Pambazuka News 529: If Sexuality were a human being...
Pambazuka News 529: If Sexuality were a human being...
At least 120 people were injured, one of them critically, when Egyptian security forces attacked a pro-Palestine demonstration outside the Israeli embassy in Cairo on Sunday night, according to witnesses. Activists told Al Jazeera that army and internal security troops used tear gas, rubber-coated bullets and live ammunition to disperse thousands of protesters who had gathered to mark the 63rd anniversary of the 'Nakba' or 'catastrophe' - the day in 1948 that Israel declared its independence and thousands of Palestinians fled or were expelled form their homes.
A controversial anti-homosexuality bill that could've seen the death penalty imposed for certain homosexual acts has failed to make it through the Ugandan parliament before it broke for recess. But the MP who tabled the bill in the first place says he will table it again in the next parliamentary session.
Political parties have ratcheted up the rhetoric ahead of the local government elections on Wednesday. Democratic Alliance leader Helen Zille told a crowd in Lebogang, Mpumalanga, that they could choose five more years of poor service delivery and toyi-toying, or they could choose five years of steadily increasing access to housing and basic services by choosing the DA. ANC Youth League president Julius Malema was on the warpath taking swipes at Zille and Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) president Mangosuthu Buthelezi. He referred to Zille as the 'madam' who 'moves around doing a monkey dance looking for votes'.
An open field in Tafelsig turned into a war zone at the weekend as a group of land invaders pelted police and city law enforcers with rocks and bottles. The officers retaliated by firing rubber bullets and blasting the invaders with a water cannon to bring them under control. The group, who call themselves the Mitchell’s Plain Backyarders’ Association, moved on to the Swartklip Sports Field on Saturday.
Uganda's main opposition leader, who has been leading anti-government protests for more than a month, is under effective house arrest after police surrounded his home on Monday, his party said. Kizza Besigye has been the face of 'walk to work' protests that urge people to leave their cars at home on Monday and Thursday to highlight soaring fuel and food prices. The protests in the east African country have been crushed by police.
Nato aircrafts have blasted an oil terminal in a key eastern city in a nightfall strike, Libyan TV reported, after Britain urged the alliance to widen its assault on areas controlled by ruler Muammar Gaddafi. The reported attack came as the Libyan conflict appeared largely stalemated, with each side claiming gains one day, only to be turned back the next.
Yash Tandon explains the contradictions of ‘imperial finance capital’ in controlling neo-colonial states like Libya. While Gaddafi was being ‘accommodated’ by imperial powers, the ‘Arab Spring’ forced their hand, he says.
A new, post-Mubarak Egypt has given both Egyptians and other Arabs alike, hope that Egypt can once again reclaim its role as the focal point from which Arab culture and politics emanate, says this article on Jadaliyya, an independent ezine. 'The opening up of the Rafah border crossing into Gaza and the active promotion of a unity government in the Palestinian Territories are both indications that this is slowly happening. However, Egypt’s regional affiliation is not only with the Middle East, but extends towards its riparian partners along the Nile as well. And on that front, events in the immediate months after the fall of Mubarak indicated that an Egypt in transition, unable to take firm political positions, could be taken advantage of by upstream Nile riparian countries that have for years tried to gain the rights to greater use of the Nile’s water flows.'
Uganda is short on data on HIV among the country’s sex workers, but a new study shows that in the capital, Kampala, HIV prevalence among female sex workers could be more than four times the city’s average prevalence. The study, published in April in the Journal of the American Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STI) Association, recruited 1,027 women from the city’s red-light areas, and found 37 per cent to be HIV-positive, while 13 per cent had gonorrhoea and 10 percent had syphilis.
The rainy season is just beginning in Ivory Coast. But in many places, the rain will fall on unplanted ground. Although the post-election fighting is mostly over, many farmers, especially in western regions, have not yet returned to their land. The UN refugee agency estimates that one million people have been displaced in and around Abidjan, with at least 200,000 displaced in the west. Few people remain on their farms to cultivate the land.
The blog Africa is a Country features a new documentary called Colour Bar. It is the story of Roland Gust, who was born to a Congolese mother and a Belgian father. He grew up in Congo, believing he was white until his family decided to return to Belgium when he was twelve. The documentary follows him as he attempts to describe his past. The blog post also has a Q&A with Gust.
