At least 42 Rwandan Hutu rebels and four government soldiers have been killed in a crackdown by the Democratic Republic of Congo's military in the strife-torn east, the United Nations has said. The FDLR (Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda rebel group) haslost at least 42 men; while four DRC soldiers have died in a combat zone north of the eastern town of Goma, it said.

Ethiopian rebels have freed seven Chinese workers who were seized in a deadly oilfield raid that was one of the worst attacks to date on Beijing's growing interests in Africa. Officials said separatist gunmen killed 65 Ethiopians and nine other Chinese in last Tuesday's pre-dawn assault on the exploration field in the barren eastern Ogaden region.

The petrol price has sky-rocketed; food prices are expected to increase by 30 per cent by the end of the year. With workers spending at least half of their wages on food, this means that the 12 per cent wage demand of the public sector workers must be regarded as an absolute minimum. In fact it is already too low. The reality is that workers wages are going to drop this year; there will be greater starvation. This is the contention of South Africa's Workers' international Vanguard League.

While there are now roughly equal numbers of women and men in South African newsrooms, women, and especially black women, are still scarce in senior and top management echelons, as well as in the hard news beats. On average, women earn 20 per cent less than men in newsrooms; and black women earn 25 per cent less than white men.

In November 2006 almost every African head of state attended the largest international summit meeting ever held in Beijing. The event highlighted just how important Africa has become to China's future economic growth - something that the Western media is only just starting to wake up to. One of the consequences of China's recent economic boom has been a parallel boom in imports. The export industries that power China's growth need raw materials, fuel and components that the rest of the Chinese economy can't supply.

In a press release, Oxfam has welcomed news that Starbucks and the Ethiopian government have agreed in principle to sign a licensing, distribution and marketing agreement this month that recognises the importance and integrity of Ethiopia's specialty coffee names, Harar, Sidamo and Yirgacheffe. Phil Bloomer, director of campaigns and policy at Oxfam, said: 'In just seven months, more than 93,000 people worldwide have joined us in calling on Starbucks to sign this agreement.'

Considering the rapidly growing presence of cell phones in the developing world, interest in their role for advancing development goals is only natural. And, considering the demographic overlap between those most affected by HIV/AIDS and cell phone users, it only makes sense that a major focus be put on how this low-cost technology can fight this deadly pandemic.

Algeria has been ranked as the first supplier of gas to Italy in 2006, according to official figures. The company says 33 per cent of the European country’s gas needs were derived from Algeria. This shows an increase of 3.5 per cent over the 2005 figures. As a major market for Algerian natural gas export, Italy imports 27 billion cubic metres per year from the country.

In an exchange of gunfire, national government troops stationed on Anjouan, one of the three semi-autonomous islands that make up Comoros, clashed with local police on Wednesday, according to local media. Elections for each island are scheduled in June, but the archipelago's delicate power-sharing agreement hangs in the balance.

Reverend William Kebeney is a cleric working with the Full Gospel Churches of Kenya in Kipsigon, Kopsiro, one of four administrative divisions in the strife-torn Mt Elgon district, near the Kenyan border with Uganda. Kebeney deals with the spiritual and health needs (the church runs a health centre) of the affected people but talked to IRIN about the other needs, those not often addressed.

Every year in the Sahel region of West Africa, hundreds of thousands of children die, and malnutrition means millions of others will live on with permanent mental disability and physical stunting.

Esselen Street Clinic, in Johannesburg's edgy, bustling inner-city suburb of Hillbrow, houses the only health centre in Johannesburg offering medical care aimed at sex workers. Business is brisk: at 8am the first clients are waiting outside the door of nurse Tryphina Matsena, who dispenses treatment for sexually transmitted diseases (STDs).

Emmanuel Barasa, 17, is a former primary school pupil from the Mt Elgon district in western Kenya, along the Kenyan-Ugandan border. Barasa, who is now living with relatives in Bungoma, a neighbouring district, spoke to IRIN during a food aid distribution about the effects the fighting has had on his education.

When it comes to environmental sustainability, South Africa talks green but opts for dirty coal, according to Mathabo le Roux of Business Day. As concerns about climate change grow, the global trend is to diversify away from finite fossil fuels towards renewable energy in an effort to mitigate the impact on the environment.

Kabissa: Space for Change in Africa is seeking three summer interns from 15 May -15 September based in Washington DC.

Save the Children UK is seeking a programme manager - North Kivu to work in Goma, Democratic Republic of the Congo. Closing date: 20 May 2007.

Human Rights Watch Africa Division seeks a South Africa Director to coordinate its efforts from its office in Johannesburg, South Africa, contribute to the organisation’s human rights policy and advocacy work, and serve as the organisation’s principal spokesperson in South Africa. Please apply immediately.

When applying for academic jobs, one needs to be aware of the different ways to present themselves as the classic cv and cover letter does not always suffice. In order to prepare yourself for online applications, consider your skills, key words, format and organise your experience in categories.

