Pambazuka News 357: China, the West and Africa
Pambazuka News 357: China, the West and Africa
Kenya’s exiled anti-corruption tsar John Githongo has accused the World Bank of complicity in the chaos that rocked Kenya after the December 2007 General Election. Mr Githongo indicted the World Bank for celebrating the country’s economic growth at the expense of the much-needed reforms. He said although he tried to pinpoint the problems in the Government the bank closed its eyes and supported everything that the Narc administration was doing.
Opposition groups in Zimbabwe are suffering harassment, intimidation and discrimination in the run-up to national elections on 29 March. Police in some parts of the country are clearly restricting the activities of opposition party members, while supporters of the ruling party enjoy total rights. Amnesty International has warned that the right to freedom of expression, association and assembly are being unnecessarily restricted in advance of the poll date.
The committee that monitors last year’s political agreement in Côte d'Ivoire has accepted conditions for certifying the validity of upcoming elections which had been proposed by the United Nations’ top envoy to the divided West African country. The so-called five-criteria framework, proposed by Y. J. Choi, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s Special Representative for the country, was approved yesterday by the follow-up committee in Ouagadougou, capital of Burkina Faso, and the site where the agreement was signed.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has set up a new chicken-rearing and egg producing project to improve the nutrition of some of the neediest internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the volatile North Kivu province in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The project, in partnership with Veterinaires sans Frontieres (VSR), seeks to raise the self-sufficiency of the displaced though the consumption and sale of poultry products.
Both the ruling Party of National Unity (PNU) and the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM ) have contacted the former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan with a view of recalling him back to the country after both parties failed to agree on the composition of a lean grant coalition cabinet.
Egyptian security men shot dead two African migrants on Thursday as they tried to slip across the frontier into Israel, bringing to 10 the number of migrants killed at the border this year, security sources said. The sources said security forces opened fire on the two men, both in their 30s and believed to be from Ivory Coast, after they refused orders to stop at the border.
Comoros demanded on Thursday that France hand over a rebel leader wanted by the Indian Ocean archipelago for crimes against humanity and troops fired teargas to stop protests against the former colonial power. Mohamed Bacar, the 45-year-old self-declared leader of Anjouan island, fled to nearby French-run Mayotte during a lightning offensive by African Union and Comorian forces. The French government said he has asked for political asylum
Stunned friends have remembered Ivan Toms as a larger than life character who had tremendous energy and huge passion for the country he loved and served. Toms was on Tuesday morning found dead in his Mowbray, Cape Town home after he failed to pitch for an important meeting. No foul play is suspected.
In sub-Saharan Africa, the management of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) remains a cost-effective strategy for controlling HIV in a number of different scenarios, report an international team of researchers in the March 1st edition of the Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes. Even in mature epidemics with substantial condom use, their study found that more than half of new HIV infections may be attributable to STIs.
Survival International hasreleased a summary report which shows how tribal peoples are having their basic right to water denied. The document was released to coincide with World Water Day (March 22). Taking examples from nine different tribes, it explains how industry and governments are destroying tribal peoples’ water sources.
When Kenya's government introduced free primary schooling in 2003, vast numbers of additional pupils were brought into the education system overnight, putting it on a steep learning curve. A dearth of teachers, scarcity of textbooks and inadequate facilities were amongst the problems that made for a bumpy ride as primary schools went from educating about six million children in 2002 to the current total of eight million. And five years on, questions remain about the
Five Cameroonians and a Nigerian accused last year of homosexuality in Cameroon have been released temporarily from the Bell prison in Douala where they spent more than six months behind bars. The six were arrested last August on charges of homosexuality. While awaiting judgement from Supreme Court, they stayed in custody for six months, and it could tripled if renewed pending investigation.
In collaboration with both its European andZimbabwean partners, Zimbabwe Watch organised a roundtable titled“Elections and Post-Elections period in Zimbabwe: What to do after 29 March2008 - Views from Civil Society and Dialogue with the European Union” on 13 March 2008 in Brussels. The roundtable brought together civil society activists from Zimbabwe, officials of the European Union (EU) institutions and variousEuropean and international interest groups. These are the recommendations from the round-table.
1. The conditions for the elections are such that they will not be free nor fair and therefore cannot be called a legitimate expression of the will of the people. The African Union (AU) and the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) should be encouraged to make objective assessments of the conditions and the process based on the SADC Guidelines on Free and Fair Elections. The European Union (EU) should welcome such assessments that recognise the unfree and unfair environment. If the AU and SADC fail to recognise this, the EU needs to voice a very clear position on the the unfree and unfair nature of the elections and condemn these partial assessment. The international community must exert pressure on the Zimbabwean government to restore the rule of law.
2. The delegation of the European Commission in Harare will produce a report on the election process and outcomes. The EU Commission needs to consult relevant Zimbabwean and European civil society organisations and include their inputs in this report as well as in the EU’s common position on the elections. This report and the EU conclusions will should refer explicitly to the SADC Guidelines for free and fair elections and look at the longer term election environment which can already be considered as not conducive for free and fair elections.
3. After the elections, a new fully inclusive AU led mediation process that leads to a transitional process need to take place. This mediation must include not only the political parties but also Zimbabwean Civil Society and take place in an open, transparent and accountable process. Such a process should be actively supported by the EU.
4. SADC proposed and started discussing an economic recovery plan for Zimbabwe in 2007 but they will need the support of the international community to implement this plan. The EU should work together with SADC (and with the broader international community) through its regional assistance programme on a broad economic, political and social recovery plan. This process must be strongly inclusive of Zimbabwean Civil Society (including Trade Union). Any recovery plan must reflect the demands and needs of Zimbabwean Civil Society while having good governance and human rights as key concepts.
5. For such a recovery plan to be devised initial audits of all the relevant sectors (such as education, health, land, etc – not only the economy) needs to be undertaken. For example proper accounting of the education sector is required and support to local research institutions and universities is needed. In addition a comprehensive census, including of Zimbabweans outside the country, is needed for planning the recovery. Such a recovery plan needs sustainable planning and clear commitments from the EU for at least the next ten years.
6. The new Africa strategy emphasises common principles on human rights and governance, the role of civil society and regional approaches – the EU should together with SADC develop regional programs on governance, human rights and crisis prevention in which Zimbabwe can be addressed. Europe must develop and maintain a consistent position on Zimbabwe which also responds to the needs and demands of the Zimbabwean Civil Society. The EU must look at all the policy and financial instruments it has at its disposal (such as the Cotonou agreement, the EU-Africa strategy, human rights, peace and security and crisis prevention instruments) to engage SADC and AU partners on Zimbabwe in a principled manner. It must consider Zimbabwe as a military crisis and bring SADC and the AU to look at it in this way e.g. by having SADC excluding Zimbabwe from joint military operations. The EU must investigate if they support regional military training which includes Zimbabwe and pressure for their exclusion from such programs.
7. The European Commission has produced a draft Country Strategy Paper (CSP) in negotiation with the current Zimbabwean government for the spending of the 10th EDF. It plans to adopt it as soon as the political situation allows it. This is not the way to go. The EU has stopped bilateral aid because the current government is not following good governance rules and is not accountable. The EU therefore needs to re-open the negotiation of the CSP with an eventual new (transitional) government and negotiate the key sectors with them and Non-State actors in a very inclusive, transparent and accountable manner. This must apply for any assistance to any new (transitional) government.
8. The influence of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) should be fostered in Zimbabwe, so that labour standards are observed and upheld and serious abuses stopped. Zimbabwe should be answerable to the ILO.
9. The International community should now start to plan for and deploy assistance programmes for the coming transition phase including recovery policy development plans by Zimbabwean Civil Society. Planning the transition is campaigning for it! In the event of significant power shifts leading to a transitional government and policy changes, swift support for the reconstruction of institutions, especially the justice, police, banking and education sector must be available.
10. Continued support to civil society organisations as providers of checks and balances for the human rights situation is needed. Protection of human rights defenders (HRDs), especially in the case of escalating post-election violence and security/military clampdowns needs to be prioritised and the EU and member states must find urgent ways to provide necessary support. Adequate actions need to be devised in accordance with the demands from HRD’s themselves, the EU Guidelines on Human Rights Defenders and the Handbook linked to them provide examples of such actions including observation of demonstrations and trials, visits in prison or hospital, staying in touch with the HRD’s and providing safe houses.
11. The EU must support the strengthening of the African Union’s Peace and Security Council and making the AU Peace and Security instruments more effective and operational, using Zimbabwe as a test case. The full implementation of the African Charter of Peoples and Human Rights, which Zimbabwe signed, must be demanded. In view of the military nature of Mugabe’s regime, no Zimbabwean participation in international peace and military interventions, in the context of the UN or the African Union, must be allowed.
12. Silence of the United Nations Human Rights Council to post-election violence would not be acceptable; it must then come up with a clear resolution. The Mugabe government must be pressurised particularly by African countries to extend an open invitation to all UN human rights special rapporteurs (such as the one on torture) to the country. The EU must work with African partners to ensure such steps. The EU must also continue the monitoring of the human rights violations on the ground and engage the AU and African countries to implement the resolutions coming out of the Afican Commission on Human and People’s Rights condemning the human rights abuses in Zimbabwe. Finally, in the event of escalating post-election violence, Zimbabwe needs to be referred to the UN Security Council.
http://www.pambazuka.org/images/en/357/46990-hands.jpgFiroze Manji argues that in comparison to Europe and the US, China in Africa is still a small player. While keeping an eye out on China, Africans should not be distracted from paying attention to the West's continued exploitation of the continent including the use of military might to protect its economic interests.
"What I find a bit reprehensible is the tendency of certain Western voices to … raising concerns about China’s attempt to get into the African market because it is a bit hypocritical for Western states to be concerned about how China is approaching Africa when they have had centuries of relations with Africa, starting with slavery and continuing to the present day with exploitation and cheating."
Kwesi Kwaa Prah (2007)
Open any newspaper and you would get the impression that the African continent, and much of the rest of the world, is in the process of being ‘devoured’ by China. Phrases such as the ‘new scramble for Africa’, ‘voracious’, ‘ravenous’ or ‘insatiable’ ‘appetite for natural resources’ are typical descriptors used to characterise China’s engagement with Africa. In contrast, the operations of western capital for the same activities are described with anodyne phrases such as ‘development’, ‘investment’, ‘employment generation’(Mawdsely, 2008). Is China indeed the voracious tiger it is so often portrayed as?
China’s involvement in Africa has three main dimensions: foreign direct investment, aid and trade. In each of these dimensions China’s engagement is dwarfed by those of US and European countries, and often smaller than those of other Asian economies.
Foreign direct investment (FDI) of Asian economies globally has been growing. The total flow of foreign direct investment (FDI) from Asia to Africa is estimated to have been an annual average of $1.2 billion during 2002-2004 (UNCTAD, 2006). Chinese FDI in Africa has in fact been small in comparison to investment from Singapore, India and Malaysia, which are the principal Asian sources of FDI in Africa according to UNDP (2007) with investment stocks of $3.5 billion and $1.9 billion each by 2004, respectively. Such investments are greater than those of China. The same report goes on to say, however, that Asian investments in Africa are dwarfed by those of the United Kingdom (with a total FDI stock of $30 billion in 2003), the United States ($19 billion in 2003), France ($11.5 billion in 2003) and Germany ($5.5 billion in 2003). And if China sits in fourth place amongst the Asian ‘tigers’, the scale of its investments in Africa are miniscule in comparison to the more traditional imperial powers.
Asian FDI flows to Africa have certainly grown 10-fold since the 1980s, but smaller than the 14-fold growth in FDIs globally in the same period. Compared with India, for example, China’s FDI is small. India has a larger investment in oil in Sudan and Nigeria than does China. Of 126 greenfield FDI projects in Africa, Indian companies accounted for the largest number. Indeed, amongst the Asian economies, Malaysian companies dominate in mineral extraction sector in Africa. Africa’s share of total outward flow of Chinese FDI is marginal - only 3 per cent goes to Africa, while Asia receives 53 per cent, Latin America 37 per cent. It should be borne in mind that China is a net recipient of FDI, and receives a flow of FDI also from Africa: SAB Miller breweries and SASOL from South Africa, Chandaria Holdings in Kenya, amongst many others.
http://www.pambazuka.org/images/en/357/46990diagr.jpgAfrica is certainly important trade partner for China, the volume increasing from $11 billion in 2000 to some $40 billion in 2005. China has a growing trade surplus with Africa. According to UNDP (2007), China has become the third largest trading partner of Africa, following the United States and France. China has focused primarily on the import of a limited number of products - oil and ‘hard commodities’ for a few selected African countries . China’s trade with Africa represents only a small proportion of Africa’s trade with the rest of the world, and is comparable to India’s trade with Africa, although both have been growing rapidly.
China imports from Africa five main commodities - oil, iron ore, cotton, diamonds and logs. The export of these commodities, and in particular oil, has grown significantly in the last ten years. A few African countries (Sudan, Ghana, Tanzania, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Uganda and Kenya) source a significant share of their imports of manufactured products, mainly clothing and textiles, from China. (Kaplisky, McCormick and Morris, 2007). China has been vigorously castigated for its support of repressive regimes. In almost all cases, China’s involvement has been in support of its need for strategic natural resources, especially oil. And it is perhaps here that one finds the reason for the fears expressed in the west about China’s role in Africa. USA is the world’s largest consumer of oil products , with 25% of its requirements destined to come from Africa. While China sources some 40% of its oil from the Middle East, it currently sources 23% from africa 23%.
Much attention has been drawn to the negative impact of the cheap Chinese commodities on African economies. Certainly this has contributed to the decline of industrial production and the growing retrenchment of workers. But China has essentially taken advantage of the ‘opening-up’ of Africa’s market that has resulted from the adoption of neoliberal economic policies that the international financial institutions, backed by the majority of the international aid agencies, have forced Africa’s governments to comply with. Given that the relative size of Chinese imports is small in comparison to imports from industrialised countries, the blame for the decline in industrial production and growing unemployment in Africa can hardly be place entirely at China’s door. Furthermore, it is important to recognise that some 58% of exports from China are manufactured by foreign owned companies. The retrenchments and closures of local industries occurring as a result of cheap goods imported from China need to be placed at the door of the multinationals concerned as much as on the Chinese government and Chinese companies.
Just like other western powers, China has used aid strategically to support its commercial and investment interventions in Africa. Aid has taken the form of financial investments in key infrastructural development projects, training programmes, debt relief, technical assistance and a programme of tariff exemptions for selected products from Africa, not dissimilar to the agreements that Africa has had with Europe, US and other western economies. China’s aid is attractive to African governments not only because of the favourable terms offered, but in particular because of the lack of conditionality that is offered that has so constrained, and many would argue, undermined develop that would have the potential for bringing about social progress.
