Africa, which has the highest number of HIV infections in the world, must scale up its prevention efforts to reverse this trend, according to the president of the African Union Commission, Alpha Oumar Konare. "The responsibility of HIV prevention is not the one of the World Health Organization [WHO] or of UNAIDS. It is ours - we all have to commit ourselves to that," Konare said. Konare was speaking on the occasion of the official launch of the year of "The Acceleration of Prevention of HIV Initiative in the African Region", an initiative of African health ministers aimed at stepping up the pace of HIV prevention on the continent.

It is true what Gerald Caplan has said (See . But unless we individualy wake up and put an end to these wars we will not win. It is up to us - the African race - to wake up and cultivate a sense of togetherness, a feeling of brotherhood and reconciliation with one another.

Like the war in Darfur which has displaced many, I strongly believe that Africans themselves will end it and not people from outside Darfur. We do not need so much the help of the international community but the African leaders and the people of that region. The resources of reconciliation lies within our reach.

If we cultivate an environment where we recognize that we are Africans fighting one another, we will see the common enemy and fight it with all our energies. We will therefore be in a position to fight such ills inflicted on our society such has poverty, disease and under-development. I would like therefore to say that the African leaders and we in general, will turn the tables only if we are part of the reconciliation and not sitting on the edge of the fence leaving everything to the international community.

The unsung heroes of public interest computing may soon receive much more of the recognition they deserve, thanks to a new annual competition launched by the Florence and Frances Family Fund, a donor-advised fund at Tides Foundation.

On the occasion of the World Urban Forum, IDRC is organizing a photo competition seeking photos that show us the thousands of creative ways people living in cities of the South or the developed world are tackling the challenges of urban living.

Activists lobbying for democratic reform in Swaziland have vowed to push ahead with their campaign, even though several of them were temporarily detained this week for blocking the five border posts between South Africa and Swaziland. "We'll meet with our counterparts in Swaziland to chart a way forward. We are right now consulting with each other and we will agree on a date for mass action as soon as we can," Bongani Masuku, secretary general of the Johannesburg-based Swaziland Solidarity Network, a non-governmental organisation, told IPS.

“It is … right and indeed necessary that women should be engaged in … decision-making processes in all areas, with equal strength and in equal numbers.” These are the words of United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan in his speech to mark this year's International Women's Day which was celebrated on March 8. For a number of years the United Nations has been planning and implementing reforms to improve its effectiveness. However, current initiatives to reform the UN have women wondering if the organization is not merely paying lip service to the principle of gender equality.

A proposed blueprint for a radical restructuring of the United Nations as envisaged by outgoing Secretary-General Kofi Annan has fallen short of its target in one specific area: gender empowerment. As the 191 member states get ready to discuss the political nuances and economic implications of Annan's recently-released landmark report on UN reform, there is an increasingly vociferous demand to rectify the gender shortcoming by creating a separate UN agency to deal with women's issues.

Africa’s anti-graft watchdogs have called on various governments to expedite action on tracing, recovery and repatriation of wealth stolen from African countries. This decision was contained in a joint statement issued at the end of a two-day regional meeting in Nairobi by representatives of Transparency International (TI) from seven African countries.

The loss of wetlands around the world is forcing wild birds that may have avian influenza onto alternative sites like farm ponds and paddy fields, where they come into contact with chickens, ducks, and geese, finds a new report commissioned by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). Restoring the tens of thousands of lost and degraded wetlands could help reduce the threat of an avian flu pandemic by providing wild birds with their preferred habitat, according to the report authored by Dr. David Rapport of Canada.

A carbon "tax" will raise £100,000 across government departments in the UK to compensate for the 10,000 tons of carbon dioxide caused by extra air travel associated with Britain's presidency of the G8 and the summit at Gleneagles last year, The UK-based The Independent newspaper reports. The money will go towards environment projects in the developing world over the next three years to offset the harmful effects of the air travel by G8 leaders, but that is seen as a small sum to pay for global warming.

An African student was fatally shot last Friday with a weapon bearing a swastika symbol, raising the hate crime murder toll in St. Petersburg to six in seven months. The fifth year student of the St. Petersburg State University of Telecommunications, Lamzer Samba, 28, from Senegal died instantly of two bullet wounds when he was shot from behind by an unidentified man in the early morning on his way home from the Apollo nightclub where he and his friends had been celebrating the university’s anniversary.

When same gender loving (SGL) and ''bisexual'' Africans stop writing about ''African homosexual liberation'' in blatantly colonial-minded ways, and have more of an African liberatory/affirmation agenda parallel to their desire for safe acknowledgement in their country - they **might** have more effective results.

This article by Jacob Rukweza sounds like the voice of a colonized African homosexual who is using Europe - an abuser, disrupter and exploiter of ''Zimbabwe'' - as a frame of reference in terms of identity as he critiques his own people. I do not mean to imply that Rukweza's complaints are not justified, but he is confronting people, his people, who are still deep in the difficult throws of resurrecting themselves from being disrupted by White/European brutality. Just like in Black America, the group is still trying to reconstruct its manhood, its independence, its self-determination - which is still threatened by colonial/racist forces.

Also missing from Rukweza's story – as is typical among most gay identity advocates in Black American and African communities – is acknowledgement of the sexual exploitation of African males and boys by White Europeans taking place all over the Diaspora (This contributes to hatred for homosexuals throughout the Caribbean). How this also contributes to African discomfort (and humiliation) with ''gay'' is frequently left out.

An approach to homosexual rights in Africa that is framed in colonial constructs i.e. gay/lesbian identity/politics, that does not explicitly acknowledge African post colonial struggle, will never work. As it has not worked, similarly, in America's Black communities. The so-called Black gay movement was/is mired in anti-Black behavior and often headed up by gay identified Black men who exclusively had White partners. This was an assault even on many of the Black homosexuals who desperately relied on it for sexual empowerment. Anti-Black and bourgeoisie tendencies in this ''movement' today still compromises its credibility and effectiveness.

If we really are or were a part of African history, culture and experience, we need to act like we have respect for and honor that. We need to stop attempting to force feed homosexuality in European/colonial drag (politics) down the throats of our ambivalent communities who justifiably wonder if this ''gay stuff'' is just another symptom of or a weapon to compromise African people.

Last week the world remembered the 12th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide. Gerald Caplan argues that understanding about the real causes of the genocide remains limited, while the world’s superpowers continue to act in their own self-interest when it comes to other genocides.

Twelve years after perhaps a million defenseless Rwandans were slaughtered for the sin of being Tutsi, Rwanda's genocide has at last become widely known. As people around the world commemorate this week the 12th anniversary of the genocide, the phrase "Another Rwanda" joins the wildly ignored "Never Again!" to reflect the world's apparent abhorrence of genocide—the ultimate crime of crimes. Anyone who thinks this augurs well for the future of humankind is dead wrong.

