Pambazuka News 349: Kenyans must seize democracy for themselves
Pambazuka News 349: Kenyans must seize democracy for themselves
Some of the young people who seek help at the Youth Information and Orientation Centre for Reproductive Health (CIOJ) in N'Djamena, capital of Chad, do not understand how they became pregnant or contracted a sexually transmitted infection (STI). Workers at the centre blame the high levels of ignorance on the failure of parents to talk to their children about sex.
Eight Egyptian men who were arrested and forced to undergo HIV tests, and the subsequent torture of the two who tested HIV-positive, has unleashed a storm of controversy in a country where people still know very little about the virus. "You can find people who know what you are talking about when you talk about AIDS, but I could say that most people who live here don't know the difference between a person with HIV and a person with AIDS," said UNAIDS Country Officer Wessam El-Beih.
People living with HIV in Chad risk becoming victims of the explosion of violence in the capital, N'Djamena, in early February. During clashes between the army and groups of rebels from the east of the country, health services were damaged and many organisations working to fight the epidemic were looted.
Buyers of minerals from rebel areas of eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) should be punished under a United Nations arms embargo, a group of experts has told the Security Council. A five-year war in the vast Central African nation that ended in 2003 has left much of DRC's eastern borderlands a volatile patchwork of rebel fiefdoms and militia-controlled zones.
A culture of impunity is the root cause of Somalia's humanitarian and political crisis and unless the world urgently addresses it, war crimes and crimes against humanity will continue unabated, a civil society activist has told IRIN. "No one has ever been held accountable for these crimes," Marian Hussein Awreeye, chairwoman of the Isma'il Jimale Human Rights Centre, said.
One of the greatest challenges following the post-election violence in Kenya is to restore the physical and mental wellbeing of 150,000 displaced children, many of whom have witnessed atrocities and lost contact, in many cases permanently, with their families, humanitarian workers told IRIN.
Pius Adesamni looks at the recent Raila Odinga visit with Obasanjo and argues that African ruling classes are so prodigious in the production of political farce that all one needs to do is read African newspapers for absurd realities that no African writer has as yet to match.
Give it to politicians, the military, and other professional hijackers of the state in Africa! They are able to squeeze the juice of comedy out of the stone of unspeakable tragedies they routinely visit on their people and the continent. The most unfortunate victim of the inexhaustible creativity of the African political class, their cynical mastery of the resources of the proscenium, is African fiction. The political class in Africa constitutes the most potent threat to the health of African literature. Simply put, our politicians are driving our writers out of business.
Why do I need to spend my hard-earned money on Wizard of the Crow and Petals of Blood when Raila Odinga and Mwai Kibaki have manufactured realities in Kenya that Ngugi wa Thiongo’o’s brilliant imagination simply cannot match? All I need is regular internet access to Kenyan newspapers to avail myself of a direct taste of Kenya according to her politicians.
Why do I need Chinua Achebe’s A Man of the People and T.M. Aluko’s One Man, One Matchet in my seminar room when the blood and flesh versions of Chief Nanga and Benjamin Benjamin in Abuja have turned Achebe and Aluko into dwarves in the business of fiction? The Nigerian ruling class is so prodigious in the production of political farce that all I need do is read Nigerian newspapers for quotidian realities that no Nigerian writer has the imagination to match.
That African politicians are constantly and permanently ahead of hapless African writers was brought home by two recent events. Ogaga Ifowodo, one of Nigeria’s best poets, wrote an essay in which he imagined a meeting between Mwai Kibaki and Umaru Yar’Adua. What did Yar’Adua tell Kibaki, Ifowodo asked? To create his hypothetical situation, Ifowodo deployed the full arsenal of his trade: sarcasm, hyperbole, allusions, and the like. At the end of the essay, Ifowodo was sure he had delivered his message effectively and unambiguously: the Nigerian presidency is so diseased, so morally compromised, that the possibility of the Nigerian government having a say in the Kenyan debacle can only exist in the realms of fiction and the most outrageous imagination. Given the rotten political pedigree of the people in charge in Abuja, Nigeria’s involvement was so improbable that Ifowodo treated it as fiction, something better left as material for the exclusive use of the African writer.
As is sadly often the case in Africa, Odinga, the politician, was miles ahead of Ifowodo, the writer. Odinga did not wait for Ifowodo’s ink to dry before hopping on a flight to Nigeria last week. His mission? Wait for it: to consult with Chief Olusegun Obasanjo (Nigeria’s immediate past president) and persuade him to convince Alhaji Umaru Yar’Adua, current president and Obasanjo’s puppet, that it was time Nigeria got involved in fashioning an African solution to Kenya’s political impasse! It has taken Ogaga Ifowodo more than twenty years of sustained production of brilliant poetry to establish his reputation as one of Africa’s leading users of the imagination. Raila Odinga and his Nigerian hosts have eclipsed this record in a couple of hours.
When I read about Odinga’s trip to Nigeria, I had a tough choice between laughing and crying. I settled for the former. To grasp the tragedy in all its unpleasant ramifications, one has to unpack Odinga’s company in Nigeria: Obasanjo and his Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) machinery. Of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, the least said the better. Writing about Obasanjo here would turn this piece into an exposé on unbridled corruption and the defoliation of Nigeria’s destiny in two tragic installments: 1976 – 1979, and 1999 – 2007. Whenever tails are mentioned in a discussion, the toad hurriedly suggests changing the topic and moving on to other issues! So, let’s leave Obasanjo and move on to Yar’Adua and the PDP.
History’s final verdict on African political parties would be hard pressed not to record the PDP as the most vicious, most corrupt, and most visionless political organization ever to bestride the Nigerian – and African political landscape. It would be sheer travesty of justice if the National Party of Henrik Verwoerd and Pieter Botha fared worse than Nigeria’s PDP in the reckoning of history. Ever since its unfortunate formation, the PDP has been home to the worst elements of Nigerian humanity. Although it loves to delude itself as Africa’s largest political party, the truth is that the PDP is Africa’s largest assembly of funny characters with zero moral capital. Excellence in political thuggery, treasury looting, and election rigging are key attributes of membership and upward mobility in party ranks. It is significant that in a supposedly democratic dispensation, the PDP has surpassed Sani Abacha’s record of unresolved political assassinations. The rate of intra-party assassinations became so breathtaking at a point that the inimitable Wole Soyinka baptized the PDP as a “nest of killers”. Soyinka forgot to add that the PDP is also a lair of Africa’s most gifted thieves. To go through the list of party leaders – Party Chieftains in Nigerian parlance – is to be in stark contemplation of the tragedy of modern Nigeria: Olusegun Obasanjo (self-appointed Father of modern Nigeria), Olabode George, Ahmadu Ali, Lamidi Adedibu (stark illiterate, recently designated Father of the PDP!), Andy Uba, Chris Uba, and thousands of other birds of similar feather, looting the state dry in rigged political positions.
That these low-quality characters and their scions have hijacked the Nigerian state is a precise indication of the abysmally low depths to which Nigeria has fallen. Among the many sins of this dishonorable cabal and their dishonorable party, the 2007 election pretty much takes the cake. Nigerians are in agreement with the international community that the PDP’s 2007 electoral heist ranks among the worst in human history. It is unnecessary to rehash the details here. Suffice it to assert that Umaru Yar’Adua, Nigeria’s current president, is the morally compromised custodian of a purloined mandate who has been unable to rise above the debased values of his cabal and do the right thing. Rather, he has ignored the festering leprosy his diseased party has foisted on Nigeria while hypocritically making a show of his determination to cure negligible ringworm infections.
This is a snapshot of the kind of company Raila Odinga went to keep in Nigeria. The story of Nigeria’s sorry pass in the gangrened grip of the PDP cartel is globally ubiquitous: not even a blind and deaf kindergarten pupil in Siberia can claim ignorance of the Nigerian situation. What part of this narrative did Raila Odinga not understand? The ways of the African politician are truly perplexing! How did Raila Odinga arrive at the conclusion that Olusegun Obasanjo, Umaru Yar’Adua and his PDP government, morally compromised perpetrators of the worst electoral heist in human history, are in any position to advise him on the way forward in Kenya? How did he determine that Nigeria’s forty thieves deserve a place at the table of serious African conversations on credible elections, good governance, and democracy? Who are Odinga’s handlers in Kenya? How could all of them have missed the fact that the people he was going to consult in Nigeria practice a version of democracy that consists in assassinating your opponent or rigging your way to political office? Do we need to translate “nest of killers” to Swahili before Mwalimu Odinga can understand that simple expression? By going to consult the worst Nigeria has to offer, Odinga has spat on the graves of the Kenyans who have lost their lives so far and added to our frustration and helplessness as ordinary Nigerians.
Nigerians are in a particularly sensitive phase of their national life. We are a beautiful country of beautiful people who have had the extraordinary misfortune of being held hostage by the worst among us. Although we once contributed exemplary characters to Africa’s leadership pool during the nationalist and immediate post-nationalist eras, we have never known democracy in any real sense. The closest we came to it was on June 12, 1993 when ‘we, the people’ voted in the only free and fair election we have ever known. Our hopes and aspirations were quashed by the same vicious enemy-cabal that aborted our dreams of post-independence nationhood and have held us hostage ever since. Sometimes, this cabal comes in army fatigues; sometimes it wears flowing civilian robes but it is the same rotten organism that perpetually recycles itself. When people who should know better invite the worst we have to offer to the table, the wound cuts deep in the Nigerian psyche. It reminds us painfully of Frostian roads not taken. And in this case, we are much more certain than Frost of what could have been had the right people taken the roads not taken.
It bears repeating: the Nigerian state, currently held hostage by a dishonorable cabal and a bloodthirsty, kleptocratic political party, does not qualify to be consulted or invited to the table when good governance and credible elections in Africa are in the agenda. If Raila Odinga was so desperate for Nigerian advice, all he needed do was ask and we would have supplied him names of Nigerians who qualify to be at the table. Nigeria has more that a hundred million names that could have given Odinga advice from an eminently moral high ground since members of the dishonorable enemy-cabal are, thankfully, in the minority and in no way represent what we have to offer as a people. If Odinga had consulted serious people before embarking on his worthless trip to Nigeria, one would have given him such meritorious names as Wole Soyinka, Chinua Achebe, Ngozi Okonjo Iweala, Gani Fawehinmi, Patrick Utomi, Edwin Madunagu, Odia Ofeimun, Okey Ndibe, Omoyele Sowore, just to mention a few. These are among our very best, the kinds of people who still make it possible for Nigerians to defy the rape of their humanity by the jokers in the PDP and identify proudly with their nation.
If, however, Mwalimu Odinga insists on getting his advice on how to move Kenya forward from discredited African sources, we can also help him. Let him return to Nigeria and consult with all the corrupt PDP governors currently facing embezzlement charges. On his way back home, he may want to stop over in Libreville and Yaounde for consultations on credible democracy with Omar Bongo and Paul Biya. A stopover with Eugene Terreblanche in South Africa will spice up things nicely. He may then return to Nairobi and tell Kofi Annan that he has received superior advice from more credible sons of Africa!
* Pius Adesanmi is Associate Professor of English and Director, Project on New African Literatures at Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada. Apart from his academic work, Dr. Adesanmi publishes opinion articles regularly in various internet fora. He runs a regular blog for The Zeleza Post where this article first appeared. He has contributed to Counterpunch, Slepton and Chimurenga online.
** Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org This article first appeared at The Zeleza Post.
Workers at the Ghazl el-Mahalla textile mill in Egypt staged a mass demonstration last Sunday, calling for the end of the US-backed regime of Hosni Mubarak. The textile mill is the biggest in the Middle East. Its 27,000-strong workforce has been instrumental in forcing the regime into making economic concessions.
The 2008 session of the CODESRIA sub-regional methodological workshops will explore the conditions for the employment and validation of qualitative perspectives in African contexts. To this end, the workshops will be open to all the social research disciplines. These disciplines are uniformly confronted with broadly similar difficulties of understanding social reality and the challenges posed by techniques of data collection and analysis, which, on account of their “qualitative” nature, are suspected by some to be seriously lacking in scientific rigour.
Without a legal counsel Darius Dillion, assistant to Senator Jewel Howard-Taylor, was on February 26, 2008, sentenced to six months imprisonment by the Liberia House of Representatives, for expressing his views on a bribery scandal in the Lower House. Dillion’s plea for a lawyer was ignored by the Lower House even though Liberia’s laws guarantee the right of an accused to legal counsel.
The 2008 session of the CODESRIA sub-regional methodological workshops will explore the conditions for the employment and validation of qualitative perspectives in African contexts. To this end, the workshops will be open to all the social research disciplines. These disciplines are uniformly confronted with broadly similar difficulties of understanding social reality and the challenges posed by techniques of data collection and analysis, which, on account of their “qualitative” nature, are suspected by some to be seriously lacking in scientific rigour.
The Africa Regional Sexuality Resource Centre (ARSRC) calls for applications to its Annual Sexuality Leadership Development Fellowship (SLDF) Programme. The Fellowship is scheduled to take place in Lagos, Nigeria from July 7th – 26th, 2008. The fellowship is structured to promote sharing of ideas, team building and collaborative work amongst participants in order to nurture relationships that last beyond the fellowship period.
http://www.pambazuka.org/images/broadcasts/peter_hallward_damming_flood.... Hallward, author of Damming the Flood: Haiti, Aristide and the Politics of Containment, talks over the phone with Jacques Depelchin from the Ota Benga Alliance for Peace Healing and Dignity, and visiting Professor at the Centre for Afro-Oriental Studies at the Federal University of Bahia, Salvador, Brazil, and Firoze Manji, founder and co-editor of Pambazuka News, about his book and the lessons of Haiti.
Peter Hallward's book “Damming the Flood: Haiti, Aristide and the Politics of Containment”, published by Verso Press in 2007, is likely to become a classic reference on the most recent history of Haiti, thanks especially, to a fascinating and informative analysis of the clash between mass-based and elite driven politics. In the fierce battle over and around which ideological lens should one use to look at and make sense of Haiti's most recent history, including the overthrow and kidnapping of President Jean Bertrand Aristide, Peter Hallward's book is a welcome counterbalance to those offered by both mainstream journalism and books such as Alex Dupuy's “Prophet and Power: Jean-Bertrand Ariside, the International Community and Haiti” published by Rowman & Littlefield in 2007.
