Pambazuka News 242: Campaign against corruption in Kenya: A convenient smokescreen?
Pambazuka News 242: Campaign against corruption in Kenya: A convenient smokescreen?
The United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) said it is mounting an emergency operation to assist around 50,000 refugees in Algeria, after their homes and shelters in three refugee camps were washed away by torrential rains. In a statement from Algeria, UNHCR said it was planning an airlift of around 12,000 tents, 7,000 kitchen sets, 60,000 blankets and other living essentials to the camps, which house Sahrawi refugees who fled Western Sahara in 1975.
Following Liberia’s credible elections in October 2005 there may at last be real cause for optimism for the hundreds of thousands of people displaced by fourteen years of civil war. While the new government of President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf has been taking the first steps towards economic and security sector reform, IDPs and refugees have been continuing to return home in large numbers. In January 2006 the UN reported that less than 50,000 registered IDPs remained in camps – with some 270,000 already assisted to return to their home areas – and that facilitated IDP return was expected to be completed in April 2006.
The last group of Sudanese remaining in detention after a protest in a Cairo park was broken up in late December, were released on Saturday by the Egyptian authorities with a promise not to deport them. After extensive interviews by UNHCR in the detention facilities, the 156 Sudanese just released were determined not to be refugees in need of international protection. However, UNHCR requested that their cases be treated on humanitarian grounds and asked that they be released and not deported.
Ministers Kiraitu Murungi and George Saitoti are finally out of the Kenyan Cabinet following unrelenting pressure on President Kibaki to sack ministers implicated in corruption. Kibaki announced in a live television address to the nation that he had accepted the resignations of the two to pave way for investigations into the 16-year-old Goldenberg scandal and the Anglo Leasing affair whose details are still emerging.
* Related Link:
Kenya: Report on graft scandal made public
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=51666
As the Uvira Programme Manager, you will take responsibility for all administrative aspects of the programme. This may include any or all aspects of finance, logistics and personnel needs. You are expected to play an active role in advocacy. You should have an interest and understanding of the basic rights of displaced populations and other civilian victims of violence and an ability to advocate locally in a constructive and inclusive manner.
Internews Network is currently seeking a Resident Advisor for Gender Based Violence Reporting for our community radio project and production studio in northern Chad. The project is designed to ensure that residents of the region (both permanent and temporary) receive accurate, up-to-date information on events and activities taking place within the region. Reports will be disseminated in multiple local languages in order to reach the greatest number of people.
Development Deadline 2015 is a weekly e-newsletter from Inter Press Service (IPS) providing readers with "independent news reporting on how the Millennium Development Goals are influencing policy decisions and making a difference on the ground."
Amid a looming energy crunch in Southern Africa, the Namibian government is pulling out all the stops to promote the use of renewable energies like wind and solar power. Namibia is dependant on South Africa for about half of its average daily power consumption of 200 megawatts (MW). South Africa's power utility Eskom announced in 2004 that it would be unable to provide Namibia with a steady supply of electricity in the near future. Eskom's surplus electricity supply capacity is expected to run out by 2007, as power demands in South Africa were expected to increase by 1,200 MW per annum.
Extensive data on Education for All is now easily accessible with the new search tool on the Global Monitoring Report website. This tool, developed by the UNESCO Institute for Statistics in partnership with the EFA Global Monitoring Report team, is based on the data contained in the 2006 statistical annex tables. It enables you to search by table, theme, indicator, country and region, and to export results into an Excel format.
The Association of Women in Development (AWID) interviewed Roselynn Musa, of FEMNET, about her experiences at the World Social Forum, held late January in Bamako, Mali. "As regards global issues there was some stock-taking on certain themes which were central to the World Social Forum that was held at Porto Alegre in 2004. These themes were neo-liberal globalisation, the future of women's bodies, conflict and militarism, women and peace, fundamentalisms combating gender equality and the exclusion of women from decision-making organs."
Civil society groups say European Union plans to launch a trust fund to disburse aid to Africa independently of the World Bank will contribute little to eradication of poverty. The European Commission, the European Union (EU) executive, launched its plan Thursday (February 9) to fund development in Africa through the European Investment Bank (EIB), the soft lending arm of the EU. The fund, which should be operational by June, will mainly provide subsidised low-interest loans to finance water, energy, transport and telecoms infrastructure in sub-Saharan Africa, with a focus on cross-border projects.
Construction of the Gwayi-Shangani Dam, one of the dams set to provide water to the drought prone Matabeleland region, has been stopped following floods that swept away the dam wall and access roads at the construction site. Large blocks of stones and gravel were washed away after the Gwayi River flooded following torrential rainfall received in most parts of Matabeleland North Province.
The Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) will hold its 50th session from 27 February to 10 March 2006 at UN headquarters in New York. The Commission will focus on two thematic issues: Enhanced participation of women in development: an enabling environment for achieving gender equality and the advancement of women, taking into account, inter alia, the fields of education, health and work; and Equal participation of women and men in decision-making processes at all levels. This will fit with the theme of International Women’s Day, held annually on March 8th, of "Women in decision-making: meeting challenges, creating change."
The United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) presented its congratulations to Liberia's new President, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, at her official inauguration ceremony in Monrovia on 16 January 2006, pledging US$500,000 to support the Ministry of Gender and Development, and women's organizations to promote gender equality and peace in the country. "UNIFEM is proud to have supported the Ministry of Gender and development, and women's organizing throughout Liberia to reach this truly historic achievement," said Noeleen Heyzer, UNIFEM's executive director, who attended the inauguration.
The ICFTU and the WCL welcomed the news on 7 February of the positive verdict in the dispute between Diamyo El Hadj Yacouba, General Secretary of the energy workers' union (Syndicat des Travailleurs de l'Energie du Niger) and representative of the CNT (Confédération nationale des travailleurs) on the National Commission on Human Rights and Labour Standards, and his employer, the company NIGELEC. If the company respects the decision of the Appeals Court, the union leader will be reinstated and will receive back pay, bonuses and benefits dating back to the time of his dismissal.
The Coordinator heads a small secretariat and works under the guidance of the Management Board. He or she works in close consultation with regional representatives and members in planning and implementing programmes that further the aims of COPA. These programmes include training, capacity building, networking, information sharing, lobbying and advocacy. She or he may from time to time be directly involved in conflict transformation. The Continental Coordinator will oversee the management of COPA continental secretariat and Programmes and ensure that the organisation works towards its vision and mission. Being the point person for COPA in the continent he/she will ensure that there is synergy created in all the regional offices-Southern, Central, Horn, Eastern and ensure that COPA is linked and influencing other continental bodies to realise the vision and mission.
When Zimbabwean artist Josiah Bob Taundi grew up in the townships of Harare he saw bulldozers as emblems of construction - machines that came to clear land for building houses and roads. But last year all this changed. Bulldozers came back to the townships and razed the very same houses that they had constructed. The Zimbabwean government called this "clean up", Murambatsvina (Operation Restore Order). While the urban demolitions were in full swing across the country, Zimbabwean artist, Josiah Taundi could not help but see the agony and pain reflected in the eyes of those that had been affected by Murambatsvina. In an effort to depict their plight he began to vividly re-construct Harare’s urban destruction.
There is growing alarm over the quickly receding water levels of Lake Victoria. A new report accuses Uganda of secretly draining the lake to keep the lights on and fears that it spells an impending environmental and economic disaster to the East Africa region. The US-based International Rivers Network released a study accusing Uganda of secretly draining water from the lake to sustain its electricity grids amidst a regional drought.
The Small Grants Program is calling for proposals from civil society organisations. The theme of the program is the empowerment of marginalised vulnerable groups. The activity should be completed within one year of the date the grant is awarded. Civil Society organisations working on issues of development may apply.
Elephants, buffaloes and other wild animals drink water on one side of a swamp. On the other, Maasai warriors watch hundreds of cattle graze as the tropical sun sears the parched land of this wildlife sanctuary. Balancing the needs of both sides is becoming more complex, and environmentalists fear the wildlife are gradually losing out. Kenyan officials recently bent stringent conservation regulations to allow cattle into the Amboseli National Park -- the only permanent source of water in the region -- to help the Maasai save their precious livestock from a punishing drought.
"The AU can and should speak out. Not to utter even a whisper is indeed a tragedy for Africa as Africa cannot afford to wait another half century to bring democracy because of a number of its brutish and self-serving rulers that are not willing to hold Africa’s interest at heart. Have not the AU heard that the EU Parliament has voted denouncing the atrocities committed by the Meles regime?"
The Centre and the Network for Zimbabwe Positive Women (NZPW+) are two important AIDS Service Organisations run by people living with HIV and AIDS and providing practical support to people living with HIV and AIDS. The development worker will work with both organisations, which share the same building, to develop their organisational capacity. S/he will focus upon building skills in strategic planning, management, organisational systems and policies, fundraising, monitoring and evaluation and assist to develop individual staff competencies to meet organisational aims.
The planned street demonstrations by the civil society to force President Kibaki to act on grand corruption kick off this week. The Name and Shame Corruption Network (Nascon), the umbrella organisation of the 76 groups, announced on Sunday that it had completed plans for the mass action.
This paper argues that HIV/AIDS prevention campaigns have missed the point by concentrating on women's empowerment and women's ability to negotiate safer sex. Instead it asks to what extent disempowered men in East Africa are motivated for responsible sexual behaviour and HIV/AIDS prevention. Drawing on research in rural and urban East Africa, the paper discusses how socio-economic change has limited men's access to income-earning opportunities, leaving many men unable to fulfil the social roles of breadwinner and household head.
Kenya has been singled out as one of the leading transit points for the illegal animal trade destined for Europe and Asia. According to a recent report titled "Ivory Markets of Europe", most of the ivory originates from war-torn countries of sub-Saharan Africa where laws against the killing of wildlife are almost non-existent. The document cites central Africa as one of the sources of ivory that passes through Kenya and other East African countries.
Too often when we talk about gender-based violence there is a deafening silence about attacks on lesbian, gay and transgender people. This is because of what their sexual orientation and/or gender identity may represent. For many, living out one’s sexual orientation if it is not heterosexual, is still not viewed as a right. Argued under the pretext of culture, religion or morality, the ill-treatment of lesbian and gay people is tacitly accepted in South African society. Hetero-sexism ensures the continued exclusion of those whose very existence challenges dominant forms of gender relations in a patriarchal context.
What is it about rape and sexual assault that causes society to blame the victim, to allow the perpetrator to escape punishment, and to largely ignore its very existence? More importantly, how can these attitudes be changed? Take Back the News works to raise public awareness about the epidemic of rape, in order to foster greater public dialogue and ultimately greater public responsibility. The new site reflects the incorporation and revamp of this anti-rape organization, including the formation of a Media Response Project to streamline communications with media outlets, and the distribution of free Community Print Project Kits that college activist groups can use to gather and publish rape survival stories.
Hundreds of Muslim protesters in Garissa town gave the Government of Kenya a two-week ultimatum to cut diplomatic ties with Denmark. They were protesting the publication by a Danish newspaper of cartoons depicting Prophet Mohammed as a terrorist. They also asked the Government to close the Danish Embassy in Nairobi. One person died in Nairobi on Friday during similar demonstrations. The protesters asked President Kibaki to recall all diplomatic officials from Denmark and ban imports from the country.
