Pambazuka News 534: Interpreting the 'Arab Spring'
Pambazuka News 534: Interpreting the 'Arab Spring'
Get moving. That's the message from Onitaset Kumat on how to revive Africa. 'We must communicate to cooperate to elevate and we should have started years ago.'
After months of squabbling that angered donors and jeopardised gains from Islamist militants, the rival leaders of Somalia's government have agreed to delay elections. Despite the row, pro-government forces have been gaining ground in Mogadishu. African Union troops have seized territory from the al-Qaeda linked group, al-Shabab. However, al-Shabab still controls much of southern and central areas of the country.
A human rights campaigner from Madagascar was in the UK recently to demand that the Royal Bank of Scotland withdraw its financing of companies mining tar sands in her country. The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) has a long track record of financing companies operating in the Canadian tar sands, which are devastating the land and lives of First Nations people in Alberta. The bank has also financed French oil giant Total’s test mining of tar sands in Madagascar over the last three years. Total is expected to decide next month whether to go ahead with larger scale exploitation of tar sands in the country. If it does, the water supply of more than 120,000 people in one of Madagascar’s poorest areas could be disrupted and poisoned and its unique biodiversity severely threatened.
The homes of 12 Tafelsig backyarder families were demolished by the city’s Anti-Land Invasion unit recently, in a fierce face-off that left several people injured, including a woman who was seven months pregnant. This came two days after the Cape High Court granted a postponement to allow backyarders sufficient time to get legal representation to appeal the city’s application for an eviction order.
The World Bank is holding back $40 million in budget support to Malawi because the country hasn’t completed the review of its program with the International Monetary Fund, the Daily Times reported, citing the bank’s country manager. The lender is waiting for a review of reforms to help address persistent external economic imbalances, the Blantyre - based newspaper cited Sandra Bloemenkamp, the World Bank’s manager for Malawi, as saying. The money is for the budget for the fiscal year through June.
Former Black Panther Geronimo Ji-Jaga died in Arusha, Tanzania last Friday. ‘His death marks yet another loss of a committed social justice activist of an era that is gradually fading from our collective memory,’ write Seth Markle and Mejah Mbuya.
Ngwa Amos, who earns a living by taxiing people from town to town on his motorbike, is now a single father of four. His wife died in labour on a recent morning at the Bamenda General Hospital in northwestern Cameroon. The African Union, along with government and nongovernmental organisations, have pledged to reduce maternal deaths in this region, but Cameroon is moving further from that goal. Cameroon's maternal mortality rate was 550 deaths for every 100,000 births in 1990 – the reference year for the goals. Since then, the key figure has risen to 1,000 deaths, according to the latest UN statistics.
While this toolkit has been designed primarily for the local partners and activists of the VNC campaign, this can be a resource, too, for human rights activists who are keen to develop their
online activism and want to know where and how to start. The toolkit aims to impart the following skills:
- An understanding of why and how information and communication technologies (ICTs) can
be appropriated by women's rights and human rights groups in their advocacy skills
through their use of online tools, including networking and mobile tools for advocacy and
campaigning.
- The ability to develop an advocacy/communication strategy.
- Knowing what social neworking is and the various spaces and tools they could use in their
online activism.
- An understanding of online privacy and security issues relevant to building their online
activism.
Poet and singer Gil Scott-Heron’s ‘albums became part of my life and his songs and messages were part of the support system on which I and many other Black radicals came to depend,’ writes Bill Fletcher, Jr.
Politically conscious musician and poet Gil Scott Heron’s ‘physical body is gone from us now but his message is more relevant than ever. We everyday Black, White, Brown, Red, and Yellow people know only too well that the revolution still will not be televised-- "it will be live",’ writes Larry Pinkney.
An African gay activist, Edson 'Eddy' Cosmas, has had his first appeal for UK asylum turned down by a judge in a hearing 26 May at Harmondsworth detention centre, where he is being held. Judge S. Chana accepted the UK Border Agency (UKBA)'s argument that Cosmas's story was not 'credible' and that he has no reason to fear persecution in Tanzania even if he was gay, which he isn't. A lawyer for Cosmas, who had only been instructed for the case the previous night, asked for the case to be removed from the 'fast track process' so a psychological and physical assessment (to establish whether he had been tortured) could take place. This was refused.
