Raising Voices is a small international organization based in Kampala, Uganda. We are seeking a dynamic and a committed individual to join our team and be based in Uganda (at least for first year). Responsibilities include both coordination of the GBV Prevention Network and provision of technical support on violence prevention as senior program officer at Raising Voices. For more information please visit Deadline for applications in February 20th, 2007.

The object of this paper is to defend the use of the security discourse for refugee status determination and to provide a workable legal framework for human security in order to assess legitimate claims for refugee status. The argument for human security as ratione personae protection for refugee status is made first theoretically, by defining the capacity of ‘human security’ as well as the types of harm that legitimate protection, and then formally within a concrete structure.

Uganda has a massive number of IDPs – more than 1.7 million, over 6% of the national population. Although it is one of the few countries with a national IDP policy, ineffective implementation means many IDPs still face security threats, limited access to humanitarian assistance and difficulties in returning home.

Escalating clashes over fertile land in Kenya's Mount Elgon region have killed 60 people and forced tens of thousands more from their homes since December, the Kenya Red Cross has said. Local members of parliament say the latest clashes broke out when people displaced from their ancestral land attacked communities now occupying their land. Police blamed the violence on criminal gangs.

The government of the Union of Islamic Courts has been ousted but a weak and ineffectual Transitional Federal Government has left the country and people of Somalia in a state of chaos and violence with no protection against horrendous human rights violations, states Birgit Michaelis.

In Mogadishu, the air is thick with gunfire. Nearly every night, the sound of bullets and artillery fire can be heard throughout the city. Unidentified gunmen carry out attacks on Ethiopian troops. The presidential compound was targeted by heavy mortar fire; houses in the neighbourhood were also hit. The ambushes left many civilians and soldiers dead. Suspicion falls on Islamist remnants who have vowed guerrilla war. For their part, Ethiopian forces randomly open gun and artillery fire on civilians and have claimed several casualties. Warlords are back in the city and checkpoints, where clan militia raise funds by extorting money from motorists, have reappeared on roads leading out of the capital. Freelance militia and bandits are taking advantage of the power vacuum and there is an increase in robbery. Residents fear Mogadishu could slide back into the anarchy that gripped the city after 1991, when the former dictator Siad Barre had been ousted, and await to see whether the government will be able to cope with the chaos.

Until recently, the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) controlled all but a small area of south and central Somalia. With Ethiopia’s support, the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) only maintained control over its seat of government, the south western town of Baidoa. At the end of December, US-supported Ethiopian troops carried out a pre-emptive attack against Somalia. The invasion, in violation of international law and the UN Security Council Resolution 1725, proved easier than expected. The comparatively more powerful Ethiopian army allied with a militia loyal to the TFG to achieve their objective of regime change and overthrew the Islamists. The TFG is now seeking to install itself in Mogadishu and faces a huge challenge in trying to bring peace and security to the war-torn country.

Ethiopia is still reducing the numbers of its forces in Somalia. On 20 January, the African Union’s Peace and Security Council approved the deployment of a peacekeeping force for an initial period of six months. So far, only Uganda, Malawi and Nigeria have pledged to contribute to the AU force. Other countries are considering possible contributions. The mission's role would be "to provide support to the Transitional Federal Institutions in their efforts towards the stabilisation of the situation in the country and the furtherance of dialogue". Many Somalis doubt if the TFG, which has no military power, will be able to fill the power vacuum when the Ethiopian troops leave before the peacekeeping force is deployed in Somalia.

As violence escalates throughout the country, many commentators stress that after more than a decade of brutal fighting the Islamists, which controlled large parts of south and central Somalia from June to December 2006, established security and stability by expelling the hated warlords and offered something comparable to a government while the weak and divided TFG had been unable to reign. The UIC, with known militants within its leadership, imposed a harsh rule on the basis of a strict interpretation of Islamic law, the Sharia, in contrast with the moderate Islam that has dominated Somali culture for centuries. The hard-liners within the UIC wanted an Islamic Somali state where the Qur’ is the constitution and the Sharia is the only source of legislation. The secular constitution of the transitional institutions, which emanated from peace talks in Kenya from 2002-2004, is in contradiction of this plan. This fundamental contradiction was the most important obstacle to reconciliation between the UIC and the TFG. In the case of the emergence of an Islamic state in Somalia the transitional institutions would have been dissolved. The UIC’s interpretation of Sharia led to gross human rights violations such as public executions and public floggings. Their strict rule consisted of permanent violations of recognized international and African human rights treaties and standards.

In October last year, a group of children was arrested for playing football during the holy month of Ramadan in Mogadishu’s Boondheere district and detained in prison for over five hours. They were only released after their parents pledged that they will never again allow them to play ball. On 17 October an Islamic court released a fatwa to arrest all members of the National Music Committee of Somalia which forms part of the UNESCO’s International Music Council. Furthermore, it imposed the death penalty on the musicians for making music deemed as un-Islamic. A fatwa is a legal pronouncement in Islam made by a scholar permitted to issue judgments on Sharia. On 6 December, an Islamic court in Bulo Burto, southern Somalia, announced an edict that residents who do not pray five times a day will be beheaded. During prayer time, shops and tea houses should close and no one should be in the streets. The UIC restored security by ending years of massive human rights abuses against civilians by armed factions, but these few examples demonstrate that this happened very much at the cost of fundamental freedoms. Since the takeover of the Islamists thousands have fled the country for fear of being prosecuted or being forcibly recruited by the militias. It is doubtful if there was such an overwhelming support for the UIC as was widely reported.

The presence of foreign troops has not only profoundly changed the political dynamics in Somalia, but has also aggravated the already dire humanitarian and human rights situation in the severely impoverished country. Somalis are suffering the consequences of a triple humanitarian crisis: drought, flood and now conflict. An estimated 2 million people have been affected by the worst drought in a decade. Pastoralists in particular have been weakened by persistent droughts in recent years and have been forced to move their families to towns and villages in search of food and water. In November and December last year an estimated 400,000 people were directly affected by rivers that breached their banks and flash floods that followed heavy rainfall. Hundreds of towns and villages were hit, homes destroyed or seriously damaged and roads cut off. An estimated 1.4 million Somalis urgently need humanitarian assistance. To make matters worse, the recent fighting between the allied forces (Ethiopian and Somali government forces) and the Islamists complicates the humanitarian situation. Aid agencies have suspended some planned relief operations due to security concerns. In some regions, there is restricted access for humanitarian workers trying to reach vulnerable populations and there have been incidents of aid staff being harassed and detained by Ethiopian troops.

Between 65,000 and 70,000 people are estimated to have been displaced by the fighting between the TFG and the UIC. At least 1,000 people are estimated to have been killed, mostly between Mogadishu and Baidoa in south and central zones, of whom 700 have not been buried, the World Health Organization says. The US and Ethiopian air strikes in mid-January on Afmadow near the Kenyan border had a grave humanitarian impact as they left more than 40 people and several hundreds livestock dead. The animals safeguard the livelihood of rural communities. The bombardment took place in an area known as a very good pastureland, with the highest concentration of cattle in the Juba valley. Hundreds of families fled their houses. Most of those killed were in a convoy of donkeys carrying sugar to the outlying villages, which have been rendered inaccessible due to recent heavy rains. The raids, backed by the Somali government, targeted alleged Islamists and al-Qaeda members believed by the United States to be hiding in the region. The US denies any civilian casualties as international humanitarian law prohibits direct attacks on civilians or civilian objects. On 22 January, US forces carried out a fresh air strike in southern Somalia. The number of wounded civilians and killed livestock is still unknown. A Pentagon spokesman said the US would continue to pursue members of al-Qaeda, wherever they were.

