Pambazuka News 274: Political assassination as strategy against liberation movements
Pambazuka News 274: Political assassination as strategy against liberation movements
The 4th British Council Education Fair will open November, providing a forum for the Council and the British High Commission to discuss the gaps between Nigerian students getting admission into United Kingdom institutions and visa issuance for entry into the UK.
Communities living next door to the oil giant Shell are in London this week to expose the oil giant's hypocrisy in sponsoring the Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition - to be announced on Wednesday 18 October. Shell is the new sponsor of this year's prestigious wildlife prize, which is jointly organised by the Natural History Museum and BBC Wildlife Magazine, contributing 750,000 GBP or 1,117,000 Euros.
The African Minister's Council on Water (AMCOW) will converge in Kampala this week (October19-20) to deliberate on ways of making water a priority as a resource in human development. It is widely recognised by water experts that availability of adequate water both in quantity and quality is critical for achieving all the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
THE Minister for Water and Environment, Ms Maria Mutagamba, has said Uganda will soon start following her own environmental policies other than those of the World Bank and the African Development Bank. Mutagamba was on Wednesday speaking at the opening of a consultative workshop in Kampala, on promoting the use of a Ugandan system to address environmental and social safeguard issues.
Columnist Thami Mazwai writes in Business Day: "The furore around Snuki Zikalala and the so-called blacklist is the continuation of a witch-hunt on the one hand and, on the other, a further manifestation of the resentment, or suspicion, in certain quarters when African National Congress (ANC) people are appointed to key positions. Anton Harber, who led the latest charge in his column last week, drags my name into the equation and misquotes me."
THE SABC yesterday lost, with costs, a last-ditch court bid to force the Mail & Guardian to remove from its website the Sisulu commission report into blacklisting of certain analysts by the public broadcaster. In dismissing the SABC's application, Judge Zukisa Tshiqi found it was in the public interest to release the report, and rejected argument by the public broadcaster that the full report could cause harm to employees.
Rwanda's ruling party will push for a law abolishing the death penalty in the east African state, a senior party official said on Thursday. Outlawing capital punishment would clear the way for the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and western countries to extradite genocide suspects to Rwanda. Servilien Sebasoni, the spokesperson for the ruling party, the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), denied suggestions that the party had made the decision to facilitate extradition of suspects to Rwanda.
The administration of President John Kufuor has begun paying reparations to about 2,000 Ghanaians who suffered human rights abuses under former governments. Individual payments, which began on Monday (16 October), range from about US $217 to US $3,300 depending on the extent of abuse or violation, according to the attorney general's office.
Madonna's "bending of the rules" in her haste to adopt 13-month-old David Banda is sending a message to child traffickers that Malawi is open for business, a southern African child welfare organisation said. Pop star Madonna, 48, who has an estimated fortune of US$462 million, was granted an interim adoption order last week in the High Court in the capital, Lilongwe, in contradiction of the country's laws, which state that "an adoption order shall not be made to any applicant who is not resident in Malawi".
For Jane Muthoni Mara, the memories of her experiences during British rule in Kenya are still horribly vivid - even though they took place more than half a century ago. She recounts that women who supported the Mau Mau, a militant group opposed to colonial administration, were subjected to various forms of torture by African soldiers under the supervision of the mzungu (the Kiswahili word for "white man") - to force the women to disclose what they knew about Mau Mau activities.
Despite a gradual tangible economic upswing of 3,2 % in the country since independence, workers still do not reap the proper fruits of their daily labour.
The Centre for Human Rights and Rehabilitation (CHRR) has accused Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) leaders of failing to support the Zimbabwe people in their ongoing human rights and economic crisis saying the problems need external intervention which can best be offered by the region's leaders.
The African Rehabilitation Institute Southern Africa has launched a website that analysts say is set to improve communication and the dissemination of information on disabled persons in the region. The launch is in line with recommendations with the African Union's continental plan of action, which is aimed at implementing priority activities on disability during the African Decade of Persons with Disabilities (1999-2009).
The Gates Foundation has joined with the Rockefeller Foundation in promoting a new "Green Revolution" in Africa. But will the new effort learn from the mistakes of earlier "Green Revolution" initiatives? Sceptics say that the new proposals still disregard the interests of small farmers and the environment.
The government of the Federal Republic of Nigeria will host the African Peace Awards in Abuja , Nigeria, on 2 November 2006. The awards are Instituted by the Negotiation and Conflict Management Group (NCMG) and supported by many African governments and leading inter-governmental institutions, including the African Union.
Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, The Nordic Africa Institute (NAI) located in Uppsala, invites applications for the vacant position of Research Director. The Institute has, since its founding in 1962 been an important research, documentation and information centre on modern Africa in the Nordic countries.
'Kubatana Blogs' - (http://kubatanablogs.net/kubatana/?p=19) points to an article by Zimbabwean cartoonist, Tony Namate on the Zimbabwean Domestic Violence Bill. Namate wants a bill that covers all violence - not just domestic violence - that would include baby dumping, abortion, and failing to report violence. He also believes “that women engaging in indecent exposure should be arrested”.
“And then there are some forms of violence that are touted as women’s rights. Once upon a time I remember hearing that women had a right to wear what they wanted. Fair and fine, but when they deliberately and indecently violate other people’s sensibilities by “wearing what we want”, then surely they are committing the crime of indecent exposure and should be arrested “on sight”? Or perhaps indecent exposure is a male-only crime?”
Mr Namate misses the point about “indecent exposure” as applied to men exposing their genitals in public, since this is also sexual assault if it is directed at another person. If women were to expose their genitals in a similar way then, of course, this would be indecent exposure.
Malawian blog, 'Afrika-Aphuki' - Afrika-Aphuki comments on the adoption of an 18 month old Malawian child, David Banda by mega celebrity, Madonna. The child has left Malawi for London but the debate around the adoption in Malawi and elsewhere rages on. In Malawi the debate has centred around two issues – firstly the way the Malawian government and Madonna have bypassed Malawian law to allow the adoption to be fast-tracked, and secondly on whether the child would be better off growing up in Malawi with support from outsiders such as Madonna, or growing up in the home of a high powered celebrity white European celebrity. Afrika writes…
“Although their actions have been interpreted as jealousy and anachronism, the Malawian lawyers and activists who have drawn our attention to the way in which Malawian law has been compromised for the sake of a celebrity adoption have shown that not every African has been sold on the white supremacist bandwagon. Granted that there are NGOs who thrive on foreign money which they misuse and enrich themselves with, there are Malawians who are genuinely concerned about Malawi’s problems, and are working both inside Malawi itself and outside, to help ease the problems. The very Malawians who are making accusations of jealousy and archaic laws would be the first ones to blame the Malawian legal system the moment child traffickers learned of the power and influence of money and fame, and began targeting Malawian children. Hopefully this debate has alerted us to such a possibility, and we are embarking on a process to make sure it does not happen.”
Zimbabwean blog, 'Enough is Enough' - Enough is Enough (http://enoughzimbabwe.org/eddie-cross-the-farm-situation-today) reports on the situation of farming in Zimbabwe, particularly that of white farmers and the seizure of farm equipment by the police and army. The seizures were declared illegal by the court but by the time the equipment was returned to the owners, it had been vandalised. Zim Pundit posts a letter sent to Zimbabwean political activist Eddie Cross and comments
“The campaign is carried out on an ethnic basis - white farmers are the targets. It is completely illegal and destructive. Farms taken over in this way quickly become derelict and unproductive.”
'Redeem Ethiopia' - Redeem Ethiopia (http://redeemethiopia.blogspot.com/2006/10/lures-of-war.html) commenting on the threat of war between Ethiopia and Somalia, believes that Meles Zenawi provoked the Somalis into declaring “war on Ethiopia”, something he believes Meles learned from his predecessor, former Ethiopian leader, Mengistu Hailemariam.
“It seems that Meles has been a good student of history. He has done all that is in his power to provoke the Somalis to declare war on Ethiopia with the same hopes of gaining domestic legitimacy and external military support. The fact that there is no formidable Somali government, military or immediate threat to Ethiopia has made his job much harder than Mengistu’s. He has literally had to partially invade Somalia to get mostly empty threats from Somali Islamists, who can at best remove his soldiers from some Somali territory.”
However, unlike during Mengistu’s rule, Ethiopians of today are not ready to go to war and believe the threat from Somalia to be non-existent.
'Mental Acrobatics'Mental Acrobatics writes a moving tribute to the late Dr Dr.Wanjiru Kihoro of Kenya who passed away last Thursday following a long coma. Mental Acrobatics describes Dr Kihoro as
“a true patriot, a strong daughter of Kenya, highly principled in an age where people’s convictions change with the direction of the wind……….. In Kenya, where she took on the Moi regime on human rights abuses when most were to scared to speak out, she showed patriotism and courage. Refusing to be broken by the arrest and detention of her husband, Wanyiri Kihoro, and colleagues by Moi’s notorious security forces, she showed patriotism and courage. As the founder and director of ABANTU for Development, an international development agency, Dr. Kihoro’s vision, inspiration and direction touched and changed the lives of many.”
'African Shirts' - African Shirts (http://africanshirts.blogspot.com/2006/10/lifting-veil.html)
comments on the debate around comments made by Jack Straw about Muslim women wearing the Niqab during his MP surgery. He stated that he asked the women to remove their veils which he sees as a “visible statement of difference” and one that infringes on the communication experience, since one cannot see the face of the woman. African Shirts however points out that in an interview with Jack Straw, he let slip the real motivation behind his statement
“in an interview with the Today programme, he lets slips his actual motivation. He's worried about "community relations". In other words, the people in a community cannot communicate with a woman who covers her face, in this instance at the behest of her religion. The veil here, acts as a barrier, just as 18-year-old boys in hoodies are intimidating. And if non-Muslim and Muslims who are trying to live harmoniously alongside each other cannot interact, "parallel communities" start to develop.”
The debate around the Niqab is an Islamic debate and should not be of concern to non-Muslims. From a Muslim point of view it is yet another attack against Islam and interference in the way people choose to practice their religion.
'Black Looks' - Black Looks (http://www.blacklooks.org/2006/10/5_days_in_south_africa.html) is in South Africa and writes a piece on her first 5 days
"The most annoying thing for me is not the fences, locks and gates but having to take taxis everywhere after 7pm in the evening. Everyone keeps telling me not to go out even in Melville at night, not to carry my laptop on the Kombi bus - basically not to go anywhere at night without a taxi. A Cameroonian colleague who lives in downtown Joburg takes a taxi to a bar 10 minutes away from his apartment and back! Coming from sleepy Granada where no one even goes out before 10pm and you can walk home on your own at 4am in complete safety, this takes some getting used to. I realise I no longer have a sense of personal security."
• Sokari Ekine produces the blog Black Looks, www.blacklooks.org
• Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at www.pambazuka.org
For the first time, the World Social Forum will be taking place on the African continent, promising to bring together popular forces from a wide variety of constituencies from around the globe. It is time to spell out the broad principles that inform the WSF steady build up into a consistent continuum and powerful platform of social movements from around the globe - building constrictive alternatives as a challenge to neo-liberal globalization.
