Those predicting a free and fair election next year were left re-evaluating their optimism after an opposition candidate was stabbed to death last Friday. Jabulani Chiwoka, an MDC candidate in next year’s rural district council elections, died from stab wounds after suspected Zanu PF thugs attacked him at a beerhall in the Svosve communal area of Marondera. Another party activist, Tafiranyika Ndoro, is in a Marondera hospital recovering from stab wounds.

For the past 6 weeks I have been travelling in the West, East and Southern parts of Africa. The mission (as these trips are grandiosely described in UN vocabulary) has been to assess situations on the ground with regards to the implementation and achievement of the Millennium Development Goals in the various countries.

This being the mid year in the 15-year terminal date set for the achievement of the goals. The other and more immediate reason for the travels is to see what preparations are being made by various partners of the UN Millennium Campaign for this year’s Guinness Challenge to beat the record set last year for Standing Up against poverty.

The UN Millennium Campaign’s Global Director, Salil Shetty, led the missions. It involved meeting with various UN country teams, Government officials, National Coalitions for the Global Call Against Poverty (GCAP) / MDG campaigners, Local and International NGOs, Other CSOs, Media, other opinion moulders, etc. We have been in Ghana, Nigeria, Uganda, Kenya,Tanzania, Zambia and Malawi.

There have been a number of activities; reports and media focus during July (the exact midpoint of the MDGs being, July 7 2007, i.e. 777) in many countries indicating slow progress on a number of the goals. But there is a general pessimistic consensus that on current pace most of our countries may not achieve the goals by 2015.

A disproportionate focus on what has not been achieved may actually make one lose sight of the progress being made and what more could be done. For instance all the countries we visited have made tremendous progress in the area of increasing access to education for both Boys and girls. Millions of children who could not have passed by the gates of a school are now in School. In some countries they are moving access beyond Primary school to secondary school.

While it is true that there are issues about retention and quality the minimum threshold is being pushed. It is now up to citizens to press harder for better education through a general improvement in teaching and learning conditions. In a country like Kenya the provision of Mosquito nets has dramatically brought down the number of people especially children dying from Malaria. Malawi today is only second to Peru globally in the most dramatic reduction of infant mortality. In the past four years infant mortality has come down by more than 1/3.

In Ghana and Malawi the interlink age between poverty and lack of access to education even when it is officially free and universal has led to complimentary programmes including giving children from poorer homes a decent meal in school and also providing transport. These successful initiatives proof the integrated nature of the MDGs. They are not cocktails that states and communities can cherry pick as they go along. Progress in one goal must demand progress in others if the success is to be sustainable. In all the countries there are sad paradoxes that both governments and campaigners have to focus upon. As infant mortality is coming down maternal mortality remain scandalously high. In Zambia, Nigeria, Malawi and Tanzania, they are so high that it is really amazing that there is no public outrage about them. If our children are living longer why are our mothers dying often so young? Who is going to look after these children? How can we achieve the lofty goals on Gender and women empowerment if so many women continue to die in childbirth?

While we welcome the patchy and slow progress that has been made so far it is important to use this mid point year to realign our national priorities to ensure that the MDGs are met and even surpassed. As a foot ball supporter and a life long Liverpool one, at that, the analogy I can draw is that of the European finals of 2005. At half time Liverpool was trailing AC Milan 3:0. As the whistle was blown both managers went into the dug out. Liverpool Manager was furious and he read out the riot act to his players. On resumption we saw a changed team who had levelled the scores by full time and refused to concede any even at the extra time. Finally in the Shoot out Liverpool won.

We should use the same tactics for our governments. The fact that they are making uneven progress at mid point should not mean that the outcome is necessarily doomed. More can be done. One of our Key partners, The Micah Challenge (a global group of ecumenical churches campaigning on MDGs) has dubbed their campaign: blowing the Whistle. We need to blow the whistle on our political leaders at local, national, Pan African and globally that they fulfil the commitments made under the MDGs.

There is no point in being cynical. 7 years may be short but it is long enough for all states to meet these goals if citizens insist and continue to put pressure on the policy makers whether government or parliamentarians or politicians at all levels. Indifference is the enemy of delivery and a great ally of insensitive politicians.

On October 16/17 every one of us will have the opportunity to show we care about the poor and support the MDGs by helping to beat the Guinness record that we set last year. Over 23.5 millions of people around the world stood up against poverty in support of the MDGs. You can do so anywhere you are. Look at or www.millenniumcampaign.org for details.

* Tajudeen Abdul Raheem is the Deputy Director for the UN Millennium Campaign in Africa, based in Nairobi, Kenya. He writes this article in a personal capacity as a concerned pan-Africanist.

* Please send comments to [email protected]azuka.org or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/

A dissident Congolese general called for African mediation to broker a ceasefire in eastern Congo as fighting between his forces and government troops neared the provincial capital on Thursday. New clashes broke out before dawn around Karuba, a village about 30 km (19 miles) west of Goma, the capital of troubled North Kivu province, after President Joseph Kabila's government rejected talk of negotiations.

Between August 29, 2007 and September 2, 2007, a Tribunal of 16 esteemed jurists from nine countries, including Algeria, Brazil, France, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Mexico, South Africa, Venezuela, and the United States, convened in New Orleans to hear testimony by experts and survivors of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. After hearing nearly 30 hours of testimony by hurricane survivors and experts – covering government neglect and negligence in 15 areas, ranging from police brutality to environmental racism, from misappropriation of relief to gentrification, the jurists announced their preliminary findings.

Sudan and Darfur rebels will hold talks on October 27 in Libya to push for peace ahead of the expected deployment of a 26,000-strong peace force in Darfur, a U.N.-Sudanese government statement said on Thursday. The statement said the United Nations "expresses the hope that parties will cooperate fully" with U.N. and African Union (AU) mediators.

Underneath signs of economic progress in Tanzania, religious tensions persist, which threaten social cohesion and the political stability of the nation.

It was a case of petty arson turned media spectacle. Amidst the violence of the 2005 Zanzibar elections, the Janjaweed militia— loyalists to the ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi party—were charged with vandalizing and setting fire to a Kinuni residence by Civic United Front sympathizers. As cyberspace is a preferred platform for political protest throughout East Africa, one need look no further than the message boards of CUF activists to gauge the tone of this ideological duel. Speaking about the fire, one impassioned commentator writes, “Even the Holy Quran was not spared” beneath the image of a few charred pages.

