Pambazuka News 387: G8: Part of the problem?
Pambazuka News 387: G8: Part of the problem?
There has been a lot of opprobrium directed at African leaders for lacking the political will to put in check if not end Mugabe’s misrule. However I have a different take on the outcome of the recent Sharm El Sheikh Summit of the Heads of State and Government of the African Union.
Media reports and public reaction both in Africa and outside of Africa have been highly critical and dismissive of the AU resolution. For many, this was yet another unprincipled stand by the African leaders, many of whom have no better democratic credentials than those of Uncle Bob’s. So what would you expect from such a group the cynics ask? As understandable as this position is, it fails to take cognisance of the changing dynamics of intra-African diplomacy. For that failure those holding this view become unwitting allies of President Mugabe whose tainted and stale reading of Africa convince him that no African leader can criticise him.
Mugabe said this much soon after his one-man presidential run-off and his hurried ‘swearing in – just in time to rush off Egypt. He claimed that none of the leaders had cleaner hands than his, which are certainly bloody. In a sense he was daring those with cleaner hands to cast the first stone. It was desperate bravado from a man who has lost all claims to moral or political integrity. He exonerates himself not by proclaiming his innocence but declaring that he is not the only one guilty. No doubt his fellow riggers and robbers feel uncomfortable.
The world’s attention has been riveted in 2008, by election crises in Africa, first Kenya, and now Zimbabwe. In both cases, challenges remain in converting electoral victory to political power. Can a victorious opposition come to power in the face of an obstinate incumbent? This question is particularly relevant when the incumbent regime controls the coercive apparatus of the state and the opposition only has the ballot in its corner. In the battle of the ballot vs. the bullet, can there ever be a fair match?
Historically the answer has been no. But new developments on the democratic front in Africa in the last decade have strengthened election support and monitoring by key regional bodies, the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the African Union (AU). In 2004, SADC adopted ‘Principles and Guidelines Governing Democratic Elections’ aimed at ‘enhancing the transparency and credibility of elections and democratic governance as well as ensuring the acceptance of election results by contesting parties”. The African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance adopted by the AU in 2007 to, among other things, ‘promote the holding of regular free and fair elections to institutionalize legitimate authority of representative government as well as democratic change of government”, consolidated gains on the electoral front. These developments have strengthened the electoral process on the continent, creating the space for opposition parties to compete fairly. At a minimum, international supervision through these protocols compels sitting governments to desist from outright repression and undemocratic practices.
His Excellency Abdoulaye Wade
President of the Republic of Senegal
c/o Embassy of the Republic of Senegal to the United States
2112 Wyoming Avenue, NW
Washington, D.C. 20008
Dear Mr. President,
Following the brutal beating of two Senegalese journalists by police after a soccer match on Saturday, we are writing to express our alarm at an increasing pattern of physical attacks and threats against independent journalists in the line of duty in recent weeks and months. Thorough, transparent police investigations or prosecutions of these abuses have seldom taken place. We are deeply concerned about an ongoing culture of impunity for crimes against journalists. Sports editor Babacar Kambel Dieng of Radio Futurs Médias (RFM) ad reporter Kara Thioune of bilingual station West Africa Democracy Radio, are still recovering from injuries inflicted by policemen following a World Cup soccer qualifier match against Liberia on Saturday evening.
Plainclothes officers from the police’s Multipurpose Intervention Brigade attacked Dieng and Thioune while they were interviewing Senegal defender Pape Malikou Diakhaté, according to local news reports. The journalists told CPJ the officers used tasers on them, then punched, kicked and handcuffed them after they refused to obey an order to immediately leave the area and proceed to a post-game conference hall. They were dragged to a secluded room, and further beaten while handcuffed, they told CPJ. Dieng’s voice recorder accidentally captured the sounds of the beating, which was later broadcast on a local radio station.
When the African Union (AU) Heads of State committed to allocating at least 15% of annual government budgets to their health sectors In Abuja, Nigeria in 2001, they also called on high income countries to fulfil their own commitment to devote at least 0.7% of their GNP as ODA to developing countries and to cancel Africa’s external debt in favour of increased investment in the social sector.
The Abuja target, thus, consists of three components; African countries should:
- mobilise domestic resources for health (15% now);
- unencumbered by debt servicing (Debt cancellation now); and
- be supported by ODA (0.7% GNP to ODA now).
After the significant fall in public sector funding of the health sector funding associated with structural adjustment programmes and market reforms, most African countries clearly need to increase public sector investment in health. Poorer groups have considerably worse health than the better off and economic growth and achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in the region is seriously undermined by the prevalence of HIV and AIDS, TB, Malaria and other diseases. Eleven of the 16 countries in east and southern Africa spend in their public sectors less than the US$34 needed for the most basic interventions for these conditions, let alone the US$80 needed for more comprehensive health services. Very few East and Southern African (ESA) countries have health care spending levels anywhere near this amount, and there are thus major unmet health needs. Ten of the sixteen countries in the region, if they met the Abuja target, would, however, increase their public financing to health above the level of US$34/capita needed for the basic health programmes.
We demand the unconditional release of our patriotic colleagues in the civil society who were brutally manhandled and arrested this morning as they exercised their constitutional rights to demand the resignation of Amos Kimunya as Finance Minister.
Their right to freedom of peaceable assembly was brutally violated by members of the Kenya Police. We demand their unconditional release for they have committed no crime. The Police officers who directed the assault on Ann Njogu and her colleagues must be subjected to appropriate discipline by the Commissioner of Police.
Kenya is not a Police State and Kenyans will not surrender their constitutional freedoms or their right to complain against wrongdoing, or to speak against grand corruption and impunity.
The arrested members of the civil society must be released. In any event the man they were protesting against, former Finance Minister Amos Kimunya has resigned his office and stepped aside to facilitate investigations into the subject matter of the protest of civil society.
In the spirit of a transparent enquiry into the role played by numerous public officers and institutions in the grand corruption saga that is the Grand Regency Hotel ‘handover’ and sale, it is morally and legally right that no one should be punished for speaking out for the Kenyan people in their time of need.
* For more information, please visit -
In response to : In 1999, I wrote an article published in The Namibian newspaper calling the Mugabe regime in Zimbabwe another chapter in Africa's narrative of dictatorship and murder. The others being the regimes of Nkrumah, Kenyatta, Kaunda, etc.
Leftist ideologues reacted with predictable horror. The problem why dictators like Mugabe will continue to thrive in Africa is because we make excuses for them. They are nationalists, socialists, or Africanists, etc. This kind of argumentation ridiculously suggests that it is okay for a leftist, nationalist or Africanist to murder and pillage. It is only wrong when the killing is done by an imperialist.
The Left, especially African Left, must reposition itself to help in creating Africa's future. As presently constituted, the Left has provided the philosophical and ideological justification for various murderous regimes.
As a Zimbabwean it is really encouraging to see and hear fellow Pan -Africanists differentiate between Mugabe 's ideals and his actions and the quest for freedoms for African peoples.
The article, , is great but it really needed to show that cunning and foxy Mugabe only moves with the tide and does all this only to keep himself in power and for his own selfish interests. One only needs to look at the Mugabe who worked for and was a darling of Western interest soon after independence and went on killing not only the Ndebeles whose leadership was pro-Soviet Union at the times but also dumped every freedom fighter who fought for Zimbabwe' s independence.
He never attended any local cultural event but went into every cricket match and would go shopping in the UK I do not know how many times. It was only when the freedom fighters held him captive that he paid them the Z$50,000 gratuities. Even the land issue was not Mugabe idea but the freedom fighters. Mugabe only followed suit. Doing otherwise would have weakened him.