The National Consortium for Study in Africa provides an extensive list of volunteer, research and work opportunities in Africa according to organisations that are predominantly based but not limited to the United States.

Language Services Associates is presently seeking speakers for African languages for their over-the-telephone interpreter service. In particular they need Fulani, Pulaar, Twi, Somali, Swahili and Yoruba.

This is the first time that the World Environmental Education Congress comes to Africa. As researchers, practitioners and policy makers we need to ensure that we contribute to the values and goals of sustainability as found in the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development, the UN Development Millennium Goals; Education for All and many other international directives. Standard registration booking deadline: 15 May 2007. Standard registration payment deadline: 2 June 2007.

The Distance Education and Teacher Training in Africa conference is taking place from 5-8 August 2007 in Kampala, Uganda. Interested educationalists are invited to submit abstracts under a number of streams. The presentations in these parallel sessions will be limited to 15 minutes, with an additional five minutes for questions. Abstracts must reach the organising committee not later than 31 May 2007.

Transparency International (TI) has published nine detailed country studies that analyse the implementation of anti-corruption laws in Algeria, Burundi, Kenya, Liberia, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Togo, and Uganda.The studies found that the nine countries have legal gaps with respect to requirements established by the international anti-corruption instruments most relevant for the region: the UN Convention against Corruption (2003) and the African Union Convention on Preventing and Combating Corruption and Related Offences (2003).

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/302/Nigeria_41150.jpgKola Ibrahim argues that the solution to Nigeria’s hydra-headed socio-political problems lies not with the ballot box but rather with grassroots-led social and political movments from the urban and rural masses.

The contemporary histories of Venezuela, Bolivia, Mexico, Greece and Ukraine have shown that it is independent political actions of the masses that can change the society.

The outcome of the Nigerian elections held in April 2007 have shown that the solution to Nigeria's hydra-headed socio-political problems can only be achieved if the mass of the working people of Nigeria take destiny into their hands and exercise political movement as a counterweight to bourgeois corrupt politics. Politicians cannot be relied upon to resolve the sufferings of the Nigerian working people.

To begin with, the clash within the rank of the ruling elite, especially that between president Obasanjo and his vice Atiku Abubakar, was never based on how to better the lot of the masses, who have been made to swallow the poisonous pills of neo-liberal capitalist economic policies over the past eight years.

In fact, instead, the cause of the rancour between the two is the question of succession. While Atiku claimed to have conceded power to Obasanjo in 2003 so as to regain it in 2007, the Obasanjo camp sees no reason why Atiku, who has served two terms in the presidency, should be 'criminalising’ Obasanjo for going for a third term in office.

The masses were presented with two sides of the same corrupt political arrangement and no genuine alternative. Both the president and his vice have acted together to implement the anti-poor, pro-rich policies of neo-liberalism. Atiku was the chairman of National Council on Privatization (NCP), which oversaw the privatisation of several government corporations and parastatals. Social service provisions were either commercialised or partly privatised. Meantime the masses were made the scapegoats of age-long corruption and mismanagement by the ruling elite via retrenchment, unemployment, unpaid entitlements, including pensions, and inflation.

The president demonstrated that if the nation he rules over could not manage its tertiary education, he could do better. The children of the poor masses who want a good education were told to either a pay Naira500,000 at Bells University's bursary or go to hell. At the same time, hundreds of acres of state farmlands were bought over by the president - or the Obasanjo Library. Followers boast of juicy packages which they try to protect as much as possible.

And whereas the so-called opposition wanted to present itself as an alternative, the past let them down. Nigerians forget the spree of retrenchment of the former AD southwest governments of the likes of Bola Tinubu in Lagos and Bisi Akande in Osun. All opposition groups bow before the almighty neo-liberal economic pills as advocated multilateral agencies of imperialist capitalism – IMF, World Bank and WTO.

Political action could not take into cognisance the plight of the poor people. In an absence of genuine alternatives, the best it could do was to use people's plight to justify their quest for power. This explains why none of them could give reasons for supporting or participating in policies that have deprived the majority. Even Obasanjo has conceded that all those who antagonise his ‘reforms’ could not provide alternatives because they all stand for the same policies.

This situation is underlined in a letter Atiku Abubakar wrote to Obasanjo in early 2006. He stated his intention to run for the presidency and praised Obasanjo for his economic reforms: retrenchment, denied entitlements, decrepit social services, looting via privatization. He promised to continue the same policies.

Neither Atiku nor the so-called opposition have suggested any alternative to neo-liberalism and market economies, rejected by the working people. Ruling class politics of survival of the fittest substitutes for radical political actions of the masses; and the masses taking the political road is feared.

Of course any concession to allow the masses to take independent political action through formation of a working people's party would lead to the diversion of the resources of the country to pro-poor policies: free education, health care, adequate salaries and pension, secure job opportunities and better infrastructures. As these could only be achieved by the stopping corruption and privatisation of national wealth, they would spell doom for corrupt ambitions.

