Pambazuka News 232: World AIDS Day 2005: Stephen Lewis interview
Pambazuka News 232: World AIDS Day 2005: Stephen Lewis interview
Representatives from governments, green organisations and business are currently meeting in Montreal, Canada to thrash out how to deal with the threat posed by climate change. As the meeting takes place, worldwide protests are underway to call for international governments to develop workable emissions reduction programmes and policies. Patrick Bond and Rehana Dada critically examine South Africa's response to dealing with pollution and call for genuine solutions to a very real problem.
Climate change damage, the subject of a major Montreal 'Conference of Parties 11' which aims to update the Kyoto Protocol from November 28-December 9, is apparent to anyone following the news.
* The ferocity of recent Gulf Coast hurricanes was blamed by a leading British climate scientist upon a 3 degree (centigrade) rise in water temperatures.
* Frequent bleaching of Indian Ocean corals due to sea surface temperature rise is fast reaching lethal levels.
* Siberia's tundra is thawing, releasing unprecedented amounts of methane.
* Polar icecaps are melting, as are mountain glaciers across Africa.
* An estimated 37% of terrestrial species are likely to disappear due to global warming by 2050.
* Droughts and floods are intensifying.
Here in South Africa, society is slowly coming to grips with apartheid's responsibility for the world's worst relative overdose of greenhouse gases. Tragically, the post-apartheid government's neoliberal orientation has made the situation much worse.
The Kyoto Protocol aims to stabilise greenhouse gas emissions from 'developed' countries by 2012, at a level 5,2% lower than 1990 levels. That target won't be met, and most scientists agree that instead, a 60% reduction is needed to undo the severe climate damage now underway.
The 1997 Protocol came into effect in February 2005, but South Africa is not subject to emissions reduction targets at this stage. However, since we will be in future, some state officials, international financiers and local corporations - and even a few NGOs that should know better - are promoting a gimmick: Kyoto's Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), which substitutes investments in carbon-reducing projects for genuine emissions reductions.
Critics include dozens of environmental justice networks that signed last year's 'Durban Declaration on Climate Justice' (http://www.carbontradewatch.org) against the CDM and especially trading carbon pollution rights.
Carbon trading justifies letting the US, European Union and Japan continue their emissions, in exchange for a small profit payout to dubious South African firms and municipalities for reductions in local carbon that we should be making in any event.
For example, landfill gas (40-60% methane) that escapes from Africa's largest dump, at Bisasar Road in the Durban residential suburb of Clare Estate should be captured, cleaned and the methane burned safely and cleanly for energy. The neighbourhood's residents are Indian and African; the vast dump's location smack in the middle of a residential area typified racist urban planning under apartheid.
Instead, Durban officials aim to burn the unprocessed landfill gas on site - in the process, raising the level of gas flaring by a factor of fifteen. Moreover, the Durban plan entails keeping the dangerous dump open at least another seven years so as to make the venture profitable, even though the ruling African National Congress had promised Bisasar Road's closure in 1996 due to community opposition.
The Durban bureaucrats' goal is to sell carbon credits via the World Bank to big corporations and Northern governments. But a famous community activist, cancer-stricken Sajida Khan, appears to have frightened the World Bank off for now.
Unfortunately, South Africa's Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism supports this form of carbon colonialism, which we term the 'privatisation of the air'. The government issued its National Climate Change Response Strategy in September 2004, arguing opportunistically that the 'CDM primarily presents a range of commercial opportunities, both big and small. This could be a very important source of foreign direct investment.'
Indeed, South Africa's five-fold increase in CO2 emissions since 1950 and 20% increase during the 1990s, can largely be blamed upon the attempt by state electricity company Eskom, the mining houses (led by Anglo American) and huge metals smelters (especially BHP Billiton) to brag of the world's cheapest electricity. Emitting twenty times the carbon tonnage per unit of economic output per person than even the United States, South African capital's reliance upon fossil fuels is scandalous.
Not only are vast carbon-based profits fleeing to the mining houses' offshore financial headquarters. There are very few jobs in these smelters, including the proposed $2.5 billion Coega aluminium project for which the notorious Canadian firm Alcan has been promised lucrative sweetheart deals from Eskom and other state agencies. Less than 1000 jobs will be created in the smelter, though it will consume more electricity than nearby Port Elizabeth, South Africa's fourth largest city.
Researchers at the University of Cape Town's Energy for Development Research Centre confirm that South Africa is 'the most vulnerable fossil fuel exporting country in the world'; scores extremely poorly 'on the indicators for carbon emissions per capita and energy intensity'; suffers a 'high dependence on coal for primary energy'; offers 'low energy prices' which in part is responsible for 'poor energy efficiency of individual sectors'; and risks developing a 'competitive disadvantage' by virtue of 'continued high energy intensity' which in the event of energy price rises 'can increase the cost of production'.
Aside from carbon trading, the main answer to the climate question provided by South African public enterprises minister Alec Erwin is to fast-track dangerous 'Pebble Bed' nuclear technology rejected by German producers like Siemens some years ago. That reckless strategy will continue to be fought by the superb environmental advocacy NGO Earthlife Africa, which has won two important preliminary court battles against Erwin and former environment minister Valli Moosa in the past year.
Although South Africa may be Africa's worst offender, other countries face similar problems. In Nigeria, powerful advocacy work by Iwerekhan community activists led the Federal High Court of Nigeria to judge gas flaring in Delta State a 'gross violation' of the right to life and dignity as promised in the Nigerian constitution (http://www.climatelaw.org/media/media/gas.flaring.suit.nov2005/ni.shell....). Yet the World Bank may give flaring mitigation official status as an investment in its Prototype Carbon Fund. According to the Climate Justice Programme, the proposed investments would justify flaring that should, in a just society, be outlawed outright, because they 'contain a toxic cocktail, including dioxins and particulates, and contribute to acid rain, respiratory illnesses, cancer and premature death', problems that the Nigerian court now considers a 'gross violation' of Iwerekhan people's human rights.
Whether in Nigeria, South Africa or elsewhere, renewable energy sources like wind, solar, wave, tidal and biomass are the only logical way forward for this century's energy system, but still get only a tiny pittance of government support.
Meantime, because of alleged 'resource constraints', Durban communities like Kennedy Road bordering Bisasar landfill - where impoverished people rely upon dump scavenging for income - are still denied basic services like electricity.
Hence there has arisen a new generation of municipal protests in South Africa, including a march by several thousand residents of shack settlements here in Durban on November 14. The week before, Durban city manager Mike Sutcliffe banned the march, showing that neo-liberalism and state repression are often two sides of the same coin. The community activists marched anyway, and the police attacked them, leading to more than 40 arrests and dozens of injuries from rubber bullets. The police also used live ammunition but fortunately no one was killed (http://southafrica.indymedia.org).
South Africa has witnessed nearly 900 illegal protests over inadequate municipal water, sanitation, electricity and housing services over the past year. President Thabo Mbeki passes the buck to local government, and hasn't yet shown any commitment to redirecting resource flows, which today so illogically favour the biggest corporate consumers of fossil fuels.
While Durban's Kennedy Road activists are promised a few jobs and bursaries by the municipality and World Bank, the plan to burn the landfill's methane gas on-site could release a cocktail of new toxins into the already-poisoned air. The generator's filters would never entirely contain the aromatic hydrocarbons, nitrous oxides, volatile organic compounds, dioxins and furans.
An even more dubious carbon trade is now being marketed in South Africa by another state agency, Sasol, which produces petroleum from coal. Sasol's attempt to earn carbon credits for its new Mozambique gas pipeline is based on claims that the huge investment would not have been viable without carbon finance. That this is a blatant fib was conceded offhandedly to researchers by a leading Sasol official in August, and is the sort of incident which discredits the idea of commodifying the air through unverifiable carbon reductions.
Aside from the World Bank, the cash-rich companies that most need these deals to protect future pollution profits are the oil majors, beneficiaries of windfall profits as the price per barrel soared from $11 in 1998 to more than $70 this year.