Through a broader lens, coverage of the event serves the CUF in an effort to redress voting irregularities they claim have kept them from power since the introduction of multiparty democracy in the early 1990’s. Religious references add another layer of meaning. With Muslims accounting for 98% of Zanzibar’s population, this is not a typical case of Muslims vs. Non-Muslims. This is a case of secular Muslims against their radical brethren. Despite a shared creed, religion remains the symbolic fault line of Zanzibar’s political fallout expressed through CUF suspicions around of CCM pieties.

The religious dimension of politics in Zanzibar and throughout Tanzania cannot be overstated. A general survey of Tanzanian politics airs a religious subtext that, in the light of recent provocations, inches into the foreground, posing a significant challenge to the long-term stability of the nation. More specifically, the grievances not only of the CUF but of groups throughout the country are reaching a crescendo as many assert their rights as Muslims.

These tensions are not a recent apparition, but have grown steadily over decades. British colonial rule, in its support of Christian mission schools, impaired Muslim access to educational opportunities. Muslim apologists cite this as resulting not only in the under-representation of Muslims among Tanzanian’s educated elite, but also within the civil service and parastatal institutions. This process was cemented with the undoing political ties between Muslim organizations and the government under Nyerere. More recently, the participation of Tanzania in the US-led war on terror is interpreted as a means to suppress the political opposition by linking would-be competitors with terrorist activities.

While this substantiates perceived discrimination, there is much concrete evidence to support these suspicions. In 1992, the Tanzanian government acknowledged after many years the educational disparities between Christians and Muslims. Years later, only 20% of secondary school students in Dar es Salaam—a city where 80% of inhabitants claim Islam as their religion-- are Muslim.

The perceived marginalization of Muslims in Tanzanian can be juxtaposed with the enabling of other special interest groups. The multiplication in number and grandeur of churches in Dar Es Salaam occurs within the bounds of religious freedoms granted by the constitution. However, when read against the 2004 closure of the renowned al-Furquan Islamic Primary School and the suspension of the Islamic press, a confounding portrait of the “secular” state comes into focus. It is difficult to refute that a special brand of discrimination preoccupied with the habits of Muslims forms the crux of religious tension in Tanzania.

In the grand scheme, with macroeconomic indicators suggesting upward turn in the country’s fortunes, Tanzania appears to be doing well. While we can all look with pride on its successes, enthusiasm over recent advances in Tanzania must be read cautiously against religious tensions percolating beneath. The consolidation of economic gains in the long term will require serious efforts to redress persisting disparities.
Aaliyah Bilal

* Aaliyah Bilal is a masters student at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London.

* Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

Mahmood Mamdani writes about the dangers of the UN’s new role in Darfur. The balance between the military and political dimensions is crucial, and the UN tends to privilege the military dimension.

Significant changes are currently taking place on the ground in Darfur. The peacekeeping forces of the African Union (AU) are being replaced by a hybrid AU-UN force under overall UN control. The assumption is that the change will be for the better, but this is questionable. The balance between the military and political dimensions of peacekeeping is crucial. Once it had overcome its teething problems – and before it ran into major funding difficulties – the AU got this relationship right: it privileged the politics, where the UN has tended to privilege the military dimension, which is why the UN-controlled hybrid force runs the risk of becoming an occupation force.

The AU’s involvement in Darfur began a year after the start of the insurgency, when in April 2004 it brokered the N’djamena Humanitarian Ceasefire Agreement between the Sudanese government and the rebel movements. The result was the setting up of the African Union Mission in Sudan (AMIS), which started with a group of 60 observers in June 2004, and expanded to 3605 by the end of the year: 450 observers, 2341 soldiers and 814 police officers. The troops came from six countries – Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, Senegal, Gambia and Kenya – and the police from Ghana. There were also military observers from Egypt and Libya, among others. A Joint Assessment Mission, led by the AU with participants from the UN, the EU and Canada, followed in March 2005. It called for an increase in the numbers of soldiers and police to a total of roughly eight thousand, and for civilians to be brought in as humanitarian officers.

One member of the assessment team was Major General Henry Anyidoho from Ghana, who was UN deputy force commander in Rwanda at the time of the genocide. I met him in Khartoum in May this year, and asked what he thought of AMIS. ‘I got to Darfur in January 2005,’ he said. ‘I found out they were doing an incredibly good job. First, the rebel movements were still intact, so it was easy to deal with the government and the two rebel movements. Second, the Janjawiid were pretty well under control. Third, the ceasefire agreement was being observed.’ This positive view was shared by Refugees International, which reported in November 2005 that earlier in the year, AMIS had been able to provide some security and deterrence. Displaced persons were congregating near AMIS bases, the UN World Food Programme started parking its vehicles at AMIS sites, AMIS escorted humanitarian convoys, and helped victims of attacks get to hospitals. The round-the-clock presence of civilian police in some IDP [Internally Displaced Person] camps has provided a greater sense of security to a population that is distrustful of the Sudanese police. AMIS forces have helped to restore order and provide security during the very difficult IDP re-registration process.[1]

By the time the Refugees International report appeared, however, it was clear that the rebel movements were beginning to split. AMIS had succeeded – and this was a major political achievement – in negotiating a Declaration of Principles and getting all the insurgent factions and the government of Sudan to sign it on 5 July 2005 in Abuja. That declaration remains the only political basis for peace in Darfur. But only three months later, when the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) held its conference in Darfur, Abdel Wahid, its leader, anticipated problems and did not attend. His suspicions proved justified when Minni Minawi, the commander of the movement’s field forces, was elected to replace him. The AU decided to invite both men to peace talks in Abuja, where Minawi signed the Darfur Peace Agreement in May 2006. But the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), the other original rebel movement, refused to sign, as did 19 representatives of the SLM, who defected to follow Abdel Wahid.[2] The so-called Group of 19 wielded a lot of influence among the fighters, who soon began to degenerate into tribal groupings. The difficulty for the AU now was how to get all these groups together, but it remained committed to a political solution, knowing that only a renegotiated ceasefire would provide protection for civilians in Darfur.

Another unfortunate development was that support for AMIS from Western donor countries began to weaken just as the going got rough. The N’djamena Ceasefire Agreement had involved a formal collaboration between the AU, the UN and leading Western powers. According to Anyidoho, ‘Canada was to provide aircraft and maintenance, the UK vehicles, the US camps, and the EU soldiers and police.’ Donors eager to be seen to pledge money early in 2005 were reluctant to release it once the mission ran into difficulties. The US had promised $50 million to support AMIS at the donors’ conference in May 2005, but didn’t deliver. By November the following year, Congress had removed the funds from the 2006 Foreign Operations Appropriations Bill. Around the same time, the EU announced that salary payments would be made only on a quarterly basis and demanded proper financial accountability before releasing funds for the next quarter. When the paperwork didn’t arrive, the EU suspended the provision of funds.

