The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the Rwanda Defence Forces have organised a four-day competition for 21 junior army officers from six countries in an effort to integrate international humanitarian law into other aspects of military operations, officials told IRIN on Wednesday. "As we advocate for peace, attention should be placed on international law principles," Gen Marcel Gatsinzi, Rwanda's defence minister, said. "We have to always try, as much as we can, to safe lives of innocent civilians."

South Africa has made progress in the fight against corruption, but more needs to be done to eradicate the vice, say analysts - this as the world marks International Anti-Corruption Day, Friday. "There have been efforts within government to clean up corruption," Ayesha Kajee of the South African Institute of International Affairs, a Johannesburg-based think-tank, told IPS. She pointed to the response to claims of graft in a multi-million dollar arms deal, as well as to an oil scandal and a parliamentary travel voucher scam.

The Egyptian Organization for Human Rights (EOHR), Reporters Without Borders (Reporters sans frontières, RSF) and the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) have voiced alarm at attacks by Egyptian authorities on journalists covering the parliamentary elections. Since the first round of voting in the three-round election began on 8 November 2005, more than 50 journalists have been assaulted, detained or prevented from covering the polls. CPJ says the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) and security forces have ordered supporters to beat and harass voters and journalists. Harassment has increased as members of the banned Muslim Brotherhood movement, who run as independent candidates, have gained seats.

According to reports in Zimbabwean newspapers, President Robert G. Mugabe has placed between 15 and 64 human rights activists and critics on a list of people who are banned from traveling outside the country because they allegedly threaten the country's national interests. The ministries of Justice and Foreign Affairs are deliberating draft regulations that will require Zimbabweans to obtain exit visas to travel outside the country.

The two poems below were submitted by Ann Kithaka. She wrote: "Please accept two poems to commemorate the 16 days of activism against violence. They are dedicated to the
African Woman, to our mothers, sisters, and daughters, who continue to suffer even in this age of enlightment."

CHILD

Child,
You saw him last night;
Your enraged father;
Half-naked; drunk as a skunk.
Tottering into your room.
Poised on your bedroom doorway;
Baying for blood,
My blood.

You saw me too;
Cowering at the corner,
Holding into your bedpost;
My red night dress torn in the middle;
Bloody hair piece hanging askew my head;
Face puffy and swollen;
Cowering like the coward that I am,
Entreating him to spare me tonight!

I saw the fear in your eyes,
And that of your elder sister,
Who stared around her in a daze
Wishing the bad dream away.
But the macabre drama
Refused to go away.
She took refuge beneath
Your double Decker bed.
But you, my brave little solder,
You stood firm;
Your plaintive voice
Beseeching him to stop;
STOP DADDY! DON'T BEAT MUM!

He did not stop.
You saw him came after me
Like an enraged bull
Charging relentlessly.
You saw him grab my waist,
Jerking me away;
Pulling me this way and that way
Trying to ply me off the bedpost.
How i resisted, protesting loudly
Shouting at the maid
To come to my rescue--
But she slept on,
The impunent girl!

You saw him strike my
Tear streaked face,
And as I reeled in pain
He dragged me off,
Pulling me towards
Our bedroom,
To complete the battering.

I felt you leap off your bed,
And follow us,
Enraged like a tigress,
In defense of her young one.

I felt him brace himself,
As he steadied himself
For the mighty kick that
Knocked you flat into the cold floor.

Then I saw red!
The adrenaline pumped into my veins
My heart beat wildly,
I started gasping for air;
And in an instant
Reason fled away;
I kicked him hard,
And beat him hard
Crawling at his sweaty face,
Blow upon blow,
Shrieking like a woman possessed.
Did you see him crumble
Like David's Goliath,
As I knocked the wind out of him
Cutting his life-line off?

Child, hush!
Did you feel me
Gather you in my flail hands,
Whispering my fright into your ears,
Before we took flight into
The dark night?

Written August 2004

MOTHER WHY.

Exalted mother,
I shall extend you no reprieve,
For your blatant silence,
When they spilt my virginal blood
On alter of tribal misogamy.
Had your indomitable maternal instinct,
Taken a compulsory leave of absence.
Were you a manacled captive,
Your leap, thrust and heave
Insufficient to stop the sacrilege
So callously, wrought on me .
Show me the gag then,
That stopped you from condemning ,
Or even cursing this macabre rite.
Where was the spirited female fraternity?
Could their ingenuity not conjure
A conspiracy to cut only a small bit
Instead of this sadistic butchering
Of all that is soft and best in me,
Leaving my womanhood this gaping scar
This jagged relic of primitivism
That has so eroded my self-esteem
Leaving me vulnerable and insecure.
Could not the council of elders
Be appeased by a surface job,
Could they not mother?

August, 2004

The HIV & AIDS Advisor will work with the Somaliland National AIDS Commission (SOLNAC), and its members, assisting in developing its institutional capacity in overseeing, planning and coordinating the multi-sectoral efforts in addressing HIV & AIDS in Somaliland, including mainstreaming gender and advocacy in HIV & AIDS prevention, care and treatment.

On 9 December, HREA announced in Rabat the conclusion of its study on gender bias in schoolbooks in Morocco. The study was part of a year-long programme to review textbooks in Morocco for human rights and gender equality. Fifty primary school textbooks were reviewed. Says HREA project coordinator Mustapha Kak: "The list of suggested books covered most subject matters, especially those subjects thought to contain concepts and principles related to human rights and gender equality", explains Mustapha. Textbooks for Arabic, Art, French, Family Education, Geography and National Education, History, and Islamic Education were analysed. The study was conducted in cooperation and coordination with the Ministry of Education.

In honor of international human rights day, Global Exchange has released a report on the “Most Wanted” Corporate Human Rights Violators of 2005. "We developed this list to illustrate that on issues as diverse as assassination, torture, kidnapping, environmental degradation, abusing public funds, violently repressing worker rights, releasing toxins into pristine environments, destroying homes, and causing widespread health problems, it’s not just governments that are to blame. Corporations carry out some of the most horrific human rights abuses of modern times. For the full list, please follow the link."

The man who would be president is accused of rape. A soccer star admits to having sex with an under age girl but claims it was consensual and he did not know her age. His wife is charged with assaulting an alleged lover. A young woman in her prime is kidnapped from college and brutally murdered. A jealous lover is charged with killing a police woman. Two young girls disappear from their home in Soweto. A teacher, found guilty by a disciplinary committee of rape, is still teaching in a school. These stories and many more have dominated the headlines since the last Sixteen Days of Activism campaign that runs each year from 25 November (International Day of No Violence Against Women) to 10 December (Human Rights Day). No matter what the outcome of investigations and court cases still pending, the reality that underpins each of these stories is that gender violence is not abating, according to the Agenda website.

Just like a dog which returns to its vomit, the emergent Dictator Mwai Emilio Kibaki of Kenya has re-appointed thieves, traitors, opportunists, murderers and tribal chieftains in a "New look Cabinet" that has met with strong and immediate condemnation country wide. After losing the November 21st Referendum, dissolving the Cabinet and keeping the country waiting for two weeks apparently to "consult" with former Dictator Daniel arap Moi, Imperialist representatives in Kenya, corrupt Mount Kenya Mafia cartel and other political rags, KESDEMO believes that Kenya does not have a President at Nairobi State House but a mental patient who should be examined urgently by independent Doctors.