The most serious worry for the US was expressed by the spokespersons of the IMF and World Bank who complained that China’s unrestricted lending had ‘undermined years of painstaking efforts to arrange conditional debt relief’. There is clearly concern that China can now offer favourable loans to Africa and weaken imperial leverage over African economies. (Campbell, 2007). “The US and World Bank claim to be fighting poverty in Africa,” he continues, “but after two decades of structural adjustment the conditions of the African poor have worsened, with indices of exploitation and deprivation increasing by geometric proportions. According to one estimate, at the present pace of investment in Africa from the West, it will require more than one hundred years to realise the Millennium Development Goals. Chinese investment potentially provides an alternative for African leaders and entrepreneurs, while providing long term potential for the development of African economies.”
http://www.pambazuka.org/images/en/357/46990drawing.jpg"China’s official development discourse is explicitly non-prescriptive, employing a language of ‘no strings attached’, quality and mutual benefit. It emphasises the collective right to development over the rights-based approaches focused on individual rights. Once the dust settles on the current China-in-Africa fever, and notions of China’s exceptionalism wear off, all involved will need to harness hopes to realistic vehicles in order to make the most of the current potential." (Large, 2007). Rocha (2007) suggests that Chinese investments in Africa are having and could continue to have some positive impacts. China is helping African countries to rebuild their infrastructure and providing other types of assistance to agriculture, water, health, education and other sectors. This could have very positive spin-offs in lowering transaction costs and assisting African governments to address social calamities such as poor health services, energy crisis, skills development. However, it is true that ‘Chinese companies are quickly generating the same kinds of environmental damage and community opposition that Western companies have spawned around the world’ (Chan Fishel 2007).
The evidence available suggests that the drive to increasing the rate of profit is exhibited as much by Chinese as by western capital. The west has the advantage in having already established its dominant position that is potentially being threatened by the ‘new boy on the block’.
But China has the advantage of never having enslaved or colonized the continent. China has also not made any false promises coated with neo-liberalism. While the West, the IMF and the World Bank put conditions that only aid in their fleecing of Africa, China has so far been willing to provide unconditional aid and invest in infrastructure. At the same time, however, it freely takes full advantage of the opening up of markets that neo-liberal economic policies over the last 25 years have offered, unencumbered.
And so far, unlike the US, China has not sought to establish military bases in Africa to protect its economic interests, which the US has sought to establish through AFRICOM
* Firoze Manji is director of Fahamu and editor of Pambazuka News.
**Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org
***Footnotes are available at the URL shown below
http://www.pambazuka.org/images/broadcasts/Arts_Azimuts.jpgBetween the 25th of January and the 2nd of Feb 2008, the town of Butare, Rwanda, hosted its first International Arts Festival organized by the University Centre for Arts. Entitled ‘Arts Azimuts’, this festival focused on theatre, music and dance, bringing together artists from Rwanda, Western Africa, Belgium and the United States
Du 25 janvier au 2 fevrier 2008,la ville de Butare au Rwanda a abrite son premier Festival International des Arts organise par le Centre Universitaire des arts. Intitule "Arts Azimuts", le festival incluait theatre,musique et dance et a rassemble des artistes du Rwanda, de l'afrique de l'ouest de laBelgique et des USA.
African Union (AU) troops this week supported the Comoros army to take control of the rebel island of Anjouan. The crisis began in June 2007 when African Union monitored elections were due to be held on the islands of Anjouan, Grand Comore and Moheli. The Union government of Comoros postponed the elections on Anjouan “citing irregularities and intimidation in the run-up to voting” but Mohamed Bacar went on with voting preparations, printing ballot papers and claiming a landslide victory. Following the elections, AU efforts failed to break the deadlock between the Union government and Bacar who claimed the presidency of Anjouan. In February 2008, the AU Peace and Security Council “revised its stance on the political conflict and moved to backing the Union government's position of using military force”. 1,500 AU troops backed the Union government army’s intervention on the island on March 24.
Also, in peace and security news, Africa’s defence and security ministers are meeting this week to discuss progress towards the establishment of an African Standby Force (ASF), which is mandated “to intervene in various cases, including violation of human rights, war crimes and genocide as well as providing humanitarian assistance”. The ASF is facing challenges regarding the harmonisation and rationalisation of the five Regional Standby Brigades set up by the Regional Economic Communities and which have evolved at difference paces. According to the AU’s Peace and Security Commissioner “another chronic challenge facing the AU is the paucity of funding” for the Standby Force.
Following a global assessment on levels of food insecurity, the European Commission (EC) has selected seventeen priority countries to benefit from a food program valued at 160 million euros, the biggest annual amount to date. All East African Community countries except Rwanda are included in the relief program, as are Sudan, Chad, Somalia, Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Liberia, Zimbabwe and the Sahel Countries. Meanwhile, Oscar Kimanuka analyses the new opportunities presented by Chinese aid and trade as an alternative to United States and European domination, warning in closing that “whatever Africa may be gaining from its renewed interest in China, we should not lose sight of our own interest as Africans. We need to benefit from these relations for the sake of the development of our people”. Also in aid-related news, the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) has pledged US$10 billion by 2010 for African country-members of the OIC under the Islamic Solidarity Fund for Development. The reduction or cancellation of debt owed by African countries to member countries of the Ummah was also discussed at the recent OIC summit in Dakar, Senegal.
Upcoming AU related events include the third African media summit, which will be held in Tunis, Tunisia, next week under the theme “how youth can help change the image of Africa in the re-branding process”. In addition, the AU will be holding a meeting of ministers of justice in mid-April which will discuss, amongst other things, the legal instrument on the merger of the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights and the Court of Justice of the African Union as well as the harmonisation of ratification procedures in member states. Further, the third conference of African Ministers for Integration will be held in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire, between May 19-23.
In a promising development for civil society and citizen participation in regional integration, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) held a workshop this week “to familiarize the civil society in West Africa with the new vision of ECOWAS and the Economic and Monetary Union of West Africa (UEMOA) and help deepen the regional integration process”. The workshop took place in in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, under the theme “from Integration of States to Integration of Peoples in West Africa: Broadening Dialogue to Embrace Civil Society”.
Lastly, as Zimbabwe prepares for elections on March 29, the Pan-African Parliament (PAP) will be sending an observer mission of twenty parliamentarians representing the five regions of Africa, supported by staff from the secretariat of PAP and the Electoral Institute of Southern Africa.
Libreville– Despite the Japanese Government’s emphasis that it is an international development forum for Africa, Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD) and its action plan are still pretty much perceived as Japan’s official aid package deal towards Africa.
Firstly, there is notable under-reorientation of key players: other donor governments (for harmonization of aid efforts), other Asian governments (for Asia-Africa partnership), private sector (for economic growth), the civil society organizations (for the downward accountability) and more. One of the African Government expressed the frustration in the plenary of the Ministerial Conference in Gabon that TICAD should stop pretending that it was the Asia-Africa meeting.
The Civil Society Organisations (CSOs), for one, have been fighting to find its way to be involved in the process since the first TICAD held in Tokyo in 1993. To be fair, TICAD has come a long way. Since the third TICAD in 2003 especially, the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs has continued dialogue with the Japanese CSOs, and today the CSOs have gotten the observatory status in the TICAD proper and all the preceding meetings. The participation of the CSOs, however, still depends on the approval of the Japanese and the host country governments, and it is limited to African and Japanese organizations.
Secondly, the draft Yokohama Declaration and Action Plan are weak with respect to CSO engagement vis a vis CSO being recognized as a strategic partner in fostering the TICAD process forward. The documents do not necessarily reflect the positions of the co-organisers (The Japanese Government, The World Bank, the UNDP, and the UNOSAA) on the Civil Society participation in development, either. As the two documents are considered by some as the guideline of Japan’s bilateral commitment, the political game seems to continue to make the bilateral aid process as exclusive as possible. The obvious omission of the CSOs from the documents was lamented by the some Government Delegates in the plenary session.
Finally, the involvement of the co-organisers are no way equally prominent in the meetings. The presence of the World Bank, UNDP, and UNOSAA seems only tokenistic. The African Governments only acknowledge the contribution of GoJ in their diplomatic speeches. The commitments from the TICAD process are almost exclusively from the Japanese Government. Where is the spirit of “harmonization of aid?”
TICAD is standing at the turning point. In mid 1990s, when the developed world was experiencing the aid fatigue, it played an important role to keep Africa on the agenda. Today, African Governments have plentiful commitments from different donors. There are different forums that discuss African Development. Time has changed. The Japanese Government and the Co-organisers should revisit the relevance and mandate of TICAD seriously in May. If the age demands the transformation of TICAD, so should it be.
Tajudeen Abdul Raheem argues that regardless of the outcome in Zimbabwe, African people's solidarity should be with the Zimbabwean people
Zimbabweans go to the polls on 29th April the outcome of which many have forecast as going only one way: the 84 years old former Guerrilla leader and President since independence in 1980 will, willy-nilly, be ‘re-elected’ to power. Admittedly he is facing stiffer challenge than before in the person of his former Finance Minster, Makoni, and the official opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai.
If there is a more level playing field it may not be a foregone conclusion that President Mugabe will win. The playing ground is very much weighted against Mugabe’s opponents. In spite of the enthusiasm with which Makoni has been received both nationally and internationally by forces of regime change that are tiring of the dramas surrounding Morgan and beginning to wane in their support for him Makoni’s performance in the elections may actually be more to the benefit of Tsvangirai as it is at the expense of President Mugabe and his dwindling support within the ZANU-PF. I may be wrong but I don’t think the election will provide a Makoni moment. It is also highly unlikely that Morgan’s courage and perseverance in forcing open the political space is about to be rewarded with electoral victory. What the election may show is that as in Kenya in the 1990s the majority of the masses are tired of President Mugabe but the opposition is not ready to assume power.
The comparative experience from other countries in Africa with long term Personal/One party rule is that as long as the incumbent Maximum ruler is standing in the election it is more difficult to defeat the ruling party. A combination of intimidation, open bribery of voters, restraints on the opposition and the media or brutal force and scandalous manipulation of all rules governing the electoral processes will be used to retain power failing which direct theft of the votes would be effected. Senegal (Abdou Diouf) and Benin ( Kerekou) were exceptions in the 90s and early 2000s where Presidents in a One party Dominant state was defeated by an opposition alliance. In Kenya and Ghana before that it was not possible to defeat Moi/KANU and Rawlings/NDC respectively as long as the incumbents were standing. Coincidentally it took 10 years in both countries before the opposition could get their acts together and realise that individually they could not defeat the ruling party. Another factor is that in both countries the unseating did not happen without a significant breakaway from the ruling party thus eroding its hegemony through the equivalence of internal bleeding.
Is Zimbabwe at this stage now? Judged against the three factors I will say Zimbabwe has not arrived at the point for change. The incumbent is still standing. The opposition still believes they can win on their own or are expecting a runoff which will establish whether Morgan or Makoni is best placed to unseat their aged Uncle! Finally while Makoni represents an important internal rupture in ZANU-PF causing self doubt and realignment away from ZANU –PF the much talked about and expected break within ZANU-PF has not produced significant smoking guns. This means that so far not enough influential individuals and constituencies are willing to put their heads above the parapet to unseat Mugabe.
A particularly distorting aspect of the Zimbabwe conflict is the open advocacy for regime change by outside non African forces that has made it difficult for Africans to decisively intervene in the Zimbabwe situation without being dubbed lackeys of imperialism by Mugabe and his fellow travellers. Some of his more hard line supporters especially in the Diaspora have even accused some of us who openly criticise Mugabe and advise him to quit as being paid by MI5 and CIA!. What is so revolutionary about taking a country that you help to build back to the dark ages just to prove you are a strong man to Bush and Blair! Many of those who cheer Mugabe as revolutionaries from their rostrums outside Zimbabwe would not go and live and suffer in ‘revolutionary Zimbabwe’.
The focus on the Anglo-American and Western multiple standards in relation to Zimbabwe also make many Africans suspicious of the opposition and amenable to Mugabe’s propaganda that his opponents are traitors’ to the cause of Zimbabwe and Africa. In particular Morgan/MDC’s perambulations on the Land issue (very popular with Africans with historical memory of land alienation by colonialists) further strengthen their hostility. While Mugabe/ZANU –PF complain about the ‘unfair’ coverage they get from Western Media I have never heard them raise any query about their overwhelmingly positive image in many African Media!
However we should not allow other people’s agenda, legitimate or illegitimate, to detract us from formulating our own. The knee-jerk cold-war induced reaction of ‘if the Americans are here I must be there’ no longer hold. This does not mean that imperialism is dead or that the West has suddenly become our friends but their enemies need not necessarily be our heroes or heroines either. It is certainly not the case that everybody opposed to President Mugabe is a traitor working for the British just like it is true that not all those refusing to back the opposition are supporters of of ZANU-PF/Mugabe. They may even be ZANU-PF loyalists without being fans of Mugabe.
Our solidarity is with the people of Zimbabwe whether they are in ZANU-PF or outside of it and their right to choose those who govern them. President Mugabe does not own the people of Zimbabwe. They are no less Zimbabweans for voting the opposition therefore it is most undemocratic for President Mugabe to say as quoted recently that the opposition will never rule Zimbabwe in his life time . That is a decision that only the people of Zimbabwe can make.
This election may be another missed opportunity for changing the deplorable conditions that the long suffering masses of Zimbabwe live with. Real change may not happen until after President Mugabe either quits (highly unlikely) or is retired by the ancestors. Zuma coming to power in neighbouring South Africa may also trigger realignments that may limit Mugabe’s room for manouvre.
*Dr Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem writes this syndicated column in his private capacity as a Pan Africanist. His views are not attributable to that of any organization he works for or is affiliated with.
**Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org
Under AGOA, Ramatex Textile & Garment Factory, a Malaysian company moved to Namibia. Herbert Jauch looks at the cost of allowing companies to operate without government regulation, tax exemption and government sanctioned suspension of worker rights in Export Processing Zones.
The closure of the Ramatex clothing and textile factory in Windhoek last week, marked the end of one of the most controversial investments in Namibia since independence.
The way in which the closure occurred once again showed the disregard of the company for its workers as well as the host country.
The company managed to mislead Namibia (in particular the government) time and again by providing false information to hide its true intentions of using the country merely as a temporary production location.
While trade unions and government are still trying to achieve some compensation for the retrenched workers, we need to draw some hard lessons from the Ramatex experience.
This article sketches some of the events surrounding the company's operations in Namibia and suggests that a fundamentally different approach to foreign investments should be pursued in future.
When Namibia passed the Export Processing Zones (EPZ) Act in 1995, government argued that both local and foreign investment in the first five years of independence had been disappointing and that EPZs were the only solution to high unemployment.
The EPZ Act went as far as suspending the application of the Labour Act in EPZs which government described as necessary to allay investors' fear of possible industrial unrest.
Namibia's trade unions on the other hand opposed the exclusion of the Labour Act and after lengthy discussions a "compromise" was reached which stipulated that the Act would apply in the EPZs, but that strikes and lock-outs would be outlawed for a period of 5 years.