The Bank itself even admits in a new study that these and other extractive firms' depletion of Africa's natural resources drain the national wealth by hundreds of dollars per person each year (see Bond's analysis at http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2005-10/04bond.cfm).
In the process, the oil fields are attracting a new generation of US troops to bases being developed in the Gulf of Guinea. According to NATO's Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, General James Jones, 'The carrier battle groups of the future and the expeditionary strike groups of the future may not spend six months in the Mediterranean Sea but I'll bet they'll spend half the time down the West Coast of Africa.'
Once again, Pretoria is amplifying the worst trends, as Human Science Research Council writers John Daniel and Jessica Lutchman recently concluded of sleazy oil deals that encompass the Sudanese and Equatorial Guinean dictatorships: 'In its scramble to acquire a share of this market, the ANC government has abandoned any regard to those ethical and human rights principles which it once proclaimed would form the basis of its foreign policy.'
Those ethical principles should be urgently revisited now, since our future generations' very survival is at stake. In South Africa, the National Climate Change Conference last month failed to engage seriously with these critiques, and will be looked back on by ecological historians as a large part of the problem.
At the world scale, the Montreal conference will probably also be considered a travesty by future generations. Tragically, although Friends of the Earth International has joined the critique of carbon trading, the other giant environmental NGOs - many of which like Greenpeace appear to have been co-opted by their relationships with big oil - believe in market solutions.
In contrast, the signatories to the 'Durban Declaration' of October 2004 (http://www.carbontradewatch.org) continue to oppose a bogus for-profit approach to a problem caused mainly by advanced industrial capitalism. South Africa is a big part of this dual dilemma - i.e., emitting huge amounts of carbon, and serving as a guinea pig for a World Bank band aid scam - and it is up to environmental and social activists here to ratchet up the pressure and insist upon genuine solutions.
* Bond ([email protected]) and Dada ([email protected]) are editors of a new book, 'Trouble in the Air: Global Warming and the Privatised Atmosphere', from the University of KwaZulu-Natal's Centre for Civil Society (http://www.nu.ac.za/ccs/files/CCS_ENERGYSERIES_1005_COMPLETE.pdf). Dada's documentary film on Bisasar Road aired nationally in South Africa last month.
* Please send comments to [email protected]
Caroline shifts nervously in her chair and asks if this angle is OK. After reassurance she smiles shyly at the camera and begins to describe the impacts of fossil fuel company Sasol on her community in South Africa. "Sasol is one of the companies that are known for causing a lot of pollution in my community. People living in Sasolberg are suffering with many kinds of illnesses, respiratory and asthma," she says in a soft voice which belies the seriousness of her words. Her almost childlike voice could make you underestimate the power of this young woman. However she has been a vocal and effective community leader in the struggle against the activities of Sasol. Now she faces a new threat that comes, perversely, in the name of sustainable development.
Sasol are applying for carbon credits through the Clean Development Mechanism of the Kyoto Protocol for a natural gas pipeline they want to build which will reduce pollution by avoiding opening a coal mine. It's a kind of climate blackmail where huge industries will only choose the better option for the environment if given huge financial rewards. Instead of the polluter paying, the polluter is compensated. But in the case of Sasol the problems don't end there. As Caroline gets into her flow, her smile disappears when she talks about the project. "I feel that Sasol should not be credited because projects in CDM should not benefit companies like Sasol that are not contributing towards sustainable development. People are sick and Sasol is not respecting the lives of the community." For her it is a betrayal of her struggle that the company that continues to damage her community is being rewarded by the international community when its core business remains unchanged.
Rhetoric and reality
The story of the Sasol CDM project does not end there but from here on the devil is in the detail. In theory the CDM sounds like a wonderful idea, making everybody with vested interests happy. The developing world theoretically gets some extra investment for renewable technology and the industrialized polluters get to carry on as usual. 'Win-win' as they say. But the reality of the emerging climate markets is far uglier than this rosy picture suggests. There are of course flaws in this logic. For one thing, CDM projects are supposed to be 'additional'. That is, the project shouldn't have been likely to happen anyway without the revenue from carbon credits. During an interview with researcher Graham Erion, a Sasol employee admitted that that wasn't the case with their project. "We would have done this project anyway" with the motivation for it was "mainly financial." Credits sold would be pure profit for the fossil fuel giant.
We begin to see why Caroline is angry. Sasol, however, is not the only fly in the CDM ointment. South Africa is full of examples of bad projects. Even WWF-accredited projects that use the best criteria (so-called 'Gold Standard') are riddled with problems, as exposed by Erion in his paper 'Low Hanging Fruit Always Rots First'.
The South Africa example is not an isolated case unique to that country. Projects all over the globe have come in for criticism lately, from HFC (a powerful greenhouse gas) projects in India to tree plantations in Ecuador. As the Centre for Science and the Environment in India state: "CDM cannot become an industry hobby-horse made for industry, by industry."
Criticism is not only coming from the Majority World. In the UK Friends of the Earth director Tony Juniper warns that the UK Government is "doing accounting tricks with emissions trading." This wider critique of carbon trading schemes reflects concerns felt by African journalist Firoze Manji as he takes a seat to record his own feelings on carbon trading. As he waves his arms around frenetically, he looks mischievously into the camera exclaiming, "Imagine if you said well okay this year New York only had X number of murders and in Nairobi they had Y number of murders. So Nairobi has under-killed this year so it can sell off how many people can be killed somewhere else. I mean it's absurd." But such absurd logic is indeed what is being used to justify the global carbon trading shell game.
* You can download Graham Erion's paper free at www.carbontradewatch.org
* The filmed testimonies mentioned in the article are available online at www.raisedvoices.net and you can order a DVD or CDrom copy by contacting [email protected]
Abidjan, the economic capital of the world’s top cocoa producer, has grown by some 933,000 war-displaced to an estimated population of four million, according to a new survey financed by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). Drawing on local custom, at least half of those uprooted found temporary or long-term shelter with relatives, the study found. Especially during the early chaotic months of the war, some people managed to absorb more than twenty relatives in their home.
Every day, thousands of Africans living abroad line up in money-transfer offices to wire home the odd dollar they are able to save. From the US, Saudi Arabia, Germany and Belgium - the top sources of remittances to developing countries - the total of money sent is more than foreign development aid. Yet most of the money sent home by migrants is unrecorded, and therefore does not enter many countries' national statistics. Development planners increasingly stress the importance of tracking this money. That could help governments try to increase remittances as a source of development finance and better channel them into productive sectors.
A prototype of a cheap and robust laptop for pupils has been welcomed as an "expression of global solidarity" by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. The green machine was showcased for the first time by MIT's Nicholas Negroponte at the UN net summit in Tunis. He plans to have millions of $100 machines in production within a year.
I totally agree with Mr.Issa Shivji. I hope and pray that the responsible person/s will stop this chaos from happening. Otherwise, it is true, they will come and reap "without sowing". (Primitive accumulation of wealth means reaping without sowing by Issa Shivji, http://www.pambazuka.org/index.php?id=29962)
The Darfur Consortium, a coalition of more than 30 Africa-based and Africa-focused NGOs committed to working for a sustainable solution to the ongoing crisis in Darfur, joined other civil society groups in calling on member states of the Africa Union to reconsider their decision to confer the Presidency of the African Union to Sudan in January. In a letter, issued on the occasion of the 38th Ordinary Session of the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights held in Banjul, The Gambia, the coalition pointed out that the government of Sudan has borne responsibility for serious violations of international human rights and humanitarian law in Darfur and that the situation in Darfur remains one of the world's worst humanitarian crises.
The continuing genocide in Darfur in western Sudan has spurred several states to pass Sudan divestment legislation, which bars state pension funds from investing in companies doing business in the Sudan. In response, KLD Research and Analytics Inc. in Boston has launched the Sudan Compliance Service. Companies on the list include: Alcatel, a Paris-based telecommunications firm, Total SA, a Courbevoie, France-based oil company, and Siemens AG, a Munich, Germany-based technology company.
Sudan continues to provide arms and logistical support to Chadian rebels, despite several appeals by the Chadian government, President Idriss Deby said on Monday. “We have proof. The Sudanese government has armed [rebels], put vehicles at their disposal, given them logistics and communications materials,” Deby told Radio France Internationale. “The Sudanese government is complicit.”
