Pambazuka 169: Mercenaries in Africa: From soldiers of fortune to corporate warriors
Pambazuka 169: Mercenaries in Africa: From soldiers of fortune to corporate warriors
Although both men and women belonging to ethnic minorities and indigenous peoples suffer discrimination, it is women who do so in a multi-pronged fashion, argue Fareda Banda and Christine Chinkin, researchers with the Minority Rights Group (MRG). ''Sexual violence of nearly epidemic proportions and multiple forms of discrimination against minority and indigenous women could be better prevented,'' say the experts.
Representatives of the rebel movements in Sudan's western Darfur region have agreed to allow some 500,000 children cut off from regular health services to be vaccinated against such potentially killer diseases as measles and polio, the United Nations announced. Agreement was reached with the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) after a UN team met their representatives last Friday in Asmara, Eritrea, according to the UN in Khartoum.
Relations between the Angolan authorities and the main opposition party, UNITA, appeared to have soured once again over the delay in announcing a date for the country's first post-war elections. On Monday a senior UNITA official told IRIN that the party would continue to boycott the constitutional commission laying the groundwork for a national poll until "the government showed real commitment" to establishing an electoral timetable in preparation for the national poll.
Around 500 members of the former rebel movement the Conseil national de défense de la démocratie-Forces de défense de la démocratie (CNDD-FDD), took a formal decision of becoming a political party at a congress held from 7 to 8 August in the central province of Gitega. In accordance with a ceasefire agreement, Burundi’s Ministry of Home Affairs will automatically approve the new political party once combatants begin cantonment.
Angry residents of an informal settlement outside the central commercial town of Manzini have declared their neighbourhood a no-go area for Swazi police following a clash at the weekend between the security forces and political demonstrators. "The police invaded our homes [on Saturday] and beat up anyone they found inside. It is best they stay away to allow us to take care of our own affairs," said Philemon, a resident of Mbhuleni.
A weeklong door-to-door anti-polio drive in the Central African Republic ended on Saturday. The nation-wide campaign follows the outbreak of two cases of a deadly form of "wild polio" in June 2004 in the northern prefecture of Mambere Kadei. Health workers vaccinated approximately 3,000 children, the director of preventive medicine in the ministry of health Dr Abel Namssenmo told IRIN on Monday.
This is a beautifully designed and produced picture biography of Wole Soyinka, published in honour of his 70th birthday in 2004. Soyinka, as a dramatist, poet, novelist, essayist, teacher, political activist and literary scholar, is perhaps Africa's most brilliant cultural ambassador and critic. He is a notable commentator on world affairs, and a Nobel laureate, being in 1986 the first African to win the Nobel Prize For Literature. In 2004, he delivered the BBC Reith lectures. His career as a creative artist began at the age of 23, when his first plays were performed in Ibadan and London. Since then, he has produced an extraordinary body of work: over two dozen plays, novels, autobiographies, hundreds of essays, collections of poetry, two films and an album of satirical songs.
For at least 18 months now, Western governments have quietly stood by as the non-Arabic-speaking black farmers of the Darfur region in western Sudan have borne the brunt of a vicious ethnic-cleansing campaign carried out by state-sponsored bandits known as the janjaweed. Why then have the governments of the United States and the European Union (EU) only now begun to express concern over the fate of the people of western Sudan and demand that the Islamist military regime in Khartoum bring the janjaweed under control? The answer - as it most often is when rich countries threaten to intervene in the Middle East and Africa - is access to invest in and extract profits from Sudan's burgeoning oil export industry.
The Department of Health and Welfare in Limpopo invites funding proposals from NPOs to support their work in the fight against HIV/Aids and Tuberculosis.
This book of poetry by established and younger writers from Ghana represents a rare effort to compile and publish an anthology of contemporary Ghanaian poems. Some of the writers included are Kobena Eyi Acquah, Ama Ata Aidoo, Kofi Awoonor, Kwesi Brew, Gifty Selorn Odoom, Doris Adabasu Kuwornu, Rex Quarterly and Lade Wosornu.
Africa has been experiencing higher rates of urbanization than any other continent, and today about one-third of the continent's population live in urban areas. This book examines the affordability of modern energy sources for the poor; the relevance of energy subsidies; the impact of subsidies on public finances; and how electricity tariffs affect the operations of small and medium enterprises, the main source of livelihood for the majority of the urban poor outside the formal economic sector.
It is difficult to discern the motive behind the republication of Albert Memmi’s classic examination of the political psychology of colonialism. The illustration on the front of this new edition is clearly of white US troops looking down imperiously from their armoured vehicle over a black society, probably Somalia. If the choice of image seeks to suggest that contemporary US interventions are a modern expression of the colonial condition Memmi sought to explore in 1957, with its then sharp contemporaneity yet heavy historical burden, this is clearly mistaken.
This distance learning course provides human rights activists with a range of proven human rights advocacy methods and critical concepts as a means for them to reflect on and deepen their own work. The course will look at the theoretical foundations and critical issues of human rights advocacy, elements of advocacy planning, and strategies for action.