Fourteen year old Lindiwe – not her real name – became very withdrawn. Initially her teacher suspected that she had had a squabble with her friend but when she sank deeper into a depression, the teacher became very concerned. A home visit by a parent, who serves on the Care and Support committee of her school revealed that not only had Lindiwe lost both parents within one year but she had been abused by her caregiver, who seemed to be more interested in her child care grant than caring for Lindiwe. As a result of this information the committee could intervene and they placed the teenager with another family, while they also reporting the caregiver to the police, who are now investigating her.
Bottled water consumption, which has more than doubled globally in the last six years, is a natural resource that is heavily taxing the world's ecosystem, according to a new US study. "Even in areas where tap water is safe to drink, demand for bottled water is increasing, producing unnecessary garbage and consuming vast quantities of energy," according to Emily Arnold, author of the study published by the Earth Policy Institute, a Washington-based environmental group.
This Newsletter highlights recent developments in the UN Secretary-General’s Study on Violence Against Children. As the Study moves into the second and final year of the process, the emphasis is on building the momentum and strengthening coalitions in the lead up to the release of the final report during the General Assembly, 2006, in New York. The Newsletter is distributed widely and also available on the Study web-site. If you would like to add an address to the distribution list send an email to: [email protected].
The DPPS will support the regional offices, local partners, and the humanitarian response team in developing strong, community-process capacities in comprehensive and sustainable disaster mitigation, prevention and preparedness work.
The development worker will work with FOSDEH's Communications Department, strengthening its internal and external communication capacity. The main areas of the communications work are related to poverty, external debt, public policies, transparency, corruption, etc.
Students, workers, shack dwellers and academics at South Africa's largest teaching university, the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN), are now in their 5th day of a militant strike against corporatisation. Thousands have marched under the banners of education for all, decent working conditions and academic freedom. One of the university's five campuses is under heavily armed police occupation and serious clashes between police and strikers look increasingly likely.
The World Trade Organization (WTO) ruled yesterday (7 February) that the European Union and six of its member states broke trade rules by banning imports of genetically modified (GM) crops and food. The preliminary ruling, which could have significant implications for developing countries, still needs to be confirmed in a final decision next month, and can be appealed. Dulce de Oliveira, a professor of plant biotechnology and fellow of the Brazilian Research Council, says the decision could open the European market to GM products from countries such as Brazil, the world's third biggest producer of GM crops. The verdict came in response to a complaint that Argentina, Canada and the United States made in 2003 against the European Union's ban on GM imports, imposed in 1999, reports SciDev.
A new ICFTU report on core labour standards in Angola, which coincides with Angola's trade policy review at the WTO, identifies shortcomings in the application and enforcement of core labour standards, in particular with regard to trade union rights and child labour. Although workers have the right to organise and bargain collectively, these rights are denied both in law and practice. Government approval is needed to form trade unions and to carry out many union activities. Civil liberties remain scarce, even today, several years after the end of the civil war.
African awardees include:
* Arnold Tsunga (Zimbabwe) represents victims of human rights abuses and campaigns for greater respect for human rights; he has repeatedly denounced the undemocratic system of justice in Zimbabwe. He has been threatened, detained, and is constantly harassed.
* Golden Misabiko (Democratic Republic of Congo) has denounced human rights violations in his country for the past 20 years. He was tortured in 2001 and had to flee the country in 2002 due to death threats. He returned to the DRC in 2005. Since then he has been detained several times and constantly harassed.
* Jennifer Williams (Zimbabwe), one of the leaders of WOZA (Women of Zimbabwe Arise), continues to organise and lead peaceful protests against the ongoing erosion of human rights in Zimbabwe, in spite of having been arrested and beaten by the police.
The Government Accountability Project (GAP) has released the "Vaughn Report," commissioned by the World Bank as a blueprint to modernize its inadequate whistleblower protection policies. The recommendations of noted whistleblower law scholar Robert Vaughn of American University Law School incorporate "best practices" that were already adopted by the United Nations, approved by the Organization of American States to implement its Inter-American Convention Against Corruption, and enacted last fall as U.S. policy to strengthen anti-corruption efforts at all multilateral development banks (MDBs).
Amnesty International has learned that on Saturday, 11 February 2006, at approximately 12.00 pm, armed police and security forces arrived in 15 cars at Juba University in Bahri, Khartoum at the request of university officials. Without warning, they began beating, with batons, a group of students that were gathered peacefully in front of the Administration building. According to a credible source, the detainees have been taken to unofficial National Security detention sites known as "ghost houses", where they have been tortured. The detainees have reportedly also been deprived of food and denied access to legal counsel and their families.
Uganda's first multiparty elections in two decades, scheduled for 23 February, are unlikely to be free and fair due to state intimidation of the opposition and voters, according to a leading human rights group. New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW), in a report entitled "In Hope and Fear: Uganda’s Presidential and Parliamentary Polls", said the run-up to the polls had "been marred by intimidation of the opposition, military interference in the courts and bias in campaign funding and media coverage."
More than 100 cases of suspected meningitis, including 15 fatalities, have been recorded in six Sudanese states since early January, the United Nations World Health Organization (WHO) has reported. The agency said at least 136 cases had been reported in the states of Khartoum, Blue Nile, Kassala, Sennar, West Darfur and Gederef.
The west African state of Nigeria is the continent's biggest oil exporter. But despite its huge energy reserves and potential wealth, millions of people live in extreme poverty. For 50 years oil has been pumped from beneath the creeks, swamps and forests of the Delta.It has earned the Nigerian government billions of pounds. Yet the communities in the Delta say they continue to live in poverty.
Russia may soon write off debts owed to it by 16 of the world's poorest countries, its finance minister has been reported as saying. Moscow would be willing to cancel about $688m (£394m) in bilateral debt, Russian news agency RIA-Novosti quoted Alexei Kudrin as saying. The agreement could encompass a number of African countries including Benin, Tanzania and Zambia.
The closer ties that are being forged between Brazil and the African continent is a positive development, in terms of both foreign policy and the effects on the fight against discrimination suffered by black Brazilians, Geraldo Rocha, director of the Centre for the Mobilisation of Marginalised Populations (CEAP), told IPS. The Lula administration "is on the right path," despite difficulties and shortcomings, in its attempts to overcome the discrimination that blacks have always suffered in Brazil, a country marked by extreme social and economic inequality, said Rocha.
Bossaso is not only the chief commercial port of Puntland, a self-declared autonomous area in north-east Somalia, but also one of the world's busiest smuggling hubs. Guns, cigarettes and drugs come in; people go out. For at least three years, thousands of Somalis, and increasingly, Ethiopians, have set off from the coastline in tiny open fishing boats hoping to reach Yemen. From there many hope to move on to work illegally in Saudi Arabia, which looms large in the local imagination as a land of riches.
Somalia’s top leaders have confirmed that the country’s transitional parliament will hold its first joint meeting on Somali soil in the south-central town of Baidoa, 240 km southwest of the capital, Mogadishu, on 26 February. Interim President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed told reporters on Monday (February 13) that he had agreed with Prime Minister Ali Mohammed Gedi and parliamentary speaker Sharif Hassan Sheikh Aden that the parliament would meet as planned.
Cape Verde’s incumbent President Pedro Pires on Monday (February 13) claimed victory in his campaign to win re-election as head of state of the cluster of 10 islands and five islets off the West African coast that are home to less than half a million people. Voting took place in the former Portuguese colony on Sunday and preliminary results on Monday gave the incumbent president a narrow lead of 51.1 percent of the vote. In a victory speech, Pires promised to fulfil campaign commitments, including a pledge to tackle poverty and unemployment.
Despite years of interventions designed to turn around Mozambique's historically poor education system, the 2006 school year has kicked off to a dismal start, sparking debate about proposed plans to solve the countries chronic teacher shortages. According to Naima Saú, Deputy Director of Teacher Training at the Ministry of Education, teacher-pupil ratios were a major cause for concern: "on average, there are 50 pupils in each class, and some teachers even have as many as 70 pupils in a class".
The government must harmonise its national laws with the various international treaties it has ratified to better protect its citizens' rights, human rights NGOs in the Republic of Congo have said. "It is important that the government makes an effort to guarantee and make directly applicable the various human rights laws and instruments," Roger Bouka-Owoko, the head of the committee that organised a conference on rights issues, said in a statement.
Swaziland's long-awaited new constitution came into effect on Wednesday (February 8), but analysts and political parties said it remained vague on the key issue of legalising political parties. "The constitution seems deliberately ambiguous on the issue - it could be read as an attempt to undermine any move to allow democracy to take root in the absolute monarchy," said Thabele Matlosa, director of research at the Electoral Institute of Southern Africa.
The current African Union (AU) chairman, President Denis Sassou Nguesso of Congo, revealed here Saturday (February 11) that the continental body will soon initiate fresh moves to find a solution to the Ivorian crisis. Sassou Nguesso made the announcement in Brazzaville three days after the AU brokered a peace agreement between Chad and Sudan. N`djamena had accused Khartoum of assisting armed dissidents who have attacked several government targets in eastern Chad.
In his meeting with UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Monday (February 13), President George W. Bush should pledge that the United States will provide necessary support so that the proposed UN mission in Darfur has both the mandate and capacity needed to protect the civilian population, Human Rights Watch said today (February 10). Human Rights Watch also called on the United States to back full financial, material and logistical support for the current African Union Mission in Sudan forces through the UN transition period, which could last nine months.
The decision to increase female accommodation inside the campus at the National University of Rwanda has reduced the risk of contracting HIV/Aids and having unwanted pregnancies. This was observed by the President of University Women Student Association (UWSA), Judith Kazaire. Recently the university's administrative council gave a directive to have one new hostel reserved for female students joining the university.
Land provides the basis for agriculture and animal husbandry, which are integral features of income generation and food production in Africa. Population growth and land degradation place demands on land resources that can lead to and increase conflict. Traditional land management systems are coming under increasing pressure. Secure access to land is fundamental for food security, income generation and agriculture for poor people throughout Africa. However, increasing demands on available land means that many Africans have insecure access to land. Ownership rights are often weak and insecure, with traditional and customary land rights being rapidly diminished. Land rights are often linked to ethnic identity, economic and political power, and thus are a key issue for many African governments today.
Good discussion. Africans need jobs so that they can get money to buy the stuff they want and free trade but not subsidized commodity imports in the form cotton, rice, and etc (paid by US taxpayers.) I believe "private capital" is better at generating jobs. Government capital creates either low productivity and or jobs for party people, Stalin's government built an ok armaments industry. Come to think of it the American economy is good at this too. Indeed this country is departing from capitalism as it is supposed to be in favor of economic hit men economics.
On BBC I heard about about a new cement plant in Southern India where there is extremely high unemployment. Construction cost: hundreds of millions, new jobs: 400!
Everywhere people are induced to leave poor but relatively stable villages and subsistence, no money, farming to try to find work and money in cities and industrial towns. They often find more and maybe worse poverty. Here in the Americas we refer to these as Maquiladoras. A byproduct of globalisation seems to be one of spreading poverty into new areas. But this outcome need not be inevitable.
I don't believe that African governments are sufficiently attentive as to what they could be doing to stimulate an emerging African market...now less talked about than a couple of years ago. Governments could strongly urge (not compel) natural resources extractors (oil drillers gold miners etc) to reinvest some of their returns from African and South American natural resources into the economies of origin, new factories, services, shopping centers. Thus stockholders would get more bang for their bucks; returns on extracting operations and on new investments in growing economies.
