were pursuing Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebels who were hiding in the region, a research group said on Friday. The Swiss-based Small Arms Survey said the Uganda People's Defence Forces (UPDF) cut teak trees in southern Sudan's Equatoria region during Operation Iron Fist, which had been approved by the Khartoum government.
Kenya’s burdensome debt to developed countries is partly the product of theft on the part of “previous leaderships,” Foreign Minister Raphael Tuju said in a prepared statement distributed prior to his address to the UN General Assembly. Since becoming a Cabinet member in the Kibaki administration four-and-a-half years ago, Mr Tuju declared in the statement, but not in his actual address, “I discovered that some of these loans were actually shady schemes, unnecessary pseudo projects whose only objective was to steal that money.”
Australia has slashed the number of African refugees admitted into the country partly because many have problems settling into the community, the government said on Tuesday. Over the past two years the intake of Africans has been cut from 70 percent of the total of 13 000 refugees to just 30 percent, Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews told reporters.
The Associate Director for European Operations and Personnel will play a lead role in the management and development of HRW’s fast-growing European operations. He or she will be responsible for creating, implementing, and monitoring systems and processes for the effective management of human resources, finances, accounting, administration, facilities, and strategic planning across all of HRW’s European locations.
The Program Associate will assist the AEI-AGSP team with creating new and revising existing methods and tools to integrate gender into AGSP program activities, including specific tools and strategies to mentor and support boy scholars. In addition to gender integration support, the Program Associate will also assist the AGSP team with financial and programmatic management for approximately 30 African subcontracting partner organizations in 13 countries in sub-Saharan Africa. This position is 100% program funded. The deadline is 10 October 2007.
Rescue teams working to save 3 200 miners trapped deep underground in a South African gold mine brought 1 700 to the surface on Thursday morning, mine and union officials said. Harmony said the rescue operation was going smoothly and that a secondary lift was bringing up batches of miners stranded underground when the electricity cable of the main lift was cut in an accident.
The Nordic Africa Institute is organising, in co-operation with Dag Hammarskjold Foundation and Council for Economic and Social Research in Africa (CODESRIA) a panel debate on the topic 'Has Africa got anything to say?' Academic cultural and publishing perspectives at Frankfurt Book Fair, International Centre (Hall 5.0 D 901) , on Friday 12th Oct. 11.30-13.00.
In its preliminary findings, the first ever Independent People’s Tribunal on the World Bank in India found that the Bank had an undue and disturbingly negative influence in shaping India’s national policies disproportionate to its contribution, financial or otherwise. A four-day Independent People's Tribunal (IPT) on the World Bank found that the Bank's policies and projects in India have led to increased and needless human suffering since 1991, among hundreds of millions of India's poorest and most disadvantaged in rural and urban areas.
While the Egyptian government basked in the praise of the “Doing Business” report earlier this week, at home, 27,000 employees of the country’s largest textile mills went on strike, demanding higher wages and benefits. The Egyptian government has reacted severely to the work stoppages, sending several of the strike organizers to prison.
The 29 September attack on an African peacekeeping base in Darfur has raised fresh questions about the planned transformation of the AU Mission in Sudan (AMIS) into a hybrid AU-UN force that includes personnel from non-African countries. Ten AU peacekeepers were killed in Haskanita, North Darfur, and 50 others are still missing.
At least 43,000 refugees returned to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) between January and October, with another 310,000 still in neighbouring countries, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Most of the returnees went to the provinces of South Kivu in the east, Equateur in the northeast and Katanga in the south, UNHCR stated in a report detailing figures of returns to and from the DRC.
The government and the army in Guinea Bissau are implicated in drug trafficking according to the latest report on Guinea Bissau by the UN Secretary-General. “Drug trafficking threatens to subvert the nascent democratisation process of Guinea-Bissau, entrench organised crime and undermine respect for the rule of law,” the report, issued on 28 September, concluded.
Pambazuka News 441: The 'change we need'? Obama in Ghana
Pambazuka News 441: The 'change we need'? Obama in Ghana
For the fifth year running, Pambazuka News has been selected as one of 25 finalist nominations in the 'Top 10 Who Are Changing the World of Internet and Politics' competition.
