For the first time, researchers in Africa and other developing countries will be able to apply for European Union (EU) funding under nearly the same terms as European researchers, as opposed to a limited amount of funding for earmarked projects. Especially South African scientists already have known how to make use of these funds.

Establishing effective prevention programmes in schools requires an understanding of the effects of early alcohol use in students, as well as developing policies and strategies, argues Rwanda's Minister of Education in The New Times newspaper.

Marine and coastal management scientists are investigating the cause of death of millions of larval crabs that washed up along the Table Bay coastline for the past two weeks. The death of the tiny crabs is, at this stage, not thought to be related to the death of more than 80 tons of fish in Rietvlei, near Table View, according to city spokesman Pieter Cronje.

Relief assistance efforts in emergency situations that hitherto were based on a single approach have not been effective and mainstreaming disaster risk reduction in to the development program is what the country needs, a new research recommended.

After entering into negotiations with the European Union (EU) over special ties and leaving the West Africa free travel union, the government of Cape Verde now has announced its desire to loosen its attachment to the Economic Community Of West African States (ECOWAS). The Cape Verde government soon will present ECOWAS with proposals for "special status" of the island nation.

The year 2006 saw the health sector marred by controversies and Uganda slipping off the ladder as a global setter in the HIV/AIDS fight. The Uganda AIDS Commission found that the number of Ugandans living with the disease rose from 5.6% in 2000 to 7.1%, the sixteenth international AIDS Conference in Toronto Canada, heard.

There may be a link between malaria and the spread of the virus that causes Aids across Africa, research by scientists working in Kenya suggests. The study, published in the journal Science, says the way the two diseases interact can help them spread faster.

Western criticism of death sentences handed to five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor by a Libyan court shows a lack of respect for the Libyan people, Libya's foreign ministry said late on Thursday (28 December 2006). The medics were sentenced last week for deliberately infecting 426 children in the late 1990s with the virus that causes Aids.

One of the biggest threats facing democracy in South Africa is corruption, the South African Communist Party (SACP) said on Wednesday (27 December 2006). "Apart from HIV/Aids, joblessness and poverty, the single biggest threat facing our democracy is growing corruption in both the public and private sectors," said SACP president Blade Nzimande in the party's new year message.

The management of Transnational Corporation of Nigeria (Transcorp) Plc has declared that the company is not enjoying any special privilege from the federal government. This declaration was made by the Group Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of the company, Mr. Bernard Longe.

A further several thousand people have been displaced by floods in west and northeast Kenya following a week of heavy rains, the Kenya Red Cross Society (KRCS) has reported. Areas under water include Budalangi, Migori, Nyando and Kisumu in Nyanza in Western Province, the KRCS said.

The South African Border Control Operational Co-ordinating Committee (BCOCC) is preparing for the expected influx of foreign migrant workers back into the country after the December holidays.

Thousands of people have gone into hiding in hills near the North Darfur village of Abu Sakin after Arab militias continued their destructive rampage across parts of the western Sudanese region, aid workers said.

Joseph Kabila, the newly-elected president of the Democratic Republic of Congo, has named Antoine Gizenga, the 81-year-old opposition veteran, as the country's new prime minister.

Somalia's government claimed Tuesday (2 January 2006) to have full control of territory wrested from Islamists with Ethiopia's military help, but militia fighters took no notice of orders to turn in their weapons in the capital. In Kenya, President Mwai Kibaki urged his Somali counterpart Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed to resume peace talks with the Islamists, who still pose a security threat despite defeat, in order to achieve stability.

The Somali president Abdulahi Yusuf Ahmed has issued a decree on Monday (1 January 2006) installing a new administrator in Hiran province, central Somalia. The new administrator will replace Yusuf Ahmed Hagar Dabageed, who was the chairman of the province.

Last week, US President Bush hosted a White House summit on malaria. "We know exactly what it takes to treat and prevent the disease," Mr. Bush said, referring to insecticide-treated bed nets and other simple measures. "The only question is whether we have the will to act." The day before the malaria summit, the question of will was raised again by the announcement of an AIDS breakthrough.

In simultaneous predawn raids, Egyptian police on Thursday (14 December 2006) arrested 17 senior members of the Muslim Brotherhood and rounded up at least 140 students on suspicion of being linked to this banned nonviolent organization following a protest at Cairo’s al-Azhar University, Human Rights Watch said today (18 December 2006). The Egyptian authorities have arrested at least 1,000 members of the Muslim Brotherhood in a crackdown that began in March.

Calling for more action to counter pervasive discrimination against women, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) today (11 December 2006) launched a report highlighting that “gender equality and the well-being of children go hand in hand,” and recommending a raft of measures, from greater investment in girls’ education to imposing quotas ensuring woman are better represented in politics. Gender equality is also key to achieving all the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

The United Nations marked International Migrant’s Day with fervent appeals for the vast majority of States who have not yet done so to adhere to the treaty that seeks to protect the rights of the estimated 195 million people around the world who have left their homelands in search of better lives. “Rising numbers of migrants are being exploited and abused by smugglers and traffickers,” Secretary-General Kofi Annan said in a message. “Others suffer discrimination, xenophobia or racism."

