Despite Swaziland's humanitarian crisis, local newspapers are largely ignoring issues such as poverty, food shortages and HIV/AIDS in favour of reports about crime and bickering amongst political personalities, according to The Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA).

At least 800 Congolese who fled recent fighting in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have been moved from the DRC-Uganda border to a camp further inland in southwestern Uganda, the United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, has said. 300 of the refugees left Nyakabanda transit site in Kisoso, also in the southwest of Uganda, for the Nakivale Refugee Settlement camp in Isingiro District, 330 km away.

Rescuers fear at least 100 suspected African migrants have drowned after their boat capsized off Senegal. The boat set out in early December with as many as 124 people on board, thought to be headed for the Canary Island, but it ran aground in bad weather. Fishermen rescued 24 people from the boat on Saturday (16 December 2006) off the northern coast of Senegal.

The north is in a state of crisis as civilians are currently caught between rebels, government forces and armed bandits. This has resulted in the displacement of an estimated 150,000 people, though this number may be higher now. In addition, 20,000 people have fled to neighboring Cameroon and 50,000 are in refugee camps in southern Chad. With the continued fighting and insecurity in northern CAR, the number of displaced people is expected to increase.

How does one summarise the year 2006 in a few words? It’s been a year of hope and dashed-hopes. The Democratic Republic of Congo held its first democratic elections since the country’s independence in 1960. In Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe is making moves to extend his tenure of office as president by a further two years. In Nigeria, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) is waging a struggle to have access to the wealth generated by the oil found in the area. In the Sudan, the Janjaweed continues killing and causing destruction in Darfur. China has become a major economic - and political - player on the continent. Amidst all of this, Africans celebrated in June the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, and the first anniversary in November of the coming into force of the AU Protocol on the Rights on Women in Africa.

But is has also been a year in which Pambazuka News has helped the voices of those engaged in the struggles for social justice be heard through the cacophony of stereotypes that normally fills the mainstream media. In 48 issues of the English language version, and 17 of the French language version, over 200 authors have written more than 270 articles.

This rich collection of analyses and commentaries has also given rise to two books that will be available at the World Social Forum in Nairobi in January: 'Grace, tenacity and eloquence: the struggle for women’s rights in Africa' and 'African Perspectives on China in Africa'.

And to complement that, there have been 14 podcasts featuring the voices of activists committed to expanding freedoms in Africa.

Pambazuka News has become a critical means for organisations in Africa to exchange information, to forge networks of solidarity, and to open much needed debate about major developments in the region. This community - connected through Pambazuka News - is unique to the continent.

All this has been done on a shoestring. We’ve been generously supported by loyal funders (see the acknowledgements at the bottom of this newsletter), but we rely primarily on the generosity of our authors and readers to really make Pambazuka News what it is today. Pambazuka News is able to do what it does because it remains independent. And to retain that independence, we continue to need your support. You can support Pambazuka News in many ways: by writing articles or reviewing books; telling your friends and colleagues about Pambazuka News; by distributing articles to others; by volunteering your time. But if you don’t have time or inclination to do such things, you can support us by making a regular donation to Pambazuka News.

You can donate to Pambazuka News at

Your donation will make a real difference to ensuring the long-term survival of Pambazuka News.

And to remind you of some of the highlights of the year here is a selection of 12 feature articles from 2006. You can read these and some 40,000 other news, resources and analyses at www.pambazuka.org

HAITI: A COUP REGIME, HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES AND THE HIDDEN HAND OF WASHINGTON
Ben Terrall

'To its everlasting discredit, in 2004 the UN sent troops to Haiti when a U.S. marine occupation became politically untenable. In effect, this international presence, consisting of soldiers from more than twenty countries, comprises an occupation force that legitimizes the current coup regime and controls dissidents unwilling to accept the new status quo. And, as a Chilean officer told me in Cap Hatien in December 2004, the troops are ‘trained as soldiers, so it is very hard for us to not react in a military fashion.’ A Haitian activist I spoke to who identifies himself as a member of Lavalas told me that one useful thing the UN has done in Haiti is to bring in health care. Unfortunately, he noted sardonically, the treatment only comes after UN troops shoot civilians.'
-- Pambazuka News 239: 26 January 2006

CHINA IN AFRICA – THE NEW IMPERIALISM?
Stephen Marks

'China’s increased presence in Africa is part of a wider effort to ‘create a paradigm of globalisation that favours China’. In the past China’s African presence benefited from a shared history as an object of European imperialism and its ideological commitment to anti-imperialism and national liberation. China’s declared principles of respect for national sovereignty and non-interference in internal affairs appealed not only as a contrast with the suspect motives of former colonial powers, but for less elevated reasons to rulers threatened with internal dissent. But more recently China’s policy has shifted from Cold War ideology to a more classical pursuit of economic self-interest in the form of access to raw materials, markets and spheres of influence through investment, trade and military assistance - to the point where China can be suspected of pursuing the goals of any classical imperialist.'
-- Pambazuka News 244: 02 March 2006

ZIMBABWE 2006 – WE ALL FALL DOWN
Mary Ndlovu

'Every year since 2000, Zimbabweans have wondered: ‘Will this be it, will this be the year when it all ends, when Humpty Dumpty finally totters off the wall?’ And if it is, what will it mean for each one of us, and for the nation as a whole – healing, restoration and return to ‘normality’, or deepened chaos, insecurity and catastrophe? We listen to talk about elections in 2008 and 2010 and deep down nurture a hope that there will be no more ZANU PF elections. But even deeper down we fear that even if there aren’t, things will never come right again, not in our life-times, unless we are still very young. Several years ago, as Zimbabwe left the gentler rapids and began its headlong rush towards the precipice, some people declared loudly that we had reached the bottom and could now only go up. How deluded they were.'
-- Pambazuka News 248: 30 March 2006

DRC’S POTENTIAL: LIGHTING THE CONTINENT FROM CAPE TO CAIRO
Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja

'The DRC cannot play a positive role in Africa’s development as long as it remains a dependent territory with approximately 60 percent of its national budget, over US$400 million for its national elections and virtually all of its development policy decisions coming from external sources. Elections, in this context, are not an exercise in self-determination but a ritual designed to justify external control through weak and non-patriotic elements of the political class. To play an emancipatory role with respect to Africa’s development, the DRC must complete its transition from colonialism to genuine independence as a sovereign nation with its own social project and capacity to make and implement its own development policies.'
-- Pambazuka News 261: 21 July 2006

THE POLITICS OF OIL AND POVERTY
Emira Woods

'It is almost impossible to imagine, as we sit in a well lit, fully functioning gas station on Main Street, USA, that a community blessed with oil riches under its soil could look as impoverished as Yenagoa in the Nigerian state of Bayelsa. Yenagoa is the site of one of Nigeria 's first oil wells, built in pre-independence 1956. Yet as in many communities in Nigeria’s oil rich Delta region, most people of Yenagoa live in mud huts. Some reside only a few feet away from the oil wells. But they lack electricity and indoor toilets. They have no hospitals, no running water, no schools. And there is unemployment too. Oil companies like Royal Dutch Shell, BP, Chevron, and Exxon Mobil bring in foreign workers for even the most menial jobs.'
-- Pambazuka News 272: 05 October 2006

MEND: ANATOMY OF A PEOPLES’ MILITIA
Ike Okonta

'The first thing that strikes you on meeting members of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) militia is the ease with which they move about in Warri metropolis, and also in the creek villages, indicating clearly that they are amongst people who not only identify with their cause but also go out of their way to offer them protection and safe havens during attacks by Nigerian soldiers. However, their movements are constrained by the ever-prowling soldiers. The second thing you notice is that the militants, or the ones elected by the others to respond to your questions, are articulate, well-educated, and conversant with latest political developments in Nigeria and other parts of the world.'
-- Pambazuka News 275/6/7: 02 November 2006

* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

The World association of community radio broadcasters conference took place in Jordan’s capital city of Amman between November 11 and 17 2006. Colleagues of the APC were there to contribute two workshops: one on community wireless networking and the other on the gender evaluation methodology (GEM).

Cultural practices in Namibia are hampering the "ABC" HIV-prevention strategy - which stands for abstinence until marriage, be faithful and use condoms -members of the Women's Leadership Centre in Windhoek, Namibia, said. According to The Namibian/AllAfrica.com, dry sex, female genital cutting, initiation ceremonies for women that involve sex and "unorthodox treatment often administered by traditional healers" are practiced in Namibia.

Germany's black community are demanding that the government demolish the statue of Heinrich Carl Von Schimmelmann in Hamburg, which they argue honours 'a racist abductor, enslaver and mass murderer of African people.’ The statue was covered in red paint by ‘unknown persons’ on November 25, the day a protest was staged by a coalition of 18 black-led organisations including: The Pan African Women in Liberation Organisation and the Pan African Liberation of the Black Community in Germany.

I am an African and I live in eKhayelitsha "the city's poor people dump site". The views expressed in the article ‘Our Mothercity is Motherless’ are true. Ever since Hellen Zille took over, Cape Town is becoming more and more like it was in 1652.

For me 1652 says an African is a foreigner, a worker for the white man, a slave, a stupid animal. When I walk the street of Cape Town I see the city of Van Riebeek and friends. I still see his statue and some white womens’ statues. Where is Saartjie's, Mandela's, Winnie's, Desmond Tutu's, and Boesak's statues?

When will I see the statue of Steve Biko somewhere in South Africa? We want to see statues of people who have offered this land of JAH peace among all walks of life. People who have fought for the good, respect and justice.

I would like to ask for Pambazuka News to concentrate on Cape Town more aggressively. Write more about Cape Town's evil because its the truth that will set us free.

Stephen Marks introduces the articles in this publication by reviewing the billion-dollar glamour on display in Beijing during a summit between African and Chinese leaders in early November. But behind the glitz, what does it all mean for Africa? Is it colonialism revisited, a mad dash for African oil and minerals? Is there a Chinese model of development that can be followed? And what is the true nature of Chinese involvement in Africa?

Heads of state and dignitaries from 48 countries flocked to Beijing in November 2006 to attend the largest international summit ever held in the Chinese capital. And China pulled out all the stops, not only, or not even, to make the VIP guests feel welcome, but also to leave China’s people and the world at large in no doubt of the meeting’s importance.

Bright red banners lined the streets with slogans lauding ‘Friendship, Peace, Cooperation and Development.’ China’s official news agency Xinhua declared that the visitors ‘brought a trend of the mysterious continent to the capital of China’. Giraffes and elephants frolicking on the savannahs were spread over giant billboards on all the capital’s main streets and squares.

But behind the official ‘Africa chic’ and the predictable warm words of the official communiqués, something substantial was going on. The declaration adopted at the end of the meeting on Sunday 5 November was strong on ‘motherhood and apple pie’ rhetoric promising ‘a new type of strategic partnership’ founded on ‘political equality and mutual trust, economic win-win cooperation and cultural exchanges’. But there was impressive substance too.

On Saturday 4 November, China’s Premier Wen Jiabao proposed that China and Africa should seek to bring their trade volume to US$100 billion by 2010. This would more than double the 2005 level, about US$39.7 billion. In the first nine months of this year, China–Africa trade had already surged to US$40.6 billion, up 42 per cent year-on-year.

On the same day China’s President Hu Jintao announced a package of aid and assistance measures to Africa including US$3 billion of preferential loans in the next three years and the cancellation of more debt owed by poor African countries. China, he pledged, would:

• Double its 2006 assistance to Africa by 2009

• Provide US$3 billion of preferential loans and US$2 billion of preferential buyer’s credits to Africa in the next three years

• Set up a China–Africa development fund, which would reach US$5 billion, to encourage Chinese companies to invest in Africa and provide support to them

• Cancel debt in the form of all the interest-free government loans that matured at the end of 2005 owed by the heavily indebted poor countries and the least developed countries in Africa that have diplomatic relations with China

• Increase from 190 to over 440 the number of export items to China receiving zero-tariff treatment from the least developed countries in Africa with diplomatic ties with China.

• Establish three to five trade and economic cooperation zones in Africa in the next three years

• Over the next three years, train 15,000 African professionals; send 100 senior agricultural experts to Africa; set up 10 special agricultural technology demonstration centres in Africa; build 30 hospitals in Africa and provide a grant of RMB 300 million for providing artemisinin and building 30 malaria prevention and treatment centres to fight malaria in Africa; dispatch 300 youth volunteers to Africa; build 100 rural schools in Africa; and increase the number of Chinese government scholarships to African students from the current 2,000 per year to 4,000 per year by 2009.

President Hu even pledged to build a conference centre for the African Union ‘to support African countries in their efforts to strengthen themselves through unity and support the process of African integration’ – perhaps a visible reinforcement of the final statement’s pledge to support ‘the African regional and sub-regional organisations in their efforts to promote economic integration, and [support] the African countries in implementing the ”New Partnership for Africa's Development” programs’.

Early on Sunday morning, the 2nd Conference of Chinese and African Entrepreneurs concluded with 14 agreements signed between 11 Chinese enterprises and African governments and firms, worth a total of US$1.9 billion. The agreements cover cooperation in infrastructure facilities, communications, technology and equipment, energy and resources development, finance and insurance.

There was more good news to come. The summit was followed by a two-day African Trade Fair in Beijing. According to Xinhua ‘Over 170 enterprises from 23 African countries filled a Beijing exhibition hall on Monday with varieties of their local specialties, including minerals, jewelry, textile, fur, spice, tea and coffee.’

But except for textiles, which are notoriously hard-hit by Chinese exports, all the items listed as on display were primary products which Africa was already exporting in colonial times. Perhaps this influenced Xinhua’s choice of Chinese entrepreneurs to interview on their view of future business prospects in Africa.

‘Wang Jianping, president of the Hashan Company in eastern Zhejiang Province, told Xinhua that after the summit, he decided to increase investment in Nigeria from two million dollars to six million dollars so as to boost the development of local shoemaking industry’.

’Sheng Jushan, general manager of the Guoji Group in central China's Henan Province, said his company has just set up an economic cooperation zone in Sierra Leone, which attracts about 20 Chinese small and medium-sized enterprises’.

A similar processing zone in Nigeria, according to Xinhua, ‘when completed and put into operation, will help boost economic activities in the state through processing local raw materials into manufactured goods, especially those that have to be imported now in the country.’

Colonialism revisited?

China’s race for Africa is certainly due in large part to the same causes as Europe’s 19th century scramble – the need for raw materials to fuel industrialisation. As the Economist summarised it before the summit: Its economy has grown by an average of 9% a year over the past ten years, and foreign trade has increased fivefold. It needs stuff of all sorts—minerals, farm products, timber and oil, oil, oil. China alone was responsible for 40% of the global increase in oil demand between 2000 and 2004.

‘The resulting commodity prices have been good for most of Africa. Higher prices combined with higher production have helped local economies. Sub-Saharan Africa's real GDP increased by an average of 4.4% in 2001-04, compared with 2.6% in the previous three years. Africa's economy grew by 5.5% in 2005 and is expected to do even better this year and next’.

In Beijing in 2005 Moeletsi Mbeki, deputy chairman of the South African Institute of International Affairs, spelled out to a conference organised by the Chinese Parliament what many feared might be the result; Africa sells raw materials to China and China sells manufactured products to Africa. This is a dangerous equation that reproduces Africa’s old relationship with colonial powers. The equation is not sustainable for a number of reasons. First Africa needs to preserve its natural resources to use in the future for its own industrialisation. Secondly China’s export strategy is contributing to the de-industrialisation of some middle-income countries ... it is in the interests of both Africa and China to find solutions to these strategies.

Clearly, many of the decisions announced at the summit reflect Chinese awareness of these fears of a ‘new imperialism’. So did the People’s Daily article before the summit indignantly denouncing ‘The fallacy that China is exercising “neo-colonialism” in Africa’ which was ‘apparently aimed at sowing discord between China and Africa’.

And on the eve of the summit the state council, China's cabinet, issued ‘Nine Principles’ to ‘Encourage and Standardise Enterprises' Overseas Investment.' The principles require Chinese companies operating overseas to ‘abide by local laws, bid contracts on the basis of transparency and equality, protect the labor rights of local employees, protect the environment, implement corporate responsibilities and so on.’

Is there a Chinese model?

