Recent research studies worldwide reveal that sexual violence in the education sector is an unaddressed problem. This report from the Panos Institute attempts to address this gap by focusing on the problem of sexual violence in educational institutions all over the world, and argues that educational institutions, due to the level of respect they hold in communities, can help break the cycle of violence through addressing it vigorously where it happens, and ensuring that curricular and extra-curricular opportunities equip young people to navigate their sexual lives without violence.

"We crawled into this dark hut with no windows. Inside was almost total darkness although it was only 10 o'clock in the morning. Lying at the corner with barely enough blankets to cover her self was a 35-year-old women dying of AIDS. She had lost her husband a year ago. At her age and with nothing, she was left to care for her five children. A coughing 4-year-old boy, whose future one dared not even think about, peeped behind her. Nobody could ask where the other children where for the trauma on her face was too much for any parent," writes Nyaradzai Gumbonzvanda, Regional Programme Director UNIFEM East and Horn of Africa.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) recently began its first formal investigation to judge crimes committed in the Democratic Republic of Congo. It is urgent that the women's movement monitor whether the ICC effectively investigates and sanctions the perpetrators of sexual and gender crimes committed against women. Sexual violence as a weapon of war can no longer go unnoticed. This special issue of Women’s Human Rights Net addresses key aspects of the ICC, such as gender crimes and related case law, gender-sensitive proceedings and the possible implications of implementing international standards nationally to advance women's human rights.

The Institute for Policy Studies released a report that shows that most oil projects supported by the World Bank supply industrialized country consumption - not developing countries' energy needs - and almost all benefit large corporations based in those countries. Halliburton leads the pack of companies benefiting from World Bank energy lending. "The Energy Tug-of-War: Winners and Losers in World Bank Fossil Fuel Finance" exposes the leading beneficiaries of 133 financial packages, worth over $10.7 billion, approved by the World Bank Group since 1992. The report was written by the Sustainable Energy and Economy Network (SEEN), a project of the Institute for Policy Studies.

ACORD, an international NGO working in over 20 countries in sub-Saharan Africa, has just produced a report of research carried out in Northern Uganda and Burundi to gain insight into both the causes and consequences of HIV/AIDS-related stigma and discrimination. The research produced evidence of alarming levels of stigma and discrimination suffered by individuals, their carers and families in both countries. Ignorance and fear compounded by cultural and religious taboos were found to be at the root of such attitudes and behaviours. Reluctance to be tested or seek counselling and/or rejection by service providers are among the key consequences confirming that stigma and discrimination act as a major barrier to accessing services and treatment.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations has announced the results of a study showing that HIV/AIDS is causing a "long-term decline" in subsistence agricultural production in Mozambique and across sub-Saharan Africa, Agence France-Presse reports. The study, which was based on interviews with about 90 people in Mozambique in 2003, showed that as HIV-positive people become too ill to farm, they stop planting many crops.

Minister of State William Ole Ntimama this week broke ranks with the government and threw his weight behind the Masai's campaign to reclaim ancestral land. "The Masai land was annexed under a state of war by the colonial government," the minister said. Calling for dialogue among the government, white farmers and the Masai to begin as soon as possible, he also appealed to the ranchers to "allow Masai to graze in some of the land. People are moving in desperation, there is no water or grass outside the electric fences," he said.

Food and nutrition security are the fundamental challenges to human welfare and economic growth in Africa. Low food availability and profound poverty have caused the number of undernourished people on the continent to rise considerably in recent years. An estimated 200 million people in Africa can now be classed as undernourished - almost 20 percent more than in the early 1990s. The dismal level of food and nutrition security obvious in many African countries at both the national and the household level means that while 14 percent of the global population is undernourished, the figure is nearly double (27 percent) for Africa.

The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and scientists have warned against the use of anti-retroviral drugs (ARVs) without improving the nutrition of patients. Delegates from 14 eastern and southern African countries are meeting in Entebbe to discuss the regional nutritional needs of women, children and the implications of HIV on nutrition. The delegates want their respective governments to institute nutrition policies and provide nutrition supplementation to improve health. The commissioner in charge of children’s health, Jessica Nsungwa, said 10% of Ugandan women have chronic energy deficiency while 41% of pregnant women were anaemic.

Moketsi Nleya, a subsistence farmer in rural Madlambuzi, western Zimbabwe, painfully retrieves a bunch of thin brown roots from under his pillow, which he breaks into tiny fragments and chews, followed by a cupful of an analgesic herbal concoction that also acts as a sedative. Nleya, 55, is among a growing number of HIV/AIDS patients in rural Zimbabwe who have to resort to traditional medicine because they have no direct access to antiretroviral (ARV) therapy.

