PAMBAZUKA NEWS 153: DARFUR: RWANDA GENOCIDE REVISITED
PAMBAZUKA NEWS 153: DARFUR: RWANDA GENOCIDE REVISITED
Hundreds of rebel fighters in Liberia converged on the central town of Gbarnga last Thursday to hand over their guns to United Nations peacekeepers as the country began a relaunched disarmament scheme. Clutching AK-47 assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenade launchers, fighters from the rebel group LURD (Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy), assembled at a disarmament site at a farm owned by exiled former President Charles Taylor.
Tensions are high as Malawi's third multiparty general elections draw closer - the Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) faces accusations of bias, while police have shot dead two opposition supporters protesting the death in detention of a comrade. Police in the southern district of Nsanje shot and killed the two opposition supporters on Monday for hurling stones at a police station, after an opposition sympathiser died in detention.
Namibian farmers have reacted strongly to the government's suggestion that it might target farms with a record of poor labour relations for expropriation. In a statement sent to the Windhoek-based The Namibian daily newspaper on Monday, the Ministry of Lands, Resettlement and Rehabilitation, while spelling out the criteria for expropriation, said that "aspects of eviction and dumping of labourers, though not a criterion to expropriate a farm", could be considered "because of the social aspect such action poses to the Namibian people".
The Somali reconciliation conference sponsored by the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) is scheduled to reconvene in a week's time, according to an IGAD source close to the talks. Preparations for the final phase of the talks, being held in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, were proceeding smoothly, said the source. "We are in the process of bringing in traditional elders from Somalia. We expect that exercise to take about a week. We will then proceed to phase three of the talks," he told IRIN.
A human rights rally will be held outside Swaziland, after security forces blocked a planned gathering at the weekend by pro-democracy groups who intended to condemn the government's draft constitution. "We will now restage [the event] in another country that recognises human rights," said Kislon Shongwe, an official with the banned political party, People's United Democratic Movement.
Although corruption has always been a feature of Congolese life, the lack of political will by the country's leaders to fight the phenomenon is now causing a rise in levels of poverty, according to local NGOs. "It is obvious that the majority of Congolese are hostages of the corrupt minority," said Cephas Ewangui, president of the Congolese Federation of Human Rights and of the Thomas Sankara Pan-African Association.
Besides being a major human rights and public health problem worldwide, violence against women increases female vulnerability to HIV. This is according to a UNAIDS factsheet that analyses the issue of violence against women and its relationship with AIDS. The factsheet finds that fear of violence prevents women from accessing HIV/AIDS information, being tested, disclosing their HIV status, accessing services for the prevention of HIV transmission to infants, and receiving treatment and counselling, even when they know they have been infected.
Cobbled together from the West African British colony of the Gold Coast and the Togoland trust territory, Ghana became in 1957 the first country in colonial Africa to gain its independence. Lesbians and gays, though, are still waiting to be liberated from a repressive British legacy: sodomy laws. A gay social life exists, mostly in the form of house parties, and a few queer-friendly clubs in the capital, Accra, but there are risks. Because homosexuality is illegal, club-goers, especially tourists, risk blackmail. If they don't pay, social and legal consequences can be serious.
While corruption is evidently the talk of the day and infuriating everyone given its socio-economic implications, what is not easily appreciated is the fact that women and children are more affected by the scourge. Women are short changed in aspects of service delivery as they do not have the same economic clout to negotiate for qualitative services as their male counterparts. But countries that promote women's rights and improve their institutional frameworks have seen a marked decrease in corruption and their economies have actually boomed, says this commentary from the Zimbabwe Standard.
The Special Rapporteur on violence against women addressed the Commission on Human Rights earlier this month, warning against alarming trends toward political conservatism and a backlash which threatened the gains made thus far in the global women’s human rights agenda. Yakin Erturk, Special Rapporteur on violence against women, said she had emphasized the universality of violence against women, the multiplicity of its forms and the intersectionality of diverse kinds of discrimination against women rooted in other systems of subordination and inequality in her report to the Commission.
More than one billion people worldwide are not getting essential health care, according to a report by the Population Reference Bureau (PRB), which calls for international donors to focus more on closing the growing health gap between the world's wealthy nations and its poorest. The 32-page report, 'Improving the Health of the World's Poorest People', finds that per capita health spending in the world's least developed countries, most of them in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, comes to only about 11 U.S. dollars a year.
African Union HIV/Aids committee chairman Kenneth Kaunda has lambasted "some African countries" for lacking the political will to tackle the disease. However, the former Zambian president did not include SA on the list of errant nations. Kaunda stressed that the cost of providing AIDS drugs was prohibitive for many African countries, and urged the international community to "take appropriate measures" to help Africa to lessen the effects of the virus.
The Contact Trust will be holding a workshop on 'Lobbying Parliament on the Budget'. The programme and invitation is available through the link below.
The Institute for Human Rights and Development in Africa will organise a litigation workshop from 10-14 May 2004, in Dakar, Senegal. The workshop will be bi-lingual (French/English), with simultaneous translation, and will take place during the 35th Ordinary Session of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, which is also scheduled to take place in Dakar. The public sessions of the African Commission commence on 3 May.
Despite the growing success of the Open Source movement, most of the general public continues to feel that Open Source software is inaccessible to them. This paper discusses five fundamental problems with the current Open Source software development trend, explores why these issues are holding the movement back, and offers solutions that might help overcome these problems.
Promotion of e-readiness is all the rage. Internet-based business to business (B2B) applications are promoted as tools to enable producer firms in developing countries to reduce costs and enter global markets. However, evidence is emerging that policy makers and development agencies are too optimistic about the poverty-busting potential of information and communication technologies (ICTs). Research from the Institute of Development Studies and the London School of Economics critically examines the expectations and assumptions behind the drive to encourage investment in ICTs.
In northern Uganda war has raged for 18 years, and shows no signs of abating. People have grown tired of the government's pledges that it will soon end the rebellion by the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), which claims it is fighting to establish a government based on the Ten Commandments. Increasingly Ugandans are asking for talks between the government and the rebels. Over the past two decades the war in northern Uganda has forced 1.5 million people to flee their homes. Twenty thousand children have been forcibly recruited to fight by the LRA.
Africa Action has released a new set of talking points entitled, "Africa’s Debt & Iraq’s Debt - Washington’s Double Standard." This document notes the refusal of the World Bank and IMF to put Africa’s debt crisis at the top of their meeting agenda this week and strongly condemns the failure of the U.S. government to advocate for an urgent solution to Africa’s debt crisis, as it has been doing in the case of Iraq.
Economic growth in some African countries has improved the well-being of the poorest. However, in remote areas poverty remains entrenched. New research argues that Africa's economic growth will not be translated into poverty reduction until the poor are given better access to markets and to basic infrastructure, such as roads.