There are reports that during the recent fighting camps for internally displaced people (IDPs) had come under grenade attack. Before the invasion Somalia counted 400,000 IDPs. The largest IDP population -an estimated quarter of a million people- lives in Mogadishu where for years they have been abused by gunmen who control their sites. The appalling situation of IDPs in Somalia has remained below any minimum acceptable standard, and is among the worst in Africa. Often IDPs remain displaced long even after the violence that caused their original displacement has abated. While remaining in situations of protracted displacement, many IDPs and other vulnerable populations face discrimination, restrictions on their freedom of movement and political rights, exploitation and physical violence, difficulties accessing basic social services as well as limited income earning opportunities. Most IDPs survive through a mixture of casual work and begging and their income is barely sufficient for one meal a day, resulting in high malnutrition and mortality rates. IDP camps are particularly dangerous places for women as the number of rapes is very high with an estimated one third of cases involving children under the age of 16. Now there are up to 70,000 more IDPs who will face discrimination because many of them are separated from their traditional support mechanisms, including their clan base. As long as insecurity prevails, their future is uncertain and unresolved displacement crises will remain constant sources of instability.

The situation of refugees who want to leave the country is no better. On 3 January, several thousand asylum seekers fleeing recent fighting in Somalia were stranded near the border with Kenya, which has blocked their entry. Kenya has stepped up security along its border with Somalia in a bid to prevent militias loyal to the UIC entering the country. Between 4,000 and 7,000 asylum-seekers have gathered around the border town of Dobley in the hope of entering Kenya. They are mainly women and children. Only after two weeks was the World Food Programme able to access the area and provide them with food assistance. Kenya already hosts more than 160,000 Somali refugees, but the closure of its border violates international law protecting refugees.

According to Ethiopian human rights defenders there is a crackdown on Oromo refugees within Somalia. During the last four decades, thousands of Oromo, which are the largest ethnic group in Ethiopia, fled persecution in their country and have sought refuge in Somalia. Since the arrival of Ethiopian troops in Somalia they become the target of harassments and arbitrary detentions. Some of them were reportedly forcibly returned to Ethiopia where they are at risk of serious human rights violations.

Civilian casualties far outnumber those of armed combatants. Women and children are most affected by fighting. Scores of women and children have been separated from their families or wounded in fighting between Somali government forces and remnants of the UIC. Women suffer disproportionately and differently from militarization and war. Fleeing without the protection of their communities or male relatives they face heightened risk of sexual violence, including rape. They may be forced to offer sex in return for safe passage, food and shelter. Further, they risk injuries from mines or unexploded ordnance and attacks by armed fighters. There are reports of women being raped by the allied forces during the recent conflict in what amounts to a war crime. Armed militia setting up roadblocks in Mogadishu also put women at risk of being raped. The factors which contribute to violence against women in armed conflict have their roots in the pervasive discrimination they faced before the conflict broke out. Women in Somali society are politically, socially and economically marginalized. They do not have access to political participation and were marginalized in the peace talks in Kenya in 2002-2004 leading to an under-representation in the TFG. Domestic violence, sexual harassment and rape are widespread, although there is a culture of denial. To safeguard the family’s honour, some rape victims are forced to marry the perpetrator. Early forced marriage occurs. Female genital mutilation continues to be inflicted on 99% of Somali girls. Girls’ education lags far behind boys’ education. Only 22% of children have access to primary school education with a third being girls and the Ethiopian invasion has severely affected school enrolment.

Children had featured prominently in recent fighting as active combatants. However, a spokesman for Somalia's Transitional Federal Government has denied recruiting underage soldiers. There are also reports that the UIC has declared publicly its intention to recruit from schools. In Mogadishu, children were randomly shot in the street while others risk being recruited to fight by re-emerging warlords. Thousands of Somali children have been separated from their parents and are unaccompanied making them prey to child traffickers and sexual exploitation. Some have lost one or both parents and others are left with no surviving family members. The psychological scars children bear after witnessing such attacks have long-term effects. Child soldiers, in particular, suffer deep-seated trauma that persists long after the fighting has ended.

This reflects the violations of children’s human rights on many fronts. Infant mortality is the highest in the world and a quarter of children are stunted from lack of food. Child labour is rampant. Some 200,000 Somali children (5%) have at some time in their lives carried a gun or been involved in militia activities. More than a quarter of both children and adults (26% and 31% respectively) have been exposed to a serious or traumatic event caused by conflict. In the absence of a functioning public service following the overthrow of the Siad Barre government and the disintegration of the state into civil war in 1991, a whole generation has been deprived of the right to education and most of the population has no access to health care.

Somalis are war-weary and desperate for peace and respect for human rights. Human rights as enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and subsequent international human rights treaties and standards are indivisible, interdependent and inter-related. All rights are of equal value and cannot be separated. Violations of economic, social and cultural rights – such as failure to protect land rights, denying education rights and inadequate provision of health care – are linked with civil and political rights violations in patterns of denial. No human right can be realized in isolation from other rights. The large-scale violations of civil and political rights in Somalia demand a holistic response. The right to effective political participation, important with regard to clan hostilities, depends on a free media and the right to freedom of expression, but also on an educated and literate population. Land and housing rights will be better realized if a fair and effective system for the administration of justice is in place.

Amnesty International is making an urgent call for human rights to be made a priority. The TFG should ensure that it reflects the human rights aspirations of the Somali people. A first step would be to start dialogue and reconciliation with all groups and factions. A second one would be to make assiduous efforts for reconstruction. This includes measures such as back-to-school programmes, income-generation activities, establishment of a fair judicial system and a health care system, resettlement of internally displaced persons and the demobilisation and reintegration of militias. As the disarmament process is ongoing, demobilized members of faction militias should be offered alternatives such as education, vocational training and job opportunities. If they are not given an alternative to the gun, they will return to it, with all the consequences that entails. The Somali government now has a unique chance to turn desperation to hope.

* Birgit Michaelis is the country coordinator for Kenya, Tanzania and Somalia of Amnesty International - German section.

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

The AU Protocol on women's rights has breathed new life into the feminist movement in Africa and centralised the issue of women’s rights on the continent. But Janah Ncube says African women cannot afford to be complacent if implementation of the protocol is to be achieved in the near future.

The protocol is a vehicle/mechanism that is now creating the appropriate legal environment to enable equity and equality to be realised for the African woman. It is the evidence of our winning the fight for women’s rights in Africa and it shows that it is only a matter of time before we completely win the fight. The Niger set back was overt evidence and testimony to the progressiveness of the protocol as an offensive assault against patriarchy. The fact that they considered and debated the protocol and realised that if they ratify it they would lose patriarchal privileges and desecrate patriarchal structures is affirmation that the women’s movement has developed as a tool, an instrument designed to challenge and pull down the strongholds of patriarchy. What we need to work on now is ensuring that the Protocol is implemented. So we must mobilise our governments, institutions and peoples to ensure that they are implementing it and making demands on the protocol.

