Pambazuka News 407: Canada in Africa: the mining superpower
Pambazuka News 407: Canada in Africa: the mining superpower
In an era where global food prices have rapidly risen the objective of this report is to examine the link between food inflation in South Africa and agricultural food imports into China. Our hypothesis is that these burgeoning Chinese imports are at least one of the factors behind rising global food prices, and this is having a direct impact upon South African import prices and, consequently, domestic food prices.
In late 2006 South Africa imposed quotas on the importation of selected clothing lines from China. In the past 18 months tralac has been monitoring on a periodic basis, the changes in the selected quota imports and making preliminary assessments as to whether they may be indicating that they are meeting their specific goal of slowing the trade flows of clothing imports from China.
China and India – the Asian Driver economies – have a rapidly increasing presence in sub-Saharan Africa. This provides both opportunity (complementary impacts) and threat (competitive impacts). These impacts are evidenced both directly as a consequence of growing bilateral links with SSA economies, and indirectly as a consequence of the growing global footprint of the Asian Driver economies. The impacts are felt in a wide variety of spheres – including on the economy; in politics; in the flows of people, culture and ideas; and on the environment.
Jacques Depelchin - 2008-11-14
Jacques Depelchin traces the roots of the DRC crisis to the pathological need to ‘be finished with’ that began a long time ago. At independence, it was seen as necessary to ‘be finished with’ Lumumba, and all that he represented in terms of hope and true independence for his country and his people – an idea that was too threatening for those who had, hoped to continue benefiting from the country’s riches. Depelchin calls for a return to humanity and its pure ideals, and a greater sense of agency for those who suffer the most form injustices.
The real enemies of African farmers
Moussa Touré - 2008-11-14
In a follow-up piece to the fifth International Conference of the Via Campesina movement held in Maputo, Mozambique in October 2008, Moussa Touré singles out the comments of Mamadou Sissoko, honorary president of the Réseau d'Organisations Paysannes et des Producteurs Agricoles de l'Afrique de l'Ouest (ROPPA), for special attention. In a break from the emphasis put on foreign multinationals, Sissoko was also keen to point the finger at the role of African leaders for the range of problems faced by farmers across the continent. Taking up Sissoko’s argument, Moussa Touré surveys the post-colonial experiences of farmers and the progressively greater dominance of a self-interested bourgeoisie within individual African countries, underlining the importance of the Via Campesina movement and other farmers’ interests groups in ensuring greater representation and power for local groups.
In reply to : Barack Obama is the son of an african Kenyan. During his pursuit for the WH fleece, he made a great deal about his mother and grand mother who are White and very little about his father. What is it about Africa that he would be thankful for so as to go out on a limb to show special favor?
Methinks Obama will be limited by his scanty knowlegde about the continent and preoccupation with the erstwhile wars facing his administration. I doubt that he has made a call to any African leader nor has received any calls from any of them since his lightening victory. Achille is on point. We have to lower the decible on lofty expectations.
This posting, might be of interest to your readers:
In 1944 a Swedish economist by the name of Gunnar Myrdal published a seminal work on race relations in the US titled, An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy. Over six decades later we have a black man of African descent running for the highest office of the most powerful nation on earth. Will the dilemma at long last find a historic resolution? Has Western democracy matured to a point of accommodating aspirations of black people?
The Swedes seem to have an answer to all that. They answered that by awarding the Nobel Prize to another economist by the name of Paul Krugman. Mr. Krugman, if you ever read the New York Times, is the guy who consistently tried to straighten president Bush on his 'misguided' economic and political doctrine. And Krugman supports Barack Obama. Go figure.
The award could not have come at a worse time for the Republican Party nominee John McCain. The economy is in shambles. As a top economist, Krugman has said, McCain is "more frightening now than he was a few weeks ago."
Well, the Swedes must have divined it. The award is typically shared by two or three researchers. Why couldn't the Nobel Committee wait a little longer until they found at least a second researcher to share with Mr. Krugman? We believe $1.4 million is more than enough for two in these financially trying times. By their timing the Swedes seem to have been in some existential hurry to realize the overdue quest of their countryman, of blacks, White America, and modern democracy itself. We wish them luck.
This special issue will focus on the nature of Chinese-Commonwealth relations and the function China is playing in the political and economic development of countries in Africa, South East Asia, and the Caribbean. Contributions are sought on topics such as: the threats to good governance and human rights as a result of China’s policy of ‘non-interference’ in the affairs of foreign states, the economic opportunities and risks of Chinese engagement, the role of the Chinese diaspora, the influence of Chinese-Commonwealth cooperation on the international stage, the views within the Commonwealth of greater Chinese engagement, and the external responses to the deepening relationship. Papers can incorporate specific countries, regions, sectors and/or themes.
The Chinese Society of African Historical Studies in collaboration with Shanxi University’s School of History and Culture organised a symposium under the theme: Sino-African Relations and the Contemporary World, in Taiyuan on October 15-18, 2008. The Sino-African symposium was of particular importance because it broadened the scope of the society’s activities compared to similar events in the past. It brought together more than 120 participants, including Chinese academics and, for the first time, two African scholars and ten African students in China.
I have a problem ; it's resting on a shaky premise. Just because somebody told Obama that Volcker is a "legend" does not mean that Obama will let Volker totally spearhead the new administration's economic agenda. Additionally, Bond dredged up the only negative consequence of Volcker's tenure at the Fed and is using that as a premise for suggesting that the same measures will be relied on to tackle the current economic mess, much to the potential detriment of Africa. This doesn't make much sense. Obama has always maintained the importance of seeking varied expert opinions to guide his decisions. I believe that will be his approach to managing the economic crisis – and that approach puts paid to Bond's concerns about Volcker influencing Obama's entire economic approach.
I would have found more value in Bond's article if, in addition to pointing out the problems of the so-called "Volcker shock", Bond had also suggested how the Obama administration could turn the economy around without recourse to the so-called "Volcker Shock" of the seventies. But Bond made no useful suggestions so his article leaves me rather exasperated. The world has changed so it is very unlikely that the Volcker shock would be effected in the exact same manner, if at all. This is 2008, hardly similar to the seventies!