Unions have a critical role to play. Worker safety and child labour are big issues. I know a young man who begs in Accra who at age 7 or 8 had his arm torn off by a corn grinding machine. After a couple of years in hospital he did complete primary school. However I am also aware of an Asian company that imports soap flakes to Ghana for repackaging and local marketing. The production target on their Ghana packaging line during an 8 hour shift is 45 crates vs 165 in Asia. As a casual visitor I did not think that this was any "sweat shop". They could have been doing better while not crossing that line. And then there was the bankruptcy of Volta Garments which hired 600 workers and could not exceed making seven shirts per day versus 20-22 in Asia. Probably a lot of blame for these shortfalls has to laid on the involvement of certain unions.
And Oh! Thank God for Pambazuka News.
The author barely mentions corruption which is again in the news with Kenya's watchdog fleeing the country. There are 2.9 million references on Google for 'Kenya corruption' and about half that for 'Kenya transparency.'
I think wealthy countries' perceptions about corruption in Africa are big factors in aid policies. So much assistance is crisis management instead of community development. With the H5N1 virus found in Kaduna state Nigeria, let's see how Nigerian and outside experts handle this latest health crisis. Uganda did pretty well with Ebola six years ago, but that's a very different kind of disease.
Reading the article by Mona Prince, titled "Witness to an erosion of soul: An Egyptian woman travels to the US", was a sad yet enriching experience.
She has been brave enough to raise her voice against injustice against strong odds and kudos to her for doing that. By doing so she has further highlighted the point that fighting for justice and human rights is a global phenomena.
If US society has eroded so much that it denies its citizens the basic rights enshrined in its own constitution, then it is merely behaving just like any other dictatorial or repressive regime. It is showing its ugly side to the world now and therefore the US cannot any longer lay claim to being the champion of freedom of the individual and take a high moral ground over other nations. It has sunk too low for that.
Despite its hype about democracy and human freedom, it has exhibited that it has a soul which is no different from the many nations on this globe that regularly victimize civil society for their own petty vested gains. Now it is left to the people of this world who truly believe in justice and human rights to carry that responsibility and continue with the struggle for human justice. One such person is Mona, and I hope many find the courage to follow her example.
The CODESRIA Advanced Research Fellowship Programme is designed to contribute to the reinforcement and promotion of a culture of concentrated and extended reflection among African scholars. It is particularly targeted at a younger generation of post-doctoral African scholars interested in carrying out advanced research on any aspect of the African social reality, historical or contemporary. The programme is open to candidates from all disciplines of the Social Sciences and Humanities.
The CNN MultiChoice African Journalist Awards are the longest running, most prestigious Pan African Awards for journalists in Africa. Over the past eleven years, the competition has grown in size and status. In 2005 it attracted over 1,500 entries from 40 African countries.
Thabo Mbeki's neo-liberal state of the nation address, while re-committing South Africa to market-friendly economic policies, failed to outline specific programmes to meaningfully deal with the country's worsening poverty and underdevelopment. The 'have-nots', who have suffered severely in the last ten years as a result of conservative economic policies, should therefore brace themselves for more hardship.
It is very hypocritical for parliament to have chosen the theme "All shall have equal rights"- derived from the Freedom Charter - given the sad reality that the annual opening of parliament and parliament itself are a very good reflection of growing inequalities between the rich and the poor.
The annual event has become a Hollywood-style fashion extravaganza. The SABC's fashion commentator skilfully scrutinized numerous trendy outfits worn by the elite.
Despite SA's worsening levels of poverty and inequalities, Mbeki, as a result of recent surveys, is very optimistic and hopeful that the economic policies are taking the country in the right direction. Unfortunately, reality on the ground paints a very gloomy picture.
As widely expected, economic growth and government's 'Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative' (ASGISA), featured prominently. This, and other government's neo-liberal initiatives, have seen South Africa's ruling politicians, 'prostituting' themselves to the financially well endowed corporations and the markets that they control in an attempt to attract the much craved foreign investment, with dire consequences for the masses.
ASGISA sees increased exports as fundamental for economic growth and the projected six percent annual growth rate in the next few years. However, in recent years, the country has managed to drastically increase its exports, but this has come at a heavy price for the working class. While output growth has increased, employment growth has declined in major sectors, such as manufacturing, business services, agriculture and mining.
As the Cape Town based Alternative Information and Development Centre (AIDC) points out, export oriented growth also means increased competition which, in many instances, has meant cost reduction which leads to unsafe working conditions, retrenchments and cutting of working hours and wages.
At the expense of the poor, the ANC government has put too much reliance on the private sector. The problem with this however, is that the private sector's primary aim is to increase profitability. Private companies are not accountable to anyone but shareholders. South Africa, with its heavy apartheid induced services backlog, cannot afford this situation.
Upcoming celebrations on June 16 and August 09 marking the 30th anniversary of the Soweto youth uprising and the 50th anniversary of the women's march to the Union buildings, respectively, mean very little for the majority of women and youth who, as a result of government's policies, are confronted with extreme poverty on a daily basis.
It is estimated that 70% of the unemployed are young people. Most have never worked in their life. Only about 14% of those graduating from tertiary institutions, each year find secure employment in the formal economy. Yet, none of our so-called 'experts' see the connection between this hopeless situation and youth involvement in crime, survival sex, substance abuse, etc.
Instead, in true South African-style, the government plans to deal with the symptoms and not the causes. Mbeki mentioned a plan to improve resource allocation within the justice systerm to ensure that "crime does not pay". The fact that a large majority of those overcrowding our prisons are arrested for what most sociologists view as "poverty related" crimes is immaterial.
Because of government's strict fiscal discipline, and Mbeki and Manto Tshabalala-Msimang's AIDS denial, the life saving anti retroviral drugs are only available to a fraction of infected persons - mostly women and youth - at government hospitals. Only about a hundred thousand of about six million HIV/AIDS patients are on anti retroviral medicine at public institutions.
Is it therefore not an insult and insensitive for Mbeki to suggest that we should be proud of this horrific situation?
Opposition parties, who have, in the backdrop of electioneering for the March 01 local government elections, portrayed themselves as an 'alternative' to the ANC, whilst having raised a few minor misgivings about Mbeki's speech, are in full agreement with the overall anti-poor capitalist agenda.
The failure to acknowledge that it is the top down capitalist policies of the ruling party that breed corruption and poverty, give the lie to their claims.
Certainly, there is an urgent need to conduct an intensive nationwide debate of government's economic policies that have rendered freedom and democracy enigmatic for many South Africans.
Is it not the right time then to demand an end to privatisation and outsourcing? Was the struggle against apartheid also not about decent and secure jobs? With more than eight million of the economically active population unemployed, should we not be demanding urgent steps to curb the unemployment virus?
Nigeria's anti-corruption commission announced a crackdown Monday on conmen who have scammed hundreds of thousands of dollars by impersonating the agency's own officials. The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission said alleged fraudsters are already on trial in four cities for pretending to be anti-graft investigators and soliciting bribes to kill nonexistent cases.
The former top Lesotho official on the Highlands Water Commission, now an influential adviser on water matters with The New Partnership for Africa’s Development, has been charged with bribery involving over R1-million. This is the latest in a series of bribery and corruption trials connected to lucrative contracts around the Lesotho Highlands water scheme and the building of the Katse Dam.
Children affected by HIV/AIDS do not receive enough care and support, UNAIDS said last Thursday ahead of the third Global Partners' Forum in London, Reuters reports. The forum, hosted by UNICEF and the UK Department for International Development, is bringing together advocates from 50 countries and 90 international organizations to address ways to improve policies that support children affected by HIV/AIDS.
Frightened poultry workers on Monday shunned medical examinations for bird flu in northern Nigeria, where the presence of the deadly H5N1 virus which can affect humans was reported last week. Only about 20 of the estimated 160 employees of Sambawa Farms in Jaji, Kaduna State, turned up for a medical screening conducted at a nearby clinic by a joint team of federal and state health officials. Workers told IRIN that many of their colleagues stayed away because they were frightened of being detained by authorities if tested positive.
The impact of AIDS on the military has been a topic African armed forces have preferred to keep under wraps, concerned with issues of national security. But in a step towards greater openness, military and civilian experts from the Southern African Development Community (SADC) gathered last week in the Namibian capital, Windhoek, as part of an advisory group to discuss a regional response to AIDS in the defence sector.
In a move to address the critical shortage of nurses, several nursing colleges will be re-opened, Health minister Dr Manto Tshabalala-Msimang has announced. She said that her department had been contemplating the move, but that they had waited for the go-ahead from President Thabo Mbeki in his state of the nation address. “We have got to train as many nurses as possible. Even if we train too many and some leave,” said Tshabalala-Msimang at a media briefing in parliament.
Ministers responsible for refugee affairs in Member States of the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) are due to meet in Nairobi, Kenya, from 20-21 February 2006 to discuss problems of refugees, returnees and internally displaced persons in the region. The region has generated a total of 1.3 million refugees, a large portion of whom (695,000) are hosted in Uganda, Ethiopia, Sudan, Kenya, Djibouti, Central African Republic and Egypt. The conference will also review the humanitarian crises confronted by the region, share experiences and come up with a regional plan of action to respond to challenges in protection and assistance for persons affected by displacement.
The Tech Museum Awards is a unique and prestigious program that honors and awards innovators from around the world who use technology to benefit humanity. Each year, 25 Laureates are honored at a gala dinner, invited to participate in press and media coverage, and introduced to a network of influential advisors. An inspirational and unforgettable event, the black-tie celebration will be held at The Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose, California, on November 15, 2006.
Rival Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) camps have started a cyber-war and ratcheted up their campaigns to demonise each other ahead of parallel congresses this month and in March. The camp led by MDC vice-president Gibson Sibanda has distributed a draft constitution reportedly crafted by Morgan Tsvangirai's group.
Through this issue we hope to dig into and provide a platform for the medium that best brings, on the page, writing, art and ideas together - a medium still criminally unexplored these parts. However, the idea isn't to present another "African Comics" anthology, or similar missionary or developmental projects. Though Chimurenga is a very politicised space, it's also a space for pleasure. We're inviting comics creators and graphic storytellers who have produced cutting-edge work to submit some original pieces for this issue, or excerpts from work-in-progress.
This exciting new competition established jointly by RUSI and The Brenthurst Foundation, a Johannesburg-based think tank devoted to strengthening Africa’s economic performance, with the generous support of the Nelson Mandela Foundation, aims to encourage fresh and innovative perspectives on African security and development. Entries are invited to address this critical relationship between security and development in the context of a trans-national theme or issue in Africa, or a single country case-study.
The Africa Regional Sexuality Resource Centre (ARSRC) calls for applications to its annual Sexuality Leadership Development Fellowship (SLDF) Programme. The Fellowship is scheduled to take place in Lagos, Nigeria from July 10– 28, 2006.
In cooperation with partners, the Centre for Civil Society at the University of Kwa-Zulu Natal will be opening thematic research projects on 'Economic Justice' in 2006. We will launch this theme by reviewing some of the finest traditions of South African, regional and international political-economic theory and contemporary analysis, and invite you to join us. We are mainly concerned with market-nonmarket interactions and new forms of 'primitive accumulation'.
Over the past year, the number of Africans blogging has grown. However, women bloggers are still a minority in most country blogospheres except for Kenya were there is almost a 50/50 split between men and women. To try and redress this, two Nigerian women bloggers (Oreoluwa Somolu of Ore’s Notes - http://orenotes.blogspot.com/) and Sokari Ekine of Black Looks - http://okrasoup.typepad.com/black_looks) initiated a blog mentoring project to encourage more Nigerian women to blog. Initially the project there will be a pilot project in Lagos, Nigeria which will consist of 15 participants and 20-30 mentors and will run for 6 months. For more information and if you are interested in mentoring on the project contact sokari(at)fahamu.org
Rwandan Survivors - (http://rwandansurvivors.blogspot.com/2006/02/survivors-this-posting-was-...) publishes a moving statement by a 26 year old genocide “survivor” on her/his own suffering. S/he questions the use of the term “Survivor”.