The seminar 'Adaptive Management Strategies' will be held during February and March 2006 in Tanzania and Kenya. The seminars are designed for decision makers that work for organisations in Eastern Africa and operate on international levels.

In May 2004, the city of Nantes hosted the 1st World Forum on Human Rights, initiated and supported by UNESCO, under high-patronage of Mr. Jacques Chirac, President of the French republic. The 1st Forum of Nantes gathered 1000 participants representing 70 different nationalities. The 2nd World Forum on Human Rights will be held in Nantes from 10th to 13th July 2006 (2006 will mark the 40th anniversary of the adoption of the International Covenants on Civil and Political Rights and Economic, Social and Cultural Rights by the General Assembly of the United Nations).

Published by Kwani Trust, 2005
Distributed by African Books Collective Ltd.

This latest release by the Kwani Trust is the third in a collection of books. Short stories, academic essays, cartoons, photographs, travel writing, poems, journalistic articles – anything goes in the Kwani? compilations. Founded by Kenyan writers, Kwani? is meant to get a new generation of Kenyans interested in reading. Kwani? also provides excellent insight into life in Kenya and other parts of Africa – in its many forms. Included in the anthology are the voices of activists, students, and members of U.K.O.O. F.U.L.A.N.I (a collective of Kenyan hiphop artists involved in social justice); they are joined by a number of established poets and authors. There are serious pieces, tongue in cheek satires, political commentaries, quiet observations on the mundane – each contribution is as diverse as the country which has produced the writers.

There are a number of themes that run throughout the book, but none as strong as the legacies of colonialism. Brilliantly analysed by Professor Wambui Mwangi in “Imperative Matters: Jee, Huu Ni Ungwana? Or The Scramble for Africa,” the story/essay takes the reader on a journey through African post-colonial studies. Debating the effects of colonialism on academics who study Africa in its post-colonial form, this is a brilliant examination of the ironies of African academia.

An interesting journalistic/human rights addition to Kwani? comes in the form of Billy Kahora’s “The True Story of David Munyakei.” The piece tells the story of Munyakei, who, noticing irregularities in the practices of his department, blows the whistle on corruption taking place in Kenya’s Central Bank in the early 1990’s. The story details his life history, focusing primarily on the effects that exposing this corruption have had on him and his family. Finding Munyakei 10 years later parallels this account. Having moved to the Kenyan countryside, Munyakei is living a subsistence lifestyle with his wife and two small children, having been pushed out of Nairobi with few opportunities for work because of his once high profile. He is finally recognised for his contribution to fighting corruption by Transparency International, and is awarded their Integrity Award. They have also started a campaign to have Munyakei’s job reinstated, as well as for the compensation of back pay which was lost as a result of the events. But the story doesn’t have a happy ending – readers are left with no closure – Munyakei still struggles on to provide for his family and regain what has been lost.

“She,” by well-known author M.G. Vassanji, contributes to the short stories included in Kwani? Offering a group of small characters, including a Tanzanian female National Guard, an American Peace Corps volunteer and a Kenyan, “She” tells a love story that unfolds on a posting in a small Tanzanian village where the three are teaching. Unfolding over a series of letters years after they left that village, the characters share what they could not communicate in person.

Kwani? also offers a number of creative and powerful poems. Written by Ed Pavlic, “Checkpoint, North of Lagos,” presents the everyday details of transportation. Bribery and the threat of violence run throughout the lines of this poem, but are treated as if they were normal, or ordinary. The tiny details – a wedding band, a belt buckle – these, rather than the danger of aggression, stand out.

Kwani? first appears to be an intimidating mishmash of writing. The format of the book is loose, imaginative, and follows no prescribed format. But this design makes it what it is – an extremely provocative compilation of young talent, offering insight info Kenyan life and critical thinking.

* Reviewed by Karoline Kemp, a Commonwealth of Learning Young Professional Intern with Fahamu.

Seventeen long years of civil war in Mozambique, have left behind a scarred terrain and the brutal legacy of widespread economic misery and famine. Worse, a whole generation was born into war and grew up never knowing peace – since the scars of the spirit take the longest to heal.The war started in 1977 and by the time a ceasefire was finally declared during 1992, an estimated seven million guns littered the landscape. But in an effort to initiate something positive out of the void, 'Throne of Weapons' scheme was borne of desire to create a symbol of peace to transcend the violence which had created it and in the process herald a new beginning.

The Program Officer will be responsible for developing, monitoring and evaluating the Foundation's West Africa programming in media, arts and culture. The program's overall goal is to promote the use of media, arts and culture as key resources for strengthening social, cultural and economic development.

African nations were today (December 7) challenged to publicly declare their support for an international Arms Trade Treaty as the France-Africa Summit began in Mali. Only last weekend, leaders from 52 Commonwealth countries, 18 of them African, called for better control of small arms and for negotiations to begin on an Arms Trade Treaty. African countries including Mali, Ghana, Senegal and Kenya have already given their backing to the Treaty, which would ban all arms transfers which are likely to lead to human rights abuses. Other African nations should follow their lead, said campaigners.

"The following statement has been drafted by a group of human rights organizations and advocates from around the world. The group functions as a civil society "human rights caucus" around the WTO. The statement will be released on December 10 - International Human Rights Day - in Hong Kong on the eve of the WTO Ministerial Meeting. We invite all human rights supporters to co-sign the statement with us. This call for endorsements comes in English only, but the text will be translated to French and Spanish in the coming days."

Endorsements should be sent to Tamara Herman at [email protected].
The deadline for endorsements is NOON (EST), December 9, 2005.

Please include the name of your organization (with french and spanish
translations if available), and the country in which it is headquartered.

Ordinary Tunisians are still living in the darkness of a regime that watches them, intimidates them, and denies them the right to free speech, says this report from the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). "Ironically, WSIS might well have made conditions worse for local journalists, at least temporarily, because it provoked more crackdowns by the government."

On 10 December 1948, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which has become a universal standard for defending and promoting human rights. Every year on 10 December, Human Rights Day marks the adoption of the Universal Declaration. The theme of Human Rights Day 2005 is "End Torture Now!". Torture is a crime under international law. According to all relevant instruments, it is absolutely prohibited and cannot be justified under any circumstances.

Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki's cabinet is being sworn in despite many nominees refusing to take up their posts. Four prospective ministers and 17 deputies, including two key allies, refused to accept posts. Mr Kibaki dismissed his entire team two weeks ago after he lost a referendum on a new constitution - a vote seen as a protest against him. Those snubbing Mr Kibaki say he is failing to consult coalition partners and ignoring the people's wishes. The swearing-in at State House is being broadcast live on Kenyan television. The new cabinet Mr Kibaki announced on Wednesday (December 7) evening was said to be made up mostly of old friends and colleagues. He rejected all the leading politicians who stood against him and backed the successful "no" campaign in the referendum.

What is the World Trade Organisation (WTO)? According to the WTO website, it’s “the only global international organisation dealing with the rules of trade between nations. At its heart are the WTO agreements, negotiated and signed by the bulk of the world’s trading nations and ratified in their parliaments. The goal is to help producers of goods and services, exporters, and importers conduct their business.”