The British government is to tighten regulations on employment of health care workers from developing countries in order to stop draining key staff from nations hard hit by AIDS, Health Minister John Hutton announced this week during a visit to South Africa. "We are determined not to destabilise the healthcare systems of developing countries. The NHS is expanding, but we're not going to do that at the expense of other countries," he said this week. National Health Service hospitals are already forbidden to recruit nurses from almost all developing countries except India, China and the Philippines, but private agencies have been allowed to recruit staff from anywhere in the world on short term contracts.

The Media and the Driving Schools Association of Malawi have called upon the new Director of Public Prosecutions and the Anti-Corruption Bureau to turn their attention to the Road Traffic Commission and the proliferation of corruption practices at the Commission over the issuance of SADC licences to clients. The calls follow a spate of horrific road accidents in the country.

Battling your way past rebel and government soldiers to buy medical supplies does not fall under a nurse's usual job description. But for Sister Rosalia, trying to treat the sick in the northern half of Cote d'Ivoire, it is an unavoidable chore. The world's top cocoa producer has been split in two since an uprising in September 2002 and aid workers and residents say the humanitarian situation is deteriorating in the rebel-held north of the country.

In a recent article by the Financial Times, it was suggested that the regime of Mr Obiang is an embarrassment to the US, which is showing interest in west African oil and claims a "positive, constructive relationship" with the country. This is despite a recent human rights report by the State Department which said "there was little evidence that the government used the country's oil wealth for the public good. Most oil wealth appears to be concentrated in the hands of top government officials while the majority of the population remained poor."

Ghana's Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) has identified forced marriage as the major human rights abuse in the country's Northern Region. Speaking on a visit to the region, the acting Commissioner of the CHRAJ said that "Saboba District alone reported 84 human rights abuse cases, of which 51 were based on forced marriages."

The new Chairman of Nigeria's Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Ms Omoigiu, this week accused some bank chiefs of colluding with officials from the Central Bank (CBN) to steal billions of naira from public funds. According to her upwards of N1.028 billion in taxes have been collected by the banks on behalf of government but have not then been remitted into the nation's account. To date no prosecutions over this matter have been undertaken.

Zimbabwean police last week arrested six white commercial farmers for allegedly refusing to vacate their farms designated for landless blacks. State media sources said that the farmers in the region of Karoi in western Zimbabwe had defied notices to leave their land and that most had more than one farm each. Farming sources have said that none of the farmers had more than one farm and that some were not even farming as their properties had already been taken.

Burundi's president and vice president, representing the country's two main political parties, have agreed to appoint an independent electoral commission to oversee the first democratic elections in more than a decade. The commission will consist of three Hutus and two Tutsis and candidates will be approved by the National Assembly. Despite this positive news, a government spokesperson again warned that an October 31st deadline to hold the election might not be met.

Thanks a lot for the powerful, spot on comment on the ongoing scandal of sacrificing the victims in Darfur to politicking in the absence of any meaningful action (Pambazuka News 171: Comment and Analysis). It is a shame for all of us who seem to be unable once again to do more than to watch in despair and disbelief. It confronts those who care once again with the painful but necessary task of redefining the meaning of international solidarity and how to act accordingly. All the solemn declarations since the genocide in Rwanda a decade ago are hollow lip-service and make a mockery of concerns in the absence of any implementation of the "responsibility to protect", as defined by the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty.

The International Confederation of Trade Unions (ICFTU) has reported that workers taking part in an illegal strike at Botswana's largest mining firm, Debswana, are being evicted from company-owned homes. It is warning that the evictions could have serious social consequences on the stability of the region and that replacement mine workers have not been properly trained, reportedly leading to two deaths. Between 2,500 and 3,000 workers have been involved in the strike.

The intention of this project is to create a Forum that will group the major practising writers on the African continent, and ultimately be in a position to reflect their opinions and interests. At present there is no regular venue for African writers to meet. Gorée Institute, by its location and through its commitment to be a meeting place of minds, is ideally situated to fulfil this function. To start with a database will be established to centralise information about African writers and writing - their bibliographies, the possibilities of publication, translation and distribution of books, etc.

The Director-General of the Institute of Peace and Conflict Resolution, Dr Sunday Ochoche, has said that political corruption is the main cause of major conflicts in Nigeria. Speaking during a two-day seminar entitled "Peace in Ebonyi State - I am a Stakeholder", Ochoche said that in order to actualize their ambition, politicians have stimulated many conflicts that have caused so much havoc in the country.

Edward Lahiff, of the Western Cape Programme for Land and Agrarian Studies (PLASS) has called upon the South African Government to be "realistic" when setting targets for placing more commercial farmland in the hands of the rural poor. His comments follow recent research by PLASS which shows that the Government faces a shortfall of R587 million for land reform projects it has already approved.

Government hopes that a revised benefits offer to educators will avert a South African Democratic Teachers Union (Sadtu) strike may be dashed after the union dismissed the offer as "disappointing". Public Service and Administration Minister Geraldine FraserMoleketi's offer came as Sadtu's showdown with her department gathered momentum. Sadtu chief negotiator Fikile Hugo said that his union, the largest in the Public Service Co-ordinating Bargaining Council, might strike if government did not announce "something tangible" at a meeting with union negotiators on Friday.