The World Social Forum organizing depends on the goodwill of activists and individuals committed to bringing into existence, the other world that we aspire to build. We therefore call upon all individuals wishing to offer their skills and competencies in support of the WSF2007 to fill in the questionnaire on our website and await our feedback. For instance, you could volunteer in various capacities (translation, technical, electrical, architecture, mobilization, hospitality, medical, ushering, construction etc), whether on-site (in Nairobi) or remotely. Specific areas of need are very varied:- during, before, and even after Nairobi event.
The 6th edition of the World Social Forum will bring together activists, social movements, networks, coalitions and other progressive forces from Asia-Pacific, Latin America, the Caribbean, North America, Europe and all corners of the African continent. They will converge in Nairobi, Kenya, for five days of cultural resistance and celebration; panels, workshops, symposia, processions, film nights and much, much more; beginning on the 20th of January and wrapping up on the 25th of January 2007.
The Secretariat in Nairobi started the individual registration process on the event site (www.wsf2007.org) on Oct. 4th, 2006. The individual registration form is available in English, Spanish, and Kiswahili. The registration of activities will be available shortly. Nine thematic terrains have been defined to register activities online.
Quoting a Somali proverb, Dahir Mohamed Ali describes how long-time refugees living in Kenya fear they will be forgotten as a growing tide of Somalis fleeing conflict pour across the border. "When there is fresh water, do not forget the rivers that are drying up," said the former leader of Hagadera refugee camp, in northeastern Kenya.
Statelessness in Africa, like elsewhere, is attributable to a multitude of causes ranging from state succession, to gaps in national citizenship laws, to targeted discrimination against certain communities of people. However, a common contributing factor to statelessness in African countries is the colonial legacy which created borders that ultimately led to divided linguistic/ethnic/religious communities and interfered with traditional patterns of migration.
The report, "Unprotected Migrants: Zimbabweans in South Africa's Limpopo Province", said Zimbabweans continue to stream into South Africa to escape their own country's deteriorating economic and political conditions. It said the vulnerability of the estimated 1.2 to three million Zimbabweans now living in South Africa is made worse by their frequent lack of legal status, effectively making them refugees.
The article entitled “The Psychosis of Denial” contains inaccurate statements. The problem in Zimbabwe is caused by the current majority ZANU PF government. What has MDC got to do with the problems? Is it the MDC that has failed the land reform, or embarked on operation cleanup or caused the shortage of food and fuel? The authors of this article clearly benefit from the current situation in Zimbabwe. Those that are benefiting from the current misrule are known to be corrupt and nothing is done to them. There are many laws, e.g. the Public Order and Security Act [POSA] which benefit ZANU PF and not the general public. They say there is a rule of law but there is selective application of this, especially where corruption is involved. It is who you are, and your loyalty to Mugabe that matters in Zimbabwe. Too many laws are passed to keep the status quo intact. Zanu PF is worse than the apartheid regime considering that it is a Black government mistreating its people yet blames Blair and Bush. How are Blair and Bush responsible for the oppression of ordinary people in Zimbabwe? Are they responsible for plundering the country's economy?
The Mugabe regime has run short of what to say and they don't want to accept responsibility for their mistakes. Instead they pass endless laws that are retrogressive to the building of a country.
It is a power struggle issue in Zimbabwe. Someone thinks because they fought a war therefore no one else should rule the country except them. If you look for example at Mozambique, Malawi, Zambia, South Africa, Kenya and Tanzania, they have changed political leaders, but what has Zimbabwe done, and why? There is more to it than blaming other people and the opposition.
Zimbabweans are tired of the ZANU PF propaganda. The country is run on propaganda. Zimbabweans are just fed up. And we are waiting to see where this propaganda will take ZANU PF. The truth is ZANU PF is not committed to change or to the development of Zimbabweans at large. Look at who benefited from farm invasions, and what is coming out of those farms? Nothing. If your loyalty is questionable the farm is simply taken away from you.
The fate of Darfur is the fate of all people of colour. Neither the USA nor Europe care about what happens to us. If Nigerians keep quiet today, the Arabs will come for them tomorrow. I can see it very clearly. So let other black people keep quiet today so that they can die tomorrow. Or let us fight this insult on our continent now, even if it is to the last drop of our blood. We must not allow history to record us as having kept quiet in the face of tyranny: enough is enough.
Prof Soyinka's eloquent discourse on the collective failure of the world, Black Africa included, is a damning indictment of those who have the power to stop and prevent the first genocide of this century. The UN has been prevaricating, the AU has been silent (in spite of the weakly mandated Peace keeping Forces in Darfur), and the Arab League does not believe there is a problem in the first place. Against this backdrop, it is heartening to see Black intellectuals taking the lead on this issue. This offers little comfort to those who are raped, killed, tortured and rendered destitute in their own backyard. The words "never again" mean nothing when it comes to that continent.
The challenge has been issued by Soyinka to African leaders to show even a token response: expel Sudanese diplomats from African capitols to show that we are serious about Darfur.
I agree that this is a problem not only in Angola but in all of Africa. Poverty is the one major issue that has to be addressed. I agree that the business community that controls the oil and other resources that Africa provides should and must take care of the people that provide the labour force. They must develop the country such that all enjoy the fruits of the land. Merely raping the continent will only lead to all the anti-social problems that one sees prevalent in all parts of Africa.
The international community must play an integral role in empowering the people of the continent so that they could control their own destinies.
Education is the most crucial component of the formula for success. Health care is next in line that is needed to stem the growing pandemic of HIV and AIDS. Full employment will definitely add to the growth of the economies.
Another phenomenon is the idea of the African Renaissance that is being touted by the S.A. leadership. One has to be very skeptical of this idea. Remember that Africa is a continent filled with people of all stripes, colours and religions and one cannot forget that all are part and parcel of the success of the continent. If the African Renaissance were to succeed then one will only ‘Balkanize’ Africa once again for more exploitation by the external forces.
Hopefully some of these ideas have been uttered by others but I felt that I should also add to the list.
Libyan police have detained about 1 930 illegal migrants over the past 27 days trying to sail to Europe via Italy from the Libyan coast, the Interior Ministry has said. In the same period, the Libyan government deported 3 768 other would-be migrants from several African countries, who had been arrested earlier attempting to cross illegally to Italy, the Ministry added in a statement.
Mango training is coming for the first time to Nigeria and Mozambique. We are delivering two of our most popular courses specially designed for NGOs.
The October issue of ReConnect Africa is now online. Connecting Africa to the global world, ReConnect Africa is a unique online publication and portal that provides readily accessible information, articles, interviews and jobs in Africa.
Top quality training on human rights is now available for free online, thanks to a partnership between Fahamu and the OpenCourseWare Consortium. Through the partnership, the Oxford University accredited course 'An Introduction to Human Rights' has been made available on the Fahamu website. The course is designed to provide users with a comprehensive definition of human rights and how these rights are monitored and enforced.
Uganda is widely cited for its participatory orientation and strong commitment to implementation with regard to its decentralisation reforms. The implementation and outcomes of Uganda’s decentralisation reforms are examined to test the assumption that when decision-making powers over the environment are devolved to locally elected representatives, this increases participation and leads to better environmental outcomes.
Invitation for Applications and Call for Papers from Young Scholars for Participation in IDEAs Conference in the memory of Guy Mhone on 'Sustainable Employment Generation in Developing Countries: Current constraints and alternative strategies' in partnership with Action Aid and the Department of Economics, Kenyatta University 25 - 27th January 2007, Nairobi, Kenya.
On paper France treats its 20,000 HIV-positive immigrants well - they are entitled to free healthcare, and even those whose residence status is still to be determined get free treatment after three months if they cannot afford to pay. But immigrants increasingly face a cold shoulder in Europe, indicating that the spirit of the law is being interpreted more conservatively.
Martha Atoch, a displaced widow and mother of four, was anxious to leave Lologo transit camp and return home so she could get treatment for appendicitis."I have told the administrators of this camp that I need urgent help for my appendicitis," she said. "But so many of us have medical problems that I don't know whether my case will receive any attention."
The Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) suggested on Wednesday the country adopt a federalist system as a way of ensuring peace after 20 years of conflict in northern Uganda. In the revised LRA proposals, made under the talks’ second agenda on comprehensive solutions, the rebels say Uganda should be governed under a federal system of government, insisting that this would ease tensions and ensure general stability.
A pro-democracy group is threatening protest action against sub-Saharan Africa's last absolute monarch if steps are not taken to start meaningful constitutional reform. The National Constitutional Assembly (NCA), an ad-hoc pro-democracy alliance of trade unions, human rights and legal support and advocacy groups, has given the Swazi government until early next week to respond to their concerns or face what they said would be a "peaceful march" to King Mswati III's Lozitha Palace, 20km southeast of the capital, Mbabane.
Women's organisations are outraged by an opposition parliamentarian who urged the national assembly not to pass a bill aimed at stamping out domestic violence, because women were inferior to men. During debate on the Domestic Violence Bill, Timothy Mubhawu, member of parliament (MP) for the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), told parliament: "I stand here representing God the Almighty. Women are not equal to men."
Moslem women have been charged to exude effective 'Dawah' (calling towards the truth) in the ongoing month of Ramandan by exhibiting the characteristics of good deeds and dealings as mothers. This was in a day's seminar organized by the Federation of Moslem Women Associations in Ghana (FOMWAG) on the theme 'Effective Dawah in the month of Ramadan; the role of the Moslem woman".
Nearly 60 percent of women in Ethiopia is subject to sexual violence by a partner, a new UN report revealed yesterday. The report said violence against women persists at high rates around the world, and governments are not doing enough to prevent it.
The Program Officer, East Africa will work with the Law and Health Initiative (LAHI) of the Open Society Institute Public Health Program (PHP) and the Open Society Initiative for East Africa (OSIEA) in Nairobi to advance law- and human rights-based responses to HIV and AIDS and public health in the region. S/he will report to the LAHI project director in New York and collaborate day-to-day with the OSIEA staff in Nairobi.
Organizations in the nonprofit and voluntary sector have recognized that information technologies are a vital part of their effective mission achievement. While a large and growing body of practical knowledge already exists, practitioners, managers, and policy makers still lack systematic scholarly research about how information technologies are changing the nonprofit sector and the organizations within it. NTEN and Nonprofit Online News are seeking research papers for a panel and a publication.
TARSC and IHRDC under the EQUINET umbrella and with support from CHESSORE are carrying out capacity building on participatory reflection and action (PRA) methods for research and training for a people centred health system. The training uses a toolkit developed by the institutions and peer reviewed through practical use that provides information on areas for strengthening community voice and roles in health systems and examples of participatory approaches for training and research that supports this.
ANTS Uganda is a project within the organisational framework of I-Network Uganda which is a non-profit organisation and a national network consisting of individuals and organisations from the private sector, government and civil society. I-Network provides a platform for sharing knowledge and forming partnerships around the use of ICT to address development challenges and to extend equitable national development.
