Click on the link to read an overview of fundraising and for a link to a Glossary of Fundraising and Grantmaking Terminology.

icc-info distributes news, documents, and other information related to the International Criminal Court. The list is a project of the Coalition for the International Criminal Court. For more information, visit: or email: [email][email protected]

A digital library compiled by the Kenya Indexing Project is now available on CD-ROM. This CD-ROM contains a collection of 3651 articles from seven Kenyan Newspapers that bring together press coverage of gender issues during the period 1985-2005. The newspaper articles that focused on the events and discussions of the UN conference on women (Nairobi, 1985; Beijing 1995), give the background to what has unfolded in the subsequent years.

Nine years ago, while working in Libya, Sudanese Professor Jalal Mohamed was diagnosed with a severe case of nostalgia. He was listless and had no appetite, but because he had passed all his physicals to work overseas, doctors attributed his malaise to homesickness. When he returned to his native Sudan, Mohamed was diagnosed with HIV. His wife stood by him after he was able to prove that he was infected during a surgical procedure. Today, at the age of 69, he is a spry, gaunt fellow who delights in his own erudition on his condition.

Rising demand for the services of traditional healers is drawing Tanzanian Masai practitioners across the border to fill the void left by the creaking Zambian public health system, but their discounted prices are upsetting their local counterparts.

Doctors in Zimbabwe's second city, Bulawayo, have gone on strike to protest against deteriorating health services characterised by widespread shortages of drugs, food and equipment. The stayaway, which started on Monday, is expected to spread to other parts of the country during the course of the week.

This editorial in the American Journal of Psychiatry makes the case for more attention to be given to mental health. It argues that mental health is closely linked with virtually all global public health priorities, and that mental health interventions must be tied to any programme dealing with physical health.

Former president of the republic of Ghana, Jerry Rawlings, last week attacked the administration of his successor John Kufuor, during a lecture in London. He claimed the administration was destroying gains he made as president and accused the west of propping up a corrupt regime in the west African nation.
He was speaking at a Black History Month symposium organised by London Southbank University’s students’ union.

Fighting that lasted four hours has erupted in Bandiradley, 90 km north east Gakayo where the semiautonomous regional government of Puntland administers. The fighting has taken place between the Union of Islamic Courts fighters and Abdi Qeybdid's that are stationed in somewhere less than five km from then Islamists' stronghold.

Heavy rains and massive landslides have disrupted plans to resume the repatriation of Congolese refugees from Tanzania to the province of South Kivu in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Due to security concerns, UNHCR's voluntary repatriation programmes to DRC were suspended about a week before the second round on October 29 of DRC's landmark presidential election.

A professional, accountable and disciplined police force is indispensable to building democracy especially in countries recovering from protracted war, a senior United Nations official said in Liberia. “Lessons from the recent history of Rwanda and other conflict areas, including Liberia, teach us how things can go horribly wrong when there is a breakdown in the rule of law,” Secretary-General Kofi Annan's Deputy Special Representative Luiz Carlos da Costa said.

For Siméon Konan of the non-governmental organisation Initiative for Peace (Initiative pour la paix), based in Côte d'Ivoire's financial centre of Abidjan, efforts to bring peace to the West African country leave something to be desired -- a recent United Nations Security Council resolution on Côte d'Ivoire notwithstanding. Resolution 1721, adopted unanimously last week in New York, gives President Laurent Gbagbo and Prime Minister Charles Konan Banny another year in office; this is in a bid to have authorities disarm militias and identify voters ahead of elections to be held before the end of October 2007.

Thousands of rejected asylum seekers have been abandoned by the government and are sleeping rough in parks, public toilets and churches, leading to record levels of destitution across the country, according to a study, by Amnesty International and Refugee Action. It found that a growing number of failed asylum seekers are remaining in the UK without any financial or medical support.

The Sudan Open Archive provides free digital access to contemporary and historical knowledge about Sudan. The initial version of the Archive consists primarily of technical reports and unpublished grey literature from the history of aid in Sudan, covering the period from the start of Operation Lifeline Sudan (OLS) in 1989 to the present day.

The Association of Progressive Communications (APC) has released an internet rights charter. "APC believes that the ability to share information and communicate freely using the internet is vital to the realisation of human rights as enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1976), the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1976) and the Convention of the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW, 1980)."

"Piracy creates jobs but free and open source software and open standards create opportunity and entrepreneurs." That was the word from Johannesburg-based Anriette Esterhuysen, executive director of the Association for Progressive Communications (APC). Esterhuysen was speaking at a session during the Internet Governance Forum that ends in Athens, Greece, November 2.

The Lesotho chapter of the Media Institute of Southern Africa says transformation of the state broadcasters now seems unlikely, writes Mzimkhulu Sithetho on "The institute’s former national chairperson, Thabo Thakalekoala, has been in the forefront of a Misa campaign to turn Radio Lesotho and Lesotho TV into public broadcasters. But he now says that the campaign is unlikely to succeed as there seems to be resistance from authorities."

Across large areas of Nigeria’s southeastern rainforest belt hundreds of communities are threatened by erosion because of decades of uncontrolled deforestation and other types of pressure on the land. The town of Ekwulobia, or what remains of it, is a testament to the region’s environmental problems.

The Egyptian Organization for Human Rights (EOHR) is very concerned about the aggressive campaign being waged against Dr. Souad Saleh, a professor of Islamic jurisprudence at the Azhar University, following her publicly stating her opinion on the Niquab (the Islamic full body veil), saying it is not compulsory in Islam. Her statement angered many fundamentalists, some of whom have called for the "shedding of her blood".