If anyone thought for a moment that the suffering caused by Operation Murambatsvina ("Sweep away the filth") was over, or had abated, they would be seriously mistaken. Nothing could be farther from the truth, reports Sokwanele, a Zimbabwean civic action support group. Six months on from the initial brutal assault which saw 700,000 people in cities across the country losing either their homes, their sources of income or both and a further 2.4 million affected in varying degrees, the misery of the victims continues. Indeed for many it has only intensified in the ensuing months. And the death toll among the internally displaced persons (IDPs) increases week by week.
UNHCR Country Representative Alphafonso Malanda said that 1.5 million dollars would be spent to resettle internally displaced Nigerians and the reparation of Nigerians that sought refuge in Cameroun owing to conflicts. He said that the National Commission for Refugees had funded the reconstruction of destroyed structures and facilities of the affected communities so that the displaced Nigerians could return to their original abode.
Niger accused aid agencies such as the World Food Programme of exaggerating the threat of severe food shortages next year to boost their funds and threatened to expel any organisation operating without government blessing. Health Minister Ary Ibrahim said reports of a looming crisis were aimed at harming Niger, after a World Food Programme dossier warned last week that millions of people could face severe food shortages if donor countries let aid funding slip.
Ethiopia and Eritrea traded blame for the rising tensions along their shared border on Friday, but vowed not to ignite another war, the United Nations said on Saturday. Military commanders from the two countries met in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, at UN-hosted talks amid growing concern that their border stalemate could lead to renewed conflict. The closed-door talks were held two days after the UN Security Council threatened to impose sanctions against the two countries if they continued to engage in activities that aggravated the border standoff.
This report aims to answer the following question: do ICTs have a special role in promoting peace? The examples of ICT use in warfare are well-known: propaganda, intelligence, communications and ICT-enabled weapons systems. But can ICTs be used in other ways, by other actors, to diffuse a situation leading to conflict, help end a conflict, or allow the stabilisation of a postconflict situation?
The Institute for Media, Peace and Security of the University for Peace is organizing three two-day Seminars in Geneva, Switzerland with top media experts on the following topics:
- Media, Conflict Prevention & Peacebuilding - January 24-25, 2006
- Media Challenges in UN Peacekeeping - March 7-8, 2006
- Media and Genocide: Rwanda & Bosnia - April 5-6, 2006.
The Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA) and the Open Society Justice Initiative (the Justice Initiative) are pleased to invite applications for the Human Rights Fellows Program for the 2006-2008 session.
This program was launched in 2003 by the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA) and the Open Society Justice Initiative, in collaboration with Conectas Human Rights, the Open Society Foundation (South Africa) and South African, Mozambican and Angolan Civic organizations.
The Fellows Program is 20 months in duration and involves both academic study and practical experience in human rights/public interest advocacy. Up to six human rights lawyers and activists from Angola and Mozambique will be selected to participate. Candidates must be nominated by human rights NGOs based in Angola or Mozambique.
For further information, please visit http://www.conectasur.org/pt/noticia.php?cod=890 or write to [email protected]
The Africa Educational Trust is running a part-time training programme for African women on “Researching the Needs, Presenting and Representing Women in the Community”. Two courses are offered through this programme.
The Human Security Perspective is an online journal that wishes to enhance the concept of human security by contributing to the development of the global human security agenda and by providing an active forum for exchanging ideas, sharing knowledge and information in the field of human security. The main topic of the third issue of the journal will be dedicated to "HUMAN SECURITY AND HUMAN RIGHTS EDUCATION". The Editorial Committee welcomes original scientific papers addressing this topic.
Fahamu, the Kenyan led human rights organisation, has been awarded a Silicon Valley technology award at a recent high profile ceremony in San Jose, California. Fahamu was one of five winners of the Microsoft Education Award, and beat stiff international competition from 85 entries. The Tech Museum Awards go to the "best of the best technologists whose innovations benefit humanity". The Tech Museum Awards honour organisations that use technology to address critical issues facing humankind today. Located in Silicon Valley, The Tech Museum encourages people to engage in technological innovation.
Uganda has become the first country in the world to benefit from a healthcare information system that manages, measures and monitors the distribution of Anti retroviral drugs (ARVs). Harvey Stewart, the chief executive of Rocky Mountain Technology Group (RMTG), said the government approached them for a system which can block misuse of ARVs and improve distribution and accountability to donors satisfaction.
Geekcorps uses volunteers for four month stretches to contribute to ICT projects in developing parts of the world. Geekcorps takes care of most of the costs associated with volunteering, including air travel, lodging, inoculations and a meagre salary. In return for your time, Geekcorps promises adventure, excitement and foreign travel. Geekcorps currently has 3 500 willing geeks on its books, but is currently recruiting for a foray into Africa in 2006.
Today is World AIDS Day so I have chosen to focus on those African blogs that have written about HIV/AIDS from a range of perspectives.
Feminist African Sister – (http://feministafricansisters.blogspot.com/2005/11/bush-has-gone-too-far...) criticises George Bush, who has extended the “GAG” rule which prevents funding from the US to any NGO that “perform abortions in cases other than a threat to the woman’s life, rape or incest; provide counselling and referral for abortion; or lobby to make abortion legal or more available in their country.”
Thus Bush has “Essentially, locking out large numbers of organizations in Kenya and structures, which could provide useful access to target communities at the highest risk i.e. women in the 15-24 age bracket”. The GAG rule has also been applied in Uganda and in Ghana where 647,000 “Planned Parenthood Association of Ghana clients will lose access to family planning services, counselling, and HIV/AIDS prevention education.” This is a slap in the face to the millions who are HIV+ or have AIDS in Africa and makes a mockery of the prevention campaigns which are designed so we can begin to see a reduction rather than increase in the numbers affected by this illness.
Soul on Ice - Soul on Ice (http://obifromsouthlondon.blogspot.com/2005/11/aids-in-africaaggression....) writes that out of some 4.7 million HIV+ Africans only a mere 500,000 are presently receiving ARV drugs. He expresses his anger which is personalised as he explains how he lost his uncle’s family to the illness.
“I lost my uncle and his family some years ago to the dreaded disease and this put it all in perspective for me. Prior to that I'd viewed it as something that happens to other people. Damn I'd even doubted its existence like agnostics. It's like faced with such horrible things you switch to denial mode. And here we are worrying about more money for material stuff and an African woman in Malawi has to travel 20 miles once a week to pick up tablets that will keep her alive to give her five kids a chance in life. Fuck the West for keeping the beautiful continent poor and defenceless. Stupid patents on life saving drugs. And they want to moan about terrorists.”
Malawian blogger, afrika-aphukira - Afrika-aphukira (http://mlauzi.blogspot.com/2005/11/yesterday-and-global-hivaids-discours...) writes about the film “Yesterday”, a story about a South African couple who are HIV-positive. The film, which is an HBO (US based TV station) production, interestingly is in Zulu with English subtitles.
“The pride and depth of an African language in driving such a powerful social message should make African elites and policymakers think twice about their insistence on making English a language used by a tiny fraction of the population, the lingua franca of policy, business, politics, administration, and education.”
He does however have some criticisms of the film, which portrays Africans as being largely ignorant of the disease and fails to deal with issues such as racism and the capitalist mining industry.
“The movie leaves unmentioned issues such as the racist, apartheid era bio-war research suspected to have been aimed at blacks, dismissed as a conspiracy theory by dominant, mainstream views. Also unmentioned is the role played by the capitalist mining industry which sequestered male miners in hostels, away from their wives and families for months or years on end, a situation that facilitated the spread of HIV/AIDS. Thus the dominant ideologies keep framing the HIV-AIDS debate in the same terms of individual responsibility, ordinary villagers as ignorant and needing ‘education’, and Africans as more promiscuous than the rest of humanity.”
Eseme Udoekong's Africa - Eseme Udoekong's Africa (http://www.bbc.co.uk/africalives/myafrica/blogs/005009) focuses on AIDS from the perspective of alternative healing including “faith healing” in the Christian church.
