Pambazuka News 437: Shell–Ogoni settlement: Victory, but justice deferred?
Pambazuka News 437: Shell–Ogoni settlement: Victory, but justice deferred?
Sexual violence is a brutal reality in the war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo: Tens of thousands of women and children were raped in the region last year alone. In a guest editorial, François Grignon of the International Crisis Group urges the West to fight the epidemic before more lives are shattered.
This year’s eighth Annual Lecture welcomes an exciting panel to discuss the topic "Foreign Aid: Dead Right or Dead Wrong?":
* Dambisa Moyo is the author of Dead Aid: Why Aid is Not Working and How There is a Better Way for Africa.
* Yash Tandon published Ending Aid Dependence at the same time last year.
* George Biddle is the IRC's executive vice president.*
Global financial pressures have added new urgency to the well-established debate around issues of aid effectiveness, issues which are particularly critical in the contexts where the IRC works – contexts of extreme vulnerability, war and displacement. What is the appropriate international economic response to these populations in dire need?
South Africa has been framed as a villain for the woes of the Southern African Customs Union (Sacu ) in the wake of the fallout from the economic partnership agreements (EPAs) between the European Union (EU) and the Southern African Development Community. Reports have cast SA as the bullyboy and have attacked its position as obstructionist. The implication is that it is only the EU that has Africa’s best interests at heart. Nothing can be further from the truth.
It seems government will go ahead with its controversial plans of privatization without employing a holistic, inclusive and participatory approach. The ZCTU believes there is need for genuine social dialogue whereby all stakeholders are consulted before major decisions are made. Social dialogue has been used the world over as a means of decision-making and programme implementation at all levels.
Niger’s media regulatory body, the High Communication Council (CSC), on June 8, 2009 banned all live discussions on the prevailing political situation in the country by privately-owned electronic media outlets. The CSC Chairman, Daouda Diallo, who announced the ban, said it has become necessary as it would prevent what he termed as “risk of media excesses”.
Across the continent, African women play a significant role in improving the quality of life of their communities. From grandmothers to young girls, there are women in each country on the continent whose achievements have been stellar, whether in a small community, in their nation or across the continent. Yet many of these women and their achievements go unrecognised and unlauded. This initiative seeks to change this by highlighting the work of African women who are making a difference in the fields of agriculture, business and science and technology either at local or national level.
Baba Leigh, Imam of Kanifing and outspoken critic of the President Yahya Jammeh’s administration was on May 22, 2009 warned by President Jammeh to stop criticizing the administration or risk going to prison. Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) sources reported that President Jammeh, who was addressing a rally in Kanifing castigated Leigh and accused him of misleading his followers and using his position as a religious leader to engage in money making ventures.
The ECOWAS Community Court in Abuja, Nigeria hearing the case of Musa Saidykhan, Gambian journalist allegedly tortured in custody of the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) will on June 30, 2009 give its ruling on preliminary objection raised by the Gambian government, the defendant in the case. After boycotting the court on two occasions, the Gambian government in a 20-page document called on the Community Court to dismiss Saidykhan’s case because it has no jurisdiction to hear the matter and that the plaintiff had also not exhausted all the local remedies.
The World Youth Movement for Democracy (www.wymd.org), a youth network of the World Movement for Democracy (www.wmd.org), is pleased to announce the launch of its Global Essay Contest. Fifteen winners (3 in each region: Asia, Central/Eastern Europe & Eurasia, Middle East & North Africa, Latin America & Caribbean, and Sub-Saharan Africa) will be invited to participate in the upcoming 6th Assembly of the World Movement for Democracy in Jakarta, Indonesia, in April 2010.
The 13th Summit of the COMESA Heads of State and Government which kicked off on Sunday 8th June launched with pomp the COMESA Customs Union in Victoria Falls - Zimbabwe. Zimbabwean President Robert G Mugabe who assumed the Chairmanship of the COMESA Authority for the next one year presided over the launch Ceremony.
AFRODAD a pan-African regional organization providing research-based advocacy in issues of Debt, Development Aid and Economic Governance is seeking to recruit an Executive Director to be based in Harare, Zimbabwe. The Executive Director will be accountable to the Board of Directors for planning and implementation of all program activities; sourcing and management of human and financial resources and will among other things represent the organization at high-level meetings.
The 2009 session of the CODESRIA sub-regional methodological workshops will explore the conditions for the employment and validation of qualitative perspectives in African contexts. To this end, the workshops will be open to all the social research disciplines. These disciplines are uniformly confronted with broadly similar difficulties of understanding social reality and the challenges posed by techniques of data collection and analysis, which, on account of their “qualitative” nature, are suspected by some to be seriously lacking in scientific rigour.