At least 200,000 people are estimated to have died since the Darfur conflict between government forces, allied militias and rebels seeking autonomy began in 2003. Aid workers have also been attacked, and their vehicles and communication equipment stolen. Eva Dadrian writes that for international development aid to be effective, peace must be restored first to Darfur.

Throughout the Darfur crisis, Sudan has disputed accusations, accused everybody except the pro-government Janjaweed militias, played for time, pledged and promised but never delivered. It has even managed to stave off UN intervention. Darfur is entering its fourth year of conflict and turmoil and there are no more excuses to be made, say observers.

Despite calls for action from the United Nations (UN), aid agencies and human rights organisations, Africans have consistently resisted any action which would be critical of the Sudanese government, in the name of African solidarity. But patience seems to have run out even from a very complacent African Union, and not long ago, President Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria warned of possible genocide in the region. Now, President Omar el Bashir has until the end of the year to disarm the Janjaweed, and accept a hybrid AU-UN peacekeeping force in Darfur or face the consequences.

Addressing the African-Caribbean-Pacific conference held recently in Khartoum, President al Bashir said that the situation in Darfur is “under control” and that peace has been restored in the province. In reality, the situation in Darfur is far from being "under control" as claimed by the Sudanese strong man. The rebellion continues and a new group has emerged and taken up arms against Khartoum.

Reported to belong to Darfur Arab tribes, the Popular Forces Troops (PFT) say they are fighting against the “marginalisation” of the region. It is not yet known whether they will join forces with the rebel groups that did not sign the Abuja Peace agreement. However, the PFT is reported to have made a statement saying that “Darfur Arab groups believe that Darfur people are fighting for a just cause”.

In the meantime, the only group which signed the Abuja Peace agreement with the government last May (the Sudan Liberation Army), has threatened to pull out of the deal if Khartoum-backed militias “continue to be armed and to attack civilians”. In addition, fresh fighting has erupted between the Sudanese government troops and the National Redemption Front (NRF), an umbrella group of the rebel factions that did not sign the Abuja peace agreement in May.

Sitting in Addis Ababa last week, the AU Joint Ceasefire Commission (JCC) decided that the disarmament of the Janjaweed in the war-torn Darfur region "be started immediately." That decision was made upon the assessment of a confidential report presented to the JCC by General Luke Aprezi, the commander of the AMIS (African Union Mission in Sudan) peacekeeping force. The report testifies clearly and without ambiguity hat the Janjaweed had recently increased their attacks. It also draws the attention of the JCC to the fact that "the re-emergence of the Janjaweed also negatively affected the security situation." Although Khartoum continues to deny it, General Luke Aprezi’s report says, “The Sudanese government continues to arm the Janjaweed."

Back in 2004, at the height of the conflict, I wrote that the Sudanese armed forces and other paramilitary units, i.e. the government-backed Janjaweed, have simultaneously targeted civilians, allegedly accused of supporting the rebellion. Despite promises and pledges from the government, the Janjaweed are still being armed and still targeting civilians. Only last month, the Janjaweed were again in action against civilians. This time the attacks took place near the Chadian borders.

Both the AU and the United Nations confirmed this recent military campaign and said that the Janjaweed militia has targeted “civilians and particularly children”. More than 70 civilians were reported killed. Western monitors have also reported that the Sudanese Air Force has also been deployed in the offensive and bombed villages along the border with Chad. No circumstances can justify deliberate attacks on civilians, or military operations that endanger civilian lives. These recent attacks were grave violations of human rights and the laws of war, and they happened despite the recent pledge by the government to dismantle the Janjaweed and honour a UN Security Council resolution that banned bombing raids in Darfur.

President Al Bashir has consistently rejected the deployment of an extended peacekeeping force on the grounds that his government is capable of maintaining peace in the region. He went as far as declaring that the presence of any UN force would be like “an invasion” or that the West is interested neither in human rights nor in the plight of the people of Darfur, but seeking to invade Sudan only so it could plunder its resources. Sudanese government officials have also warned that the war-torn province could become “a new battlefield for jihadists”.

There is no doubt that the disarmament depends on “ the political will of the Sudanese government” says Monique Mukaruliza, deputy head of the peace mission, but the pressure is building up and it appears that even Sudan’s African supporters have given up on Khartoum’s long-lasting diplomatic game.

That game is almost over. An “informal” consensus seems to have been reached by the AU, the international community and the UN to put further pressure on Sudan.

As the AU Joint Ceasefire Commission was sitting in Addis Ababa, 15 former foreign ministers wrote a proposal for Darfur. Published in the Financial Times of London (18 December 2006), the proposal, signed by amongst others: Joschka Fisher (Germany) Ismail Cem (Turkey) Gareth Evans (Australia), Erik Derycke of Belgium, Lamberto Dini of Italy, Bronislaw Geremek of Poland, Rosario Green of Mexico, Surin Pitsuwan of Thailand, Hubert Vedrine of France and Ana Palacio of Spain, says that a “fully observed ceasefire leading to a sustained political settlement would be the best way to save lives in the war-ravaged region.”

In the interim, says the proposal, the international community will need to convince President al-Bashir that his best interests would be served by allowing the “African Union peacekeeping force to be strengthened with financial, logistical and other support from the United Nations.”