There are three critical realities that both these neat little phrases obscure: Few really understand what actually happened in Rwanda in 1994. A pernicious campaign to deny that genocide continues to unfold. And it IS happening again before our eyes.

Thanks to a modest production of movies, documentaries and books since the 10th anniversary, the genocide is far better known now than it was even while it was at its bloodiest. Far and away the most important vehicle has been the mainstream film "Hotel Rwanda", seen by millions and widely available on CD. The problem is what these large audiences learned from "Hotel Rwanda." Yes, it made clear that the minority Tutsi people were attacked viciously by the majority Hutu and that the world at large failed to intervene.

Yet the lasting impression surely is that some Hutu Africans were sadistically massacring some Tutsi Africans for no good reason. No one viewing the film alone would have grasped that this was no mere barbaric tribal eruption based on primitive ancient hatreds. This was a carefully planned and executed conspiracy by a group of sophisticated, westernized, greedy men and women for the purpose of ensuring their continued power and privileges. That's not a savage African phenomenon - that's a universal human phenomenon.

Nor is the critical, destructive role of outside forces evident in "Hotel Rwanda". No viewer would learn that the hatred between the two groups had largely been invented and inculcated over a century ago by the powerful Roman Catholic Church in Rwanda. They'd know nothing of the responsibility of the Belgian government for the deep, ultimately deadly, division between Hutu and Tutsi. They'd be blissfully unaware that the government of France was complicit in the genocide and has never to this day accepted any responsibility. Indeed, without a century of western interference, there'd have been no genocide as we know it. And had western governments cared one iota, they could easily have prevented the entire genocidal conspiracy from being executed. The world knows everything about Rwanda except what really matters.

What's even worse are the insidious forces at work that brazenly deny that there ever was a genocide launched by Hutu extremists against the Tutsi. Another unwelcome lesson in human nature: There are always deniers. There are always David Irvings and Ernst Zundels, who for their own sordid or pathological motives deny what can't be doubted. In Rwanda's case, it's an unholy coalition of Hutu genocidaires who want to complete the extermination of the Tutsi, whites in Belgian and France who had privileged access to the pre-genocide Hutu government, conservative Christian politicians in Europe, and a motley cast of characters around the world (including Canadians) with diverse, perverse, sometimes inexplicable motives.

For the survivors of 1994, and for the families of the victims, denial creates a second unbearable hurt, making an already difficult healing process far more painful and prolonged. And it's all based on lies and distortions. The evidence is overwhelming and irrefutable: To deny the genocide of the Tutsi in Rwanda is the equivalent of denying the Holocaust, and all who do so should be treated accordingly.

Finally, despite Rwanda, there remains Darfur. To commemorate the 10th anniversary of the Rwanda genocide, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan called on the world to assure that Darfur, the besieged western area of Sudan, doesn't become "another Rwanda". Unlike Rwanda, all the world knows what's happening in Darfur, so the excuse of ignorance, as in Rwanda, doesn't hold. Unlike Rwanda, Darfur has been formally labeled a genocide by the Bush administration and both Houses of the American Congress.

Yet three years since the Darfur crisis erupted, the world's reaction has been pitiful. The all-powerful permanent members of the Security Council - China, Russia, the US, France - have perfectly good reasons of crass self-interest to allow hundreds of thousands of Darfurians to die, countless women raped, millions forced to flee to squalid camps. Three years after it exploded, the situation in Darfur continues to deteriorate drastically. "Another Rwanda", indeed.

What are the real lessons of Rwanda and Darfur? They are surely inescapable. Those of us who demand interventions on humanitarian grounds - in Rwanda, Darfur, northern Uganda - will continue to be ignored. When western powers do intervene, we can be sure that dubious geopolitical and hegemonic interests are the driving force. We'll have many more Rwandas; we can count on it.

* Gerald Caplan has written frequently about the Rwandan genocide and genocide prevention.

* Please send comments to

Fifty-four women from 21 African countries, meeting in Johannesburg to discuss women's rights and HIV/AIDS, have issued a statement expressing concern about the Jacob Zuma rape trial. Zuma, the former deputy president of South Africa, has been charged with rape following allegations by a 31-year-old HIV-positive woman. The trial has been characterized by ugly scenes outside the court building, with Khwezi, as the complainant has been nicknamed by her supporters, being abused and insulted by supporters of Zuma.

We, 54 women from 21 African countries representing 41 national, regional and international women's organizations in Africa; comprising of HIV and AIDS organizations, feminist associations and human rights institutions, meeting in Johannesburg, South Africa between April 6 and 7, 2006 to formulate advocacy positions on women's rights in the context of HIV and AIDS are outraged at the direction that the rape trial of the deputy President of the African National Congress, ANC, Jacob Zuma is taking. We find the conduct of the defence lawyers, the media, the courts and the police dishonorable.

1. We have been and continue to be affected by the twin epidemics of Violence Against Women and HIV and AIDS in various ways. Many of us are living with HIV, provide care and support to members of our families and communities who are infected with HIV and living with AIDS. We have either as young girls, or in our adult life, survived violent crimes committed against us by men in powerful positions within our families and in our communities. Some of us remember those women who have been senselessly murdered through acts of violence committed at home, at work and at school. We know that women are often raped by men who are known to them.

2. We take this opportunity to publicly state that we stand in solidarity with Khwezi. We applaud her brave stance in reporting her experience to the police and in standing before the courts to name her violation. Khwezi has shown respect for the mechanisms that exist in South Africa to report and resolve crimes. Confronting powerful men in powerful positions is a difficult and courageous task. We wish her, all of South Africa and the world to know that she has our love and our support.

3. We are outraged by the horrific and unethical victimization Khwezi has received in and through the mainstream broadcast and print media. She has been vilified by a form of reporting that is biased and blatantly sexist. We are noting those sectors of the media that continue to serve as judge and jury through the lens of the mass media, conferring guilt on Khwezi through inappropriate coverage of her HIV status, her dress, and her sexual past based on violations committed during her childhood.

4. We are angered by the inaction of the police, who, rather than provide a safe environment for Khwezi, have left thousands of Zuma's supporters to burn underwear and images of Khwezi outside the courts in ghastly acts of hatred and intimidation. We believe that the Commissioner of Police has continued to permit what amounts to public violence to unfold in the vicinity of the courts. Where he could have ensured a peaceful atmosphere prevailed, he has let Khwezi suffer dramatically brutal acts of bullying in her journey to and from the courts.