Simply put, the WTO ministerial meeting scheduled to take place in Hong Kong 13-18 December is about negotiating the rules of trade between nations. These negotiations are of huge significance. Decisions made impact on the lives of millions of people.

For Africa, the stakes are high, especially in negotiations over agriculture, where currently obscene subsidies to rich country farmers put the squeeze on African producers. Then there are negotiations over trade in services, an increasingly lucrative area of world trade where rich countries want as much access to African economies as possible – regardless of the consequences.

If they haven’t already, decisions made at the WTO level are coming to a country, city, town or village near you. You might have noticed that one day you woke up and a multinational corporation was running your health service. Or perhaps you read in the paper about textile workers losing their jobs because of cheap imports. There are a thousand other examples. The point is that the hand of the WTO is pretty much in everything.

So, what’s going to happen at this WTO meeting? What are the main issues on the negotiating table? Will there be a deal and if so what kind of deal? The articles in Pambazuka News this week set out to answer these questions and provide the background details about what’s going to happen in Hong Kong and why.

- Pambazuka News

EDITORIAL: The Hong Kong WTO meeting will be of “rude battles and fierce negotiations” but Africa must stand firm in the interests of her people, writes Demba Moussa Dembele
COMMENT&ANALYSIS:
- Agriculture is a central issue of the Hong Kong WTO meet, but a deal is unlikely. Raj Patel says even if there was a deal it would have to ignore the demands and needs of agriculturalists in the Global South
- Developing countries engaged in WTO talks are being asked to "chase a black cat down a dark alley blindfolded”. Riaz Tayob warns of the danger of a deal that is an empty gift.
- What's going down on the streets of Hong Kong? Nicola Bullard answers questions from Pambazuka News
- Can't make sense of the WTO? Browse our facts, figures, glossary and background reading for more information.
LETTERS: Mahmood Mamdani sends an open letter to Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni telling him to reconcile with the living and not only the dead; The debate over Pan-Africanism revives
BLOGGING AFRICA: Sokari Ekine reports on Baby Faith, who died on World Aids Day
PAN-AFRICAN POSTCARD:
BOOKS&ARTS: A review of Simao Kikamba's Going Home, the story of a political refugee living in South Africa
GCAP NEWS: White Band Day 3 is on December 10
CONFLICT&EMERGENCIES: News from the watch list areas of DRC, Nigeria and Sudan
HUMAN RIGHTS: International Human Rights Day on December 10 focuses on torture; Statement on trade and human rights ahead of the WTO meeting in Hong Kong
REFUGEES&FORCED MIGRATION: No entry for Darfur refugees in Greece
ELECTIONS&GOVERNANCE: Egyptian elections end in violence; Kibaki faces dilemma in Kenya
WOMEN&GENDER: Africa's push for Reproductive Rights Fund rubs US the wrong way; 16 Days draws to a close
DEVELOPMENT: Why development aid fails to help the poor; News on the WTO
CORRUPTION: Oiling the wheels of corruption in Chad - World Bank style
HEALTH&HIV/AIDS: The vicious cycle of AIDS, poverty, and neoliberalism
ENVIRONMENT: Rich UK company sues Tanzania over water deal
MEDIA: Eritrean journlist gets moment of freedom before being sent back to jail
PLUS: News on advocacy, fundraising, e-newsletters, courses and jobs...

BIRTHDAY GREETINGS TO PAMBAZUKA NEWS: The origins of Pambazuka News can be traced back to December 2000, when the newsletter began as a tiny subscriber list distributing bits and pieces of information. Since then Pambazuka News has grown into a community of 18 000 subscribers! This week we are five years old. Thanks to all our supporters for helping us to survive the dangerous early childhood years.

* The lead editorial from Pambazuka News 231, Smile, Woman of Africa, Smile!, is now available in French. Visit Pambazuka News 231: http://www.pambazuka.org/index.php?id=30542

The Global Call to Action against Poverty (GCAP), described as the world's largest anti-poverty coalition, is the recipient of the 2005 International Achievement Award for Excellence in Communication given by Inter Press Service (IPS) news agency. Consisting of over a thousand non-governmental organisations (NGOs), grass roots movements and civil society groups representing more than 150 million people worldwide, GCAP is leading an intensive campaign for a substantial shift in national and international policies that will eliminate poverty and achieve and exceed the UN's Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by the targeted date 2015.

First, I will like to thank you all for creating such a forum and congratulate you on a such hard and fine work.

I totally agree with Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem that "Pan-Africanism needs to leave the conferences and executive mansions and become part of the lives of ordinary people." (See Taking Pan-Africanism to the people, http://www.pambazuka.org/index.php?id=30541)

However, what I think that he fails to address is the question of our responsibilities as Africans to other Africans and the continent as a whole. For example, as guests or residents of other African nations, we have seen how so many people (like those from my home country Nigeria) have abused such privileges and end up tarnishing the image of a whole nation.

If such despicable acts occur at present whereby people do need visas to cross borders, what will happen when/if such restrictions are removed? I think Pan-Africanism should start with a clear understanding of the interconnectedness of our lives as humans and as Africans.

Agriculture has always been the make or break issue of the sixth WTO ministerial in Hong Kong and as the meeting approaches it would take a miracle for agreement to be reached. But Raj Patel from the Centre for Civil Society at the University of Kwa-Zulu Natal notes in an interview with Pambazuka News that even if a deal was reached it would have to ignore the demands and needs of agriculturalists in the Global South. That’s because “nothing, not one thing, in the detail of the EU and US proposals, promises any substantive change in their policies of subsidising rich farmers in the EU and US, while exploiting poorer ones elsewhere.”

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: The agricultural sector has been an area of focus for you. What are your views on this World Trade Organisation (WTO) ministerial meeting in Hong Kong? Is there any hope at all for an improvement in relation to the agricultural sector?

RAJ PATEL: Since the WTO began in 1995, the agreement on agriculture has been a battlefield, mainly between the European Union and the United States. There have been ministerial meetings in Singapore 1996, Geneva 1998, Seattle 1999, Doha 2001, Cancun 2003 and Hong Kong is the sixth ministerial conference.

At each of these conferences, save perhaps Singapore, the fight over agriculture has caused a great deal of collateral damage, particularly in terms of the demands made of developing countries. By the same token, though, when developing countries have had the opportunity and courage to raise their voices, the advance of WTO-style trade liberalisation has been halted - this happened in Seattle and Cancun in particular.

In Doha, however, the Doha Development Agenda (DDA) was written, and it's a roadmap for trade liberalisation to which many poor countries chose, under duress but with the possibility of aid, to subscribe. The US and EU have been effective in using the DDA as a sop to countries concerned about how trade liberalisation in agriculture will affect their rural populations - usually the poorest people. But the EU vs US agricultural trade spat continues to fester. And in recent weeks, despite a great deal of diplomacy, strong-arming, sweet-talking and belly rolling, the EU and US haven't managed to come to any agreement on agriculture.

As the Hong Kong ministerial approaches, it's unlikely that an agreement will be reached. The important point, though, is this - if an agreement *is* reached, it will have to be one that ignores the demands and needs of agriculturalists in the Global South - because nothing, not one thing, in the detail of the EU and US proposals, promises any substantive change in their policies of subsidising rich farmers in the EU and US, while exploiting poorer ones elsewhere.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: The major sticking area with regards negotiations over agriculture lies in the issue of farm subsidies. The European Union and United States pay billions of dollars of subsidies to their farmers, undermining the ability of farmers in other parts of the world to compete with products from the EU and USA. What progress do you think there will be on this issue? Isn't the focus on subsidies slightly misleading in that it obscures the problems associated with an export based agricultural system that undermines food sovereignty?