The ongoing public servants' strike in Botswana has seen that country's state-owned media cover only one side of the story, writes Thapelo Ndlovu on Free African Media. 'Despite being denied the opportunity to air their views in the state media, the striking Botswana public service workers have not effectively used the new media, especially social network sites. The Internet is largely available in Botswana, but workers and the public in general don’t yet fully use it. Facebook is the most popular, but largely among the savvy youth, most of whom are not interested in labour or political issues.'
Zogbo Blé Denis of the state-owned Ivorian Broadcasting Service (RTI) and Claude Kipré of Top Visages, a weekly magazine, have gone into hiding after reportedly receiving death threats from unknown persons. The Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA)’s correspondent reported that Zogbo Blé, a producer and presenter of 'Excellence' a popular programme on RTI, received two calls on 8 May from a caller who only identified himself as 'Commandant F' and threatened to storm his home.
EG Justice and other civil society organisations have credited UNESCO’s Executive Board for soundly rejecting a petition by the government of Equatorial Guinea to reinstate a prize funded by and named after its president, Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo. In a decision on 9 May 2011, the Executive Board declined to consider a 4 May request by the Obiang government to reverse its prior decision and award the prize without delay. UNESCO indefinitely suspended the $3 million UNESCO Obiang Nguema Mbasogo International Prize for Research in the Life Sciences in October 2010 after an unprecedented global outcry seeking its cancellation.
For the first time since former President Jerry Rawlings burst onto the Ghanaian political scene in 1979, his much talked about charisma and hold over the ordinary people in the country is to be put to the test on 8 July when his wife, Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings stands against President John Atta Mills for the right to lead the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) in next year’s election. Already signs that the Rawlings myth has been broken has emerged, reports the Daily Nation.
The farmers of Makeni, in central Sierra Leone, signed the contract with their thumbs. In exchange for promises of 2,000 jobs, and reassurances that the bolis (swamps where rice is grown) would not be drained, they approved a deal granting a Swiss company a 50-year lease on 40,000 hectares of land to grow biofuels for Europe. Three years later 50 new jobs exist, irrigation has damaged the bolis and such development as there has been has come 'at the social, environmental and economic expense of local communities', says Elisa Da Vià of Cornell University in this article from The Economist about land grabbing.
As Ugandan citizens take to the streets in protest against rising food and energy prices, Museveni’s government has once again wheeled out its Anti-Homosexual Bill in an attempt to divert attention from the real source of the problems the people face.
At least nine unarmed Ugandans were shot dead - many of them in the back – by government security agents in the recent walk-to-work protests despite not being involved in rioting, a new report says. In its report, Human Rights Watch (HRW) called for a 'prompt, independent, and thorough investigation' into the use of lethal force by security forces to counter the protests against the rising cost of living.
This brief available from the website of the Refugee Studies Centre analyses the challenges and opportunities - after 35 years of protracted displacement and encampment - for the Sahrawi refugees, their political representatives and international actors. It calls for a careful analysis of the diverse alternative solutions to encampment in Algeria that have been adopted or proposed and of the relevant protection concerns which may arise.
While months of political stand-off between two self-proclaimed Ivorian presidents may have come to an end, genuine political and economic liberation for the country’s people is far from being achieved, writes Maurice Fahe.
Ethiopia should build on its long and proud history as a nation rather than allowing itself to be fragmented by ethnic divisions, argues Mammo Muchie, in a reflection on the country’s past and future.
Makerere University law professor Joe Oloka-Onyango made a presentation at the Inter-Religious Council of Uganda (IRCU) post-election 2011 conference in Kampala on 27 April 2011. President Museveni, who closed the conference, was very critical of Professor Oloka’s presentation, accusing him of poisoning the minds of ‘our children’. Uganda’s
In the wake of President Goodluck Jonathan’s re-election in Nigeria, the government is faced with the tricky task of how to diffuse the violent northern Boko Haram sect, writes Cameron Duodu.
The South African Democratic Teachers’ Union (SADTU) has welcomed the decision by Parliament to set up a national task team to tackle hate crimes against lesbians and gays.
Sudanese armies were due to begin the pullout of unauthorised troops Tuesday (09 May) to allow for the deployment of the officially-recognised Joint Integrated Units, the only military force allowed in Abyei under UN monitoring. The Abyei Joint Technical Committee (JTC), under the chairmanship of the UN Mission In Sudan (UNMIS), is monitoring the withdrawal of the troops by both sides involved in the Sudanese conflict for years in line with the 2005 deal on security arrangements.