Over 160 people from the region and several observers from across the globe will participate in the first Southern African Gender and Media Awards and Summit in Johannesburg from 12-14 September. Mail and Guardian editor Ferial Haffajee will give the keynote address at the multi-media award presentation and formal opening on the evening of 12 September. The competition attracted close to 100 print, television, radio and photography entries with stories ranging from men running day care centres to daughters being sold for debt.

The Southern African NGO Network (SANGONeT) and the South African National NGO Coalition (SANGOCO) are convening a national ICT roundtable event for civil society organisations to be held on 9 September 2004 in Johannesburg. The event will focus on the Second National Operator (SNO), which will be licensed on 17 September 2004, as well as the fourth draft of the ICT Empowerment Charter. For more information or to register for the event, visit:

Union International Network

"The persistence of extreme poverty and the failure to meet many development goals are usually linked to lack of employment, poor wages and working conditions, and violations of workers' rights. In their most fundamental functions, trade unions work to combat these causes of poverty. Furthermore, in their campaigns trade unions often play a major role in the forefront of working towards results that have become part of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), such as achieving universal primary education or combating the spread of HIV/AIDS. All too frequently however, policy advice and loan conditions counteract trade unions' efforts to contribute to achievement of the MDGs, particularly the attainment of MDG 1 for eradicating extreme poverty."

This paper produced by the International Council on Human Rights Policy argues that human rights NGOs, unlike development and humanitarian organisations, have not developed formal accountability procedures. It argues that it will be necessary to do so in order to defend their reputations against scepticism, as well as to strengthen the sector's ability to promote respect for human rights. It examines the contributions that donors, governments and other organisations can play to enable human rights NGOs to strengthen their accountability mechanisms and thereby their effectiveness.

Recent increases in global oil prices will have an impact on economies in the region, although it will be softened by the weaker US dollar, analysts told IRIN. John Loos, a noted economist with one of South Africa's largest commercial banks, ABSA, told IRIN that because oil prices had peaked at almost US $50 a barrel before gradually easing off this week, a "gradual uptick in inflation" could be expected in the region. Brent crude oil was trading at US $40.77 a barrel on Tuesday afternoon.

On 18 August 2004, the "Mirror" newspaper, a weekly English tabloid, was served with a rescission order providing for the return of all its computer equipment by the sheriff of Lesotho's High Court. This follows the seizure of the newspaper's computer equipment after being served with a writ of execution in a civil defamation case.

AITEC has been invited by the Act ICT Industry Alliance of Mauritius to hold the sixth annual ACT Summit in Mauritius due to the attendance it will attract from ICT professionals and managers from throughout Africa, as well as other international participation, thus promoting the country's position as a supplier of ICT services and expertise.

"We, the undersigned, are writing as individuals and members of organizations, many of whom know firsthand the tragic impacts of corporate failures in the water sector from Bolivia to the Philippines and from Argentina to South Africa. The Ghana National CAP of Water, made up of women's organizations, student and youth groups, tenants, residents and community associations, religious groups, trade unions, environmental groups, and human rights groups has united around the goal of ensuring access to water for all Ghanaians by 2008. The National CAP of Water has concluded that the achievement of this goal is being undercut by World Bank and government programs that promote (1) an international market price for water, and (2) private sector contracts to foreign multinational corporations for the management of the Ghanaian water system. We ask that these programs cease and the Ghanaian people be given a chance to develop alternative proposals."

A team from the International Criminal Court (ICC) is in Uganda to investigate alleged atrocities committed in the war between government troops and the rebels of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), UN officials said on Wednesday. "A team of nine ICC people is in Uganda," Andrew Timpson, who works for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), was quoted by AFP as saying. "They have started soliciting for interpreters for the local Luo language and Swahili and have also met human rights groups and non-governmental organisations," Timpson added.

The Nigerian senate has gone on strike for two days - demanding President Olusegun Obasanjo sacks a minister who called them foolish. Outspoken minister for Abuja, Nasir El-Rufai, is one of President Obasanjo's most controversial appointees. He has been criticised for ordering the demolition of illegal structures in Abuja, as well as dismissing hundreds of workers in his ministry.

A new United Nations report says Sudan has not disarmed Arab militias or stopped attacks against civilians in the strife-torn Darfur region. The report for the UN Security Council did note some progress, but called for more foreign troops to go to Sudan. The Sudanese ambassador to the UN described the report, which did not recommend any sanctions, as balanced. Up to 50,000 people have been killed in Darfur, following a campaign by Arab militias against black Africans.

The head of the UN mission in Liberia said on Wednesday that the war-scarred country's disarmament programme would officially end on October 30 and any former fighters found with weapons after then would be prosecuted. "We obviously want to disarm everyone. We are now looking at the date of 30 October as the end of the programme," Jacques Klein, the UN Secretary General's Special Representative in Liberia, told reporters.