This study focuses on access to rural land for poorer groups. "The study examines the links between land access and poverty reduction, shifting approaches to land reform, different means to secure land rights and to achieve more equitable land distribution, the particular vulnerability of certain groups to losing their land rights, and the role of addressing land rights within conflict resolution and peace building. It concludes with broad recommendations for protecting land rights of poorer and more vulnerable groups," says the executive summary.

E-learning, the use of computer and network technologies in teaching and learning, has taken off at the University of the Western Cape (UWC) as a result of a co-ordinated effort by the E-learning unit of the Information and Communication Services (ICS) and UWC academics. "E-learning encompasses distance learning via the internet, which we do not do very much of at UWC, but also includes the use of World Wide Web, CD-ROM and other computer technologies to enhance the more traditional face-to-face education," says Juliet Stoltenkamp, E-learning manager in ICS.

The lack of preparedness of school leavers for the world of work is a long-standing and controversial issue. In countries such as Ghana and Tanzania, where the school system has expanded dramatically post-independence, many young people have faced difficulties finding jobs suited to their skills.

In a recent edition of the New Internationalist, Ike Oguine writes: "Not too long ago Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni was considered a model of leadership in and for Africa. It was a Museveni-led liberation army which finally brought to an end the chaos and violence which followed the collapse of Idi Amin’s nightmarish dictatorship. His National Resistance Army simultaneously fought a military and political campaign. Even while engaged in military struggle it tried to set up elected, local representative committees in rural areas."

There is an interesting tendency within Black America to engage in wishful thinking when it comes to our feelings about many of our leaders. Let me give you an example. When Clarence Thomas was nominated to the Supreme Court there was a split within Black America. Despite a very conservative record—and actually very little demonstration of legal vision—there were some of us who took the position that being Black, soon-to-be Justice Thomas deserved our support. I can remember the debates now.

I have been writing obituaries so frequently in the past year that I am beginning to feel there are no more adjectives left to appreciate the lives of fallen comrades. But somehow one has to find the words, both as part of grieving and also in defiance of death, to remind us that the thief of all thieves, while it may rob us of loved ones, will not be able to rob us of their memories too.

On Saturday, 26 October, 2006 they buried a very dear comrade and friend: Dr Wanjiru Kihoro. Unfortunately I could not be at the funeral but did attend two public testimonials (one an evening of political tributes and the other a funral service on Heroe’s day, both in Nairobi) as part of the farewell to Wanjiru. She was buried in the land of her ancestors in the picturesque Kikiyu District of Nyeri, Kenya. Wanjiru had been in a coma for over three years and nine months since she suffered severe injuries in a plane crash early 2003. A number of prominent politicians, including MPs in the newly triumphant NARC-Kenya government, died in the accident.

For all these years, friends and relatives, but especially her incredibly optimistic husband and comrade, Wanyiri Kihoro, and her father took turns by her side at the National Hospital in Nairobi. They all hoped against hope and prayed for her recovery. Any small sign of attentiveness no matter how dim was interpreted as a sign of her ‘coming back to us’. Friends and relatives were encouraged to visit her and talk to her normally with the hope that one voice, or a cacophony of recognizable voices, might jolt her sensory nerves back to life.

I was one of those fearful friends who dreaded going to see Wanjiru while she lay in bed. A few times, I had synchronized my contact with Wanyiri to coincide with the closing hours for hospital visits so that I could be disallowed but could wait for Wanyiri to get out so that we could sit and chat. One such night on my way from Kla we ended up sitting up till after 2.00am. Instead of me giving him words of encouragement it was Wanyiri who was cheering me up, insisting that I must go and see Wanjiru, talk to her , even syndicate our political arguments, jokes, saying that maybe it would help.

About eight weeks ago, a mutual friend and comrade, Micheline, who had worked with Wanjiru at the Africa Centre, Akina Mama Wa Africa and Abantu, who is now
Africa Director of UNFIFEM in New York, came to Nairobi. She dragged me and her husband, James Oparo, who was as squeamish as me, to go and see Wanjiru instead of meeting up with Wanyiri after the closing hours.

And I am now glad I went again. We spent quite a long time with her, Mzee and Wanyiri chatting, being nostalgic and generally doing the usual exchange of hot political gossip that political activists are known for. Of course the Wanjiru on the bed was not the Wanjiru we had known. She was much smaller but the machines monitoring her heart beat became very agitated and Wanyiri explained to us that it meant she could hear us and was trying to respond.

After looking after a terminally ill person for a long time carers tend to become both medical doctors and believers in miracles. Wanyiri’s father in law and Wanyiri were virtually part of the hospital establishment. It was an act of spousal and parental devotion that is rarely seen these days.

Any African who was in the UK from the early 1980s to the mid 1990s would have known or heard about Wanjiru. She was very active in the Kenyan and Pan African struggles of those years. She was a pioneer African feminist working both for the liberation of Africa and the emancipation of African Women. At a time when many progressive groups paper over the gender dimension of struggles by declaring the revolution the only target, she and her fellow pioneering sisters formed AMWA and were insistent that the liberation of the African Woman should not be delayed until victory came. She was also an early mobilizer and organizer for what we called disdainfully in those days, ‘bourgeois democracy’. She believed in and worked for a democratic Kenya at a time when many of us thought we could use AK47 to shoot our way to State Lodges and rain down Socialism from above! She built solidarity with all kinds of progressive groups be they African, Latin American, Asian or European, believing and putting into practice the unity of progressive humanity in the face of national oppression and imperialism.