Cocoa speculators are among the few to benefit from the crisis in Côte d'Ivoire, as disruptions to the supply chain drive up global prices of the commodity, writes Khadija Sharife.
Egypt's transitional government moved quickly to defuse tensions after Muslim-Christian clashes in Cairo left 12 dead and cast a cloud over hopes for peaceful post-revolutionary change. Angry demonstrations erupted in the capital after a Coptic church in the Imbaba neighbourhood was burned down on Saturday night. Military police separated opposing camps at one protest reminiscent of the dramatic events that overthrew the regime in February.
After the arrest in the city of Abidjan on 11 April 2011, of Laurent Gbagbo, former president of Cote d'Ivoire, and his wife Simone, some confusion remains regarding the process that led to his capture. Website Abidjan.net has published a series of videos entitled, 'The film of Laurent Gbagbo's arrest: New elements', divided into four videos of 10-14 minutes each. The videos, some of them included in this Global Voices post, show the sequence of events of the Gbagbos' arrest, from the bombing of their residence by French Special Forces, to the transfer of the Gbagbo family to the Hotel du Golf.
The New York Times has reported on a wave of execution-style murders of former Libyan government internal security personnel in Benghazi. The bodies of two men, Nasser al-Sirmany and Hussein Ghaith, were found within days of each other. Both men had reportedly worked as interrogators for Muammar Gaddafi’s brutal internal security agencies. At least four similar attacks are now under investigation by authorities in Benghazi, while it is unclear how many more killings have gone unreported. The so-called Transitional National Council (TNC) has denied that its security forces are responsible.
‘Are we witnessing a new era of restricted media, or will Angolans find a way to report their news in an objective and truthful forum?’ asks Rafael Marques de Morais, as government strategies to silence investigative journalists kick into action.
‘The history of Sudan is a complex one which can’t be reduced to a linear narrative of south versus north,’ writes Yohannes Woldemariam. Can South Sudan resolve the sticking points standing in the way of successful secession?
Sudanese authorities should immediately release Hawa Abdallah or formally charge her with a credible, recognized offense, Human Rights Watch has said. Abdallah, who was arrested on 6 May, is a community activist from the Abu Shouk displaced persons camp in North Darfur and a staff member of the United Nations/African Union peacekeeping mission (UNAMID). On 8 May, Sudan's state news service published an article accusing Abdallah of 'christianising' children in displaced persons camps and of links to a rebel group.
In this statement, the South Centre provides a counter argument to the idea that lower developed countries (LDCs) are not integrated in the world economy as the reason for their marginalisation. 'This is not true. Many LDCs have higher exports to GNP ratio than some developed countries. It is the way in which the LDCs are integrated in trade that has been a disadvantage. LDCs are too dependent on raw materials export, and prices of commodities have had a long-term trend decline, thus causing major revenue and income losses for LDCs.'
‘Cheche: Reminiscences of a Radical Magazine’ should ‘be read by the younger generation of pan-Africanists from Cape to Cairo, so that they may dream, and also so that they may learn,’ writes Yash Tandon.
‘It seems illogical that to me government should be the enemy. Yes it’s good that we’re all questioning them more but there’s a difference between scrutiny and suspicion, and what we seem to have now is more of the latter than the former,’ writes H. Nanjala Nyabola.
South African shackdwellers’ movement Abahlali baseMjondolo has issued a statement in support of the Makhaza back yard dwellers, whose homes are being demolished by the City of Cape Town without a court order.
'Man dreams
of far away lands
unknown,
thoughts yearnin'
of unconcealed gems
to fetch and be fetch'd,
to reach the field
of the unknown
but to be desecrat'd
by projects
of food stamps and sorts
yet unknown...'
'Mama, was it a mistake
That I existed without your consent
Something you could not avoid...'
While European interpretations of the events of Egypt’s Tahrir Square see the uprising’s roots through a lens of ‘coloured’ revolutions following the decline of the Soviet Union, Mahmood Mamdani instead stresses the resemblance to South Africa’s Soweto in 1976, a struggle ‘identified with the onset of community-based organisation’.
The purpose of agricultural futures contracts is to reduce risks for farmers and the people they supply. But as speculators in search of safe investments pour capital into soft commodities markets, they are driving ‘price inflation way beyond the effects of demand and supply pressures,’ writes Khadija Sharife.