The option of sanctions, the so-called “consequences” mentioned by the JCC communiqué, is clearly stated in the foreign ministers’ proposal. They reckon that sanctions would force a change of policy by Khartoum. “As former diplomats, we support one last effort to persuade Khartoum to accept the proposal for a hybrid force. If by the year's end Mr Bashir still refuses or, more likely, continues pretending to agree one day and saying no the next, he should pay a stiff price."

That price, or the consequences should first include targeted multilateral sanctions [such as travel bans and asset freezes] directed at military and civilian leaders who are responsible for the violence. The second step should be measures to target revenue from Sudan's oil sales, coupled with an embargo on the sale of equipment to that country's petroleum industry, and thirdly, steps to be taken to close offshore accounts affiliated with the government-majority party, including militias.

In addition, the International Criminal Court should up its investigations into those who order or commit crimes against humanity in Darfur. However, unless these sanctions are “multilateral” they will have no effect on the Sudanese government. Extensive diplomatic efforts by the AU and the international community are being made to persuade Sudan’s African, Arab and Asian allies to help change President al Bashir’s mind and to reach an agreement for a “hybrid” AU-UN force to be sent in 2007. Before being asked to leave Sudan, in October 2006, Jan Egeland, the United Nations humanitarian chief, made a similar plea and called on African, Arab and Asian countries to urge Sudan to accept a UN peacekeeping force in Darfur.

The Addis Ababa-Abuja broad diplomatic coalition, which benefits from the support of the AU, the Arab League and the UN Security Council, has recommended a hybrid force that would combine AU personnel with financial, logistics and other support from the United Nations. The plan is 1) to strengthen the capacity of the AU monitors, 2) to provide for increased logistical support to the embattled African contingent and 3) to see the deployment of a hybrid AU-UN peacekeeping force yet to be formally approved by Sudan.

Pressure is also mounting from the International Criminal Court (ICC), as Luis Moreno Ocampo, the chief prosecutor for ICC, announced that his investigation has collected enough evidence to prove “who are the most responsible for the crimes committed in Darfur” in 2003 and 2004. It was during that period that the highest number of crimes were committed, by all parties involved in the conflict. The chief prosecutor has also asked the Sudanese government to facilitate a visit by his team in January 2007 to gather information on the 14 arrests made by the GoS.

However, it seems that the people indicted by the GoS are not the same people the ICC is investigating. Under the Rome statute, the prosecutor must first assess whether the government is building the same case. Ocampo has already asked the Sudanese government for an update on their national proceedings, regarding the arrest of 14 people by the Sudanese authorities.

Furthermore, as the UN Human Rights Council is preparing to send a high-level team of human rights experts to Darfur, news reports have quoted Mohamed Ali al-Mardhi, the Sudanese minister of justice, as saying that he was “ready to cooperate with a UN fact-finding team due to investigate human rights abuses in war-torn Darfur.”

According to Al-Mardhi, “the authorities have nothing to hide” and all obstacles will be removed in order “to allow the team of experts to probe cases of rights violations in the western region”.

Collective decision-making is very well, and there is no doubt in my mind that as Africans, we have to stand for African sovereignty and reject any outside interference in our own affairs. But my question is whether in the name of that same sovereignty, we should allow our governments to kill Africans and destroy entire communities, making hundreds of thousands of people flee their homes and become refugees or IDPs (internally displaced people), facing starvation and life threatening diseases? It is indeed in the name of their sovereignty that successive governments in Khartoum have waged wars against their own people: for more than twenty years in Southern Sudan and now for almost four years in Darfur.

Observers and aid agencies continue to remind us that Security Council resolution 1706 was written under the enforcement chapter of the United Nations, therefore the UN force could intervene “regardless of what the government of Sudan wants”. But this is not, and this cannot be, the preferred option. Sudan must agree to let the hybrid AU-UN into Darfur where the humanitarian situation is deteriorating as aid agencies have announced that they had to pull out 650 staff from Darfur and Chad, because of security fears. The evacuation of the aid workers, even if temporarily, means disrupting supplies of food and medicines to hundreds of thousands of people.

Some African political analysts say that the so-called "international peacekeeping force" is a “euphemism for foreign military intervention which is destined to have disastrous repercussions for the people of Darfur and Sudan as a whole.” Let us be honest and look into the past 50 years of Sudan history. The only disastrous repercussions for the people of Sudan are the centralised, hegemonic, dictatorial, elitist and undemocratic policies of successive Sudanese governments who have ruled the country since independence.

Some observers suspect that oil is the main “motivation” behind the heightened interest of the international community and specifically that of Washington. Yet, there is no geological evidence of oil reserves in Darfur. Academics and some diplomats are behind the spread of these false reports. If one looks into the oil issue, one can see that China, Malaysia and India hold the concession rights for oil development and exploration in Southern Sudan and in the Kordofan province.

For my part, I have always believed that the fighting in Darfur should not be seen as an isolated issue, but in a wider regional context. The entire Sahel region, from Mauritania to Sudan, faces a common problem: droughts and underdevelopment that lead to a scramble over the meagre resources between nomadic tribes and pastoralists, mainly Arabs or Arabised, and African non-Arab agriculturalists and farmers. This has been the situation since the 1960s. Only sustainable development assistance to the entire region of the Sahel can help quell current and future clashes between those communities. But before sending any international development aid, peace must be restored to Darfur.