She was a mobiliser, organizer, agitator but also very enterprising. While she was ideologically and intellectually on the Nkrumah and WEB du Bois side of Pan Africanism, she was organizationally in the Garveyite tradition of creating independent economic bases for political struggle. She would organize Whip rounds, Harambe, individual taxation, fee paying get-togethers, sales of publications, auctions, and others all to support the struggle.

Most of the famous and not so famous Kenyan politicians that I know today were influenced by Wanjiru. The Kihoro’s little flat in Union Street, Clapham North, became both a haven and transit lounge for Kenyan activists running away from the authoritarian killer government of Moi and KANU. Wanjiru would organize for them to meet other Kenyans and Africans, members of the British establishment (Conservative or Labor), human rights groups, Diaspora lobbies, and others. She was capable of remaining in solidarity with comrades who had fallen out and even those fighting against governments like Jerry’s Ghana or the NRM in Uganda, with whom she had close personal and political associates.

When her husband, Wanyiri, was arrested in Kenya and detained without trial in the infamous Nyayo detention centre (a place built in the basement of a huge shopping complex without people suspecting for a long time that human beings were being tortured under their feet as they do their shopping) Wanjiru did not become a grieving exile widow but used his incarceration and torture to focus international attention on the deplorable human rights situation in Kenya. At that time Kenya was darling of the West. Moi was regarded as ‘moderate African leader’, provided military bases for the West and throughout the Cold War was on the right side of Washington and London. In return, his masters rewarded him with aid and loans. Western tourists and INGOs trooped to Kenya.

So close was the relationship with the British that throughout the 1980s the Thatcher government and later the Major government never allowed any big peaceful demonstration in front of the Kenyan High Commission. They used to allow only 12 demonstrators at a time. We used to organize 12 hour non-stop demos and the Kenyan security would film the 12 of us for those 12 hours! So complete was the hold of Moi/KANUon Kenyans that Wanjiru and her comrades could not raise 12 Kenyans for the demonstrations. The Kenyan regulars were usually Wanjiru and her comrades in the UKENYA and UMOJA external groupings for the Kenyan pro-Democracy Movement including Mwakenya. They included Yusuf Hassan, Wangui Wa Goro, Shiraz Duraini and Adulatif Abdallah. Ngugi wa Thiongo, after his release from detention without trial, became the titular leader of these groups. People like Irungu Houghton provided the back-stopping secretariat. Of course there were numerous other Africans, especially Nigerians and Ghanaians, allied to the Africa Research and Information Bureau (ARIB) and the journal, Africa World Review (AWR) and also those in the Solidarity movement on Kenya the Committee for the Release of Political Prisoners in Kenya ably led by the Trinidadian writer and publisher, John La Rose of New Beacon Books who, also sadly passed away early this year.

As Wanjiru is laid to rest I salute her courage in staying the course of the struggle and living to see a Kenya free of Moi and KANU rule. But I regret that she did not live long enough to enjoy the benefits of democracy for which she fought and sacrificed so much - ultimately her life, and am sadder still that many of the political leaders in Kenya today have forgotten so soon the pains and groans of the masses that brought them to power, and are behaving in a way that may make KANU seem electable again.

Since she died, there have been so many eulogies and praises from all kinds of people (many well meaning and deserving) but there are many from people shedding crocodile tears - especially politicians who betrayed the struggle – as well as those she helped bring to power who forgot about her as she lay wasting on the hospital bed I am sure Wanjiru would not have been surprised about this since she did not engage in the struggle because she wanted to be acknowledged. She was not without her own contradictions and weaknesses like all of us mortals. And for anyone engaged in struggle there were bound to be mistakes and misjudgments because the only person who does not make mistakes is the person who does nothing.

Sleep well Wanjiru, You did your best and your best was more than enough in one lifetime. Adieux Mama Pambana!

• Dr Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is General-Secretary of the Pan African Movement, Kampala (Uganda) and Co-Director of Justice Africa

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

The article, ‘Madonna and David’( is a comprehensive discussion of social issues raised by an inter-continental adoption. There are value judgments made in the press and across the internet about the relative moral worth of the materialistic Western culture the boy will be raised in, versus the simpler and mythically uncorrupted lifestyle of the indigenous African. So long as these arguments remain at the level of "talking heads", there is probably no reason for concern. However, one assumes that Madonna will share the responsibility for caring for the child with nannies and tutors who might not be so discerning. I'd feel terrible sadness for a child who was taught to yearn for a romanticized paradise were he ever to dare to complain about London traffic noise or Washington politics.

Elections are due to be held in Nigeria in April 2007. Emman Ozoemena points out that as the elections get closer, “it is important to note that there is need for key actors to learn how to manage contestations for power in such a way as to ensure that the nation comes out of this season unscathed as one indivisible entity that cares for the poor and excluded in our society.”

For those who can hear very well, the drumbeat signaling the 2007 election is increasing in tempo each passing day. The signs of impending elections, usually characterised by electioneering campaigns and political activities are in the air across the country. For most citizens, the ubiquitous posters of aspirants, media appearances, and visits to communities by vote-seeking politicians are indicators for the approaching elections. Just like the hoofbeats of horses in war times, the harder the noise, the more obvious it is to see that it is yet another election year.

In the midst of all this, some die-hard pessimists and non-tough minded optimists (and if you may merchants of crises) are busy inventing webs and spins that cast doubts over the possibility of elections next year. Some months ago, new fears crept into the nation’s political circles under different euphemisms. They were crafted by professionals who know how to stalk fear in the system.