‘Donors call the shots,’ Anyidoho told me. ‘When donor fatigue set in, the world began calling for UN forces. The AU force has not been paid since January 2007. It is short of aviation fuel from time to time. Donors have provided the AU with commercial, not military, helicopters, so the pilots must decide whether or not to go to an area.’ In July, when I made my second visit this year to Sudan, the AU force still hadn’t been paid. AMIS has faced a series of problems of this sort. As early as 2005, when Refugees International sent a mission to assist AMIS in North Darfur, it noted that ‘all of AMIS’s local interpreters were on strike because their salaries had been cut in half following a restructuring of salaries . . . for all AMIS personnel.’

The AU had assumed that the ceasefire would be observed by all parties, and expected that its mission would be needed for only a short time. As the rebels began to split, and the political agreement underlying the ceasefire to unravel, fighting resumed and the inadequacy of AMIS’s mandate became apparent. There were demands that it be expanded so that the armed peacekeepers could protect not only the unarmed observers, who were supposed to monitor the ceasefire, but also the civilian victims of the conflict.

The AU itself had quickly become a target both for the belligerents and for anybody agitated by the conflict – including the media, the international NGOs (INGOs) and the IDPs they had come to ‘save’. Throughout the second half of 2005, there were attempts by all sides to murder or kidnap AU soldiers. According to Refugees International, Janjawiid attacks on villages in North Darfur, which killed ten people and displaced nearly seven thousand more, also wounded three members of an AMIS patrol; a rebel splinter group kidnapped nearly forty AMIS troops in West Darfur; four Nigerian AMIS troops and two of its civilian contractors were killed when they intervened in an attack, reportedly by the SLA, on another contractor; the next day, a JEM splinter group kidnapped an entire AMIS patrol of 18, including its American monitor, in Nana, near Tine in West Darfur.

There were other problems too. In September 2005, two AMIS soldiers died of Aids-related illnesses, sparking public anxieties. In March 2006, Channel 4 reported that women and girls as young as 11 at the Gereida IDP camp in South Darfur were claiming that AU soldiers had offered them money in exchange for sex. The AU set up a committee to inquire into alleged ‘sexual misconduct including rape and child abuse’ carried out by its forces.

AMIS has responded ineptly to such problems. It has almost no appreciation of the critical role of spin in shaping public opinion in modern Western democracies and has neither a public relations office nor a legal department. Instead of releasing its version of events in a convincing way, it always communicates in the form of a short press release. Refugees International reported incredulously that when they asked for ‘a brochure describing their mission, officers handed RI a printed copy in English and Arabic of the Declaration of Principles . . . with photos of the signatories’.

The powerful, usually well-intentioned INGO community in Darfur has added its voice to those who see the presence of the UN, and of the Western powers in particular, as the only viable solution to the crisis. Refugees International wants the UN to take charge of African peacekeepers, on the grounds that ‘“blue-hatting” a mission . . . has worked in the past in such places as Burundi and Liberia, where the AU or Economic Community of West African States, after providing initial stability, handed over a mission to the UN.’ They argue, above all, that the UN has the resources to support more troops on the ground, and to furnish them with superior weaponry. RI has even called on the UN Security Council to establish a no-fly zone over Darfur and on Nato and other forces to assist AMIS in enforcing it. There are concerns, naturally, that such measures would ratchet up the military element of the ‘humanitarian intervention’, but there has been hardly any discussion of their potential political consequences. It is this tension between the military and political aspects of intervention that explains the contradictions in Security Council Resolution 1769 of 31 July on the United Nations African Union Mission in Darfur (UNAMID).

Resolution 1769 begins by affirming that this ‘hybrid operation should have a predominantly African character and the troops should, as far as possible, be sourced from African countries’. It calls on the secretary-general to ‘immediately begin deployment of the command and control structures and systems necessary to ensure a seamless transfer of authority from AMIS to UNAMID’, and leaves no doubt about the meaning of ‘immediately’: ‘as soon as possible and no later than 31 December 2007’. At the same time, the resolution ‘emphasises there can be no military solution to the conflict in Darfur’ and stresses the importance of the Darfur Peace Agreement as the basis for a ‘lasting political solution and sustained security in Darfur’. It deplores the fact that ‘the Agreement has not been fully implemented by the signatories and not signed by all parties to the conflict,’ and calls for an immediate ceasefire, including a stop to the government’s aerial bombings. Here, then, is the contradiction at the heart of Resolution 1769: it aims to enforce a ceasefire that does not exist. It sets a firm deadline for the transfer of authority to UNAMID, but suggests no deadline for either a ceasefire or a political agreement to be reached by the warring parties. An external force can monitor a ceasefire agreed by belligerents, but only if such an agreement exists. The collapse of a ceasefire is evidence that there is no agreement. It was, after all, the breakdown of the N’djamena ceasefire that reversed the fortunes of AMIS.

‘The AU has become part of the conflict,’ Mohamed Saley, the leader of the JEM splinter group that allegedly abducted the AMIS patrol in October 2005, told Reuters at the time. ‘We want the AU to leave and we have warned them not to travel to our areas.’ Trying to keep the peace in the absence of a peace agreement made the AU ‘part of the conflict’. There is no reason to believe that the fate of the UN will be any different. To strengthen the mandate in the absence of a political agreement is more likely to deepen than to solve the dilemma. To enforce the ceasefire will mean taking on the role of an invading – and not a peacekeeping – force. Darfur, which is a bit smaller than France – and larger than Iraq – will surely require a force of more than the 26,000 currently planned by the UN.

Abdu Katuntu was chair of the African Union Parliament’s Select Committee on Darfur between 2004 and 2006, during which time he made six lengthy visits to Darfur, including stays in IDP camps. I met him in Kampala a few weeks ago and asked him why the UN could not have given AMIS more resources and made its mandate more robust, instead of ‘blue-hatting’ it. ‘It would have rendered them irrelevant,’ he answered, ‘because the international community would have said the Africans have sorted out their own problem.’ I have also spoken to UN personnel who are puzzled by the organisation’s focus on only one set of belligerents. ‘There is something wrong with the UN Mission,’ an Afghan security officer in the UN’s Department of Safety and Security reflected. ‘Everyone knows that for the UN the problem is only the government and the Janjawiid. They are here to disarm them and not the rebel forces. How then can you get a political solution between them?’