Having said that I am not at all concerned/surprised that Volcker is one of Obama's economic advisors. The most urgent issue on Obama's agenda right now is the economy. Volcker, from America's standpoint, had effectively addressed excess credit in the past. Volcker's statements on Paulson's handling of the crisis were on point from the very beginning. Volcker wants to curb consumer spending - and Lord knows it needs to be curbed! If I were Obama, I would be listening to him too.
At the risk of sounding too simplistic, the economy is in its current state, primarily because of gaps in oversight that led to excessive & risky borrowing by consumers (i.e. sub prime loans) and risky derivative gambles by banks, etc. That's just one aspect of this problem; there are also questions of enforcement, fraud prevention, etc. It's a multi-faceted problem requiring a litany of economic talents to address it. Volcker is just one of the people involved. There are others and Obama does not need Bond prodding him to consult widely, the man is already doing that.
Clearly Bond has paid little attention to what could actually drive Obama's economic agenda: progressive philosophy. Bond needs to read the issues articulated by the Center for American Progress whose CEO, John Podesta, is on Obama's transition team; that should allay Bond's fears.
In response to ; One thing it seems you dont know about the Arusha Peace Agreement is that the French troops left Rwanda in August,then the RPF came into Kigali with 600 strong force to protect its own political officials.as former members of rpf say it wasn't only those 600. There was a plan to take power by force. They had to cook for themselves and fetch wood too. But when 30 men went out in a truck 60 were brought inside hidden. That's how at the end of march more than 3000 trooprs were in Kigali ready for the final assault. Only inhabitant of Kanombe know who shoot down the plane.
Over the last year repression of freedom of expression and of the media has intensified in Sudan. Daily newspapers have been suspended, printed newspaper editions and equipment confiscated, in addition to increased harassment, arrest, detention and interrogation of journalists and preferring of criminal and civil charges.
Taking up the example of the small village of Dumasi in Ghana’s Western Region and drawing upon her experience of filming a documentary entitled , Alexandra Sicotte-Lévesque discusses the destructive action of the Canadian Golden Star Resources mining company and its pressure on local people for forcible resettlement. While Canada’s anti-poverty agenda cancelled some CAD$18 million of Ghana’s debt in 2004, the author highlights the core contradictions of a Western nation that is conversely unwilling to accept any extraterritorial responsibilities in conflict with the needs of its own domestic economy. As Sicotte-Lévesque underlines, the principal poverty faced by local Ghanaian communities is above all one rooted in a lack of information, a lack underpinning a vicious cycle characterised by poor communities getting poorer as mining companies get richer.
Mikhael Missakabo reveals the extent to which Canadian mining companies are benefiting from instability and weak institutions in the Democratic Republic of Congo to reap huge profits while paying little attention to the ecological and human cost of their actions. These companies have become adept at hedging their bets in the ongoing conflict and negotiating contracts that literally impoverish the host country. All that remains in their wake is environmental and economic and social ruin.
With vivid examples of the unapologetically exploitative approach of multinational mining corporations in Tanzania, Evans Rubara highlights some of the glaring malpractice of rapacious foreign companies operating on Tanzanian soil. In a sector supported by lax tax collection by the country’s government and whose only concern is for profit, companies such as Barrick Gold Corporation have much to answer for in the face of widespread environmental degradation, the displacement and forcible removal of local people, and criminalisation of local mining activities. Drawing on the information collected within damning reports such as A Golden Opportunity?, Rubara documents the extent to which mining companies operate with impunity in Tanzania, an impunity giving rise to sustained abuse of local people’s rights and wholesale stealing of national resources.
Highlighting the slow progress around the implementation of greater Corporate and Social Responsibility (CSR) by the Canadian government and Canadian mining companies, Ian Thomson describes the efforts of diverse groups of civil society organisations to hold mining companies to account for their actions in African countries. In the face of these broad struggles, the author argues that lasting progress will derive principally from the ability of African and Canadian civil society organisations to work in solidarity against the negative environmental and human rights concerns associated with the mining sector.
cc. The time when Canada's presence on the African continent was primarily characterised by numerous missionaries and food donations is well and truly over! In countries such as Congo, Mali and Tanzania, when it is learned that you are from Canada, you are immediately asked if you work for the ‘mining’, a perception entirely consistent with reality. Canada is now a superpower in the African mining sector, a position the country intends to maintain and develop using all means at its disposal.
The salient presence of Canadian mining is relatively new in Africa and is rooted principally in the programmes of liberalisation of the sector from the early 1990s. These programmes have been driven by the World Bank, which from 1992(1) had begun defining the extractive sector as the main engine of development for many countries.(2) The privatisation of state enterprise – promoted as a means of encouraging the entry of foreign investment – has opened the door to foreign companies. At the head of this development, especially with regard to the smaller exploration companies known as ‘juniors’, are Canadian companies. These companies have an immense commercial presence in Canada: of the 1,223 mining companies listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange, the largest in the country, more than 1,000 are juniors!(3)
A HUGE EXPANSION
Currently, according to the Ministry of Natural Resources Canada (NRC), only the Republic of South Africa, with over 35% of assets and investments, is just ahead of Canada in the African mining industry. But with South Africa’s assets concentrated on its own territory, Canada dominates the rest of the continent.
The data compiled by the NRC demonstrates the speed with which the value of Canadian mining assets in Africa has grown over the last twenty years: at US$ 233 million in 1989, this figure grew to $635 million in 1995, and $2.8 billion in 2001, growing further to $6.08 billion in 2005, and $14.7 billion in 2007.(4) This total value is estimated to reach $21 billion by 2010.[email protected] or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/
(1) World Bank, Strategy for African Mining, World Bank Technical Paper no. 181, Africa Technical Department Series, Mining Unit, Industry ands Energy Division, Washington D.C., World Bank, 1992
(2) For a deeper analysis of the World Bank's political orientation, please consult the work of the Groupe de recherche sur les activités minières en Afrique (GRAMA) at the University of Québec in Montréal (UQAM).
(3) Without exception, the majority of the statistics mentioned in this article come from the Ministry of Natural Resources Canada (NRC) and have been taken from Fode-Moussa Keita, 'Les sociétés minières canadiennes d’exploration et de développement du secteur de l’or; les impacts de leurs activités en Afrique de l’Ouest', political science thesis at the University of Québec in Montréal (UQAM).
(4) September 2008 estimate.
