PAMBAZUKA NEWS 149: US AIDS CZAR UNDERMINES WHO INITIATIVE
PAMBAZUKA NEWS 149: US AIDS CZAR UNDERMINES WHO INITIATIVE
At least 6,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) in camps around Bunia, the main town of Ituri District in northeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), are preparing to return to their villages of origin, Hamadoun Toure, the spokesman for the UN Mission in the DRC (MONUC) said on Wednesday. "This return is a sign of the positive evolution of the security situation in Ituri," he said at a news conference in the nation's capital, Kinshasa. "These civilians are tangible proof of progress that has been made in Ituri."
The Caprivi Regional Emergency Management Unit (REMU) is preparing to evacuate villagers from areas surrounded by floodwaters in the eastern Caprivi as the Zambezi River rises. It reached 6,42 metres, as measured at Katima Mulilo, yesterday. EMU Deputy Director Gabriel Kangowa said that three boats had been obtained from the military base at Katima Mulilo to move people to safety as well as for the delivery of food aid.
Namibia is one of the first countries in the world to form a national coalition on the UN Literacy Decade. During a conference earlier this month, some 100 people representing various stakeholders in literacy came together to celebrate the launch of the Literacy Decade in the country. Representatives from Botswana and Cuba also attended the conference to share their experiences. The conference was organized by UNESCO Windhoek in collaboration with the Namibian Ministry of Basic Education, Sport and Culture.
Tanzania has played host to tens of thousands of refugees for more than four decades in a region torn apart by civil conflicts. Since independence in 1972, Burundians have fled their country repeatedly to find safe sanctuary there. In the last decade, since the outbreak of the civil war, which began in 1993 and killed an estimated 200,000 people, around 300,000 Burundians have fled to Tanzania, leaving behind their homes, farms and lands. But Tanzania's traditional generosity, which has been hailed by many for years, including by the U.S. Congress in 2003, is finally wearing thin. The country is becoming increasingly intolerant of the refugees' presence.
Experts from the World Health Organisation and the African Union are scheduled to meet in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in April, to discuss how countries in Africa can decrease maternal and newborn mortality rates, the highest in the world. According to WHO regional director Ebrahim Samba, the maternal mortality ratio in Africa has increased from 870 deaths per 100,000 live births in 1990 to 1,000 deaths in 2001.
Much of the success of better socio-economic development in emerging economies hinges on progressive policymaking, access to finance, a culture of change, and enabling infrastructure like ICTs. Within this context, micro-finance and ICTs play an important role in developing countries, and exploring mutual benefits and synergy between the two disciplines can yield promising dividends. There are two kinds of linkages between these sectors: the use of ICTs by micro-finance organisations on the one hand, and the use of microfinance models to enable broader access to ICTs on the other.
Security forces killed 11 demonstrators in Ivory Coast on Thursday as a massive march to demand implementation of a peace deal got under way in the tank-guarded commercial capital, an opposition spokesman said. The protesters were killed in different parts of the West African city as security forces tried to disperse crowds, said Bacongo Cisse, a spokesman for the main opposition Rally of the Republicans party.
Ethiopia has the ninth highest tuberculosis (TB) burden in the world. Given the country's limited resources, decision-makers need to optimise case detection without overloading the health system. Patients currently have to produce three sputum specimens for testing. Are the second and third sputum tests really necessary?
This page, developed by University of Manchester's Institute for Development Policy and Management, offers technique for analysing the success and failure of e-government projects. A gap exists for all e-government projects between the design assumptions/requirements and the reality of the client public agency. The larger this gap between design and reality, the greater the risk that the project will fail.
The structure as well as the struggles for the second phase of the WSIS summit process are slowly becoming clearer. One thing is clear: It will be more complex than the first round, as it has to deal with many more loose ends. WSIS 2003 only had to deliver two pieces of paper (the declaration of principles and the action plan). This left a lot of time for endless discussions, arm-twisting on wording, sorting out friends or foes in different arenas, and for civil society to start playing inside the official UN process. Now, the negotiators from Geneva will meet the real world. And as conflicts remain, the actors are positioning themselves for the second round.
* Conflicts and Emergencies: How likely is conflict over the Nile waters?
* Human Rights: Enforcing human rights for businesses
* Refugees and Forced Migration: San relocation a talking point at Civicus conference
* Women and Gender: Corporate Social Responsibility and the role of the women’s movement
* Elections and Governance: Zimbabwean electoral act amendments questioned
* Development: Is Blair’s Africa commission letting the cat out of the bag?
* Corruption: Oil firms finance crooked regimes
* Health: Global effort to fight TB needs new drugs, says MSF
* Advocacy and Campaigns: Say no to US efforts to create a slush fund for big pharma
In January 2004, Monsanto, a multinational agribusiness company, quit Zimbabwe because of what it called “poor economic conditions”. On 19 January 2004, Monsanto SA (Pty) Ltd revealed that it had applied for a food and feed safety clearance in South Africa for its genetically modified (GM) Roundup Ready wheat.
Such a clearance would mean that future importers of the GM wheat would not need to obtain import permits, more seriously it would mean that importers do not have to comply with bio-safety rules. On 9 March 2004, UK’s Environment Secretary, Margaret Beckett announced that UK ministers had agreed in principle to the growing of a single variety of GM maize in England. This agreement comes after five years of intensive national debate in which more than 50% of the Britons who participated said ‘NO’ to the introduction of GM crops.
There is no doubt that the push for genetically modified food is coming from big business. While previously the cry was that GM products would widen consumer choice, now the lie is been peddled that GM crops and seed are good because they will help developing countries deal with hunger. Multi-national agribusiness companies have been at pains to display their credentials of feeding a hungry world. If the aim of big agribusiness companies like Monsanto is to feed the hungry, why would it withdraw from a country like Zimbabwe where over 40% of the population need food aid?
The point must be made that far from dealing with hunger, GM crops could worsen it. Through patenting seeds, multinational agribusiness companies will establish a monopoly on food production. Because of advancement in technology, these companies can manufacture seeds that will not grow without patented chemicals. Seeds can also be created in such a way that they cannot reproduce. This would do much harm to farmers, indigenous people and local communities, in terms of their rights and interests, including the right to use, save and exchange seeds and other biological resources.
Much of what has been touted as development has failed to bring happiness and social justice to the majority of peoples of the world. In many countries particularly in the developing countries people are deprived of natural resources that constitute the bedrock of their lives. Agriculture is an extremely important sector in Africa, as it provides food and livelihood for its people and is the backbone of African economies. There seems to be no overwhelming benefit of GM crops other than profit for transnationals.
