Pambazuka News 423: Zimbabwe - hoping for a miracle
Pambazuka News 423: Zimbabwe - hoping for a miracle
Plans for the JULIUS NYERERE INTELLECTUAL FESTIVAL WEEK April 13th to 17th, 2009 have now been finalised. We are expecting some 35 guests from outside, including, hopefully, Frantz Fanon’s son, Olivier, and Kwame Nkrumah’s son, Gamal. Professor Wole Soyinka will deliver the inaugural Nyerere Annual Lectures, 2009. A strong delegation from our pan-African research organisation CODESRIA is expected.
The decolonisation of Africa from the 1950s saw the irruption on the world stage of multiple, new nation-states. Between 1951 (Libyan independence) and 1994 (the end of apartheid in South Africa), 50 states emerged. Most dramatic were the months between January 1960 and November of the same year. In eleven months, 17 new states. By the end of 1962, France's African Empire was in tatters.
The South African Coalition for the International Criminal Court (SACICC) was established in 2000 as a collective of volunteers who came together to promote ratification and implementation of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court in South Africa. Since South Africa enacted implementation legislation in 2002, SACICC has remained largely inactive. However, there is a growing need for expansion of ratification and particularly implementation within SADC. SACICC has been re-activated and is looking for a Pro Bono Director to lead the way.
The Gender Festival is an open forum that brings together feminist and gender-focused groups, other civil society organizations/institutions, activists and other development actors working at various levels. These organizations reflect, share experiences, build capacity, strategize and plan collectively. This has also served as a networking forum for stakeholders in and out of the host country on the questions of gender, gender equality, feminism, sexuality and the intersections between these and power (both public and private).
We are bombarded with news and reports of increasingly terrible acts perpetuated on women. In South Africa according the Medical Research Council of Cape Town University, one in four women report being abused by an intimate partner – and every six hours a woman is killed.1 In the UK according to the British Crime Survey, a reported 80,000 women suffer rape every year.[2] Research from a number of countries confirms what seems common sense: there is a strong relationship between intimate partner violence and HIV status.
When Manuel Noriega of Panama, was captured by a contingent of U.S. soldiers in 1989, the world was literally shaken from the heat it generated. Noriega, was then sitting President of Panama, one of the Latin American countries, known more for its drug-related image than many other things. In fact, his abduction and subsequent trial in America, was on account of this. But what seemed to make the most news was not the drug angle, but the fact that a sitting leader of a sovereign country, could be uprooted from his country and taken away in that fashion. However America, has since shown it is possible.
In his latest gesture on women's issues, President Obama signed an executive order this afternoon creating a White House Council on Women and Girls. “The purpose of this council is to ensure that American women and girls are treated fairly in all matters of public policy,” Obama said in a statement. “My administration has already made important progress toward that goal. I am proud that the first bill I signed into law was the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act.
Serious gender-based crimes were committed against women and girls during Sierra Leone's decade-long armed conflict. This article examines how the Special Court for Sierra Leone has addressed - and, in some cases, has failed to address - these crimes in its first four judgments. The June 20, 2007 trial judgment in the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council case assists international criminal law's heretofore limited understanding of the crime against humanity of forced marriage, especially through the separate concurring opinion of Justice Sebutinde and the partially dissenting opinion of Justice Doherty.
Delta is now awash with British and American private military companies (PMCs) engaged in security services for their clients in the oil and gas industry, is particularly chilling. The story titled The mercenaries take over and published on February 22, says no fewer than 10 such companies, prominent among them Control Risk—which has on its payroll the former body guard of Diana, the late Princess of Wales, Erinys International and ArmorGroup, currently operate in the restive Niger Delta, some through spurious partnerships with local companies.
While EU and other global leaders have talked tough about re-regulating the financial sector in the wake of the economic crisis, they remain committed to pushing through banking deregulation in the developing world via trade deals. This strategy is undermining poverty reduction in these countries and is reproducing the same type of circumstances that led to the crisis in the first place, warns a new report published on Wednesday (11 March) by the World Development Movement, an UK-based anti-poverty NGO.
Europe's biggest banks are happy to do business with corrupt regimes in Africa and Central Asia, according to a new report by UK-based NGO, Global Witness. As late as November 2007, Barclays in Paris held a private account for Teodorin Obiang, the study says. A scion of the ruling family in Equatorial Guinea, Mr Obiang in the past 10 years spent €4.5 million on sports cars even as 20 percent of children die before their fifth birthday due to poverty in the oil-rich country.
About two weeks ago, traditional authorities in the mountain kingdom of Swaziland slapped the nation's most outspoken political columnist, Mfomfo Nkambule, with a fine--to be paid in cows--for criticism of the administration of King Mswati III, Africa's last absolute ruler.
People use a variety of market-based providers of health-related goods and services ranging from highly organised and regulated hospitals and specialist doctors to informal health workers and drug sellers operating outside the legal framework. Many encounters with health workers and suppliers of pharmaceuticals involve a cash payment.
“POOR countries are innocent,” says Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the Nigerian managing director of the World Bank. They did not contribute one jot to the global credit crunch, and their banks and firms have few links to global capital markets. For a while, it seemed as if the rich world’s mess might even pass them by. The oil-price fall of 2008 benefited oil-importing developing countries to the tune of 2% of their national incomes.