(5) Fode-Moussa Keita, op. cit. p. 123.
(6) Ibid., p. 125.
(7) Paula Butler, 'Canada’s 21st Century Colonial Interests in the "Good Governance" of African Minerals', 2003, pp 24-30.
(8)
Pambazuka News 406: Obama: Avoiding cynicism and complacency
Pambazuka News 406: Obama: Avoiding cynicism and complacency
In the run-up to the November 16 legislative elections in Guinea-Bissau, the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, a joint programme of the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT), publishes today a mission report entitled Guinea-Bissau: A Detrimental Environment to the Work of Human Rights Defenders.
Since August, the conflict in Nord Kivu, in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), between the DRC Armed Forces (FARDC) and the troops of rebel general Laurent Nkunda of the National Congress for the Defense of the People (Congrès national pour la défense du people, CNDP) has intensified and has been accompanied by grave and massive human rights violations of the civilian population.
In response to an invitation extended by the Government of Zambia, the Electoral Institute of Southern Africa (EISA) deployed a short term Observer Mission to the Presidential and Mwansabombwe and Ndola Central Parliamentary By Elections in Zambia of 30th October 2008. Under the leadership of Mr Leshele Thoahlane, Chairperson of the EISA Board of Directors and Former Chairperson of the Independent Electoral Commission of Lesotho, the EISA Election Observer Mission consisted of 20 members from different African countries.
“The Government of Kenya is failing to take the necessary steps to stamp out torture in our country.” This is the central message of the reports prepared by a group of Kenyan NGOs, together with the World Organisation Against Torture, to inform the United Nations Committee Against Torture as it begins its examination of Kenya’s record on the prevention and eradication of torture, in Geneva, Switzerland.
The lack of HIV prevention campaigns for Chinese workers in Angola is remarkable, considering how far away they are from their families, the length of time they spend away from home, and the extra cash they have left at the end of the month. Angola has an HIV prevalence rate of 2.5 percent, but it can reach 10 percent in some border areas.
When a solution comes to the Darfur crisis–as with Sudan’s national crisis–it will be a domestic solution, created and led by Sudanese, with the internationals in a supporting role. There is a flicker of a chance that the Sudan People’s Initiative marks the beginning of Sudanese taking ownership of the Darfur crisis and finding a way towards a solution.
The World Bank said last night it was gearing up to lend $100bn (£63bn) over the next three years to protect developing nations from the economic contagion spreading from richer western countries. Dashing hopes that the world's emerging economies might escape relatively unscathed from the downturn, the Bank said it expected almost 40 million people to fall into poverty as a result of the turmoil caused by the global credit crunch.
The World Bank has offered Nigeria $3 billion facility to enable the President Umaru Yar’Adua improve education, health, roads, and agriculture with a view to reducing the nation’s poverty rate and living standards of the people. If accepted by the president, the loan would be provided under the International Development Assistance (IDA) and would be in three tranches of $ 1 billion, annually, between 2009 and 2011.
Fighting continues on several fronts in North Kivu in the Democratic Republic of Congo despite a unilateral ceasefire declared by the armed group, the National Congress for the Defense of the People (CNDP), on 29 October. The CNDP's offensive in October forced a routed government army and hundreds of thousands of civilians down roads towards the provincial capital, Goma.
More than 160 Egyptian personnel arrived in Darfur today as part of a large battalion that will boost the strength of the joint United Nations-African Union force deployed earlier this year in an attempt to quell the fighting and humanitarian suffering in the strife-torn Sudanese region.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) turns 60 on the 10th of December 2008. As the declaration represents the worldwide expression of the rights which all human beings are inherently entitled to, it is important for the peasants to also commemorate this occasion.
With penetration rates in excess of 30%, and handset sales among the highest in the world, Sub-Saharan Africa is witnessing a new kind of home grown, mobile-driven economic development. The numbers may not be that big – yet – but the impact on the ground is obvious and the difference it is making in people’s lives is clear. Farmers are now able to access market information through their phones, increasing income in some cases by up to 40%.
A Kitwe based Roman Catholic Church priest Father Frank Bwalya has been arrested and detained on Wednesday for airing what is being deemed as biased post election analysis. He was charged with conduct likely to cause a breach of peace amid violent protests in the mining town of Zambia
The time had now come for Africa to produce open software in its major local languages to make ICT accessible to all. John Schoneboon, ICT project associate at the partnership for higher education in Africa of the US, said it would help push Africa forward on the information technology highway.
Activists Wangui Mbatia and Ken Ochieng Onguka have just been arrested by the Kenya Police at Jeevanjee Gardens and have been taken to the Central Police Station where they are now being detained. Wangui Mbatia and Ken Ochieng Onguka were arrested for distributing t- shirts on the controversial taxes for Members of Parliament , and DVD's advocating for the full implementation of the Waki Commission Report. The activity is part of the ongoing activities by the Partnership for Change. STOP PRESS: News received shortly before going to press indicates that these activists have now been released.
All is set for Friday’s national executive and national council meeting of the MDC in Harare, in what has been described as ‘the most important and crucial’ gathering of the party’s top bodies since its formation nine years ago. Analysts predict it is almost certain that the two bodies will endorse the position expressed by the negotiating team and party leader Morgan Tsvangirai, after the SADC summit in Johannesburg on Sunday.
Tafadzwa Sikwila, a DJ employed by ZBC’s Power FM Radio, sustained serious head injuries after being brutally assaulted by four Zimbabwe National Army soldiers in Gweru on 25th October. According to reports which only surfaced this week the soldiers accused him of wearing replica military camouflage trousers, without permission (under Zimbabwe’s obscure defence Act, civilians are prohibited from wearing camouflage).
Islamist rebels moved on Friday into a small town on the outskirts of Somalia's capital near a checkpoint manned by Ethiopian troops, sparking fears among residents of renewed fighting. This week's advance by al Shabaab militants towards the capital Mogadishu is a potential setback for a fledgling U.N.-brokered peace process to end 17 years of conflict in the Horn of Africa nation.
Zambia's main opposition leader Michael Sata launched on Friday a court challenge to demand a recount of the vote in the October 30 presidential election, his party's lawyer said. "I know that (my colleagues) are currently in court filing a petition. I am now working on some more documents which we will submit to the court next week," Winter Kabimba, lawyer for Sata's Patriotic Front, told Reuters.