“Now let's get back to the point of this discussion. For example, I believe in medication (orthodox/herbal) and divine healing, but I don't worship either as god. At times when I'm sick he that is in me can say, 'just pray and I pray'. Or 'take only water' or 'go to the hospital'. All that it takes me to be healed is obedience to his bidding. You cannot tell me that unless I see the Doctor I can't be healed when I have been enjoying such divine healing benevolence. It may be so or otherwise to other people, depending on one's mind set.”
Black Looks - Black Looks (http://okrasoup.typepad.com/black_looks/2005/11/personal_story_.html) posts an interview she had with a woman who is HIV positive but lives in Europe (UK).
“For those of us who were diagnosed such a long time ago and are still alive - if I was in Africa I would have been dead a long time ago - we are the ‘lucky ones’, those living in Britain or the West. But the problem is we were told we were dying and then after about 10 or 15 years of ‘dying’ the doctors suddenly changed their story and said you are not dying anymore take these pills and get on with your life. And for many of us this has been very difficult. They try to equate having HIV nowadays in the West with medication, as being just like having any other kind of chronic illness like diabetes. But it will never be the same. Because if I had diabetes I wouldn't be concerned about revealing my identity and nationality, I wouldn't be afraid of my neighbours or employers knowing about my illness. Because HIV will never loose the shame and stigma that has always been attached to it. The pain and despair never goes away – it’s the worst thing that ever happened to me. I hate it. I know there are people who are HIV+ who are much worse off than me but I feel like the last 20 years I have lived HIV and little else - even though I am not dead in some ways I am.”
Kid’s Doc in Jos - Kid's Doc in Jos (http://www.ecwaevangel.org/blog/faith_71) based in Jos, Nigeria, writes about two of his patients, 15 month twins Faith and Favour, who are HIV positive. He writes that Faith is now sick with pneumonia and has lost a lot of weight.
“I admitted him (which we could do only because we have some supporters who have given money to help such children), ordered a bunch of labs and a bunch of medicines. Tomorrow Barb will make a care package of some oranges, yoghurt, cookies, and so on.”
* Sokari Ekine produces the blog Black Looks, http://okrasoup.typepad.com/black_looks
* Please send comments to [email protected]
I read an article written by Dr Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem (Political Deadlock in Ethiopia: Charting a path Forward) on your website (http://www.pambazuka.org/index.php?id=30323). I would like to congratulate him for a well-written article especially considering the situation, that is very hard to understand exactly what is going in Ethiopia for outsiders.
I thought I should take the opportunity to share with you an open letter that I wrote to Prime Minister Meles Zenawi three weeks ago. If you think it is appropriate, feel free to post it on your website.
An Open Letter to His Excellency Prime Minister Meles Zenawi
Your Excellency,
First of all, I apologise for writing this letter in English instead of in one of the Ethiopian languages. The only reasons are that I do not have appropriate Ethiopian software and the skills to use the software, and it is much quicker to edit electronically than to write by hand.
I am an ordinary Ethiopian citizen who has never been directly involved in politics and who has never written a letter or an article to a politician or to the general public through any means of communication. However, recent events in Ethiopia make it almost impossible not to do a lot of soul searching and not to express my opinion no matter how little difference such an opinion might make.
I keep asking myself two questions again and again in the last 6 months. How could things go so terribly wrong in Ethiopia perpetually? How could the ideals (freedom, liberty, democracy, no group dominating the other, etc.) that you and so many of your comrades and other Ethiopians fought for, get relegated to minor importance while new priorities like maintaining power cause so much damage and bloodshed and assume more importance?
Despite Ethiopia’s long and colourful historic past there are not many examples we could proudly talk about of government power changing hands peacefully. No matter high level of popular support that some Ethiopian leaders (including yourself) had enjoyed at one point or another none of them could technically and legitimately claim that their power to govern stemmed from the people.
Your Excellency,
When the Emperor was overthrown in 1974, many Ethiopians hoped that the change would be for the better. The excitement and the hope very quickly turned to despair when the Derg regime turned out to be one of the most ruthless dictators that Africa has ever seen. Although I was very young during the early years of the regime, the scar left behind due to the execution of so many young Ethiopian friends and relatives primarily because they had a different political inclination will never heal and will never be forgotten.
Most Ethiopians wanted to change the situation swiftly but they were initially powerless in the face of tyranny supported by seemingly one of the most powerful armies in Africa. However, Ethiopians always rise to the occasion when their freedoms are seriously threatened. It may have taken almost two decades to get rid of the regime but the Derg leaders never got breathing space being painfully reminded of people’s dissatisfaction almost every day.
You were the leading light, the thinker, the fighter, the organiser, etc. in this mammoth struggle against tyranny. The Ethiopian people defeated the Derg and said not again to one group dominating the other, not again to nepotism, tyranny, corruption, etc. The people of Addis Ababa, as indeed the people of almost all other cities and towns in Ethiopia, went out in their thousands to welcome the EPRDF fighters who heroically liberated Ethiopia from the terror of the Derg regime. They gave food and water to the EPRDF fighters and treated them as their children, brothers and sisters. They congratulated them for their achievements against all the odds. They received them with open arms and opened their homes and their hearts. How could those same fighters and their relations now shoot the heads and the chests of the same people and their relations of Addis Ababa who treated them as their family members only 14 years ago?
I have been one of your admirers in the last 14 years. I believed, I guess as many other Ethiopians did, that you have had the intelligence, the determination and the foresight to lead the country to democracy, freedom and development. I believed that you were in such a fortunate position to have learned from the mistakes of your predecessors inside and outside Ethiopia. I have been prepared to give you the benefit of the doubt in some crucial areas (e.g. the handling of the good as well as the bad times with Eritrea) in which you have been heavily criticised by your opponents as well as within your own party.
* Please click on the link below for the rest of this letter.
The Ghana Anti-Corruption Coalition has launched its quarterly newsletter in Accra. Speaking at the launch, the Chairman of the Coalition, Reverend Fred Deegbe, said that although people perceive corruption in the country to be high, they are not actively involved in the crusade. This he said is because of the lack of understanding of the real issues at stake. He said the Anti-Corruption Dialogue newsletter is expected to serve as an instrument for promoting the anti-corruption agenda.
"The private pharmaceutical industry remains the most important source for the global supply of ARVs today. While the research-based pharmaceutical companies have been responsible for development of many of the medicines used to treat HIV/AIDS, the generic industry for its part has contributed enormously to making widespread treatment possible in the developing world, because of their innovative fixed dose combination tablets (FDCs) and their more affordable prices relative to their brand-name equivalents. FDCs mean that all the required medicines can be combined into one pill which often patients take just once or twice a day."
Among other direct and underlying causes of deforestation, Africa's rainforest ecosystems are threatened by logging, as are virtually all of the world's remaining large, contiguous rainforests. These biodiversity rich rainforests provide critical habitat not only to local indigenous but all of the Earth's peoples and species. In the Democratic Republic of Congo the threat has become a reality.
South African pulp and paper company Sappi is planning to increase the capacity of its Sappi Saiccor mill by more than 200,000 tons a year. Sappi Saiccor is the largest producer of chemical cellulose (dissolvable pulp) in the world. Its mill at Umkomaas, about 50 kilometres south of Durban Port currently produces about 600,000 tons of chemical cellulose a year. The chemical cellulose is used to produce things like cigarette filters, sweet wrappers, an additive to washing powder that stops dirt
sticking to clothes and the stuff that makes vitamin tablets stick together. Almost all of Saiccor's cellulose is exported.
The growing trend of establishing plantations of oil palm has taken its toll primarily on tropical forests, where this palm finds enough soil, water and solar energy to fill its needs. The typical procedure is to log a certain area of forest and then establish the plantation aimed at the production of oil and kernel oil. But it also happens that plantation companies may "clear" the entire forest by setting it on fire.
IRC Kenya is seeking an experienced team leader with significant proposal writing experience to assist in the writing of a health/HIV proposal.
