On the occasion of Africa Day, Tajudeen Abdul Raheem argues that Kwame Nkrumah’s famous dictum that “the independence of Ghana is meaningless without the total liberation of Africa” is still true today. “While then it was regarded as the utopian wish of a romantic Pan-Africanist, in the face of today’s dual threat of re-colonisation and rapacious globalisation, those words should be made the opening sentence of the national anthem of every country in Africa.”

I wonder how many readers knew that yesterday, May 25, was Africa Liberation Day. Do not be ashamed if you did not notice it. I am not sure if many noticed the day either in many African countries and among different African Diaspora communities.

In years gone by the Day used to be marked officially by several governments and unofficially celebrated by many groups in Africa and the Diaspora. Now there are only scattered activities by people who have not given up on the belief that ‘A different Africa is possible’.

It is a day of solidarity with the various struggles of African peoples for justice, equality, human dignity, freedom, unity and liberation. It was founded in 1958 (April 15) and called Africa Freedom Day, as a result of the first All African People’s conferences called by the indomitable Osagyefo, Kwame Nkrumah.

Nkrumah is the foremost Pan-Africanist of all times, a fact remembered and honoured by Africans world wide who voted him ‘Greatest African of the Millennium’ in a BBC poll in 2000, despite orchestrated campaigns by supporters of other living or dead claimants.

The two conferences of 1958 were called by Nkrumah as Prime Minister of newly independent Ghana, to show solidarity and plan strategies for the total liberation of Africa from colonialism. Those conferences brought together the few independent countries of Africa and the representatives of nationalists groups and liberation movements from across Africa and a few observers from the Diaspora. Frantz Fanon was there with the Algerian Liberation Movement against French Colonialism, FLN, and it was in the second of those two conferences that the charismatic Patrice Lumumba was introduced to the world three years after he led Congo to freedom. He was later assassinated in a grand conspiracy between erstwhile colonial interests and local reactionaries, aided and abetted by complacent UN and global powers namely US, France and Belgium. Does the story not sound too familiar more than four decades later? How times have changed but somehow, remarkably, remained the same when it comes to the exploitation of Africa’s resources and oppression of Africans.

When the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) was formed in Addis, May 25 1963, Africa Freedom Day became Africa Liberation Day (ALD) as a symbol of the resolve, commitment and support of all Africa for the total decolonisation of the continent.

As ‘the winds of change’ blew away colonial rule from most of Africa it dug in in the former Portuguese colonies of Guinea-Bissau, Angola, Mozambique and through settler colonialism in apartheid South Africa, occupied Namibia and Ian Smith’s Rhodesia (Zimbabwe since 1980). Consequently ALD became synonymous with solidarity with these struggles and the near total support and solidarity that they enjoyed among all Africans at home and in the Diaspora and lovers of freedom globally.

Unfortunately while Africa was united against apartheid and colonialism the same could not be said for the struggles against the neo-colonialism that turned independence into a new form of dependence and oppression of African peoples. The same leaders that were giving support for the liberation of South Africa were busy stifling the aspirations of their own peoples for real independence and an end to neo-colonial power relations. While Africa was united against colonialism it was divided in the face of neo-colonialism and internal oppression by fellow Africans.

Instead of independence from colonialism developing into meaningful cooperation to advance concrete Pan Africanism and an all African union and government, the agenda shifted to the elite maintaining power in the various artificial states bequeathed by colonialism. Increasingly it became power for the sake of it in one state after the other. Consequently Africa became more vulnerable for the cold warriors, unequal international power relations, debt crisis, etc.

As Africa became a byword for the poorest cousins of the rest of the world there is no surprise that the enthusiasm for Africa Day disappeared in many countries. There was also triumphalism after the successful defeat of apartheid in South Africa in 1994. All Africans and friends of Africa were genuinely euphoric that South Africa became free in our life times. Somehow it was wrongly felt that Africa had finished its liberation wars. The OAU even officially closed its Africa Liberation Committee based in Dar es Salaam! But even in South Africa itself the end of apartheid, as important as it was, became the beginning of a new struggle for the majority of the people to fully reclaim their dignity and control their society. The agenda of liberation cannot be finished, it will only change from one generation to the other.

Nkrumah’s famous dictum that ‘the independence of Ghana is meaningless without the total liberation of Africa’ is still true today and even more relevant. While then it was regarded as the utopian wish of a romantic Pan Africanist, in the face of today’s dual threat of re-colonisation and rapacious globalisation, those words should be made the opening sentence of the national anthem of every country in Africa.

In the past few years Africa has been returning to the drawing board of Pan-Africanism. The new African Union with all its contradictions and the various struggles within and outside it represent an advance from the past while we seek further clarity and decisive action towards the future. It offers a wider scope for all Africans to be part of the solution instead of just complaining about the many problems.

Instead of constantly enumerating what this leader or that leader is doing wrong why don’t you ask yourself what, no matter how small, you are doing as an individual, a member of an organisation, part of a community, your profession and in whatever station you are, to advance the cause of Africa and the dignity of the African. We all can do something or do nothing.

As we say in the Pan African Movement: ‘don’t agonise! Organise!’. Just a thought: if people are no longer connecting to the historical inspirations for Africa Day why don’t we agitate for a proclamation of an African Union Day (July 09) as a symbol of our commitment to make Pan Africanism relevant for our times and the younger generation?