The Office of the US Global AIDS Coordinator (OGAC) has released new guidance for the massive US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), a US$48 billion dollar programme started by George Bush. The programme has come in for criticism for providing millions to church-run organisations promoting the unscientific prevention strategy of abstinence alongside providing no funding for programmes which address the needs of Men who have Sex with Men (MSM). The new guidance document shows strong leadership, said The Global Forum on MSM & HIV (MSMGF), in recognising that human rights, legal barriers and homophobia must be addressed as part of an effective HIV response.
On 6 June 2010, Khaled Said, 28, was beaten by two plain-clothes police officers in an internet café in Egypt’s second city, Alexandria. He was then dragged out into the street where, eyewitnesses say, the beating continued until he died. Khaled Said quickly became a symbol for every victim of the security forces’ brutality. The first seeds of what would become the ‘25 January Revolution’ were sown in Alexandria on 6 June 2010. Despite the uprising, however, the trial for those accused of killing Khaled Said is still ongoing.
Sudan’s invasion of the town Abeyi; sexual harassment in Egypt; the impact of Egypt’s uprising on migrants; the detention of Syrian blogger Amina Arraf; Western Sahara; and the opening of the a centre for women in Eastern Congo, the City of Joy, are among the topics featured in this week’s review of African blogs, by Sokari Ekine.
Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir continues to commit crimes against humanity and carry out genocide against the residents of Darfur in defiance of the United Nations, the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Luis Moreno-Ocampo, told the Security Council. In 2005 the Council referred the situation in Darfur to the ICC after a UN inquiry found serious violations of international human rights law. The ICC has since issued arrest warrants against Mr. Bashir on charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, making him the first sitting head of State to be indicted by the court.
FEATURING: Raakwys (The reunion of one of Cape Town's greatest Bands)
PLUS: The Zoe Abrahams & De Kaapo, DJ Sampie: Zounds of Da South, Spoken word/poetry, Stand up Comedy & more...
DATE: 15 June 2011
TIME: 7pm till late
VENUE: AIDC Solidarity Centre,129 Rochester Rd, Observatory, Cape Town
DONATION: R10, Bring your own XYX and meat to braai.
INFO: [email][email protected], 0838867164 or 0214472525
I question the wisdom of the African Union (AU) sending South African President Jacob Zuma, who is also the SADC mediator and facilitator on the Zimbabwean crisis, to Libya in an attempt to revive the AU ‘roadmap’ (another AU loaded word) for ending the conflict between Muammar Gaddafi and the anti-Gaddafi uprising. Zuma’s visit to Tripoli occurred amid concerns over Mugabe’s refusal to abide by the SADC roadmap for free and fair elections in Zimbabwe.
Despite all pretence at humanitarian rhetoric, the Western invasion of Libya is simply a question of securing oil and energy resources and responding to the challenge to its international hegemony posed by China and India, writes Obi Nwakanma. ‘It is the 19th century all over again,’ Nwakanma stresses, while underlining the threat posed to Nigeria by blindly supporting the invasion.
Government has slashed the HIV transmission rate from pregnant mothers to their babies to merely 3.5 per cent, potentially sparing some 67,000 babies from HIV infection. This success is due mainly to the health department vastly improving its programme for the prevention of mother-to-child HIV infection (PMTCT) from April last year. 'We have worked very, very hard to train staff to make the changes and we are so happy with the improvement,' said Precious Robinson, deputy director of government’s PMTCT programme, at the release of the new figures at the SA AIDS conference.
The majority of Tunisia's political parties have approved the postponement of the election date for the country's Constituent Assembly to 23 October, the official TAP press agency has reported. The new date was announced by Tunisian caretaker Prime Minister Beji Caid Essebsi, after the head of the independent election committee had suggested 16 October, ruling out the initial date of 24 July for logistic reasons.
'When I was pregnant with my son I drank a lot – mostly on weekends,' says Marion Williams, a 45-year-old mother who lost two of her five children in childbirth. Williams lives in one of South Africa’s famous wine-growing areas in the Western Cape. She started drinking as a teenager and was taken out of school, she suspects, to work to buy wine for her parents. 'It is estimated that at least one million people in this country have fetal alcohol syndrome and approximately five million have partial fetal alcohol syndrome and [other] fetal alcohol spectrum disorders. It’s tragic because it’s completely preventable,' says researcher and human geneticist Denis Viljoen in Cape Town, the provincial capital of South Africa’s Western Cape.
Despite all the news and analysis on Libya, we still don’t know very much about who the rebels are and where their support comes from, writes Sokari Ekine.