A gel using anti-HIV drug tenofovir to shield women from AIDS has been proven safe for daily use and acceptable to women, study findings showed Tuesday. The study, conducted by researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) and the University of Pittsburgh to test the gel's safety, involved 200 sexually active HIV-negative women aging from 19 to 50, of whom 64 percent were married.
About 650,000 or half of all children in Darfur do not receive an education, despite efforts by various organisations to provide schooling in camps and towns across the western Sudanese region, an international NGO said."Education is the foundation for economically viable and more peaceful societies. But the international community has been loath to fund schooling in conflict situations," Charles MacCormack, president of Save the Children US, said in a statement on 27 February. "This is shortsighted."
Survivors of an earthquake that hit southwestern Rwanda in early February have complained that their shelter needs have not been adequately met, despite efforts to provide them with other basic necessities. "The painful day-to-day living conditions that we are currently facing remain largely forgotten, despite relief provided to us in days following the quake," said Gaston Minani, a father of five, who lost his home in Rusizi district.
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The full text of the agreement signed by Mwai Kibaki and Raila Odinga is available at the link below.
Pambazuka News spoke with Wangui Wa Goro, a public intellectual, writer, translator and academic and an Associate Fellow at the Institute of Human Rights and Social Justice at London Metropolitan University about the power sharing agreement reached by Mwai Kibaki and Raila Odinga on February 28, 2008. Pambazuka News readers will remember her for her incisive commentary on Kenya pre and post the crisis. We spoke about the implications of the peace-deal on the larger questions of peace and justice, the meaning of democracy itself, the continuing role of Civil Society Organizations and lessons for other African countries.
PAMBAZUKA NEWS: The power sharing deal has Raila Odinga as the Prime Minister and Mwai Kibaki remaining the President. We are not yet clear on exact day-to-day functioning of each – but what are your initial thoughts?
WANGUI WA GORO: I am glad that the parties have come to some agreement at the moment because it will ease the tension in the country. I am however wary because of the way in which we have witnessed the mediation process. I think that many Kenyans are skeptical about the goodwill of some in the process. As Kenyans, we are also aware of our capacity for duplicity and doubletalk ("ujanja").
PAMBAZUKA NEWS: Both Kibaki and Raila formed a coalition government shortly after the 2002 elections that collapsed and in way, the violence we saw was a direct result of their inability to get along – do you a see a difference this time? Will it hold?
WANGUI WA GORO: I think the fact that the process is being witnessed nationally and internationally by all will place a huge burden on those who want to cheat unlike before when “Memorandums of Understanding” were agreed behind closed doors. This is a significant difference between 2002 and 2008.
I am however still concerned that the Kenyan people should know the outcome of the election that just took place. These agreements could undermine our confidence in the mechanisms of democracy and the institutions for this. We are bowing to the will of individuals rather than to the will of our nation and this is wrong. I hope, therefore, that this arrangement is a transitional one. We are rolling back our attainment of multipartism which should provide checks and balances.
I think the loss of life and displacements we have witnessed should act as a wake up call for all of us and the world and if the two leaders are serious and actually work together, this may work. I still believe that the civil society, other political players and the international community should continue pressing for the delivery of the agreement in order for the transitional process and justice to take place. The hard work now has a framework as does the chance for a new constitution. Kenyans will have to work hard to heal the nation and to continue to seek peace, truth and justice. I hope that these processes can heal the nation. I pray that for this alone, that peace will hold.
PAMBAZUKA NEWS: Do you see a continuing role for the international community? Should there be a difference between African and Western pressure?
WANGUI WA GORO: No. I think that what should matter the most is what Kenyans want and the African and international pressure should reflect that will of the Kenyan people. I see a continued role of the international community in "supervising" the agreement and ensuring that Kenya does not slide into anarchy. This they can do by using the agreement to hold individuals and their parties to account.
I hope that The Kofi Annan Team remains with Kenyans for the duration of the Transitional Period in an advisory or consultative role to ensure that we remain within the spirit and letter of the agreements. I hope that Parliament will also take responsibility for running the affairs of the country and that Kenyans find mechanisms for engaging constructively with their leaders, particularly the civil society in an organized form. We have never been here in our history.
PAMBAZUKA NEWS: The civil society organizations have been agitating for an arrangement that would make peace possible. What should their role be in the post-peace deal period?
WANGUI WA GORO: The role of the civil society is now more crucial than ever. They will have to be the domestic monitors of the agreement and further, because of their knowledge and the way in which they have conducted themselves over the last two months, they will find an important role as a lobby which is not entrenched in the processes. They can engage constructively and this will be very important for the country. We have also seen the importance of their vanguard role in this process. There are many lessons to be learned here and I hope that unlike 2002, they do not let up.
PAMBAZUKA NEWS: A short question- Where are the people in this deal?
WANGUI WA GORO: That is precisely the point! I believe that the discussions with Dr. Kofi Annan are continuing on the longer-term issues this coming Friday. We should wait and see what is agreed then.
PAMBAZUKA NEWS: Moving forward - The Kenyan society has been divided in ways we have not seen before- probably not since the end of British colonialism. More than 1,500 dead, hundreds of thousands of refugees, not to speak of an economy in tatters – how do we repair the torn fabric?
WANGUI WA GORO: On the Kenyan society being divided for the first time, this is not correct. Divide and rule tactics were part of British colonial rule. Kenya has also had very difficult moments in its history such as the assassination of Tom Mboya when the so called differences amongst ethnicities were supposed to be very high. People were very hurt then.
And many other terrible things have happened to people like Pio Gama Pinto, Bishop Muge, JM Kariuki, Robert Ouko etc. and Kenyans can see patterns here which are not ethnically driven. Some of these leaders were asking fundamental questions about injustice and inequality. We have also had a coup d'etat in 1982 when many people died, and in 1984 many Kenyans were killed in the Wagalla Massacre. In 1992 many Kenyans were displaced from the Rift Valley and many were also killed - over 1500. And between 1982 to 1990 many Kenyans were jailed, tortured, killed and exiled. These traumas have continued since independence. I hope that this disregard for life and for Kenyans stops for once and for all. All of us are important and our lives are precious in equal measure.
You will also know that those who fought for freedom have died in abject poverty and without recognition until recently. We have to have a broader understanding of our history and not allow the distortions of "ethnicism" to blind us to the class dimension, corruption, poverty and disenfranchisement of the majority Kenyans of all ethnicities, cultures and religions.
PAMBAZUKA NEWS: Can we reflect on the role of Western democracy on historical legacies? Does the Kenya crisis suggest there is something wrong with Western democracy? What does African democracy look like?
WANGUI WA GORO: I think that there is a difference between the cultures of practice of "democracy" and what we understand as democratic principals. Democracies are built over time through good practice over years. There must be some of the values of what is called a "good society" which people seem to understand to be in the contract for democracy such as accountability, representation, transparency and the institutions and mechanism for delivering these such as the rule of law, independent institutions such as Parliament and the Judiciary which remove entrenched power from parties or individuals..
Now, I don't think we have seen African Democracy working at its best in Kenya or much of Africa because of the kinds of legacies and traditions and practices we adopted after Independence. You will know we inherited the Constitution and some of the practices from colonial rule, in our case from Britain. For instance, the police force was used to defend the state from the people and this culture has continued. We did not have a moment of reflection of the kind of nation state we might want for ourselves. This question of regional representation and distribution of resources for instance is one;, it was raised for debate but then shelved and ignored, and is at the heart of some of the difficulties we have today.
The philosophy of forgive and forget is another. Another is the power of the presidency which grew and grew since Kenyatta and became entrenched in the constitution because people became so frightened of him and the Presidency. This continued under Moi and in 1982, Kenya moved from a de facto one party state to a de jure one party state which really entrenched Moi's dictatorship.
PAMBAZUKA NEWS: Is it all about what the rulers want, not what citizens want…So we need constitutional reforms that speaks to the Kenyan political reality, for example?
WANGUI WA GORO: I think that is what has come out as a most over riding desire of the Kenyan people. But as you know, fine constitutions can be written, and in fact, the first Kenyan one was not that bad. It is having it implemented that is a problem. Britain for instance does not have a written tradition but it evolves rules and values through Acts of Parliament and the law. Kenyans can use this opportunity to enshrine the kind of nation they want and BOMAS began to address this issue. I think a new constitution will be very good for Kenya because KENYANS will feel that they own it.
PAMBAZUKA NEWS: What does equality mean to democracy? It is a word that is assumed to be already contained in democracy, yet we see nations with vicious inequalities call themselves democratic - your thoughts?
WANGUI WA GORO: On paper, Kenya has a Bill of Rights which recognises equality. But in reality, we have seen the day to day treatment of women, people with disabilities, people of "other" religions or "ethnicities" treated badly. In public, it is difficult to pass bills against violence against women such as rape. There are no policies on the aged and it is only recently that the rights of the child have come on board.
Words are meaningless if people do not feel protected from their historic and cultural vulnerabilities. Our laws have been couched in ambiguous terms such as both recognising civil law and common law. We are not aware of what these issues mean in a diverse nation state of different ethnicities and religious persuasions so you will have one Kenyan treated differently than another because of common law which recognises the different cultures. We also do not know about each others cultures so we are limited in our arguments for Kenyan universal values. Our democracy will be most tested and beneficial when we address these issues because they lie at the heart of our current disquiet over disenfranchisement from power and lack of self-determination.
PAMBAZUKA NEWS: Wangui, the question of whether Kenya should be a federal state has come up quite a bit - those for it argue that resources will be distributed better - those against it that it will entrench ethnic tension. Your take?
WANGUI WA GORO: I think that a federal state would be premature. I think that if local government was strong and there was less corruption, such a system could work. As it is now, some regions have been marginalised eternally in punitive ways and naturally they will want to have federal states. Our local government has also not been representative in the political sense or professional enough, similar to the public institutions which remain in a colonial and postcolonial time warp. They need to modernize to reflect the modern Kenyan and global world. Then we have this parallel system of administration of Provincial and District Officers who are powerful but not locally accountable. I think that these arrangements cannot foster democratic engagement when power is distributed through patronage. Appointment to senior positions has also been problematic as has been corruption and the allocation of resources.
PAMBAZUKA NEWS: How do we develop and implement a people's agenda?
WANGUI WA GORO: I think that the local issues matter a great deal to people. Their day-to-day lives. Having power and control over their own immediate destiny -which cannot be done by some centralized remote, and often middleclass or bourgeois administration. There needs to be genuine engagement with governance by the people, ways of holding their elected leaders to account and ways for having their voices heard and acted upon. As we have lived in Kenya, it has been hard in the past to have access to your elected leader and people are frightened of these people whom they elected. That is my recollection of Kenya as I knew it then.
PAMBAZUKA NEWS: Finally Wangui, what can countries like Zimbabwe and South Africa learn from Kenya? Or countries like Uganda or Ethiopia where Museveni or Meles might point to Kenya as a warning for playing around with the fire of democracy? Are there lessons to be gleaned across the board?
WANGUI WA GORO: I think we need to start thinking outside the box. I think the whole of Africa can learn from itself. There are lessons that point to the failures of the post colonial states from the North to the South. You can see the upheaval everywhere. There are particularities about each of our countries, such as the resilience of the pro-people cultures and their continuities. There are also longer traditions of institutionalization in some places like South Africa and the economic power of Apartheid is very deeply entrenched.
So we need to learn from all our cultures and see how we can improve on the particular. The cultures we cultivate are also important, such as the cultures of struggle, the cultures of fear, the cultures of solidarity. What has amazed me in these last few weeks is the strength of individuals and organizations in the civil society and the pro-people movements and their willingness to defend "the good of society".
I hope that Kenyans and our leaders are willing to give peace, truth, justice and reconciliation a try. It will be very difficult to heal our nation now that blood has flown. There is no turning back the clock and these hurts remain for a very long time. We must learn from the holocausts in our continent and elsewhere. Kenya is and can be a wonderful place.
*Wangui Wa Goro, a public intellectual, writer, translator and academic and an Associate Fellow at the Institute of Human Rights and Social Justice at London Metropolitan University.
**Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org
The Legal Clinic for Refugees and Immigrants (LCRI), which provides legal aid to refugees and immigrants from a number of countries, was forcibly deprived of its office space in the Faculty of Law at Sofia University, Sofia, Bulgaria, on January 17, 2008. The LCRI serves a number of African clients, most recently including individuals and families from: Algeria, Angola, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Ghana, Nigeria, Congo-Brazzaville, Rwanda, Somalia, Tanzania, Western Sahara, and Zambia.
The Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) was established in 1973 as an initiative of African scholars for the promotion of multidisciplinary research that extends the frontiers of knowledge production in and about Africa, and also responds to the challenges of African development. As part of on-going programme innovation and expansion, the Council in 2004 launched an institute on Health, Politics and Society in Africa in a bid to promote an enhanced interest in multidisciplinary health research among African scholars.
The CODESRIA Democratic Governance Institute is an interdisciplinary forum which brings together African scholars undertaking innovative research on topics related to the broad theme of governance. The theme of the 2008 Session is Religions and Religiosities in African Governance. The deadline for the submission of applications is set for 06 June, 2008. The Institute will be held in Dakar, Senegal, from 04 - 29 August, 2008.
The scope of the study is to perform an ICT market analysis for all ICT services - in economic and technical dimensions. The economic factors to be considered are liberalization, competition, profitability, investment, contribution to GDP, poverty reduction as well as issues about sovereignty and equity. The major technical factors are ICT infrastructure-investment and set-up/roll out, digital divide, spectrum availability, numbering capacity, interconnection, and Internet exchange point. The study should also assess the current policy and laws challenges, opportunities and shortcomings. Application deadline is 28 February 2008.
The Masters in International Human Rights Law at the University of Oxford is a part-time degree offered over 22 months. It involves several periods of distance learning via the internet as well as two summer sessions held at New College, Oxford. The degree programme is designed in particular for lawyers and other human rights professionals who wish to pursue advanced studies in international human rights law but may need to do so alongside their work or family responsibilities. The final closing date for the Masters is 14 March 2008 and this is to start the course in October 2008. The closing date for the 2008 Summer School is 1 April 2008.
