The Resource Alliance have partnered with CR Search and Selection (CRSS) to launch a new international recruitment website for the not-for-profit sector called: Global Fundraising Jobs: www.globalfundraisingjobs.com. The website will be launched at the Resource Alliance's flagship event, the 24th International Fundraising Congress, on 12-15 October 2004, in the Netherlands.

* Editorial: Violently intent on keeping us in poverty: Riaz Tayob on interenational trade policy
* Breaking eggs and eating omelettes: africa's experience with the Bretton Woods institutions
* Comment and Analysis: Gerald Caplan on the genocide problem (Part II)
* Pan-African Postcard: Congratulations to Wangari Mathai- Nobel Peace Prize
* Conflicts and Emergencies: Museveni angered by Uganda-Sudan comparison
* Refugees and Forced Migration: 1,618 refugees return home to DRC
* Elections and Governance: Predictions for Cameroon Election 2004
* HIV/AIDS: Pandemic filling African cemeteries
* Corruption: Which are the most corrupt countries in Africa?
* Education: IMF policies squeezing Zambian education system
* Media and Freedom of Expression: AU intellectuals campaign for freedom of expression

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The North-South economic and political divide is the overriding concern in international trade relations, with the rich North creating conditions that allow for the pillaging and primitivisation of the poor South. Combined the International Financial Institutions (IFIs) and World Trade Organisation (WTO) adopt a coherent and comprehensive neo-liberal paradigm for trade and economic management, and this free trade ideology is imposed on developing countries.

There are serious deficiencies in this ideology, which are rarely given any credence, or receive at best grudging acknowledgement. The North uses the free trade ideology as a means of domination over the resources and livelihoods of the people of the South. One does not have to be a radical or a revolutionary to question the merits of their policies; simply looking at the economic history of rich countries is instructive. Do as I say and not as I did is the North's mantra.

The neo-liberal, free trade, Washington Consensus ideology is used as a tool to maintain resource flows from the South to the North. Militarily the colonisers were kicked out of African countries after bloody and horrific struggles. Neo-liberalism replaced military colonial occupation and ensures that resource flows from the South to the North continue. Instead of rule by the gun, it became: rule by trade policy. Free trade was used as the ideology to continue to maintain colonial economic relations with the South.

Trade is regulated primarily by the WTO. After the collapse of the WTO Cancun Ministerial, where developing countries refused to be bullied into accepting onerous trade and development terms, the United States of America (USA) and the European Union (EU) indicated that they would pursue Regional Trading Arrangements (RTA's) with countries.

The failure of the economic superpowers to achieve what they desired at the multilateral level must inform our analysis of what they hope to achieve at the regional negotiations level. Since many issues the North hoped to impose on the South through the WTO were rejected, it is imperative for the South to maintain this consistency in RTA negotiations simply because the issues are not in our interest. However, Southern governments, especially in Africa, are much weaker in regional and bilateral negotiations with the North than they are at the WTO simply because of their extreme (and increasing) dependence on the North.

The rational for African countries entering into RTAs are complex. There is the overriding perception that RTAs improve a country's economic development because of the alleged link between liberalisation and economic growth. However, a United Nations Development Programme longitudinal study of least developed countries found indications that liberalisation leads to de-industrialisation. One of the main reasons for entering RTA's is that regional bodies have greater representative and market power and may improve parity in bargaining. In order to benefit from the consolidation of representation, one can, wrongly, presume that there is an African regional integration plan that guides efforts in this regard.

The WTO establishes the framework for the implementation of free trade values: liberalisation is the aim of international trade. For an RTA to be WTO compliant it must result in higher levels of economic integration within a reasonable period of time, cover substantially all trade and be more liberalised than the WTO regime. This means that RTAs extend liberalisation commitments even further.

International trade is also impacted upon by the World Bank (WB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The IFIs actively promote Washington Consensus values of neo-liberal economics. The principle ideology they impart is that the market allocates resources best and the state should not interfere by creating market distortions. They also promote tariff reductions and trade liberalisation generally, forcing the South to give for free what the North should bargain for in negotiations.

In the context of RTAs it is important to recognise that the combination of these factors indicates that trade policy (and development policy) is externally determined by participation with the IFIs and the WTO. These agreements regulate the development path that is open for countries to follow. The control in many instances is indirect and in many more it is quite direct.

But free trade and liberalisation were not used as policies by the North to reach their current stage of development. The Now Developed Countries (NDCs) used different sets of policies (almost the exact opposite of the Washington Consensus). Free trade and liberalisation are now mantras prescribed under the guise of being pro-development. The North used state power to regulate markets, increased the social wage, created public services, used tariffs as a means of industrial development and controlled investment flows amongst other measures.

For evaluation of African policies and global engagement, it is therefore revealing enough for us to begin our analysis in comparing the IFI/WTO prescriptions with the policies used by the North previously (historic capitalism), in order to understand what is happening to the South presently, within this form of neo liberal globalisation. One need not be a revolutionary to see that things in our countries are getting worse or that the policy prescriptions used are so divorced from reality as to be positively harmful.

Neo-liberalism treats all economic activities alike, whereas the North developed by not treating all economic activities alike. Simply put, the North recognised that investing in a casino would have a different developmental impact from say housing construction. This is a distinction the neo liberal system does not allow governments to make, so for instance subsidies under the WTO can be made to general sectors and not specific industries. Or, the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) treats basic health and water services the same as tourism and gambling, when there are clearly qualitative differences.

The neo-liberal ideology also pushes for perfect competition, which is a utopian ideal that has never existed! In the early stages of development, the Northern countries actually pursued anticompetitive policies to assist with their development. Practically Northern countries followed the principle of protection of industries including infant industries and only opened their markets once a particular level of market dominance/ economies of scale were achieved. This is in direct contradiction with the arguments against infant industry protection and in favour of consumer welfare effects of liberalisation based on efficiency, which are being shoved onto African developmental agendas. Tariff liberalisation is promoted by the WTO and the IFIs when high tariffs were the primary tool used to develop manufacturing capacity in the North. In other words, the system forces African governments to prefer cheaper imported goods over job creation at a time when unemployment is rife. The recognition that imported goods contain labour is not obvious, and we continue to import labour contained in our imports and make them cheaper by liberalising tariffs.

By using the economic analysis toolbox that the Northern countries themselves used to develop, we see a world that is violently intent on keeping us in poverty in perpetuity. The term violently is not used lightly because at present even an analysis of Africa's chances of pursuing Schumpertarian increasing return activities is heavily constrained by our international commitments, our so called level of global integration.