Like Japan and the smaller ‘Asian tigers’, China did not develop by following the rules of the Washington consensus. Critical attention in the West and also in Africa, has been focused on China’s avoidance of good governance and human rights conditionality now commonly insisted on by the West, and this undoubtedly lies behind much of the enthusiasm for the ‘Chinese model’ on the part of Africa’s more repressive regimes.

But there is also substance to the idea that ‘South–South’ cooperation has merit in its own right. In areas such as rural development and intermediate technology China’s experience does indeed have much to offer that is of greater relevance precisely because China too is a developing country.

Code such as the African Peer Review Mechanism were not intended to be part of an aid conditionality package, and the perception that they are externally imposed has damaged their reputation even in the eyes of campaigners and activists who support their objectives.

Conversely, China’s avoidance of conditionality means that she can move faster to produce visible results on the ground. The statism which still characterises China’s economy means that China can offer a ‘one-stop shop’ approach, in which contracts guaranteeing China its desired access to oil or key minerals, as in Angola, or Nigeria, can be combined with soft loans and much-needed infrastructure projects such as highways and railways, and low-cost, high-impact ‘add-ons’ such as rural development projects, industrial parks for small firms, and training and scholarships.

This integrated approach can be a genuine plus-point, and not only for such regimes as those in Zimbabwe or Sudan. As in this example, the whole deal can be tied up and delivered in visits by top governmental figures, reciprocated by red-carpet treatment for African leaders, as at the recent Beijing summit.

But not all these factors are unique to China, and future analysis would benefit by looking at China’s approach in a wider context, rather than in the one-track contrast with the conventional model of liberal globalisation which characterises conventional Western approaches.

As Chris Melvile and Molly Owen have pointed out China is not the only player in the ‘South–South’ game, or the only one to promote the idea as offering ‘win-win’ benefits. India, Brazil and South Africa have established their own ‘south-south’ links. Each has also been welcomed as an alternative to the old imperialist powers. And each in its turn has been accused of pursuing its own ‘sub-imperialist’ agenda.

And as Chris Alden and Martyn Davies point out: Chinese MNCs are in many respects like other MNCs operating in Africa, for example France’s Elf-Aquitaine or South Africa’s Eskom. In the French case, Elf-Aquitaine has been highly politicised, building up or even defining France’s Africa policy in particular countries such as Gabon or Angola.

The close proximity between French business and political interests manifested by the presence of oil company executives in the inner circle at the Elysee Palace as well as the circulation of key political elites such as Jean-Christophe Mitterrand within political and business circles, has been a feature of France’s post-independence African policy from the outset.

Moreover the modus operandi of foreign policy makers in Paris has been to construct policy around a network of personal relationships with individual African leaders, bolstered by a web of bilateral agreements in trade, finance, development assistance and defence.

The nature of the Chinese multinational corporations

If the role of the Chinese state is not so different to that of at least some western and ‘Southern’ states, how does the Chinese MNC itself differ from its rivals in the way in which it operates as a firm?

China’s government made its position clear in its official policy statement on Africa; ‘The Chinese Government encourages and supports Chinese enterprises' investment and business in Africa, and will continue to provide preferential loans and buyer credits to this end.’

As Mark Sorbara puts it ‘Investing in African extractive industries is a risky business, but China is desperately in need of raw materials to feed its booming economy, hence the government is willing to shoulder most of the risk for Chinese companies looking to invest in Africa.'

But the purpose of this state backing is not only to secure China’s access to raw materials. As Alden and Davies point out: In pursuit of its broader global ambitions, Beijing is intent on ‘picking corporate champions’ that, with the benefit of active and generous support from the state, are being groomed to join the ranks of the Fortune 500. Roughly 180 companies have been designated by the state to benefit from preferential finance, tax concessions and political backing to ‘go global’ and become true multinationals.

This aim to be global players in their own right was made clear by Fu Chengyu, chief executive of China’s oil giant CNOOC after the US Congress moved to block CNOOC’s takeover bid for Unocal, the US’ ninth-largest oil firm: ‘We aim to be a participant in the global industry, like all the international majors, supplying the global marketplace as well.’

The same seems to apply to the China–South Africa deal, concluded at the Beijing summit, to set up a joint company to expand ferro-chrome production in South Africa. Reuters’ report on the deal commented that ‘China has become a big investor in mining and natural resources in Africa as it seeks the raw materials to feed its economic growth, but unlike many Sino-African deals the purpose of Tubatse Chrome is to make money rather than to supply metal to China’. And the chairman of the South African partner was quoted as saying: ‘Sinosteel is a trading organisation, and Tubatse Chrome will be a profit-driven company. If China offers the best price we will sell it to China, but we will sell to wherever we can get the best price.’

Optimists may view this as a good sign. As Ndubisi Obiorah puts it: As global branding and reputation become more important to Chinese companies, they may become less willing to be associated with human rights abuses and repressive regimes in Africa and elsewhere.

As a result, he suggests, Chinese companies could become more vulnerable to ‘naming and shaming’ from NGO’s in Western countries and elswhere.

Optimists may also see some signs of this on the websites of Sinopec and Petrochina, which feature prominently their awards for corporate governance, and their ‘model’ policies on health, safety and environmental protection.

Does this establish the need for a ‘corporate China watch’ to be set up, for activists in Africa and elsewhere to bring this pressure to bear? But in that case why single out China? As Alden and Davies conclude: ‘Indeed even critics admit that if one sets aside the particular cases of Sudan, Angola and Equatorial Guinea, ”the rest of PetroChina and Sinopec activities on the African continent are not especially reprehensible” or at least no more so than many of their Western counterparts.

Perhaps the material distinction is not between Chinese capital and Western, but rather between the merely rapacious, and the more sophisticated. Even these are not two seperate categories, but at least as much two different faces, each of which may be presented as convenient.

In this context, those involved in corporate research could usefully examine the possibility that Chinese MNCs operating in Africa might themselves incorporate some Western capital, perhaps percolating not only through the obvious channel of joint ventures and shareholdings, but also through funds from Hong Kong and Taiwan.

Neil Tottman, head of commercial banking at HSBC China, has laid out aggressive plans for its commercial banking businesses in China, in anticipation of further deregulation of the sector this year. ‘The total volume of business referrals between Hong Kong and the mainland grew at an annual rate of 175 percent between 2002 and 2005. This year to date, volume between Taiwan and the mainland has increased 512 percent over the same period last year.’

The antidemocratic road?

But there is one other aspect of the concept of a distinctive ‘Chinese model’ which is certainly appealing to Africa’s more repressive regimes – the idea that it disproves the argument that democracy is an essential precondition for development. China is widely held to prove the opposite - the need for strong government.

Ndubisi Obiorah quotes a Nigerian example of this invocation of a ‘Chinese model’: ‘leading lights of the Obasanjo faction claimed that an absence of stability and visionary leadership were the principal cause of Africa’s underdevelopment and that it was these same qualities that had enabled Singapore and China to become contemporary economic miracles.’

As Obiorah points out, the rise of India might counter this self-interested vogue for authoritarian government. It could also be pointed out that before 1949 some of the main obstacles to China’s development were to be found in the close ties of ruling elites to forces at home and abroad opposed to modernisation; in archaic patterns of land ownership and authority; and in chronic national disunity and warlordism on a scale whose closest parallel in today’s Africa is the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). All of these were swept away by a massive popular revolution ¬– a prospect likely to be at least as unacceptable to Africa’s current repressive elites as a more gradual and reformist path to democratisation!

But the most powerful antidote to the idea that China validates an authoritarian road to development is the growing grassroots unrest in China over the cost of the country’s current economic model in its impact on employment rights, the environment and mounting inequality and social exclusion.

As Dorothy Guerrero has pointed out: China is now the world’s fourth-largest economy and many developing countries envy its record of economic progress. However, China’s phenomenal growth is producing a big misconception in that it is viewed as a big winner of globalisation.

Although it is true that market reforms and China's opening to the global economy gave millions of people there an increased standard of living, more Chinese people are suffering the consequences of its rapid transition to a market-based economy.

The majority of the Chinese people are not too concerned about when China will become the world's largest economy. Rather, they are asking, ‘When will the benefits of China's rise to superpower status start to affect our lives positively?

Even official sources in China and abroad are aware of the social costs of China’s free-market great leap forward. Members of the legislature have warned of the country’s impending employment crisis and the World Bank has confirmed that China’s poor are getting poorer.

As for the environment, no less a figure than Pan Yue, deputy director of China’s State Environmental Protection Administration, sparked controversy with a recent essay On Socialist Ecological Civilisation when he openly charged that: ‘The economic and environmental inequalities caused by a flawed understanding of growth and political achievement, held by some officials, have gone against the basic aims of socialism and abandoned the achievements of Chinese socialism.’

The march of neoliberalism within China and its impact on the Chinese people has advanced hand-in-hand with China’s growing imperialist role abroad. This apparent anomaly of an imperialist power itself subject to growing imperialist exploitation in alliance with local capital is not new – it also characterised Czarist Russia. And difficult though it may currently seem to act on the idea, the connection suggests that an obvious grassroots ally of activist and civil society groups in Africa will increasingly be their opposite numbers in China itself.

• Stephen Marks is a freelance writer and researcher specialising in development and human rights issues.

• This is a shortened version of an article by Stephen Marks . The full version, including references, will be available in a forthcoming book to be published in January by Fahamu and called ‘African perspectives on China in Africa’. The full articles will also be made available as .PDF files on the Pambazuka News website.

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

From the stripping of forest resources in Zambezia province to concerns about the effects a multi-billion dollar dam will have on surrounding communities, Anabela Lemos and Daniel Ribeiro ask whether, after a long history under Portugese colonialism, Mozambique is not at risk of being colonised again under the flag of ‘economic partnerships with China’. They write that concerns in Mozambique centre around China’s weak social and environmental requirements, disregard for human rights protections, lack of transparency and policy of non-interference.

‘Cahora Bassa is ours’ are the first words Mozambique’s president, Armando Guebuza, said after signing an agreement with Portugal’s prime minister to transfer ownership of the 27-year-old hydropower dam on the Zambezi. The last link to Mozambique’s colonisation by Portugal is finally broken, but are Mozambique’s new economic ties following a similar pattern of exploitation and abuse?

Abusive economic interests are not something new in international relations, with extensive examples of the destabilising and crippling affects they can have on developing countries. These negative experiences have given foreign donors like the World Bank a bad reputation, and forced a number of donors to take social and environmental impacts more seriously and develop policies to address transparency, social justice and environmental sustainability. Past experience has shown that such protections are vital requirements in the quest for truly sustainable development.

However, one of the new overseas investors, the giant China, is rivalling the World Bank for honours as the biggest lender to African nations and undermining the lesson learnt of the importance of transparency, social justice and environmental sustainability. China’s expanding demands for new energy and raw material (as well as markets for its own goods) has made Africa a focus point for obtaining these valuable natural resources and many of its nations are increasingly important economic partners. China is the biggest consumer of zinc, nickel, copper and crude oil and the top importer of tropical woods.

China’s weak social and environmental requirements, disregard for human rights protections, lack of transparency and policy of non-interference in internal affairs of the countries they lend to has resulted in some African governments being shored up with funds while allowing them to avoid local and international pressure to clean up corruption. The result has been dictators maintaining power, centralising wealth, and avoiding true development.

Mozambique is one of the African countries that has latched onto China’s funding approach and grabbed the opportunity of non-interference and weak policies with both hands. Below are some recent examples of the negative results of this relationship.

Logging in Zambezia province

Chinese timber buyers are colluding with Mozambican business people and some members of the Mozambique government and their forest services to strip precious slow-growing tropical hardwoods from Mozambique’s semi-arid forests at a rate that could see the resource exhausted in 5-10 years, according to reports of the trade on timber and wood in the Zambezi. The unsustainable logging begins with Chinese support to timber buyers to acquire ‘simple licences’, which allow logging of a relatively small quantity in a specific area. These licences are given to local Mozambicans, in large numbers (146 in 2003 alone), thus starting a deforestation process often referred to as ‘the Chinese takeaway’.

Once an application has been approved, the licence holder pays for the licence (US$10–40 per cubic meter of forest logged depending on the species). Many of the local licence holders get credit from Chinese buyers to pay these expenses. The availability of this credit is the main factor driving the logging boom, attracting unqualified and unskilled people into the sector. Up to one-third of operators do not repay their debts, and this cost is passed on to other operators, in lower prices paid for the timber. On average the income generated by locals linked to the logging industry is below the legal minimum wage of US$30/month.

The quotas and licences give little indication of the quantity and area of logging; under-reporting is systematic and widespread. Inspections are rare, bribes common, and the computer-based control system of licensing and transport is purely cosmetic, according to reports and local experts. There is only one real checkpoint at Nicoadala, were copies of all the licences of all the operators are filed and were all drivers should stop. Anyone looking into the matter who spends time at the checkpoint will notice that the focus is on villagers with small volumes of hand-sawn timber and established industrial operators, while operators well connected to politicians, the Provincial Forests and Wildlife Services of Zambezia (SPFFB) and the timber buyers are allowed to escape. In 2002, the quota was set at 42,000m3 (1,132,000ha total area of concessions) but SPFFB reported only 33,200m3 (+/- 97,600 logs), of which only 28,400 m3 (+/- 83,500 logs) was exported. However, that year 17 bulk carriers and 27 container ships loaded logs in the port, totalling 51,000m3 (+/- 150,000 logs) based on the port authorities' record (also believed to be an underestimate by local experts).

For example in late October 2004, the bulk carrier Chang Ping docked in the port of Quelimane to load 2,000–2,500 tons of logs, according to the head of the company owning the ship. The local exporter (Madeiras Alman), however, officially declared a total weight of only 1,074 tons (4,715 logs with a total volume of 1,602m3). The ship was in port loading for 10 days into three holds simultaneously for 24 hours per day. Even with slow manual loading, at a rate of 20 logs per hour, and accounting for work stoppages, approximately 10,000 logs could have been loaded.

The manipulation does not stop with the statistics and data, but also involves the regulations. Originally, the main commercial species (Class 1) had to be processed prior to export. However, just as the regulations were coming into force, the ministry, under pressure from the logging industry, passed a special regulation (or ‘ministerial diploma’), reclassifying the commercial timbers to permit their export as logs. Now the unprocessed logs are exported to China, undermining local industry and transferring most of the benefits from one of the poorest countries in the world to what is becoming one of the richest. What is happening in Zambezia Province is replicated or even worse in other provinces such as Cabo Delgado, Nampula and Niassa. Rather than combating illegal logging, China, through measures including the manipulation of forest regulations, false technical information and statistics, bribes and indirect involvement in logging, is actually facilitating illegal logging and hindering sustainable development in the sector.

Mpanda Nkuwa dam

The proposed Mphanda Nkuwa dam is a good example of the problems linked to China’s lack of concern for human rights and the environmental impact of the projects they are financing. The US$2.3 billion Mphanda Nkuwa dam proposal has caused considerable debate in Mozambique with civil society and the potentially affected communities raising numerous concerns. The project's weak social and environmental assessment, high economic, environmental, social and technical risks and many other negative impacts, have put Western funders such as the World Bank off the project. In spite of these problems, early this year the China Ex-Im bank, China's overseas lending arm, agreed to back the construction of the dam project.

The Mphanda Nkuwa dam will have a capacity of 1,350 megawatts and will be on one of Africa’s most dammed rivers, the Zambezi. The dam's electricity will be directed primarily towards industry and southern Africa’s regional grid, completely ignoring the fact that less than 5 per cent of Mozambican’s have access to electricity. The production of the power will cause twice daily fluctuations in the river's flow, which will have adversely the people downstream that depend on the river for suitable and acceptable access to water, fishing, river navigation and flood recession farming.

The dam will also undermine years of restoration work in the Zambezi delta(East Africa’s richest wetland and a Ramsar ‘wetland of international importance’ site), which has been damaged by the mismanagement of the Cahora Bassa dam, just over 70km upstream of Mphanda Nkuwa. A daily flow regime and flood simulation is being suggested for Cahora Bassa dam to better support downstream ecology and meet environmental flow requirements. However, the Mphanda Nkuwa dam flow regime has been based on Cahora Bassa’s present destructive one, and the project environmental impact assessment states that if that is changed it could make Mphanda Nkuwa uneconomic. It is likely, therefore, that the years of work to begin restoring the Zambezi downstream of Cahora Bassa will be dropped in favour of getting more hydroelectricity out of the river.