In a strategic move to combat corruption and engage young Nigerians in the promotion of responsive and responsible governance, Independent Advocacy Project (IAP), the nation’s leading anti-corruption group is advocating that anti-corruption education should be included in the subject curriculum of elementary schools in the country.Corruption is a major driver of bad governance in Nigeria, as such, there is an urgent need for the design and introduction of a well thought out integrity education in elementary schools, which is naturally the formative years of young Nigerians, IAP said in a statement released in Lagos.
Pambazuka News is pleased to bring you this interview with the directors of the documentary 'Dear Mandela', Christopher Nizza and Dara Kell. 'Dear Mandela' deals with the growing contradictions in post-Apartheid South Africa where the majority black poor continue to be victimized by the state through measures such as forced evictions. Abahlali baseMjondolo, a new social movement of shackdwellers is challenging the conditions as well as the state of democracy itself in the country - what one the respondents in the documentary calls "new apartheid". You can see a clip of this important and timely documentary at "http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZWIZX_8ub8.
PAMBAZUKA NEWS: The first question is on the title - Why 'Dear Mandela' and not Mbeki?
CHRISTOPHER NIZZA AND DARA KELL: ‘Dear Mandela’ examines how the lives of the poorest South Africans – those who had the most hope when Apartheid officially ended in 1994 – have changed in the 17 years since Mandela was released from prison. . Again and again, we heard appreciation for what Mandela did – that he sacrificed twenty-seven years of his freedom for the freedom of South Africans. The name ‘Dear Mandela’ emerged after spending time with shack dwellers who told us they saw Nelson Mandela as a ‘second Jesus Christ’. For many South Africans, when Mandela was released from prison, a ‘better life for all’, which became the rallying cry for the newly elected ANC government – finally seemed possible. The people we interviewed often wondered how Mandela would feel if he was allowed to visit the informal settlements, if he saw that conditions have not only failed to improve since the end of Apartheid, they have worsened. Mandela seemed to many of the people we spoke to, to be the one person who could change things, and so this short film almost takes the form of a plea – not just to Mandela, but to the world – to see what has been deliberately kept from view by a current South African government intent on creating ‘world class cities’ in preparation for the 2010 Soccer World Cup.
PAMBAZUKA NEWS: Can you talk to PZN about the evictions? How are they reminiscent of the apartheid government? Or is that too much of a stretch?
CHRISTOPHER NIZZA AND DARA KELL: While we were filming in Durban with Abahlali baseMjondolo, we spoke to many shack dwellers who were facing eviction. Zamise Hohlo, a sixteen-year-old girl who was born and still lives in the Shannon Drive informal settlement, told us that municipal workers came and demolished her shack while she was at work. Sitting amidst the wreckage, she told us that she was at a crossroads: she could rebuild her shack, but the municipal workers had informed her that if she rebuilt, they would just come and tear it down again.
We have found that there are stereotypes about shack dwellers that go against all of our experience in the time we spent with them. These stereotypes make it easier for the public to turn a blind eye to what is happening them, and make it easier for municipal workers to do their job of ‘clearing the slums’. One of the reasons we want to make this film is because by letting the shack dwellers speak for themselves, their dignity is respected, and our hope is that viewers will be able to see the shack dwellers not as illegal squatters who should be pushed out of the city, but as citizens of South Africa who have the same rights to housing under the Constitution.
Yes, in some ways the evictions are reminiscent of evictions during the Apartheid era. The notorious new ‘Slums Act’ certainly evokes the Native Land Act of 1913, The Group Areas Act of 1950, The Prevention of Illegal Squatting Act of 1951- acts which remove people from their communities and place them far away from the city, away from work, school, clinics. Some shack dwellers told us that what they are experiencing is a ‘New Apartheid’ between the rich and poor. Indeed, several people we interviewed said that life was better under Apartheid. The statistics suggest that life for the poorest of the poor was better under Apartheid - a UN study showed that the number of people living on less that $1 a day has doubled since 1994. These charges are sure to stir controversy and that is one of the motivations we have to continue on this project, to illuminate the rarely told story of post-apartheid South Africa’s most marginalized.
PAMBAZUKA NEWS: Can you talk about the role of film in bringing about change?
CHRISTOPHER NIZZA AND DARA KELL: In much of the world, the way we communicate is visual. The visual medium is a language that everyone understands from advertisements on the street to television to a growing use of the Internet. While we are working towards a longer film, we posted the 6-minute version of ‘Dear Mandela’ on YouTube and were able to share the insights and struggles of South African shack dwellers instantaneously. Within days, hundreds of people had watched the film. In an age where the gap between rich and poor is increasing globally, there is a need for stories which show not just the plight of the poor, but the fight that they are engaged in. This is one of the main ideas behind Sleeping Giant, our media collective/production company. The corporate media and even some prominent left academics tend to stereotype the world’s poor as being this unruly mass of dangerous, lazy, uneducated people unable to contribute to discussions about issues affecting them most. Through film and video projects produced involving groups like Abahlali we hope to smash those stereotypes by providing a space for people to tell the story of their plight and fight thus projecting a more realistic portrayal.
Those who are struggling to survive while organizing for a better life need our encouragement and support. The film is a celebration of the work of Abahlali as well – of the almost sacred meeting space they have created, where old and young are welcomed and respected; of their refusal to accept the broken promises of the government; of their continuing to march in peaceful protest in the face of intimidating police brutality. And so while many of the stories in ‘Dear Mandela’ are disheartening, what we want to portray is a community that is figuring out the real meaning of democracy – democracy that is a far cry from ‘one man, one vote’ – it’s what Abahlali calls a ‘living politics.’
We’ve done research, and some preliminary filming, and the six-minute film ‘Dear Mandela’ is the culmination of that effort, but we intend to return for a much longer time, where we aim to interview government officials and other relevant players, to show many more sides of a very complex situation
PAMBAZUKA NEWS: What other films have you made/are making?
CHRISTOPHER NIZZA AND DARA KELL This is our first venture into the world of feature documentary filmmaking. We have both worked as editors on other documentaries, like the Academy Award-nominated Jesus Camp, State of Fear, and others. We have also led filmmaking workshops for community leaders, to both encourage the use of media in their political work and transfer the skills required to produce media.
PAMBAZUKA NEWS: What can other Africans and international friends do to help out?
CHRISTOPHER NIZZA AND DARA KELL: From what we could see a major problem for Abahlali is lack of resources. We witnessed how they maximize literally every rusted nail and every tattered piece of wood. This goes on to money that is raised as all funds are decided by collective how to be spent. We saw this as some money came in following the tragic Christmas night shack fires at the Foreman Road. Very careful and respectful consideration goes into how all monies are spent. It is much different then donating money to an NGO where the people living in struggle are more often not the ones making decisions. People interesting in supporting can get some ideas here (http://www.abahlali.org/node/269) on the Abahlali website. The website is also extremely rich with days worth of wonderful reading for anyone interested in this extremely important and courageous work.
*Dara Kell is a South African documentary filmmaker. She divides her time between South Africa and New York, where she edits documentaries and leads grassroots video-making workshops.
**Christopher Nizza is a New York born, bred and based director and editor. He also has worked on a project in the U.S. called the University of the Poor which works to provide education and exchange in a variety of disciplines to organizations working in the struggle to end poverty forever.
***Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org
This week’s AU Monitor brings you analysis of the AU audit report from Dolphine Ndeda who urges that the report be popularised and implemented immediately. She notes that “one general finding of the Panel was that the AU commission is characterised by internal institutional incoherence and disarray” and calls on the incoming Chairperson and Commissioners to prioritize management and outreach reform without delay.
In economic development news, Abdoulie Janneh, Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Africa, explains that Africa’s improved economic growth has been “underpinned by better governance, improved macroeconomic management and increased global demand for Africa’s commodities” but notes that the improvement is insufficient to achieve the AU vision of development or commitments under the Millennium Development Goals. As a means to improve food security and household income on the Continent, Nepad’s Dr. Maria Wanzala, advocates for increased use of fertilisers suggesting that this could lead to agricultural growth of six per cent by 2015. Further, ahead of the Accra high-level forum on Aid Effectiveness in September, Governance Director of the African Development Bank, Gabriel Negatu, explains the Strategic Partnership for Africa (SPA). “The SPA is important as it serves as a forum for donors and recipient countries to reflect on the changing nature of the international aid environment, based on the principles of ‘ownership’ and ‘partnership’. It has therefore been instrumental in fostering the implementation of the Paris Declaration on aid harmonization.” Also addressing regional development imperatives, the Southern African Development Community will hold its International Consultative Conference on Poverty and Development under the theme “Regional Economic Integration: A Strategy for Poverty Eradication towards Sustainable Development” between 18 - 20 April 2008 in Mauritius.
The Peace and Security Council of the African Union issued reports from the Chairperson on the situations in Chad and Somalia. Providing an update on the situation in Somalia and the implementation of the African Union Mission to Somalia (AMISOM) mandate, the report outlines the need for contingency planning for a possible United Nations operation. The report notes with concern the continued lack of troops with only two Ugandan battalions and the very recent deployment of the main body of the first of the two battalions pledged by Burundi. The report on Somalia concludes “more than ever before, swift and collective action is needed (…). Failure to effectively address the crisis in Somalia will leave a legacy of unfulfilled promises towards the Somali people, damage the credibility of the international community, as well as further undermine the prospects of peace in the country and compound efforts to promote regional stability.”
The Chairperson’s report on Chad provides an update on the situation and welcomes the initiative of the Congo and Libya to send a delegation of senior officials to Chad for consultations with the parties to the conflict. In addition, Henri Boshoff of the Institute for Security Studies emphasizes that “it is clear that if the international community, through the United Nations and the European Union, do not response more urgently, the situation in Chad, Darfur and CAR could well worsen.”
Lastly, newly elected AU Commission Chairperson Jean Ping visited Kenya on Friday. Following talks with the parties and mediation team, he expressed optimism that a power-sharing deal “is just within reach”. However, since his visit, the AU led mediation talks have been suspended.
A bold new film from Golden Bear winning director, Mark Dornford May (“U-Carmen eKhayelitsha” – Golden Bear Berlin, 2005) is being released countrywide from the 7th of March. “Son of Man” is a revolutionary film that explores an interpretation of the Jesus Christ story in a contemporary African context and should spark lively debate about its portrayal both of Christ and of Africa. Released by Spier distribution the film will begin its run at the Rich Mix Centre in Bethnal Green before branching out to sites in Bristol, Edinburgh, Cambridge and elsewhere in the UK.
The New Zealand Development Scholarships (NZDS) scheme offers the opportunity to people from targeted developing countries to undertake development-related studies at tertiary education institutions in New Zealand. New Zealand Development Scholarships are a central part of the New Zealand Government’s development cooperation programme in Africa. In the southern and eastern Africa region, NZAID offers NZDS in the Open category (NZDS-Open) to candidates from Kenya, South Africa, Tanzania and Zambia1.
Mam Sait Ceesay, a former editor of the Daily Observer, a Banjul-based pro-government newspaper was again on February 25, 2008 arraigned before a Banjul Magistrate Court over charges of publishing false information. The journalist's appearance in court followed a brief detention on February 2, 2008 at the Serious Crime Unit of The Gambia Police Force.
Participants in the 2008 CODESRIA Gender symposium will be invited to consider the mixed landscape of gender and citizenship that has been forged out of contemporary globalisation with a view to reflecting on ways of overcoming the new barriers that have emerged alongside the old obstacles that have persisted in the search for a better engendered citizenship. All those interested in proactively expressing their interest in the symposium are invited to send an abstract of the paper they intend to present not later than 30 May, 2008
Speaking ahead of the World Bank/ International Monetary Fund (IMF) 2008 spring meeting in Washington, United States of America in April 2008. Africa IDP Voice said it was now vital to introduce a new United Nations Millennium Development Goal (MDG) requiring governments to prevent and reduce prevalence of Internal Displacement and put in place national , regional and international legal, policy and institutional frameworks for their protection and assistance as an indispensable part of the fight against poverty.
The 17th African Human Rights Moot Court Competition will be held at the University of Pretoria, South Africa from 30 June to 5 July 2008. Students, academics and judges from all over Africa are invited to participate. All law faculties in Africa are invited to send one faculty representative who works in the field of human rights (dean or another lecturer) who will serve as judge in the preliminary rounds, and two undergraduate students (preferably one man and one woman) who will constitute the team representing its university at the Moot Court.
The Centre of African Studies (London), based at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), is pleased to announce a two-day conference on ‘Researching Violence and Conflict: Methodological and Ethical Considerations,’ to be held at SOAS 4 and 5 July 2008. This conference will be held in conjunction with the Africa-Europe Group for Interdisciplinary Studies (AEGIS).
Johnnie Carr, who joined childhood friend Rosa Parks in the historic Montgomery bus boycott and became a prominent civil rights activist over the past half century, has died. She was 97. Baptist Health hospital spokeswoman Melody Ragland said Carr died Friday night. She had been hospitalized after suffering a stroke Feb. 11. Carr succeeded the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. as president of the Montgomery Improvement Association in 1967, a post she held at her death.
The underground bomb shelter in Levinsky Park near Tel Aviv's Central Bus Station has, in recent months, turned into a squalid, staggeringly overcrowded little refugee camp. Some 200 African men, mainly from Eritrea, sleep crammed into every possible nook and cranny in two airless, low-ceilinged rooms and a corridor. The dirty concrete floor is heaped with mattresses and blankets, and scattered with scraps of food and debris. Hanging from the walls are plastic bags stuffed with clothing.
African sacred groves are often described as the remains of primeval forests, ethnographic curiosities, and cultural relics from a static pre-colonial past. Their continuing importance in African societies, however, shows that this 'relic theory' is inadequate for understanding current social and ecological dynamics. This interdisciplinary book, by an international group of scholars and conservation practitioners, provides a new understanding of these forests, examining their ecological characteristics and delineating how sacred groves relate to social dynamics and historical contexts.
This is the problem with Cameroon: All power in the country rests in the hands of one man, the President - Paul Biya.
He is the commander-in-chief-of the armed forces, the Fon of Fons [Chief Monarch amongst all monarchs], the chief magistrate of the land, head treasurer and of course chief legislator.
Truth be told, most of those passing for legitimate legislators and representatives of the people, and they know it, owe their seats to his benevolence. To say the least, Cameroon is a one sophisticated scheme of a neo-colonial entity.