Just after the third term imbroglio failed the Interim National Government (ING), a hoax surfaced on the nation’s political scene. Like any political currency, speculations trailed this hoax while denials and counter-denials followed. What made it rather curious was that the alleged purveyors of the ING option were men not given to idle talk. Take Dr. Chukwuemeka Ezeife, for instance. He was associated with the ING idea. He is a serious minded fellow, though he later vehemently denied being involved with the ING option. I believe no progressive politician would ever fall for such an inane thought as ING. Then enter Chief Sunny Okogwu, the avid public commentator. He was also reported to have canvassed for the ING idea in media reports. Aside from the two, swarms of voices joined in the debate for desirability or otherwise of ING in Nigeria.

But then, just like a well orchestrated drama, the focus shifted to the imbroglio in the Presidency leading to PTDFgate. This further polarized the polity into three identifiable camps namely ‘President Obasanjo Supporters’, ‘Vice President Atiku Supporters’ and the ‘Obasanjo-Atiku Must Resign Campaigners’. The EFFC Report that followed PTDFgate jolted the political landscape with every politician “taking cover” for his life as Mallam Nuhu Ribadu led an anti-graft commission, releasing damming score cards on public officials whom we elected to keep public trust.

Finally, we have the current impeachment spree that now looms over some states. Chief executives and the lawmakers are slugging it out with the Judiciary waiting in the wings to either remain the unbiased arbiter or be consumed in the ambition of its members to climb to the exalted seat of acting Chief Judge without due process. There is a daily increase in the number of political actors, NGOs and campaign organizations who have reportedly made their positions on the issue public.

But, then we should ask; what is at the heart of the issue? What do the people of Nigeria want? Does the posturing of the political class and/or the power elite represent the heartbeat of the citizens? Are there verifiable indicators that Nigerians are ready for elections in 2007? Are members of the political class laying booby traps to truncate the process? The fear being expressed by many is that if care is not taken, the ghosts responsible for failure of the nation’s electoral process in the past may be back to foist on us once again the “never-ending transition programme”.

It is important for us to ask ourselves where we want to be six months into our journey to democracy. This question is becoming a stark reality given the events of the past weeks, which have stirred up the collective indignation the citizens. What expectations would the 2007 elections deliver for the electorate? The questions are endless. As we review the emerging scenarios in the country, it is important to know that there is no choice facing the country other than for us to make up our minds that it is the process of democracy in action.

A similar situation happened in the United States of America between 1963 and 1973 - “the decade of tensions” in American history, similar to the civil war year during the 19th century. Owing to the unfortunate assassination of President John F. Kennedy in May 1963, Vice President Lyndon Johnson took over as President for the remainder of Kennedy’s term. When the term ended in 1964, Johnson contested as the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate and won the election. The United States Constitution allowed him to run for two terms of four years each in his own right. So though Johnson was eligible to run again in 1968 presidential election, within the ruling party, the Democratic Party there was an intractable internal crises. Some wanted the President to seek re-election, while others thought otherwise. The camps within the party were divided amongst supporters of Johnson and his ardent opponent Senator Eugene McCarthy, who decided to put up strong resistance to the president’s dream for a second term.

As power elites within the party impressed on President Johnson to break his silence on the re-election bid, he responded in an unprecedented way by backing down on his ambition for a second term. Instead, he lined up behind another candidate for the top job, the brother of JFK, Senator Robert Kennedy. With this development, Robert and McCarthy had to slug it out at the Democratic Party’s convention in 1968. But then Robert Kennedy, was assassinated in Los Angles by a young Syrian Immigrant, Sirhan Sirhan while on a victory party after the California primaries. The Johnson camp reached out and produced another candidate, Hubert Humphrey, the vice president at the time.

The Democratic Party lost the 1968 election to Richard Nixon, the Republican Party candidate. Nixon had previously lost the presidential election to President J.F Kennedy in 1959 in a narrow victory. Most historiographers have rightly described this period as the “season of tempest” in American history.

Are there lessons to learn from the American experience in managing an open political field? For those who take time to study democratic movements one thing that stands out is that election years in which an incumbent president is not seeking re-election, are usually tension soaked.

For the purpose of this treatise, we must explain the “Open Field Phenomenon”. This is when an election year involving the incumbent president or president who has served out his or her term and who is therefore barred by the constitution from running in another election. When attempts to amend the 1999 Constitution failed on May 16, the presidency of Nigeria technically speaking became open beginning from May 27 2006. Naturally, this created a scenario where contenders for the Presidential race worked hard selling their programmes and manifestos to Nigerians. The political firmament was filled with new tensions arising from struggles for space by a legion of aspirants. This could be rightly described as politics of succession.

Nigeria is standing at a critical stage in her political development. The outcome of the 2007 elections will impact greatly on the nation’s ability to develop a democratic culture. The army of aspirants at the national and state levels aspiring to run for elections are indicative of renewed interest and faith in the system by the people, and a strong indication that democracy is on course in Nigeria. The incumbent president and 58% of current governors are not candidates for the elections. Fresh hands are taking part in the contest.

Add to this that the number of aspirant state governors have considerably increased from the number in the 1999 and 2003 elections. With the expanded space, do we assume that aspirants now have more platforms to run from, or do we assume that they would want to operate largely from the point of aligning themselves with the winning political party? There is the temptation to ask why most aspirants want to run on tickets of the ruling party. The bandwagon effect of “join the winning party” is a common phenomenon which demands our attention.

We are then posed with the challenge of how to resolve the internal crisis and leadership tussle in the parties. The ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and the opposition parties are all factionalized and crisis-ridden. How this impacts on the polity ahead of 2007 is open to conjecture. Even the newly registered political parties, which their leaders initially were operating as private estates, are not exempt from internal bickering.