Therefore, the ruling politicians and their estranged counterparts in the so-called opposition - which some elements of the media has wrongly tagged progressives - continue their ruinous politics. These same estranged politicians participated actively in the electoral fraud of 1999 and 2003. Many of them played major roles during the dark days of military absolutism. For instance, Obasanjo was the first head of state to plunge Nigeria to the abyss of debt and economic dislocation. Atiku was head of customs and excise, which was fraught with corruption. The masses, meanwhile, are cajoled with such hollow terms as the rule of law and respect of electoral wishes. But to expect these individuals to genuinely involve working peoples in the political process is an illusion.

The election outcome clearly indicates the futility of relying on any section of the ruling class for a political breakthrough for the people of Nigeria. While the estranged ruling class tried to use mass pressure to force the main ruling PDP party to concede to some of their demands, the ruling class maximised the constitutional flaws and illegitimate rights to authority through for example control of the INEC, the armed forces and part of the judiciary to ensure they did not lose power. Although the majority of voters were disenfranchised by the political machine of the ruling PDP through rigging and violence, the estranged opposition could not mobilise the masses to come and vote.

It is foolhardy for anyone claiming to be from a left-wing background to believe that any political gain can come by the people attaching themselves to the estranged section of the ruling class without undertaking independent, democratic, mass-based and radical political activities.

Many so-called civil society organisations - many of which derive their grants from the imperialist agencies in the West on the basis of maintaining the status quo - continue to be lethargic; instead of seeking to build a political platform of the working people of Nigeria that will seek to dismantle the stranglehold of the capitalist ruling class on our economic and political lives.

It is important to draw out lessons from last week’s farcical general election for the working masses.

First, given the present constitutional and political arrangements, the corrupt capitalist ruling class will continue to recycle itself in power, irrespective of mass opposition.

Secondly, confining the masses within a neoliberal economic framework will continue to deprive the masses of the political will to undertake independent political action.

Thirdly, in order to breakthrough this quagmire, the masses must build a fighting political alternative that is economically and politically different from corrupt opposition politics, and democratically organised from the grassroots to the national level.

Fourthly, it is erroneous for the leaders of working class organisations to believe that by confining themselves to so-called civil or legal means, that they can assume political control. Only by taking to the streets, along with other mass political actions, can they force the ruling class to abdicate power. And political alternatives must be linked to the daily struggles of the masses for democratic rights, including the right to free and fair elections.

For these reasons, mass organisations and their leaders must reject last week’s nonsensical general elections. They must immediately call for the reconstitution of the electoral body, a re-run of all elections, and convocation of a Sovereign National Conference. This should draw its membership democratically from mass organisations: trade unions, market men and women associations, student movements, civil societies and ethnic nationalities, which shall reconstitute the political and economic agenda of the country.

And this must not mean supporting other corrupt politicians. Rather it is a step towards building a mass struggle that will culminate in the reconstitution of the country in favour of the working masses.

Civil society organisations and social movements must come together and call the people to the street to take their destiny in their own hands. They must convoke a general summit of all pro-working peoples organisations, to be spear-headed by the trade unions, with the aim of forming a working people's party that will serve the interest of the masses.

I propose a week of political protests around the country to include mass processions, leafleting, rallies and mass meetings as soon as possible. The masses must fight for a democratic socialist Nigeria, where the resources of the country are used not in the interests of the already rich few, but in the welfare interests of the masses.

* Kola Ibrahim is a student activist from Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria, email: [email][email protected]

* Please send comments to [email protected]

In the summer of 1994, against the backdrop of the Rwandan genocide and the deterioration of conditions in Somalia, one of the few hopeful developments on the African continent came from the Zambian capital of Lusaka, where Angolans from the Government and the rebel UNITA movement and international mediators were working to end two decades of civil war that had killed 500,000 people. This article by Donald Steinberg examines the importance of including women in peace building.

As part of its Knowledge Building and Mentoring Programme, the Conflict, Security and Development Group at King’s College London, is pleased to announce a call for applications for the Peace and Security Fellowships for African Women for 2007/2008. The deadline for applications is 29 May 2007.

A new report by the International Crisis Group: 'Darfur: Revitalising the Peace Process' finds that almost a year after Sudan’s government and one of three rebel factions signed the Darfur Peace Agreement (DPA), the humanitarian and security situation has deteriorated in the troubled western region of Sudan. Despite a recent lull, the post-DPA period has seen increased combat, including further government reliance on aerial bombardment and its allied Janjaweed militia.

Men of the state security services, on Monday 30 April at about 3pm raided the office of the Alliance for Credible Elections (ACE-Nigeria) at Jima Plaza, Garki, Abuja. The heavily armed men, who came in three Peugeot cars, two 206 and a Boxer Expert van, arrested the general secretary of the alliance, Emma Ezeazu.