RAJ PATEL: Among the reasons that the WTO is unfair is that it allows the EU and US to maintain their agricultural systems and supports in place, while demanding that developing countries remove their protections for agriculture. In the press and in certain NGO circuits, this debate has collapsed into one about subsidies, with strong arguments being made that subsidies are hurting the poor in the Global South. The argument runs like this - the EU and US massively subsidise their farmers. The subsidies encourage farmers to over-produce. The surfeit of agricultural goods needs to be disposed of somewhere, and that somewhere is the Global South. This means that farmers in the Global South are competing against products that have a much lower cost of production precisely because of the subsidies.

This undoubtedly happens in some circumstances. Most recently publicised has been the case of cotton, where the subsidies given to US cotton producers directly affects the output in West Africa, to the tune of $250 million in direct costs, and $1 billion in indirect costs, according to the Cotton Producers Association of Africa.

In the main, however, the subsidies debate is a red herring. The best way to see this is to consider what would happen if the US were, for example, suddenly to make all its subsidies disappear. An increasing number of studies addressing this issue have found that supply wouldn't change in the short or medium term. Indeed, under some scenarios, production would increase, as US farmers struggled to increase output to cover the shortfall in their subsidies. This would have the effect of worsening the situation for farmers in the Global South in the short term, and in the long term, world prices would increase only modestly (3% by 2020, according to one model).

The US recently put on the table an offer to reduce some of its farm supports by 60% in the next five years, in exchange for market access. But the devil lies in the details of these proposals - the US is taking something of a gamble that its exports will win on market access what they lose in direct farm payments. The gamble, however, isn't a fair one - the US still retains the right to expand its 'non-trade-distorting' subsidies, which will nonetheless keep farmers at a competitive advantage, while promising to cut the narrowly defined 'trade-distorting subsidies'. Their effective reduction in subsidies would be around 2%, but the market access they want in return is a reduction of between 50-90%. The chalice is, to switch metaphors, poisoned.

The good news, for those opposed to the WTO’s vision of agriculture at least, is that the EU response to this salvo is constrained. The EU trade Minister, formerly a disgraced UK minister, Peter Mandelson, is a firm believer in the free market. But he is not, however, able to negotiate as he pleases. The EU’s own intra-national politics has put some firm constraints down as to what he is, and is not, allowed to concede. The US is pushing for more than he is able to give – indeed, some French politicians have already argued that he has overstepped his mandate. And this means the very real threat of deadlock at the WTO in Hong Kong – any broad agreement can’t happen without an agreement on agriculture, and it doesn’t look like any agreement on agriculture is forthcoming.

This is not to say that US and EU farm support systems should remain untouched - far from it. The lion's share of EU and US agricultural subsidies go to the rich, with some estimates suggesting that 60% of subsidies go to the richest 20%. There's clearly need for radical change. But this change in and of itself won't bring the manna that many hope it will. The problem is more complex, and lies in the systemic overproduction of crops in the North, and in the vested and wealthy interests that profit from this overproduction, and from a model that promotes export-based agriculture.

Finally, it’s important to remember that the outcomes of Hong Kong, deadlock or otherwise, will still leave the WTO largely intact. This is an unhappy state of affairs, and one that needs urgent redress not within the Ministerial, but beyond it.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: In a recent paper, ‘International Agrarian Restructuring and the Practical Ethics of Peasant Movement Solidarity’, (Centre for Civil Society at the University of KwaZulu-Natal) you set out to show "how the international agrarian counter-movement is not a reflex or knee-jerk response...but one that has to work with complex formations of identity, memory and militancy". Can you elaborate on the point that you are making here and how this relates to the WTO?

RAJ PATEL: The resistance to the WTO is complex and global. Many of the organisations that are fighting the increase of the WTO's ambit in agriculture are farming organisations with roots in a long history of liberation struggle. The Landless Peoples' Movement in Brazil, the MST, for instance, see themselves as the inheritors of the traditions of the Peasant Leagues in post-war Brazil. The Indian "Karnataka State Farmers Association", KRRS, with over 10 million members, sees itself as continuing the Gandhian vision of national liberation.

The way that these movements respond to the WTO isn't a call for increasing tariffs or subsidies or any of the other terms used by the international trade set. They want to take back the debate around agriculture from international capital, and that means taking back its meaning. Chukki Nanjundaswamy, one of the leaders of the KRRS, puts it like this: "We don't want the government to give us charity - we don't want subsidies in that sense. What we want is the fair price for what we grow - the 'scientific price'. This means a price that includes a fair price for the labour, and the inputs, and the land. Nothing more. Nothing less. But also, we want to take back control of how our food is distributed. We want to cut out the middlemen, the little thugs and the big corporations that steal from all of us. So we want to sell our food directly to the people who will eat it - we'll get more for our food, and they'll have to pay less. Our motto is 'One rupee more for the producer, one less for the consumer.'"

This is a solid example of the Gandhian idea of self-sufficiency at work, drawing on a history of anti-colonial struggle, and changing the way that agricultural commerce is structured. And this is a direct attack on the WTO, which seeks to structure domestic agriculture through structuring the international trade rules.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: In the same paper, you write that apart from dumping, deskilling, inequality and concentration of ownership, one of the features of people in the agriculture sector under neo-liberalism is a kind of collective amnesia. This is an interesting point - can you explain what you mean?

RAJ PATEL: One of the processes of international commerce since the second world war has involved the rise of new technologies in farming. An example of this is the 'Green Revolution', a series of technologies that involved irrigation, agrotoxins (pesticides and herbicides) and improved varieties that were compatible with these kinds of technologies. The yields from these new varieties were undoubtedly higher than before they were introduced.

But there are two problems - the first is that with the introduction of these technologies that encourage a monoculture of one kind or another, other kinds of farming systems, often more sophisticated, involving intercropping a range of crops in ways suited to local conditions, has been forgotten.

This is a problem today, because the Green Revolution technologies are failing, leaving behind soils that require extensive reconstruction after years of being soaked in toxins. Agro-ecological forms of farming, which preceded the Green Revolution in some cases, would have offered a way of managing this situation - but the skills have been lost.

There is, however, a second kind of amnesia - one that relates to the technologies used on farms today. The technologies are presented, by the chemical companies, and then by governments, as the only solution out of the trap of low productivity agriculture. Yet, as Prof. S.S. Gill of the Punjab Agricultural University points out, the Green Revolution was a substitute for land reform – it was a way of tamping down popular aspirations for radical change in the face of hunger. His work on the increases in productivity that have happened when landless and land-insecure rural people have been given land show that, in fact, productivity also shoots through the roof.

This isn’t to say that the main reason for land reform should be productivity increases - there are many better reasons than that. Yet we are encouraged to forget these political options in the face of modern farming technology. And this is symptomatic of a broader forgetting - a forgetting of people living in rural areas. Farming policy in almost every country world wide has placed a lower value on the fates of people living in rural areas, and their persistently higher rates of poverty, disease and education are tragic testament to this.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: How does/has the agricultural sector acted as a site of struggle against the neo-liberal system espoused by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank and WTO? What examples are there from Africa?