Following the ‘brutal and often excessive manner’ with which the Ugandan state and law enforcement agencies have responded to citizens' demands for government action to address increased prices, cost of living, growing poverty, inequality in distribution of resources and corruption’, Uganda Women’s Civil Society Organisations have issued a statement highlighting their concerns.
Uganda has a sense of déjà vu...
‘As the public, we all have a right to know what rules and regulations govern the financial behaviour of our public officials and how they spend our public monies so that we can hold them accountable,’ writes Dale T. McKinley. So why is the South African government so keen to keep the contents of its ministerial handbook out of the public eye?
Reflecting on the life and work of Bob Marley, Horace Campbell discusses the positive messages of hope, mobilisation and self-esteem at the core of the legendary reggae artist’s music.
‘Music was not an end result for Bra’ Zim, it was the means to provide healing.’ Aryan Kaganof reflects on the life of South African musician and mentor, Zim Ngqawana, ‘one individual whose life was not going to fit into an obituary.’
‘View from Somewhere’, the new album from singer/songwriter Amira Kheir is now available through her . Originally from Sudan but having lived in Italy for many years and now residing in the UK, Amira 'draws from her own multicultural background to create music that explores themes of home, belonging and transcendental spirituality.' If you are lucky enough to be in London this weekend, catch her performance at the Green Note in Camden on Sunday 15 May.
Reporters Without Borders says it is appalled by the Rwandan government’s determination to keep hounding one of its media bugbears, Jean Bosco Gasasira, editor of the bimonthly newspaper Umuvugizi and one of the country’s most outspoken journalists. Prosecutors have asked Rwanda’s supreme court to sentence him to ten years in prison on charges on which the Kigali high court acquitted him last September. Gasasira is charged with spreading rumours that incited civil disobedience, insulting the president and deliberately violating Rwanda’s media law. The supreme court, whose decisions cannot be appealed, is due to announce its verdict on 27 May.
Nigeria should tear up World Trade Organisation free trade agreements and protect its domestic industries from foreign competition, the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria has said. 'We have to tear up WTO agreements and ask ourselves whether we were right to sign up to everything that's there,' Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi told an audience at Chatham House in London.
'The so-called International community pushes the agenda for intervention in certain countries if they are sure of receiving comfortable dividends in return, usually in the forms of natural resources or the protection of western interests,' states this article. 'But if they stand little to gain in political or economic terms, powerful countries will find themselves lacking in “political will”, never mind how grave the catastrophe maybe. To save face, they will pass powerless resolutions while abuses continue and human dignity is disgraced.' The UN will have to live up to its core values calling for the maintenance of peace and security and call an end to selective intervention if this is to change.
More than 80 rebels and civilians were killed when insurgents attacked a camp in south Sudan, the army said on Tuesday (10 May), in the latest violence to mar preparations for the region's independence. In a separate incident, unknown attackers shot and wounded four Zambian UN peacekeepers in the contested Abyei region on Tuesday, another north/south flashpoint, the United Nations said. People from Sudan's oil-producing south overwhelmingly voted to secede in a referendum in January, promised in a 2005 peace deal that ended decades of civil war with the north.
A vast majority of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) people seeking asylum in the European Union on the basis of their sexual orientation, have been met by a severe blow as most of their applications have been rejected due to failure of giving accurate account or valid proof of persecutions they claim to have experienced or might incur if they were sent back to their country of origin. This has prompted the call from ARDHIS (Association pour la Reconnaissance des Droits des Personnes Homosexuelles et Transsexuelles à l’Immigration et au Séjour), a French based organisation that advocates for the rights for LGBTI people to be granted asylum in France, urging African based LGBTI organisations to document homophobic persecutions occurring in their respective countries.
Escalating fuel prices, climate change and the impact of the global financial crisis are the challenges currently compromising development in Malawi. The Southern African country wants to see a bold plan of action addressing these problems agreed upon at the Fourth U.N. Conference on Least Developed Countries (LDC-IV) currently taking place in Istanbul, Turkey. In recent months, Malawi has been experiencing a fuel crisis so severe fuel has been rationed at the pump. People have taken to parking their vehicles at service stations overnight to get a place near the head of the queue. The country is facing severe shortages of foreign exchange, leading to strict controls on the export of hard currency and causing problems for businesses that need forex to pay for imports.