There is no doubt that political parties in Nigeria operate poor internal governance mechanisms. The leadership exercise power arbitrarily, excluding members on key decisions. This is one area that requires serious work by the political class and the electorates, if we want democracy to grow in the country. Party leaderships must be accountable to their members if democracy will be deepened in Nigeria. Without mincing words, most parties were built on faulty foundations with no binding principles and ideology. This type of hollow politics concomitantly translates into what we have today, politics driven by desire for power, not issue driven politics that seek to either provide leadership or alternative and credible opposition. If anyone dared conduct a survey on the nation’s political class on the core ideology of governance, chances are that the result would be zero.

What emerges in the media is that most aspirants are yet to come to terms with what constitutes campaign issues, especially around development and the core expectations of the people. It was funny hearing some aspirants to the presidency simply muttering the trite cliché: “If elected I shall continue with Mr. President’s economic reform agenda”. I chuckled listening to a front runner presidential aspirant saying that he intends to be committed to President Obasanjo’s economic reform agenda, as if the Reform Agenda is a magic wand that would sway votes to his side.

As we get closer to the 2007 elections, it is important to note that there is a need for key actors to learn how to manage contestations for power in such a way as to ensure that the nation comes out of this season unscathed, and as one indivisible entity that cares for the poor and excluded in our society. There are several lessons to learn from the US political history of the late 1960s as we approach 2007 elections.

• Emman Ozoemena, a Public Policy Analyst is based in Abuja. He can be reached on [email][email protected]

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

This week, four Scottish oil workers returned to Britain after being seized from an Exxon Mobil compound in the Niger Delta by gunmen seeking a £21m ransom. Earlier this year, local militants stormed a Royal Dutch Shell facility, prompting the oil giant to pull out hundreds of workers and close down wells. Ike Okonta looks at the structure and origins of one of the militias based in the area. He argues that the MEND militia is not an organisation in the formal sense of the word, but an idea, underlying the slew of youth movements that began to proliferate in the Niger Delta in the late 1980s. This article is the second part of a three-part series. The first article, entitled ‘Niger Delta, Behind The Mask’ ( was published last week.

The first thing that strikes you on meeting members of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) militia is the ease with which they move about in Warri metropolis, and also in the creek villages, indicating clearly that they are amongst people who not only identify with their cause but also go out of their way to offer them protection and safe havens during attacks by Nigerian soldiers. However, their movements are constrained by the ever-prowling soldiers.

The second thing you notice is that the militants, or the ones elected by the others to respond to your questions, are articulate, well-educated, and conversant with latest political developments in Nigeria and other parts of the world. The introductory encounter took place in a hotel room in Warri. The author had sent word in advance that he would be arriving that Thursday afternoon, and would like to interview one or two leaders of MEND. His courier, a local journalist, said he would try to arrange the interview, but that he was not giving any firm promises as getting hold of MEND leaders would be dependent on the level of Nigerian military presence in Warri that week.

MEND leaders are constantly on the move, extremely cautious, and do not take telephone calls personally, aware of the fact that the soldiers hunting for them have electronic devices capable of pinpointing mobile phone signals with accuracy. The author was in luck. He arrived in Warri when the peace process, initiated by FNDIC leaders, Oronto Douglas, the lawyer and environmental activist, and other Ijaw leaders, was still plodding on, and the Obasanjo government appeared willing to restrain the soldiers for the negotiations to be concluded. A knock sounded on the door of his hotel room and he opened the door. A young man, casually dressed in blue jeans and shirt sleeves stood there smiling.

‘Are you the MEND leader?’ the author asked, surprised. The media images beamed out to the world by the local subsidiaries of the international news wires always depicts MEND fighters as muscular masked men, clutching Kalashnikovs and adopting belligerent postures, as though ready to fire at the slightest provocation.

‘But exactly what do you understand by MEND?’ he countered. ‘There is no such thing as MEND. What I do know is that there are armed youth in the creeks who say they have had enough of the oil companies’ double standards, and are determined to put to an end the exploitation of their people by Shell, Chevron and the Federal Government.’[1]

MEND is not an ‘organisation’ in the formal sense of the word. It is an idea, a general principle underlying the slew of communal, civic and youth movements that began to proliferate in the Niger Delta, and particularly in the Ijaw-speaking areas, in the wake of General Babangida’s failed adjustment policies in the late 1980s.

The country had been run by a succession of authoritarian and corrupt governments since the end of the civil war in 1970, the tragic apogee of which was the Babangida junta. The ensuing economic hardships, the government’s apparent inability to address this crisis, and its refusal to provide a civic and political framework in which oppressed citizens could air their grievances and seek remedy began to encourage a drift towards religious, ethnic, and irredentist organisations. The Ken Saro-Wiwa inspired Movement of the Survival of Ogoni People (MOSOP), which emerged in 1990, and the Ijaw National Congress, born in Port Harcourt a year later, have their genesis in this turbulent economic and political milieu.

These organisations pursued such civic goals as the end to military rule and the return of democratic civilian government, the creation of new states in ethnic minority areas, and an increase in their share of oil receipts. They utilised non-violent protest marches, advocacy in the mass media, petitions addressed to the government, and awareness-building seminars to press their case. However, as economic conditions worsened country-wide and election results were annulled by Babangida in mid 1993, a wave of anger and desperation began to spread among youth in such cities as Lagos, Kaduna, Kano, Enugu, Port Harcourt, Ibadan, Warri and Onitsha.