The four renowned academic journals of the GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies are now available online and free-of-charge. Every Internet user can now access the full content of the GIGA Journal Family at no cost, which means that the reach of the journals is now significantly greater. Through the Open Access publications, the GIGA is ensuring increased exchange with academics from Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East.
We participants of the Civil Society Forum for the Durban Review Conference 2009 held in Geneva 17 to 19 April strongly welcome the holding of the Durban Review Conference and reaffirm our full and dedicated support for the Durban Declaration and Plan of Action (DDPA) adopted by the 2001 World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance.
On Saturday, April 18, two days before the United Nations Durban Review Conference (DRC) officially convened, anti-racist demonstrators from every continent and nearly every struggle in the world filled the streets of downtown Geneva. A sea of flags, banners and posters spoke for indigenous people from Bolivia, Mexico and Guatemala, the landless former slaves of Brazil, Tamils struggling for survival in Sri Lanka, a huge contingent of Dalits demanding an end to the caste system, Black delegates from the U.S. and other points in the Diaspora calling for reparations and freedom for political prisoners, Africans from the continent, many European migrants from the third world and their supporters and a variety of groups in solidarity with the Palestinian people. Some had handmade signs: “Zionism equals racism” and “Israel is an Apartheid State.”
The close of the entry period for the Champions of Quality Education in Africa competition is just around the corner, so make sure to enter online until June 24th 2009 at You can also nominate yourself or someone you know today. We’re looking to schools, teachers and administrators to find the best practices that are changing lives at the local, district or national levels. And with the help of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, we’re going to help them take it to the next level with networking opportunities and chances for funding.
Numerous initiatives, most prominently the One Laptop Per Child program, seek to introduce computers to students around the globe. Yet, are computers the right technology for ICT in education? Perhaps mobile phones, of which the ITU estimates there are 4.1 billion subscriptions, would provide a better technology for students? For teachers and policy-makers seeking to increase educational outcomes with inexpensive digital devices, do computers or mobile phones offer a better ICT investment? Come join the conversation! Its already started and will unfold all June with new posts each week by Michael Trucano and Robert Kozma.
A magistrate’s court in Dakar, capital of Senegal, on June 3, 2009 suspended the circulation of June 2009 edition of L’Essentiel, a monthly current affairs magazine and ordered its seizure over headlines on the cover-page that the court claimed were an “insult” to President Abdoulaye Wade. According to the presiding magistrate the headlines: “Freemasonry: The Grand Lodge of France Conquers Senegal”, “Nine years after change, the state explodes, The Mourides are in control and Touba in suffering”, were not only insulting to President Wade but also “likely to disturb public order”.
Somali Coalition for Freedom of Expression (SOCFEX) has condemned the killing of the director of radio Shabelle Muqtar Mohamed Hirabe who was murdered in Bakare market, Mogadishu by two unknown gunmen. And the journalist Ahmed Omar Hashi who was with Hirabe has been injured and took him to the hospital.
The Arab Program for Human Rights Activists follows up with deep concern and complete resentment the security procedures' aftermath that accompanied the visit of U.S. President Barak Obama to Cairo on Thursday 04/06/2009. In this regard, the Program purses the serious breaches of citizens' rights that had been conducted between 4th and 6th of June. In addition to the desistance state that took place in Cairo.
The Democratic Republic of Congo will put part of its $9-billion investment agreement with China on hold to take into account concerns voiced by the International Monetary Fund, said Moise Ekanga, who oversees the accord for Congo. The central African country has put a $3-billion chunk of infrastructure investments by their Chinese partners ”on the back-burner” to satisfy objections by the IMF that the agreement will add to Congo’s $11-billion external debt, said Ekanga, the executive-secretary of the Coordination and Monitoring Office for the Sino-Congolese Program.
Africa must seek to solve its own problems as the global economic crisis limits the ability of more developed countries to follow through on aid pledges, African ministers told a conference in Cairo. But officials and delegates said international bodies must make good on recent pledges to help Africa, which has been roiled by last year's sharp food price rises and fluctuating commodity markets.
The Big Read is a campaign produced by the Global Campaign for Education and South Africa’s Public Participation in Education Network (PPEN). The movement aims to encourage public participation in education in creative ways, including The Big Read book, which is an exciting book specifically designed to campaign for education and literacy. The Big Read book is a special collection of short stories and poems that contains an amazing array of stories from inspiring people and since April this year has been read by more than 13 million people
around the world.