The AU’s political vision is encapsulated in a provision in the Darfur Peace Agreement that calls for a Darfur-Darfur Dialogue and Consultation (DDDC). The AU distinguishes between the processes of dialogue and consultation: although the formal dialogue can begin only after a comprehensive peace agreement is in place, the AU is committed to an informal consultation intended to pave the way to such an agreement. The consultations began in July last year. The first meetings were held in cities in each of the three states of Darfur: Nyala in the south, Zalingei in the west and El Fasher in the north. They brought together grassroots activists and leaders representing many different groups: the Native Administration regime in the rural areas that was displaced (into the towns and cities) by the 2003 insurgency, local voluntary organisations, political parties (both government and opposition), intellectuals and academics (each of the three states has a university), and the more than two million displaced people living in camps in Darfur.

The first rounds of discussion in Nyala and Zalingei had produced a consensus on one issue: the DDDC should not be a top-down affair but should rather include all political and tribal affiliations (even those implicated in providing recruits for the Janjawiid). It would have to be independent of any political party or group (including the government). But the consultations produced a double shock for the African Union. A large majority at the El Fasher meeting in July this year called for an intervention by forces who would not only be ‘external’ but non-African. Most participants identified the AU as the root of their problems and the UN as the most likely source of an effective solution. ‘The AU is like the Arab League,’ the representative from El Fasher Call, a voluntary organisation, explained. ‘It responds to governments, not public pressure. All African governments are dictatorships, which is why people look at the AU with suspicion. The UN also represents governments, but most states in the UN are democratic.’ ‘We want the UN to come,’ the sultan of El Fasher added. ‘It has mercy.’

The naivety of these assumptions was typical of the discussions at El Fasher. Just as they identified the UN with Western democracies, and talked as if democracies cannot be empires, every speaker who called for UN intervention seemed to assume that UN forces – unlike those of AMIS – would be white. They did not appear to have grasped that what will change in the transition from AMIS to UNAMID is the command much more than the troops on the ground.
The discussion on UN intervention ended in a cul-de-sac. On the one hand, the call for external intervention was backed up by a strong feeling that all internal avenues (national and African) were exhausted. On the other hand, those most vociferously calling for external intervention seemed to see the UN as a benign agency without any political agenda of its own – even though it is clear that a UN intervention would be guided by the big powers of the Security Council. Many supporters of external intervention saw it as an extension of a local practice, ‘ajawiid’, whereby a third party intervenes in a conflict that cannot be resolved. But the lesson of ‘ajawiid’ is that the intervention can only be credible and effective if the third party’s interests are compatible with those of the belligerents. In El Fasher no one questioned the politics of an intervention driven by the major powers.

Local voluntary organisations were critical of the growing dependency of IDPs on international NGOs. The representative from El Fasher Call made the point with some bitterness: ‘IDPs are trying to endear themselves to international NGOs but don’t want to deal with national NGOs.’ ‘IDPs don’t believe in anything Sudanese any more,’ a representative from a Fur charity added. One participant from a construction NGO observed that the war had made people adopt a ‘consumer mentality’. The disaffection with INGOs was shared by all local voluntary organisations, regardless of their ethnic affiliation or political inclination. ‘National NGOs lack the capacity to provide necessary services,’ a representative of Sudan Development Organisation explained, not least because they are excluded by INGOs: ‘They make no attempt to acknowledge that we know the ground better, and also the demands of the people. No wonder most national NGOs have been rejected by the IDPs. If international NGOs gave us a chance, people might appreciate us more.’ One participant, however, reminded his colleagues that, without the INGOs, ‘you would not have found any IDP alive in Darfur.’ As he saw it, the problem was twofold. First, the INGOs have a short-term perspective: they may leave after peace is established, and national NGOs should be ready to fill the gap. Second, each INGO has its own agenda that limits its perspective: ‘Every organisation has its own programme for each place. There should be a dialogue among organisations to co-ordinate a programme.’

Summing up the discussions at El Fasher, the AU mediator, Salim Ahmed Salim, made the crucial point that for external intervention to work it would have to reinforce an internal process, not be a substitute for it. What matters, he argued, is ‘not how large a force it is but what they have come to defend’, since ‘without an agreement on peace, even a force of fifty thousand can’t change the situation here radically.’ He meant to caution Darfurians that to pin all hopes on the hybrid force would be tantamount to abdicating their own responsibility. But he was in a minority.

Salim reflected more widespread agreement when he remarked: ‘Even if those who have taken up arms have a cause, it is important to consult those who have not taken up arms, the civilian population.’ The point of the consultations should be ‘to show them an alternative to armed struggle: dialogue, persuasion, organisation’. Earlier negotiations, he argued, should have involved more civilians. But if civil society is to be more than a mere appendage to the second round of negotiations involving armed groups, the DDDC talks will need to be the beginning of a far more ambitious process.

No internal force appears capable of effective leadership. Even the SPLA, which is in political control of the South of Sudan and has been guaranteed, under the terms of the separate Comprehensive Peace Agreement of January 2005, 10 per cent representation in every parliament in the northern states, doesn’t have the human resources necessary for effective leadership. Like the UN, the INGOs seem to have no patience with an internal political process. For them, the people of Darfur are not citizens in a sovereign political process so much as wards in an international rescue operation with no end in sight. They are there to ‘save’ Darfur, not to ‘empower’ it. This is why many of the big INGOs and some of the American and British staff at the UN offices in Khartoum are sceptical about the DDDC. They worry that bringing together political figures and representatives of civil society for an open discussion risks conveying a feeling that normality is returning to Darfur, when it is actually the depth of the crisis that should be emphasised. The ‘humanitarian’ effort is itself based on the conviction that both the crisis and its solution are military, not political; accordingly, there is little appetite for an internal political process designed to strengthen democratic citizenship.

‘What is the solution?’ I asked General Anyidoho, who has recently been appointed joint deputy special representative for the hybrid force. ‘Threefold,’ he replied, military fashion. ‘First, a complete ceasefire.’ (This would require a political agreement among all the fighting forces.) ‘Second, talks involving a cross-section of Darfurians. They must agree. And third, the government has a big role to play. This is not a failed state; there is a sitting government.’ What about the Janjawiid? ‘They are nomadic forces on horseback; they have always been there. They are spread across Sahelian Africa: Niger, Sudan, Chad, the Central African Republic. The problem is that the AK-47 has replaced the bow and arrow. The Janjawiid should be disarmed before the rebels turn in their arms.’

What about the camps? ‘The camps are becoming militarised. Women go out to collect firewood and they are raped. Rape has become a weapon of war. It is meant to destroy a people’s moral fabric: in an Islamic society, rape is a big blemish. The AU police used to provide firewood patrols and they were successful. But if there is security in future, men will join their women in going to collect firewood. The objective should be to close the IDP camps.’