In 1999, the Labour Resource and Research Institute (LaRRI) carried out a comprehensive study of Namibia's EPZ programme which found that EPZs had fallen far short of the expectations of creating 25 000 jobs and facilitating skills and technology transfer needed to kick-start manufacturing industries in the country.
At the end of 1999, the EPZs had created very few jobs although millions of dollars had been spent on promoting the policy and on developing infrastructure with public funds.
By 2001, Namibia still had not managed to attract any large production facility through its EPZ programme. This changed when the Ministry of Trade and Industry announced that it had succeeded in snatching up a project worth N$1 billion ahead of South Africa and Madagascar, which had also been considered by the Malaysian company Ramatex.
This was achieved by offering even greater concessions than those offered to other EPZ companies, such as corporate tax holidays, free repatriation of profits, exemption from sales tax etc.
Drawing in the parastatals providing water and electricity (Namwater and Nampower) as well as the Windhoek municipality, the Ministry put together an incentive package which included subsidised water and electricity, a 99-year tax exemption on land use as well as over N$ 100 million to prepare the site including the setting up of electricity, water and sewage infrastructure.
This was justified on the grounds that the company would create close to 10 000 jobs.
The plant turned cotton (imported duty free from West Africa) into textiles for the US market.
Ramatex' decision to locate production in Southern Africa was motivated by the objective to benefit from the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) which allows for duty free exports to the US from selected African countries who meet certain conditions set by the US government.
Even before the company began its operations in 2002, it made headlines, as it became the most talked about investment in Namibia.
The debate around Ramatex revolved around the massive size of its operations, the establishment of a new industry and the controversies surrounding the company's environmental impact and working conditions.
A study carried out by LaRRI in 2003 found widespread abuses of workers rights, including included forced pregnancy tests for women who applied for jobs; non-payment for workers on sick leave; very low wages and no benefits; insufficient health and safety measures; no compensation in case of accidents; abuse by supervisors; and open hostility towards trade unions etc.
Tensions boiled over on several occasions.
After spontaneous work stoppages in 2002 and 2003, Ramatex finally recognised the Namibia Food and Allied Workers Union (NAFAU) as the workers' exclusive bargaining agent in October 2003.
The recognition agreement was supposed to pave the way for improved labour relations and collective bargaining.
However, the union was unable to make progress on substantive issues and on several occasions reported Ramatex to the Office of the Labour Commissioner for unfair labour practices and the company's unwillingness to negotiate in good faith.
Despite several attempts to find a solution through mediation, no agreement was reached.
By September 2006, the company had not raised wages and benefits and claimed that its operations in Namibia were running at a loss.
Ramatex' workers, however, had run out of patience and declared that they would go on strike unless their wages were significantly improved.
When the company refused to meet their demands, they went on strike in October 2006, bringing the operations to a standstill.
Within 2 days, workers achieved what 4 years of negotiations had failed to deliver: Hourly wage increase from N$ 3 to N$ 4 plus the introduction of some benefits such as housing and transport allowances.
Ramatex used a significant number of Asian migrant workers, mostly from China, the Philippines and Bangladesh.
Although the companyclaimed that they were brought in as trainers, most of them were employed as mere production workers with basic salaries of around U$ 300 - 400 per month which were higher than their Namibian counterparts.
The import of Asian workers also served the company's strategy of "divide and rule".
Workers were divided according to nationalities, received different remuneration and benefits and found it hard to communicate with each other.
As a result there was hardly any joint action by all Ramatex workers.
Protests by Namibian, Filipino and Bangladeshi workers were isolated and found no support from their Chinese counterparts while protest by migrant workers usually resulted in the immediate deportation.
At the height of Namibian operations in 2004, Ramatex and its subsidiaries employed about 7000 workers, including over 1000 Asian migrant workers.
Following retrenchments in 2005 and 2006 (including the closure of one subsidiary), this number dropped to 3 400 (including 400 Asian migrants) in early of 2007 and further to about 3000 by the end of that year.
These trends provided a clear indication that Ramatex was preparing for closure.
This followed the end of the global clothing and textile quotas in 2005 and could be observed all over the continent.
In Ramatex' case, the company indicated it was planning to expand in Cambodia and China and negotiations are underway for the establishment of 2 new plants in Vietnam.
Ramatex' global strategy always regarded Namibia as a temporary production location although the Namibian government seemed to think otherwise.
Ramatex' claims of losses of up to N$ 500 million in Namibia seem devoid of truth.
Ramatex pays no taxes in Namibia, receives water and electricity at subsidised rates and is exempted from import duties in the USA.
It is thus almost impossible for the company to make losses in Namibia and the truthfulness of Ramatex' claims is highly questionnable.
The economic assessment of Ramatex' operations must also take into account the substantial environmental damages caused by operations including the pollution of Goreangab dam and underground water resources.
The Namibian government had been warned by Earthlife Africa but did not take precautionary measures. Instead, the municipality announced near the end of 2006 that it would take over the company's waste management.
Ramatex should have been held fully accountable and forced to rectify the damage at its own costs.
Ramatex represents a typical example of a transnational corporation playing the globalisation game. Its operations in Namibia have been characterised by controversies, unresolved conflicts and tensions.
Worst affected were the thousands of young, mostly female workers who had to endure highly exploitative working conditions for years and in the end were literally dumped in the streets without any significant compensation.
Ramatex had shown the same disregard for workers when it closed its subsidiary Rhino Garments in Namibia in 2005.
Workers had observed the company shipping equipment out of the country but when confronted, Ramatex initially denied plans to close its subsidiary but then retrenched about 1 500 workers in April.
Overall, Ramatex' presence in Namibia was a disaster for the country and some hard lessons will have to be learned to avoid a repeat in future.
When dealing with foreign investors there is an urgent need to ensure (at the very least) compliance with national laws and regulations, workers rights, as well as environmental, health and safety standards.
Experiences elsewhere have shown that compromises on social, environmental and labour standards in the name of international competitiveness lead to a "race to the bottom", leading to a process of self-destruction.
In the case of Ramatex, the Namibian government abandoned its role as regulator and some officials defended Ramatex.
The case has shown the problems of blindly accepting any investment as beneficial.
Instead of adopting an open-door policy towards foreign investment, Namibia (and Africa in general) need to adopt selective policies that channel investments into certain strategic sectors that will have a lasting developmental impact.
They require a very clear and strategic development agenda that is not based on blind faith in foreign investment as the panacea to our development problems.
The lack of alternative programmes for effective economic development and job creation places government in a weak position to negotiate adherence to labour, social and environmental standards with foreign investors.
This has to be the starting point for breaking the chains of dependency.
The project on Alternatives to Neo-Liberalism in Southern Africa (ANSA), for example, is an attempt to develop a different and comprehensive development strategy for the region.
The ANSA proposals will be introduced in Windhoek next week and hopefully will pave the way for a more open-minded discussion about a suitable development strategy.
* Herbert Jauch is head of research and education for the Labour Resource and Research Institute (LaRRI). This report was written prepared for The Namibian by the author.
**Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org
The Congolese government, in the wake of the Carter Center press release on March 10, 2008 and at the end of a five-day mining conference in the Congo, published the final report of the mining contract review, which was initiated in April 2007. The report indicated that the government launched the review process to make certain that Congo's mineral wealth benefit the people of the Congo. In order to achieve this goal the government had to review 61 existing mining contracts and establish a process for rectifying the abusive contracts. Deputy Mines Minister Victor Kasongo noted "that none of the contracts met international standards of contracts."
African migrants continue to attempt to cross the dangerous Sinai desert in an attempt to enter Israel as witnessed by the arrest of 13 Africans on Sunday by Egyptian police who said they were trying to sneak into Israel. Migrants, refugees and asylum seekers have repeatedly said they see Israel as a place for a better life. The 13 Africans arrested on Sunday "were from Eritrea, Sudan, Ghana and the Ivory Coast," an official told AHN Media Corporation. According to the official, they were arrested near the Rafah border crossing with Gaza.
Nearly 20,000 South Africans have been displaced by mining giant Anglo American in its search for platinum, a BBC File on 4 investigation has found. It was also shown evidence the UK-based firm had polluted water sources and scores of miners had been killed.
Troops from the Comoros archipelago in the Indian Ocean have recaptured most of the island of Anjouan after a year-long rebellion, officials say. They said troops backed by an African Union force had taken Anjouan's main city and airport with light resistance.
Hundreds of Liberian women living in Ghana have suspended a five-week sit-in protest against their repatriation. The women ended their demonstration at Buduburam refugee camp in Central Province after Liberia's envoy visited.
The Network of African Freedom of Expression Organisations (NAFEO) has learned with dismay the adoption by the Transitional Parliament of Somalia of a new press bill which blatantly violates press freedom and freedom of expression. The new law contravenes international legal instruments which guarantee press freedom, particularly the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights.
Christian Aid currently has an exciting opportunity in our Africa Division: As the Angola Programme Officer – Information and Documentation, you will be responsible for facilitating conditions for Angolan civil society to strengthen, through: promoting the access to information; developing documentation systems; and supporting relevant communication and media. You will link Christian Aid’s Information and Communication work in the UK and abroad, with the Angola partners and programme. Closing date for applications: 7 April 2008
The fate of Fatou Jaw Manneh, a US-based Gambian journalist accused of sedition, is not certain, as her case file has gone missing. On March 17, 2008, when the case was called, the trial magistrate, Buba Jawo, said there was no file before him pertaining to the case. Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) sources reported the case has since been adjourned indefinitely.
A journalist threatened with death flees his homeland, only to find that nearby countries and regions don't want him or have their own problems. His story is not uncommon. Many of Somalia's 600,000 displaced people have left the country; but few are finding host nations willing to lay down a welcome mat. And in a region where free media are rare, his press pass hasn't exactly opened doors for him either.
The International Federation of Journalists has welcomed the formation of the Association of Journalists Unions in the North of Africa, which will act as the regional body of journalists’ trade unions in the media industry in the region.
We, over 125 members of the global access to information community from 40 countries, representing governments, civil society organizations, international bodies and financial institutions, donor agencies and foundations, private sector companies, media outlets and scholars, gathered in Atlanta, Georgia from February 27-29, 2008, under the auspices of the Carter Center and hereby adopt the following Declaration and Plan of Action to advance the passage, implementation, enforcement, and exercise of the right of access to information:
Business involvement in philanthropy is increasing day by day, but is it a blessing, a curse, or somewhere in between? Just Another Emperor? is the first book to take a comprehensive and critical look at this vital new phenomenon. Whatever position you take, this will be one of the most important debates of the next 10 years.
Explore the map and then consider whether elections held in this context can ever be considered 'free and fair'. Information on how to use the map, the map data limitations, and the background to how we mapped the data is provided below the map. Please visit our Zimbabwe Election Watch section, and explore our database for a comprehensive look at the many ways the articles listed in the SADC Principles and Guidelines Governing Democratic Elections have been breached by the Zimbabwean government.
Within 24 hours of the outbreak of the post election violence in Kenya, Kenyan blogs were posting hour by hour reports. On December 31st there was a complete shutdown of the mainstream media. Sokari Ekine, who blogs at explores how bloggers filled the information gap.
Report highlights growing hunger, energy dependency on Global South, corporate control
Food First/The Institute for Food & Development Policy, based in Oakland, Calif., has released a policy brief titled, “When Renewable isn’t Sustainable: Agrofuels’ and the Inconvenient Truths behind the 2007 U.S. Energy Independence and Security Act.” The report, co-authored by Food First Executive Director Eric Holt-Giménez and program consultant Isabella Kenfield, discusses the implications of the Renewable Fuels Standards (RFS) targets for agrofuels in the 2007 U.S. Energy Bill.
The first inconvenient truth of the RFS mandate is the effect it is already having on food prices and supplies around the world. It is estimated that half of the U.S. corn harvest will be diverted to ethanol production by the end of 2008. Because U.S. corn accounts for some 40% of global production, increased demand for U.S. corn as feedstock for fuel impacts global markets for corn as food. As acreage planted to corn increases from rising demand, acreage for other food grains such as wheat and soybeans is reduced, raising the prices for these crops as well. People around the world are already experiencing the food price and supply shocks that the spike in U.S. ethanol demand and consumption is causing.
A second inconvenient truth about the RFS mandate is that instead of offering energy independence and security, the 2007 Energy Bill actually reflects a bi-partisan, unspoken agreement to rely on imported agrofuels from the Global South. This is already leading to massive environmental destruction, loss of livelihoods and human rights abuses in agrofuels-producing regions of the South, and threatens to further economic and political instability in these regions.
To better understand the agrofuels boom, the authors analyze how the industry is aiding market expansion and consolidation by the giant grain, biotech and oil companies. Contrary to being “clean” and “green,” agrofuels exacerbate all of the problems currently caused by industrial agriculture—including global warming.
Holt-Giménez concludes that “In order to think about alternatives to agrofuels—local biofuels, conservation, wind, or solar—and in order to advance truly sustainable agricultural development at home and abroad, we need to construct an alternative food and energy context. We must challenge the political-economic context as well as the technologies, debunk the assumptions as well as the claims, and propose new relationships between producers and consumers in our food and fuel systems.”
To remove the artificial market incentive that created the industry—the RFS targets—Food First, with a coalition of progressive U.S. organizations, proposes a Moratorium on U.S. agrofuels. The call for a Moratorium can be found and signed here:
To obtain a copy of the report, log on to www.foodfirst.org
Stephen Marks argues in this extended review of recent publications about China that there are few other important global players whose affairs are so exclusively analysed on the basis of ignorance and stereotype. There is little understanding outside China about the differences of perspectives of Chinese intellectuals - they are far from being a homogeneous group.
China is no longer a topic - it’s a dimension. On every issue, from global warming to the credit crisis, China and its impact can no longer be ignored, not as a subject apart to be left to experts, but as an integral component of the global picture, on which every analyst or commentator has to have an opinon.
And as we all do when we have to come up with an opinion on something of which we know nothing, we reach off the shelf for a ready-made answer. In the case of China, these are easy to find.
There is the cold-war image of China the sinister Communist dictatorship. There is the older racial image of the sinister ‘inscrutable’ Chinese. And for Africa, there is the image of the voracious Chinese imperialist, concerned only to rape the ‘eternal victim, the dark continent’, of its precious resources. (see ‘' by Emma Mawdsley.)
There are few other important global players whose affairs are so exclusively analysed on the basis of ignorance and stereotype. Across the world, those who follow international politics are aware of the major policy debates in Washington between neo-cons, traditionalists and ‘multilateralists’. The ebb and flow of federalist currents in the EU are common knowledge. Even the revival of Russian assertiveness under Putin can be analysed as a modern trend, without invoking the ghost of Stalin or images of the Russian Bear.