The European Union and the United States have welcomed the setting up of Somalia's transitional federal parliament, a move that paves the way for the formation of an all inclusive government in Somalia. "The European Union commends the efforts of Somali leaders in achieving this significant outcome and calls upon them to ensure that the same spirit of positive cooperation prevails during the remainder of the reconciliation process," a statement by the EU presidency in Brussels on Tuesday said.

This Sunday, 5th September, sees the launch of a new progressive weekly radio programme, Africa Meet Africa, on Pacifica Radio in Washington DC. The programme aims to showcase events throughout the continent of Africa and its. Listeners can tune in from throughout the world via the station's webstream.

On Friday 3rd September, the School of Oriental and African Studies in London is hosting a workshop on the role of the diaspora in the post conflict reconstruction in the DRC. The event is free.

In 1986, The Lesotho Highlands Water Project (LHWP) was set up between the governments of Lesotho and South Africa as a multi-billion rand infrastructure project designed to control the flow of the Senqu/Orange river and in doing so provide water for the people of Gauteng province, and electricity and money for the people of Lesotho.

Corruption concerns first surfaced in 1993 when a civil government was elected in Lesotho. The government commissioned an audit of both of the parastatal bodies which shared responsibility for the project. The audit revealed obvious and substantial administrative irregularities within the Lesotho Highlands Development Authority (LHDA). After an audit of its chief executive officer, Masupha Ephraim Sole, Sole was then subjected to a disciplinary enquiry, and subsequently he was dismissed.

The investigations had revealed that Sole was clearly living far beyond his means: his housing, cars, holiday arrangements, and instances of nepotism were the obvious indicators. Civil proceedings were instituted to recoup the funds which had been misappropriated by Sole. Civil proceedings began in 1996 and produced evidence of bank accounts that included accounts with the Union Bank of Switzerland.

In August 1997, the Lesotho government applied to the Swiss court for disclosure of a number of Swiss bank accounts, including those belonging to Sole. The application was resisted by a number of the contractors/consultants working on the LHWP, but in early 1999, bank records were handed over. Those which belonged to Sole indicated that he had received millions of maloti for which he offered no explanation. Civil proceedings concluded in October 1999, with judgment given against Sole for the sum of 8.9 million maloti. His appeal, in April 2001, failed.

The bank records obtained from Switzerland indicated that throughout the lifetime of the project, Sole, using ‘middlemen’ or intermediaries, had indirectly received vast sums of money from certain companies and consortia who had been awarded contracts in the project. The patterns, size and timing of the payments gave rise to the notion that bribery had taken place on a massive scale.

The Lesotho government now decided to prosecute Sole as well as many of the corporations and members of consortia who had made secret payments into various Swiss bank accounts, together with the intermediaries who acted as conduits. In December 1999, 19 defendants were charged with bribery. Sole also faced charges of fraud and perjury. Seven of the defendants failed to attend this initial hearing.

By February 2001, the landscape had altered substantially. The court had ruled that the defendants should not be tried together, and a long programme of trials of individual defendants began with that of Masupha Ephraim Sole, on 11th June 2001. He was charged with 16 counts of bribery and two of fraud. During his trial, Sole chose not to give evidence. Evidence which had been gathered for the civil proceedings was now used to show that he had lied repeatedly in denying the existence of any accounts in Zurich. Such accounts existed, and showed a complex pattern of payments which had been made indirectly to him by a very large number of the contractors and consultants at work on the LHWP.

In a comprehensive judgment, finding Sole guilty as charged, Acting Judge Cullinan, a former Chief Justice of Lesotho, observed that the patterns of payments which had emerged during the trial had arisen from transactions which ‘inextricably bound together’ the defendant consultants/contractors, the intermediaries, and Sole himself. Sole was subsequently imprisoned, for eighteen years, reduced on appeal to fifteen.

The trial of Acres International, the Canadian engineering company, now followed. Prior to the criminal proceedings, the World Bank had begun debarment proceedings against Acres and Lahmeyer, a German engineering consulting firm, both of which had received funding from the Bank for the contracts. It is worth noting that the evidence of secret payments into numbered Swiss accounts was not deemed to amount to sufficient grounds for the debarment of the companies at that stage. Acres continued to apply for, and receive, funding for projects from the Bank. However, the Bank reserved its position, saying that it would reopen debarment proceedings if new evidence against Acres were to emerge from the criminal proceedings.

It was alleged that Acres had made payments to Sole through the offices of Zaliswonga Bam, one of three intermediaries originally identified. Bam had died of a heart attack in 1999. Although he was, at the relevant time, working for a housing association in Botswana, Bam and his wife had numbered Swiss bank accounts into which money was put by Acres amongst others and a proportion of which was then placed in one of Sole's many accounts.