In South Africa, social movements are strongly opposing the granting of a commodity clearance permit that would allow the US firm Monsanto to import genetically modified wheat into their country. This is a legitimate concern because South Africa risks becoming a dumping ground for GM crops. Africa should be on guard not to fall for the marketing charm of companies like Monsanto who will go all out to open new markets in the continent.
No doubt Africa will be told that allowing companies like Monsanto to establish businesses in the continent will encourage foreign direct investment. This is exactly the kind of foreign direct investment that Africa should not accept because it will harm the continent’s bio-diversity and communal ownership agreed under the Convention on Bio-Diversity.
There is need to be ever sensitive to the issue of appearance versus reality. Those who have ever watched a magician’s show will know how the success of the show is determined by the extent to which the magician has mastered the art of deception through distracting attention. The magician misdirects with one hand while the other hand does the tricks.
Those who support GM crops have become magicians. They say GM crops will reduce world poverty and hunger. When this argument is questioned they change tune and say we shouldn’t worry about GM crops because most of them are being grown to feed livestock rather than people. As if to appease us we are further told that GM crops will be grown and managed under conditions that will not harm people and the environment.
In the interests of justice and morality we must ignore the magician’s tricks and demand to have a look at his other hand - the hand that is always under the table. It is the hand under the table that is pushing small farmers out of business. It is the hand under the table that is seeking to establish food monopolies. It is the hand under the table that is threatening traditional food industries. We should not allow a situation that reduces peoples livelihoods to a magic show.
Embracing GM crops unquestioningly is to attach our livelihoods to the markets. It is to disregard recognition of and provision for, the rights of farmers, indigenous people and local communities, in relation to their knowledge and biological resources.
* Percy Makombe is the Assistant Editor of the SEATINI Bulletin, in which this commentary first appeared. For more information and subscriptions, contact SEATINI, Takura House, 67-69 Union Avenue, Harare, Zimbabwe, Tel: +263 4 792681, Ext. 255 & 341, Tel/Fax: +263 4 251648, Fax: +263 4 788078, email:
Email: [email][email protected], Website: www.seatini.org
In May 2003, at its annual World Health Assembly, the World Health Organisation (WHO) announced a modest proposal: that it would provide the technical and organisational support to provide 3 million people in poor countries with antiretroviral treatment by the year 2005.
This "3-by-5 initiative" was minor in one sense, in that it would provide treatment to only about 5 percent of those in need. But in another sense, it was a major step forward, particularly because the WHO proposed a novel manner of delivering the anti-HIV medicines: combining the drugs into a "fixed-dose regimen", a combination pill containing three drugs in one capsule, allowing an infected person to take only one pill twice per day for a complete HIV-treatment regimen. Fixed-dose combinations are cheaper and easier to take than the existing HIV treatment protocol; taking two fixed-dose combination pills a day for a year costs $140 per patient, compared to about $600 per year for the normal regimen of six pills per day [1].
Previous excuses used to deny patients in poor countries access to antiretrovirals centred around two common arguments: that poor persons could not adhere to complex medication regimens and would therefore improperly take the drugs leading to drug-resistant forms of HIV, and that the infrastructure in poor countries is insufficient to support complex HIV care [2, 3].
Yet those who continue to state these excuses are almost universally unfamiliar with the public health and biomedical data accumulated over the last several years, which definitively demonstrates that in the most resource-poor settings - including the poorest place in the western hemisphere (the central plateau of Haiti) and the slums of southern Africa (such as the Khayelitsha township in South Africa) - antiretroviral treatment has been delivered with higher adherence, extraordinary success rates and no evidence of drug resistance [4-9]. The success of these interventions has resulted in the exportation of these models throughout the world - and physicians everywhere are now waiting for the necessary medications to arrive.
The WHO's generic combination pill would have improved and simplified treatment to the point where these models would have been even easier to adopt in most resource-poor settings.
Why had a combination pill not been designed before? Because HIV treatment requires a number of different types of medications, and these types are patented by different companies in the US and UK. Ideal combination pills could not be produced when one company owned the patent to a necessary chemical and another company owned the patent to a secondary component.
The patents, of course, are believed to be necessary to give inventors a fixed monopoly time in a marketplace to recoup costs on research and development (R&D). Yet, again, data demonstrate that such costs are recouped well in advance of the 20-year patents that the US Trade Representative is pushing on poor countries through bilateral and regional trade agreements [12].
And the R&D claim ignores the fact that most AIDS drugs were produced through public financing (even through the clinical trials stages), and 85% of the basic and applied research for the top five selling drugs on the market were produced through taxpayer funding [13].
According to the industry's own tax records (obtained from the Securities and Exchange Commission), Merck last year spent 13% of its revenue on marketing and only
5% on R&D, Pfizer spent 35% on marketing and only 15% on R&D, and the industry overall spent 27% on marketing and 11% on R&D [14].
Meanwhile, all of sub-Saharan Africa constitutes only 1.3% of the pharmaceutical market, so as one former pharmaceutical executive put it, allowing generics to enter this market would result in a profit loss to the patent-based industry equivalent to "about three days fluctuation in exchange rates" [15, 16].
But the drug industry's fight for monopoly patent rights in this market and middle-income country markets is serious, as the growing inequality in poor countries under the context of neoliberalism increases the market-share for more expensive patent-based drugs among the elite [17].
With all of this data accumulating, it would seem self-evident that the WHO's move to make a generic combination pill would not face much opposition. In reality, the new US AIDS "Czar", Randall Tobias, the former CEO of Eli Lilly, has almost totally undermined the WHO plan.
While he and the White House initially pledged to support the initiative, no monies have flowed to date, and Tobias appears to be waiting until the program completely collapses from financial instability [18].
Ironically, when President Bush claimed to pledge $15 billion to global AIDS efforts during the State of the Union Address last year (none of which has actually been apportioned to date), he quoted the price of the WHO generic pill as a basis for claiming that the US would support drug treatment for HIV-infected persons, since such treatment has become more affordable [19]. It now appears that the US will only pay if US patent-based pharmaceutical manufacturers are given the money - an effective subsidy of an already heavily-subsidized industry that is taxed at only one-third of the rate of other equivalent industries [13, 18].
