Ghana's Ministry of the Environment and Science issued draft biosafety legislation in August, intended to protect the country's citizens and environment from the potentially damaging effects of genetically modified (GM) organisms. The implication is that the government is open to allowing GM products in the country. Yet this is in direct contrast to comments made less than a month ago by the country's food and agriculture minister.

In the Senegalese village of Yoff, just a few kilometres up the coast from the capital Dakar, the hundreds of canoes lined up along the seaside tell the whole story. Despite growing urbanisation, fishing by traditional methods remains a vital occupation, a key part of the country's economy - and just as important, a way of life. But this sector is now threatened, reports the BBC, not only by the competition of the huge boats of the industrial sector, both local and international, but also by its own unregulated development and practices.

Every day, Minta, a 40 year-old mother of six, fetches water for the household, does the laundry in the river, labours on her millet farm and, if there is food, prepares the family meals before collapsing into bed, exhausted. But during this particularly difficult lean season, there is no food, and the daily grind has become even more unbearable. With her youngest child wasting away from hunger, Minta has had to walk three hours in the scorching sun on an empty stomach in the hope of getting some food aid.

This is a personal statement. It describes ongoing events affecting my colleagues and I here in Nigeria in relation to our work on accountability for fugitive former Liberian President, Charles Taylor.  
 
Some minutes after noon on on Monday, 1 August 2005, operatives of the Nigeria's State Security Service (SSS) arrested Steve Omali and Michael Damisa at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport in Abuja. Steve and Michael are professional printers. They had printed a set of posters on the "Charles Taylor Wanted" campaign for the Coalition Against Impunity.
 
The coalition brings together over 345 NGOs in 17 African countries and beyond campaigning to ensure accountability for international crimes for which fugitive former Liberian President, Mr. Charles Taylor, stands indicted. Also involved in the Coalition Against Impunity (CAI) are the Open Society Justice Initiative, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the Nigerian Coalition on the International Criminal Court, the Transitional Justice Working Group in Liberia, among others.
 
I work on the African programme of the Open Society Justice Initiative and have been involved in designing and implementing the advocacy work of the Coalition. I am also counsel in on going judicial review proceedings to detemrine the legality of Mr. Taylor's asylum in Nigeria. The Open Society Justice Initiative and Amnesty International are amici on record in those proceedings. The Court presided over my Judge Steve J. Adah, will announce a ruling on 13 September.
 
The SSS have confiscated 10,000 copies of the posters. The posters are merely reprints of the Interpol Red Notice for Mr. Taylor, which was issued in 2003. Nigeria is a member of Interpol.
 
About 15:00 hours on Monday afternoon, Matthew Damisa, Steve's brother, went to visit his brother at the SSS Headquarters in Abuja. The SSS also arrested him, like Steve and Michael, Matthew is detained as I write.
 
Yesterday, Tuesday, 2 August, two persons claiming to be staff of the SSS, led by one Mr. Igwe, visited our offices in Abuja to ask for me. They claimed that their Director had asked to see me in his office. They declined to give the name of their Director or to say where they were asked to take me. When my colleagues insisted, they indicated that it was in relation to the Charles Taylor Campaign and suggested that the SSS would be willing to trade the detained printers for me. This sounds like hostage taking by a State institution.
 
The SSS is established by the National Security Agencies Act, first promulgated by Nigeria's then military regime as a decree in 1986. The Decree was later transformed unchanged and specially entrenched in Section 315(5) of Nigeria's 1999 Constitution. It can only be changed by the same procedure for ammending the Constitution. The SSS is set up under this Act to prevent and ensure prosecution of crimes against Nigeria's internal security.
 
The operatives of the SSS that came for me produced no identification. They had neither letter nor warrant for my arrest. They did not allege that I or any of my colleagues in the Coalition or connected with the OSI, OSIWA or the Justice Initiative had committed any crime. They continued to harrass my colleagues in our offices for my cellular numbers. At the time this was happening, I was in Lagos at the presentation of the annual report on human rights in Nigeria by Nigeria Civil Liberties Organisation. My colleagues directed them to my friend, colleague and legal representative, Uche Onyeagocha who is also a Federal Legislator. They declined to speak to Uche. By the end of the day, I was advised that two SSS operatives were staking out our offices awaiting my arrival in Abuja.
 
Upon learning of the arrest of Steve and Michael and Matthew on Monday, I immediately formally informed Nigeria's Federal Attorney General and Justice Minister, Chief Bayo Ojo SAN, by letter. The Chambers of the Attorney-General signed in receipt of the letter. After they came for me, I updated the information to the Attorney-General's chambers. I have also lodged a formal complaint with Bukhari Bello, the Executive Secretary of Nigeria's National Human Rights Commission, and Justice E.O. Ayoola, the Chairperson of the Commission, who is incidentally also the Chairperson of the Special Court for Sierra Leone, whose Prosecutor indicted Mr. Taylor. In consultation with me and at my request, my colleagues formally wrote to the Director-General of the SSS, Col. Kayode Are, offering to arrange a mutually agreeable time for me to meet with him and his operatives, or, alternatively, indicating whether they were looking for me in connection with any crimes known to Nigerian law.
 
Nigeria is ruled by an elected President, Olusegun Obasanjo. Chapter IV of Nigeria's 1999 Constitution contains elaborate guarantees of human rights. Nigeria is party to the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and Convention against Torture. It is unlawful under any and all of these instruments to detain anyone for more than 48 hours. As I write, our printers and their brother have been detained for over 48 hours without access to lawyers or visits.
 
 The SSS had previously arrested and detained two members of my family - Iheoma Obibi and our son, Dilim Odinkalu born in February 1997 - in 2000 and 2003. On both occasions, they briefly detained them overnight and confiscated their passports. Iheoma and Dilim are British nationals. The passports were later released following the intervention of the UK government. On both occasions the SSS interrogated Iheoma about her work with the UK charity, Alliances for Africa. They also interrogated her about my work.
 
I should report that I am not presently in danger to life or limb. I wish I could say the same about my liberty.
 
I am in good spirits. I am not a fugitive. I am not a criminal suspect. None of my colleagues in the Coalition against Impunity is. Nor are any of my colleagues in OSIWA and the Justice Initiative. The Fugitive is Mr. Charles Taylor. The tragedy in all of this is that the government of a supposedly democratic country has chosen to unlawfully deploy its security apparatus to prevent entirely lawful activities designed to ensure accountability for some of the gravest international crimes.