Since regional integration is a reality that must be dealt with, national and regional development agendas should, at the very least (but not only), incorporate the view that different economic activities have different impacts on the economy as Schumpeter pointed out.. Some activities generate positive returns (manufacturing), others are return neutral (tourism) while resource extraction and primary commodity production (after a point) generate negative/diminishing returns. In order to generate additional revenue for the state, so that it can serve its distributive function to improve the conditions of citizens, any international trade engagement must prioritise increasing return economic activities to promote revenue generation occasioned in part by tariff income losses due to imposed trade liberalisation. The impact of these losses is not discussed adequately in the public domain and there is a presumption that everything will be alright.

The WTO for instance allows tariff escalation. This means that it is cheaper and easier for Africans to export coffee beans than it is to export processed coffee. Therefore Africa does not develop beyond being coffee growers. It also allows for tariff peaks that are used to keep out goods where African countries have particular advantage like leather goods. So any move by Africans to develop manufacturing capabilities or to exploit comparative advantage to benefit meaningfully from their products meets with enormous obstacles and disincentives in Northern markets. These obstacles are legal and continue the colonial legacy of forbidding manufacturing in the colonies.

To bring about a change in the developmental pathway for Africa a number of obstacles have to be overcome, the first being the ideology of free trade that contaminates every level of policy making in many countries. Most officials and ministers do not know they do not know or are politically helpless in the face of free trade ideology.

The principles of free trade which are presented as inherently good are unsurprisingly absent in the North's approach to agriculture. In agriculture free trade is turned on its head, because the WTO allows the North to use trade distorting subsidies - state intervention that distorts the market: the ultimate free trade sin. So the system is schizophrenic, it prescribes a host of ideologies to govern trade in our countries (and thereby our development) but fails to apply it consistently in areas of interest to the South.

Because our governments are being pragmatic, they do not see the systemic and structural violence it creates and unleashes on our people. Over 70% of Africans rely on agriculture as a means of living, yet they are prevented from using this comparative advantage. South Africa in particular is giving the land back to black people but is forcing these farmers to compete with subsidised European and American imports. This is a recipe for disaster.

Many governments in Africa, however, are adopting the view that the more RTAs they belong to, the more beneficial it will be to their economies. But, for instance, the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Free Trade Agreement (FTA) is estimated to reduce Namibia's revenue by between 31 and 50 percent over the next twelve years (and these exclude the dynamic effects!). A plethora of agreements would further reduce income. This is not simply a matter for trade negotiators; it has serious implications for governmental stability especially at a time when debt levels are rising exponentially. Money for much needed social welfare is simply not going to be available because most governments rely heavily on international trade taxes for revenue.

At present though, the international trade context within which African countries operate is skewed against them because increasing return activities: - Do not enjoy meaningful market access in export markets (especially in areas where we have comparative advantage); - Do not have sufficiently protected domestic markets to promote entrepreneurship and local development; - Suffer from supply side constraints; - Face continually declining commodity/primary goods prices and unfair competition in agriculture; - Are prevented through whimsical barriers to market entry in foreign countries.

Africa's openness to foreign goods and services within the domestic market is a problem. Africa is the continent that is most open to global trade. This means that even in the domestic market, local manufacturers must compete with Transnational Corporations. African manufacturers are expected to survive without protection from the State. We are trying to compete through exports in highly organised foreign markets while surrendering our home turf and losing out in both. The policies imposed on us simply do not make sense.Africa has slavishly followed most of the prescriptions of the former colonial powers with a spectacularly tragic outcome. If most of what we are doing is so different from what the North did and things are getting worse, then it is time to look at alternatives. There are other views on development that are simply not canvassed at all by our governments. If African governments are to prosper economically and politically, we need to at least begin to look at the policies used in the past by the now rich countries. If our governments fail to even consider some of these alternatives, then democratic government or not, it is a sad day. It is even sadder when these free trade conditions are imposed by many honourable and dedicated leaders who suffered greatly to bring us liberation (Nelson Mandela included), only to compound our people's material destitution.

* Riaz Tayob works for the Southern and Eastern African Trade Information and Negotiations Institute (Seatini) in South Africa

* Please send comments to

Former UN official Prof Bimar Ghosh, director of the New International Regime for Orderly Movements of People (Niromp), an international consultant on trade, migration and development says better policy coherence between migration and trade, aid and foreign investment would solve a paradox. Ghosh called for "regulated openness" of EU borders and for shared responsibility in sending and receiving migrants. Assistance to countries of origin of (labour) migrants would help decrease disorderly migration, and lead to a win-win situation for both South and North, he said.

The Implementation and Monitoring Committee (IMC) of the Arusha Peace and Reconciliation Accord - under which Burundi's transitional government was established - will make proposals to the government on a possible extension of the three-year transitional period that ends on 31 October, a UN official said on 30 October. The IMC considers the adoption of the post-transition constitution an important step forward in the country's peace process but admits that some issues remain unsettled.

Deputy-President Jacob Zuma is "unfazed" by media reports on Sunday that a KPMG report would show an "extensive financial relationship" between him and his financial adviser, Schabir Shaik. "He reiterates that those who believe they have a case against him should charge him and prove it in a court of law, and stop running a mischievous smear campaign in the media," said Zuma's spokesperson, Lakela Kaunda.

Tens of thousands of Rwandan women were raped during the genocide and in the decade since, but only a few perpetrators of sexual violence have been prosecuted. In a new report, "Struggling to Survive: Barriers to Justice for Rape Victims in Rwanda," Human Rights Watch investigates the persistent weaknesses in the Rwandan legal system that hamper the investigation and prosecution of sexual violence. The report also documents the desperate health and economic situation of rape survivors. The full report is available at: http://hrw.org/reports/2004/rwanda0904/

Zimbabwe's seven Catholic bishops sent a pastoral letter to churches demanding a "credible electoral process" and peaceful campaigning ahead of March elections. And they warned against propaganda, favouritism and discrimination against dissenters, including the main opposition party. In a separate move also seen as a crackdown on dissent, the government proposed criminalising charity work done without a government permit, and banning charities and private groups focusing on "issues of human rights and good governance" from receiving foreign funding.

Vincent Hogg, former chief executive of the Zimbabwe Cricket Union will inform the ICC's investigators this week about several incidents involving black ZCU directors. These were the main reasons he left the job two months ago after two and a half years, he said. "For instance one director told me that whites have no right to be in the country at all, and that was during a formal meeting. Some of the directors were totally out of order in this regard and it was extremely upsetting to have to listen to that sort of racist language."