The latest edition of e-Civicus is dedicated to the Millennium Development Goals and includes a briefing on civil society and the MDG's, news briefs relating to the MDG's and a list of useful internet resources relating to the MDG's. e-CIVICUS is distributed twice monthly in MS Word, plain text, or PDF format, and is also available in Spanish. Future issues will be distributed in HTML format with new exciting sections like donor profiles, capacity building resources, and member’s news. To subscribe or unsubscribe please email [email protected]
The National Society for Human Rights says it is "alarmed" at the "Zimbabweanization" of not only the socio-economic and political, but also judicial, system in Namibia. "The Zimbabweanization of our judicial system, as seen in the ongoing erosion of judicial independence and circumvention of its effectiveness, becomes even more evident in what amounts to influencing intimidation of independence-minded Namibian judicial officers," said the NSHR in a press statement.
"The Myth of Community Based Conservation" will be the topic of a monthly seminar series on land issues to be help at 3pm on 30 April 2004 at the Hakiardhi Seminar Room, Vijani Building, Morogogo Road, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. The presentation will be in the Kiswahili language and each participant will receive an English copy of the paper.
On 20 April, for the first time ever, governments meeting at the UN Commission on Human Rights in Geneva confirmed the importance and priority that the Commission accord to companies' responsibilities in relation to human rights and requested the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights to focus on elaborating those responsibilities. A decision, adopted by consensus, specifically asks the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) to compile a report setting out the scope and legal status of all existing initiatives and standards on business responsibilities with regard to human rights, including the UN Norms for Business. "We are very pleased that the Commission has acknowledged the need to strengthen standards on business responsibilities in relation to human rights and will consider elements of the Norms," Amnesty International said.
An in-depth study of privatised water services in Namibia says that while prepaid water systems are being marketed as the solution to bad debts and water conservation, they are in fact worsening the plight of the country's most vulnerable. Titled 'Water Privatisation in Namibia: Creating a New Apartheid?', the report released by the Labour Resource and Research Institute (LaRRI), contends that the system is exposing thousands of the country's poor to preventable diseases and death.
Human rights defenders “form the base that regional and international human rights organisations and mechanisms build upon in the promotion and protection of human rights” and that “as a result of their involvement in the struggle for human rights, the defenders are often the first victims of human rights violations,” according to the United Nations. Africa in general and particularly the DRC is characterize by the persistence of actions that directly or indirectly prevent or hinder the work and security of individuals, groups or organisations working to promote and protect human and peoples' rights, including the growing risks faced by human rights defenders and their families.
Despite the fact that Angola has one of the world's highest infant and maternal mortality rates, few pregnant women are accessing the available medical services. The maternal mortality rate in Angola is 1,000 deaths per 100,000 births, while the mortality rate for infants reaches 250 per 1,000 births. Only Sierra Leone and Nigeria have infant mortality rates worse than Angola's.
Former rebel group UNITA has called on Angolan authorities to speed up integration of its health workers into government services, noting an acute lack of medical professionals in the country's ailing health sector. UNITA secretary for health and environment Carlos Morgado told IRIN on Wednesday that despite an improvement in the number of ex-UNITA health "technicians" enrolled at public hospitals last year, there were thousands of trained health workers without employment.
Local elections aren't a rarity, some would claim. But, they are if you live in Sierra Leone and have not had a say about local councillors in three decades. That the elections are happening is the good news. The bad news is that the contest is not going to be a pretty one. Osman Yansaneh, secretary general of the opposition All Peoples Congress (APC), has already alleged "gross interference of (tribal) 'chiefs' in the electoral process in favour of the ruling SLPP (Sierra Leone Peoples Party)." Of the 17 registered political parties in the country, only four are taking part in the elections - the others having run out of steam after the last general election in May 2002.
Political parties in the new Parliament should form an all-party group on HIV/Aids, the Treatment Action Campaign said. In a post-election electronic newsletter, the organisation said it had refused to go along with parties that wanted to make HIV/Aids a party political issue. However it welcomed the major opposition parties' common view that a comprehensive strategy was required for HIV/Aids.
The African National Congress named its candidates for premiers in the nine provinces this week, after a national working committee meeting of the ruling party was held in Cape Town. It is the first time that candidates have only been named after the election, which the ANC won with a landslide victory. The ANC will take the premierships in all nine provinces for the first time since democracy in 1994.
Related Link:
* IFP claims rigged poll
http://www.sundaytimes.co.za/zones/sundaytimes/basket3st/basket3st108261...
* Opposition left licking wounds
http://www.sundaytimes.co.za/2004/04/18/politics/politics02.asp
* Crippling blow for once mighty Nats
http://www.sundaytimes.co.za/2004/04/18/politics/politics03.asp
Crop losses due to heavy rains has jeopardised the food security of more than 300,000 families in the central Angolan province of Huambo, the Famine Early Warning Systems Network has reported.
The UK Department for International Development in South Africa (DFID-SA), the Southern African Grantmakers' Association (SAGA) and the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA) have formed a partnership around the establishment of a regional funding facility and policy resource, provisionally named the Southern African Trust. The Trust will consist of a Regional Public Policy Learning Facility (RPPLF) and a grant-making facility. DFID has set aside GB£10mn and SIDA has also committed funds to the Trust.
The partners are currently calling for nominations for the Board of Trustees. The closing date is 10 May 2004.
The Thusanang news team caught up with Simon Collings, who is the CEO of the UK-based NGO, Resource Alliance (RA), during its recent 5th International Workshop for Resource Mobilisation (IWRM) held in Johannesburg. The RA is gradually beginning to make its presence felt in Southern Africa, so Thusanang, a fundraising website, thought it appropriate to find out more about it.
The 24th IFC is taking place on the 12th to the 15th October 2004. The event regularly attracts over 800 fundraising professionals from 50-60 countries worldwide. This year’s programme boasts of 60 world-class speakers and practitioners who will lead over 100 cutting-edge sessions covering all aspects of fundraising from communications to major gifts and leadership to corporate fundraising.
The National Arts Council (NAC) invites funding proposals in the following categories:
Regular Annual Funding
Deadline: 21 May 2004
Funding proposals from organisations, individuals, groups and institutions in dance and choreography, theatre, music, literature, visual arts or crafts.
International Bursaries
Deadline: 21 May 2004
Funding proposals from post-graduate students of dance and choreography, theatre, music, literature, visual arts or crafts.
Decade of Democracy (DOD) Special Funding
Deadline: 31 May 2004
Funding proposals from organisations, individuals, groups and institutions in dance and choreography, theatre, music, literature, visual arts or crafts to celebrate ten years of democracy in South Africa.
