At a meeting of African heads of state in Nigeria recently, the thorny issue of African unity was debated. While the leaders busied themselves with discussing a union of states, Tajudeen Abdul Raheem writes that what unity should really be about is a unity of people. Pan Africanism, he writes, needs to leave the conferences and executive mansions and become a part of the lives of ordinary people.

On November 12th and 13th at the Banquet Hall of Nigeria's State House (more popularly known as Aso Rock), President Olusegun Obasanjo, in his capacity as the chair of the African Union, hosted a conference on ‘Africa and the Challenges of the Global Order: Desirability of the Union Government’.

Five heads of state and government including President Thabo Mbeki (South Africa), John Kufour (Ghana), Abdulaye Wade (Senegal), Prime minister Meles Zenawi (Ethiopia) and President Boutefleka (Algeria) - represented by his prime minister - along with several foreign ministers and ambassadors were present.

A number of civil society activists, academics, international policy makers including Mahmood Mamdani (Columbia University), Adebayo Olukoshi (CODESRIA), Wangari Mathai (President of ECOSOCC), Gertrude Mongela (speaker of the Pan African Parliament), Ezra Mbogori (Mwengo) and others were also present to dialogue with the leaders on the best means of proceeding with the agenda of unity.

The meeting was a direct result of the directive given by the Shirte Summit in July based on the resolution put forward by the Libyan leader, Muammar Al Gaddafi demanding that a Union of African states be formed as a further step in advancing the Pan-Africanist idea. Libya is anxious that in spite of recent progress in the Union the demands and pressures of globalization are such that only a faster march to Unity will prevent Africa from being re-colonised.

As in 1999 not many African leaders were too enthusiastic about Libya 's proposals in July. However, as has become the practice, whatever Libya pushes it has enough material and diplomatic clout in the Union for it not to be ignored. The strategy of other powerhouses in the AU - especially Nigeria and South Africa - has always been how to contain Libya’s militancy. The matter was thrown at a High Level Panel headed by President Obasanjo along with Zenawi, Mbeki, Wade, Boutefleka, Museveni and Kufour. This Panel is due to submit its report to the next summit in Khartoum in January 2006.

In Abuja the Libyans - represented by their minister for Africa Ali Treiki (called by many "The Tricky man' for his long term survival of many sharp knives in the corridors of power) - put more flesh to their proposals in terms of a time table beginning in 2006 with the removal of tariffs and visas, the establishment of a central bank, and the formation of one army all of which would lead to the creation of a Union of African States in 2009.

Libya obviously wants a United Africa as a present for the 40th anniversary of the Al Fatah revolution! These are no doubt very revolutionary proposals given the slow take off of all the institutions of the new Union. Caution will dictate that we work on making existing structures work before taking another leap forward.

In a rare display of executive candor and public engagement the leaders present did not hide their disagreement with Libya's proposals. Thabo Mbeki led the charge, raising doubts about his ability to persuade reluctant South Africans to surrender sovereignty to an entity outside the country that they did not vote for. He expressed pessimism about common tariffs, drawing his conclusion from the slow progress of common tariffs and the customs union of SADC countries.

Zenawi argued that the proposals were full of old rhetoric without adequate research and analysis. He asked if Africa's underdevelopment is the result of lacking a union government or if a union government will make Africa develop. Obasanjo drew attention to the ECOWAS region which made great progress in the area of free movement but had not proceeded to other levels of integration.

Wade suggested that the integration of Africa is impeded by dependence on aid and the collective loses that Africa suffers from the export of its precious raw materials and mineral resources like oil, gold, diamond, etc. He caused some exchange of executive banter between him and his host when he asked for the right to share in Nigeria's fuel resources. Obasanjo retorted that he could not be giving Senegal cheap oil while it uses foreign exchange to buy imported rice which he is trying to dissuade Nigerians from eating.

The concerns raised by the leaders and others are genuine but I believe they are agonising instead of organising. I do not believe that Africans anywhere on this continent or in the Diaspora will not vote overwhelmingly for visa-free freedom of movement across Africa. The scandalous situation that degrades and humiliates us at the moment needs to be addressed immediately. How can an American, Canadian or Australian and virtually all Europeans have easier access to our countries while we treat fellow African as 'aliens'? Despite all the sensitivities and reactionary politics surrounding citizenship across Africa would it not be easier to recognise all Africans as Africans with full citizenship rights, wherever they may be in Africa? Mamdani, combining both personal experience and professional interest did not allow Wade's executive fiat to stop him from completing his presentation on this issue. Drawing from his book, ‘Citizens and Subjects’ Mamdani showed how the citizenship laws of today are a carry over of colonial divide and rule and a pluralism of legal regimes that made Africans into tribes subjected to native or customary laws. That pluralism has made it difficult for many African countries to create political communities with a sense of shared future.

Olukoshi took on the argument of ECOWAS not making progress since it introduced freedom of moment. Freedom of movement alone would not lead to integration if it was not accompanied by integrative infrastructure through transport, communication, education, commerce and trade, etc.

It is clear that we are back to the debates of the 1960s about how far and fast we should proceed to unity. The answer that our painful history teaches us is that slow progress has lead us to the slaughter house of neo-colonialism and impoverishment in the midst of abundant human and material resources. We have no choice but to move faster because the rest of the world will not wait for us.

It is now widely recognised that Pan Africanism needs to leave the confines of conferences and executive mansions of our leaders and become part and parcel of all our lives building from the down-up. A number of issues are clear. One, the heads of state want a union of states while what we need is a union of peoples. If people are at the centre of the agenda many of the contradictions and anxieties the leaders are obsessed with can be confronted together instead of dealing with them individually. Two, some states are more willing than others. And it may be necessary that instead of constantly waiting for everyone to come on board those who are ready should go ahead. Three, the Libyans have to learn how to be thorough and strategic in mobilising both leaders and civil society instead of wasting enormous resources as sweeteners to reluctant heads of state. The biggest obstacle to their good proposals is the way they do things rather than what they are putting forward. The crucial stage we are now at requires a broader alliance owned and led by our peoples to bring the frontiers down and release our energies for creative union that serves the people.