• Eva Dadrian is an independent broadcaster and Political and Country Risk Analyst for print and broadcast media.

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

Social movements in Kenya, “want to see the WSF being transformed into a space for organizing and mobilizing against the nefarious forces of international finance capital, neo-liberalism and all its local neo-colonial and comprador collaborators,” writes Onyango Oloo. Whether this will be achieved is a practical question which will be put to the test in Nairobi this coming January.

The clock is winding down. With barely a month before the commencement of the 6th World Social Forum (WSF), social movements from Africa and around the world are gearing up to make their presence felt in the Kenyan capital where the annual event is scheduled to take place from January 20th to 25th 2007.

Indeed, there has been a flurry of activities in the host country itself. At the end of November, a bevy of organizations and movements representing various pastoralist and minority groups converged at the Kenyatta International Conference Centre to celebrate the Kenya Pastoralists’ Week. In contrast to previous outings, the 2006 edition was devoted to building up support and mobilising for the World Social Forum. Impatient with their stereotypical image as cultural artefacts used to drum up foreign exchange earnings from tourism, members of the Maasai, Samburu, Turkana, Rendille, Pokot, Yiaku, Njemps, Ogiek, El Molo and other marginalized groups (many of them from the historically ignored and systemically impoverished northern limits of Kenya) resolved to bring to the global audience offered by the WSF space, issues more relevant to their lived experience.

Among these issues are colonial era land edicts and policies which dispossessed their communities; the impact of mining and extraction activities on the environment and human livelihoods; discriminatory policies by successive governments that have guaranteed the stubborn survival of pre-colonial conditions of poverty and underdevelopment among many pastoralist and minority communities; the arrogant disregard for the concerns raised by (for example) Samburu women raped over the years by British soldiers dispatched on military exercises in those Kenyan communities; proposals on ending conflict and creating conditions for sustainable growth; the role of youth; tensions persisting with neo-colonial era settler farmers and indigenous Kenyan comprador businessmen in hiving off thousands of hectares of land while the pastoralists and minority communities are targets of state terror, evictions and denunciations and other related concerns.

The WSF 2007 may also serve as an occasion to celebrate recent victories by some of the above marginalized groups. In Botswana, the San people made global headlines in December 2006 after a court affirmed their legal claim that they were wrongly forced off their ancestral lands by the Botswana government and that they had a right to return to their homes in the Kalahari Desert. Hot on the heels of that decision barely a week later, another court this time in Kenya, agreed with lawyers for the minority Njemps community that they had a right to a parliamentary representative from their own community given the decades of exclusion and marginalization by successive Kenyan regimes, both colonial and neo-colonial.

On the other side of the coin, members of the Digo community on the Kenyan coast are fuming after a High Court judged ruled in favour of the Toronto-based Tiomin company and against seven local farmers who are opposed to the paltry compensation packages the firm was offering for displacing members of the community from the site of proposed titanium mining operations. The court also ruled that the Kenya government could immediately proceed with forceful evictions of all farmers opposed to the displacement and proposed compensation. The Tiomin issue has been a lightning rod that has led to national and international coalitions and solidarity campaigns bringing together activists in Kenya, Canada, the United States, Italy and other parts of the world.

The Yiaku people have been also quite involved in the plans for the World Social Forum 2007. They have at least two representatives sitting in the Organizing Committee itself and active in the Social Mobilization Commission.

Theirs is a unique case for cultural survival: in the 1930s, they were forcibly assimilated into the larger Maasai cluster and over a period of decades, they have effectively lost their language with less than 10 people (mostly greying elders) able to communicate in the Yiaku tongue. Today they are confined to the inner reaches of the Mukogodo Forest on the outskirts of Nanyuki town in the Laikipia District of central Kenya. But in a testimony of their grit and resolve to fight for their right to self-determination, they have joined up with other marginalized and endangered peoples in Africa and around the world and no doubt they will have compelling testimonies to share during the January global event in Nairobi.

Dwellers of the so-called “mitaa ya mabanda” or informal settlements in Kenya- from the sprawling slums of Kibera and Mathare to the lesser known Huruma, Korogocho, Mukuru, Kondele, Chaani and other slums are quite in the thick of things. The Kutoka Network is working closely with these communities to ensure a massive presence of the inhabitants of these settlements at WSF 2007. One of the highlights of their activities will be a marathon that will snake its way through the Nairobi slums to historic Uhuru Park - the venue of the opening and closing ceremonies.

Hawkers, who have of late born the brunt of municipal government and state terror in the Kenyan capital, are also organizing to participate, partly to correct the media misperceptions that they are nothing but a bunch of hoodlums working in cahoots with organized criminals to desecrate the central business district of Nairobi.

Women in Africa and around the world are busy organizing their presence at the WSF 2007 with the Nairobi-based FEMNET and the Kampala-based AWEPON taking a very conscious lead in hooking into encounters like the Feminist Dialogues to ensure an effective participation by women.