For more information contact the NAC on tel: 011 838-1383 or email: [email protected]
The Movement for Delivery, an organisation dissatisfied with the pace of government delivery, was launched in 2000 in Limpopo Province to campaign for people’s constitutional rights to basic services like water, health, jobs, education, housing and electricity to be met by the South Africa government.
Children are increasingly recognised by geographers and other social scientists as independent actors who make valuable (albeit often overlooked) economic contributions to households and society. Hausa children in rural Northern Nigeria are highly mobile and play important economic roles supporting married women who spend much time in their walled residences (gida) because of the local socio-religious practice of Muslim seclusion. Secluded Hausa women have low mobility and do not attend local periodic markets, but make essential day-to-day purchases from child house-to-house hawkers while sending children on errands to make purchases on their behalf. This study shows how children work both independently and alongside adults in the spheres of agricultural production (on farms), domestic reproduction (in homesteads) and trade (within markets).
Medecins Sans Frontiere-Belgium said on Wednesday it had sent an emergency medical team to a sector of the Democratic Republic of Congo's border with Angola, following an announcement by the Angolan government that was expelling another 18,000 Congolese illegal diamond miners. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs had already reported the arrival of 68,000 exhausted Congolese at the DRC border provinces of Bandundu, Kasai Occidental, Kasai Orientale and Katanga. "There have been massive expulsions for ten days now," Gilbert Gitelman, OCHA's field coordinator, told reporters on Wednesday in Kinshasa, "families have been separated, intrusive body searches have been conducted on women, children have given laxatives to expel hidden diamonds, and women and even some men have been raped in public."
The number of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Sudan's western region of Darfur has risen to one million, the United Nations said on Tuesday. In a report issued in New York, the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) warned that the situation in Darfur was compounded by shortfalls of shelter, clean water, food and health-care supplies. It warned that "all funds contributed for relief efforts in Darfur so far have already been exhausted", noting that the UN expected to revise its humanitarian appeal for the region beyond the US $115 million requested earlier this month.
HIV/AIDS and poverty have led to increased numbers of orphans, abandoned children and youngsters living on the streets of Kenya, according to the co-author of a report presented at a workshop in Nairobi in March 2004 organised by the Commonwealth Service Abroad Programme (CSAP) and the Department of Children's Services in Kenya's Ministry of Home Affairs. "More than a million children in Kenya below the age of 15 have been orphaned by HIV/AIDS," said Cecilia Manyame, a CSAP volunteer expert and co-author of the report, who visited the Commonwealth Secretariat in London, UK, last week.
The spread of the deadly HIV virus is a threat to world peace, the chief the United Nations AIDS agency said Monday. "It's as big of a threat as terrorism," UNAIDS Executive Director Peter Piot told Reuters on the sidelines of a speech in Oslo, referring to massive poverty as a result of AIDS, sparking political unrest which could even lead to cross-border conflicts, as well as a weakening of defense forces in heavily infected countries.
Desperate HIV-positive Africans are increasingly turning to the black market for AIDS medicines and healing remedies, often endangering their lives by taking toxic or ineffective drugs, according to a report by Germany's Der Spiegel magazine. The black market often offers more drugs than most pharmacies, from cocktails such as Triomune 40 or Combivir to antiretrovirals such as Videx, Okamune or Zerit. Even though the packets are not always labelled and vendors cannot offer information about dosage, many patients find that buying drugs on the black market provides a hassle-free alternative with no prescriptions needed, no waiting time and no registration.
Participants at a one-day conference on education have expressed fears over the realisation of education for all by the year 2015. The fear was hinged on the attitudes of parents, students, as well as government on ways of enhancing education, which they agreed could hinder global projection of education for all. Ondo State Commissioner for Education, Chief Bisi Taiwo, said some parents deliberately deny their children access to schools. Instead, they prefer to assist their children make instant money through cart-pushing, scavenging and hawking at motor parks.
Malaria kills approximately two million people a year, some 90 percent of them in Africa. These numbers come close to the estimated three million worldwide dying of AIDS. The two diseases differ in many ways, but there are deadly similarities. In both cases, action falls far behind promises, while debates about strategy are used as excuses for failure to provide resources. In the case of malaria, at stake are both availability of resources and willingness to adopt new, more effective drugs to replace ones that are now ineffective. Both concerns raise issues of political will, says a recent edition of the Africa Focus Bulletin.
In 2002, allegations of sexual exploitation of refugees by humanitarian workers in West Africa rocked the humanitarian world. Workers stood accused of abusing their power by trading access to scarce relief supplies for sex. The UN and its implementing partners responded by establishing codes of conduct and stronger performance standards for humanitarian staff. Two years later, however, despite the increased attention to the issue, conditions are ripe for another public sexual exploitation scandal in Liberia.
A comprehensive report released on the eve of the World Bank’s spring meeting in Washington has concluded that the world community is simply not doing nearly what it could and should to tackle poverty, war, ignorance and disease. A team of over 40 experts from around the world, overseen by a distinguished steering committee, has concluded that governments, international organisations, business and civil society are engaging in only about one-third of the effort necessary to realize the United Nations Millennium Declaration Goals.
As part of the global Education for All Week, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) is calling for increased efforts to reduce the disproportionate number of girls denied schooling. “As long as millions of girls are denied a basic education, we stand little chance of improving the lives of the world’s poorest people,” UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy says in a message. “Education is not only the key to a young girl's personal fulfilment, but it is essential for reducing poverty, stopping HIV/AIDS, and achieving all other development goals.”
The British government is commissioning a report on the impact of climate change in Africa, UK Environment minister Margaret Beckett has announced. Addressing a sustainable development conference on Wednesday, she said: "A two degree change in climate here, would mean a four degree change in central Africa. The economic and humanitarian consequences in a continent already suffering the burden of Aids and malaria are potentially catastrophic. We need to understand the impact on Africa and on the world's ability to deliver the Millennium Development Goals and commitments made at other major UN summits."
When Raven Naidoo entered university in the 1980s, he couldn't study engineering because of his Indian ancestry. "I was only allowed into certain universities that didn't offer the courses I wanted," he says. "To become an engineer, I had to apply to the Minister of Education to get permission to study, and they said no." It was just one example of the absurd levels to which the previous apartheid government stooped in order to enforce the privileges of a white minority, he says.
Madam is white and bourgeoise. She likes to shoe-shop, watch soap operas and pose as a liberal of Johannesburg's wealthy northern suburbs. Her 80-year-old mother likes gin and tonic, rugby and firing her catapult at black street traders. Their black maid, Eve, wields a feather duster and plots in vain to wangle a pay rise. A decade after apartheid fell, characters in the cartoon strip Madam and Eve are icons of the new South Africa. Elections last week passed off peacefully and on 27 April the country will celebrate democracy's tenth anniversary with hymns to racial reconciliation. But the storylines in Madam and Eve betray the enduring edge in racial relations. Madam's mother beams as snow falls. 'Thousands of snowflakes landing everywhere. What can be more beautiful than a white South Africa?'