“You are called genocide survivor but actually you are not! You just try to move along with others without any basis just like a shoot trying to grow up without roots.”
S/he goes on to urge the international community to stop debating on whether genocide is taking place or not in Darfur and Act:
“The policy of the international community is ‘No interest, no emergency’. They left people dying during the genocide then came back after to clean the bloody place with their nutritional and medical assistance to the injured survivors…Why should people waste time arguing on either if it is genocide or not in Darfur? Any second wasted results in a waste of lives.”
This is Zimbabwe (Sokwanele)- This is Zimbabwe (http://www.sokwanele.com/thisiszimbabwe/archives/352) considers whether the CIO (Central Intelligence Organisation) of Zimbabwe is involved with the infighting amongst the opposition party, MDC (Movement for Democratic Change). There are two main conspiracy theories. The first accuses the vice president of the MDC of conniving with South African President Mbeki to undermine MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai. The second theory is that Tsvangirai colluded with ZANU PF and betrayed the MDC by pulling out of the Senate elections in exchange for a “reward”.
Sokwanele however poses a third theory which they explain in detail:
“The view we put forward here is that both sides in the intense leadership struggle are thereby playing right into the hands of the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) which not only benefits from the resulting division and confusion but actually planned it that way. And the meticulous planning began many years ago”
They conclude by calling on Zimbabweans to end the “personality cult” and stop following leaders who have proved themselves flawed.
Grandiose Parlor - Grandiose Parlor (http://grandioseparlor.blogspot.com/2006/02/bridge-in-60-days.html ) reports on a a bridge that was built in 60 days in Anambra State, Eastern Nigeria.
The bridge was built by a retired engineer and the men and women of the Ozubulu village and was financed by the Worldwide Organisation of Women. Discussing his experience, the engineer, Dr Strong writes:
“For many reasons this has been a very good project to show how the people themselves can get up and do for themselves when it is obvious the government will not or can not do what they wish for a better life. Here is a marvellous bridge birthed in a jungle across a muddy river and swamp. Just as easy it could have been a school, a clinic, a library, a community palm oil processing plant, a cassava starch extraction plant, a maze of fish raising ponds, a complex of chicken houses.”
Just imagine if this was replicated across the country and across the continent?
Rantings of a Sandmonkey - Rantings of a Sandmonkey (http://egyptiansandmonkey.blogspot.com/2006/02/5-sightings-2-realization...) reminds us that cartoons are still very much a part of the Middle Eastern blogosphere conversations. He publishes a list of things he saw in down town Cairo for example.
“A big banner that informs the Muslim population that Denmark - all of it apparently - are going to burn the Koran - yet again - this Wednesday, and in retaliation we all should fast on Friday and then pray to god against them when we break the fast. (Not kidding!)”
And so it goes on.
AfroHomo - AfroHomo (http://afrohomo.blogspot.com/2006/02/afrohomo-memories-004-fear.html) continues his memoirs of growing up gay in Nigeria:
“In my nightmare, I am walking down a Lagos street and street hoodlums attack me with sticks and blows. Finally, they put a tire around me, douse me with gasoline and set me on fire. My mum runs towards me in tears, too late to save me from the flames…
My nightmare is not a fantasy. About three years ago, I woke up in my dorm room (during the year I spent at a Nigerian university) to screams of pain. A guy was getting severely beat-up and dorm rooms were emptying out - everyone wanted to see the show. I stood watching the beating for a while, in that horror-fascination state of mind. I stood watching until I asked one of my friends: ‘What did he do?’"
He concludes that at least he is lucky as many of his friends are probably still “walking Lagos streets, conforming on the outside but bearing dangerous secrets”. Being gay in Africa is a living torture and as he explains:
“I can't be happy as long as gay Africans live under dangly swords. Increasingly, I see GLBT activism as my life's calling. Maybe that's why god has blessed me - to fight for gay Africans that may not be able to fight for themselves. It's a scary path to tread but…”
Chippla - Chippla (http://chippla.blogspot.com/2006/02/talibanization-of-northern-nigeria.html) writes on the Tablinisation of Northern Nigeria. Kano, once a bustling cosmopolitan city, is now regressing “thanks to in no small part to Islamic religious fundamentalism” and the introduction of Sharia law:
“The federal government of Nigeria is now accusing the Kano State government of ‘seeking foreign funding to train an Islamic militia’, according to reports from the Nigerian Guardian (not archived). The Nigerian Minister of Information is reported as saying that the Kano State government is trying to turn the Hisbah into a parallel police force.”
Chippla agrees that Islam, like other religions, has a role to play in the country, but points to ”the danger of politicians hijacking religious teachings and dogma for selfish use.”
* Sokari Ekine produces the blog Black Looks, http://okrasoup.typepad.com/black_looks
* Please send comments to [email protected]
Pambazuka News 241: International Criminal Court: A Ray of Hope for the Women of Darfur?
Pambazuka News 241: International Criminal Court: A Ray of Hope for the Women of Darfur?
An outbreak of the deadly avian flu has been confirmed in Nigeria, wiping out in one fell swoop over 46,000 poultry at a farm at Jaji, Kaduna, reports the Vanguard newspaper. The bird flu is caused by avian influenza viruses, which occur naturally among birds. The virus in humans results in serious illness that spreads easily from person to person. Apart from the Sambawa Farms, some farms in Kano and Plateau States have also been quarantined by government for pathological tests in search of a possible infection.
"Africans are angered by the continued unwillingness of African rulers to deal with human rights issues. The fact that they held the latest summit in Sudan in the first place shows their disdain for human rights", said Lovemore Madhuku, chairman of Zimbabwe's National Constitutional Assembly. "The fact that they are passing the African Union chairmanship to a coup leader in Congo makes them laughable. Where do Africans turn now?" The pessimism of dashed hopes has an especially bitter taste. In July 2002 the reinvention of the African Union (AU) amid the ashes of the discredited forty-year-old Organisation of African Unity (OAU) was hailed internationally as a triumph. It was seen as a vital leap forward into the 21st century for the "dark continent" – with its tragic millions of poverty-stricken, starving, diseased peoples, and its elite coterie of portly, bemedalled, ageing dictators.
A man from Mali was stabbed to death early Sunday (February 5), the head of an organization for Africans in the city said. Aliu Tunkara, president of African Unity in St. Petersburg, said the victim had graduated from a medical school in St. Petersburg nine years ago but was jobless and had been living on the street. Tunkara said police told him the man was found dead, but the RIA-Novosti news agency, also citing police, said he died in an ambulance on the way to a hospital. St. Petersburg has seen numerous racially motivated attacks in recent months. A student from Cameroon was stabbed to death in St. Petersburg in December, and a Congolese student was killed in the city in September.
With the general elections in sight at the end of 2007, the feeling of de ja vu is difficult to shake off, considering that the country has been in political campaigns mode for nearly two years. “Women are not well represented at all levels of leadership positions and their representation especially at the local authorities' level is wanting,” explains Deborah Okumu, a Senior Programmes Officer at the Kenya Women's Political Caucus (KWPC). She notes that the absence of formal mechanisms of both accountability and participation within the political systems restricts access for women.
This policy brief explores the reform needed of social institutions and cultural practices to enhance qender equality. The paper argues that gender equality is good for growth, economic development and poverty reduction, and identifies the following reasons for the persistence of gender discriminating cultural practises and social norms: the “legitimacy” of reform is often contested.
Just days after Johannesburg mayor and ANC candidate - Amos Masondo - arrived in Pimville, Soweto, to ask residents for their votes, ESKOM, the state's corporatised electricity provider, returned to show the community exactly what they would be voting for. This time it was Trevor Ngwane's turn. Trevor, a well know campaigner against ANC neoliberal policies, lives in Pimville where, thanks to an illegal connection, he has enjoyed decommodified electricity for the last five years. In Trevor's words "when they cut us off we just reconnect ourselves". With less than a month to go before the election, ESKOM officials, accompanied by police visited Trevor. Prepped to cut his electricity, they began digging up the earth in front of his house, searching for the offending cable. The community would however have their say as well, and twice the ESKOM brigades were forced to flee and return with reinforcements.
Globally, the lack of access to clean water and sanitation facilities results in the deaths of 3,900 children daily. The importance of water and sanitation is recognised in the Millennium Development Goals. What will it take to expand water supply and sanitation coverage to the extent necessary to achieve them? How can water use be optimised to achieve the rest of the Goals? The Millennium Project Task Force on Water and Sanitation was created to advise on how Target 10 of the MDGs – halving the number of people without access to sustainable safe drinking water and basic sanitation by 2015 – can be achieved.
Multinational companies have an undue influence over the making of global trade rules at the World Trade Organization (WTO). Big business lobbyists have privileged access to government policymakers and use it to push trade agreements that undermine the fight against poverty. This Action Aid report highlights many examples of privileged corporate access to, and excessive influence over, the WTO policy-making process. It argues that governments must take urgent action to curb corporate influence in the WTO and put the rights of poor people before the profits of multinationals in the current round of global trade talks.
The Bush Administration will face a unique opportunity in February to end the genocide in Darfur when the United States takes over the presidency of the United Nations (UN) Security Council. With this responsibility comes a chance to take an action that can save hundreds of thousands of lives and restore security to western Sudan. As the situation in Darfur continues to deteriorate, the US leadership at the UN next month can achieve protection for the people of Darfur and affirm a commitment to stopping this first genocide of the 21st century.
In 2002 the International Council on Human Rights Policy published a short report, 'Local Rule: Decentralisation and Human Rights', which mapped some of the potential human rights implications of decentralisation reforms. On one hand, reforms can enhance political participation, increase local autonomy, empower disadvantaged groups and lead to more accountable government. On the other, it can entrench the powers of local elites; weaken national institutions; exacerbate social division and provoke violence; deepen inequality; and cause regression of social and economic rights because of corruption, shortfalls in resources or discrimination and loss of economies of scale.
Last week, the growing turbulence in the Middle East came to a head as protests erupted over the publication of some cartoons picturing a caricature of the prophet Mohammed. The protests soon spread around the world. "It would be tempting to look for an explanation to these events in a single issue, in this case the publication of a drawing showing Mohammed wearing a turban shaped as a bomb or portraying him holding a sword, his eyes covered by a black rectangle. We should note, however, that the riots erupted five months after the actual publication in a Danish right wing newspaper which printed twelve caricatures of Mohammed back in September last year," notes this commentary posted on the website of the Centre for Civil Society at the university of KwaZulu-Natal.
Related Links
* Niger: Thousands protest caricature of Prophet Muhammad
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=51616
* Somalia: Violent protests against Prophet Muhammad cartoons
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=51603
Former Senegalese prime minister, Idrissa Seck, was released from prison on Tuesday after more than seven months in detention on charges of corruption and threatening state security. An investigating panel of the Senegalese high court ordered the release after examining charges against the 46-year-old one-time top ally of President Abdoulaye Wade.
Civil society groups and members of the Sudanese community in Egypt held a ceremony on Tuesday commemorating refugees and asylum seekers killed in clashes with local police, following a sit-in protest in December 2005. In Muslim countries such as Egypt, wakes are traditionally held 40 days after a death has occurred. Late last year, Sudanese protesters staged a three-month-long sit-in demonstration in a public park in central Cairo. On the night of 29 December, however, Egyptian police staged a massive security operation to evacuate the site of the protest.