* Dr Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is General-Secretary of the Pan African Movement, Kampala (Uganda) and Co-Director of Justice Africa

* Please send comments to

Just days before the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) got under way in Tunis last week, United States State Department spokesman Adam Ereli expressed concern about restrictions on freedom of speech and political activity in Tunisia (http://tunis.usembassy.gov/tunisian_cooperation.html). Over the next few days, the Tunisian government made quite clear that it would not tolerate freedom of expression. Journalists were harassed and beaten, an alternative civil society meeting was effectively shut down, and meetings discussing human rights and freedom of expression were disrupted. This prompted the official US delegation to the United Nations sponsored summit to express some disappointment at the role of the Tunisian government. “We are therefore obliged to express our disappointment that the government of Tunisia did not take advantage of this important opportunity to demonstrate its commitment to freedom of expression and assembly in Tunisia,” said a press note issued by the delegation (http://tunis.usembassy.gov/tunisian_cooperation.html).

Interestingly, at the same time as the US decries the human rights situation in the country, Tunisia remains an important ally in the US ‘war on terror’. The US Department of Defence International Military Education and Training (IMET) program has trained over 3,600 Tunisian military officers and technicians since its inception in the mid-1980’s. In 2004, 87 Tunisian military personnel took part in the IMET program at a value of $1.88 million. The U.S. Department of Defense also supports Tunisia’s counter-terrorism program through bilateral training exercises and special counter-terrorism training courses for selected Tunisian participants. (http://tunis.usembassy.gov/tunisian_cooperation.html)

The US has previously supplied the Tunisian government with military hardware in the form of aircraft parts, machine guns and ammunition (http://www.fas.org/asmp/profiles/655-2002/FMS/Tunisia.pdf). According to a 2005 report from the World Policy Institute, Tunisia received $4,646,000 in military assistance despite a poor human rights record and serious abuses by the government (This figure is for 2003, the latest year for which details are available).

The report’s executive summary is worth noting: “Perhaps no single policy is more at odds with President Bush’s pledge to ‘end tyranny in our world’ than the United States’ role as the world’s leading arms exporting nation. Although arms sales are often justified on the basis of their purported benefits, from securing access to overseas military facilities to rewarding coalition allies in conflicts such as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, these alleged benefits often come at a high price. All too often, US arms transfers end up fueling conflict, arming human rights abusers, or falling into the hands of US adversaries.” In 2003, the report notes, more than half of the top 25 recipients of US arms transfers in the developing world were defined as undemocratic by the US State Department’s Human Rights Report because their citizens did not have the right to change their own government. (http://www.worldpolicy.org/projects/arms/reports/wawjune2005.html)

US companies also assist the Tunisian regime in its crackdown on dissenters. Software from US company Secure Computing, called SmartFilter, is used by the Tunisian internet agency to block websites that the government does not approve of. One of the websites blocked during the course of the summit was that of the Citizen’s Summit on the Information Society (CSIS). The CSIS event ended up not taking place due to the efforts of the Tunisian government to shut it down. It was supposed to provide a forum where issues that were not a part of the main summit venue could be discussed, but the Tunisian government feared it would be used as a platform to denounce its human rights abuses. Websites mentioned in a training session on how to circumvent internet filtering were also blocked, although its not clear if they were already blocked or had been blocked during the course of the summit.

According to a Human Rights Watch report released at the summit, the Tunisian Interior Ministry employs 500 people to monitor electronic communication. Activists told Human Rights Watch of email arriving late or not at all, of responses to emails coming from third parties posing as the recipient when the intended recipient said he never received the original message, of email inboxes being filled to saturation by repeated emails saying only, for example, “You are traitor.”

The report says Tunisia has cited counterterrorism and the need to curb incitement to hatred and violence as among its justifications for censoring information online. However, tests carried out for the report showed that only four out of forty-one radical Islamist web sites were actually blocked. “The pattern of Tunisia’s online censorship suggests that, in practice, its policy has been guided less by a fear of terrorism or incitement to violence than by a fear of peaceful internal dissent,” says the report (http://hrw.org/reports/2005/mena1105/7.htm#_Toc119125755). In the name of the ‘war on terror’, the US, though its military and commercial support, is therefore propping up a regime that uses repressive policies against its own people in order to stay in power.

At the conclusion of the summit media and freedom of expression
groups called for a full investigation by the United Nations into attacks on human rights and freedom of expression that took place in Tunisia during the summit. Steve Buckley, President of the World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters and Chair of the Tunisian Monitoring Group of freedom of expression organisations said: “Never again should a United Nations World Summit be held in a country that does not respect its international commitments to human rights and freedom of expression.”

“This week in Tunis, both inside and outside the official Summit, we have witnessed serious attacks on the right to freedom of expression including harassment of delegates, attacks on Tunisian and international journalists and human rights defenders, denial of entry to the country, the blocking of websites, the censorship of documents and speeches, and the prevention and disruption of meetings.” (http://www.crisinfo.org/content/view/full/1029, http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=15613)

The worrying trend highlighted by the holding of the WSIS in Tunisia, is the ease with which issues such as freedom of expression are sidelined as an important footnote, or simply sidelined all together. This approach allows governments to present glossy figures on their internet rollout while at the same time escape criticism over their human rights records.

Freedom of expression is a core component of a future information society and it should not be sidelined in the interests of diplomacy – nor should organisations working in the field of information and communications technology fail to acknowledge that this is an issue that should be at the centre of the agenda.

Tunis has highlighted issues related to human rights in the information society, but it should be clear that the problem is not confined to Tunisia. Efforts by governments to control internal dissent through repression, including through internet censorship, are on the increase, and pose a very real threat to the future structure and form of the information society. It will take a united front to reverse the trend.

