A new family code in Morocco, known as the Mudawana, is having differing effects on women's rights in the Islamic kingdom and the disputed territory of Western Sahara, which falls under Moroccan rule. Earlier this year, Moroccan King Mohammed VI pushed the Mudawana through parliament. As of February 2004, Moroccan women no longer have to obey their husbands by law, something many Moroccan men saw as enshrining their right to use their fists on disobedient wives.

UN human rights experts have uncovered three mass graves packed with at least 99 bodies in the northern town of Korhogo, where heavy clashed between rival rebel factions took place in June. In a statement released by the UN mission in the country (ONUCI) it was reported that 'some of these people were killed by bullets and, according to reliable and consistent witness accounts, others suffocated to death.'

Gender inequality, power dynamics in sexual relations, and women’s lack of economic empowerment relate directly to patterns of poverty and are key factors in the spread of HIV/AIDS. At the same time, the epidemic leads to new social and economic burdens – often borne by women and girls – among households affected by HIV/AIDS that can stretch household safety nets to the breaking point. Defusing this self-reinforcing relationship between poverty and HIV/AIDS requires understanding how individuals and communities might best employ their resources and assets to prevent infection and to mitigate the consequences of HIV/AIDS.

Twenty-eight Burundian political and ex-militia leaders are due to resume meetings again on Wednesday in a bid to finalise the country's post-transitional power-sharing agreement. The two-day meeting will be held in Pretoria, South Africa, at the invitation of the facilitator of the Burundi peace process, South African Deputy-President Jacob Zuma. He has invited all 17 political parties that signed the Arusha Agreement, three former rebel movements that signed the ceasefire accords, and eight newly approved political parties in an effort to resolve the power-sharing issue that has blocked the development of a post-transitional constitution.

The trade liberalization framework presented to the WTO General Council is a betrayal of the world’s poor, according to the Asian trade policy research NGO, Focus o­n the Global South. Speaking in Geneva, their senior trade analyst Aileen Kwa said that the current negotiations are being used by the rich industrialized countries – especially the US and the EU – to force open developing country markets and to hide their own massive agricultural subsidies. "If the proposed framework is implemented, the inevitable result will be deindustrialization of the developing world and the end of small-scale farming," said Kwa. "Millions of workers will lose their jobs and millions of farmers will lose their livelihoods."

Zimbabwean media has consistently ignored the voices of women in issues of national interest and continuously marginalised women as both newsmakers and as sources of news, a study has confirmed. While gender activists in Zimbabwe and in Southern Africa in general have continuously called upon the media to be gender inclusive, a recent study by the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) and a South Africa based non-governmental organisation Gender Links, has shown that not much progress in terms of gender-inclusiveness has been made by most mainstream media in general.

Hopes within Uganda's opposition that donors will press President Yoweri Museveni not to amend the 1995 constitution to allow him to run for the 2006 presidential election were shattered last week when Western diplomats said they will not interfere with the country's transitional process. However, the diplomats warned that economic and political gains that the country had achieved in the past decade might be lost unless the government handled the transition to the 2006 presidential election well.

Ms Jane Kiragu, Director of the National Anti-Corruption Steering Committee, has been suspended following a marathon meeting on Monday with the Committee's chairman, Rev Mutava Musyimi. Her appointment, ten days earlier, had provoked spirited protests from a section of the 34-member strong committee, who viewed it as unilateral and a Government scheme to infiltrate and influence its work.

The Centre for the Victims of Extra-Judicial Killings and Torture (CUEKT AFRICA) has deplored the rising rate of policy brutality and exploitation of innocent citizens in the Enugu region. The group this week accused the police of 'deliberately framing and arresting residents to extort money from them before they are set free.'

In a newly published report entitled, 'Swaziland: human rights at risk in a climate of political and legal uncertainty' Amnesty International has called upon the Government of King Mswati III to resolve the constitutional and human rights crisis that has left the country without a Court of Appeal since 2002 and undermines the Government's new international human rights obligations. Amongst the abuses alleged in the report are a failure to investigate and prosecute those responsible for torture and deaths in custody and a denial of the rights of freedom of association and peaceful assembly to those perceived as government critics.

The Reality of Aid is an independent assessment of the nature and performance of development aid. The project aims to contribute to more effective strategies to eliminate poverty, based on principles of solidarity and equity, by analysing international aid and development cooperation and lobbying for changes in north/south systemic relationships in aid practices.