5. We are offended by the manner in which Jacob Zuma has manipulated traditional Zulu practice and custom. We are also outraged by Zuma's admitted attempts to abuse Zulu culture by seeking to buy off Khwezi and her mother with a few fattened cows. It makes women seem like a bag of meat that can be humped and the issue settled by trading a few cattle as marriage negotiation. This tactic of invoking customary options is a manipulative affront to a continent that daily struggles with notions of barbarism and primitivism in a global world that is built on racist and unequal frames and that believes that Africans cannot respect human rights.

6. Given the irresponsible and inaccurate remarks made by Jacob Zuma with respect to risk of HIV transmission and the infamous shower, we call for the dismantling of the South African National Aids Council (SANAC) as it is evidently a vehicle of misinformation and miseducation that permits the abuse of political power rather than meeting its statutory mandate with respect to HIV prevention, treatment and care.

7. Opening up the sexual violations Khewzi experienced as a five year old or thirteen year old child to the scrutiny of the courts is improper. These are incidents that happened when she was a minor who needed protection. It is unfair to present them as part of the present case history.

8. South Africa prides itself as a democracy whose Constitution promotes and protects women's human rights and freedoms from sexual violations. It prides itself on promoting and protecting the rights of women and people living with HIV and AIDS. South Africa claims to have a sophisticated judiciary that is free of political and other powerful influence. We want these bold claims to hold true.

Given South Africa's pivotal role in regional and international politics, how the Zuma Rape Case is treated by the media, the courts, the police, the ruling African National Congress, the Office of the President, by Parliament, by the Human Rights Commission, by the Gender Equality Commission, by every single arm of government, will send strong signals about the Human Rights of Women in Africa in the 21st century. A century where South Africa and the other 52 nations of the African continent have adopted the Protocol to the African Charter on the Rights of Women in Africa and the Solemn Declaration on Gender Equality in Africa under the auspices of the African Union. And also where the SADC region has a Gender and Development Declaration and its Addendum on Violence against Women that has been signed by all its members including South Africa.

The women of the African continent deserve better than this. Women's rights are human rights and should not be violated under any circumstances; religious, political or cultural. Will South Africa walk its talk by upholding its Constitution and its Commitments at regional and international levels on women's rights?

Signed: Ama Kpetigo, Women in Law & Development (WILDAF), Amie Bojang-Sissoho, GAMCOTRAP, Amie Joof-cole, FAMEDEV,Beatrice Were, Uganda, Bernice Heloo, SWAA International, Bisi Adeleye-Fayemi, AWDF, Buyiswa Mhambi, Empinsweni Aids Centre, Caroline Sande, Kenya, Dawn Cavanagh, Gender AIDS Forum, Diakhoumba Gassama, Dorothy Namutamba, ICW, Ednah Bhala, Ellen Chitiyo, The Women's Trust, Ennie Chipembere, South Africa, Everjoice Win, South Africa, Faith Kasiva, COVAW – Kenya, Faiza Mohamed, Somalia, Flora Cole, WOLDDOF –GHANA, Funmi Doherty, SWAA – Nigeria, Gcebile Ndlovu, ICW, Harriet Akullu, Uganda, Helene Yinda, Switzerland, Isabella Matambanadzo, OSISA, Isatta Wuire, SWAA - Sierre Leone, Izeduwa Derex-Briggs, Nigeria, Jane Quaye, FIDA – Ghana, Joy Ngozi Ezeilo, Women's Aids Collective (WACOL), Ludfine Anyango, Kenya, Marion Stevens, South Africa, Mary Sandasi, WASN, Mary Wandia, Kenya, Matrine Chuulu, WLSA, Neelanjana Mukhia, South Africa, Sandasi Daughters, Zimbabwe, Olasunbo Odebode, Prudence Mabele, Positive Women's Network, Rouzeh Eghtessadi, Sarah Mukasa, Akina mama Wa Afrika, Shamillah Wilson, AWID, Sindi Blose, Siphiwe Hlophe, SWAPOL, Sisonke Msimang, OSISA, Tabitha Mageto, Africa, Taziona Sitamulaho, South Africa, Theo Sowa, Therese Niyondiko, Thoko Matshe, Vera Doku, AWDF, Oti Anukpe Ovrawah, National Human Rights Commission - Abuja

* Please send comments to

The 23rd International Gay & Lesbian Association (ILGA) meeting was concluded in Geneva on Monday 4th April after a week of discussions and workshops around lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues (LGBT). Africa was represented by LGBT activists from South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Uganda, Rwanda, Nigeria, Tunisia and Senegal.

The two issues that most concerned the Africa group were the homosexuality trial in Cameroon and the proposed same sex marriage law in Nigeria.

Among other issues tackled were: the case of Ugandan LGBT activist, Victor Julie Mukasa. An outline of her case and her proposed course of action was presented in a plenary session alongside with a description of The All Africa Rights Initiative (AARI) and The Coalition of African Lesbians (CAL).

On the arrest and detention of 35 men on homosexuality charges in Cameroon (11 are still in prison), Alice Nkom, the lawyer for the defendants, was present and was able to provide us with details on the background to the case and the present situation. The trial is due to start on the 21st of this month. The prisoners have been refused bail and are housed in overcrowded cells with the most violent criminals, where they are sure to be sexually assaulted. Nkom reported that there was one positive element in that the President of Cameroon, Paul Biya, has asked that people put their religious and personal beliefs aside and judge the matter on the basis of human rights. She is approaching the case from the point of view that like the Jim Crow laws of southern US which led to the Civil Rights movement and the apartheid laws of South Africa, the law being applied in the Republic of Cameroon is a violation of human rights.
Just last week, 11 female students were dismissed from their college "after confessing" to the Disciplinary Council of the school of belonging to a network of lesbians.

In the case of Nigeria, the proposed legislation which will ban any advocacy around LGBT issues – the Same Sex Marriage Prohibition Act, 2006 - has already been presented to the House of Representatives. President Obasanjo is calling for the bill to be fast tracked.

President Obasanjo urges the National Assembly to give expeditious consideration and passage to the bill. “This is because the problem has become topical and embarrassing in recent times.”The House Leader added that "the problem of homosexuality has become very disturbing in view of the increasing number of gays and lesbians in the country".

Nigerian delegates said the bill would create a climate of fear amongst the community at large and would impact on HIV counseling and testing; drive the issue of sexual identity underground; and further reduce the number of reported rape cases both for men and women. Women and girls would be even more reluctant to report rape for fear of being labelled lesbian and therefore the bill would put women at even more risk of being raped. As advocacy and support by any organisation around sexual identity will become illegal, organisations such as Alliance Rights Nigeria and SPIN will be at risk of being criminalised.

