Reporters Without Borders welcomes the release of Yusuf Abdi Gabobe, the publisher of the Somaliland privately-owned daily Haatuf, Ali Abdi Dini, its editor, and Mohamed Omar Sheikh Ibrahim, one of its journalists. They had been detained since January because of an article about corruption in the president’s immediate circle.

Michel Alkhaly-Ngady, head of the independent publishers organisation GEPPIC (Groupement des éditeurs de la presse privée et indépendante de Centrafrique), has been sentenced to two months in prison. Alkhaly-Ngady, managing editor of the newspaper Temps Nouveaux, was also fined 300,000 CFA francs (€400). He was arrested in Bangui on 12 March, held for questioning and a court on 15 March ordered him provisionally detained for “obstructing the law and national institutions” pending trial.

Ravinder Rena of the Eritrea Institute of Technology argues that rather than acting as an equalizing force, globalization has instead widened the gap between rich and poor, both in the developed and developing worlds.

On 31 March 2007, five African Union peacekeepers in Darfur were killed in the most fatal attack on them since the force arrived in the western province of Sudan in 2004. At the time of writing, the spokesman for the African Union (AU) has been unable to say who was responsible for the attack. This is the conundrum in Darfur: the killers could have belonged to any of the several armed groups there, though most reports suggest that one of the rebel forces was likely responsible.

The Programme for Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS) of the University of the Western Cape Recently held a conference entitled Land, Memory, Reconstruction and Justice: Perspectives on Land Restitution in South Africa. A series of insightful papers dealing with the issue of land restitution in Africa were presented and are available online.

With less than one month before parliamentary and presidential elections, Nigeria's Freedom of Information Bill 2004 still awaits presidential assent, human rights groups note. They now urge President Olusegun Obasanjo to make a last effort to secure right to transparency in Nigeria before he leaves office later this month.

Prime Minister of Guinea-Bissau, Aristides Gomes, did what most African leaders should give a try - to tender his resignation, especially at a time when his country is hooked up in political, administrative or economic crisis.

Bonkir Benjamin has just begun school at JCC Model Preschool in the southern Sudanese capital of Juba. However, despite his high aspirations, he knows he will probably have to leave the war-torn region if he is to fulfill his dreams.

The Chadian government has accused Sudanese janjawid militiamen of attacking two villages in eastern Chad, killing 29 people. “Today there are between 6,000 and 8,000 more people who are exposed without shelter and who have completely lost everything,” government spokesman Hourmadji Moussa Doumgor told reporters on Monday.

International communications company BT is to invest R20m in education in SA, China and India over the next three years in terms of a partnership with the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef).

In Malawi – where 16 women die every day giving birth or during pregnancy – the Government has kicked off a United Nations-backed campaign to combat maternal and infant death. “Pregnancy and childbirth are supposed to be joyful occasions,” said Esperance Fundira, the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) Representative in Malawi.

CIA and FBI agents hunting for al-Qaeda militants in the Horn of Africa have been interrogating terrorism suspects from 19 countries held at secret prisons in Ethiopia, which is notorious for torture and abuse, according to an investigation by the Associated Press (AP).

A campaign backed by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) aiming to help school 450,000 children returning home from displacement camps in the war-torn northern region of Uganda has kicked off. Over the next two years, this scheme will also target 4,500 teachers in 650 schools in the Lango sub-region in northern Uganda.

Food parcels are finally being offered to HIV positive mothers in KwaZulu-Natal who want to exclusively breastfeed their babies as part of a new government policy. In the past, positive mothers were advised to either exclusively formula feed or, in cases where there was no supply of clean water, to exclusively breastfeed to protect their babies from getting HIV.

Educating the boy-child and the grown man would go a long way to ensure that gender equality and women's rights on the African continent were upheld, delegates attending the African Regional Meeting on Gender Justice in Conflict-Affected Countries were told.

Corruption at the highest levels of the Nigerian government is hampering the economy of the oil-rich country at every level, retired general and presidential candidate Muhammadu Buhari told United Press International in an exclusive interview from the campaign trail in Port Harcourt.

The Central African Republic faces a growing humanitarian disaster, with the lives of a quarter of its people disrupted by civil and regional warfare, the U.N. children's agency UNICEF said on Wednesday. Although the United Nations appealed in January for richer countries to provide $11.7 million to fund basic health, schooling and water programmes in the impoverished country, only $2.5 million has been pledged so far, the agency said.

As Nigerians move towards elections that mark the first time one elected civilian government has handed over to another, Chippa Vandu provides an historical overview of military and civilian rule in Nigeria and assess the probable outcome of the April elections.

As a nation, Nigeria has come a long way. 1999 was meant to be its year of hope—the return to democratic rule after a decade and a half of military dictatorships. Of all military rulers in Nigeria’s history, only one voluntarily gave up power to a democratically elected government. His name was Olusegun Obasanjo and the year was 1979. General Obasanjo became a military ruler by chance in 1976, having inherited the seat of power when the then Head of State, General Murtala Muhammed, was assassinated in Nigeria’s second bloody coup. Obasanjo handed power over to the democratically elected Shehu Shagari, who was toppled in a bloodless coup by Major General Muhammadu Buhari in 1983. Then began the decade and a half of military dictatorships that saw General Ibrahim Babangida (1985-1993), General Sani Abacha (1993-1998) and General Abdulsalami Abubakar (1998-1999) rule Nigeria..

Olusegun Obasanjo once again ascended to the highest office in Nigeria in 1999 filled with expectations. The exceedingly corrupt government of one of his predecessors—the late Sani Abacha—had all but destroyed the semblance of civil society in Nigeria. Together with his deputy, Atiku Abubakar, Obasanjo set out to work, promising to take Nigeria where military dictatorships had always prevented it from reaching. Four years went by and the government was re-elected for a second term. All this while, there were reforms in the banking and financial sectors of the economy, with the country literally settling its huge debt problem. The government, it appeared, had also solved the perennial problem of fuel shortages, which were common during Sani Abacha’s era. A mini telecommunications revolution also took place in Nigeria, with the birth of GSM telephone networks.

Technocrats were brought into government, some of who excelled at what they did. But to most Nigerians, events were far from rosy. Corruption remained endemic and special agencies were created to deal with it. Even then, it remained a part of daily life. From those who sat at the apex of power, to the janitors in government ministries, everyone expected to be settled—Nigeriaspeak for bribed—for simply doing his or her job. And, while the Nigerian government spoke of impressive economic growth, a concurrent increase in population (and corruption, of course) made for an almost unperceivable improvement in the life of the average man or woman on the street. And there lay the paradox—the desire by Nigerians for change, a government that was promising change, but change that was simply too slow to be perceivable.

Democracy, it appeared, had come to stay—or so Nigerians thought. Sometime in late 2005, the Nigerian presidency silently began pushing for the nation’s constitution to be amended to allow Olusegun Obasanjo run for a third term in office. Opposition to this amendment grew like wildfire, with Obasanjo’s deputy being one of the most vocal opponents. Good enough, the amendment failed as it was thrown out by the Nigerian legislature in May 2006. Without a doubt, this came as a surprise to Obasanjo, who accused his country’s media houses of being vile and insensitive for the manner in which they went about reporting about the third term agenda. And one person in particular whom Obasanjo never forgave was his deputy—Atiku Abubakar. In months to come, Abubakar (who by the way happened to be very much interested in contesting the presidency) was to be frustrated to the point of political suicide.