Acres had to accept that it had made payments to Bam; the company argued that such payments were customary practice, and had been made pursuant to the ‘representation agreement’ it had made with Bam for services rendered by him to the company in his capacity as its agent or representative. With little evidence to substantiate their case, Acres argued that Bam had performed such services, that payment of such sums of money was commonplace in such circumstances, that nothing adverse should be inferred from the fact that the payments were made in such secrecy, and that in any event, the company had had no idea whatsoever that Bam was making payments to Sole.

The company comprehensively failed to convince the judge of the virtue of these arguments. In a colourful and literary judgment, Judge Lehohla concluded that in the light of the established relationship between Acres and the LHDA, Acres’ personnel were so embedded in the LHDA that there was simply no need for a ‘representative’. Bam's ‘representative’ status with Acres was not public knowledge, neither was it generally known that Bam was on the payroll of other companies working on the LHWP. The judge could see no evidence to show what services Bam performed, nor why he performed them, particularly in the light of the work he was doing at the material time. The judge concluded that the representation agreement was a sham, that Acres had benefited from bribing Sole, to the detriment of its competitors, and that the company was therefore guilty as charged.

Acres was convicted, and sentenced to a fine of CAD3.8M. The company refused to accept the ruling of the court, suggesting that the Judge had not been up to the job, that the trial had been unfair, and that this error would be corrected in the Appeal Court. Acres then lost its appeal. At the time of writing, the company, pleading poverty, has paid a little under half of the fine which was imposed upon it by the Court of Appeal.

After the appeal hearing, debarment proceedings were recommenced by the World Bank and in August 2004 the Sanctions Committee debarred Acres from applying to the Bank for financial support for a period of three years. Shortly before the Sanctions Committee gave its ruling, the company was bought by a larger corporation, Hatch. The implications for Hatch's dealings with the World Bank remain unknown.

A trial against Lahmeyer followed the same pattern as the Acres' proceedings, as did the appeal; and it is anticipated that a similar pattern of events will flow in the debarment proceedings with the World Bank, although one cannot predict the view of the Sanctions Committee. Proceedings have now been instituted against Impregilo, an Italian company, with the first hearing timetabled for October 2004. Evidence is now being gathered against others.

Conclusions

Whilst these trials have earned Lesotho a unique place in legal history, it has been an expensive business. At an international level, many have expressed their admiration for the determination which the Attorney General has shown in proceeding with these difficult cases, and for the tenacity of purpose in the prosecutors, without whose sustained efforts the trials would simply not have been possible. No financial support for these trials has been forthcoming from outside the country. Many institutions and governments promised financial support at the outset of the trials, but none has yet been forthcoming. A conclusion drawn by some in Lesotho is that institutional support for a prosecution may be lacking from a country where the defendant company is registered, and where there may be a corresponding conflict of political interest.

Many of the legal aspects of corruption have now been thoroughly and recently tested in the Lesotho courts. In particular, there is now clear, developed common law jurisprudence on the questions of jurisdiction (where the matters can be tried) and citation (with regards whether a company has a legal personality). In addition, the definition of bribery has been further refined to ensure that equal resonance accrues to the two parts of the offence - netting both the bribee and the briber.

From the perspective of the international community, these trials pose challenges to Parties to the OECD Convention on Combating Bribery about the ways in which corruption is detected and punished in different parts of the world. Canadian lawyers have expressed doubt as to whether Acres would have been prosecuted in Canada. The high moral tone taken throughout by Acres, which has, throughout, been disinclined publicly to express remorse for its actions, might have deterred a decision to prosecute. Lahmeyer could not be prosecuted under the provisions of German criminal law in any event, since corporate offences are dealt with under administrative law only, punishable by means of fines.

With regards the international financial institutions, Judge Steyn gave the clearest indication of the Court's view of their role in his ruling in the Lahmeyer appeal:

‘…that it will revisit its practices and procedures in general, but for present purposes, more particularly the practice of the employment of representatives who can play the obfuscating role played so frequently in this mammoth project. But also, that it will be firm and resolute in enforcing its disciplinary proceedings on any agency, company, individual or institution who participates in the practice of bribing those employed on development projects.’

In terms of the Acres debarment, the company has been debarred for three years. The period of debarment is shorter than it might have been, because the Sanctions Committee took into account the fine which had already been imposed by the Lesotho courts, and the fact that those who had been responsible for the bribery no longer worked for the company. The Bank has conducted its own inquiry into corporate corruption in Lesotho: its procedures are not vulnerable to judicial scrutiny. However, the trials in Lesotho have been subject to such scrutiny at every turn; they have effectively provided the World Bank with the materials used in its debarment proceedings. The decision of the World Bank to debar Acres has been heralded as a clear indication from the Bank that it means business, in excising corruption from its lending practices. Responses to the debarment of Acres have yet to emerge from other IFIs. There can be no doubt that mutual debarment could become an ultimate deterrent to a company considering the bribery of a foreign public official.