The CSI is an international action-research initiative, which provides civil society stakeholders with a diagnostic tool for assessing the current state of civil society on a country level and creating a basis for dialogue, joint reflection and action. CIVICUS is recruiting a successor to the current CSI Project Manager, to take the lead in the evaluation, redesign and subsequent implementation of the CSI in 2006 and beyond. The position is based at the CIVICUS head office in Johannesburg, South Africa.
The War Child team (a programme team of 8 national staff lead by an expatriate Head of Mission) supports a number of local partners. These are local child and youth-oriented NGOs as well as schools. The Content Supervisor is responsible for the quality and content of War Child Holland’s programme in DRC as well as for its development.
African nations are moving toward creating a single power pool, overcoming geographical hurdles in order to light and develop the world's poorest continent, a senior energy industry official said on Friday, November 25. Joshua Kofi, the president of African energy consortium UPDEA, which coordinates power projects on the continent, said the five existing regional power pools would be integrated into one within five to 10 years.
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.
Aujourd’hui 25 novembre 2005, célébrons l’entrée en vigueur du protocole à la Charte africaine des droits de l’homme et des peuples relatifs aux droits des femmes en Afrique !
Ce 25 novembre 2005, le protocole à la Charte Africaine des Droits de l’Homme et des Peuples relatif aux droits des femmes en Afrique entre en vigueur. C’est avec une joie immense que nous célébrons l’évènement, qui marque un tournant important dans l’histoire de la lutte des femmes africaines pour la reconnaissance et le respect de leurs droits humains fondamentaux. A partir de ce 25 novembre 2005, date que nous voulons graver en lettres d’or dans l’histoire de notre continent, s’appliquera désormais cet outil susceptible de rendre justice aux femmes et aux filles du continent.
Due to donor priorities, efforts to build science capacity in Africa have tended to focus on health and agriculture. Two South African initiatives have bucked the trend — they are home-grown, and focus on physics and mathematics. This editorial in Nature says the National Astrophysics and Space Science programme (NASSP) and the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS) are having significant impacts in South Africa and across the continent, according to SciDev.
Amnesty International announced (November 28) today that it is sending a delegate to observe the trial this week of seven human rights defenders from Western Sahara who the organization believes may be prisoners of conscience. They are standing trial together with seven other accused who are being prosecuted for participating in demonstrations against Moroccan rule.
“It is time that the double standards and the rigged rules of global trade is changed to work for all, not just for a few powerful and rich nations” said Irene Banda, from a popular trade campaigning Zambian organisation. “We have mobilized more than 1 million Zambian people to petition the WTO- leaders, meeting in Hong Kong in December.” Reported by the Millennium Campaign, the group will be traveling with James “Chamanyazi” Ngoma, across Zambia, from today, (November 28) and for next week, to inform and mobilize more support against unjust trade practices in Zambia and internationally. The Organisation Development and Community Management Trust (ODCMT) joined the Oxfam International Big Noise for Making Trade Fair campaign in 2002.
Education ministers from 22 countries along with representatives from the main donor nations, multilateral agencies and civil society will meet next week in Beijing, China (28-30 November) to discuss ways of accelerating progress towards the six Education for All (EFA) goals set by over 160 countries at the World Education Forum in Dakar, Senegal, in 2000, reports UNESCO.
The "Mexico City Policy," also known as the "Global Gag Rule" denies U.S. funding to foreign non-governmental organizations that work on safe abortion issues. It was reimposed by President George W. Bush in 2001, but in 2003 the administration said that the rule would not apply to funds for fighting HIV/AIDS. Now, according to the Center for Health and Gender Equity, the administration is reversing that policy in a new $193 million program in Kenya.
Five months ago, Jonathan Ross was the media anchorman for the Live8 Concert in Hyde Park where a line-up of famous artists performed to raise awareness of Third World debt. But this weekend, the television presenter was sounding a rather different note. Speaking to the singer, Damon Albarn, on his chat show, Friday Night with Jonathan Ross, he admitted he was filled with "regret" at not having spoken out against the lack of African performers at the event on 6 July and singling out bands such as Velvet Revolver and Pink Floyd's reunion as part of his criticism.
id21 is holding an email discussion on community radio for development. The impact of new information and communication technologies on development is a subject of extensive international debate. Most discussion focuses on the Internet but development planners and practitioners have recently begun to realise that poor people are more likely to tune into traditional media, such as the radio, for access to information and voice.
Agreement between European farm ministers on a new EU sugar regime will throw many people in developing countries into poverty, the international development agency ActionAid warned. The 36 per cent price reduction in EU sugar agreed as part of the deal, phased in over four years from 2006, is almost double the cut the Africa, Caribbean and Pacific group of sugar-producing countries were prepared to accept - they had requested a 19 per cent cut over eight years. At the same time, the EC is limiting the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) access to EU markets for sugar under the Everything But Arms (EBA) proposal.
The International Crisis Group (Crisis Group) is an independent, non-profit, non-governmental organisation, with over 110 staff members on five continents, working through field-based analysis and high-level advocacy to prevent and resolve deadly conflict. We are currently looking for a highly motivated, independent thinking staff member who will be located in Pretoria, South Africa.
Openair Radio, the new community radio station at the School of Oriental and African Studies, launches its first ever FM broadcast on 101.4FM from 28 November – 16 December to Central London and London Borough of Camden. Webcasting is also available. OpenAir Radio is a ground-breaking initiative set up by students and alumni at the School of Oriental and African Studies in collaboration with the professional media, whilst drawing in community organisations based in the London Borough of Camden.
This paper examines how oral tradition - "verbal arts or oral literature, customs, belief and other institutions, arts including games, as well as musical instruments" - can be used to foster reading on the part of the African child. Research examined written prose, some of it in the Nigerian indigenous language (Yoruba), in an effort to explore linguistic and cultural differences of child authors (ages 7-15) based on the way they tell their stories. Findings suggest that African children can be stimulated to read if they are first told a story; storytelling should be encouraged, the author urges, especially in the primary and lower secondary schools.
This toolkit is structured as a website providing a wide range of educational materials and other resources designed for use by "rural teachers, instructors, trainers, parents, researchers, extensionists and others involved in formal and non formal education for rural people". Most of these resources are available online and are produced by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).
One of this year’s recipients of Solidar’s Silver Rose Award, which celebrates the outstanding achievements of individuals and organisations active in the fight for social justice, was the Global Call to Action against Poverty (GCAP) campaign. Co-chair of the GCAP International Facilitation Group, Kumi Naidoo, received the Award on 8 November on behalf of the global alliance that has worked tirelessly in 2005 in fighting towards poverty reduction. Every year, Solidar receives nominations from around the world from people or organisations working in civil society who dedicate their work to bringing about a fairer and more just society.
Through this online event, thousands of people around the world will be connected in real time over the Internet to discuss and develop solutions to key urban issues. Attempting a new form of global problem-solving that promises to empower people to take charge of decisions that affect their lives, Habitat Jam will try to achieve unprecedented global conversation and collaboration.
Violence against women is the most pervasive violation of human rights, occurring every day, in every country and every region, regardless of income or level of development. Its true extent is unknown, owing to fear of reprisal for reporting, refusal by authorities to recognize, or knowledge that nothing will be done. However, WHO estimates that nearly one in four women will be raped, beaten, coerced into sex or otherwise abused in her lifetime — sometimes with fatal consequences.
The first-ever World Health Organization (WHO) study on domestic violence reveals that intimate partner violence is the most common form of violence in women's lives - much more so than assault or rape by strangers or acquaintances. The study reports on the enormous toll physical and sexual violence by husbands and partners has on the health and well-being of women around the world and the extent to which partner violence is still largely hidden.
A challenging job and a unique opportunity to make a real impact on poverty and suffering and channel your passion to influencing policy makers to protect and advance the human rights of poor communities. These are some of the things you can look forward to when you join us at Oxfam as the Regional Policy & Advocacy Coordinator (RPAC).
British-based charity Survivors Fund (SURF), which represents and supports survivors of the Rwandan genocide, called on the international community to do more to prevent the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war to mark today’s UN International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.