Abubakar was expelled from the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) at the behest of Obasanjo. At the PDP national convention in December 2006, Obasanjo picked an obscure governor—Umaru Musa Yar’Adua—as his likely successor. Yar’Adua’s health became the subject of media speculation in Nigeria. When he had to be abruptly flown to Germany for treatment during one of his presidential campaigns, it became clear that all was not well. The media, it appeared, was right in stating that Yar’Adua’s frail state of health was a cause for concern. Yar’Adua remains the presidential candidate for the ruling PDP.

Atiku Abubakar’s expulsion from the ruling PDP did not in anyway weaken his desire to contest the presidency. In late 2006, he became instrumental in the formation of a new political party called the Action Congress (AC), which eventually nominated him as its presidential candidate. But Olusegun Obasanjo, not wanting to have any of that, began what may be termed a calculated campaign to ensure that Abubakar was not allowed to contest the presidency. The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) published a list of corrupt politicians in February 2006. Top on the list was Abubakar, along with other politicians who, though corrupt, also happened not to be friends of the president.

Though he won a couple of court cases over corruption allegations brought forward by Nigeria’s corruption watchdog, Abubakar was eventually given the final blow when the Nigerian electoral commission omitted his name from the list of those eligible to run for the office of the presidency. Furthermore, in the third week of March 2007, the Nigerian Senate indicted both Abubakar and Obasanjo for mishandling petroleum technology development funds. The Senate further recommended that they both be referred to a disciplinary committee (i.e. the Code of Conduct Bureau) for further action. Calculated as it seemed, this was to partly to ensure that Mr. Obasanjo erased all hopes of extending his tenure beyond May 29, 2007—the stipulated handover date. The Senate indictment literally put a full stop to Abubakar’s political ambition—at least, for the time being.

Two things appear certain when Nigerians begin voting in a couple of week’s time: it has become close to impossible for Mr. Obasanjo to extend his stay in office as he had once hoped. However, by selecting Umaru Yar’Adua as his successor, Obasanjo believes he has found a wall of refuge that would eventually protect his interests after he ceases being Nigeria’s first citizen. Secondly, Abubakar will most likely not run for the presidency, even though the slimmest of chance still exists that the courts might rule in his favour.

With Abubakar out, Yar’Adua’s main challenger becomes Muhammadu Buhari—one time military dictator and presidential candidate of the All Nigeria’s People Party (ANPP). While it is most certain that the ruling PDP will do all in its power to rig the elections in favour of Yar’Adua, an easy victory cannot be guaranteed. Unfortunately, some of the brightest candidates—like Pat Utomi of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) party—have weak political bases. Thus, at the end of the day, most Nigerians will practically be compelled to choose between mediocrity and mediocrity. Such is the life of the game called politics.

It would take nothing short of a miracle from the heavens to stop the ruling PDP from producing the next president of Nigeria. In other words, Nigeria’s next president would most likely be the very man chosen by the incumbent president. Despite being labeled honest, Yar’Adua’s frail health should be a cause for concern. If the man who intends on becoming the next president of Nigeria has to keep running to Germany to be resuscitated each time his health starts to fail, one could only be left wondering what sort of message that sends to the very people he intends to govern. But then, all through Nigeria’s delicate history, there have always been two sets of rules—one for the upper class and another for others. Shattering this barrier could be but a first step towards creating the sort of society that would treat people for what they are—human beings. In this regard, the next government of Nigeria is already failing.

* Chippla Vandu is a Nigerian research engineer with an interest in governance, history and philosophy. He currently resides in Amsterdam, The Netherlands and blogs at

* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org

The idea of a United States of Africa is the visionary outcome of a Pan African Unity. Gichinga Ndirangu presents the case for a United States of Africa and points out some of the major stumbling blocks that need to be overcome before Nkrumah’s dream of a united Africa becomes a reality.

At the upcoming African Union summit in Accra, Ghana, a proposal seeking to establish a continental union government will be debated. Accra is a symbolic, if not significant host for this debate. It was here that Ghana’s founding father, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, first pitched for Pan African unity in his famous exhortation that Ghana’s independence counted for less unless, and until, the entire continent was liberated. It was Nkrumah’s view that in the absence of forging a common united front, Africa would remain shackled to neo-colonialism.

It was the period preceding the re-launch of the African Union in 2002 which witnessed renewed debate on Pan African unity. Libyan strongman, Muammar Gaddafi, then an intractable opponent of western imperialism, challenged African leaders to unite across common purpose and chart their destiny unshackled by the West. Gaddafi rooted for increased trade amongst Africans, the creation of common continental institutions including a federal government and the free flow of persons across borders. At its relaunch in Durban, the African Union took the sails out of Libya, reaffirming its commitment to the Pan African vision without unveiling a specific roadmap. The leadership of some of the continent’s key leaders – South Africa’s Thabo Mbeki, Nigeria’s Olusegun Obasanjo, Algeria’s Bouteflika and Senegal’s Sane Wade – initiated instead the New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD), which was seen as an attempt to develop a policy framework towards a unified vision on Africa’s development and bolster, in part, Pan Africanism. NEPAD’s vision was, however, restricted, being more intent on resource mobilization than on its vision for Africa’s social and political cohesion. Conversely, this year’s proposal for a union government revisits the attempts to consolidate Pan African political, social and economic integration and establishes important benchmarks in laying out a renewed vision for continental unity.

The hope, though not assured, across Africa, is that this year’s debate will move the pan-African vision of Nkrumah beyond its fifty-year stagnation. There is no doubt that this is a debate whose time has come, not least because the union government proposal finally reaffirms the quest for uniting Africa’s people across a common thread of shared values and joint purpose. Within the debate, there are many critical voices that claim to welcome the idea of African unity but caution that the hour for Pan African federalism has yet to come. In addition, Afro-pessimists within the ranks of the African Union are driven by the zeal to consolidate national sovereignty and regional hegemony rather than an outright rejection of the Pan African vision.

While hopes are high, consensus on this proposal will take time and effort given the disparity in positions as well as the high demands that will be placed upon each State to realize a union government. The AU proposal wants the union government created as a transitional arrangement preceding full political integration under the banner of the ‘United States of Africa’. This transitional arrangement implies that realizing the actual Pan Africa vision calls for more work, consultation and buy-in. Even then, the transitional vision is bold in its intent and envisions the establishment of parliamentary and judicial systems, common continental financial institutions and standardized monetary policies and procedures, among others. It is these preliminary propositions that Africa’s leaders will be called upon to give thought and focus to at the June summit in Accra.

After many years of internecine conflict within and between states, the need to harness Africa’s potential around a unity of purpose is a necessary and overarching imperative. At the heart of it, the proposal for a union government must be directed towards Africa’s transformation through creative and well-thought out strategies that advance integration and not the isolation or balkanization of any country or region.

The proposal should be used to catalyze developmental policies and programmes that are people-centred and rooted in the finest of African traditions, culture and values. The ideal of a people-centered and united Africa is one that must be welcome and advanced. It is also a prerequisite in an increasingly globalized world that has demonstrated the value in consolidating shared interests that drive policy formulation and implementation.