Indeed we saw the protocol breathing life back into the African Feminist movement as many began to coalesce around its drafting, its adoption, its ratification. It again triggered conversations on sensitive and taboo issues which for this continent where difficult to converse about. It revitalised the long forgotten issues of women’s basic human rights which have been for a long time not realised and had been left to the dustbin of history. Most importantly, it put women’s human rights back into the centre of the continent’s agenda.

Cynics and critics will argue that the protocol is only a legal instrument but is in its-self not tangible rights. Indeed many countries have laws and policies that grant women’s rights but have not appropriated those rights. Do legal instruments deliver equity or equality? My response to that is that they do set a basis and a standard and their existence is an admittance that there has been a wrong which through the instrument is being made right. And wherever there is rule of law and a just legal system then any woman whose rights are denied and/or violated can make claim and get those rights.

We have to be realistic about the challenges that will face the implementation of the protocol. Challenges of structure, adequate resources to ensure delivery and most importantly political will to see this protocol benefiting African women. We must not be satisfied by the existence of the protocol, we must refuse to be comforted by its ratification. Instead we must be stubborn, have tenacity, be bold, be courageous and keep on with the agenda. The agenda was not the protocol, the agenda is African women enjoying their human rights. The protocol is one of the vehicles that can deliver that.

Until there is not one girl child afraid of her father molesting her, until there is not one woman afraid of her husband’s kicks we can not say we have won the fight. Until our decision makers in all sectors, spheres, levels are gender sensitive and have equal representation of women and men then we can not rest. It may not be a fast process but we can ensure that it is a sure process that will deliver African women not just their rights but their dignity.

Three things we must do; mobilise the African woman; let her be aware of the protocol as an instrument to engage her communities about her rights and let her make demands based on the protocol. We must target the rural woman who is in the majority and also target the urban woman who many times is ignorant of these civic issues. We must build a strong feminist movement across the continent; it has delivered the protocol and without it the protocol will lose its momentum and force.

The women’s movement must confront and engage with the broader politics; time to talk to women alone is over, its preaching to the choir, we must start to ‘evangelise’ preach to those who do not know/understand the issues we articulate about women’s human rights. This of course means confronting one’s own personal beliefs, things at home, in our work places, the institutions we engage with in our daily lives and indeed our governments. These things are very political and so we must be political actors. Our political legitimacy and clout increases when we engage with politics in all issues that affect our lives and communities and not only the ones that concern women’s issues.

* Janah Ncube is Gender Thematic Manager at The Agency for Co-operation & Research in Development. Ms Ncube is also a contributing author to “Grace, Tenacity and Eloquence: The Struggle for Women’s Rights in Africa” published by Fahamu – Networks for Social Justice. Copies of the book can be purchased through the Fahamu.org website.

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

The United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) has been blatant in its support of rightwing forces, including the Haitian police, and has been systematic in carrying out human rights abuses against the poor people of Haiti, supporters of Aristide and his Lavalas party, writes Ben Terrell.

As Kofi Annan moves on to life after the UN, it’s important to look at the less-discussed ‘regime change’ which the Bush administration engineered with Annan’s help. The outgoing secretary-general’s supporters argue he did what he could to register disapproval of the Iraq invasion, but in the case of Haiti, he actually helped facilitate a bloodthirsty imperial agenda.

MINUSTAH, the UN mission to Haiti, was put in place to support the illegal post-coup regime which ousted the democratically elected government of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in February 2004. Countries participating in the UN’s Haiti mission, whose mandate is currently up for renewal, curried favour with Washington, thereby repairing Iraq war-related rifts with the Bush administration. Brazil’s participation was seen by many observers as part of its bid to gain a seat on the UN Security Council.

Brian Concannon, director of the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti and a former UN human rights observer in Haiti, points out that ‘until 2004, the UN, for good reasons, only deployed peacekeepers where there was a peace agreement to enforce. Only in Haiti has the Security Council deployed blue helmets to enforce a coup d’etat against an elected government. With the MIF [Multinational Interim Force] and then MINUSTAH, the UN abandoned a half-century of principles and common sense, with predictable results.’ Since replacing the US marines in July 2004, the UN troops have supported the Haitian police in crackdowns on the urban-poor supporters of Aristide and his Lavalas party.

Brian Concannon notes, ‘In contrast to its decisive action in Cite Soleil, MINUSTAH has been tolerant of right-wing paramilitary groups. For months after its deployment, MINUSTAH declined to dislodge the paramilitary groups that helped to overthrow the government from police stations. In August 2005 a paramilitary group called the Little Machete Army killed dozens of spectators at a soccer game in broad daylight near a MINUSTAH observation post. MINUSTAH never tried to stop the massacre or pursue paramilitary members, even though the group has terrorised the Grande Ravine area for two years.’

Since February 2004, thousands of non-violent activists and other civilians have been killed, arrested, tortured and exiled by the post-coup regime, which the UN mission in effect was set up to support. This essential fact rarely appears in media analysis of Haiti, so few in the US understand why some have taken up arms to defend their neighbourhoods. In defence of ongoing military operations in the poorest neighbourhoods of Port-au-Prince, UN commanders in Haiti claim they only launch assaults after they have been fired at. But during a week-long August 2006 visit to Haiti’s capital, I was told otherwise.

I witnessed a 24 August UN operation in Simon Pele (a community bordering the sprawling seaside shantytown Cite Soleil) which was stunning in its disregard of the dangers of using heavy calibre weapons in a densely populated area. Such operations had been carried out in Simon Pele throughout August in a UN campaign to ‘secure’ the area. Video footage taken by a photographer also on the scene shows a Brazilian soldier firing from the top of an armoured personnel carrier. I witnessed Brazilian troops running from two armoured personnel carriers into Simon Pele. The soldiers within the neighbourhood were also firing their weapons.

One of those shots killed a young man whose mother I spoke to four days later. Adacia Samedy told me how her son Wildert was fixing a radio on the roof of their family home when UN snipers shot him in the operation. Ms. Samedy told me, ‘My message to the UN is: Thank you for killing my son. I don’t see the sense in their work, they come in, shoot, and people passing can get shot.’ I asked her if any UN personnel had returned to see if civilians were killed, or to offer any assistance. Nobody with the UN had offered so much as a basic acknowledgement of her loss. Queries I have directed to UN spokespeople about the killing of Wildert Samedy remain unanswered.

Another family, that of wheelchair-bound civilian William Mercy, told me they were similarly ignored by the UN after a raid on their section of the Bel Air neighbourhood in Port-au-Prince. Brazilian UN troops swept through the alley outside their home in June 2005 and shot the top of Mercy’s head off, later killing several other unarmed civilians the same day.

I interviewed an older gentleman who was moving his family out of the area, which he told me holds nothing but misery for local youth. I asked him about armed groups the UN claimed it was fighting. He said, ‘I can’t say anything about that,’ but that many people had been shot and killed by the UN in the neighbourhood. None were linked to any armed groups, all were ‘workers’.

Near the bullet-riddled dwelling from which he was pulling out furniture was a church pockmarked by gunfire from UN forces. A Haitian journalist told me the UN claimed there were armed gang members in the church, but that, given the seriousness with which residents feel about Catholicism, no armed combatants would use such a sanctuary for a hideout. A school on the same side of the street was also destroyed by high calibre guns.