This lush and intimate book explores the coming-of-age of three sisters in post Idi Amin Uganda. Each chapter in this collection of linked short stories develops the theme of exploration and discovery as the sisters mature and their interior and exterior lives expand. We meet Christine, the youngest sister, as a girl learning of the bittersweet dynamics of her parents' marriage through exploring her mother's jewellery drawer. She later learns her own lessons about relationships, including her relationship with herself, which becomes more complex when she moves to the United States. Christine's quiet, uptight sister Patti suffers humiliation at boarding school and finds her peace in religion, while her oldest sister, Rosa, is an adventurous and sexually precocious teenager with a feisty personality. In the final story, Christine returns home to Uganda, in a journey that has come full circle, but not with all the ends tied up. This is a subtle, powerful book about growing up as an African woman and it heralds the arrival of a remarkably gifted writer.
Taking a break from spraying his neat, one-hectare plot of young cotton plants with herbicide, Moses Mabika surveys the land that has been supporting his family for 45 years. He may not realise it, but he is standing at the epicenter of a heated debate about growing genetically modified (GM) crops in Africa. Mabika is among more than 2,000 smallholder farmers in this semi-arid area of northeastern KwaZulu-Natal province known as Makhathini Flats, who began growing GM cotton in 1999.
An exhibition of works of some 13 Cameroonian artists is underway in Cairo. On the sidelines of the 25th African Cup of Nations, an exhibition of Cameroonian contemporary plastic arts is underway in Cairo. Some 27 works by 13 artists are in display in the exhibition at Saad Zaghloul hall, Cairo. It is organized by the Cameroon cultural delegation in Egypt. Last Sunday (February 5) evening, the head of the delegation, Minister Philippe Mbarga Mboa, launched the exhibition in the presence of authorities of the Egyptian Ministry of Culture and a host of Egyptians. It was an occasion to inform the Egyptian press on the raison-d'etre of the exhibition - expose the rich cultural potential of Cameroon.
If you’re a woman in Darfur and you want to lay a charge of rape, the chances are that the charge will be changed to one of assault. Even if you want to persist in your charge of rape, you’ll need four male witnesses to support your charge. As a result, sexual and gender based violence is one of the biggest violations of women’s rights in Darfur, writes Christine Butegwa from Femnet. Hopes are high that the International Criminal Court will be able to change the situation.
On 30 November 2004, 7 female internally-displaced people (IDPs), one of whom was pregnant, were attacked by an armed militia group allegedly in military uniform, near the Deraij camp, 4 km east of Nyala, Southern Darfur State. The 7 women and girls were fetching firewood outside the camp where they were reportedly attacked, beaten with guns on their chests and heads, and stripped. The armed militia later took 3 of them to an abandoned hut where they were raped. The other 4 women and girls managed to escape. All 7 women and girls were seriously injured and later received medical treatment at the Amel Centre for Rehabilitation of Torture victims. One of the survivors of the violence was transferred to the Nyala hospital where she miscarried.
This is just one of the cases that the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT) has received from Sudan. Since the unfolding of the conflict in Darfur in February 2003, intolerable crimes against humanity have been committed in a massive and systematic manner. Over two million people have been forced to flee their homes and over 70,000 people have been killed as a direct result of violence. Women and children have been the main target of these atrocities, specifically sexual and gender-based violence. Women and girls are vulnerable to rape whenever they venture out of the IDP camps in search of water or firewood. Despite the fact that in many cases, the survivors of gender-based violence can identify their attackers, justice has been denied. Now, the recent decision by the United Nations Security Council to refer the situation in Darfur to the International Criminal Court (ICC) may offer the only hope for many women and girls in Darfur to see justice done.
Lack of access to justice – a denial of women’s rights in Darfur
Sexual and gender based violence is one of the biggest violations of women’s rights in Darfur. Women’s rights continue to be violated due to gender-based discrimination in the national laws of Sudan. According to Jane Lindrio Alao, a psychologist with the Amel Centre for Treatment and Rehabilitation of Victims of Torture based in Darfur, rape is not recognized as a crime in the law. Most people accused of rape are only charged with having committed assault, which is a lesser charge that can lead to a one year jail sentence. Under the law, rape can only be said to have occurred and admitted in court if there are 4 witnesses. “All the witnesses should witness the actual penetration. This means that if there were only 2 witnesses, the accused would not be charged. How many women have the luxury of having witnesses to rape?” says Ms. Alao.
The archaic and discriminatory laws have led to perpetrators of violence acting with impunity. According to Ms. Alao, the majority of the perpetrators are allegedly affiliated directly or indirectly with the government, such as the Popular Defence Forces and the Janjaweed militia. The Sudanese national courts are also affiliated to the government party and have therefore failed to provide justice to the people of Darfur. Women and other members of the community who dare to take rape cases to court are arrested and accused of waging war on the government.
The situation is compounded by the fact that the majority of civil society organizations in Sudan are pro-government and therefore do not acknowledge rape and other human rights violations occurring in Darfur. “Amel centre is the only NGO providing legal aid for victims to seek redress and justice for crimes committed. Most of the other local NGOs deal with sanitation and humanitarian efforts,” says Ms. Alao.
The Darfur Consortium: African civil Society advocacy on Darfur
Previously, most high profile responses to the situation in Darfur had come from NGOs and governments outside Africa. The AU has now taken a more active role and brokered several ceasefire agreements and has troops on the ground in Darfur attempting to monitor these agreements. However, there was still a large gap in terms of African civil society finding an African solution to the Darfur crisis.
To fill this gap, the Darfur Consortium was created in September 2004 in Pretoria, South Africa on the same occasion that the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights held its third extraordinary session dedicated to examining the situation in Darfur. The Darfur Consortium is a network of Africa-based and Africa-focused CSOs that hopes to reflect the unique perspective of African civil society and provide a forum for unified action, particularly through sustained engagement with the institutions of the AU. The Consortium brings together more than 200 African CSOs.
At a meeting in Kampala in February 2005, the Darfur Consortium embarked on a campaign to support the International Commission of Inquiry’s recommendation that the situation in Darfur be referred to the International Criminal Court (ICC) for further investigation. The Commission argued that the Sudanese justice system had shown itself unwilling or unable to prosecute offenders. The Darfur Consortium engaged in an intense advocacy and lobbying campaign with members of the United Nations Security Council on the Commission’s recommendation. On March 31, 2005, the Security Council approved UN Security Council Resolution 1593/2005 granting the ICC jurisdiction to investigate ongoing atrocities in Darfur. Although some members of the Security Council such as Algeria, Nigeria and the United States, felt that an African tribunal would be the most appropriate mechanism, the Darfur Consortium argued that the ICC was both an African and an international mechanism. According to Dr. Yitiha Simbeye, a member of the Consortium and Dean at the Faculty of Law in Makumira University, Tanzania, the Consortium also supported the referral to the ICC because it is a permanent court and this would therefore save on time and resources required to set up a new one. “The ICC referral and present jurisdiction also signals to the Darfurians that the whole world is concerned with the situation in Darfur,” says Dr. Yitiha.
The International Criminal Court: Justice for women in Darfur
The ICC is the first permanent, independent court capable of investigating and bringing to justice individuals who commit the most serious violations of international humanitarian law, namely war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide. The Court has its seat in The Hague, in the Netherlands and was established in accordance with the Rome Statute on 1 July 2002. The ICC website indicates that by May 2005, 99 countries had ratified the Rome Statute, out of which 27 are African States.
Sudan is not a State party to the ICC treaty. However, the ICC has jurisdiction over non-State parties in instances where that country accepted the ICC’s jurisdiction on an ad hoc basis or, as in the case of Sudan, the UN Security Council referred the situation to the Court.
Unlike the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the principal judicial organ of the United Nations that deals primarily with disputes between States, the ICC has jurisdiction over matters involving individual criminal responsibility. The Rome Statute also identifies crimes of sexual violence such as rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution and forced pregnancy as crimes against humanity when they are committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against a civilian population. The ICC has created a Victims and Witnesses Unit within the Registry to provide protective measures, security arrangements, counseling and other assistance for witnesses and victims. The ICC therefore offers an alternative avenue for justice for the women and girls who comprise almost 90% of the victims of the Darfur conflict.
Although the ICC does have its limitations, including the fact that it requires national government cooperation, both the Darfurians and the Darfur Consortium have high hopes in it. For the Darfur Consortium, their advocacy strategy will now move from advocating for referral to the ICC to pushing for ICC cooperation by the Government of Sudan, monitoring the GoS to prevent it from attempting to circumvent the ICC process and giving CSO support to the ICC prosecutor in the investigation process.
Although some CSOs and traditional leaders in countries such as Uganda have been against the Government of Uganda’s referral of the Northern Uganda conflict to the ICC citing it as a possible deterrent to peace efforts in the area, the Darfur Consortium feels that the ICC is important for the peace process in Sudan. “I believe the long-term disenfranchisement of victims can in itself negatively affect the peace process. Penal measures against perpetrators give victims confidence,” argues Dr. Yitiha.
For the women’s movement in Darfur, what they are looking for is fair trials and compensation of the victims of sexual violence. “IDPs are keeping silent and protecting themselves, waiting for the day of the ICC,” says Ms. Alao.
*Christine Butegwa is Communications Officer with the African Women’s Development and Communication Network (FEMNET)
* Please send comments to [email protected]
-------------------
Members of the Darfur Consortium include:
African Centre for Democracy and Human Rights Studies; African NGO Refugee Protection Network; African Society of International and Comparative Law; African Women’s Development and Communications Network (FEMNET); Alliances for Africa; Anti-slavery International; Arab Program for Human Rights Studies (APHRA); Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS); Centre for Research Education and Development of Freedom of Expression and Associated Rights; Darfur Relief and Documentation Centre; Egyptian Organisation for Human Rights (EOHR); Femmes Africa Solidarite; Human Rights Centre, University of Pretoria; Human Rights Institute of South Africa (HURISA); Institute for Human Rights and Development in Africa; Inter-African Union for Human Rights (UIDH); Interights; International Commission of Jurists; International Refugee Rights Initiative; Justice Africa; Justice Initiative; Justice and Peace Commission; Lawyers for Human Rights; Legal Resources Consortium-Nigeria; Ligue Tunisienne pour la Defense des Droits de l’Homme; Makurima University College, Tumaini University; Minority Rights Group; Open Society Justice Initiative; Pan-African Movement; Recontre Africaine pour la Defense des Droits de l’Homme (RADDHO), Sudan Organisation Against Torture, Sudanese Refugee Association in South Africa; WARIPNET; World Organisation Against Torture.
For more information on the Darfur Consortium, please contact:
The Darfur Consortium,
Box 7785, Kampala, Uganda:
Tel: +1-646 546 7152 (New York);
Email: [email protected];
URL: www.darfurconsortium.org
Dismas Nkunda,
International Refugee Rights Initiative
[email protected]
For more information about the International Criminal Court, contact:
The Coalition for the International Criminal Court
708 3rd Avenue, 24th Floor, New York, NY 10017, USA
ph: 1-212-687-2863
fax: 1-212-599-1332
url: http://www.iccnow.org
Can protocols and legislation really be an effective weapon against gender discrimination? Janah Ncube examines the Southern African Development Community and contends that while law may not change a moral belief, it can stop a husband from beating his wife to pulp, penalize unfair employment practices, and punish rape. “Legislation has proved that with the state upholding it, social norms eventually conform to it if it is beneficial to all peoples.”