In Africa, the history of colonialism has left its mark most centrally on the factor of production most necessary for agriculture – land. A number of governments, and the South African government is the most ardent exponent of these philosophies on the continent, have sought to redistribute land on a willing-buyer-willing-seller model. The model, approved and proselytised by the World Bank, is one where the owner of the land, who has invariably received the land through a process of colonialism, agrees to part with it at an invariably high market rate, and the buyer, invariably without the support s/he needs to successfully finance and grow on the land, pays for the land, only to default on the loan a few years later. At the recent Land Summit in South Africa, and due almost exclusively to three years of hard campaigning by the Landless Peoples’ Movement, the government admitted that the willing-buyer-willing-seller policy has been a failure.

More broadly, the loans doled out by the Bank and the Fund have imposed requirements to repay loans in dollars. These dollars can only be gained through exporting domestically produced goods. When African countries have been unable to repay the loans, the Bank and Fund have been willing to re-lend to governments, but with the loans have come conditionalities, or terms – governments are to reduce their ‘interference’ in the market by dismantling the supports for agriculture to which they have been committed. These supports include guaranteed prices, paid through marketing boards. With the end of guaranteed prices, and with farmers exposed to international competition, this has cemented African agriculture into a barely reconstructed version of their colonial form – providing cheap agricultural commodities to the Global North and, increasingly, large countries in the Global South, notably China.

Cotton, mentioned above, is just one example. African countries are driven by a range of key export crops, from coffee to cut flowers – all of which have a range of increasingly liberalised trade rules governing them, authored at the World Trade Organization. This process, of loan, conditions, and export agriculture, is why the Fund, Bank, and WTO are known as the ‘three sisters’ of neoliberalism.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: Community struggles are often at the coal-face of resistance to decisions made at forums like the WTO. To what extent do you think these 'voices' are heard at meetings like the one in Hong Kong?

RAJ PATEL: The WTO is meant to be a forum of governments, and to the extent that governments represent the will of their people, peoples’ voices ought to be heard at the WTO. It just happens that very few governments represent any kind of popular will, and the few that are able to represent these are sidelined, bought off, or brow-beaten.

With this in mind, the international peasant movement, Via Campesina, arranged to meet directly with the head of the WTO, Pascal Lamy, the man who had Peter Mandelson’s job until he was elected to be the ‘impartial head’ of the World Trade Organization. Unfortunately, the delegation was limited by the WTO to fifteen people, and when arriving at the WTO building in Geneva, only one member of the delegation, the Via Campesina representative from Norway, was allowed in. This is indicative of the extent to which ‘voices’ are heard at the WTO. In Hong Kong, there are already rumours of activists being blacklisted, and prevented from entering the country during the ministerial, and with the Hong Kong authorities making it difficult for these representatives to find accommodation so that they’ve somewhere to sleep after they’ve made their voices heard.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: What would be some of the key features of a food sovereignty model?

There are alternatives to the WTO. Via Campesina has proposed a model called “food sovereignty”. It’s not something of which many people have heard, so it’s worth jotting down a quick definition: “is the right of peoples to define
their own food and agriculture; to protect and regulate domestic agricultural production and trade in order to achieve sustainable development objectives; to determine the extent to which they want to be self-reliant; [and] to restrict the dumping of products in their markets . . . Food sovereignty does not negate trade, but rather, it promotes the formulation of trade policies and practices that serve the rights of peoples to safe, healthy and ecologically sustainable production.”

The main point here is not to replace one neo-liberal dogma with another, but to take seriously the right of ‘peoples’ to define their own food and agriculture. In other words, a food sovereignty model would look significantly more democratic than the prevailing one. But this is to understate the case – because we’ve not yet seen this kind of democracy at work on a sustained basis at a national level anywhere in the world. It’s a call for a direct democracy, not a representative one. This means a call for engagement, debate and contestation – the kinds of things that we see very little of outside the smoke-filled rooms at the WTO. It calls for every person to take more direct responsibility and claim over their lives – it’s a call for empowerment. It means, of course, disempowering those who profit from the current agricultural system – but it also means empowering those who profit least – rural and urban producers, and consumers around the world. And we’re a constituency that richly deserves more control over our lives.

* Interview conducted via email. Please send comments to [email protected]

With the sixth World Trade Organisation (WTO) ministerial meeting taking place in Hong Kong, the core of on-the-streets protest will be drawn from organisations in Asia. Pambazuka News asked Nicola Bullard from Focus on the Global South, a Bangkok-based group that researches international finance and globalization issues, about strategy, messages, WTO reform and the links between African and Asia in resisting an unfair deal.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: In April, Focus on the Global South articulated a "strategy of derailment" for the WTO in an article 'The End of an Illusion: WTO Reform, Global Civil Society and the Road to Hong Kong'. The article said: "Essentially, derailment involves zeroing in on the key point of vulnerability of the WTO: its consensus system of decision-making. Concretely, it means working to prevent consensus from emerging in any of the key negotiating areas prior to and during the Sixth Ministerial in Hong Kong." Has anything changed and does this strategy remain the focus of activity?

NICOLA BULLARD: Well, the first thing to say about preventing a consensus is that it’s a short term strategy, aimed to slow down the process in the WTO, and the reason we want to slow it down is because we firmly believe that under the present conditions of unfair agreements, unequal power and undemocratic processes, most developing countries have little to gain in the WTO.

Our larger critique is that the overarching model, based on the assumption that export oriented trade liberalisation will lead to growth and hence development, is based on a faulty model. This critical view is supported by economic data on employment, incomes and growth which show that over the past 10 years, although there has been a boom in the volume of trade, this has not resulted in increased living standards, employment or broader benefits to the society.

In terms of the concrete strategy leading to Hong Kong, we are still working in every way that we can to strengthen the solidarity of developing country groups and to maximise the contradictions and disagreements between the negotiating countries in an effort to stall a consensus: we are working with trade delegations in Geneva, working at the national level to increase the pressure on the domestic front, and working with the media to heighten their awareness of what’s at stake and who is calling the shots in the WTO. So, blocking consensus remains an important objective.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: What is the role of mass public pressure in pursuing the goal of derailment and how successful has it been in the run up to the WTO meeting? What role do you expect it to play in the immediate period before the meeting, as well as during the meeting?

Public pressure, mobilisations and demonstrations are key: the work that we do “inside” the WTO, like policy analysis and lobbying, is pointless unless it is part of a larger process of mobilising public opinion, democratising the debates over trade, and bringing real in-the-streets pressure to bear on politicians at the national level. In addition, demonstrations can draw the media spotlight to what is going on inside the WTO. However one of the perennial struggles is to get the press to focus on the content of our arguments against the WTO rather than whether or not there will be violent protests in Hong Kong. However, I think this battle is being slowly won as the press becomes better informed about trade and development.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: What are the key messages that you are pushing ahead of the summit?

NICOLA BULLARD: One of the slogans that many groups agree to is “no deal is better than a bad deal”. By this we mean it’s better for developing countries to walk away from the table than to accept a shoddy deal that is not in their interests.

