The government of Uganda has said peace talks to end a two decades of conflict with the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) have failed. Yoweri Museveni, Uganda's president, on Thursday announced an agreement with neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Sudan to fight the rebel group, led by Joseph Kony.

Rural African farmers are already adapting to climate change, according to case studies in Benin, Kenya and Malawi. The studies, carried out by local environmental groups for the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), found that farmers are using locally-relevant methods to adjust to their unpredictable environments.

The parents of five daughters of Gambian descent have been detained in Oslo, Norway, after a human rights group revealed all the girls had been subjected to female genital mutilation (FGM) in The Gambia. The youngest girl, aged five, has been taken away from parents, while the elder four are with family in The Gambia.

The government has been challenged to enact a law that would spell out stringent punishment against individuals found polluting marine resources. Students in a special `Roots and Shoots` programme of the Jane Goodall Institute suggested on Saturday that, among other penalties, those involved in the acts should be fined.

The humanitarian community in North Kivu, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), has expressed concern over the proliferation of the number of "spontaneous" sites for internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the province, hosting at least 857,000 IDPs. "These spontaneous sites are quite new in North Kivu and they are mainly linked to reduced capacities of host families to accommodate the displaced, Caroline Draveny, the public information officer for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) told IRIN. "We are working on ways of assisting the affected IDPs as well as the host families themselves."

While public health experts in South Africa spent much of the last decade focusing on controlling infectious diseases such as HIV/AIDS and eradicating malnutrition, the growth of another public health crisis has gone almost unnoticed. High obesity levels, which have given rise to a virtual epidemic of non-communicable diseases like diabetes and hypertension, are finally grabbing attention.

Kenya's prime minister openly dissented with the president on Tuesday in a row over amnesty for post-election crimes, showing the fragility of the coalition running East Africa's largest economy. In another sign of the lack of unity in the government, newspapers splashed pictures of the pair's security guards scuffling in an embarrassing dispute on a national holiday.

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/378/48550art.jpgWhen my co-Director of AIDS-Free World, Paula Donovan, visited in November, and observed that the war being waged against women “may well be the most savage display of misogyny ever orchestrated in a conflict zone”, she was right. Terrible, unspeakable things have been done to the women of DR Congo, writes Stephen Lewis. It isn’t enough to stop the shooting when the raping continues apace. The only worthwhile armistice restores peace for the entire population, male and female. There can be no satisfaction in claiming a truce or a peace treaty which is soaked in the carnage of the women of the land. If all the peacekeepers were women, and the men of a country were under pervasive sexual assault, do you think the women would simply observe the carnage?
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Three days ago, I returned from Liberia. While in the country, I met with President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, with senior officials of the Ministry of Health, with the Minister of Gender, with the leadership of the Clinton Foundation, with the consultant who drafted the legislation for the special court to try sexual offences, with the UNICEF Representative and significant numbers of the UNICEF staff. Unfortunately, I did not have the opportunity to meet with UNMIL, but the UN Mission in Liberia and its peacekeeping forces were inevitably a part of every conversation.

The context of my discussions is encapsulated in the words of the Deputy UN Envoy for the Rule of Law in Liberia when she said, as recently as May 20th: “We cannot expect the future leaders of Liberia, the doctors, nurses, and engineers of Liberia to be brought up amongst men who are rapists and women who are angry, degraded, frightened, depressed, embarrassed and confused.”

She was speaking about the contagion of sexual violence that currently engulfs the country and causes such intense concern. The statistics are horrifying: a recent study by UNICEF indicated that more than fifty per cent of all reported rapes are brutal assaults on young girls between the ages of ten and fourteen. The gender advisor in UNICEF felt that the percentage was probably on the rise, and it’s feared that increases in the HIV rates among female youth will not be far behind. The Minister of Gender showed me figures for March, 2008, indicating that the majority of reported rapes in that month were committed against girls under the age of twelve, some under the age of five, and she narrated stories of gang rape so insensate and so depraved that it reminded me of exhibits in a Holocaust museum. A further survey, of all fifteen counties in the country, found that girls and boys were united in their conviction that young girls were the most endangered group in Liberia, and incredibly enough, that there was no place and no time of day or night where adolescent girls could be considered safe.