Faith based organizations from the United States and Africa are to announce 10 to 15 names to be part of an Eminent Persons Ecumenical Programme for Africa, who will employ their moral authority to stem the widespread conflict in the continent, reports Africa Files. In the pool of 25 for selection are names like the Nobel Peace Prize Laureates, former South African president Nelson Mandela, Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and Kenyan environmental and ecological campaigner Professor Wangari Maathai.
This United Nations (UN) Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD) (2005) paper reflects on the context within which the struggle for gender justice is played out in the global environment. It provides an analytical frame to explain the core of the tensions between gender justice and other elements of social/economic justice, and the strategic implications of the multiple sites in which gender relations operate. The paper specifically explores the interplay between the feminist agenda for gender justice and neoliberal economic thinking dominated by the Washington Consensus. The author comments on the implications for gender justice of the shift to a unipolar world order, and in particular, the movement from the neoliberal era to the neoconservative one.
The purpose of this paper from the Center of Arab Women for Training and Research is to explain the different trajectories followed by Egypt and Morocco with regards to feminization of the labor force. While both have experienced significant informalization of their labor markets, Morocco has undergone noteworthy feminization of its work force, while Egypt (excepting the civil service) has largely de-feminized.
It was "Folake" who was jailed after she accused a man of rape. A domestic worker, she said her employer’s husband had forced her into his bedroom and made her watch a violent videotape before forcing her to have sex. A medical examination supported her allegation. Yet she was the one brought to court, charged with slander for making the accusation, and remanded in prison until her family could raise the bail money to have her released. The material evidence of the crime, handed over to the police, was later said to have disappeared. No charges were brought against the man she accused.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) says that eighty percent of the 11 million deaths that occur in Africa each year are as a result of preventable diseases. Dr Dick Johnson, an economist with the WHO, told a regional conference comprising regional health ministers and experts converging on Kampala that HIV/Aids, lower respiratory tract infection, malaria and diarrhoeal diseases are responsible for more than half of these deaths.
Women who suffer physical abuse from intimate partners - the most common form of violence perpetrated against women worldwide - experience serious health consequences, according to a report released last Thursday by the World Health Organization, the AP/Boston Globe reports. The survey of 24,000 women in 10 countries found that women who suffer domestic abuse were twice as likely as other women to suffer health problems, including pain, dizziness, gynecological and mental health problems, which persist after the abuse has stopped, the report says.
Increased access to antiretroviral (ARV) therapy and the resulting improvements in health have given many clients with HIV a renewed optimism about the future. As personal situations improve, these clients may reconsider their reproductive options — some deciding whether to have children, others resuming sexual activity while wanting to avoid pregnancy. As a result, demand for contraception among clients with HIV, especially those on ARV therapy, is expected to increase.
Messina's Ivorian defender Marc Zoro was reduced to tears on Sunday, after being subjected to racial abuse by the visiting fans of Inter Milan, in the Italian Serie A. The 21-year-old was targetted when he went to collect the ball near the away supporters' section and after a chorus of monkey chants he decided he would take no more part in the game. Inter's Brazilian striker Adriano went over to console Zoro before he broke down in tears.
The government of Lesotho is to offer free HIV testing to all its citizens in a bid to reverse the spread of Aids. In what is believed to be the first programme of its kind in the world, every villager in the tiny, mountainous kingdom will be offered a test. Under the scheme, local leaders will be consulted on how best to offer HIV tests to everyone.
As the UN launched its annual report on global AIDS statistics on Monday, activists warned that West African countries with low HIV/AIDS rates could not afford to be complacent. "We must not wait for the AIDS pandemic to shoot up before we react," said Baba Goumbala, executive secretary of the country’s National Alliance Against AIDS (ANCS), a group of Senegalese NGOs and community-based associations.
Swaziland is facing a serious breakdown in the supply of antiretroviral (ARV) drugs for patients with HIV, and some hospitals acknowledge that stocks ran out weeks ago. Sporadic ARV shortages have been reported at the main government hospital in the capital, Mbabane, and at the provincial government hospital in Siteki in eastern Swaziland.
Ethiopian authorities have arrested two more journalists, bringing the total number seized since bloody political protests erupted early this month to 12, a media watchdog agency reported on Monday. Private newspapers have been prevented from printing, and journalists had gone into hiding after the crackdown, according to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).
Reporters Without Borders has protested to Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni after the country's privately-owned radio stations were threatened with closure if they broadcast debates or talk-shows about the trial of opposition leader Kizza Besigye, which has just begun. Expressing its full support for the radio stations, the press freedom organisation said they could not ignore a major national event, no matter how embarrassing it was for the government.
Reporters Without Borders has voiced growing concern about the unacceptable way the authorities in the autonomous northeastern region of Puntland have been treating radio STN editor Awale Jama Salad, who has been forced to go into hiding after being arrested and threatened several times by the police. The organisation has written to President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed of Somalia’s transitional federal government (TFG) reminding him of his responsibilities “as guarantor of the rule of law, the safety of citizens and the free practice of journalism in Somalia” and pointing out that his influence is still decisive in Puntland, of which he is the former leader, and nothing is done there without his consent.
The Media Monitoring Project (MMP), Save the Children Sweden and SAfm have announced the broadcast of South Africa's first ever 'radio conference' on the media's role in covering child abuse. Hosted by Jeremy Maggs, [email protected] presenter, the conference will feature a panel of local and international media and children's rights experts who will contextualise the representation of children and abused children in the media and unpack the South African complaints process. Each conference session will be followed by a roundtable discussion allowing for listener interaction.
‘Resisting Racism and Xenophobia’ is a collection of papers on a multitude of inequalities and injustices, all of which are related to racism. The book is edited by Faye Harrison, professor of African American Studies and Anthropology in Florida, who already made her mark in promoting justice, for example when she edited ‘Decolonizing Anthropology’ and more recently when she organised a group of academics to go to Durban, South Africa, to the UN World Conference Against Racism (WCAR) in 2001. In large part, the book contains contributions delivered at WCAR, but is also a response to the event that occurred almost immediately after the conference, namely September 11.
The introduction, written by the editor, is an activist’s overview of the struggle for human rights, its aims, concepts, obstacles, achievements, challenges. Encouraging is that this is of interest to anthropology. At second sight, this is not surprising, because anthropology includes the study of difference and identity. Because our ‘differences’ have an impact on our socio-economic - and psychological - status, anthropology on the one hand and politics or community development on the other, are interlinked. Hence Harrison’s opening statement by Mamphele Ramphele on the proximity of these disciplines (p.1).
Harrison reminds us of what opportunities the UN has afforded us such as the International Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) from 1969. She analyses the “diversity of racism”(p.8) and how different definitions point at different aspects of injustice. She explains why racism is also specifically a women’s issue, namely because “women bear the brunt of much of the discrimination perpetuated against racially subordinated people.”(p.10).
Casteism, another dimension and variant of racism, particularly in India, is discussed by Devaki Jain. She also gives us an interesting insight into the proceedings of WCAR. The “conference revealed the ugliness of the human species, what it can do to the Other”(p.36) and “The air at the venue was one of conflict, conflict between peoples within countries.”(ibid.) This is useful feedback for us as activists: Did people not feel a sense of togetherness in each of them having the opportunity to raise the respective aspects of injustice that they are subjected to?
Subhadra Mitra Channa gives a further insight into casteism as it operates in India against the Dalits and Dhobis, so-called ‘untouchables’ who face immense discrimination despite a constitutional ban on ‘untouchability’ decades ago.
A perspective from Aboriginal Australia is given by J. Maria Pederson who, like other Aboriginals, was not born a citizen of her own country (p. 67). Cheryl Fisher, another international human rights activist, speaks as a voice for rural African Americans, as opposed to the ‘urban voices’ that we hear more frequently. Helen Safa explains to us the link between marriage and racism in America: the American state itself is to be held accountable for the high incidence of black single mothers because they did not allow Blacks to get married and they did not enable black men to be sole breadwinners. Melissa Hargrove discusses the link between sex tourism and economics with racism. The governments of poorer countries such as the Caribbean view tourism as a tool for development but the tourism promotes exotic images of the black female. Given that concurrent structural adjustment programmes in her country reduce alternative (normal) opportunities to make an income she is forced to engage in “Structurally Adjusted Intercourse”(p.123).