On Tsvangirai being labelled a puppet of the West, again Mugabe was always one good western puppet because he would come to the west to blackmail Nkomo and Zapu and accuse them being pro-communist and wanting to grab land. This is why Nkomo was called 'child of the soil.'
One would like to believe that is how Mugabe became a darling here and was awarded degrees and knighthoods. He then fell out with his western masters when he could not dance to their tunes and protect their interest. A close look at even the recent events would reveal some of Zanu' big financers are British.
So who is the really is a puppet here? Is Mugabe not just playing fox. Finally, liberators should not be sole owners of that liberation. Mugabe must understand that even my grandmother in Chipinge fought for the independence of Zimbabwe but she cannot hold on to it as if it is a private unlimited.
Pan -Africanist need a bigger, in depth discussion on such issues -otherwise the likes of Mugabe will hijack all this for their own selfish agenda. And to criticise or differ in views with Mugabe is still Pan African.
I stand to be corrected and if need be, to be humbled.
The Permanent Representatives Committee (PRC) met between June 24-25 in Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt, ahead of the Executive Council (EC) that was to take major decisions ‘to breath fresh life into several organs of the continental body, and remove doubts over its efficiency’. According to the PRC Chairman, Tanzanian Ambassador Mohamed Maundi, the PRC meeting accepted 19 recommendations on the Audit reported, rejected 22 recommendations and referred 52 of them to the AU Commission. The President of the AU Commission, Jean Ping, expressing himself at the opening of the Assembly of heads of state and government, outlined major reforms he intends to undertake to improve his institution. He mentioned the importance of taking into consideration the recommendations suggested in the AU Audit report and giving priority to the values of competence, experience, efficiency and justice, as well as devotion to the AU.
The Peace and Security Council (PSC) presented their report on the security situation in Africa to the Assembly. Within the report were mixed findings on the progress of peace and security on the continent: countries like Burundi, Côte d’Ivoire, Central African Republic and Comoros showing improvements and, yet, new tensions arising in countries such Sudan, Chad and the Democratic Republic of Congo, with ‘persistent deadlock’ being recorded between Ethiopia and Eritrea. ‘On Kenya, the report said the post-election crisis in the country was overcome with the signing, on 28 February, of the national accord and the reconciliation law.’
The Eleventh summit of the heads of state and government was overshadowed by the presence of the Zimbabwean President, Robert Mugabe recently sworn in after a one man presidential run-off election. The chairperson of the AU, Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete, appealed to the international community to work with the Southern African Development Community (SADC) in the search for a solution to the crisis in Zimbabwe. The UN Deputy Secretary General Asha-Rose Migiro also echoed his sentiment by urging the leaders to seek a negotiated solution. Meanwhile, Human Rights Watch called for African leaders to impose sanctions against Mugabe and refuse to recognise his legitimacy while the United States urged the AU to denounce President Robert Mugabe’s inauguration. The US also strongly condemn ‘the actions of the Mugabe regime, which continues to reject the will of the Zimbabwean people, abuse their human rights, and deny them humanitarian assistance’. Stronger calls to intervene in the Zimbabwe situation came from two legal opinions commissioned by the Southern African Litigation Centre, based in Johannesburg. The opinions declared the run-off election unconstitutional. While ‘a case can be made for an AU intervention under the “Declaration on the Framework for an OAU Response to Unconstitutional Changes of Government,” signed in Lomé, Togo in 2000 and endorsed by the Zimbabwe Government’, ‘the role of SADC leaders will be paramount in supporting an AU intervention’. However, the 15-member PSC failed to reach a decision and referred the ‘thorny issue of how to deal with Mugabe’ to the Assembly of heads of state and government.
African leaders were divided on Zimbabwe and refrained from criticising Mugabe outrightly. Nevertheless, some leaders openly criticised Mugabe, such as Kenyan Prime Minister, Raila Odinga, and Vice President Mompati Merafhe of Botswana who said that allowing him to participate in the AU summit gave "unqualified legitimacy to a process which cannot be considered legitimate." Others such as South African President Thabo Mbeki opted for continued dialogue. The AU eventually reached a compromise decision calling on Zimbabwe’s political parties to initiate a dialogue aimed at establishing a government of national unity. Suggesting the Kenyan model to solve the electoral crisis of Zimbabwe, the AU Chairperson and president of Tanzanian led others in praising the Kenyan President and Prime Minister for having put the country’s welfare before their personal interests in forming a coalition government. Leaders also expressed ‘caution that conflicts arising from disputed elections were on the rise and a mechanism for reducing or avoiding such incidents should be developed at the continental level’.
In other news from the summit, the Senegal’s senior Minister of Foreign Affairs, Cheikh Tidiane Gadio, a key advocate of the Union Government said some fifteen AU member states or so that are ready for the establishment of a Union Government should be allowed to go ahead stating that the failure to act now would hinder Africa’s unity. Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade echoed his minister saying that ‘the African federal government will be set up next January by those countries that are ready to do so’. His announcement followed a compromise by the heads of state and government who directed the chairman of the AU Commission, Jean Ping, to draw up a report on the road map and mechanism for the establishment of a continental government. Ping is expected to present his report during the January 2009 summit.
Side meetings of the summit also included the African Peer Review Mechanism, the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (Nepad) Heads of State and Government Implementation Committee and the Organization of African First Ladies against HIV/AIDS, among others. Finally, AU leaders paid tribute to the late Aimé Césaire, a poet and humanist from Martinique, who died on 17 April last at the age of 94.
Pambazuka News 390: Palestine: a South African perspective
Pambazuka News 390: Palestine: a South African perspective
Human security should come first in seeking conflict resolution in the Horn of Africa. Favour should be shown to partners that protect their people - whether they are state or non-state actors - and not just to those who claim to protect western interests. And all states in the region should be required to conform to “the normal conventions of international conduct.”
These are the main conclusions of a new Chatham House report by Sally Healey in ‘Lost Opportunities in the Horn of Africa: How Conflicts Connect and Peace Agreements Unravel.’ The conclusions, despite their diplomatic wording, amount to a clear criticism of outside and especially Western policy in the region. But the underlying analysis provides a valuable conceptual tool-kit for challenging the concepts used more widely for understanding conflict.
The report looks at three peace processes in the Horn - the Algiers Agreement of December 2000 between Ethiopia and Eritrea; The Somalia National Peace and Reconciliation Process of October 2004, and the Sudan Comprehensive Peace Agreement of January 2005.
Each of the three processes is unique, and their most obvious common feature is that the results are mixed. The Algiers Agreement has not led to a permanent settlement between Ethiopia and Eritrea. The two instruments created at Algiers to help reach a permanent peace - the boundary commission and the UN force - have both run out of steam. At least the two sides have not returned to open war. But their enmity continues, and is played out by proxy elsewhere in the region, especially in Somalia.
A new RVI Course covering the Horn of Africa will take place 11th - 17th October in Hargeisa, Somaliland. Under the direction of Ken Menkhaus and Mark Bradbury, this intensive, multidisciplinary course offers an introduction to Ethiopia, Eritrea, Djibouti, Somalia, Puntland and Somaliland. It will examine the historical and cultural patterns of this diverse region and provide in-depth treatment of the contemporary issues and challenges.