A staggering 854-million people were undernourished between 2001 and 2003 while at the other end of the scale 700-million people are likely to be obese by 2015, according to the Global Health Watch (GHW) 2. Launched in Cape Town, the Global Health Watch 2 is an alternative world health report and includes the voices of civil society organisations and scientists from around the world.
The KHRC has been a moving force in advocating for Kenyan prison reform and prisoner’s rights. However, even though relations between human rights organizations and the Prison Department have improved over the last few years, prison conditions are still inhumane and in stark violation of human rights laws.
The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has warned that journalists in Democratic Republic of Congo are facing extreme danger after Congolese journalist Alfred Nzonzo Bitwahiki Munyamariza was killed in the town of Rutshuru and Belgian journalist Thomas Scheen was kidnapped nearby.
Nearly 20% of patients in an HIV treatment programme in Kenya have suffered major interactions between their HIV drugs and other prescribed medicines, a study has found. In half of these cases the result of the interaction was to significantly lower the levels of antiretrovirals in the blood. The retrospective survey of patient case-notes in the AMPATH (Academic Model for the Prevention and Treatment of HIV/AIDS) found that altogether 30% of patients had suffered major or minor consequences from drug interactions.
Many Maghreb citizens, Islamic scholars and human rights activists have vigorously condemned the stoning death last week of a 13-year-old Somali rape victim judged guilty of adultery. Some have expressed utter astonishment at how such an act of barbarism could be directed at a child in the name of religion.
A UNHCR-chartered aircraft carrying vital shelter aid for thousands of displaced civilians arrived in the Democratic Republic of the Congo's (DRC) troubled North Kivu province on Thursday. The flight touched down in the provincial capital, Goma, after leaving Entebbe Airport in Uganda earlier in the day carrying 1,500 bales of plastic sheeting and three giant portable warehouses, known as Rubb halls, from UNHCR's regional stockpile in Dubai.
Kalahari Bushmen who were evicted from their land by the government of Botswana’s former President Festus Mogae have condemned African billionaire Mo Ibrahim and his Foundation for giving Mogae their ‘Achievement In Africa Leadership Award’. The Award will be given to Mogae at a ceremony in Alexandria, Egypt, on Saturday 15 November.
In a country barely the size of the U.S. state of New Jersey, a disease has taken hold. Nearly 40 percent of Swaziland's population is HIV-positive, and the other 60 percent lives at constant risk for the disease. HIV is a constant presence, weighing down on the lives of the estimated one million Swazis and the future of their country.
Almost two decades after independence Namibia’s land reform shows positive results and is guided by fair laws, but bureaucracy, slow progress in transformation of land ownership and unclear criteria for expropriation are overshadowing successes. Government plans to spend 370 million dollars over the next 12 years to acquire 10,3 million hectares of commercial farmland to resettle 6,730 families by 2020.
African governments came under fire for "blindly" negotiating the controversial economic partnership agreements (EPAs) and not making an effort to educate "ordinary people" on what they were negotiating. The politicians, who gather in Geneva for World Trade Organisation (WTO) meetings and in Brussels for EPA talks, should know that they are there on behalf of their citizens and not themselves, said Rangarirai Machemedze, director of the Southern and Eastern African Trade Information and Negotiations Institute (SEATINI). SEATINI helps to build African capacity in world trade talks.
Tens of thousands of refugees at a frontline camp in eastern Congo will be urgently moved to prevent them being caught in crossfire between rebels and the army, aid officials said on Thursday. More than 65,000 civilians who have fled weeks of fighting are camped at Kibati, a few kilometres south of combat lines between Tutsi rebels loyal to renegade General Laurent Nkunda and government troops.
A breakaway faction of South Africa's governing African National Congress has vowed to win next year's general election. Senior politicians in the faction are moving to launch a new party to challenge the ANC, which has dominated South Africa's political landscape since the first post-apartheid elections in 1994.
Reporters Without Borders calls on the authorities to explain the detention of freelance journalist Hadis Mohammed Hadis for the past ten days in Hargeisa, the capital of the northern breakaway region of Somaliland. Hadis was arrested while filming at Hargeisa airport on 3 November, five days after 25 people were killed in a suicide bombing in the city.
Reporters Without Borders is relieved to learn that Zakari Alzouma, the editor the independent weekly Opinions, has been released but is astonished that he was given a three-month suspended prison sentence for supposedly libelling interior minister Albadé Abouba.
In a bid to tackle the problem of electronic-waste (e-waste) in South Africa, the e-Waste Association of South Africa (eWASA) hosted a one-day conference on 7 November 2008 in Johannesburg. The conference was aimed at providing a platform to discuss the successes and lessons learnt while implementing electronic waste (e-waste) management systems. It also served as an opportunity for the project team to report on progress made thus far.
Swazi gender activists are angry that King Mswati III and the newly elected Parliament have betrayed their hopes, and the Constitution, by not appointing more women to the House of Assembly and the Senate. In the September elections, just seven women were elected to the Assembly, which numbers 55 members (MPs)
Police have arrested a hospital technician on charges of conducting unauthorised and unsupervised chemotherapy drug trials on cancer-suffering HIV/AIDS patients in a hospital in southern Malawi. Investigations are underway into six deaths among 20 patients being treated for AIDS-related Kaposi's sarcoma at St Luke's Hospital near Mount Malosa.
Poor nations will suffer most from climate change, in part because of heavy reliance on climate-sensitive sectors such as agriculture and fishing. Up to 30 per cent of Namibia’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), for example, depends on the environment. Ironically, poor nations have contributed least to climate change. Namibia was estimated to be a net carbon dioxide sink in 1994 due to uptake by trees.
Mozambique has seen political stability and economic recovery since the end of its devastating civil war, yet it remains one of the world's poorest countries (168th of the 177 nations on UNDP's 2007 human development index). Average life expectancy is 39 years. Less than half of adults can read and write, and the infant mortality rate is among the highest in the world.
Africa's and Nigeria's first geosynchronous communication satellite NigComSat-1 may have been lost for ever, although operators hold it only suffers from a flat battery, which can be fixed. The Chinese-build satellite had cost at least US$ 340 million.