In Nigeria, Africa's most populous country and biggest oil producer, low crude prices are dragging down growth expectations, foreshadowing a dramatic slowdown in an economy that was teetering even in the good years. Nigeria has long struggled with a fractious federal system, endemic corruption and ramshackle infrastructure -- all factors that kept the commodities boom from lifting living standards significantly for most of the co
Togo is like much of West Africa — small, poor and an occasional producer of sensational soccer players—but for the bank. Lomé, Togo's capital, is home to Ecobank, a 21-year-old pan-African retail and corporate bank that, according to CEO Arnold Ekpe, employs 11,000 people in 620 branches in 26 countries, with a balance sheet of $8 billion.
Italy will help Africa through the global economic downturn and aid its recovery when the worst is over, an Italian government official said here on Wednesday. At a briefing after a two-day meeting concerning the impact of the global economic crisis on funding for African infrastructure, Foreign Undersecretary Vincenzo Scotti said Italy will propose "financial mechanisms that mitigate risk and foster greater funding from private groups" at this year's G8 summit on the island of La Maddalena off Sardinia.
Attacking the US for its alleged double standards, Sudan Friday sought India’s diplomatic support against International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo’s decision to indict President Omar Hassan al-Bashir on charges of genocide in Darfur. “Sudan strongly rejects the decision of the ICC. The targeting of Sudan’s president is political, not judicial,” Omer Elamin Abdalla, charge d’affaires at the Sudanese embassy, told reporters here.
South Africa's Standard Bank is to take a 33 percent stake in Russian investment bank Troika Dialog, forging a major partnership deal despite the mounting economic crisis in Russia, the companies said Friday. Standard Bank will acquire the stake for 200 million dollars (158 million euros) through a convertible loan while also handing over its Russia operations and all its Russian business to Troika Dialog, the Russian bank said in a statement.
China is regaining its appetite for acquisitions in Africa as asset prices on the continent tumble, according to Standard Bank, Africa’s largest lender that is partially owned by China’s biggest bank. Jacko Maree, Standard’s chief executive, said in an interview with the Financial Times that Chinese companies were readying to “turn on the taps” once more after 2007’s surge of investment into Africa fell away dramatically due to the global financial crisis.
China Minmetals Corp., buying OZ Minerals Ltd. for A$2.6 billion ($1.7 billion), is seeking metal assets in South America and southern Africa, taking advantage of seven-year low commodity prices to secure supplies. China’s largest metals trader may also “do some domestic acquisitions” this year, President Zhou Zhongshu said today in Beijing. It is still waiting for approval from the Chinese government for its planned takeover of Australia’s OZ Minerals, he also said.
There are many apologists for the Indian armed forces serving the ideal of world peace under the UN flag. They believe that serving in the conflict-torn areas of Africa builds India’s image worldwide, earns it long-lasting friends and secures India’s strategic and commercial interests. This news report about the Indian peacekeepers being unwelcome in Congo should come as a timely wakeup call to these misguides advocators.
Stanbic Bank has partnered with the Chinese businessperson in Uganda to boost trade between Uganda and China. The partnership resulted into the formation of the China Enterprises Chamber of Commerce in Uganda (CECCU), aimed at promoting trade and economic ties between the two countries. CECCU, which was launched last week, brings together over 30 Chinese firms operating in Uganda.
China's navy will renew an anti-piracy mission to the Gulf of Aden when the current commitment expires in the coming months, a naval top officer was quoted as saying by state media on Monday. China's three-ship anti-piracy flotilla took up its duties off the Somali coast in January on a four-month mission and new ships will be sent to take over in late April or in early May, the China Daily newspaper quoted the navy deputy chief of staff, Rear Adm. Zhang Deshun, as saying.
After four months of tough negotiations, Chinese and Russian officials February 17 signed a package of energy cooperation agreements, finalizing a credit-for-oil deal worth US$ 25 billion. The package includes a plan for a pipeline connecting Russian energy fields to Chinese consumers, long-term crude oil trading deals, and a loan from Chinese banks to Russian oil firms.
Nigeria and other developing countries face a financing shortfall of $270-700 billion to pay for their imports and service their debts this year, as the global economy falters and foreign investors withdraw, the World Bank has said. In a report published yesterday ahead of a March 14 meeting of Group of 20 finance ministers, the World Bank also said only one quarter of the most vulnerable countries have the resources to prevent a rise in poverty.
Former Mintek CEO and one-time Department of Trade and Industry DDG, Dr Paul Jourdan, played a role in making the South African government the custodian of mineral rights in South Africa. Until the new regime was enforced, mineral rights were the preserve of the private sector in South Africa, which was out of kilter with what pertained elsewhere in the Western world.
United States President Barack Obama is eager to promote good relations between his country and the East African Community (EAC), according to a letter he has written to EAC Secretary General Amb. Juma Mwapachu. In his letter, Obama expresses confidence of working together with the EAC in a spirit of peace and friendship in order to build a more secure world.
Iran will supply four million metric tonnes of crude annually, as part of a range of deals signed last week, officials said on Tuesday. The agreed supply from Iran, the world’s fourth-largest oil exporter, is roughly equivalent to 80,000 barrels per day (bpd) by Reuters calculations. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visited East Africa’s biggest economy last week, where he and his Kenyan counterpart, Mwai Kibaki, also signed a grant and loan agreement totalling 800 million shillings ($10 million), among others.
With an annual growth of 7%, substantial foreign investment, and rapid expansion of education, Mozambique is often billed by donors as a development success. But in a new book, Do Bicycles Equal Development in Mozambique?, Joseph Hanlon and Teresa Smart argue that poverty is increasing and that a development model based on neo-liberalism and the Millennium Development Goals has failed.