The Unga Revolution, a group of young people who gather daily at 1pm in Nairobi’s Harambee Avenue to campaign for the right to food and housing, reminds Kenyans that they need to exercise our civic duty more often, observes Patita Tingoi. ‘We need not give up just because we can survive on what we have today, tomorrow might be a different ball game all together.’
The death of Albertina Sisulu has been met with national mourning in South Africa. At age 92, Sisulu, an anti-apartheid struggle icon, had survived the darkest days of apartheid rule. She was banned for a continuous 18-year stretch by the apartheid regime and was separated from her husband, Walter Sisulu, for 25 years while he was in jail. In this article, Shaka Sisulu pays tribute to his 'Gogo'.
‘There appears to be very little difference in what is being advocated [by the IMF] to Arab democrats today and what was advocated to Arab dictators yesterday,’ writes Patrick Bond.
Recorded on 25 May at Ottawa's Carleton University, the following is a video of a talk led by Firoze Manji and Molly Kane of Pambazuka News and hosted by Pius Adesanmi. The panellists discuss 'African awakenings and new visions of solidarity' to celebrate Africa Liberation Day.
UK WILPF ‘is extremely troubled by the worsening situation in the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya. In particular we are concerned with NATO’s excessive military aggression and with the UK government’s actions, which are fuelling a civil war in the North African country.’
Security forces in Equatorial Guinea have detained more than 200 youth in the past week. The reasons for the detentions remain unclear, although government authorities chastised parents for giving their children too much liberty, writes EG Justice.
Life for the mentally ill in Sierra Leone is ‘incredibly hard’, writes Roland Bankole Marke, and even for those incarcerated in the psychiatric hospital, there is little to look forward to. Who is to blame for the situation and what should be done to improve access to good clinical care?
During the World Social Forum in Dakar, Senegal, in February 2011, social movements and organisations released a collective appeal against land grabbing. Over 150 organisations have already signed. If your organisation would also like to support this appeal, please do so before 15 June 2011. The Dakar Appeal, together with the names of organisations endorsing it, will be presented during the mobilizations against the G20 Agriculture Ministers' meeting in Paris on 22-23 June. Read and sign the petition here:
The Unga Revolution, a ‘self motivated and non-violent movement of the people of Kenya aimed at realising all the rights and privileges as enshrined in the constitution of Kenya’ has called on the government to ensure that all citizens are guaranteed their right to food, shelter, healthcare, education and social security, as enshrined in Article 43 of the country’s constitution, in part by reducing the prices of basic commodities.
On the ground in Tripoli and western Libya, Cynthia McKinney reports that the current NATO-led war looks nothing like the mainstream media would have us believe: ‘The situation on the ground in Tripoli … could not more different from what is being portrayed by Western news networks and newspapers.’
Cameron Duodu reflects on the exciting and challenging times he had in the Congo in the 1960s.
'Land grabs encompassing the size of France, displacing thousands of families, building miles of irrigation canals without concern for environmental impacts, allowing crops to be planted that do not improve food security for Africa--done with little or no consultation with those directly impacted, and have no accountability or transparency--are exactly the kind of issues the Oakland Institute was established to investigate and make public.'
Academics, NGOs, policy makers, students and other interested parties are invited to participate at the Doshisha International Conference on Humanitarian Intervention, to be held in Kyoto, Japan from 27-29 June 2011.
A series of investigative reports reveal never-before-seen materials connecting financial backers – including US universities and pension funds – to land deals responsible for destabilisation of food prices, mass displacement and environmental damage, writes the Oakland Institute.
The Zanzibar International Film Festival, now in its 14th year and the largest of its kind in East Africa, takes place from 18-26 June. Renowned the world over for putting African film, music, art and design at the forefront of the international scene, main events are in Stone Town, Zanzibar, with some events on Pemba Island and mainland Tanzania. See for more details.
'Transparent governance, free expression and a free press are essential components of democracy. They are the means by which all people in South Africa, especially the vulnerable and poor, can hold our government to account. Our effectiveness at getting the state to implement HIV treatment and prevention programmes has been dependent on the Constitution being upheld, especially the Bill of Rights. We are therefore deeply concerned by reports that the ANC Parliamentary Caucus is backtracking even on its recent, inadequate concessions in relation to the Protection of Information Bill. As it stands, this bill will restrict media freedom. It will also severely limit the ability of organisations like ours to hold government accountable or to support government in working for a better life for all. The bill will drive a wedge between the state and the people it is supposed to serve.'