Esther Njiro’s discussion of racism is on gender, HIV/AIDS and racism in Africa and with it opens up important topics within and beyond African feminism. Fatma Napoli and Mohamed Saleh’s aspect of racism under discussion is the situation of women in Zanzibar, which, as an island, experienced multiple colonisations and whose women experienced colonialisms parallel to and in addition to the colonisations that the men would experience, such as sexual abuse(s): colonized space and colonized bodies.
Philomena Okeke describes the struggle for “new Africans in diaspora”(p.175) in Canada, as opposed to those that have been in the diaspora since the onset of slavery, namely the African Americans. Her contribution is of particular significance to all those Africans from the continent who had to migrate in this lifetime, as this is a growing group but still neglected by academic literature on ‘black people in America’. Jan Delacourt discusses racism suffered by immigrants in Northern Italy. Haitian-born Gina Ulysse contributes a poem about her country of conceptual significance “My country in translation”(p. 209) revealing mechanisms of distortions, consequences of assumptions.
Camille Hazeur and Diana Hayman describe the faults and challenges of diversity training, an important topic as diversity training is one avenue of fighting racism, so we need to know what exactly is wrong with it and why.
The editor, Faye Harrison, gives a detailed analysis of the intersection of struggles for human rights being waged in the US South, a struggle that includes issues of and for various disadvantaged groups and individuals. Groups whose rights have been neglected – or never even established – form ‘evidence of injustice’. Hence her chapter is entitled: “What democracy looks like.”(p.229ff). Harrison also shows commonalities between the US South and the Global South throughout the chapter.
Finally, Fadwa El Guindi’s chapter on the struggle over Palestine, the crisis in the Middle East and the intensification of that crisis after September 11, illuminates the extent that victimisation has assumed.
The book is inspiring for all activists, insightful for all social scientists, educational for all who are not yet aware of the urgency of a global struggle against injustice. The book is unique in giving perspectives by and about voices from all the five continents of the globe. In this age of globalisation it is most useful and necessary to know how each one of us is affected. Reading the book is an inspiration to carry on our respective struggles and link up with one another.
* Reviewed by Ursula Troche. Ursula Troche is an Activist, Artist and Anthropologist. She does performance poetry on political issues; did Intercultural Therapy at Goldsmith's College; participated in a conference on Anthropologists Against Racism in the Czech Republic; founded Culture-Net-Work, and teaches adult education in Southall, West London.
* Please send comments to [email protected]
Richard Heeks from the University of Manchester reflects on the 2005 World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) which was held in Tunis on 16-18 November 2005. The WSIS focused on the usual suspects: financing, Internet governance, human rights and the $100 laptop. But according to Heeks, these took the spotlight away from the crucial issues such as: The IT Sector; Resources for Action; Independent Research and; BIG new ideas. These were absent from the debate and should be pushed to centre stage. However, he still says: "I hope there are similar events in future. It was a unique, invigorating experience. And - whatever the missing elements - it was a rare opportunity for thousands to focus on, and learn more about, that central transformative force in development: technology."
The Orange Democratic Movement has put together a new document which gives President Kibaki 180 days to deliver a new constitution. "Now that the proposed constitution has been rejected, we urge the President to fulfill his original promise and deliver a people's constitution within 180 days." "It will be a constitution that will secure democracy and social progress to the people of Kenya, our children, grandchildren and generations to come," they said. They said the rejection of the proposed constitution had given Kenyans an opportunity of reconsidering the issues which were not negotiated and that Kenyans would no longer tolerate individual MPs being given ministerial responsibilities without their parties' consent as this undermined the democratic process.
South Africa’s Mail and Guardian reports that Nobel Peace laureate Wangari Maathai on Tuesday urged Kenya's bickering political leaders to show restraint in a crisis of authority that has raised fears of unrest in East Africa's most stable nation. Hoping to trade on respect earned when she won the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize, Maathai urged Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki and the opposition to cool tensions that erupted after last week's rejection of a new Constitution. "Leaders must now remove the barrier which divided Kenyans and now threatens justice and security," she told reporters at a news conference in Nairobi.
The final results from Gabon's presidential vote are expected on Tuesday, election officials said. Gabon's public television and two private channels reported results from several cities and departments that showed, as expected, that President Omar Bongo would defeat his four challengers, reports the Mail and Guardian. The 69-year-old Bongo, the longest-serving African leader, was supported by a political coalition of more than 40 parties and has maintained an iron grip on the media.
Envoys from more than 180 nations on Monday held crucial talks in Montreal on the UN Kyoto Protocol on curbing greenhouse gases, amid warnings from scientists and environmentalists that climate change could have profound consequences. Experts pointed out that developing countries like China and India will now have to contribute to anti-pollution controls. Further, the present commitment period does not include the planet's worst polluter, the United States, which walked away from the protocol in 2001 because of the high cost of meeting its Kyoto targets.
Zimbabwe last Friday paid an additional $10-million to the International Monetary Fund as it seeks to move out of the red, with only $25-million now outstanding under the critical General Resources Account, the state-controlled Zimbabwe Herald newspaper reported on Monday. It said Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Governor Dr Gideon Gono had confirmed the payment at the weekend, adding that a total of $67-million had also been paid towards the procurement of fuel, grain, power imports, seed and other critical requirements. The payment to the Bretton Woods institution brings to $155-million the amount paid by the country this year alone, it added.
A Joint Project of the Institute of Social Studies (ISS) and the Inter-Church Organization for Development and Cooperation (ICCO), the general objective of the conference is to contribute toward a critical understanding of the contemporary mainstream land policies in the context of the imperatives of poverty eradication, social justice and development in developing countries and transition economies. The conference aims to promote debates that have the rigor of scientific enquiry and reasoning, and at the same time sensitive to the socio-political urgency of land policy questions in the contemporary context.
Nigeria convicted a former police chief in a $150 million money-laundering case on Tuesday, but anti-corruption campaigners said the jail term was so short it undermined the war on graft. Tafa Balogun, the most senior official to be convicted in a corruption case, will spend six months in jail as his eight sentences of six months each are to run concurrently. He was fined 4 million naira, while about $150 million in cash and property will be confiscated by government.
Corruption and despotism were highlighted during an introspective session of the Pan African Parliament on Friday as key stumbling blocks to the continent's development. Along with ignorance, these had replaced the evils imposed on Africa by colonialism and imperialism, United Kingdom High Commissioner to South Africa Paul Boateng told a parliamentary sitting in Midrand.
Red tape, archaic laws and corruption are seen as major threats to Mozambique's reform agenda, which has won the country stable economic growth and acclaim from international lenders, analysts said on Monday, reports Reuters. Analysts say a growth average of 8 percent annually over the past decade has yet to deliver a solution for poverty, and further reforms and investment were required to bolster this southern African country of 18 million people.
Jacob Zuma should still become president of the African National Congress, the ANC Youth League said on Monday. This follows statements by the SA Communist Party and the Congress of SA Trade Unions that they had never said they wanted Zuma to be the president of the ANC. Although Zuma would go to trial on corruption charges and was facing an allegation of rape, he should be considered innocent until proven otherwise.
It is a nice article (http://www.pambazuka.org/index.php?id=29962). However, see my comments after this paragraph: "How long will the women in Kenya have to camp on this renegade side of the Red Sea as they wait for the magic word 'ratification' to part the raging waters and usher them to that other side where gender discrimination, repulsive FGM, forced marriages and widow inheritance, domestic and sexual violence, etc. are a thing of the past?"
I am sorry to inform you that the other side of the Red Sea is composed of Ye-men, Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Arab world where women are grossly discriminated (against). I hope this is not the direction you want Kenyan women to head to.
Merci pour votre article qui nous intérresse beaucoup. Est-ce-que nous pouvons avoir la version française? Meilleures salutations.
Editors: Bientôt, nous espérons!