Angola has secured another billion-dollar (783 million euros) loan from China, state media said Thursday, to be spent on developing its agricultural sector. The southern African country has already received at least five billion dollars in credit from China to pay for its post-war reconstruction, but the World Bank believes up to eight billion dollars more has not been publicised.
As a leading UN economist argued that China could lead the world out of slump, all the signs last week were that Chinese investment in Africa was continuing unabated. So was concern by campaigners at the possible environmental and social impact of some Chinese deals and debate over the impact of Chinese traders and migrants. But there were also signs of continuing efforts by larger Chinese corporations to attend to their image. Meanwhile, the annual meeting of China’s parliament provided an occasion for an insight into future policy trends and thinking by China’s rulers.
The vice president of the Union of Democratic Forces (RFD), the main opposition party in Mauritania, Mohamed Mahmoud Ould Lematt, has rejected the electoral calendar proposed by military authorities, in power since the 6 August coup. In a chat with the press Wednesday afternoon in Nouakchott, Lematt said "This was unilaterally decided by the junta in power as part of the agenda aiming to give credence to the fait accompli."
Over 100 observers, 80 of them from the Arab League, the Organization of Islamic Countries (OIC) and the UN, will be in Algeria to monitor the presidential election to be held on 9 April, Algerian prime minister, Mr. Ahmed Ouyahia, said here Wednesday. Speaking on national radio, Ouyahia said that over 20 million voters had been registered to vote following the revision of the voters' register.
Former Malawi President Bakili Muluzi appeared in the High Court in Blantyre on Thursday, but his lawyers asked for more time before the 66-year-old politician could take a plea. One of Muluzi's lawyers, Kalekeni Kaphale, told the presiding judge, Justice Mac Lean Kamwambe, that the Anti-Corruption Bureau only gave them the case file containing 80 counts on 4 March.
Gambian authorities on Wednesday dragged Halifa Sallah, the detained opposition leader and publisher of pro-opposition Foroyaa Newspaper, before Brikama Magistrate’s Court on three-count charges relating to “sedition and spying,” authoritative sources in Banjul informed PANA. Sallah, a respected sociologist and leader of Gambia’s opposition coalition National Alliance for Democracy and Development (NADD), was later remanded at the “Mile Two Central Prison” on the outskirts of the capital.
More than 10,000 Angolan refugees at a camp in western Zambia have declined to return home despite the restoration of peace in their country, the state-run Zambia National Broadcasting Corporation reported Wednesday. The refugees at Mayukwayukwa in Kaoma district have lived in Zambia since 1966.
The mass expulsion of humanitarian aid organizations from Darfur is having immediate and alarming consequences, with thousands of people already being denied critical health services. The government of Sudan terminated work licenses of the International Rescue Committee and 12 other international aid groups in Darfur yesterday and today, decimating the relief effort in a region where more than two million people remain displaced and dependent on foreign assistance.
Roy Bennett, the top MDC official facing terrorism charges, was finally released from remand prison today and immediately vowed to work towards the rebuilding of Zimbabwe. His release follows a Supreme Court ruling on Wednesday. He was immediately whisked away by MDC officials led by the city’s mayor, Brian James to MDC offices where he addressed journalists.
Zimbabwe will shortly have a new daily newspaper Mr. Trevor Ncube the chairman of the Zimbabwe Independent and the Standard newspapers announced this week. The paper to be called NewsDay will be published everyday except Sunday. The company’s other titles namely the Zimbabwe Independent and the Standard will continue to be published as at present on a Friday and Sunday.
Australia ended a long-standing ban on non-humanitarian aid to Zimbabwe Wednesday, saying it wanted to help Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai relieve the suffering of his nation's people. Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said Australia would provide 10 million dollars (6.5 million US) for the Zimbabwe government to restore basic water, sanitation and health services.
Dissident troops in Madagascar say they have moved tanks into the capital amid a violent power struggle between the president and opposition leader. President Marc Ravalomanana issued a radio appeal urging civilians to help defend the presidential palace.
Madagascar's defence minister has resigned after being confronted by a group of soldiers in his office. On Sunday, a section of the army announced they would no longer obey the government and would instead follow opposition leader Andry Rajoelina. Mr Rajoelina is understood to have taken refuge at the French embassy in the capital Antananarivo.
Nigeria's cabinet has rejected reforms that would have empowered the judiciary to pick the chairman and board members of the electoral commission. President Umaru Yar'Adua's cabinet insisted he should retain those powers. Democracy activists called the decision a U-turn and said it raised fears for the fairness of the next federal elections, due to be held in 2011.
History groans with the suffering caused by authoritarian individuals and regimes that were elected to power. For this reason the only useful measure of the commitment of any political project to democracy is to see how it responds to challenges to its own position and ideas.
One thing that almost everyone across the political spectrum can agree on is that land reform in South Africa is in crisis. The pace of transfer is consistently slower than planned for, and much redistributed land is not being used productively. Government policies favour land redistribution, but land use models are not so clearly defined. In the absence of creative thinking about how land can be used, government has defaulted to a position that commercial agriculture is the only viable use for rural land.
The conviction of the Mai Mai commander Gédéon Kyungu Mutanga and 20 other Mai Mai combatants for crimes on major charges, including crimes against humanity, by a military court on March 5, 2009, was a crucial step toward creating accountability in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Human Rights Watch has said.