What about the American threat to ‘take steps’ – a no-fly zone, sanctions? ‘It is not the way to go. Americans give deadlines all the time. The threat of sanctions is also not enough. They have lived under these for so long that they have become normal. They are used to living in seclusion. Now, they have oil and a friend in the Security Council . . . We can’t solve these problems through weapons. We have to sit and talk, which is why it is important to look at how Côte d’Ivoire was solved after four years of fighting. Outsiders can never solve the problem for us. It’s a distant misery for them. We have to do it for ourselves.’

Footnotes
1. No Power to Protect: The African Union Mission in Sudan by Sally Chin and Jonathan Morgenstein (Refugees International, November 2005).
2. Alex de Waal wrote about this in the LRB of 30 November 2006.

* This article first appeared in the London Review of Books vol. 29, no. 17, 6 September 2007 and reproduced here with the permission of the author.

* Mahmood Mamdani is the Herbert Lehman Professor of Government in the Departments of Anthropology and Political Science at Columbia University in the United States. He is also the Director of Columbia's Institute of African Studies.[ He is also the current President of the Council for Development of Social Research in Africa (CODESRIA) Dakar, Senegal.

* Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

Ningefurahi kama baadhi ya mawazo ya wasomaji katika baadhi ya hizi makala zinazohusu Afrika mashariki zingetafsiriwa kwa lugha ya kiswahili kama jina la jarida lilivyo. Hii inasaidia "Kuwezesha Sauti yako Kusikika" kwa usahihi na kwa watu wengi zaidi.

I like the story about governments and restaurants. The question is, Are the fcustomers including the frogs any better than the managers of the restaurants?

From what the article says, it seems that the customers, even though complaining are still content with the culture of managers. It is suprising that it is the managers who are expected change, and actually some have changed and are working hard. What about the people themselves, those who are hungry and angry? Why dont they just stop paying the bribes so that there is no incentive for the bad managers? Why dont they just boycot eating as it has been the cases where people felt the need to do so in past? A few deaths? Yes, malnutrition? that is also obvious and innevitable but a worth price to pay for the future generations. Why dont these people remember the few brave customers who refused the promises and even boycotted to eat bad and smelling food in South Africa, Angola, Liberia, Zaire and other palces?

I think the customers, especially those making the loudest noises in the media, workshop and seminars, and the frogs at the edge of the restaurant have found an alternative to get better food. That is why they have the energy to make the noises about the poor quality of food. I feel some go to neighbouring restaurants for better services for their children. I do not blame them, as one of them once retorted "..... You are right my friend, but I cannot dare see my child just about to be eaten by a greedy crocodile and do nothing, just because I am a believer in the rights of animals!

In my opinion, I may not want to continue blaming the managers and waiters at the restaurant, but the customers.......... amka kumekucha is the right slogan then. and then tuache kupiga kelele kwa kiingereza kwa vile siyo wengi wataamka, na wale watakaosikia wamekwisha amka lakini wanaenda kwenye migahawa mbadala.

Japhet Makongo Is an Independent Consultant, Ubunifu Associates, Dar es Salaam

Charges against the 18 Nigerian men arrested in Bauchi at Denco Hotel have changed from those of alleged sodomy and alleged attendance of a same-sex marriage to those of indecent dressing and vagrancy. Aged between the ages of 18 and 21, the men are now charged with contravening Article 372 section 2(E) of the Bauchi State Islamic code which prohibits cross-dressing and the practice of sodomy.

Scour the Net and you're sure to be deafened by a mushrooming of sites dedicated to a novel megaphone in the media world: Citizen Journalism. This advocacy tool is rapidly changing the media landscape and its potential in enabling ordinary citizens to evolve into shapers of news has been seized upon by Hivos (Humanist Institute for Cooperation with Developing Countries) and SANGONet (South African NGO Network). Together they have launched the Citizen Journalism in Africa project.

The village of Korosigna in northern Central African Republic is barely recognisable to those who once lived there. Every house is either demolished, abandoned or burned to the ground. Weeds and bushes have taken hold. Many homes are barely visible as the forest has moved in and engulfed the ruins. According to locals, government soldiers attacked Korosigna without warning in January 2006, part of a two-year-old bush war fought against rag-tag rebels across northern parts of the former French colony, landlocked in the heart of Africa.

Increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide levels could change the nature of grasslands and decrease their usefulness as grazing pastures, say researchers. The study was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences this week (27 August).

Trends in bribe paying and rent seeking in Kenya have changed over the last six years despite the still significantly low willingness of Kenyans to report corruption cases. This is the resounding conclusion of the Kenya Bribery Index 2007, launched recently by Transparency International. Although some sectors have seen reform and a decline in bribe-paying, the Kenyan public still bears a huge cost. “This survey shows that while bribery is reducing in some sectors, the mwananchi still bears the largest brunt of corruption. In the legal arena, bribery is being channelled through the bar.

A report released by Partnership Africa Canada in Ottawa, and Green Advocates in Liberia outlines out the huge post-war challenges facing the new government of Liberia. Liberia had gone through a 14-year brutal civil war, which was fuelled mainly by looted natural resources. The West African country is blessed with natural resources, but the country remains one of the poorest and least developed places on earth, with an average per capita income of US $152 per annum and 40% adult illiteracy. Most Liberians die before they attain 40 years.

Despite the worst harvest in the country's recorded history and the aftermath of fires that destroyed crops and plantations, Swaziland's appeals for international assistance are falling on deaf donor ears. In July UN agencies appealed for US$18 million to feed about 40 percent of Swaziland's one million people, who are facing acute food shortages. So far, only $3.1 million has been forthcoming, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)

State government plans to demolish several slums in the unstable southern Nigerian city of Port Harcourt could spark ethnic tensions, fuel violence, and leave up to 100,000 homeless. Rivers State Governor Celestine Omehia announced on 21 August his government would demolish 25 slum districts in the ramshackle waterfront area of the city that currently houses between 50,000 and 100,000 people, according to local estimates.

The Burkina Faso government will distribute millions of free books to primary school students and launch a pilot project to give no-fee schooling in a push to curb the number of people in the country growing up without even basic education. “This is the end of the time when reading and maths textbooks are seen as luxury items for parents,” pledged Odile Bonkoungou, minister of basic education and literacy, on 27 August, launching the free books project.

At least 10 civilians and one soldier were killed in northern Mali on Thursday when their vehicles hit landmines planted by suspected Tuareg rebels, Malian military officers said. The casualties in the north of the Sahel state followed three attacks this week by the Malian rebels in the desolate mountain region near the border with Algeria and Niger.

With the major public health challenges that are found in Africa, making progress in public health clearly demands a significant spread of public health skills. While health workers are making tireless efforts to address preventable diseases across the continent, and many successful experiences exist, revitalizing primary health care oriented systems calls for revitalized public health leadership and skills.