The Chairperson of the Commission of the African Union, Mr. Alpha Oumar Konaré condemns the assassination of the Hamas leader in Gaza, Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi, during an Israeli air strike in Gaza on Saturday, 17 April 2004.
The Chairperson stress once again that the killings of Palestinian leaders will incite more violence and undermine any prospects for dialogue and peace between Israelis and Palestinians. More importantly, such actions which are illegal and in violation of international law, only serves to compound the prevailing atmosphere of insecurity and despair, especially among the already brutalized Palestinian population.
The Chairperson, once again, calls on the international community, including in particular, the Middle East quartet of the UN, Russia, the United States and the European Union, to intensify their efforts to relaunch the peace process in the Middle East and to encourage the Parties to revert to the implementation of the proposals for a peaceful and negotiated settlement of the Palestinian problem, in line with the relevant UN Security Council Resolutions, and in order to guarantee the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people to statehood.
Addis Ababa, 19 April 2004
There is no doubt that the painful memory of the 800,000 victims of the Genocide in Rwanda will live with us forever. For many years to come, we will continue to unearth the remains of children, women and men hacked to death in one of the most frenzied, planned and organised massacres ever witnessed by the world.
For the past ten years we said never again, we made resolutions, we set up commissions and tribunals, we organised conferences … yet Genocide was revisited this very year, Rwanda's Tenth year. Still sore and raw in our memories, the Genocide of Rwanda has made way to that of Darfur.
Same crimes, same atrocities and same disregard to human lives. In the name of greed, hatred and spite, the Janjaweed, the Sudanese government armed militias and very much equivalent to the Interahamwe and Impuzamugambi of Rwanda, have killed, looted, burnt, and raped their neighbours. Like vultures, they have cleansed villages from their people and destroyed the dreams of entire communities.
In the space of a few months more they have uprooted from their homes more than one million people and reduced them to statistics for the UN and for various humanitarian organisations. The early warning signs were very much present in Darfur. For more than three decades, indigenous Africans - Fur, Massaleet and Zaghawa to name but a few - were at the mercy of successive ruthless regimes, military as well as the so-called “democratically elected” government of Sadiq el Mahdi (1986-89).
Ruling by the gun and with the gun they imposed a religious-ethnic-sectarian ideology on the country. Their proxy killers, Muraheleen in the South and Janjaweed in Darfur, implemented various scorched-earth strategies to take over land, pastures and water points from their legitimate owners. For years, the international community and us Africans, deserted Darfur. ‘Il n'est pire sourd que celui qui ne veut pas entendre’ (so we closed our eyes and turned away) from the plight of the people of Darfur.
Better not to see, not to hear and not to know was the general attitude. Now, there is some hope, or should we say, there was some hope when two weeks ago, a cease-fire agreement was signed in N'djamena between the Darfur fighters and the Sudanese government.
The 45-day cease-fire that was to come into effect on Sunday 11 April was mainly meant to guarantee safe passage for humanitarian aid, free prisoners of war and especially disarm militias. The ceasefire is good news and a first step to stop the killing but it requires the immediate dispatch to Darfur of an international monitoring team of observers, military and civilian, to prevent further killing, stop the continued displacement of the population and secure humanitarian assistance to the people.
Today, after ten days, where do we stand? Recently, Kofi Annan has pointed out that UN peacekeepers "are no longer restricted to using force only in self-defence” and that they are also “empowered (to protect) local civilians threatened with imminent violence." At the time of the Genocide of Rwanda, Kofi Annan was Under Secretary General for UN Peace Keeping Operations (PKO) and we all know what happened. Today he is UN Secretary General, he is Alpha Dog, but will he give his marching orders to “armed” peacekeepers?
Again and again Khartoum has broken its agreements, prevented a UN human rights team from entering the country to investigate the widespread atrocities committed in Darfur, delayed humanitarian workers to reach the displaced, denied entry to independent observers, turned away the media, closed the borders. The list of Khartoum's violations is too long to continue.
- On the humanitarian front, reports indicate that “nearly 3 million people are beyond the reach of aid agencies trying to provide assistance, and mortality rates in the region are possibly as high as 1,000 per week”.
- On the military front, the ink was hardly dry on that farcical cease-fire agreement before government-backed Janjaweed Arab militias were back into action. Mounting attacks against civilians in Mastrey, a farming locality south of Al Geneina (Western Darfur) and south of Nyala, the capital of Southern Darfur. Despite denying any violation of the cease-fire, Khartoum's request to “postpone” the trip of the chief of the UN Emergency Relief clearly indicates that the fighting is still continuing and that the Janjaweed have not been disarmed.
Shall we give Khartoum the credit of the doubt when instead of disarming the Janjaweed the Sudanese government is providing them with military costumes and integrating them into its regular forces and into the much-hated Popular Defence Forces (PDF)?
Now, as Khartoum's “official” killing machine they have been posted in and around Nyala, capital of Southern Darfur, preventing the return of the refugees. They are attacking internally displaced people and preventing them from returning to their homes. They are occupying the farmland and villages of the Fur farmers they chased away earlier, and refusing to allow them to retake possession of what remain from their homes.
Posted on the borders with Chad, they are preventing anyone crossing into Darfur. Aid agencies allowed in the region have reported that “Sudanese soldiers” have even beaten back women searching for food and firewood. By enrolling the Janjaweed into its regular forces, Khartoum is not only protecting its proxy killers, but also it is covering up its own crimes against the people of Darfur.
The European Union (EU) has put forward a resolution calling for a special Rapporteur to monitor human rights abuses in Sudan, but the vote was postponed until April 22 at the request of the African group. Coordinated by the government of Congo-Brazzaville, the African Group has consistently blocked scrutiny of African governments regardless of their human rights records.
Isn't it true that the well being and the safety of a country's nationals is the first and foremost duty of a responsible government? Isn't it true that that duty is enshrined in national constitutions in Africa as it is elsewhere in the world and that it figures also in the Charter that governs the African Union? Indeed the African Union has announced from Addis Ababa that it will deploy military observers next week to the Darfur region to monitor the ceasefire.
According to Said Djinnit, AU's Commissioner for Peace and Security, Nigeria, Ghana, Senegal and Namibia have agreed to send military officers to be deployed in the region. Discussions are under way in N'djamena and in Addis for the arrangements but reports from the Chadian capital are grim and nothing has been decided as we go to press.
The Sudanese government and the Darfur fighters are to meet again next week in the Chadian capital to iron out a definitive settlement to the conflict, whereby the political issues that have driven the people of Darfur to rebel, will be addressed.