How should the international community engage in election processes in post-conflict countries such as Rwanda, Cambodia and Sudan? This study from Princeton University argues that the international community should move towards a broader concern with fair political environments. Policymakers should not overstate the importance of electoral assistance in the short-term, nor lose sight of its ability to contribute to the conditions for genuine democracy in the long-term. Greater political will for longer-term electoral support is required.
How can the international community help to bolster the rule of law in post-conflict states? This Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) report argues that hybrid courts can have a positive impact on the domestic justice system of post-conflict states. If used effectively, the opportunity afforded by the establishment of hybrid courts can act as a catalyst for change in legal institutions and culture.
Attempts to make sure affirmative action becomes law in a country that prided itself as having hosted the third UN Conference of women in Africa has been marred with sideshows and arguments that have seen the Bill either thrown out of Parliament or excuses given as to why Parliament cannot pass it. In some countries, however, Affirmative Action has been embraced.
A cross-party row has broken out over a controversial finding by a committee of MPs that Britain should continue to supply aid to China. Hugh Bayley, a former government minister, has dissented from the main finding of a report by the international development committee that the government should provide up to £10m a year to keep an aid presence in China after aid ceases in 2011.
African leaders called for a bigger say in the management of the International Monetary Fund and urged rich nations to maintain aid flows as the U.S. and Europe spend billions of dollars to rescue their own economies. “The current crisis poses the greatest danger to development in recent history,” Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete told African finance ministers and central bank governors at an IMF conference in Dar es Salaam today. “So far, Africa’s voice on this unnerving situation has been muted.”
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has said he is deeply concerned at the recent kidnapping of humanitarian workers in Darfur, and once again called on the Sudanese Government to reverse its decision last week to expel 13 major aid groups. Last night five staff members of the non-governmental organization (NGO) Médecins Sans Frontières/Belgium – three internationals and two Sudanese nationals – were abducted by armed men from their office in North Darfur.
Calling it “significant progress” toward the much-delayed elections in Côte d’Ivoire, the United Nations mission there today announced that the number of voters identified so far in the West African nation has surpassed 5.4 million. The Mission “urges all parties involved in the identification and registration process to redouble their efforts to maintain the momentum,” Hamadoun Touré, spokesperson for the UN Operation in Côte d'Ivoire (UNOCI), told reporters in Abidjan.
Recent long-awaited multi-party talks in the Central African Republic (CAR) have provided a window of opportunity to make strides towards consolidating peace in the land-locked nation, a top United Nations envoy told the Security Council today. François Lonsény Fall, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative, said that last December’s successful talks held in the capital, Bangui, were a result of two years of “tremendous effort” by various actors, both national – including representatives of the Government, opposition and civil society – and international.
Zimbabwe’s widespread cholera epidemic has now claimed over 4,000 lives since August, and almost 90,000 people have contracted the deadly disease, according to the latest United Nations report on the outbreak. Some 2,151 new cases of cholera were identified last week, down from 8,000 per week at the at the start of the year, noted the joint UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and World Health Organization (WHO) report.
Child protection Alliance in collaboration with United Nations Children Fund are making final arrangements towards the setting up of an Adolescent Neighborhood Watch Groups in five communities in the Greater Banjul Area, Gambia in a reinvigorated drive to tackle the immoral acts of sex tourists in the country.
The number of Rwandan Hutu rebels who have left the Democratic Republic of Congo and gone home has risen substantially since the beginning of the year, Bruno Donat head of the United Nations' disarmament, demobilization and repatriation efforts in the DRC has said. The UN official credits his organisation for convincing rebel fighters that repatriation is best for them and for the stability of Africa's Great Lakes Region.
Aid groups in eastern Chad are on alert for an eventual flooding of people into the area, after the government of Sudan sent out NGOs providing water, food and health care to millions of people in Darfur. The Sudanese government had expelled 13 aid groups from Darfur after the International Criminal Court issued a warrant of arrest for its president, Omar el-Bashir.
The South African government took over a farm this week for the first time under a controversial new policy of taking back unproductive farms allocated to blacks as part of a land redistribution programme. Agriculture and Land Affairs Minister Lulu Xingwana announced the "use it or lose it" initiative last week for farms which the black beneficiaries have left idle.
Rwanda requires $200 million by 2012 to connect 220,000 new electricity customers to the national grid, a government official said on Friday. The landlocked east African nation has 130,000 customers and available power capacity outstrips demand. Electricity supply is, however, expected to rise from 55 mw when two generation projects from methane gas in Lake Kivu are completed in three years.
Gangs of South African men are raping lesbians in the belief it will "cure" the women's sexual orientation, an aid agency said on Friday. NGO ActionAid said in a report titled "Hate Crimes: the rise of corrective rape in South Africa" lesbians were increasingly at risk of rape, particularly in South African townships where homosexuality is largely taboo.
The roll-out of antiretroviral therapy has led to a decline of about 50% in adult AIDS deaths in Ethiopia's capital, Addis Ababa, over a period of five years, according the findings of a study published in the February 20th edition of the journal AIDS. The effectiveness of antiretroviral roll-out in sub-Saharan Africa has been widely reported as encouraging despite persistent concerns about universal access and adherence. However, there are still only limited data on its effects at a population level on deaths.
Researchers have estimated that there were about one million infections and a half a million deaths from HIV-related cryptococcal meningitis worldwide in 2006. The findings published in the February 20th edition of the journal AIDS also show that sub-Saharan Africa had the highest global burden of cryptococcal meningitis among people living with HIV.