It is no longer business as usual in the SADC region for development and gender stakeholders. After representatives from SADC Member States in government and civil society, regional NGOs, inter-governmental bodies and SADC Secretariat met in Botswana in December 2005, they concluded that if any integration in the SADC region is to be successful, sustainable and achievable, it has to be gender based regional integration.
The Executive Secretary of the SADC Secretariat Dr. Tomaz Salamao urged SADC governments to facilitate the implementation of the SADC Gender programme to enable the gender equality and equity objective to be attained. The driving force behind this consultative conference was the head of the Gender Unit at the SADC Secretariat Mrs. Magdaline Mathiba-Madibela who had the foresight to lobby and push for an action plan. Thus the 5 year SADC Gender Based Regional Integration Strategic Implementation Framework (2006 – 2010) was developed by the 110 participants.
The SADC Gender and Development conference was held in the backdrop of a region that is currently facing increasing poverty with over 70% of the region’s population living below US$2 per day and 40% below US$1 (SADC 2003), severe drought, extremely high HIV/AIDS prevalence (of the world population living with HIV, 60% come from the SADC region and of this number, 57% are women), serious food insecurity, high unemployment and cross border economic migrants.
While the only country in the SADC region experiencing ‘active conflict’ is the DRC, Angola is still reeling from the immediate effects of conflict including the problem of landmines, which Zimbabwe and Mozambique among others are still dealing with. Poor infrastructural development at national level and within the region in terms of connecting SADC Member States to facilitate trade and other cross-border initiatives is another such limitation.
All these limitations and challenges overbearing SADC precipitate as problems for women at practical day in day out experiences. This is because of the gendered nature of allocation of roles and responsibilities in our societies both at primary level (in the family) and at secondary level (in the public space). When the state cannot provide for its citizens, women become the subsidizers of the state by providing for unrecognized and unrewarded skills and services. The drastic expenditure budget cuts on social expenditure by governments in the late 1980s to 1990s due to structural adjustment programs give such evidence. African countries saw the negative impact of SAPs through the increased burden of care and basic food provision being shifted from the state to women (Maramba, Olagbegi & Webanenou 1995).
Women in the region have been facing increased challenges, marginalization and appalling gender crimes - despite vigorous gender awareness campaigns, women’s empowerment policies, legislation and programs adopted at national level since Beijing and other much earlier processes. What also is unique about the SADC region with regards to dissipating typical gender stereotypes is that women’s emancipatory efforts in this region were evidenced by their active participation together with the men in our liberation struggles (Campbell 2003).
However basic human rights, human dignity and human freedoms for them are still contested and have to be implored for diplomatically from our Heads of States. As seen in slavery, colonialism and apartheid, denial of rights of any persons is a mere facilitation of fictitious justifications for their exploitation. Until January 2006, adult women of Swaziland were being denied the dignity of being legal entities. Up to today, adult women in Botswana who decide to marry cannot open a water utilities account without the substantiation of their husbands. The way women are still portrayed in our media as trivial, sexual, insignificant entities of course perpetuates their secondary status in our societies.
Gendered violence is rampant in the SADC region and the conspiracy of silence around it in our homes, in our communities and indeed within the law has seen it multiply and become even more reckless as it is stealthily inflicted with impunity. Some of this abuse includes sexual crimes against baby girls as young as 3 days old; rape of primary school girls by male teachers and headmasters; gang rapes in daylight and cold and bloody murders sold to the world as ‘passion killings’.
While SADC is generally perceived as a region ‘enjoying’ peace, there is no peace in ordinary women’s everyday lives as husbands and lovers who claim to love them beat, kick and plunder their bodies. Of course this is called ‘domestic violence’ and has been found rather difficult to ‘treat’ in the justice system as it is a ‘household’ affair. Of course what is not being admitted here is that this is a security threat on the person of the victimised woman and is a denial of dignity when an external entity can bruise and break her body parts without legal recourse (see UDHR 1948).
The gendered division of labour within the region has resulted in the trivialization and marginalization of women’s work and their economic activities, which is practiced through denial of ownership and impossible access to resources such as land and capital; the criminalization or non regulation of the informal sector and lastly the non-costing of women’s work despite their long manual work.
This further buttresses not just the secondary status of women but is one of the key reasons developing countries have remained stuck in the poverty rut (UNIFEM 2005). SADC’s priority is to address the poverty that is in our region and unless we wake up to the reality that we have exhausted our capacity to further develop and grow the economies of our region based on exclusion and exploitation of women, we will stay in this rut for generations to come. The equality and equity agenda is not just about improving the situation of women, it is about improving the situation of our families which ripples into improving our communities, industries, countries and the region. It is about Africa utilizing all of its human skills in appropriating its resources to the best of its peoples. It is about attaining Africa’s potential by Africans for Africans.
In 2003, SADC came up with the Regional Indicative Strategic Development Plan (RISDP) to guide SADC policies, programmes and actions. The RISDP re-enforces the strategy of regional integration which Oyejide (2000) argues is the most basic ingredient for attaining high and sustainable economic growth. The task of building a regional community in light of inequalities amongst the member states in terms of development and economic status and indeed those inequalities inherited from the colonial and imperial legacies based on race, gender, class and so forth, requires courageous and capable leadership, skills and resources.
However in light of global trends and the influence of International Financial Institutions (IFI) in local economies of developing countries such as SADC Member States, including trade agreements that are continually being made on North-South differential agreements, integration also becomes about synergies, pooling resources together, widening export markets, and enhancing capacity of the region while negotiating and engaging on international platforms and indeed negotiating for progressions within the region itsself (see ADB Report 2000).
The RISDP also recognizes that greater equality between women and men contributes to both development and economic growth. In light of this, gender mainstreaming has been adopted by SADC as a strategy for ensuring that all SADC policies, programmes and activities take into consideration the fact that women and men, boys and girls are affected differently by macro and micro initiatives and policies due to the gendered nature of our societies. Such disparities that leave women worse off than men must be addressed to achieve the goal of gender equality and equity.
At SADC secretariat level, the Gender Unit (GU) has the task of ensuring that gender is mainstreamed in SADC policies and programmes while at national level Member States have set up National Gender Machineries (NGM) as institutions to do the same in all government structures and initiatives and also advance the empowerment of women. As Win (2005) points out, NGM have failed to achieve the conceptualized and intended gender justice which they promised. They instead became token entities to ‘shut women up’ as either departments in ministries or fully-fledged ministries with other issues lumped together with them such as community development, youth, children etc.
As the ministers of Gender in Africa observed during the Beijing +10 process in October 2004, NGM lack capacity, authority and resources to implement the enormous task of engendering all of government. A capacity assessment of NGM commissioned by the GU also pointed out that NGM have no clear mandates, are peripheral entities in government and are poorly resourced (see GU Needs Assessment Study 2004). Despite this, NGM still remain the most effective institutions to mainstream gender in governments if they address these limitations and adopt the Gender Management System as a strategy. (The Gender Management System (GMS) is a network of structures, mechanisms and processes put in place within an existing organization to guide, plan, monitor and evaluate the process of mainstreaming gender.)
Indeed many peripheral analyses of the gender inequality/discrimination problem blame women for perpetuating this phenomenon. What they fail to acknowledge is the power of the socialisation process which does not separate women from men in reinforcing the messages of superior males and subordinate females stereotypes in our societies (see Oakley 1985). However the greatest challenge with changing gender-based disempowerment is that it is about women who are engaged in personal/intimate relationships with men who evoke their discrimination.
The racial discrimination fight was easier because the “other” was disengaged and not connected to the “us”. However this struggle is about going against the wisdom of a father, the perceptions of a husband, the practices mother taught. So sometimes it seems to be an internal fight between being loyal to what one has always known and believed and what one sees to be the path to attaining their potential, freedoms and security. The progressions that we have attained through legislation and policy changes indeed give hope to women that the equality goal can and will be attained. This is why the Gender and Development Conference called for the upgrading of the SADC Declaration on Gender and Development (1997) and its addendum on the Elimination of Violence Against Women and Children (1998) to a protocol. A protocol is a legally binding instrument which Member States will have to enforce. This protocol will incorporate all the targets of existing regional and international instruments and will at the same time incorporate existing issues which are highly impacting on the region such as HIV/AIDS and the trafficking of women for sex trade and other exploitations. Currently member states are in the process of consulting different stakeholders and mobilizing for support for the proposed protocol, targeted to be tabled before Heads of States at their next Summit in August 2006 in Lesotho.
While it is true that discrimination, exclusion and exploitation of women are moral issues that have been justified through traditional and religious interpretations and despite numerous progressive laws, they have continued to prevail and this has lead to myths that propagate ideas that protocols and legislation cannot solve these problems. Truth is, the law cannot change one’s interpretation of the Bible or one’s moral belief. However legislation has codified gender discrimination and to borrow from Martin Luther King Junior’s rationale on legislation (1968); legislation can regulate behaviour and keep a husband from beating his wife to pulp, legislation can penalize and consequently restrain an employer from paying women less than men for the same type of work and legislation can show men that they can not rape and get away with light penalties. Legislation has proved that with the state upholding it, social norms eventually conform to it if it is beneficial to all peoples.
The challenge for SADC is to move the SADC region from goodwill and commitments to implementation and tangible changes women can see in their daily lives. Member States can start by adopting, ratifying and domesticating the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa. The rhetoric has to be replaced by budget allocations of at least 10% for women’s empowerment and gender related programs in each line ministry’s budgetary allocation. SADC needs to accelerate its pace on increasing women’s leadership in political and other decision-making processes. Current trends are too slow; we missed our target of 30% by 2005 and have not felt ashamed by it.
National Governments must strengthen the capacity of NGM by increasing resources, clout, access, skilled senior personnel and defining clear mandates for them. Women’s NGOs and NGM must discard mistrust and adopt the spirit of the conference resolutions of seeking ways of collaborating and sharing information to achieve national targets. Civil society must continue to mobilize and educate the peoples of the region on action areas and issues identified and prioritised for the next 5 years. The energies generated at the conference must be fanned into even greater momentum as more stakeholders in the region run with the agenda. The SADC Executive Secretary recently pointed out that without peace, all of SADC’s efforts to integrate the region are futile. Truth is they are doomed to fail unless meaningful gender conscious and pro-women paradigms are what inform the region’s developmental and economic growth agenda.
* Janah Ncube is Technical Advisor to the Gender
SADC Secretariat in Gaborone Botswana
* Please send comments to [email protected]
References:
ADB (2000) Afican Development Report 2000: Regional Integration in Africa www.afdb.org
Campbell, H. (2003) ‘Reclaiming Zimbabwe: The exhaustion of the Patriarchal Model of Liberation’ South Africa: David Philip Publishers
Commonwealth Secretariat (1999) ‘Gender Management System Handbook’. Commonwealth Secretariat UK
Maramba. P, Olagbegi. B, Webaneno R. T. (1995) ‘Structural Adjustment Programs and the Human Rights of African Women. WiLDAF. Zimbabwe
Martin Luther King Jnr (1963) Speech given at the Western Michigan University on Conscience of America: Social Justice December 18, 1963 www.wmich.edu/archives/mlk/transcription.html
Oakley, A. (1985). Sex, Gender and Society. Gower Publishing Company Ltd: Hants
Oyejide, T. A. (2000) “Policies for Regional Integration in Africa”. Economic Research Papers Series Issue No. 62. African Development Bank, Cote d’Ivoire.