The City of Geneva and the organization 3D recently organized a public debate between Olivier De Schutter, the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food, and Pascal Lamy, Director-General of the WTO. The debate, which was opened by the Mayor Manuel Tornare, was held on May 11th and focused on “Trade liberalization: support or impediment to the right to food?"
One of the most important vehicles by which CODESRIA has sought to mobilise national-level research capacities and to channel these into organised reflections has been the National Working Groups (NWGs) which it has encouraged African researchers to organise autonomously on priority themes of their choice. NWGs have been supported by the Council in over forty African countries and have resulted in some of the most interesting studies on politics, economy and society in contemporary Africa.
Sanusha Naidu compiles a list of the top stories on Sino-African relations.
East African states are seeking modest economic stimulus packages, aimed at steering their countries through the global economic turbulence, and outlining plans to increase agricultural production and increase regional trade. In the fiscal plans unveiled Thursday in Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and Tanzania, the respective finance ministers unveiled plans aimed at steering their economies through the financial crisis and avoiding adverse tax measures likely to create social backlashes.
Burkina Faso's Prime Minister, Tertius Zongo, has urged striking national union of teachers and researchers (SYNADEC) to end their two two-month old strike saying government is prepared to dialogue with them. “Government remains sensitive to the material and moral interests of workers and will never stop dialoguing with them through their trade unions,” he told a news conference in the capital, Ouagadougou.
Swine flu, otherwise known as the H1N1 virus, reached pandemic status, the Geneva-based World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Thursday. The Pan African News Agency (PANA) learnt that more than 27,000 confirmed cases had been confirmed in several continents since the first case in Mexico in April.
Zimbabwe Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai is urging the United States to support his government despite abuses by his coalition partner, President Robert Mugabe. Tsvangirai plans to make his case Friday in a meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama as part of a three week tour of Western countries. He also will meet Thursday with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.
The parties in Wiwa v. Shell have agreed to settle human rights claims charging the Royal Dutch/Shell company, its Nigerian subsidiary, Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC or Shell Nigeria), and the former head of its Nigerian operation, Brian Anderson, with complicity in the torture, killing, and other abuses of Ogoni leader Ken Saro-Wiwa and other non-violent Nigerian activists in the mid-1990s in the Ogoni region of the Niger Delta.
Sudan has authorised four aid agencies expelled from the country in March to return to troubled Darfur, says the UN's humanitarian chief John Holmes. The four groups - named as Care International, Save the Children, Mercy Corps, and Padco - were among 13 organisations expelled in March.
Growing numbers of children in Zimbabwe are turning to prostitution to survive, the charity Save the Children says. The aid agency says increasing poverty is leading girls as young as 12 to sell their bodies for as little as a packet of biscuits. It also claims that the coming football World Cup in neighbouring South Africa could soon make things worse.
Tax cuts and incentives have been announced in Kenya intended to boost broadband and mobile take-up as a new fibre optic cable is launched. Kenya's Finance Minister Uhuru Kenyatta cut the 16% VAT on new phone handsets. He also allowed internet providers to offset the cost of purchasing new fibre optic bandwidth for 20 years.
The speaker of the senate in Gabon has been sworn in as the country's interim head of state, following the recent death of President Omar Bongo. Under the constitution, Rose Francine Rogombe, an ally of Mr Bongo, must organise elections within 45 days. On Thursday, Mr Bongo's body will be repatriated from Spain where he had been undergoing medical treatment.
President Umaru Yar'Adua of Nigeria, halfway through his presidential mandate, has undermined the country's foremost anti-corruption body, done little to rein in an abusive police force, and failed to address the root causes of the escalating crisis in the Niger Delta, Human Rights Watch has said. Human Rights Watch said in a letter to Yar'Adua that there have been serious setbacks during the first two years in addressing Nigeria's chronic human rights problems and endemic corruption.
Former United Nations secretary general Kofi Annan believes that Africa has not been affected as "profoundly" by the global economic crisis compared to other regions in the world - despite the number of Africans living in poverty having increased by 16 million in the last year and annual growth dropping from six to one percent. The 2009 annual report of the African Progress Panel (APP), headed by Annan, was launched yesterday on the first day of the 19th World Economic Forum (WEF) on Africa meeting currently underway in the South African coastal city of Cape Town.