We are also focussing on the ten year record of the WTO. What we see is a litany of broken promises as the rich countries time and time again refuse to deal with the issues of central concern to developing countries such as ending dumping, protecting their agricultural sectors, access to life saving drugs, an assessment of the impacts of the Uruguay Round liberalisation (that is, the last ten years of trade liberalisation) and consideration of the costs of adjusting to the WTO trading rules. All of these issues, and many more, have been systematically ignored by the powerful countries who stand to gain from the system.

So our overarching message is that the WTO is a faulty system, there is a fundamental design flaw in the trade model it is promoting, and we need a different approach before the damage gets even worse.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: From Africa, it often seems as if some of the most dynamic and powerful resistance to the policies of the WTO and the World Bank and IMF take place in Asia. How much of a mass public awareness is there and if you think there is, what do you think are the factors that have contributed towards its creation?

NICOLA BULLARD: Funnily enough, from Asia we think that some of the most powerful resistance to the WTO comes from Africa! After all, it was the African ministers who walked out in Seattle, it was the G90 that walked out in Cancun, it was four small cotton producing countries – Benin, Mali, Bukino Faso and Chad – that brought the scandal of US cotton subsidies into the public eye, and it was the African countries who fought so hard to get a reconsideration of the TRIPS and health provisions.

Of course they may not be winning these battles but they are certainly courageous, especially when you consider how vulnerable they are to pressures from the EU and the US, threats about not having their debts rescheduled and so on.

Many Asian countries are much more competitive in the global trading game and often their positions are more aggressive. This is partly because of the industrialisation that took place in the 1970s and 1980s, which saw many of the East Asian “tigers” made tremendous economic leaps by adopting state-driven development strategies, such as directing investment to certain sectors and protecting fledgling industrial sectors. Many of these measures are now illegal under the WTO regime or the bilateral trade agreements which are proliferating in the region. In addition, many sectors of the society, especially workers and farmers and even small local enterprises, realise that the WTO does not protect their interests. For these reasons, there are now large, vocal national campaigns against the WTO and FTAs across the region, including in Thailand, the Philippines, South Korea, Indonesia, Pakistan and India.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: There still seems to be a school of thought that maintains that the WTO can be reformed. From your perspective, is there any credibility left to this view? Why?

NICOLA BULLARD: The WTO refuses to reform itself, even in the most fundamental aspects of its operations. For example, there are no clear rules about decision making, keeping records, making information available to the members and so on. A long list of proposals made by a large group of developing countries post-Doha on how to improve internal procedures was shelved, never to reappear. As one commentator remarked, a local Scout Club is more transparent than the WTO.

On substantial issues the rich countries have been intransigent – and why wouldn’t they be: the name of the game in the WTO is to maximise access to other people’s markets, while protecting your own. It’s a game that can only be played by rich countries, and these are the very same countries who make the rules. There is no incentive for them to reform the WTO.

Let me give you an example: in Doha the membership agreed to the TRIPS and health declaration which aimed to improve access to low-priced generic drugs to combat life threatening diseases. So, there was a small victory. However, after 12 months of wrangling that “victory” was tuned into a failure because the EU and the US hatched a deal between them which imposed a so-called “solution” which did nothing to resolve the problem and everything to protect the interests of the pharmaceutical companies and the intellectual property regime.

No, there is no hope for reforming the WTO.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: A great deal of euphoria was felt after Cancun. Our own publication, Pambazuka News, carried an article that stated: "Africa emerged from the talks a major negotiating player, no longer the dinner of other trading partners, but defining the direction and outcome of the talks in Cancun." (http://www.pambazuka.org/index.php?id=17486) Somehow it seems like that euphoria hasn't been carried forward, not only in Africa, but globally. What happened to the promise of victory?

NICOLA BULLARD: Well, we let our guard down! Cancun was a great victory, but the EU and the US were able to turn the tables when they pushed through the framework agreement at the July General Council meeting the following year. And they did this in a very clever way by bringing India and Brazil into the “inner circle” of negotiations by creating the FIPS – the five interested parties which is the EU, the US, Brazil, India and Australia. By getting the agreement of this group they were able to enforce it on the rest of the members, despite rumblings in the corridors.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: Lastly, how can stronger links be built between the people of Africa and Asia in pursuing a common agenda with regards the WTO?

NICOLA BULLARD: Of course one can’t talk about Africa as a whole or Asia as a whole: there is so much diversity and different realities in each region. However, many countries have similar problems; rural livelihoods are disappearing, the agricultural sector is being destroyed by dumping, unemployment and underemployment is the norm, incomes are falling due to declining terms of trade, industries are being driven to the ground by cheap imports, and foreign direct investment is proving to be an unreliable development partner. In addition, many countries shoulder a heavy debt burden. However, it’s terribly difficult to build solidarity amongst these countries when they are operating in a trading system which is based on competition, and this competition is particularly destructive when all countries have to trade is cheap labour and cheap natural resources and raw materials.

However, I am optimistic that things can change: there is a new discourse emerging in many different quarters which talks about “policy space” – the idea that countries should be able to set their own economic and development strategy rather than having one imposed by the rich and powerful countries through the WTO and the IMF.

The evidence is clear that trade liberalisation is a dead-end street for many countries and they need an alternative – and they need it now. Civil society stands ready to support any governments that are brave enough to put the interests of their people ahead of the interests of the local and global elite. For our part, all we can do is to strengthen the ties between the people of Asia and Africa, to share information and strategies, and to support each other’s campaigns not only on trade but also on issues such as debt, democracy, and against the ongoing domination of the big powers and the big institutions.

Ironically, one issue that might bring many countries together is the impact that the impressive entry of China into the global markets is having, and will continue to have, on smaller and less competitive countries. But it’s too early to tell how this will evolve.

* Interview conducted by email. Please send comments to [email protected]

* Intitulé du poste : Correspondant régional pour l’Afrique de l’Ouest
Pambazuka News (www.pambazuka.org)

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Pambazuka News est la newsletter électronique hebdomadaire de référence. À la pointe du combat pour la justice sociale en Afrique, elle fournit des commentaires incisifs et des analyses en profondeur sur différents sujets comme la politique et les questions d’actualité, le développement, les droits de l’homme, les réfugiés, les questions de genre et la culture en Afrique.

Pambazuka News offre un tour d’horizon hebdomadaire exhaustif des informations sur les droits de l’homme, les conflits, la santé, l’environnement, les affaires sociales, le développement, l’Internet, la littérature et les arts en Afrique. Pambazuka News est produit par Fahamu (www.fahamu.org), une organisation qui utilise les technologies de la communications et de l’information pour couvrir les besoins des organismes et des mouvements sociaux qui aspirent a un changement social progressif.

Nous sommes à la recherche d’une personne motivée, indépendante et sensible aux problèmes de société afin de se joindre à notre équipe en tant que : CORRESPONDANT RÉGIONAL.

Tens of thousands of refugees in the Great Lakes region have started returning home, but without adequate support they could reignite conflicts and end up joining the millions of people displaced within their own countries, said Dennis McNamara, director of the UN Inter-Agency Internal Displacement Division. He said there were currently only three million refugees in all of Africa - but over 11 million IDPs in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Uganda and Sudan.