The Niger River, which runs for 550 kilometres through the southwest part of Niger, has for decades been faced with the phenomenon of siltation of its bed, accelerated by the severe desertification of the catchment areas, according to environmental experts. A programme is focused on slowing this phenomenon, which is seriously compromising socio-economic activity around the river. The measures taken include building berms, stabilising sand dunes, and planting trees.
In a move that casts doubts over the legitimacy of Morocco's national press dialogue, the government put prominent opposition journalist Rachid Nini on trial. Nini, whose trial began on Monday (2 May) in Casablanca, was indicted in late April for Al Massae articles 'in which he criticised the administration of law enforcement institutions and accused some public figures of breaking the law', lead prosecutor Abdellah Belghiti said.
World Trade Organisation (WTO) director-general Pascal Lamy has once again urged WTO members not to weaken the organisation, as members continue to stall on the final hurdles challenging the Doha development round of negotiations. South African Trade and Industry Minister Rob Davies has continually stated that South Africa would not make agreements under the round, which does not have a developmental agenda at the forefront. Other developing country member States have agreed that the Doha round has lost much of its developmental focus, with industrialised countries not willing to concede much to developing nations.
Almost everyone on an overcrowded ship carrying about 600 African migrants to Europe is believed to have died when the vessel broke apart within sight of the Libyan capital, the United Nations said. The UN accused the Libyan government of complicity in a rising number of deadly smuggling incidents, many involving workers from sub-Saharan Africa who had moved to Libya to find work before war broke out there in March.
Salim Vally makes the case for the University of Johannesburg to severe ties with Ben Gurion University of Israel. ‘In the case of violent occupation, apartheid, genocide and gross human rights abuse, academic freedom must surely bear some reference to these very conditions for the criteria of its determination,’ he argues.
The launch of an Africa Carbon Exchange is unlikely to meet the goals of curbing carbon emissions and financing adaptation needs, writes Shefali Sharma.
Will al-Qaida select Osama bin Laden's successor democratically, ponders Gado.
In these 1965 writings, Amílcar Cabral, the Guinea-Bissau leader assassinated in 1973, discusses the responsibilities of those involved in revolution.
Cameroonian human rights organisations Association for the Defense of Homosexuals (ADEFHO) and Teenagers Against HIV/AIDS (SID’ADO) are reporting that Mbede Roger Jean-Claude has been sentenced to 36 months in prison for homosexuality.
Ayanda Kota of UPM defends the Cutting Edge television programme's portrayal of terrible sanitation conditions in Grahamstown, South Africa.
Profiling the words of Senia Bachir Abderahman, a Saharawi activist from occupied Western Sahara, Peter Kenworthy writes of the need for genuine international support for Saharawi self-determination.
A report released by the international medical humanitarian organisation Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has revealed that several countries hardest hit by the AIDS epidemic are improving HIV treatment to reduce deaths and illness – but a lack of support from donors prevents many from making vital changes. This fragile progress needs sustained support, but the two biggest AIDS donors, the US and UK, are opposing a critical HIV treatment target ahead of next month’s AIDS Summit in New York at a time when mounting evidence shows that HIV treatment can also prevent HIV infections.
The 4th Forum on the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (ACRWC) was held between 18 and 20 March 2011 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. As is customary, the Forum was organised ahead of the 17th Ordinary Session of the African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (ACERWC) also taking place in Ethiopia. Ninety-seven activists from 23 countries (of which 19 were in Africa) attended the Forum, which is a framework for strategic partnership to improve child rights in Africa. The document available through the link provided gives a summary of the meeting.
This UNDP paper explores the scale and composition of illicit financial flows from the 48 Least Developed Countries (LDCs). Illicit financial flows involve the cross-border transfer of the proceeds of corruption, trade in contraband goods, criminal activities and tax evasion. In recent years, considerable interest has arisen over the extent to which such flows may have a detrimental impact on development and governance in both developed and developing countries alike. The study’s indicative results find that illicit financial flows from the LDCs have increased from US$9.7 billion in 1990 to US$26.3 billion in 2008 implying an inflation-adjusted rate of increase of 6.2 per cent per annum.
The extent of tuberculosis and HIV co-infection rates in South Africa has firmly placed tuberculosis on the agenda of the South African National AIDS Council. This, after studies have shown that in some parts of the country, like in Khayelitsha in the Western Cape for example, about 73 per cent of HIV-infected people also have TB. The South African National AIDS Council (SANAC) took a decision to include tuberculosis as part of its mandate after a World Health Organisation (WHO) review in 2009 of South Africa’s national TB Control programme. The review found that the levels of TB and HIV co-infection in South Africa were enormously high.