In Cameroon, the president decides when elections are held and who participates in them. He initiates, writes and executes the rules of the contest. And as the sole architect of Cameroon’s nascent democracy, he has the executive privilege of appointing an impartial electoral commission to run the elections. During presidential elections he funds his own campaign and those of his rivals. His appointees declare and certify election results. By the way, in his 25 years in power, he has never lost an election. His party has never lost an election either. Besides, he is his party. His youthful image adorns party uniforms. He is his party's official mascot.
One of the problems facing Cameroon today is that the President has too much power. He knows he has too much power and like most rulers of his inclination uses that power to his utmost advantage with impunity. Biya is accountable to no one and uses that twist of misfortune as a means to serve his ends even if it means drowning an entire nation of over 16 million people in the process.
He is drunk with power but skillful and tactful in his execution of it. And like any effective dictator employs a team of illusionists and reality crafters to perpetuate the lie that has is his reign. The national radio, television and press corps combined form the core of his personal public relations firm. They are a much disciplined regiment and have been loyal to their paymaster.
In Cameroon, the national media is not an instrument of nation building. Its sole purpose is to glorify and celebrate a man whose sole preoccupation has been his own entrenchment in power. The idea of building a viable nation that can compete with other nations in the global economic and political realm is frightening to such a man. It is alien in his worldview and counterproductive to his motives.
So, every decree and decision is meant to tighten his grip on his subjects. The thought of a citizenry confident enough to demand what is theirs by right: freedom, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are not compatible with the Biya agenda. The idea of empowering Cameroonians threatens his reign; it is a thought that renders him sleepless. It is a pebble in his shoes.
This is where the issue of fear comes into play in the rusty machinery that runs Cameron. For Biya and his cohorts, fear is a reliable ally in their scheme to impose themselves on the country. It has become their weapon of choice in their assault on the collective psyche of Cameroonians. They employ it will face no judge or jury. In Cameroon, the men and women in uniform are above the law. In fact, they are the law. They arrest, judge, prosecute and execute.
Earlier this year, another instance of the brutality and excesses of the Cameroon police took place in Limbe, South West Province. A Cameroonian citizen but a resident in Germany was visiting relatives when one day he had an encounter with the local police. It would be his last encounter with anyone. A few minutes after a few words were exchanged he was lying in his own pool of blood, murdered. He had been beaten to death on the side of the road in broad daylight. No one intervened. No one can intervene. No one was held accountable and no one will. That is Biya’s Cameroon.
In Biya’s Cameroon riot police shoot live bullets at peaceful protesters.
In Biya’s Cameroon let it be noted for the record that in 2008, civilians can still be detained and beaten to death for verbal infractions with the police. How is this possible in this haven of peace and stability? It is possible because the man who has preponderance of power over all levels of power, Biya, has created the kind of police officer and soldier that serves his and only his interest, not the interest of the citizens they are supposed to serve and protect. The role of the soldier in Cameroon is to serve and protect the President’s interest. The military perpetuate his misrule and are paid generously. They are the first and last lines of defense against freedom in the battlefield of opinions and ideas in Cameroon.
It is their role, the military, to stuff the leechlike gods lording over Cameroon with the carcasses of protesting youth in this season of feasting. Their belches can be heard resonating from the damned walls of Etoudi across a landscape blighted with abuse of power, brutality, corruption, intolerance, lies, misrule and tyranny. They carry the laughter of the remorseless tyrant and his cohorts.
Their laughter is demented and nightmarish, one that rewards evil and celebrates vice. It is making exiles of a people. It is making beggars of a people. It is making thugs of a people. The stench of their vices is putrid. It is nauseating to the human soul. In their shortsightedness, the rulers of Cameroon pollute an entire people’s collective future as a compliment to an already tainted and bloodied past.
Geo-politically, Cameroon is within the French sphere of influence and enjoys some of the privileges that come with being a member of that unenviable fraternity. Biya has friends in high places. He owes his survival to those friends in high places. Like his brother, Idriss Derby in Chad and Omar Bongo in Gabon, he knows if push comes to shove, his friends at the United Nations Security Council will come to his aid—a booster in his toxic tonic.
Therefore it comes as no surprise that recently in Douala, forces of law and order in keeping with their oath reacted with brute force at peaceful protesters demonstrating against unjustified fuel price hikes, the banning of a popular radio stations and against an unpopular government bent on imposing itself on yet another generation of Cameroonians.
Between Saturday, February 23rd and Monday the 25th, five people have been killed in Douala and scores have been wounded. According to news reports, there was widespread looting and chaos in certain parts of the port city.
This time around no one is being fooled. Cameroonians are very familiar and intimate with the Biya agenda. They are fed up with it. Kenya is branded in their consciousness. They know that no constitutional reform in Cameroon could be intended to strengthen non-existent democratic values or institutions. They are not blind. They also know that reforms initiated by an unscrupulous regime could not be in their interest. They know it is only meant to keep Paul Biya and his cohorts in power. They are not numb and will react appropriately.
It is time for the Paul Biya era to be vanquished from our collective memory!
*Kangsen Feka Wakai is a Houston based writer and journalist. He is the author of Fragmented Melodies, a collection of poems available on
**Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at www.pambazuka.org
Strife is a novel laden with, yes, strife! It is at once a family story, a national one and eventually a borderless one. The author, Shimmer Chinodya, through the Gwanangara family takes on the task of interpreting and explaining happening events first by revisiting the past to deal with the upturning, unresolved business. The spirits start talking through Kelvin Gwanangara:
‘I am Mhokoshi! I want my weapons back!’
‘I am Njiki!’ Kelvin snarls, in an old woman’s voice. ‘My spirit is roaming the forest.’ ‘I am Sabastin.’ Now a strange young man’s thin breaking voice. ‘I need rest.’
‘I am Zevezeve the porcupine. You shat and spat on me when I visited you.’
‘I am Edgar Tekere. I’m back from the war. I see blood everywhere.’
Dunge Gwanangara, after many years of living as a Christian is challenged to put aside Christianity and consult n’angas. He ends up making mistakes for he doesn’t really know how to, he’s been busy being a strict Christian. The unresolved issues only grow larger. More misfortune strikes members of his family. One of his sons becomes epileptic, another schizophrenic. Dunge’s wife—the moon huntress— hears voices. Eventually, it turns out that no one thing really works, and no one solution will come from Christianity or tradition, modernity or education, science or destiny. The past no longer holds together and science fails to offer a cure to the Gwanangara afflictions. Conflict heightens as one value weighs against another and the realization that choosing one path is no longer practical. The characters in the novel fumble about, grappling for the ‘way.’ In the words of the author, ‘Everything that can go wrong goes wrong…’ And what’s supposed to happen doesn’t happen.
The book has selfless characters who sacrifice themselves for others, and also selfish individuals who only want to depend on others, and even blame others for their misfortunes.
The most refreshing part of the novel is when the author exposes migrations and relations that link various people across Africa, rendering the current borders meaningless. The ordinary person is well integrated, it’s the elite who are confused and divided by national borders. The young, rural people have no ‘crossing’ problems, leaving Zimbabwe to go and work in Mozambique or Malawi, learn the languages there and speak them. An old woman is at ease to cross from Zambia and visit her relatives in Zimbabwe, (without papers) but the educated are lost in the legal requirements and the consequences of crossing borders without visas.
The Gwanangara family has relatives across borders and occasionally exchange visits. The sad aspect is that these visits are mostly triggered by moments of crisis; strange illnesses and death. Most of the characters are courageous and they strive to overcome the obstacles that try to pull them down.
Towards the end of the story there is a sense of ease, a mellowness softening the rough edges of strife. The Gwanangara family starts to bond, openly talking about themselves and each other without hiding behind masks. They bail each other out and hear each other out. Also, they discover the joy of involving themselves earnestly in other people’s lives. They attend the funerals, graduation parties and weddings with genuine concern and discover that some of their relatives are not as bad as they had seemed to be. ‘In fact, none of the Chivi people seem half as bad as we were made to think they were. Perhaps we should make a fresh start.’ There is a new understanding amongst relatives giving hope to open friendship and genuine love.
At the end of the narrative, Strife is not only portrayed as a family saga or a single community affair but an African one. Utilizing the drama form to conclude his story, Chinodya seems to suggest that almost every African no matter where the geographical divide must make choices as to what will work in the future and question the belief invested in science, bones or Bibles. There will be several schools of thought for influence and inspiration: education, medicine, destiny, tradition... But before arriving at a lasting solution, the past will keep calling, making coping in the present moment alone nothing but full of strife!
Weaver Press, Harare, 2006, pp 223
* Mildred K Barya is Writer-in-Residence at TrustAfrica (www.trustafrica.org)
* Please send comments to or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/
The Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) is pleased to announce the seventh session of its Child and Youth Studies Institute and invites interested scholars to send applications for consideration for selection as laureates, resource persons, and director in the session which is scheduled for September 2008. The Institute is an off-shoot of the Council’s Child and Youth Studies Programme and is designed to strengthen analytic capacity on all questions affecting children and the youth in Africa and elsewhere in the world.
Will governments worried about national food supplies begin restricting land available to grow feedstock for biofuels? If they do, it may be after using a new United Nations tool to analyze their countries’ food-versus-fuel balance. The instrument, now available in a test version, is from the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization.
We, civil society organisations, including farmers, workers, women's, faith-based and students' groups and organisations, call on our people to redouble their efforts to stop the self-serving free trade agreements, misleading designated as 'Economic Partnership Agreements' that Europe seeks to impose on African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries, and which will destroy the economies of these countries.
http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/349/feb26_01_matubalemurphy.gif by Matuba Mahlatjie.
Matuba Mahlatjie is a gay blogger living in Pretoria. He comments on the possibility of Jacob Zuma becoming the next President of South Africa. He is particularly concerned over the recent acceptance by Zuma to attend a luncheon by Black Journalists Forum in South Africa.
“This forum of black journalists is so anti democracy and transparency. I listened to all their excuses for barring white journalists and they did not make any sense. The truth is they are making us look like uneducated savages who are comfortable with being repellers of change.
It is unfortunate that the people (Journalists) who are supposed to help the nation eradicate the evil spirit of racism - are the ones who are painting the country black and white. All media houses in South Africa have black journalists, but I like the fact that Talk Radio 702 and e.tv deliberately sent white journalist to expose the devil that possess the Black Journalist Forum here in South Africa.”
http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/349/feb26_02_lesbianrules.gifhttp://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/349/feb26_03_bandwidthblog.gifhttp://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/349/feb26_04_jontyfisher.gifThe Fish Bowl comments on an article by Dr Steven Friedman on the political and economic realities of the ANC
“The article summarises what I have been trying to push for some time. We keep trying to look at the ANC through Western prisms, when the leader of the ANC party is not usually the decision-maker. Mbeki was the ultimate decision-maker in his cabinet, but it is this type of leadership that has sparked the current "revolution" in voter sentiment. There are many players in the NEC and the NWC who hold vast business interests, the it is much more likely that a third way scenarion will occur.”
http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/349/feb26_05_yblog.gifYblogZA uses the total eclipse of the moon as a metaphor for the downward spiral of South Africa largely due to the ANC.
Moeletsi Mbeki, brother of President Thabo Mbeki, told the Cape Argus that South Africans had to face the fact the rest of the world had reason to be "very concerned" about the direction in which the country was moving.
“[Moeletsi] Mbeki also criticised new ANC president Jacob Zuma for "bad-mouthing" his own country's political and justice system in a foreign country. Zuma claimed in court papers in Mauritius this week that fraud charges against him were part of a political move against him. Moeletsi Mbeki, who is deputy chairperson of the SA Institute of International Studies at the University of the Witwatersrand, said: "Here we have the president of the ANC, the possible future president of the country, claiming that the 16 charges of fraud against him are part of a political campaign to keep him out of office.”
http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/349/feb26_06_khanya.gifKhanya has a philosophical discussion on “political and spiritual identity and personal values” and the separation of the church and state.
“Earlier today I got a message from another blogger about the liberation struggle in South Africa and its spiritual basis. Here are some preliminary thoughts, linked to the example above. I was a member of the Liberal Party, and while the humanist student in the example I gave was not, there were several others with views similar to his. The student whose banning we were protesting against was, however, both a Christian and a member of the Liberal Party. And one of the interesting things was that people with radically different religious backgrounds and worldviews were able to work together in a political party for common political goals. Christians, atheists, humanists, agnostics, Jews, Muslims and Hindus worked together for a common political goal of a democratic nonracial South Africa. Their reasons for pursuing that goal may have been very different, and almost opposite. But no matter what the reasons, they were able to agree on a political goal and a political programme.”
http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/349/feb26_07_abahlali.gifhttp://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/349/feb26_08_blacklooks.gifBlack Looks has another report on the diamond empire of Israeli billionaire, Lev Leviev whose diamond mines in Angola have been cited for human rights violations and which fund illegal settlements in the West Bank and his real estate business in New York using underpaid workers in hazardous conditions.
“Leviev’s wealth was built while trading with a business that was a huge pillar of the South African apartheid regime. He then went on to use the proceeds to construct an apartheid reality in the West Bank.”
* Sokari Ekine blogs at Black Looks and www.africanwomenblogs.com
Raliou Ahmed Assaleh, director of Radio Sahara, an independent radio station based in Agadez, a northern town 1000km from Niamey, and two other journalists, Moussa Inne and Ben Issoufou Mohammed were on February 16, 2008 subjected to hours of interrogation by the Agadez Gendarmerie over a story the station had aired two days earlier.
AIFO an Italian NGO is looking for a doctor for a project in Nampula (Mozambique). The person will be looking after the leprosy-tuberculosis programme. The person should be Portuguese speaking and have experience in infectious diseases in Africa. More specific training in leprosy and Tuberculosis can be arranged. Salary will depend upon the qualifications and experience. Inially a one year contract will be proposed that can be renewed. Interested persons should send their CV to
[email][email protected]
The course will cover various advanced topics in international refugee law. Topics to be covered include the \"nexus\" requirement of the definition; the meaning of \"persecution\"; developments in the interpretation of the exclusion provisions of the Convention; the non-refoulement and expulsion provisions of the Convention; refugee rights guaranteed by the Convention; and, the interaction between the Convention and other regional and complementary forms of protection. The course will take place in the 6th floor lounge, Hill House, Main Campus at the American University in Cairo from Monday June 02 to Saturday June 07, 2008 (excluding Friday) everyday from 9 am to 5 pm.