The gay and lesbian community in Senegal last year shattered last year, after the local press published private photos of a gay wedding, causing fierce reactions from the police, religious leaders and ordinary citizens. Now, the community gathers strength to start fighting for gay rights in Senegal.
A new study looking into Uganda's high child mortality rate concludes that the "vast majority" of under-five children deaths are easily preventable, only needing relatively low-expense prevention programmes. The "2007 Uganda Child Verbal Autopsy Study", just released by the US agency Measure DHS and the Uganda Bureau of Statistics, documents grave failures by the Ugandan health sector to address the country's high child mortality rates. Most could have been saved by easy, low-cost means.
South Africa's 2009 elections are engaging voters as the country's political landscape is changing and the ruling ANC for the first time may experience a serious challenge. Over 21.6 million South Africans have already registered to vote next year.During the weekend, 19,000 voter registration stations first opened their doors throughout the country to allow for new voters to enrol.
Fahem Boukadous, a reporter for the independent Tunisian television station 'Al-Hiwar Attounsi' is wanted by the authorities on charges of "belonging to a criminal association" for his coverage of protests earlier this year in the Gafsa mining region and because he put foreign news media in contact with labour leaders in the region.
The Zanu PF politburo on Wednesday tasked national chairman John Nkomo to meet disgruntled former PF Zapu leaders today in Bulawayo to find ways of addressing their concerns. Sources in Zanu PF said the politburo made the decision after the ex-PF Zapu leaders at the weekend declared the unity accord with Zanu PF dead and vowed to revive the late Joshua Nkomo-led party next month.
Starving Zimbabweans have stormed lorries carrying food across the border with South Africa. Ten 30-tonne vehicles carrying private imports of the staple maize meal at the Zimbabwean side of the Beit Bridge border post were besieged by hundreds of Zimbabweans desperate for something to eat. Witnesses said that the crowd ripped the stolen bags open to stuff the uncooked cereal into their mouths.
Fighting in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has forced most schools in Rutshuru territory to close, leaving an estimated 150,000 children out of class, the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) said. "Most children have been displaced," Jaya Murthy, UNICEF communications specialist, told IRIN. "Other children are in the area but unable to attend school."
Ten people have been confirmed dead and two are hospitalised following an outbreak of meningitis in north-central Ghana. The disease broke out on 25 October in Yaw Bronya farming community in the Ashanti Region, 250km north of the capital Accra. Local authorities have closed down schools and banned all public gatherings. “We are treating this as an epidemic,” the head of the Ashanti regional health directorate, Mohammed Bin Ibrahim, told IRIN.
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's government is launching another wave of attacks against the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), a spokesman for the opposition party told IRIN, after a much vaunted power-sharing deal appeared to be on the verge of collapse
The Sudanese government’s announcement of a ceasefire in Darfur would not alone solve a crisis that has lasted nearly six years and left hundreds of thousands of people dead - but it offered a glimmer of hope, analysts said. President Omar el-Bashir announced an "immediate, unconditional ceasefire" in Darfur on 12 November. He called for an immediate campaign to disarm militias accused of committing some of the worst atrocities during the conflict.
Under normal circumstances, 14-year-old Paul Katana would be in school, but not today. Katana is instead flagging down vehicles along the Mombasa-Malindi highway, hoping to sell sacks of charcoal he is hawking. About 2km down the road, a young boy watches over his mother's goats, while another is hawking brooms.
The Dandora municipal waste site east of Nairobi continues to pose environmental and health risks even after a study recommended its closure, said specialists. “The dumpsite is a big, big health problem and it has had a very bad impact on the environment,” Njoroge Kimani, a biochemist, said, adding that the unrestricted dumping of domestic, industrial, hospital and agricultural waste at the city’s main dumping site was cause for concern.
Over 500 people from Mauritius, Madagascar, Reunion Island, the Comoros and Seychelles attended the seventh conference on AIDS in Indian Ocean, and shared their growing concern over the impact of AIDS in their respective countries. The Indian Ocean region has been much less affected by the HIV/AIDS epidemic than countries in neighbouring Africa, but this could be changing, delegates at the conference in Mauritius from 10 to 12 November heard.
The Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) Zambia expresses concern over the sharp rise in the number of media freedom violations recorded during the just ended presidential by-election of 30 October, 2008. During the pre and immediate post election period, between September and November 2008, MISA-Zambia recorded and reported 16 media freedom violations compared to six (6) between January and August 2008.
Heads of State and government of the Great Lakes peace conference met in Nairobi, Kenya in a summit organised by the UN Secretary-General and the African Union (AU) to deal with the crisis in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and called for an immediate cessation of hostilities. The region recommended a stronger mandate for the UN troops present in the country and resolved to send a team of senior diplomats. Leaders from the 15-nation Southern African Development Community (SADC) also held an extraordinary summit in South Africa to discuss the crisis in the DRC as well as the stalemate in the power-sharing deal between President Robert Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai stalled over the allocation of key cabinet ministries. However, the summit failed to come up with a solution other than the creation of two home affairs ministries to break the deadlock, a proposition that the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) strongly rejects. Negotiations between the two parties are also meant to resolve the issue of appointments of other key official positions and the amendment of the constitution to facilitate the agreement. In a SADC communiqué, the extraordinary summit decided that the ministry of home affairs be co-managed between the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front and the MDC and resolved to endorse the statement of the heads of State of the Great Lakes region summit on the situation in the DRC. Meanwhile, the spokesperson for the AU peacekeeping mission in Somalia, mentioning that his mission learnt of attempts to undermine the Somali peace agreement, urged all Somali people to support the on-going efforts to implement the Djibouti peace accord.
At the end of the first session of the conference of ministers in charge of social development, convened by the social affairs department of the AU Commission and under the theme ‘Towards a sustainable social development agenda for Africa’, ministers adopted the social policy framework, to guide member states on the development and implementation of appropriate national strategies and programs aimed at enhancing social protection and security for all. During the official closing of the tenth session of the Pan African Parliament (PAP), Honourable Gertrude Mongella, the President of PAP, warned African states that the PAP would not tolerate ‘negotiated democracies’ where defeated leaders resort to negotiations to prolong their stay in power. She urged parliamentarians to adequately prepare for the eleventh session that would review the protocol establishing the PAP.