Not limited to political union, the proposal for a union government will also delve into the concepts and realities of potential economic integration. Colonialism bequeathed on most African states economic inequality and social inequity which have stifled the integration of Africa’s economies to the world market. Intra-African trade has been constrained by weak policy and institutional support at national and regional levels and internal structural limitations, which have narrowed the scope of exploiting the continent’s economic opportunities to the fullest extent. While economic integration has been a key but elusive priority for Africa’s leadership since the onset of political independence, what has been lacking is the handiwork to take this goal beyond the realm of conjecture and optimism. In 1963, the Organisation of African Unity unveiled a proposal to establish a continental African common market that was expected to coalesce into a Pan-Africa community straddling the economic, social and political spheres. Both the Lagos Plan of Action and the 1991 Abuja Treaty that established the African Economic Community (AEC) spoke to the need for such an African economic union. While this level of ambition has not matured to its full intent, the African Union has continued to look upon the various Regional Economic Communities (RECs) as essential building blocs in the quest for continental economic union.

Yet within the current arrangement, there is growing concern that Africa is spreading herself thin and wide in negotiating multiple trade arrangements, which stand to undermine her own development priorities. The common view is that there is limited scope to fully harness the potential of regional integration granted that new concessions are being exerted by Africa’s trading partners.

The African Union views deepening regional economic integration as an important pillar in Africa’s structural transformation. Given the complexity of regional integration in Africa, there is widespread concern that the undue emphasis on trade liberalisation in the ongoing negotiations with the European Union (EU) and other trading power houses could scuttle rather than consolidate economic integration.

The truth is that trade and trade liberalisation are not an end in themselves but a means to help the continent respond to its development challenges. The ongoing trade negotiations between African countries and the EU have shown the complexity of consolidating economic ties amongst African countries which are already pressured into negotiating with the EU under new configurations outside their natural and traditional economic groupings. The regions currently negotiating with the EU have been severely disrupted by overlapping membership to different negotiating configurations. As a result, there is a risk of countries undertaking trade commitments with the EU to the detriment of their traditional trading partners with whom they may have different agreements at the regional level.

In today’s new global economic dispensation, there are few alternatives to economic integration as a strategy in promoting sustainable socio-economic development. It is obvious that only by closing ranks within the framework of continental level initiatives like the African Economic Community and the African Union can Africa avoid further marginalization.

The union proposal acknowledges that African governments have made determined efforts towards consolidating regional economic blocs with the active support of the AU. But the history of consolidating continental unity is limited by many factors including the lack of political will, limited awareness among a large segment of Africa’s population and increased dependence on external assistance.

The African Union must, therefore, work towards providing an appropriate framework, which strengthens partnership between national governments, peoples’ representatives, civil society and other stakeholders towards promoting the continent’s economic and social development.

A union government will, on the one hand, secure the continent’s interests while, on the other, assert its due role in global affairs and build on the continent’s collective capacity to influence world affairs from a position of unity and strength. But, the current proposal could halt in its tracks if debate is merely confined to the hallowed halls of the African Union without active buy-in from Africa’s people. Since 2002, the AU has renewed momentum towards more effective and accountable governance structures. The next frontier in consolidating continental unity must involve making concerted efforts at the national level to develop institutions and processes that will advance the desired new continental architecture and which are rooted in peoples’ popular participation. The debate must include the voices and perspectives of a wide range of Africa’s people through the involvement of key institutions such as national and regional parliaments, civil society organizations and the media. This participation will broaden and deepen the debate that is, ultimately, about the people of Africa

* Gichinga Ndirangu is a consultant with the African Union Monitor.

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

Maria was raped 48 hours ago today
We found this out the hard way
You see, Maria is five years,
10 months and 18 days old
She's less than a metre tall
Barely reaches my hip
Her corn-rowed head is bowed
As her gaze fixes on my knee

For 48 hours Maria didn't speak
She didn't eat
Maria didn't play
Didn't want to leave her bed

Today Maria is on her feet
We watch as she struggles to walk straight
She fights to carry her normal gait
Fights to hide the wince of pain
Fights to be a child again

Turns out Maria was raped by her father
On Monday before the sun quite went down
Rudely pulled atop him with all his might
Threatened to a whimpering silence
Her innocence plundered, tattered and forever scarred
As tear-filled eyes stared back without fight

Maria was raped by an economic system
that keeps her in a one-room house
She was raped by a President
Who does nothing to improve her life
Maria was raped by an MP
Who year after year spews out useless words
Deafens us with empty promises
She was raped by those among us
Who dare not speak out
Who bury their anger in silence

Her father's guilty as sin
Without doubt his act of unabated greed
Was full of shame
He must carry his own cross
Pay for this disgusting thing
But the system must pay too
And all who choose to turn a blind eye
For he should not bear the punishment alone

Lioness © 2nd April 07

Weapons of Mass Underdevelopment

On Wednesday April 4, the world celebrated International Mine Awareness Day. It has been a little over eight years since the International Mine Ban treaty, better known as the Ottawa Convention, came into effect. Although the treaty was opened for signatures on the 5th of December 1997, it only came into effect when Burkina Faso became the required fortieth signatory on the 1st of March 1999. In Africa, the event was marked with festivities in Angola, DRC, Eritrea, Kenya, Mauritania, Sudan and Western Sahara.

To date, there are still 13 countries who are not state parties to the treaty, and either actively produce, or have the capability to produce anti-personnel land-mines, the most notable of which are the United States, China, India and Russia. The total number of land-mines still stock-piled by the non-parties is a staggering 160 million. At the receiving end, in the period 2005-2006, a total of 58 countries reported new victims of all types of landmines and explosive remnants of war. This paints a chilling portrait of the devastating and lasting effects of the enterprise. The issue of land-mines and unexploded ordnance has not featured prominently in the media, since the late Princess Diana made it her cause célèbre, and yet these killers account for between 15,000 and 20,000 deaths and injuries every year (Landmine Monitor Report 2006), according to official statistics. Although still unacceptably high, this figure is down from 26,000 ten years ago, thanks to multi-lateral efforts around the globe and the cessation of hostilities in countries such as Angola and Mozambique, who accounted for a significant percentage of the casualties on the continent.

The spread of land-mines and other weapons in Africa can be contextualized within the post-colonial state building exercise of the 60s and 70s and the ensuing Cold War that made the continent a playground for competing influences. The instability that has characterized most countries of the continent can be traced to internal tensions fuelled by the Cold War and the vast stockpiles of leftover weapons. Even in countries that have been lucky to avoid major armed conflict such as Kenya, unexploded ordnance from foreign military training sites continues to destroy the lives of citizens.

Like landmines, small arms and light weapons (SALW) continue to threaten development on the continent at a social political and economic level. Conservative estimates put the worldwide circulation of SALW at a staggering 500 million. West Africa alone accounts for seven million, with similar numbers in the Great Lakes Region and the Horn of Africa. The deadly difference between the landmines and SALW is the latter's durability and re-use value, as exemplified by the ubiquitous AK-47 rifle. These weapons continue to threaten democracy and development on the continent.

The prolonged conflict in the DRC can be attributed to, among other factors, the means to challenge the state's monopoly of violence. This has compromised the role of elections as the only means of power transfer. The post-election period remains tense in the DRC, due to the continued presence of disaffected and armed groups. In Nigeria, the spectre of violence looms large, not to mention the low intensity conflict that continues to rage in the Niger Delta. Cote d'Ivoire, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan and Uganda are but a few other hot-spots on the continent.