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe failed to win the $1-billion loan he desperately needed from the Chinese government this week to buy essential imports such as food, fuel, electricity and drugs. While visiting China, he won diplomatic points against the West with a pledge from Beijing to veto any tough United Nations security council resolutions on Zimbabwe. However, China failed to prevent the council debating Mugabe's controversial campaign to "clean up" shacks and hawkers. But in cash terms, Mugabe returned largely empty-handed.

The African Union has finally confirmed the ratification of the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights (ACHPR) on the Rights of Women in Africa by Cape-Verde. There are now twelve instruments of ratification deposited out of the fifteen that are needed for it to enter into force. The Council of Ministers of Togo adopted at its meeting of July 27th 2005 in Lomé a bill authorizing the ratification.

A national immunisation campaign targeting almost 9 million children has kicked off in Mozambique. The campaign aims to vaccinate children aged between nine months and 14 years against measles; children under five years of age will be vaccinated against polio; children aged six to 59 months will receive vitamin A supplements.

Imagine your loved one simply “disappeared”. You approach the local authorities and are met with blank stares. Years later you are still searching, wondering what happened to them or whether they are still alive. “Disappearances” have long been used as a brutal tactic of repressive regimes. In Africa, it has been documented that disappearances have taken place in 25 out of 47 countries in the region. But now a new campaign is calling for the speedy finalisation of a UN Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearances. It’s critical that families of the disappeared, civil society organizations and individual human rights activists in Africa get involved in the campaign, say Polly Dewhirst and Ewoud Plate.

Enforced disappearances are an ongoing worldwide phenomenon. While the exact numbers for and extent of disappearances in Africa is not known, estimates clearly run into the tens of thousands. After twenty years of debate, the United Nations is now poised to finalise an international treaty to deal with disappearances in September 2005. It is critical that African civil society organizations and families of the disappeared join the debate and ensure that this international legal instrument becomes a reality and addresses the needs of African victims.

The United Nations currently defines a disappearance as the deprivation of a person’s liberty, in whatever form or for whatever reason, brought about by agents of the State (or by persons or groups acting with authorization, acquiescence or support of the State) followed by an absence of information or refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of liberty or information, or concealment of the fate or whereabouts of the disappeared person. It is the combination of the two main elements - the deprivation of liberty and the following refusal to admit by authorities to have anything to do with it - that make this practice particularly perverse.

Disappearances are considered ongoing crimes which should by their nature not be subject to prescription or statutes of limitation. The crime only comes to an end when the truth about the fate of the disappeared is revealed and the remains returned. The psychological consequences of this ongoing crime on the family members of the person made to disappear are enormous. Relatives are often trapped in an ongoing cycle of hope and despair about the fate of their loved ones and find it hard to find closure that is possible for victims and survivors of other human rights violations. Disappearances are very damaging for a civil society as a whole, as they are almost always committed with the purpose of repressing political opponents. When someone disappears, their entire family and sometimes community is terrorized, silenced and isolated from society.

The phenomenon of disappearances first came to light in the 1970s when it was used by repressive regimes in Latin America - notably in Chile and Argentina where thousands of political opponents of the Pinochet regime and Videla junta were detained and disappeared. Since then the practice has been become widely used by repressive governments around the world. In Sri Lanka alone an estimated 60 000 people have disappeared since the mid-1980s. More recently disappearances have been perpetrated in the former Yugoslavia, Iraq, Indonesia, Nepal, India (Kashmir), Burma and Colombia.

Disappearances have long taken place in all parts of Africa. In a preliminary research done by the Dutch project Linking Solidarity, disappearance cases were reported in 25 of 47 countries in the region, with eight of these countries reporting disappearances taking place on a large scale. These disappearances took place under differing circumstances. For instance in Algeria an estimated 3000 people have been disappeared since 1993 after being arrested by security forces. South African civil society organizations and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission have documented over 1500 apartheid-era cases. Thousands of persons have disappeared and continue to disappear in the large-scale conflicts of the DRC, Rwanda, Burundi and Angola as well in the less-publicised conflicts in places like Chad, Congo-Brazzaville and Cameroon. Despite the hard work of civil society organizations in some countries, it is very hard to pin down exact figures and very little formal information and documentation of disappearances currently exists. Sadly this lack of information has impacted badly at the international level where disappearances are not seen as an African issue.

Since 1981 the Latin American Federation of Associations of Relatives of Disappeared-Detainees (FEDEFAM) with strong assistance of international human rights organizations have struggled to have disappearances recognized as a crime against humanity and for the creation of a binding international instrument to stop and prevent them. Their pressure during the 1980s was successful: the UN adopted a Declaration on the question of disappearances in 1992 (which is a legally non-binding instrument). Two years later the Organization of American States adopted a Convention that is a binding treaty but only applies to the Latin American countries that ratified it. Since then family members of disappeared from Asia, Africa, Europe and the Middle East have joined them in a world movement campaigning for improving the means in international law to address the problem of disappearances everywhere where that violation occurred or could occur.

But the discussions and the drafting attempts of the text of a legally binding instrument with a universal scope stagnated for almost a whole decade, before they got re-launched and entered into its final stage three years ago at a meeting of UN Open-Ended Working Group tasked with developing this instrument. This working group has now met several times and will meet again in September this year. It is hoped that the country delegations conforming this UN working group will adopt a final text for the instrument so that it can be adopted by the Commission on Human Rights and the General Assembly of the United Nations next year. It is important that African families of the disappeared, civil society organisations and governments enter this debate and ensure that a strong and effective instrument is finalised, adopted and ratified by States as soon as possible.

The Importance of a Disappearance Convention for Africa

The instrument is important for Africa in many ways. Firstly the new treaty will fill in many gaps in existing international legal framework for the protection against enforced disappearances. The instrument will remedy the weakness or absence of norms by creating a wide range of obligations for the States that will ratify it.

The existing human rights norms at the international level prove to be particularly weak for the African continent. The African Charter of Human and Peoples’ Rights does not contain any reference to enforced disappearances, which leaves the African Commission of Human rights ill-equipped to address disappearances case as such. Ratifying the new UN instrument will be a first recognition of the specificity and the particular seriousness of the violation of enforced disappearance by African governments.

In international criminal law, the only reference to enforced disappearance is to be found in the Rome Statutes establishing the International Criminal Court (ICC). The ICC only recognizes enforced disappearances as a crime against humanity (that is when disappearances occur as part of a ‘massive and generalised attack against the civilian population’). There is no norm for disappearances occurring in a non-systematic way. Moreover the ICC only has jurisdiction over cases occurring on the territory of states that have ratified the Rome Statutes. Currently only 27 African countries have ratified the Rome Statute leaving just under half of the content outside its scope.