In all parts of the world, refugee women and girls are subjected to rape and other forms of sexual and gender based violence and torture. They are often targeted for human rights abuses from different aggressors, including regular army and militia members, irregular forces and members of their own community. This course will explore the impact of this violence on women and girls, families and communities. The course will take place in the 6th floor lounge, Hill House, Main Campus at the American University in Cairo from Monday June 9 to Saturday June 14, 2008 (excluding Friday) everyday from 9 am to 5 pm.
In this course, participants will increase their understanding of the psychosocial consequences for refugees living in camps and urban settings and learn practical methods they can use to implement effective family and community based interventions. The course will take place in the 6th floor lounge, Hill House, Main Campus at the American University in Cairo from Monday June 16 to Saturday June 21, 2008 (excluding Friday) everyday from 9 am to 5 pm.
Pambazuka News 426: The deepening economic and climatic crisis
Pambazuka News 426: The deepening economic and climatic crisis
The Conflict, Security and Development Group (CSDG) at King’s College London together with the Africa Leadership Centre (ALC), is pleased to announce a call for applications for the Peace and Security Fellowships for African Women for 2009/2010. These Fellowships1 are intellectual and financial awards for personal, professional and academic achievements, as well as the recognition of future potential. From October 2009, the Peace and Security Fellowships for African Women will be delivered by CSDG and the ALC, which is a partnership of King’s College London and Kenyatta University, Nairobi.
Pambazuka News 357: China, the West and Africa
Pambazuka News 357: China, the West and Africa
These following notes, written by Daniel Volman, are based on the Conference on “Transforming National Security: Africom—An Emerging Command” Organized which was organized by the Center for Technology and National Security Policy of the National Defense University in Virginia from 19-20 February 2008.
Although the conference was open to the public, it was immediately clear that it was very much an “in group” affair explicitly held to bring together people from all the different agencies and African governments that will have to coordinate their activities to make Africom work. Thus, the conference itself was part of the process of organizing Africom. Technically, the conference was held under the NDU rules of “non-attribution,” i.e. participants can quote statements made at the conference, but are not supposed to identify speakers. I’ve complied with the rule in this memo, but just let me know if you want to know who said what.
About half of the audience of approximately 300 people (they said that this was the largest meeting devoted to Africom that has been held so far) were from the U.S. military services, mostly from the various agencies and departments that have been working through Eucom up until now and will now have to begin working with the new Africom HQ staff in Stuttgart. Most of the ones that I talked to were actually from Defense Intelligence staff, i.e. the people who decide to do with the intelligence information collected by the DIA and other agencies.
Then there were a substantial number of people from other departments, not just DoS and AID, but also Agriculture, Commerce, Judiciary, and others, since they all have programs in Africa that they will have to coordinate with Africom. And finally, there were a number of people from African embassies and governments, including both political and military personnel.
The conference was part of the ongoing effort of the Pentagon to actually get Africom going and to bring other countries into the structure, including by bringing their personnel into the Africom structure. I know that they organized a parallel conference in London, at the Royal United Services Institute, on 18-19 February to bring the Brits in, and I assume that they have/will do the same kind of thing to bring in the French and other European countries.
The conference was very much a nuts-and-bolts discussion of all the practical matters of making Africom work.
The first interesting thing was the discussion of how they define Africom’s mission. The presentation on this were based on internal DoD presentations, so they were much more honest and revealing than the kind of thing that comes from the public pronouncements. The presentation specifically cited the challenge of preventing disruptions in African oil production and exports as one of Africom’s six chief missions, along with meeting the challenge of China, controlling ungoverned regions and transnational extremism, dealing with instability in the Horn of Africa, dealing with instability in the Great Lakes region, and dealing with the situation in Chad/Sudan.
When one of the African representatives asked about China, they backtracked and said that Africom doesn’t see itself as a response to China and will seek to cooperate with China in the future. Africom is scheduled to produce a posture statement outlining its mission and intentions in March 2008.
A couple of other interesting points they made was to say that they saw the Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa (the people who are spearheading U.S. involvement in Somalia and Ethiopia) as a model for what Africom could do in the rest of the continent. They admitted that they had made no attempt to consult with anyone at the UN while they were developing Africom and hadn’t really consulted with anyone in Africa either.
It was clear from their statements that they were very surprised and unhappy about the public response from Africans to Africom and that this was the reason that they were going to have to keep the Africom HQ in Stuttgart for the time being, although they will continue to look for African hosts and will also work on ways to station Africom staff people in less obvious and provocative ways like sending small groups to liaison with selected African military forces. They want to believe that this is just a problem of public relations and that they just have to do a better job of explaining themselves. One of the new buzzwords in Africom is “active listening,” i.e. pretending to care what other people think.
Finally, on a purely practical matter, there was considerable discussion about just how much trouble they are having finding adequate personnel and developing the kind of linkages and working relations with the agencies they will have to depend upon to actually do anything. This is all taking them a great deal of time and it’s clear that they will not really be ready when they become operational on 1 October. They’re worried that the difficult process of organizing Africom may actually disrupt U.S. military activities in Africa because the transition process itself will confuse everything.
* Daniel Volman is the director of the African Security Research Project in Washington, DC, and the author of numerous articles on US security policy and African security issues.
* Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org
Pambazuka News 348: Tribute to Fidel Cruz Castro
Pambazuka News 348: Tribute to Fidel Cruz Castro
Jegede Ademola Oluborode makes a case for human rights being a collective responsibility everywhere all the time
As an activist, one of the most pressing concerns which have agitated my mind in recent times is the way and when human rights issues evolve for national as well as international attention. Quite frequently, I have been tempted to question the agenda of these issues by asking the following: Whose issues are they? And how involving and timely is the process of defining, identifying, building consensus and designing interventions on the issues?
I am governed in this skepticism because apart from being unimpressed by the timing of human rights issues, I have been bordered by the response of political leadership to issues of widespread human rights significance and traumatized by the attention given to less significant issues being glamourised as most significant. In the many times that I have done this, I can not help but to notice that relevance has often been compromised for glamour. Indeed, more often than not, the agenda for human rights issues is dominantly the “King’s Agenda and not people oriented”! Sad enough, this trend has also found its way into the global stage.
I will make my self clearer with a story I have thought out for this purpose! For the sake of this story we will assume the existence of a Kingdom, a King and a fierce Lion. Let’s go now into the storyline!
Once upon a time, the subjects of a kingdom converged to seek the gracious audience of the King on the issue of a fierce lion which comes attacking at will, maiming lives and killing many in the kingdom. The king granted them an audience. Having listened to the concerns and comments so movingly related by the people about the strange lion, the king proceeded to ask their spokesmen “where is the Lion?” To which the entire people replied “it has fled away.” Then the King said “if the Lion has gone, then there is no trouble because “the trouble has gone.”At this stage, the king’s officials requested the people to leave the palace. Bewildered and disappointed, the people dispersed.
The Lion continued with its preying and subsequent reports on its attacks met with the same question and response of the king “where is the lion”, “if the Lion has gone, then there is no trouble because the “the trouble has gone.”
One fateful day, the king’s only son went on a royal visit to a neighbouring village. As providence would have it, the Lion came attacking once again and on that occasion, it was the one and only son of the king who fell prey to the ferocious animal. Shocked by the incident, the people’s initial challenge was how to inform the King about the tragedy as they were afraid of his possible reaction and wrath. But they summoned the courage to make the decision about informing the King.
As usual, they arrived at the palace to request the audience of the king who came out in the full regalia of a happy ruler to attend to his subjects. Now, listen to his royal majesty’s first comment “hope it is not the Lion again because you will only have one response from me which is, if the Lion has gone, then there is no trouble because the trouble has gone.” The spokesmen of the subjects said “Long live the King, you are right, it is the Lion, and it has eaten up your one and only son.” The King shouted wild in response “TROUBLE HAS COME!”
Any time political leadership, whether national or international, moves the nation or world around an issue; let’s bother to inform them that we hope it is not their “only son who has been killed”. Let us go further to ask them about how seriously the issues affect so many. Indeed, quality and positive human rights activism lies in being able to foresee issues and take steps to check them, for the fence around the hill is better than an ambulance in the valley-prevention is better than cure!
* Jegede Ademola Oluborode is a legal practitioner and a human rights activist in Nigeria.
**Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org
There she is, dead again,
that grandma with her jowls
and battered cardigan,
her headscarf and her
grainy backstreet photograph.
From week to week
her image stares to haunt us.
It’s the text that brings her
sharply into focus:
Loving mother of…
The grandma of…
An in-law through some cousin
to a councillor from such
and such a ward…
And, yes, the family will meet
at somewhere rural
and the hearse will leave
from such and such a Home
at 10a.m. (not prompt), proceed
to some small church
where she will Rest in Peace
Forever be Remembered
when Promoted to His Glory…
For us all, the same old story.
But her age in days like these,
her stunning age. Indeed,
the obit’s whole normality
earns which: our envy? Praise?.
*Stephen Derwent Partington, is the Kwani? poetry editor and a member of the Concerned Kenyan Writers Initiative.
**Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org
Blessing-Miles Tendi argues that because Britain lacks the moral authority to comment on or interfere in Zimbabwean affairs, it would serve the Zimbabwean search for freedom and justice by keeping away.
Since 2000, Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe government has cast the Zimbabwe crisis as a struggle by Britain, an ex-colonial power, to re-colonise its former colony by supporting and funding the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party. Britain has blindly walked into Mugabe’s anti-colonial trap consistently, which has exposed Zimbabwe’s internal opposition to harmful labels such as ‘sell-outs to the imperialists’.
Britain has expressed its frustration with Southern African leaders’ unwillingness to censure Mugabe publicly and to force him into retirement. A number of factors explain Southern African leaders’ stance on Mugabe and chief among them is that for a long time the MDC was distrusted by regional leaders and perceived as sell-outs to new-imperialism. Britain bore responsibility for this false perception of the opposition in Zimbabwe because its anti-Mugabe stance made Zimbabwe’s opposition easy prey for Mugabe’s anti-colonial constructions. Britain is partly responsible for the failure of a democratic opposition to replace the undemocratic Mugabe in elections since 2000.
Mugabe has also proved adroit at articulating British double standards on global human rights promotion to bolster his refutation of Western criticism of his government’s human rights record. Britain dilutes its moral authority when it calls for its national cricket team to boycott tours of Zimbabwe because of the country’s poor human rights record but remains silent when its national team tours Pakistan, which is also a grave human rights violator. Britain’s condemnations and targeted sanctions against the Mugabe government would command more moral authority if the same human rights standards were applied everywhere evenly. Failure to apply human rights standards evenly results in staunch claims to sovereignty in the non-Western world. The danger lies in the fact that some of these claims are merely pretexts for internal repression – something Mugabe is guilty of.
After Britain’s involvement in the illegal 2003 invasion of Iraq its moral authority is at its lowest ebb internationally. Thus, it is breathtakingly naïve for the Foreign Secretary David Milliband to insist, as he did in Oxford this month, that despite Britain’s failures in Iraq, Britain has ‘a moral duty’ to intervene in undemocratic countries – and by force if necessary – in order to spread democracy internationally. Very few countries still look up to Britain as a champion of human rights and democracy, and none in Southern Africa will countenance its involvement in their internal affairs. ‘We are tired of being lectured on democracy by the very countries which, under colonialism, either directly denied us the rights of free citizens, or were indifferent to our suffering and yearnings to break free and be democratic’ – remember these utterances by the Tanzanian government, one of Britain’s favoured donor recipients in Southern Africa, in 2004?
Britain has, as a starting premise, the logic that its modern day standing as a developed democracy automatically confers the moral authority to censure what it considers to be less democratic countries such as Zimbabwe. But its flawed history of intervention and interference in Zimbabwe has left it with little or no moral credibility there. Britain granted Rhodesia’s white settler community ‘responsible self-government’ in 1923. However, the country remained a British colony and Britain retained the right to veto legislation affecting the black African majority. Rhodesia’s white minority passed various laws that subjected the blacks to treatment as subhuman. Not once did Britain exercise its veto power to strike down Rhodesia’s dehumanising and racist laws.
In 1965, Rhodesia severed ties with the British crown by declaring the Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI). Britain was called upon to use military force to rein in the rebellious UDI government’s perpetuation of white minority rule. Prime Minister Harold Wilson ruled out the use of force. He chose to impose sanctions and declared that the UDI government would survive the sanctions for no more than 6 weeks. Rhodesia weathered the sanctions until black majority rule was attained in 1980, after a peace settlement a year earlier, which brought to an end one of the most bloody and bitterly fought liberation wars in Africa.
In the 1980s, Britain venerated Mugabe while he massacred 20000 civilians in Zimbabwe’s Matabeleland province. The reason? According to Roger Martin, Deputy British High Commissioner to Zimbabwe (1983-86), ‘no British government wanted a couple of hundred thousand British citizens appearing with cardboard suitcases at Heathrow, the sudden expulsion of whites if we had pulled the rug on the aid [to Zimbabwe] and as it were denounced Mugabe [for the massacres].’
In spite of assurances Britain made to the Mugabe government at independence, to fund the redress of racially biased land distribution in Zimbabwe, in 1997 it declared that it did not accept ‘a special responsibility to meet the costs of land purchase in Zimbabwe’. 3 years later a violent programme of land seizures from white farmers without compensation began to unfold. Zimbabwe is what it is economically today partly because of these land seizures.
Foreign Secretary Milliband has called for international monitoring of Zimbabwe’s 2008 elections, saying conditions for the poll are ‘far from free and fair’. But Britain should be the last to speak out and it should desist from prejudging the forthcoming elections publicly because this is exactly what Mugabe wants Britain to do. Already, Mugabe has said his party’s 2008 election campaign will focus on resisting Britain’s regime change agenda in Zimbabwe. Mugabe has set his anti-colonial trap for Britain and if Milliband’s comments are anything to go by, Britain is walking into it once again. Britain would better serve the struggle for democracy and human rights in Zimbabwe by taking a back seat in the country’s elections next month because it has no moral authority in Southern Africa. Groupings such as the European Union and the Southern African Development Community should take the lead not Britain because it risks aiding Mugabe’s re-election bid.