Countries such as South Africa, Kenya and Ghana are at peace but still bear the social cost of SALW. Illegal arms flooding the black market from nearby conflict areas are fuelling crime and challenging the ability of the state apparatus to protect the livelihoods of citizens. The state of insecurity has a negative impact on the economy, the effects of which are invariably felt by the poor. When economic growth suffers as a result of costs associated with crime, a vicious cycle kicks in and the latter grows as more people are driven to illegitimate means of survival.

The arms trade is governed by supply and demand. Although South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya, to name but a few, are manufacturers of arms, the supply side is overwhelming from Europe, the US and Asia. Demand remains high on the continent, where political traditions still favour strong militaries to bolster unpopular governments that use force against their own citizens.

This is an election year on the continent. One would think this would stir feelings of hope, excitement and the sheer exhilaration at the prospect of peaceful change and the exercise of democratic rights. Sadly, these feelings are more often than not replaced with fear and resignation that the vicious cycle will go on.

Further Reading:

International Mine Information Network

UN Protocol on the Explosive Remnants of War
http://untreaty.un.org/English/notpubl/26_2d_E.pdf

Small Arms in Africa Briefing
http://www.cdd.org.uk/resources/papers/smallarmsmusah.htm

UNIDIR Scoping Study 2006
http://tinyurl.com/2tll92

UNDP: Development Held Hostage
http://tinyurl.com/yo6dx8

Human Security Gateway: Small Arms Survey
http://www.humansecuritygateway.info/data/item996551786/view

UNDP/ SEESAC SALW Awareness Support Pack
http://www.seesac.org/reports/SASP%202%20handbook.pdf

Two recent articles on the criminalisation of the poor in the recent Pambazuka News have intrigued me.

Bronwen Dyke in 'Where being poor could become a criminal offence' shares with us a law passed in Cape Town to criminalise people who continue to beg after somebody has said no.

Jacques Depelchin's In solidarity with Cité Soleil in Haiti (Pambazuka News (2007-03-22) shows how France with the help of the US, Canada and the Vatican forced the Haitian government that defeated their slavery of the Africans to agree to pay compensation to the slave and plantation owners, in exchange for being accepted as a nation state.

Sadly, the poor are criminalised everywhere. In the time I have lived in the United States, I have been perplexed by how the poor and vulnerable are criminalised amidst plenty. Here, poor people without a home are chased away from sleeping inside the train station in the night even during the freezing winters.

The other day I was walking down the street in my neighborhood and met this lady, scrounging from the dumpster. I guess she was collecting empty bottles and glass containers for sale. She reached out for a yoghurt container, which somebody else had half-eaten and she started scooping the left-overs from it. When I told this story to my mother in Uganda, she responded: 'even there (in the US) there are beggars?'

Indeed there are beggars in this country and that's what really scares me. It scares me to imagine that in this country where food is thrown away every second, there are people who eat from the dumpster. There is also another group of poor people or the less well-to-do who are scolded for being very materialist by the kings and queens of materialism.

Oprah Winfrey, while justifying why she spent money on building a school in South Africa instead of improving inner city schools in the United States responded tha, all the kids care about here are iPods.

Surely, why would she be surprised, when all these kids see is Oprah giving away cars and diamonds on TV? This is not toattack Oprah or her gestures but to show the contradiction of the materialists who scold the 'have-nots' for being their reflections.

What is not recognised is the psychological humiliation of people who beg on the streets, or trains or take showers on the roadside. I've watched how people who beg on the New York trains have to prepare themselves before they open their mouths.

Both Dyke and Depelchin call upon our social solidarity to stand against these established regimes that impoverish, dehumanise and criminalise the struggles of the unemployed and freedom fighters.

* Doreen Lwanga is from Uganda and currently lives and works in New York.

African love stories? Is that an anomaly? We are tempted to ask this with Ama Ata Aidoo of the book that she edits. As we ask, we wonder what will happen to us if we step into this world. Will we meet the people we expect to meet: the drunken, cheating husbands and the cowed, abused wives? The stereotypes?

Leave your expectations aside. Bring with you nothing but a healthy amount of curiosity. For stretching from Sudan to South Africa, with Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, Zimbabwe and much of Africa in-between, we see love in the most diverse ways imaginable.

We meet the beautiful Sudanese bride-to-be of a Scottish man with whom she would love to ride off into the sunset. But she must first obtain a visa. We meet Mrs Mensah, whose marriage is threatened by her niece. We congratulate Moriyike, the defiant love child of a union that is never legitimised. We follow two Ugandan girls, Anyango and Sanyu, whose love for each other forces them apart.

From interracial unions and queer relationships to unrequited love and extra-marital affairs, we begin to see just how multi-faceted African love is. But if the themes are diverse, the authors and their writing styles are even more so.

Ama Ata Aidoo puts her own short story in her introduction to the anthology, giving this unconventional and surprising love story a deadpan tone in simple but effective language.

Chimamanda Adichie comes with her own combination of everyday actions accompanied by deep reflection. Sefi Atta brings to her own tale a slight obscurity that makes us have to work to figure out how it fits in with the overarching theme of love. Tomi Adeaga’s conversational style draws us in, Pidgin English, German and all.

And the superb cast of writers, some well known and others upcoming, give the reader different experiences until we get to Helen Oyeyemi’s 'The Telltale Heart', and here we must stop.

We stop, not because it’s the final story in the anthology, but because 'The Telltale Heart' is a most striking story. The anthology thus far leaves the reader happy to realise that African love stories are very real, unlike the usual perfect-protagonists, perfect-timing, ride-off-into-the-sunset tales we associate with love stories.

Oyeyemi’s piece is the closest we come to 'unreal', but not in the sense of fake. Instead her powerful imagery take us into a very different realm, that of the surrealist rendering of a story that leaves us wondering why we ever thought love was only about the mundane.

This piece carries us along and wraps us up in words that we have to read twice, three times over only to realise that we cannot form complete images of the characters or the places or the story even.

We cannot rely solely on our imaginations to visualise things, her words must be our crutch if we are to understand the young man born with eyes like a famine and the young woman who must leave her heart in a love shrine, for it is too heavy for her.

'The Telltale Heart' stands out as a strangely oppressive yet beautifully written story that leaves us floating in the abstract clouds of love and pain and death.

And then as we move on to Veronique Tadjo and Chike Unigwe, and eventually close the anthology with Wangui wa Goro, we realise that our notion of 'African love' as existing only in the harsh realities of life is in itself a stereotype.

* Annie Quarcoopome is a student of comparative literture at Williams College in the US.

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

Technology Mentoring Opportunity for Young Nigerian Women Community Activists – The Networking for Success Project is part of the Blogs for African Women (BAWo) initiative, a technology mentoring initiative working to encourage African women to become more active users of technology. BAWo is supported by Fahamu, an organisation using information and communication technologies (ICTs) to serve the needs of organisations that aspire to progressive social change.

For further information: please send a paragraph describing your organisation’s work to oreblogging [at] yahoo.com by Friday, March 31, 2007.

In this course, participants will increase their understanding of the psychosocial and mental health issues of refugees and learn how to implement effective interventions. The course will take place June 11- Saturday June 16 (excluding Friday) everyday from 9 am to 5 pm.

This course will introduce participants to the primary elements of the refugee definition and its application and to the rights guaranteed to refugees by International law. The course will take place from Monday June 25- Saturday June 30 (excluding Friday) everyday from 9 am to 5 pm. Deadline for applications is May 11th, 2007.

