Pambazuka News 490: Food sovereignty in Africa: The people's alternative
Pambazuka News 490: Food sovereignty in Africa: The people's alternative
The different explanations given for Africa’s current food crisis seem to miss the real causes of the problem. Mamadou Goita does not believe that the crisis is of an economic nature. Rather, it is the endpoint of the dismantling of Africa’s agricultural sector and its linking to the international market and brutal liberalism. Based on an analysis of the political choices that have contributed to the current situation, notably the structural adjustment programmes of the 1980s, Goita proposes solutions and decisions that need to be taken to achieve food sovereignty in Africa.
Following the success of 'the octopus' in predicting the result of various World Cup matches, Tumusiime K. Deo wonders what role the cephalopod might play in Uganda's elections.
Addressing his fellow Kenyans, Isaac Newton Kinity aims to clear up confusion around what is implicit in voting 'yes' or 'no' when it comes to the country's referendum on its Draft Constitution on 4 August.
I have a story I have been trying not to tell for a long time. I don’t know why I have been keeping it to myself really. Maybe I have never had anyone to tell the story, but it had been nagging me all the same. Now I feel I must do something about it, tell someone, anyone, in the hope of a break in my unending painful infliction…
Bill Fletcher, Jr reviews Sasha Polakow-Suransky's 'The Unspoken Alliance: Israel’s Secret Relationship with Apartheid South Africa', a book which he finds effective in 'dispelling the notion of the supposed democratic and moralistic character of the Israeli state'.
In the wake of a recent Amnesty International report on crime and insecurity in Nairobi's low-income areas, L. Muthoni Wanyeki discusses the problems of safety and the broader context of judicial and police deficiencies which produces them.
Does your organisation need legal help? i-ProBono is a new, free website to connect organisations that need legal assistance with lawyers and students who want to use their legal skills for the public good. Partnered with A4ID, LawWorks and the Bar Pro Bono Unit, i-ProBono has a global network of over 40,000 lawyers. It’s quick and easy for organisations to post projects on the website, ranging from legal advice, to internships, to smaller tasks like translation or research. i-ProBono will match your project instantly with the profiles of lawyers or students who can best assist you and allows you to immediately contact them through the . It only takes a few minutes to sign up! – or you can contact [email][email protected]
Lethal injection and incomplete confession
They will never know what’s in my heart
They say it’s just like being at the dentist
Just a prick that will end this
It is not this drug that is killing me
It’s the syringe of truth and unfortunate coincidence
That most prisons are half-filled with black men
A common phenomenon
We are less than a quarter of the population
So tell me if these are not our homes
For like the ships they hold us in bulk
Keeping us in limbo, for we are truly don’t know
Lethal injection and incomplete confession
They will never know what’s in my heart
They say it’s just like being at the dentist
Just a prick that will end this
Yet this affliction is painless
But it tears me to the bottom of my spirit
Leaves no laceration
Yet I bleed like me spirit is being ripped apart
They will ask for a dying wish
And I will desire to tell the jury what I know now
My generation is thus that is being slain
By the Grim’s scythe of
Crack, smack, the click clack
And the bang bang
The few role models we have
Are half-filled with the common illusion
That we will all end up super stars
So I've got my Glock and smack
What now?
Lethal injection and incomplete confession
They will never know what’s in my heart
They say it’s just like being at the dentist
Just a prick that will end this
For it’s not this poison killing
But the pain within
Who will collect my mother’s tears
In their palms, take them away
And make her smile
Keep faith in Jesus used to say
So I accept Jah with all my being and flesh
Mind and once relentless spirit
Lethal injection and incomplete confession
They will never know what’s in my heart
They say it’s just like being at the dentist
Just a prick that will end this
For I have seen these four walls for too long
With any luck I’ll be going home
A place where I will be at peace
And meditate on this life past gone
Pambazuka News 489: Remembering Lumumba; Afrophobia and the Cup
Pambazuka News 489: Remembering Lumumba; Afrophobia and the Cup
Does your organisation need legal help? i-ProBono is a new, free website to connect organisations that need legal assistance with lawyers and students who want to use their legal skills for the public good. Partnered with A4ID, LawWorks and the Bar Pro Bono Unit, i-ProBono has a global network of over 40,000 lawyers. It’s quick and easy for organisations to post projects on the website, ranging from legal advice, to internships, to smaller tasks like translation or research. i-ProBono will match your project instantly with the profiles of lawyers or students who can best assist you and allows you to immediately contact them through the . It only takes a few minutes to sign up! – or you can contact [email][email protected]
Over a half-century ago, Mahatma Gandhi led a multitude of Indians to the sea to make salt—in defiance of the British Empire’s monopoly on this resource critical to people’s diet. The action catalyzed the fragmented movement for Indian independence and was the beginning of the end for Britain’s rule over India. The act of “making salt” has since been repeated many times in many forms by people’s movements seeking liberation, justice and sovereignty: Cesar Chavez, Nelson Mandela, and the Zapatistas are just a few of the most prominent examples. Our food movement— one that spans the globe—seeks food sovereignty from the monopolies that dominate our food systems with the complicity of our governments. We are powerful, creative, committed and diverse. It is our time to make salt.