In 2005, Harvard Law Student Advocates for Human Rights and Brazil’s Global Justice Centre concluded, ‘MINUSTAH has provided cover for abuses committed by the HNP [Haitian national police] during operations in poor, historically tense Port-au-Prince neighbourhoods. Rather than advising and instructing the police in best practices, and monitoring their missteps, MINUSTAH has been the midwife of their abuses.’

Several months earlier, a University of Miami Law School report concluded, ‘Both forces admitted that it is a confusing “free for all” when the HNP conduct an operation in a poor neighbourhood because there are no radios shared by HNP and the MINUSTAH forces and, even if there were radios, nobody speaks the same language. On a neighbourhood operation, they admitted, there is no clear strategy or objective, but operations devolve into “just shoot before you get shot”.’

In 2004 and 2005 UN troops repeatedly stood by as Haitian police opened fire on non-violent protesters demanding the return of Aristide. In April 2005, Amnesty International noted that ‘Haitian national police officers (HNP) reportedly used live ammunition against Lavalas supporters as they peacefully demonstrated against the United Nations mission headquarters in Boudon, Port-au-Prince.’

But just allowing Haitian police to kill civilians was not enough for prominent rightwing figures in Port-au-Prince. In meetings with UN officials, the elite-owned media and veteran anti-Aristide figures pushed a steady drumbeat of demonisation of poor neighbourhoods that one Haitian activist told me reminded him of propaganda disseminated before the 1994 Rwanda genocide. In January 2006 Reginald Boulos, president of the Haitian Chamber of Commerce and a key supporter of the 2004 coup, told Radio Metropole, ‘You cannot make an omelette without breaking eggs. We think that MINUSTAH’s generals need to make plans to limit collateral damage. But we in the private sector are ready to create a social assistance fund to help all those who would be innocent victims of a necessary and courageous action that should be carried out in Cite Soleil. … When terrorists occupy some lawless zones, there are always innocent victims.’ Elsewhere in the interview Boulos called on UN troops to help police ‘neutralise all the armed criminals and terrorists who are terrorising the metropolitan area.’

Most poor adults in Haiti have strong memories of death squad terror during the first anti-Aristide coup in 1991–1994, which killed around 5,000 people. That history was frequently referred to as a ‘Solidarity Encounter With the Haitian People’ which Lavalas activists staged in Port-au-Prince in August 2006. The conference brought international visitors to share political insights and experiences with Haitians struggling on the ground. Jacques Depelchin, author of ‘Silences in African History: Between the Syndrome of Discovery and Abolition,’ and executive director of the Ota Benga Alliance for Peace, Healing and Dignity in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, spoke several times at the conference. He told me, ‘It is important for people to understand that Aristide and Lavalas members are connected through generations to the successful slave revolution of 200 years ago.’ Later, as we shared a car together in Port-au-Prince, he told me, ‘the problem of Haiti is really a structural one: they are not supposed to have succeeded or, worse, to have survived and still be resisting’.

As to the ‘great powers’, Depelchin said, ‘one should not harbour illusions: [the UN] is a club of states, structures which cannot even respect their own conventions (for example, the Convention Against Genocide, passed in 1948). In case the UN falters, there is now the G8 to make sure that ultimate power rests with the most powerful. Radicals around the world need to think in terms of the kind of emancipatory politics which drove the slaves to overthrow the system as it was then known. Democracy à la US/France/Canada is consensus politics around an agenda set up by financial and economic interests. That agenda is to ensure that what happened between 1791 and 1804 is forgotten forever or, if remembered at all, is a history written and propagated by the current powers that be.’

Haitian revolutionary leader Touissant L’Overture once wrote that any effort by plantation owners to reimpose slavery ‘would be to attempt the impossible: we have known how to face dangers to obtain our liberty, we shall know how to brave death to maintain it’.

Rene Civil, a Lavalas leader who spent much of the coup period in exile, struck a similar chord at the solidarity encounter, when he said: ‘The people of Haiti, who believe in freedom, who have tasted freedom, will never accept this criminal, slaving system.’ Civil also denounced the global system ‘which causes economic, political, military and social war on the people of the world’, and prevents poor nations like Haiti from exercising their independence.

Rene Civil was arrested shortly after I saw him speak at the conference, on charges Brian Concannon describes as ‘dubious’. Initially claiming that Civil was just being brought in for routine questioning, the authorities have moved the activist to Port-au-Prince’s downtown penitentiary. Dissidents in Haiti both fear for Civil’s safety there and worry that his arrest may signal a new round of judicial harassment of activists.

Dave Welsh, a US trade unionist who attended the solidarity conference, told me, ‘Haiti is still under military occupation. The occupiers hope the UN label will give a fig leaf of legitimacy to French, US and Canadian plans to benefit from the nation's labour and resources, control the Haitian state, and prevent any restoration of Haitian sovereignty and democracy. Countries like Brazil, who provide the UN troops that are brazenly and repeatedly killing civilians in their homes, undoubtedly have their own reasons for two years of willing support for this brutal occupation.’ Welsh was also in Haiti in July 2005 as part of a labour and human rights delegation which documented the aftermath of a massacre in which Brazilian troops killed up to 60 Cite Soleil residents in the midst of targeting a Lavalas militant and community leader. (I also spoke to survivors of that massacre, including a pregnant woman who was fired upon by UN troops in a helicopter. She lost her baby but was saved by Doctors Without Borders.)

Brian Concannon told me that in recent conversations, he has heard ‘over and over from poor Haitians that they wanted disarmament in their neighbourhoods, but in tandem with disarmament in the wealthy neighbourhoods that are the main source of guns that get to the slums, and the disarmament of death squads and former soldiers who kill Lavalas supporters with impunity.’

Concannon adds, ‘If the MINUSTAH operations really aimed to establish law and order, they would start by obeying the law: making legal arrests of those suspected of possessing guns, with a valid judicial warrant, rather than undertaking deadly indiscriminate attacks on poor neighbourhoods.’

But the UN shows no interest in following that direction. On 19 August, Amaral Duclona, a spokesman for armed groupings in Cite Soleil opposed to coup forces, told Reuters, ‘UN troops don't want peace and disarmament because they want a justification for their presence here.’ Duclona asked, ‘How can we hand over our weapons while UN troops continue to conduct heavy attacks against us?’

On 19 October 2006 Brazilian troops levelled dwellings in Cite Soleil to widen a road, and as angry residents demonstrated to stop the project, soldiers opened fire and killed at least three people. Two months later, the San Francisco Bay Area-based Haiti Action Committee, which keeps close daily contact with activists and human rights observers in Port-au-Prince, stated, ‘In the early morning of Friday 22 December, starting at approximately 3 a.m., 400 Brazilian-led UN occupation troops in armoured vehicles carried out a massive assault on the people of Cite Soleil, laying siege yet again to the impoverished community.’

Eyewitness reports said a wave of indiscriminate gunfire from heavy weapons began about 5 a.m. and continued for much of the day. Referring to UN soldiers and Haitian police, Cite Soleil resident Rose Martel told Reuters, ‘They came here to terrorise the population. I don't think they really killed any bandits, unless they consider all of us as bandits.’ The Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti estimates more than 20 civilians were killed, including elderly and children. A US doctor who interviewed survivors after the assault was told by survivors that ‘a UN helicopter circled [Cite] Soleil and fired bullets down on the homes of thousands of people’.