Hundreds of representatives of social and labour organisations, faith-based, community-based and health networks, small farmers, traders, women and youth organisations, and developmental, human rights and environmental NGOs from across the whole of the Southern African region have gathered in a Peoples Summit in Lusaka, Zambia, 15-16 August 2007, parallel to the SADC Heads of State summit.

Many studies have recognized the importance of improving the status of impoverished women. This UNFPA workshop report describes a number of approaches used to date to empower women economically, including microcredit. The report includes a review of the literature on women's economic empowerment and a summary of presentations from the workshop.

The Human Rights Advocates Program (HRAP) at Columbia University is now taking applications for the 2008 session. The 2008 HRAP focuses on human rights and globalization. The Program is designed for experienced lawyers, journalists, teachers, social workers, community organizers, and other human rights activists working with non-governmental organizations in labor rights, migration, health, social exclusion, environmental justice, and corporate social accountability.

The Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA) and the Open Society Justice Initiative (the Justice Initiative) are pleased to invite applications for the Human Rights Fellows Program for the 2008-2010 session. The deadline for applications is September 17, 2007. This program was launched in 2003 by OSISA and the Justice Initiative, in collaboration with Conectas Human Rights, the Open Society Foundation for South Africa, and civic organizations in South Africa, Mozambique, and Angola.

This latest report from the International Crisis Group, examines the need for a negotiated solution with the PALIPEHUTU-FNL to break a dangerous stalemate that could seriously undermine the consolidation of peace and democracy. Little progress has been made since the signing of the ceasefire agreement on 7 September 2006. At the end of July, the hasty departure from Bujumbura of the rebel delegation negotiating implementation of that agreement precipitated widespread fears fighting could resume.

A new campaign, South Africa First, was launched at the GovTech 2007 conference in Cape Town with the aim of encouraging both the public and private sector to make more use of local content when spending on information technology (IT). An initiative of the SA Local Procurement Advocacy Trust, focusing initially on the IT sector, South Africa First seeks to ensure that local businesses benefit from an estimated R1-billion a week spend on products and services in SA as a result of the country's economic boom.

The Chagos Archipelago is a group of seven atolls comprising about 55 islands, with a total land area of 60 km2. Between 1967 and 1971, an estimated 2,000 inhabitants of Chagos were evicted from their island home of Diego Garcia, the largest island in the archipelago, to make way for a US military base. The majority were forced to exile in Port Louis, the capital of Mauritius and some in Seychelles.

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has condemned the dismissal of eight journalists at Congolese newspaper L’Avenir after the management said they had to cut jobs due to economic concerns and then subsequently advertised for new workers to replace them.

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has applauded Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki for rejecting a media bill that could have required reporters to reveal their sources in court. "We applaud President Kibaki's decision, which acknowledges that protection of confidential sources is a cornerstone of press freedom

Leslie Mullin reports from Haiti, a 'deeply African country', where, after Aristide, there is 'a deliberate and violent attempt to reverse a truly democratic effort that stood firmly for the poor majority...a violent, brutal counter-insurgency, a counter-revolution', blame for which she lays at the door of the US and the UN.

The experience of travelling to Haiti is amazing, because Haiti is so deeply an African country and people. The first time I was there, three years ago, I was astounded by the sights and sounds of Haiti which are so resonant of West Africa: the market women; the young girls riding donkeys in the countryside, huge baskets on their heads; the vigour of massive demonstrations - the pounding rhythmic feet, visions of Soweto. Everywhere in the darkened poor city neighbourhoods at night, without electricity, in their cinderblock houses stacked on top of each other rising up hillsides, people sing, blast radio music, play instruments.

It is my privilege to have travelled on two trips to Haiti with fiercely political Black activists who have embraced Haiti as a cherished symbol of liberation to African people everywhere. They evoke deep bonds of shared experience among African people of Haiti and America, who came on the same slave ships. They point out that the same people who are killing and oppressing Haiti's people left Black people to die by the thousands in New Orleans after Katrina, and now attempt to steal their land. Haiti's grassroots movement recognises this powerful bond among the two peoples. Everywhere we spoke about the San Francisco 8 or about New Orleans. Lavalas activists sent a message of solidarity.

It is taking things out of context to try to talk about what exists in Haiti now without acknowledging what was achieved by Haiti's grassroots movement under Aristide. Because it is not just that things are bad right now, but that what is happening is a deliberate and violent attempt to reverse a truly democratic effort that stood firmly for the poor majority. It is a violent, brutal counter-insurgency, a counter-revolution.

For a brief moment, after decades of dictatorship and a long history of resistance, Haitians achieved the dream of social justice and freedom. The poor had power. During that brief period of time, there were no boat people leaving Haiti. During that brief period of time, massive projects were undertaken to support the poor. The goal was to move Haiti's people from misery to poverty with dignity. Beautiful public parks were built in poor neighbourhoods; schools, health clinics, a medical school; micro-loans to market women and literacy projects flourished. During that brief period, poor street kids swam in the presidential pool; Haitian legal teams held Truth Commissions, took on the tonton macoutes. Death squads who had terrorised, tortured and killed thousands, were prosecuted and imprisoned.

This is why Aristide is so revered in Haiti. As one Lavalas activist put it, Aristide never gave up; he stood up to the Western powers, and fought for those who cannot speak. He is a symbol of hope and democracy for Haitians.

What we found in Haiti now are activists struggling everywhere to resist the renewed assaults on Haiti's poor, to move in a period once again dominated by foreign guns, foreign economic clout and terrorism. 24,000 march on Aristide's birthday; a transport workers' strike blocks roads and shuts down traffic throughout the country. 50 grassroots activists, the elderly women in dresses and straw hats, mark the 92nd anniversary of the 1915 US invasion in a spirited protest at UN headquarters. We are there to see the dozens of heavily armed UN troops aligned against them, ensignia marking their countries of origin - Sri Lanka, Jordan, Philippines, France, Bolivia, and among the unmarked Westerners, surely Americans. The Haitians are undeterred - chanting, yelling, dancing, singing, photo displays of UN and other coup victims prominent.

Why must the poor be shot down by UN troops in Cite Soleil? Why are the market women beaten, even killed, by petty bureaucrats and police thugs to drive them off the streets, why burn the markets and deprive them of their meagre income? Why must armed thugs storm into a school of 700 poor children, headed by Lavalas activists, breaking the blackboards, desks, drinking fountain - the few artifacts needed to teach those who could not afford $100 a month to go to school? Why must their teacher be beaten? Why must prisons be filled with those who fight for democracy, starving on diets of foreign white rice, deprived of clean water to drink, sleeping in shifts in stifling cells built for 20, housing 80? Why must life be nearly impossible - transport workers up against heavy license fees and fuel costs, telephone workers laid off? Why?