* Please send comments to [email protected]

On 20th and 21st November 2005 – just prior to the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) on November 25th to 27th - human rights activists from across the Commonwealth met in Valletta, Malta, for the second Commonwealth Human Rights Forum. The Forum recommended that governments should ensure that human rights norms are not compromised using security as an excuse and that the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group should investigate the situations in Uganda and the Maldives, and the Commonwealth should stay engaged with Zimbabwe. Read the full statement by clicking on the link below.

Since the 1980s, the African continent has been involved in major political, economic and social change processes (e.g. democratisation, withdrawal and decentralisation of the State, rise of civil society, etc.). At regional and sub-regional level, integration processes are taking place while the creation of the African Union (AU) reflects the determination to move forward in constructing an African citizenship and defining a new partnership with the rest of the world (amongst others through NEPAD). On the whole, populations aspire to more democracy, transparency, justice and room to develop their own initiatives. The Forum aims at constructing a Pan African alliance for change Both the African Union Commission and the Alliance for changing governance in Africa recognise that strategies aimed at transforming the way in which societies and public affairs are managed, will require a long-term perspective. This meeting of minds led to the decision to co-organise this Forum.

It seems as if trade agreements are impossible to understand. They’re characterized by complex jargon and detailed economic analysis that's far away from the everyday concerns of most people. The current negotiations over Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) between the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) group of states and the European Union are no different. Yet what is the nature of these negotiations and the likely end agreement? What kind of relationship between Africa and the European Union does it represent? And what will be the impact of this trade agreement on the social and economic fabric of our societies? Following on from our special edition on EPAs in July, Pambazuka News is retaining the focus on trade between Africa and Europe by running a series of articles on the subject, beginning with this edition and running through until the end of the year. In the first article, Stephen Hurt looks at the shifting power relations in international trade between the ACP states and the EU. The conditions of the current EPAs can be understood by looking at the historical relationship between these groupings - and actually reflect EU ambitions that date back to the early 1970s. (See below for French version).

The European Union (EU) is a major trading partner of sub-Saharan Africa. Both critics and supporters of the current negotiations towards Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) tend to agree that they are likely to have a significant impact on the development prospects of many African states. The particular importance of EPAs, which are part of the Cotonou Agreement between the EU and the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) states, is that they represent a return to non-reciprocity in trade relations. Therefore they can be seen as a substantial change in EU development policy. The current emphasis on trade, and the associated relative decline of European aid going to Africa, represents a reversal of the approach adopted in the early years of the relationship. Then the focus was predominantly on aid rather than trade. In order to understand how the current situation has arisen, it is necessary to put the EPAs into historical context. By doing so it becomes clear that precedents have been set in the past. Moreover, it is apparent that since the 1980s the EU has been moving inexorably towards its current position in its relationship with Africa.

To understand the dynamics that have driven the historical development of the EU’s relationship with Africa it is important to consider the wider global context of North-South relations. As I seek to demonstrate in this article it is both material and ideational developments within this structural context that condition the policy decisions taken by government and bureaucratic elites within both the EU and African states.

Decolonisation and the Yaoundé Conventions

The EU’s relationship with Africa has been formalised since the very creation of the organisation in 1957. Due to the insistence of the French government, the Treaty of Rome included articles providing for the association of African colonies. Thus, in terms of trade and aid arrangements, a special relationship between the EU and Africa has been in existence for almost five decades. The agreement gave both member states and their colonial dependencies preferential trade access. This meant that EU member states received preferential trade terms with the associate states in comparison with third parties and vice versa. These rather humble beginnings provided a lasting legacy for the EU’s relationship with Africa, and the developing world more generally. As Holland argues ‘historical ties rather than need’ have been the criterion for determining preferential trade and aid relations (2002: 27).

Following the independence of a number of African states during the 1960s, the EU’s relationship with Africa was reorganised through the Yaoundé Conventions of 1963 and 1969. These acknowledged, to a degree, the political independence of the associate states; joint institutions were established, including an Association Council and a Parliamentary Conference. However, as Koutrakou (2004: 122) suggests, the main driving force of this relationship was the continued economic interests of the EU’s member states in Africa. This self-interest was reflected in the fact that preferential trade access remained reciprocal.

Lomé I

By the beginning of the 1970s the dominance of francophone Africa in the EU’s relationship with the continent was already being significantly reduced. In 1971 the EU introduced its Generalised System of Preferences (GSP), which reduced its external tariff for trade with all developing countries. This served to erode the relative benefits of the trade access enjoyed by the signatories of the Yaoundé Convention. However, the most significant development in this period that led to a reappraisal of the EU’s relationship with Africa was the confirmation of the United Kingdom as a European member state in 1973. Members of the Commonwealth, who were at a similar stage of development to the 18 Yaoundé states, united to form the ACP group.

The European Commission was strongly behind the idea of negotiating a new agreement with this enlarged group of developing states. Negotiations began in July 1973 and eventually culminated in the Lomé Convention. Despite the fact that the ACP was a rather heterogeneous group of states, they displayed a striking level of unanimity in the negotiations (Holland 2002: 33). The unity of the ACP group was further strengthened by the global context of the early 1970s. The Bretton Woods System had collapsed and Third World states had become increasingly forthright in their desire to improve their position in the world economy. These developments resulted in the call, chiefly within the United Nations General Assembly, for a New International Economic Order (NIEO). As a result the ACP states adopted a negotiating stance with the EU based closely on this NIEO agenda.

Although the final agreement of Lomé I did reflect some of these influences the concessions made to the ACP states were qualified in a number of ways. For example, the trade provisions were based on a shift away from reciprocity towards preferential access solely for ACP states exporting to the EU. However, this access to the EU market was limited in the export of agricultural commodities, one of the key sectors for many African states, by the non-inclusion of products covered by the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). This remains a contentious issue thirty years later. In addition fairly stringent rules of origin and a safeguard clause allowed the EU to retain a significant degree of control over trade matters.