Jordan’s long-awaited agricultural mega-project in Sudan is facing further delays due to a dispute raised by the foreign investment company over the implementation mechanism, according to the Ministry of Agriculture. Discussions between the ministry and a group of prospective investors in the mega-project are at a standstill after the investors insisted on owning the lands allocated by the Sudanese government for the project
The global food crisis of 2008 may have been superseded by the global financial crisis of 2009, but the jump in basic commodity prices that it brought about bodes ill for the developing world. In a bid to stave off a worst-case scenario of empty shelves and ration queues, many nations which rely on food imports have switched to a new strategy for food security — buying or leasing farmland overseas.
When African delegates arrived in Uganda’s capital, Kampala, in May for the first review conference of the statue that established the International Criminal Court (ICC), they were aware that some in Africa believe that the court unfairly targets political figures from the continent. Indeed, all five cases currently being handled by the court, which is based in The Hague, involve African leaders. It was therefore notable that delegates from 30 African countries ultimately agreed that the charge of “unfairness” is flawed.
A new study has challenged widely held assumptions about income level in relation to HIV, finding that neither wealth nor poverty are reliable predictors of HIV infection in Africa. Previously, the argument that poverty drove HIV epidemics was supported by the World Bank and UNAIDS, as well as less reliable authorities like former South African President Thabo Mbeki, who told the International AIDS Conference in Durban in 2000 that the disease was a partner with "poverty, suffering, social disadvantage and inequity".
As part of the Global Open Day for Women and Peace, 20 women from civil society and community-based organizations in Kenya came together in Nairobi on 7 July to discuss issues related to the inclusion of women in processes of conflict resolution, peace negotiations and peacebuilding. The consultative forum was organized by UNIFEM and UNDP in the context of the 10th anniversary of UN Security Council resolution 1325 on women, peace and security.
Although some West African countries have made positive gains in consolidating peace and human rights, such strides are being undercut by the paucity of good governance, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon writes in a new report. “The resurgence of coups d’état in West Africa, which I have consistently denounced, and the major role played by the armed forces in these coups, are a reflection of the difficult civil-military relationships in situations of bad governance,” he says.
Anger against the push by MPs to increase their pay was on Thursday written on the faces of these Kenyans demonstrating outside Parliament. But inside the Chamber, the people’s representatives were unmoved in their resolve for more pay and refused to adjourn until the extra money was in their pockets. MPs, with the apparent support of the front bench, refused to second an adjournment motion moved by Government joint Chief Whip Jakoyo Midiwo to pave way for the break until August 10.
Cameroon's government has rejected the claim by a gay asylum seeker in the UK that he would face persecution if he returned home. On Wednesday, the Supreme Court in London ruled in favour of the man, and a similar claimant from Iran.
An undersea cable that brought high-speed net access to East Africa for the first time has been hit by a fault, knocking many in the region offline. The owners of the Seacom cable said the exact cause of the fault was "still being investigated", but was thought to originate off the Kenyan coast.
Fear of sexual violence is keeping poor Kenyan women away from communal toilets, and increasing the risk of disease, Amnesty International says. In a report on Kenya's slums, the human rights group said women and girls were afraid to leave their shacks at night. As a result they were risking contracting diseases such as dysentery and cholera, the report said.
Rwanda has expressed its concern over the way the authorities in South Africa are investigating the shooting of a former Rwandan army chief of staff. Lt Gen Faustin Kayumba Nyamwasa was wounded outside his house in Johannesburg last month.
Nigeria's president has said the hundreds of posts on his Facebook page helped persuade him to reverse his suspension of the national football team from international competition. "I have listened to your voices," Goodluck Jonathan said in a posting on the social networking site.