While the pharmaceutical industry has been lobbying the White House throughout this week to undermine the WHO initiative, Tobias has publicly stated that his concerns are not about the industry's interests, but about the safety of generics and the prospect that cheaper AIDS drugs would be smuggled illegally into Northern countries. "We need to have principles," he told the US Congress this week, "standards by which the purchase decisions can be made" [1].
The WHO has taken care of the safety standards concern by inspecting and making a list of "approved" generics whose safety standards meet international guidelines [20]. But the US Department of Health and Human Sciences has now convened a conference in Botswana on March 29 that will question the WHO's approval process, drawing in "experts" from the patent-based industry to claim that the process every major academic public health expert in the field has supported is somehow inadequate and unsafe [18].
The smuggling claim is more complex; while the company GlaxoSmithKline did have a shipment of AIDS drugs diverted from Sierra Leone early last year, it was later found that the shipment was partly still in Europe and simply mis-warehoused by GSK, and that the smuggling of the rest of the drugs took over a year for GSK to discover [21].
Indian generic manufacturers have been shipping drugs for over two decades without a single case of "diversion", and the fact that generics create new formulations and new pill shapes, colours and boxes makes it easier for customs officials to detect any form of diversion, as they would for any other type of illegal smuggling [22]. The EU has passed a customs regulation to assist in preventing any future diversion; while the US could do the same. Taking care of the problem this way would ironically undermine Mr. Tobias' own arguments.
It appears clear that Randall Tobias' agenda is not driven by data or rational thought, but by the industry whose combined soft- and hard-money campaign donations top the list of contributors in the US election cycle [23].
Shining a light on the Czar's activity may begin to expose his practices to scrutiny and - as was done when he and the US Trade Representative tried to undermine a WTO accord for generic drug procurement earlier this year - may prevent disintegration of an important public health initiative [24].
* Sanjay Basu is at the Yale University School of Medicine.
Please send comments to [email protected]
* Click on the link below for a list of reading materials and references.
* Visit the Advocacy and Campaigns section of Pambazuka News to read more about the March 29 meeting in Botswana where activists fear that generic medicine treatment will be discredited.
This year is the 10th Anniversary of the genocide in Rwanda. An international campaign is underway to mobilise to mark this anniversary - "REMEMBERING RWANDA". Next week your usual Pambazuka News will be substituted with a special issue on Rwanda that will contain originally commissioned editorials covering key issues relating to Rwanda and the genocide.
PAMBAZUKA NEWS 148: Challenges for the African Parliament: Special Briefing
PAMBAZUKA NEWS 148: Challenges for the African Parliament: Special Briefing
Two politicians have so far been killed, a woman got shot in the stomach and hundreds of people were displaced from a site at an Ogiek ancestral forest in Western Kenya along the Uganda Border. The attackers are said to be from the Pok (Bok) ethnic group of the Sabaot tribe, which belongs to the Kalenjin group of nilotic tribes and who live also across the border in Uganda, from where it is said the assault weapons used in the attack derive.
Protection of children's rights was the focus of a UN interagency workshop held from 24-27 February in Kinshasa, capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Christina Linner, senior coordinator for refugee children of the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees, UNHCR, served as one of the workshop's principal organizers. Originally from Sweden, Linner has worked with UNHCR for more than 20 years. She spoke with IRIN about her experience with regard to protection of refugee children's rights, in particular, but also about the rights of refugees in general.
Many of the tens of millions of people who have been displaced from their homes are women fleeing oppressive norms and violence. Some are women who may have opposed their oppression and stood up to the state, society, their husband or their relatives. Some are women whose only "wrongful" act was to have sex outside marriage or who have been raped. Some are women who have insisted on their right to choose for themselves which man or woman to love. Some are women who, consciously or unconsciously, through their actions or words, have transgressed social mores and therefore fear punishment from the state, from their communities or their families.
The Constitutional Court has brought government in line for the second time in less than a week with regard to the treatment of foreigners. The court held that illegal immigrants were entitled to the same rights as South African citizens when visiting SA. Justice Yacoob overturned laws that allowed illegal immigrants entering the country by ship or aircraft to be detained for more than 30 days without a court order, adding that detainees could not be held under intolerable or inhumane circumstances. This ruling, and the one last week that social grants may no longer be limited to South African citizens, has placed obligations on the state to make special provisions for foreign nationals.
Nigeria’s programme of subsidised antiretroviral treatment, interrupted since September last year by drug shortages, has resumed with the arrival of emergency supplies ordered by the government, health officials said on Friday. Ayo Osinlu, spokesman for the Minister of Health Eyitayo Lambo, said drugs worth 500 million naira [about US $3.8 million] ordered by the government in January began arriving in Nigeria two weeks ago.
Angola's ruling MPLA party has laid out 14 tasks it must complete before the country can hold its first national elections since 1992 - a move observers say makes a ballot before 2006 unlikely. Approving a new constitution, passing a new electoral register law and creating an electoral council would be possible by the second half of 2005, the MPLA's information secretary, Kwata Kanawa, told a press conference last Thursday.
Suspected yellow fever cases have appeared in eight of the 15 counties in Liberia, three of them along the border with Guinea and Cote d’Ivoire, a senior official of World Health Organisation (WHO) revealed in the capital, Monrovia. Dr Mekonnen Admassu told IRIN last Thursday at the WHO-Liberia offices that the government and his organisation had received reports of 39 suspected cases of yellow fever, a potentially fatal disease that is transmitted by mosquitoes and is spreading rapidly through the country.
A survey of listeners to Botswana's popular HIV/AIDS radio drama, "Makgabaneng", has revealed a lack of specific knowledge about the virus in a country with the world's highest level of HIV infection. Only 55 percent of respondents rejected the myths that mosquitoes can spread HIV, sex with a virgin can cure AIDS, and healthy looking people cannot have the virus.
A measles epidemic has been declared in Etoumbi, 700 km north of Brazzaville, capital of Republic of Congo, with 32 cases registered so far, Bernard Mantele, the office director of the Congolese Ministry of Health, told IRIN last Thursday. "The epidemic was confirmed by local health authorities. The Ministry of Health would have sent an emergency medical team earlier, but we did not have the necessary resources," Mantele said. "Nevertheless, a team of doctors left Brazzaville on Wednesday and are on the ground working to stop the epidemic."
Some 40 HIV-positive people on Tuesday began to receive free anti-retrovirals (ARVs) after Health Minister Muhammad Ali Kamil launched Djibouti's first distribution of ARV medication at Peltier Hospital, the country's main medical centre. Medical staff at the hospital told IRIN that the treatment was started through a donor-funded programme called Global Care for People Living with AIDS (Prise en charge globale des personnes vivant avec le SIDA).