I-Network is an ICT (Information and Communication Technology) organisation that started in 2002. Its major focus is sharing knowledge, advocacy and provision of expertise in ICT4Development. I-Network is looking for someone to fill the post of Office Assistant.
Pambazuka News 273: Wole Soyinka speaks out on Darfur
Pambazuka News 273: Wole Soyinka speaks out on Darfur
Painting a grim picture of the extent of violence against women in all parts of the world, senior United Nations officials have urged everyone to fully support Secretary- General Kofi Annan’s recent in-depth study on the problem, which lays out legislative and other recommendations to combat the scourge.
17th October 2006 is International Day for the Eradication of Poverty. It is also the day when the Mayoral Committee will discuss the By-law on Streets, Public Places and Prevention of Nuisances. The NGO Task Team will take the opportunity to highlight the plight of the poor and impact of the proposed By-law and consequences thereof on the lives of poor, unemployed and homeless people of Cape Town at a press conference.
Have you ever wondered if there is anything you can do to contribute to solving global poverty? Did you sometimes ever get that sinking feeling that you are just one person who is too insignificant in the face of the forces of global domination and systematic oppression to make any difference? How many times has helplessness at the things happening around you or in the wider world forced you to conclude that you cannot beat the system, and that, at best, your only choice is to either join them or drop out?
If you have answered yes to one or more of these questions do not be embarrassed at all. You are one among billions of us (actually 6.5 billion) who inhabit this earth. Most of us feel helpless, often disapproving of many things happening around us and in the world but feeling we lack any power to change them. There is frustration that no matter what we think or do, the world will always remain skewed against the poor and powerless, the little men and women, who constitute the majority. Whether it is the environment, the economy, education or health, many have to come to accept that the rich classes amongst us, and the richer nations of the world will always squeeze the poor and get their way all the time.
We all know that Mahatma Gandhi’s famous words: ‘there is enough in the world to satisfy our needs but not enough to satisfy our greed’ uttered so many decades ago are as true today as ever. The vast wealth from improved technology, science and genetic engineering in the last five decades is more than enough for all of us. However, the structures of power within and between nations continue to reward those at the very top, while penalizing the majority poor at the bottom of the pile.
Poor people in poorer countries of the world cry out against their rich who also groan at the richer countries. Within richer countries the poor feel no better. Yet the system that is producing this fabulous wealth in one pole, and desperate poverty in another is created by human beings. Therefore it can only be changed through their individual and collective efforts, sometimes cooperatively, but often in confrontations and through contradictions.
The United Nations ushered in the third millennium (and its 55th anniversary) at the Millennium Summit in 2000 with a declaration that recognized that the world could be made better and that we all deserved to treat each other and our shared environment better. This was encapsulated in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). It was an attempt to create a new social contract between the peoples and governments of the world. It committed to eight goals ranging from ending hunger through universal access to basic education, women empowerment, health, and environment to reforming the unequal global trade, increasing quality aid and cancelling debt of poor countries.
Since the MDGs became the ‘new’ language of development discourse, there continues a debate as to whether they are achievable or not.
The UN itself realized that neither the declaration alone nor the official adoption of the MDGs will guarantee their fulfilment both in the north and the south. That is why the UN Millennium Campaign was established to work with citizens to hold their governments accountable for the fulfillment of the MDGs. The campaign works with and through national coalitions in various countries allied to the Global Call Against Poverty (GCAP) but also with faith based groups, local councils, national, sub regional and regional legislatures, youth, students, women and trade unions, to ensure political accountability of all leaders to their peoples at various levels. The MDGs can only be achieved at the local and community level. That is where their impact will be directly felt.
Over the recent years of neo-liberal economic hegemony, economic policies have become even more undemocratic. The policies are dominated by technicians, all kinds of latter day voodoo experts from the Bretton Woods institutions, to the total exclusion of citizens who are the producers of their national and global wealth. The majority of citizens become victims of these policies. The MDGs have tremendous potential for opening up democratic spaces for political accountability of leaders. Through MDGs it is possible to begin to reverse this arrogant trend of making economic issues the sole preserve of economic egg-heads, and judge economic policies not just in terms of macroeconomic growth but development, how they impact on the general welfare of the majority of the peoples of the world who are poor.
As part of efforts to popularize the MDGs and focus global attention on poverty, the UN Millennium Campaign in partnership with GCAP allies and others including OXFAM, Action Aid International, NOVIB, and Micah Challenge, has been participating in a one month campaign of activities. This began on the 16th of September and will culminate in the International Day for Poverty Eradication on Tuesday 17 October.
If you have not been involved it is not too late. You could still join the activities this weekend. On Sunday, October 15 and Monday, October 16 there is a ‘Stand Up Against Poverty Challenge’ in which anybody who cares can be a full participant.
Can you imagine a world in which the MDGs are a political priority for all our governments and other governments in the world? A world without poverty where every child is guaranteed education, where many women do not die in labour and people living with HIV/Aids have universal access to free treatment based on need not cash. A world where malaria, TB and other preventable diseases no longer kill us in the vast numbers they currently do. A world in which the environment is fully protected and the vast creativity of human mind and scientific discovery will be used for sustainable development that guarantees that this earth that we are loaning from the future generation is handed on safely.
There is a small chance to put your imagination into action. The goals sound like dreams but even the creation of this world must have begun with a dream. It needs not remain so. It is a world that we can bring about by first making people aware of the MDGs and working with them to demand their fulfilment from their leaders. Holding leaders to their promises is all that it takes. If the richer countries deliver on goal 8 the poorer countries can also deliver on goals 1-7. It is a complementary process which must run concurrently from goal 1 to 8. You can contribute to making it happen wherever you maybe. Together we can all make the difference between fulfilment and indifference.
This weekend you can add your voice to that of millions of other citizens of the world by joining the campaign against hunger amidst plenty: ‘Stand Up Against Poverty’ and stand up for the MDG’s. It will take not more than five minutes.‘Stand Up Against Poverty’ is an innovative Challenge in which we are attempting to set an official Guinness world record for the highest number of people ever to ‘Stand Up Against Poverty’ and stand up for the MDG’s.
We have just 24 hours to set this record. Be one in a Million!
Check for details of campaigns near you this Sunday 15 October (from 10.00 am GMT)to (10.00 am GMT) Monday 16 October and also how you can organize your own stand up moment and register it to be counted: and [email protected] or comment online at www.pambazuka.org
In a recent speech at the 50th Anniversary of the 1st International Conference of Black Writers & Artists in Paris, Wole Soyinka warned against the neglect of those who remain silent against the crimes against humanity in Darfur: "As the armies of the Sudanese state mass for the final onslaught on its long determined design of race extermination, that future will stigmatise you one and all, will brand you collaborators and acccomplices if you abandon the people of Darfur to this awful fate, one that so blindingly scrawls its name across the supplicating sands and hills of Darfur – Genocide!"
Was it not here, on this same French soil, in this culture proud nation that sometimes appears to conflate the very notion of civilization with whatever is uniquely French, that a culture warrior once took the bulldozer to a hamburger joint some years ago? His mission was - to stem the tide of a neo-barbarism that, for the French, is synonymous with whatever is American. Lost on that-protector of French cultural purity was a thought that must have tickled the collective memory of former French colonials: the Macdonalisationor Disneyisation of French urban landscape was a kind of poetic justice in a reverse play of history. MacDonalds had arrived from the former colony of another European power to challenge the cultural hermeticism of a former colonizer.
The circumstances, and action directe of the bulldozer response differed somewhat from the strategy embarked upon by the poet and statesman Leopold Sedar Senghor, Aime Cesaire, Leon Damas, Diop, Rene Depestre and other cultural militants - to adopt Senghor’s own expression – in their own time.
They were also protesting – right on the terrain of their colonizers, and as protagonists of a distant civilisation - the ascendancy of others over their own cultures and civilization. Theirs was of course a far-reaching protest, initiated within the enemy camp, against the lop-sided dialogue between France and her possessions, one that had turned the African mind into a mere cultural receptacle of France, indentured it to European identity and values. Thus, Negritude – to give it its name - was compelled to commence by a seemingly separatist strategy, one that restated an African cultural matrix in contradistinction to the European.
The implication of this, on the surface, was that the paracletes of Negritude commenced with a proposition of two distinct, parallel cultures, two monologues – one, the European, the other, black African. It was, in plain language, a strategy of fighting fire with fire. Those who recall the phase of
black nationalism in the United States and in apartheid South Africa – Back to Africa, Black is Beautiful, Black Consciousness etc. - will easily recognize in Negritude both heir to, and precursor of a tradition that is born of displacement, domination and dispossession. Its strategy provoked accusations of counter racism from white liberal thought – phrased benignly perhaps by Jean-Paul Sartre as - anti-racist racism. Would all extant racial discourse – all contemporary propositions and projects of cultural separatism were equally benign, and even, as in this case, propitious for the harmonization of the human race. For even this separatist assertiveness was eventually guided into the predication of convergence with others. This optimistic outlook, the mutual insemination of cultures, under Leopold Sedar Senghor’s restless historicism, expanded to embrace the Arab world and its cultural actualities, to which he gave the name – Arabite. It was the culminating annunciation of what history itself had long proclaimed, one that would result, inexorably – in Senghor’s formulation - as the Equilibrium of twentieth-century Humanism, the Civilisation of the Universal.
It would be more than sufficient, in my view, if our gathering today achieved nothing more than an evocation of that optimism, a reunion of minds, a celebration of identity and origin, and an opening up of the collective memory for interrogation, to determine what may be jettisoned, and what to re invigorate as a racial contribution to the quest for the universal. It would still remain deeply satisfying if we have merely responded to the human impulse towards celebration, carving out a brief pause for ourselves from the crushing demands of an increasingly unstable world, its negativities, its season of fear and menace, simply to bask, for two or three days in the boldness of a 50- year old initiative that sought to wean a closed, imperial and aggressive world of its racist limitations. It would be sufficient to celebrate that moment, fifty years ago, when the citizens of the continent of disdain, and their brothers and sisters in the Diaspora joined minds to demolish the doctrines on which the mission of colonialism was raised, and challenge the scriptures – both religious and philosophical - on whose authority the inhuman commerce in black flesh - Arab and European - had been justified. Celebration may choose to limit itself to the euphoria of that event, but one that may also be followed by the sobriety of ‘the morning after’ when reflection takes over, and the expressed or implicit summons of the occasion begin to resurface, enjoining a re-designing of the future, of a re-positioning of attitudes, replacing complacency with re-dedication, disturbing one’s peace of mind with the summons of a familiar imperative: a task that remains unfinished, even after fifty years.
The very prospect of such a reunion, even before the event, may however have provoked an alertness to current, thematically contingent actualities, realities that exhibit the very provocations which, in no small measure, aroused a need for that original gathering, over and beyond the mere wish for a meeting of minds. Realities that make the bulldozer almost a benevolent act, since that agent of cultural eradication has since given way to the armoured truck, the flame thrower, the strafing aircraft and the fragmentation bomb.