The sun has almost set on the Soccer World Cup and its seeming suspension of our South African 'normalcy'. No doubt, many will try their best to continue to bask in its positively proclaimed 'developmental legacy'; but, as sure as the sun will rise on the morning after, so too will the reality of that ‘normalcy’ bite us like an unhappy dog. Nowhere will this be more apparent than in the world of South African soccer itself.
The Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria (ERA/FoEN) in collaboration with the Women Environmental Programme (WEP) visited communities in three local government areas – Nassarawa LGA, Dareta Village in Anka LGA and Yar Garma in Bukkuyum LGA of Zamfara State on June 17 and 18, 2010 following reports of human and animal deaths from exposure to high levels of lead from mined ore in the communities.
Anti-corruption watchdogs have shown their teeth, but Egypt's fat cats appear safe from prosecution as long as they stay in favour with the regime. "The state investigates corruption but usually only after officials are out of office, and only with the green light from above," says anti-corruption expert Ahmed Sakr Ashour. "We need (to prosecute) these officials while they are in office and abusing power."
The Mozambican government has adopted various policies to address the effects of climate change, with special attention to women as studies show that they are more adversely affected by this phenomenon. The south-east African country, with its coastline of 2,700 km stretching along the Indian Ocean, has increasingly been subjected to environmental disasters over the past decade.
New research identifying Haiti and Mozambique as the countries most vulnerable to economic losses from natural disasters also classifies a number of industrialised economies, including Italy, Japan, China, USA, Spain and France, as "high risk" environments for investors, insurers and business.
Representatives from the United Nations and the African Union met in New York to discuss ways of boosting cooperation between the two bodies to support the efforts of post-conflict countries, particularly in Africa, to establish lasting peace. This was the first consultative meeting of the members of the UN Peacebuilding Commission (PBC) and the AU Peace and Security Council, and builds on the visit of the PBC to the AU’s headquarters in Addis Ababa in November 2009.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) today suspended proceedings in the case of a Congolese warlord accused of recruiting child soldiers, saying that prosecutors have refused orders to disclose information to his defence. Thomas Lubanga Dyilo, the founder and leader of the Union of Congolese Patriots in the Ituri region of the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), faces two counts of war crimes: conscripting and enlisting child soldiers into the military wing of his group and then using them to participate in hostilities between September 2002 and August 2003
The progress made by Guinea-Bissau following last year’s political crisis could be jeopardized unless major reforms in the areas of defence and security are carried out, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon says in a new report. Recent months have witnessed rising political and security tensions in the country, where a series of political assassinations last year had threatened security and stability but where order was restored with the election of Malam Bacai Sanhá in the June 2009 presidential election.
The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) has welcomed Namibia’s decision to remove travel restrictions for people living with the virus, a move that aligns the country’s laws with international public health standards. The new legislation lifting restrictions for people living with HIV/AIDS and other contagious diseases took effect in Namibia on 1 July. Restrictions that limit movement based on HIV-positive status only are discriminatory and violate human rights, according to UNAIDS.
Ten leading aid agencies have called for a 'surge' in the humanitarian effort to help 10 million people at risk of acute hunger across the Sahel region of West and Central Africa. The centre of the crisis is Niger, where seven million people, almost half the population do not have enough food. A further two million people in Chad, and hundreds of thousands more in Mali, Mauritania, parts of Burkina Faso and the extreme north of Nigeria are also suffering as a result of the crisis.
Hundreds of Somalis in five towns controlled by Islamist rebels protested against plans to deploy extra peacekeepers in Somalia. The protesters including veiled women and children brandishing AK-47 automatic rifles took the streets in the port town Kismayo, around 310 miles (500 kilometers) south of the capital of Mogadishu. They were chanting slogans against the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) and western backed government led by former Islamist leader Sharif Sheikh Ahmed.
South African unions dropped a threat to strike at power utility Eskom this week after receiving a higher wage offer, ending concerns about electricity supplies during the soccer World Cup. Widespread power cuts could also have dented manufacturing and mining companies' output in Africa's biggest economy, the world's top platinum and fourth-largest gold producer.
Constitutional outreach teams have now been deployed to every corner of the country, three weeks after the program was launched in Harare. SW Radio Africa is reliably informed that the Constitutional Parliamentary Committee (COPAC) that is leading the reforms has this week received less complaints from its teams conducting public consultative meetings.
The Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) has dismissed ongoing public hearings for a new constitution as a mockery to the people of Zimbabwe, because it had “become even clearer that political parties are in charge of the process.” In a statement signed by Secretary General Wellington Chibebe, the union said the process, dogged by chaos, was meant to be a “national affair” but was now being manipulated by the three political parties in the coalition government.
Egypt's biggest opposition bloc, the Muslim Brotherhood, has set up a website to help potential presidential candidate Mohamed ElBaradei gather support in his campaign for change and political reform. The website, also joined by other opposition groups, has collected almost 3,000 signatures since its launch late on Wednesday, in a sign the banned group is capable of mustering large numbers of supporters for a cause.
An international autopsy team looking into the death of a prominent Congolese human rights activist was unable to give a conclusive cause of death. The death of Floribert Chebeya, whose corpse was found in his car last month after he was summoned to see the police chief, caused outrage and led to calls for an international investigation.
HIV doctors and activists have slammed a male circumcision clamp that is being aggressively marketed in South Africa and the rest of the continent with a small study showing that it is much more painful that the surgical route and has more adverse events. In a joint statement the Southern African HIV Clinicians Society and the Treatment Action Campaign said although they supported the implementation of a country-wide voluntary male medical circumcision (VMMC) programme, they had concerns about the Tara Klamp.
The Sex Workers Education and Advocacy Taskforce (SWEAT) and Sisonke have launched a helpline to give sex workers a voice. Micky Meji, country coordinator of the African Sex Workers Alliance (ASWA) said the line was initiated to give sex workers a platform to voice their concerns and fears they faced at work. “Not everyone knows where to get help for sex workers. It is not easy for sex workers to get adequate information because they are often scared of revealing what they do to earn a living,” said Meji.
The EASSy cable connecting the east coat seaboard is currently in its testing phase and will go live some time around the middle of this month. Its WIOCC shareholder consortium has always promised lower rates and better transit prices and these are on their way. But the new landing stations have energised backbone roll-out, particularly in Tanzania. All of this will leave satellite as a niche transport application in the key East African markets. Russell Southwood looks at the heady pace of change.
The World Bank has approved financing in the amount of US$44.7 million from the International Development Association (IDA) to the Government of Ghana as additional funding for the ongoing eGhana Project. The original eGhana Project of US$40 million was approved in 2006 to support the Ghana Information Communication Technology (ICT) for Accelerated Development Program.
Robust early increases in CD4 cell count reduce the risk of death for patients with HIV, even those who are severely malnourished, investigators from Zambia report in the online edition of AIDS. The large, prospective study showed that an increase in CD4 cell count of less than 100 cells/mm3 six months after starting HIV treatment was associated with an increased risk of mortality, especially for those who were malnourished.
Morocco must combat corruption by adopting an overall strategy that includes more than just punitive measures, according to the Central Authority for the Prevention of Corruption (ICPC). "Punishment alone is not enough," ICPC chief Abdesselam Aboudrar said Tuesday (July 6th) in Rabat at the presentation of his group's annual report.
Moroccan media distorts the image of women, according to a recent survey undertaken by the communication ministry. Overall, Moroccan females believe that their image is so misrepresented and manipulated that it does not mirror the reality of Moroccan women, the survey said. Advertising and drama are the farthest from reality in terms of perception of everyday women's lives, said women whose opinions were recorded in the final report released on June 30th.
With a view to raising awareness about available protections of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) Kenyans in the Bill of Rights Kenya Human Rights Commission (KHRC) and Gay and Lesbian Coalition of Kenya hosted a Civic Education day on 19 June. The proposed new constitution, a summary of 18 chapters, was a theme for this day with discussions on how it will affect the Kenyan LGBT community.
While Rwanda prepares for the upcoming presidential elections to be held in August this year, concerns are mounting regarding the future of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex people (LGBTI) as arbitrary arrests of these groups continue to swoop the country. Naome Ruzindana, Director of Horizon Community Association (HOCA) said numerous cases of arrests and abuse of the LGBTI people have gone unnoticed in Rwanda and “this is because there is no documentation of such cases and in some instances we find out at a later stage and then when we try to follow up, the people involved do not want to cooperate and some live in fear of being re-arrested, making it difficult for them to reach out to us.”
The EAC signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Eastern African Sub-Regional Support Initiative for the Advancement of Women (EASSI) on 6th July 2010 at the EAC Headquarters. The EAC Deputy Secretary General (Productive and Social Sectors) Mr. Jean Claude Nsengiyumva signed on behalf of the EAC Secretariat while Ms Marren Akatsa-Bukachi (Executive Director) signed on behalf of EASSI.