From Lomé to Cotonou

Looking back, Lomé I can be seen as the peak of the EU’s willingness to accede to the demands of African governments. In fact ‘the history of European development cooperation from this point onwards can be understood as the steady erosion of these limited concessions, and the increasing adoption of neo-liberal thinking’ (Hurt 2004: 158). This process ultimately resulted in the Cotonou Agreement between the EU and ACP states, which was signed in June 2000.

During the 1980s no substantial progress was made by the ACP states during the two renegotiations of the Lomé Convention. However, a strong shift towards neo-liberal thinking in the global North coupled with the Third World debt crisis significantly altered the context of the EU’s relations with Africa. These changes were reflected in the introduction of structural adjustment in Lomé IV, which was signed in 1989. This moved the EU’s approach significantly closer to the policies of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank. In developing its policy on structural adjustment the EU claimed it had devised a more pragmatic approach than that adopted by the IMF and World Bank, which would take greater account of the impact of such policies on vulnerable groups. This claim has been contested by a number of critics (see for example Brown 2002 and Parfitt 1996).

The genesis of the Cotonou Agreement can be traced back as far as 1992 when the European Commission released a document called ‘Horizon 2000’. This paper argued for both an increase in conditionalities attached to aid and a shift in trade policy towards the benefits of multilateral trade liberalisation rather than preferential regimes. These concerns were partially addressed in the mid-term review of Lomé IV but the limitations of working within the existing framework made more substantial alterations to the trade pillar particularly unfeasible. Hence the European Commission published a Green Paper in 1996, which presented an overall assessment of the EU’s relationship with the ACP states and outlined the reasons for an overhaul of the relationship (European Commission 1996). It was argued that the creation of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and the associated pressures for multilateral trade liberalisation made the EU’s preferential trade relationship unsustainable. The effectiveness of non-reciprocal trade preferences was also questioned due to exports from the ACP group having shown a steady decline as a proportion of total exports to the EU. These were views that were accepted by a majority of African state elites reflecting the increasing consensus on neo-liberal thinking.

What were the major causes of the abandonment of the Lomé Convention in favour of the Cotonou Agreement? During the 1990s significant changes in both geo-politics and the global economy had an impact on the nature of the EU’s relationship with Africa. The end of the Cold War led to significant alterations in the priorities of the EU’s foreign relations. In particular, the expansion programme of the EU saw trade and aid flows being redirected towards Central and Eastern Europe (Koutrakou 2004: 125). Consequently a rather sharp decline in the proportion of EU aid going to ACP states took place. In 1989 the ACP group received 63.5 per cent of total EU aid, but by 1998 this proportion had fallen to just 29.1 per cent (ECDPM 2001 (Part 5): 3).

In the global economy, since at least the early 1980s, neo-liberalism as an idea has become increasingly dominant. This is significant because when ideas assume such a position, debates on policy are framed in a narrow fashion. The influence of the hegemony of neo-liberal development thinking is readily apparent in the EU’s claim that the Cotonou Agreement and the negotiation of EPAs are necessary to meet the global rules of free trade embodied in the WTO. This position neglects the obvious fact that the rules of the WTO are not ‘fixed and immutable’ but a ‘political construct’ (Hurt 2003: 174). If the focus of the EU’s relationship was truly developmental it could seek to alter the very rules of the multilateral trading system that it claims limit its options.

There is a clear precedent for the moves towards the EU developing reciprocal trade relations with Africa. Soon after the end of apartheid in South Africa, the EU began negotiations with the new government led by the African National Congress (ANC). Eventually a bilateral Trade, Development and Cooperation Agreement (TDCA) was agreed in October 1999 after four years of negotiations. The trade pillar of this agreement was the creation of a Free Trade Area (FTA) between the EU and South Africa. Although the trade agreement includes an element of asymmetry in the time periods of liberalisation required by each party, by 2012 ‘substantially all’ trade will be accorded duty free access. At an early stage in the negotiations South Africa had requested full membership of the Lomé Convention. The EU had responded by arguing that South Africa was sufficiently developed in comparison with the rest of the ACP group that it would be able to withstand the adjustment costs of reciprocal trade liberalisation (Hurt 2000: 72-73). This may have been a questionable assessment of the situation in South Africa. Moreover, with hindsight it is ironic that the uniqueness of reciprocal trade relations deemed only relevant for ‘developed’ South Africa, have since become applicable to the rest of Africa.

Conclusions

The ACP group of states has been unique to the EU’s external policy with the developing world. The relative unity and negotiating strength of this grouping is clearly challenged by the current negotiations of EPAs on a regional basis. As I have demonstrated in this article, this is just one of the many differences with the period during the early 1970s when Lomé I was negotiated. The ‘normalisation’ of the EU’s relations with Africa manifested in the Cotonou Agreement actually reflects ‘the long-held wishes of the EU that actually date back to the early 1970s and the negotiations prior to Lomé I’ (Hurt 2004: 170). There exists a stark contrast between the instability of the world economy coupled with the relative negotiating strength of African states thirty years ago, and the dominance of neo-liberal development thinking embodied in the rules of the WTO in recent years. This change has allowed the EU to move away from preferential trade access and towards the negotiation of EPAs that African states are presently faced with.

* I use the term EU throughout this article to represent the European Union and the organisation, pre-Maastricht Treaty.