"Kenya has a long history of serious human rights violations but it now has an opportunity to turn the page," said Irene Khan, Secretary General of Amnesty International, concluding the mission to Kenya. "Successive Kenyan governments have been good at establishing Commissions and Taskforces and poor at implementing their recommendations. This government must not repeat that pattern."
Amnesty International has released its report into the dire conditions and gross human rights abuses endured in Nairobi's informal settlements. The Unseen Majority: Nairobi's Two Million Slum Dwellers describes how half of Nairobi's population live in informal settlements, but are crammed into only 5 per cent of the city’s residential area and just 1 per cent of all land in the city.
The head of the joint United Nations–African Union mission in Darfur (UNAMID) has reiterated that there is no military solution to the problems facing the strife-torn Sudanese region, as he met with the leader of a major rebel group. The meeting in North Darfur between Joint Special Representative Rodolphe Adada and the Chairman of the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), Khalil Ibrahim, was the second of its kind this year and part of a “continued effort to establish a good working relationship with all parties involved in the Darfur conflict,” the mission said in a news release.
Despite some impressive gains in rebuilding Sierra Leone seven years after the end of its brutal civil war, the situation in the West African nation remains fragile, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has said. “The outbreak of political violence in March of this year was a wake-up call on challenges that require urgent and continued attention,” Mr. Ban told the United Nations Peacebuilding Commission’s high-level meeting on Sierra Leone.
Madagascar's armed forces are on maximum alert, days after African economic bloc COMESA declared military intervention to end the island's political crisis remained an option, the government said on Friday. Armed Forces Minister Noel Rakotonandrasana told Reuters that COMESA's stance, which has drawn criticism from both France and the United Nations, had to be taken seriously.
United Nations peacekeepers are refusing to patrol a zone in eastern Congo, leaving tens of thousands of civilians vulnerable to massacres, rapes and looting by gunmen, officials and witnesses said. The civilians, under attack from Rwandan Hutu rebels, are trapped in a corner of North Kivu province Indian peacekeepers officially operate in but cannot get to due to poor roads, and Pakistani soldiers nearby refuse to enter due to procedures.
African health and human rights activists have called on leaders attending the World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting on Africa to “not use the same pie and split it between more people”, but to make the pie bigger. Representing a coalition of African HIV and tuberculosis activists, Paula Akugizibwe of the AIDS and Rights Alliance for Southern Africa spelt out their list of demands which includes a challenge to the region’s leaders to guarantee the right to health, ensure that it is financed as a priority, and mobilise the additional resources needed to secure universal access to TB/HIV prevention, treatment and care.
Kenya’s ICT Board is in the throes of setting up what it has dubbed Pasha Centres as part of its preparations for the opening of the Seacom cable at the end of next month. Pasha Centres are designed to deliver voice and Internet services out into un-serviced rural areas. Unlike many other African Universal Service initiatives that are delivered by existing companies or donors, these will be set up by local entrepreneurs who will not necessarily have previous experience of ICT.
The encampment of hundreds of thousands of Burundian refugees in Tanzania is coming to an end after more than 20 years. Rather than respecting the safety and dignity of refugees through truly voluntary repatriation or the pursuit of alternative durable solutions, the Tanzanian Government is pressuring refugees to repatriate through intimidation and the denial of basic services in violationof basic international human rights and refugee law.
The UN refugee agency has condemned the victimization of Somali civilians in Mogadishu after a weekend spike in the fighting in the capital sent thousands more people fleeing the city. This latest exodus pushed the number of displaced from the capital past the 100,000-mark to 117,000 since street battles erupted on May 8.
Over 2008 large-scale acquisitions of farmland in Africa, Latin America, Central Asia and Southeast Asia have increased. This report discusses key trends and drivers in land acquisitions, the contractual arrangements underpinning them and the way these are negotiated. It also analyses the early impacts on land access for rural people in recipient countries with a focus on sub-Saharan Africa.
In the course of his May 28 speech to the Leading Group on Innovative Financing for Development, to be chaired by France over the next year, Kouchner went so far as to pledge support for experimentation with a financial transactions tax, a proposal that was quickly dismissed by French Foreign Minister Christine Lagarde. But it is still true that the momentum for new forms of funding, for health, education, and climate change, continues to build, a recognition that financing for such global public goods should not depend on the political fortunes of official aid budgets.
Learning institutions in the country have been urged by experts to set rules and regulations regarding homosexual behaviour in schools. Kenya Female Advisory Organisation coordinator Dolphin Oketch has said that boarding schools are more prone to witnessing cases of students practicing homosexuality, and thus the need for some set rules. While not expounding on the matter, Oketch however said that these educational institutions should create space for dialogue among students on their sexual lives, and not resort to only discussing the issue when a crisis has occurred.