The most important new obligation set forth in the new treaty is that States will have to include the crime of enforced disappearance in their domestic penal law codes. Unlike Latin America, there is not one African country which has the crime of disappearance defined within its domestic law as a specific offence. The new treaty sets sharp standards that will guide the legislators of countries to adopt legislation that will become a deterrent for any person tempted to participate in the act of disappearing a person.

When ratifying the new instrument, States will have to recognise family members of the disappeared as another category of victims of the violation. States will have to take measures to respond to a right of these relatives to know the truth about the fate of the disappeared and to receive reparation. This reparation has to be interpreted in a very large sense as it will encompass compensation, rehabilitation, and guarantees for non-repetition.

The Role of African Countries in Negotiations

Participation of diplomats from African countries (with the sole exception of Morocco) has been very limited during previous working group sessions. The absence of Africa from discussions can be explained only partly by the typically limited diplomatic staffing of embassies of African countries in Geneva. It can also be attributed to a lack of concern of most African countries with this specific issue, even among countries that have a history of disappearances. Among those African representatives present there seems to be a critical lack of understanding of the technical issues at stake and it often appears that they are speaking without clear instructions from their home ministries.

Sadly most interventions from African countries are not very supportive of the NGO positions favouring a strong and effective document. Their positions often seem to be inspired by the sole concern of African governments to avoid contracting new obligations (especially if those entail financial costs) and not by any apparent solidarity with victims - African or otherwise.

One positive exception was the intervention of South Africa during a session in 2004. It was therefore a disappointment to note their absence from the debate in this year’s first session.

Current debates

Progress has been made on most of the substantive issues in the working group. Although there is consensus on most of the substantial issues, several questions remain open on the agenda of the next and possibly final session of the working group.

Key among these is the working group’s need to find an agreement on the exact wording of a reference to comparable acts to disappearances when committed by non-state actors. A few countries have also demanded a clause allowing states to refuse information about an alleged disappearance to relatives on grounds of ‘state security’. Families and NGOs find this unacceptable and in contradiction with the whole spirit of the instrument.

The group will further have to decide on the form of the instrument and on the monitoring body to be set up to watch over the compliance of states with their obligations under this new instrument. An autonomous convention on disappearances is by no means guaranteed at this point. There has been extensive debate at the UN about addressing the issue of disappearances through an additional protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) rather than a convention in its own right. Family groups and organisations worldwide are opposed to the idea of an additional protocol because it lacks not only the symbolic impact but also the legal and political teeth associated with an autonomous monitoring body.

The establishment of an independent and truly effective monitoring mechanism to deal with disappearance cases is considered a crucial feature of the new instrument. Considering those existing at the universal and regional level the envisaged UN monitoring body should be warmly welcomed by African citizens. Under the proposed convention a monitoring body would be created with powers to request, comment on and follow up reports from specific countries where disappearances may be taking place. Based on these reports it can condemn states and order investigations and even the payment of reparations. It can also organise its own independent inquiries, missions and investigations. This body will also produce an annual report of its activities which will make it more transparent and accountable.

The convention will have great symbolic value and raise awareness for disappearances around the world. Disappearances are a global plague and should receive the same recognition as torture for which the UN created the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment in 1984. Its creation can provide the impetus for African families to speak up about the issue and put pressure on their governments not only to ratify the convention but also to start taking the issue more seriously in their home countries.

* Please contact the authors on the email addresses below if you are interested in getting involved in this campaign. Copies of a campaign letter are also available in French and Spanish. Polly Dewhirst ([email protected]) is the Project Manager at the South African Disappearance Project at the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation (CSVR) in Johannesburg, South Africa http://www.csvr.org.za Ewoud Plate ([email protected]) is the Coordinator of the Project Linking Solidarity at the Humanist Committee on Human Rights, The Netherlands http://www.linkingsolidarity.org

* Please send comments to [email protected]

Human rights organisations have documented a global crackdown on civil liberties since the war on terror began, as governments implement legislation related to the monitoring of citizens, powers of arrest and detention without trial. The age-old battle between repression and freedom is nothing new, write Tristen Taylor and Simon Delaney, and nowhere is this tension more apparent than in the fundamental right to protest. In South Africa, a much-hailed constitution should guarantee that right, but in reality a complex web of laws govern who can gather where and when. What is usually overlooked, they argue, is that either individuals have the right to assembly because it is an intrinsic human right or because it has been granted to them. If it is the later then its time to be afraid…

Protest is at the heart of working for change; nothing disturbs the great and powerful like people on the streets. Marches bring forth visions of another storming of the Bastille or the Rose Revolution redux. Nerves are stretched as tens of thousands move with one voice against a government, corporation or even an individual. When people gather and demonstrate, they are tapping into the awesome potential of ordinary people working together; they are no longer divided and atomised.

Hardly surprising then that governments, throughout recorded history, have sought to limit the ability of people to gather; to restrict the right to assembly; to deny the freedom to congregate. In the unrelenting war between repression and freedom - a conflict that has been going on at least since “freedom” was inscribed - kings, queens, dictators, presidents and other assorted overlords have used all means possible, legal or otherwise, to prevent the people from mobilising, and especially in public. And for good reason.

One thousand potential revolutionaries sitting in their homes, isolated and separated from potential comrades, are (and cannot be more than) bitter individuals with nothing to do besides rage in utter impotence at the TV, radio or newspaper. One thousand activists chanting as they run towards the guarded gates of political and economic power are not only a problem, they could be the beginnings of major change and the end of privilege for the few. At minimum, some bureaucrat's day will be ruined.

Across the globe, demonstrations are being banned, limited, and herded into “free speech” cages. Demonstrators are being greeted with batons, rubber bullets, arbitrary detention, water cannons, tear gas, cavalry charges, tanks, live ammunition, and man's best friend mentally and physically tortured into hate with fangs and fur.

But not in South Africa. South Africa has a constitution that protects the rights of its citizens. We are enlightened and progressive. Right?

The South African Constitution states, in the Bill of Rights (Chapter 2, Section 17), that “Everyone has the right, peacefully and unarmed, to assemble, to demonstrate, to picket and to present petitions.” The supreme law of the land, what is supposed to be an expression of the most fundamental rights a human being can have, says that you (and all your friends) can get together and protest against (or for), well, just about anything, as long as you're not carrying an AK or stomping on other human beings.

Yet, affirming (or granting, depending on your point of view) a right to assembly is not the same as enabling or allowing individuals to exercise that right. In other words, there's more to the story than a constitution. For example, Article 125 of the Constitution of the USSR states:

“In conformity with the interests of the working people, and in order to strengthen the socialist system, the citizens of the U.S.S.R. are guaranteed by law: a) freedom of speech; b) freedom of the press; c) freedom of assembly, including the holding of mass meetings; d) freedom of street processions and demonstrations.”