The Moroccan government has pledged to increase women's political representation at local levels. Following a reform of the Commune Charter that set a minimum quota of 12% for female representation, the government now intends to get the message out to the public. A national awareness campaign entitled "Women in communes: a driving-force for local governance" was launched on Saturday (March 7th).
In the cramped basement of a public housing apartment block in New York's Staten Island, 25 minutes by ferry from Manhattan's financial district, a small group of mostly volunteer staff are preparing to open the doors of health clinic in an area that recently saw the closure of two local hospitals. The weekly clinic caters to a cross section of the blue-collar Park Hill neighbourhood; day labourers, newly arrived immigrants and former refugees, most of the latter from Liberia.
With increasing demand for resources to tackle the global HIV/AIDS epidemic, questions arise as to where such resources are to be found and whether they can be fully absorbed and spent. One major source of financing for HIV and AIDS control is external aid. The debate continues as to whether increased external assistance causes macroeconomic instability. The paper argues that an increase in government expenditure, combined with proper micro-management through the greater coordination, efficiency and implementation of innovative projects and programmes, will lead to a more effective response and may prevent macroeconomic instability.
The South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) has resolved to represent the case against John Qwelane in the Equality Court. This is subsequent to Qwelane’s July 2008 column which infuriated many gay rights groups where he expressed his sheer hatred of homosexuals saying, among other things, that they are a degradation of values and traditions.
Reporters Without Borders has expressed its renewed concern after five newspapers stopped publishing and several journalists were threatened and physically assaulted during the political upheaval of the past few weeks. The media has become the prisoner of a hostile climate for press freedom since the start of the power struggle between the president, Marc Ravalomanana, and the ousted mayor of Antananarivo, Andry Rajoelina, the worldwide press freedom organisation said.
Editor of the daily The Point, Pap Saine, has had two trials in which he is facing charges adjourned to later in the month. In the first, before a court in Kanifing, near Banjul, on a charge of “publication and dissemination of false news”, the judge, Sainabou Wadda-Ceesay, ordered an adjournment until 23 March, because of the need to ensure the charges against the journalist conformed with a 2005 amendment to the criminal code.
Representatives from 29 different African parliaments met last week in Kigali to reaffirm that “equitable access to information is a right for all” and urge governments to enact laws that promote access to information, knowledge and communication for all citizens. Traditionally seen as civil and political rights, information rights are now becoming acknowledged as rights that are also social and economic, said APC’s Anriette Esterhuysen in her presentation which was framed by APC’s internet rights charter. The charter has just been translated into its twentieth language, Esperanto.
The Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) is to launch the Pan African Alliance on E-Commerce to intensify cooperation and initiate common projects of interest in African countries, as part of a two-day workshop on Trade Facilitation and Aid for Trade which ends in Addis Ababa today.
A repeat of the xenophobic violence that swept through South Africa - killing at least 62 people and displacing 100,000 others - will return if the government continues to ignore its origins, says a report by the International Organization for Migration (IOM).
Dead Aid, a controversial new book by economist Dambisa Moyo, argues that cutting off all non-emergency assistance to Africa within five years "would help stimulate growth". But in countries like Zambia, the author's homeland, such a prescription could prove problematic, given the global financial turndown.
Zimbabwe's finance minister gave warning on Thursday that the country's power-sharing government will fail, with potentially disastrous consequences, unless international donors urgently inject cash into its treasury. Tendai Biti welcomed Australia's move to boost humanitarian spending by $6,5-million but said donations channelled through international aid agencies would not save the transitional government that was sworn in last month.
The cancellation of a popular phone-in show on Namibia's national broadcaster has raised fears that the ruling party is clamping down on media freedom ahead of national polls this year. Last week Namibia's government broadcaster NBC shut down the morning Chat Show, saying callers deluged it with hate speech and cultural insensitivity.
After the fall of the Berlin Wall, Japan's Sumitomo Electric Industries joined a crowd of automotive suppliers setting up low-cost plants on Europe's eastern rim. It opened factories from Poland to Bulgaria and today has a dozen facilities in the region. But now, Sumitomo is shifting production south of Europe-to the ancient Moroccan port of Tangier and to Bou Salem, a market town set among wheat fields in northern Tunisia. As costs rise in Eastern Europe, the company says, it's getting harder to make a profit. North Africa, by contrast, offers far lower wages and plenty of eager workers.
We are writing to express our concern over the lack of progress in the police investigation into the brutal murder of journalist Francis Kainda Nyaruri. In January, the Committee to Protect Journalists urged the police to investigate Nyaruri’s murder, whose slashed and decapitated body was found January 29 in Kodere Forest near his hometown of Nyamira.
Independent Advocacy Project (IAP) has urged President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua to publish the report of the Justice Muhammadu Uwais Electoral Reforms Panel, set up in 2007 to propose ways for credible elections. The group has also called on the president to reconsider its decision to reverse the recommendation of the Uwais Panel on the appointment of the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
On 28 March thousands will march through London as part of a global campaign to challenge the G20, ahead of its 2 April summit on the global financial crisis. Even before the banking collapse, the world suffered poverty, inequality and the threat of climate chaos. The world has followed a financial model that has created an economy fuelled by ever-increasing debt, both financial and environmental.
Covering sex, pregnancy, HIV and AIDS, drugs and the law, health, violent crime, self defence, abuse, sexual assault, keeping safe, education admission, rules and regulations, exclusion, reports and records, examinations, safety, student finance, studying and training, applying for work and finding a job, work and training contracts, rights at work, losing your job, banking, income tax, spending, among other things. The Youth Survival Guide is a must-have reference for matriculants and young adults.