Following the discovery of another mass grave last Thursday, Amnesty International has called upon the Algerian authorities to fully investigate the site and to treat previously unearthed graves similarly. According to Algerian security sources, the grave contains more than a dozen bodies of victims of killings committed by an armed group during the mid-1990s. In recent months, Amnesty International has repeatedly expressed concern about the failure of the Algerian authorities to investigate mass grave sites in line with international standards, raising fears that evidence of grave human rights abuses has been lost.

South Africa's plan to boost the black majority's stake in agriculture is too ambitious and contains proposals not agreed by industry players, the country's largest farming union said this week. The plan says half the country's prime agricultural land should be in black hands within 10 years - 30% owned and another 20% leased out. Analysts say so far less than 4% of land has been transferred to blacks since the end of apartheid in 1994.

President Obasanjo's fight against corruption came under a re-assessment this week from the country's House of Representatives who said that the government was not showing sufficient seriousness in the battle. The House has now resolved to amend the law establishing the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC) to make it more effective.

Kenyan President Kibaki has urged leaders in the community and at all levels to provide credible role models for the youth to emulate. The President said proper socialisation of the youth was not the responsibility of parents and teachers alone, adding that community leaders had a role to play.

Thousands of Angolan refugees returning home from Zambia face food shortages and get only half rations, a United Nations official said Wednesday. The World Food Programme, which has been feeding refugees in camps and handing out supplies to those returning home, said rations were small especially on the Angolan side, WFP spokesman Mike Huggins told AFP. "Resources for this exercise are extremely tight, especially on the Angolan side where rations have had to be reduced by up to 50 percent," said Huggins.

Moyo is an impressive trinket (Pambazuka News 166). He's adept at making light the tribulations of the ordinary Zimbabwean. He denies there is starvation in his country only because that is not the reality in his dining room in his house.

ZANU PF is right on the land policy. But this is no excuse for the criminal excesses being perpetrated by government elements in the name of land redistribution.

Moyo, redeem yourself before the wrath of the people extinguishes you.

Sibanze Simuchoba, Zambia

I read the article written by Joel Bisina (Pambazuka News 167) and it is an interesting and thought provoking insight on the very ugly, sad and degenerating condition of the Nigeria's Niger Delta Region.

There is a marriage of convenience between the Nigerian state and multinational oil companies operating in the Delta areas of the country. This relationship is unhealthy and inimical to the well being of the Delta people and the entire Nigerian people. It is a case of conspiracy with the majority ethnic power elites and a few Niger Delta elites in league with these oil companies to continue to accumulate petrol dollars from the region to the detriment of the people.

Much as this is the pathetic situation of the Niger Delta, several social and economic contradictions are arising which will slow the processes of positive change in the area. The Niger Delta people seem to be very hostile to people from other parts of the country especially other minorities residing and trying to eke a living in the Niger Delta. Niger Deltans need the support of these people and their peers across Nigeria to achieve social justice. It is not a struggle the Deltans can fight to win alone. They must proactively engage other minority groups in the country to push the agenda further.

The conflict in the Niger Delta is not different from those of the Middle Belt region as they both have to do with so called majority ethnic hegemony dominance of minority groups. While majority ethnic groups in Nigeria have aggressively closed their space against the minorities, they are increasingly encroaching on the space of the minority groups. Central to these problems is the law that gives the Federal government complete ownership of the land of Nigeria. With Federal power being controlled by majority ethnic groups, the struggle will be difficult. However, concerted efforts from the minority groups can change the tide. The problem is land ownership; if we can constitutionally wrestle it from the government, nearly all the conflicts in Nigeria would be solved.

All interested persons are invited to present papers on any of the sub-themes of the Congress. Papers to be presented should not be more than 15 pages, double spaced typing (point 12) on A4 size paper, computer processed and presenters should come with at least 25 copies of their papers.

Introduction

One of the central features of the Zimbabwean crisis, as it has unfolded since 2000, has been the emergence of a revived nationalism delivered in a particularly virulent form, with race as a key trope within the discourse, and a selective rendition of the liberation history deployed as a an ideological policing agent in the public debate. A great deal of commentary has been deployed to describe this process, much of it concentrating on the undoubted coercive aspects of the politics of state consolidation in Zimbabwe […]

However the manner in which the ideological battle has been fought by ZANU PF as a party and a state is of particular importance in trying to understand the ways in which a beleaguered state is attempting not only to extend its dominant economic and political objectives, but also its "intellectual and moral unity, posing all questions around which the struggle rages not on a corporate level but on a 'universal' plane, and thus creating the hegemony of a fundamental group over a series of subordinate groups." (Gramsci 1971: 182.)