And, further to that, it addresses (also in Article 125) the practical difficulties in the exercise of these rights:

“These civil rights are ensured by placing at the disposal of the working people and their organizations printing presses, stocks of paper, public buildings, the streets, communications facilities and other material requisites for the exercise of these rights.”

The irony is as bitter as regret. Under Uncle Joe's leadership, saying or writing what you wanted was apt to get you sent to Kolyma and a cold, hungry death. As for demonstrating against the Soviet Government, nine grams to the back of the head.

South Africa, to point out the obvious, is not the USSR under Stalin. However, the example of the USSR shows there can be a major and fundamental discord between a state's promises and its actions.

While dissent in South Africa isn't rewarded with ten years in a gulag, the Constitution is not matched by what is in South Africa's law on gatherings. How, where, when and why individuals gather is limited and defined, both in theory and practice, by the Regulation of Gatherings Act (RGA) No. 205 of 1993 (commenced 1996). This act defines the shape, size and location of protests. For example, if sixteen (or more) individuals want to protest at the same location they have to receive permission from the police; if they don't, the demonstration is unlawful. Under fifteen, no permission is needed, unless, of course, the protesters want to demonstrate within 100 metres of a court building, or near the Union Buildings or parliament; permission is needed to approach your elected representatives. Wear a mask (for example, dress up as a clown or Father Christmas) and you are liable to be arrested for contravening the Gatherings Act or the Prohibition of Disguises Act No. 16 of 1969.

As for demonstrating on private property (in a shopping mall, for example), that requires the owner's permission (the Trespass Act of 1959 supersedes the RGA). So, for example, demonstrating against a company that's located in mall is a hard task. Most owners will order demonstrators to leave, refusal to do so is grounds for arrest (trespassing). South Africans have the right to protest, but not on private property, not within 100 metres of a court building, not where the President lives, not if it disrupts traffic, and definitely not in a clown suit.

The right to demonstrate is, at best, a qualified right.

A close look at the responses from the Johannesburg Metropolitan Police Department (JMPD) to notices that social justice movements have filed of gatherings that they intend to hold, shows a number of violations of the RGA with regard to processes followed by the JMPD after receiving notification of a gathering. This is evidence that there is a discord between the theory (the Constitution) and the State's actions.

Some of these relate to the JMPD's abuse of Section 3 (2) of the RGA, which states, "The convenor shall not later than seven days before the date on which the gathering is to be held, give notice of the gathering to the responsible officer concerned: Provided that if it is not reasonably possible for the convenor to give such notice earlier than seven days before such date, he shall give such notice at the earliest opportunity: Provided further that if such notice is given less than 48 hours before the commencement of the gathering, the responsible officer may by notice to the convenor prohibit the gathering." Records show that this section is used to refuse any gatherings that do not comply with the seven day notice period, without due consideration being given to possible reasons for late notification (Prishani Naidoo, Establishing A Historical Record Of Violations Of The Regulation Of Gatherings Act & The Right To Freedom Of Assembly Amongst Social Movements in Johannesburg, unpublished draft, 2005).

The power to issue blanket prohibitions on demonstrations that meet the 48 hours notice leaves officials with unbridled discretion. Such discretion is regularly abused in the service of the State’s alleged interest in maintaining order, or more perversely, in silencing the political views of marginal groups. Unbridled official discretion is generally viewed as an unjustifiable impairment of the right to assemble.

The RGA thwarts many a convener who, in fact, complies with the seven-day notice period. Despite the provision of notice by many conveners ten days in advance of a demonstration, a number of provisions in the RGA have had the unintended consequence of aiding and abetting the authorities desire to prohibit protests. In short, responsible officers can comply timeously - if not substantively - with response, meeting and prohibition requirements and still not give the conveners sufficient time to have a banning order reviewed in the Magistrates Court or in High Court prior to the appointed date for the demonstration. The courts have found that the applications for review do not meet the standards for urgency set out in the rules of court. Failure to satisfy this standard means that judicial review cannot take place before the scheduled demonstration (Stuart Woolman, Constitutional Law in South Africa, in Chaskalson, M. et al, unpublished draft, 2000).

In addition, JMPD officials often do not comply with the RGA's stipulation that it should respond to a notification within 24 hours of receiving it if JMPD intends to hold a meeting about the gathering or to seek to prohibit it. Section 4 (3) states "If a convenor has been notified in terms of subsection (2) (a) or has not, within 24 hours after giving notice in terms of section 3 (2), been called to a meeting …, the gathering may take place in accordance with the contents of the notice …"

Records from both the JMPD and social justice movements show the violation of the RGA through the response to notices well after 24 hours. Often this works in conjunction with the seven-day notice period required of movements against the right of movements to seek the intervention of a magistrate to overturn the prohibition of a gathering. If the JMPD responds after the 24-hour period with the request to meet with a movement and then proceeds to prohibit a gathering, it may be impossible for a movement to apply to a magistrate within the necessary time period to get permission for a march to proceed on the intended day. However, with responses beyond this 24-hour response period, the possibility for overturning a prohibition timeously by following all legal routes is reduced.

Section 5 of the RGA states, "(1)When credible information on oath is brought to the attention of a responsible officer that there is a threat that a proposed gathering will result in serious disruption of vehicular or pedestrian traffic, injury to participants in the gathering or other persons, or extensive damage to property, and that the Police and the traffic officers in question will not be able to contain this threat, he shall forthwith meet or, if time does not allow it, consult with the convenor and the authorized member … in order to consider the prohibition of the gathering."

There are a number of suggestions in the evidence outlined below that the JMPD has been in violation of this section. Firstly, there is a lack of any significant records of "credible information on oath" preceding the calling of such meetings. In the two cases where there are such records, it would appear that the information on oath has been forthcoming after the meeting in order to prohibit the gathering. Secondly, it would seem that the meetings have become common practice in attempting to prevent gatherings from taking place rather than being spaces in which the authorities should be trying to facilitate the peaceful occurrence of the gathering in question. The prohibition letters following several of these meetings verify this as they contain the same language and represent no attempt on the part of the JMPD to assist the convenors in facilitating the gathering. This would also suggest that the meetings do not take place in "good faith" as the RGA prescribes.