'The Congress of South African Trade Unions welcomes the decision by ANC MPs to extend the 24 June deadline to complete drafting the Protection of Information Bill. COSATU hopes that the extra time will be used to re-examine the problematic clauses of the Bill which could conflict with Clause 16 of the Constitution’s Bill of Rights. In particular the parliamentary ad-hoc committee needs to examine the genuine concerns from civil society that the provisions of the bill could be abused to cover up crime, corruption and misuse of funds by allowing officials to classify the evidence of this as secret.'
'We wholeheartedly endorse the position of our federation COSATU in criticising the current state of the Protection of Information Bill. We are also alarmed that the ANC Parliamentary Caucus is using its majority to ensure that no significant improvements and safeguards against abuse of the bill are being taken into consideration. Many other organisations supporting the growing Right to Know Campaign have eloquently outlined what the implications will be for civil liberties and accountability if the Bill is passed, and we are grateful to them for bringing this to the attention of the South African public, but we also believe that for those of us in the municipal sector, there are particular concerns. SAMWU has been in the forefront of fighting corruption at municipal level, and long before it was politically acceptable to do so.'
African National Congress (ANC) secretary-general Gwede Mantashe has criticised youth league leader Julius Malema for saying senior ANC leaders were plotting to disrupt the league’s elective congress as part of a ploy to oust him. Mantashe said Mr Malema’s claim was an attempt to create a 'scapegoat' before the league congress. His response to the youth league’s claims is the latest indication of a tense relationship between the youth league and its mother body. The league seems unhappy with the current leadership of the ANC and is likely to lobby for its removal next year should Malema be re-elected.
Top lawyers in the Southern African region have told SW Radio Africa that leaders in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) are turning their back on human rights, by dissolving the region’s human rights Tribunal. Concern is still high after the shock decision by SADC leaders to close the court, with growing warnings about what this will mean for the rule of law across Southern Africa. The move has been described as regressive and a serious threat to human rights, the rule of law, and the regional bloc’s credibility, because it means there is now no independent court in the region to protect citizens’ rights.
Between 20 September and 31 December 2010, the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) carried out the Zimbabwe Documentation Process (ZDP). Intended as a model for similar documentation projects that the DHA plans to extend to other categories of Southern Africans, the process provided a path for regularising the status of undocumented migrants. It also provided an alternative to the asylum system, which Zimbabweans have turned to in large numbers. The African Centre for Migration and Society (ACMS) - formerly the Forced Migration Studies Programme - began sending researchers to observe the situation at several DHA offices. The findings from this monitoring provide a picture of how the process worked and highlight important problem areas.
China is evaluating the impact of the Jasmine revolution on its overseas investment and outward business expansion strategy, says this article. 'Africa - once considered the lab for Chinese companies’ reach outside – is being relegated into a destination with too many risk factors. Safer political destinations and countries closer to home are likely to benefit from the shift. The readjustment has been in the works for some time but the uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya have made those subtle shifts more pronounced.'
'While many take having a toilet that is clean and safe for granted, it remains a luxury for a great deal of our most vulnerable communities. Approximately 10.5 million people in South Africa still do not have access to basic sanitation services. According to recent research by the Water Dialogues, approximately 500,000 people in the City of Cape Town do not have access to basic sanitation. Although this is a challenge facing every municipality, sanitation provision is a local government function. As a resident of Khayelitsha, I intend on holding my local government to account in acting in accordance with its constitutional obligations.'
Over the course of 15 years (1994-2009), Elke Zuern has interviewed civic and social movement leaders, local government leaders, members of NGOs and other community organizations in South Africa. In her new book, The Politics of Necessity, she compares these movements in South Africa to those elsewhere on the continent (Benin, Botswana, Nigeria), and beyond (Argentina, Chile, Mexico). Read an excerpt from the introduction to the book on the blog Another Country.
Producing electricity from the local waterfall was once just a dream for two farming communities on the fertile lower slopes of Mount Kenya. But thanks to a local initiative backed by UN cash and know-how, it is now a reality. Eager to harness power from the waterfall, villagers started the project by building a weir and powerhouse. But without a turbine, the work was in vain. But then the UN Industrial Development Organisation, or UNIDO, stepped in to provide the turbines.