For the manner in which Mugabe has articulated the Zimbabwean crisis has impacted not only on the social forces in the country but also on the African continent and in the Diaspora. Such an ambitious political outreach demands that we view the Zimbabwean state as more than a 'simple, dominative or instrumental model of state power,' but as a state with a more complex and multi-dimensional political strategy. (Hall 1996:429; and Hall 1980.)

In this multi-dimensional strategy, the state has monopolised the national media to develop an intellectual and cultural strategy that has resulted in a persistent bombardment of the populace with a regular and repeated series of messages. Moreover this strategy has been located within a particular historical discourse around national liberation and redemption, which has also sought to capture a broader Pan Africanist and anti-imperialist audience […]

Moreover in articulating this ideological strategy the ruling party has drawn on deep historical reservoirs of antipathy to colonial and racial subjugation in Zimbabwe, Southern Africa and Africa more generally, and on its complex inflections in the Diaspora. Thus the Mugabe message is no mere case of peddling a particular form of false consciousness, but it carries a broader and often visceral resonance, even as it draws criticisms for the coercive forms of its mobilisation. […]

Nation and Race.

In Zimbabwe the state has a monopoly control over the electronic media through such laws as the Broadcasting Services Act and the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act. Through such instruments the ruling party has been able to saturate the public sphere with its particularist message and importantly to monopolise the flow of information to the majority rural population […]

Thus, as a report on the ways in which Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC) delivered views on the nation in 2002, concluded: “ZBC's conceptualisation on "nation" was simplistic. It was based on race:

The White and Black race. Based on those terms, the world was reduced to two nations - the white nation and the black nation and these stood as mortal rivals. The black nation was called Africa. Whites were presented as Europeans who could only belong to Europe just as Africa was for Africans and Zimbabwe for Zimbabweans. (Gandhi and Jambaya 2002: 4.) […]

For the Mugabe regime the emergence of the opposition MDC in 1999, was a manifestation of foreign British and White influence in Zimbabwean politics. This construction of the opposition thus placed them outside of a legitimate national narrative, and thrust it into the territory of an alien, Un-African and treasonous force that 'justified' the coercive use of the state in order to contain and destroy such a force […]

Having discursively located the opposition as an alien political force, the full coercive force of the state was brought to bear on those regarded as 'unpatriotic' and 'puppets of the West'. Deploying elements of the police, intelligence service, army, the war veterans, party supporters and the youth militia, the ruling party has inflicted enormous damage on the personnel and structures of the opposition […]

Nation, History and Culture.

Scholars have observed that the writing of history has often been used to 'legitimate' the nation- state, both in an attempt to 'naturalise' it as the central principle of political organisation, and to make it the 'subject and object of historical development.(Berger, Donovan and Passmore 1999:xv) In Zimbabwe there has been clear evidence of this process since 2000 in particular […]

As part of the attempts to revive ZANU PF's political fortunes in the 2000 general election and the 2002 Presidential election, the ruling party placed a strong emphasis on reviving the narrative of the liberation struggle in general and the heroic roles of ZANU PF and Mugabe in particular […]

In this narrative of liberation, a common African history and Pan Africanist solidarity, the land has played a determining role as the key marker of a common struggle. It has formed the centrepiece of the ruling party's construction of belonging, exclusion and history. The official discourse on the liberation struggle has been marked by the translation of a multi-faceted anti-colonial struggle into a singular discourse designed to legitimate the authoritarian nationalism that has emerged around the land question since 2000. (Hammar, Raftopoulos and Jensen 2003.) […]

During the 2002 Presidential election this liberation rhetoric was accompanied by a cultural programme that saturated the public with liberation war films, documentaries and dramas, promoting ZANU PF generally and Robert Mugabe in particular, while also carrying strong messages against whites. […]

Amongst the most damaging aspects of the telling of this national narrative through a series of dualisms (black/white, British/Zimbabwean), and compressions of the various aspects of the anti-colonial struggle into a single field of force, has been the enormous loss of complexity of the colonial encounter. The complexity of the settler-colonial period (not least of which included the changing relations between the black elite and different settler regimes) has been flattened into a Mugabe/Blair colonial encounter. (White 2003:97.) While the demonisation of Whites has served the needs of authoritarian nationalist politics in Zimbabwe, it has prevented a more creative, tolerant and difficult dialogue on the European influences in the making of Zimbabwean identities […]

The On-Going National Question.