The Kenyan trade union movement walked into the WSF process rather late in September 2006, and found their way around after a couple of hiccups. At first, it was a major battle to get the phrase “right to decent work” inserted into the major principles guiding the WSF 2007 meeting because some WSF veterans objected to incorporating the name of a specific ILO campaign into a broad platform such as the WSF. At the end of the day, there was a compromise and the phrase was adopted after protracted behind the scenes discussions.

More recently, a press conference organized by the Kenyan trade union leadership cast wrong aspersions at the Nairobi-based WSF 2007 Secretariat and this created some bad blood, which was once again overcome after face to face meetings with representative of the two bodies.

Even before the arrival of COTU (the Kenyan trade union confederation) on the WSF scene, workers and their issues were very much part of the WSF process with South Africa’s COSATU part of the International Council of the WSF and OATUU head Hassan Sunmonu one of the most familiar presences at the African Social Forum council meetings. Elsewhere around the world, bodies like the Canadian Labour Congress and other trade union formations have been longtime supporters of the WSF process since its very inception.

In Kenya, bodies like the Kenya Human Rights Commission (KHRC) have worked for a long time to highlight the plight of export processing zones (EPZ) wage slaves and flower farm workers. The KHRC recently organized an international forum for shopstewards from Thailand, Indonesia, South Africa, Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya and other parts of the world to talk about the issues workers would be bringing to the WSF 2007.

The Kenya Land Alliance, one of the constituent bodies of the Kenya Social Forum and a member of the WSF 2007 Organizing Committee has for the last year been mobilizing peasants, squatters, fisher folk, pastoralists and other rural folk to bring their issues on land and livelihoods to the WSF event. KLA has supported regional forums such as the Western Kenya Social Forum, the Coast Social Forum and the Central Social Forum, materially and otherwise.

Other dynamic bodies in the WSF 2007 Organizing Committee such as the Shelter Forum, Citizens Assembly and Haki Jamii have mobilized evictees, urban dwellers, the poor, the youth etc to articulate social and economic problems and suggested alternatives.

On a global scale, the World Assembly of Social Movements has held a series of meetings and exchanges on how best to use the WSF space to galvanize social movements. At the continental level, the South African based Khanya College and the newly founded Sankara Centre for Social Movements in Kenya are determined to see that the WSF 2007 event is an occasion to network and map out joint actions with other social movements from around the world.

In the same vein, an initiative coming out of Asia and Africa will be a prominent feature of the WSF Nairobi encounter, as activists from the two vast continents map out the elements of Africa-Asia Solidarity. A similar process is underway involving Latin America and Africa.

At the formal organizing level, all these initiatives, encounters and proposals have been concretized in an International Council of WSF (supported by the local organizing committee and the African Social Forum) decision to devote the fourth day of the WSF event (January 24, 2007) to solidifying joint actions and campaigns, partly to stave off lingering criticisms and perceptions that over the years the WSF has become little more than a talk shop.

With just weeks before the WSF 2007 event, it is clear that the WSF process itself is a contested ideological terrain. Some of the more activist types are struggling to ensure that WSF events transcend their depiction as annual NGO jamborees with the usual high flying suspects flitting from one seminar to the other workshop before jetting back to their familiar civil society lairs.

Social movements, including dozens in Kenya, want to see the WSF being transformed into a space for organizing and mobilizing against the nefarious forces of international finance capital, neo-liberalism and all its local neo-colonial and comprador collaborators.

Whether this will be realized is a practical question which will be put to the test in Nairobi this coming January.

• Onyango Oloo is the National Coordinator of the Kenya Social Forum. He writes here in his personal capacity.
• Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

Indeed, any reflection on China and Africa is timely and it is encouraging that you are taking the lead. Two weeks ago, the President of the African Development Bank (ADB) was at my Institute at the invitation of the Dutch Government to talk about poverty reduction, governance and regional intergration vis á vis the ADB lens. In his speech, Mr Kaberuka mentioned that he was optimistic that Africa could leap out of its 'misery' and that the Africa-China relationship could accelerate this development. That comment raised some 'expected' response from the host (the Chief Economist at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs) who sharply remarked that she was of the view that 'China is a Wolf in Sheep’s skin'. So now you know it will be interesting to hear a comprehensive African voice on CHINA!

Professor Issa Shivji is a legend in his own lifetime. He is one of the few veteran members of the leftist intelligentsia who has withstood all storms and remains firmly on the side of the people. He is truly a life long member of the ‘Africa will never, never surrender’ Club for whom ALUTA CONTINUA is not just a slogan, but a working motto. He retires from the University of Dar Es Salaam this year. He may be retired but he is certainly not tired. More importantly his colleagues, comrades, and several generations of students are not tired of him.

It is not often that Africans, especially those of us on the left, say thank you to one of us. Often we reserve our best homage till they are no longer with us. We think it is a kind of bourgeois ostentation, vanity, or what they call ‘feferity’ (ie showmanship) to celebrate individual achievements because the struggle is all that matters. Individuals, no matter how much they have contributed to our struggles, are not supposed to matter.

I have always had unease about this... It is the people that matter in the end but who are these people if not an aggregate of individuals?

It is heartening that times are changing and we are beginning to celebrate our heroes and heroines while they are still alive. The Africa Research and Resource Forum this week in Nairobi has been holding a celebratory seminar alongside a series of public debates in honour of Shivji.