Baton-wielding riot police waged a brutal crackdown recently on peaceful Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA) demonstrators in Bulawayo, with witnesses saying dozens of people were injured. WOZA said thousands of protesters gathered in central Bulawayo to express their frustration at the persistent daily ‘18 hour power cuts,’ when riot police arrived and began to indiscriminately beat the peaceful activists. The protest was aimed at the Zimbabwe Electricity Transmission and Distribution Company (ZETDC) for what WOZA termed was daylight robbery by the utility company.
The Democratic Alliance (DA) election posters, which feature party leader Helen Zille, Cape Town mayoral candidate Patricia de Lille and party spokeswoman Lindiwe Mazibuko, do not necessarily mean that a vote for the party is a vote for women, analysts say. Amanda Gouws, a political analyst from Stellenbosch University, says a vote for the DA, the country’s official opposition, would not be a feminist vote or victory for women. 'The DA is not a feminist party and many of their women members in government are not either. De Lille and Zille do not have a feminist rhetoric - and let’s not forget that she appointed 10 men to her cabinet,' she said.
A 13-year-old lesbian has become the latest victim of 'corrective rape' in South Africa, prompting activists to call for direct retaliatory action. The girl, who is said to be open about her sexuality, was raped in Pretoria, a government spokesman said. Campaigners say so-called corrective rape, in which men rape lesbians to 'cure' them of their sexual orientation, is on the increase in South Africa. Last month, a 24-year-old woman who belonged to a gay and lesbian rights group was stoned to death after an apparent gang rape.
Egypt's former Tourism Minister Zuhair Garranah has been jailed for five years on charges of corruption, an Egyptian judicial source has said. Garranah had handed out tourism licences illegally, the source said. Last week, ex-Interior Minister Habib al-Adly was jailed for 12 years for money-laundering and profiteering.
Niger's appeals court has dropped all corruption charges against ousted President Mamadou Tandja and ordered his release from jail. It said that under the country's law it was not possible to try a head of state after he had left office. Soldiers led the coup in February 2010 - angered that after 10 years in power, he was seeking a third term in office. Tandja was accused of embezzling state funds worth $1m (£670,000). He was also linked to a corrupt fertilizer deal worth between $9m and $10m.
On the surface, Namibia's education sector would appear to be doing just well, with about 19,000 teachers teaching some 550,000 children in 1,550 schools. About 80 per cent of the country's two million people are literate, and 90 per cent of children of school-going age are enrolled in primary schools. But scratch below the surface and one discovers there is more than meets the eye to these figures. In fact, critics have been insisting on a complete overhaul of the current education system, which they blame for having failed to produce quality graduates that can compete with the rest of Africa.
Patrick Bond makes a stinging critique of the recent report of the African Development Bank that claims that ‘one in three Africans is middle class’ and as a result, Africa is ready for ‘take off’.
‘African Sexualities’ is a groundbreaking new volume, forthcoming from Pambazuka Press. As well as using popular culture to help address the ‘what, why, how, when and where’ questions, the book’s contributors provide a critical mapping of African sexualities that informs readers about the plurality and complexities of sexualities on the continent – desires, practices, fantasies, identities, taboos, abuses, violations, stigmas, transgressions and sanctions. At the same time, the contributors pose gender-sensitive and politically aware questions that challenge the reader to interrogate assumptions and hegemonic sexuality discourses, thereby unmapping the intricate and complex terrain of African sexualities.
The following article by ‘African Sexualities’ editor Sylvia Tamale comprises the book’s introduction.
Hundreds of farmers in El-Gezira state in central Sudan staged demonstrations to reject what they described as injustice inflicted upon them by the government in evaluating rental price of land plots they own. The protestors marched in Barakat town and set up tents in front of the headquarters of the El-Gezira agricultural project and threatened an extended sit-in until their demands are met. They chanted slogans including 'No for sale, Yes for rental' and 'Your land is your honour'.