Scientists are pooling remote-sensing satellite data and geographical information services for two pan-African digital observatories that will provide accurate and readily accessible information on biodiversity and forest cover for policy-makers. Under a grant awarded in 2009, the European Commission's (EC) Joint Research Centre (JRC) is supporting the development of the observatories, details of which were discussed at the fourth EuroScience Open Forum (ESOF 2010).
The genetically diverse and "exquisitely well adapted" traits of Africa's livestock should be better harnessed to meet the continent's needs. Seventy per cent of Africa's rural poor keep livestock and 200 million people depend on the animals for their livelihoods. African livestock breeds have successfully survived, and adapted to, an extraordinary range of diseases and climate changes. But they are currently being displaced by "exotic" breeds imported from the developed world.
A draft Bill proposing a ban on sexual content on the internet and cellphones submitted to the South African Department of Home Affairs in May 2010 claims to have the best interests of women and children in mind but has set alarm bells ringing in the women’s movement. “The Bill equates women with children –taking a protectionist approach to the rights of women— and promotes state censorship,” says Sally-Jean Shackleton, director of Women’sNet, a feminist technology organisation based in Johannesburg.
From 5 – 16 July 2010, a special online forum being hosted by the Food and Agriculture Organization’s e-agriculture.org initiative, and will discuss the issues surrounding gender, ICTs and rural livelihoods. The forum will also be moderated by the APC’s Jennifer Radloff as part of the Gender, agriculture and rural development in the information society. (GenARDIS) project. Join e-agriculture and GenARDIS for this forum, which will look at what has and has not worked, good practices, as well as the critical area of capacity building and what can be done to empower men and women to play a bigger role in ICTs for agriculture and rural development.
When Macklean Kyomya came to the Ugandan capital, Kampala, at 19, she found work as a lap-dancer in a nightclub and was soon accepting money from clients in exchange for sex. "I enjoyed the feeling of power I had over men; I had a pimp who looked after me so I was never forced to do anything I didn't choose to," she told IRIN/PlusNews. "I was still doing my A-levels, so the money helped pay my way."
Twelve-year-old Rama* in Senegal’s Sédhiou region is still in school instead of wedded to a man in his 40s, after community members convinced her father to abandon the family’s plan to give her away. But in most cases family or social pressure to marry off young girls still wins out in many regions of the country, researchers and educators say.
Lay counsellors in South Africa can now legally perform HIV tests, but delays in paying them and shortages of test kits are threatening a national campaign to scale up voluntary HIV testing and counselling (VCT). Before new regulations came into effect in May 2010 only nurses were allowed to administer finger-prick HIV tests, but AIDS activists had long argued that this not only added to an already heavy work load, but could also hamstring the VCT campaign aiming to test 15 million South Africans by 2011.
An initiative by the Tanzanian government hopes to reduce HIV transmission along the country's expanding road network by targeting construction crews and the communities that surround them. "The government requires that road construction companies implement HIV prevention services for their workers and for the community because this is one way through which HIV can very easily spread in a community," said Moses Kisimo, community HIV/AIDS coordinator in the northeastern district of Tanga. "The strategy is: Construct roads and also prevent the spread of HIV."
A series of meetings to educate residents about xenophobia in the informal settlement of Du Noon, Cape Town, will begin on 7 July and run until the final game of the FIFA World Cup on 11 July. On 27 June units of the South African army were deployed to the township in what police described as an "anti-crime operation", after widespread reports had been circulating that foreign nationals would be attacked on 12 July - the day after the final soccer world cup match.
As the World Cup draws to its much-anticipated finale, the democratic integrity of South Africa continues to be intoxicated, writes Patrick Bond. Bond recounts a recent anti-xenophobia rally in search of a better society, which was only to result in a run-in with the law. Bond unearths the deliberate distortion of South Africans’ constitution and freedom of speech to accommodate Fifa – soon to move on, leaving little benefits behind for its host society.
Cheating in global sporting arenas such as the World Cup not only brings down the ‘beautiful game’, it also sends negative shock waves to the world’s spectators who lay witness to the prevail of deceit, writes Mphutlane wa Bofelo. The values of society will lose their gravity as notoriously deliberate offences on the field are attributed to the divine ‘hand of God’ with little or no retribution, warns Bofelo.