Pambazuka News 385: A defining moment for Zimbabwe
Pambazuka News 385: A defining moment for Zimbabwe
A collection of cartoons from Francis Odupute from Nigeria
Earlier this month in Washington D.C., Thomas J. Christensen (Deputy Assistant Secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs) and James Swan (Deputy Assistant Secretary for African Affairs) briefed the Subcommittee on African Affairs of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on China’s growing presence in Africa and its impact on U.S. policy.
Paul Collier, a professor of economics at Oxford University and the author of The Bottom Billion, discusses policy options for helping the poorest countries in Africa. He says "there are severe limits on what we as outsiders can do," but suggests the United States should work on developing a set of international guidelines for natural resource management.
Energy-hungry China and the United States, the world’s two greatest oil consumers, are jockeying for influence over Africa’s vast economic potential. But as the two rivals sink their business hooks into the continent, soldiers from the two nations have also rubbed elbows there.
The Kanifing Court trying Dida Halake, former Managing Director of the Observer Company Limited, publishers of the pro-government Daily Observer newspaper, on June 25, 2008 granted him bail after almost two weeks in detention.
On June 29 three police vans pulled up to Symphony Way dressed in riot gear. Without warning, they began pepper spraying people in the settlement and attempted to arrest an older resident named Auntie Tilla. When it was all over, the road's pastor had been assaulted, beaten and abducted and five residents had been pepper sprayed multiple times.
Leaders of the Group of Eight rich nations are set to backtrack on their landmark pledge at the Gleneagles summit in 2005 to increase development aid to Africa to $25bn a year. A draft communiqué obtained by the Financial Times, due to be issued at the group's July summit in Hokkaido, Japan, shows leaders will commit to fulfilling "our commitments on [development aid] made at Gleneagles" - but fails to cite the target of $25bn annually by 2010.
The EU has not ruled out taking action against Zimbabwean leader Robert Mugabe in the wake of presidential elections marred by extensive violence. In a statement issued following the elections on Friday (27 June), Slovenia, which currently holds the six-month rotating EU presidency warned "The European Union does not exclude the possibility of taking appropriate measures against those responsible for the tragic events of recent months."
On 28 May 2008, the Institute of Tropical Medicine (ITM, Antwerp) hosted a workshop at the World Health Organization (WHO, Geneva) to review the evidence on positive and negative impacts of the global AIDS response in low-income countries in sub-Saharan Africa on general health systems and services. The workshop involved people working in AIDS and health services, in civil society and in academia with and from Sub-Saharan Africa.
This study aimed to assess equity in uptake of antiretroviral therapy in Malawi in 2005, especially according to age (children vs. adults), gender (men vs. women) and income. Particular reference is made to the scaling up of ART and the removal of fees for ART in 2004. Informal interviews were conducted with health sector antiretroviral programme implementers and key policy makers in the Ministry of Health.
The Compendium of key documents relating to human rights and HIV in Eastern and Southern Africa is a collection, in five parts, of global, regional, sub-regional and national human rights instruments, policies, legislation and case law that are relevant to HIV and AIDS. In most instances, only excerpts pertinent to HIV and AIDS are provided.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Wednesday approved a three-year, 79-million-U.S.-dollar plan to support Zambia's efforts to alleviate poverty and sustain economic growth. The new Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility (PRGF) plan succeeds a previous arrangement successfully completed last year, the IMF said in a press release.
The chocolate industry has failed to provide consumers with a reasonable assurance that the chocolate they buy was made without exploited and trafficked child labor. Major chocolate companies signed what is referred to as the Harkin-Engel Protocol in 2001, promising to eliminate the worst forms of child labor from their supply chains, after media stories emerged depicting the widespread use of forced child labor and trafficking on West African cocoa farms. After failing to meet their July 1, 2005 commitments, the Protocol was weakened and extended to July 1, 2008. Once again, the industry has missed the deadline.
The Educational Research Network for West and Central Africa (ERNWACA) is pleased to call for applications for the position of Regional Coordinator, based in Bamako, in the Republic of Mali. The deadline for receipt of applications is 14 August 2008.
"We hurriedly buried the seven in the shallow grave and fled due to fears of attacks," explained Joseph Mwangi Macharia as armed police accompanying him went through the motions of evacuating the cattle farmer’s entire family, all victims of post-election violence in Kenya.
20 June 2008 was World Refugee Day. The theme for this year was ‘Refugee Protection’. For Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), it was a little ironic. In fact, MSF marked the day by placing public messages in major national and regional newspapers, calling for the South African government and the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) to provide the necessary assistance and legal protection to Zimbabweans guaranteed under international law.
The Kenya government has commenced a profiling assessment exercise of the post 2007 Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in Molo district. The exercise was launched on June 5, 2008 at Mkulima primary school in Kuresoi division, Molo district and was expected to end on 3rd July 2008.
Horytna “Our Freedom” Radio, was introduced to the media world and the internet web as an independent cultural and news radio, paying more attention to the young people and open to various trends and ideas, within a rational framework, characterized by being balanced and accurate in getting the information. It relies on press and radio broadcasting methods of a high level of professionalism put in a simple style and in sound yet easy Arabic language.
This latest report from the International Crisis Group, analyses the national and international policies necessary to put an end to the country’s endless cycle of political crises. Despite 35 years of institutional incapacity, Guinea-Bissau has a chance for democratic reforms thanks to the signing of a Stability Pact by the three most important political parties in March 2007.
The Management Board of Giesecke & Devrient GmbH, Munich, today decided to cease delivering banknote paper to the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe with immediate effect. The company has taken this step in response to an official request from the German government and calls for international sanctions by the European Union and United Nations.
Black business and professional organisations have expressed their dissatisfaction with the Pretoria High Court judgement characterising Chinese South Africans as ‘coloured’, thus qualifying them as beneficiaries in terms of black economic-empowerment, and called on the State “to appeal this irrational decision”.
Gina Ama Blay, publisher and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Western Publications Limited, publishers of the Daily Guide, an Accra-based pro-government daily newspaper on July 2, 2008 allegedly received threats on her life by a caller who only identified himself as “Gajekpo” and claimed to be a soldier in the Ghana Armed Forces.
Justice Momodou Darboe, a journalist with The Point, a Banjul-based privately-owned independent daily newspaper, was violently attacked by an armed man on July 1, 2008. Darboe suffered serious body injuries.
On Wednesday 11 June, some participants from the Get Organised for Human Rights programme were take to Dam Village, Kangemi, Nairobi. There they met and learned from the Dam Village community about the destruction of the village. On 9 May 2008, in the middle of the night, a demolition force entered the village, and without any warning, forced people out of their homes, destroyed community buildings and homes, thus rendering 300 women, children and men homeless. “We need your solidarity” said Mr Stephen Shipanzi, Chairman of Dam Village.
After a terror campaign and a sham 'election' last Friday, Robert Mugabe has declared himself President of Zimbabwe. The country is in crisis and its fate depends on talks between Mugabe and the winner of the first round election -- Morgan Tsvangirai.
Fundamentalist forces have gained ground around the world, exerting an increased control on women’s lives. The Millennium Development Goals alongside the new aid architecture have restructured development assistance with women’s rights taking a back seat. From November 14–17, 2008, up to 1,500 women’s rights activists from around the world will gather in Cape Town, South Africa to debate and strategize about how to build stronger movements to advance women’s rights and gender equality globally.
The following is the speech made by Joshua Nkomo at the funeral ofLookout "Mafela" Khalisabantu Vumindaba Masuku, in Bulawayo on Saturday 12 April 1986, 22 years ago. Tens of thousands of people converged to pay their last respects.