In development and finance related news, humanitarian experts and analysts are concerned over severe impact that the world financial crisis could have on humanitarian funding with official development assistance projected to be cut up to 30 per cent or more. Ethiopia will host the eleventh meeting of the Africa Partnership Forum that will bring together over 100 high-level representatives from Africa, G8 and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries to discuss key issues for Africa’s development and to highlight priorities for progress. In addition, German President Horst Kohler, speaking at the end of the fourth German-African forum that resolved to improve economic, political and social development in Africa; fight against poverty, climate change, migration, regional conflicts and terrorism, referred to cooperation as a key element in the partnership between Africa and Europe.
In other news, the Economic Community of West African States and the Economic and Monetary Community of Central Africa are jointly organising the fourth meeting of the council of ministers responsible for civil aviation in Accra to discuss aviation safety and security and agree on modalities for realising the full liberalisation of air transport markets in the two regions. Finally, the AU Commission chairman, Jean Ping, on behalf of the AU, has congratulated President-elect of the United States of America Barack Obama for his historic election.
The election of Barack Obama as US president is still one of the most discussed topics on the African blogosphere, although the giddy post-election euphoria is steadily giving way to more subdued analyses and observations.
argues that Obama’s victory is bittersweet for Nigeria and most of Africa:
“…while we rejoice that YES WE CAN, it is sad that apparently in Africa it seems that NO WE CANNOT, at least not yet. Not that we cannot, as such, but we won’t have the opportunity to, at least not likely in this generation. The seeds of today were planted years ago, probably in the late 50’s and early 60’s. Barack Obama was born in 1961… the modern period of the struggle for the political and social emancipation of the African-American, the anti-apartheid struggle and the political (not economic) independence of African nations. Clearly, Nigeria and much of Africa are NOT effectively planting seeds now for tomorrow…
As the ancient Chinese proverb says, ‘If you are planning for a year, sow rice; if you are planning for a decade, plant trees; if you are planning for a lifetime, educate people.’ Today, we must educate our people and leverage global tools such as Information Communication Technologies to foster the requisite education for all people at all levels regardless of background, age, sex, physical and mental characteristics, creed, tribe, religion, status, income or any other social divide. Today, our competition is no longer local but global, and our core limiting factors are ourselves, our education and the opportunities we create.”
Kamer Stories argues that the jubilation in Africa over Obama’s victory have been over the top and are out of sync with the realities on the continent:
“We have an ongoing war in Congo, I hardly see Africans saying anything about it, much less doing anything. Hunger and poverty is still a reality in many parts of our continent, and until that is greatly reduced, I do not see why we should be in such a celebratory mood. Let me come closer to home. In my country, we have a president who has been on the ‘throne’ since before I was born (and I am in my twenties) and all attempts till date to make him see the error of his ways have come to naught. How can we be celebrating in such a manner, when all this is happening in out own backyard? …
Many Cameroonians (my parents included) are over the moon even as I write; they are still in a state of limbo. I’m not sure when they’ll get out of it. When I asked them why they’ve taken this celebration to such a level (they’ve been celebrating for five days now to the exclusion of everything else, mind you), they retorted that ‘this should show Biya!’ Show Biya what? I asked. ‘He should follow America’s example and let him let a minority rule. It would show him that a minority can also rule in this country’. I don’t even know where to begin.”
Dr. Ethiopia praises the Bush Administration’s “tireless effort and initiatives in transforming Africa” and list’s President Bush’s achievements in Africa which he describes as the most impressive of any US administration:
“It is supremely hard to follow that. But most importantly you have delivered a great deal in Africa in your eight years as president of the U.S.
The challenges in Africa are clear, and president-elect Obama will have to meet this high expectation and deliver even further more. We all should be grateful for what Bush has done and accomplished in Africa, but we are also keenly aware that our better days are yet to come.
Obama’s time to walk-the-walk in, Darfur and all corners of Africa has arrived. The urgency of Africa’s pressing issues cannot wait another day, another hour or another minute.
Well done President Bush, and farewell sir. It is my hope that as a civilian you would carry on this vision of yours in Africa, and elsewhere.”
Angry African comments on the life and death of African music legend Miriam Makeba:
“Mama Africa never forgot about the fight for justice. Never. She didn’t die at home. She died in Castel Volturno in Italy, in the evening of 9 November 2008, of a heart attack, shortly after taking part in a concert organized to support writer Roberto Saviano in his stand against the Camorra, a mafia-like organisation. Camorra finances itself through drug trafficking, extortion, protection and racketeering. It is the oldest organized criminal organization in Italy. Mama Africa… Mama World… Mama Ubuntu… No matter where you were, she was with you in your fight for justice, freedom, liberty and equality for all.
She died just after singing Pata Pata. She died on stage.
In the words of Mama Africa, “I will sing until the last day of my life.”
So she is gone. But live on. Always.
Viva Mama Africa! Viva! Long Live Miriam Makeba! Long Live!”
Elie Smith, the France-based blogger, writes about his recent trip to Sudan which changed some of his long-held assumptions about that country and its people:
“I considered Sudan… as an Arab state. For, the Western media do present Sudan as an Arab state and the crises in Darfur as a racial war. They present Sudan to be at best, a sort of Saudi Arabia or at worst, a kind of Afghanistan that doesn’t want to accept its name. But the Sudan that I saw for the first time on the 1st of November 2008 is not an Arab country, but a purely and proudly black African country proud of her multiple black African heritages. It is true that, in Northern Sudan, where Khartoum is located, the lingua franca is Arabic, but that doesn’t in any way mean that the Sudanese, be they from north, east and west and south, are not proud of the black African ancestry...
The western media made me think that the Sudanese were Arabs, which to me, meant White Arab from Saudi Arabia or northern Egypt. I discovered that the Sudanese were black and also discovered on Saturday November 2nd during the away finals of the 12th edition of the MTN CAF Champions League that the Sudanese were truly proud of their black African ancestry, even though a majority of them are practicing Muslims.”