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

* Please send comments to [email protected]

Zimbabwe like most of the countries in the developing world is likely not to meet the targets of the Millennium Development Goals as indeed the past few years have seen the rapid decline in the Human Development Index on many counters. For a generation widely regarded as the only generation with the potential to make poverty history, this remains unacceptable. The bottom line is that we need to see more action being taken on the primary drivers of Global poverty Debt, Aid and Trade. As such Zimbabwe joins the millions of people around the world participating in the Global Call To Action Against Poverty [GCAP] to call for increased and concerted action to eradicate extreme poverty and to surpass the targets of the Millennium Development Goals.

As the Africa leg of the Global Call to Action Against Poverty (GCAP) campaign gears up, Hellen Tombo explains that the symbolic white bands that will be worn by campaigners are not indicative of surrender. Rather they are a demand to world leaders to cancel crippling debt burdens and end the unjust trade rules that are killing African children and youth.

“I am a symbol of many of the children and youth of Africa wearing white, crying out to be heard.”

The wearing of white bands is not significant of surrender. Instead, it represents the innocence of the children and youth who make up half of the population of the continent. Our white wristband defines our stance in solidarity with the Global Call to Action against Poverty.

Twenty years ago, a cry was heard. Soweto wailed for her slain children as they were mowed down by proponents of the apartheid regime as they peacefully marched along the road to demand their rights. Today the world mourns for the 30 000 plus children and youth that are killed everyday through denial of basic human rights.

Children and youth are at the core of GCAP. African countries are called upon to put in place statutory, developmental and governance interventions to address the plight of the children and the youth. As world leaders prepare to meet at the Gleneagles G8 summit in July, the voices of children and youth call for an increase in aid and debt cancellation. Answering this call is key to opening up space for children and youth to enjoy their basic human rights. The aim of wearing the whiteband and joining the GCAP community in this struggle is to create widespread mobilisation of youth and children to demand action and accountability from leaders in their commitments to eliminate poverty.

Poverty is a violation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which is further compounded by trade injustices that keep people poor. The Convention on the Rights of the Child, like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other national and international statutes, protects the rights of all people to an adequate standard of living and well-being. These include education, food, clothing, housing, and medical care: rights whose achievement is undermined by inadequate commitment and policies that do not favor the implementation of globally-agreed upon declarations and statutes.

Today, millions of children and youth are trapped in abject poverty and lack access to basic education. Every day more than 800 million people, a high percentage being children and youth, go to bed with empty stomachs. HIV/AIDS kills more than 2 million people every year and adds to the league of orphans. Hunger is a daily norm rather than an exception: every year six million children die of malnutrition before their fifth birthday.

Who can tell the torments of the grave better than the dead? Who can fathom the discomfort that a poor girl has to live with month after month, year in year out due to a lack of sanitary pads. Unjust trade policies have destroyed the social infrastructure so much that more than school fees, it is the shame of using leaves or pieces of mattresses as sanitary towels that is locking the girl child out of the school system.

If you are a leader who has put food in the dustbin while 8 000 children and youth die of hunger in the last 24 hours, be the first to cast a stone. Cast it if you have not uttered the word ‘my right’ while six year olds are being married off, thousands consoling themselves with drugs due to unemployment. If these leaders cannot cast a stone, let them put on a white band and highlight the issues afflicting the children and the youth, such as:

- Children and young people whose school uniform doubles as their Sunday best because they cannot afford another set of clothes.
- Serial rapists who traumatise girls and young women.
- Children and young people who are exposed to the danger of rape by the long distances they have to cover in search of water or fire wood or forced to commercial sex by the need to feed siblings.
- Children and youth who are left out of government strategies and national plans.
- Children and youth who have to drop out of school to take care of their siblings when their parents die of HIV/Aids.
- Girls and young women who are married off as property.
- Children and youth who have to balance heavy home duties and school work on an empty stomach.
- Youth who have to console themselves with alcohol, ganging up and committing crime to get money to buy food and clothes, getting into drugs and roaming the streets due to lack of employment.

Children and the youth can be empowered to take charge of their lives. While some people may dislike and work against the conditions that would force them into accepting these challenges we want to ensure that children and the youth are mentored and provided for so that we are ready for any obstacle. Do this not for the children but with them.

Efforts to tackle poverty and deliver sustainable development, as pledged in the Millennium Declaration, have been grossly inadequate. Governments too often fail to address the needs of children and youth. Aid from rich countries is inadequate in both quality and quantity. Rich countries have yet to act on their repeated pledges to tackle unfair trade rules and practices: promises of debt cancellation have not been realized.

Debt servicing currently costs the world’s developing nations $39 billion annually. This, often times illegitimate debt, accounts for the lack of funding for the most basic healthcare, education, access to clean water, food, shelter etc. Behind the cold statistics of failed promises and empty rhetoric are lives of real children and youth: millions of children and youth abandoned; without basic health care, sleeping on the pavements in our cities. These children and young people must be cared for, taken in and treated as children.

Poverty is a very unnatural and abnormal state. It is man made and can be eradicated and overcome by the actions of human beings. Overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity; it is the protection of a fundamental human right to dignity and a decent life. We do not wear white to surrender to poverty. We display our wristbands to mark our solidarity in the calling of others to action against poverty. It is a reminder to the G8 leaders and world leaders in the UN summit and WTO that with greatness comes responsibility: 2005 is the time to demand they take responsibility.