The 22 December operation was partly in response to a sustained campaign of rightwing pressure which blamed alleged gang leaders in Cite Soleil for kidnappings in Haiti. But Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine, coordinator of the September 30 Foundation, an organisation which supports victims of the first and second coups against Aristide, told me that the most widely covered kidnapping in the two weeks before the 22 December attack, that of anti-Lavalas Senator Andre Riche, was ‘political theatre’. Lovinsky told me that rightwing media outlets broadcast inflammatory editorials about the kidnapping without asking many essential questions, including why the heavily armed bodyguards of the prominent anti-Lavalas politicians kidnapped did not have their weapons taken away, and how the politicians managed to escape unscathed from captivity. Lovinsky points out that the media outlets calling for crackdowns on Cite Soleil ‘are in full support of Michael Lucius’, the former central director of the judicial police implicated in kidnapping operations.

The Haiti Action Committee noted, ‘The kidnappers are mostly well connected to the business elite and coup regime. Even Police Chief Andresol admits the national police are involved in much of the crime wave, including kidnappings.’ Canadian journalist Anthony Fenton spoke with ‘numerous sources’ (who could not go on the record due to security concerns) that connected Senator Youri Latortue, nephew of post-coup regime Prime Minister Gerard Latortue, to kidnapping rings. In August 2005 prominent businessman Stanley Handal was arrested for involvement in kidnapping; the Haiti Information Project reported, ‘Handal is a member of one of Haiti’s wealthiest families that supported the ousting of Aristide in 1991 and 2004. He was initially arrested along with eight members of Haiti’s police force for running a kidnapping ring after he attempted to use a stolen credit card taken from one of his victims. The judge who released them, Jean Péres Paul, is responsible for keeping Father Gerard Jean-Juste behind bars and for the arrest of journalists Kevin Pina and Jean Ristil on 9 September. The police officer responsible for the initial investigation into Handal’s case has reportedly been forced into hiding.’

Hopes for progressive change in Haiti were buoyed with the election of Rene Preval on 7 February 2006. Preval’s success was a victory against long odds by the popular movement which first swept Jean-Bertrand Aristide into office in 1990. Preval, who served as Haiti’s second democratically elected president from 1996 to 2001, ran with Espwa (Creole for ‘hope’), a party hastily assembled for the elections with little organising capacity. Because of the post-coup government’s refusal to release political prisoners and its continued repression of Lavalas, Aristide’s party (by far the largest political formation in Haiti, did not officially field candidates in the presidential election.)

But a year later, the police, the judiciary, and other ministries in Preval’s government remain controlled by coup figures, and major media are run by rightwing elites. Though Preval helped achieve the release of prominent political prisoners such as Annetee Auguste (‘So Anne’), Yvon Neptune, and others, hundreds of political prisoners illegally jailed by the coup regime remain behind bars. Preval also has little control over the UN mission.

In a 19 December 2006 report on the UN mission in Haiti, Annan recommended an extension of MINUSTAH’s mandate beyond 15 February 2007. Annan’s report gave no acknowledgement of charges of sexual abuse of Haitian women and girls by UN troops, or of documented killings of civilians in military assaults. Annan states, ‘The Mission’s continued deployment will be essential, since destabilizing forces continue to use violence to attain their objectives.’

But UN representatives seem disinterested in anti-Lavalas violence. A study published on 30 August 2006 in the prestigious medical journal ‘The Lancet’ concluded that in the 22 months after Aristide's removal there were 8,000 murders and 35,000 sexual assaults in the greater Port-au-Prince area alone. More than 50 per cent of these murders were attributed to anti-Aristide and anti-Lavalas factions including armed anti-Lavalas groups, demobilised army members and government security forces. The report also stated that UN soldiers ‘were identified by respondents as having issued death threats, threats of physical injury, and threats of sexual violence’.

The report’s co-author, Athena Kolbe, told me, ‘We notified more than a dozen UN staffers in Haiti of the report during last summer and told them that we would be in the country and available to share an advance copy of the report with them and discuss it if they had any questions. We had no response before or during the trip from anyone associated with MINUSTAH … [W]e got an email message from a UN staff person declining to meet with us, stating that she was busy and saying, “I don't know that you have anything of relevant [sic] to share with us”.’

In early January, Brazilian Major General Carlos Alberto Dos Santos became the fourth commander of the UN force in Haiti (consisting of 8,360 total uniformed personnel, as of 30 November 2006). Dos Santos said, ‘We are going to work in the same way as we have worked before. Nothing has changed about our mission or our obligations.’ Since Dos Santos made that commitment, UN military operations have continued. Among the civilians killed by UN gunfire in these attacks, as reported by the Haiti Information Project, are seven-year-old Stephanie Lubin, four-year-old Alexandra Lubin, and nine-year-old Boadley Bewence Germain.

Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine and other activists point to the unabated UN killings of civilians in their campaign against a renewal of the MINUSTAH mandate.

* Ben Terrell is a San Francisco-based writer who has visited Haiti four times since the 2004 coup which drove the democratically-elected Aristide government from office

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

The South South relationships seem to be growing, with frequent visits and conferences. Brazil is an merging power politically, a part of the move to the "left" in South America yet also playing with the big boys economically. They call their approach to Africa "soft imperialism"'. The author concludes: "Brazil wants to be a representative of African interests in the international arena. So far, Africans are taking the offer somewhat reluctantly."

Ghana's Implementation Report was presented to ministers at the AU Summit in Addis Ababa last month. Ghana has made excellent progress implementing the recommendations of the African Peer Review Panel. Indeed, several leaders expressed their support of the peer review process. Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo told the press, "The measures taken are concrete and development - oriented." This article outlines Ghana's achievements so far.

The government in Khartoum has been largely uncooperative in all attempts to establish peace and justice in Darfur. International Criminal Court investigators have a mandate from the Security Council of the UN, but have been blocked in their investigations by the government. The UN Secretary General has warned the Sudanese government to protect its own people or allow the international community to do so.

During the World Social Forum in Nairobi, reported Kenya's Daily Nation, thousands of demonstrators paralyzed operations of the European Union office in Nairobi, protesting the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) now being negotiated as the new framework for economic ties between Europe and Africa. The demonstrators said further opening of African markets to European products would destabilize African economies and marginalize African farmers.

The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) seeks a qualified candidate to serve as a Postdoctoral Fellow to work under Nigeria Strategy Support Program (NSSP) for a two-year, fixed-term, renewable appointment. The program has a focus on strategy and policy issues in relation to agriculture, the food system, gender relations, rural change, and poverty reduction. The position reports to the Director of the Development Strategy and Governance Division (DSGD) and is based in Abuja, Nigeria.

IRIN is a unique humanitarian news and analysis service. Part of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, IRIN provides original content about emergencies to an audience of millions worldwide through the internet, TV and radio. IRIN seeks dynamic, experienced media and/or humanitarian professionals for a key management position: Senior Editor, East, Central and the Horn of Africa.