About 60% of the 42 000 Liberian refugees mostly residing in the Buduburam Refugee Camp in the Central Region will now have the opportunity to undergo training in Information Communication Technology, the Vice President for the Association for the Reconstruction of Liberia, an Accra-based NGO, Mr. James B. Kollie Snr said. This is in addition to 1000 refugees who are expected to enrol in Ghanaian Universities and Polytechnics throughout the country.
The humanitarian crisis in Darfur shows no signs of abating at the same time as the national, regional and international politics of the conflict take on new dimensions.
Last week the UN finally agreed to a watered down resolution requiring the Government of Sudan to disarm and bring to justice the leaders of the Janjaweed militia that have been killing, maiming, raping and destroying the peoples of western Sudan. There is a deadline of 30 days. A stronger version of the UN resolution including the threat of imposition of sanctions had to be modified thanks to the combined opposition of China and Russia at the Security Council and also other dubious allies of the Sudan government in the General Assembly, principally Arab and Muslim states and their fellow travellers.
China's interest is quite clear. Its national oil company is the largest foreign investor in the new oil industry of Sudan. Russia is always cautious about UN intervention and censure against governments maltreating their own peoples. The Russian army has been committing atrocities in Chechnya for years without many cries from the UN or the usual self-appointed global policemen and guarantors of international peace and security.
The position of the Arab and Muslim countries is one informed by a herd instinct and a long historical misunderstanding of the basis of conflict in the Sudan. The herd instinct is further enhanced by the current global Islamophobia consequent to 9/11 and the criminalisation of every Muslim as an Al Qaeda suspect. The War against Afghanistan/ Iraq and the continuing tragedy of Iraq under the Anglo-American occupation has underpinned this 'need' for Muslims to stick together. Since Sudan is considered a Muslim country, therefore it must be supported against its enemies even if those 'enemies' happen to be the majority of her own citizens.
The racialist aspect of the Sudan conflict is one that sees the country as an Arab country therefore both North African and Middle East Arab states must express solidarity with it, right or wrong.
Both the religious and racial allies of Khartoum are wrong. Any Muslim should be outraged at what the NIF government has been doing in Sudan since 1989 when it came to power. Muslims must stop associating Islam with dictatorial regimes. In Darfur the Arab Militia, aided and abetted by the Khartoum government marauding through villages and towns and destroying people and property is supposedly Muslim. The peoples of Western Sudan that are victims of Khartoum and the Janjaweed are all Muslims too. So which kind of Islamism is this that kills fellow Muslims?
The Arabist view of Sudan is the most ridiculous. How many of these so-called Sudanese Arabs are really Arabs? The name of the country itself is a good give away: Balad al Sud. It means Land of the Blacks. Many are Arabised but not really Arabs and have taken to that identity as part of the power politics in the country and its unequal historical ties with Egypt and other Arab countries. In Darfur you will even find a significant part of the population to be of West African origin.
While identity, religion, race and other social factors may be part of the conflagration, the centre of it is power - unaccountable and illegitimate power exercised by a tiny oligarchy in the military, merchant families, hegemonic Muslim sects and clergy and their political infrastructure and networks. Darfur is for instance a victim of the split within the National Islamic Front personified by detained former spiritual leader of the organisation, Dr Hassan Al Turabi and his former protégé, General Omar Al Bashir, the President. Al Turabi's support is very strong in Darfur and because of that Darfur is enemy territory for the government.
What kind of intervention will work in Darfur? The American poodle in Britain, Mr. Tory Blair, is already talking about moral obligation to intervene and is reportedly considering sending British troops. This will not help in any way. Any direct British or American military intervention will not be helpful because it will muddy the waters given their bad record in both Afghanistan and Iraq. Supposedly Christian crusaders against allegedly Muslim soldiers again? Whose interest will this serve?
The Darfur crisis is a great opportunity for the new AU to show that it is really different from the old OAU. The Chairperson, Konare, has been upfront on the Darfur situation and he needs the support of Africa's leaders and the rest of the international community. The peace monitor group the AU has sent into Darfur is too small. And even smaller still are the 300 member troops that are supposed to guard them and also protect civilian victims. The mandate needs to be expanded to include peace keeping and peace enforcement including disarming, arresting and bringing to trial the perpetrators of the killings. The UN and other members of the international community who want to help should back the AU effort not to set up parallel initiatives.
Darfur is Africa's problem and the AU must show the leadership. One symbolic action that will show Khartoum that Africa means 'Never again' to genocide is to stop Khartoum from hosting the next AU summit as planned. How can we confer such diplomatic and political legitimacy on a government that is killing its own citizens?
* Dr Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is General-Secretary of the Pan African Movement, Kampala (Uganda) and Co-Director of Justice Africa ([email protected] or [email][email protected])
* Please send comments to [email protected]
The International Criminal Court has published its first newsletter, providing updates on current issues before the Court.
ProCOR is an email- and web-based forum for the global exchange of information and ideas to prevent cardiovascular disease, especially in developing countries.
A survey conducted for the South African Institute of Race Relations three years ago had shown most people saw unemployment and crime as the biggest problems facing SA. Racism was far lower on the list. It also pointed out there now seemed to be less inclination on the part of top leadership "to play the race card". President Thabo Mbeki once dismissed critics of his stances on Zimbabwe and other issues as racist.