Morgan Tsvangirai's withdrawal from the presidential run-off scheduled for June 27, and his decision to seek the protection of the Dutch embassy in Pretoria, has secured for Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe a Pyrrhic victory. Mugabe's triumph comes at a huge cost to democracy and stability in Zimbabwe, as well as in the region. The actions of the Mugabe regime in the run-up to Tsvangirai's decision demand a strong regional response to what is clearly a stolen victory.
On Wednesday, July 2nd at the Bellville Magistrates Court courtroom E, two members of the Delft Anti-Eviction Campaign, Jerome Daniels and Ridwaan Isaacs, were each sentenced twelve months in prison - simply for being community leaders at Delft-Symphony Way settlement. Both maintained their innocence on charges of malicious destruction of property brought by Elmory Isaacs, a former resident of the same settlement, who presented no evidence beyond her own testimony.
People who work in the digital divide world, routinely over emphasize the value of information communication technology (ICT) for the poor, often forgetting that technology is nothing more than a means to an end and one that’s only of value if it increases conveniences and the quality of people's lives.
Ethiopia’s government should immediately abandon plans to impose strict government controls and draconian criminal penalties on nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International has said. The two groups called on donor governments, whose behind-the-scenes efforts to see the bill reformed appear to have failed, to speak out publicly against the de facto criminalization of most of the human rights, rule of law and peace-building work currently being carried out in Ethiopia.
This paper considers the challenges that need to be addressed within the Democratic Republic of Congo's (DRC) forest sector if innovative models for the management and financing of the country's forests are to be successfully implemented. These challenges include those related to broader forest governance, i.e. the policy, legal and institutional conditions. It also considers the conditions required to facilitate forest business and enterprises.
What role does traditional justice play in dealing with legacies of human rights abuses? How can interpersonal and community-based practices interrelate with state-organised and internationally sponsored forms of retributive justice and truth telling? This International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA) report provides a comparative analysis of traditional justice mechanisms in Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Mozambique, Uganda and Burundi. Most of the countries studied combine traditional justice and reconciliation instruments with other transitional justice strategies.
With the revelations that the Director General of Kenya Anti Corruption Commission Mr. Aaron Ringera, the Governor of Central Bank Mr. Njuguna Ndungu and the Finance Minister Mr. Amos Kimunya have conspired to sell Grand Regency Hotel to the Libyan Government, all that Kenyans can do is to immediately boycott doing business with Grand Regency Hotel immediately.
Biofuels have forced global food prices up by 75% - far more than previously estimated - according to a confidential World Bank report obtained by the Guardian. The damning unpublished assessment is based on the most detailed analysis of the crisis so far, carried out by an internationally-respected economist at global financial body.
Bank Information Center has recently released it's new "Handbook for Advocacy on Extractive Industry Revenues: Good Practices and the IMF’s Guide on Resource Revenue Transparency."
With a third group of Chinese peacekeepers sent to Sudan to replace their predecessors, China has sent more than 10,000 peacekeepers to participate in 18 UN peace-keeping missions. At the request of the United Nations and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, China decided to participate in a hybrid force of the United Nations and the African Union.
The IMF said on Tuesday it needed to evaluate the impact on Democratic Republic of Congo's economy of a huge recent Chinese loan and investment deal before it could conclude a formal accord with the African state. The International Monetary Fund's country representative for Congo, Xavier Maret, said the $9 billion mining and infrastructure partnership with China signed by Kinshasa this year had raised questions about Congo's level of indebtedness.
Irregular migrants trying to reach Europe are being arrested, ill-treated and collectively expelled from Mauritania without opportunity to challenge the decision according to a new Amnesty International report.
Belgian authorities have transferred Jean-Pierre Bemba Gombo, charged by the International Criminal Court (ICC) with multiple counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including murder and rape, to the Court’s detention centre in The Hague.
The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has announced that it is expanding its operations to feed 4.6 million people in Ethiopia, in response to the Horn of Africa nation’s pressing appeal for help in staving off hunger-related deaths. “Ethiopia is facing a perfect storm with soaring food prices and a devastating drought,” said the agency’s Executive Director Josette Sheeran. “We hear the Government’s plea, support it, and are moving to reach all we can.”
The United Nations refugee agency has interviewed nearly 180 Eritrean and Ethiopian asylum-seekers detained in Egypt to assess their claims for refugee status, and urged the authorities to continue to provide unhindered access to others who are being held.
The United Nations World Health Organization (WHO) warned that Africa faces a “dramatic” shortage of physicians by the year 2015, according to a new study that has just been made public. It is projected that there will be nearly 13 million doctors by then, a figure that will meet demand and will exceed the target of achieving the benchmark of having 80 per cent of all live births covered by a skilled attendant.
The United Nations health agency has started preparations for the expected return of tens of thousands of displaced people to their homes in the disputed central Sudanese town of Abyei. The World Health Organization (WHO) said in a media statement that it is focusing on restoring basic health services for the returnees and controlling the health risks for both the returnees and the people still displaced after deadly fighting erupted in May.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has criticized the outcome of Friday’s run-off presidential election in Zimbabwe – which went ahead despite international appeals for a postponement given the violence and intimidation that preceded it – as illegitimate. “The outcome did not reflect the true and genuine will of the Zimbabwean people or produce a legitimate result,” Mr. Ban’s spokesperson said in a statement issued today in Tokyo, where the Secretary-General is currently on an official visit.
While officials at the US Embassy in Harare took the day off to celebrate America’s Independence Day on Friday, almost 200 victims of political violence were still waiting outside the embassy gates seeking refuge and shelter. An estimated 260 people fled their homes to seek shelter at the diplomatic mission on Thursday, as the state sponsored violence against MDC supporters continued.
The Zimbabwe Exiles Forum said on Friday the South African government needs to take responsibility not only for the number of Zimbabweans fleeing into the country, but also for the growing number of displaced Zimbabweans – a figure that is now estimated at a quarter of a million since the March elections.
Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe, defiant despite growing African condemnation of his re-election, said on Friday the opposition must drop its claim to power and accept that he was the rightful head of state.
Mathematical modelling of Zambian and Rwandan populations, based on the rates of extramarital sex and the proportion of couples who are HIV-serodiscordant, shows that the proportion of HIV infections acquired in any one year that are acquired within marriage or in stable cohabiting relationships ranges from 55% to 93%.
The UN refugee agency has recently signed an agreement with three organizations aimed at ensuring the protection needs of refugees and asylum seekers in Libya. This is in line with UNHCR's responsibility to advocate for better protection of refugees in the context of mixed asylum and migration flows.
Arid eastern Chad has always suffered water shortages. In 2004, a quarter-million Darfuri refugees settled in the region, placing further strain on local water sources. Intensive labor by a wide range of aid groups -- drilling new wells, building dams to catch rainwater, opening up channels to feed rain into underground reservoirs -- has alleviated but not eliminated the problem.
Annette* is a small, lively woman in her early sixties. Married to an abusive husband -- who once threw boiling water on her, landing her in hospital -- she was not repeating the story with her alcoholic and drug-addicted son. Just as her husband was growing older and calmer, her son was getting increasingly violent.
Somalia has been without effective central government for almost two decades. Most state institutions have vanished in large parts of the country -- schools are no exception. In the northeast and northwest of Somalia, where there has been relative stability, schools have been operating almost as normal; it is in the southern and central regions of the country -- including the capital -- that the education system has collapsed.
While lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) people in countries such as Uganda continue to fight for their inclusion in the HIV and Aids programmes, Malawian LGBTI community is making noticeable strides towards recognition. This comes after the Center for the Development of People (CEDEP), a Malawian human rights organisation, presented research findings on HIV sero- prevalence study among men who have sex with other men (MSM) in Malawi.