The Mugabe government has worked hard to generalise its model of resolving the national question, based largely on the model of land reform through violent land occupations, articulated through a Pan Africanist and anti-imperialist discourse. Moreover in this model the human rights question and the democratic demands of civic groups are dismissed as an extension of Western intervention, with little relevance to the 'real issues' of economic empowerment […]

In South Africa the Zimbabwean debate has taken on a particular resonance, not least because of the apparent popularity of Mugabe amongst many South Africans. On a broader level there are many aspects of the history and politics of Zimbabwe that resonate in the current South African context. (Phimister and Raftopoulos 2004: forthcoming; Southall 2003; Melber 2003.) Zimbabwean commentators close to the ruling party have not hesitated to 'shame' the South African government into taking more Africanist political positions […]

Moreover the 'spell' of anti-imperialism and the resonance of the race debate in Zimbabwe, has found a broader canvas for its articulation in the diaspora. In addition to cementing the support of other liberation movements in Southern Africa, ZANU PF has actively cultivated linkages with a few black civic groups in the US, UK and Australia in an attempt to build Pan Africanist solidarity around the Mugabe project. […]

Conclusion

A decade ago I wrote an article on 'Race and Nationalism' in Zimbabwe. In re-reading the piece in recent weeks what strikes me most about the analysis, apart from an underestimation of the potential for a revived nationalist project by the ruling party, was its strictly national focus, which even then was a limitation of the article. In 2004 it is impossible to confront this subject meaningfully without addressing the broader reach of its effects at both regional and international levels. Mugabe has not only defined the national project around a selective reading of nationalist history and an exclusivist construction of the nation, he has also sought to ensure that this message resonates in other black struggles both regionally and internationally […]

ZANU PF has set itself the task of establishing a hegemonic project in which the party's narrow definition of the nation is deployed against all other forms of identification and affiliation. In this project the media and selected intellectuals have been used to provide a continuous and repetitive ideological message, in order to set the parameters of a stable national identity conducive to the consolidation of the ruling party. As Zimbabweans listen to the radio, watch television and read the daily newspapers, all controlled by the ruling party, they are being 'informed' about what it means to be a 'good Zimbabwean,' and a 'genuine African'. They are also being told who is the 'enemy' within and without and advised to confront such 'enemies' with ruthless exclusion if necessary. For the present this political assault has seriously closed down the spaces for alternative debates around citizenship and national belonging.

* These are excerpts from a paper by Brian Raftopoulos, Associate Professor, Institute of Development Studies, University of Zimbabwe entitled Nation, Race and History in Zimbabwean Politics, presented at the University of Edinburgh's Centre of African Studies International Conference on 'States, Borders and Nations: Negotiating Citizenship in Africa' in May 2004. A complete version of the paper will be published in a forthcoming volume. Please see for further information. For a list of references please click on the link below.

* Please send comments to [email protected]

"Darfur is likely to occur again because of the inability of African leaders and Western governments to develop and implement specific safeguards against ethnic cleansing and genocide. Ten years after the Rwanda genocide, the inability of African and Western leaders to develop and enforce safeguards against future ethnic cleansing and genocide have come full circle." This is according to an editorial by Chinua Akukwe, Worldpress.org contributing editor.

Biotech companies promised that GM crops were safe, that they would provide better quality and cheaper food, that they were environmentally sustainable, that they would improve agricultural production, and that they would feed the developing world. After ten years, none of these promises have materialized, says a Friends for the Earth publication.

Angola's main opposition party, UNITA, on Wednesday called for the immediate arrest of those responsible for attacks against its supporters in recent months. After 27 years of civil conflict between UNITA and the government, a peace treaty was signed in April 2002. The country is now moving towards its first post-war national election, although a definite date for the poll is yet to be announced.