* Fiona Darroch is a barrister at law, in practice at Hailsham Chambers, London. Part of her practice is in international environmental and human rights issues, and she has been following and writing on the Lesotho corruption trials for two years.
* A group of lawyers based in Durban and Roma have begun an initiative which will assist people in the region of the Lesotho Highlands Water Project who have been displaced by the project and who are still suffering the ill-effects. For further information please email Nikki Evans at [email][email protected]

* Please send comments to [email protected]

I have had a chance to look at Farid Omar's article ‘Darfur at the Crossroads: Caught Between Western Hypocrisy and Muslim Complicity’. (Read it online at My impression is that while I can agree to some of the arguments he makes I am also in disagreement about some factual and interpretative errors in his discussion. I am going through his piece almost paragraph by paragraph in order to lay bare the discrepancies and factual inadequacies.

For a start, the Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) have not been altogether silent about the genocide in Darfur, which is instigated, aided and abetted by the Khartoum government. In a recent report made by the BBC, 9th August 2004, entitled ‘Arab League backs Sudan on Darfur’, the reporter indicated that "Arab Foreign Ministers at an emergency session in Cairo backed Khartoum's measures to disarm Arab militias and punish human rights violators. They called on the UN to give Sudan more time to resolve the conflict. And Sudanese Vice-President Ali Osman Taha said he thought the UN's end of August deadline was impractical." In effect the report indicated that, "the Arab League has rejected any sanctions or international military intervention as a response to the crisis in Sudan's Darfur region." The Sudanese Vice-President Ali Osman Taha had indicated that, "We are really committed to disarm whoever is acting outside the law". But who armed the Janjaweed? He added that, "comprehensive stability was only possible if both the Arab Janjaweed militia and rebel groups disarmed."

It is possible to read into this, firstly, the indecisive and guarded complicity of the Arab League position on the tragedy of Darfur. Genocide is not something which can be given time to be reversed. The slaughter and butchery of 30 000 Furs (not Darfuris) is a matter which needs to be brought to a close immediately. In any part of the world today any extension beyond immediacy in terminating genocide would hardly be countenanced. In the present Sudanese conflict in Darfur with the Sudanese army plus the Janjaweed on one side and African nationalist rebels on the other, who are oppressors and oppressed?

Secondly, if you compare the stance of the Arab League to that of the United Nations you will notice an enormous gap in perception of the magnitude, dimensions and perceptions of the crisis. While some of us recognize in the crisis genocide and ethnic cleansing others see a question of disarming armed bandits and rebels as the heart of the matter. I am not aware of what the OIC has or has not said, but I would agree with Farid Omar that they appear to be "strangely silent". If that is the case, then that certainly amounts to implicit complicity.

I share Peter Takirambudde, Chief of the Africa Division of Human Rights Watch's view that Sudan is "trying to manipulate opinion in the Arab world to hide the massive crimes it has committed against Sudanese citizens."

Magdi Abdelhadi of the BBC has observed, with regards to the Arab League's statement that "there were no surprises in the Arab League statement and Khartoum got what it wanted. The statement welcomed measures already taken by the Sudanese government to disarm the Janjaweed and bring those responsible for human rights violations in Darfur to justice. The Arab foreign ministers also pledged to assist Sudan and the international community in resolving the conflict peacefully. The statement was very much in line with a report by an Arab League's fact-finding mission to Darfur earlier this year, which largely exonerated the Sudanese government from responsibility and laid the blame on a combination of factors, including protracted drought, tribal conflict and under-development in western Sudan." Of course human rights violators should be brought to book. Human rights violations are unacceptable in the modern world, whether such violators are Americans in the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, Arab authorities in the Sudan, or human rights criminals in the Great Lakes area.

True enough, "While western hypocrisy on the situation in Darfur is really problematic, Muslim complicity in the Darfur mayhem is equally disturbing. The Muslim people and their allies around the world should stand up for Darfuris, denounce and expose western double standards and condemn the AL and the OIC for their inaction and failure to put pressure on Sudan to contain the crisis in Darfur." There I have no problems with Farid Omar's views. But then he goes on to say that, "The western media has presented the political and humanitarian crisis in Darfur and broader conflict in Sudan as a race or religious war. This is a false paradigm. The conflict in Sudan is not one pitting the so-called Muslim-Arab North and the so-called Christian/animist South, or between the Arab Janjaweed militia working in collusion with the Sudanese government and the Black Africans in Darfur. The people of Sudan are all Africans, be they Black-Africans or Arab-Africans." Here I have a bone to pick with Omar. Certainly the various conflicts or the various fronts of war in the Sudan are not simply racial or religious. That is the crude and distorted simplification of the issue. But, we must not forget that the Fur are Muslims just like the Arabs in the Sudan. Therefore the conflict cannot be put down to religious differences. Then, what is it?