But as Mark Leonard, Director of what calls itself ‘the first pan-European thinktank’, asks us in his recent book, ‘how many of us can name more than a handful of contemporary Chinese writers and thinkers?’ Indeed, if we are honest, ‘a handful’ would be generous where most of us are concerned.
The chief merit of Leonard’s contribution [What does China think? Fourth Estate 2008] is to show us what we are missing, and whet our appetite for more. The same feeling of stumbling across a hitherto unknown continent of argument and debate around central issues of our time comes from Zhang Yongle’s summary of the range of ideas in a leading Chinese intellectual journal in his article ‘Reading Dushu’ [New Left Review 49 second series, Jan Feb 2008].
It is no surprise to be introduced to the ideas of ‘New Right’ economist Zhang Weiying, a pioneering advocate of the free-market economic reforms which led to China’s astonishing record of 9 per cent growth year after year for three decades.
But cliches will be shattered by exposure to the thinking of some of China’s ‘New Left’, who have no wish to turn their backs on the market at home or abroad, or to turn the clock back to a central command economy, but instead are grappling with the same issues of combining market institutions with social justice and equity, as their counterparts in the West and South.
Economists Wang Shaoguang and Hu Angang argue persuasively that a central state which was at once stronger and more democratic could curb unaccountable regional power centres which currently waste resources through corruption and duplicated prestige investments. The resulting resources could finance a welfare safety-net which would give the public confidence to consume, thereby strengthening the domestic market and reducing China’s dependence on Western consumer demand.
Other writers such as Wang Hui and Cui Zhiyuan lament the ‘new enclosure movement’ which is ripping-off public property, and discuss ideas such as an Alaska-style ‘social dividend’ for citizens from the profits of state-owned enterprises, which would provide a ‘social wage’ to replace the largely dismantled welfare state.
Slightly more exposure abroad has been given to the environmental critique of Pan Yue, quantifying the horrific human, ecological and economic cost of the environmental degradation that has accompanied China’s breakneck growth. Though appointed to head the official State Environmental Protection Association, his report has been shelved, and widely ignored on the ground. But its concerns are certainly reflected, however inconsistently, in official pronouncements.
When it comes to political institutions, the Chinese debate is also far from the stereotype of Stalino-Maoist totalitarianism, though still remote from any Western concept of democracy. There have been some widely-trumpeted experiments in village-level democracy, contested inner-party elections, and consultative innovations such as ‘citizens juries’ and public policy hearings. But these remain few, localised and untypical.
Moreover, their champions do not see them as leading to multi-party democracy but rather to a ‘chinese model’ of ‘deliberative democracy’ where the central government allows a range of consultative opinions to be presented to it, supplemented by low-level electoral participation.
However, as new leftist Wang Shaoguang points out, this represents in effect a convergence with the West where the established electoral democratic system is increasingly perceived as ‘hollowed out’ and formal, and is frequently being supplemented by consultative processes, citizens juries and local referendums. Could China and the West be converging on the same destination from different starting-points?
The debate that Leonard reports on issues of global governance is equally stimulating, and shows a keen awareness that Chinas’s interest lies in promoting a notion of ‘soft power’ against the one-dimensional US obsession with hardware.
Many of us are familiar with solemn Western debates about how to ‘manage’ China’s rise, so as to ‘assist’ the new arrival to be a ‘civilised’ member of the ‘international community’ just like an assumed Western ‘us’. So it is a pleasant and amusing surprise to be introduced to the mirror-image debate in Beijing about how to ‘manage’ the West’s decline.
This debate came out into the open in 2006 when Wang Yiwei, a young scholar, asked in a newspaper article ‘how can we prevent the USA from declining too quickly?’ Shen Dingli argued that China’s goal should be ‘to shape an America that is more constrained and more willing to co-operate with the world’.
So however we are to analyse the complex and changing reality of the ‘actual’ China, the cliches of the conventional wisdom – the ‘evil Communist Tyranny’, the ‘inscrutable oriental’, or the new imperialist raping and looting Africa – are clearly more a hindrance than a help.
Which therefore leads us to ask why these unhelpful images persist. One obvious approach would be to ask whose interests are served by portraying China in this way. Less obvious, but also perhaps more interesting, is to make a comparison with the first encounter between the West and China, in which the prevailing stereotypes were not negative but on the contrary, rather idealised.
Leading philosophers of the 18th Century Enlightenment, including such figures as Leibniz and Voltaire, frequently referred to China in the most glowing terms. This followed an explosion, reminiscent of our own days, in the volume of Western publications about China.
According to the German scholar Thomas Fuchs (
Now these utopian images of China did indeed draw on aspects of reality. But their purpose was not so much to understand the real China, as to say something about the society of the West. Could the same be true of today’s negative image? For example, the ‘neoconservative’ US columnist Robert Kagan goes so far as to argue that China's policy towards Sudan and Zimbabwe is determined not so much by economic self-interest as by political solidarity with their dictatorial regimes, and foresees a Sino-Russian 'League of Dictators'. [Robert Kagan League of Dictators? Why Russia and China Will Continue to support Autocracies Wahington Post April 30 2006.] Is he really trying to say something about China’s policy? Or is he using a certain image of China in order to say something positive by contrast about US policy – just as the Enlightenment philosophers used their idealised image of China for the opposite purpose? Likewise when China’s African role is reduced to a supposed re-run of Europe’s exploitative colonial past, is the real purpose a better understanding of China’s role? Or is it to imply, by comparing China’s present to the West’s past, that the West’s present is different to the West’s past? Of course, just as with the idealised China of the European past, the demonised image of today can also draw on aspects of reality. But perhaps any such correspondence is, also as in the past, purely incidental to other more important functions. To separate fact from fiction, and disentangle reality from the myths, an indispensable first step must be to acquaint ourselves with the actual and often surprising debate taking place within China itself. However before we all get carried away we must remember that these debates are taking place within limits which, while far broader than the generally accepted cliches would suggest, are still constrained by a government which does not claim to subscribe to Western concepts of democracy and individual rights. Paradoxically, the lack of western-style political pluralism enhances the role of ‘insider intellectuals’ and their debates. And as Leonard points out; ‘The Chinese like to argue about whether it is the intellectuals that influence decision-makers, or whether groups of decision-makers use pet intellectuals as infornal mouthpieces to advance their own views’. But either way, if China is a central component of the issues that we face in every continent, including Africa, so the ideas that contribute to shaping its policies, and those who frame those ideas, should be part of our reality too. * Stephen Marks is research associate with Fahamu. **Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at www.pambazuka.org
Pambazuka News 370: Mauritania: Between Islamism and terrorrism
Pambazuka News 370: Mauritania: Between Islamism and terrorrism
http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/370/46930rift.jpgSince the outbreak of post-election violence in the Rift Valley, there have been numerous reports in the local dailies claiming that the root cause of this conflict is ‘the land question’. Without exception, these reports fail to inform or educate us precisely because of their misrepresentation of history. Horace Njuguna Gisemba seeks to rectify this.
Given the scale and the urgency of the current crisis and its repeated association with the so-called ‘land question’ it is time for a complete unpacking of the history behind colonial and post-colonial settlement in the White Highlands. Only then will we determine with certainty whether land is at the centre of the ongoing systematic evictions in the Rift Valley.
The first argument that is normally presented is that the North Rift region (Uasin Gishu, Trans Nzoia, Nandi and West Pokot Districts) exclusively constitutes the ancestral land of the supra-ethnic group we have come to term ‘the Kalenjin’, i.e. the Nandi, Keiyo, Pokot, Tugen, Marakwet and Kipsigis. A quick etymology of geographical names in the North Rift region such as Uasin Gishu, Eldoret, Sirikwa, and Kipkaren confirms that the Maasai long lived in and named these places. Indeed, it is the Maasai who were displaced from these lands by the colonialists and therefore, any question of restitution to ancestral owners – if at all it can be achieved - must of necessity be resolved with the full inclusion of the Maasai.
In the early 1900s colonial settlement in Central Kenya displaced many Gikuyu families. In their search for productive agricultural land, many of these families gradually moved west through Kijabe and into the Rift Valley. At the same time, white settlers moving into the Rift Valley aggressively recruited Gikuyu farmhands from Central Kenya who became their tenants at will. Between 1904 and 1920, 70,000 Gikuyus had migrated to the Rift Valley. By the end of the 1930s that community had grown to more than 150,000, many of whom were second and third generation Rift Valley Gikuyus. As the tension between these increasingly successful squatter farmers and their white landlords heightened the white settlers in some districts decided to do away with squatters altogether. In 1941 the first Government re-settlement scheme for Africans was established in Olenguruone north of Nakuru and it absorbed many of the Gikuyu squatters who were being driven out by their white landlords. But the larger majority of the Gikuyu, numbering over 100,000, were forcefully repatriated to Central Kenya between 1946 and 1952. This cyclical pattern of Gikuyu removals from Central Kenya, then settlement in the Rift Valley, followed by forceful evictions and painful repatriation back to Central Kenya, should be the subject of real concern. For each time they have occurred (1952, 1991/92, 1997 and 2007/2008) these returns have generated bitterness and inflamed the Gikuyu in Central Kenya. As a barrage of Kenyan historians agree (David Throup, Tabitha Kanogo, David Anderson, Frank Furedi, Rosberg & Nottingham) these reactions ignited the 1952 Mau Mau Uprising, and in 2008 they have been the reason for the vicious revenge attacks of the past two weeks.
The eviction of the Gikuyu from Olenguruone in the late 1940s and early 1950s made room for a new government-initiated settlement of Africans in the White Highlands. This 1955 settlement was conceived for the purposes of benefiting loyal African farmhands. Given that this re-settlement was taking place at the height of the Mau Mau uprising, the colonial authorities were quick to exclude the Gikuyu people from this scheme. The question of loyalty was to determine another pattern of settlement in the run-up to Independence and soon thereafter - some departing white farmers chose to gift their parcels to trusted farmhands. This is the history behind the ownership of farms running to hundreds and even thousands of acres by some people of Teso origin in Trans Nzoia District.
The third wave of African settlement in the White Highlands was the Million Acre Scheme which begun in 1963. On the eve of Independence the departing colonisers negotiated a scheme by which white settlers were bought out of their farms by the in-coming Kenya government. The money for this purchase was made available as a loan by the British government, hence the acrimonious dispute that pitted Jomo Kenyatta on the one hand and Bildad Kaggia and Jaramogi Oginga Odinga on the other. The argument of the latter nationalists was that there was no justification for a people to buy that which had been forcefully wrenched from them. The vehicle that the independent Kenya government used to facilitate the acquisition and subsequent distribution of these lands was the Settlement Fund Trustees (SFT). SFT was a separate legal entity whose trustees were government ministers. It is important to note that the SFT exists to this day and the records of all their transactions from 1963 to date, including those allocations that were made in the Moi era, are available for perusal at the Ministry of Lands.
Through the 1960s and 1970s the SFT would, through the local dailies and village barazas, advertise and invite applications for allocation of land in recently created settlement schemes. These schemes were constituted from the farms that the SFT had acquired from the white farmers. The conscious process of designing these schemes involved several steps. First was the amalgamation of parcels and sub-division by use of aerial surveys into economically viable units, including the provision of access roads. This was followed by conversion of the land registration system from the complex Registration of Titles Act (RTA) to the simpler Registered Land Act (RLA) which was borrowed from Australia. Along with that, the government made loans available not only for the purchase of land, but also for the acquisition of livestock, farm inputs and other developments. These loans, which were part of a revolving fund, were administered by the SFT.
As individuals responded to the advertisements and applied for allocation of land, grassroots leadership and enterprise were ultimately critical to the ways in which communities organised to make the best of the emergent SFT opportunities. For instance, it was the power of what John Lonsdale defines as positive ethnicity that saw the Maragoli community congregate to purchase SFT land in Lugari District which, though it lies in Western Province, was part of the White Highlands. Matunda Scheme, which straddles Rift Valley and Western Province, attracted the Abanyore people. Likewise the close-knit Abagusii people drew each other into significant purchase of the Sinyerere Settlement Scheme in Trans Nzoia District. There was no political patronage in this manner of settlement. Rather, it was solely the desire for productive land that drove these traditionally agricultural communities to participate in these schemes.
It is worth noting that even in the 1980s, under former President Moi’s regime, the SFT continued to acquire land. In Kipkabus, Uasin Gishu District, SFT took over a large parcel from East African Tanning Extract Co. Ltd (EATEC), a Lonrho subsidiary. Through sponsored economic mobility and political patronage it was allocated to members of the Kalenjin community.
Because of the publicity surrounding it, the fourth pattern of resettlement in the Rift Valley in the late 1960s and early 1970s overshadows all of the above. Perhaps on account of the elaborate organisational infrastructure attending to it and the entrepreneurial genius required to enable its proper realisation, references to this pattern of resettlement invariably carry grave misrepresentations. The venture capitalists who conceived this scheme saw an opportunity in the mobilisation of low income earners for the purchase of large-scale white-owned farms. They therefore set up public companies and in some instances cooperative societies. These became the vehicles through which they raised capital from the masses and then acquired farms that were being offered for sale on a willing buyer-willing seller basis. Examples of this abound, and records of the companies and their transactions should be readily available from the advocates who oversaw these processes. In Kitale, the Abagusii acquired a parcel that they renamed North Kisii while the Maragoli mobilised to purchase what was later to be known as Bidii Farm. Another group from the same community bought Vihiga Farm in Soy Divison. In Uasin Gishu, a group of Kalenjins set up Kapkures Farm Ltd and bought land in Moiben Division. Others bought land in Lessos through Barkeiwo Farm Ltd while Kaplogoi Estates Ltd and Sessia Farm Ltd made good of other opportunities within the district. The populous Gikuyu formed several land-buying companies, the most famous of which were Gema (Gikuyu, Embu Meru Association), Ngwataniro, and Nyakinyua and all of which bought land in the Rift Valley as well as in Central Province.
Farms such as Kiambaa, Kimuri, Yamumbi and Kondoo in Uasin Gishu District which are at the heart of the on-going violent post-election evictions were purchased by land-buying companies of this nature. In the initial years, the farms that were acquired in this manner remained as large-scale parcels and were only sub-divided through presidential edict in 1981. This edict by former President Moi was aimed at undercutting the growing influence of the venture capitalists who had used land-buying companies as a springboard for electoral politics. The names that immediately come to mind are Kihika Kimani, Njenga Karume and Stephen Kairo. The result of the sub-division was the creation of tiny parcels of land that were then transferred to the low-income shareholders who had formed the original land-buying companies.
Alongside land-buying companies in the willing buyer-willing seller resettlement model were transactions between departing white settlers and individual members of the emergent African elite. This class had access to funding from the Agricultural Finance Corporation (AFC) and was drawn from across the ethnic divide. Thus one finds large-scale farms in excess of 1,000 acres in the hands of Kalenjins, Gikuyus, Luos, Luhyas, Kisiis and Masaais in the Rift Valley.