The actual prohibition letters from the JMPD also constitute several violations of the RGA, through their identification of the potential adverse effects a gathering may have on traffic and their allegations of past indiscretions by people associated with the convening group as reasons for prohibition. According to Stuart Woolman, "These pro forma banning orders violate the RGA in three discrete ways. First, The RGA's 4(4)(b), actually acknowledges that gatherings will, inevitably, disrupt traffic and contemplates an agreement between the responsible officer, the convenor and the police that will ensure that 'vehicular or pedestrian traffic, especially during traffic rush hours, is least impeded'. Second, reasonable suspicion 'of lawlessness and damage to property' - the language used in these pro forma prohibitions - is not the standard set out in the RGA for the prohibition of a gathering. RGA's 5(1), demands 'credible information on oath…brought to the attention of a responsible officer.' Third, the orders fail to recognize that the time, place and manner of an assembly are often its most essential features. The disdain shown for these critical elements of an assembly constitutes a violation of RGA's 2(d)'s requirement that the responsible officer ensure that all discussions demonstrate the state's willingness to negotiate in 'good faith'." (Stuart Woolman, ibid)

There is also some evidence of the JMPD's violations of the RGA during gatherings through the fixing of the times that marches are permitted to last, intimidation by police, arbitrary arrests, and so on.

Local authorities such as the JMPD appear to discriminate between social movements based upon the content or viewpoint of the protest. Protests that challenge the status quo on land redistribution are generally prohibited. Protests mounted by members of the tripartite alliance – say COSATU – with respect to fair labour practices are generally allowed to go ahead. Prohibitions or restrictions based upon the viewpoint of the protester are patent and unjustifiable violations of the right to assemble.

Furthermore, the police are often ignorant of the RGA. Some policemen and women (especially those from stations and not specialised public order details like JMPD) are not versed in the RGA - inspectors, in the middle of protests, have been known to stare at copies of the RGA with puzzlement and fear - and will often react to demonstrations as if it were the 1980s and Riotous Assemblies hadn't been substantially repealed.

In amongst the legal talk, filing of notices, and meetings with police, what is usually overlooked is the most fundamental issue of all. Either individuals have the right to assembly because it is an intrinsic human right (they have it in virtue of being human) or individuals have a right to assembly because it has been granted to them (by the state, for example). If it is the former, then human beings can get together, without restriction, just because they are human. This is inalienable, and not for debate. Private property, it could be argued, is not an intrinsic right (just because human beings are human, they do not have the right to own land, which could equally be seen to be the property of all or even none), and thus private property cannot be used to restrict the right to assembly, as only other intrinsic rights can have a moral bearing on an intrinsic right.

However, the law sees it being the latter case. The law grants the right (and the conditions thereof) and the agents of the law permit (or not) that right. If this interpretation is valid, then be afraid, for he who giveth can also taketh away.

* Tristen Taylor is the Apartheid Debt and Reparations Campaign Coordinator at Jubilee South Africa. Simon Delaney is a lawyer at the Freedom of Expression Institute. He is a specialist in the Regulation of Gatherings Act.

* Please send comments to

Do African presidents have a life after they leave office? asks Henning Melber. For many years in post-independence Africa, the image of African leaders was of ‘Big Men’ who could only be removed from office by their own death. But a recent shift shows an increasing number of leaders who hand over presidential powers voluntarily. In June this year the African Statesmen Initiative was launched in Mali’s capital Bamako with several elder statesmen committing to democratic ideals. The positive trend does not necessarily mean that anti-democratic tendencies have been banished, writes Melber.

Retired African Heads of State seem to emerge in ever-bigger numbers as a new species on the continent. Opting out of office more or less voluntarily, they are seeking an active role and requiring a defined task for their remaining years. “Is there life after presidency?” asked BBC Africa Live of its web site visitors in mid-2005. The numerous responses showed not only a strong interest in the issue but also offered the whole panorama of possible views, including the few selected ones below:

- “Presidents are people too. The life after presidency should be retirement.” (Ghana)
- “Former presidents should be respected because of what they did for a country. However at the same time, when Mugabe becomes a former president, my views will change.” (Zimbabwe)
- “There is always life and prosperity for presidents in Africa because most of them are thieves.” (UK)
- “Oh yes, there is life after the presidency. In fact a far better life … compared to the presidency. For example, you get to sleep peacefully at night (don’t have to worry about whether your army is plotting to oust you the next morning); you become a well respected statesman (provided you left office voluntarily … poor Charles Taylor), and the lot. Life after the presidency in Africa is like life after death – although no one has ever died (please, don’t count Jesus) and come back to give account of what it is like at the other end. However, the good news is that Africa is on the right path. At least we are beginning to count Africa’s former presidents who left office constitutionally. And it should send a very strong positive message to sitting-presidents that … yes, there is in fact very good life after the presidency, given you kept your promises to the best of your ability.” (Liberia)

By the end of the 20th century the notion of the ‘Big Men’ was still considered to be part of a neo-patrimonial system, in which ‘disorder’ was qualified as ‘political instrument’. Patrick Chabal and Jean-Pascal Daloz maintain in their provoking book ‘Africa Works’ that the “ultimate ambition of those who have power is most often to establish their standing as Big Men. Such standing is, by its very nature, subjective and can only be achieved within a context of personalized relations where clients, or dependants, will ensure its recognition. It is not, therefore, sufficient to be acknowledged as the supreme political ruler. It is also necessary to be recognized as the primus inter pares among all Big Men.”

African rulers, according to the dominant perception up until the early 1990s, do not vacate their office alive. The 1990 presidential address to the African Studies Association of the U.K., delivered by A.H. Kirk-Greene and published in ‘African Affairs’ (no. 359, 1991) presented some striking arithmetic to illustrate the point. By then, the mean duration in power of leadership in 17 African states (a third of the continent) was 25 years. The ‘for life’ image associated with African rulers contrasted however with the brevity of the rule of others, with no fewer than twenty in office for less than a year. At the end of 1988 the continental average duration of office for the 158 African leaders recorded as head of government in 50 states since 1960 was calculated at 3.1 years. But the assumption pertained that the shorter periods in office were attributed almost exclusively to the incumbents’ departure from this world. A.H. Kirk-Greene therefore concluded: “If my question of ‘What Happened to the President Afterwards’? has been overlooked in the literature, this may largely be due to the indisputable fact that, unless one is talking of a meta-physical after-life, in nine cases out of ten it is a rhetorical question; there was no Afterwards.”