When does the pursuit of justice turn into revenge-seeking? This question, more than any other, lies at the heart of two issues that bedevil this country: a troubled political succession and the ongoing war in the north. Our response to these issues will shape both your legacy and the political future we bequeath the next generation. If it should seem audacious for an ordinary citizen to set aside normal courtesy and write an open letter to his President, I urge you to think of this letter not as the pursuit of political advantage but as an out-of-the-ordinary response in an extraordinary situation.

Political Succession

The reluctance to hand over power to anyone but close family is a widespread phenomenon in Africa and the Middle East. That those in power should want to hang on to it is not surprising, but their ability to do so is. A reflection of weak political institutions, the refusal to hand over power further weakens these institutions. The result is that even constitutional republics are coming to resemble monarchies.

This is the context in which I suggest we understand both the ‘third term’ controversy and recent charges brought against the principal opposition leader, Kiiza Besigye. The language of the ‘third term’ debate is misleading because you, Mr. President, are seeking a sixth – and not a third – consecutive term in office. Similarly, the current focus on whether or not Mr. Besigye committed rape and treason is also misleading. Whereas it is the business of the courts, civil and military, to decide the truth of these allegations, only the political authority has the power to decide whether and when to bring charges to court. Simply put, why has a 1993 charge of rape been brought to the courts 12 years later? And why is intent and preparation to mount a guerrilla struggle being construed as evidence of treason given that the promise to ‘return to the bush’ has become part of the political vocabulary of those members of Uganda’s political elite who, whether presently in government or in opposition, came to power in 1986 through a guerrilla struggle?

After all, was not the more striking fact about the period that followed the disputed election of 2002, an election whose conduct even the courts were reluctant to vindicate, that the opposition – even if it talked of and prepared to go to the bush – did not in fact take to the bush? My point, Mr. President, is that we need to focus on the political rather than the legal issues involved in the matter.

While the courts can settle the truth of these allegations, the public must concern itself with considering the political cost, and thus the political wisdom, of introducing these charges now, against the unquestioned leader of the opposition, a few months before an election that follows a highly controversial constitutional amendment. The point will be clearer if I compare the situation today with that of 20 years ago, when you had just come to power.

I believe history will acknowledge the building of a ‘broad base’ government after 1986 as a key political contribution of the NRM government. The broad base was a response to a context in which the NRM recognized that it did not have sufficient political support in the country as a whole to demand that those who had resorted to violence for political ends be brought to justice. Instead of taking them to court, the NRM offered them a political deal: give up the recourse to violence without giving up your objectives, and we will give you a share of power or simply the perks of office. How many of those who held positions in the broad-based cabinet could have been charged with accusations the courts would have upheld? What shall we call this: a legally unjustifiable impunity or a politically justifiable reconciliation? The answer is clear: it was the latter.

The lessons of 1986 are hugely relevant for 2006. As in 1986, now too both the political class and the citizenry are deeply divided. The whole point of the electoral system in a divided country, especially one with a recent history of civil war, is to shift the contest from the military to the political field, and thereby to demilitarize political competition. It is this achievement you are risking by insisting on taking Mr. Besigye to the courts – whatever the truth of the allegations levelled against him.

The War in the North

For a long time, the war in the North seemed to simmer as a local affair with local consequences. Even if most people were content to leave its conduct to the government, a growing number wondered why there was no end to it, why every round of peace talks was broken up by war talk, calling for a military victory amidst a military stalemate. The government pointed the finger north, to meddling by the government of Sudan. But now that war has ended even in the south of Sudan, that explanation can no longer suffice. Ugandans are compelled to look internally for an explanation as to why the northern war has continued for a second decade.

The facts are as evident as they are puzzling. First, the LRA guerrillas are estimated in the hundreds, rather than the thousands, with elementary training and rudimentary technology. Second, whereas the LRA preys on civilians, the government has interned most of the population (over a million) in barbed-wire camps, without providing them adequate security, food or medicine. I visited a camp of roughly 15,000 internees two years ago; it was ‘protected’ by 15 armed soldiers, and periodically raided by the LRA. Recent figures, both official and unofficial, show that the level of excess deaths in the internment camps far exceeds those killed by the LRA. Finally, and not surprisingly, most of the local population seems to have kept a distance from both the LRA and the government. So why does the northern war continue?

Does the answer lie in revenge, a vendetta rationalized as the pursuit of justice? Or does it lie in advantage? The case for both grows with time. First, has not the on going war channelled a growing proportion of the official budget to military uses, and created a vigorous constituency inside the army for a continued war and against a negotiated solution to it? Second, has this constituency not been further reinforced by those civilian leaders who realize that the security budget is relatively immune from scrutiny by outside agencies, such as the IMF? Third, is it not significant that every major regional intervention by Uganda – whether in Rwanda, Congo or Sudan – has been launched from the north, in light of the fact that the northern war provides a theatre for constant military mobilization? Fourth, is not the most evident consequence of the war a brutalization of the society in the north – particularly the million plus interned – and a militarized distortion of its politics? Fifth, is there not a corresponding political advantage gained by holding up ‘Kony’ as an alternative in the wings, a threat to the population should it demand that the government resolve Uganda’s own local ‘war on terror’ politically? And, finally, has not the continuation of this ‘war on terror’ in the north secured for your government a place as a front-line state in the global ‘war on terror,’ thereby assuring it the uncritical protection of an American political umbrella?

No one can answer these questions for sure, but no one can afford to ignore them. For one thing is certain: whether intended or not, each of the above outcomes spells out the rising cost of the war in the north for all of us.

The Issue is not Impunity, but Reconciliation

The conduct of the northern war has become more complicated by the entry of the International Criminal Court (ICC). The ICC was created to hold governments accountable, especially concerning large-scale atrocities against civilians, defined in law as ‘crimes against humanity.’ This is why the internment of a million plus civilians in armed camps in the north, without adequate provision of security or food or medicine, should have been a matter of prime concern for the ICC.

But the ICC has chosen to focus its apparatus of justice on just one side of the conflict, the LRA. By providing impunity for the government while seeking to bring rebels to justice, the ICC is contributing to the continuation of the northern war, rather than to its resolution. No wonder the ICC is politically isolated in the country. Inexperienced and under great pressure to perform, the ICC needs to recognize that its involvement in northern Uganda is fast turning into a political and legal travesty, one from which it needs to step back if it is to avoid the first spectacular failure in its short career.

Mr. President, I was among many who were heartened when you talked of the need for reconciliation in the days that followed the death of former President Obote. I urge you, Mr. President, to fulfill the promise of 1986 – not just to reserve reconciliation for the dead, but to extend it to the living. Specifically, I suggest two measures: one a national reconciliation whose provisions are broad enough to apply to both Dr. Besigye and to the leadership of the LRA and, two, a disbanding of internment camps in the north as a first step to restoring normal civilian life there.

This is the prime requisite for building both a sustainable political community and a viable rule of law in today’s Uganda.

Yours truly,

Mahmood Mamdani

The arrival of December in Cuba, as well as signalling the end of the hurricane season and the scorching temperatures of summer, is also a time for remembering one of the most dramatic periods in recent Cuban history: the country's 13-year-long participation in the war in Angola. Between 1975 and 1988, some 350,000 Cubans took part in the civil war in the southern African nation, which was also the last time Cuba's military forces were involved in an armed conflict. According to Cuban government figures, during all of the "internationalist" missions carried out in Africa from the early 1960s to the withdrawal of the last soldier from Angola on May 25, 1991, a total of 2,077 Cubans were killed.