Amnesty International’s 2009 Report on the state of the world’s human rights has revealed a staggering evidence of human rights violations purported against LGBTI communities in African states. Nigeria, Uganda and Senegal, according to the report are countries that record the most and worst abuses of human rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) people. It further states that in Nigeria, “human rights abuses against individuals suspected of same-sex sexual conduct continued throughout 2008.”
This policy brief, published by the International Institute for Economic Development (IIED) outlines how and why information and communication technology (ICT) projects do, or do not, work for development. Rapid growth of ICTs in rural Africa and emerging economies such as Brazil and China is closing the gap in ICTs between North and South. Governments pushing ICT infrastructure projects such as mobile mast networks have successfully reduced access costs for many in the developing world.
The lives of Maasai men and women in rural Kenya’s community will never be the same now that they have access to maarifa – knowledge in the Kiswahili language. Launched in April by APC member Arid Lands Information Network (ALIN), the new Community Knowledge Centre commonly referred to as Maarifa centre lies in the heart of Massai country and is the newest of four containerised community knowledge centres in the region.
The US State Department has named Dr Gebisa Ejeta of Ethiopia as the winner of the $250,000 World Food Prize for his monumental contributions in the production of sorghum, one of the world’s five principal cereal grains, which have dramatically enhanced the food supply of hundreds of millions of people in sub-Saharan Africa.
Civilians in northeast Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) villages are continuing to flee repeat reprisal attacks by the Ugandan rebel Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). The attacks have been provoked by ongoing anti-LRA operations by the DRC army in the region, according to locals. "The LRA continues to attack the villages, which they burn and loot, and kidnap civilians," Leandres Bwilu, the administrator of the worst-affected territory of Dungu, in Orientale Province, told IRIN.
The financial crisis could force more girls into work as financially squeezed families withdraw their daughters from school to seek jobs, warns the International Labour Organization in a report released on 12 June, World Day Against Child Labour. “The root cause of child labour is poverty”, report author, Patrick Quinn told IRIN. "There is a strong likelihood that girls will be sent into work as families cannot afford school fees and need their children to help support them.”
The percentage of people living with HIV in South Africa has barely changed in the last six years, but new data has revealed that between 2002 and 2008 there were many changes in HIV knowledge, risk behaviour and testing habits.
The thing (the authorities) are most angry about is my voice," says Philo Ikonya, president of PEN Kenya. Ikonya has been involved in a number of protests and political readings recently and was arrested and severely beaten in police custody this past February. Ikonya was one of four extraordinary women who met across a table at a "Silenced Women's Voices" panel on 4 June in Oslo, Norway at the recent Global Forum on Freedom of Expression (GFFE).
The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Mr. Olivier De Schutter, has proposed a minimum a set of principles and measures based on human rights in the elaboration of large-scale transnational land acquisitions and leases, more commonly referred to as "land grabbing". His call comes at a time when Governments are preparing to negotiate on responsible investment in agriculture at the forthcoming G8 Summit.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) has dismissed a bid by Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) ex-militia chief Germain Katanga for his war crimes trial to be thrown out. Judge Bruno Cotte dismissed an argument by Katanga that the case was inadmissible on the basis that legal proceedings had been brought against him before courts in his home country.
Moroccans began voting on Friday in a local election where the government of conservatives and socialists aims to limit gains by opposition Islamists and a new party formed by staunch backers of King Mohammed. It is the second local election of the reform-minded king's reign. He is widely credited with loosening restrictions on political activity and improving the north African country's human rights record.
The and his family’s stranglehold on the country, one Malawian’s sense of national pride, the ponzi schemes are among the topics Dibussi Tande covers in his latest round-up of the African blogosphere.
cc With the Obama administration set to oversee significant increases in US security assistance programmes for African countries, Daniel Volman examines the US government's plans for its military operations on the African continent over the coming financial year. Stressing that the US president is essentially continuing the policies outlined under his predecessor George W. Bush, the author considers the proposed funding increases for initiatives like the Foreign Military Financing programme and the International Military Education and Training (IMET) programme. Pointing out that the administration is yet to offer any public explanation of its policy, Volman concludes that it would be a mistake to assume that there will be no US military action if the situation in Somalia deteriorates.