In an exciting development the Yogyakarta Principles on the application of international human rights law in relation to sexual orientation and gender identity was due to be formally launched on 26th March. In addition, parallel events held during the Council were to enable discussion and analysis of the Principles and their application to issues of sexual orientation and gender identity around the world.

A network of NGOs working in the democracy and good governance field in Zimbabwe is looking for person to fill the field officer position based in Masvingo. The incumbent will be responsible for the provision of information to support the organisation 's education, research and advocacy programme. Deadline for Applications is 20 April, 2007.

The successful candidate will, with other Deputy Directors, support the Executive Director to provide leadership to the Network, within the framework set by the Executive Management Committee. Deadline for applications is 6 April, 2007.

The Alcan Prize for Sustainability is a US$1 million Prize that recognizes organizations demonstrating a comprehensive approach to addressing, achieving and further advancing economic, environmental and/or social sustainability. The closing date is 12 April 2007.

Changemakers' tenth Collaborative Competition is seeking innovative, high-impact strategies to end the corrosive impact of corruption. To enter this competition, participants should document their solution on the Changemakers site. Deadline for entries is May 16, 2007.

The past three weeks have seen an embattled Zimbabwean government unleash terror on its citizens. Mary Ndlovu believes that the last weeks have brought qualitative change to Zimbabwe that spells the end of Mugabe ‘s rule sooner than later. Change is coming, she writes, but it is not likely to bring us close to that goal. Rather it will be the first step of another very long journey.

Three weeks ago an embattled Zimbabwe government declared a ban on public meetings for three months. A week later, when a defiant opposition attempted to hold a prayer rally in a historic Harare suburb, government responded with brutal and calculated beatings of hundreds of opposition supporters, residents and stunned by-standers – resulting in two known deaths and many life-threatening injuries. Since then the world’s press and diplomatic communities have been in an uproar and newspaper editors have fallen over each other predicting the pending demise of Robert Mugabe’s 27 years of misrule.

Has Robert Mugabe’s game finally come to an end? Has he now gone a step too far for even his protectors to tolerate? Will the coming weeks see progress toward the genuine change so many Zimbabweans are longing for?

Opposition leaders have said so – we have reached the tipping point, claims Morgan Tsvangirai. Others are calling it the beginning of the end; Mugabe’s last stand. Not so hasty say the more cautious, it has happened before; we have had massive public protests; we have had government brutality and world condemnation before.

The Zimbabwean people are not ready to face the dangers of extended public protest, they say, and will likely again be cowed by the terror tactics of government. At this point, we do not even have a state of emergency; Mugabe still has many weapons in his arsenal, both literal and figurative. Mugabe may have been weakened, he may be down for the count, but he is not out, and could rise to his feet again.

The past weeks have indeed brought a qualitative change to Zimbabwe, with a significant shift in the balance of power between the forces which keep Mugabe in power and those which wish to remove him. Ultimately a government’s endurance rests on its success in maintaining a productive and healthy economy which delivers at least subsistence to the population. Mugabe has failed spectacularly in this sphere, with the economy in a state of contraction for the past seven years, and in free fall for the past year.

This collapse has effects which undermine his political support. Firstly, it makes it more difficult for him to dispense the largesse necessary to buy the continuing loyalty of the political and security elite, and to keep the lower ranks of the forces in line. Second, it makes the population, which has remained largely quiescent and submissive in the face of oppression, restive and prepared to risk more in confronting a hugely unpopular government which has destroyed their lives. And thirdly it has spill-over consequences in the region which are beginning to annoy and frustrate neighbouring governments.

Perceiving a weakening in Mugabe’s power base, opposition leaders in political parties, civil society organisations, student movements and churches, have taken their cue and demonstrated greater determination and willingness to come together to push him out.

Within the past weeks opposition elements have shown greater cohesion than at any time in the past few years, the people are less afraid, neighbouring governments are at last speaking out on the need for change, and the ZANU PF elite are themselves realising that they do not want Mugabe to continue in power any longer.

Add to this the alienation of the regular police, army and intelligence forces, and the increasing unwillingness of a previously tamed judiciary to play ball, and we do have a recipe for change in the near future. Most critical of these elements in effecting an early change, is the ZANU PF elite.

The opposition would take much more time to bring sufficient pressure to bear, but the ZANU PF hierarchy has seemingly realised that rather than squabbling about succession, their interests will be better served by working together to ditch their unpopular and ageing leader. That may be the only way they can save themselves, their positions and their misgotten wealth.

Certainly, Mugabe will not go easily. He is determined to hang on, and prepared to use any violent means within his grasp. In case the regular police waver in their support, he has side-stepped them by utilising youth militia and party thugs, with or without uniforms, to intimidate opposition forces by brutality, both targeted and indiscriminate.

Now he has declared that the traditionally loyal although also divided war veterans will form a reserve army. And a pact with Angola to provide police to support his rule is rumoured. Dissenters to Mugabe’s continued rule from within ZANU PF have the permanent threat of arrest and punishment for economic crimes dangled over them, and the implied threat of violence as well.

Clearly the food weapon will again be used against any who do not show their loyalty in another year of drought and scarcity. He is a master at splitting any social or political force which he does not control; in Zimbabwe he has split the churches, the political opposition, and civil society organisations; internationally he succeeded in splitting the Commonwealth and now there are signs that the Angolan alliance is an attempt to split SADC. Down he may be, perhaps, but certainly still fighting, with no intention of leaving the ring.

But Mugabe will eventually go, and it appears now that it will be sooner rather than later. If his own party supporters see him as a liability his days are numbered. Their loyalty has for some time been conditional on his ability to protect their criminal activities. With this becoming less and less possible, they have no reason to keep him in place. While it is useless to speculate on the timing, when Morgan Tsvangirai says that he will be gone before the end of this year, it is now believable.

Our focus then shifts to the question of how he will go, bringing us to consider the scenarios which could play out before us. We have reached the time of greatest hope but the time of greatest danger, because the way in which Mugabe goes is of utmost importance to the future of Zimbabwe and Zimbabweans.

There are two major issues – will it be a peaceful change, or will it be violent – and will the change bring progressive forces into power, or will it simply be more of the same?

Mugabe’s use of violence, denying non-violent means of resisting him, tends to provoke violence in response. Although all the opposition forces espouse non-violence, in the face of intensifying, irrational repression, it is possible that groups of dissenters will turn to violence.

The current sporadic use of sabotage tactics against police and civilian targets could be the work of agents provocateurs, but could also be the work of disgruntled opposition elements who want to do anything to express their anger. They are not a threat to the government, as they lack organisation and weaponry, at least at the present moment.

A more serious threat to government would be action by disaffected army units, with or without the connivance of senior military and political figures. Serious fighting could result if the army were to divide into units loyal to Mugabe and units loyal to other factions of ZANU PF, or acting independently. It might well lead to the removal of Mugabe, but could also usher in a period of civil strife and uncertainty such as has occurred in Cote d’Ivoire. It would probably also lead to international intervention of various sorts, which might or might not produce a satisfactory political resolution.

But experience in the rest of Africa shows that once weapons are used to promote the interests of individuals or groups, the results are highly detrimental to civilians at all levels, and the chaos produced is normally long-term, not short-term. Thus civil strife, or even a violent overthrow of Mugabe by his own soldiers can hardly be considered a desirable solution. Fortunately, it does not appear very likely, but is certainly a possibility.