Larry A. Greene reviews Jeffrey B. Perry’s ‘Hubert Harrison: The Voice of Harlem Radicalism, 1883-1918’, a biography which Greene believes ‘elevates the lesser-known Harrison to the stature he so richly deserves as one of America’s most perceptive public intellectuals on the critically intertwined issues of American democracy, race relations and class structure’.
With the DR Congo having passed 50 years of independence, Carlo Ungaro reflects on a turbulent history, the originally pervasive support for Mobutu and the greed of myriad interests in destabilising the country.
Following Ghana's controversial exit from the World Cup after Uruguayan striker Luis Suárez's goal-line handball, Cameron Duodu charges that governing body Fifa's rules must be changed to fully stamp out cheating.
As South Africa's World Cup begins to near its end, questions continue to be asked about the tournament's legacy for the country. Highly critical of the self-serving tendencies of South Africa's soccer elite, Dale T. McKinley laments the long-term neglect of the game's developmental and social potential. Once a genuine 'people's game' in the country, soccer has, as with so much, been entirely subsumed by rapacious commercial interests, McKinley writes.
Zimbabwe’s coalition government, formed under the auspices of a Global Political Agreement in 2008, has struggled to overcome the challenges the country faces. Jonathan Oshupeng Maseng’s paper identifies and discusses the issues heightening the rift between coalition members Zanu PF and the Movement for Democratic Change, whose political battles are stalling socio-economic progress. ‘The focus must be on achieving the objectives set out in GPA rather than on political disputes advancing their own interests,’ says Maseng.
Many Africans in the diaspora were taken from the continent against their will ‘during the long years of the inhumane and barbaric transatlantic slave trade’, writes Beharane Selasie Kabaka. Isn’t it therefore ‘our moral obligation as native Africans to fully accept them if they wish to return’, without subjecting them to bureaucratic procedures for the acquisition of citizenship, Kabaka asks.
The challenges of conducting online transactions from Africa, Ghana’s elimination from the World Cup and Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan’s first foray onto Facebook are among the stories featured in this week’s round-up of the African blogosphere, brought to you by Dibussi Tande.
The memory and legacy of the late Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is alive in Funtua, Horace Campbell discovers during his first visit to Abdul-Raheem’s homeland. Impressed by the extraordinary work towards providing education through Hauwa Memorial College and the Pan-African Development Education and Advocacy Programme, Campbell calls on Pan-Africanists everywhere to provide support to keep the projects going.
Global Women's Strike and other solidarity organisations call for signatures in support of a return for exiled Haitian former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
Gabon presents fertile ground for Chinese investment in extractive industries, though the development of this relationship is a lengthy process and is much diversified across Gabon and the economy’s main sectors of interest to China, writes Johanna Jansson. Jansson suggests the observer of yet another African economy to come within range of China’s investment radar should take note of the diversity also present within the ranks of Chinese corporate actors, whose level of responsible conduct presents no general trend.
With African heads of state due to convene this month in Kampala for the latest African Union summit, the People’s Health Movement is asking people to sign its petition to ensure members of government work to respect budgetary targets for development goals.
As the DRC commemorates 50 years of independence, Mwaura Kaara finds there’s little official acknowledgement of the life of Patrice Lumumba, Congo’s first and only elected prime minister, removed from office after two months and eventually assassinated. The celebration ‘should have reflected on Lumumba’s main contribution to the Congolese struggle’, writes Kaara, ‘his articulation of the idea of a united Congo, a vision that sought to build a united nations across all ethnic and tribal divisions despite fierce European opposition.’
‘Gerald Caplan is right to outline various deficiencies of Edward Herman and David Peterson’s chapter on Rwanda in their new book 'The Politics of Genocide'. In important ways, however, Caplan’s review piece actually contributes to the very phenomenon he is trying to attack,’ writes Oliver Kearns.
Horace Campbell’s on lessons from the Dudus saga in Jamaica sparked several reactions and responses from our readers. Here is a selection of what people had to say.
It was in part Ethiopian opposition leader and activist Birtukan Midekssa’s campaign for women’s rights that led to her imprisonment by the Zenawi government, writes Alemayehu G. Mariam. Highlighting the challenges Ethiopian women continue to face, Mariam looks to Midekssa’s legacy for a vision of a better Ethiopia, in which women’s rights are recognised and in which women play a vital role in the country’s history.