SADC (2003) Regional Indicative Strategic Development Plan. Southern African Development Community, Botswana.
SADC Secretariat (2004) Needs Assessment Study for Capacity Building of National machineries for Gender Equality I SADC Member States and the SADC Gender Unit. SADC. Botswana (unpublished)
UN (1948) Universal Declaration of Human Rights. www.un.org/overview/rights.html
UNECA (2004) 7th African Regional Conference on Women (Beijing + 10) Decade Review of the Implementation of the Dakar and Beijing Platforms for Actions. Outcomes and Way forward. October 12 – 14, 2004. Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
UNIFEM (2005) The Progress of the World’s Women 2005: Women, Work and Poverty. UNIFEM New York
Win, E (2005) in “Reclaiming the Women’s Rights Agenda” OSISA Quarterly Journal Open Space Volume 1, Issue 1 April 2005
South African leader Thabo Mbeki, in his state of the nation address at the opening of parliament in Cape Town last Friday, focused on plans to support government’s accelerated and shared growth initiative (Asgi), aimed at boosting economic growth and job creation. But Mohau Pheko and Lebohang Pheko, from the Gender & Trade Network in Africa, take Mbeki to task for failing to adequately consider the country’s women in his latest plans to fast-track growth.
Dear Mr. President Thabo Mbeki,
You have missed a great opportunity in the State of the Nation Address to articulate the problems confronting the women of South Africa. Why is it after 50 years of contributing to resistance, opinions, wisdoms and economic growth in this country when you mention us in your speeches we are merely lumped together with the disabled who should also take exception to this patronising marginalisation.
Since this is the 50th year that women celebrate their tremendous contribution to this country, it is worth using it to sum up what the last 12 years have been like in terms of economic policy. In adopting a market led macroeconomic strategy, we should tell you that the relationship between women, markets and the state has been increasingly complex. The market in the past 12 years has not acted in the interest of women nor has the state always acted in the interests of women. This has resulted in a rather disconnected policy framework which has failed to accurately evaluate the realities of women’s lives which are controlled through the interaction of economic, political, social and cultural forces based on class, gender and race. The policy framework has also failed to evaluate women’s role in social reproduction and how they maintain life within the family and communities they live in.
It is deplorable that women in the South Africa’s policy framework are still treated as dependents and instruments for family survival or state objectives. South Africa has long neglected gender as a category in the economic analysis of poverty, growth, inequality and the concentration of wealth. The frameworks suggested for poverty eradication by 2014 do not empower the majority of women in their own right. They tend to view women from a skewed perspective of ‘neediness’ rather than recognizing women’s wisdom, intellect, and achievements.
More importantly the assumptions in your Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa (ASGISA) do not spell out how the women of this country stand to benefit from this plan. The latest labour survey still reports that women are the most unemployed in the country. The most recent United Nations Human Development Report for South Africa confirms that women are still the poorest in our country and this trend is downward. In ASGISA, who are you accelerating growth for? How will you ensure that women qualitatively and quantitatively share in this growth? What type of growth are you talking about? The pattern of growth is as important as the rate of growth. Some growth patterns even if they increase per capita income and consumption may in the long run be detrimental to women as we have experienced in the current neo liberal framework. Economic growth without a distribution mechanism is inimical to women. Economic growth that depends on cuts in public expenditure, productivity, on labour deregulation are a danger to women in this country. Growth patterns or resource allocation that do not meaningfully integrate women, or result in growth equity are all costly to the women of this nation.
Many of your policy makers and public servants do not understand that women experience poverty differently from men due to gender inequalities resulting in different access to entitlements, economic leverage and social advancement. Women are subjected to the intergenerational transfer of poverty. Women have fewer economic resources, less access to labour markets. They shoulder greater responsibilities at the household level and many have restrictions on their mobility. These interlocking disadvantages result in women having less time to access your expanded works programme and less power to negotiate opportunities. How will ASGISA respond?
Gender equity is the power relationship that enables men and women to have equal access to the scarce and valued resources of their society. Within asymmetrical, unequal power relations at the household level women are the least powerful. These asymmetries include employment, education, wages, personal autonomy, healthcare, leisure and decision-making. The over weaning posture and support given to the male private sector has not been extended to women in the same way. Business and Economic Commissions set up to advise the President are still dominated by males. Trading enterprises have put severe limitations on market opportunities for many impoverished women and has allocated to them the nooks and crevices. The issue is not just the quantity of market opportunities it is also the quality. Many women work in the informal market under conditions of insecurity, are subjected to police harassment and exploitation and have little bargaining power and freedom to organize. At the same time, the commercialization of common property and cutbacks and privatization of healthcare and education have deprived women in poverty of access to affordable resources to improve their conditions. To what extent does ASGISA address these issues and how will it act as a catalyst in changing these critical dimensions?
The growth process suggested in ASGISA will in fact create new patterns of poverty deprivation for women because the issues that create inequality have been embedded and reproduced in ASGISA. In our country, women are responsible for social reproduction and daily household management. Since ASGISA is dependent on labour flexibility, inadvertently, women are the ones who will pay the cost by having to devise coping and survival strategies when household incomes fall and prices rise.
When food prices increase, when user charges for water, healthcare, electricity, and education are introduced and increased, the access of women to these services is affected, especially in a situation of poverty. There has been the casualisation of women’s work to lower unit labour cost, not just in the informal sector but also in the formal sector in terms of outsourcing or subcontracting arrangements. What is happening is that economic growth will depend on increased efficiency becoming a transfer cost subsidized by women from the paid economy to the unpaid work of women at the household level. That second economy you keep talking about consists of millions of women who subsidise the first economy without any fruits of growth accruing to them. Women especially in the rural and peri-urban areas are concentrated in the agricultural sector and the informal sector where the rate of growth and the potential for growth is relatively low to non-existent. In the industrial sectors women are concentrated in the unskilled or semi-skilled categories and have limited access to opportunities and benefits of economic development and growth. Is ASGISA a sufficient tool for standing up to these challenges?
The role of the State in distributing resources along gender, class and race lines to ensure access is critical if there is to be any meaningful developmental benefit for women. These social constructs and lived realties are essential mediating factors. The State is not a private company but a nation requiring government intervention to enable social cohesion, people participation and conscious distribution of the fruits of growth.
* Mohau Pheko and Lebohang Pheko are with the Gender & Trade Network in Africa, which works on international trade providing macroeconomic, trade, and policy literacy on the Africa continent. It works in 18 countries and is linked to the International Gender & Trade Network based in Brazil. Contact 082 6702505/084 881 9327
* Please send comments to
John Christensen comments on the issue of capital flight and tax avoidance, a massive drain on African’s resources. In the face of a reluctance by international organisations to address the issue, and the weakness of national efforts in the face of global capital, civil society will have a vital role to play in pushing for change.
Last month two global meetings painted two very different portraits of Africa. In the luxury Swiss holiday resort of Davos, shielded by a ring of steel fences and security forces, finance ministers, corporate executives and assorted celebrities gathered at the World Economic Forum. They talked vaguely about the responsibility to bolster aid and reduce the debt of African nations. The Africa portrayed at Davos was an indebted, broken continent whose impoverishment can only be solved by the generosity of donors in the North.
Four thousand kilometers away, civil society groups from Africa and beyond came together in the Malian capital of Bamako for the African leg of the World Social Forum, a vibrant grassroots alternative to the suits and platitudes of Davos. Five days of meetings addressed alternative solutions to poverty and disease across the global South. In these meetings a different Africa emerged: a region not simply in need of external resources, but with immense wealth potential of its own, being drained at an ever increasing rate with the collusion of the world's wealthiest countries and companies.
This was the message of the Tax Justice Network (TJN), an international coalition of researchers and campaigners who spoke at packed meetings in Bamako on capital flight and tax avoidance. The remarkable interest in these ordinarily dry topics shows how tax is emerging as an overlooked but central issue in the fight against poverty. The figures speak for themselves: TJN's own research estimates that a staggering $11.5 trillion has been siphoned 'offshore' by wealthy individuals, held in tax havens where they are shielded from contributing to government revenues. The benefits from taxing this wealth would far outweigh any realistic amount of foreign aid from those countries. If the income from this offshore wealth was taxed at the moderate rate of 30%, the resulting revenue - around $255 billion annually - could finance the United Nations Millennium Project in its entirety. Put simply, making the rich pay their due taxes could immediately fund measures to halve world poverty.
In common with the rest of the developing world, Africa suffers particularly acutely from this wealth drain. Around 30% of sub-Saharan Africa's GDP is moved offshore. As several studies have suggested, this rate of capital flight means that Africa - a continent we are continually told is irrevocably indebted - may actually be a net creditor to the rest of the world. Whilst Africa's wealth flows to Monaco, Switzerland, Jersey and London, those who lose out are the populations of African nations whose dwindling tax revenues cannot support government spending on health, AIDS programmes, education, infrastructure and communication. Meanwhile the banking secrecy maintained by the world's bankers and accountants in tax havens helps business and political elites to plunder resources across the continent, providing a secure cover for them to launder the proceeds of political corruption, fraud, embezzlement and illicit arms trading.
Astonishingly, international organisations including the World Trade Organisation and the International Monetary Fund have not pursued international action to stem the hemorrhaging of Africa's wealth. Instead, they have encouraged developing African nations to drop business and trade taxes further, in a desperate bid to encourage investment from multinational corporations accustomed to channeling their wealth through tax havens. The result is that ordinary people shoulder more of the tax burden through sales taxes, while homegrown national businesses cannot compete with giant international corporations which can avoid tax through the international movement of capital and assets.
National initiatives are beginning to work against this African plunder. Nigeria's heroic Economic and Financial Crimes Commission is working to recover some of the wealth lost to tax havens through corruption and the tax evasion of multinational oil companies. And last November, South Africa's Finance Minister Trevor Manuel, called for wider measures against multinationals' aggressive tax avoidance.
But national initiatives alone are weak in the face of mobile, global capital. International cooperation on tax is urgently necessary - and if international institutions like the UN and the OECD will not take action, global civil society must force them to do so. Bamako saw a bold proposal: to form a continent-wide Tax Justice Network for Africa, to be launched at the 2007 World Social Forum in Nairobi, Kenya. This will be a major step in a new global development struggle, at whose forefront should be African activists and campaigners.
Davos and Bamako are worlds apart. Uniting them, though, is not just philanthropic promises over debt and aid, but a global theft which sees vast African wealth secreted away in bank accounts and offshore trusts in Switzerland and beyond. Stopping that theft, and taxing it for the benefit of African populations, will go a long way towards ending the poverty of Mali and its neighbours.
* John Christensen, is the director of the Tax Justice Network's International Secretariat. He is a development economist and former economic adviser to the UK and Jersey governments.
* Please send comments to [email protected]
Mona Prince, an Egyptian woman writer, traveled to America full of hope and excitement. But what she found forced her to stand up for her rights and “resist the silences”. Before returning home she had a chance to hear the voices “against the war, against the erosion of what is great in the American system, against homeland security as a pretext for silencing ‘other’ voices.
In a climate where the United States is seen as an aggressor enforcing her way and will on the rest of the world, I found myself excited last summer to be heading to America after being chosen as part of the International Writing Program (IWP) in Iowa City. My excitement stemmed from the fact that I refused to believe that the US, with one of the best constitutions in the world, where individual rights are cherished and defended, has lost its soul. Rather I wanted to believe that its current policy is an aberration that came to pass as a result of fears arisen after 9/11, and not a true reflection of what America is all about.