Senegalese opposition leaders are protesting a delay in issuing identification cards to youth, a move they say was calculated to deny them votes in the forthcoming elections. In the election to be held in February next year, President Abdoulaye Wade will face three former prime ministers and other veteran politicians in what promises to be the hottest political contest in Senegal since independence. On Tuesday, the opposition accused the ruling party of instituting technical delays in issuing the new identification cards, saying it was intended to sideline thousands of youths from registering.
Twenty-six children died from measles out of 445 cases recorded in Angola's northern enclave province of Cabinda since the start of the outbreak in 2010, the official news agency Angop reported. Particularly in malnourished children and people with reduced immunity, measles can cause serious complications, including blindness, encephalitis, severe diarrhoea, ear infection and pneumonia or even deaths.
Tension between the ruling MPLA party and the main opposition UNITA party and questions over policy-making are worrying investors in the major African oil-producing nation of Angola, states this risk assessment article from Reuters. Campaigning for 2012 elections got off to a shaky start, with UNITA saying food price riots in Mozambique in September could lead poverty-stricken Angolans to do the same.
President Rupiah Banda had no role in the alleged illegal $100 million arms procurement deal and does not owe people an explanation on the transaction, says Zambia's Defence minister. An ex-minister of defence in the Banda Cabinet, Mr George Mpombo, a fortnight ago claimed he quit his position in 2009 after he resisted pressure from the head of state to approve an arms deal with a South African firm, in which President Banda's son was the middleman. Mpombo, now aligned to main opposition leader Michael Sata and a fierce critic of President Banda, insisted the head of state constantly phoned him at the time to influence the signing of the deal and when he refused, he was scorned in Cabinet meetings, hence his resignation.
The Tanzanian government has denied that it is broke even, as analysts view the current situation as giving hints that the country is going through a financial crisis. Finance and economic affairs minister Mustafa Mkulo was refuting claims by Kigoma North MP Mr Zitto Kabwe who is also Finance shadow minister, who was quoted in the media at the weekend as saying the government was in 'dire financial straits' that has forced it to resort to borrowing to pay salaries. Kabwe had said the government delayed the April salaries to most of its workers. The Citizen established that a number of state employees had their April salaries delayed.
South African artists are bowing to the pressure from the ANC Youth League to cut all ties with the Kingdom of Swaziland. After the youth league urged all South Africans invited to Swaziland for the celebrations of King Mswati III’s birthday and his sons’ concert, moves to boycott the tyrannic state have escalated. The boycott is aimed at the Swazi king, his family and friends.
Cash strapped government will find itself failing to pay salaries in June if its coffers fail to get immediate injection. It also states it will be difficult for May. What had been feared and allayed for months seemingly looms. Since openly acknowledging that it is faced with a fiscal crisis, government has, for months, said civil servants’ salaries are a priority and would be guaranteed. Now it has conceded that beyond this month there will be no money to pay them.
Zimbabwe has adopted a two-pronged approach to tackling the country’s foreign debt that will see the African country use its rich natural resources while also embracing the HIPC debt relief initiative to pay back the more than US$7 billion owed to foreigners. The move to adopt a hybrid solution to the debt crisis comes after more than a year of strong disagreements within the Harare unity government over how to handle a burgeoning debt that Finance Minister Tendai Biti has said is the biggest obstacle to efforts to resuscitate the country’s economy ravaged by a decade-long recession.
UN investigators in Côte d'Ivoire have determined there were at least 68 bodies spread out across 10 burial mounds in a mass grave recently discovered on a soccer field in Abidjan, the country's commercial capital. Guillaume Ngefa, the deputy director of the human rights division of the UN mission in Côte d'Ivoire, said on Monday (09 May) the victims were probably killed by pro-Laurent Gbagbo militias on 12 April, the day after the strongman was arrested.
Malawi continues to have the highest number of child labourers in Southern Africa, with more than 78,000 children working on tobacco farms, according to child rights NGO Plan. The health risks are high. The handling of the leaves is done largely without protective clothing and the children absorb up to 54mg of dissolved nicotine through their skin - which is equal to smoking 50 cigarettes. As a result, many suffer from green tobacco sickness (GTS). The symptoms including severe headaches, abdominal pain, muscle weakness, coughing and breathlessness.
Least Developed Countries do not need charity; they want more and smarter investments. This was the point of departure for the Fourth UN Conference for the world's poor countries (LDC-IV) begins in Istanbul, Turkey. Up to 8,000 delegates, including the leaders of the world's 48 least developed countries (LDCs), international aid agencies and development partners discussed solutions to abject poverty. Up to 900 million people are citizens of LDCs, half of them living on less than two dollars a day. Over the last decade, 60 per cent of the world’s refugees originated from the LDCs, according to the United Nations.