Delegates at a racism conference urged blacks worldwide to work toward greater economic power, while the gathering faced criticism of a decision to exclude non-blacks from some deliberations. The six-day conference in Suriname is bringing together more than 100 delegates from Africa, Canada, the United States, Latin America, Europe and the Caribbean. The Global African Conference was created during a 2002 meeting in Barbados, billed as a follow-up to the 2001 United Nations anti-racism conference in South Africa.

At least 17 people drowned off the coast of Tunisia when their boat sank while trying to reach Italy illegally, the Tunisian authorities say. The news came as a row erupted over Italy's decision to send migrants back to their point of departure. Three planeloads of migrants were flown to Libya on Saturday, and a further 800 people are due to be expelled.

Optimism about prospects for peace in northern Uganda is growing. Recent news reports cite increased desertions from the rebel Lord's Resistance Army and some reduction in the number of displaced people. A new report from World Vision Uganda highlights the continuing obstacles to peace and the enormous damage done to children and to society at large from this 18-year war that has received very little attention from the international community. For the full text of the report, entitled "Pawns of Politics: Children, Conflict and Peace in Northern Uganda", visit: http://www.worldvision.ca/home/media/PawnsOfPolitics.pdf

Chadian authorities are tightening security in and around 10 United Nations refugee camps in the east of the country - where more than 200,000 Sudanese people have gathered after fleeing violence in the Darfur region - after three refugees were killed there in the past week amid rising tensions with locals. Some 180 Chadian gendarmes have started patrols around the camps and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees has handed over nine vehicles for the gendarmes to use.

At a meeting called by the Ministry of Information on 28 September 2004 in Addis Ababa, the International Press Institute, the World Press Freedom Committee, Article 19 and the Media Institute of Southern Africa voiced concerns that provisions in the draft press law posed a threat to press freedom. The Ethiopian government has said that it would be willing to consider the idea of a voluntary, self-regulating press council instead of a state-run body, and to ensure that provisions on the protection of journalists' sources would meet international standards.

In March 2004, Equality Now launched its report, Words and Deeds: Holding Governments Accountable in the Beijing + 10 Review Process. Since then, countries have made some developments regarding the laws given in the report and more recommended actions have been made. Please find a copy of the full report in the Women and Gender section of this newsletter or go to www.equalitynow.org.

Driven by prevailing fear, confusion and the politicization of humanitarian concerns, the world has become less friendly towards refugees - even though the number of people seeking asylum has fallen steeply - the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said. Ruud Lubbers opened the annual meeting of UNHCR's 66-member governing body in Geneva with a call for nations to share, rather than shift, the burden of accepting asylum seekers.

How can we name the Darfur crisis? The US Congress, and now Secretary of State Colin Powell, claim that genocide has occurred in Darfur. The European Union says it is not genocide. And so does the African Union.

Nigerian President Obasanjo, also the current Chair of the African Union, told a press conference at the United Nations Headquarters in New York on September 23: "Before you can say that this is genocide or ethnic cleansing, we will have to have a definite decision and plan and program of a government to wipe out a particular group of people, then we will be talking about genocide, ethnic cleansing. What we know is not that. What we know is that there was an uprising, rebellion, and the government armed another group of people to stop that rebellion. That's what we know. That does not amount to genocide from our own reckoning. It amounts to of course conflict. It amounts to violence."

Is Darfur genocide that has happened and must be punished? Or, is it genocide that could happen and must be prevented? I will argue the latter.

Sudan is today the site of two contradictory processes. The first is the Naivasha peace process between the SPLA and the Government of Sudan, whose promise is an end to Africa's longest festering civil war. The second is the armed confrontation between an insurgency and anti-government militias in Darfur. There is need to think of the south and the west as different aspects of a connected process. I will argue that this reflection should be guided by a central objective: to reinforce the peace process and to demilitarize the conflict in Darfur.

Understanding Darfur Conflict Politically

The peace process in the South has split both sides to the conflict. Tensions within the ruling circles in Khartoum and within the opposition SPLA have given rise to two anti-government militias. The Justice and Equality Movement has historical links to the Islamist regime, and the SLA to the southern guerrilla movement.

The Justice and Equality Movement organized as part of the Hassan Turabi faction of the Islamists. Darfur, historically the mainstay of the Mahdist movement, was Turabi's major claim to political success in the last decade. When the Khartoum coalition - between the army officers led by Bashir and the Islamist political movement under Turabi - split, the Darfur Islamists fell out with both sides. JEM was organized in Khartoum as part of an agenda for regaining power. It has a more localized and multi-ethnic presence in Darfur and has been home to many who have advocated an 'African Islam'.

The SLA is linked to SPLA, which first tried to expand the southern-based armed movement to Darfur in 1990, but failed. The radical leadership of that thrust was decapitated in a government assault. Not surprisingly, the new leadership of SLA has little political experience.

The present conflict began when the SLA mounted an ambitious and successful assault on El Fashar airport on April 25, 2003, on a scale larger than most encounters in the southern civil war.

The government in Khartoum is also divided, between those who pushed the peace process, and those who believe too much was conceded in the Naivasha talks. This opposition, the security cabal in Khartoum, responded by arming and unleashing several militia, known as the Janjawid. The result is a spiral of state-sponsored violence and indiscriminate spread of weaponry.

In sum, all those opposed to the peace process in the south have moved to fight in Darfur, even if on opposing sides. The Darfur conflict has many layers; the most recent but the most explosive is that it is the continuation of the southern conflict in the west.

De-demonize Adversaries

For anyone reading the press today, the atrocities in Sudan are synonymous with a demonic presence, the Janjawid, the spearhead of an 'Arab' assault on 'Africans.' The problem with the public discussion of Darfur and Sudan is not simply that we know little; it is also the representation of what we do know. To understand the problem with how known facts are being represented, I suggest we face three facts.

First, as a proxy of those in power in Khartoum, the Janjawid are not exceptional. They reflect a broad African trend. Proxy war spread within the continent with the formation of Renamo by the Rhodesian and the South African security cabal in the early 1980s. Other examples in the East African region include the Lord's Redemption Army in northern Uganda, the Hema and Lendu militias in Itori in eastern Congo and, of course, the Hutu militia in post-genocide Rwanda. Like the Janjawid, all these combine different degrees of autonomy on the ground with proxy connections above ground.