The plight of birdlife in Africa and other parts of the world is being highlighted at a meeting that is currently underway in the South African port city of Durban. ”Empowering People for Change”, a global conservation conference hosted by BirdLife International, attracted about 350 delegates from over 100 countries. BirdLife International is an umbrella organisation for conservation groups around the world.
Sierra Leone's war crimes court has opened in the capital Freetown to try persons who bear the greatest responsibility for the atrocities committed during the country's 1991-1999 conflict. Sierra Leone's civil war was characterised by horror and brutality. Some people fear the court might become a new flashpoint for renewed hostilities. “Our war has ended and every factional fighter disarmed. Putting people on trial at this stage may ignite fresh conflict,” says Abraham Conteh, a 46-year old father of three. “My house was burnt and three of my relatives killed. I fear that this court may not end well.”
"The situation of women in this country is worrisome. At home, women are beaten, girls are sexually abused, there is violence linked to the dowry and there is marital rape,” says a new report about the challenges facing women in Cameroon. "Surveys seem to indicate that at least a third of women are raped, beaten, forced to have sexual intercourse or mistreated in one way or another during the course of their lives,” it adds.
A meeting of church leaders in Kenya has been called to discuss how they can remove a clause in the draft constitution that recognises Muslim courts - also referred to as Kadhi's courts. Church leaders say Islam is the only faith explicitly mentioned in the draft, and that the provision for Muslim courts gives Islam precedence over other religions.
The ideal of gender equality in Uganda was brought closer to realisation recently with a Constitutional Court ruling on the country's Divorce Act. The court struck down ten sections of the act, saying they contravened a clause in the constitution that guaranteed women equal rights to men. The case which led to the ruling was filed by the Uganda Association of Women Lawyers.
A special investigation into the financial affairs of the Aids Consortium has found gross mismanagement of donor funds to the tune of about R1,1-million. As a result, the top management of the non-governmental organisation has been suspended and its executive committee is preparing to step down following the findings of the investigation. The Aids Consortium is a non-profit organisation made up of about 1 000 bodies (mainly community-based organisations) working in the field of HIV and Aids.
A Customs Union deal signed in Arusha recently by Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya comes a full four years after the countries embarked on their latest attempt at regional integration. The original East African Community collapsed in 1977 due to Nyerere's war against Idi Amin of Uganda, as well as economic and political divergences. In 1999, Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania signed a Treaty re-establishing the Community. But attempts to forge agreements since then on economic and political union have taken some time to materialise.
The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria has launched PartnersGF - an online discussion forum which will provide an opportunity to communicate ideas and suggestions about how to improve the Global Fund at all levels. This forum is open to all organisations and individuals who wish to join. To join, send an email to [email protected].
The Nigerian Senate is seeking to improve the country's rating by the corruption watchdog Transparency International, said a senior Senate official in Lagos last Wednesday. Chairman of the Senate's Anti-Corruption Committee Bemisola Saraki told local media in the Nigerian commercial centre Lagos that the legislative chamber is worried by Transparency International's classification of the country as the second most corrupt nation in the world.
A company associated with former Kenya Anti-Corruption Authority boss Harun Mwau has been implicated in a multi-million-shilling tax evasion scandal. The scandal was unearthed when a container whose contents had been falsely declared was intercepted at the Mombasa port by officials from the Kenya Revenue Authority and the Weights and Measures Department.
Despite a worldwide rise in consumption, there would still be adequate water on planet Earth for everyone if waste was ended, says a new report by an independent research group. According to the WorldWatch Institute in Washington the world faces a problem of "over-consumption" and "under-consumption" of water rather than the more clichéd image of a planet suffering from water scarcity. "There is more than enough water, but so far the political will and financial commitments to provide the poor with access to it have not been sufficient," says the U.S. non-governmental organisation (NGO).
Dear Pambazuka,
I was challenged by the poignant letter by my sister Everjoice Win to Nkosozana Dlamini Zuma et al and in the same breath buoyed up with the Issa Shivji's article. While it is true that the nationalist movement was not that overtly gender sensitive and that the seeds of sectarianism and exclusion were surreptitiously sown even then by vested interests, I also believe that the African women's movement was more focused in the earlier years. It is a great shame to me as a Panafricanist to witness the pain African women have to endure, having had to engage the sticky floor!
My question to Ndugu Shivji is: in your silent class struggle, where do you locate the women’s movement within the nationalist struggle as an integral part of the national question? Is it in the early resistance to colonialism that must include Nehanda Mbuya, the Lancaster generation, because Priscilla Abwao was there or the first Independence governments with Ella Koblo Gulama in Sierra Leone and Bibi Titi in Tanganyika?
My reading of the situation is that male dominated movements cannot be easily weaned from their original tokenism, hence the top women in South Africa can only view the plight of Zimbabwe through the glass ceiling! As Amilcar Cabral put it: "Claim no easy victories, tell no lies". Were he to come back to life he'd see a post colonial landscape dotted all over with leaning towers of failure!
A luta continua.
The United Nations has begun investigating whether an airplane's flight data recorder - known as a "black box" - that has been sitting in a U.N. file cabinet for a decade may be the missing device from the plane crash that killed the presidents of Rwanda and Burundi, an act that triggered the Rwandan genocide in 1994. Secretary General Kofi Annan said the discovery of the black box was "a first-class foul up." Annan's spokesman, Fred Eckhard, said the black box is in the possession of the Peacekeeping Department's Air Safety Unit and that Annan had "instructed the Office of Internal Oversight Services to look into exactly what happened 10 years ago."
"We, members of the Pan African Treatment Access Movement (PATAM) who have gathered here in Harare from 3-5 March 2004 to draw up civil society strategies to ensure rapid scale-up of anti-retroviral therapy in Southern Africa understand that everyone in the world is vulnerable to HIV infection and know that HIV-positive people in Africa, particularly women and other vulnerable groups, experience great challenges that must be addressed urgently. We know and understand that there are numerous factors and actors that hamper the provision of affordable life-saving medicines. Some of these include profiteering by pharmaceutical companies, inequitable international trade relationships, poverty, extreme stigma, imbalance of power within patriarchal societies, macroeconomic policies that constrain spending for health care and other social services and a lack of commensurate political commitment by our governments and other leaders to match the scale of the HIV/AIDS pandemic."