In unrest comparable in scale to Chechnya and Colombia, a year of bloodletting has killed more than 1,000 in the oil-rich Niger Delta, leaving the world's No. 7 oil exporter, and people here, concerned for the future. Royal Dutch/Shell, Nigeria's largest oil operation, which produces half the 2.5 million barrels Nigeria exports daily, also is reeling. A confidential 93-page security report commissioned by Shell in December 2003 warns that mounting attacks by criminals and ethnic militants could force the oil giant to abandon its onshore operations in the delta by 2008.
Some 15,000 people from the southern Nigerian town of Ughelli have been driven out of their homes by flooding, following three days of heavy rain, the Delta State information commissioner said Tuesday.
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.
We live in the happiest, healthiest and most peaceful era in human history, writes columnist George Monbiot in the UK Guardian. But due to climate change it will not last long, he argues. "Like every impending disaster (think of the rise of Hitler or the fall of Rome), this one has generated a voluble industry of denial. Few people are now foolish enough to claim that man-made climate change isn't happening at all, but the few are still granted plenty of scope to make idiots of themselves in public."
The plague of locusts sweeping south across the Sahara desert is now causing serious crop damage in Mauritania, Mali and Niger and has spread for the first time to Chad, agricultural experts and government officials said on Monday. Over the weekend, swarms of locusts invaded eastern Mali and started devouring crops, an agricultural official in the central town of Mopti said.
Joel Bisina has written an informative article on the Niger Delta (Pambazuka News 167). However there are a few points I would like to add.
Apart from a very brief mention of Ken Saro-Wiwa and Odi, Bisina fails to mention the state sponsored violence that has been taking place for the past 14 years. Nor does he mention the issue of demands for autonomy and resource control made by all the ethnic nationalities (please let us throw the word tribe into the dustbin of colonialism) of the Niger Delta.
When he does mention violence it is in the context of "inter tribal and inter communal conflicts". This implies the conflicts are nothing to do with oil. On the contrary the Federal Government has used divide and rule tactics to fuel conflicts between the different ethnic minorities by favouring one community over another at different times, by redrawing boundaries between communities and by arming one community and instigating murder.
Bisina also fails to include any gender dimension to his article. He mentions the "ethnic militias" and illegal bunkering that takes place by a minority of people but fails to mention the many activist groups and organisations that are fighting to expose the crimes and human rights abuses of the multinationals and their partner, the Nigerian government.
JOEL BISINA REPLIES: Thank you Sokari Ekine, I fully and wholly agree with you that some of the issues you raised are fundamental and are worthy of mention, but I want you to appreciate the fact that the Niger Delta question is as old as the Nigeria Federation and so are the issues and the facets to the issues. Any attempt in a singular write-up in trying to address all will amount to writing an encyclopaedia. So you would excuse my brevity.
I need to state here that I am very conversant and actively involved in the entire Niger Delta struggle at various levels in my professional capacity and as someone from the Region who lives and works there. Just trying to look at state sponsored violence alone will produce volumes. From the days of King Koko of Nembe Brass to the most recent military invasion in Egbema communities of Ogbudugbudu, Idebagbene and Itsekiri communities of Orugbo etc.
>>>>> Click on the link below for the rest of Joel Bisina's response.
I would encourage you to encourage your writers not to use the word "tribe" (Pambazuka News 167). For a complete explanation see Thank you for your consideration.
Extract from above URL:
Tribe does not convey the depth of history, tradition, arts, social structure, cuisine, dress, ethics and rituals that these groups developed. We don't speak of the "tribes of Europe," usually "ethnic group" or nationality is used. Similarly Native Americans had their "nations" and confederations. Another choice is to refer to a "people". Again if possible and appropriate be more specific; "the Hausa people," "the Mande ethnic group," or "the Zulu nation."
Swazi community members and organisations are combining resources to set up a growing network of care centres for orphans and vulnerable children (OVC). The centres, called Neighbourhood Care Points (NCPs), cater to the nutritional, educational and emotional needs of the country's growing OVC population at 320 NCPs scattered throughout its four regions.
Concerns over security in some parts of rural Liberia and the battered state of the country's infrastructure will limit the number of refugees able to return home from neighbouring West African countries later this year, the UN refugee agency UNHCR has warned. "We do not want a situation where more (refugees) than we planned return because most of them would end up in internally displaced camps since the facilities are not adequate to receive large numbers of people," Golam Abbas, the deputy head of UNHCR in Liberia told IRIN.
This paper compares the views about abstinence and condom use expressed by young people in Zimbabwe in focus-group discussions with the views underlying national policies and religious and traditional beliefs. Young people’s decisions to adopt one or the other of these risk-reduction strategies may not necessarily indicate genuine individual choices, but rather their deference to adults’ interests as they understand those interests. Evidence from the focus-group discussions indicates that adolescents are aware of this conflict between choice of strategy and sometimes conceal their condom use in order not to disappoint adults.