Levy Mwanawasa, the president of Zambia, is reportedly recieving intensive care treatment in a French hospital, the vice-president said.Rupiah Banda also denied claims on Thursday that Mwanawasa had died. "The president had [a] satisfactory night at the Percy military hospital in France. The news reports ... are not true," Banda said in a statement.
Chad's security forces have claimed to have killed more than 60 people loyal to a Muslim spiritual leader in clashes in the town of Kouno, around 300km south east of the capital Ndjamena. Government soldiers fought with the followers of Ahmat Ismael Bichara, a "marabout" or holy man, who had allegedly threatened a "holy war" in the country.
Mauritania's government has resigned, just seven months into its term, pre-empting a censure motion filed by dissident's within the ruling party. Sidi Mohamed Ould Cheikh Abdallahi, the president, immediately reinstated Yahya Ahmed El Waghef, the prime minister, on Thursday, asking him to form a new cabinet.
The death toll from fighting between Somali anti-government fighters and Ethiopian and Ugandan forces, has risen to 53 people, according to a human rights organisation. The increased toll was reported on Wednesday by Ahmed Sudan, chairman of the Mogadishu-based Elman Peace and Human Rights organisation.
A senior member of a Darfur rebel group accused of taking part in an attack on a city near Khartoum, the Sudanese capital, has appeared in court.nAbdul Aziz Ashur, brother-in-law of Khalil Ibrahim, the leader of the Justice and Equality Movement (Jem), appeared in North Khartoum court on Thursday with seven other suspects .
Video footage which appears to show ballot-rigging taking place in Zimbabwe's recent presidential run-off election has been posted on the website of a British newspaper. The footage had reportedly been smuggled out of the country by Shepherd Yuda, an officer at a prison in Harare, Zimbabwe's capital.
Clinical trials of a new molecular technique have found it to be effective at quickly identifying multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) in resource-poor settings. As a result, the WHO has endorsed the use of the test in all countries with MDR-TB.
Moussa Toybou has been confirmed the winner of Anjouan's hotly contested presidential run-off by the Constitutional Court, beating his challenger, Mohamed Djanfari. Mr. Toybou, 46, polled 52.42% of the votes against Mr. Djanfari's 47.58%, official results showed. Unlike his challenger, who was formerly the Vice President of the Comoros federal government, Toybou had been a complete novice in politics.
Prices of food in Kenya, which have already risen by 50 percent since the start of 2008, could increase further following a new government regulation, a consumer watch group has warned. From October, all food products sold in Kenya will have to bear an approval mark from the country’s bureau of standards (KEBS), which will charge a fee for this service.
Equatorial Guinea's President Teodoro Obiang Nguema has accepted the resignation of the country's government, calling it "one of the worst ever," national television reported Saturday.
I skipped the AU summit in Egypt and did not feel guilty about it.
In the past 15 years I can count the number of times that I have missed the OAU/AU summits. And in the few times that I have, it was due to unavoidable circumstances.
I have been part of a core of African activists who have remained engaged with our premier diplomatic and political organisation long before it became fashionable as it has become today. Those were bleak times when the OAU was a pejorative term, a symbol of all that was wrong with Africa especially its leaders.
Today everybody talks of engaging, interfacing, collaborating and working with the AU. It is looked upon as an important forum for African leadership, African problems and African consensus on global issues. African and non-African NGOs in particular have in recent years ‘discovered’ that relating to the AU is important for their advocacy and even funding!
http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/385/49176mugabeout.jpgIt may be too early to speak of a positive response to calls for a government of national unity. It would be most encouraging to conclude that both parties are agreed on the essence of a GNU. But this would not be an accurate or even remotely hopeful analysis of the scenario. First, there is the violence in which unarmed citizens have been victims of mayhem. Secondly, there is the unresolved question of who should head this GNU - Tsvangirai or Mugabe. If this were going to turn out to be a defining moment for Zimbabwe, you could argue, with good reason, that both men would lower their own personal expectations in favour of their country’s and their people’s. But would that be realistic? asks Bill Saidi.
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In essence, what came out of the African Union summit in Egypt, which presumably ventilated the Zimbabwean imbroglio thoroughly, was to leave it to the people to gird their loins for what might turn out to be a bruising or an amicable struggle to rescue the country from the brink of a disaster.
The mildly critical declaration for a call for a government of national unity contained no muscle that one could detect from a distance. Its politeness, as with everything the AU has attempted on Zimbabwe, must have been greeted by huge yawns of boredom by both combatants in the struggle.
It was Zanu PF, rather than the MDC, which appeared to react with a degree of animation to the proposal. Sikanyiso Ndlovu, the Minister of Information, sounded so upbeat it was as if the AU had responded specifically to his government’s call for a government of national unity (GNU). The MDC, almost predictably, introduced the rider that such an arrangement ought to be headed by Morgan Tsvangirai, who beat President Robert Mugabe to the presidency in the 29 March presidential election. Zanu PF would probably engage in a fit of gnashing of teeth before responding to that proposal - just as predictably – with the rejoinder that its leader ought to be the head of such a government.
This will be on the nebulous basis of his so-called victory in the 27 June farce which Zanu PF insists was a free and fair affair in which 85 percent of the voters, presumably, voted freely for Mugabe. There were widespread reports that some voters marked their ballots with “You will rule yourself, not us – we are fed up with you”.
How Zanu PF reached the conclusion that all voters turned up at the polling booths willingly shouldn’t surprise any objective analyst of the Zimbabwean situation. From the beginning, Zanu PF wanted it known throughout the world that it would not accept an arrangement which it had not controlled. The 29 March elections produced results which showed the party being resoundingly trounced by the opposition. But almost all that was overturned: the government took its own sweet time to announce the results. By that time, according to the opposition, “certain things” had been “doctored” and Zanu PF had suddenly performed quite creditably in all the polls.
Yes, it had lost its parliamentary majority in one fell swoop and had performed less than spectacularly in the presidential stakes, but it would live to fight another day – in the run-off of the presidential election.
About 70 people, most of them opposition supporters, were killed in the run-up to the run-off. Mugabe declared publicly that “only God could remove him from office”. It was the kind of contemptuous statement Mugabe has recently made to emphasise his utter disregard for even the elementary requirements for a free and fair election.
Why he would expect the opposition to participate in such a poll is beyond comprehension. Nobody, not even Thabo Mbeki, with his mealy-mouthed stance on Zimbabwe, could speak of the poll as anything other than what others thought of it: a travesty and a sham.
Mbeki would not use those words, but even he must have been frightened at the temerity with which his political idol seemed to regard that charade. Mugabe was swiftly sworn into office and just as speedily flown off to Egypt for the AU summit. Television footage of his reception by his colleagues at Sharm el-Sheikh suggested most of them were a little embarrassed, if not ashamed, at his presence. He may have met some of them privately, but there was notably no TV footage of such tête-à-tête meetings.
What we did see, though, was his media spokesman, George Charamba, almost foaming at the mouth as he shooed off reporters from the president. It was amazing that Charamba found it necessary to tell the West, on camera, “to go hang”. At some time in the future, that portrait of him may return to haunt him time and time again.
Mugabe himself was shown as if he was about to lunge at a reporter who apparently had asked him a question which he evidently found “cheeky”. All in all, it was not at all a worthwhile public relations exercise for Zimbabwe: the president, a man generally regarded as being unfriendly to the media, could only have sent that reputation plunging to the pits of notoriety.