Because Haitians are a deeply political people; they have tasted democracy; they insist on their human rights. Western powers cannot enforce their elite, global agenda on Haiti unless they can contain this massive popular movement and destroy its righteous vision.

Here is what Randall Robinson says in his new book, An Unbroken Agony: Haiti, from Revolution to the Kidnapping of President:

'What was it, though, about Haiti that made the place so different from other Caribbean places, so especially combustible? What property, what special character did it have that would incite the rich white West to engage a poor, largely black nation with such glowering, unrelenting hostility...The Haitians knew their history. The Haitian peasants may have had few material possessions to speak of, but they knew what their slave ancestors had done to the French, to the English and to the Spanish. They also knew what they had done to liberate all of Latin America, as well as themselves. No matter how poor they were, the Haitians knew these things about themselves, things that made them special to themselves, that made them resilient and independent, that gave them great art, that unsettled, even now, those nations the peasants' slave ancestors had once soundly thrashed.'

US 'low-intensity' warfare is so termed, not because it is mild, but because it comes under the radar of the American people, as does mostly anything having to do with Haiti. What did the UN come to do in Haiti? As one Lavalas activist put it, they came to make the country go backwards. They spend $500 million a year to maintain UN troops - money that could provide water, schools, healthcare for Haiti but instead the UN does nothing for Haiti.

What do the Haitian people want from us? They want our solidarity. They want us to expose and mobilise people against what is happening. They want us to demand the UN mandate in Haiti not be renewed; to support the return of Aristide to Haiti; oppose privatisation; to insist on freedom for Haiti's political prisoners.

* Leslie Mullin is a long-time San Francisco-Bay Area human rights activist who returned in late July 2007 from a week-long Haiti Action Committee delegation to visit Haiti's capital, Port-au-Prince. The delegation met with organisers across the breadth of Haiti's grassroots movement.

* Please send comments to or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/

The United Nations envoy to Liberia has called for an end to violence against women, while stressing that security is paramount for everyone throughout the West African nation as it works to rebuild after a brutal 14-year civil war. Special Representative of the Secretary-General Alan Doss made his remarks as he handed over a new UN-built police station to the people of Kronowroken, Webbo District, in River Gee County, along Liberia’s border with Côte d’Ivoire.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has expressed concern about the rising tensions and violence over the past week in Sierra Leone, which earlier this month held its first presidential and parliamentary polls since United Nations peacekeepers departed in 2005. “He calls on all parties and their leaders to do everything necessary to prevent the situation from escalating,” his spokesperson said in a statement.

The Sudanese Government has not moved to arrest two suspects wanted to stand trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Sudan’s war-wracked Darfur region, the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) has said, calling on Khartoum to cooperate immediately with the court. In an interview with the UN News Centre, Luis Moreno-Ocampo said that it is “totally unacceptable” that one of the two suspects, Ahmad Muhammad Harun, is currently Sudan’s Minister of State for Humanitarian Affairs.

The issue of civil society’s participation or not to the advocated political dialogue is dividing Central African Republic stakeholders as two opposed camps are confronting their viewpoints on the issue in a debate took place last week. Organised by the UN Peace Building Support Office in the CAR, BONUCA, at the National Assembly’s palace, the 22-24 consultation meeting focused on the political dialogue that many have called for to discuss national issues.

In deeply homophobic and patriarchal South African society what does Women’s Month and National Women’s Day means for vulnerable, marginalised women? The State must enact legislation that punishes acts of violence against women and enforce policy that prevents violence and the re-assertion of patriarchal norms.

An MDC senior official who spent 174 days in prison on trumped up charges of terrorism is facing another battle as a free man. Morgan Komichi was released on the 9th August but when he reported for work on the 15th he was told that he had been suspended on allegations of absenteeism. This is despite his lawyers having written to his employer, the Zimbabwe Power Company, a subsidiary of the Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority, informing them about the arrest.

Almost 60 people suspected of being trafficked off the Libyan coast have been rescued after being abandoned without supplies in a leaking boat. Coastguards in Falmouth co-ordinated a rescue operation after an Ethiopian in the UK took a call from the inflatable boat from his half-brother on board.

Thousands of civilians fled heavy fighting in Democratic Republic of Congo's troubled North Kivu province after clashes erupted before dawn on Thursday between government forces and renegade soldiers. Some 1,000 fighters loyal to rebel Tutsi General Laurent Nkunda attacked a Congolese army brigade headquarters in Katale, around 60 km (38 miles) northwest of the provincial capital Goma, at around 4 a.m. (0200 GMT), witnesses said.

About 100 secondary schools will at the beginning of next term be linked together through the computerised school Internet connectivity project. This was revealed through a Savingram circulated to all the 235 secondary schools Head teachers in the country.

An extensive analysis of all scientific research on the links between improved nutrition and the treatment of both HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis (TB) has found no evidence that healthier eating is any substitute for correctly-used medication.

Thirty-three political parties have fielded candidates for Morocco's September 7th legislative elections, according to a Magharebia report. Two additional parties, Annahj Addimocrati (The Democratic Path) and the Moroccan Amazigh Democratic Party, plan to boycott the poll. Founded in 1995, Annahj Addimocrati has never taken part in an election. Its main ally, the Parti de l'Avant-garde Democratique et Socialiste (Avant-garde Democratic and Socialist Party, or PADS) has ended its own boycott of the elections and will run for the first time since its creation in 1984.

Israel should stop summarily expelling Sudanese nationals who enter the country illegally from Egypt and reinstate its policy of allowing them to remain in Israel pending refugee status determination, Human Rights Watch has said . Egypt's official refusal to accept them combined with recent allegations of mistreatment by border guards suggests that Sudanese returnees are likely to be treated harshly and with no guarantees that they would not be returned to persecution.

Tajudeen Abdul Raheem exposes the humour and absurdity in cultural and racial prejudices, and situations where Africans have absorbed ridiculous and pernicious colonial rules and persist in inflicting them on their fellow citizens. 'The main reason why many of the anti-African biases and petty apartheids persist is because too many of us put up with them. We really need to wake up', he writes.

There are so many prejudices, insults and stereotypes between different peoples, races, religions, nationalities and other social groups in the world. Many of the violent conflicts unnecessarily claiming so many lives use such prejudices to justify themselves. But prejudice need not to be openly violent in order for it to be injurious to human beings. There are many such irrational attitudes commonly displayed in action, speech and conduct whose cumulative effect is to rob other human beings of their dignity, self esteem and right to equality with other human beings.