On behalf of Chapel & York may I congratulate you on your very well deserved award for the amazing work being undertaken by Fahamu (producers of Pambazuka News). Your work on behalf of those for whom technology can be either a life saving opportunity or an exclusion from development has made a difference to millions of underprivileged and excluded people in Africa. Long may your work continue!
Published for the first time, the "Africa Yearbook 2004" is the result of a joint undertaking by the African Studies Centre (Leiden), the Institute of African Affairs (Hamburg) and the Nordic Africa Institute (Uppsala) emerging from their collaboration within the Africa-Europe Group for Interdisciplinary Studies (AEGIS). Articles on all countries of Sub Saharan Africa cover domestic political developments, foreign policy and socio-economic trends during the calendar year under review. The country cases are completed by introductory overview articles on all four sub-regions, focussing on major cross border developments and sub-regional organisations. Two more overview articles analyse continental developments and European-African relations. The length of each country article aims to reflect the appropriate relative political, economic, and/or demographic weight. A total of 49 authors from a variety of disciplines and countries with intimate local knowledge have contributed to this first volume, which seeks to establish a valid reference book for the years to come on a regular annual basis.
Global free expression group Article 19 and the human rights organization Fahamu invite applications for a distance learning course on Campaigning for Access to Information to be held from 3 January 2006 to February 2006. Combining the freedom of information campaigning expertise of Article 19 with the extensive distance learning experience of Fahamu, this course is meant for people and organizations from a broad spectrum of areas in Africa who have an interest in the issue of access to information. This includes but is not limited to: trade unions, residents' organisations, environmental groups, women's groups, development organisations, human rights organisations and many others. This course looks at why access to information is important, what an access to information law should contain, and how to set about campaigning for one.
It is my pleasure to congratulate you on the "Silicon Valley" Prize. Your dedication to fulfil your self-commissioned role in advancing knowledge of Africans about Africa is very much appreciated.
QuickGuides are 24 page books, readable in an hour, covering the fundraising and management needs of both large and small organisations. QuickGuides are the perfect way to learn about a subject quickly and easily, and because they are written and reviewed by knowledgeable professionals from all around the world they will be useful wherever you operate as they are not country specific. At £8 or US$14 per book, QuickGuides are accessible to all, and you can build your own library of expertise. And as a reader of Pambazuka News, you can take advantage of a special promotion of 3 books for the price of 2 until the end of March 2006. QuickGuides are a resource you can't afford not to have. Quote ref: pambazuka and order online now at our online bookshop www.quickguidesonline.com
Pambazuka News 230: Repression in Tunis at World Summmit on the Information Society
Pambazuka News 230: Repression in Tunis at World Summmit on the Information Society
Pambazuka News 231: Smile, Woman of Africa, Smile!
Pambazuka News 231: Smile, Woman of Africa, Smile!
The first two white band days, and two of the three major international political opportunities for the Global Call to Action against Poverty are over. Our attention now turns to the WTO ministerial meeting in Hong Kong in December, and to the run-up to that vital meeting. More than 30 million people have taken an action for GCAP in 2005 – whether that is from signing a petition, taking part in a rally, or wearing a white band. GCAP has shown that it can mobilise large numbers of people, in solidarity for our call to end poverty. We may not have won all the political decisions we had hoped for this year but we have made real progress. There is genuine political and civil momentum behind the call to end poverty. Ahead of major World Trade Organisation (WTO) talks in December we must increase the pressure to make trade justice a reality.
Do you want trade justice for the world's poor at the WTO in Hong Kong in December? Do you want millions of people to be given a chance to trade their way out of poverty? On the 13th December the World Trade Organisation will meet in Hong Kong. As representatives from around the world sit down they must take decisive steps to ensure that trade justice is delievered to the world's poorest people. As the developing world's representatives, the leaders of the following five alliances have it in their power to stand up to rich countries pressure and continue to press for trade justice. Write to them to tell them that they must act.
At the EU Agriculture and Fisheries Council on 22-24th November, Ministers from the 25 EU member states will decide on the future of the current EU sugar regime that is due to expire in 2006. Before the 25 Ministers is a proposal from the Commission outlining their proposed changes to the regime. In summary the main changes are:
* The EU internal (intervention) price will be cut by 39% over two years (2006-2008);
* 'Compensation' will be given to developing countries affected by loss of preferences within the EU sugar market. Currently the Commission proposes that the level of compensation would only be EUR40 million in the first year (no figures are provided for following years).
Many trade unions and civil society organisations are making their voices heard as governments prepare to gather in Hong Kong for the 6th Ministerial meeting of the WTO this December. The ITF does this mainly through the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU), as well as through the broader alliance with hundreds of other social organisations linked through the Global Call for Action against Poverty (GCAP). The WTO came into being in 1995, taking over from the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, which was founded half a century earlier. It has 148 members and engineers increasing liberalisation of trade in both goods and services under the new framework of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). It also makes and enforces trade rules. Issues under discussion are dealt with through a complex set of councils, meetings and other bodies between ministerial meetings, which take place every two years.
This 25 November, 2005, the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights relating to Women's Rights in Africa enters into force. It is with a great delight that we celebrate the event, which marks a significant turning point in the history of African women’s struggle for the recognition and the respect of their basic human rights.
The science base in the developing world cannot be strengthened without access to the global library of research information. Currently, this is nearly impossible due to the high costs of journal subscriptions, with the result that even the most prestigious institutes in poorer countries cannot afford to buy the journals they need. With the advent of the Open Access (OA) initiative, the outlook for building science capacity in developing countries has improved significantly.
Four people have died of dysentery in northern Zimbabwe in what appears to be the first outbreak of the disease outside the capital, say reports on Tuesday. An outbreak of the highly contagious diarrhoeal disease was reported earlier this month in Harare and its satellite town of Chitungwiza. Two hundred people were taken to hospital.
The Ugandan government should reverse its ban on speech and demonstrations linked to the trial of the main opposition candidate for president, Dr. Kizza Besigye, and end its intimidation of the courts, Human Rights Watch said this week. The government issued the ban on speech and demonstrations on November 22 following criticism of the security forces’ interference in a hearing related to the Besigye case. “In an eight-day span, the Ugandan government has seriously damaged its human rights reputation by riding roughshod over the rights of political opponents and the courts,” said Jemera Rone, Uganda researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The government has arrested the main presidential opponent, used commandos to intimidate the judiciary and banned all public protests, radio discussions and even posters on the subject.”
South Africa's powerful labour movement vowed to add its muscle to the fight against Aids on Wednesday, heaping pressure on the government amid an epidemic killing some 900 South Africans each day. The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), which claims a million members and has organized huge protests in the past, announced it was joining activist group Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) to push for a new approach to AIDS in the country worst hit by the worldwide pandemic.
Policy makers around the world are gradually coming to terms with the real possibility of a bird or avian H5NI influenza pandemic. From Washington, D.C., to London, Paris, and other industrialized countries, preparations to combat a possible pandemic among human beings are almost assuming war-like proportions as the bird flu influenza moves from Asia to parts of Europe. The World Health Organization (WHO) is leading a coordinated global response through a new World Bank funded initiative. However, to date there is no coordinated response from Africa, its regional institutions or national governments, says this article from World Press Review.
Namibia has asked South Africa to send forensic experts to help investigate at least five mass graves discovered in the north of the country. The graves, near a South African army base, are thought to date from South African occupation of Namibia. Before independence in 1990 South African was engaged in conflict with Namibian Swapo liberation fighters in northern Namibia and in Angola. Police say clothes found at the site resemble those worn by Swapo fighters.
This New Tactics for Human Rights training programme talks about building local and long-term capacity building within communities to address massive human rights atrocities. The Center for Victims of Torture has instituted an intensive training and supervision model for refugees to develop local capacity for providing understanding and skills for mental health support to rebuild communities after massive human rights atrocities. CVT has instituted the training model in refugee camps in Guinea and Sierra Leone for refugees from Sierra Leone and Liberia.
Niger faces a second food crisis in the coming months unless the international community renews its efforts to help, the UN food agency (WFP) has warned. Many children remain malnourished and despite recent harvests, cereal stocks in many homes are low, it said. "It will take only the slightest adversity to push families over the edge again," said a WFP spokesman.