*Blessing-Miles Tendi is a researcher at Oxford University.
**Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org
To the NCBL, to Mark P. Fancher (principal drafter of Africom threatens the sovereignty, Jeffrey L. Edison and Ajamu Sankofa, the editor, and to all those who comprehend what "interconnected" is all about:
First, thank you for this enlightening information in the form of your article. This is powerful stuff, and I am sorry to say, all too familiar to me. My knowledge of American history and of African history is rudimentary, but I certainly know enough to hear a familiar pattern revealed by your report.
We have long ago run out of pages on which to chronicle the litany of horrors committed against African peoples on and beyond the African continent. (This could be said for many parts of the world, but none more dramatically than the African continent and it’s peoples.) I mean, if we really are all connected, and if our fates ultimately lie in our own hands and in our ability to act on this connection, then it should be clear that the so-called spiritual high road is actually the fastest, cheapest and most effective way to create a truly sustainable world economy. And, if we believe the overwhelming majority consensus of science, aren't we all literally descendants of Africa?
This is tough for some people to embrace, but I never understand why. Our mis-guided, myopic, and divisive notions of nationality might be better focused on how we are all members of a greater, integrated, interdependent family, simply living in different parts of the world. And please, could we do this sometime BEFORE we create the NEXT world-wide crisis of our own making?
“Ain’t it time we look to ourselves to assess
if we are wisely using the powers we possess?
Ain’t it time we took our visions seriously
and embrace the common ground of our humanity?
Ain’t it time for our actions to add up and be
a wave of our wondrous diversity?
Ain’t it time to sleep with and make love to our dreams
Until our dreams become our reality?
Ain’t it time?”
So yes, I get your point.
That’s why I do what I do. Along with Senegalese nationaI, Mr. Massamba Diop, (tama drummer with Baaba Maal) I am the co-founder of the Senegal-America Project.
This project is about how the music can sound and how the world can look when we realize that we are actually all connected.
Maybe we have something in common here? I’m sure of this: The friends we make, up close and personal, doing our projects one-on-one are the medicine against the poison of ignorance and self-defeating greed. We do our work; music, education, health and social issues, art, all for our mutual, immediate and long- term benefit.
This may be pushy, but hey, we could use some help.
Oh we’re doing amazing things, it’s just that we are going slower than we are capable of going. It’s all grass roots, people-oriented work. Things like concerts and workshops in schools in America and in Africa, to get young students in the mid-set of realizing their issues are shared by others their age on the other side of the world…and that they can begin to create and work on projects that address these issues together. Things like money and resources to build and supply school buildings, mosquito nets to prevent malaria, arts exchange projects to show how something they do in their world can change the environment of a friend they’ve never met, who lives thousands of miles away.
This is the medicine against Africom, and we have it in vast supplies. Everyone wants to be part of this. We could use a little help to put it all together in an even more effective way.
Check out the Senegal-America Project at the site of our non-profit arts organization: http://www.arts-are-essential.org/senegal.about.php
You can also go to my web site and read my take on the Senegal-America Project. It's:http://www.tonyvacca.com/senegalamerica.
The present void as exists in Kenya, says Annar Cassam, is very dangerous for it renders both the elections and the observer missions irrelevant and robs the voters of their democratic rights twice.
Nearly two months after Kenya's rigged elections and Kibaki's "victory" claim set the country on fire, there is one question that has been on everybody's lips and it has still to be answered.
How can it be that this "model" African country,this island of stability, democracy, good governance, economic excellence and humanitarian solidarity in an otherwise chaotic, conflict-ridden and backward part of the continent, can so quickly collapse into tragedy? And this as a result of rigged elections which take place all the time and all over the world, but seldom with such horrendous consequences?
This perception of Kenya being the exception, the model, is widespread, among Kenyans especially and in the outside world but is it really justified, is it not more fiction than fact?
It is difficult to square this image with one simple truth universally acknowledged, that, Kenya is one of Africa's most corrupt countries. Its history of state corruption is not a secret, nor is it complicated to understand, thanks to the country's vibrant and vigilant press and to well-documented investigation reports of major financial scandals, such as the Goldenberg scam (under Moi) and the recent AngloLeasing scam (under Kibaki).
For those who wish to know more about Kenya's endemic culture of corruption at the highest level,a seminar with John Githongo would be useful. Githongo is the former head of the country's anti-corruption unit, now living in exile in London, having fled Kenya in fear for his life in 2005. The myth about Kenya's economic status has long been promoted by representatives of the World Bank and IMF who imagine that Kenya, by virtue of its hosting the "most powerful economy" in East Africa and the UN Office in Nairobi, exists in some other parallel universe, far away from African realities.
However, the people of Kenya are now poorer than ever. According to the Financial Times, in 1990, 48% of the population lived below the poverty line. "Today, four decades after independence, 55% of Kenyans subsist on a couple od dollars a day"(FT.1/1/2008).
Since independence in 1963, the international donor community, led by the UK, has contributed some $16bn in aid. It is also under their watch that Kibera, so-called "the largest slum in Africa" has expanded and festered in the capital city where about 1.2mn people live without clean water and sanitation amenities, many of them without employment or adequate medical care. Vast amounts of Kenya's arable land are owned by the three ruling families,namely, Kenyatta,Moi and Kibaki. Half of the nation's wealth is in the hands of 10% of the population.
Kenyan MPs earn allowances amounting to tax-free salaries of more than $10,000 per month. This is a democratic model very few African countries can afford to emulate. The international community, so massively present in Kenya, has been complicit in fabricating the "model" country myth, to the detriment of the suffering of the Kenyans.The parallel universe complex referred to earlier afflicts the UN Office in Nairobi, the only UN HQ to be based in a developng country, the others being in New York, Geneva and Vienna.UNON is also the seat of two Specialised Agencies, UNEP (environmental programme) and HABITAT (human settlement) and to an ever-expanding network of international organisations, NGOs and commercial enterprises providing financial, policy and logistic support for the many conflict ad disaster-prone populations in the region.
But the plight of the ordinary citizens seems not to be in the mandate of the leadership of this privileged group of international experts who live in daily contact with Kenyans who look after their children, drive their cars, provide security for their property, etc. In the last 10 years, Kenya has become a major exporter of fresh vegetables and flowers to European markets. In the Lake Naivasha area, acres of land lie covered under green-houses where a water-intensive, high-tech industry produces millions of fresh roses to be flown to Holland (for very low prices). The environmental damage caused to local water resources and the hardship this means for the local rural population's ability to grow food crops is a case study for our experts.
Myths can take on a life of their own, unaffected by concrete realities which in Kenya are only too visible. The so-called economic success story should be seen in context. For, however impressive may be the gains on the Nairobi Stock Exchange, the tonnes of agricultural exports, the thousand of tourists, the millions of dollars in aid funds and the 6% growth rate since 2006, this cannot hide the misery and the humiliation of over half the population which used to live on $2 a day before the current breakdown.
It is time to re-consider the continued presence of the UN Office in a country whose government holds such a record of mismanagement and corruption ... and now of election fraud. Kenya's Central Bank, the main beneficiary of the money the UN and allied networks spend in the country will feel the loss,(the "UN business" is said to provide 20% of Kenya's annual forex earnings) but the UN's leadership must surely demand some basic standards of ethical behaviour from the host government, both for its own integrity and credibility and for the sake of the millions of Kenyans now in obvious distress and disarray.
As for the spread of democracy, the Kenyan debacle provides an opportunity for a fresh look at the role of observer missions which arrive in developing countries as watchdogs for the godess of free and fair elections. Is it really enough to fly in, observe, declare this or that and then vanish? Some serious attention needs to be paid to a code of ethics and follow-up mechanisms which can apply in situations where a mission's verdict on rigged elections is ignored and power is grabbed by the faudulent party.
The present void as exists in Kenya is very dangerous for it renders both the elections and the observer missions irrelevant and robs the voters of their democratic rights twice.
Finally, a word about the man who would be president for the second time. By having the elections rigged and then clinging to the trappings of power, Kibaki has shown an abysmal lack of moral principle and leadership. While the country self-destructs and his people turn on each other, while chldren are burnt to death, women and girls raped and many thousands become refugees in their own land, Kibaki has contributed strictly nothing by way of a solution. This is dereliction of duty and reponsibiity which is contemptible and which must be condemned. Kenya, after all is no man's personal property and elections, even when rigged, are not a passport to impunity.
* Annar Cassam is Tanzanian, former Consultant at UNESCO/PEER Nairobi and former Director, UNESCO Office, Geneva
** Please send comments to or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/
February 25, 2008, is exactly 24 years since the horrific massacre that took place when the Kenyan security killed over 400 Somali men. Today, we are submitting a memo to the Kenya High Commission in Ottawa at 415 Laurier Avenue East Street from 11:00 am - 12:00 pm. This is to mark the 24th anniversary of the Wajir Massacre. This act of genocide occurred in 1984 in Wagala near Wajir. The massacre itself occurred following the rounding up of five thousand Somali men and their removal to the Wagala air strip, while their homes were being burnt to the ground. The men were detained within a barbed wire enclosure over a four day period, forced to strip and denied food and water. The massacre has been devastating to the morale of Somalis, the majority of whom are too intimidated to take any action in case of further reprisals.
To the Somalis, the Wajir Massacre is one of the gravest in a sad history of brutal massacres, including Malkameri in 1996, Garissa in 1980, Madogashe in 1982 and Bagala in 1989. Since none of these massacres has ever been investigated, the pattern of repression of the Kenyan Somali people continues.
Hundreds of families of victims of the Wajir Massacre are in the Bula Jogoo area of Wajir and are still in a state of destitution depending solely on relief aid. They have never been compensated for the massacre by the Kenyan government. At the time of the Wajir Massacre there was an international outcry and many western countries showed their concern and protested to the Kenyan government. Among them were Canada, Britain, United States of America, Sweden, Denmark, France, Germany, Norway, Finland, Australia, Austria, Ireland, Switzerland, Netherlands and Belgium. The Kenyan government has, for the first time, admitted that the horrific Wajir Massacre occurred sixteen years ago and that hundreds of ethnic Somalis were killed in the Wajir district in the northeastern province of Kenya during this massacre.
We, the Kenyan Somali Community of North America, are calling on the Kenyan Government to take the following actions immediately:
- Appoint an independent commission of inquiry into the Wajir, Garissa and Malkameri Massacres. - Compensate the bereaved families of the 381 people that the Kenyan government admitted had been massacred by its security forces.
- Immediately bring to justice those who were responsible for these heinous crimes
For more information contact Abdi Omar Chairperson Kenya Somali Community of North America (613) 728 2355 or (613) 736 1789 - Email: [email][email protected]
The Global Zimbabwe Forum would like to express its dire concern at the current state of the preparations for the forthcoming harmonized elections that are due to be held in Zimbabwe on 29th March 2008.
We would like as Zimbabweans in the Diaspora, to state in no uncertain terms our unequivocal stance on the following issues:
The outcome of the forthcoming elections will be highly compromised by the fact that over three million eligible voters who are now living outside Zimbabwe will be excluded from participating in the process. We believe that the exclusion of the Diaspora vote is a fundamental flow that brings the credibility of the elections into question.
We also note with concern the rather inconclusive nature of the SADC mediation process that was being led by President Thabo Mbeki. Should Zimbabweans expected more from this rather protracted process.
We further call upon SADC and Africa in general to ensure that the elections are held in accordance with the expectations of the SADC Protocol on Elections that was adopted in Mauritius in August 2004.
We urge all the interested political parties and independent candidates in the forthcoming elections to promote a spirit of peaceful election campaign process. Political violence must be condemned unconditionally.
We endorse current efforts to mobilize some Zimbabweans in the Diaspora especially those living in the SADC region to return home and vote in the forthcoming elections.
While we respect the individual members' preferences of candidates of their own, we do not endorse any candidates in the elections since we are a politically non-partisan organization but urge the Zimbabwean electorate to vote for a candidate who will seek to promote the democratic ideals of Zimbabwe especially the interests of the diverse Diaspora community.
We urge all Zimbabweans at home to go turn out in their numbers on 29th March and fully exercise their right to elect the leaders of their own choice.
Issued in Johannesburg on Monday 25th February 2008 by
The Global Zimbabwe Forum c/o The Zimbabwe Diaspora Forum 4th Floor, Noswal Hall, Braamfontein Johannesburg, South Africa Tel/Fax: +27113393629
Blade Nzimande gives a comradely appraisal of Fidel Castro the revolutionary theorist, practitioner and internationalist.
The AU Monitor's Monthly Discussion Paper Series presents its current paper, based on the "Open Letter to Africa's Present and Future Leaders" written by the 2007 Archbishop Desmond Tutu Fellows. Among other recommendations, the letter urges "the establishment of a high-level African Union led campaign to fight tribalism and inequality in all its forms across the continent." Forum members are encouraged to contribute to the discussion and answer the proposed questions.
This week's AU Monitor brings you news from the African Union, where only half of its member states have ratified the Protocol establishing the African Human Rights Court. The Court's President Gerard Niungeko urges the remaining African states to ratify the protocol to enable "individuals and non-governmental organizations to approach the Court with their cases".
The second ordinary session of the AU Conference of ministers in charge of Youth (COMY) has called on the private sector to implement youth activities at national and sub-national levels in order for youth to play a significant role in the development of the continent. It was concluded that "Africa's victory against poverty, violence, insecurity and bad governance lies in the continent's capacity to empower the youth so that they could take control and develop its resources".
In other AU news, the AU Commission and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) will meet this week to exchange views on recent African developments, human security concerns and discuss ways of enhancing economic growth on the continent.
Mozambique, considered one of the strongest economic performers in Sub-Saharan Africa, will host the 43rd Annual Meetings of the African Development Bank (AfDB) in May 2008. The meeting will bring together 1500 participants and is being held on the theme: "Fostering Shared Growth: Urbanization, Inequality and Poverty".
In U.S.-Africa news, Ambassador Cindy Courville, the first full-time U.S. envoy to the African Union (AU), speaks of a growing U.S.-Africa relationship and highlights the monetary assistance the U.S. has provided for the continent.