Naturally trade can create prosperity for Africa as it has in other regions. However, our actions have designed the same trade to deny many children the right to live to see their fifth birthday. We must address the widening gap between the rich and the poor if we aim to safeguard the security of our children and youth for today and tomorrow. Trade must be facilitated in such a way that it builds a future asset base for all children and youth irrespective of their culture, race, sex or creed. All children and youth worldwide must be born free: free from debt and free from any form of deprivation. Somebody must answer the cries of the children and youth.

I am crying as one of the millions of African children and youth. Debt is killing us, trade injustices are killings us, poverty is killing us, empty promises are killing us…

My call to our African and world leaders is:

We need strategies, interventions and real programs to serve us today and for the future of Africa and the world…

African leaders, you have had your priorities wrong. It is not too late to change. Let the children and youth be your priority and you will save the world…

World leaders, cancel the debt – it is killing us. We demand trade justice and better and more aid. We demand that world leaders keep their promises in achieving the MDGs.

* Hellen Tombo is executive director of the Kenya Youth Education and Community Development Programme (KYCEP).

* Please send comments to [email protected]

The day of the African child was identified by the African Union in remembrance of the massacre of innocent children in South Africa in 1976 by the Apartheid regime. Each year a theme is chosen to mark the day and this year’s theme is: African Orphans are collective responsibility. Between 50% and 60 % of 850 million African are children and youth, and n the day of the African Child many civil society organisations member or not of Gcap will hold activities ranging from direct services to children to advocacy work and media events to put under the spot light issues affecting African children. We would like to take on the opportunity to link up theses activities with the Global Call to Action Against Poverty and to support the national campaigns on the Millennium Development Goals. We have worked as a team “Day of the African child group” on a menu of activities to propose to the national coalitions to enrich or to modify what they have already planned.

A new study on climate change has warned of escalating drought in southern Africa, directly linked to the warming of the Indian Ocean. According to the US-based National Centre for Atmospheric Research, since 1950 the Indian Ocean has warmed more than one degree Celsius; "well beyond the range expected from natural processes", but consistent with projected increases in greenhouse gas emissions.

The African Women Millennium Initiative on Poverty and Human Rights (AWOMI), recently launched in Nairobi, Kenya. In this article, Yassine Fall, an economist and President of AWOMI, reflects on its significance in the context of the 42nd Africa Day and the Global Call to Action Against Poverty.

Today we commemorate the 42nd anniversary of Africa Day. The Africa Global Call to Action Against Poverty (GCAP) is using this day to organise a number of events to launch the anti-poverty campaign and disseminate its messages.

The year 2005 is indeed a year of key international events in the battle against growing poverty, inequalities and exclusion, the increased burden of work and a lack of rights for millions of impoverished women. It is now 10 years since the Beijing Conference and its Platform for Action to which almost all governments in the world signed up, but did very little to implement. Africa Day is being celebrated in a context where many of its children, in particular its girls, have either never been to, or have dropped out of, school. This is the year when the Education for All target was supposed to be met but it still remains a distant dream for many countries and communities of girls.

This September's UN General Assembly will also commemorate the 5th anniversary of the UN Millennium Summit and Declaration. The assembly will review whether the world is on track to meet the Millennium Development Goals and discuss again what actions must be taken.

The Millennium Project (MP) Report was launched in January this year. Among many strategies and interventions, it proposed debt cancellation and increased development assistance for poor countries; funding initiatives on violence against women; improving the availability of reproductive health services; providing substantial support to small-holder farmers; the abolition of user fees for poor people; and increased public sector social spending in poor countries.

These recommendations certainly mean a lot to Africans living in poverty, who would like to use this day and the GCAP process to send a message to those who make decisions that affect their lives. The MP recommendations represent a substantial step forward to reassessing debt sustainability combined with debt service payment, cost recovery, increased development assistance, user fees and the budget ceilings which have been set by the Poverty Reduction Strategy Programmes (PRSP). The PRSP, developed under the framework of the Highly Indebted Poor Countries Debt Relief Initiative (HIPC) spearheaded by the IMF and World Bank (WB), is implemented in most developing countries, and in particular in Africa, as the centrepiece of development assistance.

The content and process of the PRSP are laid down by the Breton Woods institutions, which then claim that all these reforms are owned by the governments and their people. But let's ask some questions. Who develops the conditions governments must meet before they can access HIPC funds? Who sets up the framework for maintaining macroeconomic stability along with its cohort of policy instruments? Without exception, these include "low-inflation-rate fundamentalism", market and trade liberalisation, the privatisation of water, and limiting social expenditure, such as on health and education. Who actually has a say in reviewing the content of PRSPs? Who determines the success or otherwise of the market-oriented reforms implemented by governments, without which there is no inflow of development assistance from bilateral donors? The answer is the IMF and the WB. Africans living in poverty would indeed like to use the Africa Day celebrations to speak sincerely with these institutions.

In parallel with the MP report, global civil society launched its own GCAP campaign at the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil in January 2005. The campaign calls for 100 per cent debt cancellation, trade justice, democratic governance and increased development assistance as promised by rich nations.