This report is designed to facilitate consultation with civil society, experts and the international community on the priorities and strategies of the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) on education for girls, in preparation of the final report to be completed in December 2004. It first discusses the MDGs on education and gender equality, and international data and trends in gender and education. The report then sets out the Task Force’s six main points, supported by evidence from a survey of selected literature.
Education does not end with exile. In fact, it starts in exile for many of the over 65,000 primary school-aged refugee children in northern Uganda. Even after they have been displaced by Uganda's own civil conflict, these refugee kids are given access to free primary education alongside local students.
Fistula is a condition caused by difficult, protracted labor in which the fetus' head presses against the mother's pelvis so hard that it cuts off the blood supply to the area and kills the surrounding tissue. The result is a small, abnormal pipe-like opening, or "fistula," usually between the bladder and the vagina, that causes the woman to leak urine and stool uncontrollably. Surgery to repair a fistula usually only takes about 15 minutes, but in parts of the world where poverty has limited or eliminated women's access to natal care, the fistula problem is dire.
Soul Beat is a web and e-newsletter project that is building a development communication network for people and organisations in Africa. It is a web-based initiative focusing specifically on sharing information about using communication for change and development in Africa. We cover development work that uses media, such as radio, TV, telecommunications, print media, the internet, new media technologies, drama or art to reach people. We also feature awards and funding opportunities.
The Namibian Government’s bi-weekly New Era newspaper went daily on Monday, August 2 2004, amid questions about its financial viability and the possible burden on the taxpayer. The Chief Executive Officer of the New Era Publication Corporation, Protasius Ndauendapo, said that while the company expected its costs to escalate "the bottom line is that by going daily we will be making a profit".
On 8 July 2004, police in Kano State, northwestern Nigeria, released Kola Oyelere, the Kano State correspondent for the privately-owned "Nigerian Tribune" newspaper. Oyelere was arrested by police on 4 July on charges of publishing false information. Oyelere was initially declared wanted on 4 July and arrested later the same day. He was detained, reportedly tortured and subsequently charged on 5 July.
On 18 July 2004, Deo Namujimbo, a Goma-based correspondent for the international news agency Syfia, based in Montpellier, France, was forced to evacuate his family to Bukavu and go into hiding to "escape from soldiers who [were] searching for him". The soldiers are reportedly aligned with rebel General Laurent Nkunda and are led by a commander known only as "Claude". Goma is the main city in North Kivu province, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.
Panos and GKP have called for submissions for the 2004 "Reporting on the Information Society" awards. The topic for this year is "Transparency, good governance and democracy: Do Information and Communication Technologies increase accountability?" Four awards of $1,000 each will be made for the best journalism on this topic produced by journalists in developing and transition countries.
As part of the Gender and Media Summit in September the Media Institute for Southern Africa (MISA) and Gender Links will be launching the first Southern Africa Gender and Media Awards. The awards will acknowledge excellence in gender aware reporting since the Gender and Media Baseline Study (GMBS) in 2003. The GMBS was the most comprehensive study ever to be undertaken regionally and globally on how women and men feature in the news. It showed significant gender gaps in the representation of women in the media, as well as biases in the way women and men are portrayed.
On 26 July 2004, Alex James, station manager of Citizen FM, a privately-owned community radio station located in the east of the capital, Freetown, was attacked by a group of armed youth in the community. James was returning home from work when he was attacked by the youth, who robbed him of his jewellery, cash and two mobile phones. Three days later, on the night of 29 July, the same armed youth group assaulted Alie Bai Kamara, a Citizen FM reporter, and left him in a coma. The youths left Kamara with lacerated lips, bruised arms and swollen eyes.
Given the current media environment in Zimbabwe, free and fair elections in March 2005 are highly unlikely, a fact finding mission to Zimbabwe said in a report released by the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) on Wednesday, August 4, 2004. During the week starting June 21, 2004, MISA sent a fact finding mission to Zimbabwe to look into the state of the media in the run up to the Parliamentary elections planned for March 2005. The members of this mission were Ms Pamela Dube, Editor of Mokgosi Newspaper in Botswana, Mr Fernando Gonçalves, Editor of Savana Newspaper in Mozambique and Zambian Media Law expert Patrick Matibini.
Even without attending an Aids lesson in a classroom, receiving at least a primary school education can halve young people's risk of contracting HIV. A recent report published by Global Campaign for Education (GCE) titled Learning How to Survive says as long as millions of children are still excluded from school, these vital Aids prevention programmes are unlikely to work as fast and as well as we need them to.
Rushed in as a last minute substitute speaker for the Minister of Health, the head of the national health department's HIV/AIDS cluster, Dr Rose Mulumba, has told students that prohibitive costs were the reason for the long delay in providing antiretroviral treatment in the public health sector. When Dr Rose Mulumba first confronted the figures on her computer screen that showed her how much it would cost to treat South Africans requiring antiretrovirals she had to get up, “clear my head” and recalculate the numbers.
Last Friday the donor community heaped praise on the Ministry of Health and Social Services for expanding to several hospitals its anti-retroviral therapy (ART) to HIV/AIDS patients and the prevention of mother to child transmission programme (PMTCT). As a result of the launch, the rollout programme of anti-retroviral therapy will cover six additional state hospitals at Engela, Outapi, Grootfontein, Otjiwarongo, Gobabis and Omaruru, one hospital managed by Lutheran Medical Services at Onandjokwe in the Oshikoto Region and three health facilities run by the Catholic Health Services at Oshikuku in the Omusati Region, Andara and at Nyangana in the Kavango Region.