Predictably, President Johnson-Sirleaf is thunderstruck by the force of the sexual violence. In a very real sense she is staking the integrity of her tenure on her ability to confront and subdue the war on women.

But how did it come to this? UNMIL has been in the country since 2003 … it has a large contingent of women peacekeepers: it has an Office of the Gender Advisor and of the Advisor on HIV/AIDS; it has gender mainstreaming built into the mandate; both the UN Envoy and the Deputy UN Envoy are women; and the resolution of 2003 which constituted UNMIL incorporated Security Council Resolution 1325 which --- you will agree --- was supposed to guarantee the involvement of women in the peace-keeping processes, but more important, guarantee women protection and security from gender-based violence and violations of human rights.

Clearly all that hasn’t worked in Liberia, where things for women and girls are getting worse. Where did we go wrong?

My own view, and the view of the organization to which I belong --- AIDS-Free World --- is that peacekeepers and force commanders alike have to take sexual violence much more seriously. It is simply untenable to argue that the responsibility to keep the warring parties at bay transcends every other human imperative. It doesn’t. You may succeed in manufacturing a semblance of peace, but for the women of the country, the conflict continues in the most painful and eviscerating of ways.

In the case of Liberia, it isn’t a matter of a contentious mandate: as I said, Resolution 1325 is built into the obligations of peacekeeping. Anyone would argue that when a peacekeeper in the field knows of acts of sexual violence having been committed, or has reason to believe that acts of sexual violence have been or will be committed, then he or she has the obligation to intervene or, to use the language of the day, the ‘responsibility to protect’.

But let me be even clearer about this. Peacekeepers aren’t mere passive observers of the human family. Peacekeepers move into a country; they learn its social architecture; they watch the roiling political terrain on a day-to-day basis. They come to know the foibles, to know the extremes, to know the anomalies. More often than not, they can tell when trouble is brewing. They can intuit when men might hurtle out of control. They have the pulse of the culture. When it unravels, they’re there to bear witness. I’m saying that when patterns of sexual violence emerge, peacekeepers are rarely surprised. In some cases, they alone have anticipated the atrocities in the offing. And with that knowledge comes obligation. With that insight comes responsibility. It isn’t enough to stop the shooting when the raping continues apace. The only worthwhile armistice restores peace for the entire population, male and female. There can be no satisfaction in claiming a truce or a peace treaty which is soaked in the carnage of the women of the land.

Conventional wisdom says that it is the Security Council’s job to set policy, and the peacekeepers’ job to follow it. But that’s too easy. The Department of Peacekeeping Operations, and its military contingents in-country, should be hollering from the rooftops whenever they feel that their role is somehow constrained. If you need more troops, ask for them. If you need more training, ask for it. If you require a larger contingent of police officers, insist on it. If, in the field, you see sexual mayhem in place, then after intervening, take the names of individual soldiers and witnesses and seek investigation and indictments from the International Criminal Court. If the UN’s Member States won’t comply, then call a press conference and tell the world that women are being sacrificed on the altar of myopic parsimony, or perhaps more accurately, on the altar of Pavlovian sexism.

There is nothing facetious in this; I’m absolutely serious. The United Nations cannot allow the terrible assault on women to continue, while crouching behind the ambiguity of mandate. That, I remind you, is what the Department of Peacekeeping Operations did between January and April of 1994, in the perverse struggle with UN Force Commander General Romeo Dallaire over “rules of engagement”. And there followed the deaths of eight hundred thousand Rwandans and the start of the war in the Congo.

In the DR Congo, it is now estimated that 5.4 million people have died since the end of the Rwandan genocide. That conflict was finally supposed to have been resolved by a peace engagement of January last. To some extent, the battles stopped. But as always, just as in Liberia, the war never ends for women.