The wrath of the Kalenjin peoples over what they consider the appropriation of their ancestral lands is not a new phenomenon, neither does it have its roots in the 1991/1992 ‘land clashes’. As far back as 1969, the Hon. Jean Marie Seroney (MP for Tinderet) had drawn controversy when he authored ‘The Nandi Declaration’ that demanded all non-Nandi vacate the ancestral land of this sub-tribe. The Kenyatta government reacted by imprisoning Seroney for sedition but his ideas did not die. Ironically, in 1991/1992 Moi and his foot soldiers were to adopt Seroney’s template for ethnic exclusivity (expanded to encompass the larger Kalenjin community) by evicting Gikuyus, Luos, Luhyas and Kisiis in their bid to secure political victory in the Rift Valley.
Borrowing from Kenyatta’s example of using land to reward cronies and in some cases emergent national heroes such as athletes and popular musicians, Moi expanded this other form of settlement in the Rift Valley. In the best practice of political patronage, Moi used state forests, demonstration and research land owned by parastatals such as the Agricultural Development Corporation (ADC) and Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI) to reward loyalists largely drawn from his community. This is how a select new elite acquired, at well below the market price, sizeable parcels of prime land in Trans Nzoia, Nandi and Uasin Gishu Districts. Apart from this latter settlement by political protégées all other forms of post-independence settlement in the Rift Valley were essentially valid commercial transactions. They were, in fact, no different from the commercial transactions by which the coffee farms bordering Kiambu District came to be transformed into the residential areas that we now know as Runda, Gigiri, Loresho, Kitisuru, Nyari and Rosslyn.
Towards the end of Moi’s tenure, EATEC decided to divest and sold off 49,000 acres on a willing buyer-wiling seller basis. Even so, these 2001 transactions caught Moi’s eye and he demanded that most of this land be sold to Kalenjins. The top EATEC management that had been summoned to State Lodge in Eldoret provided Moi with a list to prove that they had indeed taken cognisance of this concern.
Contrary to what has so often been posited as an irrefutable fact, there are several reasons why the eviction of non-indigenous communities from the Rift Valley has had nothing to do with the so-called ‘land question’. Indeed this systematic on-going violence is not about remedying of past injustices, land scarcity, growing impoverishment of the Kalenjin or protests against the outcome of the flawed December 2007 General Election. To keep repeating that the Gikuyu got to the Rift Valley through presidential favour fails to explain how the Kambas, Luhyas and Kisiis, who have never produced a president, became land owners and flourished in the Rift Valley. And if indeed it is the declaration of Mwai Kibaki as president that is the offending spark, then why are non-Gikuyus under attack?
Further, if this violence is about the pressure or scarcity of land, these issues would not wait to crop up in every election year. Does it take one five years to realize that they have a neighbour whose presence prevents them from tilling a larger piece of land or using that land to pursue some other profitable business? Given the vast state machinery that former President Moi had at his disposal from the end of 1978 he would long have righted purported land injustices against the Kalenjin. That he only picked up ‘the land question’ at the onset of multi-party politics in 1991 proves that his motivation was never simply the restitution of land to the Kalenjin. Rather, the clashes were instigated for political expediency.
The third reason why these aggressions are not about the scarcity of land is that the huge tracts of highly productive agricultural land in the hands of elite Kalenjins, a select caucus of the political class across the ethnic divide, non-Kenyan multinationals and Kenyan white and Indian farmers have never been the target of land invasion and redistribution. Genuine pressure for land would not be so selective in choosing the enemy. Indeed, pressure for land would not lead a Kalenjin man to drive out his Gikuyu wife as has happened in the current crisis.
Fourthly, in the on-going crisis the Gikuyus, Kisiis and Luhyas (on the Kapsabet-Vihiga border) who have been targeted for eviction have been given no notice to vacate. Were it simply about land, one would have expected the matter to stop upon their expulsion. That the Kalenjin warriors have designed an elaborate mechanism for vetting and exterminating fleeing residents at roadblocks signals that their goal is not the simple take-over of land. Further, the aggressors have gone so far as to follow victims who have already deserted the land and taken refuge in churches. The burning of these sacred sites and the inhuman killing of those who had taken refuge therein raises urgent questions about the moral ethos driving the Kalenjin community.
Claims such as Kipchumba Some’s in the Daily Nation of 9 February 2008 that the Kalenjin have reacted to their neighbours with so much aggression because they have been impoverished after selling their land to these ‘outsiders’ are ludicrous. For in the sale transactions that have taken place over the years, the Kalenjin were never robbed of their land, they always got market value for it. In 2001 EATEC was prevailed upon by Moi to reduce the sale prices and they did. Many Kalenjins who later sold what they had acquired from EATEC made profits of well over 600% within a space of six years. If their investments from these profits have not paid off, they can not now forcefully reacquire what they freely and voluntarily sold. It is akin to the original owners of Runda, Gigiri, Loresho, Nyari, Kitisuru and Rosslyn citing growing poverty and therefore coming to reclaim their ‘lost’ lands by burning the residences that diverse people have invested in.
It is clear that the passions and goals that have repeatedly driven the Kalenjin community in these intermittent spates of violence emanate from somewhere else. In each instance, they have targeted as the enemy communities whose industry has transformed the landscape of the Rift Valley economy. What drives them to attack these peoples and the means by which they have been galvanized for the onslaughts ought to be the subject of thorough investigation. A solution that looks to the restitution of ‘Kalenjin land’ will not be sufficient to address their imagined exclusion from profitable enterprise. The much-needed process of unearthing the driving impetus of the pre-planned evictions and murders, of finding lasting solutions and restoring harmony, is the rightful work of a Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission.
*Horace N. Gisemba is a former resident of Uasin Gishu District.
**Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org
Pambazuka News 358: Zimbabwe and Kenya: uncertainties and lessons
Pambazuka News 358: Zimbabwe and Kenya: uncertainties and lessons
http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/358/46928powershare.jpgAs Zimbabwe threatens to pull a 'Kenya', this is a good time to consider the implications of the Annan mediated power-sharing deal. Antony Otieno Ong'ayo dissects and weighs the Kenya power sharing deal.
While the tensions and apprehension as a result of the post election violence in Kenya subsides, focus is now placed on the newfound relationship between the antagonists during the 2007 elections. More important are the hopes of thousands who have been since the onset of electoral violence, displaced and still live in degrading conditions in various camps in the country. Business in various parts of the country seem to return to “normal” although large sections of the population are not sure of what will come next? Commentators have pointed to the optimism about the peace agreement between Raila Odinga and Mwai Kibaki; however, less attention is being given to the implications of the deal for governance and state restructuring.
In the recent past, two positions have defined the discussion about power in Kenyan politics. This begun with the commencement of the Bomas constitutional review process, where one position has been against devolution of powers, arguing that two centres of power is not workable. The other view is that devolution of powers is possible within a framework that provides for accountability in the highest office in the land. However interest-ridden views and adversarial approach hijacked the debate hence, a stalemate in finding a best alternative. Proponents of centralised power, failed to justify that position, except for suggestions that doing so is likely to lead into chaos and disunity. They did not state what benefits the country has enjoyed under such a system since independence. Their arguments seem to ignore the historical injustices caused by a presidential system with concentrated powers, a system that took the country through decades of authoritarianism and dictatorship. The previous presidents abused these enormous powers; hence politicised ethnicity that now threatens to tear the country apart. Through their abuse of power, the country continued to experience high levels of poverty, illiteracy and high unemployment rates, leave alone poor roads, lack of health and educational facilities. They used this power to detain opponents and allocate resources in a skewed manner to their own regions. They used the power to employ their own kinsmen in the armed forces, state corporations, and government departments without regard for the multiethnic composition of the country. Moreover if the centralised system was meant for the unity of the country, ethnic tensions that have plagued the country for decades is but a sign that the much touted unity was a coerced unification or a unity/peace that was forced, first by the colonial state and later by the three post-colonial regimes. These regimes did not take into account the institutional and constitutional arrangements that would pull every group towards the centre, but instead, adopted a system which broadly kept them under one (“roof”) territory, at the same time keeping them apart as much as possible. The economic and political marginalisation of certain regions in Kenya is a manifestation that the system was and is still not conducive for a country with a complex mix of diversity.
The common contradictions in the two positions are however inherent in the views of when change is necessary, which is also informed by which “group”, is in power. The attitude in Kenya is that if our man is in power, then nothing is wrong with the system, hence no need to re-negotiate or restructure the state. The malgovernance problem in Kenya, which lies in the elaborate power structure built up around the presidency, is also synonymous with the state structure. This has been done through minor constitutional change that entrenched the status quo in which “elite minority” monopolise state power and resources and in most cases in the name of an ethnic group. During the process there are extremists who have shown through their power strategy mix that they do not think about long-term interests of the entire country, instead, they are focused on short-term benefits and to have a place in the ‘grand coalition’. This rush to create positions without reflecting on how the very institutions could serve the country well undermines their potentials to diffuse the tension around access to and use of state power. All over sudden, both the opponents and proponents of centralised power are “silent”, and are not questioning the implications of this new arrangement for “national unity”. Therefore would the 2008 Bill be that different from its predecessor bills?
The concept of power sharing has been used in many contexts as a response to conflicts ranging from ethnicity, political differences of resources allocation and use, a means of setting up governing coalition in context where political parties have failed to win majority seats in parliament or in post-conflict situations where multiple actors who represent diverse backgrounds seek to control the state power. Power sharing it is also seen as “a multiple vehicle to create broad-based governing coalitions of a society's significant groups in a political system that provides influence to legitimate representatives of minority groups." It is also described as “a strategy for resolving disputes over who should have the most powerful position in the social hierarchy”. But it also implies a joint exercise of power where such an agreement is reached. While Kenya cannot be described as a deeply divided polity or experienced conflicts of a highly intense nature, enormous powers in the presidency have been used to “command monopolistic access to available resources, to employ violence and exclusion to safeguard interests”.
RELEVANCE IN THE KENYAN CONTEXT
While application of power sharing agreements might entail “the creation of broad-based coalition of significant groups, in a political system”, in the case of Kenya, it is however not a power sharing or negotiation between “ethnic minority groups”, but between an “elite minority”. The majority of “minority groups” that would have qualified for consideration under this conception are not part of the deal being signed in Nairobi nor are they represented in any way. For instance, those minority groups that are politically and economically marginalised, such as the Ogieks, Jemps, Rendile, are not represented in the process. Instead, we see some form of representation based on “political parties” even though some of them have no “official structures” other than in paper. This is because the political competition in Kenya has been between the dominant forces against the citizenry, and with the advent of multiparty, it has been between political parties that are individualistic, and disconnected with the citizenry they claim to represent, while at the same time using or whipping ethnic feelings for political expediency. So what difference would it make with the new power-sharing arrangement? This scenario raises problems with representation, but also aspects of collaboration and block building, which could reflect consociational arrangements that takes care of the interests of minority groups at the political table.
In the foregoing, Kenya of today demands some level of patriotism and commitment to the principles of effective representation and leadership for change. In order to bring back the confidence of Kenyans on leadership and use of power there is need to turn these negative and dangerous trends around, through power sharing. But this could also be problematic if there will be no equity and fair play through properly constituted institutions of the state. Turning the current volatile politics into a more amicable order is crucial, because a less conflictual politics would lead to and prompt elite disposition towards political accommodation and adoption of non-majoritarian political arrangements. Therefore what does the current power sharing deal mean for the ordinary Kenyan whose life has been disrupted or cut short by the police bullet, gang machete, or tribal fire? What are the long-term implications of this re-negotiation for governance in Kenya? What precedence would it set in the context of contested election results in the future? From a political and constitutional law perspectives, many important questions have not been asked while there is a rush to return to “normal” life. High hopes have been placed on the deal between Raila and Kibaki, but not much is asked whether it is the medicine Kenya needs for the many constitutional and institutional defects and deficiencies, that have plagued the country for decades. It is therefore crucial to question whether the deal is a step towards deal a long-term goal to devolution of powers or decongestion of the system from Presidentialism, which has been at the core of governance deficiency in Kenya? Is the current power sharing deal any different from previous manipulation of the system to serve partisan interests? What is the role of the citizenry in the process of state restructuring of this magnitude, and during a contested legitimacy?
IMPLEMENTATION OF THE PEACE ACCORD
It is hoped that the peace accord, would be entrenched in the constitution, peace would return and that some level of democratic governance, equity and accountability, would be realised, however the accord as legally framed does not take into the account the stability, cushioning and democratic governance role of the very institutions it is creating. The bill provides for the “insertion” of a new section into the constitution but at the same time (in section 15 A (3) (a) provides for its termination at the whims of the parliament. Here too the drafters either intentional ignored the interest-ridden nature of parliamentary politics in Kenya, or potentials for “stomach philosophy” to carry the day and not constitutional considerations that matter to the millions of impoverished Kenyans. With such discrepancies, implementation of the accord might not entail the prospects for fostering a durable peace or devolution of powers that many Kenyans desire. This is because the “deal” and the “bills” are not about the internally displaced; land squatters, voters whose right was violated during the 2007 elections, nor it is for posterity, it seems to solve the differences between “elite minorities”.
Another concern is the way in which various groups are making claim to diverse stakes. Power sharing often includes reviewing such key institutions as “federalism and the devolution of power to ethnic groups in territories that they control; or providing for minority vetoes on issues of particular importance; grand coalition cabinets in a parliamentary framework, and proportionality in all spheres of public life such as budgeting and civil service appointments”. Taking this path in Kenya has implications for “ethnic” re-orientation” in the face of state re-negotiation and could present further obstacles to reconciliation, national cohesion and efforts towards a national identity. Un realistic power sharing will not augur well for development of issue oriented political parties since “ethnicity” and other particularistic considerations would come first in the national psyche. All signs point to some kind of elite mobilisation, bankrolling and interference with state apparatus to bolster their power at the centre, which is currently being negotiated. Therefore if power sharing is done with these factors as the underlying forces, then it will “reinforce the ethnic divisions in society rather than promote cross-cultural understanding”
The power-sharing deal also falls short of addressing the very factors that underpinned the post-election violence namely the decades of political and economic marginalisation, and the deprivation of millions of Kenyans, spanning generations to realise their full potentials as citizens of Kenya. It fails to address the problems of non-democratic governance, politicised ethnicity, draconian and defective constitutional order whose beneficiaries are local elites in collaboration with international interests. The deal fails to address the system of exploitation and expropriation the national resources in the name of millions of Kenyans who toil under harsh labour conditions and dehumanising wages. It also fails to address the relationship between various institutions within the broader governance structure that could directly link and relate to local needs, participatory democratic processes and decision-making.