Labour Minister Hubert Oulaye has denied that a ministerial decision requiring companies to give priority to Ivorians when hiring staff was “exclusionary”, amid growing tension over the measure. Last month, a senior UN official told the Ivorian government that the country was not "xenophobic" but had entered " a dynamic of xenophobia."
African Ambassadors in Venezuela described the ridicule of Zimbabwean President, Robert Mugabe in a local TV show as “a grotesque and indecent spectacle full of racist content”. A letter by representatives of several diplomatic missions, including Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Saharawi, South Africa and Nigeria expressed deep rejection of what they consider to be offensive remarks “against the African people and human dignity”.
On March 18th 2004, 256 citizens step forward and assume their new role as pan African parliamentarians. The inauguration of the pan African parliament in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia this week is a major significant step for continental unity.
We in Africa must celebrate the inauguration but immediately place on its agenda the challenge of negotiating better global terms for Africa around debt, trade and aid. Yet, this is only half the agenda. The pan African Parliament must be empowered with research and communications facilities to legislate laws, monitor compliance of African states to agreed standards of governance and human rights and lastly, popularise the major protocols and instruments of the African Union. It must be enabled to receive representation by individuals and associations representing interests affected by international or continental public policies or practises. Simply, it must be able to intervene decisively to protect human rights in member states.
The treaty establishing the pan African Parliament states its vision as “a common platform for African peoples and their grassroots organisations to be more involved in discussions and decision-making on the problems and challenges facing the continent”. The Parliament shall provide oversight for the budget of the AU, harmonisation of policies towards regional integration and make recommendations that promote human rights, democratic institutions and good governance among other functions. During the first five-year term of its existence, the Parliament shall “exercise advisory and consultative powers only [article 11]”. Most African countries have nominated five legislators of which one must be a woman from national parliaments and deliberative organs.
The three-day event will be presided over by AU Chairperson H.E. President Joachim Chissano of Mozambique in the presence of several heads of state and citizens past and present. The spirits of Yaa Asantewa, Nkrumah, Ben Bella, Bibi Titi, Nyerere, Mbuya Nehanda, Sobukwe and Kenyatta will, no doubt, be there to see this long unfulfilled dream come to fruition. Yet, the revitalisation of state Pan-Africanism occurs in a rapidly changing international policy context.
The hope of new approaches to old problems of inequitable trade relations and inadequate aid flows over 2001-2 were severely punctured by a return to aid scepticism, a pervasive anti-terrorist lens and the subsequent undermining of multi-lateralism in 2003. In 2004, these developments unfortunately seem set to continue crowding out national sovereignty and dominating the policy discourse on and in Africa for the next three years. It is in this context that the pan African parliament and other organs of the AU must act and do so urgently.
On the surface, it would seem that the experience of parliamentary representation at national levels could strangle the potential of the new Parliament. At a rough estimate, across Africa there are over 9,210 national parliamentarians elected from Africa’s population of over 700 million people. That is, one legislator for every 76,000 people. However, most poor people in Africa, parliaments and legislative bodies seem disconnected from the day-to-day realities and challenges they face.
If the crisis of relevance seems stark in some national contexts, then at regional levels the challenge for parliamentarians is multiplied. 265 nominated legislators in a continent of over 700 million people (one pan African MP for every 2.6 million people) does not embody a high capacity for representative democracy, much less “a platform for African peoples and their grassroots organisations”. For example, this compares unfavourably with India where 795 MPs represent one billion people (one MP per 126,000 people).
For the first five years and until members are elected by universal adult suffrage, the credibility of the pan African Parliament cannot rest on their representational quality but on the issues they espouse, the causes they champion and the changes they bring to the lives of ordinary people across Africa. By doing this, the pan African Parliament can deepen its credibility and relevance to African peoples struggling with poverty and injustice across the continent.
* Irungu Houghton is pan African Policy Advisor, Oxfam GB
* What do you think of the African Parliament? Send your comments to for inclusion in our letters page.
Child soldiers who have served in the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebel group, many of whom were forced to kill or watch other people being killed, may remain traumatised for years after they have been released, according to a new study. A study published by the UK-based scientific journal, the Lancet, on 13 March, has found that over half of the children surveyed - over 300, all of whom were abducted at an average age of 12 - had been seriously beaten, 77 percent had witnessed another person being killed, 39 percent had killed another person and 39 percent had abducted other children. Over one-third of the girls had been raped while 18 percent had given birth while in captivity.
Secondary and primary schools across Burundi reopened on Monday after teachers suspended a strike that began on 5 January. "We accepted to return to work for the love of Burundi's children, we wanted to prove our goodwill unlike the government which, instead of resolving the teachers' problems, complicates it," Philbert Ngenzahayo, a representative of the National Council of Secondary Education Staff, said on Monday. However, he said the teachers would resume the strike if the government refused to accede to their demands for better wages and housing allowances.
After more than 30 years in exile, an estimated 1,700 Eritrean refugees left their camps in eastern Sudan to return home to Eritrea this week, in the biggest return convoy this year. On Wednesday, a convoy of 58 passenger buses and more than 30 luggage trucks carrying 1,770 refugees and their belongings crossed into Eritrea under the escort of officials from Sudan and the UN refugee agency (UNHCR).
The children living on the streets ran away from their homes into the streets because the house was no longer safe for them. Some survived abuse and others lived with neglect following the deaths of their parents from AIDS. Going to the streets was a way of escaping. When the children arrived on the streets, life was not rosy but rough.
Bessie, 11, and her sister, Dorcas, 8, (not real names) are orphans. Until a few months ago, they lived with relatives in the heart of Lusaka. But instead of care and guardianship, the two sisters were repeatedly defiled. Unable to bear the acts of sexual violation, Dorcas spoke about their ordeal to a neighbour who, in turn, reported the matter to the police. Today, Dorcas and Bessie are in the care of a local orphanage, but sadly, the effects of their defilement still live with them.
Some youths in Okakarara are beating their unemployment woes by caring for bed-ridden AIDS patients. Under the name Home Based Care Givers, the 22, mainly youth, started giving care after realising that people living with HIV/AIDS are discriminated against and stigmatised. On a daily basis, they walk some 30 km to get to their bed-ridden clients spread around Okondjatu, Otjituuo and sometimes Okamatapati.
The Ministry of Health has established The Orotta School of Medicine in Asmara, the first medical school in Eritrea. The school admitted its first students on 16 February, 2004. As the first class entry, 32 (thirty two) students have been admitted to the program and of these 6 (six) are women.