But soon thereafter, this notion was challenged on the basis of the empirical reality. Instead, it was suggested that the question requires rephrasing, since the (former) heads of state were not as passive as the ‘what happened to’ formulation implied. The more apposite question for many may be ‘What did the President do Afterwards?’ rather than what happened to him. Indeed quite a number of them – in contrast to the widely held perception – did have a life after their term(s) in office. As a presentation by J.H. Polhemus to the 15th annual conference of the African Studies Association of Australia and the Pacific in 1992 concluded: “…a substantial number of individuals, … notwithstanding a wide variation in style, personality and psychology, had the unusual qualities required to become a head of state or government and … on leaving office, faced the questions of what to do with what remained of a life which had to that point been characterized by power, purpose, and not to put too fine a point on it, position and privilege.”

The recent shift in trends in presidential transitions on the continent is highlighted by the increasing number of those who more or less voluntarily hand over presidential powers while still being in rather good physical shape and mental health. A recently compiled overview for the book volume on ‘Presidential Transitions and the Role of Ex-Presidents’ (to be published by the Human Sciences Research Council in South Africa before the end of 2005), registered a total of 204 African presidents in office between 1960 and 2004. More than half of them were overthrown, which confirms the earlier assumptions. Only 25 cases (or 12%) were classified as voluntary retirements. But significantly so, 17 (or three quarters) of these took place since 1990 alone, and since 2000 there were eight such cases, amounting in the last five years to one third of all voluntary departures from office in the 45-year period recorded.

In the light of such an emerging new trend, the question posed by Polhemus in his 1992 paper remains more valid than ever. He asked whether an increasing number of “African heads of state will follow the eminent person path upon their retirement from political office, rising above narrow national politics.” As he suggested: “For some it would seem to be an attractive way of putting their talents to good use and minimizing the pangs of withdrawal from a life of prominence and importance.”

The birth of an African Statesmen Initiative, launched in Mali’s capital Bamako in the presence of 15 former heads of state in June 2005, is an almost logical result of the needs to (re-)define the role of ex-presidents. With the support of several international institutions the elder statesmen (indeed still all men) agreed on a remarkable document with far reaching statements in terms of their political ideals. The ‘Bamako Declaration of the African Statesmen Initiative’ adopted on 8 June stated among others:

“We believe that democracy is the sole form of government that permits the development of the range of national institutions needed to ensure sustainable peace, security, economic growth and social well-being. We applaud the spread of democratic values and respect for the rights of citizens in a growing number of African countries. We commit ourselves to continuing to use our good offices to foster dialogue and the peaceful resolution of the continent's conflicts, and to promote human security and democratic models of government that offer citizens the opportunity to choose their leaders freely and participate fully in the political life of their countries.”

The document went further to say:

- “We welcome the future participation of outgoing heads of state and government in efforts to promote democratic principles, good governance, and human security and development through individual and collective action.”

- “We affirm that changes of power and political succession should always be based on constitutional rule and democratic principles.”

- “We affirm the special responsibility of former heads of state and government to support the development of strong, well functioning legislative and judicial bodies, as well as other public institutions to ensure public accountability.”

These are clearly new tones, though one is curious to see how big or small the discrepancy between rhetoric and reality this time turns out to be. The Organisation of African Unity (OAU) was often referred to as little more than a self-serving club for African presidents. Its existence was premised upon the mutual convenience of ‘non-interference in the affairs of sovereign states’, a doctrine that provided cover for authoritarian and despotic regimes throughout the continent.

In contrast, the launch of the African Union (AU) in 2002/2003 resulted in the subsequent institutionalisation of a visible (though not yet always consequently applied) political will to exercise more collective responsibility over the policy of member states, whose systems and their (lack of) delivery fail to respect the minimum standards as defined in the new AU Constitution. This includes sanctions against those who claim to represent their countries without a minimum of legitimacy. It is an indication that the present generation of African leaders – one which is more subject to pressures for democracy at home and for ‘good governance’ internationally – will be more prepared to police regimes which offend against international norms, rights and laws.

This also offers, as the African Statesmen Initiative signals, a more constructive role for retired presidents to make a continued positive contribution on the continent, including an active participation in conflict mediation and other forms of political negotiations and diplomatic brokerage. They might also pursue a variety of advocacy roles on other burning issues, such as further awareness creation concerning HIV/AIDS or lobby work to mobilize for meeting other challenges on the continent to achieve a more decent living and secure a better future for its people.

But notwithstanding the odd light at the end of the tunnel, progress is uneven. While recent interventions concerning political leadership issues in Togo and the Ivory Coast show the political will to collectively pursue the notion of ‘good governance’ in certain cases, the continued passivity with regard to Zimbabwe and the rampaging dictator Mugabe remains a scandal.

In Botswana, Ken Good, a Professor of Political Studies at the local university for 15 years, presented in March 2005 to a departmental seminar a critical analysis of the presidential succession in the country (drafted as a chapter to the book currently in print). He was served with an arbitrary notice from the authorities declaring him a prohibited immigrant on the grounds of being considered a risk to national security. Upon intervention and appeal, the Constitutional Court ruled that the President has the power vested in his office to do so without offering any further reasons. After this verdict, the 72-year old was handcuffed in court, prevented from talking to his lawyer and deported the very same day. He was denied the chance to say good-bye to his teenage daughter.

Only two weeks later, on 13 June 2005, five African Presidents met their fellow Head of State George W. Bush in Washington, DC. The US President welcomed the same Festus Mogae of Botswana, who had just abused his presidential authority to get rid of an unwanted academic, together with John Kufuor (Ghana), Armando Guebuza (Mozambique), Namibia’s President Hifikepunye Pohamba and Mamadou Tandja of Niger to the White House. According to the official announcement, this initiative was to “highlight the value that the United States places on supporting democracy across Africa. President Bush looks forward to recognize these countries’ successes at holding free and fair elections last year”.

The question still begs to be answered of whether this illustrates progress in democratic transition on the one side (of the invited guests), or a lack of democratic sensitivity on the side of the host. As so often, the answer might lie somewhere in between, if one considers the way elections were conducted not too long ago in the North American federal states of Florida and Ohio, which were to a large extent decisive in the ‘democratic’ process to a) bring the current president into office, and b) to keep him there. After all, political office bearers all over the world tend to be not as different or remote from each other as the geographical distance might suggest.

* Dr. Henning Melber is Research Director at The Nordic Africa Institute in Uppsala/Sweden. This essay is a revised part of an introduction to a book volume on Presidential Transitions and the Role of Ex-Presidents in Africa, co-edited with Roger Southall and to be published by the Human Sciences Research Council in South Africa.

* Please send comments to

The U.S. military is embarking on a long-term push into Africa to counter what it considers growing inroads by al Qaeda and other terrorist networks in poor, lawless and predominantly Muslim expanses of the continent, The Washington Post reports. The Pentagon plans to train thousands of African troops in battalions equipped for extended desert and border operations and to link the militaries of different countries with secure satellite communications. The initiative, with proposed funding of $500 million over seven years, covers Algeria, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal, Nigeria, Morocco and Tunisia - with the U.S. military eager to add Libya if relations improve.