Women’s rights activists in Uganda have petitioned the constitutional court demanding that female genital mutilation (FGM), practised by several communities in the east of the country, be declared illegal.

This conference focuses on the inter-linkages between China, India, Brazil and South Africa (CIBS) and the global economy, including the impact of these economies on their respective regions. The main themes are growth, trade, international finance, global governance and geopolitics. Comparative studies are particularly welcome. The deadline for submissions is 14 May 2007. Final copies of accepted papers are required by 1 August 2007.

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Malawian blogger writes that Malawi is 'going through a period of change' one of which is the increase in 'clean' uranium production.

'Just to put you in the picture. Currently, Malawi produces 275 megawatts of hydro-powered electricity every year. However from next year we will be producing up to 3.3 million pounds of uranium oxide every year. Converted into electricity production, 3.3 million pounds of uranium is enough to produce more than 6,000 megawatts of electricity each year. This is projected to earn the country about 200 million U.S. dollars every year for the mining life span! This is unprecedented for our country. I can't stop thinking of what we could do with electricity generated from the uranium...a stop to the constant power cuts, a huge surge of power into our manufacturing industry, what about a good electricity powered transportation system (don't stop me dreaming) may be thus a possibility?'

So what's the catch? The benefits of the mining goes to the multinationals who have exclusive rights over the Kayalekera mines; questions about the environmental cost of the mining uranium? will the electricity generated reach the Malawian people? What if any will be the impact on unemployment and for the few that do manage to get jobs – how will their salaries relate to the profits of the mining companies and to the salaries of expatriates employed by the MNC.

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/302/blogs_grandioseparlour.gifN... blogger, Grandiose Parlor comments on a post by Dare Obasanjo's blog (son of President) on the occasion of his father's 70th birthday. GP takes particular offence over a photograph and the word 'servant' - the caption reads:

'One of the servants sitting down on the bed of his one room apartment. You can see the entire apartment in this shot.'

All but one of the comments support GP's position on the use of the word 'servant' except for one commenter who writes:

'Oh come on. You guys are too far removed from the realities in Nigeria. In Nigeria its all in a days job for a grown man to receive a slap from the madam. Who amongst you have not used the label “house boy” in the past.'

Well I for one have never used that expression – we were brought up to be respectful to those employed by our parents and not to expect them to work for us as children. The comment is a reflection of the whole lack of respect for people and an acceptance that the status quo is fixed in stone. With that kind of attitude it is no wonder we continue to have such useless and corrupt leadership and a dismissal human rights record in areas such as child labour and child abuse.

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/302/blogs_entrepreneur.gifCamer... blogger, The Entrepreneur considers the debate around the proposed African Union Government or Union of African States. Two meetings will be held, one in May and one in July to discuss the proposal.

'The purpose of the two exercises is to undertake in-depth discussions on the nature of the continent’s integration agenda in order to determine where we are, where we are going, when and how to get there. The need for such an exercise at this point in time, arose from a proposal considered by the Assembly at its 4th ordinary session in Abuja in January, 2005, on the creation of certain ministerial portfolios for the African Union. The Assembly accepted that the proposal was pertinent and forward looking and also in line with the vision of the African Union. It therefore, decided to set up a Committee of seven Heads of State under President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda to examine the proposal in all its ramifications.'

For further information on the Union debate see Pambazuka News and the African Union Monitor (accessed from Pambazuka's website)

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Sub-Saharan African Roundtable publishes a disturbing piece on 'Congo's forgotten women'. Women who were taken to Uganda from the Congo by Ugandan armed forces and then left to fend for themselves.

'In 2001, after a disastrous misadventure in the Congo, Ugandan troops trekked back home with a cargo of hundreds of Congolese women they had “married” while fighting in that country. Most of them ended up in northern Uganda where their men had been hastily taken to continue the seemingly endless fight against the notorious Lord’s Resistance Army. But it wasn’t long before the rosy picture the Congolese women had of Uganda turned rough. They were quickly abandoned by their “husbands” who, unknown to most of them, had wives back home. Without anywhere to stay, many turned to prostitution; others joined the nearly two million internally displaced people in northern Uganda, existing in cramped and dingy camps.'

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/302/blogs_southerncameroon.gifSouthern Cameroons Interim Goverment-in-Exile is a blog dedicated to the liberation of Southern Cameroons – their mission statement reads:

'The Southern Cameroons Interim Government-in-Exile (IG) is dedicated to the liberation of the people of the Southern Cameroons from the brutal colonial control of France masquerading as La Republique du Cameroun. After more than a century of colonization and the failure of Great Britain and the United Nations (UN) to perform their sacred duty and obligation of guiding the people of the Southern Cameroon to “self-government and/or independence," the IG is resolved to return to Southern Cameroonians their humanity and their God given right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.'

In 2003 the group filed a complainant with the Africa Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights against the Republic of Cameroon for violating the rights of hundreds of citizens of Southern Cameroon. The aim of the Southern Cameroon National Council (SCNC) and Southern Cameroon Peoples Organisation (SCAPO) is independence from the Republic of Cameroon by peaceful means.