On February 20, 2003 two reporters working for Radio Lyambai, a community radio station in Mongu, 581 kilometers west of the capital, Lusaka, were detained by police for about four hours for allegedly inciting people in a local township to riot.
This final report of the ILO’s World Commission on the Social Dimension of Globalization suggests how the potential of globalisation can be better harnessed to address the needs, concerns and aspirations of more people in the world. The report argues that globalisation can be a process with a strong social dimension based on universally shared values and respect for human rights and individual dignity. It can also be fair, inclusive, democratically governed, and should provide opportunities and tangible benefits for all countries and people.
Since the 1980s, the conflict ravaging Sudan has generated the world's largest internally displaced population. An estimated four million people have fled their homes to escape fighting between government troops, the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) and several smaller militia groups. While peace talks between the two main warring parties have progressed since they started in July 2002, one of the worst crises in Africa has been unfolding in Darfur, western Sudan.
After years of civil war, thousands of West Africa's refugees are now streaming home through a recently-opened route between western Liberia and southern Sierra Leone to embrace peace prospects in their homelands. At a meeting on voluntary repatriation and sustainable reintegration in Africa earlier this week, UNHCR identified Liberia and Sierra Leone as two West African countries where large-scale refugee returns have been or could soon be taking place, in view of ongoing peace initiatives.
On 21 March 1960, a non-violent protest took place in Sharpeville, South Africa, against the “pass laws” -– one of the most hated institutions of apartheid; it ended with the death of 69 demonstrators. The Sharpeville massacre was a landmark in the history of the anti-apartheid movement. It also led the United Nations General Assembly to establish this annual observance, which is meant to draw attention to the fight against racism wherever and whenever it occurs.This year marks the 10th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide, reminding us of the horrors that ethnic and racial hatred can cause. This year is also the bicentenary of the revolution in Haiti, which led to the liberation from slavery of the peoples of the Caribbean and Latin America. And the General Assembly has proclaimed 2004 the International Year to Commemorate the Struggle against Slavery and its Abolition. What must link these observances is not only our honouring the memory of the victims of past tragedies, but also our determination to save others from becoming the victims of similar tragedies in the future. I expect soon to appoint a United Nations special adviser on the prevention of genocide, and to make other proposals for strengthening our action in this area.
The Ecohealth Training Awards encourage graduate-level students to examine the relationships between the environment, human health, and development from a holistic perspective through field research that contributes to understanding these relationships as inter-related. The focus of this year’s competition is health in an urban context. Applicants are asked to submit proposals that use ecosystem approaches to human health to analyse the links between human health and urban ecosystem conditions, as well as identify potential intervention strategies based on better natural resource management that improves human health and ecosystem sustainability. Deadline for receiving applications: May 15, 2004.
The context within which we practice philanthropy has changed dramatically — the world of even 15 years ago is gone. As recently as the 1980's, the world's economic systems were fairly clear: nation states controlled their borders and most businesses operated within those borders, importing or exporting from them. International institutions, created almost exclusively after WWII, mediated between nation states, helping diffuse tensions on everything from monetary policy to movements of refugees. That was the context in which philanthropies operated. It was difficult, but orderly. Three new forces have disturbed the old world we lived and acted within: global economics, access to information and the role of the United States as the sole superpower.
The Double Bottom Line (DBL) is a relatively new concept for business leaders. The authors of this report think of DBL businesses as entrepreneurial ventures that strive to achieve measurable social and financial outcomes. As the lines between grantmaking and investing continue to blur, the idea of measuring social return concurrent with traditional financial accounting has caught on among investors, funders and entrepreneurs. Additionally, there has been widespread movement toward more tangible accountability for the social impact created for each invested or granted dollar. Unlike the business community, where generally accepted principles of accounting and legal infrastructures help manage the reporting of financial returns, there is no comparable standard for social impact assessment.
African governments on Friday signalled their intention to push for a bigger say in the appointment a new International Monetary Fund managing director, following the resignation of Horst Köhler earlier this month. This was part of a broader demand for a greater say in the affairs of the IMF and its sister organisation, the World Bank. African central bank governors, finance ministers and other officials met on Friday to develop a common position on how to raise the "voice and participation" of developing and transitional countries in the Bretton Woods institutions.
It is increasingly acknowledged that visual traces and records, whether art or documentary, offer new routes to the past – especially where the life experiences and expression of people of the South have been marginalized in external or dominant literary sources. The immediate goal of this South/South workshop is to bring together esearchers from Latin America, Africa, Southern Asia and the Caribbean, with a view to exchanging experiences, theories and methodologies on the visual. Interested applicants should include a three page academic CV, the proposed paper (maximum of 5 pages), including its summary (500 words) and a recommendation letter by 15 June 2004. An international scientific committee will select the candidates by 15 July 2004.
Education is often put forward as a panacea, and few would contest its importance in shaping citizens to play an effective part in their societies. But education, says researcher Sobhi Tawil of UNESCO’s International Bureau of Education, is also “an inherently ideological instrument that is related to political violence in both intended and unintended ways.” A group of experts from seven countries that have experienced decades of violent conflict share their experiences and work for change in the latest issue of UNESCO's new Courier.
The Dondo Community Radio was launched in the central Province of Sofala in Mozambique in late February. Inaugurated by UNESCO Maputo, the Dondo radio will bring education and information to over 100,000 rural people, covering a radius of 100 km. As other community radios, the Dondo radio will work for the development of communities covering such issues as education, health, agriculture, economy, children, youth, woman, sports, culture, democracy, and good governance.
Nations Literacy Decade (2003-2012), the UNESCO Regional Bureau for Education in Africa (Dakar, Senegal) is launching a new website dedicated to literacy in Africa. The website currently presents basic information but the aim is to develop an observatory and a platform for information exchange for all those working to promote literacy in Africa. This will require the active participation of all partners. Comments, suggestions and contributions are therefore most welcome.
The Ugandan government has announced plans to reduce the number of camps for internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the northern district of Lira and instead concentrate the people in larger camps to minimise their risk of being attacked by rebels. Humanitarian workers, however, fear that the move could worsen the humanitarian situation in the area, owing to the more grim living conditions that are likely to be found in larger camps.
The publications co-ordinator serves as the editor of the African Security Review, the flagship quarterly journal of the ISS, and manages the production of all other ISS publications through outsourcing arrangements with typesetters, designers and printers.
The successful candidate will work with the project head on a research project aimed at contributing towards the implementation of the UN Convention against Transnational Organised Crime (Palermo Convention) in the SADC region and at supporting SADC with the implementation of the SADC Protocol against Corruption through applied policy research.