The question is how we use the symbolism of Africa Day to ensure that this campaign delivers tangible results. Will this campaign be another big initiative from a few well connected civil society organisation leaders or will it change the course of history? Does this campaign have the ability to develop a large and participatory movement that will put so much pressure on world leaders that they have no alternative but to seriously address the issue of poverty and give priority to the interests of the most impoverished women and men? Will this campaign be willing for once to do business differently and change the practice of power hijacking, so much decried around Africa? Will it put men to one side and provide space to the voiceless women and youths who are more articulate than many of those who claim to speak for them? Will GCAP be willing to democratise the selection of national representatives, because some of the NGO selected to represent GCAP nationally do not have the mandate to speak for the others at home? Will this campaign engage in genuine policy dialogue about home-grown African issues instead of borrowing soft topics from GCAP's Northern partners -- which leaves the campaign unable to criticise the rich countries which provide it with its means of survival? Is GCAP willing to put the feminisation of poverty and human rights at the centre of its campaign?

The African Women Millennium Initiative on Poverty and Human Rights (AWOMI), recently launched in Nairobi, Kenya, with over 300 women from all socio-economic and cultural backgrounds, would like to ensure that these questions get positive answers. Rural women, women from informal settlements, young women, women activists, NEPAD representatives, women in government and parliamentarians all participated in the AWOMI launch. They engaged in intense dialogue with leading members of government and international journalists. The Africa GCAP facilitators were invited but did not think it was important enough to attend. They missed one of the biggest and first meetings where women from all over the continent spoke about poverty, governance, international development, financial architecture and their human rights. They expressed their anger and disappointment at their leaders and recounted moving experiences of lives lived in poverty every day. This would have been a great opportunity for GCAP to learn about indigenous African women, which they were unable to do during their first meeting in April in Kenya.

In addition to adopting transparent processes and including the voiceless, Africa GCAP must use this day of celebration and the days ahead to tackle national governance policy issues more courageously. Furthermore, civil society's demands for trade justice must be GCAP's first demands because trade injustice is the most suffocating challenge for poor countries. They are asked to make all the sacrifices over tariff removals, privatisations -- including of essential services -- and the opening up of their markets while rich countries tighten their protectionist measures.

GCAP needs to have a clear position over international and trade institutions and corrupt governments. The PRSP, which is a recycled name for structural adjustment programmes (SAPs), has, like SAPs, failed to deliver its promises of poverty reduction and debt relief and this must be said clearly on Africa Day. Countries and poor people, in particular women and children, have paid tremendous costs and made huge sacrifices to implement enhanced structural adjustment facilities and growth and poverty reduction policies. However, the only visible growth has been in the figures that declare it. Poor farmers are asked under this framework to choose between health, education for their children and agricultural extension support. This is the evidence that impoverished women would like to see highlighted today.

Hungry women would like to ask how can they access reproductive health services when they have to pay user fees. How can HIV positive women be asked to support cost recovery when they suffer from malaria? In the village of Guerew in Senegal pregnant women are asked to buy a mosquito net for two dollars as a condition for receiving prenatal care. If they refuse they risk joining the long list of women who die when giving birth. Women in the slums of Korogocho and Kibera in Nairobi, and Ganaw Rail and Mbeubeuss in Senegal with whom I work say they have had enough of the PRSP football game between the so called donors, the IFIs and their governments that is mortgaging their lives. Rural women are demanding a stop to the comodification of agriculture and the privatisation of farm lands.

The message on debt cancellation is critical but it is seen as insufficient by the women's organisations and leaders who met under AWOMI. They would like the messages of this Africa Day to demand, on their behalf, debt repudiation and reinvestment of the financial resources in the priorities identified by poor women. They also suggested that any new indebtedness projects be discussed nationally and with poor people. They would decide together with the government whether to agree to the projects after examining the borrowing conditions, the relevance of debt and the investment objectives. Indebtedness would only be acceptable if it was justified by the pressing need to provide the essential services which are increasingly subsidised by women's labour. Africa GCAP would also need to be more courageous and address overseas development assistance from the point of view of reparations for slavery and colonisation, and the recent stealing of medical experts including doctors and nurses by rich countries from poor African countries who need them most.

All these questions were eloquently articulated by women community leaders and young people with evidence and clear justification. They must be echoed by GCAP, which is missing a lot by ignoring them. GCAP will succeed or fail according to how much room and decision making power and leadership it gives to those who pay the most for and suffer the most from poverty and ill conceived policies. They have very little to lose and therefore must lead the voices to be heard on Africa Day in the fight against poverty.

* Yassine Fall is an economist and is President of AWOMI = African Women Millennium Initiative on Poverty and Human Rights

* Editors' comment: Given that the loose alliance of more than 70 organisations in some 20 countries has only recently formed, and that this is the first time that such an extensive pan-African alliance has come together, some patience is needed to ensure that the alliance works in the most effective way possible. The criticisms expressed here by the author are not necessarily those shared by Pambazuka News. But in the spirit of encouraging constructive discussion on how this unprecedented alliance can develop effective oppostion to those external forces that have, for so many years, determind social and economic policies in the region, we invite comments and reactions from readers. Please send to [email protected]

Since the defeat of apartheid, South African capital has begun a brutal march northwards that is reminiscent of a “Second Great Boer Trek”. South African supermarket chains have sprung up across Africa, as have cell phone companies, mining groups and even South African style water front developments. The next big sector being eyed by Afrikaner farmers is land, writes Issa Shivji.