The recent 7.5 earthquake and several aftershocks in Mozambique have justified already existing concerns about the seismic risk linked to the Mphanda Nkuwa project. The country is in the vicinity of the Nubia-Somalia plate boundary and straddles a highly active fault zone called the Shire trough, which runs southward from the southern point of Malawi almost all the way to Maputo. Thus the country is considered to be in a seismically active zone, but poor records in the area severely constrain scientists’ ability to determine the potential for large earthquakes. For example, the recent 7.5 earthquake was nearly 13 times bigger than had been thought possible along that fault.

The Mphanda Nkuwa dam will be in this seismically active area, just 200km from the heart of the Shire trough fault zone. In addition, the shape of the Shire trough means that the dam’s reservoir could increase the surrounding plates’ seismic potential as a result of the increased weight of the water – a phenomenon known as ‘reservoir-induced seismicity’ or RIS. Furthermore, the Estima fault crosses the reservoir 25 metres from the proposed dam wall. It is thought that this fault is active despite there being no activity in the recent geologic record. Mozambique’s lack of experience with and knowledge of large dams and China’s low social and environmental requirements, coupled with the weak data available for the area, increases the risk and creates the potential for a major disaster.

The China Ex-Im Bank's funding is intended to promote the export of Chinese mechanical and electronic products and high- and new-tech products, to support Chinese companies with comparative advantages, to ‘go global’ with offshore construction contracts and overseas investment projects. The bank’s involvement in Mphanda Nkuwa has removed the pressure on the Mozambique government to improve the social and environmental assessments of this project and has enabled the government to avoid addressing its various negative impacts. If the Mphanda Nkuwa dam project goes ahead in its present form, it will be another example of the negative impacts of large dams and will significantly handicap Mozambique’s development.

Other dam projects in Africa have not set an encouraging precedent. There have been serious human rights abuses around the Merowe dam in Sudan, for example (see the article by Ali Askouri). Its resettlement programme has been very poor, there has been no transparency, and it has a bad record on environmental and social assessment. Closer to home, in Zambia, state utility ZESCO is working with the Chinese company Sinohydro on the Lower Kafue gorge project.

It chose a dam site after a balanced assessment of the economic, social and environment factors. However, we have learned from an inside source that Sinohydro told ZESCO that it was not how they did things in China and that they wanted to see a site assessment that focused only on economic factors. In the end, the original ZESCO site was selected, but the role of the Chinese dam builders in trying to focus only on the economics of the project does not bode well.

We also hear allegations from the coastal fishing communities of illegal fishing from Chinese boats, using longliners and gill nets that not only capture turtles and sharks but are also destroying our coastal zone. It was reported that in October 2005 a Chinese ship docked in Maputo harbour with around 4 tons of illegal shark fins. No information was available on the species of the sharks, where they were caught or the method used. The Chinese illegal fishing boats are taking advantage of our government's lack of interest in or means to control and monitor our coastal area, and are destroying it and the livelihoods of the local communities.

The economic link with China is still a young and growing partnership with numerous investments in the pipeline. The few current investments have shown a tendency towards exploration and abuse. The secrecy of the negotiations, whether it is Cahora Bassa or Mphanda Nkuwa, the conditions of the funding and the disregard of the basic building blocks of development such as equality, social justice, a healthy environment and equity make us wonder if we Mozambicans are taking ownership of our country or just changing owners. What are the costs to our people and land? What will be the heritage of future generations? What is ahead of us? After so many years of being colonised by the Portuguese, are we now being colonised again, in the name of development but under the new flag of ‘economic partnerships with China’?

• Anabela A. Lemos is a Mozambican environmental activist and founder member and director of JA! (Justiça Ambiental). Daniel L.Ribeiro is a Mozambican biologist, researcher and environmental activist. He is a founder member of JA! (Justiça Ambiental) and coordinator of the Water Rivers and Development unit in JA!

• This is a shortened version of an article by Anabela Lemos and Daniel Ribeiro. The full version, including references, will be available in a forthcoming book to be published in January by Fahamu and called ‘African perspectives on China in Africa’. The full articles will also be made available as .PDF files on the Pambazuka News website.

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

The ‘look east’ policy of Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe is well documented. But the deeper implications of Zimbabwe’s relationship with China are less well understood. Whether the relationship turns out to be a win-win one will depend much on how effectively Zimbabwe can build institutional and bureaucratic capacity to harness Chinese funds and investment for the benefit of the country, writes John Blessing Karumbidza, who doubts whether this will be the case, raising questions as to whether Mugabe is simply replacing Western colonialism with Chinese imperialism.

‘We have turned east where the sun rises, and given our backs to the west, where the sun sets’ – Robert Mugabe on the occasion of the celebration of 25 years of Zimbabwean independence, May 2005.

That China is a rising global economic player of note in Africa is well established. China’s interest in Africa is part of a calculated plan and policy to ‘go global’. Africa offers a strategic training ground and opportunity for Chinese capital. In an address to the Nigerian Senate in 2005, the Chinese President described China-Africa relations as ‘win-win economic cooperation’. This paper explores what will become of the renewed relationship between China and Zimbabwe, or more appropriately, the Zimbabwe African National Union, Patriotic Front (ZANU PF).

It is arguable that whether the relationship becomes what the Chinese President described as a ‘win-win’ relationship is not entirely dependent on China, rather on whether Zimbabwe has the institutional and bureaucratic capacity to turn Chinese funds and investment to benefit the country. There are reasonable doubts about the possibility of widespread and long term economic benefits to Zimbabwe. Temporary benefits so far include the political preservation of Mugabe reign and personal aggrandizement through corruption and kickbacks by his ZANU PF cronies flowing from Chinese investment.

On the whole, it would not be fair to blame the Chinese for acting to further their interests. It is incumbent upon the government of Zimbabwe and its people (and any other African country for that matter) to put in place a programme and strategy for chanelling funds and direct investment in a way that contributes to growth of its own economy.

Questions about Chinese financing and business involvement in African development programmes include: Are they based on an equal partnership? Are African governments able to negotiate terms of interaction without ‘pawning’ their countries and submitting their people to exploitation?

There is growing concern that China disregards human rights and democracy. It has a reputation for the abuse of workers’ rights, intolerance of political opposition; and dislikes a free press. In the name of non-interference, China justifies doing business with pariah states and dictators – which also means that civil society and the citizenry cannot hold them accountable for flaunting environmental and labour laws.

It is important to note however that this Chinese ‘non-interference’ policy cannot be permanent. The Chinese are well aware of this themselves. Where deals are signed with unpopular dictatorial regimes that could later be revised by a new government, it becomes necessary for the Chinese to protect such regimes. This explains their arming of the ZANU PF government in Zimbabwe. For example, China funded Zimbabwe’s acquisition of military-strength radio jamming equipment to block opposition broadcasts ahead of the 2005 elections.

Liberation ties paying off for China

In seeking to gain a hold on African resources and opportunities for sale of Chinese goods, China should be wary of losing political capital and ‘credibility’ it acquired from supporting African liberation struggles through conniving with dictatorial regimes. Prior to the present day questionable expansion, China had no burden of historical guilt in Africa, unlike the global North. China therefore gives credence to the likes of Mugabe when it claims to be protecting African sovereignty. Whereas British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Bono see Africa as a ‘scar on everyone’s conscience’, still troubled by their historical guilt of the slave and colonial era, the Chinese see Africa as a business opportunity.

The earlier 'ideological' phase of Chinese-African relations was part of a global strategy which by the mid 1970s saw some 15,000 doctors and over 10,000 agricultural engineers from China serving all over the Third World. It is common knowledge that many African countries exploited the cold war and the bi-polar world system by claiming to be socialist to gain assistance during liberation and after independence, going first to the West, then the East for development aid.

By 1977 Chinese trade with Africa reached a record US$817,000,000. The new orientation found institutional expression in the first China-Africa Co-operation Forum held in Beijing in 2000 - a mechanism to promote diplomatic relations, trade and investment between China and African countries. In the same year, China-Africa trade passed $10bn for first time. By 2003 it reached US$18.5bn. By 2004, nearly 700 Chinese companies were operating in 49 African countries. According to some estimates US$30 billion will change between Chinese and African hands this year. More recent Chinese estimates claim that it is already approaching US$40billion.

China is using the UN’s five-point proposal to ‘assist’ developing countries accelerate development, including: ‘Granting zero-tariff treatment for some exports from the least developed countries, increasing aid to the heavily-indebted poor countries and least developed countries and cancelling debts contracted by them, providing concessional loans and effective medicine for treating malaria, and training professionals.’

These steps will increase China’s access to the raw materials, energy and food resources it requires to sustain growth as well as feed its population. Observers have pointed to the fact that ‘more recently China's policy has shifted from cold war ideology to a more classical pursuit of economic self-interest in the form of access to raw materials, markets and spheres of influence through investment, trade and military assistance - to the point where China can be suspected of pursuing the goals of any classical imperialist’. Moreover, the heavy militarisation of the Zimbabwean government through Chinese loans and technology raises suspicions of China’s global ambitions to develop strategic military bases in Africa.

A closer look at the nature and character of Chinese investment in Zimbabwe

For Mugabe, who sees democracy and development as mutually exclusive, the fact that China has been able to raise 400 million of its people out of poverty over two decades, without being subjected to democratic elections and a free press serves as a useful example. Mugabe cites the present world order as a source of conflict and war, and calls for a more positive alternative order.

China was ZANU PF’s main supporter in the 1970s in the war against colonial rule. After independence, Zimbabwe declared itself Marxist-Leninist and announced the intention to reorganise society along socialist lines while courting Western aid and and the IMF.

Since 1980, Zimbabwe has revoked the liberation era ties with China to maintain low profile diplomatic ties, which are now upgraded to a development partnership. As a result of the lack of conditionalities on Chinese loans and funding, Chinese loans in the 1980s went into white elephant projects, such as the construction of the National Stadium.

By the end of 2004, Chinese investments in Zimbabwe were estimated at US$600m. To service the increasing Chinese investment and the 9000 Chinese believed to be living and working in Zimbabwe a bi-weekly flight between Harare and Beijing was launched.. Another US$600m was pledged at the June 2005 Asia Summit; and separate deals between Chinese state and private firms were signed with various Zimbabwean corporations. Renewed and increased China-Zimbabwe relations brought about now familiar circumstances: a Zimbabwean state now considered by the global North as a pariah state; an unprecedented economic slump; unemployment above 75 per cent, inflation heading towards 2000 per cent;, and shortages of consumer goods, most importantly fuel.

European and American travel sanctions, the lack of any IMF rating, coupled with the ANC in South Africa’s conditions of political and economic ‘normalisation’ have taken their toll. In August 2005 therefore, snubbing the efforts of Thabo Mbeki, Mugabe turned to China for funding to ‘revive the economy through increased agricultural production’. This led to Chinese promises for increased economic cooperation in many areas of the economy and an immediate US$200,000,000 to finance agricultural production and three MA-60 passenger planes.

Mugabe fought the 2005 elections on the argument that Zimbabwe must not become a colony again. But it is questionable whether he has not in fact simply replaced Western colonialism with Chinese imperialism. Having ceded control of strategic state firms and massive Chinese takeovers, including of railways, the electricity supply, Air Zimbabwe and Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation makes ‘win-win’ economic cooperation between China and Zimbabwe appears doubtful. Given that Zimbabwe has no comparative advantage over China in any sector, this opening up of the economy is most likely to benefit the Chinese perhaps even at the expense of Zimbabweans.

Zimbabwe lacks the institutional and strategic infrastructure to effect requisite economic transformation, and will have difficulty putting Chinese development loans to good use. The failure to revive the agriculture sector since the 2000 land seizures is a major concern.

It is not surprising therefore that the Chinese signed a contract to farm 386 square miles of land when millions of Zimbabweans are still landless. Recent land seizures saw most of the productive land fall into the hands of the elite, while the rural poor remain mostly landless. The Reserve Bank governor’s monetary policy statement emphasised the need for the agriculture sector to pull its weight in the economic turnaround of the country encouraging the new landowners (mostly urban ‘telephone farmers’) that ‘the battle cry is for all those who hold land to view it as an effective means of economic emancipation rather than a status symbol’.

Beyond the rhetoric of ‘the land being the economy and the economy the land’ there is no apparent strategy for the necessary transformation required for agriculture to release its potential for the economic turnaround needed in Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe cannot even benefit from the Chinese Maoist blueprint for rural economic transformation. The joint Chinese ventures in Zimbabwean agriculture amount to nothing more than land renting and typical agri-business relations that turn the land holders and their workers to labour tenants and subject them to exploitation.

There is additional fear that the takeover of strategic national firms by the Chinese companies is a security threat and can be seen as loss of national sovereignty. Most sinister of all is that the Chinese authorities must know that Zimbabwe is more than likely to default on payment of bills; and wishes precisely this, in order to obtain a tighter grip on Zimbabwean assets.

It would be naïve to think that China is motivated by the need to salvage the Zimbabwean economy from its economic abyss; indeed even the government does not itself believe this. It is simply a venture to save political face. For the Chinese, the investment in Zimbabwe is nothing different from Chinese ventures elsewhere on the continent. The current arrangements, simply allows Mugabe to keep the illusion of victory over the West; and enable his cronies in the army, police, government and business to partner with the Chinese in further exploitation of the masses. As in the 1980s, the poor people will be told to tie their stomachs and pull up their socks, and that a revolution is not for ‘cry babies’. For as long as Mugabe reigns over the abyss, the rhetoric of imperialist demons fighting against Zimbabwe will continue to suffice.

In the context of a politicized security system, silenced media and partial judiciary, the Chinese will drain the Zimbabwean economy and future generations will pay for it.

Anti-Chinese xenophobia: Attitudes towards the Chinese in Zimbabwe

When confronted with reports of crime against Chinese nationals (numbering not more than 10 000), Zimbabwe established a Chinese desk at the central police station in Harare. Mugabe has also appointed a Minister for Chinese affairs.

Already, the police officers, the University of Zimbabwe and schools have been asked to offer classes in Mandarin (soon after losing their love of French). Reacting to the new requirement to learn Mandarin, Washington Katema, ZINASU president, snubbed the move as a case of the ‘madness of the Mugabe regime scaling new heights’ and as a political gimmick to lure the Chinese into the country to bankroll the bankrupt regime. These excesses by Mugabe’s regime are likely to fuel xenophobia against the Chinese. Many reports of crime and abuse of women and children, rape and violent crimes against Zimbabwean nationals are yet to receive such a high profile response.

The economic background to the anti-Chinese sentiments is that Zimbabweans are horrified at the prospect of a permanent take-over of strategic state companies in what is generally considered a desperate move to perpetuate the tenure of ZANU PF. Trade unionists are worried that companies are being forced to close having lost their market to cheaper goods imported directly from China, and about the abuse of workers. The Chinese managers are alleged to have a negative attitude towards local people and massive dislike for trade unionists. At will they are known to ‘forget’ to understand English as a means to avoid dialogue with anyone critical of their actions. The Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) was quoted as saying that a Chinese steel company operating in Willowvale in Harare has unacceptable pollution levels but the government treats them with kid gloves.

Conclusion

In the next half a century if all African countries adopted the shift from colonial languages that create a barrier to cultural unity, China could replace them with one language spoken across the continent. Maybe then, a ‘United States of Africa’ – under Chinese ‘prefectship’ – may become possible. After all, China would gain more advantages from a united Africa than from a balkanised continent. China is in Africa to pursue expansion, consistent with its search for global dominance, and to avoid being out-competed by the US. It therefore requires resources, raw materials, and markets, and space for its surplus population.

As far as Africa is concerned however, as long as poverty remains at the centre of the conflicts and crises in Africa, and there is no African reconstruction and development strategy, conceived and funded from local resources, the giant panda will carry on from where the colonialists and imperialists left.