Screwdriver in hand, Doussou Konaté unscrews a broken solar lantern. She patiently cross-checks the cables. And within a few moments, it is fixed. Mrs. Konaté has never attended school. But two years ago she was one of seven Senegalese women who travelled to India to be trained as a solar power engineer at the Barefoot College in Rajasthan. When darkness falls in the small village of Keur Simbara, 76 kilometres from Dakar, the lights come on. Mrs. Konaté, a 57-year-old mother of six, is known locally as the 'light woman'. With a bright smile, she says, 'When night falls, everybody lights up their lamp and you can go anywhere you wish because everything is clear. It is just wonderful.'
'In simple terms, the struggle of the workers of Botswana is a struggle against the neo-liberal restructuring of the public sector, which is about sustained attacks on worker's rights, their conditions and access to services by communities,' says Bongani Masuku, International Relations Secretary, Congress of South African Trade Unions, on 'It is a struggle we all support and continue to wage in our own countries and globally. We support them and call for global solidarity, particularly because for far too long, Botswana has paraded itself as a paragon of democracy on the continent and now that myth is being exposed and debunked. Workers have a right to defend their pay and conditions, as well as demand better services for communities.'
The Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) has applauded President Goodluck Jonathan, of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, for signing into law the Freedom of Information (FOI) Bill. 'The objective of the act is to make public records and information more freely available and to also protect public records and information to the extent that they are consistent with the public interest and the protection of personal privacy,' according to a statement from the presidency.
Equatorial Guinea has built a multimillion-pound deluxe 'city' to host African leaders while the majority of its people live in dire poverty. Sipopo boasts 52 luxury presidential villas, a conference hall, artificial beach, luxury hotel and the county's first 18-hole golf course. It was built over two years to host an African Union (AU) summit that will last just a week. 'It's definitely a misplaced priority by the Equatorial Guinea government,' said Tutu Alicante, executive director of EG Justice, a group focused on human rights in the west African nation. 'This is a country where 75 per cent of people are living on less than $1 (60p) a day. This attempt to give an image of prosperity is totally misguided.'
At least five people have been killed after police stations were attacked in the northern Nigerian city of Maiduguri, hospital sources say. The BBC's Bilkisu Babangida in the city said there were at least three explosions, while gunfire rang out in what is believed to be the latest attack by the Boko Haram Islamist sect. Its members have killed dozens of police officers and politicians in the city in the past year.
On Wednesday, 30 March 2011, the Refugee Space Project reports that Mr Swedi Fataki Mutambala was arrested in Gasorwe Refugee Camp, Muyinga Province. According to refugees talked to over the phone, Swedi - leader of the Association for the Defense of Refugees (ADR) in Burundi - had been sick and gone to the camp administrator so that he could go to Bujumbura hospital for a medical check-up. The police had arrived and Swedi had been arrested. Refugees said they did not know the reason for the arrest, but a few months ago refugees had been complaining about the violation of their rights.
Two witnesses were taken to task by the truth commission over their contradicting and inconsistent testimonies on the 1984 Wagalla massacre, reports the Daily Nation. Former Finance minister David Mwiraria maintained that a visit by the Kenya Intelligence Committee to Wajir a day before the killings was purely to assess development projects. But on closer scrutiny, he admitted that the trip was sanctioned to resolve the Shifta movement in north eastern Province.
World leaders began meeting in New York on 8 June to review progress made in the fight against HIV/Aids, 30 years after the pandemic first struck. The joint United Nations Programme on HIV/Aids (UNAids) says the meeting will also adopt new declarations and commitment to guide and sustain the global Aids response. UNAids says while progress has been made, more work remains to be done in coming years - especially in reducing the number of new infections. Globally, some 7,000 people get infected with HIV daily.
Opposition lawmakers on 6 June abandoned President Museveni in Parliament as he delivered his first post-election State-of-the-Nation address, protesting what they said was his tolerance of graft and corrupt individuals in government. Leader of the Opposition in Parliament, Mr Nandala Mafabi, led from the front as the MPs stormed out of Serena Hotel's Victoria Conference Hall where Parliament had convened. They later denounced what they felt is President Museveni's continued failure to deal with crooked government officials.
Egypt and Kingdom Holding Co., the company controlled by Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, have signed an agreement in Cairo over contested land in Toshka in southern Egypt. The signing ends a dispute over a 100,000-feddan (104,000- acre) piece of land that is part of the Toshka agricultural development project, which is intended to use water diverted from the Aswan High Dam reservoir to irrigate land in Egypt’s western desert. Kingdom’s original acquisition came under criticism after a revolution in Egypt that ended the 30-year rule of President Hosni Mubarak.