The most crucial issues are land and water points and as redistribution of farmland is high on Khartoum's agenda, Fur leaders are suspicious about the recent Idriss Deby-Omar el Beshir's meeting in N'djamena. The Fur believe that to quell any dissent among the Zaghawa, on either side of its borders, the Chadian president would favour them in any future political settlement between Khartoum and fighters. Such arrangements would be in line with the “divide and rule” policy that Khartoum pursued for years in the South.
I doubt whether the people of Darfur can still trust any one to come to their help. Already they have lost faith in a government that has devoted its time and efforts to usurp them from their land, kill their children and force the survivors into exile.
Now it is the turn of the African community to fail them. We reported here in Pambazuka News 112 that the challenges facing Africans and the African Union are enormous. On each and every front - economic, social, scientific and political - the continent is “yet to fulfil its potential”. Ten years after Rwanda and in the wake of Darfur, many African political and civil society activists are calling for the establishment of an “early warning mechanism” for detecting any attempt, by groups or governments, to violate human rights in any part of the continent.
DEADLINE UPDATE FROM THE AUTHOR: The five-member delegation of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has just left Geneva for Darfur, after weeks of waiting for permission to travel into the region. However, in an interim report, based on interviews carried out by the team with refugees in camps along the Chadian borders, the OHCHR lists numerous cases of murder, rape, arbitrary killings and expulsion, committed against the Black African communities of Darfur. These are extremely serious accusations that amount to "crimes against humanity".
* Send comments on this editorial - and other events in Africa - to For more news and information on the situation in Sudan, please visit the Conflicts and Emergencies section of Pambazuka News.
* Eva Dadrian is an independent broadcaster and Political and Country Risk Analyst for print and broadcast media, who currently works as a consultant for Arab African Affairs (London) and writes on a regular basis for AFRICA ANALYSIS (London), for Al Ahram HEBDO Echos Economiques and Al Ahram WEEKLY (Cairo) and contributes to Africa Service BBC WS (London). Published reports include: Religion and Politics in North Africa; The Horn of Africa: Country Risk Analysis; The Nile Waters: Risk Analysis; State and Church in Ethiopia; Policing the Horn of Africa; Religion and Politics in Sudan; Can South Sudan survive as an independent state?
* NOTE FOR EDITORS: Please note that this editorial was commissioned from the author for Pambazuka News. While we are pleased that several print publications have used our editorials, we ask editors to note that if they use this article, they do so on the understanding that they are expected to provide the following credit: "This article first appeared in Pambazuka News, an electronic newsletter for social justice in Africa, Editors are also encouraged to make a donation.
* CORRECTION: Please note that Patrick Bond, the author of last week’s editorial (Pambazuka News 152: After the South African election, rhetorics and realities), has pointed out that the reference to more than 50 Landless People’s Movement activists arrested on 14 April should have read “more than 60”. For the latest news on this issue see the Land and Land Rights section of this issue.
"Never again", pledges a world, which last week commemorated a million Rwandans who died in the 1994 genocide. Yet in Sudan's western Darfur region a similar catastrophe is unfolding amid a deafening silence. "The only difference from Rwanda is the numbers," said last week the UN humanitarian coordinator for Sudan, Dr Mukesh Kapila. Human Rights Watch has accused Khartoum of crimes against humanity. Amnesty International charges the regime with breaking the Geneva conventions. Western governments fear disrupting the peace talks which they are mediating between Khartoum and its southern opponents for the last 6 months, trying to resolve 20 years of violent conflict in the south of Sudan. The international community talks of ethnic cleansing in Darfur, but dares not refer to genocide.
No, Nicole, no and no again. The very people who have built that Holocaust Museum that they proudly show to visitors like yourself, are today killing, destroying and dispersing another people. So what is the meaning of that Museum? What is it there to say? Is it to say “It should never happen again to Jews” but I don't care if it happens to others?
Read Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem's "When 'never again' becomes again and again" (Pambazuka News 152). Do you want me to believe that for Israel to exist and Israelis to live in peace and commemorate the Jewish holocaust, Palestine should disappear and Palestinians continue to be refugees in their own land?
In the name of what can you take away the dream of a Palestinian child for a home or for a country? When Jews were forced to become Christians or were burnt at the stake in the kingdom of the very Catholic Queen Isabel of Spain, they found asylum and refuge in Arab lands. Christian Europe chased them away and then to redeem itself, gave them a “homeland” at the expense of the Palestinians. Let's not forget history.
You talk about awareness, yes I agree. Like the American public should be told about Iraq and should see on their television screens the destruction of that country, Israelis should also see how their soldiers shoot and kill children and women. How their tanks uproot olive trees, how Palestinian water wells are blocked and how cement is poured into Palestinian homes so that they become inhabitable. In retaliation…
Try to find that young Israeli girl who convinced you to visit the museum and ask her if she knows what is happening on the other side of the Wall of Shame her country is building?
Awareness, Yes, Yes and Yes again. Let's build awareness and see with two eyes wide open, not just one. Let's listen with two ears, not just one!
(This letter is in response to Nicole Venter, Letters section, Pambazuka News 152.)
There are so many pessimists about Africa around the world that it seems there is nothing Africans can do that can change their mindsets. Otherwise how does one explain a very common question that any talk of Uganda in many circles outside Africa still prompts: Idi Amin. The fact that Idi Amin was booted out of power in 1979 seems to have passed many people by! On seeing my name tag, Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem, Pan African Movement, Uganda at a huge international conference, only two years ago, a delegate came to me at Tea Break and asked: How is Idi Amin? He seems quiet these days!
I had grown accustomed to these daft questions so I gently broke it to him that the Field Marshall had been out of Uganda for sometime, lodging in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, since 1979. I thought the questioner would walk away quietly in diplomatic embarrassment but he shot another question at me: so what does he do these days? Since he could not get the message it was my turn to walk away from the embarrassing conversation.
But the Afro pessimism is not just from outsiders. So many Africans; many of the educated elite class who are allegedly supposed to know better, are guilty of the same pessimism about Africa and Africans. A religious fundamentalist acquaintance even tried to convince me that our woes were because of many sins that we have committed and unless we return to God in penitence there can not be any respite from our multi legged afflictions, from AIDS to bad governance. I asked him if our disobedience to his God is worse than that of any other peoples on this planet and he was adamant that it was. So if Africa is to continue to suffer all these problems what will God do to those who enslaved us, colonised us and continue to rig the international rules of trade and commerce against us with the active collaboration and grotesque submissiveness of our leaders who are really dealers.
Of course blaming the victim is not a new trick from those who benefit from any system of oppression and exploitation. That is why many of our leaders assume the mantle of ‘father of the nation’ (who does no wrong) as soon as they enter state house and with time they become theocratic asking us to return to God in order to be governed well. They become the chosen ones by God but somehow God’s message is not for them but for the poor hapless citizens. Didn’t colonialists and Slave dealers before them declare their murderous enterprise as ‘civilisation’?