South Africa is to take steps to bring home some of the thousands of its health professionals currently working in western countries, officials say. Some 25,000 South African health professionals are estimated to be working abroad, harming the local health system.

Until now, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCR) had been assisting the repatriation of only camp-based Angolan refugees in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), helping more than 42,000 to return to Angola since 2003. But the 250 who inaugurated a new phase of the programme were part of a group of almost 2,000 non-camp based refugees settled in Kasangulu, south of the capital, Kinshasa.

Although greater efforts have been made to curb malaria and HIV/AIDS in Malawi, not enough is being done to tackle the country's alarming maternal death rate, says a coalition of local NGOs. Maternal mortality stood at 1,800 per 100,000 live births in 2003 - the second worst rate in the world after Sierra Leone, according to the United Nations. In an analysis of the 2005/06 health budget the Economic Justice Network (EJN), a coalition of around 70 civil rights bodies, recommended that the authorities implement a "deliberate policy" to address the problem.

Amnesty International is concerned about the on-going intimidation of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights activists in Uganda. The latest incident follows steps taken by Ugandan law-makers in July 2005, who voted for a constitutional amendment to criminalize marriage between persons of the same sex. Activist Victor Juliet Mukasa, Chairperson of Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG), fears for her safety after her house was raided on the night of 20 July 2005. Local government officials in a suburb of the capital city, Kampala, entered her house in her absence and seized documents and other material, apparently looking for “incriminating evidence” relating to the activities of SMUG.

A human rights campaigner and Christian Aid partner who pleaded with Tony Blair for justice in Congo has been murdered in his home. Pascal Kabungulu Kibembi was executive secretary of Heritiers de la Justice, a Christian Aid partner founded in 1991 to challenge the brutal excesses of the then Congolese President Mobutu’s dictatorship. Mr Kibembi, whose uncompromising campaigning put him in the line of fire, was shot in the early hours of Sunday morning by three men who broke into his home in Bukavu in eastern DRC.

Evictions in Johannesburg have sparked protests from civil rights groups, who accuse South Africa of copying Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's controversial urban clearance programme, in which hundreds of thousands of homes have been demolished by government officials. Johannesburg is accused of relying on apartheid-era laws to evict people to make room for inner-city regeneration plans ahead of the 2010 Soccer World Cup.

Three female lawyers working on women's issues in Sudan have been brought in for questioning by the National Security service over the past two days. The lawyers had participated in a local Human Rights Workshop, composed of local lawyers and NGO groups, in Dar al-Katah, Port Sudan, Eastern Sudan. The workshop concluded by issuing recommendations that the Sudanese Government sign an agreement prohibiting female genital mutilation and discrimination against women. According to participants, Nijalla Mohamed Ali, Sana Hassan Babiker, and Halima Hussein Mohamed were particularly active advocates of this issue, likely making them targets.

Thank you for the newsletter. I have a suggestion that could help some of us read your newsletter more conveniently. Could you make it available in a format to read on Palm Pilots? This is done by converting the whole newsletter into a "pdb" format using these tools: (about $30) Since your newsletter does not use graphics or fancy formatting, the conversion should be quite easy for you and could help many people read the newsletter while commuting, etc. You could email the pdb directly to people who prefer that format.

Pambazuka News asks: Would you make use of a palm pilot version of Pambazuka News? Let us know by emailing [email protected]

In response to changing continuing education needs of agricultural institutions and their personnel in Eastern Africa, the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and Alemaya University (Ethiopia) are setting up a Center for Agricultural Research Management and Policy Learning for Eastern Africa (CARMPoLEA). This regional center will serve as a home of a capacity building initiative to improve the management, organization and leadership of agricultural research and policy making and ultimately support the Agricultural Innovation System (AIS). To launch the center, we are organizing a series of workshops which are aimed at responding to regional knowledge and skill needs in the areas of agricultural research management and policy.

This volume provides an overview of socio-economic rights in the South African Constitution, as seen in the international context. An introduction to socio-economic rights is given, and the following rights are covered in separate chapters: the right to education; the right to housing; rights concerning health; the right to food; the right to water; the right to social security and assistance; and environmental rights.

Joining a Human Rights Watch list will give you the opportunity to receive the latest press releases and learn about new reports, photo galleries and other human rights news on-line. Subscription to these read-only mailing lists is free for anyone with electronic mail.

A few years ago a respected journalist for the mainstream press told a colleague of mine who was investigating the Sri Lankan conflict to disregard the evangelical press. Actually, what this respected journalist - known for left/right balance - said was, in effect, "What evangelical press?" The last two days of reporting on the untimely death of Sudanese rebel leader John Garang illustrate the folly of such neglect. Overlooked in nearly all the mainstream press' coverage is Garang's association with the most theocratically-inclined elements of the American Christian conservative movement.

Since the mid-1990s, millions of Congolese have fled their homes to escape fighting between rebel groups and the national government in a complex conflict which has, at times, involved as many as nine neighbouring states. Displacement peaked in 2003, with an estimated 3.4 million people forced from their homes, most of them in eastern DRC. The UN estimated that over 2.3 million people remained displaced as of mid-2005.

Mozambique has finally put together a draft Freedom of Information Bill, which media experts hope will pave the way towards greater transparency and government accountability. After five years of broad consultations, an agreement on the content of the proposed law was finally reached at a recently held media seminar in the capital, Maputo.

Violence is spreading across Sudan's capital, Khartoum, as riots which began after ex-rebel leader John Garang died have turned into retaliatory attacks. Tear gas has been used and a military helicopter is flying low over the city centre, where gangs of men with clubs and automatic weapons are roaming. There are traffic jams as residents try to flee. In three days of violence the death toll has risen to 84.

As the first shipments of emergency aid reached feeding centres in Niger, accusations are mounting that economic policies imposed on the country from outside contributed to the food shortages affecting up to three million people. Some aid specialists blamed the International Monetary Fund and the European Union. Their economic programmes have contributed to sharp rises in the prices of staples such as sorghum and millet. Others said the Niamey government had downplayed the emergency to protect local food traders who are resistant to free aid because it undermines markets.

What seemed like a student exchange programme over three days was really the result of coordinated efforts to make sure that Togolese children who recently fled into Benin can continue their education even in exile. The prompt action taken by the Beninese government, various aid agencies and refugee teachers is a textbook example of ensuring access to education in refugee emergencies.