The Nigerian contingent met with a lawyer from the Nigerian Human Rights Commission (HRC) to discuss possible strategies. It was decided that the first step would be to present a document outlining the issue of LGBT in Nigeria in relation to the proposed legislation to the HRC. Another possible course of action was to take the matter to the constitutional court. The lawyer pointed out that the process would take anything from 5-10 years with no guarantee of a positive outcome. There were three considerations:

1) Innovation (no legal precedent);

2) Hostile judges and a hostile system leading to an unfavourable judgement;

3) Social perception leads to legal change and in this case the overwhelming social perception is that homosexuals are social misfits and or mental cases.

In the North, gay men are seen as being paedophiles and or pimps whilst ironically in the south many lesbians are quite open about their sexuality.

Two Africans - one transgender and one lesbian - were chosen as ILGA representatives for the continent.

On Friday night we learned that the proposed bill had been presented to the House. The following day two meetings were held to discuss how to respond. It was decided that Human Rights Watch would take the lead by contacting various international organisations and possibly the UK government to take the matter up with the Nigerian Government and President.

It was also decided to contact Bishop Desmond Tutu and possibily Nelson Mandela in the hope that they could speak directly with the President and other members of government and the Senate.

Also on Monday 4th April, representatives from some African LGBT groups accompanied by ILGA officials presented a letter protesting the current anti gay bill in Nigeria to the Nigerian Embassy in Geneva.

African organisations that participated in the conference were:

Freedom and Roam Uganda
Alliance Rights Nigeria
SPIN
Changing Attitude
The Rainbow Project
Engender
GALZ
FEW
ARC En Ciel D'Afrique

* Sokari Ekine produces the blog Black Looks,

* Please send comments to [email protected]

FEATURED: Twelve years after Rwanda, Gerald Caplan warns of many more genocides
COMMENT AND ANALYSIS:
- Fifty-four women from 21 African countries stand up for Kwezi, the complainant in the Zuma rape trial
- World Health Day 2006: New research shows massive outflow of Africa's wealth behind underdevelopment
- Four Pambazuka News readers comment on the Charles Taylor trial
- Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender activists (LGBT) meet on discriminatory Nigerian legislation and persecution of homosexuals in Cameroon
LETTERS
- Is homosexuality really “unafrican”?; Falling down in Zimbabwe; Happy 250th birthday for Pambazuka News
PAN-AFRICAN POSTCARD: Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem asks 'who can be trusted with nuclear weapons?'
BLOGGING AFRICA: Blog columnist Sokari Ekine wraps up the blogosphere
BOOKS AND ARTS:
- Warning: “Site-specific gallery installation by up-and-coming artist. Visitors may find certain works in this exhibition challenging.” Shailja Patel introduces Wangechi Mutu
- Gangsters and Democracy: A review of Jonny Steinberg’s The Number
CONFLICT AND EMERGENCIES: Unease in N’Djamena as rebels move closer
HUMAN RIGHTS: Transparency campaigners arrested in Congo
WOMEN AND GENDER: What challenges does UN reform present for women?
REFUGEES AND FORCED MIGRATION: UK judges order Zim refugees back home
ELECTIONS AND GOVERNANCE: Worries over passing of Ugandan NGO legislation
DEVELOPMENT: NGOs call for fast-tracked trade negotiations
CORRUPTION: World Bank corruption back in the news
HEALTH AND HIV/AIDS: World Health Report 2006
EDUCATION: Child labour blocks Education for All
ENVIRONMENT: Shell told to stop gas flaring in Nigeria
MEDIA AND FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION: Journalist on hunger strike in Tunisia
INTERNET AND TECHNOLOGY: New bookmarking tool for Internet café users
PLUS: Courses, Seminars and Workshops, Fundraising and Useful Resources, Jobs

* French speaking? French friends?

Read the Pambazuka News French edition by visiting Subscribe online at http://www.pambazuka.org/fr/subscribe.php or send an email to [email][email protected] with 'subscribe French edition' in the subject line. Please forward widely!

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PAMBAZUKA NEWS - 250 ISSUES
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This is the 250th issue of Pambazuka News.

Thank you to all of you who have continued to support, subscribe, promote and sustain us with articles and information that we publish each week. Thanks also to those who sent us good wishes on our 250th 'birthday'. We are older (and if you realised what it takes to produce Pambazuka News, we feel much older than that). From its early days of being generated in a dark basement in Oxford, Pambazuka News today is almost entirely produced in Africa by Fahamu's staff in South Africa, Kenya and Senegal, and by volunteers in so many other places. Pambazuka is now produced in two languages - English and French. We feel proud to have been able to make a contribution to the struggles for rights and social justice across the continent, including support for the ratification and implementation of the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa, campaigns around media and freedaom of expression, remembering the anniversary of the Rwanda genocide, making critical analyses of issues such as debt, aid and trade, the WTO, the World Bank, EPAs, to name but a few.

Pambazuka News depends on your support. Encourage others to subscribe, forward copies of the newsletter to others, send us information about the struggles that you are engaged in, and - if you can afford it - reach deep into your pockets and make a donation. Every little helps to make Pambazuka News an authentic voice for building a different world, one that is free from oppression and exploitation, one where everyone recognises their social responsibilities, respects each other’s differences, and where each of us can realise our full potential.

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South African police shot and injured at least one person with rubber bullets on Wednesday when they tried to disperse a crowd trying to blockade a border crossing with Swaziland in a political protest, police said. The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), which joined Swazi pro-democracy groups in organising Wednesday's protests, said eight people were wounded in the shooting incident and protested strongly to the government.

"I am officially announcing that Iran has joined the group of those countries which have nuclear power.” These 17 words were uttered live on television last Tuesday, by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran, to a cheering crowd of jubilant compatriots proud that their country had joined this patented club of countries whose wishes may not be ignored by the rest of the world because of their ability or potential to back their power with nuclear technology.

It is a small club of nations that can intimidate the rest of the world. Until recently, that club was almost exclusively White and Western (including the Zionist State of Israel), with the exception of China. But North Korea, India and Pakistan are also members now. All experts agree that Iran has not become a full member yet and may take a few more years to be able to make nuclear bombs but it has now demonstrated its potential.

As Iranians jubilate ‘The World’ or more appropriately those who think
they are ‘The World’ through the global media they control and the rest of us follow, let it be known that our world is made more unsafe by this copycat scientific development in Iran. US State department spokesman, Sean McCormack, said to BBC: “we would have hoped that the Iranian regime would have taken this opportunity to choose a pathway of diplomacy as opposed to the pathway of defiance.”