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/302/blogs_vaw.gifViolence Against Women: Do Something is a blog created by Ethiopian blogger Concoction to specifically highlight the global violence against women and to encourage everyone to 'do something' to end the violence. In this latest post she reports that the progress made by VAW activists is being hampered by President Bush's lack of commitment to act on the issue.

'If the Office on Violence Against Women in the Department of Justice, then...critics fear the administration would eliminate or de-emphasize certain anti-violence programs and add funding for new, untested programs. That, in turn, could deny victims access to what advocates say is a "well-rounded" menu of programs that was carefully considered by Congress and signed into law by the president.”... The other issue is funding problem. The Bush administration has not funded some programs at all while severely under fund others.'

Although this post is US specific, VAW is a global issue. One of the barriers to stopping VAW lies with those of us who have been victims of violence – we all need to speak out and testify to our own experiences and that of others we know. Another is families and communities that remain silent even when the violence is staring at them in the face. We all must try to speak out and shame those that commit acts of violence against women and children.

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New Nigerian blogger, Funmi Iyanda's Blog posts on an interview she had with Nigerian actress, Shan George who spoke about the marital violence she experienced.

'At 15 she was married off to a much older man on the promise that he'll educate her. 2 children, six years and many beatings later and the promise of education looked like a mirage. At each beating, she runs to her mother, her only relative who sternly orders her back to her husband and who informs her that if she leaves the marriage she had no home with her.'

In an act of great courage at the age of 21, Shan walks out on the man even though she has no where to go and ends up on the streets of Lagos until she is helped by another woman who takes her into her home. Sounds like a Nollywood movie but this is real life fact. A great post.

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/302/blogs_olawunmi.gifSilent Storms in an ocean of one gets the feeling of power from holding a shotgun – ok he was clay pigeon shooting. Personally I cant see the attraction but I guess it is fairly harmless. At least he wasn't out shooting birds or animals. But then he goes on to analyse his own feelings around holding a gun and the potential of using it as a weapon of power- fortunately not a feeling he is at all comfortable with.

'...because i am still struggling to understand the Virginia Tech tragedy, I wanted to take a few moments to appreciate what holding that gun in my hands felt like. there was a sense of power, reinforced by the kick in my right shoulder as the rifle spit flames; it was a feeling which became a light-headed thrill as each clay-disc disc shattered before my eyes, each hit punctuated by the excited cheering of my friends. .in a flash i understood the attraction that guns have for some people. its a feeling of power, something close to omnipotence. that steel tube feeds the bearer with an assurance that he can exert some control over his own destiny - that i can defend myself and my family if needs be, ensuring that nothing is taken from us without the usurper paying some sort of price. its not even necessarily an aggressive assurance, it could be more passive than that, but its strength nonetheless. the second amendment makes sense when that firearm is within reach, it just does...I was also aware of the menace, the sense that the gun could so easily be used as an instrument of oppression was there. that power that made me feel at ease could also be the tool with which a malevolent nature manifested itself on the world around it. if a man wanted, he could get people to submit, and that is power indeed - just wave the gun and bark a few instructions, and you're the almighty. at least until a more determined person turned up.'

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Black Looks comments on the Imus 'nappy headed ho' incident and the overall trend of blaming it all on “hip hop”. Kameelah writes:

'...first, the language of mainstream hip hop cannot be excused under any circumstances. but, this is really a question of diverting attention from imus to hip-hop culture. imus acts as if he is a 8 year old child who heard a bad word in the school yard and innocently repeated it and as such should carry no responsibility. everyone responds and jumps on the bandwagon on blame hip hop and imus in chilling in the background laughing at critics black and white alike who have completely moved the center and have allowed him to blend into the background as just another victim of the hypnotizing trance of hip hop and its predatory tentacles. let’s play history correctly and remind ourselves that the images of black women did not ORIGINATE within hip hop, rather these images originated in scientific discourse and white racism hundreds of years ago and are often punctuated by the capturing and carnavalizing of difference and inferiority most notably with sara baartman (otherwise known as the hottentot venus). as william jelani cobb says.'

Alexander Kanengoni's Echoing Silences is probably the most engaging and brutally frank account of Zimbabwe's guerrilla war to be narrated quasi-fictionally. Published ten years ago, it unravels the war's ugly underbelly: regular torture and killing orgies sanctioned by kangaroo courts, raging male sexual predators targeting junior female combatants, indiscipline and betrayal among fighters.the list is endless. What strikes me about the book though is none of this. Kanengoni makes a spot on diagnosis of one of independent Zimbabwe's terminal ailments:

27 years into independence and the wheels of state have come off, it seems to me that the 'culture of silence' among many Zimbabweans-especially those who absolutely should have spoken- is a key factor to the crisis. I'll come back to this later.