* Stephen Hurt is a Senior Lecturer in International Relations at Oxford Brookes University, UK. ([email protected])

*Please send comments to

* For further reading on this topic, please visit

The World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) was essentially a big information and communications technology bazaar. Hundreds of organisations and thousands of their representatives all crammed into a big warehouse on the outskirts of Tunis and set up shop in the exhibition area of the summit. Networking and knowledge sharing was the order of the day for those who were there, but for those who weren’t the collective resource might as well not have even existed. Pambazuka News has listed some of the organisations, innovations and publications that were on show so that if you weren’t there you can browse the links, network and learn from what others are doing. View photos at http://www.flickr.com/photos/fahamu/

Association of Progressive Communications (APC)
www.apc.org
APC is an international network of civil society organisations dedicated to empowering and supporting groups and individuals working for peace, human rights, development and protection of the environment, through the strategic use of information and communications technologies (ICTs).

Base Network Africa
[email protected]
Base Network Africa is a youth led not for profit organisation geared towards guiding rural teenagers using information and communication technology.

Behind the Mask
www.mask.org.za
Behind the Mask aims to empower and support LGBT people throughout Africa – politically, culturally, socially and economically, by the gathering and dissemination of information via the internet.

Centre for International ICT Policies Central and West Africa (Cipaco)
www.cipaco.org
Cipaco is a Panos Institute West Africa project aimed an strengthening the capacity of West and Central African stakeholders for a better participation in international decision-making processes.

Computer Aid International
www.computer-aid.org
Computer Aid international is the world’s largest not-for-profit supplier of quality refurbished Pentiums to schools and community organisations in the developing world.

Creative Commons
http://creativecommons.org/
Creative Commons is a nonprofit organization that offers flexible copyright licenses for creative works

Freedom Toaster
www.freedomtoaster.org
A Freedom Toaster is a conveniently located unit where users bring their own blank CDs and make copies of the FOSS and open content they require, at no cost.

Frontline Defenders
www.frontlinedefenders.org/
Front Line is the International Foundation for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, defending those who champion the Universal Declaration of Human rights.

Gender and ICTs network
www.famafrique.org/regentic/accueil.html
The Gender and ICTs Network promotes gender analysis of the information and communications sector in Senegal and initiates a dialogue between the regulation authorities, women’s organisations and civil society

GenderIT.org
www.GenderIT.org
GenderIT.org is a tool for women’s movements, ICT advocates and policy makers to ensure that ICT policy meets women’s needs and does not infringe on their rights.

Global Knowledge for Development List
www.gkdknowledge.org
The GKD list is a powerful source of high quality expertise and vital information on ICT for development.

Global Knowledge Partnership
www.globalknowledge.org
The GKP is the leading international multi-stakeholder network committed to harnessing the potential of information and communications technologies for sustainable and equitable development

Global Voices Online
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/globalvoices/
Global Voices is an international effort to diversify the conversation taking place online by involving speakers from around the world, and developing tools, institutions and relationships to help make these voices heard.

Human Rights in the Global Information Society
www.mitpress.mit.edu
The contributors to this volume examine the links between information technology and human rights from a range of disciplinary perspectives.

Human Rights Watch: False Freedom – Online Censorship in the Middle East and North Africa
http://hrw.org/reports/2005/mena1105/
This report looks at the spread of the internet and how governments have moved to crack down on its potential as a tool for freedom of expression.

Kewl.NextGen
www.avoir.uwc.ac.za/kngfiles
KEWL.nextGen (Knowledge Environment for Web Learning, the next generation), is a free software e-learning system from the African Virtual Open Initiatives and Resources Project and the University of the Western Cape.

Kubatana
www.kubatana.net
Kubatana is Zimbabwe’s civic and human rights web site incorporating an online directory for the non-profit sector.

Mainstreaming ICTs: Africa lives the information society
www.womensnet.org.za
A handbook for development practitioners that acts as a contribution towards efforts to bridge the “policy-practice” divide. The book is aimed at development practitioners and ICT innovators interested in inventive technology applications.

Malcolm X Grassroots Movement
[email protected]
The Malcolm X Grassroots Movement is an organisation whose mission is to defend the human rights of Africans in America and promote self-determination.

NGO-in-a-box
www.tacticaltech.org/ngoinabox
NGO-in-a-box offers a set of reviewed and selected Free and Open Source software (F/OSS), tailored to the needs of NGO's. It provides them not only with software, but also with implementation scenarios and relevant materials to support this. Its aim is to increase the accessibility of F/OSS to non-profits in developing and transition countries.

Open Knowledge Network
www.openknowledge.net
Open Knowledge Network is an initiative to support the creation and exchange of local content in local languages across the South, supported by a range of information and communication technologies (ICTs)

Panos West Africa
www.panos-ao.org
Panos West Africa informs and communicates a culture of democracy, citizenship and peace in Africa.

Schoolnet Namibia
Schoolnet Namibia provides sustainable, low cost technology solutions and internet access, as well as technical support, training support and rich educational content to schools, community based educational organisations and educational practitioners throughout Namibia.

The Free and Open Source Foundation for Africa (FOSSFA)
www.fossfa.net
FOSSFA is an organisation that was formed to promote the use of open source software in Africa.

The Information Revolution and Developing Countries
www.mitpress.mit.edu
In this book Ernest Wilson provides a clear, nuanced analysis of the major transformations resulting from the global information revolution.

Ungana Africa
www.ungana-afrika.org
Ungana Africa aims to address the technology capacity crisis by building innovative support programmes and tools that are empowering the development community.

Voices
www.voicesforall.org
Voices was born out of a realization that people’s empowerment through different forms of communication plays a critical and vital role in the process of socio-economic and political change.

Witness
www.witness.org
Witness uses the power of video to open the eyes of the world to human rights abuses. By partnering with local organisations around the world, Witness empowers human rights defenders to use video as a tool to shine a light on those most affected by human rights violations.

Women’s statement on the human rights situation in Tunisia
http://www.genderit.org/en/index.shtml?w=r&x= 91870

WSIS gender caucus
www.genderwsis.org
The WSIS Gender Caucus is a multi-stakeholder group promoting gender integration and women's rights in the WSIS process.

WSIS youth caucus
http://www.wsisyouth.org/
The Youth Caucus of the WSIS is a loose group of youth who are active leaders in all kinds of areas.