Mugabe’s looking ‘east where the sun rises’, expecting Chinese loans to develop the beleaguered economy remains a fantasy as long as his politics and economics are wrong. Meantime, with Mugabe fixated on Chinese promises, the people of Zimbabwe, especially the middle class that decide to leave the country at the whims of Mugabe, and Chinese take over, in the pursuit of temporary respite in the diaspora, only have themselves to blame.

• John (Blessing) Karumbidza is an economic historian and researcher in rural sociology based at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa. He is a public intellectual seeking to promote the position that ‘another Afrika is possible’.

• This is a shortened version of an article by John (Blessing) Karumbidza. The full version, including references, will be available in a forthcoming book to be published in January by Fahamu and called ‘African perspectives on China in Africa’. The full articles will also be made available as .PDF files on the Pambazuka News website.

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

Is China a friend or foe to the African continent? Michelle Chan-Fishel writes that while China’s investments do involve socio-economic development, environmental and social problems are emerging ‘with a new face’. Chan-Fishel looks at Chinese interests in Sudan, Angola, Nigeria, Zambia, Zimababwe, Democratic Republic of Congo, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, Cameroon and Liberia. ‘Chinese companies are quickly generating the same kinds of environmental damage and community opposition that Western companies have spawned around the world.’

Introduction

For many African governments, China's emergence from poverty to becoming an economic powerhouse serves as an inspirational example. From the mid-1980s, China’s pursuit of market economics, with a focus on export-oriented industrialisation and inward foreign direct investment, helped raise GDP and build infrastructure. In many parts of Africa, China is perceived by governments as an ‘economic messiah’, a new investor and ally in a world where there is growing unease over what African governments perceive to be the patronising attitudes of the West.

The president of the African Development Bank Donald Kaberuka has remarked: ‘We can learn from them (China) how to organize our trade policy, to move from low- to middle-income status, to educate our children in skills and areas that pay off in just a couple of years.’ Similarly, Mozambican President Armando Emilio Guebuza has said: ‘When we see China coming up and developing an attitude of support to help our productivity, we Africans say “Welcome”, because these investments and projects, especially in infrastructure, will help reduce our poverty problems.’

There are currently an estimated 750 Chinese companies operating in 50 African countries. But Beijing's African investments are also tied to socio-economic development, including debt relief, grants, soft loans, buyer credits provided by state-owned banks, scholarships, preferential market access, and technical aid in the fields of medicine, agriculture and engineering.

Concerns

The economic foundation of China’s relationship with Africa is obvious: the procurement of natural resources. Beijing’s only political condition for establishing ties between China and African countries is the ‘one China principle’ – refusal to diplomatically recognise Taiwan.

But China's no-strings-attached support has sounded alarm bells in the West. Recently, World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz criticised Beijing for undercutting anti-corruption measures, such as requiring revenue transparency for resource extraction projects. Some human rights watchdogs have notably criticised China for weakening democracy and human rights in Africa through its readiness to deal with ¬– and sometimes sell arms to – the Sudanese, Angolan and Zimbabwean governments.

Accusations of ‘neo-colonialism’ have already surfaced, as China’s search for energy and minerals is reminiscent of the ‘scramble for resources’ that characterised Western colonialism. The history of natural resource extraction in Africa has a poor track record, characterised by environmental degradation and increased poverty. As Chinese companies become increasingly involved in the oil and gas, mining, and logging sectors, these environmental and social problems are emerging with a new face.

Sudan

Perhaps the most controversial of China’s oil interests, and one that demonstrates well China’s commitment to secure oil deals is its relationship with Sudan. Beijing is the leading developer of oil reserves in the Sudan, currently importing 60 per cent of the country’s oil output. Today, the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) is the largest shareholder in the Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Company (GNPOC). What makes China’s involvement in Sudan so controversial are the atrocities occurring in the western region of Darfur region, atrocities which the US and other nations have branded genocide. Numerous human rights groups have accused Sudan of systematically massacring civilians and chasing them from ancestral lands to clear oil-producing areas.

Prior to the conflict in Darfur, China was suspected of financially underwriting Sudan’s 21-year civil war, which ended with the signing of a permanent peace accord in January 2005. In 2000, Sudanese resistance forces were said to be collecting photographs of Chinese-made weapons to prove the increase in Beijing’s support for Khartoum. In July 2000, WorldNetDaily reported that Sudan had acquired 34 new jet fighters from China. In June 2001, the Mideast Newsline reported that Sudan had built three weapons factories with Chinese assistance in order to halt rebel advances. China also reportedly provided arms support to Sudan in exchange for oil. Although it is difficult to determine exactly how much money China has invested in Sudan, one source states that ‘China reportedly invested US$20 billion in Sudan, apart from soft loans, grants and other forms of aid.’ According to a study by PFC Strategic Studies, the Sudanese government could collect as much as US$30 billion or more in total oil revenue by 2012.

Angola

In recent years, Angola has emerged as one of China’s top trading partners. Last year, China was busy securing long-term oil agreements with Angola, and Sonangol (Angola’s state-run petroleum company) committed to provide long-term oil supplies to China’s Sinopec. Sonangol and Sinopec will evaluate Angola’s offshore Block 3, and will also jointly study plans for a new oil refinery. In October 2004, as India was preparing to close a major deal for about US$620 million to buy Shell’s 50 per cent share in Block 18, China made a last minute bid – to win the deal. China’s offer of US$2billion in aid for various projects in Angola made India’s offer of US$200 million for developing railways pale in comparison.

Nigeria

Previously, China had been shut out of Nigeria by Western firms. However, through patience, political prowess and technological contributions, such as promising to build and launch a communication satellite for Nigeria by 2007, Chinese firms are gaining a foothold in the industry. In December 2004, China’s Sinopec and Nigeria’s NNPC signed an agreement to develop oil mining leases 64 and 66, located in the waters of the Niger Delta in southern Nigeria. In July 2005, China’s CNOOC signed a contract with NNPC worth US$800 million to guarantee China receives 30,000 barrels per day for one year.

Recently, China and Nigeria signed a deal in which China would provide a US$4 billion infrastructure investment package in exchange for first refusal rights on four oil blocks. In time, it is suspected that China could easily replace some of these Western firms when their drilling licences come up for renewal.

Mining

China is the world’s fastest-growing market for minerals. Africa figures heavily in Beijing’s strategies to secure access to mineral resources.

Copper in Zambia

Copper is Zambia’s leading export commodity, and production is soaring. The Chamber of Mines forecasts production of about 550,000 tonnes in 2005 and more than 600,000 tonnes in 2006. But as miners try to extract more and more copper ore, the accident rate is soaring. According to the Mineworkers Union of Zambia, at least 71 people died in Zambian mining accidents in 2005. ‘We're worried about the accident trends’, said Mavuto Gondwe, a union director with responsibility for health and safety. Indeed, in 2005, an explosion at a BGRIMM mine was the biggest single accident in the history of the Zambian mining industry. BGRIMM is controlled and 60 per cent owned by China Non Ferrous Metal Industries, a Chinese government-owned company.

Coal and platinum in Zimbabwe

Shunned by Western leaders and investors for the government’s human rights practices, Zimbabwe has begun a determined campaign to hitch its plummeting fortunes to China's rising star. Zimbabwe’s President Mugabe calls the policy ‘Look East’, and it has resulted in tremendous growth in trade and economic cooperation between the two countries. Several joint venture companies are being established, and under the Zimbabwe-China Joint Commission, Zimbabwe has benefited through the Chinese government's concessionary and interest free loans and grants.

The Chinese are widely reported to covet a stake in Zimbabwe's platinum mines, which have the world's second largest reserves, and the Mugabe government has hinted that he will accommodate them. The mines' principal operator denies being pressured into dealing with the Chinese, but negotiations are under way to sell a stake to Zimbabweans yet to be identified. The operator has postponed major spending on the mines, citing the cause as political uncertainty.

Cobalt in Congo

According to the Cobalt Development Institute (CDI), China was the world’s leading cobalt producer in 2005. Approximately three-quarters of all cobalt made in China in that year derived from imported concentrates, of which almost 90 per cent came from the DRC.

While the DRC is making slow progress in its transition process after a four-year civil war, the major regional and international mining houses are anticipating stability in the country. In the Katanga area, Chinese companies such as Colec and Feza Mining are initiating copper and cobalt mining and processing projects. Earlier this year, Nanjing Hanrui Cobalt Co Ltd, one of the largest conglomerates in China, purchased three high-grade copper-cobalt mines in Lubumbashi in the DRC. After a decade of growth, this private company has become the leading cobalt powder producer in Asia, ranking among the top three of the world. Because of the firm’s expansion, the international monopoly on cobalt has been broken, and the global cobalt powder prices have been reduced by half. International companies such as Japan’s Mitsubishi, Hitachi, Toshiba, Sumitomo, South Korea’s Samsung and LG all buy cobalt powder from Nanjing.

Timber

China is the largest importer of forest products in the world, and its imports of forest products have tripled in less than a decade. In 1998, China placed stringent restrictions on domestic logging, forcing the country to import a high percentage of its total wood consumption. Since then, China climbed six spots to become the world’s top forest products importer, taking 120,000,000m² in 2004. China is now the leading importer of round logs. In 2003, China was second in industrial roundwood imports, second for wood-based panels, pulp, paper and paper boards, and fifth for sawn wood. China imports 40 per cent of its total forest consumption.

Gabon

Today, China is Gabon's largest timber trading partner. In 2003 Gabon supplied 40 per cent of China's log imports from the west/central Africa region, and China imported 46 per cent of Gabon's total forest exports. Gabonese law requires processing before export, yet China's demands are for raw logs.

According to some analysts, China's influence in the sector encourages ‘flagrant disregard for the law’, and taxes are not paid on 60 per cent of the area allocated as forest concessions. National law states that failure to gain ministry approval of a management plan for a forest concession within three years triggers forfeiture of the concession; yet only five of more than 200 companies (representing 30 per cent of concessions) in 2000 had even stated their intention to start writing a plan. Additionally, all five of these companies had already logged their concessions for more than three years. The illegal timber exports to China have been estimated to be as high as 70 per cent of total timber exports.

Equatorial Guinea

China purchases an estimated 60 per cent of the timber exported from Equatorial Guinea, another country with known illegal logging problems. According to the World Wildlife Fund, annual timber extraction in Equatorial Guinea exceeds the maximum legally allowed limit by 40–60 per cent. It is also estimated that up to 90 per cent of the total harvest going to China is illegal. Shimmer International, a subsidiary of the notorious Rimbunan Hijau, has close ties with the minister of forests. Along with its many subsidiaries and associated companies, it is the dominant player in the country’s logging sector. China’s Jilin Forest Industry (Group) is also involved in timber extraction and processing.

Cameroon

Cameroon exports about 11 per cent of its timber to China. The Centre pour l’Environnement et développement estimates that at least 50 per cent of logging is illegal in Cameroon. According to Friends of the Earth, 96 per cent of logging violations in Cameroon between 1992 and 1993 were followed by incomplete judicial procedures, and one in five cases in this time period were dropped after intervention by an ‘influential person'.

Hong Kong-owned Vicwood Pacific acquired the Cameroon subsidiaries of the Thanry Group in 1997. From 2002, Thanry has been one of the principle loggers and international timber traders in the Congo River Basin and had established itself as a major violator of forestry laws and a creator of regional social unrest. Between 2000 and 2002, Thanry was fined over US$1,300,000 for what has been called 'anarchic logging', including cutting undersized trees, logging outside legal boundaries, and logging in unallocated concessions. The World Bank also discovered that the origin of many of Thanry's logs had been falsified so as to avoid Cameroon's export controls.

Liberia

In Liberia, rebel leader-turned President Charles Taylor relied heavily on timber resources to support his own military efforts and to fund mercenaries in neighbouring Sierra Leone and Côte d'Ivoire. Taylor used the revenue gained from the sale of the timber to buy arms for troops, support foreign mercenaries, create enormous personal wealth, and support the personal security forces that were essential to his power. The timber transport vessels were also used to traffic arms throughout the region.

China has rapidly increased its log imports from Liberia. By 2001, it was Liberia's largest buyer of wood products. That year, China imported US$42 million worth of logs (58 per cent of the country's total exports), most of which came from the OTC through Chinese importer Global Star Tradings. A report commissioned by USAID stated: ‘Harvested timber is transported to Liberian ports where it is bartered to Chinese and other trading partners either directly in exchange for weapons and munitions needed by Taylor to carry on his wars, or is sold to raise funds to achieve the same end.’ On 6 May 2003, the UN Security Council imposed an embargo on Liberian timber products. China had imported 365,000m³ of logs from Liberia in 2003 before the sanctions. But log imports plunged to 30,000m³ in the second half of 2003; and China did not appear to have imported Liberian logs during the first half of 2004.

Conclusion

While conventional wisdom posits that Chinese multinationals treat their workers and the environment more poorly than their Western counterparts, not enough research has been done to actually prove this hypothesis. What is clear, however, is that Chinese companies are quickly generating the same kinds of environmental damage and community opposition that Western companies have spawned around the world.

For communities adversely affected by these mega-projects (regardless of the corporate sponsor), the question is: first, do they give their free, prior and informed consent to the investment? If the answer is ‘yes’ then the challenge becomes, ‘How can communities and governments negotiate with the sponsor to receive the best deal possible, in terms of economic benefits sharing, human rights, sustained livelihoods, environmental quality, and cultural and community integrity?’

Evaluated this way it is evident that in some cases, what private companies can provide through ’corporate social responsibility’ – e.g. health clinics that may or may not be furnished with medicines, books for local schools – pales in comparison with the deals that Chinese state-owned companies can offer (e.g. debt relief, concessional lending).

Furthermore, African leaders and policy makers are faced with additional question when it comes to Chinese investment: Is the Chinese model of development, which admittedly has been characterised by spectacular economic growth, worth emulating? Based on the unlimited extraction of natural resources, ultra low-wage manufacturing, and the export of cheap goods (due especially to ‘throwaway’ societies in the West), this paradigm – which is in essence one of corporate globalisation, not of China alone – is simply not sustainable.

This low-price development model actually comes at a very high cost – to societies, both inside and outside China, as well as to the environment. The untold story of China’s rapid economic growth is one characterised by vast levels of income disparity, unfair treatment of workers and lost livelihoods, especially in the rural areas. These problems are so acute that they threaten political stability. Environmental problems are similarly acute: breathing the air in China’s most polluted cities is the equivalent of smoking two packets of cigarettes a day. On an international level, meanwhile, the effects of corporate globalisation (particularly Western consumption) are leading to the destruction of the ecological support systems on which all life depends.

It is tempting for African leaders to simply want to play Western and Chinese extraction companies off against each other in an effort to ’get a better deal’, and doggedly follow China’s path of economic growth. Indeed, it is important for them to carefully conceive extraction projects in order to secure the best possible deal for their people. But ultimately, it will be important to realise that this low-price/high-cost economic model will not work: neither for Africa, nor for China, nor for the rest of the world.

• This is a shortened version of an article by Michelle Chan-Fishel. The full version, including references, will be available in a forthcoming book to be published in January by Fahamu and called ‘African perspectives on China in Africa’. The full articles will also be made available as .PDF files on the Pambazuka News website.

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

Economic, political and security cooperation between China and Africa has grown exponentially in the last decade, presenting new opportunities and challenges for Africa. The need for Africans to understand China, and its motives for the enhanced engagement with Africa over the last decade, is now greater than ever before, writes Ndubisi Obiorah.

The rapidly evolving relationship between China and Africa is reflected in the evolution of African perceptions of China and its motives for engagement with Africa. For decades during the Cold War, the primary perception of China in much of Africa was as an ally against colonialism, neo-imperialism and Western domination, especially amongst left-wing circles. China was the alternate source to the Soviet Union of political, diplomatic and military assistance for African liberation movements. Post-liberation governments however often had to contend with Sino-Soviet rivalry for influence as well as the vexed question of Taiwan. Chinese aid, particularly scholarships, were welcomed across Africa. In the eyes of many Africans, the Tan-Zam railway project established China’s profile as a friend and ally against Western neo-colonialism and the apartheid regime in South Africa. Chinese success in building a railway pooh-poohed by ‘Africa hands’ in the West was a turning point in Sino-African relations and led to wider recognition in Africa of China's growing industrial and technological prowess.