Realities where – to bring it all to the present - a presumably modern state, with its massive weaponry of coercion, has replaced the local maverick, acts in full confidence of the control of its own borders, and in a project for the alteration of the demography of a humanised space, its history, its cultural uniqueness – in short, a project for the eradication of its thriving humanity.
Even as we speak, even as the world is distracted by other heated zones all over the globe, one such project is taking place on the black continent, with the passive complicity of that continent’s rulers.
Those who have had the dubious privilege of reading the manifestoes of the arrowhead of a state policy of ethnic cleansing, the Sudanese Janjaweed, an agenda pronounced, without ambiguity, as the Arabisation of the Sudanese nation - will surely have squirmed at the naked language of racial incitement, its claims of race superiority, complemented by the language of contempt and disdain for the indigenous African. It is not quite what Senghor had in mind when he embarked on his fraternal annunciation of arabite and his proposition for a north-south, negro-arab collaboration of cultures: Je ne parle meme d’arabisme…. je parle d’arabite, de cette arabite qui est le foyer irradiant des vertus de l’eternal Bedouin.
How Senghor, humanist idealist, would shudder today at the perversion of that vision on reading contemporary tracts in which a state commits itself –through its surrogates - to the eradication of partners in that optimistic venture, actively condones the elimination of those cultural partners who, to add to the grim irony, were autochthones of that land long before the arrival of the current apostles of race supremacy, a pernicious fantasy that one hoped had been rebuked by monumental race criminalities of the past - the Arabo-European enslavement of and trade in the commodity of African peoples, by the Jim Crow culture of governance by lynch mobs and segregation laws in the ‘brave new world’ of the American mainland, by the lessons of the Holocaust, the atrocities of Apartheid South Africa and even, so lately, the horrors of Rwanda. It is clearly the ambition of the Sudanese government to surpass these records of dishonour, and the world appears to accept that it deserves to succeed, that it is right and just that an African nation join its name to the long catalogue of racist infamy. Enjoy the starkness and concision of directives from authenticated documents taken from the headquarters of one Sheik Musa Hilal, acknowledged leader of the Janjaweed: Change the demography of Darfur. Empty it of all African tribes.
The nation that is Sudan belongs to two families of the world community – Arab and African. These are structured, with global recognition, as the Arab League, and the Africa Union. It is depressing to observe the studied indifference of one – the Arab family - to the criminality of one of its members, a nation historically placed as a cultural bridge between two races, just as, in Senghor’s cultural architecture, the North Africa Arab world represents the bridge between Africa and Europe. The African family, for its part, manifests a shaming impotence that permits a re-enactment of a history that forged the chains of colonial bondage. But there is also a third, overarching family that is common to both – the United Nations. When a deviant branch of that family of nations flouts, indeed revels in the abandonment of the most basic norms of human decency, is there really justification in evoking the excuse that protocol requires the permission of that same arrogant and defiant entity, one that is unambiguously indicted in the court of universal censure, before it goes to the rescue of its abused, violated, and dehumanized victims?
One finds it odd that this alibi for inaction was not invoked before the rigorous intervention in former Yugoslavia, an intervention that not only brought a rogue regime to heel, but oversaw the return and rehabilitation of the dispersed populations of ethnic Albanians and Moslem Croats. If the lightning speed at which the UN responded to the recent Middle East war and its aftermath is explained away by the willingness of the belligerents to accommodate, indeed to demand the presence of peace enforcers from the United Nations, we are still left with the example of intervention in central Europe over the strenuous resistance of the murdering regimes. That leaves the African situation in what category, exactly? Equals before the family structures of rights and responsibilities, or yet again, fifty years after the first organised challenge to a racist order, as the marginalised orphans of history?
As we speak, the Africa Union is preparing to abandon the peoples of Darfur, leaving them at the mercy of murdering, raping, and burning gospellers of race doctrine, withdrawing even its pathetically inadequate protection forces which, at the very least, provided a moral presence and a modicum of restraint. We are speaking here of a nation where mass rape is proffered as compliment to Senghor’s vision of cultural metissage. This is the established profile of a regime that has given its peers their marching orders, read them the riot act and delivered its ultimatum, and the African family has chosen to obey, to beat a retreat on schedule, with its tail between its legs. The Arab Family, one to which belongs a primary moral authority irrespective of the location of its member on the black continent, has steadfastly refused to call Sudan to order, indeed placed obstacles in the way of sanctions. But by what right does this speaker impose this moral responsibility on the Arab world?
None whatsoever, except on the authority of the protagonists of Arab culture themselves, on their own historic claims, such as the self-pronounced Arabist, the Sudanese prime minister, Ismail Al- Azhari, who, in 1965, made the following declaration:
‘We are proud of our Arab origin, of our Arabism and of being Muslims. The Arabs came to this continent, as pioneers, to disseminate a genuine culture and promote sound principles which have shed enlightenment and civilization throughout Africa at a time when Europe was plunged into the abyss of darkness, ignorance, and doctrinal and scholarly backwardness. It is our ancestors who held the torch high and led the caravan of liberation and advancement; and it is they who provided a superior melting-pot for Greek, Persian and Indian culture, giving them the chance to react with all that was noble in Arab culture, and handing them back to the rest of the world as a guide to those who wished to extend the frontiers of learning”
That lofty declaration – never mind its hyperbolic accents - but certainly one which Leopold Sedar Senghor would have endorsed as the ringing spirit of Arabite was made just less than a decade after the first gathering of the black writers and artistes of the world, impelled also by the need to situate their race and heritage accurately in a racist world. The claims of black civilization were no less resonant at that conference, no less proud, the mission of race retrieval no less impassioned. And the question we must ask the government of Sudan today is simply this: how does the current manifesto of the Janjaweed, the champions of Arabism, its project of cultural extermination, correspond to Al-Azhari’s manifesto of enlightenment – among numerous others.
Examine the tomes of attestation with the United Nations’ fact-finding missions, examine even the dossiers that have resulted in sealed indictments against named individuals both in government and in the autonomous order of the Janjaweed, soulmates of the Milesovics, the Radovan Karavics, the Radkos of eastern Europe, and tell us if Al-Azhari’s banner of enlightenment has not been besmirched by his Hitlerian apostles.
And the African family? I refer to the family of humanist idealism of whom the poets and philosophers sang or preached – Aime Cesaire, Leon Damas, Marcelino dos Santos John Mbiti, Ogotimeli, Tierno Bokar and all. Did they not instruct that African humanism does implicate a concern, and a responsibility towards ‘my neighour’? And does that responsibility end with the rhetoric of power and the commodity of compromise? This African family, which vies for cultural honour with any race on earth, will be the subject of our gathering here, so for now, we shall merely let this question hang in the air: Has that family made any move to openly denounce or expel this renegade member?
What happens in private caucuses within the closed chambers of the so-called ‘peer review mechanism’ of NEPAD and other much vaunted structures of restraint, is cold comfort to those who are violated daily, who fight the hot and grainy wind for the rags on their backs, the pitiless sun for moisture, the camels for the dry clumps of grass that have escaped the fury of the Janjaweed arsonists. And as they leave their camps, in sheer desperation, to forage for more nourishing fodder, are they not set upon by the marauding Janjaweed, slaughtered, raped, mutilated and robbed of the last shreds of their innate dignity?
For the family of all, the United Nations, which again and again has been compelled to avow, ‘Never Again’, it continues to meet in impotence and debate in sterility. Sealed indictments against the identified violators of humanity are admirable, but they cannot replace the rigour and honour of prevention.
Not one member of the UN family has expressed its displeasure by expelling Sudanese diplomats from its borders. Not one has demanded that sanctions be universally applied to the Sudanese cesspit of criminal impunity. For decades, Libya was declared the pariah of the international community on suspicion and/or evidence of complicity in terrorist acts, and of harbouring terrorists within its borders – she was ostracized. What further dimension of state terrorism does the world need in order to act when a government unleashes its surrogates, armed to the teeth, supported, supplied, and logistically enabled by its own forces and intelligence services, authorised by well documented mandate of ethnic cleansing, its acts witnessed, recorded and reported by the United Nations’ own agencies, its results seared on the Sudanese landscape as mass burial grounds, ruins of burnt villages, poisoned wells, slaughtered livestock, in the swelling army of mutilated survivors, victims of gang rape, of diseased and overflowing refugee camps.
Words are our stock-in- trade, and writers are not slow to notice when a word screams out through absence and avoidance. Now what is that word that the United Nations, once again, has scrupulously skirted, a strategic avoidance, a moral liability that led, in this very recent memory to - Rwanda? The protocols are clear. Recognition of a certain dimension of criminality against a people, its culture, against the very existence of the people of Darfur compels the United Nations to act. But no, Darfur is not the heart of Europe.
It is not the heart of Lebanon or the borders of Israel. It is located in a land of disdain, recognized only as the home of want and occasionally – of much sought material resources So, just what is this word that accuses, damns, and will not be silenced? What is this word for which so many substitutes are massed, though derobed of the inexorable imperative, in the corridors and chambers of the United Nations?
As writers, we cannot cease to recognize and embrace our mission of testifying and laying ambush for escapist minds. Those who are alive today to witness this renewed perfidy, and their successors living or yet unborn in the mission of warning and bearing witness, will not forget. Let words, at the very least, be mobilized towards the fulfillment of responsibilities by those who are charged with the protection of the weak and helpless, the temporarily disadvantaged, let them persist in saying to you, all who hold the primary controls of the direction of a continent’s future, that that future will not forget, nor will it forgive. As the armies of the Sudanese state mass for the final onslaught on its long determined design of race extermination, that future will stigmatise you one and all, will brand you collaborators and acccomplices if you abandon the people of Darfur to this awful fate, one that so blindingly scrawls its name across the supplicating sands and hills of Darfur – Genocide!
• This Paper by Prof Wole Soyinka was presented at the 50th Anniversary of the 1st International Conference of Black Writers & Artists -Paris, 19-22nd September 2006. It is reproduced here with the permission of the author.
• Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org
Assis Malaquias suggests that it is premature to suggest that positive peace is a reality in Cabinda. The Memorandum of Understanding which was signed by the Angolan government and the separatist group on 1 August 2006, “establishes five key pillars for ending the conflict in Cabinda: amnesty for rebel fighters, cessation of hostilities, the demilitarisation of the Cabindan rebels, reduction in the number of Angolan soldiers in the province, and integration of the Cabinda rebels in the Angolan military and government.”
After four decades of conflict, Angola welcomed a new era of peace in the aftermath of the death in combat of rebel leader Jonas Savimbi and the implosion of the once formidable military organization he created. The post-colonial conflict between Savimbi’s UNITA rebels and the governing MPLA gained international attention for several reasons: the global contexts associated with it (the Cold War and the international political economy of oil) the nature of the players involved: global powers (the U.S. and the former Soviet Union), sub-imperial powers (Cuba and China), regional powers (apartheid South Africa and the former Zaire), and national actors (Angola’s nationalist movements: FNLA [1], MPLA [2], and UNITA [3]) and the issues at stake (ethnicity, ideology, race, and resources, to name a few).