In the case of DR Congo, the role of peacekeepers could not be clearer. The words of the Security Council resolution of December 21st, 2007, extending the mandate of the UN Mission in the Congo, MONUC, were absolutely unequivocal: Paragraph 18 “Requests MONUC, in view of the scale and severity of sexual violence committed especially by armed elements in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to undertake a thorough review of its efforts to prevent and respond to sexual violence, and to pursue a mission-wide strategy, in close cooperation with the United Nations Country Team and other partners, to strengthen prevention, protection, and response to sexual violence, including through training of Congolese security forces in accordance with its mandate, and to regularly report, including in a separate annex if necessary, on actions taken in this regard, including factual data and trend analyses of the problem …”.

That sounds very much to me as though the Security Council knew full well that things were off the rails where sexual violence was concerned, and this was an explicit instruction to MONUC to get its act together. In that regard, it’s significant that the Security Council went even further: the final clause of the resolution requires the Secretary-General himself to report on the issues covered in Paragraph 18.

To be sure, I can’t pretend to know exactly what lay in the minds of the Security Council members, but these things I do know: Dr. Denis Mukwege, who heads the Panzi Hospital for survivors of rape and sexual violence in the Eastern city of Bukavu, told me when we met in New Orleans three weeks ago, that although the steady flow of raped women has slowed somewhat since the January accord, it continues in shocking numbers; the UNICEF staff in the field agree that things are still in the realm of nightmare for women, who live lives haunted by the fear of being violated, tortured, mutilated, infected with HIV. And who expected anything different, when the countless women who have suffered such demonic sexual violence were not sitting at the peace table last January, and were not signatories to the agreement … a direct violation of Resolution 1325? Who can claim to be surprised by reports from Congolese NGOs on the ground, who say that in the country’s so-called peacekeeping period, women are still too frightened to leave their homes?

When Under Secretary-General John Holmes said the Congo was the worst place in the world for women, he was right. When Eve Ensler, the noted author of the Vagina Monologues wrote of the Congo that she had just ‘returned from hell’, she was right. When my co-Director of AIDS-Free World, Paula Donovan, visited in November, and observed that the war being waged against women “may well be the most savage display of misogyny ever orchestrated in a conflict zone”, she was right.

Terrible, unspeakable things have been done to the women of DR Congo. I want simply to argue that MONUC has it within its mandate to end the reign of terror. If it so chooses, MONUC can also have it within its power to end the reign of terror. Whatever MONUC feels it lacks to protect the women of the Congo --- numbers, police, equipment, training, time, leadership, resources --- let them demand it. And if those demands aren’t met, let them tell the world that madness is at work and it knows no end.

Normally, one would turn to the Secretary-General of the United Nations for help in this difficult situation. But how can we have trust?

The Secretary-General gets commendably engaged when it comes to Burma or the price of food, but where is the same sense of throbbing agitation when it comes to sexual violence? This is a Secretary-General who should be insisting on the invocation of the “Responsibility to Protect” in the Congo, but fails to do so. The defense and protection of the rights of women do not come instinctively to him. This is, after all, a Secretary-General who granted immunity to the former High Commissioner for Refugees, when a claim of sexual harassment against him reached a New York court. I remember that when the Secretary-General was first appointed, he told a group of NGOs that his learning curve on gender was virtually vertical. A year and a half later, the upward climb appears to have stalled at the bottom of the graph.

No, if we are to turn things around, with or without the help of the Secretary-General, the peacekeepers must lie at the heart of the transformation. How excellent that would be. Resolution 1325 would finally be liberated from the dustbins of the Security Council, and women, without fear, could take hold of their collective destiny. You can be sure there would be no vacillation.

If all the peacekeepers were women, and the men of a country were under pervasive sexual assault, do you think the women would simply observe the carnage? Not a chance. And they wouldn’t need a Security Council Resolution to tell them what to do.

*Stephen Lewis,is the co-Director of AIDS-Free World. These remarks were delivered delivered at the May, 2008 Wilton Park Conference: Women targeted or affected by armed conflict: What role for military peacekeepers?