Two weeks after Ivorian authorities suspended Radio France Internationale's local FM broadcasts over its handling of local news, Reporters Without Borders condemned an "unacceptable deterioration" in the safety of journalists in Abidjan as a result of a "reign of terror" imposed by a pro-government militia known as the Young Patriots. The press freedom organisation urged the government to adopt a series of "energetic measures" so that journalists can work without fearing punitive raids by this militia in the run-up to presidential elections scheduled for October.

A new journalists’ group founded in Egypt is calling for the freedom of newspapers from government control. Journalists for Change began June 7 at a Cairo meeting attended by more than 40 journalists from national, private and party newspapers. The group called on their colleagues to unite and join a movement toward reviving a spirit of journalism appropriate for a free, independent and democratic Egypt.

The extent to which dams affect the world's large river systems is the focus of a major new study by a research team from the Landscape Ecology Group at Umeå University, Sweden. The rivers studied drain 54% of the world's land area and carry 60% of the planet's river-water. The researchers found that of 292 large river systems, 172 are affected by dams. An article in the latest edition of World Rivers Review, published by the International Rivers Network, interviewed the researchers involved.

We continue to ignore the stark lesson that externally imposed development models have not gotten us very far. It's what Africans do themselves that will determine how far and how fast we move forward. The only way forward is for Africa to drive its own bus and for the driver and passengers to be in full agreement about where they're going. That said, we do need help filling up the tank. The fundamental problem in Africa is not lack of resources, but the failure of political leadership.

Angola stepped up its fight against polio on Sunday, with mothers out in force to take advantage of a nationwide immunization drive after the first appearance of the disease in the African country in four years. The three-day, $3.74 million campaign, which ends on Sunday, was run by the Health Ministry, the United Nations Childrens Fund UNICEF and the World Health Organization (WHO) and is aimed at stopping polio before it spreads.

Burundi must honor the right of asylum seekers to a fair hearing of their claims for protection, Human Rights Watch said. An estimated 2,000 to 2,500 Rwandans have fled to Burundi in recent weeks, many of them arriving for the second time after previously being coerced by Burundian authorities to return home.

Children are often forced to work due to chronic poverty. Globally, work is the main occupation of almost 20 percent of all children aged under 15. This is considered a major obstacle to achieving the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of universal primary education by 2015. Research from the University of Oxford in the UK suggests that child labour is often essential to household survival. Children who do household work release adults from domestic responsibilities to earn a wage; those employed outside the home contribute to family income.

Mbita Point, on the eastern shores of Lake Victoria, hosts a small rural community. A few minutes walk from the main town lies the local primary school, housed on the campus of a renowned research institute. In Class Five, fifty-four 11-year-old students are willing guinea pigs in an extraordinary experiment aimed at using technology to deliver education across the continent.

South African opposition parties are calling for an investigation into an oil deal that has allegedly benefited the ruling ANC party. The main opposition Democratic Alliance says it has asked the National Prosecuting Authority to investigate. Another party has filed fraud charges. The ANC and the companies involved have denied wrongdoing, but have not denied the payment was made.

In Nigeria, even children understand corruption's menace. Increasingly, so do the donors that have poured more than $400 billion into African nations since 1980 and watched too much of it vanish into a sinkhole of fraud, malfeasance and waste. After years in which disappointed donors turned away from Africa - foreign aid to the continent reached a 17-year low in 1999 - the billions are beginning to flow again. In May, the world's richest nations agreed to write off $40 billion in loans owed by the world's 18 poorest nations. All but four are in Africa.

With a Human Development Index ranking of 163 Zambia is one of the least developed countries in the world (UNDP 2004). Without question, reducing the number of Zambians living in absolute poverty is a valid goal to be pursued at a national and international level. Based on current trends, however, this and most of the other 7 MDGs are unlikely to be met in Zambia by 2015. From this one might infer that the MDGs are not making a great deal of difference at the local level in improving the lives of the most impoverished. This paper sets out to examine the main reasons why this is so, taking international as well as national economic, social and political factors into consideration.

Ongoing conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has underscored the difficulties of bringing lasting peace to this vast Central African country. Nearly 3.5 million people have died, mostly from malnutrition and preventable diseases such as diarrhea and malaria, since civil war first began in the DRC in 1996. While an accord to end conflict was signed in South Africa at the end of 2002, lives are still being claimed.

The European Union has once again demonstrated that the interests of European big business are its top priority, claimed development campaigners the World Development Movement (WDM) in Geneva. Commenting at the end of the World Trade Organisation's General Council meeting WDM said that despite the 'development round' rhetoric the interests of the poor are being opposed, sidelined and ignored. Several delegations, and the Africa Group as a whole, have expressed their anger at being excluded from negotiations during this General Council.

Drawn from the World Bank Africa Database, this publication provides the most detailed collection of development data on Africa in one volume. It presents data from 53 African countries and 5 regional country groups, arranged in separate tables or matrices for more than 500 indicators of development.

"Because of the depth and scope of its influence, the issue of the G8's accountability is crucial. Currently, it exercises its influence in a vacuum of adequate checks and balances. The activities and even existence of many of the G8's bodies are not known to elected national representatives. Its activities take place largely hidden from public view. The G8 is the most vivid example of unaccountable power at the international level."

I look forward to receiving your newsletter, it is highly informative and one of the best sources for news from Africa that isn't filtered through the mainstream press.

You are providing a great service to social service organizations in the continent that have been in need of just such an international forum. By providing information from the continent, as well as presenting informed commentary, readers across the entire world can learn first hand how citizens from the many nations of Africa are facing the myriad of problems confronting the continent.

I am not IT adept so please excuse my ignorance. Rather than split Pambazuka News into two separate emails, it would be easier if you had HTML headers in a table of contents at the beginning of the newsletter. That way, when a reader sees a topic of interest to him, he simply clicks on the link and he is automatically taken to the relevant topic thereby skipping all the other stuff he does not want to read. Like I said, I am not an IT adept so I don't really know the technical jargon to describe what I have in mind. Please bear with me.

The petition is an important stepping-stone towards the improvement, protection and respect of women's rights that have long been neglected. Other third world countries should learn from this step and take such measures too.

This is the third title in the Codesria Gender Series, which aims to invigorate the African social sciences with debates that challenge conventional wisdom, received ideologies and gender stereotypes, and to showcase the best in African gender research. Bringing together seasoned gender specialists who draw empirical evidence from Ghana, Mozambique, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda, this study examines various experiences of setting up gender and women's studies programmes. It further considers feminist and gender activism, gender identities, social protest, gender and culture in indigenous films, continuities and discontinuities in conceptions of gender, same-sex relationships, customary law and gendered discourse patterns.