From the 1950s, Chinese businesspeople from Hong Kong and Taiwan as well the overseas Chinese diaspora in South-East Asia established trading ties with African counterparts. Taiwan and Hong Kong were widely known across Africa by the early 1970s as sources for cheap imports of textiles and consumer goods although often of dubious quality. In particular, traders from southeastern Nigeria established elaborate trade networks with Hong Kong and Taiwan manufacturers and traders as well as with overseas Chinese businesses in southeast Asia. The increased popularity of kung fu movies and the establishment of schools of martial arts in major African cities led to relatively greater awareness of China among ordinary Africans - although often with distorted perceptions of Chinese history and culture.

Virtually in tandem with the shift in China's focus in its relations with Africa from ideology to trade, the dominant image of China in Africa by the 1990s had changed from ideological ally against colonialism, apartheid and Western domination to business partner and emerging economic colossus. The Chinese doctor or technical aid worker traded places with the Chinese entrepreneur or state corporation. The impact on Africa of China's trade with Africa and the wider world as well as the activities of Chinese businesses operating in Africa elicits diverse perceptions from local populations which deserve extensive and careful study as well as nuanced analysis. It is immensely difficult to attempt to describe popular perceptions in Africa of Chinese business or of China itself with a tolerable degree of accuracy because this is a relatively new area of scholarly inquiry and reliable information beyond anecdotal sources is hard to come by.

Perceptions among Africa's political leadership and intelligentsia of the prospects and implications of China-African engagement warrant further research and measured analysis. China's offer of trade and aid without apparent political or humanitarian conditionalities is apparently much appreciated by some of Africa's politicians (French 20/11/05).

It is noteworthy however that perceptions of China among

Africa's political leaders go beyond appreciation for 'no-strings' aid and trade. China as 'alternative' political and economic model to Western prescriptions appears to be a pervasive optic among African politicians, intellectuals, civil society and media. While the end of the Cold War brought welcome changes including the end of proxy wars fought on Africa's soil and the liberation of Namibia and South Africa, the unipolar world characterized by Western dominance that followed has been the source of much discomfort for many African intellectuals and political leaders. In this light, China's emergence as a major axis of global power is often welcomed among African intellectuals who hope that it may herald a return to global multi-polarity in which milieu Africa and the developing countries will have a greater role on the global stage than they currently do.

A Chinese model?

In a nuanced perspective on China, the senior leader of the Nigerian legislature, Senate President Ken Nnamani, in a welcome address entitled "China: A Partner and Example of Development and Democracy" during President Hu's April visit to Nigeria, describes China's 'outstanding (economic) performance exclusive of western democracy' as "the paradox of development and democracy".

Nnamani’s comments highlight the increasingly common perception in Africa of China as an alternate political and economic model to the Washington Consensus. Since the mid-1980s, many African countries have been compelled to adopt a series of 'Structural Adjustment', 'Economic Recovery' and 'Poverty Reduction' programmes often under pressure from Western donors and international financial institutions. From the early 1990s, demands by Western donors that African governments adopt economic reforms prescribed by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have often been 'bundled' with so-called 'conditionalities' usually consisting of demands for 'political reforms' such as political liberalization, ending of one-party regimes, respect for human rights etc. Environmental advocacy groups in Western countries often pressure their governments to demand environmental audits and impact assessments before funding new infrastructure and industrial projects in Africa.

When African post-colonial governments began moving towards one-party states and 'African socialism' in the 1960s, they often proffered the rationale that Western models of democracy were unsuited to Africa's material conditions and to its history and cultures. Through the 1970s and 1980s, the debate raged in Africa as to whether Western political and economic models could be transported to non-Western societies, whether capitalism or Soviet-style socialism was the better model for Africa or whether African states could craft a 'Third Way' to nirvana. The end of the Cold War and the apparent triumph of the Washington Consensus led to a temporary cessation of the debate partly due to the disillusionment and intellectual exhaustion of the African Left. When donor conditionalities were introduced, some African governments vigorously resisted the political conditionalities and argued that Western democracy was unsuited to Africa's needs and would fuel ethnic conflict and instability but their dissent was increasingly muted as aid flows dried up.

Through the 1990s, it appeared that the debate had been settled for good and that most Africans, at least implicitly, accepted the thesis that political liberalization and structural adjustment would lead to economic recovery in the short term and sustainable development in the long term. By the turn of the millennium, virtually no African government openly questioned the Washington Consensus or suggested 'African alternatives'.

China's emergence as a major economic power in the 1990s despite not being a democracy or adopting economic policies typically recommended by the IFIs has become a source of great interest for both Africa's rulers and ruled. For some among Africa's contemporary rulers, China is living proof of 'successful' alternatives to Western political and economic models. The semi-colonial Western domination of pre-revolutionary China is often cited as being analogous to Western colonialism in Africa in the early-mid 20th century while China's status as a developing country in the 1950s through the 1990s is also cited as co-terminous with Africa's post-colonial experience. For many, China represents hope that another world is possible in which bread comes before the freedom to vote.

Given the democratic reversals experienced in much of Africa from the late 1990s onwards, there is a distinct possibility that some authoritarian regimes in Africa will seek to utilize China's economic success to rationalize avoiding further political liberalization and genuine democratization. Human rights advocates and democratic actors in Africa may increasingly find their traditional arguments that respect for human rights and political liberalization will inexorably lead to economic success challenged by some African governments pointing to China as the poster-child for development sans democracy. A mid-term prognosis could be some African governments invoking the 'China paradigm' to justify the adoption of state-led economic policies coupled with intensified political repression.

Virtually by stealth, the old debate about appropriate paths to Africa's development has been re-ignited by China's emergence as a major global power. The implications of this debate for advancing human rights and democracy in Africa are critical. A failure to re-establish the primacy and legitimacy of liberal democracy and strong human rights protections among Africa's intellectuals, media and civil society as the most appropriate path for Africa's development may ultimately lead to popular disillusionment with Western-inspired political and economic prescriptions that are perceived as unable to put bread in the mouths of hungry infants while communist China becomes the workshop of the world. More important than the desires of some African governments to return to political illiberality is the danger of resurgence in the old, anti-Western, anti-democratic tendency among Africa's intellectuals, boosted by China's apparent success.

It is increasingly likely that a central challenge for civil society in Africa in the next few years will be an effort to prevent democracy reversal especially an 'intellectual rollback' to the 1970s. It may become necessary to re-establish or re-validate across Africa the legitimacy of democracy and human rights per se and also as the most appropriate and effective path to Africa's development. Africa's human rights advocates may be well served in this effort by projections that India may eventually surpass China's economic progress, thanks at least in part, to a freer political and intellectual culture. As the largest democracy in the world with long standing ties to Africa, India's economic progress in the last decade especially the exponential growth of its ICT industries could serve as an 'alternate' model to China.

A human rights perspective

While China's rapidly expanding engagement in Africa is enthusiastically welcomed by African governments and some African intellectuals, China's relations with Africa's governments is often perceived among human rights NGOs and Western commentators as increasingly problematic for governance and human rights in Africa. China's increasing presence in Africa has generated a flurry of Western media reportage and commentary, often with graphic headlines, the prevailing note of which is that Chinese trade, political and security cooperation may enable repressive regimes in Africa to avoid even the relatively limited constraints on their conduct imposed by Western donor conditionalities. Elements in Africa's civil society are concerned about the potential implications of China's relationship with African governments for the advancement of human rights and democracy in Africa.

China-Africa security cooperation is particularly problematic. Chinese-made weapons are often cheaper than Western equivalents and China does not usually impose political, human rights or humanitarian conditions in its arms sales.

The Nigerian government is increasingly turning to China for weapons to deal with the worsening insurgency in the oil-rich Niger Delta. The Nigerian air force purchased 12 Chinese-made versions of the upgraded Mig 21 jet fighter; the navy has ordered patrol boats to secure the swamps and creeks of the Niger Delta. Nigerian military officials have made clear that they will increasingly turn to China for weapons to quell the revolt in the Niger Delta which traditional Western suppliers appear reluctant to provide.

In particular, China's role in the Sudan crisis, where it has supported a military regime accused of perpetrating or at the very least encouraging ethnic cleansing has cast a disturbing light on Chinese engagement in Africa (Alden 2005). China bought 50 percent of Sudan's oil exports in 2005, which presently accounts for 5 percent of China's oil needs (Pan 2006). China is accused of blocking or diluting UN Security Council efforts to effectively address the Sudanese government’s role in the humanitarian crisis in the Darfur region.

Human rights concerns about China's renewed engagement in Africa must of necessity extend beyond China-Africa inter-governmental relations. Indeed, it may be argued that in the near future, the role of the Chinese private sector in Africa may come to acquire as great a significance, if not greater, than that of the Chinese government or its state-owned enterprises in Africa. Some Chinese companies operating in Africa have been accused by NGOs of violating employment and environmental rights in the communities where they operate.

NGOs in Nigeria have accused the Chinese logging company WEMPCO of discharged untreated effluents into the Cross River in southeastern Nigeria, thereby damaging the health and livelihoods of local fisher folk. The company is also accused of colluding with local officials and law enforcement to suppress protests by the local community.

Western commentators contend that China’s lack of domestic political criticism frees its government and companies in their business endeavours in Africa from “reputational risks” and other pressures that Western companies operating in Africa are routinely exposed to. Whereas shareholders of Western companies may be cautious about investing in state-led energy projects in African countries which rely on a brutally-enforced stability, such issues have little visibility to the Chinese public (Melville and Owen 2005). This presents significant challenges for human rights advocates in Africa.

A common African response?

An effective common African response at the governmental level appears unlikely for quite a while to come due to the structural weaknesses of Africa’s regional organization, the African Union. China effectively deals with Africa on its own terms via the China-Africa Cooperation Forum which is convened by China. The AU, which should lead Africa’s engagement with China, is enfeebled by the language and culture divides which still plague Africa’s regional politics.

A common African response is more likely at the civil society level where there is often a mutuality of concerns about human rights, democracy, labour and trade issues. Enhanced Africa-wide networking to develop common frameworks for responding to human rights and governance issues arising from China’s role in Africa is imperative.

What can African civil society do?

Civil society in Africa is increasingly concerned with the role of China in Africa especially the Chinese government’s relations with repressive regimes in Sudan and Zimbabwe. As China becomes a major weapons supplier to Africa's governments and Chinese energy and mining companies take up substantial stake in resource extraction in Africa, these concerns can only grow.

China's enhanced presence in Africa is primarily driven by economic considerations; efforts to develop policy levers to prompt more constructive Chinese engagement in Africa will have to proceed from China's economic interests. Accordingly, African civil society cannot adopt the conventional 'naming-and-shaming' tactics that have served it well in addressing human rights abuses thus far; 'naming-and-shaming' tactics can however be adapted to deal with Chinese companies operating globally.

As a starting point, China studies in African universities and research institutions should be encouraged by African governments, private sector and civil society. In this respect, the pioneering introduction of Chinese language studies at the Nnamdi Azikiwe University in Nigeria and the University of Stellenbosch in South Africa are particularly noteworthy developments which should be replicated elsewhere in Africa.

African civil society should bring pressure through the African Union for a parallel civil society forum inclusive of business, labour and consumer groups to be instituted at the biennial meetings of the China-Africa Cooperation Forum. The parallel Civil Society Forum will bring together non-governmental organisations from China and Africa to enhance people-to-people relations, exchange of ideas and perspectives and to lobby their respective governments to address the Social Dimension of China-Africa relations.

African civil society should take advantage of Western concerns about China’s expanding role in Africa through ‘coalitions of interest’ with Western governments in raising concerns about governance and human rights in African countries where the Chinese government is deeply engaged with repressive regimes.

African NGOs can also work with Western NGO colleagues to mobilize threats of mass boycotts of Chinese-made consumer goods to protest China's arms exports to repressive governments in Africa.

The potential of violence directed at Chinese businesses and nationals in Africa by rebel movements who regard China as an ally of the local repressive regime is likely to compel China to re-examine its security cooperation with African governments. It may be argued that an 'all-comers-served' approach to security cooperation with African governments may not continue for much longer without significant cost to China.

African civil society should seek to highlight to the Chinese government that its activities in Africa cannot be entirely risk-free in the absence of peace and stability which cannot be secured in the absence of democracy and human rights. In particular, African NGOs can also highlight to the Chinese government that unrestrained exports of light arms exacerbate conflicts in Africa and worsen trafficking in small arms which may well end up used against Chinese companies and nationals operating in Africa. In the Beijing Declaration issued at the first China-Africa Co-operation Forum in October 2000, the Chinese government committed itself along with African governments to strengthen their co-operation in stopping the illegal production, circulation and trafficking of small arms and light weapons in Africa. African NGOs can and should take China up on this voluntarily accepted commitment.

While the Chinese government may not have to pay much regard to domestic public opinion, the Chinese government is historically very sensitive about its international image. China’s abstention on a Security Council vote on Darfur in early 2006 should be cause for some guarded optimism. This suggests that China is not totally oblivious of potential harm to its global reputation if it came to be perceived as the principal patron and protector of Africa's tyrants.

After an initial phase of snapping up resource extraction concessions, it is well nigh conceivable that China will be compelled by instability and conflict in Africa to realize that its long term economic interests are best served by promoting peace in Africa and that this is most likely to come about by encouraging representative government in Africa rather than supporting dictators. As Chinese investors move beyond resource extraction to investments of a long-term nature, they will increasingly mount pressure on their government to avoid actions or policies likely to exacerbate instability or conflict.

In the long term, it is conceivable that greater internal political liberalization within China will also result in less appetite for supporting repressive regimes in Africa.

• Ndubisi Obiorah studied international law and human rights at Harvard and Essex. He has been a visiting fellow and researcher at Harvard University, the National Endowment for Democracy and Human Rights Watch. He has served as a consultant to USAID and the International Centre for the Legal Protection of Human Rights (INTERRIGHTS), London. He is presently director of the Centre for Law and Social Action (CLASA) in Lagos, Nigeria. CLASA, an independent, non-profit policy centre, brings together scholars and activists for inter-disciplinary collaboration in research and advocacy on governance, human development and social policy. [email][email protected]

• This is a shortened version of an article by Ndubisi Obiorah. The full version, including references, will be available in a forthcoming book to be published in January by Fahamu and called ‘African perspectives on China in Africa’. The full articles will also be made available as .PDF files on the Pambazuka News website.

• Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

OFFICIAL CHINA WEBSITES

Peoples Daily online in English

Official website of China-Africa summit
http://english.focacsummit.org/

Xinhua News Agency website in English
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/

http://www.chinese-embassy.org.za/
chinese embassy in South Africa

UNOFFICIAL AND SEMI-OFFICIAL SITES

‘Afroshanghai.com: the African community in Shanghai and China’
Shanghai-based website anbd blog for African and Afro-American expats in China.
http://www.afroshanghai.com/

http://chinadigitaltimes.net
‘a collaborative news website covering China's social and political transition and its emerging role in the world. ...Our goal is to harness the distributive power of the Internet to advance the world's understanding of China...China's democratic transition, sustainable development and peaceful emergence in the global community’. Run by the Berkeley China Internet Project in the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley.

China Dialogue: China and the world discuss the environment’
Edited by Isabel Hilton and based in London and Beijing it describes itself as ‘the world’s first fully bilingual website devoted to the environment’. With a joint British-Chinese board. it is part-financed by the UK Government as part a series of ‘sustainable development dialogues’[see ]http://www.sustainable-development.gov.uk/international/dialogues/">
http://www.chinadialogue.net/

BUSINESS AND ECONOMY

‘China Business’ - the special China section of the Hong Kong-based Asia Times Online
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China_Business.html

Business Report - South Africa.
http://www.busrep.co.za/

THINKTANKS AND NEWS SERVICES

African Geopolitics; ‘world leaders and international experts express their views on African affairs’
‘the first bilingual quarterly on African affairs’
http://www.african-geopolitics.org/home_english.htm
also http://www.african-geopolitics.org/home_french.htm

The Jamestown Foundation. ‘mission is to inform and educate policy makers and the broader policy community about events and trends in those societies which are strategically or tactically important to the United States and which frequently restrict access to such information’.
http://www.jamestown.org/

Africa Confidential is one of the longest-established specialist publications on Africa, with a considerable reputation for being first with the in depth news on significant political, economic and security developments across the continent.