Second, all parties involved in the Darfur conflict - whether they are referred to as 'Arab' or as 'African' - are equally indigenous and equally black. All are Muslims and all are local. To see how the corporate media and some of the charity-dependent international NGOs consistently racialize representations, we need to distinguish between different kinds of identities.

Let us begin by distinguishing between three different meanings of Arab: ethnic, cultural and political. In the ethnic sense, there are few Arabs worth speaking of in Darfur, and a very tiny percent in Sudan. In the cultural sense, Arab refers to those who have come to speak Arabic as a home language and, sometimes, to those who are nomadic in lifestyle. In this sense, many have become Arabs. From the cultural point of view, one can be both African and Arab, in other words, an African who speaks Arabic, which is what the 'Arabs' of Darfur are. For those given to thinking of identity in racial terms, it may be better to think of this population as 'Arabized' rather than 'Arab.'

Then there is Arab in the political sense. This refers to a political identity called 'Arab' that the ruling group in Khartoum has promoted at different points as the identity of power and of the Sudanese nation. As a political identity, Arab is relatively new to Darfur. Darfur was home to the Mahdist movement whose troops defeated the British and slayed General Gordon a century ago. Darfur then became the base of the party organized around the Sufi order, the Ansar. This party, called the Umma Party, is currently led by the grandson of the Mahdi, Sadiq al-Mahdi. The major change in the political map of Darfur over the past decade was the growth of the Islamist movement, led by Hassan Turabi. Politically, Darfur became 'Islamist' rather than 'Arab.'

Like Arab, Islam too needs to be understood not just as a cultural (and religious) identity but also as a political one, thus distinguishing the broad category of believers called Muslims from political activists called Islamists. Historically, Islam as a political identity in the Sudan has been associated with political parties based on Sufi orders, mainly the Umma Party based on the Ansar and the DUP based on the Khatamiyya. In sharp contrast to the strongly Sudanese identity of these 'sectarian' and 'traditional' parties is the militant, modernist and internationalist orientation of the type of political Islam championed by Hassan Turabi and organized as the National Islamic Front. Not only in its predominantly urban social base but also in its methods of organization, the NIF was poles apart from 'traditional' political Islam, and in fact consciously emulated the Communist Party. Unlike the 'traditional' parties which were mass-based and hoped to come to power through elections, the NIF - like the CP - was a cadre-based vanguard party which hoped to take power in alliance with a faction in the army. The fulfillment of this agenda was the 1989 coup which brought Turabi's NIF into power in alliance with the Bashir faction in the army.

As a political identity, 'African' is even more recent than 'Arab' in Darfur. I have referred to an attempt by SPLA in 1990 to confront the power in Khartoum as 'Arab' and to rally the opposition under the banner of 'African.' Both the insurgency that began 18 months ago and the government's response to it are evidence of the crisis of the Islamist regime and the government's retreat to a narrower political identity, 'Arab.'

Third, both the anti- and the pro-government militia have outside sponsors, but they cannot just be dismissed as external creations. The Sudan government organized local militias in Darfur in 1990, using them both to fight the SPLA in the south and to contain the expansion of the southern rebellion to the west. The militias are not monolithic and they are not centrally controlled. When the Islamists split in 1999 between the Turabi and the Bashir groups, many of the Darfur militia were purged. Those who were not, like the Berti, retained a measure of local support. This is why it is wrong to think of the Janjawid as a single organization under a unified command.

Does that mean that we cannot hold the Sudan government responsible for the atrocities committed by Janjawid militias that it continues to supply? No, it does not. We must hold the patron responsible for the actions of the proxy. At the same time, we need to realize that it may be easier to supply than to disband local militias. Those who start and feed fires should be held responsible for doing so; but let us not forget that it may be easier to start a fire than to put it out.

The fight between the militias on both sides and the violence unleashed against the unarmed population has been waged with exceptional cruelty. One reason may be that the initiative has passed from the communities on the ground to those contending for power. Another may be the low value on life placed by the security cabal in Khartoum and by those in the opposition who want power at any cost.

What is the solution?

I suggest a three-pronged process in the Sudan. The priority must be to complete the Naivasha peace process and change the character of the government in Khartoum. Second, whatever the level of civilian support enjoyed by militias, it would be a mistake to tarnish the communities with the sins of the particular militia they support. On the contrary, every effort should be made to neutralize or re-organize the militia and stabilize communities in Darfur through local initiatives. This means both a civic conference of all communities - both those identified as Arab and those as African - and reorganized civil defense forces of all communities. This may need to be done under the protective and supervisory umbrella of an African Union policing force. Finally, to build on the Naivasha process by bringing into it all those previously excluded. To do so will require creating the conditions for a reorganized civil administration in Darfur.

To build confidence among all parties, but particularly among those demonized as 'Arab', we need to use the same standard for all. To make the point, let us first look at the African region. The U.N. estimates that some 30 to 50,000 people have been killed in Darfur and another 1.4 million or so have been made homeless. The figure for the dead in Congo over the last few years is over 4 million. Many have died at the hands of ethnic Hema or Lendu militias. These are Janjawid-type militias known to have functioned as proxies for neighboring states. In the northern Ugandan districts of Acholiland, over 80% of the population has been interned by the government, given substandard rations and nominal security, thus left open to gradual premeditated starvation and periodic kidnapping by another militia, the Lord's Redemption Army (LRA). When the U.N. Secretary General, Kofi Annan, flew to Khartoum recently, I was in Kampala. The comment I heard all around was: Why didn't he stop here? And why not in Kigali? And Kinshasa? Should we not apply the same standards to the governments in Kampala and Kigali and elsewhere as we do to the government in Khartoum, even if Kampala and Kigali are America's allies in its global 'war on terror'?

Internationally, there is the daunting example of Iraq. Before the American invasion, Iraq went through an era of U.N. sanctions, which were kept in place for a decade by the US and Britain. The effect of the sanctions came to light when UNICEF carried out a child mortality survey in 1999 at the initiative of Canada and Brazil. Richard Garfield, professor of Clinical International Nursing at Columbia University and chair of the Human Rights Committee of the American Public Health Association calculated 'on a conservative estimate' that there had been 300,000 'excess deaths' of children under 5 in Iraq during the sanctions. But the sanctions continued. Today, the US does not even count the number of Iraqi dead, and the U.N. has made no attempt to estimate them. Iraq is not history. It continues to bleed.