Nature did not create a group of people with capital on one side and another group with only muscle-power but no capital on the other side. Political economists tell us that this great division of the human race, what we call the system of capitalism, is the result of a long historical process. In this historical process, the original capital was acquired through a gruesome process of plunder, expropriation, looting, wars, invasions, slavery, indentured labour and colonialism and imperialism. Political economists call this process of acquiring original capital ‘primitive accumulation’.

Even after capitalism has established itself and capital more or less follows the laws of the market to accumulate more capital through profits, the processes of primitive accumulation continue side by side in different areas and under different circumstances. Under today’s system of international capitalism called globalisation the processes of primitive accumulation are most intense on the African continent. Let us palaver on one example which is close to this part of the world and which concerns us directly. This is the inflow of South African capital into neighbouring countries after the fall of apartheid.

Apartheid itself was the great human invention to enable primitive accumulation in South Africa. The 1913 Native Land Act declared that the whole of South African lands belonged to white South Africans with a small print provision which stipulated that 13 per cent of the land will be “scheduled areas” held in trust for the welfare and benefit of “natives”. Thus the whites came to own 87 per cent of land while the majority blacks were bundled into the remaining 13 per cent, the reserves.

On this system of segregation was built the whole edifice of South African capitalism in which the state – not the market – played the pivotal role. Migrant labour from the reserves and homelands in South Africa and from neighbouring countries, including Tanganyika, provided the muscle-power to exploit the land and minerals of the southern tip of the continent. Thus was built the modern South Africa in which the Whites created and lived the ‘heaven on earth’ leaving the Blacks to burn out in the man-made hell of apartheid.

The 1913 Land Act was the turning point in the First Primitive Accumulation of the South African capital. The turning point in the Second Primitive Accumulation is the fall of apartheid enabling South African capital to move out into the rest of the African continent. The process is still unfolding whose end result cannot be predicted but certain interesting trends are taking shape.

Africa is the third largest export market for South Africa. Africa’s share of the South African exports rose from 4 per cent in 1991 to 12 per cent in 2001. Much of this export goes to SADC countries. Today we see South African onions and potatoes and oranges and, of course, wines and beers and spirits and steaks and dried meats in “our” supermarkets and restaurants and hotels called Shoprites and Steers and Debonairs and Protea. Shoprite has branches in 15 African counties and is in the process of expanding in other countries.

Then there is the South African investment, both from parastatals as well as private. Over the five years (1997-2001) South African investments in Africa increased by 300 per cent. It stood at 77 billion Rand in 2001. Almost half of this was direct investment and 80 per cent was in SADC countries. South African capital went into strategic sectors: mining, banking, insurance and finance and telecommunications, airline and railways.

The beer industry, which is trumpeted as a success story in this country (Tanzania), is only a showcase. The jugular vein lies in the strategic sectors. The South African AngloGold, now merged with Ashanti Goldfileds, and Randgold control our gold. Vodacom is dominant in cell phones; ABSA, through NBC, and Stanbic dominate banking; Networks “manages” TANESCO; and South African Airways (SAA) have taken over the national airline ATC with a view to create an East African hub for SAA. SAA wanted to create a similar West African hub through taking over Nigeria’s national airline but the deal has apparently fallen through because Nigerians demanded 10 per cent equity in SAA which the South African government refused.

Escom Enterprises, a giant South African electrical corporation, has presence in 33 African countries. It has utility management contracts in Malawi, Mali, Uganda and Nigeria. It would not be surprising if eventually TANESCO falls in Escom’s laps.

Then there is a South African company called V&A Waterfront which has contracts in Mauritius, Gabon and Nigeria to construct waterfront complexes. A similar project is afoot in our ‘Heaven of Peace’ in which, sooner than later, heavens will line the ocean leaving behind “hell-holes” of slums in Kariakoo, Manzese and even the city centre and Upanga.

The next big sector awaiting South African “investment” and keenly eyed by Afrikaner farmers is land; as one South African official put it: “For the Boers, land is next to God and the Bible”. As South Africa attempts land redistribution to redress the wrongs of the apartheid period, it has to find a place for its white farmers. Mozambique has already given 50 year concessions of thousands of acres of land to South Africa’s Boers who are busy recreating apartheid-like settlements.

Mozambique, which is being hailed in the Western, especially the American, official circles as a success story, is almost a text-book case of South African investments. Almost half of South Africa’s corporate investment in Africa is in Mozambique. South Africa has become the single largest investor in Mozambique, Between 1997-2001 some 250 South African companies opened operations in Mozambique.

It is ironical that the land of Samora Machel which was in the forefront of the struggle against makaburu should be the first to fall in the “Second Great Boer Trek”, this time around to the North of the continent. The first Boer Trek was in the mid 19th century when Boer farmers ran away from the British into the interior opening up new lands, in the process decimating African communities. This is how the Boer republics of Free Orange State and Transvaal were created. Tanzanians may do well to study the Mozambiquen experience as they may be next in the path of the “Second Great Boer Trek”.