The same words could have been quoted back to the US for many policies its government, especially under the bellicose George Bush, have pursued since it came to power. And I am not referring only to the foretold tragedy in Iraq. It would be more credible if those who preach to other nations to respect international rules, conventions and etiquettes were themselves impeccable in their observance of the same.

The US government should be the last government to shout foul because it has refused to allow international law or morality to stand in its way in the pursuit of its own interests. If it can obey international rules in a kind of reckless a la carte what right has it got to say other countries should not do the same?

I am not sure if the world feels as threatened by Iran acquiring what all experts know to be a capacity to make nuclear fuels as the US and EU countries are orchestrating. Many Africans openly or secretly jubilated when India detonated its nuclear bomb the same week that Pakistan launched its own.

The only regret many felt was that there was no African country able to do the same and redeem the continent and its peoples from ‘nuclear whitemail’. There were many African scholars and activists who opposed Professor Ali Mazrui’s call for an ‘African Bomb’ in the 1980s who now regretted their ideological opposition to the controversialist scholar.

I was a baby radical then and thought of Mazrui as a reactionary. Now I know better. In those days, Mazrui had ambitions for Nigeria to be able to counter the nuclear threat posed by apartheid South Africa. The idea that nuclear weapons are safe in the hands of Americans and their European cousins only and a danger to the rest of the world is not only patronising but also racist. If George Bush can be trusted with nuclear weapons why not anybody else? The only way to ensure universal nuclear disarmament is for all countries to renounce it and destroy the nuclear arsenal they have acquired. As long as some have it and others do not, those who do not will try to either acquire it, if they can or if they cannot, envy those who do. Iran is not the only country trying to acquire nuclear weapons.

How come nobody is talking anymore about North Korea whose capability is technically ahead of that of the Iranians and whose leaders have also declared their readiness to use it ‘for pre-emptive action’ the principle so beloved by Bush’s America? There is no doubt that the Iranian government under President Ahmadinejad has raised the stakes very high in a game of brinkmanship against American bullying.

Many countries have been cowered into submission but secretly wishing they could also play with the Tiger’s tail and get away with it.

Is it really surprising that the Teheran announcement came the same week when Western media was full of stories about Washington planning ‘pre-emptive strikes’ against nuclear installations in Iran by the US, including using nuclear weapons? Does anyone expect the Iranians to behave like sitting
ducks?

Teheran continues to protest that it is seeking nuclear technology for peaceful purposes. The Americans and many Westerners doubt this intention but many people in the world also doubt Western intentions. The US in particular, has not got a good record in identifying real threat to global peace and security. It was wrong in Iraq, in Afghanistan and why should anyone trust its judgement now? Russia, China, India, Pakistan and Israel have nuclear weapons and these countries are either neighbours of Iran or countries with strategic focus on the country and vice-versa.

Therefore Iran cannot be expected to willingly leave itself so vulnerable. Whether it is Ahmadinejad or any other leader, the nuclear option would have been a serious option in Teheran. Now that Iran has demonstrated its capability it may actually be opened to diplomatic discussions.

Unlike Israel which does not even accept any UN Non- Proliferation treaty and welcomes no inspectors, Iran may return to cooperation with International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) but like Israel, it may never fully disclose its capability, just to keep its regional rivals and enemies guessing: do they, don’t they?

How many Africans will really find it objectionable if there is an African state with such potential?

A group of young refugees and asylum seekers are to get a rare opportunity to influence the asylum debate at a conference in Westminster on 19 April. The young people, aged 15 - 21, come from a range of unstable and war-torn countries including Angola, Iraq, Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Sierra Leone and Zimbabwe. They meet as part of 'Brighter Futures' - a Save the Children project that works to change perceptions of young refugees and asylum-seekers.

As the international community commemorated this year’s World Health Day on April 7th, the issue of poor remuneration for health workers in Kenya was debated. "The pay for doctors and other health care givers in the public service is so low that many of these people could not devote their full time to public service – like I have had to engage in private practice because the money I get from the university is not enough to feed me," said the chairman of the Kenya Medical Association (KMA).

World Vision International (WVI), a Christian Humanitarian Relief and Development Organization is seeking a Senior Policy and Advocacy Officer for the Northern and Southern Sudan programs. The position will be based in Northern Sudan.

Tanzanians are greatly satisfied with the way the country is managed politically, economically and socially, unlike other citizens in 18 countries surveyed in East, Central, and southwestern Africa. Citizens in the rest of the surveyed countries, including Kenya and Uganda, are still doubtful of their ruling governments' capabilities to solve their problems such as crime, health, infrastructure and poverty. The results of the "Afro-Barometer" survey conducted between July and August 2005 and announced early last week further show that Tanzanians were "happy" even before the current government came to power in December, 2005.

In Uganda, members of parliament have passed the non governmental organisations registration amendment bill 2001 requiring all NGOs and pentecostal churches to register with the internal affairs ministry. According to the new law, all organisations will renew their working licences after one year. The second renewal would be after two years while the third and last will take place after five years. An NGO board would have powers to revoke the licence of any NGO that fails to conform to its objectives.

I educate myself each week reading your emails. I am from a third world country, namely the republic of the Fiji Islands in the South Pacific, where we are struggling for freedom and human rights as well. - Mere Tokailagi

Thank for the work you are doing. Personally I was apolitical, but ever since you started sending this good news, I have come to get more concerned with socio-political issues than ever before, especially about suffering of all kinds in Africa, women and gender and poverty. My eyes are now wide open and I am very informed of what is taking place in our continent of Africa. - Medad Rugyendo

Pambazuka is my essential link to sanity and to 'home'. Living in self-imposed exile in the UK, surrounded by the complacent consumerism and insidious continuing dominance of the west, it has been and is a weekly tonic to read excellent analysis, 'real' news on all aspects of social and political life from across Africa. I have found no other source for the understandings and insights you offer and, above all, a source with Africa at heart. Knowing there are so many wonderful people working so hard in so many areas, learning about the realities and the courage and commitment of Africans across the world, is reinvigorating and uplifting. Whenever I meet someone wanting to understand what is going on in African countries, Pambazuka is my 'gift' to them. Whatever the rest of the world thinks, Pambazuka is evidence of the strength and resources of the continent. Long may you continue. Thank you from the depths of my soul and, a luta continua! - Barbara Murray

Congratulations on making the 250th anniversary and possible more importantly for becoming an indispensable part of the fight for justice and transformation in Africa - Steve Kibble