In South Africa, Women’s Day commemorates the courage of the thousands of women who marched to the Union Buildings in 1956 to protest against the pass laws. This action placed women at the centre of the struggle against Apartheid. Today South Africa has a new constitution that protects the rights and dignity of women. The government has ratified the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women. Yet South Africa has the 3rd highest rape statistics in the world, young women are in the high-risk category for HIV infection and one in six women are abused in their own homes.
Rwanda will use international aid to offer free generic drugs by year's end to 90,000 people infected with HIV and AIDS, a 20-fold increase in the number of people receiving treatment, an official said last Thursday. The program would treat some 100,000 people by 2007 and would be funded by $85 million in aid from the U.S. government, the World Bank and the Geneva-based Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.
AIFO/Italy and People's Health Movement Africa invite articles in English, French, Portuguese and Italian from activists, non-governmental organisations and grass-roots organisations based in Africa related to experiences of innovative approaches linked to promotion of any aspect of better health for different community groups. Articles selected by an international jury will be part of a book to be released and distributed at the Second People's Health Assembly (PHA-II) in Ecuador in 2005 and will also be made available on the AIFO website. Three best articles will receive a cash prize of 500 Euros each. Last date for sending entries is 15 October 2004. It is possible that some selected partners from this initiative will be sponsored by AIFO to participate in the PHA-II. A decision regarding this will be taken before the end of 2004. In addition, authors of the three prize winning entries may also be invited to an award ceremony in Italy. For more details write to: [email protected]
The campaign trail for Ghana’s general election in December is taking a detour through South Africa this week, with the visit of opposition leader John Evans Atta Mills. Addressing journalists in the country’s commercial centre of Johannesburg Tuesday, Aug. 3, the head of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) sounded upbeat about his prospects in the poll.
Torrential rains and inadequate supplies of safe drinking water have led to a cholera epidemic in Guinea which has so far killed 23 people, Health Minister Amara Seisay said. He told state television last Thursday night that 183 cases of the highly infectious disease had been reported throughout the country, of which 93 came from the district around Kindia, a provincial town 120 km east of the capital Conakry.
Ghana lags behind most of Africa when it comes to using insecticide-treated malaria nets and the government needs to go on an offensive to promote them, the head of the Global Fund To Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria said last Thursday. Just three percent of the Ghanaian population string up the treated nets over their beds, whereas the average in most African countries is between 25 and 40 percent.
A resounding silence surrounds an event to take place at the end of this month that, in theory at least, has great significance for the health of the people of Africa. Dr Ebrahim Samba is to step down after serving his maximum two terms of office as Director of WHO's Africa Region (WHO/AFRO). Such disinterest in a new UN health leader in the continent with the world's most pressing disease burden seems at first glance astonishing. However, a little familiarity with WHO and its African Office makes the lack of debate more understandable.
Kenya's population growth rate is likely to rise substantially because fewer Kenyans are using contraception. Unless the Government provides funds for a campaign to push for greater use of birth control methods, the population - currently growing at 2.5 per cent - would increase significantly.
When the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) met in Cairo, 1994, human rights and choice were put on the agenda and at the centre of policies on population and development. Goals were agreed to improve reproductive health for everyone, meet young people’s needs, and empower women - because it was their right. Reaching the Cairo goals would save lives, build families, fight poverty, and hasten population stabilization. Ten years later, the degree of progress made is variable.
Zambia's minister of health, Brian Chituwo, recently boasted that 6,000 out of a targeted 10,000 people living with AIDS, have accessed the government's cheap anti-retroviral (ARV) drugs since a roll-out began last August. What he does not mention is that even though women make up the majority of people living with AIDS in this southern African country, they constitute less than 10%of those accessing ARV drugs.
In contrast to most sub-Saharan African countries, Senegal's successful attempts to check the spread of HIV/AIDS has transformed the country into a model over the last two decades - a source of inspiration in the global fight against the epidemic. Twenty years on Senegal is still having to battle against some die-hard attitudes, including risky sex behaviour among the youth, whose reticence to test - because of societal stigma attached to HIV positive status - is raising tremendous concern.
Sudanese Arab horsemen, whose kin are being recruited by the Janjaweed militias in Darfur, are poaching elephants and endangered white rhinos in neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo, conservationists say. The poaching raids have halved the world's remaining wild northern white rhino population, threatening it with extinction, said Fraser Smith, head of the Garamba National Park Project, in northeastern Congo.
The Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights has adopted 21 resolutions and decisions on the question of the violation of human rights and fundamental freedoms, including policies of racial discrimination and segregation in all countries; economic, social and cultural rights; and on the prevention of discrimination. Under the question of the violation of human rights and fundamental freedoms in all countries, the Sub-Commission recalled that all forms of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment constituted violations of the peremptory norms of international law; and recommended that all States develop independent and effective domestic mechanisms as well as concrete measures to combat torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
U.N. human rights experts accused all armed groups in Congo's troubled northeastern Ituri province of war crimes and said Rwanda, Uganda, and the former Congolese government contributed to “the massive abuses,” according to a report. At least 8,000 civilians were deliberately killed or were victims of the indiscriminate use of force in Ituri in 2002 and 2003 and more than 600,000 civilians were forced to flee their homes, according to investigations by the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Congo and other human rights groups.
The School Management Committee (SMC) of Akuapim basic schools has condemned the increasing rate at which parents allow school children to cart cocoa beans and food crops from one place to the other and tap palm wine instead of encouraging them to stay in school.
CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation, the Secretariat of the World Bank Civil Society Joint Facilitation Committee (JFC), is seeking a Senior Researcher to produce proposals on how engagement between civil society and the World Bank could be more transparent and relevant.
Art for Humanity (AfH) is issuing a call for partners for its upcoming project 'Women Artists and Poets Advocating Children's Rights'. The mission of AfH is to awaken society at large to a sense of moral and social responsibility for Human Rights through an innovative use of visual arts. AfH's proposed project, 'Women Artists and Poets advocating Children's Rights' is in essence about inspiring moral responsibility of children's rights through the art works created by female visual artists and poets. Read more in their latest newsletter.
International Rescue Committee
The Senior Education Specialist is responsible for managing all aspects of IRC's multi-country education program, which seeks to expand access to quality basic education and to strengthen civil society and government capacity to address the education needs of vulnerable groups of children, including those affected by HIV/AIDS.
This publication is a report on the study on the harmonization of anti corruption regional legal frameworks. The publication shows the synthesis of anti corruption national reports and related legislation of specific SADC member states with a view to identifying weaknesses, needs and omissions that exist in the current legislation and how the respective national legislation can be brought into line with the provisions of the SADC Protocol Against Corruption (Protocol).
GOAL
The Country Director is responsible for the management and ongoing development/extension of GOAL's work within Angola. Amongst other areas, this work includes providing assistance in the post conflict reconstruction and in the return of IDPs and refugees to their areas of origin.
Throughout Sub-Saharan Africa, fewer than half of primary-school age children go to school; enrolment in secondary school in 22 countries is below 20%; and less than 10% of the workforce has matriculated. Please circle one of the following: These conditions ensure: a) present and future economic competitiveness; b) strong participatory democracy and nation building; c) an end to mass poverty; d) none of the above. The answer is as obvious as the statistics are alarming. Education ought to lie at the core of Africa's development strategies, the primary means by which the continent works to catch up with the rest of the world in terms of stability, prosperity and prowess.
CHF International
The Program Manager will be responsible for assisting in the rapid expansion of CHF's program by contributing to its design and implementation. Other duties will include the production of regular progress reports and the management of the daily operations of the organisation's new office.
Four leaders of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) have been released on bail after a short court appearance on Monday, the labour body reported. The four - secretary-general Wellington Chibebe and colleagues Lucia Matibenga, Sam Machinda, and Timothy Kondo - were arrested on 5 August under the Public Order and Security Act (POSA) in Gweru, south of the capital, Harare, while attending a workshop on the impact of taxation and HIV/AIDS on workers.
Africa Democracy Forum
The ADF is seeking a full-time co-ordinator to help facilitate networking efforts among African democracy activists. The position's duties will include the development of a database of ADF members and the organising of meetings and training programs.
The United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) past Wednesday handed over security primacy for the Eastern Province to the Government of Sierra Leone at a colourful and emotional ceremony in the eastern provincial headquarters town of Kenema. It was the last of the country's three provinces to be handed back. The handover of security primacy by UNAMSIL will culminate in September when the Western Area, including the capital Freetown, is given back to the Government.
Algeria has been a case study in how not to deal with Islamist activism. Its experience dwarfs that of its neighbours in both scale of violence - over 100,000 deaths since 1991 - and number of Islamic organisations disputing the religious, political and military fields. But there is now an opportunity to turn this tragic page, says a report from the International Crisis Group. "Seizing it requires a skilful blend of political, security, legal and diplomatic measures to eliminate remaining armed groups. But Algeria's political class also must recast debate around a new agenda of practical reform. Europe needs to help more, and the U.S. to be more sophisticated in its handling of an over-played al-Qaeda factor."
A nationwide campaign to increase public awareness on the importance of breastfeeding began on Monday, with a workshop in Burundi's capital, Bujumbura. World Breastfeeding Week had taken place the week before. Medical workers and journalists attended the Bujumbura event, which was organised by the National Programme for Reproductive Health in conjunction with the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF).
Mauritania has foiled a plot to overthrow the country's president, its defence minister has said. Between 20 and 30 members of the army are reported to have been arrested for the alleged coup attempt. Defence Minister Baba Ould Sidi said the plotters were "the very same people who led the aborted putsch in June last year".
Ivorian opposition ministers and rebels have attended their first cabinet meeting after a four-month boycott. The ministers, including rebel leader Guillaume Soro, left the power-sharing government after 120 people died during a banned opposition protest in March. A recent peace summit in Ghana made the resumption of the cabinet a priority for the country to return to peace.