Whether it's Kenya's electoral crisis or the mass killings in Darfur, Pambazuka News is the source of authentic voices of Africa's social activists and analysts - a platform for voices that challenge mainstream perceptions and biases. Published in English, French and Portuguese and with a readership of over 500,000, Pambazuka comprises a social network of more than 1,500 academics, activists, women's rights campaigners, bloggers, artists and commentators who together produce insightful and thoughtful analyses that make it one of the most innovative and influential sites for social justice in Africa.
Winning this award would be a tribute to all the many contributors who have made Pambazuka News essential reading for all concerned with the cause of justice and freedom in Africa.
Vote for Pambazuka News and help us with this award for the fifth year running!
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Pambazuka News – Changing the World of Internet and Politics
The landmark 30 th Durban International Film Festival brings together films and filmmakers from around the world in a celebration of the diversity and magic of cinema. Across eleven intense days DIFF will present over 200 screenings at venues across the city of Durban and in surrounding communities. While the selection of fascinating, passionate and entertaining films forms the centre of the festival, an extensive programme of free workshops and seminars – this year based at the Royal Hotel - will prime a new generation of South African filmmakers.
The 4th edition of the annual Lola Kenya Screen audiovisual media festival for children and youth in eastern Africa will be held at Goethe-Institut, Nairobi, Kenya, August 10-15, 2009. The only festival in Africa exclusively designed for children and youth, Lola Kenya Screen was established in October 2005 to explore, identify and nurture creative talents among children and youth in areas of filmmaking, cultural journalism, events planning and presentation and critical appreciation of creativity.
Sanusha Naidu does a roundup of the week's Sino-African news.
On the occasion of the annual consultations of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) with non-governmental organisations (Geneva 30 June), Fahamu asked the Africa Bureau to respond to the report ‘Coercion and Intimidation in the Voluntary Repatriation of 37,000 Burundian Refugees from Mtabila Camp, Tanzania.’
The and Cutting Edge Art & Culture Works is presenting 'Blue Tales, Other Narratives and Beyond: The Art of Khalid Kodi, New Works of Story Telling', on Saturday 11 July in New York.
With the 2009 Forum for China–Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) summit approaching, Pambazuka News's China–Africa Watch editorial team invites views and opinions on the event from readers.
The two fat cats sat reading on the mat.
A Persian rug actually, but we won't go into that.
The Stock Market's up, they saw. Oh, what fun,
As their sleek black coats gleamed in the afternoon sun.
'Lyric, my mate', said cat one with a purr,
'scratch my back, just there, under the fur.
It's lasted a while, since 1994, this constant itch,
Which coincides incidentally with me getting rich, rich, rich.'
'You're wearing your diamond studded collar,
I see', said Kyoto. Did you perhaps pay top dollar?
'It was a bargain', said Lyric looking shifty,
'In the current financial climate you have to be nifty.'
'I rang my mate, old Nacker de Beer.
He said 'Look Lyric, everything's not as it may appear.
There's a storm brewing, the markets might tumble,
Don't cash in your shares yet, be ready to rumble.'
Kyoto's whiskers twitched, and he asked with a frown,
'Should we let them know the market's going down?'
'Who's them', meowed Lyric. 'You mean the unwashed?
Why, they're too stupid, they'll never have us sussed.
'Look at them, stretch your neck and you will see,
Those starving masses, they've never heard of BEE*
We've been out in the cold, in exile, for ever so long,
Now our financial masters are playing our song.'
A sound at the door made them prick up their ears.
They got up and stretched, exposing their rears.
'I think it's the boss, he's home early today.'
Said Lyric to Kyoto, 'Get ready to play.'
'Hello little pussies.' He enters the room.
'Had a good day boys?' his voice a loud boom.
He scratches their chins, his fat white hand lingers,
As he waves under their noses some golden fish fingers.
Now Lyric and Kyoto being nobody's fools knew,
That this was the moment, this was their cue.
They had to perform, to sing for their dinner,
Else their bank balances would surely get thinner.
They cleared their throats and puffed out their chests,
And prepared themselves for what they do best.
'Who wants to be a millionaire, we do.
'Who wants to be a billionaire, you do'.
* Marion Grammer was born in Cape Town, South Africa. She is an accountant and works for a Human Rights Advocacy Centre in Sydney, Australia. She writes fiction and occasional social commentary.
* Black Economic Empowerment.