This backdrop, regional and international, should prompt us to ask at least one question: Does the label 'worst humanitarian crisis' tell us more about Darfur or about those labeling and the politics of labeling? Are we to return to a Cold War-type era in which America's allies can commit atrocities with impunity while its adversaries are demagogically held accountable to an international standard of human rights?

Some argue that international alignment on the Darfur crisis is dictated by the political economy of oil. To the extent this is true, let us not forget that oil influences both those (such as China) who would like continued access to Sudan's oil and those (such as USA) who covet that access. But for those who do strategic thinking, the more important reason may be political. For official America, Darfur is a strategic opportunity to draw Africa into the global 'war on terror' by sharply drawing lines that demarcate 'Arab' against 'African,' just as for the crumbling regime in Khartoum this very fact presents a last opportunity to downplay its own responsibilities and call for assistance from those who oppose official America's 'war on terror.'

What Should We Do?

First of all, we the civilians - and I address Africans and Americans in particular - should work against a military solution. We should work against a US intervention, whether direct or by proxy, and however disguised - as humanitarian or whatever. We should work against punitive sanctions. The lesson of Iraq sanctions is that you target individuals, not governments. Sanctions feed into a culture of terror, of collective punishment. Its victims are seldom its target. Both military intervention and sanctions are undesirable and ineffective.

Second, we should organize in support of a culture of peace, of a rule of law and of a system of political accountability. Of particular importance is to recognize that the international community has created an institution called the International Criminal Court to try individuals for the most heinous crimes, such as genocide, war crimes and systematic rights abuses. The US has not only refused to ratify the treaty setting up the ICC, it has gone to all lengths to sabotage it. For Americans, it is important to get their government to join the ICC. The simple fact is that you can only claim the moral right to hold others accountable to a set of standards if you are willing to be held accountable to the same standards.

Finally, there is need to beware of groups who want a simple and comprehensive explanation, even if it is misleading; who demand dramatic action, even if it backfires; who have so come to depend on crisis that they risk unwittingly aggravating existing crisis. Often, they use the call for urgent action to silence any debate as a luxury. And yet, responsible action needs to be informed.

For the African Union, Darfur is both an opportunity and a test. The opportunity is to build on the global concern over a humanitarian disaster in Darfur to set a humanitarian standard that must be observed by all, including America's allies in Africa. And the test is to defend African sovereignty in the face of official America's global 'war on terror.' On both counts, the first priority must be to stop the war and push the peace process.

Copright: Mahmood Mamdani. Reproduced with the permission of the author.

* Mahmood Mamdani is Herbert Lehman Professor of Government and Director, Institute of African Studies, at University of Columbia, New York

* Please send comments to

As many African societies undergo political and economic transformations in order to meet the challenges of the 21st century, a new book entitled "Africa And The Need For Attitude Change" by Okoro I. Chima, takes an in-depth look at the continent and its people. Name any issue of regional concern - leadership, economy, corruption, education, the press, democracy and HIV/AIDS - it touches it all. It is bold, provocative and entertaining.

Date: 16 October 2004

A seminar, "Helsinki Process on Globalisation and Democracy Millennium Development Goals and the Financing Gap," will take place at the Sheraton Hotel, Pretoria in South Africa on Saturday, 16 October 2004 from 9h30-16h30. The Helsinki Process on Globalisation and Democracy, launched by the Finnish Government in cooperation with the Tanzanian Government, aims to launch proactive efforts to develop new strategic solutions to the dilemmas of global governance by bringing together individuals from all major stakeholder groups. One of the main goals for the Helsinki Process and the work of the Track on the Global Economic Agenda is to ensure that the Millennium Development Goals will stay at the core of multilateral processes and decision-making.

Deadline: 15 October 2004

"Transparency, good governance and democracy: Do ICTs increase accountability?" is the theme of this year’s prize. Four awards of $1,000 each will be made for the best journalism on this topic produced by journalists in developing and transition countries. Print, radio, TV and web journalism are all eligible.

For all their differences, one thing Zimbabwe and South Africa have in common is that land issues, dating back to colonial times and white settler government, are highly emotive, evoking difficult questions of history, race, politics, economic opportunity and international diplomacy. Blood and Soil offers a detailed analysis of the different challenges of land reform in both Zimbabwe and South Africa.

Ten years ago, the international community stood by as the horror of the Rwandan genocide unfolded. This summer, Western political will could have stopped the mass killings in Sudan. Why do we not act?

On a quiet Sunday in the early summer of 1999, I was recruited into the tiny but growing army of enigmatic characters who devote their lives to studying genocide. It was a phone call that did it. Stephen Lewis, my lifelong comrade-in-arms and now UN Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa, was offering a chance for us to work together again, but on a subject of unprecedented gravity: unraveling the truth about the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. Rwanda became my obsession from that moment to this. Stephen was a member of a special seven-member International Panel of Eminent Personalities (IPEP), which had been appointed by the Organization of African Unity (OAU) to investigate the genocide. Despite their genuine eminence - two were former African presidents, one a potential future president, another the former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of India - the panel members just didn't know what to do with the information they had been accumulating. After traveling to half a dozen nations interviewing people with links to the genocide, they didn't know what they wanted to say. They decided they needed a writer post-haste. Appropriately enough, they sought an African writer, but for various reasons none of their choices was available. Stephen mentioned me. Though I knew little of Rwanda, I had a doctorate in African history; I'd lived in several African countries; I'd co-chaired two public policy commissions in Canada; I was a writer; and I'd been involved in the struggle against white rule in Southern Africa. I suppose a combination of sheer desperation plus these credentials led to a near total stranger being brought on to take over the panel's task.

As it happens, Stephen and I had already discussed the panel at length. He was thrilled and honoured to have been appointed to it and I was wildly envious. I had gone to live in Africa for the first time as a doctoral student way back in 1964 and had kept renewing my connections over the years. So when the call came, I was willing and able, yet seriously anxious. Carol, my wife, very wise about many things (not least the secrets of my soul), proved so once again. We could cope as a family, she was confident, even if it meant I'd be absent a fair bit. But she wasn't as sanguine about me. Could I deal with the subject emotionally? Could my already dark, lugubrious, pessimistic, Hobbesian view of the world handle such intimacy with one of the most hellish events of our time? After a lifetime dedicated to various crusades for social justice, I'd become the stereotypical glass-is-half-empty guy, always able to find an ominous cloud in a deep blue sky. My gag: being a pessimist may not be fun but at least I'm rarely disappointed. Now, this new assignment raised real fears of me being traumatized into utter depression and immobilizing hopelessness. These were serious questions, but both Carol and I knew immediately they could only be answered after the event. There was no way I could resist this offer. This was history in the making. This was Africa, my life's preoccupation. This was another Holocaust, a subject that had tormented me forever. This was about the very nature of our species. I began getting my shots the next day and reported to the Panel's headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, the home of the OAU, nine days later.