One of the public lectures was entitled “Choosing leaders: The dilemmas of democracy in Africa and abroad”. It was held at the Kenya National Theatre close to the University of Nairobi and opposite the colonial edifice of the Norfolk hotel. Prominent African scholars participating in the seminar were on the panel chaired by Prof Peter Wanyande who is the Dean of the Faculty of Arts, University of Nairobi. The panelists included Prof Thandika Mkandawire; former Director of the Dakar based CODESRIA and Head of the UNRISD in Geneva: John Oyoo of the Africa Institute of South Africa; Prof Haroub Othman of the University of Dar; and Professor Mahmood Mamdani.

Thandika opened up the discussion with a Brecthian quote suggesting that in Africa the challenge of democracy may not be about the way to choose our leaders but how they choose their peoples. He was not downplaying the importance of the formal processes of free and fair elections, or rule of law and associated freedoms, instead of drawing attention to the mystification of formalities that lead to people confusing the process with the end itself. This has created a situation in many countries where people vote without choosing or become ‘choice-less voters’.

Just being chosen in an election is not enough. There are consequences for the chosen one. One of these is the obligation to be accountable to the voters. This is an area where democracy is still facing numerous challenges in Africa and elsewhere. How do we hold our chosen leaders accountable in between elections? How do we prevent them from becoming elective dictators and self-serving lots who only care for themselves? This is very important in Kenya where the MPs are among the best paid in the world. During this week President Kibaki had to turn down a salary increase awarded by the parliament that would have seen him earning more than President Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Even in the so-called ‘advanced democracies’ where institutions are more developed and there are countervailing centres of power, checks and balances, accountability is difficult to enforce. For instance Tony Blair went to war even though an overwhelming majority of British voters did not support the unjust war.

In Africa, thanks to the IMF and World Bank and their fellow travellers in the neo-liberal orthodoxy of the moment, accountability has now become accounting. Yet according to Thandika, it was African scholars who first suggested to the IMF/World Bank, in a now forgotten pioneering dialogue with African scholars, that governance was a central issue for the continent. This was in the 80s when the Bank and its egg-head economists believed that only structural adjustment mattered. They produced a two-volume report which was quickly forgotten but they were to pick up on ‘good governance’ later as a mantra. In Washington terms, good governance is government without politics, a dictatorship of experts in the name of technocracy.

Thandika advised that African scholars should examine our societies more in terms of how they are shaped, and who is shaping them, in order to understand our politics and the political behaviour of the masses. By looking at ourselves we can better understand the sociology and ideology that determines the consciousness of the African voter, and why this voter is susceptible to class, ethnic, religious, and other forms of manipulation.

Finally, he suggested that there is a cyclical turn-around in African politics that he estimated to be between 30-40 years, during which the same political elite have been dominant (whether in or outside of government) waiting to be government. He sees the next few years as the period during which a new cycle will begin. He challenged the younger scholars and political activists to seize the opportunity to reshape Africa.

I am not quite sure about this cycle of Thandika’s because there is another problem that I see with some of our political leaders especially the so-called ‘New Leaders’. They are a special class that has known no other role other than leading. Last job: Leader. Present job: Leader. Future expectation: Leader. They do not know ‘followership’.

John Oyoo spoke after Thandika. He observed that in the independence period there was a more unified elite with the common aim of riding the continent of colonialism. Many of the politicians were intellectuals and many intellectuals were politically involved. However in the post-colonial phase, intra-elite conflicts led to military coups which decimated the intellectual class and devastated state and society. Intellectuals became either opponents of the khaki boys or their stooges and hirelings.

The Cold War also took its toll on our intellectuals and politicians who became cold warriors for the east or the west. By the late 1970s and throughout the 80s, Africa had become prostate and formed an experimental ground for all kinds of half-baked ideas of development from outside, principally through the hegemony of the IMF /World Bank and their dubious Washington Consensus.

The IMF and World Bank did not want thinkers who would challenge their dubious assumptions and arrogance. The military or one party dictator did not want any criticism of their misrule. Between both of these, our once promising and flourishing intellectual centres became deserts and development thinking and planning became externalized.

Haroub concentrated on his familiar themes of the essential difference between visionary and non-visionary leaders. At independence, many of the leaders, regardless of their ideological leaning, were visionary, charismatic and beloved by their peoples and they derived their legitimacy from the people.

However the unity between the leaders and the masses soon fizzled out in many countries as class differences began to emerge and consolidate. The progressives of the nationalist period soon became the conservatives in power, unwilling to set their own people free. Resistance to their tyranny developed.

Some countries like Tanzania under Nyerere managed to retain popular legitimacy largely due to the personal discipline, humane and humble leadership of the Mwalimu.

He concluded by observing that leaders do not emerge from the heavens but need to be developed organically from among the various social forces in any society: political parties, mass movements, factories, industries, workshops, production sites, farms, villages, etc.

The final speaker was Mamdani. He lived up to his well-deserved reputation as one of the most engaging intellectuals of this continent. As usual he turned the topic upside down, preferring not to focus on individual leaders per se but first the structural basis of the relationship of power, and secondly the kinds of individual leaders they produce.