cc In response to a 1 June Human Rights Watch letter calling for the transfer of Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) soldiers to the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), the umbrella organisation IBUKA expresses concern over the absence of measures to bring Western parties complicit in Rwanda's 1994 tragedy to task. While broadly applauding Human Rights Watch's commitment to justice, IBUKA and its associates AVEGA and AERG take issue with the letter's suggestions that RPF soldiers should be tried in the same manner as genocidaires. Missing from the discussion, IBUKA contends, is the role of Western governments in the genocide, an omission which needs to be swiftly rectified if rich countries are not simply to be immune from international justice.
cc With the inhabitants of the island of Rodrigues forced to purchase their water from the Rodrigues Water Company (RWC), Alain Leveque laments the commoditisation of the country's natural resource. The privately-run yet government-owned RWC has installed water meters under a user-pay system without being obliged to consult the Rodriguan population. Leveque argues that not only does the RWC's monopoly inhibit innovation and threaten price hikes, it also indicates a trend towards privatisation in direct opposition to locals' rights and representation.
cc In an interview with British television producer Colette Valentine and media consultant Ali Gunn following their visit to Sudan, Afshin Rattansi discusses Western media distortions of actual conditions in the Darfur region. Emphasising that they saw no evidence of genocide and were free to talk to whomever they chose within government camps, Valentine and Gunn state that much of the media's reporting on Darfur is 'cheap and lazy'. The interviewees also report that the International Criminal Court's (ICC) indictment of President Omar al-Bashir has actually increased the president's popularity among the electorate, and that they themselves were confronted over the international media's portrayal of Darfur.
ITCH Online welcomes contributions from artists and writers to its fourth issue.
With this year's now announced, Mildred Kiconco Barya interviews Henrietta Rose-Innes, the 2008 winner of the prize. The winner of the 2009 prize will be announced at the Bodleian Library, Oxford, on Monday 6 July.
Born 3,600 million years ago,
I am the oldest and most stable land mass on earth.
I am so large that the mightiest nation on earth
could fit into a desert of mine.
My oldest rocks bequeath such wealth,
I am well-endowed.
Too well-endowed for my own good.
My geology deposited an abundance of riches within my borders,
Beyond imagining.
Gold, diamonds copper, coltan, tin. I can’t remember them all.
I am too old.
cc An understanding of US interests is crucial for Ghana if it is to capitalise on the immense opportunity provided by the President Obama's July visit, writes Asare Otchere-Darko. Following a deepwater oil find in 2007, Ghana's pending oil-rich status has made it the subject of strategic US energy and military interests, and raising the stakes of Ghana–US relations, Otchere-Darko argues. As the US's preferred physical location for the US African Command (AFRICOM) headquarters and with the superpower concerned not to cede strategic ground to China in the region, Ghana has an unprecedented hand to play in this round of international diplomacy. The task of Ghanaians, says Otchere-Darko, is to ensure that Ghana comes away with concrete deliverables that help meet its own strategic goals, rather than simply being the honoured recipients of President Obama's first visit to Africa.
Despite promises from former World Bank President James Wolfensohn back in 1996 to take vigorous action to combat bribery, a new book by bank insider Steve Berkman suggests that nothing has changed, writes Peter Bossard. Citing case studies from Nigeria and Gambia, Bossard says Berkman's 'combines number crunching with vivid detail and moral outrage'. Berkman concludes that not one of the more than 100 projects he worked on 'did not reek of corruption', says Bossard, estimating that depending on the country, 15-40 per cent of the World Bank’s disbursements for any given project are lost to corruption. But Berkman 'does not give up all hope', arguing that the World Bank 'needs to spend less and supervise more' and proposing that 'the bank fully disclose all anti-corruption investigations, government agencies involved and funds stolen in its annual report'.
Yash Tandon is drawn into a state of melancholic nostalgia by fellow Ugandan Yasmin-Alibhai Brown's , which, despite its 'beguiling distractive title', has a 'serious political side'. In a 'beautifully carved memoir of a brave woman', Alibhai-Brown 'draws from forgotten sources a memorabilia of facts and foibles to spin out the multiple contradictions in a country that slowly, but painfully, metamorphosed from a colony to a politically independent neo-colony of Britain'. Alibhai-Brown's accounts of 'daily life caught in the maelstrom of national and global politics' are interspersed every few pages 'with a cornucopia of culinary delights'. 'It is a compelling odyssey worth reading, both for its political message and for its gastronomic delights', says Tandon.
cc President Obama’s speech to the Muslim world delivered on 4 June was ‘powerful’ and ‘smart’, but PT Zeleza finds himself most interested in its ‘equivalences and silences’. With reference to media reactions and commentary from different parts of the world, Zeleza looks at Obama’s framing of the relationship between the US and Islam, the parallels Obama draws between the civil rights movement in the United States and Palestinian resistance, and Obama’s failure to ‘fully address one of the fundamental reasons for the estrangement of the so-called Muslim world from the United States: The latter's support for authoritarian regimes’. The United States ‘would do itself a lot of good if it curtailed its propensities for destructive interventions around the world’, says Zeleza, while ‘the so-called Muslim world’ would benefit from building ‘truly democratic developmental states’.