I could not think of a better bridge to mend the widening gap between the image and true face of the Arab "other". As an Egyptian woman writer and academic, I wanted so much to show the true face of the other, transcending the stereotype that has been propagating in the US lately, wanted in my own small way to unveil that thick veil of misunderstanding and misinterpretation.
I was officially invited by the US Embassy in Cairo and funded by the US State Department to participate in the IWP, an invitation I wholeheartedly accepted. I was delighted to be part of a programme that fosters mutual understanding, cross-cultural communication, and tolerance; to share and exchange ideas with, and learn from, the other international writers as well as our American counterparts in an academic institution setting at the University of Iowa where the programme resides.
I arrived in Iowa City and my first two weeks in the program was all I would have hoped for. I felt energised, thinking of many things I want to do -material for my writings that would benefit from my stay in the US within the IWP. One of my major interests and ideas for a writing project was to visit an Indian reservation, get in contact with Native American traditional storytellers and learn about their spiritual practices. What unravelled after those two weeks was so much telling of the extent of the erosion of the American way as a result of the current administration's policy and how deep it has affected even the best of sanctuaries and defendants of individual rights, transforming academics and poets into big brothers driven by homeland security to charter the handling of their programmes.
I informed the programme director of my interest in visiting an Indian reservation and explained to him the reason behind my interest. His initial response was positive. So I took it upon myself to search for potential places I could visit and found one in a neighbouring state. I informed the director where I would be heading - a short visit to Minneapolis to visit an Indian reserve.
The e-mail response that I have received from the director was a total shocker in both language and content. I was threatened with homeland security law, informing me that I could not leave Iowa City and if I did I would be expelled from the programme and the United States. I was made to feel like a prisoner at best, a criminal at worst. At no point before or during my visit was I made aware of any rule in the IWP program restricting the movements of international visitors. Additionally, an immigration officer confirmed that there were no such rules. This incident and what followed thereafter made me think whether this response from the director was an isolated and petty exercise of power or was symptomatic of a bigger picture where homeland security and what it entails is starting to seep into the American system, reaching the gate of institutions that are traditionally viewed as strong voices for the preservation of the individual rights, voices against stereotyping and labelling of the "other". Are the fences of Guantanamo Bay slowly closing on academia, indeed on all of us? I abided by the director's decision and did not go to Minneapolis. Elation and excitement were quickly replaced by feelings of failure and depression. Guantanamo seemed just around the next corner.
After a few e-mail exchanges with the programme director, and a fruitless effort to get advice or help from the US embassy, I decided to break my silence and to speak out against the intimidation and abuse. I wrote several statements against the unprofessional and undiplomatic handling of my situation, while demanding at the same time an official apology, as well as to be provided with the governing laws by which writers should abide while in the programme.
I sent all the official correspondences between the programme director and myself to all parties concerned, as this matter impacted upon all the members of the IWP programme. Not only was I severely criticised for speaking up against this injustice, I was repeatedly intimidated, offended, and threatened by the grave consequences that would be directed at me if I do not put an end to my vocalism, which I took to mean, "Shut up and take the abuse."
The programme director, eventually, decided to terminate my participation in the programme because of the public statements I made, as clearly stated in his official letter. I was removed from all my scheduled public cultural activities and my funding was cut, leaving me with two days to evacuate Iowa City. The termination letter cited a US State Department decision that I have yet to receive.
After my deportation from Iowa City, I joined a group of African Americans who were evacuated from New Orleans after the Katrina hurricane. I felt for them and in some way felt part of them. What those evacuees told me in an interview is a counter- narrative that expressed their concerns about how America was, to their minds, disintegrating from within, which has resonated very well with my own experience in Iowa. A different form of "homeland security" had been imposed on them, and their human and constitutional rights had been violated.
During the current administration they had more than ever been marginalised, made to feel like they belong to a second-class America. They looked at the breach of the levy that flooded the city, their homes, as a symbol of the neglect of the current administration that is preoccupied with the "unjust" war in Iraq. They were forced at gunpoint - fully loaded M16s - to leave their houses while affluent white Americans were extended all necessary assistance and did not have to leave their homes. They told of being searched several times for weapons, as if they were terrorists in their own country. They were shipped in a plane, guarded by armed soldiers, without knowing their destination, to finally land as refugees in Omaha, Nebraska.
Before I flew back to Egypt, I was able to finally arrange a meeting with Native Americans. I met one of the five elders of the Dakota nation who still speaks the Dakota language and performs the spiritual ceremonies of his tribe. Contrary to what I have heard from the IWP administration, I was unreservedly welcomed by the spiritual elder and his family. I was offered a sweat lodge ceremony that is meant to purify the soul, mind and body, which was attended by other non-Native Americans. We were a mixed group of all colours and ethnic backgrounds.
The ceremony began with an ancient Indian saying "we are all relatives." Following the instructions of the spiritual elder, we all prayed in our different languages for the good health and happiness of all people. The ceremony ended again with the same wise man iterating that "we are all relatives." After the ceremony was finished, all of us had a collective dinner at the house of the spiritual interpreter. Before I left the reserve, I asked if I could have an Indian name. They agreed, and a special ceremony was held for me the following day. The name that was given to me from the spiritual world was "Good Eagle Woman."
I flew back home empowered by the immense knowledge and experience I gained in the US. In spite of having the misfortune of leaving the programme earlier than planned, and being subjected to such unjust and unfortunate treatment from the IWP director, I remain enriched by the whole journey, by finding it in myself to stand up for my rights, to refuse to be intimidated into silence. When I was about to leave the US, I witnessed the emergence of voices that started to speak out against the war, against the erosion of what is great in the American system, against homeland security as a pretext for silencing "other" voices. I will always remember the people that came to my defence; the refugees in Nebraska that hosted me when I was deported from Iowa City, and my spiritual enriching encounter. As my journey came to a close, I came out of it flying like an eagle having broken free, resisted being bullied into submission, even under the pretext of "homeland security". I can't think of my journey to the US without thinking about the "Good Eagle Woman" as a symbol for resisting silence.
* This article was first published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM. It is reproduced here with permission of the author. Please send comments to
EDITORIAL: Femnet’s Christine Butegwa analyses what hope the ICC will bring for Darfur’s women
COMMENT AND ANALYSIS:
- Can protocols and legislation really be an effective weapon against gender discrimination? Asks Janah Ncube about SADC gender policy
- Thabo Mbeki gets a poor report from Mohau Pheko and Lebohang Pheko for his state of the nation address
- John Christensen writes about how Africa’s resources are looted through capital flight and tax avoidance
- Mona Prince, an Egyptian woman writer, flies to the US and experiences “homeland security” first hand
- Zimbabwe: Voice of the People staff and directors arrested
LETTERS: Readers discuss whether trade in the era of globalization can be just
BLOGGING AFRICA: African blogs present their perspectives on the third term debate
CONFLICTS AND EMERGENCIES: Cartoon crisis protests spread to Africa
HUMAN RIGHTS: ICC to hear first Africa cases
REFUGEES AND FORCED MIGRATION: Forty days later: Remembering the victims of the Cairo refugee massacre
ELECTIONS AND GOVERNANCE: DRC hurtles towards April poll with 300 parties and 40 presidential candidates
WOMEN AND GENDER: Women’s empowerment crucial for representation in leadership
DEVELOPMENT: Corporate influence over WTO talks exposed in new report/ ‘Bamako Appeal’ promotes struggle against market-driven society
CORRUPTION: Groups question World Bank's role in troubled DRC mine
RACISM AND XENOPHOBIA: Malian killed in Russian street attack
HEALTH AND HIV/AIDS: Nigerian bird flu outbreak
EDUCATION: Free primary education in Kenya having negative impact on early childhood development
ENVIRONMENT: GM debate fought on cotton fields of South Africa
MEDIA AND FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION: Newspaper group sorry for offending Muslims
NEWS FROM THE DIASPORA: Haiti votes by candlelight
PLUS…Advocacy and Campaigns; Internet and Technology; Advocacy and Campaigns; Courses, Fundraising, Jobs and Books and Arts…
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As quoted in January, Zimbabwe's security minister Didymus Mutasa warned that "the net will soon close" on critical journalists who threatened nation’s security. The statement came together with a new offensive against the remaining independent journalists in the country and just after the arrest of employees and directors of Voice of the People (VOP), a radio station that transmitted into Zimbabwe via a shortwave transmitter in Madagascar. The significance of the crackdown lies in the fact that VOP is one of the few alternatives to the state-controlled Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation.
This Friday in Harare, six trustees of Voice of the People (VOP), a privately-owned radio station, are due to appear in court on criminal charges, according to a Human Rights Watch press release (http://www.hrw.org/english/docs/2006/02/08/zimbab12632.htm). On January 24, the authorities brought charges of broadcasting without a license against six of the station’s trustees. VOP was one of the few alternatives to the state-controlled Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation, the only broadcaster with a license to operate legally in the country.
“The Zimbabwean government is using criminal charges to muzzle independent reporting and criticism,” said Paul Simo, Africa advocacy director at Human Rights Watch. “This crackdown targets media that criticize government institutions, officials and the ruling party.”
The VOP trustees could face up to two years in jail. The charges came after police raided the Harare home of one of the board members, Arthur Tsunga, and kidnapped two of his household staff. The two were detained without charge for four days in an effort to coerce the executive director of VOP, John Masuku to turn himself into the police. Masuku was charged with broadcasting without a license on December 23.
The board members? David Masunda, Isabella Matambanadzo, Millicent Phiri, Lawrence Chibwe, Nhlahla Ngwenya and Tsunga?are will be represented by Beatrice Mtetwa, a renowned Zimbabwean human rights lawyer.
VOP was not the only target, however. Independent journalist Sydney Saize was arrested for filing a Voice of America report saying that the ruling ZANU-PF party had beaten teachers in the city. Meanwhile, the Media and Information Commission (MIC) threatened in early January to cancel the license of the Financial Gazette, a privately-owned newspaper, and refused to renew the accreditation of fifteen journalists working for the Zimbabwe Independent, another privately-owned newspaper.
Three laws have tightened the screws on Zimbabwe’s media over the last five years. The Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act of 2002 forces media ventures to register with a Media and Information Commission or face prison. It also makes it an offence for journalists to work without accreditation.
The Broadcasting Services Act of 2001 ensures that the government has control of the airwaves by giving the Minister of State for Information and Publicity the power to decide who can broadcast. Lastly, the Public Order and Security Act of 2002 has a number of aspects which potentially limit the right to freedom of expression and covers the publishing of false statements against the state, the organizing of public gatherings and grants extensive powers to the police.
Special Court Prosecutor Desmond de Silva QC has welcomed a resolution adopted unanimously by Sierra Leone’s Parliament on Wednesday urging the trial of former Liberian President Charles Taylor.
Britain will grant the Tanzanian government £310 million ($542.5 million) over the next three years for its poverty reduction programme. The grant will make Tanzania one of the biggest UK aid recipients in the world. Unlike in neighbouring East African countries, the money is direct government- to-government support and is meant to be spent on water, health and education projects. The new money follows an agreement between the Tanzanian government and donors on January 14 when the Partnership Framework Agreement was signed.
Produced by Radio Dialogue, Taxi Tunes is a series of radio cassettes aimed at educating the people of Bulawayo, Zimbabwe on various issues that affect them, including health, sexuality, environmental responsibility, and governance issues. Through distribution to drivers of kombis (taxis), Taxi Tunes are designed to prompt changes in attitudes among Zimbabweans, particularly young people.