President Barack Obama has extended for another year U.S. sanctions that target Zimbabwe's president and others linked to him, saying some people are continuing to undermine the country's democratic processes. The White House issued the notice on Wednesday, the same day that Zimbabwe's former opposition leader called for an end to political oppression and police violence in his first parliamentary address as prime minister.
The Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award was established in 1984 by Kathleen Kennedy Townsend to honor these courageous and innovative individuals striving for social justice throughout the world. The recipients are chosen through an extensive annual selection process. Every year from February until March, the public is invited to nominate creative and courageous non-governmental human rights defenders. The nomination deadline is March 15, 2009. Nominations will not be accepted past this date.
A radically different website is launched this week – is conceived, designed, funded, written and implemented by a Scottish software developer based in Zimbabwe – Alex Weir. The intention of this site is to stimulate economic development in the Third World – the timing may be fortuitous, since the whole Global Economy is greatly in need of stimulation...
The chairperson of the African Union (AU) Commission, Jean Ping strongly condemned the assassination of the President of Guinea Bissau, João Bernardo Vieira hours after that of his army chief of staff, General Batista Tagme Na Wai and called on political leaders in the country to rally behind the legitimate authorities. Meanwhile, the Economic Community of West African States announced that it would send a ministerial delegation to Bissau to ‘engage all stakeholders in an effort to restore confidence among the political actors, civil society and security services and return the country to constitutional normalcy’. Elsewhere, the chairperson of the AU Commission, following a deadly suicide bomb attack that killed 11 Burundian soldiers from the African Union Mission in Somalia, reiterated the AU’s determination to support peace and stability in Somalia and promised to speed up the formation of the security sector in the country. Also in peace and security news, a new report launched by the United Nations Environment Programme analysing the links between the environment, conflict and peacebuilding through fourteen case studies argues that intrastate conflicts are likely to drag on and escalate without a greater focus on environment and natural resources in the peacebuilding process. Marking the start of the military exercise of the stand by brigade of the Southern African Development Community, the deputy staff chief of the Angolan Armed Force praised progress made since its creation up to the present in terms of the participation of member states in peace keeping operations in various parts of the world.
The African Monitor, while praising the formation of the unity government in Zimbabwe and the role played by regional leaders and former President Thabo Mbeki in facilitating the process, said that priority has to be given to addressing urgent humanitarian needs in terms of food, medical supplies and other basic necessities to restore the dignity of Zimbabweans. After the 12th ordinary summit of AU heads of State and Government called for an immediate lifting of the sanctions on Zimbabwe to ease the economic and humanitarian situation in the country and the formation of a unity government. According to some analysts, 2009 looks promising for Zimbabweans as a credible and inclusive power sharing could mobilise further international financial help.
In economic news, Mozambican President Armando Guebuza, while acknowledging that the current financial crisis could have serious impact on African economies, said that recent decline in fuel and food prices came as a relief for most of the continent and that Africa could seize the moment and press on with reforms aimed at ensuring greater competitiveness. United Nations experts told participants at an ‘Electronic/Mobile Government in Africa’ workshop that African Governments failed to take advantage of technological advances that can improve the delivery of services to their citizens and urged African countries to invest heavily in infrastructure to make the most of emerging technologies.
In other news, Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade hailed the transformation of the existing AU Commission into an Authority of the Union saying that it was a landmark decision in achieving the ideals of Pan-Africanism and the African peoples’ desire to achieve continental unity. African economists and top academicians met in Nairobi at a congress to deliberate on the possibilities for the adoption of a single African currency as a process of economic and political integration of the continent. Their recommendations will be presented to the June summit of the heads of state and government. The African Network of Professionals is organising the biggest gathering of professionals to share ideas and accomplishments, deliberate on political, economic, socio-cultural, and technological barriers that hamper the development of effective, efficient and sustainable professionalism on the continent.
In environmental news, African ministers who met in Namibia expressed their support for the work of the Alliance for Green Revolution in Africa in leading efforts to achieve a sustainable green revolution and noted that it should be complemented by investment in rural areas. Meanwhile, the AU Commission launched a new campaign aimed at reducing the risk of preventable diseases becoming major public health issues and encouraged African countries to launch national health programmes to fight the unhealthy lifestyles that are rapidly catching up with Africa’s growing middle-class.
Chinese President Hu Jintao, on his arrival in Mali on the first leg of a four-nation African tour, expressed his desire to extend China’s trade and investment links in Africa despite the economic downturn. Heads of multilateral development banks invited to a meeting by the African Development Bank to discuss responses to the global financial and economic crisis, underlined their commitment to play a counter-cyclical role to mitigate the impact of the crisis. Finally, decisions and declarations of both the executive council and the assembly of heads of state and governments are now available for download.
The peace and security council of the African Union (AU) condemned the arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court against Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir and recommended the chairperson of the AU Commission, Jean Ping, send a delegation to the UN Peace and Security Council to aimed at stopping the indictment. Elsewhere, the AU called on the authorities of Guinea Bissau to cooperate with other stakeholders in launching a full investigation into the assassination of President Joao Bernardo Vieira and General Batista Tagme Na Wai to help identify the perpetrators and bring them to justice. The AU Commission chairperson sent a delegation led by the Commissioner for peace and security, Ambassador Ramtane Lamamra, to Madagascar for consultations with the Malagasy parties in pursuit of a peaceful and negotiated solution to the current political crisis. The AU chairperson, Libyan leader Muammar Al-Gaddafi, received representatives of the AU Commission in Tripoli to discuss key issues such as the implementation of decisions and declarations adopted during the 12th AU ordinary summit, the situation of peace and security on the continent and actions being taken by the Union to address these.