After reading one paragraph of Zimbabwean writer Brian Chikwava's debut novel , Stanley Makuwa knows he has found the kind of book he has been looking for. Chikwava's tale of a youth militia trained to kill enemies of the state for the Mugabe government and who migrates to London (Harare North) is 'a very sad story told in a very funny way' that exposes the hardships of trying to live in a foreign land. Full of praise for 'an honest book that you feel the author wrote from his heart', Makuwa writes, 'Chikwava is an international award winner and this is clearly another triumph for him. If this comes with another major award, it shouldn’t be a surprise.'
cc Following Barack Obama’s 4 June speech in Cairo, Algerian secularist Marieme Helie Lucas doesn’t think the president’s discourse is the new voice of peace. Critical of Obama’s idea of homogenous civilisations and his equating of civilisation with religion, Lucas argues that by essentialising Islam and ignoring the large differences that exist among Muslim believers themselves, Obama feeds into the plans of Muslim fundamentalists who claim that there is one single Islam. Obama does not raise the issue of who defines culture, who defines religion or who speaks for 'the Muslims', says Lucas. Instead, he talks to religions rather than citizens, nations or countries. By assuming that everyone has to have a religion, he leaves no place for those who choose ‘not to have religion as their main marker of identity’ and overlooks the fact that in many instances ‘people are forced into religious identities’, Lucas contends.
cc US president Barack Obama might seem more human than his predecessor George W. Bush, cautions Nawal El Saadawi, but in a world ruled by a capitalist patriarchal religious system, politics is 'a game based on how to use beautiful words to cover ugly actions' and has 'nothing to do with humanity'. The real goal of Obama's Cairo speech, says El Saadawi, is 'to mobilise Muslim countries against Islamic extremists', 'to open the markets of Islamic countries to American goods' under the banner of development and partnership, and 'to guarantee Saudi and Gulf oil and other American interests' in the Middle East.
cc 'It is a practical impossibility to have in place in Kenya a good constitution with the current breed of leaders, because most of them are tainted with corruption and do not have any value for human lives'' Kenyans Eyes From The Diaspora Group has said in an open letter to the Kenyan prime minister and president. The group says that the reason reforms of the country's constitution have taken so long to implement is because those in power fear that amendments would jeopardise their political careers. The letter, which also includes extracts from a draft constitution developed by the group, pleads with the African Union to put in place peacekeeping forces well in advance of Kenyas's 2012 elections.
cc While Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni remains keen to stress his National Resistance Movement (NRM) party's increasing popularity in the country's north, Vincent Nuwagaba decries the deliberate fusing of party and state activities. With the NRM able to command all the financial resources the state's coffers will allow, Nuwagaba laments the discrimination directed at Ugandans supporting opposition parties and stresses the need for the country to become a genuine meritocracy.
From left, Olivier Fanon, Gacheke Gachihi
and an Algerian diplomat in Tanzania
(cc Gacheke Gachihi)Following his attendance at the Julius Nyerere Intellectual Festival Week from 13 to 17 2009 in Dar es Salaam, Gacheke Gachihi discusses the engaging talks given by speakers like Issa G. Shivji, Oliver Fanon and Adebayo Olukoshi and the inspiration he draws from the Pan-Africanist struggle.
cc In a lyrical letter of protest to politicians in Africa, Lord Aikins Adusei writes that people are tired of their self-proclaimed leaders. 'You have consistently ignored all our cry for help even though you know our plights very well', Adusei says, chronicling the challenges faced by people across the continent from poor housing and education to torture and war. 'Aren't you ashamed that after all these years of independence your people cannot feed themselves; cannot read and write; rely on handouts from Europe and America; and the youth are in a hurry to leave the continent for you?', Adusei asks, before closing with the words of caution:'We are watching.'
cc Following Barack Obama's historic speech in Cairo last week, Mumia Abu-Jamal of San Francisco's Prison Radio (external site) questions Obama's choice of destination. Underlining that Obama 'benefitted more by who he wasn't than who he was', Abu-Jamal acknowledges the US president's success in 'evok[ing] passion' where past presidents would simply have seemed arrogant. But with Egypt 'as far from a democracy as a mouse is from the moon' and benefitting from extensive US aid, America's trust in democracy looks highly dubious when its main allies across the region remain dictatorial regimes, Abu-Jamal contends.