Health Action International (HAI) Africa is a growing informal network of consumers, NGOs, health care providers, academics and individuals in more than 20 countries promoting increased access to essential medicines, the essential medicines concept and the rational use of both modern and traditional medicines. HAI is looking for experienced individuals to occupy the above positions in its office in Nairobi, Kenya.
The seminar will interrogate and critically analyse the approach employed in developing South African cities, and explore challenges faced by the cities in light of increasing globalisation and decentralization. Issues such as integration of various communities through planning that were previously separated by apartheid legislation and how this process is developing will be looked at. A critical analysis and discussion will ensue around integration strategies adopted by various cities.
AITEC GHANA, Ministry of Communications and Technology and Leaders in West African ICT industry will host The 8th West Africa ICT conference and Exhibition to facilitate a knowledge and information sharing platform on the future of ICT in West Africa and its developmental impact.
Nigerians in Diaspora Organisation - Europe (NIDOE) is organising a two-day conference aimed at mobilising the significant Nigerian diaspora in support of development efforts in Nigeria.
Theme: African & African American Relations in US, Americas & Africa.
When? April 29- May 1, 2004
Where? California State University, Sacramento Univ. Union Building
“To most people, nuclear physics may seem very far removed from Indian classical music - but not to South African Indian scientist Raju Kala…”
Through this portal you can link to numerous resources about diverse aspects of the African diaspora’s existence and experience in Latin America.
Although originally published nearly a year ago, this article makes interesting reading.
The Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) is inviting entries for the MISA John Manyarara Investigative Journalism Award. This award is in honour of retired Judge John Oliver Manyarara, the founding Chairperson of the MISA Trust Fund Board (TFB) (1994 -2000), who retired from the TFB on September 8, 2000.
Judes Zossé, publication director of the private daily newspaper L'Hirondelle (The Swallow) in the Central African Republic (CAR), was sentenced today to six months in prison and fined 200,000 CFA francs (US$375). He was charged with "insulting the head of state." "This harsh sentence belies the CAR government's stated commitment to press freedom," said Ann Cooper, executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). "We call on authorities in CAR to release Judes Zossé immediately and unconditionally."
The Ministry of Home Affairs has officially granted journalist Jenerali Twaha Ulimwengu citizenship by naturalisation. In 2001, in a move that shocked many, the government announced that Ulimwengu, a prominent journalist and chairperson of Habari Corporation Limited, and three other individuals had been stripped of their citizenship for allegedly failing to prove their parents' citizenship.
Alfred Ngamba, a journalist with the bi-monthly newspaper "Le Nganga", was arrested and detained on 8 March 2004. He is currently incarcerated at the "Gros bouquet" prison in the Gabonese capital, Libreville. "Le Nganga" is published in the capital. According to "Le Nganga" editorial staff, Ngamba has been charged with libelling a medical doctor in an article he wrote for the paper. The unidentified doctor is also director of a well-known Libreville-based non-governmental organisation.
Dan Ndzabela, aged 82, stood at the foot of Table Mountain and looked out to the sparkling blue sea. He smiled. "It's good to be home," he said quietly. Mr Ndzabela was standing in District Six, the scene of one of apartheid's most notorious travesties. Now, in his dying years and a decade after the end of white rule, some justice is finally his. Until the 1960s District Six was Cape Town's most vibrant quarter. Blacks, coloureds, Jews and immigrants from all over the world bustled through its cobbled streets and crammed into colonial-era houses. Its diversity represented everything apartheid opposed. In 1966 the area was declared "whites only" under the hated Group Areas Act, and the first bulldozers rumbled in. Houses were levelled, streets wiped from the map, and an entire community dismembered and banished to squalid townships on the marshy Cape Flats.
"The Landless People’s Movement (LPM) – a national movement of poor and landless people struggling for land reform – will launch a national rolling mass action strategy this week as part of it’s “No Land! No Vote!” campaign in response to the 14 April election. The campaign, which aims to raise the voice of millions of poor and landless people who say that “10 years of failed land reform is enough” through an organised boycott of “ballot-box democracy” in a context of broken promises, will include local, provincial and national actions culminating in a national march on election day. These actions will include a series of marches, demonstrations, assemblies, pickets, land occupations and occupations of government buildings."
Central Africa is the region having the richest rainforest resources on the continent, and its Congo basin is second only to the Amazon among the world's rainforest regions. How these resources are used and who controls their "development" are issues that deserve wide debate. Yet new legislation to permit rapid expansion in logging is being introduced in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), on the advice of the World Bank, without significant consultation with civil society or people living in forest areas. The latest issue of the AfricaFocus Bulletin features a report from the Rainforest Foundation on new threats to the forests of the DRC.
Project Stop The Sahara is embarking on a grand design to plant 14 million Mahogany trees over a 350-kilometre stretch along The Gambia's northern borders with Senegal, as an ecological answer to the southward advance of the Sahara desert. Its founder and coordinator Beppie Smits says Project Stop The Sahara is an uncompromising attempt to check the rapid and relentless encroachment of the Sahara Desert southwards into the Senegambia region.
Farming communities in Okakarara are caught up in a Catch-22 situation. Wild dogs are killing their livestock in growing numbers. Yet they may not kill the wild dogs because they are one of the world's most endangered species. Wild dogs have all along been a problem in the area but this year, says conservancy co-ordinator Gemon Kaapehi, the situation is so bad that farmers are losing cattle, sheep and goats on a daily basis.
A couple of iron sheets cover the tiny shelter where Virginia Njeri and her family live in the heart of Deep Sea. Before Father Franco Cellana showed up in this Nairobi slum four years ago, she had no idea who owned the land. She only knew she had to pay Sh3,000 to the chief before she could put up her structure. Fr Cellana, the priest-in-charge at Consolata Shrine, organised a team of people to educate Virginia and her neighbours on their civil rights. The first job was to find out the landlord's name.
Prominent personalities may lose large tracts of land and plots if President Kibaki acts on a report that is currently being compiled by the Commission of Inquiry into illegally allocated land. In an exclusive interview with the East African Standard, the chairman, Mr Paul Nderitu Ndungu, said among those who may surrender land include former Cabinet ministers, Provincial Commissioners, District Commissioners, Parastatal chiefs, church leaders, military and police bosses and businessman.