POINTS FOR REFLECTION
The contents of the accord could still be fine-tuned to give it substance, through an integrative approach, to “eschew ethnic groups as the building blocks of a common society”. Power sharing in this direction can entail re-designing of the institutional and constitutional frameworks to provide for "centripetalism," whereby political dynamics are engineered in a “centre-oriented spin”. Examples include “multiethnic political parties, electoral systems that encourage pre-election pacts across ethnic lines, non-ethnic federalism that diffuses points of power, and public policies that promote political allegiances that transcend groups”. Recent political realignments have shown that there are potentials for ethnic accommodation due to crosscutting interests.
Another consideration is for the power sharing to move towards a group block building approach, a form of “consociationalism” in which there is an accommodation of the various “ethnic-groups” at the political centre and guarantees for minority rights. Such an approach might not necessarily lead to demands for autonomy because the interdependency of the various regions and groups within Kenya would not allow such a framework to function. This interdependency is caused by unequal availability of resources, un-equal infrastructure development, and disparities in climatic conditions with serious implication for food production or subsistence economy, which is still common in most part of Kenya. However a consociational arrangement could also lead to an outcome that “reflects the divisions in society but fails to provide incentives for building bridges across community lines”, hence the need for a framework, that encourages the various groups to identify with the state. This is also possible if the institutional framework and constitutional dispensation provides for receiving “something” back from the state regardless of “ethnicity”.
A "consociational" framework could also encourage collaborative decision-making, policy formulation and budgetary allocations that reflect the diversity of the Kenyan citizenry. The reality is that only through a broad based dialogue that the country can chart its way forward in these times of intensified globalisation. Arendt Lijphart maintains, “consociational democracy is the most viable structural model of politics for multiethnic societies”. But this is only possible if there is a political will, combined with the “will of the capital”, foreign forces and interests. Crucial at this juncture is a system that provides for institutional independence, holds people in power accountable and that decision-making is “consociational” as much as possible. It is only through centripetalism that all Kenyans would feel that they “belong” not just in words, but also through the policies of equity. The on-going power sharing therefore needs to look beyond Raila and Kibaki, focus on improving governance, accountability, equity and national cohesion and foster a common identity. It should also lead to institutional re-engineering to cater for governance conflicts. Although there exists a contrary notion that “fundamental conflicts in segmented politics cannot be solved by constitution writing and constitutional engineering”, it is also recognised that “rules can restructure a political system and cause changes in the game where there is some determination to obey the rules”.
Finally, re-thinking of an integrative approach would be a viable option. These would include “making persuasive appeals to people on the other side (usually focused on common values, goals, or needs), offering apologies and/or forgiveness for past deeds, seeking areas of commonality, reversing the de-humanisation process and building trust with opponents”. Integrative options are noted to be “less expensive to implement than force based options, and they are often more successful, as they do not generate the level of resistance and backlash that force often does”. Non-the less, how and whether the process will be taken seriously is a matter that heavily depends on the contents of the peace accord, its implementation, and acceptability by the citizenry. The success of the on-going power sharing however depends on whether the “grand coalition” would survive the conflict of interest and destructive confrontation, which are the hallmarks of Kenyan politics.
*Antony Otieno Ong’ayo is a researcher at the Transnational Institute, Amsterdam.
**Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org
Pambazuka News 356: Is Mugabe soon to be history?
Pambazuka News 356: Is Mugabe soon to be history?
Thank you very much for posting the three thought-provoking, sensible and reflective essays with differing perspectives on the impact of Obama [http://www.pambazuka.org/en/issue/current]. They offer in complementing ways to outsiders like me additional understanding of how to read some of the substantive contentious issues. With this posting, Pambazuka News shows once again its relevance in information sharing.
I've finished reading Prof. Campbell's comments [http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/46809], and I can see that he is enthusiastic, encouraged, and hopeful regarding the candidacy of Barack Obama. But I had to wade through way too many words to find his actual points, and many of those words were confusing. I long to read clearly expressed incisive thought, and this just doesn't qualify. Perhaps there is an in-crowd who shares a common understanding of some of the terms that are opaque to me, and I'm not part of that group.
I'm left wondering, what are "new self-organizing tools for self-emancipation" (is this a reference to robotics?), and "self-similar processes being developed in spaces of peace, spaces of hope and non-racialized spaces"? Not only what, but where, are such spaces found?
And this statement: "Decent Christians are now seeking the gospel of peace and love instead of hate and religious fundamentalism." Is that "decent Christians" as opposed to "indecent" Christians? I've met some Christians, as well as non-Christians, who've been seeking the gospel of peace and love for a long time now. If this is a change, is Prof. Campbell suggesting that it's been brought about by Barack Obama?
What is "this methodical organizing like the repetition of self-similarity"? What is the "scaling pattern of Obama"?
"This leap has been reinforced by the nested loops of new social networks wired through the spaces of the information revolution". Perhaps I'm to understand this as poetry.
"Safe and clean neighborhoods, children who are reared to respect all human beings and a society that support (sic) repair of the planet earth awaits these new self-organizing forces." Exactly which forces are those? In my view, these requirements wait for no politician or political force, but are the direct responsibility of individual citizens. No parent can put off teaching respect for all humanity until the right politician appears on the scene. If our neighborhoods are unclean and/or unsafe, it's our fault, not the fault of "politics". In my view, each individual is responsible for the space s/he occupies.
My message: reading this piece was largely a frustrating experience.
Good article by Roselyn Musa [http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/panafrican/46518] but I think African advocates of women's rights have a really long way to go and must work more using a results based approach rather than the 'satisfy the donor' approach. While the former will help us sincerely adress our problems with a preparedness to make appropriate sacrifices capable of recording change, the latter tends to tie us down with the atittude of struggling to merely carry out an activity and reporting back to donor that the activity has been implemented. In this latter situation, we tend to 'sleep again until some other donor advances more money for another activity'. So we just keep going round and round in the real sense of it!
To what extent are African women's rights activists prepared to endure pains and stresses that necessarily come up in the sincere struggle for the realization of women's human rights? To what extent are members of the women's human rights community willing to lay aside differences and struggles for personal recognition & power which we so often exhibit at the expense of the overall interest of women's cause?
We need to address all of these issues to be able to move faster along the already tight rope to the realisation of women's rights. Experiences from being a part organizer of a just concluded 'Kaduna State Women's 2008 Peaceful Walk', in demand of respect for women's human rights organized in Kaduna State of northern Nigeria, convinced me that women need to go back to the drawing board in their vision, strategy and purpose in actvisism.
Look out for a detailed report of this activity which happened on 11th March 2008: A lot to learn indeed!
We would like to extend a warm thank you to Grace Kwinjeh, a Zimbabwean journalist based in South Africa whose active assistance made this issue possible.
A Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA) summary of a report that looks at the suppression of women's political voices
http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/356/46868woza.jpgWomen of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA) launched a report detailing the political violence experienced by their members in Harare on Wednesday 19 March 2008 at an event attended by diplomats, civic society leaders and members of WOZA and MOZA. The report is entitled "The effects of fighting repression WITH LOVE".
The report is a result of research conducted by WOZA on what violations its members have gone through as women human rights defenders and who the perpetrators of these abuses are. The report was launched to make public the findings and to urgently draw attention to the risks faced by women activists as Zimbabwe braces itself for an election. It is intended that those who read the report will be motivated to take action to remedy the damage done to millions of people's lives by a violent dictatorship.
The meeting was chaired by WOZA's partners, Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights, who vocalised their praise for the detail in the report and for the need for the women human rights defenders to be respected and for there to be justice for the abuses. ZLHR Board member and lawyer, Sarudzai Njerere said, 'the report is an important tool in documenting what Zimbabweans have experienced' and that 'we should all join WOZA in standing up for social justice".
Prominent activist and WOZA trustee, Mary Ndlovu launched the report by giving a brief outline of its contents. She highlighted that it encompasses the police response to peaceful protests by WOZA; that the majority of women interviewed reported multiple human rights violations; that it is apparent that police would like to intimidate and deter women from participation and that the police are in violation of domestic and regional professional codes and are committing criminal law offences all of which call for punishment although none seems to be forthcoming due to a breakdown and partial way the justice system now operates.
She went on to point out that the Zimbabwean government officials who give order to beat or detain the human rights defenders render Zimbabwe in violation of its own constitution and in breach of obligations under international law.
Two WOZA members also gave testimonies of their experiences at the hands of the Uniformed Branch and Law and Order department of the ZRP. One woman in the company of her four-year-old daughter, testified about their arrest and detention in horrid conditions for three days in 2004, well over the 48hour detention period permitted under the Public Order and Security Act (POSA). Her daughter was only three months old at the time and she only had two nappies with her and had to fight to access water to wash them when they became soiled. When members of WOZA tried to send disposable nappies in for her baby, police officers misappropriated them and she never received them. Despite this and further arrests and beatings, she remains an active member of WOZA.
Another woman testified that she had been abducted from her home in Bulawayo with her 18-month-old grandchild at 4am by Law and Order officers. They threatened to kill her by throwing her and the child in a dam. She had also been seriously beaten across the breasts by police and had to undergo extended medical treatment. These testimonies are indicative of the experiences of peaceful activists and reflective of the physical and mental torture they undergo in fighting for their basic freedoms to be realised.
WOZA National Coordinator, Jenni Williams, outlined the recommendations highlighted in the report. She also went on to say that in the light of WOZA's recent experience in Bulawayo on the 8th March 2008, International Women's Day, where over 50 members were brutalised, just weeks before the upcoming 29 March election, a free and fair climate for elections does not exist.
The report calls on the Zimbabwean government to immediately end violence against its citizens and on the Zimbabwe Republic Police to honour their commitment to the Police Act and the SARPCCO Code of Conduct for police officers. It also calls on the Southern African Development Community (SADC) to support human rights defenders rather than oppressive governments that deny people their domestically and internationally guaranteed rights and on the African Union (AU) to isolate representatives of the Zimbabwe government and any other government that fails to abide by its obligations under international law to respect human rights.
The international community was also called on to recognize the contribution of WOZA members as human rights defenders, and assist in the documentation and publicising of violations so that justice may be served in the future.
A further recommendation is for a Transitional Justice programme. The reports reads, "We call on Zimbabweans and non-Zimbabweans alike to assist in putting into place a mechanism which satisfies the wishes of the Zimbabwean people to see not retribution, but justice, truth and reconciliation, so that the guilty can do penance and the victims can feel healed of the many wounds they have suffered at the hands of state agents."
Whilst the report made mention of the trauma experienced by WOZA women as a result of their experiences, it was felt that the findings are significant enough to be released in a separate report due for release soon. What is clear however is that the women have experienced more trauma in an independent Zimbabwe than in pre-Independence period.
*To read the full report, please visit:
** Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at www.pambazuka.org
Mary Ndlovu argues that in spite of the obstacles placed by ZANU-PF, Zimbabwean people must at a minimum strive to vote Mugabe out of power and elect a leadership that will unite Zimbabwe, rebuild the economy and deliver justice and healing as opposed to revenge
http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/356/46869mugabe.jpgAnyone trying to predict the outcome of the Zimbabwean election must be either bold or foolhardy or both. No sooner has a prophesy gone to press than a new factor slips into the equation and everything has to be re-calculated. Commentators are reduced to scenarios – and the number of scenarios required to cover all eventualities and twists of fate multiplies by the day.
And yet six short weeks ago it all looked sealed and delivered to Robert Mugabe. Morgan Tsvangirai’s formation of the MDC had refused, against their own party’s and President’s apparent interests, to form a coalition with the Mutambara faction. Without a united opposition, ZANU PF could not fail to win. Nothing would change, our downward rush to disaster would not be halted.
If a week is a long time in politics, six weeks is an eon. Enter Simba Makoni, and it all looked different. For the first time, the long talked-of split in ZANU PF would make a difference at the polling stations. For the first time, there would be a three-way contest for the top position. For the first time, Mugabe might not know who would do his bidding and who would subvert it. For the first time, there could be a run-off vote.
As campaigning has picked up to full steam, several further factors have come into play. The economy deteriorates at a faster pace than ever, with the value of the Zimbabwe dollar dropping by mid March to one tenth of its value in the middle of January. Food is either unavailable or unaffordable, and ZANU PF seems to be short of supplies to give out to their loyal supporters (if they can identify them). The civil service goes on strike and has to be enticed back by massive salary increases, which in fact, it seems will mostly not be paid before the election. Even the army have yet to be paid the amounts promised. The salary increases will further increase the pace of the downward plunge in standards of living as inflation spirals upward.
Even more important, as opposition candidates move into the rural areas, a miracle seems to be happening – the rural voters are awakening from the trance which made them believe that ZANU PF was their party and Robert Mugabe their man.
But the questions only multiply. Who will the rural voters support in place of Mugabe – Makoni or Tsvangirai? And who will they vote for in the parliamentary elections, where instead of the straight ZANU PF-MDC choice of the last three elections, there are sometimes two ZANU PF candidates and two or even three MDC candidates, plus several others, including independents supporting Makoni.
http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/356/46869billb.jpgWhat kind of chaos will result as the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission attempts to stage a highly complex election composed of four ballots being cast and counted in 11,000 polling stations? What will Mugabe do if he realizes that he has lost any possibility of winning the vote and at the same time can’t rely on a dedicated rigging system? Will he rely on the military brass, who insist they will not allow anyone else to win? And will they be able to rely on their troops, reportedly supporting opposition candidates, and even said to be short of ammunition? All or at least some of these questions will be answered very soon, but to try to predict them requires a high level of audacity.
Are there any certainties regarding this election? Two very important ones.
The first is that there is no minutest possibility of a “free and fair” election. Those observers from SADC who boast that it can still be so are only destroying their own credibility. The government has totally ignored amendments to the Electoral Act, to POSA and AIPPA. There is no independent electronic media, there is blatant campaigning for the ruling party in the state media, there is bias in the behaviour of the police, the arrangements for the electoral process are shambolic, with ZEC even having to withdraw some of their own information pamphlets, no meaningful voter education has been allowed, not to mention the chaos of the voters’ roll, the partisan nature of the delimitation which went before and the uneven allocation of polling stations. And now the familiar process of last-minute amendments to the Electoral Act has begun – using the Presidential Powers Act to reverse changes made by agreement during the Mbeki-led mediation
The second certainty is that this election presents the electorate with two tasks: getting rid of the incumbent President in spite of the unevenness of the playing field, and replacing his government with one which can unite Zimbabweans to renew and rebuild the Zimbabwean nation in all its aspects.
http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/356/46869Makoni.jpgAre Zimbabweans capable of using the seriously flawed electoral process to remove Mugabe, or will he manage to hang on once again? That is the first issue, and there is no doubt that with the entry of Simba Makoni into the game, it becomes a distinct possibility. Why? Because Makoni has created the necessary split in ZANU PF, and he has offered a three-way contest. This makes it very difficult for any of the three to win over 50% of the vote. But who will the ZANU PF deserters vote for? Sizes of crowds and results of rudimentary opinion polls can not be relied on, and people in rural areas are still making acquaintance with the challengers. Makoni apparently believed that he needed to present himself as ZANU PF in order to gain the disaffected vote, but he could be wrong. Once the spell is broken, people may desert not only the leader but the party as well. Tsvangirai is reported to be drawing large crowds at rallies in smaller towns, but Makoni too is being greeted with excitement as he whistle-stops through rural areas.