However as the Late Walter Rodney once declared Africa has an incredible capacity to surprise both outsiders and the natives. Amidst all the gloom and doom we see flickers of hope and rays of sun shine here and there, keeping hope alive that our peoples have it within them the capacity to change their conditions for the better. Outsiders can and may help but the duty is that of Africans.
While not denying the challenges we must also put our victories in perspective and build on those good practices of things that work in Africa by African efforts.
South Africa has just concluded its third post apartheid general elections without the much-predicted mass violence especially in Kwazulu Natal. Even Chief Buthelezi is reaching his sell-by-date and is no longer capable of destabilising the democratic order.
Yet just ten years ago there were all prophets of doom about the inevitable catastrophe that a post apartheid South Africa will become. Enemies of Africa now say the ANC has won too much votes and that is supposed to be dangerous for democracy. Does that mean that Tony Blair whose party has a overwhelming majority in the British parliament without overwhelming votes across the country should have shared it with his Liberal and conservative opponents?
Another unsung development is the decision by President Sam Nujoma and SWAPO that finally this term is his final and final term. No more tinkering with the constitution to prolong the rule of one person.
The system should be able to cope with the exit of its founders, veterans and pioneers and move to another person and another generation.
Africa’s enemies will be further proven wrong if and when the same message echoes from Kampala, Harare, Addis Ababa and Asmara. President Thabo Mbeki has made the same declaration in Pretoria as indeed President Kagame (though he still has many years ahead) in Kigali. We have to help those who have seen the light beyond state house and also help those who are yet to that there is more to enjoy outside of it instead of remaining prisoners to power. Some leaders like Eyadema (who is beyond the pale of any democratic pressure) we have to pray to the ancestors to fastforward his recall to the higher house. The next phase in the very painful transitions in many African countries will require being liberated from our liberators.
Let us keep hope alive, Afrika Yetu!
* Dr Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is General Secretary of the Global Pan African Movement, based in Kampala, Uganda and also Director of Justice Africa, based in London.
Cape Town radio man Zane Ibrahim was taken off an international flight minutes after it landed at Baltimore airport by United States Homeland Security personnel and interrogated for almost 12 hours. Ibrahim, an award-winning journalist and managing director of Bush Radio, had flown to the US from Cape Town via Amsterdam to deliver a keynote address on 10 years of South African democracy at a conference at Goucher College, near Baltimore.
* Human Rights: The situation of human rights defenders in Africa: A continuous nightmare
* Women and Gender: Violence against women and HIV
* Elections and Governance: In placid Malawi, shades of Mugabe
* Development: Protests at World Bank and IMF – the “unhappy birthday”
* Health: Little joy on Malaria Day
* Education: Education for All week
* Environment: NGO’s call for closure of WB climate change fund
* Media&FXI: Press freedom is ‘baggage’, says Moyo
* Books and Arts: Talk left walk right: South Africa’s frustrated global reforms
PAMBAZUKA NEWS 152: AFTER THE SOUTH AFRICAN ELECTION, RHETORICS AND REALITIES
PAMBAZUKA NEWS 152: AFTER THE SOUTH AFRICAN ELECTION, RHETORICS AND REALITIES
Fighting last week near Burundi's capital of Bujumbura has prompted nearly 30,000 Burundians to flee their homes, officials said Saturday. On Friday, fighting between the government and the National Liberation Forces, the only rebel group still actively fighting in Burundi, left one soldier and six rebels dead, a military source said. The violence began on Tuesday about 15 kilometres southeast of Bujumbura.
The Lesotho appeal court has not only upheld the bribery and corruption conviction of a third multinational contracting firm involved in the Lesotho Highlands Water Project (LHWP), but has increased its fine. Lahmeyer International, the biggest engineering consulting group in Germany, was convicted of bribing Masupha Sole, the chief executive of the Lesotho Highlands Development Authority, the agency that was responsible for the construction of the Katse and Mohale dams.
The number of children throughout the world who have lost one or both parents to AIDS-related illness is expected to reach 25 million by 2010, according to a report released Wednesday by the International AIDS Trust and the Children Affected by AIDS Foundation, the AP/Detroit News reports. The report, titled "Preserving Our Future - HIV/AIDS and the World's Children," is the first in a series planned by IAT highlighting issues connected to the global AIDS pandemic.
The World Health Organisation's goal to provide AIDS drugs to 3 million infected people by 2005 is unlikely to be met, the organisation's Africa director, Ebrahim Malick Samba, said during a visit to Uganda. "The 3 x 5 is coming," Samba said, "but not as soon as expected." Samba said that while the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, UNICEF and bilateral partners were "keen" to support the program, some would be fulfilling their promises of support later rather than sooner. "You learn that people are more generous verbally than when it comes to giving," he said.
Police have launched a massive hunt to locate Zvakwana, a pro-democracy group that is calling for the removal from power of President Robert Mugabe, the Zimbabwe Independent heard this week. Police spokesman Wayne Bvudzijena said they were worried about the activities of Zvakwana. "I can't speak about the hunt for them off hand. I will have to confirm," said Bvudzijena. "These people (Zvakwana), whoever they are, have been hiding and spreading material and literature aimed at inciting members of the public to lawlessness. We would be interested in talking to them."
The Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) has criticised government plans to acquire all privately-owned game parks and conservancies, saying the move is tantamount to punishing farmers who provide sanctuary for animals. WWF has since made an appeal to the Presidential Land Resettlement Committee, saying land acquisition should be based on sound ecological and business principles.
The Science and Developments Network (SciDev.Net)'s latest edition of their sub-Saharan newsletter is now available at http://www.scidev.net/africanewsletter/apr04.pdf. The newsletter includes news from SciDev.Net's network in Africa and a piece on NEPAD's efforts in central Africa ('Can science heal the scars of war?'). The newsletter also gives details of useful networking opportunities and lists events in the region. There is also the chance to win a Freeplay wind-up radio with our photography competition. For more information or to receive print copies of the newsletter, contact [email protected].
In this brilliant look at the rise of political Islam, the distinguished political scientist and anthropologist Mahmood Mamdani brings his expertise and insight to bear on a question many Americans have been asking since 9/11: how did this happen? Mamdani dispels the idea of "good" (secular, westernized) and "bad" (premodern, fanatical) Muslims, pointing out that these judgments refer to political rather than cultural or religious identities. The presumption that there are "good" Muslims readily available to be split off from "bad" Muslims masks a failure to make a political analysis of our times. A longer review of this book will appear in a forthcoming issue of Pambazuka News.
Contents include:
* The Twentieth Century - Massacres and Genocides;
* The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda;
* The International Criminal Court.
The PER ANKH cooperative publishing house aims to publish accurately-researched and well-produced books focused on Africa in a world context, shipping direct to buyers, by air mail.