*Please send comments to or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/378/48552rights.jpg Although often overlooked amidst the shocking images and stories emanating from the xenophobic attacks of the last two weeks, there is a gendered face of xenophobia, says Romi Fuller. Foreign women face the double jeopardy of belonging to and being at the intersection of two groups so vulnerable to exploitation, abuse and violence. This something the country must consider as it moves towards healing and responding to the needs of the injured and displaced.
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In the wave of xenophobic violence that swept across South Africa in the past weeks, more than 50 people have died, hundreds are injured, and thousands displaced. While media reports described the brutality of the attacks on foreign nationals – which have included people being beaten, stabbed, torched and dispossessed of their belongings and homes – there has been little consideration to the double jeopardy of being both foreign and female that renders women especially vulnerable in this deepening crisis.

While the perpetrators of the xenophobic violence in South Africa have not differentiated based on gender or age in their attacks on foreigners, there is a gender perspective to xenophobia getting lost in the midst of the horror.

Foreign women in the townships have been disproportionately affected by the recent xenophobia, not only because the violence has played out on the site of their bodies (through beatings and rape), but also because the violence has been directed towards their homes (through burning and looting).

At the same time, within South Africa’s undisputedly patriarchal society, women have also been thrust into the conflict as a real and potential source of violence between South African and foreign men. Again and again, we hear South African men accusing foreign nationals of “stealing our women.”

There have been reports of rape in the midst of the general perpetration of xenophobic violence. Systematic rape is often used as a weapon of war in “ethnic cleansing.” Although South Africa is not at war, it current situation could be considered a “conflict situation” and in a conflict situation, the sexual violation of women can erode the fabric of a community in a way that few weapons can.

Rape in conflict situations serves to dominate and tame not only the women survivors who are its immediate victims, but also all the men that are socially connected to them by delivering the message that they are not strong enough to protect their women. From this point of view, rape in war or conflict is a means of committing genocide, by destroying a particular group or nation’s identity.

In a country where sexual violence is pervasive in everyday life, it is difficult to distinguish rapes motivated by xenophobic attitudes from those perpetrated because the general atmosphere of violence and lawlessness has allowed for it. Rape can be a political tool of xenophobia; or an act of opportunistic criminal violence against a woman because of her gender, under the guise of xenophobia.

Unfortunately, though reported numbers of rape were not alarmingly high in the recent attacks, it is likely that many xenophobia-related rapes are unreported because foreign women are fearful of the police. Firstly, as foreigners in an environment where the police have a reputation for complicity in corruption, intimidation and abuse of foreigners they are mistrustful of law enforcement. Secondly, as women in a society where the victims of sexual violence are often treated with scepticism and suffer secondary victimisation, there is a general reluctance to disclose.

South African women marrying or dating foreigners may also be vulnerable to attack and sexual violence, based on xenophobia. Sexual violence is well documented in South Africa as a means to control and punish women. Men may rape South African women as a means of controlling them or curbing their agency in choosing foreign men, and as a punishment for their waywardness.

The affect in women is not just physical assault. Many foreign women have been responsible for protecting their young children from the violence, which has entailed displacement to temporary shelters or places of safety where there is insufficient access to food, blankets and sanitation.

“Woman’ (and the associated categories of wife, mother and daughter) is a social position that comes with a range of expectations and investments. Women are the traditional carers of their families, with the responsibility to feed, clothe and provide shelter for their families.

As such, xenophobia targets women and children because they are central to making settlement happen - while a host population may see migrant men as transitory, women and children denote a more permanent move and the laying down of roots.

Migrants are increasingly targeted as the scapegoats for all manner of domestic problems facing societies today, particularly unemployment, crime, and limited access to services. People perceive immigrant women – whom following gender roles tend to be responsible for their families’ well being –as taking jobs and “using and abusing” already stretched public services, such as hospitals and schools.

In reality, many migrant and refugee women in South Africa have limited employment opportunities and are often at the bottom of the labour market. Many of these women hold jobs in the informal economy or unregulated sectors. As such, their access to state services such as health, education and justice is also limited, especially if they are undocumented migrants or illegal immigrants.

Many foreign women are in South Africa after having fled conflict-zones, sexual and domestic violence, and political and/or economic repression in their home countries. The insecurity and violence they now face in South Africa compounds their trauma.