For years the Khartoum regime of Muslim fundamentalists have also been pursuing ethnic cleansing in the Nuba Mountains of Southern Kordofan with genocidal overtones against the Nuba who are also mostly Muslims. A similar tactic has been in place there, that is, using local Arab militias working hand in glove with Sudanese army units against the Nuba. In the South of the country the conflict is of much longer standing and can be said to have commenced in August 1955, with a period of low intensity conflict between1972 and 1983. Since 1983 over two million southern Sudanese have died as a result of the war.

In the case of the war in southern Sudan the international media has too often simplified the struggle as a conflict between a Christian and animist South against a Muslim North. The real fact of the matter is that it is a struggle between Arabs and Arabized Nubians and the Africans of the Sudan whether they are Fur, Zaghawa, Messalit and other similar groups in the west or the Ingessana in the east or the Beja/Hadendowa in the Kassala area adjacent to Eritrea. Some Nubians are now rejecting Arabism. The struggle in the Sudan is an age-old struggle between the forces for the Arabization of Africans and African nationalism, which rejects Arabization.

It is not simply a question of Islam against Christians and animists. I have in the past on many occasions indicated to friends in the Southern Sudan that they have for too long allowed their position to be sold short by playing to the international media and other interests which simply defined the struggle as one between Christians and animists in confrontation with Muslims. The explosion of media attention in the wake of the emergence of the Darfur crisis has underscored the falsity of the religious explanation of the conflict. If the Fur, Messalit, Zaghawa, Ingessana and Beja are Muslims certainly the struggle of the Sudan is not a religious conflict of Muslims and non-Muslims.

The history of the Arabs in the Sudan has been part of the history of the Arabs in Africa. Arabs entered Africa in the middle of the 7th century AD and have been steadily Arabizing Africans starting with the Berbers of northern Africa who till today have to a degree been resisting Arabization.

The Sudan and Mauritania are possibly the most decisive flash points in this process. Will Africans steadily accept to be culturally Arabized or will they resist Arabization and remain culturally rooted in their histories?

This is the real question of the Sudan and Africa. I say that I believe Africans prefer to remain African and not to become Arabs. I say this without prejudice to Arabs or those Africans who have become Arabized and wish to remain so. Just as much as Arabs have the right to protect their identity, history and culture, Africans also have a similar right. Just as much as Arabs wish to see the realization of Arab unity (el watani el arabi), Africans also most fervently wish to see the unity of Africans. The Arab League with all its weaknesses represents contemporary aspirations of Arabs for Arab unity.

As I have often argued, for as long as the pursuit of this ideal is conducted democratically for the freedom of Arab peoples, the ideal deserves the support of all progressive and well meaning people. But this must not be allowed to proceed geographically, politically, economically and culturally at the expense of Africans. Where does the border of the Arab world end and who are the people beyond the borders of the Arab world? Africans need to answer this question for themselves.

Today on the maps of the Arab League the Arab world includes about a third of Africa's geographical area. There are some of us who say enough is enough. No further expansion at the expense of Africans is tolerable. The notion Arab-Africans is a term used in the Sudan to hide the realities of Arabization. It is a concept, which has become in some ways a Trojan horse for Arab expansionism in Africa. Culturally and otherwise, people will always mix and adopt new identities, but this must not become a one-way traffic to Arabization and the cultural denationalisation of Africans.

In the broad historical experience of Africans two imperialisms can be pointed to, Arab and Western imperialism. Historically, Arab imperialism in Africa is older than western imperialism by a millennium. The day Africans realize that Arabs are not Africans and Africans are not Arabs but that the two peoples must live together in peace and with humanity towards each other their recognition of the African identity would have moved one step further and would have made a decisive conceptual move towards the ultimate achievement of African unity. The unity of Africa embraces historically, culturally and psychologically more directly the African Diaspora than the Arab north of Africa. In this sense, the African Diaspora is central to Pan-Africanism and African unity.

In a manuscript I am currently writing I have made the point that, if we want to maintain the rigour of the logic of the Diaspora link, we must, as Africans, define our reality on a historical and cultural basis. In this respect, geography is only useful in as far as it helps us to understand the historical and social process. We can therefore hardly define the reality of contemporary Africa as a geographical expression; that is, Africans as all who live on the continent of Africa. The argument has a resounding and irresistible flip-side, which is that, all who do not live on the continent or not born on the continent, are not Africans. This is the distorted logic, which pushes out the African Diaspora. We must not equate citizenship with nationality or cultural identity. A state may have people of different nationalities.

I do not agree that the so-called "race and religious analogy of the conflict is part of the ideological ploy of U.S. imperialism to generate anti-Arab hostility among African-Americans and Black Africans, to win support of African-Americans and Black African Christians for the US neo-Conservatives/Christian right project against Arab and Muslim Africans, and in particular against Sudanese Muslims. It is also aimed at undermining the long standing Afro-Arab solidarity that has historically striven against the forces of western imperialism, colonialism, apartheid and the occupation in Palestine."