KMT: In the House of Life is a novel about memory and African history. It's based on research into the role of keepers of social memory in African society. Today these are academic intellectuals. In feudal Africa they were griots and spokespersons, and in ancient Egypt (known to the inhabitants themselves as KMT) they were scribes. Though these three groups have conventionally been thought of as unrelated or only tenuously connected, current research, especially from Francophone historians and Egyptologists, makes it possible to see professional, thematic and philosophical connections between them. The novel investigates these ties.
Wind energy is zero-emissions energy, a renewable resource that many environmentalists and alternative energy proponents feel is one of our last, best hopes for staving off devastating climate change. Globally, wind energy has grown 500 percent since 1997. In 2003, 8,133 megawatts of wind-generating capacity were installed worldwide. This brought the world’s total wind power generating capacity to 39,294 megawatts, enough to power 19 million European households.
The bodies of at least 25 people hacked to death by unidentified assailants have so far been discovered in Lutwegi, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the public information officer for the UN mission in the eastern town of Goma, Jacqueline Chernard, told IRIN on Sunday. "We anticipate that the figure of those dead during the attack could rise," she said. Quoting a local administrator of the affected area, in North Kivu Province, she said the dead were mostly women and children. She said 150 homes were completely burnt down by the unidentified attackers.
Angolans will have an extra reason to celebrate national youth day on 14 April, when young people can start using the first of three new youth centres. The UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) and its partners, which include provincial governors and the Catholic church, will open its first centre in the eastern Moxico province on Wednesday and Benguela in the west on Friday. A centre in the central Huambo province is expected to be operational later this month.
The United Nations has confirmed that the delayed disarmament programme in Liberia will restart on Thursday after a four-month delay. Jacques Klein, the head of the United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL), made the announcement on Saturday at a joint press conference with Gyude Bryant, the Chairman of Liberia’s transitional government, in the capital Monrovia.
In May 1994, a month after being sworn in as the ruling party, the African National Congress (ANC) drew up a National Health Plan, with technical assistance from the World Health Organisation and the United Nations Children's Fund. The plan dealt at length with HIV/AIDS, pointing out that, "In view of the devastating implications of the epidemic for South Africa, it is mandatory to define prevention and control interventions, plus comprehensive care for those already infected, within the context of the Bill of Rights." Only now, a decade later, is a comprehensive treatment plan being rolled out.
An umbrella group representing various Christian churches in Nigeria said on Friday it had pulled out of peace talks with Muslims in the volatile northern Nigerian state of Kaduna after accusing Islamic militants of mounting a new spate of attacks on Christians across the north. For three years, the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) has been in government-backed talks with its Muslim counterpart, Jamatu’ul Nasir Islam (JNI) in Kaduna State in a bid to end the sectarian violence. More than 3,000 people have died in clashes in the state capital of Kaduna, since 2000.
The government of Mauritania has refused to even consider legalising a new pro-Islamic opposition party set up by supporters of former president Mohammed Khouna Ould Haidalla. Last Wednesday they filed a request to legalise the new Party for Democratic Convergence with the Interior Ministry. However, on Sunday, Cheick Ould Horma, the party's president, said the government had refused to even accept the application for processing.
Malnutrition due to the ongoing food crisis, the HIV/AIDS epidemic, and overcrowded urban areas are all contributing to a rise in tuberculosis (TB) infections in Zimbabwe. Nicholas Siziba, the national coordinator of the Ministry of Health's special TB programme, sounded the alarm last week while visiting Matabeleland South province - one of the worst-affected in terms of TB rates.
The Sudanese government and two rebel movements in the country’s western Darfur region have agreed to a 45-day ceasefire to allow humanitarian assistance to reach several hundred thousand people affected by the fighting. The ceasefire was due to come into force on Sunday. It was agreed last Thursday night after two days of talks in N’djamena, the capital of neighbouring Chad.
Health officials in the Republic of Congo said on Wednesday they now had the measles epidemic in the Department of Cuvette-Ouest under control. "Since 13 March, we have been striving to fight against the epidemic with all the financial resources and drugs which the department has placed at our disposal," Martin Ombeli, supervisor of the department's mass vaccination programme, told IRIN.
About 20 percent of the children in the drought-affected northern Somali regions of Sool and Sanaag are believed to be malnourished, a study by the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) in February found. In its monthly review of the situation in Somalia for March, UNICEF said the results of screening some 7,457 children had shown that about 1,490 were moderately malnourished and 126 severely malnourished.
Strategic Initiatives for the Horn of Africa, a regional organisation that promotes women's participation in politics, has called for gender issues to be addressed in the Sudanese peace negotiations. "So far, there is no voice of women in the talks. Women are not visible in whatever has been accomplished at the negotiations and that is why we are advocating for them to have a say in the process, because they are the ones who have been affected most by the civil war in Sudan,” Hala Elkanib, Director of Strategic Initiatives for the Horn of Africa (SIHA), told IPS in Nairobi.
Mention disputes over party funding, and the image that might first come to mind is that of Republicans and Democrats in the United States, trading allegations about reliance on special interest groups. However, the matter has also sparked controversy in South Africa recently, as parties prepared for the third democratic election. In fact, eyebrows were raised last month when former apartheid-era foes Nelson Mandela and FW de Klerk teamed up with hats in hand to seek campaign funds for their respective parties. South Africa's government began funding political parties in 1998 by way of the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC). But state resources have proved inadequate, prompting the parties to solicit additional money from corporate and private sources.
Marie-Julie Nse Ndzime has made a success of her printing company located in Gabon's capital, Libreville - no thanks to anyone else. "I never received a request for bids nor was lent any money by the banks," she told IPS. "I only got a leg up by hard work and networking." Only 10 percent of Gabonese businesswomen manage companies in the country. Many face an uphill struggle in trying to get fair treatment from their male counterparts, who have tended to judge them on their physical appearance alone.
A Rwandan opposition group on Monday accused Rwandan President Paul Kagame of sending troops into the east of Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to kill Rwandans "refugees" there. "The Kigali government sent thousands of troops disguised as field workers to wipe out Rwandan refugees still living in this region and Congolese who refused to collaborate with the regime," the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) said in a statement. "Kigali authorities are once again preparing to take war to the east of the DRC," said the statement signed by spokesman Augustin Dukuze. Rwanda and the DRC are only now in the process of restoring diplomatic relations that were broken off in 1998 when Rwanda was one of six countries drawn into the DRC's bloody civil war.
More than a decade after ExxonMobil - then Exxon - decided to develop the oil fields under this landlocked country of Sahara Desert and grassland, Chad's 9 million people wait expectantly. In Chad, the oil receipts that have begun to flow to the government in recent months are to be managed publicly, with 80 percent of them dedicated to pay for schools, clinics, roads and other basic human needs. Years of campaigning by Western and Chadian human rights and environmental groups forced the World Bank, oil companies and Chad's government to set up the plan, which includes a measure of oversight from nongovernmental civic organisations. But it remains to be seen if Chad will escape the curse of natural resources.