The performance of the AU at the summit was once again as shameful as that of its predecessor, the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), which somehow agreed to hold a summit in Idi Amin’s capital of Kampala, at a time when that odious dictator had displayed the worst traits of a megalomaniac, with a touch of cannibalism thrown in.
Only Raila Odinga seemed courageous enough to speak on camera of a call to expel Mugabe from the AU until free and fair elections are held in Zimbabwe. This is crucial for any future debate on the Zimbabwean situation by the AU or by any other regional or international blocs.
Elections in the country have generally contained an element of farce which most African leaders have refused to acknowledge as such. One good reason for this is that there are only a handful of African countries which could boast of truly free and fair elections since their independence. Many are led by people who achieved power through the barrel of the gun.
Although Mugabe has recently boasted that Zimbabwe’s independence was won solely through the armed struggle, it should not be forgotten that there were protracted negotiations in London – with not an AK47 in sight - at which all the players took part and had to sign an agreement.
Angola and Mozambique, which became independent after a 1974 coup in Portugal ended that country’s colonial adventure in Africa and elsewhere, were handed their independence, virtually, on a platter. Incidentally, that did not ensure a smooth transition. Hundreds of lives were still lost in the internecine bloodshed that followed this orderly handover of power.
In Zimbabwe, 20,000 were killed in a virtual civil war after 18 April 1980. After the AU summit, there appeared to have been noises of conciliation emerging from both Zanu PF and the MDC. It may be too early to speak of a positive response to calls for a government of national unity. It would be most encouraging to conclude that both parties are agreed on the essence of a GNU. But this would not be an accurate or even remotely hopeful analysis of the scenario.
First, there is the violence in which unarmed citizens have been victims of mayhem. Secondly, there is the unresolved question of who should head this GNU - Tsvangirai or Mugabe. If this were going to turn out to be a defining moment for Zimbabwe, you could argue, with good reason, that both men would lower their own personal expectations in favour of their country’s and their people’s. But would that be realistic?
The 27 June election was described as a “joke”, which would sound ghoulish if you considered that people were being killed even as the voting got under way or when the president was being sworn for another term of office. Why most people do not dwell on the bloodstained nature of the election campaign is probably an “African thing”. Most election campaigns on the continent feature a certain amount of bloodletting, witness that in Kenya.
Many Zimbabweans, observing from afar the TV footage of the gory situation in Kenya, swore it would not happen in their country. But it did and most were thoroughly disgusted that they had allowed themselves to be duped by Zanu PF into believing that the party had turned over a new leaf and would exit the political arena quietly, having been thoroughly humiliated by the MDC.
Mugabe was in competition with nobody, Tsvangirai having pulled out and being holed up in the Dutch embassy in Harare. Tsvangirai has been criticised for not standing firmly alongside his supporters in their time of greatest need. He has spent time in exile in Botswana and South Africa, apparently fearing for his life.
One point in his favour is that there is no denying that, if an opportunity was presented to his enemies to liquidate him, the chances are that they would grab it with both hands. He has been severely brutalised in the past, by the war veterans and by “men in dark glasses”, officers of the murderous Central Intelligence Office (CIO).
In 1990, one such officer was charged, found guilty and sentenced to a term in prison for his part in the attempted assassination of Patrick Kombayi, then a candidate for the opposition Zimbabwe Unity Movement (ZUM). The two men were pardoned by Mugabe. Officers of this same clandestine unit have reportedly participated actively in the so-called “retribution” campaign launched by the government and Zanu PF after the 29 March elections.
The impunity with which this campaign was carried out convinced many people, previously unable to believe such brutality could be carried out in the name of a government professing to be democratic and a respectable member of the international community, that Zanu PF was in a real bind. Its chances of winning the election had been eroded by an economy so tattered and derelict its likelihood of ever recovering seemed almost non-existent.
It is this tottering economy which the government has said has been the target of Western economic sanctions. The government, in fact, blames the sanctions for all its economic woes. But an influential British commentator has dismissed sanctions as an effective tool against what he calls “brutal rulers” of Mugabe’s ilk.
Simon Jenkins says in an article in The Guardian newspaper this week: “Economic sanctions are a coward’s war. They do not work but are a way in which the rich elites feel they are ‘committed’ to some distant struggle. They enjoy lasting appeal to politicians because they cost them nothing and are rhetorically macho.” Jenkins refers specifically to the decision by the supermarket group Tesco to stop buying produce from Zimbabwe, “while the political crisis exists”. He contrasts this with the stance of the company’s competitor, Waitrose, which has decided not to stop buying from Zimbabwe. “It believes withdrawal would devastate ‘the workers and their extended families.”
There has never been any universal applause for economic sanctions against recalcitrant nations. Jenkins makes the point by referring to sanctions imposed on a number of nations which he claimed had no effect whatsoever. “In almost every case, sanctions make the evil richer and more secure, and the poor poorer.” Jenkins quotes the dictionary meaning of sanctions “as a specific penalty enacted in order to enforce obedience to the law”.
While he suggests that only an invasion would be effective, he refers to the invasion of Iraq as being considered as “a step too far.” “We toss gestures that will not bring about Mugabe’s downfall, only make the poor less able to resist his thugs. And all so that Tesco can feel better for a day.” "Yet there are many who believe that “every little bit helps”. In other words, even the mildest inconvenience to the people of an offending nation is likely to have an effect on their attitude towards the government.
Zimbabwe’s economy is in the proverbial doldrums, some of it totally unrelated to sanctions, but caused by malfeasance and maladministration. For instance, Mugabe himself has railed against his own cabinet ministers over the corruption involving the land reform programme. Some of them have two, three or even four farms, when he has decreed that they should have only one. Moreover, others have not developed these previously white-owned properties to their previous level of productivity, using them for speculative purposes, instead.
In insisting that the sanctions have hurt most ordinary, average-income earners, the government had hoped to persuade voters not to continue with their support for the opposition. The idea has been to paint them with the same brush as the West, which the government alleges launched its anti-Zimbabwe campaign after the land reform programme.
All this has failed to impress most voters, because, for a majority of workers, the luxuries accorded to cabinet ministers and the heads of parastatal companies are so lavish, they cannot imagine the country suffering any real pain from the sanctions – unless there is a political reason for making the workers the main targets and sufferers.
And since the opposition draws most of its support from the workers, that conclusion is not difficult for them to arrive at. Tsvangirai once said he believed if the South Africans imposed any kind of sanctions on Zimbabwe, they would have such a devastating impact on the economy Mugabe would soon rush to Mbeki on bended knees to beg him to reverse the decision, in return for anything he wanted – including the immediate re-opening of direct talks with the opposition.
Recently, the MDC leader has not been vocal on sanctions, perhaps in the perhaps forlorn hope that Mbeki, under enormous criticism for his lacklustre performance as the main mediator, would at last bend to the wishes of the Zimbabweans and make their geriatric and despotic leader the kind of deal he wouldn’t resist.
* Bill Saidi is the deputy editor of The Standard, an independent newspaper in Harare.
* Please send comments to or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/
http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/385/49177markofcain.jpgThe farcical run off took place in Zimbabwe, predictably so, in the face of a world opinion dismissing the sham elections and the irrelevant result rightly so already in advance. Mugabe’s legitimacy is one of a dictator, whose power is dependent upon a military junta’s good will. If not for the securocrats and their silent coup after the first round of elections, Zimbabwe would now be governed by political office bearers who would have the legitimacy of a majority of the voters. Even with the state organized terror machinery intimidating the people and forcing them to vote for an unwanted aging despot, his “victory” is nothing but a fallacy and mockery. Shame on SADC, who were willing to witness such a defiance of the people’s will.