While prejudices are generally expressed by 'others' towards 'others' over time, some of the victims of such prejudices may actually internalise them and use them against themselves or believe them to be true. An obvious example is the widely used notion of 'African time'. If a European, American or Chinese person is late, nobody blames it on Britain or Sweden, America or China. But if Tajudeen is late the whole of Africa takes the blame. Even Africans use it to justify their lateness.

There are many other examples. But the one that triggered this week's column was a recent experience I had in Lusaka, capital city of Zambia. We had gone to one of the many South African-owned or designed shopping malls that are springing up in capital cities across Africa, paying homage to Africa's growing middle-class consumerism. We had scheduled to meet up with my good friend, veteran agitator, Sarah Longwe and her equally cantankerous partner, Roy Clarke of the famous Kalaki Corner, a satiric column in The Post Newspaper that irks Zambia's establishment so much that, but for the courts, they would have deported him back to the England he left decades ago, and in spite of being married to a Zambian woman.

Our rendez-vous was a popular restaurant and bar called Rhapsodies. I had gone with another friend and colleague in the UN Millennium Campaign, Salil Shetty. I was in my 'native' Nigerian up-and-down Kaftan and trouser with a traditional hat to match. As we made to enter, a burly security man in an ill-suited tight uniform beckoned me to stop. I asked why and he said I had to take off my hat because men are not allowed to wear hats in the bar. Roy and Sarah, who could see us from the open air verandah, were already agitated and leapt to their feet screaming at the security man.

They needed not have bothered because I was very prepared to deal with the situation. It has happen to me a few times in southern Africa before. The last time it was in Zimbabwe. I was staying at the Great Zimbabwe hotel by the Zimbabwe ruins. I had gone for supper, when this huge bouncer by the gate in ridiculous multi-coloured English costumes with bowler hat and long tail suit tried to deny me entrance because 'gentlemen are required to take off their hats for supper'. I told him that part of his statement was correct: I am a man, but as for being gentle, that may not fit, as he was to discover soon after. I asked him why I needed to take off my hat, and he said it was the rule. Set by whom? And how many years after liberation from the Rhodesians?

I asked him if I had been wearing a Jewish skull cap and looked Jewish if would he have stopped me. His answer was that the Jewish skull cap was a religious symbol. How did he know that my hat was not a religious one? He drew blank because these rules and conventions were imposed to keep Africans away. Or model Africans in a particular way in order for them to belong! Needless to say I did not take my hat off. The good sense of the manager prevailed after I threatened to leave without paying for the accommodation since I was not welcomed.

So my Lusaka expwerience was just an echo of that experience. When I pointed out to my Zambian bouncer that he was also wearing a hat his only response was that 'it is part of the uniform'. So I humored him that my hat could also be part of my cultural uniform but it was above his programmed mind to see the joke. By this time Sara was at the entrance and Roy was ready for a fight. Just imagine the scene: an Englishman defending the right of an African to wear African dress including his hat to another African in an African country! How insane can our world get?

I was not budging and Salil, an Indian, was just enjoying the spectacle. The opposition was unyielding and nobody came to his rescue so he stepped aside and I entered.

It is true that we live with ridiculous rules but there is nothing that says we have to implement them, especially when they offend our good taste and sense of being. In many of the cultures of west Africa the wearing of a hat is considered part of a normal or formal dress code. I know that in eastern and southern Africa the wearing of a hat has acquired religious connotation.

When I was living in Uganda when I wore a hat people generally greeted me with ' salaam alaykum', whereas when I was not wearing one, even if I was wearing west African tie-and-die clothe, they would not assume I was a Muslim. Christian missionaries and later colonialists attacked many aspects of our culture in their 'civilizing mission' but continuing with some of these petty rules so many years after the formal end of colonialism is a sign of the enduring legacy of the colonial mindset. Most of them are like a petty-apartheid, which we can do away with. For instance have you ever wondered our five star hotels and no-star ones offer 'continental breakfast' on their menu which does not mean the African continent? Can you imagine being in a hotel in Europe and asking for a continental breakfast that does not mean the European continent?

The late martyr of the anti-apartheid struggle, and Black Consciousness of Azania leader, Steve Biko, once observed that one of the best weapons in the hands of the oppressor is to set up his General Headquarters in the head of the oppressed. How true, sadly so, this is, in all manners and in every day things of our lives. In some countries it is still being debated whether African dresses could be accepted as 'proper dress' for formal occassions. The main reason why many of the anti-African biases and petty apartheids persist is because too many of us put up with them. We really need to wake up.

Woza AFRIKA!

* Tajudeen Abdul Raheem is the Deputy Director for the UN Millennium Campaign in Africa, based in Nairobi, Kenya. He writes this article in a personal capacity as a concerned pan-Africanist.

* Please send comments to or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/

The MilAIDS Project of the Defence Sector Programme (DSP) at the ISS is planning to host a three-day conference from Wednesday 21 November until Friday 23 November 2007 in Tshwane (Pretoria). The conference is designed to harness multi-disciplinary research skills within the field of HIV/AIDS and the Armed Forces in Africa, bringing together policy-makers, practitioners and scholars whose research interests coincide with the activities of the Security Sector and Peacekeeping Missions in Africa.

The Senior Program Officer for Africa will be based in New York and responsible for shaping and implementing the strategic direction of AJWS’ grantmaking in Africa and directly managing grants in Southern Africa. S/he will represent AJWS’ Africa program at international forums as well as AJWS Board and donor meetings. S/he will manage the work of the two Africa Program Officers and consultants in the field.

The Asian Political and International Studies Association (APISA), the Latin American Council of Social Sciences (CLACSO) and the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) are pleased to announce the Africa/Asia/Latin America scholarly collaborative initiative encompassing joint research, training, publishing and dissemination activities by researchers drawn from across the global South. The workshop will take place in Rio de Janerio, Brazil, from 19 to 20 November, 2007.

Computers, deemed essential in schools to help improve education, are in fact leaving as many as three-quarters of city pupils suffering preventable back and neck pain. In a study to track computer-related pain in our children, it was found that 74 percent of more than 1 000 pupils who took part reported headaches, lower back and neck pain in the month before they were surveyed.

The Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA) and the Open Society Justice Initiative (the Justice Initiative) are pleased to invite applications for the Human Rights Fellows Program for the 2008-2010 session. The deadline for applications is September 17, 2007. This program was launched in 2003 by OSISA and the Justice Initiative, in collaboration with Conectas Human Rights, the Open Society Foundation for South Africa, and civic organizations in South Africa, Mozambique, and Angola.