Peace and love to you. I wish to commend you for the great work you are doing for Africa. Ever since I found your site, I have recommended it to my students and colleagues here in Toronto. I am a Nigerian Catholic priest but active in social criticism in Africa. I identify myself totally with the social activism of your online magazine. I hope to make occasional contributions purely from the perspective of a religious critique of contemporary African Christian and Islamic religions and politics as they affect women and children. My new book The Face of Africa: Looking Beyond the Shadows is being released this week simultaneously in Africa and North America. I am also the founder and director of the Canadian based Non-governmental organisation, Canadian Samaritans for Africa. Pambazuka! Ummera ummera-sha! - Stan Chu Ilo

Congratulations on the 250th issue of this wonderful on-line publication. I have been greatly informed on all issues in relation to the continent of Africa. This is about the only online news that gives one objective and authoritative news on politics, human rights, as well as other issues. Please keep it up. - Okwa Morphy

Somali Women Action (SOWA) hereby sends you a letter of appreciation regarding the issues of the e-newsletter Pambazuka News that we have received. We welcome the topics and the continent wide coverage of news of human rights, gender issues, etc. all being around the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa. We firmly believe that the Solidarity for African Women’s Rights (SOAWR) Coalition is the right apparatus in implementing the promotion of women’s rights in Africa and at the same will pave the way for further gains to all women around the world. Keep up the good work! We are proud of you! And the world is proud of you.
- Ruqiyo Ali Abdulle, The Chairlady of SOWA  

Jacob Rukweza raises an important question on the broader issue concerning democratic freedom and sexuality. In asking whether homosexuality is un-African, Rukweza asks us to consider the centrality of sexuality to our ideas of citizenship and political allegiance. He rightly points out that ignoring African homosexuals means denying our shared humanity.

At the same time, I would have liked to see his article address the ways African homosexuality might be different from western versions. Are there specific ways of living, histories, and cultural practices that make African homosexuals unique? Is it possible that a struggle for sexual rights in Africa will look quite different from similar struggles in the West? What can we learn from the West? And, what can the West learn from us?

With Rukweza, I believe sexual rights to be central to human rights and democratic practice. I applaud his article, and Pambazuka, for initiating what I hope will be an ongoing conversation.

IOM UK is holding a one-day event to engage the African Diaspora in the UK in further developing the reintegration assistance given under the Voluntary Assisted Return and Reintegration Programme (VARRP). VARRP is funded by the UK Home Office and the European Refugee Fund. With participants from leading African Diaspora community organisations and NGOs in the UK, and from IOM Missions in Nigeria, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Angola, Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda, Sudan and DRC, this will be an action oriented, workshop-based event. Participation is free and pre-register is essential. For further details, log onto:

It was one of the deadliest encounters United Nations troops had ever engaged in. Guatemalan Special Forces, operating under UN command in north-eastern Congo, made contact with 300 Lord's Resistance Army fighters who had crossed from Uganda into the Garamba National Park. After a fierce gun battle, eight Guatemalans were dead. The terrorists beheaded the commander and escaped. How could one of the world's most experienced special forces be outfought by what is usually described as a cult of half-crazed cannibals whose tactics are murder, rape and pillage? How could their leader, a dreadlocked psychopath called Joseph Kony with no military training, lead such a successful army?.

New evidence is emerging about the extent and nature of China’s involvement in Africa. A series of articles in the Financial Times claims that China "has in the span of a few years changed the pattern of Africa's investment and trade." The paper admits to "only just beginning to grapple with the implications." Trade between China and Africa has quadrupled since the beginning of this decade.

Most young people learn about sexuality and HIV/AIDS in school. Giving teenage pupils space to explore, debate and ask questions is just as important as checking that they know how HIV is transmitted and avoided. Can teachers help in the fight against AIDS and gender stereotypes? A chapter in a book from Oxfam GB analyses two HIV programmes in schools in South Africa and Mozambique. The author argues that using the classroom to encourage young people to consider issues of sexuality and gender requires techniques that go beyond the training generally given to teachers.

"As part of the genocide commemoration this year, Saturday 8 April will be devoted to children. Among the horrific accounts of the Rwandese genocide which African Rights has gathered since 1994, the stories told by children have enormous impact. An entire generation lost their childhood and will be forever scarred by their memories. Children were slashed with machetes, shot at and subjected to all manner of abuse during the genocide; girls, some as young as six or seven, were frequently raped. Many child survivors lost their parents or siblings in the massacres; many witnessed the murders themselves. They watched as their neighbours, teachers and the parents of their friends and classmates—and sometimes even their relatives—killed their parents and close relatives. They have been left to bear the legacy of physical injuries and emotional anguish, often without even minimal support of a social network. Their views of human relationships were subverted overnight, and their incomprehension in the face of the catastrophe permeates their moving testimonies. Nonetheless, the visions of the genocide offered by its child victims also contain astonishing revelations and examples of resilience."

The United Nations says almost a quarter of the earth's surface and over a billion people are affected by desertification. In Africa alone 325 million people are said to be living "precariously" in arid zones. Jean Ziegler, UN special rapporteur on the right to food, says not enough is being done to protect the estimated 250 million victims of ecological destruction worldwide and the millions of environmental refugees being forced off the land and into slums. "These refugees have no protection under international law," he said.

For too long, public figures within and outside Africa have been timid about discussing Guinea’s deep-rooted problems, says the International Crisis Group. "Its strong anti-imperialist stance in the 1960s and beyond earned it respect among pan-Africanists, but the hands-off attitude that grew out of that respect has long since degraded into indifference and cynicism. The probability is now high that President Conté’s term will end in a military takeover, which some seem prepared to accept before the fact, as if it were a means of preserving Guinea’s sovereignty."

The government of Kenya plans to trim its fiscal deficit to 2.5 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by the 2008/09 financial year, a senior finance ministry official has said. According to the country's finance minister, taxpayers contributed 96 per cent of the money that went to the budget in the current financial year. He revealed that the Government had broken the dependence on donors as only four per cent of the total budget was funded using donor funds.

"Everything revolves around money and without work there is no money," says 33-year-old Maria Xoagub*, a mother of three who earns her living as a prostitute. "Sometimes we try stopping going to sell our bodies in the streets, but when poverty takes over we are back there." Xoagub’s story is one heard frequently from Namibia’s sex workers. In a country where the unemployment rate hovers around 30 percent, prospects of getting a job outside prostitution are slim for sex workers, many of whom are illiterate.

Delegates to a workshop held recently in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, have highlighted concerns about how child labour is undermining efforts to achieve universal primary education. "Child labour is a major obstacle to EFA (Education for All), and the elimination of child labour is key to realising the EFA," said the World Bank’s Bob Prouty, who also told the gathering that 11 percent of children below 14 years in Africa are engaged in some form of labour.