Intimidation, repression, physical harm, torture, rape and murder were all part of a so-called election campaign. At the end, the contester - who unlike six years ago in 2002 - could no longer be denied the claim to legitimate political power . Morgan Tsvangirai withdrew for admirably sound ethical and moral reasons. After all, the regime had disclosed its intentions through the systematic use of brute force in ruthless way, To have contested the second round would have been to add further misery, mutilation and death to the long register of human rights violations bordering on crimes against humanity. That would have been an irresponsible symbolic political act.
http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/385/49178zimwomensum.jpgOn March 29,2008 Zimbabwe went to the polls to elect its next government until 2013. Results for the Presidential elections were announced a month later and people in Zimbabwe maintained peace. From 2 April 2008 the government organised a retribution campaign to target those who allegedly voted for the opposition and since then there has been terror in mostly rural Zimbabwe with youth militia under the command of the army and police confirmed to have gone on to unleash terror in a campaign to teach the rural people how to correctly vote in the forthcoming presidential run off supposed to take place on 23 May according to the law but whose date remains unannounced. As a result of the terror campaign by the military and the youth militia, the most affected are women and children as 80% of Zimbabwean women live in the rural areas.
So far, over 800 homes have been burnt down, over 10 000 people have fled their homes, over 40 people have been shot dead in cold blood, over 7000 teachers have fled their schools as a number have been beaten in the eyes of parents and pupils, Doctors for human Rights report that over 2000 serious cases of physical torture and beatings have passed through their hands and a lot of those they treated have suffered serious fractures to an extent that most are permanently handicapped. The oldest victim of the post election violence is an old woman with 12 grandchildren all of them orphaned and whose son is alleged to have campaigned for the opposition.
http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/385/49179SAviolence.jpgSHATTERED MYTHS
On Thursday 22 May, Cape Town changed forever. The xenophobic violence that started 1,200 kilometres away in Gauteng spread to Du Noon township. On Friday the TAC offices began to get reports of violence on trains and Somali shops being looted. The details were scanty, but by Friday evening the consequences became visible even in the affluent city centre. About 150 people sought refuge outside Caledon Square, the city's main police station. Hundreds more gathered at the central train station so they could catch a train to Johannesburg in the morning and then leave the country.
A group of mainly Congolese men at Caledon Square, explained that they had no trust in any South African government institution and demanded to see the UNHCR so they could be repatriated. They said they would not move from Caledon Square until then even if it rained. One of them is a published writer and another lost his computer training school, worth tens of thousands of rands, in the violence. Angry young Burundians screamed at me that they wanted nothing more to do with my country. Malawian youths mournfully described how they felt they had no choice but to return home.
http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/385/49180xenophobiaSA.jpgWEEK ONE
The sms’s came fast and furious. As furious as the fiery images we were subjected to by our television and our daily newspapers. I dreaded opening a newspaper for days - afraid of being confronted by yet another grisly product of the negrophobic xenophobic violence, which by the end of week three had claimed the lives of about one hundred people and displaced about 100 000, according to some estimates. The mind spins out of its axis, out of the normal.
As the Alexander Township burnt, I was reading text messages from my cappuccino-loving Tito Mboweni-fearing middle class friends. The messages were generally along these lines; “I’m so embarrassed to be South African right now”, or more engaging: “I’m so tired of feeling angry about this and not being able to do something about it…” . Email lists held similar messages of shame; at least Winnie Madikizela-Mandela went to Alexander and told the terrified victims cramped at the police station; “We are sorry, please forgive us. South Africans are not like this”, before hopping back into her nice car and driving back to her life.
In this episode Contact FM leave Chicago and go down South, where they talk with , singer, songwriter and activist, who tells them what it is like living in New Orleans after the massive 2005 flooding.
This episode was produced by Contact FM 89.7.
http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/385/49182mugabe.jpgAfter the African Union issued a statement so tepid that it might as well as have come from a high-school student conference, low expectations have further diminished. The African Union can now be seen in the same light as its predecessor – the OAU, a drum that beats hollow when it most counts for the African citizen.
But nevertheless, Mugabe’s one-man act has irreversibly damaged his reputation. The extent to which Mugabe has misread the continental and international political climate is shocking.African people, who previously saw Zimbabwe as a metaphor of their own countries where the elite exist at the expense of the poor, are abandoning him en mass. Having lost international legitimacy to George Bush and Tony Blair - a remarkable feat considering the extent to which his two adversaries are hated - the African people became his last defense.
But there has always been the African people and their governments. In regards to the African Union statement, Bishop Desmond Tutu dismay by saying that he was "distressed that (AU leaders) have not thought it was important to declare the illegitimacy of the runoff and the illegitimacy of the Robert Mugabe administration.”
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The barbaric acts of violence against foreign African nationals in South Africa over the past month appears to have drawn to a close. However, thousands remain displaced and face the daunting task of putting their lives back together. Government indecisiveness, continuing xenophobic sentiment and the bitter cold of winter remain sizeable stumbling blocks in advancing the process of their reintegration into South African society. Durban suffered mainly reverberations of the mass violence emanating from Gauteng, but reports of harassment, poor living conditions for displaced refugees and growing fear amongst immigrant communities continue to filter in. What are the underlining issues and are they new? More importantly, how do we move forward? Azad Essa speaks to Pierre Matate, Deputy Chairperson of the KZN Refugee Council, to find out more.
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Q. What is the KZN Refugee council?
A. We try to bring back the dignity of foreigners who have been pushed down by the denial to documentation. The council is there to advocate that a person needs to be treated as a person, with respect and with dignity. We are also trying to stop the brain drain; we need to send people back home with skills so they can go back and rebuild their country. We strive to have programs to promote the dignity and pride in their homes. The South African government has failed, in all ways, to utilize the skills offered by foreigners. They leave them exposed and treat them like cows and sheep standing in a queue.
Q. What is the latest situation in Durban?
In response to : At least RSA is an independent republic, our last PM & Foreign Minister rechained us as a US colonial possession...idiots. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
"If we fail, the white man, who has been so surprised by our movement, the white man, who has entirely miscalculated every facet of this struggle, will have garnered a new range of knowledge about the potential of the black man and prepared himself to combat us should we ever again rear our ugly head. We owe it, therefore, to Africa not to fail. Africa needs a Biafra. Biafra is the breaking of the chains. It is not enough just to fight the Nigerians or their friends. We have to fight as a starting point of the African revolution…. If the revolution fails, we do a disservice to our race. But…what really frightens the white man is this whole challenge to the direction of international economy…. This is the one black society that on its own can go out and seek raw materials, manufacture finished products and sell them with absolute equality in the open world market. Once this has been demonstrated, you will find that the basis of neo-colonialism has been removed; which is continued economic dominance." —C. O. Ojukwu, at the Biafran People's Seminar, Umuahia, March 5, 1969.
Thanks Mary Ndlovu for such a . I would like to add a third false assumption to the two you have stated- the delusion that Tsvangirai’s election will be “finishing the task of liberation” of Zimbabweans.
Truly finishing the task of liberation will be liberating Zimbabwe from the illegitimate Mugabe regime, from the obnoxious interventions (and sanctions) of the West, and from those who operate as agents of western imperialism. It will be when Zimbabweans are finally able to form an independent and legitimate movement/government that is driven and controlled by the people. We may all have opinions as non-Zimbabweans, but our ultimate responsibility is our unconditional solidarity with Zimbabweans. They have the ultimate say and choice.