The second scenario would be one in which opposition forces, acting on their own without support from the ZANU PF hierarchy, but possibly with assistance from within the police and army, were able to pressure Mugabe into resigning or fleeing as he sees his support base melting away. In such a case, opposition forces would be likely to call for international assistance in effecting a transition and holding new elections. A transition which is driven by popular mass action is desirable as it empowers the people to make the leaders accountable to them. Furthermore, it is likely to put in place a system of trial and punishment for perpetrators of violence and exploiters of the nation’s wealth, ending impunity for crimes.

But the truth is that the opposition in Zimbabwe would take many months to organise the people into such a powerful formation. Although the capacity of the combined opposition forces to pressurise Mugabe is probably underestimated, the main goal which unites them is to remove the man himself. Even if they were able to pull off an 'Orange revolution' which is always being held up as a model, their ability to deliver the dreams of the masses of Zimbabwe is highly questionable.

Elements amongst them which show a commitment to genuine participatory democracy and an economy of fair distribution of wealth are very weak. They have not shown that they have the will or the skills to replace a highly corrupt political and government structure which answer to the people’s needs.

Nevertheless, such a people driven change would be the most desirable, simply because it would remove the corrupt power structure of ZANU PF and hold it accountable for the destruction of a once vibrant nation and the immiseration of its people. We live in hope that it would at least produce something better than what we have been subjected to for the past 27 years.

The other likely prospect is a 'negotiated settlement'. This is currently being promoted, not only by Western governments, but also probably by South Africa and the majority of SADC. This position sees the opposition MDC as being too divided and too weak to effect the removal of Mugabe, making factions of ZANU PF opposed to Mugabe’s continuation in power critical to removing him.

The idea is to use some of his immediate subordinates in the party to broker a deal in which Mugabe is persuaded (or even forced) to vacate office in exchange for impunity from any form of accountability for his crimes against his people. Talks between ZANU PF and the MDC on a new constitution and arrangements for 'free and fair' internationally supervised elections in 2008, would follow, resulting in a new government taking office. It would then receive massive support from the IMF to resurrect the economy.

The first scenario is the most dangerous, the second the most desirable, but the third ultimately the most probable. If current reports of 'talks' can be believed, the second 'solution' may already be in process.

Much as we would like to see a change, we should not be fooled into believing that such an outcome will solve our problems. Since it relies on Mugabe’s lieutenants to remove him, it means they will remain in place; but they are equally guilty of the crimes of which he would stand charged. Unless they are also removed, impunity will prevail and they will keep the current corrupt anti-democratic patronage system in place. Moreover, can we trust SADC to supervise a transition? Who will repeal the oppressive legislation which ensured that recent elections could not be fair?

The same people who put it in place? Who will restore citizenship to those Zimbabweans who have been stripped of it and denied their vote? How do we install a new election machinery and overhaul the Registrar General’s electoral roll if ZANU PF leaders remain? And how can we trust those African governments which previously declared obviously flawed elections free and fair to guide us through new elections?

We may wish for a peaceful transition, but are we wise to again allow the perpetrators of massive human rights abuses to go unpunished? Many voices are raised to urge Zimbabweans to allow Mugabe to retire gracefully in order that we gain a peaceful transition. But does this mean we allow the establishment through which he perpetrated the abuses to continue as well? The lessons of history are that when there is impunity abuses continue. Such an outcome does not augur well for the future.

There is a danger in this scenario that we will see a sort of replay of 1979. At that time, when liberation movements had a complete victory over Ian Smith within their grasp, the international community intervened to prevent it, and force compromises whose consequences remained to haunt our independence.

Is this what is happening again? Will Western and Southern African nations intervene to help remove Mugabe himself, enforce compromises in the shape of impunity for perpetrators of human rights abuses, re-establish a safe environment for world and regional capital, and leave the people little better off than before?

The main difference, however, is that opposition forces in 2007 are much further from victory on their own, and history will not wait for those who are unable to seize the moment.

In spite of a history of 'people’s struggle' in Southern Africa, the outcome has almost always been the appropriation of the political process by the few. Deals are worked out between opposing elites which put one or the other or a combination in power.

In general, the need to deal with abuses is swept aside, international capital pours in to revitalise investment opportunities for the world’s entrepreneurs, and the people are fed an illusion that change has occurred.

Sadly, we must accept the truth that progressive forces have not yet evolved sufficiently to achieve power in Zimbabwe or indeed the region as a whole. A non-violent negotiated removal of Mugabe by elites in Zimbabwe and outside will at least break the current impasse.

We can only hope that it will open some cracks which the committed might use to create democratic space. In that space they must continue the struggle to achieve the vision of a just society. Change is coming, but it is not likely to bring us close to that goal. Rather it will be the first step of another very long journey.

* Mary Ndlovu is a Zimbabwean human rights activist.
* Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

The war in Sierra Leone has been over for five years. However for thousands of amputees 'their personal battles with trauma have exponentially and vicariously intensified as the years have passed'. The amputees’ experiences and nightmares are more emotional and psychological than physical.

The decade long harrowing civil war endured by Sierra Leone might be over as far as the Sierra Leone government and top United Nations emissary Carolyn McAskie responsible for peace-building are concerned. The latter states: 'The war has been over for five years the peace has held, I think that’s a gold standard...there is still a lot to do though.'

President Ahmed Tejan Kabba has publicly told the nation his government is overwhelmed by national priorities. He is therefore unable to address the individual needs of his people therefore they must begin to help themselves.

However for the thousands of amputees living in this tiny nation barely the size of Maine this is an impractical and impossible task. Their personal battles with trauma have exponentially and vicariously intensified as the years have passed. The amputees’ experiences are more emotional and psychological. They suffer a nightmare than their physical wounds can communicate.

Presently, the government is busy with its pending presidential and parliamentary elections just a few months away, and the routine of running the machinery of government.

However these elections are not going to be curative for the thousands of Mamsu Thoronkas and Tamba Ngaujahs that are still languishing in the mundane and elusive wilderness of Sierra Leone, plagued and handicapped in destitution and despondency. They cannot fend for themselves in a country where unemployment is astronomical and finding a job and a home are extremely difficult.

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/297/40501_1.jpgThe disturbing and graphic poster images of mutilation and amputation germinated from the seeds of the 1991 civil war that were sown in the eastern border town of Bormaru.

Sierra Leone shares close proximity and commonality with neighbouring Liberia. There, the demonic and diabolic foetus of dehumanisation and shocking brutality were born. Although the rebels, who migrated to Liberia to execute heinous crimes with the aid of Charles Taylor of Liberia, were discounted by the government as mere rabble rousers.

But facts have proved quite the opposite as warnings of possible violence were ignored. Although the Government assured the nation that the dire situation was under control the truth was that innocent and peaceful Sierra Leonean civilians would encounter a bizarre and innovative barbarism seasoned with surgical nightmares.

The psychology behind the amputation of limbs, tongues or ears is a terror wedging campaign to instil phobia and panic on the government and all its citizens. In a previous election the people had voted overwhelmingly for President Kabba. Since they used their hands to vote, dismembering their limbs would prevent them from casting another ballot for a democratic government. Rebel propaganda of fear and panic was to impose their will on the people of Sierra Leone, just like terrorists across the world.