As the world celebrated International Women’s Day, the AU, while enumerating instruments and mechanisms aimed at promoting and protecting women’s rights in Africa, reiterated its commitment to eliminate violence against women and girls and said that men should be more involved in the recognition of human rights and fundamental freedoms of women.
Furthermore, the chairperson of the council of ministers of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and Foreign affairs minister of South Africa Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma stated that while SADC supported the integration of Africa, regional integration had to be achieved before the formation of a single AU government could be realised. The general secretary of the SADC Parliamentary Forum, a body established in 1997 to create a platform for the region’s legislators to share knowledge and experiences in governance, explains why the Forum needs to be transformed into a fully-fledged parliament to consolidate its role in advancing democracy, development, wealth creation and poverty reduction.
In other news, with the possibility that a permanent seat in the United Nations Security Council could be allotted to Africa, countries like Nigeria, South Africa, Egypt, Libya, Senegal, Kenya, and Botswana have commenced ‘to lock horns in a diplomatic tug-of-war’ over which country is the best candidate to occupy the seat. The former president of Botswana and current chairperson of the advisory board of the newly created Coalition for Dialogue on Africa, Festus Mogae, said Africans should stop blaming others for the continent’s problems, but instead take responsibility for some of Africa’s ills. Finally, the Director of Africa Department at the International Monetary Fund has warned that the global financial meltdown could wipe out the financial successes recorded by African countries over the past decade.
The international Women Won’t Wait. End HIV and Violence against Women. NOW! campaign celebrates its two year anniversary and International Women’s Day. The campaign was launched on International Women’s Day - March 8, 2007, to demand that policy makers and donors integrate responses to violence against women in global and national AIDS programmes and allocate resources to these responses.
On the 2nd day of March 2009, we, the Delft-Symphony Pavement Dwellers, received a notice from the Sheriff of the Court to appear in the Cape High Court on the 20th of March 2009 at 10h00. After over a year living on the road, the City of Cape Town and the Provincial Government are finally applying for our eviction. The Sheriff delivered the letter and various legal documents with the support of over 20 Metro Police, SAPS and Law Enforcement vehicles and there was a total of over 100 police present with bulletproof vests, guns and various other dangerous items.
An Ethiopian film about the regime of the country's former dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam has won the chief prize at Africa's main movie awards ceremony. Teza was the unanimous winner of the Golden Stallion of Yennenga at the event in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. Director Haile Gerima's award was accepted by his sister Selome, who also co-produced the film.
Comrades Oscar and Oulu,
They may have shot you dead,
but they have not shot down what you believed in and stood for.
They may have destroyed your physical bodies,
but your spirit and what you believed and stood by is now more alive than ever.
They may have tried to remove you physically from Kenyans’ minds,
but the two of you are more alive now in Kenyans’ minds than ever,
more so in the minds of the helpless young widows
and children of victims of extrajudicial killings,
more alive to the whole world that has stood by you and is crying for justice in your case.
cc The murders of the Kenyan human rights activists Oscar Kamau King'ara and Paul Oulu reveal a wide malaise across Kenyan society with regard to basic human rights, Kang’ethe Mungai writes. Stressing that the murders send a clear warning sign to human rights defenders of the existence of a ‘death squad’ likely operating under government auspices, Mungai reflects on some of the confusion around the underground Mungiki sect and its war with the country’s police. The author argues that the public deserves both greater objective information on the sect and public declarations by its leadership in order to make informed opinions detached from government rhetoric. This, Mungai contends, will enable the government and civil society to properly engage with a group of considerable appeal among the country’s marginalised youth in a peaceful way befitting the memories of campaigners like King’ara and Oulu.
cc In the face of the global economic downturn, ArcelorMittal and its Liberian employees and subcontractors are unlikely to reap the benefits of the steel company investment in iron ore production in Liberia any time soon, writes Rebecca Murray of IPS (Inter Press Service). ArcelorMittal met with the approval of watchdog Global Witness for negotiating ‘a deal that remains profitable and safeguards the interests of the host country and its people’. In the current climate, however, Liberia is reluctant to impose conditions on investors, while contractors are willing to compromise on working conditions, fearful that unionising would put their jobs in jeopardy. The company posted losses of over US$2.6 billion globally in their last quarter.
cc Comments made by South Africa’s Department of Housing after a Durban High Court Judge dismissed an application by the Abahlali baseMjondolo (shack dwellers) Movement SA to declare the KwaZulu-Natal Elimination and Prevention of Re-emergence of Slums Act 2007 unconstitutional have met with opposition from the church, academia and civil society organisations. In an article criticising Abahlali’s legal representatives for portraying the legislation as ‘inhumane and unconstitutional’ and ‘designed to allow the government to embark on irresponsible evictions of homeless people’, the department said that its policy was informed by consultation with slum dwellers and stakeholders including Slum Dwellers International (SDI). SDI countered that it does not support the Slums Act, which would make it legal to evict people living in informal settlements should the government choose to do so. Bishop Rubin added that independent experts have confirmed that there are serious reasons to be concerned by the legislation and that it was wrong and counterproductive to treat shackdwellers and the poor as stupid and criminal. ‘No one should fear that their fragile home will be bulldozed and that they will be banished to a transit camp far outside of the city where they work and their children attend school’, he said. A number of organisations have signed a statement in support of Abahlali baseMjondolo.