I signed up on the assumption that the panel members would tell me what they wanted to say, and that I'd be their pen. This was hardly my usual or favorite role but, under the circumstances, I was prepared to play it. I needed their guidance about how forthright they were prepared to be. Although no expert on Rwanda, I did know how controversial and sensitive the issues were. Since this was an OAU mission, presumably dedicated to offering an African perspective on the genocide, was the panel ready to say that there would have been no genocide at all if some Africans hadn't chosen to exterminate other Africans? How far were they prepared to go in describing the OAU's own failure to intervene effectively? Beyond Africa, were they willing to tell the truth and accuse the French government of virtual complicity in the genocide? Would they agree to condemn Rwanda's churches, above all the Roman Catholic Church, for their shameful betrayal of their flock before, during, and since the genocide? Were they prepared to say that American politicians (both Democrats and Republicans), fearful of losing votes if U.S. soldiers were killed for such a remote cause, had knowingly allowed hundreds of thousands of Rwandans to die terrible deaths? Were they going to tell the truth about the serious human rights abuses that had been committed by the largely Tutsi Rwandan Patriotic Front - the "good guys" in the genocide and now the government of the country?

To my astonishment, when the panel flew in to meet me in Addis Ababa, they offered no guidance at all. To this day I'm still not sure I understand it. Maybe they were paralyzed by the enormity of the topic and their responsibility. All I know is that after my very first meeting with the members, I was left to produce the report on my own, sending them drafts for approval. I was distraught. How was I to deal with all the vexing issues I had fruitlessly raised?

Waiting for the flight back to Toronto, where I would do all my reading and writing, I went for a long and dusty walk with Dr. Berharnou Abebe, the panel's research officer, a remarkable Ethiopian intellectual with whom I had immediately bonded. Berharnou grasped the situation completely. Like other non-Rwandan Africans I was to meet, he felt personally ashamed of the genocide and approached his role on the tiny panel professional staff with the utmost gravity. We walked and walked, going over the problem again and again, getting grimier and more hoarse with each polluted block. Finally, he stopped, looked at me, and said: "It is simple, Gerry. You must write not for the seven, but for the 700,000. It is their story that you must tell."

Ignoring the murky politics of both the OAU and some of the seven panelists, I accepted Berharnou's advice with a vengeance. I would give them a draft based on wherever the evidence led me.

For almost a year, I immersed myself in the topic totally. I thought of nothing else. Weekends and evenings disappeared. Somehow, I absorbed a wealth of knowledge as if by osmosis. In the end, however, the work was done and approved - even though some panel members were rather less enthusiastic than others in accepting some of my harsh, unforgiving, and thoroughly documented assessments of the French and U.S. governments, the Catholic Church, the UN Secretariat, the OAU itself, the post-genocide government in Rwanda, and just about everyone else involved in this terrible tragedy except Canadian General Romeo Dallaire. Dallaire, almost alone, emerged with his honour intact. Howard Adelman, a Rwandan expert at York University in Toronto, once wrote that Rwanda's was "the most easily prevent-able genocide imaginable," and the panel unhesitatingly accepted my suggestion that we call the three- hundred-page report "Rwanda: The Preventable Genocide." What can never be forgiven is that none of those with the capacity to pre-vent it cared enough to try. The report was released in mid-2000. I don't mind saying the OAU had never seen anything like it - independent, outspoken, undiplomatic, and easily read, it was the very antithesis of the turgid bureaucratic documents the OAU normally spewed out. It was also largely ignored. Not because it pulled no punches, I'm afraid, but out of plain lack of interest. Africa's heads of state, who had authorized the report two years earlier, never bothered to discuss it at all. I was deeply disappointed by the unceremonious burial of the report, suffering from the inevitable anticlimax after such an intense experience, and finding it hard to come to grips with what I had learned. Not only was the assignment over, so, it appeared, was my time with Rwanda. Wrong again.

About a year later, it dawned on me that outside Rwanda itself, the genocide was already being forgotten. I became extremely agitated. The survivors were living as traumatized, maimed paupers. Most of the perpetrators were getting away with murder, often mass murder. The sins of commission of the French government and the Catholic Church, and the sins of omission of the American and British governments, were being completely ignored: the "globalization of impunity" I had called it in the report. Carol, once again seeing things far more clearly than I could, suggested that the tenth anniversary of the genocide in 2004, two-and-a-half years away, could be a natural occasion to renew interest in the tragedy. The result was "Remembering Rwanda," an international voluntary movement organized with no funding, largely on my Mac, with the assistance of Louise Mushikiwabo in Washington and Carole Ann Reed in Toronto, with adherents around the globe, all dedicated to ensuring that the memory of the genocide and its victims would not be buried, and that those responsible for it would not escape accountability. I had already befriended some Diaspora Rwandans who signed up immediately. They included a group of remark-able widows, particularly Esther Mujawayo in Germany and Chantal Kayetisi in New Hampshire, who had lost their husbands, among dozens of other relatives, to the genocide while they and their children miraculously survived, and who are dedicated to making sure the genocide would not be swept under history's table. Leo Kabalisa, one of life's natural gentlemen, was another; Leo, who now teaches French in a Toronto high school, counts by name fifteen members of his immediate family and eighty-two of his extended family who were murdered during the one hundred days.

Other Rwandans, though, were inevitably suspicious. In Johannesburg one night, I met with a group of Rwandan expatriates attached to the Rwandan Diaspora Global Network. I knew them through e-mail correspondence and, finding I had to be in Johannesburg on other UN business, I had asked to meet them. We had a good couple of hours, got along well, and agreed to work together. But it was obvious they couldn't quite figure out why I was doing this. What did I want? What could I get out of this? Rwandans, who have been betrayed by the outside world as much as any people on earth, are entitled to their suspicions of all outsiders.