The growth of the global population and increased competition for land and resources has the greatest effect on the poor, young and female population. Jonathan Beale reviews the book ‘Women’s Land Rights and Privatization in Eastern Africa’, a series of essays about land issues in East Africa edited by Birgit Englert and Elizabeth Daley. This collection of essays was gathered from young scholars in several east African nations including Uganda, Rwanda and Kenya and touches on a variety of topics related to women and land. Beale praises the contributors' thorough research and arguments, but notes the book’s oversight of land ownership in urban centres such as Dar es Salaam and Nairobi.
With rumours circulating that when the World Cup is over, foreigners will be expelled from South Africa, Glen Ashton asks whether xenophobia is the right word to describe the country’s attitude towards immigrants. ‘A close examination of purported xenophobic outbreaks of violence shines the spotlight on some of our most intractable problems, that of economic marginalisation’ writes Ashton. South Africa is dealing not with xenophobia, but the consequences of ‘poverty and the lack of progressive economic transformation since 1994’, Ashton argues.
Fahamu’s Refugee Programme is pleased to announce the June edition of the , a monthly publication that aims to provide a forum for providers of refugee legal aid. With a focus on the global South, it aims to serve the needs of legal aid providers as well as raise awareness of refugee concerns among the wider readership of Pambazuka News.
The e-Newsletter follows recent developments in the interpretation of refugee law; case law precedents from other constituencies; reports and helpful resources for refugee legal aid NGOs; and stories of struggle and success in refugee legal aid work. It welcomes contributions from legal aid providers, refugees, and others interested or involved in refugee legal aid.
Fahamu Refugee Programme & UNHRC invites lawyers and legal advisors to a course aimed at arming them with the information, networks and resources they require to represent those accused of witchcraft. Participants will learn how to best represent those whose claims to asylum are based upon accusations of witchcraft, an emerging area of refugee law in which there is a need for specialised knowledge and training.
4-5 September 2010
Oxford, United Kingdom
Registration fee: £150
If you would like to attend, please submit a completed to Fahamu by 21 August 2010.
After 13 years as founder and executive director, Firoze Manji has stepped down from his role as ED to focus attention on developing Pambazuka News and Pambazuka Press.
The board of trustees of Fahamu is therefore seeking a dynamic, visionary person with a passion for social justice, to lead the organisation, ideally based in Kenya.
If you are interested in applying, please review the by 31 August 2010.
As the 2010 Fifa World Cup draws to a close, Oliver Meth and Dan Moshenberg ask whether the legacy of the games will give South Africa any cause for celebration. Despite former president Thabo Mbeki’s hopes that the games would turn ‘the tide on centuries of poverty and conflict’, there’s little sign that ‘the private lives and domestic spaces in which real democracy either begins or founders’ have been transformed, conclude Meth and Moshenberg.
The World Peace Academy - Swiss Center for Peace Studies in Basel, Switzerland (see is a young institution of higher learning, which offers a "Master of Advanced Studies in Peace and Conflict Transformation" in cooperation with the University of Basel since 1 March 2010. The World Peace Academy is looking for a Director of Studies (50-60%), beginning immediately or upon mutual agreement.
The Land Centre for Human Rights has received dozens of complaints of some temporary workers in the governmental sector and the private sector, which were affected by the violation of their rights to decent work and the lack of safeguards to protect them from displacement, segregation. To make it worse, the government agencies use such employment without editing work contracts to them, or to give them health and social insurance, in a violation to the law and conventions of international labor organization.
Despite the important achievements so far in the field of women rights and the continuous efforts from both the state and the civil society to protect and promote these rights. Yet some traditional practices that seriously violate women rights still persist. Among those practices, is female circumcision, which is still unfortunately widely spread in Egypt. The government started recently combating this phenomena under increasing international pressure, where it is considered as a serious violation of women rights.
Early marriage is a form of violence against women. The young female takes a responsibility with number of consequences based on a sexual relation that she did not choose to have. Moreover, the marriage takes place at an age when the young girl is not ready neither physically nor psychologically to bear the consequences of such relation.
Egypt's recently concluded Shura Council elections were accompanied by widespread reports of serious electoral breaches by the ruling party. According to analysts and opposition figures, such voting "irregularities" bode poorly for upcoming parliamentary and presidential elections.
The new international cocoa agreement will provide a positive shake-up in the cocoa market and ensure better prices for stakeholders, including small farmers. It also strengthens the participation of civil society and the private sector in the cocoa industry, according to Guy-Alain Emmanuel Gauze, Côte d’Ivoire’s ambassador to the United Nations (UN) in Geneva and president of the UN cocoa conference.