Prepared for the African Union, this report evaluates national and regional early warning systems (EWS) across Africa. It reveals that these systems have generally been effective in alerting countries and donors to impending food crises in the context of seasonal droughts. However, exceptions suggest that inadequate early warning analysis, together with poor communication and coordination, have often contributed to acute food security emergencies that could have been prevented.

Komku Trust, a development organisation located in D’kar and operating in western Botswana, is looking for a Livelihoods Support Officer. Komku is committed to the development of the San and other minority, rural groups. Komku’s development work is executed by a team of dedicated field workers who endeavour to bring about a positive change of lifestyle among the marginalised communities through activities of mobilisation, organisation, training and technical support for self-sustainable activities leading to long term improvement of the livelihood of the people.

Somali Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi reshuffled his cabinet on Wednesday, February 7, stamping his authority on a government seeking to reassert itself in the chaotic nation after driving out rival Islamists. In a reminder of Somalia's instability, unknown assailants fired mortar bombs and rockets in the capital, Mogadishu, wounding at least eight people, a police official said. A resident said two children were killed in the attack.

Unknown assailants fired mortar bombs in the Somali capital Mogadishu on Wednesday, February 7, wounding at least eight people, a police official said, and a witness said two children had been killed. "Three mortars hit a building close to the seaport, one boy was wounded. Another mortar hit a house in al Baraka neighbourhood, wounding seven," Ali Said, head of the Mogadishu police, told Reuters.

Union leaders in Guinea are threatening to call another nationwide strike starting next Monday (February 12), but emergency relief agencies say the country is ill-prepared for a round of violence similar to one last month. "Guinea is heading for another strike because nothing has been done by President [Lansana] Conte toward naming a new prime minister," Ibrahima Fofana, head of the Guinean Workers Union (USTG), told IRIN on Tuesday. "Our patience has limits."

South Africa’s Medical Research Council (MRC) is investigating whether more than 20 women who have become HIV positive during a scientific trial, had been infected as a result of use of the microbicide that was being tested to prevent infection in the first place. MRC president Professor Anthony Mbewu confirmed that on January 31 the US-based agency CONRAD had informed the MRC that its international clinical trial of a vaginal microbicide cellulose sulphate (Ushercell) would have to be terminated early due to concerns by the Independent Safety Monitoring Committee that the microbicide might actually be increasing HIV transmission rather than preventing it.

Female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM) refers to several types of deeply rooted traditional cutting operations performed on women and girls. Often part of fertility or coming-of-age rituals, FGM is sometimes justified as a way to ensure chastity and genital "purity." It is estimated that more than 130 million girls and women alive today have undergone FGM, mainly in Africa and some Middle Eastern countries, and two million girls a year are at risk of mutilation.

Egyptian human rights organisations have called upon the Supreme Council of Press (SCP) to comply with the law and not to hinder the publication of the newspaper "Al-Badiel", which has met all provisions for release as set by the law. The legal 40-day period for the announcement of any SCP objection has passed with neither a response nor the approval of a licence for the newspaper.

As Uganda recovers from civil war, levels of poverty have fallen significantly. However, the extent to which economic growth can help sustain poverty reduction is debatable. Some people have escaped poverty, while others have become poor. Different factors are behind these economic shifts and different policy responses are needed.

Early childhood care and education (ECCE) programmes remain under-funded and available only to a lucky few. However, a holistic view of child development is slowly growing as innovative policymakers in some developing countries come to recognise links between educational achievement and health and nutrition.

Environmentalists meeting in Nairobi say the trade in biofuels should be governed by environmental standards, and warn that planting crops solely for biofuels may cause catastrophic damage to the planet. Speaking at the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) Governing Council meeting held in Nairobi yesterday (5 February), Danish environment minister Connie Hedegaard said that environmental standards were vital if the international trade in biofuels was to be allowed to begin on a massive scale.

The Chief of Party (COP) will be responsible for the overall management of the USAID Cooperative Agreement for the Positive Change: Children, Communities and Care Program, valued at $20 million for five years. S/he will provide strategic and operational leadership to develop and implement a multi-sectoral, integrated HIV/AIDS program that will achieve measurable outcomes in the mitigation of the impact of HIV/AIDS on families and communities in Ethiopia, and provide care and support to Orphans and Vulnerable Children and people living with HIV/AIDS.

Leading anti-apartheid campaigner Adelaide Tambo's struggle for equality in South Africa has paid off in areas of political participation, but the economy still remains in the hands of the country's white minority, say researchers and campaigners.

Publicising a self-styled crusade against corruption, the World Bank says it is successfully stepping up its campaign against graft, probing more than 400 cases over the last two years alone and barring dozens of companies and individuals from future World Bank contracts. But critics doubt the scope of the claims.

This summit, organised by Maya Initiatives, Cameroon and Youths for Human Rights, Liberia, is aimed at creating a central system (an African network) where young African activists can share information and learn more about the activities of one another. YAAS 2007 will provide a forum for the sharing of resources (human and financial) that should strengthen and consolidate the activities of young African activists.

Journalists interested in reporting on health issues in the developing world have the chance to apply for a fellowship programme at Harvard University in Boston, Massachussetts, United States. The fellowships are organised by the Nieman Foundation and the Harvard School of Public Heath and are funded by a US$1.19 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

The Rotary Foundation is now accepting applications for the Rotary World Peace Fellowship. Successful candidates would pursue a master’s degree in international studies, sustainable development, peace, and conflict resolution at one of the six Rotary Center university partners. Applicants must be committed to peace and have proven experience in their field.

Henning Melber presents a “state of the continent” report and comments on the “new African order” as designed by the global power structures of the World Economic Forum.

Almost 50,000 people from social movements all over this world gathered in Nairobi during the second half of January at the World Social Forum (WSF). Originally initiated in the Brazilian city of Porto Allegre a few years ago, it is organised as a counter meeting to the annual World Economic Forum (WEF) during this time of the year in the Swiss town Davos. The WEF brings together those in command of politics and economy in this world and those “celebrities” who like to be close to them. They represent a world in which Africa remains at the receiving end of the global power structures and increasingly again the object of external interests. This article summarises and comments upon recent developments on the continent.

Old wine in new bottles

It is anything but new that the African continent’s human and other natural resources are the object of more or less systematic looting from the outside world. Who still believes that “globalisation” is a very recent phenomenon simply needs to look in an African perspective on the devastating impact of the slave trade to understand, “how Europe underdeveloped Africa” (so the title of a seminal book published by the late Walter Rodney during the early 1970s). Already Karl Marx had observed (though in a rather insensitive language) in his Critique of the Political Economy that the hunt for black skins signalled the dawn of capitalism.

Since the days of the Trans Atlantic human resource transfer various subsequent forms of brutal exploitation through colonialism and imperialism were ultimately by means of formal decolonisation processes at least modified. But the “winds of change” created sovereign African states, whose societies remain to a large extent characterised by the structural legacy of an externally oriented dependency. Beneficiaries of such limited socio-economic development are still mainly externally based, with the limited participation of – all too often parasitic – small local elites, who exploit their political control over national wealth for their own gains.