WSIS Draft Civil Society Statement
http://wsis.ecommons.ca/node/view/659

In direct contrast to its newly-appointed leadership role to address climate change and finance renewable energy, a new report from Friends of the Earth (FOE) exposes the World Bank's failure to meet its own modest commitments to shift support away from dirty energy. The report points out that as "the world's foremost multilateral development institution", the Bank could be "in a key position to drive policy and financing for clean, renewable energy and energy efficiency in developing countries". The report reveals that the Bank has failed to reach the commitment it made last year to increase its renewable energy financing by 20 per cent each year for the next five years, and has continued to pump massive amounts of low-interest loans into oil, gas and coal projects.

Last weekend saw a continuation of the land and housing struggle of recent weeks in the Lavender Hill area of Cape Town, reports Indymedia South Africa. "On Saturday 19 November 2005, City Police and Cape Town City Council Law Enforcement arrived to mark shacks in the new settlement in St Montague Village. This settlement - which still lacks a name - is made up of about 500 families who settled on the land since last weekend (11 November 2005). On Friday they - along with many other Hillview and St Montague Village residents - were served with a court order prohibiting them from extending their shacks or putting up any further dwellings."

Results of further tests on blood samples from South Kordofan have confirmed a yellow fever outbreak, the World Health Organization reported, adding that at least 121 people had died as of Monday. Initial field investigations and rapid tests conducted by the Sudanese health ministry had indicated a dengue fever outbreak. The tests followed earlier reports of a haemorrhagic fever outbreak in the area.

Fungus-impregnated fabric could soon replace chemically-soaked bed-nets as a defence against malaria, researchers claim. As a week-long international malaria conference wrapped up in the Cameroonian capital of Yaounde this weekend, researchers unveiled findings that showed a fungus could be used to kill malaria carrying mosquitoes. Researchers sprayed black fabric with fungi spores which infected and killed mosquitoes in tests in a Tanzanian village.

A war of the future is being waged right now in the sprawling desert region of northeastern Africa known as Sudan, writes David Morse in this Znet article. "The weapons themselves are not futuristic. None of the ray-guns, force-fields, or robotic storm troopers that are the stuff of science fiction; nor, for that matter, the satellite-guided Predator drones or other high-tech weapon systems at the cutting edge of today's arsenal. No, this war is being fought with Kalashnikovs, clubs and knives. In the western region of Sudan known as Darfur, the preferred tactics are burning and pillaging, castration and rape - carried out by Arab militias riding on camels and horses." Morse argues that the war is a resource war over oil.

Key World Trade Organisation (WTO) members have admitted they will not be able to agree a framework for a new trade deal at upcoming talks in China. But the five members did decide on a plan to conclude the current round of trade talks by the end of 2006. World leaders are seeking a breakthrough in the WTO's so-called Doha round of talks, which began in 2001 and aim to set out a system of trade rules that are fairer to developing countries.

Zambia's President Levy Mwanawasa has declared a national disaster and appealed for international food aid. More than one million Zambians face severe food shortages due to drought. Last week, Zambia appealed for $18m in aid to deal with the food crisis. Zambia is one of six countries across southern Africa facing a food crisis. The UN says some 12m people in the region need food aid.

A Zimbabwean government minister has admitted that farm seizures have led to repeated crop failures and severe food shortages. Zanu-PF President Robert Mugabe has always blamed Zimbabwe's food and economic crisis on years of drought and on a conspiracy by Western countries to bring down his government because of his controversial land reform programme.

Official hyperbole reached fever pitch last month with Bank president Paul Wolfowitz, in a 24 October op-ed for the Financial Times, saying that a deal in Hong Kong would mean "the difference between a healthy life or an early death from a preventable disease" for tens of millions. The World Bank predicted two years ago that a global trade accord would be worth as much as $500 billion to the economy. However, EU and US resistance to cuts in agriculture subsidies, has led Uri Dadush, the Bank's trade director, to tone down official exuberance: "Let's say all we're talking about in the current context is a gain of $20-$30 billion for developing countries."

In yet another deceitful move by rich industrialised nations to aggressively access developing country markets, the just released draft WTO Ministerial text on Services is deliberately ambiguous on whether developing countries will have any choice but to enter into services negotiations when requested to do so. Such a process would be reminiscent of the disastrous negotiations which took place on Telecoms and Financial services in the WTO in 1997. Said Aileen Kwa of Focus on the Global South, “This is the real agenda in Hong Kong. Whilst Pascal Lamy downplays Hong Kong so that everyone else is caught off guard, what is really at stake is developing countries' control over their service sectors. And that includes essential services such as water, education and healthcare.”

Developing countries cannot achieve sustainable growth and poverty reduction unless they integrate into the world economy. Trade reforms are necessary, but not enough to maximise the potential benefits of trade. Negotiations at the WTO Ministerial Conference in Hong Kong in December, 2005 should also focus on establishing an 'aid for trade' mechanism, reports ID21, the development communication web portal.

Sandra Nyaira was on a career high when she left Zimbabwe three years ago. For her work as political editor of the country’s leading independent newspaper the Daily News, she had earned a prestigious Courage in Journalism Award from the Washington-based International Women’s Media Foundation. After traveling to the United States to receive the prize, Nyaira attended the journalism master’s program at City University in London on a scholarship. Nyaira expected to be back at her job in Zimbabwe in a year. She has yet to return.

There is a shortfall of some 200 million women in the world -- "missing' due to what a three-year study on violence against women calls "gendercide." The number of what the study describes as 'missing' women is based on the random birthrate of males and females and how many fewer women there are than what would be expected in the world population, said Theodor Winkler, head of a research center that directed the project. Winkler told a news conference at the United Nations that gender-related abortions and infanticides were the leading causes for the shortfall in the female population. Another factor was domestic violence, including so-called honor killings in some cultures.