Award-winning French journalist and filmmaker Marie-Monique Robin is the author of "The World According to Monsanto: Pollution, Corruption and the Control of Our Food Supply" (The New Press) and the creator of the film by the same name. In a review of these two projects, Leslie Thatcher writes: "What Marie-Monique Robin most effectively documents are the perverse effects - the moral, social, technological, economic and market failures - of Western society's economic organization, most specifically with respect to science and the products of science and, ultimately, with respect to the preservation of the public commons and human life on the planet.
The July issue of IDRC's Lasting Impacts is entitled "Innovations in Research". among the topics discussed: Three decades of work by the Nairobi-based World Agroforestry Centre (WAC) has turned a traditional practice — growing trees and shrubs alongside crops — into a science-based discipline. That science, agroforestry, is now recognized around the world for its potential to provide food, fodder, increase crop yields and incomes, protect watersheds, provide energy, prevent land degradation, and more.
Under one of the 60 or so agreements of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures (SCM Agreement), WTO member countries are prohibited from providing government or state subsidies to exporters. When most of the WTO agreements were finalised back in 1994, however, the world's richest countries obtained an exception for their export credit agencies (ECAs) -- the organisations that use taxpayers' money to provide various financial services to private corporations from their home country to assist them in doing business abroad.
According to the World Refugee Survey 2009 statistics, the five East African Community States host a combined population of 949,000 refugees. Of this number, about 300,000 are citizens of East African States living as refugees in the territory of other Community member States. As conflicts in traditional refugee-producing Community member states abate and their citizens return home, conflict in previously tranquil states like Kenya have injected more refugees into the Community pool.
Pastoralists across East Africa are set to benefit as the region’s national borders are relaxed amid joint efforts to mitigate the risks associated with their migration. "With the coming into effect [on 1 July] of the common market protocol, pastoralists like the Maasai, the Pokot and the Somali who do not believe in borders as they have kin in more than one country will enjoy better freedom of movement across the borders," Augustine Lotodo, a member of parliament in the East African Legislative Assembly said. The protocol allows free movement of people, goods, services and capital across the East African Community’s five members: Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania and Burundi.
The difficult past of Zambia's ambiguous role in Namibia's and Angola's freedom fight is haunting current President, thus Foreign Minister, Rupiah Banda. The 1970s anti-communist Zambian regime is said to have killed Namibian freedom fighters in agreement with apartheid South Africa and Sam Nujoma. Historians confirm the allegations.
Diana Banda* is quickly running out of excuses to give her six-year-old son about why he has to take a schedule of drugs every day. Her son David* is HIV-positive and has been on anti-retroviral treatment (ART) for two years. But he may not learn the truth about his HIV status anytime soon as his mother thinks up one excuse after another as to why he has to religiously take the drugs.
The East African Caravan on Maternal Health was launched on July 3rd, 2010 at the Kibera D.O Open Grounds, Kibera, Nairobi. It will travel from Kenya, through Tanzania and Rwanda, before culminating in Uganda just prior to the African Union Summit where African Heads of State and Government will discuss issues of Maternal and Child Health.
Tension over the future of Abyei, a flashpoint region roughly the size Lebanon on Sudan’s north-south border, erupted into armed violence and street demonstrations this week. On 5 July, gunmen mounted an attack near the village of Tajalei, about 30km northeast of Abyei town, killing five people, a police officer and four civilians.
The unanimous decision by five judges of the UK supreme court in favour of the appellants in HJ (Iran) and HT (Cameroon) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2010] UKSC 31 represents a milestone in legal history. It secures the rights of LGBT people in need of protection from persecution, and will bring to an end years of discriminatory policy by the immigration services.
USAID administrator Rajiv Shah recently gave a speech to the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition (USGLC) in Washington, DC entitled Achieving High Impact Development: A Vision for USAID. Shah's idea of high impact development was a "distinctly American" contribution: the "culture of risk-taking and entrepreneurship." In a speech heavy with platitudes about American diversity, dedication
Governments and international agencies urgently need to boost ecological farming techniques to increase food production and save the climate,” said UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Olivier De Schutter, while presenting the findings at an international meeting on agroecology held in Brussels on 21 and 22 June. Along with 25 of the world’s most renowned experts on agroecology, the UN expert urged the international community to re-think current agricultural policies and build on the potential of agroecology.