© Issa Shivji. Shivji is Professor of Law at the University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

* Please send comments to

Fahamu has been sent a great collection of books published in Australia by Spinifex Press, an award-winning independent press publishing innovative and controversial books across a wide variety of subject areas. Spinifex publishes fiction, poetry and non-fiction. The books include:

* Unity Dow: The Screaming of the Innocent
* Unity Dow: Juggling Truths
* Unity Dow: Far and Beyond
* Rose Zwi: Last walk in Naryshkin Park
* Rose Zwi: Safe Houses
* Rose Zwi: Speak the Truth, Laughing
* Nawal El Saadawi: Walking through Fire
* Nawal El Saadawi: The Daughter of Isis: the autobiographs of Nawal El Saadawi
* Jonathan Morgan & The Bambani Women's Group: Long Life: positive HIV stories
* Kim Manresa (photographer): The Day Kadi Lost Part of Her Life

If you would be interested in reviewing any of these books for Pambazuka News, please get in touch with us ([email protected])

In a Ugandan camp run by the United Nations refugee agency, southern Sudanese women and girls acknowledge that their access to free education has caused them to delay rushing back home, even though a peace accord went into effect in the region in January. Refugees outside the country often list education above peace and security as their main requirements for ending their exile and coming home, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees says.

The number of Rwandans returning home from the eastern forest of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has risen dramatically since a feared militia said it, too, would repatriate after disarming, the United Nations refugee agency said. In the last week, some 230 Rwandans volunteered to go home from the DRC with assistance from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in the wake of an announcement on 31 March from the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) that it would disarm and return home peacefully.

African Ministers of Health currently attending the World Health Assembly (WHA), have all joined South African health minister Dr Manto Tshabalala-Msimang in expressing their concerns about the continued migration and recruitment of health personnel from developing to developed countries. The resolution also calls upon the Director General of the World Health Organisation (WHO) to ensure that the previous decision of the WHA aimed at addressing this matter is fully implemented.

One year after some 900 people were massacred in clashes between Muslims and Christians in northern and central Nigeria, the Nigerian government has failed to prosecute those responsible for this cycle of violence, Human Rights Watch said in a new report. The 75-page report, "Revenge in the Name of Religion: The Cycle of Violence in Plateau and Kano States," provides the first detailed analysis of these incidents and the factors that continue to threaten the stability of central and northern Nigeria. It provides detailed documentation of two major outbreaks of violence in the town of Yelwa, Plateau State, in February and May 2004, and a reprisal attack in the northern city of Kano in May 2004.

This is a very good and educative magazine, full of issues that really ought to be sorted out to make the world a better place to live in for all classes of people.

In the 25 years since Walter Rodney’s assassination much has changed in the world. The face of the oppression that has deepened the misery of working people worldwide has changed from its dictatorial manifestation into its "democratic" form. Everywhere, poverty and misery are now products of a democracy that has been reduced to electoral competition among a self-regarding elite who thrive by exploiting every division among the working poor - be it racial, religious, tribal, ethnic or other cultural difference - in order to hold them in subjugation, the better to be exploited by the new global masters.

The members of the Walter Rodney 25th Anniversary Commemoration Committee - friends, colleagues, and other associates of Walter Rodney in Guyana and the wider Caribbean, Africa, North America, London and elsewhere in Europe, and Latin America, all of whom share his vision of the emancipation of the working people and other oppressed sections of society - are organizing events to commemorate his inspiring life, work and insights and to draw attention to the challenges faced today by working people throughout the world. The commemoration takes the form of a series of “groundings” in Guyana from June 6-13 2005 to mark the 25 years since Walter Rodney’s assassination.

More than one million Liberians have registered to vote in presidential elections in October which are designed to seal the West African nation's return to peace. But officials have said that the number of displaced people who had signed up for a ballot paper was disappointingly low. Some of those still living in the Wilson Corner Camp on the outskirts of Monrovia told IRIN that the 1997 elections, held during a brief lull in Liberia's long-running civil war, had left them with a nasty taste in their mouths.

A woman is killed every six hours in South Africa by her partner and less than 40 percent of the homicides lead to a conviction, according to a new study. The study is further evidence of the deep social scars that remain a decade after the end of apartheid, a regime that provoked a major upsurge in violence and alcoholism and stigmatized and disempowered black men, according to analysts.

Rape by soldiers has long been a crime under national military codes, but international law has only recently come to recognize its use as a tool of war. This responsive approach succeeded in bringing rape from a prohibition in national military codes, to the categorization of rape as a form of torture, and finally recognizing rape as an independent crime under international law. While this advancement in the law cannot be minimized, it is critical at this time, and in response to ongoing circumstances, to review the legal parameters of the crime of rape and re-evaluate its efficacy.

The National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI or the Institute) is a nonprofit organization working to strengthen and expand democracy worldwide. Calling on a global network of volunteer experts, NDI provides practical assistance to civic and political leaders advancing democratic values, practices and institutions. NDI works with democrats in every region of the world to build political and civic organizations, safeguard elections, and to promote citizen participation, openness and accountability in government.

Mango’s training programme is being held in Cape Town, South Africa for the first time in August 2005 and will offer two of their most popular financial management training events:
FM1: Practical Financial Management for NGOs: Getting the Basics Right:
Monday 8 August to Friday 12 June 2005, GBP550
FM2: Strategic Financial Management for NGOs: Managing for Financial Sustainability:
Monday 15 August to Wednesday 17 August 2005, GBP400

Rampant market economics in today's world has led to violations of human rights. Koen de Feyter questions how far the international human rights system - focussing as it does on legal conventions and enforcement by state machinery - really provides effective protection against the adverse effects of globalization.

Versions of Zimbabwe: new approaches to literature and culture is a first of its kind: in a turbulent historical moment, the book asks questions about how Zimbabwe's creative literature may be related to its history and politics. The result of a collaboration of scholars situated both in Southern Africa and overseas, the book addresses Zimbabwean literature and culture from angles that have hitherto remained overshadowed.