But the conflict in Angola was unique because it involved two parallel civil wars: one on the mainland among the nationalist liberation movements and their external backers, and the second between the post-colonial state and a separatist movement in Cabinda – the northernmost province of Angola situated on the Atlantic and separated from the mainland by a strip of D.R. Congo territory. Half of Angola’s 1 million barrels of oil per day originate from Cabinda.
The first conflict ended in 2002 and the second in 2006 with the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between the Angolan government and the separatist group. This agreement established five key pillars for ending the conflict in Cabinda: amnesty for rebel fighters, cessation of hostilities, the demilitarisation of the Cabindan rebels, reduction in the number of Angolan soldiers in the province, and integration of the Cabinda rebels in the Angolan military and government. The Memorandum was the first step towards establishing a new relationship based on a “special status” for the province that include some form of political and economic autonomy without compromising the country’s territorial integrity. For the Angolan government, the end of the conflict in Cabinda has opened the door for exploration of the province’s massive onshore oil reserves.
The length and intractability of the conflict is a direct result of the colonial past and, more specifically, the process involved in creating the colony. Present day Angola, as is the case with most modern African states, is a European creation of the forcible merger of various peoples and territories into a Portuguese possession. Unsurprisingly, Angola also experienced some post-colonial instabilities associated with the demands of some pre-colonial formations to reestablish their independence after the collapse of colonial regimes. In Cabinda, these instabilities were fueled by the inability to agree on mutually acceptable formulas to divide post-colonial power and wealth. Cabinda is Angola’s richest province. In addition to major offshore and onshore oil reserves, it also has large diamond, gold, and uranium deposits. Despite its resource endowment, Cabinda’s population of 300 000 endures similar levels of poverty as elsewhere in Angola. This contradiction – poor people in a rich land – is critical in understanding why demands for independence find resonance among the province’s population, at least in the post-colonial era.
There is also a more historical argument for independence based on the 1885 Treaty of Simulambuco. This treaty – establishing the territory as a Portuguese protectorate – represented Cabinda’s rulers’ attempt to protect their territory from the “Scramble for Africa.” In other words, the rulers of Cabinda voluntarily chose to place their people and land under the protection of the devil they knew – Portugal, with whom they had contacts since Portuguese explorers first reached the Congo in 1482 – rather than become a colony of another European power. Cabinda’s fears were based on the fact that Belgium’s King Leopold wanted an outlet to the Atlantic for his extensive land holdings in central Africa. Cabinda remained a protectorate until 1956 when Portugal joined with Angola into a single colonial administrative unit.
As the 1960s began, Portugal’s colonial presence in Angola was jolted by the beginning of armed opposition by several nationalist groups. FNLA, MPLA and, later, UNITA were formed with the objective of liberating the entire Angolan “nation” from Portuguese colonialism. In 1963, FLEC [4]emerged as another liberation movement whose main objective was more narrowly focused on the liberation of Cabinda. But its military presence was mainly symbolic as the bulk of the fighting that took place in Cabinda was carried out by MPLA from its bases in neighboring Congo-Brazzaville.
The Portuguese colonial regime collapsed in 1974 partly due to the armed resistance in its colonies, including Angola where, ironically, Cabinda was one of the main battlegrounds. The new regime in Portugal quickly put in motion a decolonization process that eventually devolved sovereignty to its former overseas possessions. But since Cabinda had been incorporated into the Angola as an administrative unit it could no longer regain the sovereignty it gave up to the Portuguese in 1885. It was not recognized as a separate entity for purposes of decolonization; it was now an integral part of Angola and received independence only in that broad context. As far as Portugal was concerned, in 1974 Cabinda’s interests were represented by the three nationalist movements who considered the territory to be an integral part of Angola. For many in Cabinda, however, decolonization was incomplete unless their pre-Simulambuco status was re-established or the Simulambuco status quo was maintained. For colonial Portugal since the mid-1960s and Angola since independence, Simulambuco as a legal claim was trumped by an even more powerful reality – oil. The discovery of oil and the beginning of explorations in 1954 irreversibly changed Cabinda’s position within Angola and made its demands for independence harder to seriously consider.
Still, Portugal’s completion of the decolonization process in 1975 did not dissuade FLEC from continuing its armed struggle for independence, this time against Angola. In fact, FLEC made a lukewarm attempt – with the assistance of Mobutu’s Zaire – to seize power in Cabinda during the disordered and violent process surrounding independence. The attempt failed because MPLA, with the help of Cuban troops and Soviet weapons, was able to expel Mobutu’s troops from the country and seriously curtail FLEC’s ability to develop as a credible military opponent. Indeed, for the duration of the civil war, FLEC was unable to pose a threat against major economic interests in the province. Militarily subdued, FLEC settled for a minimal-intensity conflict against government troops interrupted by the occasional headline-grabbing abduction of foreign oil workers. Since FLEC never posed a significant threat to the mainland government, MPLA could focus its military attention on its more powerful rival UNITA which, since the 1980s with the help of South Africa, had penetrated Cabinda.
In the aftermath of the 1992 elections fiasco and the reigniting of the civil war after a short pause, and with UNITA seriously threatening to overthrow the government, the governing MPLA escalated its military presence in Cabinda to protect its main source of revenue. The deployment of 15 000 troops further reduced the FLEC’s military options. As a result, and partly because FAA [5] were focused on eliminating UNITA’s military threat on the mainland, FLEC was able to survive for another decade. In the aftermath of UNITA’s collapse as a military force in 2002, however, FLEC’s potion became completely untenable as FAA’s formidable power could now be shifted to Cabinda. It was, therefore, just a matter of time before Cabinda’s separatists were confronted by the same stark choices UNITA faced in 2002: defeat on the battlefield or a negotiated end of hostilities. The Memorandum of Understanding clearly suggests that Cabinda’s political and military forces have opted for the latter.
The Memorandum has silenced the guns in Cabinda. Does this mean that peace has finally been achieved? Yes, but only in a negative sense, i.e. there is no longer active, organized military violence taking place in Cabinda. But peace cannot simply be described in terms of absence of war. It must also be conceived more positively in terms of social justice. In other words, the elimination of physical violence is an insufficient condition for peace. Peace also involves the elimination of structural violence defined as social injustice. For Cabinda, the issue of social justice revolves around oil revenues and how they are (mis)used. As the main producer of oil in the country, the inhabitants of Cabinda justifiably expect a level of economic development commensurate with their contributions to the national treasury.
This expectation is yet to be met. Worse still, Cabindans are able to see how oil revenues have been used by national ruling elites to accumulate fabulous personal wealth that is then flaunted through conspicuous consumption. To a lesser extent, oil revenues are also used to provide comfortable lifestyles for foreign oil workers.
In sum, it is premature to suggest that positive peace is a reality in Cabinda. The end of the long conflict must be seen simply as an opportunity to create the conditions necessary to achieve that ultimate goal. Oil revenues can facilitate the attainment of peace if they are used to improve the living condition of the people. Failure to do so will continue to fuel deep-seated grievances and risk reigniting conflict.
• Prof. Assis Malaquias is the Associate Dean of International and Intercultural Studies & Associate Professor of Government St. Lawrence University, Canton, NY USA
• Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org
References:
[1] Frente Nacional de Libertação de Angola (National Front for the Liberation of Angola).
[2] Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola (Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola)
[3] União Nacional para Independência Total de Angola (National Union for Total Independence of Angola)
[4] Frente de Libertação do Enclave de Cabinda (Front for the Liberation of Cabinda Enclave)
[5] Forças Armadas de Angola (Angolan Armed Forces)
Manuel Paulo argues that Angola has unparalleled opportunities, “but it also faces major constraints and challenges, which if not properly managed could have extremely damaging consequences, indeed, cancelling out the opportunities available.” He points out that for a successful consolidation of long-term sustainable peace to exist in Angola, the economy would need to be diversified first.
The rhetoric in Angola has been that the coming of peace brings with it the opportunity to create a strong economy and society in which the entire population will share the benefits of Angola's huge mineral wealth. Indeed, Norway, Chile and Botswana provide evidence where sustainable development has been built on the basis of mineral wealth. In Angola, however, oil companies tend to voluntarily invest large sums of money into social investment programmes, with little developmental impact on the country, and it appears that the primary purpose of these programmes having more to do with public relations motives than any real commitment to meaningful advances for the local greater populace.
The country has unparalleled opportunities, but it also faces major constraints and challenges, which if not properly managed could have extremely damaging consequences, indeed, cancelling out the opportunities available. Firstly, to ensure implementation of a rigorous application of modern procurement system which would limit opportunities for corruption, there must be a capable workforce as well as an operational legal system. Secondly, there should be efforts to boost development in the country as a whole. Failure to improve the business climate outside the oil sector will continue to result in large-scale urban unemployment. Such a situation would worsen urban poverty and allow frustration to simmer, especially among the youth. The latter nowadays turn to alcohol to contain their frustration at not being able to find a job. Lack of jobs for the youth may well be an ingredient for violence or indeed criminal activities to thrive.
It is safe to say that a promising future for Angola and Angolans will require the development of an independent judicial system, a neutral civil service and strong state institutions, which will require more than the current superficial social investment programmes from the international oil companies. Oil on its own will not lead to increasing Angolan economic and social indicators from its current levels. Sustainable employment creation in Angola can only come from broad-based economic development that goes beyond an oil sector, which provides very few direct jobs. In the medium term, large numbers of jobs will only be generated by large government public works programmes aimed at rebuilding the country’s shattered infrastructure, and in the agriculture sector.
International oil companies currently investing in the Angolan oil industry are required to engage in a process known as Angolanisation, a process common to most developing oil producing countries. This process requires foreign oil companies operating in Angola to staff their local operations mainly with Angolans, ostensibly to benefit to a greater number of Angolans. However, the beneficiaries of Angolanisation are predominantly foreign educated Angolans because ordinary Angolans who attend local state schools are unable to compete on an equal level with Angolans who were trained abroad. In addition, most international oil companies operating in Angola have admitted that there is a fierce competition for skilled Angolans amongst international oil companies, let alone the state. This means that competent workers from already fragile and under-performing state institutions are lost to international oil companies - placing the government in a disadvantaged position when trying to attract qualified personnel for its already weak public administration. International oil companies are also in a stronger position to attract well-educated Angolans due to high remuneration, and better working conditions they offer. The government on the other hand, is unable to pay the sort of salary, training and benefits that international oil companies are offering.
This is a short-sighted strategy since the Angolan authorities should see diversification of the economy as a decisive factor in the successful consolidation of a long-term sustainable peace. Additionally, failure to revive the non-oil economy (that provides jobs and sources of income for ordinary Angolans) will result in popular discontentment and continuing high levels of social inequality a potential source for future popular discontent. This situation is seemingly not of concern to international oil companies, because their goal is the formal one of presenting acceptable statistics to the government on their compliance with the process of Angolanisation.