The Africa Water Network says that private water company Aqua Vitens Rand Limited, which manages water services in Ghana, must go.
Barbara Lopi from the says scientists in the southern African region must communicate to policy and decision-makers the economic value of using, developing and managing groundwater resources.
The Partnership for Change has written an open letter to the IMF, stating that the latter's odious loans to Kenya are impoverishing the country through collusion with corrupt agents.
reports back on the amendment of a resolution on farmers' rights at an FAO treaty meeting on the use of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture held in Tunisia.
http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/437/56914_Shell_poster_KenSaroW... Shell having agreed an out-of-court settlement of $15.5 million with the families of the Ogoni Nine activists killed in 1995, Sokari Ekine and Firoze Manji argue that a victory should not be confused with justice. Though representative of an emerging movement in bringing a multinational to the brink of a trial, the questions over the Niger Delta region and Shell's atrocious environmental and human rights records remain, with the company admitting no liability for its actions. We must continue to support the numerous trials against Shell still carrying on, Ekine and Manji contend, and ensure that widespread discussion helps establish broader justice for the Ogoni people and all those suffering from multinational and governmental exploitation in Nigeria and beyond.
The 'Seven Portuguese Wonders' around the world, selected in a government-supported contest, include sites that played a key role in facilitating the slave trade without making mention of their history. The public are invited to sign a petition denouncing the omission of the role these sites had in the Atlantic slave trade out of respect to the memory of millions of victims of the trade.
Elliot is unconvinced by suggestion that there are any peaceful Mungiki in Kenya.
Sibonginkosi Mazibuko says that problem is , it is ourselves.
Shailja Patel is discouraged and disappointed by Pambazuka’s publication of that casts South African cartoonist Zapiro as an enemy of democracy.
Fatoumata Toure argues from the spirit of endurance that has guided the Haitian people over two centuries of struggle.
Pambazuka News 436: Climate colonialism and the new scramble for Africa
Pambazuka News 436: Climate colonialism and the new scramble for Africa
The Spring 2009 issue of the Peace and Conflict Review reflects the growing dialogue between theorists and practitioners, addressing philosophical issues of methodology and socio-political analysis as well as practical ways for protecting human rights and facilitating sustainable and equitable development.
From 15 to 18 June 2009, Niger will host the 3rd edition of the Grand Diplomatic North-South Conferences (GDNSC) initiated by ACECI (www.aceci.org). This 3rd GDNSC having as theme "Translate the MDGs into a poverty reduction law ", is co-organised by the National Assembly of Niger, the Consortium composed of civil society organisations and networks, and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) in cooperation with Niger’s technical and financial partners.
By 2011, the International Labour Organisation will adopt an international standard listing the rights of domestic workers. Domestic/household workers want the right to be treated properly as workers. An ILO Convention would be an important step forward.
An effort to fight global poverty and hunger may become a Trojan horse to force genetically engineered crops on countries and farmers that do not want them. In the Senate, Senators Bob Casey (D-Penn.) and Dick Lugar (R-Ind.) introduced the Global Food Security Act, which increases funding for agricultural research in the developing world, and a companion bill in the House of Representatives is expected to be introduced soon.
Felix Alain Flémin, secretary general of the Guadeloupe Communist Party (GCP) has called for international solidarity in support of the struggle for independence and self-determination of the people of those Caribbean islands under French colonial dominion. “We are a nation whose right to self-determination is not recognized by France. We are looking for international support for the islands to return to the UN list of colonial territories”, stated Flémin during a visit to OSPAAAL headquarters.
The objective of the PanAfrican Research Agenda on the Pedagogical Integration of information and communication technologies is to better understand how the pedagogical integration of ICTs can enhance the quality of teaching and learning in Africa. The national reports from participating countries are now available.
African synergy is focused on facilitating cultural collaboration across Africa - in every way possible. Our goal is to see a decisive break with the legacy of ‘cultural isolation’ between African countries. To this end, we build arts linkages cross Africa - between French, Portuguese and English speaking Africa – the major fault-lines of isolation – as well between the regions of East, West and Southern Africa. African Synergy works through a network of festivals, venues and arts NGOs, comprising 75 cultural operators in 15 countries. We work in partnership.