Militant youth organisations such as Odua Peoples Congress (OPC), Arewa Peoples Congress (APC) and Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) emerged in this period. These were communal organisations that drew their membership from the Yoruba, Hausa, and Igbo ethnic groups respectively. OPC and MASSOB wanted dissolution of the Federation, which they said should be replaced with new independent countries based in the various ethnic groups. APC, on the other hand, called for perpetuation of the status quo, but under Hausa political and military leadership. The youth militias began to arm themselves. Clashes with the Nigerian military, and also amongst themselves, became a staple of Nigerian public life from 1994 onwards. General Sani Abacha had toppled the interim government Babangida had installed before he quit in November 1993, thrown Moshood Abiola, winner of the June 1993 presidential elections into jail, and unleashed a wave of terror targeted at journalists, democracy activists, and the youth militias challenging his right to rule.

Political developments in the Ijaw territory followed a slightly different trajectory. The group had not benefited from the various state creation exercises embarked upon by the government in the 1980s and early 1990s. The INC was at the forefront of the agitation to correct what it perceived as a ‘gross injustice.’ It argued that the Ijaw were deliberately dispersed in several coastal states where they constituted an oppressed minority, and that it was only fair that they be brought together in two or three homogenous states. Even so, it was not making any headway.

Skirmishes between Ijaw youth and the oil companies operating in the western delta had begun in the late 1980s, the former complaining that they had not been offered employment in the very industry on their doorstep, and which, to make it worse, was destroying their rivers and farmlands. Ijaw elders and community leaders had mediated, and the process of this mediation gave birth to new youth-led civic groups. Prominent among these were Movement for the Survival of Ijaw Ethnic Nationality (MOSSIEND) and Movement for Reparations to Ogbia (MORETO). Ogbia is an Ijaw clan in the central delta, and from which Oronto Douglas hailed.

The creation of new local government councils in the Warri area by the government in 1997 provided the trigger for the militarization of youth groups in the area. Three prominent ethnic groups occupy Warri metropolis and its hinterland, extending into the creeks. The Itsekiri are perceived to be small but politically dominant. The other two are the Ijaw and Urhobo. There have been squabbles turning on ownership of land, and the rents to be derived there from, among all three groups since the 1920s. But these were usually peaceful affairs, fought out in the law courts.

But the lethal cocktail of economic deprivation, military dictatorship, and worsening environmental crisis in the western delta, which reached explosive heights in the 1990s, ensured that when the next round of land tussles arrived, the entire city would go up in flames. This was exactly what happened in 1997 when the military governor announced the creation of a new local government council with headquarters in an Ijaw village, and then rescinded the decision the following day and moved it to an Itsekiri village. Ijaw youth accused Itsekiri elites of having pressured the government to relocate the seat of the new council to their area. The latter countered that the entire Warri territory belonged to the Itsekiri but that even so they had had no hand in the governor’s decision. Youth from both groups quickly entered the fray.

There was a stampede to arm on both sides. Events quickly degenerated into ethnic massacres and counter-massacres.

The proliferation of small arms in the Warri area inevitably fed into oil bunkering, an illicit activity which had been practiced for decades in the high seas by powerful government officials in collaboration with oil workers.

Fringe elements in these militarised youth groups were to find ‘work’ here, helping the illegal oil barons to tap into pipelines to siphon crude oil and which was then taken to waiting ships. With the return of electoral politics in 1999, politicians in the Niger Delta also recruited from these armed elements to intimidate their political opponents and rig the vote. The oil companies also offered these youth ‘protection work’ in their facilities, arming them with lethal weapons in a cynical move to divide emergent and politically assertive youth organisations that were beginning to emerge. The Ijaw Youth Council (IYC), a new influential organisation founded by Oronto Douglas, Asume Osuoka and others in 1998, had united youth all over Ijaw land in a peaceful but powerful opposition to the exploitative activities of the oil companies and the Federal Government in the region. The famous Kaiama Declaration, a document adopted by youth from several Ijaw clans and spelling out their grievances and how they might be addressed, was the brainchild of the IYC leadership.

It is important to note that it was a small minority that drifted into oil bunkering and protection ‘services’ for the corrupt politicians and oil companies. The overwhelming majority of Ijaw youth remained solidly under the control of the civic and communal organisations they themselves had founded, even after they had come under brutal attack from government soldiers in such towns as Kaiama and Odi in 1998 and 1999 respectively. However, the IYC was to subsequently split into factions following a leadership crisis. Asari Dokubo, one its leaders, went on to establish the Niger Delta Peoples Volunteer Force (NDPVF), declaring that the peaceful methods of the IYC had not been effective and that what the new civilian government headed by President Obasanjo would heed was militant action. Even so, the bulk of the remaining IYC members continued on the path of non-violent political action.

In the morning of 15 February 2006, government helicopter gun ships attacked the Ijaw village of Okerenkoko in the western delta. Okerenkoko is a part of Gbaramatu, an Ijaw clan in the western delta. Government officials alleged that Okerenkoko and neighbouring villages were the epicentre of the illegal oil bunkering activities President Obasanjo had resolved to stamp out, and that Federal troops had been instructed to ‘deal with’ the Ijaw youth participating in the activity. The gun ships returned again on 17th and 18th February, flattening houses and huts and killing several innocent people. [2]

Enraged youth all over Ijawland vowed revenge. It was this bloody incident that triggered the birth of the MEND militia.

MEND and its methods

Although the Okerenkoko attack provided the immediate impetus for the coalescing of several militant strains in the decades-old Ijaw struggle for self-determination into MEND, the movement can be said to have taken several years, dating from Isaac Boro’s short-lived ‘revolution’ in February 1966, to finally come into its own.