"The International Community, in short, needs to continue to actively engage in the region. Among the UN staff in Liberia today, the talk is that Guinea is the next flashpoint, and some opportunistic staffers are already learning French for a future posting to Guinea. Peacekeeping in West Africa, in other words, is becoming a growth industry. This should not be allowed to happen," writes Lansana Gberie in this feature on www.zmag.org
South African company, OnPoint Solutions have invented a low-cost, four-in-one PC that could lower the cost of offering ICT in learning institutions. The purpose built PCs offer internet, e-mail, phone, word processing and network facilities exclusively for educational purposes and concessions provided from Microsoft International have allowed the machines to be sold at the low cost of ?298 per system.
As a follow-up to the recommendations made from research on the root causes of conflict in Africa, ABANTU for Development, Kenya, hosted training for peace workers. The training enabled peace workers to: develop an understanding of the participative learner centred approach, establish an understanding of policies and policy making process for peace building; develop skills of training needs analysis; and enhance effective participation in conflict resolution and peace building. The training was held in the last week of July 2003, in Ethiopia, with participants from Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda.
The Kenyan Communications Appeals Tribunal has attacked the monopoly granted to Telkom Kenya to provide the Internet gateway to the country. Announcing its conclusions last Thursday, the Tribunal ruled that the Kenyan Communications regulator had acted against the provisions of the Kenya Communications Act 1998, which outlaws any form of monopoly, when it had refused to licence Fast Lane Limited to provide an alternative Internet backbone to Telkom's Jambonet. The ruling should result in more licenses being issued, bringing the cost of Internet services down and follows Telkom's announcement last week that it was increasing its Internet charges by up to 75%.
Armed militias have continued to commit atrocities against civilians in Sudan's troubled western region of Darfur despite claims by Khartoum that the situation had improved, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Tuesday. In a new report titled: "Empty Promises: Continuing Abuses in Darfur, Sudan", HRW said that instead of disarming the Janjawid militias, Khartoum had begun incorporating them into police and other security forces that could be used to secure proposed "safe areas" for displaced civilians.
More than 1,000 former fighters of the LURD rebel movement are holed up in Liberia's second largest rubber plantation and are refusing to turn in their guns to UN peacekeepers, a member of Liberia's transitional parliament said on Tuesday. Residents living on and near the Guthrie plantation, about 30 km northwest of the capital Monrovia, have complained of harassment by the fighters and have reported that they are illegally tapping rubber from the plantation, he told IRIN, speaking on behalf of village chiefs in the region.
In an opinion article published by Panos, a leading ICT expert has warned that whilst Africa's urban poor have found innovative ways of using mobile phones at little or no cost, the building of Africa's information society will take more than just giving people access to new communication technologies. The author suggests that only with a change to Africa's culture of secrecy will Africa build a true information society in which vital information is systematically recorded and freely available.
Open Research, together with the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa, is developing an open source information portal to assist non-profit organisations throughout Africa to make informed and strategic use of free and open source software (FOSS). To help highlight the challenges, benefits and obstacles to the use of FOSS, Open Research is calling for participation from all non-profit, governmental and educational initiatives that would be prepared for their experiences with FOSS to be written up and made available to the broader community.
Describing itself as the 'biggest ever African / Caribbean Family Reunion' the Meet Me There event is taking place on Saturday 14th August at Trent Park, Cockfosters in London. Open from 10am till 10pm, the event features fashion shows, food stalls and a large range of musical performances. Tickets cost £5.00 and can be purchased on line.
The annual Convention of the Ugandan North American Association is being held between the 3rd and 5th of September in the Sheraton Hotel, Seattle. Uganda's President, Yoweri Museveni, will be delivering the key note address and other speakers include Congressman Adam Smith of Washington's Ninth District and Jeremy M Goldberg of Project Namuwongo, Zone B. For more information, visit the convention's website.
On Thursday 12th August, Transafrica, the Africa Initiative of the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), Black Voices for Peace and the Africa Freedom and Justice Coalition (AFJC) are holding an open forum to discuss and formulate action plans to help resolve the Sudan crisis. The event is taking place at Transafrica's offices on 1426 21st Street in Washington between 6.30 and 9pm.
Race relations workers in London are shocked at proposals to close the library at the Commission for Racial Equality (CRE) to members of the public. According to current plans, management has allocated no funds to the library service in the budget and current staff members are to be redeployed.
The IMF has announced that it will assist Nigeria in whatever way to repatriate her funds stashed in foreign countries by corrupt leaders and government officials. "We will give our support for any action, legal action, whatever that is taken to guarantee corruption-related revenue are taken into the judicial procedure and returned to the Nigerian people," said the Managing Director of the IMF, Mr Rodrigo de Rato, at a press briefing to end his visit to Nigeria. An estimated $4bn is believed to have been placed in foreign accounts by the late military leader, Gen. Sani Abacha and his associates.
The president of the UN Security Council last week called upon states in the region to cooperate with the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and for all member states of the UN to pay their dues. The Tribunal is currently facing a US $50 million funding gap and with more than half its cases yet to go to trial, will struggle to complete all of its work by 2010, the official date set for its closure.