In the past few years it has become very difficult (or maybe impossible) to discuss anything with Mamdani without coming back to ‘Citizenship and Subject’, his seminal book that still remains very thought provoking. It is still provoking Mamdani himself.

He began by postulating that, in general, countries that have gone through colonialism are susceptible to group violence especially civil war. A cursory look at the history of India, the USA and Africa will confirm the point. Mamdani thinks this is largely because of the struggle for the expansion of the rights of citizens who live in these colonial states. They are about citizenship since citizenship defines who belongs, who has a right to belong, who is to include and who is to be excluded.

Colonialism distorted peoples’ ways of life and imposed new identities, regimented those that were previously converging and in many cases offered different sets of rights to different peoples in the same political community. At independence the leaders did not inherit a country with one citizenship and one people but a myriad of political communities in one state with different grades of rights enforced through colonially constructed customs and traditions, natives and subjects. What the colonialists used to maintain their power was soon adapted and adopted by the new elites with devastating consequences.

He contrasted Nigeria and Tanzania. While Nigeria carries on with the colonial divisions albeit through new forms of tribalisation (state of origin instead of tribe, federal character instead of ethnic character), Tanzania completely changed the colonial basis of citizenship and succeeded in creating a nation which Nigeria has not been able to do in spite of all the riches.

While identifying the colonial roots of the problems Mamdani was clear that the responsibility for changing them and righting these wrongs are ours, not anybody else’s.

On the role of individuals, he posed a number of questions: How do we find a saint in politics? Why should we be looking up to those in power to help us make them accountable to us?

They are rhetorical questions for which he provided his own answers. It is not the leaders who will voluntarily render themselves accountable. Rather, we have to mobilize socially and politically throughout society not to accept lack of accountability in our public and private lives. We must struggle to broaden the political space for the fullest participation of all members of our political communities without discrimination. We also have to make politics about the social questions that affect the majority of our peoples rather than the political ambitions of the individual elite.

It was a very good forum and a worthy testimony to Issa Shivji as one of the most important of our intellectual leaders. The turn out was great and quite refreshing to find so many young people in attendance.

But I am always left frustrated whenever there is a discussion about leadership in Africa. The comments, questions and answers session of this panel discussion had all the elements that frustrate me.

One, the discussion of leadership is often too narrow and limited to politicians. We do not include ourselves and our role or inaction and how this impacts on the socio-economic and political lives of our peoples. Invariably we blame others and are content to ignore our own culpability. These leaders did not emerge from space; they grew from amongst us and are kept in power in part by our collaboration or indifference.

Two, Mamdani asked why we want saints in politics. The same question has to be asked about our intellectuals. Why do we expect them to be prophets or messiahs? They are part and parcel of our society, with their contradictions, and they have to make choices to be part of the solution or part of the problem.

Three, we need to look beyond our political class and politicians for the failures of leadership on this continent. Are our universities better run? Are our NGOS better run? Are we running our homes democratically? How many NGOs, including the human rights ones that make so much noise about political leaders and state abuse, can claim that they practice what they preach?

The dilemma of democracy is not just about the leaders. It is about us as a whole and about creating a democratic culture that tolerates difference, manages diversity and respects the right of everyone of us whether as children and parents, old and young, women and men, bosses and workers.

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

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

A Zimbabwean-OWNED software company, Afrosoft Corporation Limited, has entered into a lucrative partnership deal with Microsoft Corporation. Sources this week said the two firms recently signed the deal that would see the local company developing software for the world's largest software company.

Côte d'Ivoire is facing a funding shortfall of at least 15 million euros for the clean-up and rehabilitation of sites contaminated by hundreds of tonnes of deadly foreign toxic waste that was criminally dumped around Abidjan, its largest city with a population of 5 million, according to a United Nations update issued today (20 December 2006).

Environmentalists in Tanzania’s semi-autonomous island of Zanzibar say lack of awareness and negligence have greatly hindered efforts to protect the environment, which is now threatened by soil erosion, deforestation and pollution.

The 3 November 2006 edition of the "Government Gazette Extraordinary" indicates that the Government of Botswana plans to bring a bill to Parliament on intelligence and security services. According to the draft, "The bill is to establish a Directorate of Intelligence and Security, a Central Intelligence Committee, a National Intelligence Community and an Intelligence and Security Council for the reason that the regional and global environment has changed necessitating a review in Botswana's approach to national security concerns."

It was in 2005 that this issue was introduced in Cairo, Egypt. In that first meeting, media representatives from the Nile basin countries agreed that they form this media network. Following that meeting it was a year later in May that the agreement was articulated and the representatives reached at a better understanding in Nairobi, Kenya.

The next volume of New Black Orpheus is billed for publication in May 2007. It will be the second to be published in the newly revived authoritative journal on African Literature. The first Vol. 7 No. 1 which carries an interview with South African poet and activist Dennis Brutus, is in press, due to be released in January 2007. Vol. 7 No. 2 will focus on literary currents and other cultural developments in the East Africa sub-region as seen by creative writers, critics, scholars and culture analysts.

Safaa Elagib Adam from the Community Development Association based in Khartoum talks Pambazuka News about the vital role Sudanese women play in the struggle for peace. In the mainstream coverage of the conflict in Darfur, the voices of the people most impacted are often absent.