It is well known that the oil industry is not an engine for job creation. The industry is capital-intensive and after half a century of oil production in Angola, the industry employs only about 19,000 Angolans. Only 50 percent of engineers are Angolans and in certain types of technical jobs such as drilling and well servicing the proportion is even lower, which is low by any industry standards (IPEDEX 2003). The government should establish a more supportive regulatory framework and a fund that permits improvements in education and training, and allows apprenticeship schemes and many other economic activities independent of government to thrive as a way to diversify the economy. Subsequently, the country’s substantial oil earnings could be a major source of investment in a National Training Fund to the necessary human resources to unlock other sectors of the economy that generate more jobs than the oil industry.
Nevertheless, many would argue that, oil funds are not an easy – nor necessarily an appropriate – solution to the problem of diversifying the Angolan economy. However, the proposed National Training Fund would require the government of Angola to set up a legal framework to govern it, in order to avoid the problems the Venezuela Oil Fund experienced. In order to address possible allegations and suspicions of cronyism and patronage, the government should open its books to a leading external auditory firm to monitor the Fund management of the resources.
One way to fund the Oil Fund would be to make it compulsory for international oil companies to pay a quota for each expatriate they have in the country. The quota is a way to encourage oil companies to recruit locally, and the quota would vary from exploration to production phase. The benefit of such an initiative is that all spectra of Angolan society would have a stake in the development of Angola, and international oil companies would not be accused of creating another elite in Angola under the Angolanisation programme. The government would also be able to address the lack of human capacity to effectively manage the revenue generated by the country’s resources. This will be a way of facilitating addressing Angola’s severe shortage of professional personnel.
Oil Funds have been into place in Norway, and Kuwait for decades. Colombia, Venezuela, Azerbaijan, and Chad have also embraced such funds. These funds have several purposes such as keeping money out of the economy to avoid ‘Dutch Disease’ and other problems associated with large inflows of money into an economy that cannot absorb it; or saving revenues for future generations. However, in the case of Angola a National Training Fund financed by oil revenue could be used as a mechanism to introduce a comprehensive Angolanisation Programme that goes beyond the oil industry.
This paper has shown that there are constructive ways in which international oil companies could contribute to Angola’s development not by creating another elite within its Angolan workforce or instituting systems of patronage. Instead, all efforts should be direct towards ensuring that the wealth the oil industry brings benefits all Angolans. The National Training Fund proposed above could be decisive to address the weak capacity and lack of professionals for the oil industry, and help Angola to diversify its economy.
• Manuel Paulo is a PhD Candidate at Middlesex University Business School, Fellow on Angola at Chatham House.
• Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org
This article is a response to an article (entitled “The Anatomy of Zimbabwe’s Problems (http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/37060) by Maggie Makanza that we published last month. Kwanisai Mafa and Netfa Freeman caution “…all Africans at home and in the Diaspora are to unite against real live enemies and beware of any diagnoses with a psychosis of denial that neglects the most pertinent aspects our anatomical problems.”
We agree with the author of this article that all is not well in Zimbabwe but she fails to objectively explain the causes of the problems in Zimbabwe. It is strange to make a statement like "Most pressure for reform appears to be coming from external rather than internal forces" without referring to the external destabilization measures of the British and US governments, the EU and certain white settlers bent on maintaining power and privilege. This is to speak of such problems in Zimbabwe as if the aforementioned have no bearing on them, or as if they do not exist. In psychology this is analogous to a condition called denial.
Zimbabwe’s problems are caused by two conflicting ideological dispositions, Pan-Africanism versus neo-colonialism. To understand this, we must remember that British Prime Minister Tony Blair stated openly that he is working with the Movement of Democratic Change in Zimbabwe to effect regime change. To achieve this objective the western secret services MI6, CIA, and others used their arsenals of alliances, networks of military bases, economic devices such as sanctions, sabotage, blackmail, and provocateurs. Equally insidious is the psychological weapon of propaganda which aims to impress on the masses a number of imperialist dogmas.
Kwame Nkrumah taught us that these are the “mechanisms of neo-colonialism”. Nkrumah told us “In the labor field, for example, imperialism operates through labor arms like the Social Democratic parties of Europe led by the British Labor Party, and through such instruments as the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU), now apparently being superseded by the New York Africa-American Labor Center (AALC) under AFL-CIO chief George Meany and the well-known CIA man in labor’s top echelons, Irving Brown.”
Philip Agee, former CIA operative and author of Inside the Company: CIA Diary, confirms this when he revealed that “…the successes of revolutionary movements in Ethiopia, Angola, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Grenada, Nicaragua and elsewhere brought ‘cold warrior’ Democrats and ‘internationalist’ Republicans together to establish in 1979 the American Political Foundation (APF). The foundation's task was to study the feasibility of establishing through legislation a government-financed foundation to subsidize foreign operations in civil society through U.S. non-governmental organizations. Within APF four task forces were set up to conduct the study, one for the Democrats, one for the Republicans, one for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and one for the American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO).”
Agee describes how this effort developed mainly into the U.S Agency for International Development now doing overtly what the CIA used to do covertly to advance the neo-colonial agenda of the West. The psychological denial around Zimbabwe consistently avoids such facts. The author asks, “Why has the pro-democracy movement not been able to capitalize on many reported failures of the ZANU PF government?” Could it be because this not a legitimate movement? Nor is it for democracy.
Neglected by psychological denial in the anatomy of Zimbabwe’s problems is the fact that the trade union “movement” in Zimbabwe, which spawned the so-called Movement for Democratic Change, is in line with recommendations from a 1998 European Union study on Zimbabwe. These recommendations call for Mugabe’s removal specifically by systematically building up NGOs and the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) as alternative centers of power, supported by fostering strikes, demonstrations, urban unrest, food riots and carefully engineering dissension within the ranks of the government, the ruling party and the country's armed forces.
The blatant violation of Zimbabwe’s sovereignty is inherent in the anatomy of Zimbabwe’s problems. No other word better describes omission of this fact than the condition of denial.
Surprisingly the author who is a member of a liberal organization, Zimbabwe Social Forum, has lost faith in the parliamentary system, and says that “the continual use of the ballot under the present circumstances can only be described as sheer madness.” What other means is the author advocating? Imperialism tells us that western democracy and the parliamentary system are the only valid ways of governing. Zimbabwe has been using this model to run elections since its independence every five years without fail.
It is wrong to say that people lack energy and suffer from inertia to fight the regime. The only democratic means for regime change is through the ballot box. We know, however that the leader of the main opposition in Zimbabwe, Morgan Tsvangirai is on record as suggesting that if Mugabe does not want to go they will remove him violently. He has been exposed through meetings in London and Montreal, Canada in what was more than likely a plot to assassinate President Mugabe and stage a coup d'état.
The leader of MDC has been globetrotting calling for the isolation of Zimbabwe through economic sanctions. While the western governments are fooling the world that these are “smart sanctions” targeting only government and party leaders, so-called progressives abet this misnomer by blaming Zimbabwe’s ailing economy on Mugabe and ZANU- PF.
These so-called progressives neglect to consider that these sanctions openly oppose “any extension by [international financial institutions] of any loan, credit, or guarantee to the government of Zimbabwe" and in addition oppose any reduction or cancellation of debt. It is dishonest denial to suggest the anatomy of Zimbabwe’s problems can be determined without conceding to these facts. The ordinary person is suffering because of these sanctions.
If ZANU PF were intolerant of the opposition, MDC would not be in parliament. Most mayors and councilors in urban centers are MDC. MDC legislators head most parliamentary portfolio committees. This demonstrates that people in Zimbabwe have the capacity to choose the leadership they want. ZANU PF knows that urban centres are MDC domains. MDC knows well that rural constituencies are ZANU PF strongholds. The majority of the Zimbabwean population lives in rural areas. The author is not correct to say that rural folk have been used and then “abandoned” after elections. Since independence, government has embarked on many developmental projects in rural areas to improve their lives. Most of the major dams were built in rural areas for irrigation and fisheries.
Most rural areas have benefited immensely from the government rural electrification programs. Schools and clinics have been built and recently the government is building major referral hospitals in all districts. Every farming season the government dispatches tractors to rural folk for tillage but the major challenge has been fuel, a need mostly impeded by foreign versus domestic challenges.
There are so many government community empowerment programmes underway in rural areas. Seed packs and fertilizers are given to the rural folk and new farmers for free by the government. With these things is it not also a denial to say rural people are being neglected?
However, the author is right when she says, “the opposition has worked on the false assumption that no one supports ZANU PF.” Tsvangirai and his controllers have seen that they cannot dislodge ZANU PF through the ballot box. That is why they are trying to create the “necessary conditions needed for combustion to happen” so that they can violently remove the government. Tsvangirai even asked President Thabo Mbeki to cut all lifelines to Zimbabwe including trade routes, electricity supply and fuel. Any leader with people at heart would not ask for the continued suffering of his own people until they vote him into power.
On the land issue, the author needs to do more thorough research about the history of this question in Zimbabwe. There is nothing poor or chaotic about the land reform programme. What solution could have been better to address the racial land imbalance maintained by the “willing buyer-willing seller” clause? Who was willing to sell land and who, in a new nation of mostly poor Africans, was in a position to buy it?
An honest analogy for the anatomy of Zimbabwe’s problems is more like a gang taking control of a family’s’ house. Only after being forced by the family to relinquish control in part, the gang then co-opts certain family members to badger the rest into infighting while the gang ransacks the house and from outside, standing in front of their glass homes they throw stones. Our call to all Africans at home and in the Diaspora is to unite against real live enemies and beware of any diagnoses with a psychosis of denial that neglects the most pertinent aspects our anatomical problems.
• Kwanisai Mafa is an Electronic Resources Librarian at Zimbabwe’s Midland State University and Chairman of the Ujamma Youth Farming Project in Gweru. He can be reached at [email][email protected] Netfa Freeman is the Director of the Social Action & Leadership School for Activists at the Institute for Policy Studies and an organizer with PALO, the Pan-African Liberation Organization. He can be reached at [email][email protected]
• Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org
FEATURE: Wole Soyinka sounds an urgent warning bell against criminal silence on Darfur
COMMENT AND ANALYSIS:
- Assis Malaquias suggests that it is premature to suggest that positive peace is a reality in Cabinda
- Manuel Paulo points out that for a successful consolidation of long-term sustainable peace to exist in Angola, the economy would need to be diversified first.
- Kwanisai Mafa and Netfa Freeman caution that all Africans at home and in the diaspora must unite against real live enemies and beware of any diagnoses with a psychosis of denial that neglects the most pertinent aspects our anatomical problems.
PODCASTS: Pambazuka News publishes two further podcasts: African slaves fight for land rights, and Tajudeen Abdul Raheem gives voice to his reasons for giving up smoking.
LETTERS: Ranting is not Progress
PAN AFRICAN POSTCARD: Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem writes that we should ‘Stand Up Against Poverty’ and stand up for the MDG’s
BLOGGING AFRICA: Sokari Ekine continues her blog round up: "You don’t have to be an ‘intellectual’ to know what’s going on in Zimbabwe, you just need to live there."