Will the people speak for Makoni, or will they speak for Tsvangirai, and will Mugabe be able to stifle their voices through manipulation of the process? These are the questions that this election should answer.
To look at the last question first. There is no doubt that there is a loosening of the hold of state security over the people, even in Mugabe strongholds. The fear factor and the patronage factor are still there, but their influence will not be as great this time in securing ZANU PF votes. The rigging factor is impossible to calculate. It will surely play some role, but if people vote in large numbers, as it seems they may do, it will be more difficult, it may have to take place at the very top, and the loyalty of the riggers is in any case in doubt.
But all Zimbabweans need to look around and see that the new political landscape requires new responses. They have, like many voters around the world, voted with their emotions and their hearts, demonstrating their loyalties to the parties with which they have long identified, and to individuals whom they trusted to govern them. That is no longer a viable approach to voting. Zimbabweans must learn to think strategically. What vote is most likely to dislodge Robert Mugabe, to end the corrupt and despotic rule of ZANU PF?
A vote for Tsvangirai assumes that his party can win enough votes from ZANU PF to carry the day. Mutambara’s MDC has already declared for Makoni, and there are signs that much of Matabeleland will heed that call. Can Tsvangirai, with so many of his supporters outside the country, retain the rest of his traditional following, and gain a very large number of former ZANU PF voters? Or is Makoni more likely to draw support as a new, fresh face appealing to both disaffected former MDC and former ZANU PF voters, and representing the idea of co-operation rather than polarisation? A vote for Makoni will assume that Tsvangirai’s time has passed and he would not be able to attract enough of ZANU PF to gain large numbers. Zimbabweans have to consider these possibilities carefully, and vote for the one they think is most likely to oust Mugabe.
If this election is primarily about showing Robert Mugabe the door, the key question for voters is which of the two challengers is likely to succeed in drawing more votes.
But the second task is to choose which of the two is more likely to take us into re-building mode selflessly, with the interests of social justice for the people the main motivation. Again, both have baggage – Tsvangirai is dragged down by the self-interested squabbling within his party which begins to look more and more like ZANU-PF itself; their tendency to insult and denigrate other opposition forces instead of seeing them as allies in a common cause is not promising. Makoni will bring with him some ZANU PF loyalists who could not stand up to criticize their party’s evil doings, and others who have been direct beneficiaries of that evil.
http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/356/46869airball.jpgWhat will be needed will be strong leadership which can give the country a new vision of a united people, while curbing any excesses of their adherents. Zimbabwe needs someone who can reach across party lines and treat the sicknesses of hatred and greed, while ensuring that evil-doers do not escape with impunity. Each voter will have to ask himself, not which candidate gains his sympathy, but which candidate can do both jobs.
Political goals cannot be reached in a single leap. This election will not bring social justice in Zimbabwe. But there are critical achievements that can be made through this election:
- Remove Robert Mugabe from power and end his catastrophic rule.
- Put into power a government that can unite the people to embark on the tasks of restoring rule of law, rebuilding the economy, bringing justice not revenge, healing and dignity to Zimbabweans.
We would dream for the achievement of both, but even if only the first is attained we will have taken at least one step forward.
There is of course the possibility that even the first task will fail. But it is clear that there is a seismic shift in the Zimbabwean political scene which has to produce significant change. If it is prevented from coming through the ballot box, then we surely will face some very dark days in Zimbabwe. Many dangers lurk in the coming weeks, whoever is declared the winner. But progressive Zimbabweans must not give way to despair and assume that the election is already pre-determined against us. If we want change through the vote we must hope and believe and work to reach our goals. In spite of all the odds, if Zimbabweans are prepared to overcome fear, to cast aside emotional loyalties, to think and vote strategically, and to keep their eyes on the goals of peace and social justice, much is possible.
*Mary Ndlovu is a Zimbabwean human rights activist.
**Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org
***Also read more of Mary Ndlovu's Zimbabwe analysis.
Blowing Away the Rhetorical Smokescreeens in Zimbabwe
Brian Raftopoulos argues that the SADC mediated talks between ZANU-PF and MDC were undermined by the unwillingness of Zanu PF to allow for a significant opening up of political spaces in the country. He further argues that SADC's endorsement of an outcome that did not take broad democratic principles into account was in effect an endorsement of Mugabe
http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/356/46870map.jpgThe 2007 SADC mandate to South Africa to broker an agreement between Zanu PF and the MDC should be seen as an extension of the “quiet diplomacy” that has been the hallmark of the South African and SADC approach to the Zimbabwe crisis since 2000. It took on an added urgency after the brutal public beating, arrest and torture of opposition and civic leaders in March 2007 and the widespread attacks on the MDC structures that followed thereafter. A combination of international pressure and the obligation by SADC to be seen to be taking action on the Zimbabwe question, led to an Extra-Ordinary SADC Heads of State Summit in Tanzania at the end of March 2007 at which South Africa was given the facilitation mandate on Zimbabwe.
There was widespread cynicism in many quarters both within and outside of Zimbabwe about the possibility of success of such an intervention, given the history of SADC’s supine position on Mugabe’s authoritarian regime. However it also presented an opportunity for national, regional and international forces to navigate a common approach out of the Zimbabwean debacle by reaching a political agreement that would be broadly acceptable to all sides.
For the MDC, weakened by the split in the organization since 2005, there was little alternative to such talks, as other methods of confronting the Mugabe regime had hitherto been handled with characteristic intolerance and repression by Zimbabwe’s ruling party. Mugabe, under strong pressure from SADC to enter the dialogue, had little option but to at least be seen to be willing to talk to the opposition. The South Africans, always keen not to make any interventions on Zimbabwe without regional support, saw this as an opportunity to push their “quiet diplomacy” agenda, and perhaps end up with their longstanding hope for a reasonably free and far election that would result in a Government of National Unity led by a reformed Zanu PF. The EU and the US, long frustrated by Mugabe’s intransigence and the regional and continental solidarity he continued to receive, also had little alternative but to allow the “point man” Mbeki the time to play his hand.
Mbeki started out with the intention that the dialogue between Zanu PF should achieve three objectives. Firstly both parties should endorse the decision to hold parliamentary elections in 2008. Secondly they should agree on the steps that should be taken to ensure that all concerned accept the elections as being truly representative of the “will” of the Zimbabwean people. Thirdly, that there should be agreement by all political parties and “other social forces” on the measures that should be implemented and respected in order to facilitate a legitimate election. The “other social forces” referred to the civil society groups who were cast in a more or less supporting role in the whole play.
Towards the end of 2007 the facilitation had, in the words of the MDC, reached “significant but not full consensus” on a number of areas in a political agreement covering issues of violence, sanctions, land, abuse of traditional leaders and food aid. The talks themselves, begun in an atmosphere of enormous distrust, appeared to have made some progress, with Zanu PF swallowing the bitter pill of negotiating with an opposition party that it had since 1999 labeled a foreign construction.
The dialogue also provided the divided MDC with an opportunity to work together as joint negotiating partners, even as attempts to re-unite the two formations were continuing parallel to the SADC facilitation. Discussions on the various aspects of the SADC dialogue added to the urgency of the need for the two MDC’s to at last work towards an election pact that would allow them to fight the 2008 Presidential and general elections together. Moreover it was clear to the MDC negotiators that if the talks were to break down with Zanu PF it had to be seen to be the fault of Mugabe’s party, and not due to any obstructiveness on the part of the opposition.
As matters transpired it was precisely the intransigence of Zanu PF and the unwillingness of Zanu PF to allow for a significant opening up of political spaces in the country, that lead to an impasse in the negotiations at the end of 2007. Notwithstanding some small changes to the media and public order legislation, the ruling party proved unwilling to make substantive changes on the issues that would affect the transitional political arrangements that would precede the 2008 elections. At the centre of the political deadlock that emerged in December 2007 were three areas: the date of the election; the timeframe for the implementation of the agreed reforms; and the process and modality of the making and enactment of a new constitution. Mugabe’s unilateral proclamation of the election date for 2008, outside of an agreement of these substantive issues, effectively put an end to the SADC facilitation process.
The SADC announcement on the 4th February 2008 that Mbeki’s facilitation had resulted in the political parties reaching an “agreement on all substantive matters relating to the political situation in Zimbabwe” and that the matters outstanding were merely procedural, was the worst kind of political dishonesty. What might have been a principled stand by the outgoing President Mbeki turned into another disgraceful endorsement of the politics of a repressive regime.
The SADC has once again demonstrated its inability to distinguish between Africa’s concern for imperialist interventions, and its commitment to the democratic and human rights of the region’s citizens. It has subordinated the latter to a grubby solidarity with a repressive political regime that has transformed a lofty Pan Africanist discourse into a spurious attempt to legitimize a authoritarian political project. The regional organization had an opportunity to send an unambiguous message to Mugabe that unless he fulfilled the objective of establishing the conditions for a broadly acceptable free and fair election, he could not expect the customary solidarity of SADC. Such a position could have changed the dynamic of Zimbabwean politics decisively and helped to ensure that further intransigence on Mugabe’s part would be met with stronger censure in the region.
That SADC once again took the line of least resistance has demonstrated its lack of commitment to questions of democratic principle, and its priority of protecting libration leaders who have long failed their citizens. However perhaps a Makoni victory in the forthcoming elections will satisfy the need by some SADC members for a reformed Zanu PF solution, for a long time the real objective of “quiet diplomacy.”
*Brian Raftopoulos, Director of Research, Solidarity Peace Trust. This article first appeared in the Mail and Guardian.
** Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org
In response to Truth commissions and prosecutions: Two sides of the same coin? [http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/46719]. I just finished reading "A Human Being Died That Night: Forgiving Apartheid's Chief Killer" by Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela. I had a meeting with Elazar Barkan about my work in Liberia on collecting stories from Victim and Perpetrators in Liberia making them talk on the radio about what had happen to them during the war and what (perpetrators) did during the war in Liberia. How both Victims and Perpetrators felt when it was happening to them as a Victim and the how Perpetrators how felt when they were hurting people.
I worked with the Liberia TRC trying to talk to the Perpetrators to be part of the TRC processs in Liberia. Since they have beening coming on my radio program to talk about what they did during the war, they also needed to go to the TRC. The TRC has been charged with the responsibility of investigating the root causes of the conflict in Liberia, amplifying historical truths. If this is the work of the Liberia TRC then the Perpetrators have to be part of the Liberia TRC.
You ask: Are TRC's designed to generate more truth, more justice, reparations, and genuine institutional reform? Or are they designed to undermine the State’s and society’s legal, ethical and political obligations to their people? I have asked myself this question alot.
Again you say "Truth commissions have been multiplying rapidly around the world and gaining increasing attention in recent years. They are proposed for different reasons and driven by diverse motives. They can be used firstly, for the purpose of national reconciliation and in the interests of the society; secondly, sometimes they can be used to avoid accountability or prosecution and merely to shield an offender from justice." If we are going to have TRC in Africa after conflicts - are we going to have the same type of South Africa TRC?
In Sierra Leone there was a TRC. How did was it at the end? Did the people of Sierra Leone get Justice? After theTRC finished its work and gave its recommendations, did the Sierra Leone Government adopt them? How can the Liberia TRC learn from these two TRCs? What will Happen to the Kenya TRC?
We have to see what will work for us in Africa after our conflicts. There are so many tensions between Truth Commissions and Prosecution in Liberia. Prince Yormie (or Yeomi) Johnson is a Liberian political and former military figure. He was elected to serve as a senator in the Liberian congress in the historic 2005 election. Johnson was born in Nimba County, in the east-central interior of the country.
In 1990, Johnson was allied with Charles Taylor as part of the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL), which crossed the border from Côte d'Ivoire and began operations in Liberia on Christmas Eve, 1989. However, an internal power struggle resulted in Prince Johnson leading a faction of fighters which he named the Independent National Patriotic Front of Liberia (INPFL).
In spite of ECOMOG opposition, INPFL forces captured most of the capital, Monrovia, late in the summer of 1990, and Johnson's supporters abducted President Samuel Doe at ECOMOG headquarters, the Free Port of Liberia. Although Johnson has recently denied killing Doe, there is no question that Doe was brutally executed in Johnson's custody on September 9, 1990, as the spectacle was videotaped and seen on news reports around the world. The video shows Johnson sipping a Budweiser as Doe's ear is dismembered. Ahmadou Kourouma also accused Prince Johnson of war crimes (abduction and torture of several Firestone's executives) in his book "Allah is not obliged". Shortly after Doe's death, Johnson allied with UN-supported ECOMOG peacekeepers in capturing the Liberian capital.
Subsequently, Johnson briefly claimed the presidency of Liberia in the fall of 1990. His claims ended following the consolidation of rebel power by his rival Charles Taylor of the NPFL. In an attempt by the weak national government to reconstruct Liberian politics, the INPFL was recognized at a conference held in Guinea, where Amos Sawyer was elected president. However, Johnson was forced to flee to Nigeria in fear of rebel forces supporting Taylor. He returned to Liberia in March 2004, stating his intention to return to politics by running for a senate seat in Nimba County; however, he left Liberia again on 7 April, apparently due to death threats he had received from the country's dominant rebel group, the Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD). In the October 11, 2005 elections, Johnson contested and won a Senate seat representing Nimba County, in spite of having a reputation for wartime brutality and having committed gross human rights abuses. He is the chair of the Senate's defense committee. Can we have him prosecuted in Liberia? How long will it take and how much money will the government spend on him? After all, he is a Senator in the same Liberia where he commited Human Rights abuses.
Pambazuka News 355: Obama at the crossroads of a revolution?
Pambazuka News 355: Obama at the crossroads of a revolution?
More than a week after the launch of an army operation to flush out the Sabaot Land Defence Force (SLDF) in Mount Elgon, a district along the border with Uganda, the fugitive chief of the outlawed militia has reportedly urged an end to the campaign, but remained defiant towards government.
Efforts to meet international development goals must focus on empowering women, Deputy UN Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro said in a speech delivered at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. "Empowering women is not just an end in itself; it is a prerequisite for reaching all of the Millennium Development Goals our common vision to build a better world in the 21st century," she said of the targets, known as MDGs, that aim to slash a host of global ills by 2015.
A meningitis epidemic has killed 519 people out of 5,046 cases reported in Burkina Faso since the start of January, new health ministry figures said Thursday. Ousmane Badolo, a ministry epidemiologist told AFP "we've gone over the 500- dead mark". Dr Badolo said that of 16 affected districts in Burkina Faso, the outbreak had reached epidemic levels in eight. The last official figures issued on March 9 reported 441 deaths out of 4,061 cases.