Interestingly, in her book Engendering Wartime Conflict: Women and War Trauma, Ingrid Palmary points out that women, and others, often do not see violations against women as part of political conflict, but instead tend to view them as personal or domestic violations. This means the very real possibility that leaders and service providers leave women out of reconciliation and justice mechanisms.

Although often overlooked amidst the shocking images and stories emanating from the xenophobic attacks of the last two weeks, that there is a gendered face of xenophobia is unmistakable. Foreign women face the double jeopardy of belonging to and being at the intersection of two groups so vulnerable to exploitation, abuse and violence. This something the country must consider as it moves towards healing and responding to the needs of the injured and displaced.

* Romi Fuller is the Project Manager of the Violence and Transition Project at the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation. This article is part of the Gender Links Opinion and Commentary Service that provides fresh views on everyday news.

*Please send comments to or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/

In April 2008, after a wave of protests over low wages and high food prices, including an attempt to generate a general strike by many workers and social activists on April 6 and led by workers in the state-run textile industry, the Egyptian government suspended its export of rice and cement in order to meet local demand. This suspension of exports is a response to the failure of the export-oriented economy that the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) prescribed for Egypt in 1991.

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/378/48557woman.jpgIn addition to the psychological trauma of sexual violence, Miriam Madziwa argues that the violence is likely to have an adverse effect on women's participation in politics into the future.
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There is haunting weariness in Precious Zhove's eyes as she recounts events leading to her fleeing her home in Mberengwa in Zimbabwe's southern region. Clutching at her 18-month-old baby, she relives the horror of the day war veterans, ZANU PF supporters, and soldiers descended on her homestead looking for her husband Joab Gumbo, who contested to be a councilor under a Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) ticket.

"I was trying to tell them I did not know where my husband was since it was in the afternoon. They grabbed my baby, this one here and tied a sack around her waist then one of them started swinging her while holding her by the legs.”

"They said she was an MDC baby so they were going to take her away from me. They said that way me and my husband would have another baby, a Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) baby this time, because they don't like MDC people, and they are sell-outs."

While she pauses to catch her breath, she sighs, "Oh not again," and shifts the baby on her lap. The baby has no nappy, so her skirt has become wet. She explains the baby has no nappies or warm clothing. "I didn't have time to pack anything. The moment my husband returned home we left."

Zhove’s story is just one of many I have listened to in recent weeks as more and more families in rural Matabeleland and Midlands flee from harassment, intimidation, and beatings characterising the post March 29 period in Zimbabwe.

Media show images of injuries caused by the brutal attacks. The footage and reports are frightening. Burnt buttocks, breasts severed, limbs broken, and backs festering with wounds from plastic burns. Stories of pregnant women having their stomachs cut open or men young enough to be their grandsons raping elderly women.

Yet, away from the cameras, audio recorders, and notebooks there is emotional and psychological trauma that victims endure in stoic silence. Zhove is lucky to be out of physical harm's way. However, she is in continuous emotional turmoil. Her conscience gnaws at her heart over the fate of her two school-going children left behind in Mberengwa.

"I don't know what they are eating. I don't know whether they are going to school. I'm not even sure if they are still alive. I pray all the time that they are safe and that I will see them again soon.”

“I wonder sometimes whether I should have stayed with my children. If the war vets came back and killed me, at least my children would know my fate. Right now they don't even know I am here."

Broken bones heal with time if the victims are fortunate enough to access medical treatment. The verbal abuse and the psychological impact of the beatings, sexual abuse, and public humiliation will haunt these women forever. It reminds me of the ditty: "Sticks and stones may break my bones but words can hurt forever." The violence inflicts deep emotional wounds among victims, their relatives, and friends.

An added repercussion is the effect that the violence is likely to have on women's participation in politics. The post-election violence reinforces long held beliefs that "politics is a dirty and dangerous pursuit that only men can dabble in.” The violence gives politics a bad name and pushes women further onto the fringes of active politics.

The majority of women targeted are political activists who openly admit they are in politics to try to ensure a better future for their children. Women polling agents and candidates who contested in local council elections are key targets. Winning female councilors in rural areas are being hounded out of their homes and therefore, being denied the chance to work and help develop their communities.