In the last chapter of his book, Kanengoni captures a fictional rally addressed by Herbert Chitepo and Jason Moyo, a rally where 'fundamental policy changes to the struggle' are supposed to be announced. Although located in the theatre of struggle, the issues raised there describe a post-independent Zimbabwe.

He writes: 'the Chairman (Chitepo) talked angrily of a series of monumental historical betrayals and he said he and a few others were the living examples of such betrays; and Jason Moyo wondered how politics, the wealth and the economy of the entire country was slowly becoming synonymous with the names of less than a dozen people and he asked how in such circumstances the struggle could not be said to have lost its way.'

Wallace Chuma used to work as a journalist for the banned Daily News in Zimbabwe. He can be contacted at [email][email protected]

The full review can be read on NewZimbabwe: http://www.newzimbabwe.com/pages/indepex22.16293.html

The Uncertainty of Hope
Valerie Tagwira
This novel has been described by Charles Mungoshi as ‘an astonishing debut’. The various and complex lives of Onai Moyo - a market woman and mother of three children, and her best friend Katy Nguni - a vendor and black-market currency dealer, give an insight into the challenges that face those who are surviving by their wits, their labour and mutual support.

Other newly available titles include:

The Mediator. Gen. Lazaro Sumbeiywo and the Southern Sudan Peace Process
Waithaka Waihenya

Shona Companion: A Practical Guide to Zimbabwe’s most Widely Spoken Language
D. Dale

African Oral Story-telling Tradition and the Zimbabwean Novel in English
Maurice Taonezvi Vambe

For further information, see:

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/authors/hakim-adi.jpgTrade in African slaves underpinned the British economy in the 18th century: the rich and powerful, the monarchy and the Church. So why was an enterprise that was so economically important ended so abruptly in the first decade of the 19th century? Hakim Adi explains...

In March 2007 large-scale commemorative events were organised to mark the bi-centenary of the parliamentary act to abolish the trans-Atlantic slave trade.

This unprecedented commemoration of a historical event, in which the British government itself is playing a leading role, was difficult to avoid.

There has been a frenzy in the British media. We have seen government publications (allegedly designed to enlighten the public); meetings and exhibitions; a debate in parliament; an apology from London’s mayor; the issuing of postage stamps; a service in Westminster Abbey; and release of the film Amazing Grace which promotes the well-established myth that abolition was largely due to the efforts of the Hull-based MP William Wilberforce.

It would be hoped that owing to the vast amount of information that is being disseminated, everyone would be now disabused of such erroneous views; and would be able to place both the so-called abolition and the centuries of trafficking of human flesh from Africa in historical perspective. The commemorative events certainly provide the opportunity for broad and in depth discussion of Britain’s history and the crimes against humanity committed over many centuries.

But are we any clearer about what went on 1807? More importantly, do we know why parliament decided to make illegal an enterprise which had underpinned Britain’s economy throughout the 18th century, when Britain was the world’s leading slave trading power?

After all, Britain was involved in the trafficking of kidnapped and enslaved Africans from the mid-16th century, when this enterprise was pioneered by John Hawkins and Elizabeth Tudor, until the early 1930s, when legislation was still being passed outlawing slavery in Britain’s African colonies.

In the 18th century Britain, as the world’s leading slave trading power, transported about half of all enslaved Africans not only to its own colonies but also those of other major powers such as France and Spain. British ships transported at least 3,500,000 Africans across the Atlantic.

In total, this entire ‘trade’ led to the forced removal of some 15,000,000 Africans, transported to the colonies of the European powers and the Americas. Many millions more were killed in the process of enslavement and transportation. Historians now estimate that Africa’s population actually declined over a period of four centuries, or remained stagnant until the early 20th century.

In 1713 the British government was militarily victorious against its rivals in Europe. By the Treaty of Utrecht (the same treaty by which Britain lays claim to Gibraltar) , it gained the lucrative contract to supply Spain’s American colonies with enslaved Africans.

The government promptly sold the contract for £7.3m to the South Sea company, whose first governor happened to also be the chancellor of the exchequer.

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/302/slaveship_41131b.jpgIndeed the trafficking of Africans was the business of the rich and powerful from the outset. The monarchy was a zealous supporter and beneficiary, as was the Church of England. The slave trade was Britain’s trade in the 18th century. The British Prime Minister William Pitt declared that 80 per cent of all British foreign trade was associated with it. It contributed to the development of banking and insurance, shipbuilding and several manufacturing industries. Most of the inhabitants of Manchester were engaged in producing goods to be exchanged for enslaved Africans. Their trafficking led to the development of major ports of London, Bristol and Liverpool. Today it is difficult to find any major stately home, or cultural or financial institution which is not connected with the profits generated by this trade and the luxury items associated with it such as sugar, tobacco and coffee.

It might be wondered therefore why an enterprise that was so economically important to the rich and powerful in Britain in the 18th century should have been so abruptly ended in the first decade of the 19th century.