While Abid Aslam reports on the recent visit of U.S. President George Bush to Africa as being a way to "polish his image and advance U.S. interests", highlighting both positive and negative U.S. initiatives in Africa, Horace Campbell outlines the motives behind Bush's visit as an attempt to coerce African countries to sign on to the proposed U.S. Africa Command (Africom). Campbell calls for activists to "oppose the plans for the remilitarization of Africa under the guise of fighting terrorism in Africa".
In regional news, the East African Community (EAC) Secretary General Ambassador Juma Mwapuchu has stated that the Kenyan situation has affected regional integration processes and has had ramifications on the entire EAC region. Ambassador Mwapuchu pledges that his organization will play a central role in resolving the political situation in Kenya.
Also regarding the situation in Kenya, a coalition of Kenyan human rights organizations have presented a Memorandum to the African Commission on Human and People's Rights (ACHPR), addressing concerns and recommendations to restore peace in Kenya following the contested presidential ballot of December 2007.
In environmental news, the Community of Sahel-Saharan States (CEN-SAD) recently held a conference on their "great greenbelt initiative", a 15 km wide greenbelt containing wildlife that can serve the region's economic interests as well as the development of a network of inland basins and other social infrastructure. Further, Peter Bosshard of International Rivers analyzes the potential downside to China's State Environmental Protection Agency's (SEPA) Equator Principles, highlighting that it could serve as a risk to regions with weaker environmental standards, such as Africa.
Finally, a recent reception of the African Capacity Building Foundation (ACBF) called for countries to intensify capacity building efforts by mobilizing existing resources, in order to increase development of the continent and end dependency on Western countries.
Pambazuka News 350: Even in peace the war on women continues
Pambazuka News 350: Even in peace the war on women continues
Former finance minister and member of the Zanu PF politburo, Simba Makoni is challenging Robert Mugabe later this month for the leadership of Zimbabwe. Sehlare Makgetlanen tackles the question of whether he represents a break from the past or more of the same.
Zimbabwe under the leadership of Mugabe is facing fundamental governance, democracy and development challenges. It has failed to ‘‘legitimately exercise power and authority over the control and management of the country’s affairs in the interest of the people and in accordance with the principles of justice, equity, accountability and transparency.” Mugabe has prevented some members of the Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) from expressing their governance, democracy and development policy preferences through democratic means to be the president of ZANU-PF and the country. He regards himself as the only leading judge of what best serves the national interests of Zimbabwe which include governance, democracy and development demands, needs and interests of the country and its people.
Mugabe has threatened to be the stumbling block for ZANU-PF to win free and fair elections and for the resolution of Zimbabwe’s governance, democracy and development problems. Processes and issues leading to true national self-determination should not be left into the hands of one leader irrespective of the unquestionable content of his or her commitment to the liberation cause and that the political leadership including the leadership in the political administration of the society is the collective process in which no individual is indispensable. He has in the process mobilised some members of ZANU-PF to implement their decision to use their strength and resources in challenging him not only as the president of the party but also as the president of the country. Those theirs is hostility to the new leadership of the party and the country as required by the present situation – the struggle fought for under the pretext of defending the unity of the party – must be democratically fought against. It is not in the interest of the country and its people in defending the unity of the party if its president is against the popular national interests – the governance, democracy and development demands, needs and interests of the country and its people.
Whether they will use this development to have collective leadership and the democratic means capable of adequately appropriating Zimbabwe’s problems for their confrontation and resolution remains to be seen. These problems have intensified. This development led Simba Makoni to challenge Mugabe in the 29 March 2008 presidential elections. What is the present state of Zimbabwe’s national situation? “The Zimbabwe of today,” according to Makoni at the launch of his election manifesto in Harare on 13 February 2008, “is a nation full of fear, a nation in deep stress, a tense and polarised nation, a nation also characterised by disease and extreme poverty.” It is a nation in which “immediate and urgent tasks to resolve the food, power and fuel, water and sanitation problems, resolve health and educational services” should be undertaken.
Highlighting the gravity of Zimbabwe’s socio-political and economic situation, Makoni in his 5 February 2008 announcement that he would challenge Mugabe in the 29 March 2008 presidential elections as candidate pointed out that he shares “the agony and anguish of all citizens over the extreme hardships we have all endured for nearly 10 years.” Admitting the role played by the national leaders on the development of the national situation, he told reporters that he also shares “the widely held view that these hardships are a result of failure of national leadership and that change at that level is a prerequisite for change at other levels of national endeavour.” He was denied opportunity to a “renewal of the leadership in the ZANU-PF and country” to end economic crisis and “national despair.” It is for this reason, among others, that what he is “offering is the chance for hope” to rid Zimbabwe of fear and poverty. The point is that “we believe that solving these problems will not be intractable, once we remove the barriers and impediments that bar the expression and pursuit of our common interest and common purpose.” If elected, he promises that he would “address national issues that separate and divide us as a nation and institute a process of national healing and reconciliation.” Having been expelled from ZANU-PF, he is standing as an independent presidential candidate in the presidential and parliamentary elections scheduled for 29 March 2008. He calls upon Zimbabweans particularly members of the party to join him in his struggle to prevent Mugabe from winning a sixth term in office. “I particularly invite those compatriots who have been pushed into despair and despondency, but have the qualities of leadership, to please enter the race. I also invite those in ZANU-PF who share our yearning for renewal to contest the election as independent candidates under our banner.” He is contesting elections under the banner of the movement called Dawn (Mavambo/Kusile), whose logo features a rising sun. “The time for decision has come. Jump off the fence, climb out of the false comfort zones.” Contrary to Makoni’s position, members of the ruling alliance are not in “the false comfort zones.” Theirs are structures of wealth and privileges.
There is essentially nothing new Makoni has pointed out since announcing his decision to challenge Mugabe in the elections. He has repeated statements opposition political parties and their critics have been saying about the country’s problems and how to resolve them. On the atrocious abuse of power and public resources and use of violent measures to deal with dissent and opposition including within the ruling party, he maintains: “Zimbabweans are experiencing stress and tension because of the siege mentality in the state, with the state resorting to violence to suppress dissent, a lack of respect for the law and gross abuse of state resources.” He continues: “National institutions have been corrupted, privatised and politicised. We are seeing a scourge of the politics of patronage and gross abuse of power and a culture of chiefdom.” He has served as a senior participant in creating and sustaining this democracy practice. He continues stating what has been attributed not only to the ruling party, but also to two factions of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). “There is lack of a national vision and agenda on the basis which all Zimbabweans could be mobilised for national reconciliation and revival.” What is his vision and agenda on the basis which Zimbabweans could be mobilised to serve as social agents for development and progress of their country is the strategic question which he has so far failed to answer. Predicting a landslide victory in the elections, he is basing his campaign platform on the revival of the economy and the restoration of political freedoms and property rights. He claims that this strategy will “restore our people’s independence, dignity and confidence.” This strategy will continue, if he wins elections, in managing the inequality of power relations between the rulers and the ruled of the country.
As it happened in the past, members of ZANU-PF were denied their democratic rights and opportunity to fight for nomination during its December 2007 congress so as to stand as the party’s candidate in the 29 March 2008 presidential elections. It endorsed Mugabe as its sole candidate. This decision ensured that he should not be challenged within the ruling party in his attempt to be re-elected as the president of the country. Makoni was defying this decision in announcing that he would challenge him as the ruling party’s candidate in the elections. He maintains that at the December 2007 congress, some party members including himself were prevented from seeking nomination as its presidential candidate. In his words: “I would have very much wished to stand as (ZANU-PF) official candidate. Unfortunately, as we all know, that opportunity was denied to other cadre who would have offered themselves to serve the party and country.”
While Makoni’s announcement is viewed by some individuals as a substantial and welcome addition in the arsenal against Mugabe, the MDC faction led by Morgan Tsvangirai and civil society organisations aligned to it regard him as the ruling party agent deployed to divide the opposition vote in the elections. Tsvangirai dismissed him as “nothing more than old wine in a new bottle.” Lovemore Madhuku was more harsh and brutal. He dismissed him as the part of the ZANU-PF-state institutional machinery and its project guilty of many years of its rule. As usual, the ruling party viewed him as the traitor and agent of imperialist interests. Questions are raised as to whether he is honest and sincere in his declared challenge to Mugabe. Is he the intelligence project by supporters of Mugabe designed to identify senior members of the ruling party who are Mugabe’s opponents he maintains support his campaign? Some are of the view that his aim is to split the opposition vote – most importantly urban voters who have supported the MDC in the previous elections.
Why did Makoni decide to challenge Mugabe? At what time did he seriously convince himself that he should summon his courage to challenge Mugabe? Why did he announce his decision so late? Is it because his wish to be the ruling party’s official candidate was rejected? Was he forced to make his decision? If he was forced, who forced him, for what strategic and tactical reasons? The announcement of his decision raises the key question as to whether he is a shrewd politician capable of effectively challenging Mugabe. What are his strategy and tactics to win elections and to effect the democratic transformation of the state and society? Is his campaign individual or collective effort? Can the majority of Zimbabweans regard it as their proud national product? Who within the ruling party are supporting his campaign? Have they participated in the creation and sustenance of the current situation? Are they now convinced that Mugabe is threatening their interests and therefore he should be replaced as the country’s president for their interests to continue being protected? Why they have not publicly articulated what they stand for – particularly how and for what strategic and tactical ends Zimbabwe should be governed? He initially stated that he was standing as an independent presidential candidate within the ruling party challenging Mugabe. He refused, given his loyalty to the party, to end his relationship with it. He was embracing leaderless illusion that the party will not end its relationship with him. As the party correctly pointed out, he expelled himself from it by making his announcement. He continues, after expulsion from the party, refusing to provide a critical analysis of the party and how it ruled the society and articulating this to Zimbabweans so as to with their support for him to solve problems they have been facing as he claims to be his key reason why he decided to contest elections. He continues refusing also to use opportunity to substantiate in practice that he is independent from the ruling party.
Makoni has so far failed to provide failed to provide alternative vision and agenda of the future Zimbabwe to that offered by ZANU-PF and two MDC factions. Despite acute problems confronted by the masses on the daily basis, his strategy and tactics have failed to meet their demands and needs. The consequence is that they do not recognise them as expressions of their own experience. Briefly, they failed to capture their imaginations. Is he for the authentic national popular democratisation of the society and the state for the masses of the Zimbabwean people to be the main authority in achieving, maintaining and expanding their interests? Unless the power to determine the form and content as well as the timetable of the change is in the hands of the masses of the people through the leadership of those who have surrendered their being their representatives to their cause, unilateral declaration of independence of leaders from the people will always be the negation of the popular principle, “we are our own liberators.”
The strategic tasks confronting the masses of Zimbabweans are political. Who should be their national president and why? How should be their national problems be resolved? What should be the nature of the future Zimbabwe’s relations with its regional and continental African countries and the rest of the world particularly developed countries? How best and effectively to improve the material conditions of the millions of Zimbabweans? These are some of the questions which should be answered to the satisfaction of the majority of Zimbabweans.
*Sehlare Makgetlaneng is the head of Southern African and SADC Desk at the Africa Institute of South Africa.
**Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org
We, civil society organisations, including farmers, workers, women's, faith-based and students' groups and organisations, call on our people to redouble their efforts to stop the self-serving free trade agreements, misleading designated as 'Economic Partnership Agreements' that Europe seeks to impose on African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries, and which will destroy the economies of these countries.
At our meeting in Cape Town, South Africa, from 20-23 February 2008, under the umbrella of the Africa Trade Network, to review the latest developments in the EPA negotiations, we reaffirm our unequivocal opposition these agreements
When the EPA negotiations were launched, civil society organisations from all over Africa, the Caribbean, the Pacific and Europe warned that the EPAs were profoundly anti-developmental. We pointed out that the EPAs posed a threat not only specifically to government revenue, local producers and industries, food sovereignty, essential public services, and the regional integration of African countries; but also to the right and capacity in general of African countries to develop their economies according to the needs of their people and their own national, regional and continental priorities.
The latest developments in these negotiations have exposed even more sharply the fundamental outrage represented by the EPAs.
At the end of 2007, Europe deployed manipulative and heavy-handed tactics in an attempt to force African governments into so-called 'interim' agreements. When it became clear that no African regional bloc would agree to its demands, the European Commission, with the active support of its member states, resorted to blatant divide-and-rule tactics. Europe capitalised on the fact that, for historical reasons, a few export sectors in Africa are largely dependent on the European market. By threatening to close access to these markets and throw export sectors into chaos, Europe rode roughshod over the regional negotiating processes and instigated bilateral deals with individual countries.
The more vulnerable African governments were forced to concede to Europe's demand for 'interim' trade deals, and in the process, completely undermined regional negotiating positions.
These Interim Economic Partnership Agreements reveal Europe's true face. The deals are classical free trade agreements that clearly serve Europe's commercial and geo-economic interests. All the claims about supporting Africa's development and regional integration have been exposed as false.
Merely to secure a level of market access that is remarkably similar to previous levels, ACP countries involved in the interim agreements have had to concede to opening up their economies to historically unprecedented levels even beyond the commitments required at the multilateral level.
In addition, Europe took advantage of the circumstances to insert clauses in the interim agreements that were not even part of earlier negotiations. These include the 'most favoured nation' clause, a standstill clause that forbids countries from ever raising tariffs on imports from Europe, and restrictions and even outright prohibitions on export taxes. These provisions only serve to lock in further these countries into Europe's agenda, and prevent them from exploring other options and relations within the changing global order. This will take away their space for autonomous policy to create jobs, secure livelihoods and pursue equitable economic development and regional integration.
Throughout the negotiating process, aid has been used as a bait to lure African governments into long and protracted debates, which have diverted attention from the fundamental economic issues at stake and misled them into taking on onerous commitments. As the 'Interim' deals make abundantly clear, promises of additional financing are illusory.
The negotiating agenda for 2008 aims to deepen the above processes. Europe intends to lock in the 'interim' agreements with all their outrageous provisions as quickly as possible. This is a clear breach of the understanding on which they were provisionally initialled - namely that the deals were merely a means to avoid possible retaliation at the WTO and that any contentious elements would be renegotiated.