The Center for the Study of Race, Politics and Culture at the University of Chicago invites applications for the 2007-2008 postdoctoral fellowship to begin September 24, 2007 and end June 30, 2008. Qualified candidates from all disciplines and all ranks who have their Ph.D. in hand are encouraged to apply.

The RH manager will act as a focal point for RH services within the IRC South Darfur Program providing technical support to the health program. She/he will be responsible for implementation, monitoring and evaluation of the CRHC project in South Darfur. The RH Manager will identify gaps in services and take the necessary steps to address those gaps.

DEPHA is an inter-agency project, hosted by UNEP and with partners from several UN agencies. DEPHA’s mission is to provide a high quality service for the exchange of critical map and data resources for humanitarian and development planning in the Horn. This is achieved by the acquisition, development, and dissemination of information products that conform to international data standards and reflect the most recent and most accurate data available.

European Union leaders should support tough new action against top Sudanese leaders for their failure to end abuses in Darfur, the International Crisis Group and Human Rights Watch said today (13 December 2006) in advance of the EU summit on 14-15 December. “Millions of civilians are paying the price for nearly four years of unkept promises and empty commitments,” said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch.

After a hard-fought court battle - billed as the longest and most expensive in Botswana's legal history - on Wednesday (13 December 2006) the San won their right to return to their ancestral home in the Central Kgalagadi Game Reserve (CKGR), in the Kalahari Desert.

Zimbabwe's deteriorating health services have made room for a thriving parallel market for drugs, many of them counterfeit, warn concerned health professionals. The sale of genuine as well as fake medicines on the streets was "big, booming business," said Dr Paul Chimedza, the president of the Zimbabwe Medical Association (ZIMA).

Liberia’s Forestry Development Authority is preparing a new bidding process for logging concessions following the lifting in October of the United Nations Security Council’s three-year ban on Liberian timber exports. “We expect this will create about 10,000 jobs,” Richie Grear, the government’s forest bureau spokesman, told IRIN.

The government of Denmark and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) on Friday (15 December 2006) signed a cooperation agreement to enhancing bilateral relations in addressing Africa's development challenges. The two parties signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), which involves a $ 800,000 aid agreement to help the economic commission's development endeavors in the continent.

Somali government troops and fighters of the Islamic Courts Council have been skirmishing as a senior European Union envoy flew to the country to press for peace talks to resume. The rivals for control of the nation in the Horn of Africa have been at an impasse since talks broke down early last month.

Laurent Gbagbo, the Ivory Coast president, has announced a plan to reunite his war-divided country, in an apparent snub to a UN-backed plan announced last month. The five-point plan followed a series of consultations with civil society groups after the UN-backed plan was presented last month.

Up to 40 people have been killed in clashes between Chad's government security forces and men who attacked two villages in the east of the country, a government official said. Moussa Doumgor Hourmadji, the communications minister, said the attacks had been carried out by the Janjawid - Arab fighters who operate from Sudan's Darfur region.

Presidents from several Great Lakes countries signed a pact at the end of a two-day summit in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, on Friday (15 December 2006) to address security, stability and development across the region. The pact contains a protocol on protection and assistance for the displaced – the first legally binding regional instrument specifically dealing with internally displaced persons (IDPs).

Joseph Kabila won Congo's first democratic presidential elections in decades, but now the 35-year-old former guerrilla leader faces the daunting task of rebuilding from scratch a country almost the size of western Europe. Apart from resettling internally displaced people (IDPs) and refugees in neighbouring countries, he needs to address widespread insecurity and human-rights abuses, including sexual violence committed by government troops and different militias, and reintegrate ex-combatants into society.

Nigeria's ruling Peoples Democratic Party has chosen Umaru Yar'Adua, governor of the northern Katsina State, as its candidate for the April 2007 presidential election. The vote will choose a successor to Olusegun Obasanjo, whose second four-year term is coming to an end and who is constitutionally barred from standing again.

Outgoing United Nations Secretary General, Kofi Annan is saying his farewells. And, in doing so, he appears to be freeing himself from the diplomatic constraints of his former position. A recent speech hit hard at the United States for what its recent actions in Afghanistan and Iraq have done to the idea of multilateral action in collective self-defence. And China too took some barbs for its blithe stand vis a vis arms sales to the Sudan.

A significant number of displaced women in South Darfur, western Sudan, suffer from depression and experience suicidal thoughts because of largely unaddressed mental-health problems, according to a study by the International Medical Corps (IMC). Solomon Kebede, IMC country director in Darfur, told IRIN on Friday (15 December 2006) the study was conducted in the field two years ago, but the situation had since deteriorated further.

The 30 per cent affirmative action policy for recruitment of women in the public service will not apply in the disciplined forces. It will, instead, be restricted to recruitment, appointments and promotions in ministries and State corporations, according to guidelines issued by Public Service head Francis Muthaura.

The European Union has criticised a ruling by a Libyan court sentencing to death five nurses and a doctor for infecting more than 400 children with the HIV virus at a hospital. Johannes Laitenberger, an EU spokesman, said they had yet not decided whether to take steps against Libya, but said he "did not rule anything out."