They collaborate with those operating from the outside offering them the most convenient (and unashamed) access to the small slice of the cake they are able to keep for themselves in such sell out deals. Seen in this light, some (if not most) of the recent critical accounts of the aggressive expansion of Chinese interests into African countries and societies and their collaboration with local autocratic elites and despots has a hypocritical taste or at least bears traces of amnesia. After all, the Chinese penetration only rears the ugly face of predatory capitalism, which for far too long has already abused the dependency of the majority on the continent. One therefore is tempted to wonder, if the concern expressed is actually not more about the Western interests than about the welfare of the African people, given that what we witness today is anything but new with regard to its forms and effects. While this critical observation does not exonerate the at times appallingly imperialist nature of the Chinese expansion into Africa, it does undermine the credibility of those critics, who find no similar words for the other forms of imperialism, which for far too long had (and continue to have) crucial responsibilities for contributing to the state of misery many of the African people are in.

Africa since the end of the bipolar world order

The collapse of the Soviet empire and the end of a more than forty year period of bloc confrontation was by no means “the end of history” (as suggested by Francis Fukuyama). It was the beginning of a new global order for hegemonic rule with far reaching consequences also for African governments. Gone were the days, where in midst of a Cold War some manoeuvring space for limited opportunistic bargaining existed, which allowed for a bit of strategic positioning. Not that this was necessarily to the best of the African people: all too often, this constellation encouraged and protected self-enrichment schemes for dictators and/or small local elites through forms of rent seeking or sinecure capitalism, as examples from A (like Angola) to Z (like Zaire) document. The bi-polar world order was in no ways a suitable breeding ground for development “from below”, but offered parasitic agents the opportunity to position themselves as satellites in return for their own gains within the East-West polarisation.

The consolidation of the US-American dominance during the 1990s and its impact on the global order resulted in several changes also for the African continent. A regionally inter-linked “appeasement” strategy (with the Russian retreat from Afghanistan and the Cuban withdrawal from Angola) secured in Southern Africa the final decolonisation of Namibia (1990) and paved the way for an end to Apartheid and democratic elections in South Africa (1994). During this period the economic paradigms represented by the international financial institutions (World Bank and IMF) resumed the only power of definition. The World Trade Organisation (WTO) emerged as the broker to regulate comprehensively binding the global exchange relations of goods. The most to say in these regulating processes with far reaching implications for not only “classical” trade relations but wider defined exchanges has the club of the G8 members, which defines the rather one-sided rules of “global governance”.

Towards a new African order: NEPAD and AU

Significant inner-African dynamics complemented at the beginning of this century the global re-arrangements. With the democratically elected and legitimised new governments in South Africa and Nigeria the two economic powerhouses on the continent South of the Sahara left behind their pariah status. Based on internal and international acceptance, they resumed leadership roles in international policy arenas. At the turn of the millennium presidents Thabo Mbeki and Olusegun Obasanjo emerged (with active support by Senegal, Algeria and Egypt) as new figureheads representing the collective interests of the South and in particular Africa vis-à-vis the industrialised Western countries. Originally tasked to negotiate debt cancellation arrangements in direct communication with them they moved on to seek new forms of interaction under the premises of the acknowledged socio-economic premises as defined by the WTO. As kind of junior partners in the global market they became the architects of what was finally termed the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD).

After some incubation period and assumingly intensive political negotiations behind closed doors this blue print was upgraded to the status of an official economic programme and institution of the African Union (AU). The AU itself was a parallel transformation of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU). In the course of its change it undertook some significant corrections to the hitherto established continental policy pillars. Most importantly it moved away from the erstwhile almost holy principle of non-intervention into internal affairs of member states.

With a lot of confidence and trust and substantive political support offered by the G8 since its 2001 summit in Genoa the NEPAD-architects could bring back home the reassuring message that the industrial West is on board and willing to support the initiative. This contributed to the acceptance both in Africa as well as by the United Nations system, which in a General Assembly resolution officially recognised NEPAD as the economic programme for Africa. While this looks like a success story, the critical policy issues were to some extent at the same time aborted or at best watered down. The good governance discourse in line with the new uni-polar world system and to some extent imposed by the Western-capitalist hegemony was after all not only cosmetic rhetoric, but in some parts indeed a meaningful deviation from past practices of unquestioned autocratic rule by African despots and oligarchies.

The AU Constitution was adopted at the same summit in Durban when NEPAD was incorporated. It introduced a collective responsibility so far absent, justifying joint intervention for specified reasons. This has in the meantime provided several results, as cases like Darfur, the DRC, the Ivory Coast, Liberia and Togo have among others shown in different ways (and varying degrees of success), all seeking to contribute to conflict reduction or enhanced legitimacy of the political systems. In contrast to this new responsibility, the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM), conceptualised by NEPAD as a cornerstone for enhancing the notion of good governance, did not meet the expectations. The disappointment over non-delivery was maybe biggest when it came to the absence of any determined policy action by the NEPAD initiators in the case of Zimbabwe (where the South African president preferred his so-called silent diplomacy to any meaningful political intervention). Nonetheless, the demand for democracy, human rights and respect for constitutional principles articulated by the NEPAD blue print as a prerequisite for sustainable socio-economic development might have been a contributing factor to the new phenomenon of an increasing number of African heads of state more or less voluntarily (and peacefully) vacating their offices (which does not mean that the rotten apples have been eliminated, as Museveni, and even – though less successfully - Obasanjo as well as some others have shown in their recent efforts to extend their stay in office beyond the originally stipulated period of time).

New multi-polar tendencies and the competition for securing African resources

Systematic new efforts to access African markets and tap into the local resources became visible with the adoption of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) by the out-going Clinton administration. Through this initiative the USA openly underlined the relevance of the African dimension for its external trade relations (Africa ranks higher than Eastern Europe in the US trade balance). The break down of the AGOA trade volume, however, also discloses that with the exception of a few smaller niches (e.g. the temporary opportunities created for a locally based – though not owned – African textile industry with preferential access to the US market) the trade volume is mainly composed by exporting US-manufactured high tech goods and machinery and importing oil, strategic minerals and other natural resources for meeting demands of US-based industries.

Soon after AGOA was enacted, the trade department of the EU headquarters in Brussels initiated negotiations for a re-arrangement of its relations with the ACP countries of Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific through so-called Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs). The declared aim was to enter a post-Cotonou agreement phase meeting the demands for WTO compatibility. The EPA negotiations have since then entered critical stages meeting the resistance of many among the ACP countries. They are afraid of losing out on trade preferences and feel that Brussels seeks to impose a one-sided trade regime in its own interests, which also denies the declared partners the right to autonomous negotiations by re-drawing the map of regional configurations in Africa to comply with EU expectations.

Both initiatives, AGOA and the EPA negotiations, seem to reflect less so the genuine desire in fairer trade than securing access to relevant markets not least in the own interest of the USA and the EU. The competition for preferential trade agreements with South Africa (successfully negotiated by the EU during the late 1990s and currently facing an impasse with regard to the USA) are illustrating at the same time the point, that the industrialised states are anything but sharing the same interest when it comes to securing their individual links with other countries.

The new offensive pursued by China, which expands aggressively into African markets and seeks access to the fossil energy resources and other minerals and metals it urgently needs to fuel its own further rapid industrialisation process, adds to the rivalry and conflicting interests. In a matter of time, India, Brazil and Russia (as well as a number of other actors such as Malaysia and Mexico) are likely to add further pressure on the scramble for limited markets and resources. This new stage of competing forces on the continent has resulted in a plethora of recent analyses dealing mainly if not exclusively with the Chinese impact and practices. Interestingly enough, the EU and US-policies and practices seem to almost fade away from the picture. The current type of Cassandra-prophecies presents at times a rather one-sided story. Such selected narrative tends to downplay if not ignore the damaging external effects, which the existing socio-economic imbalances and power structures have created and consolidated. It appears at times, that the criticism raised towards China is more so an indicator of an increasing fear for losing own interests than for being motivated by a genuine concern for the African people.