Burundian government troops have succeeded in repelling an unknown number of Rwandan militiamen who crossed into Burundi from neighbouring Democratic Republic of the Congo, army spokesman Maj Adolphe Manirakiza said on Tuesday. Thousands of Interahamwe militiamen, and Rwandan government soldiers now known as the ex-FAR, fled their country in 1994 fearing prosecution for their involvement in the genocide in which, according to the most recent government statistics, 937,000 Tutsis and politically moderate Hutus were killed.

In its investigation in Northern Uganda, the International Criminal Court must ensure protection for witnesses and victims, Human Rights Watch has said. The court needs to investigate serious crimes committed by all sides to the conflict in order to ensure justice and promote sustainable peace. This follows an announcement by the ICC Office of the Prosecutor that it will initiate an investigation in Uganda. Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni had referred the situation in Northern Uganda to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in January.

Lwati is the monthly e-newsletter of the Southern African Non-Governmental Organisation Network (SANGONeT).

The African Film Festival in New York City has oppened. Held in partnership with the Ft. Greene Parks Conservancy, home of a thriving African diaspora art scene, the films are today and next Thursday, 12th August. Three films are being shown, each preceded by live African music. All events take place at the Fort Green Park.

The Performing Arts Network of South Africa (PANSA) is holding three fundraising workshops in September. Click on the URL for more details.

An organisation in Senegal, ENDA, has published an advocacy document presenting the major issues faced by African countries and their inclusion in the information society, as perceived by women. With a forward by the Association for Progressive Communications (APC), the document is described as a 'tool for public, private and civil society stakeholders and decision-makers for integrating gender into ICT policies to contribute to a fair, plural and inclusive African information society.'

The website, Zim Online, this week reported that the Zimbabwe government is planning to acquire high-tech equipment from China for the purpose of bugging the internet. According to the site, 'authoritative sources within Posts and Telecommunications (PTC) and government circles have revealed that the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) is already looking into ways of controlling internet communication as soon as the equipment arrives.'

* SMS FOR WOMEN’S RIGHTS: Use your mobile phone to sign the petition in support of the ratification of the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa. Send a message to: +27832933934, with the word ‘petition’ and your name in the message. You will only be charged the cost set by your network provider for sending an international SMS. More information http://www.pambazuka.org/petition/smssocial.php

* Comment and Analysis: Nation, Race and History in Zimbabwean politics
* Letters: Debating the fair use of Africa’s resources
* Pan-African Postcard: Mobilising the Diaspora
* Conflicts and Emergencies: Why the Darfur tragedy will likely occur again
* Human Rights: Zimbabwe NGO bill dangerous for human rights defenders
* Development: Liberalisation taking away people’s rights
* Health: Discouraging the brain drain
* Education: Teacher supply and demand and the EFA’s
* Media&FXI: Waking up to state-owned newspapers in Zimbabwe

In this issue
-IMF, WB wrongly take credit for poverty drop
-Differences remain on TRIPS/Health issue
-Workers in Kenya's EPZ under threat

This issue includes:
- The Evils of Globalization
- African Studies in China
- Sudanese Issues

Save the Children, UK

The post holder will be responsible for the management and strategic planning of SCUK's programme in Mozambique and for representing the organisation at a senior level to a range of stakeholders including government, partners and bilateral agencies.

The end of the 2nd world war brought on the end of the era of European colonialism, ushering in a fresh breeze of freedom to billions. There were high hopes that the people who had chafed under the yoke of racism would not let racism or other prejudices stand in the way of emancipation of toiling and suffering fellow humans. Throughout human history racial and color prejudice has proven to be a more potent evil than any other prejudice.

International Resuce Committee

The post holder will be responsible for overseeing all of IRC's health programs in Sierra Leone and for representing the organisation to other health sector agencies, including the Ministry of Health and District Medical Officers. Applicants will be health professionals with a strong public health background. They should have at least two years experience in implementing and managing health programs in conflict/post conflict situations.

"The danger with race as a definitive prism is that one becomes primarily and even wholly fixated on remnants of racism to the exclusion of all else. In the case of Zimbabwe, it is to the exclusion of the indignity visited upon fellow blacks which, were it being done by whites, we should certainly be up in arms over. We have internalised race and racism, something that Fanon predicted, just as he predicted that the consolidation of urban middle-class interest could see black leaders become as abusive of their citizens as the colonialists were."

Two Sudanese refugees were killed in Farchana Camp, eastern Chad, after Chadian government forces entered the camp to search for weapons following a riot on the 13 July, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) announced in a statement. The statement confirmed that the body of a man and a woman had been taken from the camp, though it was not clear whether the two were killed during the intervention by the Chadian forces.