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/297/40501_2.jpgMamsu Thoronka - 41 year-old trader, shown in the pictures is among thousands of amputees living in Freetown, Sierra Leone today. She is struggling to support her family of six children on her own. Her husband is in a transition into another relationship and is distant from the family. Welfare services do not exist and no form of help comes from the government:

'On 22 January, 1999 when the capital city Freetown was attacked by rebels, I attempted to take refuge in a building to escape the vengeance of the rebels. But they found me, and put my hand on a table and ready to cut it off with a machete like a butcher would sever animal meat. I begged for mercy asking them to respect God and me being His child.

They told me to point to God with my right hand which they also tried to chop off. They tried three times but failed, the hand of God probably helped or saved me. I still can’t use three fingers on my right hand. The rebels said, “I should get another hand from President Kabba, who has several hands to spare.” I was in agony and the thought of death crossed my mind. I was later taken to hospital but the doctors too had fled for their lives. Freetown was infested with hundreds of corpses scattered all around its perimeter. My dangling left hand held by a film of skin had begun to decay. It took a week before I was able to see a doctor who treated only my wounds.

My husband is still distant, I’m sure he has another wife without my knowledge. I persevere to support my children by buying produce like palm-oil in the countryside to resell in Freetown. My responsibility is too much for me. I cannot afford to pay school fees for my six children, as school fees are beyond my reach. I’m appealing for help from the international community, as my two oldest children have dropped out of school.'

But with her resilience and tenacious spirit Mamsu refuses to give up her fight for survival or self sufficiency. She continues cross border trade between Guinea and Sierra Leone. In Guinea goods are cheaper. But a recent embargo put on Guinean goods could paralyse her main source of livelihood. She still sells vegetables and beans to enable her to buy clothes and household necessities for her large family. Goods and services are now being sold at cut throat prices upcountry than in Freetown. She rears a few chickens for subsistence and sometimes sells some.

'Rebels have threatened to end our lives. They say, if government will not stop talking about amputees and the rebel atrocities that created them, they will get rid of us all. I fear the advent of another war.'

For Mamsu the welfare of her children is paramount in her mind. She is not seeking vengeance or retribution towards her assailants (rebels). She has offered forgiveness to them, despite the institution of the War Crimes Court in Sierra Leone to help bring justice to people like Mamsu. 'I want someone to take care of my children', she prays.

'The former rebel fighters are being well looked after with skills training and free education for their children. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission said, we amputees should get a pension but we have seen nothing.'

A Norwegian charity that helped house her. There is discrimination against amputees at all levels. 'I cannot cook for myself; I have to direct my daughter Bonki to do the cooking for me. When my children run into disagreement in school their peers tell them, “Your mother is a half-person.” It is so demeaning and painful for me since I’m a victim of mere circumstance. We amputees are really discriminated against in Sierra Leone.'

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/297/40501_3.jpgTamba Ngaujah has a similar story to tell the world about his destitution and abandonment by the society that he once served. He had enlisted in the Republic of Sierra Leone Military Forces (RSLMF) to defend his country against all internal and external aggressions, serving his country diligently and honestly to the best of his ability.

While other soldiers deserted from the army, he stayed on to defend his country and people. It was during his line of duty that he was captured by the rebels, at the beginning of the war in 1991. Tamba suffered double amputation in captivity, becoming the first among thousands of amputees. After surviving his ordeal he was kicked out of the Wilberforce barracks where he lived in the military quarters during the heavy rainy season when massive flooding is common. His condition did not prevent the military officials from evicting him from his living quarters.

He is now homeless languishing on the streets with his family parading as beggars. No plans have been made to provide him with alternative accommodation. He is appealing to the international community at least to provide him with shelter considering his current status. Help for amputees is a deplorable and pathetic situation and in fact does not seem to be moving at all.

Despite the numerous NGOs in the country, aid is slow to reach the amputees. Even the Human Rights Declaration and The Truth and Reconciliation testament does not seem applicable to them, although a recent UN assessment gives the country high marks for keeping the peace.

What we do to the least of those among us, we have done it to our creator. How long will this peace last that is held by a thread? A nation that does not take care of its disabled or less fortunate subjects is doomed.

A comprehensive reading of the Sierra Leone civil war and its effects on ordinary people can be found in my book: Harvest of Hate- Stories and Essays: “Fuel for the Soul” - published by Publish America 2006. Visit: to read an extract - Harvest of Hate- Mary’s Saga.

*Roland Bankole Marke is a Sierra Leonean writer living and writing in Florida, USA. He is the author of three books: Teardrops Keep Falling, Silver Rain and Blizzard and Harvest of Hate; Stories and Essays – “Fuel for the Soul.” His work has appeared in several publications including World Press.org and Free Press.org. Reach him at [email][email protected]

* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

The latest report from the International Crisis Group, analyses the approaching vote, which is one of the most important challenges the country has ever faced. Success would offer Nigeria the first opportunity to achieve a genuine constitutional succession from one civilian administration to another since independence in 1960, thus consolidating democracy.

As the first feature length film covering the Rwandan genocide, Hotel Rwanda had the opportunity to contextualise the genocide and act as an informative piece of work.

Instead, the producers choose to focus on the drama of one individuals attempt to save a group of people. Thereby they made the film more commercially acceptable. In doing so the truth is compromised and an opportunity missed.

Hotel Rwanda is based on the true story of Paul Rusesabagina (Don Cheadle), house manager at the luxurious Hotel des Milles Collines in Kigali, who used his position and influence to save the lives of nearly 1300 victims who had sought refuge at the hotel during the Rwandan genocide.

In what many rank as the most horrifying episode in African history, an estimated 800,000 people, mainly Tutsi, were massacred by their Hutu countrymen in little more than three months between April and July 1994.

Most victims were hacked to death with machetes, spiked clubs or farming implements. A unique and disturbing feature of the Rwandan genocide was widespread popular participation in the killing.

A further 500,000 people died as a result of disease, famine and military action. While over 2,000,000 Hutus fled to neighbouring countries for fear of reprisals when a Tutsi-dominated government was installed by the invading Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) that took control of the country in July 1994.

These casualty figures are enormous if one considers that the population of Rwanda was in the region of 7,000,000 at the start of the genocide and that Tutsis formed about fifteen per cent or just over one million of this total.

At the start of the film, Rusesabagina is depicted as a suave, stylish man. Through a combination of deference, flattery and canny bribery consciously he stores up favours with the rich and powerful and, through his charm and resourcefulness manages to keep the hotel’s clientele happy.

Although Hotel Rwanda is well-intentioned and is moving, even potent, in parts, it has serious flaws and its execution is at times below par. A central weakness of Hotel Rwanda is that the film makes little more than a cursory attempt to explain why the genocide happened or to sketch the political and historical context in which it unfolded.

The film instead focuses on the intense drama around Paul Rusesabagina’s heroic attempts to save his charges. The choice of a strong dramatic centre clearly did not preclude director, Terry George, from also providing sufficient background to make the slaughter more comprehensible to viewers because the film carries a lot of flab.

Simply replacing some of the superfluous and repetitious scenes, especially those involving a frightened and tearful Tatiana, with ones clarifying some of the complexities of the Rwandan situation would have gone a long way toward achieving this objective.