The answer requires the abolition of various myths and disinformation peddled since that time. One such myth is that abolition was largely the work of one man – William Wilberforce; and that it was carried out largely for humanitarian reasons. And there is another myth: that abolition was the work of an enlightened parliament, finally acknowledging the barbarism and inhumanity of the kidnapping, enslavement and trafficking of other human beings.

However, on the contrary, it is a matter of historical fact that the struggle to end the enslavement and trafficking of Africans was first initiated and pursued primarily by Africans themselves.

Historians now speak of centuries' long wars of resistance in the Caribbean; of the maroons; of day to day large and small-scale liberation struggles.

But such resistance also took place throughout the American continent, wherever enslaved Africans were to be found. There were also significant acts of resistance within Africa itself, and on many ships engaged in the human trafficking, most famously on the Amistad.

Such acts of resistance also took place in Britain, where enslaved Africans who liberated themselves were subjects of court cases contesting the legality of slavery throughout the 18th century.

It was as a result of this self-liberation of Africans that drew some leading abolitionists, such as Granville Sharp, into the abolitionist movement in the late 18th century. While the resistance acts of Africans culminated in the famous legal judgement of 1772 which declared that it was illegal for self-liberated Africans to be re-enslaved in Britain and taken out of the country against their will. Africans in Britain had organised their own liberation. But they were assisted by the ordinary people of London and other towns and cities.

African resistance to enslavement and kidnapping contributed to growing public support and opposition to slave trafficking in Britain and elsewhere.

In Britain, a popular movement opposing the trade began in the 1780s. It soon became a broad mass movement of enormous proportions, possibly the biggest. It was certainly one of the first mass political movements in Britain’s history, although it is conveniently ignored in most historical accounts.

Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people eventually took part in this movement which involved the petitioning of parliament and the boycotting of slave-produced sugar. This abolitionist movement coincided with a more general concern with and struggle for the ‘Rights of Man’. Its more advanced elements consciously promoted the view that the rights of Africans were indeed part of that struggle. Therefore what was required was a struggle for and defence of the rights of all.

Africans themselves played a leading role in this movement as lecturers, propagandists and activists. The most notable was Olaudah Equiano, formerly enslaved, whose autobiography became a bestseller. But we should not forget the writing of others, for example Phyllis Wheatley, Ottobah Cugoano and James Gronniosaw.

Africans in London, including Equiano and Cugoano, formed their own organisation, the 'Sons of Africa', which campaigned for abolition. It worked with both the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade and the wider mass abolitionist campaign.

But African resistance in the Caribbean and elsewhere was an even more important factor in the abolitionist struggle, since it had the tendency to make slavery both less profitable and more dangerous for the slave owners.

Uprisings by enslaved Africans threatened not just the profits of individual owners but the control of entire colonies and the fate of Europe’s economies.

The most important of these liberation struggles, the revolution in St Domingue, the largest and most prosperous French colony in the Caribbean, broke out in 1791 not long after the revolution in France. Revolutionary St Domingue therefore became the first country to effectively abolish the enslavement of Africans.

In Britain, the popular mass abolitionist movement coincided with wider demands for political change, at a time when the vast majority were denied the vote. It also coincided with crucial economic changes; the industrial revolution; the emergence of new social forces with the workers on one side and industrial capitalists on the other, attempting to consolidate their economic and political domination of the country. The industrialists were sometimes at odds with the economic and political power exercised by those who owed their position to the slave-based economies of the Caribbean.

Mass petitioning of parliament, the only means open to the disenfranchised, against the trade was often strong in manufacturing towns such as Manchester, where perhaps a third of the entire population signed. This was viewed with alarm by the ruling class.

The Prime Minister of the time, William Pitt, recognised that popular sentiment might be used to persuade parliament to abolish Britain’s exports of enslaved Africans to its main economic rival, France. It was Pitt who first encouraged Wilberforce to bring an abolition bill before parliament. Wilberforce’s bill was first introduced in 1791. It was defeated, as were several similar bills during the next 15 years.

But during this period several significant changes took place. First, the French Revolution of 1789. Britain’s declaration of war against revolutionary France in 1793 allowed the suppression of the political activity of the people at home, effectively limiting the popular abolitionist campaign and driving it underground.

The revolutionaries in St Domingue successfully defended their revolution against the French army then against invasions by both Spain and Britain. It is worth remembering that this war was pursued by Pitt and supported by Wilberforce, who clearly did not belief that Africans should liberate themselves.

In 1804 St Domingue declared its independence and was renamed Haiti. The revolution in Haiti contributed to, and occurred alongside, other major insurrections across the Caribbean, in Jamaica, Grenada, St Vincent and elsewhere, which severely threatened the entire colonial system.