Parties to the conflict in Western Sahara continued to deepen their discussions on the electoral mechanisms for self-determination during three days of United Nations-backed informal talks in New York, according to a communiqué issued at the end of the meeting. By the end of the talks, however, 'each party continued to reject the proposal of the other as a sole basis for future negotiations,' said the communiqué, reached after the meeting in Long Island, New York, that was convened by the Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Western Sahara, Christopher Ross.
'In a world of changing priorities, can we spare some change for female-initiated preventive technologies, such as microbicides and female condoms, to support HIV-positive women and not just to protect women who are HIV-negative?' asks Morolake Odetoyinbo in this article from the UN Chronicle. 'Can we dare take a look at those national laws and policies which make women second-class citizens? Is it conceivable - and that is no accidental pun - that women’s rights can include sexual, reproductive, inheritance, and property rights?'
Global food prices will remain high and volatile throughout this year and into next despite record food production. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) twice yearly Food Outlook analysis says rising demand will absorb most of the higher output. It says its index of food prices in May was at 232, only six points below February's record high of 237.
This Human Rights Watch report documents the intensification of the eight-year conflict over the past six months. Since December 2010, a surge in government-led attacks on populated areas and a campaign of aerial bombing have killed and injured scores of civilians, destroyed property, and displaced more than 70,000 people, largely from ethnic Zaghawa and Fur communities linked to rebel groups.
Around the world, street papers have been welcoming people who felt too insecure to stay in their home lands. Whether or not they have official refugee status in their newly adopted countries, what these vendors often have in common is the fear of returning to where they came from. Coming to a new country might save people from a potentially dangerous situation but it is not, by any means, a magical solution for all problems.
We have come home
From the bloodless wars
With sunken hearts
Our booths full of pride
From the true massacre of the soul
When we have asked
‘What does it cost
To be loved and left alone’…
We Palestinian queer activists from for Sexual & Gender Diversity in Palestinian society, Aswat — Palestinian Gay Women, and PQBDS (Palestinian Queers for Boycott Divestment and Sanctions), are writing to you to express our disappointment with the International Gay and Lesbian Youth Organization’s [IGLYO] decision to hold its General Assembly for 2011, this December, in Tel Aviv, Israel.
The President of the Swaziland National Union of Students, Maxwell Dlamini, has been detained, tortured, and forced by Swaziland’s regime to sign a confession that says he was in possession of explosives during the April 12 Swazi Uprising - a movement inspired by similar uprisings in North Africa and The Middle East.
The global reach of the internet, and its ability to transmit information in real time and mobilise populations, creates fear among governments and the powerful, says Frank La Rue, United Nations Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression. During the presentation of his report to the UN Human Rights Council 3 June, La Rue mentioned information filtering systems used in China that block access to websites containing key words such as 'democracy' and 'human rights'. The strength of the internet and the popular uprisings in recent months in North Africa and the Middle East, especially in Tunisia and Egypt, 'scares politicians', he told a press conference.
GA had looked forward to leaving Eritrea with her husband and living a better life in Israel, until they found themselves kidnapped for money by local Bedouins in Egypt’s Sinai desert. GA, who spoke to IRIN in the Israeli city of Jaffa, is just one of the hundreds of asylum-seekers trafficked by international gangs every month from the Horn of Africa to the Middle East, mainly through Sudan, ostensibly in search of better opportunities. However, say human rights groups, many of them end up in captivity. Bedouin tribes in Sinai, which borders Israel, often hold them until their relatives pay a ransom.
Five years after the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) revised its laws against sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV), these crimes continue to go unpunished because of judicial inaction and a legal culture at odds with the changes. The laws, ignored and misinterpreted, have left escalating numbers of sexual violence survivors unprotected, and perpetrators free to violate again. When the penal code was amended in 2006, it was intended to 'prevent and severely reprimand infractions relating to sexual violence and to ensure systematic support for the victims of these crimes,' according to the text. To this end, it included previously ignored sexual violations addressed in international humanitarian law, and toughened up sentencing for those who violated the vulnerable, including children, the disabled and subordinates.