In trying to explain my interest, I found myself, to my own surprise, telling them that I was Jewish. My family had fled Poland before the Hitler era, I said, and, probably as a result, I had great empathy with their own genocide. It was all true. Although I'm a convinced atheist, deeply at odds with those who represent themselves as the voice of Canadian Jewry, and a passionate foe of Israel's occupation of Palestine, I've always felt my Jewishness deeply. I've been fascinated with the Nazis and the Holocaust since my teen years. For decades now I've read, almost as a matter of principle, at least one book related to the Holocaust every year. Although many Jews disagree, for me the self-evident lesson of the Holocaust is a universal, not a particular, one; it is not merely that anti-Semitism must be opposed with all of our might, but that all injustice, racism, and discrimination is unacceptable and has to be com-bated. The Rwandans loved this answer. Many Tutsi regard themselves, with considerable pride, as the Jews of Africa. Most know about, and identify with, the Holocaust. Some have been to Auschwitz, others to Yad Vashem. Many are far more supportive of Israeli policies than I am. Yet my core Jewishness and our shared genocides is a bond between us.

Sometimes I learn from experience. During a visit to Kigali in 2002, I had the opportunity to address nearly one thousand Rwandans at a major assembly dedicated to reconciliation. I described the Remembering Rwanda movement and asked, before they could: Why was a white outsider, a muzungu, in the widely used Swahili term, leading this initiative? The moment I said that as a Jew I instinctively felt a close bond with Rwanda, the mood in the huge parliamentary chamber palpably changed. Suddenly, trust emerged; we understood each other. The solidarity of victims prevailed. Certainly some suspicion still existed; I could hardly blame them. But after the speech I was confronted by a hand-some, dynamic woman I didn't recognize, who abruptly embraced me. Yolande Mukagasana, a genocide survivor, had made it clear in a brief e-mail that she didn't know why I was involved in this issue, didn't trust me, and could continue the fight for the memory of the genocide's victims without me, thanks anyway. Now, she said, she knew we would be in the struggle together. Yolande, a poet and storyteller and a passionate keeper of the survivors' flame, invited me to dinner later at her small house in Kigali, now home to thirteen adopted children who were kibitzing in a room nearby. As I tried politely to continue eating, she pointed to the photos on the wall of her husband and three young children and explained in graphic detail how, ten years earlier, they had all been hunted down and murdered not far from where we sat.

Gerry Caplan is a Canadian-based public policy analyst and international coordinator of the "Remembering Rwanda" Project. He is also a public affairs commentator and author of "Rwanda: The Preventable Genocide," the report of the International Panel of Eminent Personalities To Investigate the 1994 Rwandan Genocide, appointed by the Organization of African Unity (OAU). He is presently co-editing a book on the Rwandan genocide ten years later.

This is the first of a two-part series entitled "The Genocide Problem: 'Never Again' All Over Again". The second part will appear in Pambazuka News 178 next week. This article was first published in the October issue of The Walrus, a new Canadian general interest magazine. It is reproduced here with the permission. The Walrus magazine is available on newsstands and book stores in Canada. For more information about The Walrus:

* Please send comments to [email protected]

One of Britain's best-known charities was today condemned for entering into a partnership with a firm linked to the military dictatorship in Burma. Human rights organisation the Burma Campaign UK slammed Comic Relief, the charity behind Red Nose Day, after it emerged the charity would be working on the event with delivery company DHL, which is in a joint venture with the Burmese government.

The Committee to Protect Journalists is deeply concerned by reports that a correspondent for the private daily L'Inter has gone missing from the rebel-held town of Bouake after receiving threats from rebels. Before disappearing on August 28th, Amadou Dagnogo told his editor he received threats from rebels loyal to Guillaume Soro, leader of the Forces Nouvelles (FN) that control Bouake. Dagnogo wrote articles about a split in the rebel movement and alleged atrocities by Soro's men.

With up to four million of its citizens living as refugees in neighbouring countries soon after the 1994 genocide, the government of Rwanda has introduced a low-cost housing scheme, known locally as "Imidugudu", to resettle thousands of people who returned after the killings. So far, the government has constructed at least 300,000 of these mud-bricked homes under the Imidigudu initiative, although it is still grappling with the impact of the genocide on human settlement.

Amnesty International has condemned the policy adopted by the Italian government to manage the arrival of large numbers of migrants on the Italian island of Lampedusa in recent days. The immediate forced return to Libya, by aeroplane, of over 300 foreign nationals newly arrived in Italy constitutes a very serious violation of national and international laws and conventions relating to the right to seek asylum, said the organisation.

From September 12-14, 2004, over 160 people from the Southern Africa region and several observers from around the world, participated in the first Southern African Gender and Media Awards and Summit in Johannesburg, South Africa. For the Summit Report, up-to-date stories on Women and Gender in Africa and for Country Reports, please refer to the Gender Links website.

Oxfam GB Uganda is looking for an experienced and dynamic individual to provide leadership and support to a large humanitarian programme. You do not necessarily have a particular technical background, but you do understand the kind of technical support needed to mobilize resources and ensure high quality programmes. In particular, you will consciously consider issues like gender and HIV/AIDS in programming, and be able to take into account the long-term impacts of the work we do. Reference Number:INT768

Some 100 officials from 39 African countries started a five-day meeting in the Ugandan capital, Kampala, on Monday to discuss the threat that small arms pose to human security and development across the continent. "Africa has been ravaged by many conflicts. Most of these conflicts were fought primarily using small arms and light weapons that pose one of the greatest challenge of our time," Ugandan Interior Minister Ruhakana Rugunda said in a speech he read on behalf of President Yoweri Museveni.

Determined to ensure compliance with the Sharia practice in Bauchi, the stat Sharia Consultative Council has placed an embargo on condom advertisements on the state-owned electronic media, saying such adverts promote and encourage immorality, and expose youth to unwholesome acts. The Council also urged the government to ban "immoral films" aired on the government-owned television station, arguing that such films apart from promoting promiscuity were against the tenets of the Sharia Legal System being operated in the state.

Women, Peace and Security month has arrived! Here is a sampling of the events being organized for the 4th anniversary of Resolution 1325. PeaceWomen has developed an October events calendar on the website. As events are finalized, and new events organized, PeaceWomen will update the online calendar. There are currently three major events scheduled including one in Stockholm, Sweden and two at the United Nations.