Scribbles from the Den republishes an article from the Guardian newspaper which explains how the Obama campaign harnessed the power of the internet to create the powerful grassroots movement that propelled the democratic candidate into the White House:
“Obama's masterful leveraging of web 2.0 platforms marks a major e-ruption in electoral politics – in America and elsewhere - as campaigning shifts from old-style political machines, focused on charming those at the top of organisations, towards the horizontal dynamics of online social networks. The web, a perfect medium for genuine grassroots political movements, is transforming the power dynamics of politics. There are no barriers to entry on sites like Facebook and YouTube. Power is diffused towards the edges because everybody can participate. It's being used not only for vote-getting but - as the Obama campaign demonstrated - for grassroots fundraising too totalling more than $160m (£80m) from people who gave comparatively tiny amounts - $200 or less.”
* Dibussi Tande, a writer and activist from Cameroon, produces the blog Scribbles from the Den
* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at www.pambazuka.org/
The Coalition for Peace in Africa and Responding to Conflict are offering a new course for practitioners to deepen their understanding of the processes of social change and conflict transformation, to explore the strengths, limitations, and challenges of their work, and new ways for implementation in the future.
A generally calm campaign for local elections on 19 November continues to be marred by incidents of violence and arrests, notably in Sofala, where 21 people are detained, and Tete provinces. In some places, both main parties seem to be encouraging youngsters (below voting age) to pull down posters and disrupt marches of the other party – and in a few case even to throw stones at members of other parties.
National and foreign election observers have been given increased access in new observer regulations published last month. A wide range of formerly secret election commission documents are now public, and observers are now allowed to watch the previously secret summation process by election commissions. But the new regulations also impose new restrictions on observers.
Islamist women, increasingly restless with their subordinate status in Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, are pushing for greater representation and a wider role, according to a new paper from the Carnegie Middle East Center. Omayma Abdel-Latif explores the role of women within the movement, including recent debates following the release of the 2007 draft party platform that denied women the right to the country’s top position.
Some rural folk in Zimbabwe are now relying on wild fruits which are quickly running out. Quite a number of them have died from hunger and starvation. If only the goevernment had not banned the NGOs (Non Governmental Organisations) who were donating food to the poor the number of deaths would not be that much.
The African continent has diverse cultural backgrounds and in contemporary Zimbabwean culture, traditional customary practices have a strong foothold and remain an integral part of the everyday lives of many Zimbabweans. In this regard, women in Zimbabwe are still vulnerable to some entrenched customary practices, despite the legal prohibitions which have since been enacted by the Zimbabwe judicial system.
China offered a three-point proposal to boost its relations with Ethiopia, calling on the two sides to expand substantial cooperation to promote the all-round and cooperative partnership to a higher level. The offer was made during Chinese top legislator Wu Bangguo's official visit to the country from 8-10 November. China suggested that the two countries to work closer to maintain high-level exchange, cement substantial cooperation and strengthen the coordination on world affairs to safeguard the interests of the two and the other developing countries.
Despite overcrowding and teacher shortages, South African students at the Katlehong Technical High School are determined to do well in their end-of-year examinations. But last year, final year students at the school managed only a disappointing 16% pass rate, making Katlehong Technical High the worst-performing school in the country's financial heartland province of Gauteng.
The official launch of the Economic, Social and Cultural Council (ECOSOCC) General Assembly of the African Union (AU) took place in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania on 9 September 2008. Subsequently, the Permanent General Assembly at its orientation meeting in Nairobi, Kenya from 15 to 18 October 2008 decided to resume the ECOSOCC electoral process in countries and regions where elections have not yet been held.
Radio is still often described as the most powerful medium in developing countries, particularly as it is often more accessible than television or print. In South Africa for example, an often-quoted statistic tells us that there are more radio sets than mattresses in the country.
Thousands of widows and orphans will have to wait a little longer for the Government to finalise mechanisms on how to reclaim financial assets left behind by their husbands or fathers. A taskforce set up in March 2008 to come up with recommendations on how Sh38 billion in unclaimed financial assets should be handled is yet to submit its report, the House heard.
Greenstar builds a solar-powered community center that delivers electricity, pure water, health and education information, and a wireless Internet connection, to villages in the developing world. Greenstar records art, music, photography, legends and storytelling in traditional communities, and bring these unique, priceless products to global markets. Revenues from this "digital culture" are returned to the village to support their ongoing, independent development.
Zimbabwe's ruling ZANU-PF asked President Robert Mugabe on Wednesday to form a new government with immediate effect, a fresh sign that a power-sharing agreement with political rivals is collapsing. Zimbabweans, faced with the world's worst inflation and acute food shortages, hoped that a September 15 deal would end the southern African country's ruinous political and economic crisis.
This week marks the 13th anniversary of the death of famed Nigerian activist, Ken Saro Wiwa. On November 10, 1995 Wiwa and 8 other Ogoni activists, known as the Ogoni 9 were ruthlessly executed by the then Nigerian dictator, Sani Abacha. Wiwa and his colleagues were members of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP) who peacefully protested against Shell Oil and the Nigerian government for human rights abuses and environmental damage in their community.
Evidence is increasing that foreign forces are being drawn into the conflict in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Eyewitnesses told the BBC Angolan and Zimbabwean troops were on the ground. While journalists report that some of Laurent Nkunda's rebel fighters are in the pay of the Rwandan army.
Police in southern Tanzania say they have arrested a man accused of attempting to sell his albino wife. The man was allegedly planning to sell his wife to two Congolese businessmen for around $3,000. Albinos have been living in fear in Tanzania after a series of killings due to a belief their body parts can make magic potions more effective.
In the last few months, fighting between the Congolese army and rebels has escalated, and more and more children are being kidnapped to bolster numbers amongst the various militia.
The Algerian parliament has approved a constitutional amendment that abolishes a two-term limit for the president. The change opens the way for President Abdelaziz Bouteflika to run for a third term in elections due next April.
It feels like it did all those years ago:
close your eyes and picture the quiff and smile.
Promise of Camelot, no hint of guile,
until that day in November, a blow
to baby boomers’ hopes for the future.
Now barrack for Obama, a new dawn,
a surgeon for the brave new world is born
fixing gaping wounds with a suture.
Country like a patient anaesthetised:
a trusting smile on a slumbering face
surrendering itself to healing hands;
but what lurks on that table disguised
waiting to ride on a needle stick trace?
A virus we hope Obama withstands.
* An Australian expression for supporting or rooting for.
* Derek Fenton was born in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, and now lives in Australia where he teaches Mathematics and English as a Second Language. His poetry is informed by the experience of being a migrant and the difficulties of adjustment to a new country and alienation from the old. Fenton has had poems published by Les Murray in Quadrant magazine and a poem short-listed for publication in the Westerly.