Liberian officials at Bahn refugee camp - set up by the government and the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) to shelter Ivoirians fleeing violence - prefer residents to play down their political affiliations, and discourage the wearing of partisan T-shirts or the holding of political meetings. But late on a Saturday afternoon, with little to do and much to discuss, Ivoirian refugees talked with anger and concern about their future, while ruefully reviewing the events of the past six months in their country just across the border. 'I don't want to be here, but what choice does a refugee have?' asked Sandigui Lacinje Traoré, who previously worked for the Ivoirian state media in Yamoussoukro, Côte d’Ivoire’s administrative capital. 'The war is not over yet as far as I am concerned,' Traoré told IRIN.
Tens of thousands of Haitians turned out to greet democratically elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide on his return to his country. Though originally forced into exiled under the Bush administration, Aristide has been treated in much the same fashion by Obama's government, writes Nia Imara.
Developed countries must become carbon neutral well before 2050, undertake ambitious nationally appropriate mitigation actions, pay their adaptation debts and discontinue carbon market mechanisms. These are some of the conclusions reached by delegates who attended a meeting on the climate crisis in Johannesburg between 24-26 May.
These are dry days.
I stop to breathe
as if the wall of heat
must be coaxed aside
to let air enter, leave...
‘If we are to have a truly Pan-African language, shouldn’t it be a language that best reflects Africa as it is today, rather than as we imagined it to be 100 years ago,’ asks H. Nanjala Nyabola.
Drawing on the immortal words of Thomas Sankara, Kingwa Kamencu calls on all those concerned for Africa to ‘dare to invent the future’, in an opening speech at the Oxford University Africa Society ‘Pan-Africanism for a new generation’ conference.
The year 2011 began with a series of shattering, wrathful explosions from the Arab peoples. Is this springtime the inception of a second ‘awakening of the Arab world?', asks Samir Amin.
‘Imagine if all African women could break the silence of sexual abuse without fear of shame and reprisal,’ writes Kabahenda Nyakabwa.
A number of organisations in Haiti representing social organisations, grassroots movements and people displaced in the aftermath of the 2010 earthquake came together over the period 19–21 May 2011 to discuss the country’s housing crisis.
Pambazuka News 533: Special issue: Water and privatisation
Pambazuka News 533: Special issue: Water and privatisation
Ghana has a long history of struggle against the inequitable allocation of water - beginning with protests against colonial water policy and, more recently, with opposition to water privatisation that began in the 1990s. Alhassan Adam writes about the history, the challenge to privatisation and the road ahead.
A Tanzanian gold mine leaks polluted water into a major river. A mining town in Zambia is listed as amongst the most polluted places in the world. And a water pollution problem in South Africa that is caused by mining threatens national water resources. Khadija Sharife examines the hidden costs behind Africa's resource extraction reputation.
While both North–South partnerships and South–South partnerships have strengths and limitations, linking these in networked models is an effective way to mobilise expertise and funding and achieve success, writes Samir Bensaid, with reference to the example of ONEP (Morocco) and SNDE (Mauritania).
Changes to the water sector in Senegal that have seen a disengagement of the state and the promotion of the private sector have had unforeseen effects, writes Moussa Diop. Increased waste in domestic water consumption is one of the contradictions, while existing social relations also have a significant impact on the water delivery environment.
Despite UN recognition of access ‘to safe and clean drinking water and sanitation as a human right that is essential for the full enjoyment of life and all human rights,’ it is a right that is far from being realised in most parts of the world, writes Jacques Cambon.
Mali’s Dogon have traditionally seen water as a source of life and a public good, with the right to water ‘a prerequisite to all other human rights.’ Now the privatisation of water threatens to exclude citizens from managing their most precious resource, leaving ‘the task with a commercially minded technocracy’, says Sékou Diarra.
Donors and development banks have largely focused on private-public partnerships in their attempts to develop water management capacity around the world, overlooking the vast expertise of public sector water operators. But now they too are starting to recognise the benefits of Public-Public Partnerships for the provision of public water and sanitation services, writes David Hall.
Hydropower dams are ‘well-suited for facilitating industrialisation and exploitation of natural resources, but not for reducing Africa’s energy poverty’, writes Lori Pottinger. And given the water-security problems posed by climate change, ‘the proposed frenzy of African dam building could be literally disastrous.’
Linking carbon credits to clean water initiatives as a means of reducing carbon emissions is simply a corporate effort to cash in on measures to tackle climate change, writes Shiney Varghese.
Access to running water remains in a state of crisis for a huge number of people across Africa, writes Michel Makpenon. With growing urbanisation across the continent, African cities will need the political determination to ensure sustainable water resources based on social need rather than commercial concerns, he stresses.