Into more dependency or towards enhanced manoeuvring space?

The global initiatives for liberalisation under the WTO regime pose the question, if the markets and producers in the so-called developing countries are able to meet the challenges of a relatively free competition with the industrialised world or instead would require continued protection. At a closer look, it becomes obvious that this is a question wrongly posed. It had been indeed the markets and producers of the industrialised OECD countries, which were one-sided beneficiaries of state protection and distorting subsidisation policies. This turned any form of proclaimed fairness in trade and market relations into an illusion and ideological humbug.

Those advocating a liberalisation of trade relations contribute to the misperception that such steps would be identical or at least similar to a de-regulation of exchange relations with goods. As a matter of fact, the trend is quite the opposite. The so-called liberal global trade structures and networks have never before been to such an extent contractually defined and put into clauses. Numerous additional rules, such as hygienic and sanitary specifications, regulate access to markets even more so at times than tariffs. They are open to abusive control resulting in undue pressure and could turn into a tool for sanctions in cases of disagreement.

The historically-structurally disadvantaged societies should however at least be enabled to gain socio-economic strength based on own initiatives. This requires a framework, which would as a matter of principle allow for a kind of protectionist policy as legitimate survival strategy to empower local producers and foster own markets. This could create preconditions, from which in subsequent exchange relations the people in both the industrial as well as the African societies could benefit (but maybe at the expenses of unhindered profit maximisation for those who earn most).

With new rivals such as China, India, Brazil, Russia and a series of further countries at the threshold to meaningful own industrial production the competition for entering favourable relations with African countries might increase. This is in itself not negative to the interests of the African people. But it requires that the tiny elites benefiting from the currently existing unequal structures put their own interest in trans-nationally linked self-enrichment schemes behind the public interest to create investment and exchange patterns, which provide in the first place benefits for the majority of the people.

Selected Further Reading

Alden Christopher/Daniel Large/Ricardo Soares de Oliveira (eds) (2007), China Returns to Africa: The Politics of Contemporary Relations. London: Hurst
Broadman, Harry G. et. al. (2007), Africa’s Silk Road. China and India’s New Economic Frontier. Washington: World Bank
Brüntrup, Michael/Henning Melber/Ian Taylor (2006), Africa, Regional Cooperation and the World Market. Uppsala: The Nordic Africa Institute (NAI Discussion Paper; 31) (accessible for download at
China in Africa. South African Journal of International Affairs, vol. 13, no. 1, 2006
Fombad, Charles Manga/Zein Kebonang (2006), AU, NEPAD and the APRM. Democratisation Efforts Explored. Uppsala: The Nordic Africa Institute (Current African Issues; 32) (accessible for download at
Manji, Firoze/Stephen Marks (eds) (2007), African Perspectives on China in Africa. Nairobi & Oxford: Fahamu
Melber, Henning (2002), The New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) – Old Wine in New Bottles? In: Forum for Development Studies, 29(1), S. 186-209
Melber, Henning (2004), The G8 and NePAD – more than an elite pact? University of Leipzig Papers on African Politics and Economics (ULPA), no. 74
Melber, Henning (ed.) (2005), Trade, Development, Cooperation. What Future for Africa? Uppsala: The Nordic Africa Institute (Current African Issues; 29) (accessible for download at
Melber, Henning (ed.) (2007), China in Africa. Uppsala: The Nordic Africa Institute (forthcoming)
Southall, Roger/Henning Melber (eds) (2006), The Legacies of Power. Leadership Transition and the Role of Former Presidents in African Politics. Cape Town: HSRC Press & Uppsala: Nordic Africa Institute
Taylor, Ian (2005), NEPAD. Towards Africa’s Development or Another False Start? Boulder & London: Lynne Rienner
Taylor, Ian (2006), China and Africa. Engagement and compromise. London & New York: Routledge
Tull, Denis M. (2006), China’s engagement in Africa: scope, significance and consequences. In: Journal of Modern African Studies, 44(3), pp. 459-479

* Dr. Henning Melber is Executive Director of the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation in Uppsala/Sweden. He has been Research Director of The Nordic Africa Institute (2000-2006) and Director of the Namibian Economic Policy Research Unit (NEPRU) in Windhoek (1992-2000).

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

The Open Society Initiative for East Africa (OSIEA) is hiring a Programme Officer to develop the organization’s work in Uganda and elsewhere in the region. The position will most likely be based in Kampala or Nairobi (home of the OSIEA head office). Send cover letter and resume by February 27, 2007 to: [email][email protected] or fax to +254-20-3877663. No telephone inquiries please. Please Note: Because of the large number of applications received, only selected candidates will be contacted further by OSIEA.

In Eastern Uganda, for generations being a farmer meant growing and eating your own food. But buying and selling food is becoming more common, and it is bringing new worries. As Joe Nam reports for Panos, one of the biggest changes has come in the form of cash: farmers who once practised subsistence agriculture – consuming most of the little they produced – are now heading for the market to sell their crops.

This research report by Panos looks at how social movements have brought energy, vitality and self-defined change to local, national and international responses to HIV and AIDS. By bringing people together and advocating effectively, social movements have amplified voices of people most affected by HIV and AIDS and created opportunities for their voices to influence governments and other decision makers.

In addition to writing short stories, John Eppel is also an award-winning poet and novelist. His list of achievements is impressive. His first novel, D.G.G. Berry's The Great North Road (1992), won the M-Net Prize in South Africa. His second novel, Hatchings (1993), was short-listed for the M-Net Prize and his third novel, The Giraffe Man (1994), has been translated into French. In a recent email interview with Ambrose Musiyiwa for OhMyNews, John Eppel spoke about his writing.

On March 14, 2007, unite with communities around the world to celebrate the 10TH ANNIVERSARY of the International Day of Action Against Dams and for Rivers, Water and Life! Ten years ago, the International Day of Action was launched at the First International Meeting of People Affected by Dams in Curitiba, Brazil.

The AIDC is seeking a coordinator for its Education and Campaigns Unit. The AIDC is a dynamic NGO pursuing alternatives to neo-liberal globalisation through activist orientated research, publications, education, campaigns and coalition building. The Education and Campaign unit formulates its education programme and supports its campaigns and in particular its Right to Work Campaign. Deadline for applications is 17 February 2007.

The African Centre for Biosafety (ACB) hails the decision taken by the Executive Council (EC)-South Africa's GM regulatory body on the 30 January 2007 to turn down an application by the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research's (CSIR) to conduct experiments with genetically modified (GM) sorghum in a level three containment facility.

Chinese President Hu Jintao signed economic and agricultural deals in South Africa on Tuesday as part of his tour of Africa, where there are concerns such agreements will only hurt the continent's poor countries. According to a report by Reuters, after the agreements were signed Hu and South African President Thabo Mbeki said they would boost economic ties between the Asian giant and Africa's biggest economy.