cc Economic sanctions against Zimbabwe are worsening the plight of ordinary citizens in an already harsh climate and should be lifted immediately, urges an ‘Appeal for Zimbabwe’ launched in Mali in February. Signatories to the petition declared that drinkable water, food and medicine must ‘cease to be deployed as weapons of war’, and reminded the UK, the US and the EU ‘of the exorbitant social and human cost of the punitive measures’ they have used in a bid to drive regime change in Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe is grappling with 94 per cent unemployment, the highest inflation rates in the world and food shortages affecting an estimated seven million people.
cc While Kenya is formally a democracy, it lacks the political culture for this form of governance to thrive, says Makau wa Mutua. Wa Mutua argues that the successful investigation into and accounting for of British atrocities committed against members of the Mau Mau liberation movement currently being led by the Kenyan Human Rights Commission (KHRC) will trigger the process of national healing necessary to the sense of national identity and common purpose Kenya needs in order to succeed as a democratic state.
cc A government conference encouraging citizens to tell them about ‘the Kenya we want’ via censored media channels is unlikely to yield positive change, suggests feminist activist Awino Okech. Okech calls for Kenyan women to self-organise and engage with political structures using the frameworks provided by feminism or, she cautions, history will not judge them kindly for failing to take on the issues of their time.
cc The Nigerian government's alleged approval for field testing of genetically modified cassava plants by a US-based plant science centre puts Nigeria in danger of trading away its food future to colonialists under the guise of agricultural biotechnology, Friends of the Earth Nigeria/Environmental Rights Action (FoEN) have warned. They and over 30 local civil society groups have called for an immediate end to the trials, to be conducted by the National Root Crops Research Institute with the reported approval of the National Biosafety Committee – a body that currently has no legal power to grant such an approval. In addition to its concerns about the effects on biodiversity and human health of GM crops, FoEN says that Nigerian food security lies in building the capacity of its farmers, not in GM foods.
Following the assassinations of two human rights activists and a student earlier this month, Kenyan citizens and civil society organisations have called for the government to reiterate publicly its commitments to ending violence, disarming and demobilising armed groups and militias, and restoring fundamental rights and freedoms. In an open letter and an 11-point demand to the president and prime minister, signatories highlighted the government’s non-implementation of these commitments, demanding, among other actions, an independent investigation into the assassinations.
Women farmers from five continents marked International Women’s Day (8 March) with a declaration reaffirming their willingness to take action to change ‘the capitalist and patriarchal world that gives priority to the market’s interests instead of the rights of people’. In the statement, the Via Campesina Women’s International Committee said it would work towards a just and equal world which recognises the worth and rights of each human being, and where women’s rights – from the right to life with dignity and without violence to respect of sexual and human rights – are human rights. They also highlighted the importance of food sovereignty and respect for biodiversity, undermined among other things by corporate interests.
cc Human rights activist Mary Ndlovu considers the possible outcomes of a four-week-old ‘unholy alliance between Zimbabwe’s former ruling party Zanu PF (Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front) and the MDC (Movement for Democratic Change) into a ‘Government of National Unity’ (GNU). Already the GNU has survived the arrest and incarceration of senior MDC leaders, Zanu PF’s persistent failure to implement major clauses of the power-sharing agreement on which the government is based, and a car accident widely perceived as an assassination attempt on Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, which killed his wife.
Some have been critical of the MDC’s decision to enter into a power-sharing agreement with Zanu PF before a fairer compromise was reached. But, notes Ndlovu, with the countrywide collapse of public services – from schools to electricity, hospitals, water treatment and banking – many Zimbabweans on the ground believed it was necessary for the MDC to get inside the government to begin the process of reconstruction.
There is cause for pessimism. Zanu PF hardliners seem determined to sabotage the GNU rather than work with the MDC to build Zimbabwe. Some say the MDC has been able to accomplish little since its swearing-in, and that the longer they are unable make progress on disputed issues, the more they will lose credibility and attract criticism from former supporters. Others fear the MDC will be swallowed by Zanu PF’s culture of corruption and cronyism, with Mercedes Benzes rolling out for both boys and girls alike.
But there is also cause for hope. Optimists believe that the combination of the finance ministry and several important service industries are enough for the MDC to show the people that they are concerned and are prepared to commit themselves to work feverishly to begin the formidable task of reconstruction.
Moreover, adds Ndlovu, rumours abound that the military top-brass are using the detainees as pawns or bargaining chips to obtain amnesty for their crimes, afraid to rely on the forces they command. Optimists believe hardliners won’t be able to hold the country hostage forever, as subtle power shifts begin to show themselves on the ground with a large percentage of intelligence officers and lower-ranking soldiers said to be disillusioned with Zanu PF and welcoming of change.
Nevertheless, Ndlovu is critical of the MDC’s failure to make any attempt to mobilise people to demonstrate the departure of the old and arrival of the new, with the task left to others like students and civil society groups such as WOZA (Women of Zimbabwe Arise) to test the waters and push the police to take a position.
It is unclear whether Tsvangirai’s injuries and bereavement will create a dangerous hiatus, causing the promise of the GNU to dissipate. What we do know, however, Ndlovu contends, is that each small step will be difficult and concessions will only be won through determination, perseverance and belief that progress can be achieved. And that belief can create reality.