In addition, Europe is exerting high levels of pressure on African governments to expand the negotiations to open up the services sector and to include binding rules on investment, competition policy, and government procurement. Such rules will take away the right of African governments to manage investment and investors in ways that serve Africa's own development. The inclusion of such issues is not necessary at the multilateral level and against the expressed wishes and declarations of Africa's governments and peoples.
Today it is clear more than ever, that the EPAs are Europe's means of locking-in the fundamentally unequal relationships between Africa and Europe. Viewed from Africa, this is nothing less than re-colonisation.
It is more urgent now, than ever, that Africa's people and their allies unite in action to defeat this agenda.
To this end,We demand that:
- The 'interim' agreements that have been entered into are nullified; and, to avoid threats of trade disruption, options such as enhanced GSP Plus and Everything But Arms are utilised;
- There must be no negotiations on services, investment, intellectual property, competition, government procurement and any other new issues in order to ensure that all sovereignty on these issues is retained at the national and regional levels;
- There must be a return to our own development agendas based on national priorities within consolidated regional communities in Africa;
- Any relationship between Africa and Europe must be based on our development agenda and recognise the principles of non-reciprocity, the right to protect our domestic and regional markets, and our economic sovereignty.
We salute the majority of African Governments that have so far-resisted any form of agreement with Europe. We call on these governments to work with the more vulnerable countries in order to reverse the 'interim' arrangements. We further call on the governments that have initialled agreements not to sign and for parliaments to refuse to ratify them in case they are signed.
We commit ourselves to work with our governments in the quest to achieve more equitable relationships with Europe that protect our sovereignty and autonomous developmental options.
We call on civil society organisations and other citizens groups in Europe and other parts of the world who are also resisting European free trade agreements to strengthen their active solidarity with our campaign to Stop the EPAs.
Stop EPAs!
Stop the re-colonisation of Africa!
Pambazuka News 347: Kenya crisis - CSOs speak out
Pambazuka News 347: Kenya crisis - CSOs speak out
The Bush administration has asked the Supreme Court to throw out a lawsuit that accuses more than 30 U.S. and European corporations of violating international law by assisting South Africa's former apartheid government. The case -- three suits being considered jointly -- seeks up to $400 billion in damages from corporations such as Ford Motor Co., IBM Corp., Citigroup Inc., and General Electric Co., for their business relationships with the South African government from 1948 to 1994, according to court papers.
As President Bush returns to the United States from his whirlwind tour of Africa, Africa Action notes with concern that coverage of Bush’s trip has concentrated on particular successes in individual countries while ignoring the systemic, continent-wide development challenges that unjust U.S. economic policies continue to promote. Most of the attention around the Bush visit has focused on U.S. public health programs in Africa, particularly the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR).
Government officials, experts, and representatives of non-governmental organizations will meet here next week to evaluate investments made so far in achieving equality between men and women. The gathering, during the Commission on the Status of Women to take place from 25 February to 7 March 2008, will share lessons learned and good practices, identify effective policies, and foster the exchange of national and regional experiences to achieve gender equality, empower women, and reduce gender-based violence.
A new thematic fund for maternal health has been created to boost global efforts to reduce the number of women dying in pregnancy and childbirth. The fund, established by UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, will also encourage developed countries and private sponsors to contribute more to saving women’s lives.
Egyptian security forces shot dead a Sudanese man trying to cross into Israel on Tuesday. A total of five African migrants have now been killed crossing the border so far this year. Security officials said 50-year-old Ermeniry Khasheef was shot in the back after he ignored orders to stop as he attempted to cross barbed wire near the border town of Rafah.
The Ugandan government has struck a deal with the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) about where their leaders will be tried. LRA leaders accused of crimes against humanity and war crimes would be tried by a national court under the terms of the deal. Many of the people have been charged with horrific crimes – and international warrants have been out for their arrest for more than two and a half years.
The National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ) condemns the attack carried out by armed forces of the Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government (TFG) at the offices of Waayaha Press, a Mogadishu-based privately owned weekly newspaper. On Tuesday, 19 February 2008, security forces, who were conducting security related operation in Bakara market, came into the offices of Waayaha Press and ordered the management and the journalists to move into one side and searched the offices, according to the management of the media house.
Seeking to end one of the most prolonged refugee situations in the world, the United Nations is appealing for $34 million to assist 218,000 Burundians who fled to neighbouring Tanzania to escape violence in their homeland over 35 years ago. The so-called “1972 Burundians” are among the hundreds of thousands of Burundians who sought refuge in neighbouring countries that year to escape ethnic violence which killed an estimated 200,000 people. They are distinct from Burundian refugees who arrived in Tanzania in the 1990s.
A former Rwandan government minister has pleaded not guilty to 11 charges during his first appearance before the United Nations war crimes tribunal set up to deal with the 1994 genocide in the small country. Callixte Nzabonimana, 55, who served as minister of youth and sports in Rwanda’s interim government in 1994, made the plea yesterday before Judge Dennis Byron of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), which is based in Arusha, Tanzania.
The Security Council has extended for another six months the African Union-led mission in Somalia, which has been helping the war-wracked country that has not had a functioning government since 1991 to achieve national reconciliation and facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid. Established in February 2007, AMISOM is also tasked with providing protection to the Transitional Federal Institutions (TFIs) to help them carry out their functions of government, and security for key infrastructure.
The United Nations peacekeeping operation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has said that it is investigating human rights violations committed by both Government troops and rebel groups in the eastern part of the strife-torn nation. The human rights section of the mission, known by its French acronym MONUC, has positively identified eight victims, including three children, who were killed by Congolese Army soldiers on 2 January in a village near Goma, the capital
President Robert Mugabe has likened independent presidential aspirant, former Zanu-PF political bureau (politburo) member and finance minister, Simba Makoni to a political prostitute who tries to endear himself to the electorate even when the electorate does not like him. This is the first time that the 84-year old leader has openly castigated Makoni for having brokered away from his ruling Zanu-PF party, an attack that could be the opening episode of more that are yet to come as Mugabe moves to launch his presidential campaign in the near future.
Cameroon's Minister of Communication, Jean Pierre Biyiti Bi Essam, signed on Thursday a ministerial order banning the Douala-based and private TV station Equinox. According to the ministerial text, Equinox has been tagged with carrying out “irregular activities in their station”, the text read. The text was also read, exclusively on the government controlled radio and TV, Cameroon Radio and Television, CRTV.
The two factions of the MDC on Thursday, jointly announced the end of dialogue with Robert Mugabe’s ruling ZANU-PF. They also accused South African President Thabo Mbeki of having failed to broker a resolution to the stalled talks. The talks completely broke down in January when Mugabe unilaterally called the polls for 29th March, leaving no time for the implementation of a new draft constitution agreed on by all parties.
Congolese Tutsi rebels said on Friday they were suspending participation in an east Congo ceasefire commission until an independent inquiry was launched into United Nations allegations that they massacred civilians. The move announced by renegade Tutsi General Laurent Nkunda marked the latest hitch in a ceasefire accord for eastern Democratic Republic of Congo signed on January 23 by Nkunda's rebels, the government and rival militia groups.
Violence in eastern Chad is preventing aid workers from reaching thousands of refugees who fled Sudanese government attacks in Darfur last week, with a new wave of refugees expected after fresh bombardments. Beatrice Godefroy, head of the Swiss branch of Doctors Without Borders in Chad, told Reuters up to 8,000 refugees had poured across the border from Darfur last week and were living rough in the desolate area around the border town of Birak.
The chairman of the African Union Commission blamed the leaders of a renegade island in the Comoros on Friday for stoking a crisis that has prompted the government to prepare an invasion. Mohamed Bacar, the self-declared president of Anjouan island, has defied the AU and the national authorities in the coup-prone Indian Ocean archipelago since he won an illegal election last June.
Africa's top diplomat pushed Kenya's feuding parties on Friday to reach a speedy deal after the government agreed in principle to create a prime minister's post to help end a deadly post-election crisis. "The weekend will be crucial. We hope that next week we'll have something which can be agreed," newly-elected African Union chairman Jean Ping told a news conference in Nairobi.
Sierra Leone's war crimes court on Friday rejected an appeal by three former militia leaders against long jail sentences handed down last July for atrocities committed during the former British colony's civil war. "The court finds no reason to interfere (with the sentences)," Presiding Judge George Gelaga King told the Special Court for Sierra Leone.
In a historic decision, a French court has accepted a request of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) to try Wenceslas Munyeshyaka and Laurent Bucyibaruta before French courts for their alleged participation in the Rwandan genocide in 1994. Munyeshyaka was a priest in charge of the St Famille parish in Kigali during the genocide in which countless Victims who sought refuge there were brutally massacred.
A meeting of the members of the Indian Ocean Commission in Addis Ababa last week decided to give the go-ahead to connect their island-members by fibre to each other and the rest of the world. The connecting cable would be available on non-discriminatory terms and under a low-cost, high volume regime. The project has its origins in a consultants’ study started in mid 2007 and completed at the end of last year. The study looked at the likely demand from the different island members and the technical and financial feasibility of the project.
Giving people with genital herpes an advance supply of anti-herpes medication and instructions on how to recognise the early signs of a herpes attack may be the most effective way of limiting the spread of HIV in Africa through herpes lesions, doctors from the United Kingdom and South Africa argue in a recent edition of The Lancet.
Efforts to reduce maternal mortality in Africa are not being driven by evidence, say Spanish and Mozambican reasearchers, after an autopsy study published this week in PLoS Medicine revealed that half of mothers died of infectious causes and just under one in seven died of HIV-related causes. Common obstetric complications accounted for just 38% of deaths during pregnancy, labour or after delivery.
In a decision welcomed by Tunisian researchers and novelists, the Ministry of Culture announced that several works previously banned by the Censorship Department will be freed for publication. The Arab Institute for Human Rights (AIHR) confirmed on Monday (February 18th) that Tunisia would lift the ban on books which have been held in a legal limbo for years.
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.
Reforming the political process topped the agenda at a conference of Moroccan politicians this week. Party leaders acknowledged they have failed to properly address the needs of the younger generation and said changes are planned to get the public involved in politics.
A new charter to regulate satellite television networks adopted recently by Arab information ministers is under attack in the Maghreb. Critics see the measure as an attempt to censor Arab media and render political dissent impossible.
Despite pleas from Prime Minister Abbas El Fassi, three of Morocco's five national trade unions held a 24-hour strike on Wednesday (February 13th), paralysing the nation’s civil service. The FDT (Democratic Labour Federation), UNMT (National Union of Moroccan Labour) and USF (Civil Servants’ Union) proceeded with the strike after two meetings with El Fassi. Morocco’s two other trade unions opted out of the strike, saying that the government should be given more time to consider the union's demands for pay increases and legislative reforms.
FORUM-ASIA and International Movement Against All Forms of Racial Discrimination (IMADR) will organise the 1st Regional Workshop on the Durban Review Conference (DRC) 2009. About 30 representatives of civil society organisations are expected to attend the event, which will be held from 25 to 26 February in Bangkok. They two organisations will facilitate civil society consultation and participation in response to the DRC.
Certain medical workers in Rwanda have expressed concern about the country's campaign to promote male circumcision as a means of curbing the spread of HIV. They fear that in a country with low levels of knowledge about sexual health, people could mistakenly believe the procedure offers complete protection against the virus. An epidemiologist based in the capital, Kigali, said there was a risk of "a bloodbath in the country once circumcision is taken as an anti-AIDS measure."
The Ugandan parliament will soon have a hearing on the draft Plant Variety Protection Bill, approved by the cabinet early last year. If passed unmodified, the bill is likely to entrench the rights of breeders and companies while curtailing the rights of small farmers to exchange, save and breed new varieties using hybrid seeds.
Uganda’s major trade partners are not only looking for food markets but also for seed markets. This has happened in a push that has been packaged as ‘‘the new green revolution’’ by corporations involved in biotechnology and chemicals. They have been supported by philanthropic organizations, notably the Rockefeller Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Swaziland’s timber plantations have been held up as a model of sustainable forestry management, where other plantations around the world are considered to have had negative environmental and social impacts. However, the authors of this report argue that these plantations are sustainable in the narrowest sense of the term, that of “long-term productivity” rather than “sustainability” as it is understood in a development context.
This paper evaluates the seven presumed African success stories: Botswana, South Africa, Zambia, Ghana, Tanzania, Mozambique and Uganda. It gives a detailed analysis of the economic, political, governance and human development scenarios in each country, and identifies the emerging challenges.
The Coalition of African Lesbians (CAL) with LAMBDA, which is a gay organisation in Mozambique, is hosting a third Leadership Institute conference in Maputo, Mozambique. Taking place between 24 and 29 February, the conference will discuss among other things the work that CAL does, the African Feminist Charter of Principles, HIV and Aids, gender, sexuality and violence against Women.
Senegalese police clashed with hundreds of people protesting against the publication of photos of an alleged wedding betwen two men in the country. Police fired teargas to contain the large crowd. A local magazine, Icone, broke the story in early February. The publication followed arrest and detention of homosexuals who were later released without charge. Icone's editor claimed he has since received several death threats for exposing homosexuals in a society where they face social stigma and blackmail.
Angola has been ranked worst in the world for tackling child deaths, in a new report by a UK-based charity that compares child deaths to a country's income per person. Oil-rich Angola has a child mortality rate of 260 deaths per thousand - 162 deaths higher than predicted for its economy's size, according to the report, released on Monday.
The Sudanese cabinet has been reshuffled. State media reported the dismissal of Mohammed Ali Mardhi, the justice minister, and the moving of Awad Ahmed al-Jaz, the energy minister, to the finance ministry. Mardhi has been replaced by Adbel Basit Sabderat, who was the federal affairs minister.
In the coming months, up to 24,000 Mauritanians will return home after almost 20 years in exile. Many have been living in refugee camps in Senegal since a minor border dispute escalated into deadly ethnic riots in 1989. Some black Mauritanians later returned on a voluntary basis, but the vast majority remained in Senegal.
The protocol on policy and regulatory framework for NEPAD ICT Broadband Infrastructure Network, known as the Kigali protocol, came into force on 13th February 2008, after His Excellency Dr Bingu Wa Mutharika, President of the Republic of Malawi put pen to paper in Lilongwe, Malawi. Malawi thus became the seventh country to ratify the protocol. Other countries that have already ratified the protocol are: Lesotho, Mauritius, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe. Ratification by seven countries was the majority needed to bring the protocol into force.