A section of employees in the New Vision establishment are troubled by reports that a colleague has compiled and submitted a dossier detailing the political inclination of each member of staff. Sources within the government-owned New Vision printing and publishing company claimed that the "clandestine work" by an editor and columnist with the Bukedde newspaper, had been erroneously leaked into the "wrong" hands, which culminated in some editorial staff getting access to what was supposed to be a confidential document.

Parents and educationists in Zimbabwe have warned that a rise of more than 1,000 percent in school fees will force larger numbers of children to drop out and preclude others from all education. Inflation has hit a new high of 913 percent, bringing a 12-fold rise in the cost of essentials. All schools, including those run by the government, said they would have to enforce the increases, effective from May.

Activists have accused the state of fabricating evidence to support criminal charges against members of the political opposition. In spite of their relative infrequency, these operations “have wide and long term effects in spreading fear among ordinary citizens and amongst some activists who fear their turn will come,” read a recent report issued by the Cairo-based Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (HRInfo).

Chad's government said on Wednesday its army had regained control of a major town which rebels said they had attacked and occupied the previous day. But the exact military situation at Mongo - 400 km (250 miles) east of the capital N'Djamena - and nearby Bitkine remained confused, with one rebel leader saying his fighters still "controlled the zones" around the towns. He said their objective was to push on to the capital.

The Government of the Republic of Zambia co-hosted with African Union an intergovernmental conference on social protection from 21 – 23rd March 2006 in Livingstone. The event brought together ministers and senior representatives from 13 African countries, (Ethiopia, Kenya Lesotho, Madagascar Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Rwanda South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe) together with Brazil, development partners, UN agencies and NGOs. The call to action issued as a result of this meeting is available through the link provided.

Though the majority of Ugandans during the Feb 23rd presidential polls voted for President Museveni, there is massive growing discontent amongst the minority. Whereas Museveni won the 1996 presidential elections with a landslide margin of 75 percent, his support declined to 69 percent in 2001 and then to 59 percent in 2006. With an economy grappling with drastic donor cuts and power shortages, the next term of office for President Museveni could be the most challenging.

Reviewed by Francis B. Nyamnjoh

The Number very broadly articulates the democratization of South African society since the end of apartheid in 1994, and the impact of this transition on prison communities structured on the principles of apartheid and the discipline and punish logic of prisons everywhere. In the words of the author, the book demonstrates “why generations of young black men lived violent lives under apartheid, and why generations more will live violently under democracy” (p.11).

Using the life of William Steenkamp/Magadien Wentzel, Steinberg demonstrates the proximity of the history of crime to the central fault lines that have shaped and continue to shape South African society. In William Steenkamp/Magadien, Steinberg sees the sort of man he wanted to write about, especially as: “I was frightened of penning a story about hell; I wanted to find a redemptive tale, to write about someone who had journeyed to the heart of the inferno but had come out the other side.” (p.27-28). The Number thus recounts Steinberg’s and Magadien’s journey into the latter’s past (p.44) Thus informed by how William Steenkamp/Magadien Wentzel has come to understand his own past and why, The Number, a highly researched book rich in prison ethnography and organizational sociology, is as much about history as it is about memory. Two themes have caught my attention: (a) democratization and (b) identity.

On Prisons and Democracy in South Africa

In post-apartheid South Africa where the rhetoric of equality of humanity, democracy peace and reconciliation are the order of the day, personal and communal identities are increasingly seeking representation for a complexity and plurality that the rigid policing of identities in the past had rendered invisible to the insensitive bureaucracies of legality and legitimacy. Considered as the most outlawed and subhuman of dehumanized blackness under apartheid when it was commonplace for white men to play out “their fantasies that blacks were animals, and in the process brought out the animals in themselves” (p.10), the black prison population has not been indifferent to the democracy bandwagon, often appropriating it to reinterpret the past, justify their actions and dream new futures of tolerance, belonging and conviviality.

Even the prison administration, used to disciplining and punishing, would have to re-invent itself through a revalorization of black humanity and a more empathic and contextualised understanding of crime and punishment. Both of these dimensions are captured through the story of a prisoner widely known under the false name of William Steenkamp [name in a stolen ID book (p.303)], who joined the 28s [one of the three competing and complementary prison gangster groups – The Number] in the late 1970s while still in his teens, and whom Jonny Steinberg, author of The Number, first met in October 2002, when he was about to be released from Pollsmoor prison.

The winds of change in tune with democracy and the contradictions arising from it in South African prisons are well epitomized by two coloured people at the centre of The Number - Jansen, the new administrator of Pollsmoor, whose philosophy and approach to prisoners Steinberg describes below, and Steenkamp, Steinberg’s main informant:

“He [Jansen] came armed with a philosophy as laudable as it was naïve: an evangelical belief that all men’s souls are naturally gentle, that only the cruelty of history had made them bad. He identified with the gangsters behind the bars. The humiliations he had suffered as a coloured warder working in apartheid’s jails were the same humiliations, he thought, that had turned many Cape Flats men into monsters…” (pp.24-25).

But both Jansen (as concerns democratising South African prison management) and democratization of the wider society face formidable hurdles, as the reality remains schizophrenic and pregnant with rhetoric.

It is therefore little surprise that Pollsmoor prison is “a world nourished by stories” as “weapons, tools, [and] the stuff of action”, and a place where prisoners want to unload their stories into a journalist’s notebook, organized around the master story of Nongoloza, the God of South African prisoners (p.17-18). Thanks to the mythical feats of Nongoloza, the prison Number gangs – the 26s, 27s and 28s - had demonstrated courage in the struggle against the indignities of apartheid.

A central theme of the book is that to change for the better, prisoners need the active cooperation of the outside world, a concern which William Steenkamp articulates superbly in the following words:

“It is no use us prisoners changing…if the world outside is still the same. You are still labeled a criminal when you leave, which means you don’t get a job. And inside here, we are told when to eat, sleep, walk, exercise, play sport, when to watch TV and when to phone our families. How can you expect a person enslaved in this mentality to have responsibility on the outside? That is why we always come back.” (p.29)

That is why prisoners consider the state and social structures - “the system” - “a factory for criminals”, making “criminals out of decent people” (35). It is also why The Number, whose death prisoners seeking redemption may wish, remains very strong even after democracy came in 1994, not only in prison, but also in the streets of cities and townships across South Africa (pp.38-39). Parallel to this, is the resilience of racism, despite the rhetoric of transformation and celebration of The Rainbow Nation.

On Identity – What is in a Name?

William Steenkamp, who has “served five or six sentences over the last 20 years, each time under a different name” (p.40), was, in the words of Steinberg, “a hell of identities not yet erased, and identities not yet formed.”(p.43). He captures his identity crisis (or should I say wealth) thus:

“My mother, she is the Wentzel in my life; she is a Muslim. My foster-mother, in whose house I grew up, her name is Mekka; she is a Christian. When I was a child I went to church. I sang in the choir. When I was told who my real family was, I was sent to mosque. So you can say I am confused. My father was a Christian. But I am not sure if he was really my father. If he was my father, why didn’t they give me his surname? Why Wentzel? Why my mother’s name?”