Added to these politically active victims are hundreds of women who are killed, raped, harassed, humiliated and abused simply because they are mothers, wives, sisters and aunts of prominent MDC activists.

An elderly granny who had fled her home in Kezi tells of the shame she endured during a rally when “youthful war veterans” taunted her using abusive and vulgar language because her son is an MDC activist.

She confided that how unhappy she was to be living with her daughter in-law indefinitely. "I want to be home and not get in my daughter in-law's way. But I am too afraid to go back."

Mostly women carry the heavy responsibility of explaining the horrifying events to scared, confused and traumatised children. They also try to ensure life goes on as usual for the children amid all the upheaval and uncertainty.

Mothers have to answer questions of "Baba varipi? Ubaba ungaphi? (Where is daddy?)" from children whose fathers have fled their homes in the dead of night. These women have the daunting task of trying to make senseless reprisals make sense to their children.

Women are the people who have to make sure that even after houses and granaries are razed to the ground, children are clothed and fed. Moreover, these same women live with the unspoken scorn of close relatives for “allowing” themselves to be raped by war veterans.

Yet in communities where war veterans have set up the infamous “bases” everyone knows that women have no option but to “agree” to rape in desperate attempts to protect their families.

The true extent of humiliation that violated women are enduring became clear when a man from the Midlands narrated the extent of sexual abuse in his wife's presence.

"Every woman who is still young is being raped by these brutes who threaten to destroy homesteads if women do not give in to their demands. We men, know it's happening even though women don't talk about it. We know they are desperate to spare their husbands and families victimisation. We are going to be raising children that are not ours, but AIDS is the real threat in the community now."

While the man spoke, his wife was shaking her head silently, tears streaming down her cheeks. The effect of all these experiences is to traumatise Zimbabwean women into silence, and out of the political arena.

Ultimately, to quote writer Chenjerai Hove in Shebeen Tales, there is the long term danger that if the violence, harassment and abuse continues unabated, "women will remain of politics and not in politics." And that will do liitle to make sure their needs are cared for in the future.

*Miriam Madziwa is a freelance journalist based in Zimbabwe. This article is part of the Gender Links Opinion and Commentary Service that provides fresh views on everyday news.

*Please send comments to or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/

On May 24th and 25th 2008, the Centre for Citizens Participation in the African Union (CCP-AU) in collaboration the Egyptian Business Women Association (EBWA), Cairo Institute of Human Rights Studies (CIHRS), Fahamu, Federation Internationale des Droits de l”Homme (FIDH) and Oxfam Liaison Office with the African Union, organized a training workshop for Egyptian and other North African CSOs on the African Union under the title “Understanding the African Union and Seizing Opportunities for Change” in Cairo, Egypt.

The United Nations Trust Fund to End Violence against Women, managed by UNIFEM on behalf of the UN system, issued its 2008 global annual call for proposals to support national and local initiatives working to end violence against women in the developing world and countries in transition on 28 April 2008.

The U.S. Africa Command, designed to boost America's image and prevent terrorist inroads on the continent, has scaled back its ambitions after African governments refused to host it and aid groups protested plans to expand the military's role in economic development in the region.

The Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) 1st Vice-President, Ms Lucia Gladys Matibenga has been elected into the Governing body of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) at the ongoing ILO Annual Conference in Geneva, Switzerland.
Ms Matibenga was elected on 2 June 2008, after receiving 107 votes from the delegates.

Samuel Ebo Bartels, Sports reporter of Citi FM, an Accra-based independent radio station was on June 1, 2008, violently attacked by a group of policemen deployed at the Baba Yara Stadium in Kumasi, Ghana's second largest city.

Tajudeen walks us through the skepticism that initially greated the Obama candidacy, the pitfalls of the hubristic Clinton campaign and Obama's strengths but cautions us that Obama will be an American President who happens to be of African origin. He is never going to subordinate America’s interests to ours where they clash in a fundamental way.
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I must confess that I am one of those pundits who did not give Barrack Obama a significant chance of winning the Democratic Party presidential nomination. For most of December as we witnessed the tragic conflicts in Kenya with two good Professors/comrades/Pan Africanists, Horace Campbell and Okello Oculi, I was most scathing about Obama, while Horace did his best (including giving me the two books of Obama) to educate me, with Okello playing partisan moderator.