A week of action is planned to target the 60th anniversary spring meetings of the World Bank and IMF - April 16-25 have been declared international days of action. Campaigners will highlight the impact of their policies, programmes and projects and continue to press for global justice.
The Zambian governments’ reluctance to pass the Freedom of Information (FOI) law is a sign that it is not committed to the concept of being probed by the public, says the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) in a statement. MISA Zambia says the government may not reap the full benefits made under the Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative if it does not enact the FOI bill.
NGOs in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have allied to challenge industrial logging in their country's rainforests. In February they appealed to the World Bank and other agencies to halt a plan which would make up to 60 million hectares of rainforest available to logging companies in the coming years. The dispute is instructive about the Bank's approach to human rights and international law. Roger Muchuba of the human rights group Héritiers de la Justice, said: "Civil society is taking the initiative of informing the population about the new laws, as the World Bank and the Food and Agriculture Organisation have so far failed to."
SNV's mission is to develop the capacities of capacity builders at provincial and local levels, with the twin objectives of reducing poverty and improving governance. Many of the advisory services rendered by SNV Rwanda are directly related to the empowerment of women and the mainstreaming of gender. This can mean the integration of gender in local government, civil society and private sector or lobbying and advocacy skills of women organisations.
Panos is a dynamic network of autonomous institutes developing and applying new thinking on the role of media and communication in development. The Panos AIDS programme has a history of producing cutting-edge analysis on key issues within the response to HIV/AIDS and is recognised as a pioneering organisation challenging existing strategies and approaches to fighting the epidemic. We are now looking for a director to provide vision and leadership to the programme. This is a new role. You will be responsible for establishing many of the structures within which you work and supporting the progressive scaling up of the programme's operations.
The EIA Professional Development (PD) programme was initiated and piloted with USAID's Environmental Capacity Building Program (ENCAP) from November 2001 to October 2002. CLEIAA assumed the lead role for the programme. In administering and further developing the program, CLEIAA works in partnership with the South African Institute of Environmental Assessment (SAIEA), the Eastern Africa Association for Impact Assessment (EAAIA), Tellus Institute of Boston and IUCN- Eastern Africa Regional Office. Following successful completion of the pilot phase and lessons learnt during its implementation, IUCN, EAAIA and partners, with funding from USAID Regional Office for East and Southern Africa (REDSO), are pleased to offer a limited number of PD opportunities in EIA to professionals from Eastern Africa. The program focuses on individuals with strong academic qualifications, relevant work experience and current employment in areas related to EIA, but who lack or need more practical hands-on experience. Application is open to professionals working in government, Non Government Organisations, Private Voluntary Organisations, universities and local consulting firms from Eastern African countries that include Burundi, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda.
Would you like to feel less intimidated by financial management? Or do you want to help others to understand and apply financial management tools for successful programme management? Then why not find out more about Mango's highly-rated finance training programme, tailored for staff in the NGO sector. We offer a range of training for development professionals. From one-day modules on how to prepare effective budgets, to short courses on how to make finance training more effective, and a 2-week intensive course covering operational and strategic financial management, we have something for everyone.
The 5th International Workshop on Resource Mobilisation (IWRM) took place in Johannesburg on 26-28 March 2004 and attracted a record 271 participants from 48 countries worldwide. The IWRM is organised by the Resource Alliance. Simon Collings, CEO of the Resource Alliance, commented: "Each year, the number of attendees has increased. The response this year has been quite overwhelming and this reflects the increasing recognition of both the importance of local resource mobilisation and the need for training in this area. Through our events, we aim to help build the capacity of civil society organisations to mobilise local resources and establish greater financial stability and independence. The wide range of nationalities created a great atmosphere and really enhanced the learning potential. Initial feedback from delegates has been very positive."
The Forum for African Women Educationalists (FAWE) works at the continental, national and local levels, to create positive societal attitudes, policies and practices that promote equity for girls in terms of access to, retention and performance and a good quality education. The FAWE Resident Guest Researcher Programme (FRGRP) provides short term grants to selected guest researchers from universities to conduct three-month action research, based on themes identified by FAWE each year.
Somalia’s break-up in the early 1990s led to some 120 000 Somalis living in three refugee camps around the remote north-eastern Kenyan town of Dadaab. Many survive the harsh conditions due to money they receive from relatives across the globe. The strength of these remittance networks, and refugees’ traditional strategies for dealing with instability, suggests the need to rethink stereotypes of refugees as passive or keen to return to a single home locality.
Some of Africa’s largest employers and most successful companies were represented at a seminar aimed at developing Africa’s skills base. The Strategic Skills Seminar for Africa 2004 took place in Nairobi Kenya on 23-24 March 2004. The event was aimed at strengthening the framework of human resources in Africa addressing the “retain” factor as the “attract” factor is tackled in the well-known Africa’s brain drain syndrome.
My tolerance for the back-to-Africa fantasies of African Americans broke on the back of several things. First, the conservative, distorted and unabashedly patriarchal version of Islam followed by African American groups such as the Nation of Islam. Second, the reverence accorded to the Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie by followers of Marcus Garvey. Yes, the Ethiopians kicked the Italians out, thus achieving for Ethiopia the status of being the only African state never to have been colonised. But the Emperor represented a feudal system in which power relations were arguably as damaging as those of colonial systems elsewhere in Africa.
Africans living outside the continent could be offered dual citizenship and other benefits in return for helping finance the cash-strapped African Union, an AU official said on Tuesday. The idea aims to tap into the enormous wealth and power of millions of people of African origin, and in return, offer them economic and social benefits on the continent.
Thousands of skilled Ethiopians living in various parts of the world are being wooed to contribute skills and remittances towards helping to develop their homeland, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) has said.
Ethiopiandiaspora.info is a website dedicated to provide timely, relevant and accurate information, to the Ethiopian community abroad. This website has been created with funding from the Italian Government. The information on the website, which will regularly be updated, can be used as an information centre, a traveller’s guide and a directory for Ethiopians and friends of Ethiopia.
Legendary singer and civil rights activist Nina Simone, who died last year, lived and sang all over the world. But her connection to New Jersey and Ghana may help preserve her legacy of educating children of African and African-American descent. A royal delegation from Ghana has visited Essex County to promote the Nina Simone Foundation, a nonprofit organisation created by her daughter, Lisa Simone Kelly. The foundation has been given 50 acres in Jukwa near Cape Coast to create the Nina Simone Cultural Village, said Kelly. The village will have a hospital and a school and also will be a showcase for "artisans and craftsmen," Kelly said. "We want to have African-Americans from all over the world to visit."