Even those Africans forcibly recruited into Britain’s West India regiment in Dominica mutinied. Toussaint L’Ouverture and some of the other leaders of the Haitian revolution became nationally known figures in Britain. Abolition came to be viewed by some both as a means to press home a naval and economic advantage over France and its allies, and a means to limit the numbers of Africans imported into British colonies; thereby preventing the likelihood of further revolutions and maintain the slave system.

It was with these aims in mind that parliament passed the Foreign Slave Act in 1806, banning the export of enslaved Africans to Britain’s economic rivals, a measure that effectively ended around 60 per cent of Britain’s trafficking, but which is now hardly remembered, and certainly not commemorated.

There is no doubt that for many in parliament and outside, the demand for abolition was based largely on economic motives. Prime Minister Pitt, and others had been concerned about competition from St Domingue and other Caribbean colonies even before 1791. They had unsuccessfully sought agreement from both France and Holland to prohibit the trafficking of Africans.

Others were more concerned about what they saw as the subsidies given to slave owners and sugar producers in the Caribbean; and government support for economies and a trade that was declining in importance by the end of the 18th century, not least because there was over-production of sugar.

Others in Britain became more interested in developing direct trade links with India, Brazil and other Spanish American colonies. The trafficking of Africans to Britain’s colonies was no longer so important and was seen as by some as being an impediment to important trading links elsewhere.

These economic motives for abolition have long been associated with the names of Eric Williams and C.L.R. James. Many attempts have been made to discredit them. In fact very similar views were expressed by British historians of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Most importantly economic justifications for an end to ‘the trade’ were strongly advanced in the period preceding the Abolition Act.

What is significant is that this explanation for abolition is hardly ever discussed. It has been largely absent from many of the commemorative events so far and even from the government’s own publication which, it is claimed, is designed to educate the public.

Simply stated, this explanation means that the parliamentary act was passed not for humanitarian reasons but because it was in the interests of the rich and their representatives in parliament to do so. And it should be added that it was the actions of people, and most importantly of the enslaved themselves, in the Caribbean, Britain and elsewhere that made enslavement and trafficking increasing inefficient, unprofitable and dangerous.

In 1807 therefore, parliament was persuaded to pass the Abolition Act; partly on the basis of such economic concerns, partly on the basis that limiting the importation of enslaved Africans would likely limit future revolutions and preserve slavery throughout the Caribbean colonies. Partly it seems, because it was seen as a way of diverting attention away from an unpopular war against France and its allies, and persuading the people that such a war was being fought in the interests of abolition.

Of course after the 1806 act it is arguable that most of ‘the trade’ had ended already. Even some of the major established Caribbean planters were in favour of abolition since this worked against the interests of their commercial rivals, both foreigners and those who had acquired newly captured territory in the Caribbean from Britain’s enemies. They reasoned that this might be especially advantageous if abolition could be forced upon other countries as a consequence of Britain’s military and naval supremacy. Other representatives of the rising bourgeoisie supported the measure as a means to limit the economic and political power of those who had hitherto retarded the development of industrial capitalism and ‘free trade’.

The 1807 Act was subsequently used as the representatives of the rich envisaged, not least as a means by which the Royal Naval might interfere in international shipping across the atlantic.

Yet it did not end British citizens’ involvement in the trafficking of Africans nor slavery itself. Following other major insurrections in the Caribbean and similar economic and political considerations, slavery itself was only later made illegal in 1834. But it continued in some areas of the British empire for another century. The trafficking of Africans in general increased during the 19th century. Many British slavers sailed under foreign flags of convenience.

The 1807 Act did not end Britain’s dependence on slave produced goods such as cotton, the mainstay of the industrial revolution. Even that so-called ‘legitimate commerce’ subsequently developed with Africa, such as the extraction of palm oil, was largely produced with slave labour. The act increased rather than diminished Britain’s interference in Africa which culminated in the so-called ‘scramble’ for Africa at the end of the 19th century: the invasion of the continent and imposition of colonial rule.

It is sobering to reflect that Britain’s first colony in Africa was Sierra Leone. This was the region from where the first enslaved Africans had been kidnapped in the 16th century. It was established allegedly as a haven for liberated Africans in 1807, and has now been under Britain’s domination for the last 200 years Much of this time, it has been occupied by British troops, while its shores are still patrolled by the Royal Navy.

Today the government is demanding that even its basic utilities, such as water, should be privatised for the benefit of British multinationals. Centuries of interference by British governments have produced a country that manages to be one of the world’s poorest - and at the same time the world’s leading producer of diamonds.

The trafficking of Africans over many centuries was one of the greatest crimes against humanity. The current commemorative events, which are organised for a variety of purposes, at least provide the opportunity for widespread discussion.

What is vital is that the myths are shattered and disinformation combated. We must ensure that appropriate and adequate reparations are made for slavery, colonialism and all crimes against humanity. People themselves must draw the appropriate lessons from history, one of the most important being that it is people that make and change history; and that therefore, we are our own liberators.

* Hakim Adi is reader in the history of Africa and the African diaspora at Middlesex University, London, UK.

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