* Please send comments to or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/.
cc Dissatisfied with donors' unwillingness to promote disabled people's rights in their dealings with Kenyan organisations, Phitalis Were Masakhwe calls on international funders to show greater scrutiny when it comes giving financial assistance. From women's rights to promoting multi-party democracy, carrot-and-stick policies have been central in forcing Kenya to reform, Were Masakhwe notes, arguing that they should occupy an equally central role in cementing equality for disabled people.
cc Surveying the Solidarity for African Women’s Rights (SOAWR) campaign around the Protocol on Women’s Rights to the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights, Karoline Kemp discusses the role of ICTs (information and communication technologies) in engaging civil society and facilitating the campaign. Highlighting SOAWR's ability to nurture productive relationships with African Union (AU) departments in promoting the protocol, Kemp stresses that despite the success of communication tools like Pambazuka News, the real challenge will be to promote the protocol at the grassroots level through more traditional media.
http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/441/57579_Rustum_Kozain_tmb.jpgIn an interview with , the South African poet Rustum Kozain discusses his prize-winning collection of poems 'This Carting Life', material support for poets and the place of swearing in poetry.
Nigeria’s E.C. Osondu has won the 2009 , described as Africa’s leading literary award, for ‘Waiting’ from Guernicamag.com, October 2008. The chair of judges, New Statesman Chief Sub-Editor Nana Yaa Mensah, announced E.C. as the winner of the £10,000 prize at a dinner held on Monday 6 July at the Bodleian Library in Oxford. This year marks the 10th anniversary of the prize.
In the wake of Michael Jackson's death, Greg Tate discusses the entertainer's place in the pantheon of black American musical greats. Considering his immense cultural significance within American political and cultural life, Tate stresses that Jackson 'came to rank as one of the great storytellers and soothsayers of the last 100 years'. Regardless of his alienation from the black America of his origins, Tate argues, Jackson remained a devoted student of black music, dance and style, taking and giving back in unparalleled ways.
With a 40-day period of mourning having elapsed following the untimely death of Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem on Africa Liberation Day, Kayode Fayemi looks back on the life and work of the great Pan-Africanist activist and scholar. Highlighting his extraordinary energy and compassion for ordinary people, Fayemi salutes Tajudeen's unfaltering commitment to speaking truth to power. Looking back on an array of institutional, activist and scholarly achievements, Fayemi points out that while Africa may have lost one its brightest gems, Tajudeen will forever remain a symbol and inspiration for ongoing struggles.
cc Alarmed at the fondness for neoliberal solutions to the global financial crisis among the Nobel Prize Winners Muhammad Yunus and Joseph Stiglitz, Patrick Bond suspects that the two economists are simply aiding rather than challenging the global capitalist system. With Yunus and Stiglitz both set to give talks in Johannesburg this week, Bond fears that civil society's calls for social and environmental justice will continue to remain overlooked.
cc Following the death of Michael Jackson, Sokari Ekine considers the motivation and meaning behind the pop icon's changing features within the context of the politics of 'pigment-ocracy'. While unconvinced by the idea that Jackson needed to change his features to become more 'marketable', Ekine concludes that the entertainer made a personal choice, one which ultimately did not change him from being anything but a black man.
cc As US President Barack Obama heads to Accra, Ghana, this week, Charles Abugre hopes a new 'wind for change' is blowing. Coming from a 'son of Africa' held with pride and esteem by Africans across the continent, Obama's speech will have major influence on the way the world regards Africa. For all the anticipated talk about 'good governance' and 'democracy', Abugre stresses, the US president should first acknowledge his country's historical role in undermining African countries' stability and progress. If Obama is to spark a new beginning in US–Africa relations based on genuinely mutual interests and respect, he must actively allay fears around US militarisation and seek to review US economic relations with the continent. Through building trust and commending Ghana's democratic successes, who better, asks Abugre, to understand the wind of change than Barack Obama?
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A coalition of Nigerian and International civil society organisations and churches have strongly condemned the recent campaign of terror that has been inflicted upon the so-called ‘child witches’ at the Child Rights and Rehabilitation Network Centre (CRARN) in Eket, Akwa Ibom State by Lagos-based police officers.
On Sunday 28th June President José Manuel Zelaya, who was constitutionally and democratically elected by the Honduran people, was taken hostage by soldiers led by groups belonging to the country's oligarchies. The Organisations of La Via Campesina of Central America issued a statement in response to this.
Today, almost 15 years after Nelson Mandela took office in South Africa, the U.S. requires a comprehensive new Africa policy that builds upon affirmative general principles and fosters multilateral African-led solutions to create a stronger foundation for a mutually beneficial relationship.