Thousands of Ogoni and members of other minority communities have been evicted from their homes in a Port Harcourt shantytown. The Rivers State government and the Nigerian Agip Oil Company (NAOC) are accused by the communities of demolishing their waterfront homes to facilitate planned company expansion and relocation from Lagos to Port Harcourt waterside, without notice or compensation. Some residents have suffered a second displacement since they were living in the shantytown following earlier destruction of their village homes due to military activities in Ogoni territories.

The findings from this working paper suggest that conditions in the origin countries known to produce refugee outflows influence the way in which destination countries allocate protection to asylum-seekers. However, the amount of protection provided by destination countries is found to be impervious to refugee-generating conditions in origin countries.

"We are writing on behalf of the World Association of Newspapers and the World Editors Forum, which represent 18,000 publications in 100 countries, to express our serious concern at the sentencing of journalists Rolan Rasoamaharo and James Ramarosoana to one month in jail for defamation. According to reports, on 19 April Mr Rasoamaharo, director of La Gazette de la Grande Ile, and Mr Ramarosoana, author of the article, were sentenced to one month in prison after publishing an audit report on state-owned real estate company SEIMAD. Similar charges were brought but dropped against the director of the Madagascar Tribune. Mr Rasoamaharo and Mr Ramarosoana are to appeal their sentences."

Zimbabwean security forces have detained a freelance journalist filming police as they cleared Harare's central business district of street vendors, according to a lawyer for the press freedom group MISA-Zimbabwe. The journalist, Frank Chikowore, was being held without charge. "It's outrageous that Zimbabwean authorities would lock up someone who was simply filming the activities of police in a public place," said Ann Cooper, executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists. "We demand the immediate and unconditional release of Frank Chikowore and an end to this kind of abuse."

Antiretroviral drug researchers, study sponsors and AIDS advocates in a meeting that began last week in Seattle reached some agreement but failed to resolve completely conflicts over the conduct of clinical trials testing whether the antiretroviral drug Viread, which is made by the pharmaceutical company Gilead, can prevent HIV infection among people in developing countries, the Wall Street Journal reports. At issue is whether researchers should provide lifelong antiretroviral treatment - not just a referral for care - to people who become HIV-positive while participating in the trials.

Africa’s peacekeeping mission in war-torn Darfur risks failure unless it receives increased support, the African Union (AU) warned on Wednesday. Speaking on the eve of a major fundraising conference for the peacekeeping mission, AU Peace Commissioner Said Djinnit told reporters Darfur was a critical test of international commitment and Africa’s resolve to end wars on the continent.

Francois Bozize, the incumbent leader of the Central African Republic (CAR), who came into power through a coup in 2003, was on Tuesday declared the winner of the country's presidential elections. Bozize won the final round of the poll by 64.6 percent of the vote, the chairman of the Independent Electoral Commission, Jean Willybiro Sako, announced at an official ceremony at the National Assembly.

A year after the Malawian government launched its HIV/AIDS treatment programme, the numbers of people awaiting treatment are stretching hospitals to their limits. In May 2004 the government began providing free antiretroviral (ARV) medication at public health facilities, hoping to reach 44,000 people living with the virus by June 2005.

Is the New Economic Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) a panacea for Africa’s development problems or just another fad destined for the continent’s development cemetery? The popular and/or political critique is that NEPAD is a creation of some few African leaders, notably Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria, Obdoulaye Wade of Senegal, Abdelaziz Bouteflika of Algeria, with backing from the West. That critique is justified but there is the risk of throwing out the baby with the bath water, says this commentary from Namibia's New Era newspaper.

For many people, Kenya is defined by the endless grasslands of the Masai Mara, herds of wildebeest and accompanying predators. It may surprise them to know, then, that the country is also home to 1.7 million hectares of indigenous forest - and that this land is under threat. ”There is great loss of biodiversity, especially in forests where people are using (land) for settlement, agriculture or other activities,” Parkinson Ndonye, a senior researcher at the National Environmental Management Authority (NEMA), told IPS.

On June 1, Paul Wolfowitz, the man best-known for planning the invasion and occupation of Iraq and promoting them as U.S. policy, will officially become president of the World Bank. Civil society organizations from around the world have been meeting over the last few weeks to plan actions in response to this absurd and unpleasant occasion. In Washington, activists will be gathering outside World Bank headquarters (18th and Pennsylvania) at 9:30 am on June 1 (some will be there earlier to distribute information to Bank staff about their new boss). Actions are also planned for Manila and other cities. If you are interested in staging an action, please contact Hope Chu ([email protected]) to let us know and to get suggestions.

Peter Mandelson, Europe's trade commissioner, is seeking to persuade Tony Blair to revise Britain's pro-poor country stance on trade liberalization, a centerpiece of the government's development agenda for 2005, leaked documents from Brussels said, reports The Guardian (UK). A letter from Peter Carl, the European Commission's top trade official, said Mandelson - still a close confidant of the prime minister - was being used to reverse what Brussels condemned as "a major and unwelcome shift" in the UK's approach.

The fundraising experts agree: "fundraising is friend-raising". The importance of building strong relationships with donors for financial sustainability is a topic that always inspires interest in the NGO world. However, in recent times, the issue of relationship building for sustainability beyond traditional donor engagement is a subject gaining a great deal of interest. In this age of scarce resources, donor fatigue and the need for innovation in resource mobilisation, an organisation's survival seems to depend not only on relationships with donors, but also with its peers, beneficiaries and other stakeholders for reasons that include strategic campaigning, fundraising and impact. Read the rest of this article by visiting www.thusang.org.za, the Southern African funding information facility.