...all our contributors write for us on the basis of strict anonymity, a principle that was established from the outset in 1960 to ensure writers’ personal safety in the turbulent, early years of post-colonial African independence. Hence the newsletter’s title’.

CAMPAIGNS AND NGOs

‘Global Witness campaigns to achieve real change by challenging established thinking on seemingly intractable global issues. We work to highlight the link between the exploitation of natural resources and human rights abuses, particularly where the resources such as timber, diamonds and oil are used to fund and perpetuate conflict and corruption’.
http://www.globalwitness.org/

Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative [EITI]
The EITI supports improved governance in resource-rich countries through the full publication and verification of company payments and government revenues from oil, gas and mining.
campaigns.
http://www.eitransparency.org/

Human Rights Watch is dedicated to protecting the human rights of people around the world.
We stand with victims and activists to prevent discrimination, to uphold political freedom, to protect people from inhumane conduct in wartime, and to bring offenders to justice.
http://www.hrw.org/

Friends of the Earth defends the planet and champions a healthy and just world. Active in 70 countries, Friends of the Earth has the world's largest network of environmental groups.
http://www.foe.org/

Global Timber.‘Provides information and statistics on the global trade in wood-based products, especially that from Africa and East Asia [and] insights into trade in Illegal Timber particularly in relation to importing countries such as Japan, the UK, and the USA’.
http://www.globaltimber.org.uk/

Reuters Foundation - alerting humanitarians to emergencies.
http://www.alertnet.org/

SPECIAL ISSUES

‘China in Africa’
Special issue of South African Journal of International Affairs Vol 13 No.1 Summer-Autumn 2006
ISSN: 1022-0461
see also the Institute’s website at www.ippr.org

2006 was the 50th anniversary of the establishment of the first diplomatic ties between China and African countries and saw an increased focus on the relationship between China and Africa. In June 2006, Chinese President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao visited ten African countries to promote China–Africa relations. In November, African heads of state met in Beijing to learn of a massive Chinese package of aid and assistance, including preferential loans, cancellation of debts, and numerous other initiatives.

Chinese engagement with Africa has become the topic of serious analysis and debate. In the field of governance, natural resources and markets, China’s presence is everywhere. Suddenly, Chinese influence in Africa has begun to top the foreign policy agenda of African governments. Chinese involvement in Africa has raised concerns about China's commitment to human rights issues and its policy on arms sales to African governments, while in the areas of textiles and natural resource exploitation, Chinese competition has generated some adverse consequences for African industry and the environment. China has been pronounced the new imperial power in Africa, usurping the influence of Western governments. However, a more nuanced approach and understanding of China–Africa relations might be more helpful.

Historically, China has played a different role in Africa from Africa's colonial powers, supporting African countries in various liberation struggles, providing educational opportunities and assisting in healthcare. Moreover, the rise of China in Africa does not just make problems for the continent, it also creates opportunities. As Stephen Marks pointed out in a recent editorial in Pambazuka News , Western corporations and governments now face competition – there is an alternative to the dictates of the international financial institutions – and this can give African states more room for manoeuvre. The African Union as well as civil society need to consider how to react to China's challenge while avoiding ’uncritical acceptance on the one hand or mere rejectionism on the other’.

Despite the clear influence of China, research, policy, debate and analysis on China’s present and future role in Africa remains limited. All too often, the influence of Western policy towards Africa dominates development discourse. What is missing is an integrated overview of Africa’s own response, especially by researchers and activists on the ground and an ongoing forum through which such an integrated response can be developed and sustained.

With the support of Christian Aid and TrustAfrica, Fahamu undertook a work in progress to identify leading institutions, activists and academics within Africa who were working on China. In the course of this review, we commissioned a number of researchers to write papers on the key issues for both this special issue of Pambazuka News (issue 282 of 14 December 2006) and for a book, which we plan to launch at the World Social Forum. Given the relatively short deadlines available to ensure that the book would be available at the World Social Forum, not everyone we approached was able to respond. The articles in this special edition provide, therefore, only a taste of the richness of research and reflection on the subject of China’s emerging role in Africa.

This special issue contains shortened versions of the articles that appear in the book 'African Perpectives on China in Africa', edited by Firoze Manji and Stephen Marks, and published by Fahamu in 2007. To save on space, we have not included references here. The full articles will appear in the book as will the references. We will also make the full texts of the articles available for download in PDF format at Pambazuka News website at http://www.pambazuka.org/en/publications/index.php.

As we have several long articles, this special issue is published in two parts, the second part going out tomorrow in place of the usual Links and Resources.

Our intention in publishing this special edition is both to reflect the current thinking on the subject as well as to help nurture further research and engagement. But in so doing, we know that we are only beginning to understand the shifts in the balance of forces in Africa that are emerging as a result of what some refer to as ‘South–South cooperation’. There are four other players whose role needs further attention: India, Venezuela, Brazil and South Africa. We hope to turn our attention to these ‘new’ players in the coming year.

• Firoze Manji is director of Fahamu and editor of Pambazuka News.

Burundi blog, ‘’ introduces a new blog called ‘Breaking the Cycle Youth Council’

“In 1988, I was only 10 years old, there were massacres in Ntega and Marangara, in Burundi. At that time, my Brother then told me about what had happened and I was puzzled, as I recall, because I could not understand how People could kill one another for tribal differences…It was in that year that I discovered I was of the tribe of Tutsi. At that time, I still could not tell the difference from Hutu and Tutsi tribe, by looking at a person…There are different things that occurred, that caused me to be determined to lead another generation, not to follow what other generations had followed.”

The blog’s main focus is on the youth of Burundi. The blogger uses videocasts to emphasise the plight of the youth and their hopes for the future.

There are two posts this week on the subject of telecoms provision in Africa. The first comes from Ghana. ‘Ramblings of an African Geek’ explains why the state owned “Ghana Telecom sucks”:

“In order to use GT broadband, I must give up my right as a consumer to purchase bandwidth from any other ISP. They are in effect telling their consumers, who are overpaying them for service, how they can spend their money.

“I’m curious about the identity of the person who came up with this clause. I’m also curious about its legality and the competence of the lawyer who advised them on its inclusion. I mean, if this is legal then what stops my local pineapple vendor from banning me from occasionally buying fruit from her cheaper competitor? Or Sony from telling me I have to get rid of all Samsung TV’s before I can buy one of theirs.”

The second story comes from ‘Timbuktu Chronicles’ who points to a more positive piece in the Economist on the rise of African cellphone companies:

“Following a flurry of deals over the past 18 months, five African and Middle Eastern operators are now vying for supremacy. These regional powerhouses have worked out how to earn princely sums in the world's poorest places. So far they have mostly been too busy signing up new subscribers to compete vigorously with each other. But that is now starting to change, and the industry is preparing for a round of consolidation as the operators start to attack each other's markets…The arrival of Middle Eastern and African operators, with their innovative, low-cost business models, could put pressure on European operators. Celtel's One Network, for example, eliminates roaming charges for customers travelling between the adjacent countries of Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda.”

My recent experience in South Africa of cell phones is that despite the exorbitant costs, cell phone usage is expanding at a rapid rate. Clearly there is room for more companies to enter the market and through competition bring down the price.

Staying with cell phones, ‘ This initiative follows recent reports that Mugabe’s security agents are now confiscating radios in an effort to clamp down even further on access to information and objective news reporting."

An excellent example of activism at work, and an excellent example of the use of SMS to circumvent repressive actions by governments such as in Zimbabwe.

Kenyan blogger, ‘’ remembers Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe who was born on 5 December 1924. Sobukwe, the founder of the Pan Africanist Congress, was jailed in Number 4 prison by the apartheid government for 9 years.

‘Scribbles from the Den’ comments on the return of Cameroonian musician, the ‘Tribal Monk’, who has returned and released his first album in 6 years:

“After a six-year break, US-based Cameroonian artist, Wanaku a.k.a The Tribal Monk has released his third album, Afrikan Guitarstrophy, in collaboration with his band, Sunplug’d. In this album, Wanaku shuns the ‘World Music’ genre with its over-reliance on technology and heavy (in)fusion of Western pop sounds. Instead, he unapologetically uses the acoustic guitar as the main conduit for what he calls ‘Sweet Afrikan Kontry Muziki’. This is not ‘afro-pop’ by any stretch of the imagination; it is afro beat in its pure and unadulterated state.” Sounds worth waiting for.

‘Black Looks’ comments on the impact of impact of global warming on, and the consequences of recycling of waste products across the continent.

“The continent is having to pay the price of US consumption i.e. 5% of the worlds population are in the US yet they contribute to 25% of the worlds greenhouse gas pollution. Africa’s 14% population contributes a mere 3%.One of the consequences of global warming is desertification and one of the worst hit countries in Africa is Somalia (also recently a dumping ground for nuclear waste). But many other countries, particular those bordering the Sahara savannah regions in West Africa and the Horn of Africa will suffer from severe drought, failed crops and floods. Access to water is a major issue through out Africa where privatisation of water supplies is adding to the lack of water availability on very basic levels in countries such as Nigeria, Kenya, Niger and South Africa to name just a few.”

• Sokari Ekine produces the blog Black Looks, http://www.blacklooks.org/

• Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/

American Studies will sponsor an international conference in 2008 titled “American Studies and Imperial Designs: New Scholarship and Perspectives on the U.S. in the World.” The conference will be held September 11-14, 2008 at Purdue.

This is a call for papers for "The Novel: Democracy's Form?", a two-day conference to be held over the 13th and 14th of April 2007 at the University of Sussex. The core purpose of the conference is to explore the contemporary status of the novel within the fields of literary theory, history and philosophy.

Join an eclectic group of internationally-renowned authors, editors, publishers and agents in a week-long literary festival in Nairobi that includes writing workshops, panel discussions, readings and public lectures. Thursday, 14 December 2006.

The UN Security Council has voted unanimously to authorise a regional force to protect the Somali government - which is under increasing pressure from the Union of Islamic Courts - and also lifted an arms embargo to allow the force to be equipped.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has expressed concern over reports of imminent war in Somalia, as increased insecurity could worsen the humanitarian crisis in the war-scarred country.

Anti-government protests in Cote d’Ivoire have intensified in recent days and the most recent left two people dead with no apparent end in sight to a political impasse that has pitted the president against his prime minister. The country was calm on Wednesday (6 December 2006) but police maintained street patrols.

The Zimbabwean government has suspended the teaching of human rights and democracy in secondary schools and announced the setting up of the Chitepo Ideology College, poised to indoctrinate youths in Zanu (PF)'s socialist policies. This is in addition to Border Gezi youth militia training - already a prerequisite for admission to tertiary institutions, including the Journalism School at the Harare Polytechnic.

This book is a compilation of articles on the experiences of lesbian women in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Namibia, South Africa, and Swaziland. The stories were born out of the African Women's Life Story Project where researchers and activists from different parts of Africa came together to document the life stories of lesbian women in their respective countries.

The Swazi government expressed cautious optimism after a survey found that 39.2 percent of women visiting antenatal clinics tested positive for HIV, indicating that the infection rate was dropping. Medical data from pregnant women is used as a barometer of HIV/AIDS prevalence among the country's about one million people and although the figure was above the 38.6 percent recorded in 2002, it was down from the 42.6 percent reached in 2004.

Uganda's success in lowering its HIV/AIDS level, lauded as a rare African achievement, could be unravelling. The latest UNAIDS statistics show rising prevalence, and questions are being asked about the government's commitment to fighting the epidemic. The 2006 UNAIDS epidemic update revealed that Uganda's prevalence rose marginally to 6.7 percent in 2005.

The world's richest 2% of adults own more than half of global household wealth, while half the world's population own only 1%, a United Nations report published on Tuesday (5 December 2006) showed. "The study finds wealth to be more unequally distributed than income across countries."

Cape Town, also known as the ‘Mother City’, is one of the top tourist destinations in the world. The city is also one of the most racially segregated cities in the world, and, further, the city is characterized by inequality. Gael Reagon argues that Cape Town is being “enslaved and stratified according to who has material wealth and who does not. The mother city is motherless.”

"An unjust law is itself a species of violence. Arrest for its breach is more so." Mahatma Gandhi

On 7 December 2006, the city of Cape Town will vote on a bylaw which, if passed or not, will be an acute measurement of our morality. The By Law Relating to Streets, Public Places and Prevention of Nuisances is a slim invidious document that outlines the strategic management of the central city’s spaces and of its people.

It is the social dimension of the ‘nuisances’ bylaw that concerns me heavily on the reasoning that the one operates in relation to the other – that how we treat each other in the same space (our public and natural resources) will indicate who or perhaps more cogently, what we are. In that a society is measured by its treatment of its least.

A reading of the new proposed consolidated nuisances bylaw reveals a political premise and ethical ethos that regard the poor as social untouchables to be driven legally and economically from the centre to the gods know where, the desolate dustbowl of Happy Valley seems the favoured destination. Having in the last few months been walking at all hours the city streets with a crew of thinking caring people - Nombulelo, Mimi, Buyaphi, Wasefa and Sibusiso - we can attest via personal experience and witnessing, that our city is in anomie, an advanced state of lawlessness that benefits the rich and beleaguers the poor.

Rohinton Maistry, in his astute novel, A Fine Balance, set in the crazed schism of the post- independence India/Pakistan split, intones it succinctly, that ‘when they said they would clean the streets of poverty, they meant clean out the poor’.

Here my children who live on the streets are unlawfully arrested daily and nightly; their takings via hustling, begging or work are taken from them by security forces; they are constantly shoved around by the police who will arrest them on the most fragile of pretences for “loitering” or for “riotous” behaviour; here, one of my children was dropped on the mountain for no reason and broke his leg trying to come down; here the peace officers have become pimps, taking the earnings of sex workers under threat of arrest; here my children are woken by boots and pepper spray at any time of day or night; here my disabled street friend Envor Mac was arrested two weeks ago for taking a duvet and sent to Pollsmoor Prison for 2 years; here the excessive needs of tourists and the native greedy ones are given priority over care, shelter and education for my children.

This blessed piece of the planet, in the embrace of two oceans and Table Mountain, a world heritage site; this mother city, our top tourist destination and earner; this city of hybridity , of all colours and tongues; this city is being enslaved and stratified according to who has material wealth and who does not. The mother city is motherless.

But let’s rewind to the legislative birth of this new proposed bylaw that faces us today. It reared its gorgon head four years ago when it was lopped off with the double-edged sword of NGO-led public resistance coupled with a change of city administration with the installment of Nomaindia Mfeketo as mayor. By all accounts, Mfeketo, who in her 2005/6 budget pledged nearly R18 billion to provide shelter and jobs for all the city’s citizens in the next decade, did not have the courage of her conviction (that the bylaw is inherently prejudiced towards the poor) and simply did nothing – she did not facilitate a vote for or against, instead launching her Smile-A-Child publicity campaign.

This suspended status of the bylaw changed this year when the current incumbent, Helen Zille slipped on the mayoral mantle and chain and inaugurated an aggressive revival of the nuisances bylaw.

In May this year, the bylaw was passed by majority vote in a full sitting of council (the ANC voted against it) whose R900 000 social spending budget allocates a third for street people according to Bantry Bay councillor Jean-Pierre Smith. On its promulgation through the Provincial Gazette on 23 June 2006, street people and civil society organizations, largely under the auspices of a 20-member NGO Task Team again registered their protest on the basis that there had been no public participation. The bylaw was withdrawn 3 days later and a 2-week public participation process, inviting the submission of written comments on the bylaw, instituted in late September. According to the NGO Task Team 115 submissions were sent to the city management: 32 from organizations of which 7 support the proposed bylaw and 25 reject it; the rest are from individuals, 14 of whom are neutral, 19 are against it and 43 are in favour of it.

Now, the city managers are ready to vote. They have also just adopted a draft policy on adult street people, developed by Jean-Pierre Smith and entitled A Foot in the Door, which shows some measure of concern for the city’s nearly 10 000 homeless but locates its concerns in a kind of pathological paternalism that brands street people as insane, as drunkards or as drug addicts. Furthermore this draft policy is pretty much the theory that informs the actions proposed in the bylaw.