'The enjoyment of the right to freedom of expression in Southern Africa remains under serious threat, particularly due to repressive legal regimes which are being used as a tool to justify the persecution of journalists and citizens under the guise of due process. Lack of political will to put in place effective measures that enhance the protection and enjoyment of this right, is a common problem particularly in Swaziland, Tanzania and Zimbabwe.'
Wavah Broadcasting Service (WBS) TV journalist Williams Ntege was arrested by anti-riot police on 2 May after he was caught filming the arrest of Kampala female Member of Parliament (MP) Nabirah Ssempala. Ntege says that during his arrest, one armed, plainclothes officer threatened to shoot him on accusations that he was inciting violence.
Pambazuka News 530: Memory, history and transformation: 'Time future contained in time past'
Pambazuka News 530: Memory, history and transformation: 'Time future contained in time past'
In a series of two interviews, Ron Singer engages with dissident Ethiopian journalist Eskinder Nega about the EPRDF (Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front), how his wife was forced to give birth while in prison and the politics of identity.
Pambazuka News 528: Special Issue: Justice for the people of Kenya
Pambazuka News 528: Special Issue: Justice for the people of Kenya
Kenya’s new constitution is ‘the law of the land now’, writes Tom Avant. ‘Equal rights for all Kenyans are no longer just a dream’, as long as citizens learn to 'demand respect for those rights’ from their elected representatives.
The relationship between Kenyan Somalis and the Kenyan state is ‘tumultuous at the best of times, and indifferent at the worst of times’, writes Abdinasir Amin. Although little has changed for the better since Amin’s grandfather’s time, Kenya’s new constitution brings hope for genuine acceptance in the future.
Kenyans evicted from their homes to make way for new developments routinely have their social and economic rights violated. But these rights are enforceable under the country’s new constitution, which gives people easier access to the courts than ever before. Justice Musinga’s judgement on the Muthurwa case sets ‘the right approach to, and standards of, constitutional interpretation’, write Yash Pal Ghai and Jill Cottrell Ghai.
Kenya’s chief justice Evan Gicheru retired at the end of February last year, as mandated by the country’s new constitution. With no replacement appointed yet, George Kegoro asks what lies ahead for the judiciary.
‘Before I became a Human Rights Defender, I had to safe guard my living space in a closet. I knew I was safe – nothing could or would harm me – I felt untouchable. I had a place to call home, and I held on to it never jeopardizing the privileges. But all that changed when my family learnt about my sexual identity,’ writes Gullit Makobe.
This special issue of Pambazuka News, published in association with AwaaZ, chronicles ‘justice’ as its main theme. This is particularly in the context of the enactment of the new constitution and by extension to seek justice for the people of Kenya. The issue covers a range of articles related to the struggle for justice in the overall context today: In the judiciary, in the courts of the people under public litigation cases and the eviction of the poor from their homes; in the environment – in this case Lamu; for sexual minorities – in this case the LGBTI (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual and intersex) movement in Kenya today; the relationship between the Kenyan Somali and the Kenyan state; the rights of women; and in the press. We have also examined the constitutional community justice systems in Kenya in comparison to the formal legal systems today.
In addition there is an article on the historical perspective on the Politics of Law in Kenya. We have also chronicled the life of the late Chief Justice of Kenya Hon, Mr Justice C B Madan. We hope that this story will have an impact on the current process of appointing a new Chief Justice in Kenya under the new constitution. The late Justice Madan was a ‘Champion for the supremacy of the rule of Law’, which we so badly lack today in Kenya.
Amidst widespread rumour that the Kenyan government is buying up land in Lamu District to resettle people displaced by the 2008 post-election violence, Abdalla Bujra calls on the government to issue an ‘urgent statement’ on the matter, or risk increasing tensions in Lamu, whose people are afraid that they will lose their land and livelihoods.
Ramnik Shah reflects on the life of Justice Madan, a ‘homegrown Kenyan jurist of the highest order’, and his ‘immense contribution to the political and legal history of Kenya’.
Edited by Yash Pal Ghai and Jill Cottrell, ‘Marginalized Communities and Access to Justice’ is ‘a useful tool for human rights actors’, writes Priscilla Nyokabi Kanyua.