“I want to know who my father is, and when I find out, I want to take his name. And then my sons must take his name. JR and Steenkamp must disappear. I owe it to my children that they know who they are. And to their children and the children after that. I have fucked up my life. Why must I also fuck up the lives of children who have not yet been born? Why must they wander around nameless like me?” (pp.40-41).

To get a job with Mr Morris, he had to work under the name of William Steenkamp, a stolen ID he had assumed. But the troubles of going through with a false name were enormous, as the identity of ‘William Steenkamp’ haunted his work and made life at home intolerable.

“Do you understand what it means not to have a name? […] You can take it for granted that you are Jonny Steinberg. You’ve never even had to think about what it means. It means you are a Jew, that your grandparents came to South Africa in x year, that your father was born in y year. That you know your name means you will never have to sleep in a gutter or wander the streets like a stroller. You belong.” (p.302).

Uncomfortable with living a lie, “I wanted to go back to jail so this lie would end”, “I couldn’t live this life” (p.41) “I need to be Magadien Wentzel to live a proper life” (p.42). But there was the fear that this might never happen: “I have forgotten my own life … I was too fucking angry to take notice of my own life. I’m scared I will never get it back.” (p.44) And he is right to be scared, as it was all up to “a bunch of faceless bureaucrats, shifting through a biography that had been reduced to a slime dossier” to determine which of his lives was really his, often with an arbitrariness that shattered whatever sense of self he was trying to cultivate. (p.289).

The encounter between Mr Morris and Steenkamp demonstrates that reconciliation and empathy are possible between the world of crime and that of order, between imprisonment and freedom, and between communities rigidly divided and at conflict under apartheid, if only everyone in post-apartheid South Africa could make an effort to see the humanity in the other. Despite Steenkamp’s dishonesty, Mr Morris, a white South African, is able to see the goodness in him.

As for Steenkamp,

“I was brought here to serve this sentence because of what I did to Mr Morris…I loved them, you know, Mr and Mrs Morris. But a piece of me always held back. I would do stupid things to hurt him. I would smash the bakkie on purpose and then blame it on someone else. I would break his glass…A couple of years ago, I phoned Farieda. She said there was a new boss now; the Morrises went bankrupt. I walked back to my cell in a daze. I put my head on the pillow and cried. You see, I knew it was because of me, because of the glass I stole from him. I had destroyed him. He offered me love and I spat on him and destroyed him…When I get out, I want to work and save and try to pay him back. I know it will take me a long time. If he’s not there I can pay back his children. This is one debt I need to repay.” (p.288)

Finally released into the ‘normal’ world where he hopes to re-integrate himself into a ‘normal’ life as a ‘normal’ citizen of the now ‘normal’ South Africa, William Steenkamp/Magadien Wentzel comes “to learn that one cannot reinvent oneself without reinventing the people around whom one has lived a life”, for identity is not just how one sees and positions oneself, and also how others recognize and represent one. Identity, to make sense, is a negotiated reality.

Conclusion

This is a fascinating book with a compelling story told mostly from the standpoint of gangsters in prison who are more used to being disciplined and punished, than being given a voice to share their predicaments with the wider world. Steinberg has succeeded in doing what most writers cannot manage, being able to share, in a creative and irresistible narrative, the results of scientific enquiry or journalistic investigation with the wider reading public whose primary concern is a good story well told. The style is that of a master storyteller, but the content remains factual and sociologically outstanding. The Number is a major contribution to the peace and reconciliation, and to the crystallization of renegotiated identity essentialisms that should come from an understanding of all the facets and nuances of South African society past and present. Through his outstanding craftsmanship Jonny Steinberg has given a voice to the desperately voiceless in a new South Africa where every voice matters.

* Francis B. Nyamnjoh is Head of Publications and Dissemination at CODESRIA

* Please send comments to

Zara Ali Muki lost her leg in 2004, when freelance militia fired on a vehicle she was riding in in Mogadishu, Somalia. Her life was in danger once again at the end of March, when she was forced to flee the latest factional fighting in the capital city. The clashes between the Islamic court militia and militia loyal to an alliance of Mogadishu-based warlords killed more than 100 people and displaced hundreds of families from the capital. IRIN news interviewed Zara.

Several months after the onset of a crisis that displaced 150,000 people in central Katanga in the Democratic Republic of the Congo the humanitarian situation is beginning to improve. The UN World Food Program has begun airdrops of food to Dubie, promising to deliver 80 tons over the next several days, with additional airdrops planned for Mitwaba and Sampwe after April 10. This should begin to reduce mortality rates, which, according to Médecins sans Frontières (MSF), are well above emergency thresholds of 4.3 per 10,000 people per day.

Two persons of 23 years of age, have been sentenced to life in prison after a district magistrate's court in Tanzania found them guilty of rape. Handing down the judgment, the magistrate said the court was satisfied with the testimonies given and found the two accused guilty of the offence and would therefore spend the rest of their lives in prison.

Religious groups in Kenya want the state to disown illegally incurred external debts. They have started a campaign to ask the finance minister to open for public scrutiny the public debt register before this year's national budget. The country's debt amounts to Sh750 billion and the Government proposes to spend Sh112 billion (22 per cent of the entire budget) servicing it. Officials behind the campaign blame the debts for increasing poverty in the country. A motion in Parliament to have the public debt register made public and its content published was shot down by 80 MPs last year.

The Kwale district commissioner has warned non-governmental organisations in the area against misleading local farmers about the Sh9 billion titanium mining. Farmers are set to be compensated for their land in June and the project had almost reached implementation stage, but some NGOs were giving the farmers confusing information, according to the district commissioner. Local NGOs have warned that they would not rest until justice for the local community was done in the titanium mining deal.

Tanzanians suffering from tuberculosis (TB) now have fewer pills to swallow, thanks to a new treatment, which reduces the daily dosage of tablets from between 11 and 12 to three or four. A health ministry official said the new treatment, known as the four-drug, fixed-dose combination is widely used in many countries on the recommendation of the United Nations World Health Organization.

A series of loan suspensions and internal investigations has everyone at the World Bank talking about corruption. However, despite high profile moves by president Paul Wolfowitz, the root causes of corruption - underpaid civil servants, an acceptance of bribery by big business, and dirty money - remain largely unaddressed. While many observers applaud these attempts to weed out corruption, Wolfowitz has so far failed to systematically address the roots of the problem.