If you're aged between 15 and 34 - and feel that you have any thing to say about the impact of HIV/AIDS on women and girls using a microphone or a camera - this is the perfect opportunity to show your potential. The global competition is for young people to submit audio or video public service announcements (PSAs) that convey the messages of MTV's award winning HIV/AIDS awareness campaign, Staying Alive (www.staying-alive.org). Deadline: 11 November, 2004. VIDEO entries go to: http://tv.oneworld.net/tapestry?article=33 AUDIO entries go to: http://aidsradio.oneworld.net/section/aidsradio/wad2004

A two-day conference on 'Minimum Standards for Elections in Zimbabwe was held in Pretoria on 4-5 October 2004 to determine how the South African community can assist Zimbabwe in building a solid consensus on minimum election standards. Unfortunately, the Zimbabwean government and Zanu-PF decided not to participate in this conference and Mugabe declared that Zimbabwe is not bound by the recently agreed Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) standards and norms on free and fair elections.

Political leaders and health workers launched a drive Saturday to immunise more than 80 million children against polio in 23 African nations and fight back against a resurgence of the crippling disease. Campaigners had been hoping to eradicate polio this year or next but the virus has spread in the past 18 months to 12 countries where it had been wiped out, in part because the northern Nigerian state of Kano banned the vaccination.

Guinean Security Minister Moussa Sampil has confiscated all 950 copies of the weekly "Le Petit matin" on 23 September 2004 because of an article ridiculing his "mistakes", and then trying to justify the seizure by falsely claiming the newspaper was illegal. Reporters Without Borders (RSF) added, "We call for 'Le Petit matin' to be allowed to resume publishing normally and for it to be compensated for the financial losses resulting from the seizure of the 23 September issue."

African Colours, online since July 2000, is a portal for Contemporary Art, as well as a dynamic force to link artists from different parts of the world so that they can share their ideas and culture and achieve a common goal. To make a contribution, you can send your news and editorials to [email protected]. To subscribe to their mailing list and receive African Colours Updates, please send an email to [email protected].

The Secretary-General's Special Representative has warned that the conflict in the Sudan, if not properly addressed, could create the conditions for a widening regional, if not global, confrontation. He also stressed the need to prevent the conflicts from turning into a general antagonism between people with different religions or different ethnic backgrounds. Once the struggles in the Sudan were perceived as a clash between cultures - Arabs against Africans, Sudan versus the West, Islam versus the rest - they became unmanageable and spread to other places.

The National Society for Human Rights (NSHR) condemns the Government of Namibia (GRN) Bill virtually banning the marking of December 10 as International Human Right's Day in Namibia. "Bearing in mind GRN’s general anti-human rights agenda over the years, NSHR is not surprised at this virtual banning of marking December 10 as International Human Rights Day. This state of affairs appears to be perfectly in line with the ruling SWAPO Party’s deplorable pre-independence human rights record", observed NSHR executive director Phil ya Nangoloh.

Global Health Watch is calling activists, health workers and academics from around the world to submit case studies and testimonies to supplement the first edition of the Global Health Watch Report. These case studies and testimonies will form part of the electronic accompaniment to the alternative world health report which will be launched in July 2005 at the People's Health Assembly in Ecuador.

Desert locust control operations have been expanded in West Africa, but countries are still facing serious shortages of pesticides and aircraft, FAO said today. Donor funding has significantly increased since Director-General Dr Jacques Diouf called on donors two weeks ago to respond urgently to FAO's appeal. FAO has now $14.7 million in cash, with a further $40 million of pledged contributions. Around $12 million have been promised by donors but are awaiting confirmation. The UN agency is providing around $6 million from its own resources.

Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection is a necessary, but not sufficient, cause of tuberculosis (TB), as only approximately 10% of those infected ever develop tuberculosis. This process of progressing to disease after infection is poorly understood. A well known risk factors for this progression is HIV/AIDS. In a letter that will appear in Emerging Infectious Diseases several scientists hypothesize on epidemiological grounds that, in addition to HIV, there likely exists another sexually transmitted virus that causes tuberculosis after tuberculous infection.

Closing date: 20 October 2004
The SGBV Co-ordinator will assist project staff to fulfil the SGBV objectives working closely with key stakeholders. This person requires a strong grounding in the issues surrounding SGBV and previous experience of implementing a programme such as this, preferably in North/East Africa.

A new research report from the Humanitarian Policy Group (HPG) examines how the international development aid system is becoming increasingly engaged in situations which, for many years, have been seen as largely the preserve of the humanitarian community. It reviews the changing relationship between the ideas, instruments and financing of the humanitarian system and of mainstream development cooperation in situations of protracted crisis. Two briefing papers synthesize the key findings and conclusions: http://www.odi.org.uk/hpg/hpgbrief16.pdf AND http://www.odi.org.uk/hpg/hpgbrief17.pdf

The dispute over natural resources is at the heart of some of the most intractable conflicts in Africa today, from Sudan to Congo to Nigeria. Even amid international efforts to bring greater transparency to the continent's resource exploration, the recent strife here is a microcosm of widespread theft and mismanagement, which observers attribute to a combination of colonial-era intervention, corrupt governments, and cynical behavior by Western policymakers and multinationals.

Two major studies on the interface between the use of hormonal contraception and HIV infection are currently being finalized and will be released in early 2005. Depending on the results (of the studies), there may be a need to have an urgent consultation in Geneva to develop an evidence-based response to the findings, followed by a consultation of scientists, senior clinicians, policy makers and programme managers in the WHO African Region.

More than half the number of Mozambicans interviewed in a recent poverty survey said they had been unable to meet household food needs in the last 12 months, and many did not have access to sufficient water. About 8,000 Mozambicans in 102 of the 146 rural and urban districts of Mozambique participated in the research conducted by a group of civil society organisations called G20, as part of its contribution to the "poverty observatory".

Zimbabwe has set up an ambitious Zim $200 billion (about US $35.6 million) loan facility to breathe life into the country's struggling businesses. The Zimbabwe Development Bank (ZDB) and the Small Enterprises Development Corporation (SEDCO) have been appointed to handle and disburse the funds, which are expected to target companies facing economic hardship, particularly those close to bankruptcy or operating below capacity.

Armed with an expanded mandate and an increase in troop strength, the UN Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) may now be better placed to capitalise on the slight improvement in the security situation in the east of the country. Although UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan only received UN Security Council authorisation to raise the troop strength by 5,900 from 10,800, he said the newly approved troop ceiling of 16,700 would "contribute to improving the mission's operational capabilities, which are severely under resourced".

Malawi is losing 2.8 percent of its forest cover every year and has the highest deforestation rate in the Southern African Development Community. "Forest resources are under enormous pressure from expansion of agricultural activities, because of an increase in the population. Many people cultivate in government-protected forests because they say they do not have land," John Ngalande, deputy Director of the forestry department, told IRIN.