The National Media Institute of Southern Africa (Namisa) in Malawi is taking Parliament to court for refusing to allow a private radio station to broadcast its proceedings live, writes Samuel Makaka in an article on www.journalism.co.za. Zodiac Broadcasting Station has been refused permission to broadcast the proceedings. Charles Simango, Namisa national director, said in an interview that Parliament is a public entity. “Members of Parliament are accountable to the people who sent them to Parliament.”

She's a sex worker, but not many passers-by would suspect that the slight figure standing in a narrow street opposite a nightclub in Zimbabwe's gold mining town of Kwekwe is also a university student. Tracy Bunjwali, a second-year business studies scholar and part-time prostitute, says her biggest fear is that she might bump into somebody she knows while out on the streets waiting to be taken to a nearby hotel-cum-brothel.

Victoria [not her real name] thought she had the law on her side when she left her abusive partner and successfully applied for a protection order against him. According to provisions set out in South Africa's 1998 Domestic Violence Act and reinforced by recently enacted firearms legislation, the order gave the police powers to confiscate the gun that had repeatedly been used to terrorise her. According to the Medical Research Council (MRC), a woman is shot dead by her current or former partner every six hours, and such cases rose by 78 percent between 1990 and 1999.

Visit the website http://dana.ucc.nau.edu/~lmo5/politicalEconomy/SacuInfo.htm for information on the Southern African Customs Union (SACU).

Some 60,000 people fleeing fighting between the Congolese army and local Mayi-Mayi militiamen resisting demobilisation have now arrived in the village of Dubie in the Democratic Republic of Congo's Katanga Province, Roman Catholic Bishop Fulgence Muteba said. He said the 60,000 displaced in Dubie were in addition to another 16,000 people who fled the fighting against a local Mayi-Mayi leader he identified as Gedeon. So far, no other humanitarian agency has corroborated the number of displaced in Dubie.

Published by: Weaver Press, 2005
Distributed by: African Books Collective Ltd (www.africanbookscollective.com)

Set in Zimbabwe, Chinodya’s “Chairman of Fools” tells the story of a successful academic and writer returning home after an overseas teaching position. Returning to find his family changed, but his culture and traditions the same, Farai Chari slips into a dark and frightening paranoia. Reality and hallucinations intertwine for Farai, and Chinodya does an excellent job of weaving the two together. At the same time, the book raises important social issues, questioning the relationships between men and women, the expectations placed on men, how people with mental illnesses are treated and the changes Zimbabwe is going through,

“Chairman of Fools” presents an interesting story. Farai represents middle class male chauvinism, and that his story is one of unhappiness and illness makes for a narrative that is curious. Upon his immediate return Farai finds that his wife has become more and more involved in her church, and his children are distant. His professional success has made him materially comfortable, but hasn’t made him happy, and indeed, has trapped him into a life that he must work to continue sustaining. Tradition also binds him to his wife – his family and community would never allow for him to leave. His drinking problem, combined with his wife’s newfound religious zeal, make for a strain in their relationship, and even the intervention of numerous family members has little impact.

Farai slips deeper and deeper into a scene that includes alcohol and prostitutes, and finally spins out of control with a car accident. This is the beginning of his paranoia, which eventually lands him in a mental institution – everything Farai has gone through, and his alcoholic reaction, have aggravated a mental illness – he suffers from bipolar disorder. Suffering from mood exaggerated mood swings – mania and depression, Farai can no longer hide the fact that he is at times delusional. At the mental institution he meets a number of colorful patients, each battling their own afflictions. He is crowned “Chairman of Fools,” by them, and is put in charge of their complaints regarding the day to day running of the mental ward. But he is also introduced to people so different from himself, and from this, learns some important lessons.

The book ends quietly. Life slowly, simply returns to normal, with no big changes. Balancing out his illness with medication, he is deemed well enough to return to the US to teach. Farai and his wife reconcile softly, each admitting their shortfalls. While Farai wants his wife to be someone, something else to him, she will never be this woman who he can be freely himself with. Life continues – it doesn’t get better, or worse. Farai simply gets used to it.

While clearly representing an upper-middle class socio-economic status, Chinodya’s character is one that men in general can relate to. Masculinities in Zimbabwe, and indeed, around the globe, are such that men are often put into positions of expected power, success and responsibility. Should they not meet these expectations, their masculinity can be called into question, affecting not only their own identity and self-esteem, but the ways in which they relate to their families and communities. “Chairman of Fools” is a dark, and at times depressing representation of the despair that can consume, but also demonstrates the very real effects of the pressure often put on male heads of family.

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

Hundreds of Somali refugees have been protesting for almost a week in front of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) premises. With their families and children, they staged a sit-in and expressed their demands for improving their current legal, economic and social living condition. They demanded equal consideration similar to other refugees such as the Ethiopians, whom they claim have better treatment. Yemen hosts a number of refugees from Somalia, Ethiopia, Sudan, Iraq and Palestine, along with other small numbers of refugees from other countries.

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.

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

A book suggestion for your readers:  Race and the Rise of the Republican Party, 1848-1865,  3rd edition.  This is a serious treatment of US racism/ethnocentrism.  Thank you.

As she prepares to take office on January 16, 2006, President-in-waiting Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf says officials wishing to work in her government will have to abide by a code of conduct that will guide them against corruption, dishonesty, inefficiency and human rights abuses. "Anybody who will work for the government will have to abide by that code of conduct," she told reporters Saturday in the village of Korma, her ancestral home, over 15 kilometers northwest of Monrovia, where she had traveled to thank the people "for standing behind me" in her quest for the presidency. "If they (officials) violate public trust through dishonesty, inefficiency and human rights abuse, they will be penalized in accordance with the law as prescribed by the code of conduct."