The implementation of the new national social health scheme begins next month in three districts. National Hospital Insurance Fund chief executive A.M. Hassan said the new scheme was part of the Government's efforts to ensure that all Kenyans had access to quality and affordable healthcare. Under the proposed changes, each unemployed family member would be required to contribute Sh400 yearly while income earners continue to pay on monthly basis. Mr Hassan said the Government would subsidise the poor and disadvantaged. Previously, only people in formal employment were beneficiaries of the health scheme which currently has a membership of 1.8 million.
The Mozambican cholera epidemic has now spread to the western province of Tete, reports Friday's issue of the Maputo daily "Noticias". The Tete Cholera Treatement Centre (CTC) has diagnosed the first four cases if the diseases, but no deaths have been reported. The local health authorities believe that this onset of the disease is linked to the persistent rainfall in the region.
Norwegian Nurses Association International (NNAI) Secretary Per Godtland Kristensen has described as unethical the practice whereby rich countries rob poor nations of nurses through mass recruitment. Speaking at a joint Press briefing for NNAI, Zambia Nurses Association (ZNA) and International Council of Nurses (ICN) in Lusaka, Mr Kristensen said rich nations must not be allowed to recruit nurses from developing countries en-masse.
Secretary to the Cabinet Leslie Mbula's honest admission that there's still corruption in government is highly welcome, says this editorial in Zambia's The Post newspaper. "We say this because the attitude - that is to say, the seriousness of purpose - of any institution is measured, basically, by the attitude it takes towards its own weaknesses and problems. When weaknesses or problems are acknowledged, they stand a better chance of being overcome or solved. There's need to take a forthright and serious attitude towards our country's problem of corruption," says the editorial.
On the steamy shores of West Africa, oil seldom brings good tidings. Equatorial Guinea, the nugget-sized nation at the heart of last week's bungled apparent coup attempt, is no exception. A despotic leader, his playboy-rapper son, scheming relatives and thousands of American oil men are the characters of a twisted plot that reads like Dallas set in equatorial Africa. And although attention has focused on 67 alleged mercenaries arrested in Zimbabwe, a far greater intrigue swirls around the dictatorial regime of President Teodoro Obiang Nguema.
Lawmakers in the East African Legislative Assembly have called on government to abide by Parliament's resolution, which declared the northern Uganda a disaster area. Addressing a news briefing on Friday at Parliament, the Legislators from Uganda read a statement signed by their counterparts from Kenya and Tanzania. They said that declaring the areas that have borne the brunt of the Kony-led insurgency since 1988 would lead to intervention from the international community.
Efforts by the Rwandan government to rid the country of corruption continue, with 139 police officers targeted for dismissal over cases of indiscipline ranging from theft to bribe-taking, a senior police officer told IRIN on Tuesday. The blacklisted police officers would be paraded before the public "as soon as possible", the official, who requested anonymity, said. However, the officer did not say when the police officers would be dismissed, only hinting that most of them were constables.
Thirteen alleged coup plotters will appear on 6 April before a military court in Burkina Faso, state prosecutor Abdoulaye Barry said on Monday at a press conference. "The investigations were closed on March 12, and the job of the investigating magistrate has ended," Barry said.
Nigerian troops have denied a claim by an activist group that they opened fire last week on unarmed villagers near the southern oil town of Warri, killing at least 51 people, hours after a soldier was killed in a clash with an armed gang. The Federated Niger Delta Ijaw Communities (FNDIC) group said in a statement on Saturday that 10 women, 19 children and 20 men were initially counted dead in the alleged 9 March dawn attack on Fenegbene by members of a special military task force stationed in the volatile region.
An unexpected power cut in the Comoros at the weekend has delayed the release of results in the first round of legislative polls in the Comoros, a senior official told IRIN on Monday. "We would have liked to have had most of the results released by today (Monday) but, due to the electricity problems and delays with the delivery of ballot papers, we are a bit behind. But we are quite confident that we will prove successful when the full results are known," said Dini Nassur, spokesman for Grand Comore President Abdou Elbak.
Ghana’s government has shelved a bid to fast-track a bill seeking to allow all Ghanaians abroad to register for general elections to be held in December 2004. The move followed an outcry from the opposition, which had threatened street protests if the bill was rushed through parliament.
I follow your newsletter with keen interest and have found most of the articles you carry very interesting. I however prefer to access it via the internet as this makes for better readability. I therefore request that I be taken off your subscription list with immediate effect. Thanks for the good work and keep it up.
PZ REPLIES: Thanks for letting us know your reason for unsubscribing. We are more than happy for you to read the newsletter online.
This paper from the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) looks at the process and impact of globalisation on agriculture. It attempts to set these issues in an historical context, to highlight the main issues that need to be addressed, and to list important questions that need to be asked of policy makers throughout the agricultural industry. The authors argue that East and Central African countries have not appreciated the scale and implications of the changes brought about by globalisation and that, without urgent action on their part, they may seriously weaken their economies in the years ahead.
This was a powerful article (Pambazuka News 147: Open letter to Nkosazana Dlamaini-Zuma and other women in the South African cabinet). I worked in Zimbabwe for many years and I know some of it to be true as I experienced it with women that I worked with. How can we help to disseminate this information within the United States? How can US women influence the political system in Zimbabwe?
PZ REPLIES: We have forwarded this letter to the author and await a reply.
While a United Nations-backed war crimes court opened with much fanfare in Sierra Leone last week, human rights activists in Liberia are calling for their own war crimes tribunal. The two conflicts, which both saw many child soldiers involved, were intertwined, and former Liberian President Charles Taylor has been indicted by the court in Sierra Leone. But Nigeria, where he is living in exile, has refused to hand him over, saying it offered him a safe haven to stop the bloodshed.
The author is a political historian and Ethiopian diplomat who was actively involved in the mediation processes in Somalia. Here he has written a comprehensive study of the disintegration of the central organs of the Somali state, which led to Somalia commonly being referred to as a 'failed state'; and the civil strife and the search for peace between 1990 and 2001.
The Banjul Charter commonly known as the African Charter on Human and People's Rights was formally adopted in 1981. The rationale behind the treaty was to challenge Africa's own neglect of human rights abuses in the post-colonial period, and to urge members of the OAU, now the AU, to adopt a regional human rights instrument. This paper presents a brief introduction to the tenants of the Banjul Charter, procedures and areas of divergence. It examines the rationale behind keeping the proceedings of relevant bodies confidential. It critically analyses the achievements of some African states in implementing human rights and their relationships with the OAU, and provides a view of what future role the AU might play in the protection process.