And that is why no one (especially not Mugabe) should be allowed to deny Zimbabweans the right and the opportunity to make that choice. The terror, burning, rape, systematic violation of basic rights and killings must stop. We must continue to urge our leaders to break their silence and false solidarity with Mugabe. We must continue to expose and resist those who want to take advantage of the crisis and impose their agenda over the wills of Zimbabweans.
And we must continue to support our brothers and sisters who are at the frontline of the struggle for freedom in Zimbabwe. It will be sad if SADC and the AU fail to take advantage of Tsvangirai’s offer for a Transitional Authority. They can if they choose to. They should at least try. But we can no longer tolerate their inaction on Zimbabwe. In solidarity.
People are suffering in Zimbabwe and it seems like nothing is being done about it. We need more than public statement condemning Mugabe's actions. We need to secure the safety of the citizens of Zimbabwe.
Click for an online petition directed towards the U.N. Security Council and the neighboring Southern African nations to put more pressure on Mugabe.
A disturbing fact about most of the material that finds itself published by the so-called Eritrean opposition, such as , is that it has an uncanny similarity to the anti-Shaebia and anti-Eritrea propaganda that we used to be bombarded and suffocated with day and night by the Ethiopian media – both during the former Derg regime era and the current Weyane regime ("Can an Ethiopian change his skin?"). Even the very wording at times seems to have been copied from there. Is this a coincidence? What is more disturbing is the fact that the so-called opposition groups are judging the Eritrean President and the ruling party not in terms of what works they have accomplished and are accomplishing but rather on their personality. This has a disturbing resemblance to the "inferiority complex" so prevalent in Ethiopian societies (particularly the Amhara and Tigrean groups). Is this similarity a coincidence or is "the friend of my enemy..." theory holding true?
http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/385/49136awaaz.jpgThe latest issue of Awaaz Magazine features a 40 page tribute to Apa Pant, India's first post independence envoy to Kenya. Coming into Kenya at the height of the struggle for Kenya's independence Apa Pant supported the Kenyan Nationalist struggle against British Colonialism. 3 stories by Benegal Pereira, Peter Wright and Angelo Faria takes the readers through Apa Pant's life chronicling his early life and politics.
Civil society organisations (CSOs) held, from June 22 to 23, the third Citizen’s Continental Conference in Sharm El Sheikh ahead of the Eleventh African Union (AU) Summit. The Continental Conference provided space for African citizens, the Diaspora, CSOs, and other concerned parties to discuss the summit agenda including the AU audit and the peace and security situation in Zimbabwe, Darfur and Somalia, among other issues. The eleventh ordinary session of the Assembly of the AU Heads of State, convening under the theme of water and sanitation, will also consider the merger of the Court of Justice and the African Court on Human Rights of the AU, the current food crisis, the appointment of the members of the African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child.
As the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) in Zimbabwe announced its pull out of the run-off election scheduled for June 27, the Pan-African Parliament (PAP) observer mission, one of only two official observer groups in the country, confirmed acts of violence perpetrated by government supporters against opposition members.
http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/385/49113noartist.jpgThe importance of appropriate communication was impressed upon Petra Rohr-Röuendaal while teaching in a Botswana squatter camp in 1976. The World Bank had decided to offer interest free loans to residents who wished to build themselves houses, and distributed a leaflet explaining the scheme. Sadly, few of its target audience were able to read it. On pointing this out to the World Bank, the author was commissioned to rectify the matter by producing an educational comic strip, which proved a great success. Since then she has produced a huge number of educational illustrations, run workshops, developed games and puppet shows, and has helped others to do the same.
‘Where there is no artist’ is a collection of over 1,200 drawings on a variety of development themes, mostly Africa based, which may be used free for education or non-profit making purposes. The book is aimed at fieldworkers, teachers, grassroots communities, anyone who needs to be able to create visual aids with very few resources or skills. It contains clear and simple instructions for how to use the drawings; how to copy them, how they may be used – for instance to create posters, games, flannel board figures or comic strips – all with an emphasis on community participation. In addition there is a section on how to draw, and some guidelines on techniques such as lettering and silk-screen printing. The drawings are engaging and skilled, and often humorous. For those with access to a computer the contents of the book are reproduced on two CDROMs, the images being in jpg format.
A valuable resource.
Practical Action Publishing
Available at
Pambazuka News 384: Zimbabwe: Hunger, terror, displacement and death
Pambazuka News 384: Zimbabwe: Hunger, terror, displacement and death
The Africa Research and Resource Forum, The Kenya Human rights Commission and Fahamu invite you to a Public Forum
FOREST FOR THE TREES: TRADE, INVESTMENT AND THE CHINA-IN-AFRICA DISCOURSE
PANELISTS
Barry Sautman, Hong Kong University of Science & Technology
Yan Hairong, Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Dr. Musambayi Katumanga- University of Nairobi
Moderator:
Wangeci Chege, Kenya Human Rights Institute (KHRI)
DATE:
Wednesday 2nd July 2008
TIME:
4.00 P.M. – 6.30 P.M.
VENUE:
HILTON HOTEL, NAIROBI
ENTRANCE FREE
For more information kindly contact the undersigned at [email][email protected], [email][email protected], or [email][email protected]
CIDSE, APRODEV and the Ecumenical Zimbabwe Network (EZN) welcome the UN Security Council statement condemning the campaign of violence against Zimbabwe’s opposition party. However, diplomatic efforts are clearly failing to provide adequate protection to the people of Zimbabwe or to guarantee a democratic electoral process. CIDSE, APRODEV, and EZN reiterate their call for the United Nations (UN) to conform with its own Security Council resolution 1674, which confirms the “Responsibility to Protect populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity” as a fundamental international norm.
UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, welcomed last week’s call by the United Nations Security Council for an immediate halt of all acts of sexual violence against women in conflict situations. The Fund described it as a historical achievement that would go a long way in protecting the dignity of women and girls who are often subjected to violence as a tactic of war.
The Pauline Jewett Institute of Women’s and Gender Studies (Carleton University) and the Institute of Women’s Studies (University of Ottawa), with the support of the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), are pleased to launch the second phase of the research programme on Feminist Perspectives on Globalization.
Africa Centre for Open Governance (AfriCOG) is seeking for qualified and experienced Programme Interns to provide support in all matters relating to the programme implementation functions of the organisation.
Some low-profile investors are making ungodly amounts of money buying third-world debt on the cheap, then suing for the balance. Can they be stopped? More important, should they be?
One of the legacies of apartheid South Africa and the Bantustan system is the unequal distribution of resources between urban and rural areas, which has created a perpetual divide that even under our democratic dispensation is not being bridged. The ongoing lack of importance given to rural South Africa in the post-apartheid era, has created a rural backwater where poverty is entrenched and where people are simply abandoned and expected to fend for themselves in the face of what can best be described as state apathy.
Kenyan MPs should accept that their allowances are going to be taxed. More Kenyans of goodwill and means have accepted that they too will be similarly taxed so that we as a country start to take care of the poorest of the poor, and avert a return to the chaos and destruction of the first quarter of this year when mass youth unemployment exploded the myth of Kenya’s stability.
The voting polls have opened and some voters have begun gathering at polling stations as Zimbabwe enters into a second round of Presidential elections, amid international disapproval. The situation in the country's capital, Harare, is reported to be tense. About 5.9 million Zimbabweans are registered to cast their ballots at the 9 000 polling stations over the next 12 hours. The voting process is expected to be overseen by over 400 Southern African Development Community, South African and international observers.