A court in Nigeria has delivered two more guilty verdicts in the country's biggest ever international fraud trial. Two defendants, Frank Nwude and Nzeribe Okoli, were found guilty of swindling a Brazilian bank out of $242m. The pair deceived an employee at the Banco Noroeste of Sao Paulo into transferring large sums of the bank's money to accounts around the world. In return the man had been promised kickbacks from a fictional Nigerian state contract.

Ghanaian Frances Williams, CEO of London-based company Interims for Development (www.InterimsFD.com), was named 'Rising Star of the Year 2005' at the fiercely-contested UK Trade & Investment Black Enterprise Awards in London. Officially launched in Ghana in 2003 by the Ghana Government's Minister for Private Sector Development, Interims for Development works with African businesses and international companies operating in Africa to support their Human Resources, business development and capacity building needs.

President Yoweri Museveni's speech to the global conference on wetlands has angered delegates. Museveni criticised international environmentalists, accusing them of opposing development programmes to developing countries under the guise of environmental protection. Wetlands International chief executive officer Jane Madgwick said in a statement that she was shocked by the President's speech, adding that it was uncalled for.

We wish to invite youth groups/youth leaders to send in indications of interest for the 2nd Reality Camp Program to be held at the St. Rita's Rural Center Kadi Valley, Kaduna from 11th – 17th December 2005. The theme for this year is Program Sustainability...sharing our experience.

The Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum has released a damning report on how government failed to comply with the African Commission on Human and Peoples_ Rights (ACHPR) recommendations to stop widespread human rights violations in the country. The report coincides with the African Commission meeting in Banjul, Gambia, the last week in November, which is expected to discuss the human rights situation in Zimbabwe.

The Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford University, California invites policy makers and activists from countries undergoing political, economic and social transitions to participate in its second annual summer fellows program on democracy, development, and the rule of law to be held July 31 - August 18, 2006 at Stanford University on its California campus.

The World Bank, Ethiopia's largest donor, says it is considering cutting aid to the country if the current political impasse there continues according to a recent article in Voice of America by Ashenafi Adedje (16th November 2005). The Bank currently disburses four to five hundred million dollars a year in assistance to Ethiopia. However, Ishac Diwan, the World Bank’s country director for Ethiopia, noted that this amount will increase if governance improves or decrease over time if governance fails to improve. The World Bank representative declined to be more specific, saying the exact figures will have to be determined by bank management in accordance with prevailing circumstances.

This article explores the gender-differentiated effects of natural disasters. It aims to fill a gap in understanding issues such as women's losses relative to men's, how women's work time and conditions change, both in terms of care-giving and income-generating work, or how disaster-related aid and entitlement programmes include or marginalise affected women.

Hundreds of schoolgirls from disadvantaged backgrounds in Inanda, Durban, had their chance this week to showcase their strengths and highlight their needs to international visitors during a Girls' Education Movement (Gem) session. It is aimed at highlighting issues affecting girls. And with a recent financial injection of about R4-million from Barclays Bank for the project in this country, it is anticipated that up to 1,5-million children will be helped.

The release and re-arrest of members of a Yoruba organisation this week (November 17) have marked the latest chapter in Nigeria's bid to contain ethnic unrest in various parts of the country. Fredrick Fasehun and Gani Adams, leaders of the Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC), were initially jailed with four other members of the group after clashes broke out in the commercial capital of Lagos last month between rival OPC supporters.

As reported by SciDev, climate change could upset the balance between insect crop pests and the 'natural enemies' that control their numbers, say researchers. This might make pest outbreaks more frequent and severe, particularly in the tropics where the climate is naturally more consistent, they warn in a study published this week (11 November) in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Science.

It was a widely dominant perception until the early 1990's that African rulers do not vacate their office alive. But even in the brutal reality of African politics, transition takes place and different former presidents have dealt with how to maintain power and privilege very differently. With new case studies examining the post-presidential years of the iconic Mandela in South Africa, Daniel arap Moi in Kenya, Nyerere in Tanzania, Rawlings in Ghana, Charles Taylor in Liberia, as well as the experience of Botswana, Zambia, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Uganda, Malawi, and Nigeria, this volume examines the dilemmas which demands for presidential transitions impose upon incumbent rulers and analyses the relationships which are evolving between new regimes and their predecessors.

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has said he will stand for re-election in next March's polls. Mr Museveni, who came to power 20 years ago, was due to step down but speculation had been rife for the past two years that he would stand again. His announcement comes at the end of a week of riots and controversy surrounding the arrest of his main political rival. Dr Kizza Besigye is in prison awaiting trial for treason and rape.

South Africa's ruling African National Congress (ANC) party emerged from a crisis meeting of its top executive at the weekend to deny claims of internal divisions in its ranks. The ANC national executive committee (NEC) meeting was called to heal a rift between President Thabo Mbeki and the party's former deputy president, Jacob Zuma, which has degenerated into the worst crisis the ANC has faced since being elected to power in 1994.

After 18 years at the helm of Burkina Faso, President Blaise Compaore has won a new five-year term, garnering a massive 80.3 percent of the vote in the country’s first multiparty presidential race. Releasing the results of the 13 November poll, the head of the Independent National Election Commission, Moussa Michel Tapsoba, said that the closest runner-up, opposition leader Benewende Stanislas Sankara, won 4.94 percent of the vote.

Vowing defiance in the wake of a series of incidents that may have loosened his grip on power, Chad’s President Idriss Deby has removed members of his own ethnic group from the military’s top posts. Speaking on Wednesday (November 16) to hundreds of supporters gathered outside the presidential palace, an embattled Deby pledged to stand firm despite recent desertions and attacks on the military.

Young people who drop out of the formal school system would no longer struggle to grasp concepts at vocational training institutions following the Namibia Training Authority (NTA)’s initiative to simplify the curriculum. This week, NTA handed over a unit of standards, curricula and training manuals for the bricklaying and plastering occupation and the hospitality industry.

The purpose of the job is to lead and develop Concern’s Education programme in Cibitoke. This is a two year contract and the applicant must be fluent in French.