The founding core of MEND’s membership is derived from the Gbaramatu clan which was in the eye of the storm in the 1997 local government crisis, and then subsequently bore the brunt of the helicopter gun ship attack of February 2006. Even so, this thesis holds true only to the extent that MEND is viewed as a formal organisation with a clearly delineated membership structure and chain of command. But as already stated, MEND is not so much an ‘organisation’ but an idea which many civic, communal, and political groups, each with its own local specificity and grievances, have bought into.

Resentment at the activities of the government and the oil companies run deep in all Ijaw clans in the eastern, central and western parts of the delta. An intricate maze of creeks links these clans all the way from Port Harcourt in the east to Warri in the west. The explosion of mobile telephony and internet services in Nigeria since 1999 has ensured that communication and coordination between armed units can be effected within minutes. These features are at the heart of the coalescing of disparate but united social concerns to birth MEND.

MEND’s strength and military successes so far lie in four key factors:

First, it has successfully tapped into the fifty-year old Ijaw quest for social and environmental justice in the Niger Delta. There is no village in the Niger Delta where MEND sympathisers do not exist. Consequently, the movement operates in extremely friendly and cooperative terrain, able to mount lightning attacks and then melt into the hamlets undetected.

Second, MEND is a loose coalition of armed militants, guided by a collegiate leadership. This leadership does not in any way constrain the ability of the various units to take their own decisions and mount military attacks independent of the others. The units plan their attacks separately, but are able to coordinate with other units in joint expeditions when necessary. Consequently they are active in all parts of the delta, adopting hit and run tactics and making it difficult for Federal troops to box them into a particular area and launch a massive attack.

Third, MEND militants fight in familiar territory, having fished and farmed in the maze of creeks, marshes, and mangrove swamps that constitutes the Niger Delta since childhood. The Nigerian army and Navy have superior hardware, but they often lose their way in the creeks when they mount attacks or give chase to the militants, rendering them impotent or worse, vulnerable to counter-attack. Several soldiers and naval ratings have lost their lives in this manner.

Fourth, MEND is an astute manipulator of the mass media, and has ensured that its case against the government and the oil companies has been clearly and eloquently made in newspapers and television networks in Nigeria and world-wide. Its case has been helped by the tragic events of 1990-1995 in the Ogoni area, during which period Shell officials worked actively with the Abacha junta to unleash mayhem and mass murder on the people, culminating in the hanging of Ken Saro-Wiwa and the Ogoni eight on 10 November 1995. Journalists and environmental activists in Nigeria, Western Europe and North America who participated in the Ogoni struggle have enthusiastically taken up MEND’s case, even as they urge the militants to put down their guns and return to the path of peaceful dialogue pioneered by the IYC in 1998.

Hostages as weapon

MEND’s weapon of choice is the kidnapping of foreign oil workers. The calculation here is simple. The Nigerian government is notorious for its cavalier attitude when the lives of its citizens are at stake. But other countries, particularly the United States, France, United Kingdom and Italy which have massive oil installations in the Niger Delta in which their citizens operate, usually cry out in loud protest when the latter are taken hostage. Foreign workers are thus the militants’ favourite targets. MEND’s most spectacular hostage taking was carried out at Shell’s Forcados oil terminal in February 2006. Militants grabbed nine expatriate workers employed by Willbros, an engineering firm in contract to Shell, and spirited them away in a speedboat. Following several weeks of complex negotiations between the militants, Ijaw leaders, the Obasanjo government, the oil companies and the American and British governments, the last three of the hostages (several had been released previously) were set free on 27 March. [3]

It is significant that since MEND began to take hostages early in the year, none have been harmed. Government officials have sought to represent this aspect of MEND’s activities as racketeering, claiming that the militants usually extort ransom from the hostages and the government before the former are released. While it is true that there are fringe elements in the Niger Delta who have embraced hostage-taking as a lucrative commercial venture, they are not to be confused with MEND militants. The objective of the latter is fundamentally political: to focus the attention of Western governments and the world media on the Niger Delta when they grab these hostages, and to exploit the blaze of publicity thus generated to announce their grievances and demands of the Nigerian government.

It is, however, in attacks on Shell facilities that MEND militants have displayed absolutely no restraint, an indication of their deep anger at the company’s callous treatment of the Ijaw and the other ethnic groups in the Niger Delta since it began to produce oil in the region in 1956. Shell officials participated in military attacks on delta communities all through the 1980s and 1990s. In my interviews with several of the militants last August, they reeled off the names of the towns and villages that had tasted Shell’s guns: Iko, Umuechem, Ogoni, Nembe, Kaima, Odi…It was a very long list.[4]

MEND’s attack on the Forcados oil-loading platform was as audacious as it was crippling. The oil company was forced to suspend production of 19 per cent of its daily production. The company’s Cawthorne Channel flow station and Odidi II flow station were also destroyed. Pipelines all over the delta were blown apart, and Shell workers threatened with slow and painful death.

ChevronTexaco, Elf and ENI did not escape MEND’s attention. Their facilities also came under attack, and their staff routinely abducted. At the height of MEND’s military assaults in April, a quarter of Nigeria’s oil production had been shut down, and Shell’s giant off shore Bonga oil field, although protected by naval ships and gun boats, was also considered a potential MEND target. Dr Edmund Daukoru, a former Shell employee and since 2003 President Obasanjo’s Minister in charge of petroleum, was so worried that he hurried to Washington D.C. to confer with Sam Bordman, the US energy secretary, on ways and means of taking the MEND ‘problem’ on hand.