The deadline for applications for bursaries to attend the upcoming International Fundraising Congress is May 30. The bursary will cover the cost of attending the 25th International Fundraising Congress to be held from 19th -21st October in Leeuwenhorst, the Netherlands. The recipients will also have one day post congress training to be held on 22nd October. This training is courtesy of the Guy Stringer Fund founding corporate partner SAZ.

New technologies in the information and communications arena, especially the Internet, have been seen as ushering in a new age. There is a mainstream view that such technologies have only technical rather than social implications. The dramatic positive changes brought in by these information and communication technologies (ICTs), however, have not touched all of humanity. Existing power relations in society determine the enjoyment of benefits from ICTs; hence these technologies are not gender neutral. The important questions are: who benefits from ICTs? Who is dictating the course of ICTs? Is it possible to harness ICTs to serve larger goals of equality and justice? Central to these is the issue of gender and women’s equal right to access, use and shape ICTs.

"Never doubt that a small group of dedicated citizens can change the world; in fact it is the only thing that can". In 1999 and 2000 many of us campaigned to drop the crippling burden of debt that serves to entrench colonial dominance in the so called 'third world'; but we must keep that pressure up. In 2005, this year, the leaders of eight of the richest and most powerful countries in the world come to Scotland, and it must be us who set the agenda for change. For too long our brothers and sisters have struggled in the face of leaders for who out of sight really is out of mind! Let us go to Edinburgh on July 2nd and march behind our banner and let us show the G8 that our brothers and sisters throughout the world are not alone and disparate, but united and strong.
Kainde Manji

Leading figures from universities across Africa are to hold a five-day meeting in Britain next month to discuss detailed plans of how rich nations can help support the growth and development of higher education institutions across the continent. Their discussions, to be held in Dundee, Scotland, are expected to lead to a 'blueprint' for such a strategy that will be presented to the leaders of the G8 group of the most industrialised nations. The G8 will be holding its annual meeting in nearby Gleneagles in July.

Zimbabwe has put the army and police on high alert as deepening economic and social hardships push public anger to dangerous levels, Zim Online has learnt. Intelligence sources said an ongoing police crackdown against informal traders - the majority of Zimbabweans now depend on petty and informal trade for survival – had raised fears in government security departments of a possible spontaneous backlash by irate citizens.

More disciplinary action is expected in Liberia to weed undisciplined and corrupt officers out of the national police force, said acting commissioner Joseph Kerkula last Thursday following the sacking this month of 400 officers. "Any officer who fails to do things in cognisance of our guidelines will be dismissed," Kerkula said. "All the officers know about these guidelines so it is their primary duty to respect them."

A visit to Guinea-Bissau by four West African leaders at the weekend failed to defuse tension that has been building up in the country ahead of next month's presidential election. Prime Minister Carlos Gomes Junior confirmed reports that have been circulating for several weeks that arms have been smuggled into the country to support civilian militias.

Talks on forming a government of national unity between newly elected President Faure Gnassingbe and Togo's main opposition parties have ended without agreement, but the failure of these negotiations caused little surprise on the streets of the capital Lome on Friday. Gnassingbe held talks with exiled opposition leader Gilchrist Olympio and other prominent opposition figures in the Nigerian capital Abuja last Thursday.

A new 'child-friendly' court is making it easier for underaged plaintiffs in rape and abuse cases to deal with previously frightening legal proceedings. "Children need protection during the entire case, from the initial contact with doctors and police to the trial, where there is confrontation with the person the child is accusing. We have made an environment that is comfortable for children," said Superintendent Leckinah Magagula of the Royal Swaziland Police Department.

A report by a human rights committee critical of the Government’s commitment to fight graft was due to be launched last week. The Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR) report accuses the Government of losing the spirit to fight graft, despite repeated pledges to prioritise the eradication of the vice. The report by the public-funded commission, contained in its publication, Nguzo za Haki, concludes that rather than tackle re-emerging graft the Government is downplaying the problem.

In a town hall meeting room in the Ivorian capital earlier this month, women assembled on one side and men on the other, joined together in a prayer to Allah "to remove AIDS from humanity". The crowd of around 100 Muslim men and women had turned out at the Treichville town hall in Cote d'Ivoire's economic capital Abidjan for one of a series of conferences aimed at discussing Islam's position on HIV/AIDS.

Women are often the victims of armed conflicts in Africa's Great Lakes region yet they are underrepresented at the UN-sponsored meetings to implement a declaration signed in November 2004 by heads of state in the region on regional peace, security, democracy and development, a UN official said on Wednesday. "No women representatives were at the peace and security thematic task force [meeting]," George Ola-Davies, the spokesman for the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR), told IRIN on Wednesday in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, during an ICGLR gender experts' strategy workshop.

With locusts and drought having destroyed crops and stripped grazing land for six million people across West Africa, small farmers have started selling livestock cheaply and eating the seed corn they should plant during next month's expected rains, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said. "The combined effect of drought and locust attack, particularly in the more northerly districts of the counties affected has led to significant damage," the UN Food and Agriculture Organization's (FAO) Edouard Tapsoba said.