Appropriate contextualization would thus have helped strengthen the flaccid plot line and improved the coherence of the film. This disembodiment of Rusesabagina’s story from the complexity of its context deprives the film of much of its power to provoke, enlighten or simply to raise critical questions.

More importantly, being the first feature-length offering with mass appeal on the genocide, it would not be unfair to regard the film as having some duty to inform, perhaps even educate, viewers to a greater extent than it does. Some people might think that this places an unfair burden on the film-makers but one could argue that Hotel Rwanda is, after all, not a movie viewers are likely to want to see purely for entertainment.

This is not to advocate an overt didacticism but to ask for better contextualisation. Hotel Rwanda’s simplistic approach to the genocide is, in my opinion, more likely to perpetuate than dispel stereotypes of Africa as a place of senseless violence and roiling tribal animosities.

The absence of a well-founded explanation of the genocide is bound to result in many viewers falling back on shop worn, racist conventions of Western attitudes toward Africa. Indeed, the film inadvertently reinforces such mystification. When Dube (Desmond Dube) asks Rusesabagina how such cruelty could be possible, Paul simply replies, ‘Hatred… insanity’, as if the mass killing defies logical explanation.

The failure to contextualise the story properly is symptomatic of a wider problem, namely, the director and script-writers’ flawed commercial strategy for dealing with the challenge of representing the extreme violence of the Rwandan genocide.

Terry George’s overall approach may be summed up as one of evading the key issues at stake in the Rwandan genocide. As Keith Turan, the reviewer for the Los Angeles Times, very neatly put it; ‘One of the ways filmmakers have traditionally tried to make unpleasant scenarios more palatable to audiences is by changing the focus from the awfulness of events to individual acts of bravery, from the complicity of the many to the heroism of the few. Hotel Rwanda saw the opportunity to take this path and did not hesitate’ (Cape Times, 2005).

Many viewers will have been enticed into seeing the movie in the expectation of gaining insight into one of the most heinous crimes of the recent past. Instead they come away with little real insight but a formulaic story about the triumph of the human spirit in which the focus is diverted from the dire human cost of the carnage and the troubling questions it raises, to the noble actions of a single hero.

In celebrating the relatively minor triumph of Rusesabagina’s extraordinary courage, Hotel Rwanda promotes a simplistic morality of good conquering evil and has little of substance to offer by way of elucidating why the greater evil of the Rwandan genocide was possible in the first instance.

This is not to criticise Hotel Rwanda for focusing on an individual, for individual experiences can indeed be a most effective vehicle for illuminating broader social, even global, experiences and truths. The trick in doing this successfully is to bring into a simultaneous frame of reference localized detail and broader social structures and experience.

Hotel Rwanda fails to do this through a lack of proper contextualisation of its subject matter and choosing to focus on a set of experiences that were atypical of the Rwandan genocide. Rusesabagina may well have succeeded in saving all of the refugees at the Milles Collines Hotel but we can’t ignore that about 80 per cent of the internal Tutsi population succumbed in the genocide.

This is also not in the least to argue that the film is not justified in reinforcing the optimistic message that the actions of individuals of conscience can make a big difference, even in the face of overwhelming odds and the most abominable evils imaginable. After all, like its most obvious parallel, Schindler’s List, Hotel Rwanda is based on a true story and the real-life Rusesabagina deserves to be lauded for his bravery, his integrity and his altruism.

But to communicate this message as ineptly as Hotel Rwanda does, represents a missed opportunity to disseminate a cogent understanding of the Rwandan genocide to an expectant world-wide viewership which has had little opportunity of grappling with the meaning of this atrocity through the popular media.

Given its box-office strategy it should not come as any surprise that Hotel Rwanda deliberately shies away from realistic representations of the violence perpetrated during the Rwandan genocide. In an interview in Johannesburg to promote the movie Terry George answered critics of his evasion of graphic violence by making clear that; ‘… there was no way I was going to shoot a bloodfest film with people being hacked to death with machetes... I set out to create a political entertainment story rather than a pornographic depiction of the terror and violence’ (Sunday Times, 2005).

So the only actual killing one sees is a short, indistinct sequence of people being hacked by machete, filmed at a distance and replayed on a tiny television screen by members of the news crew stationed at the Milles Collines.

For the rest, the slaughter is presented indirectly. For example, a few corpses are strewn about the front gardens of houses and Rusesabagina’s blood spattered son serves as evidence of the murder of one of his neighbours.

The high point of horror in the movie does not show actual killing. It occurs when Paul and Gregoire (Tony Kgoroge) encounter the victims of a massacre after being deliberately sent along the ‘river road’ by George Rutaganda. Driving along, their van suddenly seems to hit an exceptionally bumpy and deeply rutted stretch. Thinking that they had strayed from the road, Paul gets out of the vehicle only to fall onto mutilated bodies that had been left lying in their path. The camera then pans upwards to reveal corpses carpeting the outstretched thoroughfare in the gathering light.

Depicting mass violence in ways that do not diminish its reality for the viewer yet do not denigrate victims or trivialize the pain of survivors is one of the core challenges movie-makers of genocide face. Films about mass violence will always raise vexing questions about the ethics of creating entertainment out of mass murder, of appropriate ways of commercializing atrocity, of engaging viewers with visual representations of unspeakable cruelty without desensitizing or alienating them.

Finding a balance between these sorts of tensions lie at the heart of making feature films about genocide. The specific circumstances of the Rwandan genocide demands a degree of engagement with human depravity and mass violence that is lacking in Hotel Rwanda. Terry George gets the balance wrong. There is too much heroism and too little horror in Hotel Rwanda, too much romanticism and too little reality.

Hotel Rwanda has a decided tendency to understate the horrors of the Rwandan genocide and even to romanticize aspects of the story it tells. This is mostly due to a box-office strategy that seeks to make the genocide more tolerable to a mass audience. It is, however, also partly a result of trying to communicate an optimistic message about the ultimate triumph of human benevolence and partly a product of the decision to focus on a case that is unrepresentative of the Rwandan catastrophe.

The tendency for romanticism is nowhere more marked than in the clumsy wrapping up of the story at the end of the film. The improbable saving of the UN convoy from an Interahamwe mob through a fortuitous RPF ambush is inept and the subsequent depiction of an all too orderly refugee camp with its all too ample medical facilities is a good example of the movie’s tendency to underplay the wretchedness of the Rwandan situation. Most conspicuously, however, the film succumbs to a cloying sentimentality with its conventionally Hollywood ending.

Hotel Rwanda could, however, have done a far better job, given the constraints of the medium and the opportunities offered by the Rusesabagina story, of informing a receptive audience about the Rwandan holocaust and of raising consciousness about the scourge of genocide.

The feature film is an extremely powerful medium and the Rwandan genocide a potentially explosive issue but Hotel Rwanda comes nowhere close to fully exploiting their potential.

* Mohamed Adhikari, University of Cape Town

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

Bill Gates is pushing harder than ever for immigration reform that would allow the United States, the richest country on the planet, to skim off the cream of the few educated workers in developing nations.

Human activities are largely responsible for a loss of forest cover in Morocco. The government is taking steps to combat deforestation, but more remains to be done. In recent years ecologists and officials have raised the alarm that without sufficient awareness campaigns and government action, Morocco may lose its forests.

The Mauritanian interior ministry officially announced the victory of independent candidate Sidi Mohamed Ould Cheikh Abdellahi in the second round of presidential elections held Sunday (March 25th) throughout the country.