Of course western imperialism must be denounced but so also must the Arabization of Africans be fought. It is ridiculous to bracket African-Americans with US neo-conservatives in this way. It is at best disingenuous and at worst mischievous. The point, which the Darfur crisis has forcefully brought home to many Africans in the Diaspora, is the fact that ultimately the definition and identity of Africans cannot be based on colour. In the Sudan it is not possible to differentiate African from Arab on the basis of colour and I am sure that with television available worldwide many Africans in the Diaspora who have for centuries been faced with white racism find it difficult to digest the fact that most Arabs in the Sudan have black faces. The point I have elsewhere made is that amongst Arabs colours range from black to blonde. The same is true for Jews. In years to come this may be more clearly true for Europeans.

Ultimately what defines an African from an Arab are cultural and historical belongings, not nature but nurture, not biology but rather culture. The black colour which is common for most Africans happens to be a miraculous bonus, in the sense that whereas most other major peoples of the world have other attributes they share as groups based on culture, religion, language, history and geography, mixed to different degrees, in the case of Africans in the absence of clearly unifying language and religion, colour has become a most useful blessing which makes most Africans recognizable from a good distance. But, in the future increasingly there will be many Africans who are not necessarily black. This is the way the world is moving and this is the future of humanity.

From my viewpoint, part of the tragedy of Darfur is that African nationalism in the Sudan has been conveniently split between what is going on in the west, south, east and northeast. Africans have so far failed to find sufficient ground to realize that they are all fighting the same war. The Arabist rulers in Khartoum have been clever at creating convenient and tactical truces, and thereby silencing and truncating the Southerner's struggle from the Fur, Ingessana, Nuba and Beja. This amounts to success for the policy of divide and rule, which has been in the past used to such consummation by successive Arabist regimes in Khartoum, who fear and deny the predominant African character of the Sudan. What al Bashir and the Khartoum clique fear most, is that the Arabist minority may lose control of the Sudan; that the African majority may exert its preponderant character.

It is most doubtful if the Arab League, in its present form, would readily accept a thoroughly democratic solution to the national question in the Sudan. But Africans are waking up. Sooner or later the African character of the Sudan as a democratic expression of the society will triumph.

I am happy with Farid Omar's philosophically inclusive sense of humanity. But, I fear the persistence of the confusion of Arab and African on the continent and beyond. This confusion, on this specific matter, appears to be more prevalent among Africans than non-Africans. We still do not seem to know or understand who we are. I hope we do not go into another major Pan-African meeting/congress with this confusion. If this happens, we would not have made any real headway since the last one. Let us not try to foist an African identity on people who do not want to be so regarded and who reject the African identity; who continue to despise and enslave Africans. I agree with Farid Omar when he says that, "the root causes of the Sudanese conflict are primarily political and can be located in totalitarian tendencies that have overtime, suppressed the evolution of popular democracy." While this diagnosis is right the point has to be seen in relationship to the long history of oppression, slavery, war, ethnic cleansing and now genocide.

The suggestion that external forces have fanned the Sudanese conflict is grossly exaggerated and misplaced. Blaming the conflict on American arms and money and right-wing evangelical groups in the US does not do credit to the Africans of the Sudan. The Africans of the Sudan are a group oppressed by the minority Arab elite in the country. As for the territorial integrity and national sovereignty of the Sudan, we must remember that the Sudan as it is geographically represented today is like all African states an artificial creation of European powers. The British were anxious to control the whole of the Nile Basin in order to supply Egypt with its lifeline, the Nile waters.

Omar's contention that "the Sudanese government either has no interest in resolving the crisis or lacks the capacity to do so", is spot on. As for the AU I agree with Farid Omar that the about "300 Peace Monitors it has deployed in Darfur is grossly inadequate." Again Farid Omar's observation is pertinent when he writes that, "Like the Arab League and Organization of Islamic Conference, the Muslim and Arab media have also maintained a strange silence.” In sharp contrast to events in the Middle East, coverage on the horrific Darfuri scene by Al-Jazeera and other leading Arab Satellite Televisions such as the Dubai-based Al-Arabiya is dismally marginal. Failure by Muslim and Arab media to adequately cover the grisly events in Darfur smacks of complicity.

Africans need to read the lessons right in this behaviour and attitude of the Arab media. The simple truth about all the wars in the Afro-Arab borderlands is that, at best we should be able to nationally coexist in peace. But if we cannot live together in peace, then we must go our separate ways without rancour, pain and mutual torment. The members of the global community have fortunately agreed as standing international protocol, since the Treaty of Versailles, that in our times, nations and peoples have the right to self-determination.

This protocol applies equally well to the African people of the Sudan.

* Kwesi Kwaa Prah is Director of the Centre for the Advanced Studies of African Societies. This article has been used with permission of the author.

* Please send comments to [email protected]

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