In response to what they deemed to be an imminent invasion by special forces from the United States, MEND, Asari Dokubo’s NDPVF and Martyrs Brigade and Coalition for Militant Action in the Niger Delta (CMND), two new groups that subsequently emerged to complement the formers’ militant activities, announced the formation of a ‘Joint Revolutionary Council’ and pledged that they would deploy newly acquired heat-seeking rockets to attack and disable Shell’s offshore Bonga Oil Field. Given that they had successfully attacked several offshore oil facilities in the past, this announcement triggered panic in the international market. Combined with already tight supplies elsewhere, particularly in the Middle East where oil production has significantly reduced in the volatile Iraq-Iran corridor, spot prices surged towards the roof, hitting $72 per barrel.

MEND’s press statements are not only calculated to create maximum panic in the international oil markets. They are also designed to leverage the concerns of the giant US and European financial companies that have invested heavily in Gulf of Guinea’s burgeoning oil and gas industry, with the Niger Delta as its epicentre, to pile pressure on the Nigerian government. Leading the pack are Merrill Lynch, Societe Generale, Bank of America Securities, Credit Suissie First Boston, Morgan Stanley, UBS Investments, Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan, and Lehman Brothers. It is significant that these financial behemoths, who together have invested an estimated $15 billion in the Nigerian oil and gas industry (this does not include direct investments by oil companies and related industries) held meetings with Nigerian government officials in November 2005 when confidential reports by American embassy officials in Abuja indicated that the Obasanjo government was speedily losing control of the delta to emergent youth militias.

MEND’s shock tactics yielded dividends initially. Chevron and Shell officials had backed military attacks on local communities all through the 1990s, insisting that their business interests obliged them to offer logistical and financial support to Nigerian troops in their ‘legitimate’ effort to protect the delta oil fields from ‘miscreants.’ But as attacks on its facilities in the western delta accelerated in 2003-2004, resulting in the killing of company workers (three Nigerians, two Americans and their guards), shutting down 140,000 barrels of daily production, and hitting a peak in April 2006, Chevron executives in California began to rethink their martial policy, and subsequently made the unprecedented statement that the company was not in support of military solutions in efforts to restore peace in the Niger Delta.

They also quickly unfurled a ‘new’ Global Memorandum of Understanding, which they promised would tackle development problems in the impoverished communities with renewed vigour. Fred Nelson, head of Chevron’s West Africa operations, told journalists in early June that ‘brute force does not work in the long term. Our strategy is dialogue with the communities to solve their problems. If we can solve their problems the security issue will go away.’[5] MEND’S spokes persons claimed this new pacific posture as a victory.

The militia has also carefully positioned itself to derive maximum mileage from the activities of other militant groups that although not as well-organised and politically coherent, nevertheless share similar grievances and regularly mount their own military attacks on oil company facilities and government troops. These fringe groups have a bewildering array of names, and forge alliances and coalitions as quickly as they dissolve them. Prominent are South-South Liberation Movement (SSLM), Movement for the Sovereign State of the Niger Delta (MSSND), DE Gbam, Niger Delta Vigilante, and Meninbutus, among others. Some of these groups stem from student cults that came into their own with the return of electoral politics in the late 1990s. Politicians in Rivers, Delta and Bayelsa state were quick to press them into service to leverage votes at gunpoint, a trend which subsequently spiralled into oil-bunkering ‘services,’ intimidation of fellow students in universities and other higher institutions all over the Niger Delta, and local community clashes in such areas as Ogoni, Okrika, and Kalabari.

MEND spokespersons regularly deplore the activities of these cults when they veer away from the explicitly political objective of advancing the cause of self-determination and equitable sharing of oil receipts, but are also quick to spring to their defence when soldiers and riot police attack them unjustly.

On July 1, the MEND-led Joint Revolutionary Council issued an ultimatum to President Obasanjo to hand over to it the Rivers State Commissioner of Police for ‘fair trial.’ The police had attacked and killed three Ijaw youth in Abonema town in the eastern delta who they subsequently claimed were cult members involved in raiding of commercial banks in Port Harcourt. MEND rejected this claim, insisting that the slain youth were Ijaw patriots who had ‘fallen in the field of battle.’ Four days after the expiration of the ultimatum, militants struck in the remote oil facility area of Sangana, and in a display of professionalism and bravado, abducted four naval ratings.

MEND’s military exploits have not dented the offensive capabilities of Nigeria’s armed forces. But they have demoralised the troops, and also forced local journalists and other public commentators to begin to ask questions regarding the combat-readiness and overall effectiveness of the Army and Navy.

Most importantly, MEND has transformed the image of the Ijaw, and indeed the entire local communities of the Niger Delta, from the hapless and quiescent victims popularised in the press, ever on the receiving end of atrocities deployed by the government and the oil companies, to an increasingly organised and assertive political bloc, able to hit back at their molesters.

• Dr Ike Okonta is a research fellow in contemporary African politics at the University of Oxford. He is co-author of Where Vultures Feast: Shell, Human Rights and Oil, Verso, New York, 2003.

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

References

[1] Ike Okonta, Interview with Mr X (not real name), one of the leaders of MEND, Warri, 17th August 2006
[2] See FNDIC, Pathway to the Council, handbook published by the FNDIC, July 2006. See also Constitutionality of the Ijaw Struggle, handbook published by the FNDIC, Warri, December 2005 for Oboko Bello’s version of events leading to the emergence of the Warri local government crisis of 1997. It is to be noted that Itsekiri leaders also have their own version of these events, diametrically opposed to Bello’s.
[3] Associated Press, ‘Nigerian Militants Release Last Hostages,’ 27 March, 2006.
[4] Ike Okonta, interview with Mr X and two other MEND militants, August 2006.
[5] Nigeria Today, ‘Chevron Against Use of force in the Niger Delta,’ 12 May, 2006.

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