Professor Adrian Sargeant's inaugural lecture at the University of the West of England will explore the latest research to be conducted on fundraising. It will showcase the material and suggest how fundraisers can use this knowledge to improve their professional practice. The event is on the 16th September 2004 and is organised by the Institute of Fundraising.

Mali has signed its third agreement with a neighboring country to fight child trafficking, which UNICEF says occurs in 89 percent of African countries. Senegal joined Ivory Coast and Burkina Faso as signatories to the agreement, which mandates an annual survey of child trafficking to make sure children sent over their borders are kept safe.

The consistent failure of rich countries to fulfil their promises is threatening to undermine world trade talks and perpetuate inequality and poverty, warned international agency Oxfam in a report released this week. With less than a week to go before the World Trade Organisation (WTO) meets in Geneva to negotiate reform proposals, Oxfam is accusing rich countries of neglecting developing country needs and imperilling the entire Doha Development Round. According to Oxfam’s report, 'One Minute to Midnight', the draft negotiating text released earlier this week by the WTO shows evidence of considerable rich-country influence and does not adequately address key areas of interest for developing countries, like export dumping and market access. Because of this imbalance, the talks next week may fail, which would have dire consequences for the future of multilateralism and global poverty reduction.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has published its 2004 report on obstacles to the free flow of information on the Web. The French organisation has noted that government attitudes towards the Internet have become more rigid both in countries where the media is muzzled but, in a new development, in countries with a strong democratic tradition. The report makes mention of a number of sub-Saharan countries where there are obstacles to digital freedom and in particular to Zimbabwe, one of the few African countries to have passed legislation specifically regulating online activities.

On Sunday, August 15th, the African and Haitian Communities will hold their Fourth Annual Health Fair at Clark Park in West Philadelphia. The event is supported by the Philadelphia Health Department and the Coalition of African Communities and among the organisations providing information during the fair are the American Red Cross and the University of Pennsylvania's Dental School. For more information please contact the Outreach Co-ordinator, Tiguida Kaba.

Mauritania's government named nine new ministers on Sunday in the first Cabinet reshuffle since President Sid'Ahmed Ould Taya was re-elected last year. No reason was given for the reshuffle, but it comes a week after the President publicly vowed to fight corruption. Five of the outgoing ministers were accused in February of skimming 325 million ouguiyas ($1.25m) from an aid project distributing food donated by the UN World Food Program, the US and other international donors.

Faced with a growing population of orphaned and vulnerable children, Swaziland's policymakers have turned to the children themselves to assess their needs at a conference outside the central commercial town of Manzini. "I am happy they are asking me about my life, because it is hard, and I think they should do more for orphans," said Sifiso Nhleko, a form three student from Siteki in the eastern Lubombo district near the Mozambique border. Nhleko, who has hereditary dwarfism, is a resourceful teenager who crafted his own crutch when he grew weary of hobbling about on an iron rod he discovered beneath a bridge - "a carpenter gave me wood and screws and he showed me how to make a crutch," he said.

Despite continuing insecurity in Burundi's western province of Bujumbura Rural, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) continues to deliver food aid to thousands of people affected by the country's long-running civil war, the agency reported on Friday. WFP said it had resumed food distributions on Monday in the most troubled commune of Kabezi in Bujumbura Rural, south of the capital, Bujumbura.

Tens of thousands of Liberians who have registered as refugees in neighbouring Guinea are crossing the border to trade their food rations and prepare their eventual return before returning to their camps for the next handout, aid workers said. Aid workers admit that this unofficial flow of food across the border is probably helping to keep thousands of needy people fed in outlying districts of war-ravaged Liberia, where rebel gunmen still control the border. Recent attempts to clamp down on wandering Liberian refugees by counting the population that is actually resident in four official refugee camps in Guinea's southeastern Forest Region have sparked violence.

Lecturers at Moi University want the Government to order fresh elections for the Senate and faculty deans. The lecturers sought the intervention of the Ministry of Education, saying their calls to the university's administration to call the elections had failed. "The senate should have been dissolved by now and elections held for members as well as deans of all 160 faculties," they said. They claimed the elections have not been held for the past 20 years and those holding the posts of deans were appointees of the Vice-Chancellor.