CONFLICT AND EMERGENCIES: Links to news on Sudan, Somalia, Uganda and COTE D'IVOIRE
HUMAN RIGHTS: Human rights report on illegal detentions
WOMEN AND GENDER: Our girls stay home and india, china scoop the science prizes
REFUGEES AND FORCED MIGRATION: Fleeing war, Somalis are targets of violence in adopted home
ELECTIONS AND GOVERNANCE: Government sets up ministry for war veterans
DEVELOPMENT: Africans lash out at chinese employers
CORRUPTION: “Corrupt culture" revealed among African diplomats
HEALTH AND HIV/AIDS: New battle lines for hiv/aids war drawn
EDUCATION: Teachers go back to school in southern sudan
ENVIRONMENT: UN agency issues warning over untreated sewage
MEDIA AND FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION: FXI concerned about growing "climate of fear" at UKZN
INTERNET AND TECHNOLOGY: Keyboard caters for all official sa languages
PLUS: e-Newsletters and Mailings Lists; Fundraising and Useful Resources; Courses, Seminars and Workshops; Jobs.
50th Anniversary of the First International Congress of Black Writers and Artists MOTION ON THE DARFUR CRISIS Presented by Professor Wole Soyinka, President of the Communauté Africaine de culture
We deplore and condemn in the strongest terms the conduct of the Janjaweed units of sectarian terrorism against the African indigenes of Darfur and demand international intervention through the authority of the United Nations without delay.
We welcome the decision of the Africa Union to extend the mandate of its peace-keeping forces to the end of the year and urge the international community to support those forces by all means necessary, including a deployment of U.N. peacekeeping forces, since from all evidence, the Sudanese Government has demonstrated that it lacks the will or means, or both, to control the genocidal activities of the Janjaweed marauders.
We demand an end to the greatest international refugee crisis that the world has ever known, an end that will be meaningful only when the refugees are returned to their legitimate homes and placed under the protection of international forces until they are empowered to protect themselves, and peace is firmly established in the Sudan.
We demand an international commission of enquiry into strong allegations of complicity by the Sudanese Government in the activities of the Janjaweed. In the meantime, we call on the international organisations and governments to take strong action and sanctions including expulsion, against the Sudanese Government until it agrees to abide by the UN resolutions on Darfur and cease to place obstacles in the way of United Nations presence in Darfur.
Passed in Paris Friday 22nd September 2006
This week, Tajudeen Adbul-Raheem explains his many reasons for giving up smoking. This is a podcast of Tajudeen's popular article published in Pambazuka News.
In this second podcast in our series on trade justice, Pambazuka News spoke to environmental activist Marcelo Calazans in Brazil on the day a Quilombola community reclaimed land from a destructive monoculture eucalyptus plantation. The Quilombolas are the descendants of slaves brought by the Portuguese from Angola and Congo. For more information on monoculture eucalyptus and Quilombolas check the Alert Against the Green Desert Movement website
Mr. Akbar Ganji, an Iranian investigative journalist and human rights activist, and Mr. Arnold Tsunga a lawyer and a radio commentator from Zimbabwe, will receive the 2006 Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders (MEA) on Wednesday 11 October 2006, 17h30. Mrs. Louise Arbour, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights will present the award during a ceremony at the Bâtiment des Forces Motrices in Geneva (Switzerland), within framework of the International North South Media Festival.
Thousands of Ghanaian senior secondary school teachers have been on strike since classes resumed in September, but in a twist of roles students are taking the podium. Teenagers are lecturing classes, have formed study groups or follow individual daily school plans as their teachers stay home to demand better pay and other benefits. The strike is affecting 360,000 senior secondary students nationwide.
Global Call for Action against Poverty (GCAP) campaigners are uniting in solidarity for a global Month of Action from the 16 September to 17 October 2006.The South African NGO Coalition (SANGOCO) is a leading member of the SA GCAP, joining millions of people around the world to Stand Up Against Poverty. We are organising a host of activities in South Africa, culminating with the final activity on the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty on 17 October.
Civil society organisations (CSOs) from 19 African countries met in Banjul, Gambia, 26-28 June 2006 to discuss ways of improving compliance with commitments made under African Union treaties, with particular reference to the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM). The workshop, which was a follow-up to a similar meeting held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in January 2006, discussed presentations from organisations that have engaged with the APRM in countries where the process has been undertaken, and from organisations working to monitor compliance with African and other international standards.
Policy-makers state that economic growth is vital to poverty reduction and that trade is critical to growth. But is the relationship that simple? In countries across the world, debates rage as to who loses and who gains as changes in trade policies open or protect national markets. The media can inform people on whether trade reforms can help tackle poverty.
Much information on PRSPs, where available, is provided by groups heavily involved in the process: governments, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Press releases on PRSP negotiations are typically written in dry, technical language.But are ordinary people aware of the challenges at stake in discussions on dealing with poverty?
The Freedom of Expression Institute is very concerned about the state of freedom of expression and academic freedom at the University of KwaZulu Natal. Free expression and academic freedom are in severe decline at the university. The latest incident causing concern is the matter of Fazel Khan, who is being hauled before a disciplinary committee.
Denial and ignorance of HIV/AIDS are still major problems in post-war Sierra Leone, hindering care and support for people living with the virus."When I tested positive in 2002 and told my family, they'd never heard of HIV/AIDS; they didn't know it existed and they didn't want me in the house, so I had to leave," HIV-positive Ibrahim Kargbo, 41, told IRIN/PlusNews in the capital, Freetown.
Violence against women and children by warring groups in Darfur is reaching alarming levels. Extreme violence has been a feature of the civil conflict since it erupted in 2003. However, in the past months, attacks on women and girls, both within and outside camps for the displaced, have soared. The rising rate of violence against women and children is increased by the participation of many different groups in these crimes.
It's the Nobel Prize season once again. Exactly two years ago, we were celebrating the announcement of Prof. Wangari Maathai as winner of the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize. Prof Maathai's Nobel brought the number of African recipients to 13. Except for the 1951 Nobel Prize for Medicine that was awarded to the South African doctor Max Theiler, and the 1999 Nobel Prize for Chemistry awarded to the Egyptian-born Ahmed Zewail, all the others have been either for Literature or Peace.
Increasing sexual violence in Côte d'Ivoire has prompted rights organisations to call for an end to a culture of impunity which they claim has encouraged this trend -- particularly as concerns the military. Since September 2002, Côte d'Ivoire has been divided into a rebel-controlled north and government-dominated south. Many rights violations, especially against women, have been reported by non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and victims themselves in the past four years -- with soldiers amongst those most frequently accused of rape.
"I am pregnant because my husband refused to buy condoms," said Sarah while an equally expectant Janet blamed her pregnancy on the failure of her husband to use condoms consistently. For 19-year-old Sophie, the four-month pregnancy occurred because she couldn't tell her boyfriend why they should use condoms. And for Ida, they could simply not afford them. All the four women, whose names have been changed to protect their identity, are HIV positive.
October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. What is the message during the month? Breast lumps are very common in women but some of these lumps can be dangerous. In most cases when such lumps are identified, they are removed and examined by the doctor to determine whether they are cancerous or not. When found cancerous the immediate advise is to undergo the treatment.
Despite being the majority, women have once again failed the political gender test in the Zambian general elections, Shoshong MP and vice chairperson of SADC Parliamentary Forum, Duke Lefhoko has said. The failure in Zambia is even puzzling because apart from the fact that they had numerical advantage at the voting roll, women were prominent and active in the campaigns.
Western Cape Health MEC Pierre Uys has urged all women in South Africa to help increase awareness about breast cancer."I want to stress the point that early detection is very important and I would like the riders to educate people on how to do self-examination as they continue in their journey," he said.The MEC was speaking at the farewell function of 13 women who are riding motorbikes from Cape Town to Johannesburg to raise awareness about breast cancer.
Several military personnel and civilians are being held illegally for prolonged periods and often under inhumane conditions, according to the human-rights watchdog (L'observatoire congolais des droits de l'homme) in the Republic of Congo. In a new report, the organisation denounced the arrest in February 2005 of 13 army officers and warrant officers for the alleged theft of weapons from a military camp south of the capital, Brazzaville.
Dozens of Somalis have allegedly been killed in South Africa's Western Cape Province in the past few months in what appears to be an escalating campaign of xenophobic violence. South Africa already struggles with some of the world's highest rates of violent crime, and is home to immigrant groups from throughout the continent. But Somalis in this region say the killings – as well as a string of brutal robberies and assaults – reflect a growing national trend fuelled in part by destitution and prejudice.
The United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, is expanding camps for Somali refugees in eastern Kenya to accommodate an increasing number of people fleeing the troubled Horn of Africa country."We are really concerned about the large number of refugees who continue to arrive every day," said Emmanuel Nyabera, spokesman for the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Nairobi.
As EU-wide minimum standards for granting refugee status take effect, the UN refugee agency urged member states Monday to live up to their legal and moral obligation to protect refugees and asylum seekers by maintaining the highest possible asylum standards.By 10 October 2006, EU countries are required to have implemented the so-called "Qualification Directive," which sets out mimimum standards for qualification for refugee status or other forms of international protection in the European Union.
A split among top LRA commanders and the diaspora community that has been supporting them is threatening the future of the Juba peace talks. "Within the LRA, there is a split between those who are tired of fighting but are being held back, and those who don't want to go to Congo like Thomas Kwoyelo," a source said.
In what has been seen as a victory for Namibia's increasingly vociferous former liberation war fighters, the government has created a war veterans' ministry in response to their accusations they have been ignored since independence. The South West African People's Organisation (SWAPO) government announced the establishment of the Ministry of Veteran Affairs earlier this month, 16 years after independence and within a few months of a slew of financial demands by the National Committee of War Veterans, which claims to represent 7,000 veterans of SWAPO's armed wing, the People's Liberation Army of Namibia (PLAN).
AS CONGO PREPARES FOR A RUN-off election between incumbent Joseph Kabila and Jean Pierre Bemba, the focus will be on the country's Electoral Commission, which urgently needs to deal with the many organisational weaknesses witnessed during the first round of polling. The first round was, in many ways, a success, with 18 million voting in around 50,000 polling stations.
Teachers in Federal and Unity Schools yesterday commenced their indefinite strike to protest the plan by the Federal Government to sell their schools to private managers.
The Department of Education has emphasised that communities also need to play their part in the efforts to make schools in the country safe. "In as much as we strive to make our schools safe havens, we also need parents and communities to play a major role in making our schools safer," spokesperson Lunga Ngqengelele said. He said pupils who became criminals came from communities and families, urging parents to be actively involved in their children's schooling.
President Olusegun Obasanjo has called on the international community to consider "as a matter of priority" the "total cancellation" of the debts of African nations "as part of a meaningful effort" towards the continent's development. Addressing members of the international community on the final day of his state visit to Ethiopia in Addis Ababa on October 10, President Obasanjo also called for "genuine cooperation for the return of illegally acquired funds, which are stashed away in foreign banks," as well as the adoption of measures that will prevent the further looting of the resources of African nations.