While the Senegalese government wishes to ‘disengage financially from the water sector’, it is precisely the previous public management of water that has begun to improve infrastructure and people’s access to the resource.
Pambazuka News 532: Time to bury the IMF
Pambazuka News 532: Time to bury the IMF
Fahamu’s Refugee Programme is pleased to announce the , a monthly publication that provides 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. You can also read the newsletter on our new blog and
Taking a senior role in the organisation, the Associate Director provides operational leadership in the programmatic and administrative realms. Specific areas of responsibility include organisational leadership and development, program development and implementation, as well as financial and administrative oversight. The position is based in San Francisco.
Farm Radio Weekly is aimed at broadcasters but the feature and news stories are relevant to anyone interested in agricultural development in Africa. The stories are written ready to be read out on radio. They deliberately focus on small-scale farmers, looking at how their lives and livelihoods are affected by innovation and change. Anyone interested can sign up online:
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The Refugee Law Project (RLP), Faculty of Law, Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda, in collaboration with the African Transitional Justice Research Network (ATJRN) is accepting applications to its 2nd Institute for African Transitional Justice (IATJ), an annual week-long residential programme with a focus on Transitional Justice issues in the context of Africa. The Institute, which is scheduled to take place from 20th – 27th November 2011, in Kitgum, Northern Uganda has as its theme: 'Whose Memories Count and at What Cost?'
'Recently, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) sent another of its missions to Swaziland to try to put the Mswati autocracy on track to getting a cash bailout to try to stave off its financial meltdown. The IMF mission revealed that the government has only about a month of spending power left. And it issued stern warnings and rebukes to the king’s puppet Prime Minister Sibusiso Dlamini about the government’s failure to change its wasteful spending habits.'
In this week's edition of the Emerging Powers News Round-Up, read a comprehensive list of news stories and opinion pieces related to China, India and other emerging powers...
The University of Oxford is pleased to announce five scholarships for candidates from African
Commonwealth countries to study for the part-time Masters in International Human Rights Law, starting September 2012. The Master’s degree in International Human Rights Law is offered jointly by the Department for Continuing Education and the Faculty of Law. It is taught over 22 months and consists of two periods of distance learning and two residential sessions in Oxford. The degree programme is designed in particular for lawyers and other human rights advocates who wish to pursue advanced studies in international human rights law but may need to do so alongside work or family responsibilities.
It is the time again when we seek entries for the prestigious FitzGerald prize for young African journalists. This offers a scholarship for a promising, young (under 30) African journalist or aspirant journalist to do a post graduate BA hons degree at the University of The Witwatersrand ’s Journalism Programme in Johannesburg, starting in early 2012, and to join Reuters thereafter for a period of work experience.
Reflecting on the new era of constitution making in East Africa, the Katiba workshop will focus on: the history and legacy of postcolonial constitution making in the East Africa region, the social, political and economic considerations in drafting contemporary constitutions and the problems and challenges of implementing new constitutions. Speakers and Panel Chairs: Dr Willy Mutunga, Prof Yash Pal Ghai, Prof Goran Hyden, Prof Jill Cottrell Ghai, Dr Ambreena Manji, Prof Patrick McAuslan, Dr Linda Musumba, Prof Wanjiku Kabira, Prof Patricia Kameri-Mbote, Dr Ben Sihanya, Abubakar Zein.
'Iman Tari,' a voice calls forward. Tari, a stout woman wearing a black burqa and white headscarf, rises from her seat. A young man in his late 20s stands up beside her and supports her as she walks. Her feet step slowly and steadily across the cement floor to a table laden with microphones and earpieces. Tari inches closer to the microphone and begins her testimony to the Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission, TJRC, established by Parliament in 2008 to investigate the gross human rights violations and other historical injustices in Kenya committed between 12 December 1963 and 28 February 2008. The TJRC spent 32 days in April and May holding hearings in the Eastern and North Eastern provinces.
Western Sahara’s eighth Sahara International Film Festival (known as FiSahara), the world's most remote film festival, took place in early May this year deep in the Algerian desert. The festival is located in a refugee camp 130 miles from the nearest town in the Algeria desert and aims to offer entertainment and educational opportunities to the refugees as well as raise awareness of a forgotten humanitarian crisis. The refugees are Saharawi’s from Western Sahara - occupied unlawfully by Morocco in 1976 - and an estimated 165,000 of them have lived in four camps for over three decades.