The Government of Namibia declared a state of emergency on 5 March 2008 in light of the current localised floods in North and North-East Namibia, particularly in the regions of Omusati, Oshikoto, Oshana, Ohangwena and Caprivi. The floods are due to the above average rainfall during January and February 2008 and the inflow of water from the Cuvelai river system in southern Angola.
The Zambezi, Púngoè, Búzi and Licungo River basins in central Mozambique registered heavy rains during the past 48 hours, including 185mm in Beira City. River levels rose slightly but remain below alert levels. The rains are a reminder that the rainy season is not over yet and officials are warning populations that live and work near the central region rivers to move themselves and their belongings to higher ground.
South Africa has called on rich nations to spell out whether cash for a climate change technology fund was new money, and said it was unhelpful of them to label big developing countries "major emitters". Environment Minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk, speaking on the sidelines of a meeting of G20 energy and environment ministers near Tokyo, also called for greater clarity on the management of World Bank-administered climate funds.
Building an appropriate architecture of global institutions that are well positioned, rational, and well-governed remains a key political challenge, said south African Finance Minister Trevor Manuel on Tuesday. Manuel indicated that "poorer" countries needed a greater voice in these institutions.
China wants up to 40 percent of its oil and gas imports to come from Africa in the next 5-10 years, a Chinese industry official has said. "We wish to increase the imports, the oil and gas from Africa from 35 to 40 percent in the next five to 10 years," Zhiming Zhao, executive president of China Petroleum and Petro-Chemical Industry Association told reporters at an energy conference in Cape Town.
On the eve of the March 29, 2008 presidential and parliamentary elections in Zimbabwe, with Robert Mugabe in power since 28 years and seeking another term as President, the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, a joint programme of the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT), is publishing a report entitled ZIMBABWE: Run up to the March 29 Presidential and Parliamentary Elections - A Highly Repressive Environment for Human Rights Defenders.
Rural women living with HIV in circumstances of poverty in South Africa face discrimination in relationships and in communities because of their gender, HIV status and economic marginalization. A new Amnesty International report based on interviews with rural women, the majority of them living with HIV, exposes the overwhelming challenges they face in the midst of the severe HIV epidemic affecting the country.
A Moroccan who was jailed for creating a Facebook profile of a prince has been released from prison. Fouad Mourtada, a 26-year-old IT engineer, was freed on Tuesday after being pardoned by the king. Fouad Mourtada had been given a three-year prison term and fined 10,000 dirhams (US$1,320) in February for creating a profile of Morocco's Prince Moulay Rachid on Facebook. He was convicted after a trial in Casablanca.
Recent attacks by militias and the Sudanese army on four villages in West Darfur that left at least 115 people dead and some 30,000 displaced violated international humanitarian and human rights law, a United Nations report just released has found.
Over 60 per cent of Africans lack access to a proper toilet, according to the United Nations World Health Organization (WHO) and UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) ahead of World Water Day – observed on 22 March – whose 2008 theme is “Sanitation Matters.” The Day aims to raise awareness to the plight of 2.6 billion people worldwide who live without toilets in their homes and are therefore vulnerable to numerous
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has dispatched 58 “schools-in-a-box” to flood-hit areas of Zambia to help pupils whose families have had to flee their homes because of rising waters or whose school buildings have been damaged or destroyed. Each school-in-a-box, which contains enough supplies for 100 children, will be distributed to community and Government schools in Southern, Lusaka and Western provinces, among the regions hardest hit by the recent flooding.
The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) has joined forces with civil society groups, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and the Government in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) to launch a nationwide public awareness campaign aimed at reducing the country’s appalling levels of sexual violence.
While the violence that swept across Kenya several months ago was triggered by disputed presidential polls, the crisis was fuelled by underlying causes including poverty and discrimination, United Nations human rights officials said today, urging greater accountability and an end to impunity to address those issues and prevent further outbreaks.
The fourth and latest round of United Nations-led talks, bringing together representatives from Morocco and the Frente Polisario, have wrapped up on the outskirts of New York City, with both sides once again pledging to continue negotiations. Also participating at the two-day talks – facilitated by Peter van Walsum, the Personal Envoy of the Secretary-General – at the Greentree Estate in Manhasset on Long Island were representatives of neighbouring States, Algeria and Mauritania.
The United Nations refugee agency has begun moving some of the estimated 14,000 refugees who recently fled violence in the Central African Republic (CAR) away from the border in southern Chad to more accessible areas. Ron Redmond, spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), said a first group of nearly 700 people was transferred on Saturday from the border town of Maya to a temporary transit site 25 kilometres further inland, near the village of Dembo.
Madagascar has become the latest country to ratify the Rome Statute that sets up the International Criminal Court (ICC), the independent, permanent court that tries people accused of the most serious crimes, such as genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Zimbabwe's main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader has condemned plans to count presidential ballots centrally, saying this will help rig the 29 March election. "I will not be part of an illegal process," said Morgan Tsvangirai, who will be challenging president Robert Mugabe alongside Simba Makoni and demanded that all votes be counted at polling stations.
Over 75 000 members of the country’s security forces have already cast their votes, in an exercise that has been a closely guarded secret, according to information received by the MDC. In Bulawayo most police officers were allegedly forced to vote several times, while in Mutare soldiers were ordered to write their force numbers on the back of their ballot papers.
It appears that the policy of “quiet diplomacy” practiced by South Africa’s President Thabo Mbeki is about to be applied to the regional observer mission deployed to Zimbabwe. South African parliamentarians assigned to the SADC team that will be monitoring Zimbabwe’s elections have been ordered not to issue independent statements.
Police in Harare have stopped the Combined Harare Residents Association from holding public meetings with the contesting election candidates in the capital. Mfundo Mlilo, spokesman for CHRA, said on Wednesday that the officer commanding Southerton police district had banned 16 of their planned ‘meet the candidate public meetings’ in all low and high-density suburbs south of the capital.
An electoral amendment, passed by Robert Mugabe on Monday, sparked renewed fears that Zanu PF is determined to rig the March 29 election. State radio announced Tuesday that Mugabe amended electoral laws to allow policemen into polling stations to ‘assist’ illiterate people to vote. The opposition immediately slammed the amendment saying it violated agreements reached at the SADC brokered talks. Policemen were barred from being within 100 metres of a polling station because it was felt they would intimidate voters.
Women of Zimbabwe Arise launched a report in Harare on Wednesday, titled “The effects of fighting Repression with Love” which documents the experiences of their members over the last few years as they were arrested, assaulted, humiliated and tortured at the hands of state agents, particularly the police. Our Harare correspondent Simon Muchemwa attended the event, along with representatives from civil organisations and diplomats.
South Africa has by far the worst TB prevalence rate in the world, with almost 1000 South Africans out of every 100 000 living with the disease in 2006. This is according to the Global TB report released in Geneva yesterday (Monday 16th March), based mainly on 2006 statistics supplied to the World Health Organisation by over 200 countries.
Ethnic violence forced thousands of Mauritanians out of their homes and into Senegal two decades ago, but the two countries and the UN are working together to bring them back home. After leaving camps across the Senegal River from their homeland last week, the second group of repatriates received a warm welcome in Rosso.
Three years after Algeria's family code was revised, women are looking back with regret on their initial enthusiasm for the change. What appears to have been a well-intended effort to protect women and children's rights has inadvertently caused many of them to lose everything.
Over the years, many Somali refugees in South Africa have achieved substantial independence and self-sufficiency without the assistance of the UN refugee agency. These skilled traders have relied on cultural and religious ties and networks, business savvy, determination and single-mindedness to establish businesses and ensure their communities function on clearly formulated lines.
There is little awareness on the problem of trafficking in persons, mainly women and children, in Angola, and no laws for cracking down on the growing phenomenon. Paulino Cunha da Silva, head of cooperation and exchange in the Angolan Interior Ministry, admitted at a workshop held in Luanda Tuesday and Wednesday that the country lacks laws to fight trafficking in human beings.
With the new academic year in Kenya underway, teacher Moses Simiyu Kalenda is once again instructing children - just not in the place where he expected to be doing so. Previously, he taught pre-schoolers at Kalaha Farm, some 400 kilometres west of the capital, Nairobi; now he works from a makeshift class in a displaced persons camp, both he and his pupils victims of the violence that erupted after the Dec. 27 presidential election.
Church leader Wycliffe Masibo describes seeing an elderly member of his flock whipped to death during a Kenyan army search for militiamen in his remote mountain village. Having made all the men lie on the floor, soldiers kicked and hit them, demanding they tell them where guns were kept and suspects were hiding, he and others from Chongoywo village on the slopes of Mount Elgon told a visiting reporter.
Chad has lifted a state of emergency and night curfew imposed across the oil-rich central African nation after a failed bid by opposition forces to seize the capital, Ndjamena, in February. A government statement said on Sunday: "A curfew, which was put imposed in special circumstances, was lifted today throughout Chadian territory."
There have been few experiments as reckless, overhyped and with as little potential upside as the rapid rollout of genetically modified crops. Last month, the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA), a pro-biotech nonprofit, released a report highlighting the proliferation of genetically modified crops. According to ISAAA, biotech crop area grew 12 percent, or 12.3 million hectares, to reach 114.3 million hectares in 2007, the second highest area increase in the past five years.
A study of nurses and HIV/AIDS patients in five African nations has found that stigma is decreasing, but burdens both HIV patients and their nurses. The researchers say that this is limiting care options for HIV patients and strategies are needed to prevent stigma.
Hospitals in rural Tanzania have designed ways to communicate with doctors in referral hospitals using the Internet. The Bugando Referral Hospital in Mwanza has a telemedicine unit that connects Rubya and Kibondo hospitals. The remote hospitals are supplied with a computer, a scanner and a digital camera
If the Kenyan lawmakers had debated and approved the recent ICT Bill put before parliament, some of the communications issues raised by the recent political crisis in that country would have been more easily dealt with, argues KICTANeT's Alice Wanjira.
Demands by youths in Mazabuka for Government to increase the allocation of the youth empowerment fund has riled Mazabuka District Commissioner who has demanded the Mazabuka Community Radio Management to fire a Journalist Innocent Chinyemba.
Ethiopia is again facing food scarcity that has put the lives of over eight million Ethiopians at risk, particularly those in the South-West Oromia region where 11 people died of hunger and lack of clean water. The food insecurity, caused by a long period of drought in Oromia region, affected close to half a million people, the National Disaster, Prevention and Control Commission confirmed.
The international community has been urged to pile pressures on the Ghanaian government and the UNHCR to protect the human rights of refugees in Ghana. The followed the arrest, detention and alleged mistreatment of protesting Liberian refugees in Buduburam refugee camp on Monday.
The Chadian government has continued to detain an unknown number of people without charges since rebels invaded the capital N’djamena for two days in early February, despite lifting a state of emergency on 15 March. "Detainees should be released immediately or charged with a crime and accorded all their rights, including immediate access to a lawyer and a hearing before an impartial judge to determine the lawfulness of their detention,” Human Rights Watch (HRW)’s Africa Director Georgette Gagnon said in a statement issued on 20 March.
Africa is vulnerable to present, foreseen and unforeseen, natural and man-made calamities. Of great concern currently is the impact that climatic change due to global warming will have on the richly endowed continent, which, ironically, is the poorest.
If West African governments are serious about reducing migration from their countries they must invest in improving living conditions and reducing inequality, according to sociologists, economists and other experts meeting in the Senegalese capital, Dakar, this week.
Becky Mugisha* had been ill with a hacking cough for three months before she was admitted into one of Kampala’s busiest tuberculosis (TB) wards, but she recognised the symptoms long before that. It was her second bout with the disease. The last time Mugisha had had TB, about a year before, she was put on a sixth-month course of treatment.
Admitting to being HIV-positive is a difficult task for anyone, but David Balubenze was faced with some special challenges as the pastor of Deliverance Church Nankandulo, in Kamuli, about 100 kilometers from the capital, Kampala. Balubenze knew he was HIV-positive for a year before he told church elders and it was several more years before he informed his congregation.
In January 2008, the Writers in Prison Committee (WiPC) of International PEN released a report on how criminal defamation legislation is used in Africa to silence print journalists who report on corruption, mismanagement and other abuses of power. The report looked at cases of defamation-related persecution in the 17 months to November 2007.
At a meeting chaired by the United Nations (UN) Secretary-General, Mr. Ban Ki-moon last week in New York, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) Africa Steering Group made various recommendations on how to achieve the eight goals on the continent before 2015, the target year. Abimbola Akosile highlights arising issues for overall development
The Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) invites abstracts and proposals for paper presentation at the second international conference it is organising on development as part of its revamped Economic Policy Research Programme. The first conference within the framework of this initiative was convened in 2007. The theme of the 2008 conference is Re-thinking Trade and Industrial Policy for African Development.
Atizar Mendes Pereira, journalist and director of Última Hora, a privately-owned Bissau-based newspaper was on March 11, 2008 arrested and detained by the Intelligence Service of the Ministry of Interior of Guinea Bissau. Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA)’s correspondent reported that Pereira was interrogated for nearly six hours, before being released.
The Centre of African Studies at SOAS has received a tremendous boost with a donation to fund an initiative on Governance for Development in Africa, which will create a dedicated environment to support Africans to study both the legal aspects of governance and the links between economic development and governance. The deadline to apply for entry in January 2009 is 30 September 2008
Benin has decided to renew for period of five years, the moratorium on the import, marketing and use of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) and GMO by-products on its territory, official sources told the PANA. The renewal of the moratorium, introduced in 2002, was based on the lack of a legal, technical and scientific framework on the threat of transgenic products from some member states of the West African Economic and Monetary Union (UEMOA) invading the sub-regional market.
The Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) invites applications from suitably qualified senior African scholars for the position of Executive Secretary in its pan-African Secretariat located in Dakar, Senegal. All applications must be received by Monday 30 June, 2008. Any application received after this date will not be considered.
The coalition Solidarity for African Women’s Rights (SOAWR) is inviting members to submit grant proposals for actions that will contribute to the following campaign objectives:
1. By the end of 2008, SOAWR will have accelerated ratification in ten countries, namely Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Liberia, Sudan, Tanzania, Zambia and two North African Countries.
2. By the end of 2008 there will be national implementation strategies and actions generated and running in eight countries, namely Gambia, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda and South Africa.
On 31 March 2008 at 1500 GMT these questions will be addressed in a 7-country videoconference hosted by the World Health Organization, Realizing Rights and the Global Health Workforce Alliance. Immediately following the videoconference will be a 3 week global dialogue to discuss the above questions as well as other issues associated with health workforce migration. To join in this discussion please register below.
The latest report from the International Crisis Group, examines likely scenarios for Zimbabwe’s simultaneous presidential, parliamentary and municipal elections. Even though President Robert Mugabe has two serious challengers, including for the first time one from within his own ruling party, he probably has the means to manipulate the process before, during and after balloting, sufficiently to keep his office, though possibly only after a violent run-off. If that happens, no government will emerge capable of ending the country’s long crisis.