Mohammad is from war-torn Darfur, often described as the scene of some of the worst violence in the world over the past two years. Enough for an asylum claim by someone from Darfur to be taken seriously, one would think. At the end of May 2005 this year, after considerable lobbying and court appeals by the Greek Council for Refugees and Amnesty International, Mohammad was released from his third spell of detention in Greece. Yet he is still no closer to having his claim to be a refugee properly examined, let alone be recognized as one.

The draft Ministerial text for the World Trade Organisation (WTO) Ministerial Conference to be held in Hong Kong on 13-18th December was issued on Saturday 26th November. The text was presented by the WTO Director General Pascal Lamy and the General Council chair. "This draft text for Hong Kong is heavily imbalanced and biased towards the rich countries", warns Peter Aoga from EcoNews Africa. "Particularly the part on services is a major flaw, and, if agreed, would prove disastrous for African and other developing countries".

Tanzania is the one of the poorest countries in the world. 60 per cent of the population live on less than £1.40 a day and Tanzania has a total debt of £4.4 billion. Furthermore, 9.8 million Tanzanians do not have access to safe water (28 per cent). Biwater is a company with an annual turnover of £160 million that provides water services around the world. Early this year the Tanzanian Government spectacularly terminated a water privatisation contract with Biwater just two years into a ten year contract for failing to improve water supplies. Now Biwater wants compensation for the money it would have got if the contract had lasted ten years - this will amount to millions, and will take years to resolve. Click on the web link provided to protest against the Biwater action.

More and more households are looking to alternative power or renewable energy as a constant source of electricity in a bid to cut down on costly monthly bills or decrease greenhouse emissions in the environment. Coal-driven energy has not only had a noticeable effect on the environment, but has also seen the decline of the world's natural resources, prompting "green" nations and businesses to promote renewable sources of power. One such group is Sustainable Energy Africa, a non-governmental organisation which endorses and researches sustainable energy resources in developing African communities. What they have done is build an energy efficient (or eco) house that runs completely on alternative energy sources, like solar and hydro power.

Following the disastrous impact of the structural adjustment years, the World Bank and IMF have acknowledged that policy should be based on evidence rather than ideology, and have stated that they are developing tools and methods to analyse which policies are needed to reduce poverty. Poverty and social impact analysis (PSIA), introduced in the last four years, is one such method. This paper assesses the effectiveness of this approach in terms of the extent to which policy is informed by analysis of the potential impact of reforms. It also examines the institutions' commitment to stakeholder participation and country ownership.

A new Shona edition of Leading to Choices: A Leadership Training Handbook for Women is now available. The manual is translated into 13 languages including three African languages, Hausa, Swahili and Shona, as well as in English and French. Developed in collaboration with WLP’s partner organisations in the Global South, this resource is based on a conceptualisation of leadership as horizontal, inclusive, and participatory.

ActionAid International (AAI) is looking for a dynamic and committed individual to join its Affiliate/ Associate Development Team. This role will be responsible for providing support to the Head of Affiliate/ Associate Development in coordinating the internationalisation process of AAI.

This guide is intended to enable teachers to enhance and develop quality reading programmes at the primary school level that lead to improved reading outcomes. This manual is based on the results of work with teacher trainers as well as studies carried out by UNESCO in China, Ethiopia and Jamaica. Literacy is one of UNESCO’s three special target areas to accelerate progress towards Education for All by 2015; the others are Teacher Training and HIV/AIDS prevention education.

Lisa Vetten, manager of the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation's Gender-Based Violence Programme, will be part of an Agenda e-talk. The e-talk will be held on Thursday the 8th of December from 13:00 - 14:00 SA time. You can join the chat by going to the online community section on the Agenda website (http://www.agenda.org.za) and clicking on Agenda e-talk link or by following the link below.

"The big relief is that the debate around the information society no longer needs to be tied to the WSIS process," said communications expert David Souter at Panos London's final briefing in Tunis. Very true, writes Murali Shanmugavelan in this article on the Panos iWitness web page. The information society is broader than the agenda of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) could ever have hoped to cover. And the resulting non-binding Tunis Declaration has produced little in concrete terms for developing countries.

The Kenya Human Rights Commission (KHRC) is exceedingly anxious that national debate on the post-referendum period has thus far focussed on the possible transformations that may take place on the political scene following the adoption or rejection of the proposed new constitution. As a consequence, there has been nominal concern about the status of human rights protection and the rule of law in the aftermath of the referendum.

The Open Society Institute (OSI), a private operating and grantmaking foundation, aims to shape public policy to promote democratic governance, human rights, and economic, legal, and social reform. On a local level, OSI implements a range of initiatives to support the rule of law, education, public health, and independent media.

"You will receive no visitors and you will rot here until you sign this paper." The reported words of an Eritrean military commander to Helen Berhane, a well known gospel singer of the Rema Church who has been detained incommunicado in Mai Serwa military camp since 13 May 2004. She is currently held in a metal shipping container. Helen Berhane is just one of many people in Eritrea who are locked up because they do not belong to an officially recognised faith. In the last 3 years, at least 26 pastors and priests, some 1750 evangelical church members, and dozens of Muslims have been detained by the government.

Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, who will be Africa’s first female president when she takes office in Liberia next month, on Monday (December 5) promised no rapist would go unpunished during her tenure. New legislation making rape illegal for the first time in Liberia was passed by parliament amid a flurry of rape cases and accusations that have flooded the local media. “Nobody will abuse our girls and women and get away with it; any law on rape especially the rape bill just passed into law will be totally implemented under our government,” Sirleaf said in a live radio interview.

Despite being a resource rich country with 3% annual growth per year (11% in 2004), the development impacts of the activities in the oil sector in Angola have had a limited effect on the rest of the economy and poverty is widespread. Inflation is very high (31% in 2004, down from 76% in 2003), and the country has been able to develop hardly any local industry. Oil companies have therefore been criticised, particularly by NGOs, for not taking due account of the developmental impact of their extraction of resources. A report from the Chr. Michelsen Institute in Norway examines this issue and asks what the responsibility of oil companies in Angola is and which of these responsibilities the companies take.

According to a BBC news report, Ugandan opposition leader Kizza Besigye has been granted permission to sign his presidential nomination papers from prison by the attorney general.

South Africans living with HIV/AIDS have once again had a horribly confusing year, thanks to Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang’s promotion of those who denounce antiretroviral drugs. The most memorable alliance the Minister made this year was with the internationally discredited German vitamin salesman, Dr Matthais Rath, who claims that his vitamins can “reverse AIDS”. The Minister’s persistent refusal to denounce the Rath Foundation’s activities has resulted in the Treatment Action Campaign and SA Medical Association resorting to the courts this week to try to force her and her Director-General, Thami Mseleku, to “take measures against [Dr Matthais Rath’s] illegal activities”.

So far, Kenya has been lucky. It has been nearly two years since the bird flu outbreak emerged and more than eight months since the illness spread from its birthplace in Asia. Yet with more than 300 cases in at least eight countries to date, a disease that has rocked Asian markets, ruined the tourist trade of an entire region and spread panic through some of the world's largest countries has largely passed by.