I have to let you know that though the bylaw will again be formally voted on Thursday (7 December 2006), it has, in effect been law any way. This new ‘nuisances’ bylaw is actually just a consolidation and refinement of a collection of nearly 30 municipal bylaws in existence from Tygerberg to Fish Hoek to the City that have, in amended and non-amended forms, existed from 1903 to now. The 1917 bylaw for the city, last amended in 1944, for instance, prevents spitting in public spaces. This proscription co-incidentally, is still nestling in the new bylaw, the infringement of which will elicit a fine of R100.

Since there are no substantive changes and reformulations in the new proposed nuisances bylaw as it stands, and since the 115 written submissions - most from individuals living in wealthy suburbs - can hardly be viewed as a vigorous, comprehensive and inclusive public input (with much respect to those who made submissions in the limited time-span); our city managers will be voting on a bylaw which is already law.

That’s the complicated statutory position. The social implication is simple: the city, like all cities claiming the appellation world class through the capitalist discourse of economic development and its concomitant strategy of urban renewal or regeneration, is shaping itself as a home, boardroom and playground for the black-chip empowered and the dollar rich.

Since the document is in the public domain – you can access it via NGO Task Team members Anna Weekes (021 448 7875) or Patric Solomons (021 762 5423) – I am not going to outline its clauses and sub-clauses except to say that Sub-section 2, which deals with prohibited behaviour, is unashamedly targeted at the mother city’s homeless, jobless and youth subculture.

It proposes severe fines or imprisonment for, amongst others, washing and drying clothes in public, aggressive begging, selling goods or washing cars without permission, shouting, touching someone’s property without consent, dancing and drumming without consent, rollerblading or skateboarding, and for sex work. Fines are anything between R50 – R500.

And, since I do not own an SUV, I will propose to be your GPS and finesse some moral calibration in relation to law, and its bona fide, justice.

This post-fascist bylaw is fundamentally and constitutionally unjust. It denies the underclass the rights to work, live and play in the city. Resistance to this legislative and social deprivation is then criminalized and punished.

This is the law of rapacity. My city is being raped by the men and women who manage it and own it via the Cape Town Partnership – a private/public partnership between the City of Cape Town, property owners and business sealed in 1999 – led by Shaun Johnson, the chief executive of the Mandela/Rhodes Foundation.

It’s property namesake, the plush new Mandela/Rhodes Place in St George’s Mall owned by Eurocape, houses apartments that can be bought for anything between R1- R7 million.

The CTP manages the Central City Improvement District (CCID) which employs a private security firm, g4s, to implement its strictures to clean the streets of the homeless in a relentless campaign of low-intensity terror and petty avarice.

On the street and in the parliamentary session Patricia de Lille (Member of Parliament) held last week with street people the word is informed and unambiguous: NO. No, the street people are saying, we will not be treated like non-citizens and non-human beings because a few want too much.

Marwaan Abrahams aka ‘Kakkies’ says that the bylaw is “how they fight us”. “All they see is criminal, but they don’t know what is going on inside. All the wrong things that you did that you went to prison for, when you come out you are hunted and still treated the same. Me, I am on a level. I am transformed, they are not. We are in a war. A total war”.

• This article first appeared in the Cape Argus, and it is republished here with a kind permission of the author. Gael Reagon is a freelance journalist and is based in Cape Town.
• Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

It is reported that across large areas of Nigeria’s southeastern rainforest belt, hundreds of communities are threatened by erosion because of decades of uncontrolled deforestation and other types of pressure on the land. Joel Bisina explains that whereas both natural and human interventions can result in environment degradation, environmental destruction is a product of peoples’ unhealthy and unfriendly interaction with the environment.

The violence of the last ten years in the Niger Delta has brought to the front burner the issue of the environment, and its implication on regional peace and security. For four decades, ecological devastation on the one hand, and neglect arising from crude oil production on the other hand, have left much of the Niger Delta desolate, uninhabitable, and poor. The unholy contraception, or “joint venture partnership”, fraudulently contrived between the Nigerian state and the oil multinationals to the criminal exclusion of the inhabitants of the region presents a case study for now and the generations unborn.

Ours is a case of the goose that lays the golden egg. The Delta holds the bulk of the economic resources that sustains the public treasury in Nigeria. Yet, years of neglect and ecological devastation have left much of the Niger Delta despoiled and impoverished. This contradiction of riches is a constant refrain in most conflicts in the Delta. I cannot but agree with the summation contained in the UNDP human development report, “a delicate balance exists between the human population in the Niger Delta and its fragile ecosystem. There is a strong feeling in the region that the rate of environmental degradation is pushing the region towards ecological disaster.”

Conflicts in the region have often been blamed on among other things, neglect by government and oil companies, unemployment, military rule, the minority question, and a badly structured Nigerian federalism, especially as it concerns finances. While these factors separately or jointly bear on the conflict dynamics in the region, what has been lacking is their integration into an explanatory system in the addendum called environmental degradation.

I prefer to call it environmental destruction as against degradation. Whereas both natural and human interventions can result in environment degradation, destruction is a product of man’s unhealthy and unfriendly interaction with the environment. Okechukwu Ibeanu questioned if the factors are causal or only mediatory? (Ibeanu, 2000). He went further to query that if they are causal factors, are they principal, secondary, or tertiary, are they triggers, pivotal, mobilizing, or aggravating factors?

I will respond by saying that the environment factor is primary and is pivotal to the Niger Delta regional peace and conflict dynamics.

In attempting to underpin environmental degradation and its implication on peace and conflict dynamics in the Niger Delta, it will be necessary to try to examine the various contextual environments that present themselves and how they singularly or collectively interact to define the peace conflict spiral. Attempt will also be made to examine how this interaction dictates and reorders the peace security dynamics in the Niger Delta.

Natural Environment

Dr Egunjobi Layi in his paper published in Springlink Journal writes that “The relatively under-developed condition of the Delta Area of Nigeria is mainly due to its difficult natural environment. This is with particular reference to the mass, and complex maze, of water which floods the region, causing erosion and pollution, all of which adversely affect agricultural practice, transportation and other human activities.”

While I want to agree with the scholar to some extent, I beg to differ a little and state that attributing the under-development in the delta to a difficult natural environment is just over simplifying the problem. The natural Niger Delta environment we inherited from our forebears was an environment rich in bio diversity, varied species of wild life, dense population of marine and aquatic life, in fresh and salt water bodies, with rich mangrove and fresh water vegetation, flamboyant raffia and shrubs.

However, what we are now bequeathing for future generations is a natural environment whose lushness has disappeared completely, altered and degraded. This is due to canals that have been dredged, rivers and rivulets that have been blocked, streams and ponds that have silted to make way for oil drilling and exploitation. The resulting scenario is mass migration of fish species, destroying traditional livelihood systems. We now have polluted fresh water streams and rivers, fresh water vegetation completely wiped out by salt water encroachment caused by a combination of dredging and high tidal currents resulting from melting ice in the Arctic. The consequences of all these changes in the natural environment are poverty and frustration, resulting in tribes lashing out at one another or at the multi national corporations.

The Physical Environment

Our generation inherited a physical environment that was characterized by natural clean long stretch of sand beaches, fresh and healthy water lettuce that add their beauty and flavor to the environment. It is sad to say that we are bequeathing to our children an environment that is completely eroded or silted in some cases. We are bequeathing communities whose shorelines have been washed away or eroded due to the high volume of deep-sea exploration and exploitation activities. Once hilly and highland environments have been reduced to below sea level. Navigable creeks which once supported socio-economic activities among local dwellers have been silted with dredge dump, washed top surface soil arising from erosion and blocked canal of water ways to make way for oil activities; thus making them difficult for navigation.

We are beginning to find deserts in the delta due to pollution and oil spills, or forests that have been wiped out by bush fires caused by spills of petroleum products from aged or burst pipelines. The situation continues to reduce the land available for farming and infrastructural development. This has created unhealthy competition for available land space, further heightening cases of land related conflicts.

Our skylines are lit up with flares from gas, fumes and smoke associated with gas flare. In some of our communities it is difficult to differentiate between day and night.

Social Environment

The social safety nets of extended family system, communal labour, and communal ownership have broken or been replaced by greedy self-seeking and self-promoting values. I remember growing up as a child in the very strong sense of community that sustained peace and security for the environment.

There was this particular occasion, in 1971 when a stranger passerby pulled into our community in one of the evenings with a very small canoe. The stranger was in the middle of his small canoe, sitting on top of a huge red snapper because he does not want the fish to escape. Immediately when he got to our village he started asking who had set the fishing trap to the south of our community, and my elder sister came out and said, I am the one.

He pulled into our waterfront and said, please come take this fish, I saw it in one of your traps, it was almost escaping so I decided to rescue it and look for the owner. My mother was so moved by the act of courage, honesty and kindness that she told the stranger that he should wait so that they can butcher the fish to enable him to have some portion of the fish. As far as mama was concerned, the fish would have escaped from the trap, but for the resilience of the human spirit of honesty and kindness displayed by the man that rescued the fish. The man simply said, mama thank you for your kind gesture, but let it be next time because my journey is far before I get to my final destination, the portion would have decayed.

In another incident my mother lost her boat with the entire foodstuff she had bought for sale because the boat was not well tied to the shore. The next morning we went out looking for mama’s boat and her foodstuff. If you like, call it going out to search for mama’s shop or stall, because that mobile boat was the shop we had. In every community we got to, we would ask whether they found the boat or not. We finally located mama’s shop at the 8th community from our own. A hunter who had gone out in the night from that community found this strange boat shop and decided to take it to his water front hoping that the owner would show up. When we got there the entire content of mama’s shop boat was intact. The man did not remove a pin. My mother thanked him and we took our shop boat back without paying a dime.

The most exciting aspect of it was that the man even gave a portion from a bush pig he had killed that night, saying that mama’s shop boat brought him good luck that night. He claimed that for the past one week he had been going hunting without success, but that when he saw mama’s floating shop boat, he decided to bring it ashore and tie it firmly to his water front. He then decided to continue his hunting, and that not quite two kilometers away he ran into these bush pigs which by his explanation were mating and he was lucky to kill one of them, but the second one escaped. So not only did we recover our shop boat and its contents, we also had a very fresh portion of bush pig for meal that day.

These were the social settings that existed in our communities then. Communities that were driven by deep values of kindness, honesty and transparency, a communal philosophy of giving and sharing, where the haves have and keep for, on behalf of the whole not self. Societies where you could go to bed with your doors open; houses where there were no doors.

But today caution has been thrown to the wind and people brazenly even appropriate to self that which belongs to all. The social formations now create societies where some live in squalor and abject poverty, while others live in affluence at the expense of the whole. Today words that were alien to our lexicon have started to find their way into dominant pages. We now hear of sea piracy, hostage taking and kidnapping targeted at locals and strangers, highway and sea way robbery, heavily armed criminal gangs in our water ways who wreak all sorts of havoc, all in the name of the Niger Delta struggle. There is no longer trust for one another, not even at the community level.

Religious /Traditional Environment

The clash of traditional and western cultures, religions and belief systems also has opened up sacred shrines and places of worship for drilling and exploration for oil. Ancient landmarks have been pulled down and in some cases destroyed. We are now like a people without a past.

Legal Environment

By decrees, oil and gas became owned by the federal government, and progressively the region’s entitlements by way of derivation-based allocations declined from 50% to a mere 1½% in 1984 and later 3% in 1999 (Augustine Ekelegbe, The Economy of Conflict in the Oil Rich Niger Delta Region, p. 214).

The Northern hegemony taking advantage of military dictatorship began a regime of near total appropriation of the region’s oil resources through an intense over centralization and concentration of power and resources in the federal government. Oil resources were a major target. Various decrees and enactments were made to completely take away control of oil from the locals.

Under the Petroleum Act 1969, the entire ownership and control of all oil and gas in place within any land in Nigeria, under its territorial waters and the continental shelf, is vested in the state of Nigeria. The Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 further emphasized the state ownership in section 40(3), which provides that "the entire property in and control of all mineral oils and natural gas in, under or upon the territorial waters and the Exclusive Economic Zone of Nigeria shall vest in the Government of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, and shall be managed in such manner as may be established by law."

The implication of these laws is that the land available to the locals or people in the Niger Delta is further taken away from them on a daily basis as more oil is found in the land. As the land space gets smaller the struggle for its ownership and control increases and at the same time potential conflict over ownership of land increases.

The Local and International Economic Environment

Nigeria is a major player in the world energy market. It is the seventh largest producer of oil in the world. It supplies a fifth of United States oil imports. It is further becoming an important supplier in the global liquefied natural gas (LNG) market. Instability in world oil supplies and the critical link of oil to the international economy has made Nigerian and more generally African oil to be more strategic than ever.

The irony is that the local economic environment is determined and driven by powers and economic forces that transcend beyond our borders - the IMF, the World Bank, Paris Club, Creditors Club, and so on.

We do not have any control over the oil we produce, the quantity to be produced, the price at which to sell, who to sell to and at what price to refine it. Nor do we have the powers to determine at what price we should sell to ourselves.

Other factors at the fore of regional conflicts are strong economic considerations, desperation and the need to amass wealth. Economies of crisis and war in the region have largely been underpinned by greed and high levels of corruption. There is also the profiting from conflicts by youth militias, rebels, armed gangs and even government soldiers. This involves plundering, bunkering, looting, and extortion, imposition of tolls, and robbery of local people, traders and farmers. Most youth militias are driven by the opportunity to acquire properties and riches. The economy underpins an extensive proliferation of arms and the pervasiveness of crime, violence and communal/ethnic conflicts.

The challenges of creating and ensuring access to these benefits have fuelled a deadly struggle among the ethnic and community leaderships, the elites, businessmen and politicians, youths, women and various other groups in the region. It has also fuelled deadly and violent conflicts as each group struggles to prove their relevance and capacity to disrupt the oil economy.

Individuals and groups struggle to control and dominate access and actual opportunities and benefits. The emerging greed, corruption and distributive conflicts underpin numerous incidents of community disturbances and criminal violence in the region.

Ibeanu (2002: 165) describes the situation as a ‘matrix of concentric circles of payoffs and rewards built on blackmail and violence.’ He continues:

The closer a person is to the centre, the greater his/her capacity to blackmail oil companies and therefore the greater his/her payoff. In time, members of the raucous inner circle fade away in a whimper and silence as a new core of vocal community leaders emerge: more blackmail, more payoffs.

Historical / Political Environment

The history of protests and conflicts of acrimony by the Niger Delta peoples against forced union and exploitation dates back to 1957 when testimonies were made in respect thereof before the Willink Commission of Inquiry into Minority Fears. What were those fears? They were fears of marginalization, neglect and the politics of exclusion, by the ethnic majority-based ruling political parties and governments of the then Eastern and Western Regions. Subsequently, several protests and clamors for justice have been registered to no avail.

Characteristically, both military and civilian governments have ignored clamors for equitable remedies, and forcibly smothered protests through use of overwhelming military might and other documented acts of state sanction and political violence.

The prevailing concept of federalism in Nigeria today falls short of expectations in both definition and practice. To the extent that it is being practiced as quasi-federalism, there has been an overly centralized control of resources by the Federal Government. This aberration continues to generate perpetual conflicts with indigenous rights; hence, it has become a major cause of conflicts in the Niger Delta Region, especially from notorious derivation principles for revenue allocation to states in the region.

The Way Forward

• Institutions of government and development interventionist agencies should, as a matter of urgency, fast track the process of environment remediation and ecosystem restoration.
• The issue of transparency and accountability should be taken more seriously.
• Legislations, decrees and enactments that are disempowering should be reviewed and where necessary abrogated as they continue to serve as an impediment to peace and security.
• Development priorities should be set by local communities.
• Local community participation in the resource mobilization, management and allocation should be given the attention it deserves. At least 30% of oil revenue should go directly to oil bearing communities.
• The political process should be made transparent and fair for free entry and exit of those with integrity and men whose vision and values are driven by the desire to serve not to be served.

• This paper was presented at the Niger Delta Environmental Roundtable at the Hotel Presidential Port Harcourt November 16, 2006.