An African Union Report has estimated that Africa losses approximately $148 billion annually to corrupt practices - a figure which represents 25% of the continent's Gross Domestic Product (GDP). In comments made to the press last week by Mr Babatunde Olugoji, Chairman of the Nigerian Independent Advocacy Project, it was also noted that the African Development Bank estimates that lower income households spend an average of two to three percent of their income on bribes.
The Zimbabwean government’s lack of transparency on grain availability in the country could jeopardize access to food for millions of Zimbabweans in the coming months, Human Rights Watch said in a briefing paper. Human Rights Watch called on the Zimbabwean government to make this information public immediately. “By withholding vital information on grain availability, the Zimbabwean government is gambling with its citizens’ access to food,” said Peter Takirambudde, executive director of Human Rights Watch’s Africa Division. “Under international law, the government must take all necessary steps to fully ensure its citizens’ right to adequate food.”
It is estimated that 2,000 youth leaders from around the world will gather to discuss such issues as poverty, health, HIV/AIDS, violence, development, environmental degradation, and peace-building.
The Rhodes University's Department of Journalism and Media Studies invites Mid-career media workers and journalists who are seeking the opportunity to engage in full-time postgraduate study to apply for Scholarships.
Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi has averted a possible boycott of 2005 elections by opposition parties by agreeing to their demand to invite international observers, his ruling party said on Tuesday. Ethiopia banned international observers from monitoring the last vote in 2000, restricting the observer status to Ethiopian civil societies, the then Organization of African Unity (OAU) and diplomats resident in its capital Addis Ababa.
Government has rejected claims of human rights violations contained in the latest National Society for Human Rights for Namibia (NSHR) annual report, which was released last week. The report, titled Namibia Human Rights Report 2004, according to the Government, paints a grossly distorted picture of the human rights situation in the country, portraying it as dramatically depreciating over the past months of review, and the Government being out of touch and losing hold.
A total of 1,465 out of the 2,000 registered non-government organisations (NGOs) in the country have failed to submit annual reports to the Ministry of Manpower Development and Employment since 2003. Consequently, the Ministry has threatened to withdraw its recognition from the defaulting NGOs and to recommend that they be denied exemption from paying duty on goods they import for their activities.
The government of Mali has imposed a six-month ban on tree felling to try and slow the rate at which the country's savannah woodland is being steadily decimated for firewood and charcoal. However, housewives in the capital Bamako are grumbling that this has pushed up the price of cooking fuel. The Ministry of the Environment estimates that Mali is loosing 400,000 hectares of tree cover a year to meet the rising demand for construction timber and fuel wood.
Despite a decade of free primary education in Malawi, the number of girls dropping out of school continues to outstrip that of boys, the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) said in a new report. "The main problem is that the free primary education policy does not translate into action on the ground. Making tuition free for pupils was not sufficient to take girls to school - there are other non-tuition costs, such as school materials, which parents have to pay," UNICEF's Head of Basic Education in Malawi Bernard Gatawa told IRIN.
The launching of the Social Watch report 2004 in Zambia sparked a nation-wide discussion on poverty in the country. Finance Minister Ngandu Magande argued there is now plenty of food in the country and questioned the accuracy of the Social Watch indicators. In an editorial comment, the influential Zambian daily "The Post" advised the minister "to look at his own government's statistics on poverty produced by the Central Statistical Office" and argued that "the issues raised in the 2004 Social Watch report are true and deserve our government's and indeed all our politicians' most serious considerations".
More time, not a new deadline, is needed for universal ratification of the convention to eliminate discrimination against women, says Feride Acar, chairperson of the U.N. committee on the convention. The initiative to have the treaty signed by all the world's nations could get a boost from the upcoming 25th anniversary of the Convention on the Elimination of All forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) Acar suggested in an interview Tuesday.
The IMF's Independent Evaluation Office has just released a major new report on the PRSP process. The report argues that PRSPs have the potential to encourage country-owned development, but that achievements so far fall considerably short of their potential. This echoes findings in the World Bank's recent evaluation of PRSPs. The report calls for greater country ownership of the process and a more country-specific flexible approach to policy design.
The services of 408 doctors trained at a cost of 24.4 million dollars are likely to be lost by 2006 if the present trend of brain drain among the country's health professionals continued unchecked. Within the same period, it is projected that 591 pharmacists and 1,883 nurses would join the bandwagon of medical professionals leaving the country.
About 100 primary school teachers in Rubaya and Butanda sub-counties have threatened to down their tools unless the government pays them their salary increment. The teachers said President Yoweri Museveni pledged to increase their salary from Shs130, 000 to 200, 000 effective this financial year, but nothing has been done.
Federal Government has promised to assist Rwanda rebuild its war-torn educational sector. This assurance was contained in the Memoranda of Understanding (MOU) signed between Nigeria and Rwanda. The Rwandan Minister of Education, Sciences, Technology and Scientific Research, Prof. Romain Murenzi, who is on a week-long visit to Nigeria during a courtesy visit to the Minister of Education, Professor Fabian Osuji, requested Nigeria's assistance to increase access, expansion and quality of education in Rwanda.