Aid agencies are optimistic that harvests will be good in most of the Sahel this year, but warn there are pockets of failed crops, and that donor funds are still lacking for the projects that would nudge Africans away from their precarious dependence on foreign aid and erratic rainfall. “Following a good end to the rainy season in the Sahel, forecasts for cereal production for this year are optimistic, but there continue to be localised crop failures that contribute directly to high rates of malnutrition,” the World Food Programme (WFP) said in a statement on Monday.
Vice President Atiku Abubakar is expected to appear today before the Code of Conduct Tribunal to defend charges of abuse of office, embezzlement of public funds and money laundering brought against him by the Federal Government. His invitation by the tribunal is sequel to the report by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), which accused him of conspiring with others to loot the Petroleum Technology Deve-lopment Funds (PTDF).
'NGOMROM' -
(http://ngomrom.blogspot.com/2006/10/do-not-torpedo-peace-talks-in-juba.html) provides his perspective on the Juba peace talks between Sudan, Uganda and the Lords Resistance Army (LRA). NGOMROM seems to be supporting the position of the LRA leader, Joseph Kony. He asks why members of his army are being asked to assemble in two different locations and sees this as a set of “hidden traps and tricks” and a possible hand over of Kony to the ICC (International Criminal Court).
“Why would anybody even consider that the peace talks proceed with ICC threat unresolved? Museveni has to provide conditions to keep the ICC away from Kony and his commanders, otherwise there will be no peace involving those five men. These two issues are mutually exclusive. Without these men, there must be modified peace talks, because the people of Uganda in the affected areas still need peace from the government of Museveni.”
'Sokwanele' - Grandiose Parlor http://grandioseparlor.com/2006/10/tackling-the-culture-of-corruption/ comments on the “culture of corruption” in Nigeria. He does not believe it is possible to wipe away the mindset of corruption from the minds of Nigerians. Nor does he see the EFCC (anti-corruption apparatus set up by the state), as a wholly effective tool. The solution for him lies in the electoral system.
“The next level is through the electoral system. Would the electorate take a clue from the EFCC and do their civic duties? Would the activities of the EFCC, as biased and crude as it is, spur some decent folks to step-up and take control through the ballot system? What steps are community advocacy groups/street associations/social groups taking to ensure that the elections are free and fair in their areas? By the way, there are some innovative steps taken by some to address the issues corruption.”
'White Africa' -
“My country’s leaders need to do something for these people, before these people decide to do something for themselves.” I think this statement could cut across the whole continent. We await the uprising! 'The Moor Next Door' - The Moor Next Door (http://wahdah.blogspot.com/2006/10/kenyan-muslims-angered-over-us-and.html) comments on protests by Kenyan Muslims against what he describes as a "US-and Israeli-inspired Anti-Terror Unit”. Muslims in the country are being increasingly targeted by the Anti Terror Unit and the government is: "...using an unpassed bill to arrest, harass and intimidate members of the Muslim community and those who sympathise with them." 'African Women’s Blog' - African Women's Blog (http://africanwomenblogs.com/2006/10/09/ist-african-womens-carnival-at-t...) held its first Carnival of African Women this week. The AWB was created as a “collaborative space for African women online”. The AWB also has an aggregator of blogs by African women and a webring. The focus of the Carnival was “Identity and blogging” and included poems and personal life stories from 11 African women. “Passion’ is the response that Philomena gives to people who ask her how she manages the wife/mother/blogger balance and tell us how she is able to do this in her post. “My secrets are in my fingers. My fingers are the expression of my passion. From my kitchen when preparing food for my husband and family, to my three children, when cuddling them with tenderness of infanthood. To my emotions when I had to express it, I prefer, through my fingers than through my voice. Perhaps that is why I am regarded by close friends as being on the quiet side.” 'Egyptian Chronicles' - Egyptian Chronicles (http://egyptianchronicles.blogspot.com/2006/10/pyongyang-response.html) “Pyongyang announced the success of an underground detonation of a nuclear weapon, some say, or most the world say today this nuclear weapon is an atomic bomb, yes and by this N.Korea joins the Nuclear bomb owners and they are if I am mistaken the U.S and Russia for sure, France and England, Pakistan and India, China and our neighbor Israel despite they didn't announce it, yet I got a book saying they got a nuclear bomb since 1960s and their first nuclear weapon was tested in Algeria's.” Egyptian goes on to add that Pyongyang has lots of other “toys” to play with should the need arise such as “the famous Korean missiles and rockets which Israel always accuse Egypt and Syria of having them and of course Syria doesn't deny and Egypt doesn't even respond.” So where does all this leave the West and their allies? In an ocean raft without a paddle – in short, in a panic. 'Black Looks' - Black Looks (http://www.blacklooks.org/2006/10/niger_delta_2.html) posts two podcasts of an interview with Nigerian historian Professor Alagoa, on the Niger Delta speaking on the “changes that have taken place in the Niger Delta since the excecution of Ken Saro Wiwa in 1995, the rise of militancy in the region and the governorship of Diepreye Alamieyeseigha - ex Governor of Bayelsa State.” • Sokari Ekine produces the blog Black Looks, www.blacklooks.org • Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at www.pambazuka.org
asks us to forget Iraq, the war on terror, Iran, Castro and everyone else. Why? Because “Pyongyang did it, Pyongyang did it.”
Port Harcourt ELF Nigeria Limited has promised to end gas flaring in all its operations in the country from December this year when work on its Amenam Kpono project phase II would have been completed. The company said already the bridge, which would convey gas from the phase one of the Amenam Kpono project was about 99% completed. Giving details yesterday at Saipem yard in Port Harcourt after conducting newsmen round, Engineer Patrick Ngene said the phase one of the project came on stream since 1993.
The Germans know how to build cars. When the organisation I used to work for was getting a new office car, our choice - from the make to the colour - was primarily dictated by concerns about carjacking. A year later I was involved in a head-on collision, following which the car rolled. The car, a new Volkswagen Jetta, was written-off. But I, amazingly, emerged unscathed thanks to its airbag and seatbelt.
Raw sewage is posing an increasing threat to the coastal waters of many developing nations, according to the UN Environment Programme (UNEP). In a report released last week (4 October), the agency said that as much as 80-90 per cent of sewage entering the sea from such countries is raw and untreated. It warns that this is threatening marine life and livelihoods linked to fisheries and tourism. The report says that governments need to invest an extra US$56 billion each year to address the problem.
The Asian Political and International Studies Association (APISA, the Latin American Council of Social Sciences (CLACSO) and the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA), will convene an international workshop within the framework of the Africa/Asia/Latin America Scholarly Collaborative Program.
The Asian Political and International Studies Association (APISA), the Latin American Council of Social Sciences (CLACSO) and the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) are pleased to announce the Africa/Asia/Latin America scholarly collaborative initiative encompassing joint research, training, publishing and dissemination activities by researchers drawn from across the global South, and to call for applications for participation in the South-South comparative research seminars they are organising within the framework of the initiative.
The Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) invites proposals from researchers for consideration for possible inclusion in its new Multinational Working Group (MWG) on the theme of Youth and Identity in Africa. Youth and youth identity is one of the thematic areas at the heart of the current intellectual agenda of the Council; Child and Youth Studies are also established as a core activity in CODESRIA programming.
People like Dr Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem should not be allowed to publish their rants here. Why must any hothead be allowed to just publish his/her rant? Why not create a blog? Pambazuka News (Pambazuka means arise or awaken in Kiswahili) is a tool for progressive social change in Africa. Ranting is NOT progress. Bring a solution to our problems and we will take you seriously.
Editor's reply: Ranting is not progress, true. If we followed your reasoning, we should not really have allowed your rant to be published here. If you disagree with what Tajudeen has to say, then challenge his ideas. Don't ask us to prohibit freedom of expression.
I enjoyed reading the article entitled by Aaron Tesfaye. God bless the author for such a perceptive, lucid and correct assessment of the situation and how the Governments should respond. But we-the-citizens, how should WE respond? Some of us have come up with a clear answer: several of us have decided to begin a ‘Rescue Darfur’ fast. One of us began 5 days ago, and several others today. See the links below for the details. Nothing less than a worldwide fast until the genocide stops will be enough to stop it. Nothing less will be a sufficient moral response. Nothing less will preserve our humanity, yours and mine. Please consider linking (below) to increase the visibility of this effort. Jay McGinley
http://darfurdyingforheroes.blogspot.com http://darfurdyingforheroes.blogspot.com/2007/09/join-rescue-darfur-fast-till-it-stops.html I will eagerly link to your site.
I seriously think that all big people like G7, G8, G$ and so on together with the UN and ASEAN, ADB, and World Bank should start thinking about how selfish their motives are. They all know very well the plight of those poor African people, what did they ever do for them? The Middle East is a contrast - see how well their people and future generations are cared for. Even after being occupied, and waging a war, Kuwait returned to look after their people. We all are to blame. Who puts these Governments/Military in place? We humans, we are to blame. It is a wake up call. Sadly.
As the November 2006 Congressional elections approach, observers predict that the balance of power between the political parties may hinge on foreign policy issues, such as the war in Iraq. However, while African issues have not yet figured prominently in campaign debates, the continent’s challenges highlight global concerns, which the U.S. cannot afford to ignore.
The World Bank Board of Executive Directors has approved a US$23 million credit to assist the Government of Zambia to consolidate on-going reforms in the water sector, by improving access and sustainability of water and sanitation for consumers in Lusaka. The project also provides funding that will lead to a more coordinated approach for water and sanitation investments countrywide.
The Freedom of Expression Institute (FXI) is concerned about the "By-Law relating to streets, public places and the prevention of nuisances" that has been proposed by the City of Cape Town. While there are a number of concerns about how the proposed legislation disadvantages poor people, our main focus is its draconian section on gatherings and processions.
During the week of 3 October 2006, four detectives from the police's Law and Order section visited the Harare distribution offices of "The Zimbabwean", a weekly newspaper published in London, and demanded certain information from the proprietor before confiscating some documents. They were particularly interested in the previous week's issue, although they did not specify which article had attracted their attention. In it, the front page story, headlined "ZNA top brass slam corrupt ZRP", had outlined the tensions between the army and the police after the arrest of a former colonel for alleged corruption at the state grain monopoly, the Grain Marketing Board. The detectives took away documents pertaining to the importation of the weekly newspaper from South Africa, where the southern African edition is printed.
Educators who carry on despite hardships such as war and poverty are being honoured on World Teacher's Day, observed on 5 October. This story highlights a partnership between UNICEF and the Windle Trust to train teachers in Southern Sudan. At the age of 67 Clara Royo, a primary school teacher is going back to school. Like nearly every other teacher in Southern Sudan, Ms. Royo has almost no formal training.
The Human Rights Council this afternoon suspended its second session until 27 November when it will take action on all the draft proposals that it could not consider given their high number and the insufficient time available in order to guarantee the due and balanced consideration of all proposals. When the Council concludes taking action on the draft proposals at the end of November, it will immediately open its third session.