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

Reference:
[1] Augustine Ikelegbe - The Economy of Conflict in the Oil Rich Niger Delta Region
[2] Oke Ibeanu - Oiling the Friction; Environmental Conflict Management in the Niger Delta of Nigeria
[3] CYRIL Obi - Globalised Images of Environmental Security in Africa
[4] Actionaid - Policy Watch (Perspective on Peace Building)
[5] UNDP - Niger Delta Human Development Report
[6] Actionaid - Conflict and Human Security
[7] Joel Bisina - Oil and Corporate Recklessness in Nigeria
[8] Dr. Walter Abeng Mboto - Regional Resources Versus Environmental Conflict in the Niger Delta.
[9] Zak Harmon- World Bank, Big Oil and the Niger Delta.

In the bubble of the American media universe, we are protected from many news stories the whole rest of the world knows about. If we paid close attention on World AIDS Day we do know for instance, that 40 million people now carry the HIV virus worldwide. 25 million are dead from it, with 3 million more deaths each year, and 5 million new infections occurred in 2005 alone. But one thing we might not know is that something less than half the planet's HIV-AIDS cases receive any treatment at all.

The 1st Horn of Africa Regional Environment Meeting was opened here yesterday (4 December 2006) to officially announce a plan to establish the Horn of Africa Regional Environment Network and Centre. Opening the meeting' Coordinator Dr. Araya Asfaw of the Addis Ababa University said that the objective of the meeting was to exchange knowledge and experience among professionals of the region in the field and to officially launch the network.

The recently concluded United Nations Climate Change Conference in Nairobi, Kenya adopted a wide range of decisions designed to mitigate climate change and help countries adapt to the effects of global warming. The conference that was attended by more than 100 ministers, the Secretary-General of the United Nations Kofi Annan, two heads of state and a host of participants delivered on its promise to support the needs of developing countries as revealed by the conference president and Kenyan minister for Natural Resources and Environment Kivutha Kibwana.

Britain’s Department for International Development (DFID) has channelled over £30 million of its aid through an institution designed to pay consultants to push privatisation in poor countries according to a report released today (Sunday 26 November 2006) by the World Development Movement.

We, the members of the African Solidarity team visiting Zimbabwe from seven African countries, express our strong support to all the citizens and civil society of Zimbabwe who are struggling to realize their fundamental human rights such as freedom of expression, association and assembly and the enjoyment of economic, social and cultural rights.

The Great Iroko has Moved On: Joseph Ki-Zerbo, 1922 – 2006

The Council for the development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) regrets to announce the death in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, on 04 December, 2006, of one of Africa’s most illustrious citizen-intellectuals, the incomparable Joseph Ki- Zerbo.

Academic historian of the very first order, life-long pan- Africanist by instinct and by choice, unrelenting crusader for social change and justice, untiring advocate of African collective self-reliance, teacher to at least three generations of African social researchers, an unflagging source of inspiration to many who were lucky to encounter him, a great example in selfless service to the community, the giant Iroko, king of the tropical rain forest, standing tall in dignity and majesty: That was the quintessential Ki-Zerbo who, after 84 years of sojourn amongst us, has now moved on, leaving his indelible foot prints in the sand of time – all time – and challenging us, in honour of his memory, to take the baton with courage and commitment until Africa is truly liberated.

Born to a father who was reputed to be the first convert to Christianity in the area that was known at the time as Upper Volta, Ki-Zerbo was to define an early and unambiguous trajectory for himself as a committed historian with a deep and abiding interest in the twin projects of democracy and development in Africa. As a young academic, he invested himself in the study of the history of Africa, helping through his original works both to enrich the historical method and to challenge the fallacies of the day about Africa, not least among them, the widespread racist discourse of the period that Africa had no history. Together with other nationalist historians of the time, they were to build a corpus of literature that came to constitute the core of African History as a field of knowledge, complete with its methods and tools.

An important part of that effort was to be synthesized into the UNESCO General History of Africa of which he was a directing editor. But his role as a doyen of African historians also included the dedication of his time to the construction of the institutional basis of the production and reproduction of historical knowledge in and about Africa. His paramount role in the building of the African Association of Historians was but one of his engagements in this regard.

For Ki-Zerbo, retrieving and documenting the history of Africa may have been an important pre-occupation to which he applied himself completely. But in and of itself, it was not sufficient if that history – its high points and low moments – did not serve as a point of departure for the creation of an autonomous foundation for the political, economic, social and cultural emancipation of Africa and its peoples. And it was in this pre-occupation that he came to immerse himself as scholar and activist, in the struggles for national liberation, democracy, social justice and development, doing so without any apologies to those who might have felt that he went too far beyond his scholarly calling to immerse himself in local and global political contestations.

Thus it was that he was to assume various roles at the same time: prolific university professor, indefatigable activist in various social movements, party leader – mostly in opposition – and, ultimately, conscience of the African nation: That was the inimitable Ki-Zerbo, a man who was passionate about his convictions and who was prepared to pay the price when it became necessary, including leaving his professorial post in France to volunteer in the newly independent state of Guinea under a Sekou Toure who had successfully mobilized the populace to reject Charles de Gaulle’s neo-colonial project of an enlarged French federation; he was also to spend time in exile from Burkina Faso in the 1980s.

Few were the intellectuals of Ki-Zerbo’s generation who emerged to become a living encyclopedia of human history, including detailed recollections of many landmark events in the 20th century history of Africa and the world which he himself witnessed first hand or participated in directly. He had formal and informal sessions with many of the leaders of the African independence project, including Kwame Nkrumah, Sekou Toure, Frantz Fanon, Modibo Keita, Amilcar Cabral, Jomo Kenyatta, Tom Mboya, and Julius Nyerere, to cite a few.

He shared in all the key debates on the future of pan- Africanism as independence dawned, as well as in the reflections that occurred on the development alternatives that the continent could explore. But through all these experiences, he never sullied his reputation for intellectual integrity and personal honesty, a fact which earned him a moral high ground to reproach – publicly and privately – the first generation nationalists as many of them began to abandon the ideals of nationalism in pursuit of personal projects of power maximization. His voice was the voice of authority and throughout his life, as the first generation leaders gave way to succeeding generations, he reserved his right, exercised in his uniquely magisterial manner, to counsel, to remind, to criticize and to condemn as the need arose.

The membership of CODESRIA was fortunate to enjoy glimpses of the rich experience embodied in Ki-Zerbo when he delivered one of the three keynote addresses to mark the grand finale conference of the
30th anniversary celebrations of the Council in December 2003 in Dakar, Senegal. It was also an occasion at which, in recognition of his contribution, he was honoured by the African social research community with a life membership of CODESRIA, alongside Archie Mafeje, Ngugi wa Thiong’o and Ali Mazrui.

None amongst the nearly 500 African scholars who were assembled in Dakar for his speech left the venue of the conference without feeling inspired as much by the richness and clarity of his message as by the coherence and lucidity with which, despite his nearly 82 years, he delivered his message: That was our Joseph Ki-Zerbo, the ageless Iroko who, for the African social research community, was the mentor for all seasons. But, beyond Africa too, he was also celebrated as a rare gift to humanity as evidenced by the many laurels he won, including the Alternative Nobel Prize awarded by grassroots social movements to distinguished world figures.

We can only be grateful as an institution that in the last month of his life, and with the support of his widow, Josephine, and children, CODESRIA was given the privilege of recording interviews with him on his life, his work, his times as part of the Council’s initiative documenting the contributions of leading African scholars in a digital format that could become a veritable pedagogical tool for present and future generations. Ki-Zerbo and his family could not have given the CODESRIA membership and the wider African social research community a better gift to bequeath to the world.

And now, as we express our regret that he has had to move on, we also feel inspired to celebrate his life and to rejoice that while he lived, Joseph Ki-Zerbo, was among us and we were the happier for it. For, truly great scholars of his standing are rare - and human beings do not come better than him.

Long live Joseph Ki-Zerbo.

Members of CODESRIA interested in sending messages of support and solidarity to the Ki-Zerbo family are invited to do so by e-mail to:[email protected] and the Council will arrange to have their messages delivered.

The 7th World Social Forum will be held in Nairobi, Kenya from January 20th - 25th, 2007 at Moi International Sports Centre, Kasarani. This is an important event that will bring the world to Africa. Activists, Social and Labour Movements, Networks, Coalitions and other progressive forces from Asia-Pacific, Latin America, the Caribbean, North America, Europe and all corners of Africa will converge in Nairobi, Kenya for five days of cultural resistance and celebration, panels, workshops, symposia, processions, film nights and much more.

Despite the importance that the country's trade union movement attaches to this event, we as leaders in the Trade Union movement have been kept at bay as far as the planning and organization of the event is concerned.

The World Social Forum's anti-capitalist and neo-liberal globalization agenda carries with it the workers' aspirations and it will be a futile exercise for anybody to dare believe that such an event could be organized, planned and executed without its core subjects, namely the workers.

SADC specialists in the field of statistics analysed on Tuesday (5 December 2006), in Luanda, the problem of the dependence of this activity on international technical assistance, concerning the new and not so frequently used technologies.

When Peter Ulanga was invited to visit Brazil, last year, he knew that something was going to change in the management of dot Tz country code Top Level Domain (ccTLD). Ulanga, and a colleague, Peter Shilla, benefited from training offered by the Brazilian government on management of domain name registries using open source software.

Mpho is a 24 year old lesbian identified woman who was raped last October and as a result is now HIV+. She discovered she was positive in April this year and started on ARVs in August because her CD4 count was very low at 90. Like many women in a similar position in South Africa, Mpho is struggling not only with additional medical complications such as diabetes and thyroid problems but the side affect of the drugs, the stigma and having to find the sheer mental will to get through each day. In this interview she talks about how being raped and contracting HIV has impacted on her life. She also discusses her dreams for the future of being a photo journalist and living her life.

Joseph Kabila has been sworn in as the Democratic Republic of Congo's first freely elected leader as fighting continued in the east of the country. At least 12,000 people have fled across the border into southwest Uganda to escape clashes between government forces and rebel soldiers, a Ugandan army spokesman said.

Rebels in Chad have attacked government positions at Guereda, in the far east of the country close to the border with Sudan. Fighting began early in the afternoon when a rebel coalition including the Rally of Democratic Forces [RAFD] and three other groups attacked soldiers in the area, a military source said on Friday (1 December 2006).

Tension has mounted in El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur State in western Sudan, amid fears that rebels may launch an offensive on government forces being reinforced to defend the town, humanitarian sources said on Tuesday (5 December 2006). Militias attacked the cattle market on Monday and clashed with former rebels of the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA), according to African Union (AU) sources.

The last edition of Pambazuka News carried an interesting and challenging article (entitled ‘HIV/AIDS in Northern Uganda: A New War’, about efforts to address HIV/AIDS in Uganda in the context of war.

The experience of 'resource-poor' settings in turning around desperation and hopelessness into a prospect of life fulfilled is inspiring indeed. While acknowledging the very serious challenges, these 'rooted' accounts are important to counter the disillusionment and despair generated by images of "Darkness on the Continent" type of claims.

However, in closing the narrative, Odoi Charles of TASO is cited as saying: “We are now going to begin another war: the HIV/AIDS war.” In fact, this provides the title to the article.

So, this got me thinking. War metaphors are very, very common when people talk about addressing the HIV/AIDS epidemic. But do we need a 'war' to address HIV? Is a 'war-like' approach the best way to conceive of responses to HIV? What does a 'war' imply? And, ultimately, do the words used to describe our efforts matter?

If you think about 'war', it is really a signal of the failure of peoples and states to manage conflict. We resort to violence because other options are either not available or are perceived to be ineffective. It is the ultimate expression of power in unequal societies.

And, furthermore, what happens in war is the complete suspension of the rights we consider protected outside of war. The consequences for health and well-being are huge, such that the international community has fashioned humanitarian law to serve as 'rules of war' to protect innocent and vulnerable people. In practice, we know that these rules are abused, misused, ignored, or sometime, simply don't work for certain kinds of conflicts. Only non-derogable human rights are protected from a state of emergency declared during a war but many, many rights are suspended when national security is threatened.

So, should we want a 'war' on HIV/AIDS? And, if we have a 'war' on HIV/AIDS, does the notion of making 'war' constrain or shape our efforts in ways that we may not really want?

Well, let's think about HIV/AIDS as a social dilemma/conflict. Have we exhausted all the 'peaceful' non-warlike methods to address HIV/AIDS? Why are our efforts not effective? In principle, I think it's the lack of political leadership and willingness to tackle serious economic and social injustice that underlies our failures in regard to HIV/AIDS. So, whom should we wage 'war' on? Do we wage war on the political leadership who have not provided the will to do what is needed? I suspect that is not what is being marshalled when activists and governments lay claim to making 'war' on AIDS.

Do we wage war on a virus? Or on the people whose (wanton) behaviour is judged to spread the epidemic? The former is not a form of war that makes any social sense and the latter would be deeply counter to our commitments to human rights and respect for human dignity. So, what does waging 'war' on HIV/AIDS potentially do? It provides us with a sense that there is an enemy and we can join in fighting that (unspecified) enemy, but it doesn't really speak to the underlying power inequalities that drive the HIV/AIDS epidemic. In fact, a government or elite whose policies are fuelling the epidemic can invoke the rhetoric of 'war' to harness a range of social forces to a seemingly benign project (often a national project), when, in fact, the war does not address the real power imbalance that drives the epidemic.

Secondly, in wars, we suspend human rights because of the extreme measures we are forced to take for survival. If we are waging a 'war' on HIV/AIDS, do we suspend rights to privacy, to confidentiality, to freedom from discrimination in the interests of this greater good? The language of 'war' and 'fight' and 'battle' are all about power exercised in ways that are potentially harmful, justified by a utilitarian calculation. But if we want to provide a rights-based approach to HIV, these analogies are all painfully wrong.

I believe that at some level, this preoccupation with the 'war' metaphor is not just about words. It is also about how people unconsciously see the epidemic and what needs to be done. A war is not a space where you guarantee access to health care, or respect for human dignity. It allows unspeakable things to be done to other humans in the name of security and state interests. I think it is part of the cognitive dissonance that political leadership sometimes exercises in viewing themselves as entirely removed from the problem, and placing themselves on the side of the solution, when in fact, they are the problem, or part of it. Having a war on your hands means you need not ask hard questions about your own accountability for human rights.

I would like to see the 'war' metaphor heaved onto a dustbin of global HIV/AIDS discourse. I think it takes us backwards, not forwards. It opens opportunities for bad practice, not good practice. It is not just about words, but about how we view struggles for social justice and human rights.

I've just returned from a trip to meet survivors of the Darfur genocide at refugee camps in Chad. What I saw horrified and saddened me, but it also inspired me.

Accompanied by acclaimed actress Mia Farrow, I travelled to the region to learn about the lives of those displaced by the violence, to tell them that the world will not forget them, and to gather their stories to share with you.

We've posted photos and documentary film footage from the trip on our web site – visit the link below to view them.

In the Gaga camp, we met refugees who had just arrived after a ten-day walk from Darfur and were too shocked to speak in anything other than three- or four-word sentences.

At the Habile camp, we met the village chief of Louboutigue whose 300-person community was still waiting for grain rations eight days after their homes were burned and their food supply looted.

In the Goz Beida hospital, we met three men whose eyes were gouged out simply for being on their own land - land that someone else wanted.

In the Djabal camp, we met a woman who showed us a terrible wound on her back, caused by a bullet that had first killed the daughter she had been carrying as she tried to escape an attack by the Janjaweed.

And yet all the people we met believed that the world community would end the violence and allow them to recover their lives and return to their homes.

We met real people struggling to get through each day, grinding grain, and taking care of children. The children wanted to meet us and play with us. The adults had smiles for us. Most of all, they wanted us to tell the world that they were waiting to go home.

We must not let them down.

Upon our return, Mia Farrow and I held a briefing with media in Washington to share our experiences along with photos and video footage from Chad. The briefing and footage were also distributed by satellite to international media outlets to tell the stories of the people we met.

Please use the link below to visit our web site to see photos and film footage from our trip and the press briefing. Then share these stories in your communities so the people of Darfur can go home.

The Transitional Justice Institute, in conjunction with the School of Law, offers an LLM in Human Rights Law. The LLM in Human Rights Law covers both core human rights law but also has an emphasis on transitional justice issues. This new and innovative programme commenced in September 2005 and has attracted a broad range of students, both international and local.