In a broad discussion of the political circumstances behind Barack Obama’s election victory, Paul Tiyambe Zeleza argues that the US has finally grown up. This is maturing both in the sense of witnessing the election of an individual of African descent and in ending the forty-year Republican neoliberal hegemony, and is a development reflective in no small part of the Democrats’ ability to articulate a campaign true to contemporary socio-political conditions in the US. For while many challenges will face the administration-in-waiting, Obama’s ability to appeal to a diverse range of voters, Zeleza contends, represents an invaluable means of satisfying cosmopolitan Americans’ desire for renewed global respect.
Drawing on examples such as Thabo Mbeki’s role in damaging HIV/AIDS policies in the early 2000s and a current case in a San Franciso court against Chevron for 1998 murders in the Niger Delta, Patrick Bond argues that a similar process of critical treatment is appropriate for Barack Obama’s new leading economic advisor, Paul Volcker. Citing the opinions of a number of prominent political commentators, Bond reviews Volcker’s disastrous economic policy at the end of the 1970s, highlighting the deleterious effect of high US interest rates on developing countries’ debt repayments and economic development. But with Obama set to ‘accelerate Africa’s integration into the global economy’ under Volcker’s influence, the author argues that it is crucial the new president-elect seek alternative economic viewpoints to dominant neoliberal policy less rooted in brutal US national self-interest.
Following the Waki report on Kenya’s post-election violence, the KNCHR offers its response to the report and its strong opposition to any political attempts to discredit the report’s findings and undermine justice. The KNCHR contends that an informed citizenry represents the last line of defence for democracy against those who abuse power. Keen to see Kenya’s political problems resolved within domestic institutions and mechanisms to avoid the need for intervention by the International Criminal Court (ICC), the KNCHR likewise urges Kenyan parliamentarians to work towards upholding justice and challenging any scope for impunity for those in power.
Since June 2007, Egyptian border guards have killed at least 32 African migrants trying to cross into Israel, and Israel has forcibly returned at least 139 border crossers to Egypt, Human Rights Watch has said in a report. Egypt has detained those returned, not revealed their whereabouts, and reportedly deported some to their home countries where they face a substantial risk of persecution.
The Kenyan government, foreign donors, and United Nations agencies should rapidly increase their response to the worsening Somali refugee crisis in Kenya, Human Rights Watch has said. More than 65,000 Somali refugees will have sought refuge in Kenya by the end of this year, up from 19,000 in 2007. New arrivals face extortion and abuses when trying to cross Kenya’s officially closed border and are received in appalling conditions in overcrowded, underserviced refugee camps.
The UN Security Council should urgently increase the number of peacekeepers to help protect civilians in northern Democratic Republic of Congo following renewed attacks by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), four international and national human rights organizations has said. Human Rights Watch, Enough, Resolve Uganda, and the Justice and Peace Commission of Dungu/Doruma also called on the United Nations, the United States, the United Kingdom, and governments in the region to develop and carry out an arrest strategy for LRA leaders wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC).
This 47-page report documents how ZANU-PF has compromised the independence and impartiality of judges, magistrates and prosecutors and transformed the police into an openly partisan and unaccountable arm of ZANU-PF. The report also documents how police routinely and arbitrarily arrest and detain MDC activists, using harassment and detention without charge as a form of persecution.
My cousin, Project Censored Award Winner Bob Nichols here is teasing me about my "legendary" scholarship and understanding of Congo. He means legendary among our circle of friends who are also Friends of the Congo -
However, this week, after studying U.S. uses of the geostrategic minerals so densely concentrated in Congo, especially the cobalt in Congo's Katanga Province and in neighboring Zambia, I finally feel confident enough to speak more publicly about Congo, especially here in America and the rest of the English-speaking West, where we must start speaking out, not only about Rwanda, but about the U.S. role in Congo, where General Laurent Nkunda and the Rwandan Army fight proxy wars for U.S. corporate, military industrial, and military interests, whose infinite hunger for government contracts and subsidies crushes the hopes of Americans as well as those of the Congolese. Ordinary Americans are in pain not only because of our reckless financial sector but also because of our huge, wasteful, and lethal, military budget.
The essay, was a fair and informative article about a group I've always wanted to know more about. The article makes references to Sidi music groups and cultural troupes. Who are these performers? Are there recordings or other resources available that discuss their music?
In response to : Our experience working with small-scale farmers in developing countries for the past 60 years confirms that farming is about far more than the production of food. It’s about stewardship of the land. It’s about stimulating the growth of local economy. It’s about feeling that you have a voice in your community and that you have skills to offer in building a better future for that community.
For Edwin Nyirenda, a farmer from Mwamuwilri village in Northern Malawi, the issues were clear. “I have seen tobacco farming take over the land we need and I have also seen the depletion of trees and the erosion of the soil.” As the farmers in his community lost control of the natural resources on which their livelihoods had depended they struggled to produce enough to feed their families. They lost confidence as farmers and increasingly gave up on their vision for a community in which natural resources including trees, water and land were “available for as long as the Mwamuwiliri village exists.”
Edwin’s story is one among many. Modern industrial agriculture, with its focus on increasing production at any cost, has caused tremendous pollution, rural displacement, widespread loss of agricultural and biological diversity and growing corporate concentration throughout the agricultural sector. This focus seems particularly short sighted in light of the fact that the current world food crisis is as much about increased world oil prices and climate change as it is about the production of food.
Now more than ever, there is a need for an approach that understands farming not only as a means of producing food, but as central to the preservation of delicate eco systems and to empowering farmers to have a voice in their community.
Find Your Feet is currently supporting 30,000 Malawian farmers like Edwin Nyrienda to practice sustainable farming based on local innovation, farmer exchange and the sharing of information. This approach has reduced dependence on external inputs such as fertilizers and hybrid seeds, has enabled adaptation to increasingly erratic weather patterns and has helped farmers to preserve the productivity of the soil for future generations.
Since working with FYF, says Edwin “I have produced enough food to feed my family and have even grown a surplus. I have sold this and now have an income to buy clothing and medication for my family.” As a result he and his fellow farmers have regained their pride in being farmers and custodians of the land.