Much as I tried I could not bring myself to understand what the man really stood for. He was, and still remains, all things to all kinds of people. Maybe that is his strength. But it all seemed like a David and Goliath duel between him and the well-oiled political and financial machine of the presumed front-runner for the Democratic nominations, Hilary Clinton.

Not a few of us thought that Obama was just another protest candidate who would have his few moments in the limelight and then fizzle away as Hilary romped home to certain victory. How wrong we were! Even the Clintons, the power couple, misread Obama’s strengths. They mistook the political hurricane for a storm in a teacup until it was too late. They threw their considerable weight at him but somehow, in a twist of fate, he became more than Bill Clinton and Hilary could manage. Obama is the Teflon candidate reminiscent of the first Clinton campaign. Nothing sticks as the Chicago senator just ran and ran.

Why did we get it wrong? One, we thought Obama was a Black candidate and believed that the USA was not ready for a Black president. Two, even his Blackness was doubted because he did not come from 'traditional' African American/ black backgrounds and his CV was too short as both a Black/African icon.

The enigma of Obama is in making his opponents and critics underestimate him while he builds a broad spectrum of popular support that eats away at the support base of his critics. He believed in the small ordinary people and organized them into an electoral movement built on hope.

Obama did not have to be a Black candidate. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton have both done that. He did not have to revisit covered grounds hence he became the candidate who happens to be black. There is no way he could have become a serious contender if all he has was his skin colour. The initial ambiguities of many African American elite who were used to putting their faith in 'the good white liberal' like the Clintons raised the prospect of a Black candidate without a Black base which the Clintons already took for granted. But the initial disadvantage among the Blacks who thought he was not black enough actually made it possible for him to attract a broader section of White Americans.

Bush has so damaged Americans’ faith in themselves and made America even less loved if not universally hated that Americans consciously or unconsciously expect a messiah to make them feel good about themselves again - and if not instantly loved, at least less hated by the rest of the world.

It is that yearning for the ‘feel good’ aura that has led many to believe that Obama is the man of destiny and the harbinger of ‘Change you can believe in.’ You may not put your finger on it. It may not add up to a grand vision but it is uplifting enough to rouse America. The Clintons misjudged the moment and Hilary has had to fight in such a despicable way that discussing them now leaves a bad taste in the mouth of many former supporters who used to love ‘the lovable rogue’ Bill Clinton.

Though Bill Clinton was a ‘feel good’ president worshipped by many, his wife was not always endearing to many. Indeed Obama is more like Bill than Hilary. If Hilary had not been his opponent, Bill might have been one of the early democrat grandees that would have declared support for Obama. Spousal loyalty (nothing extraordinary considering the pains he has caused Hilary over the years) combined with the power couple’s delusion of themselves as the democrats’ counter to the dubious aristocracy to the Bushes, contributed greatly to their undoing.

In defence of his wife, Mr. Feel-Good became Mr. Sour grapes and a not so skin-deep liberal who thinks he is entitled to Black and poor white working people’s votes as a right and that such loyalty is transferable by osmosis to any Clinton.

Instead of quitting in a dignified way they have fought almost to the bitter end. Those who fight to the finish get finished. Are the Clintons so bitter in defeat that they would actually prefer McCain to Obama?

The next few days will tell. However, now that Obama is the candidate in waiting, attention will shift to whether he can beat McCain come November. Whether he wins or not he has already lifted the ceiling on the ambition of every Black person in America. There is already victory in the symbolic importance of his candidacy. The prospect of his victory, barring assassination (as it happened to Robert Kennedy before being elected or earlier John Kennedy, after being elected) is very real. His victory will see a repackaging of the American dream as a country where anyone can make it.

Initially support for Obama candidacy was most unanimous in Kenya (where many may not vote for a Luo President but are quite convinced that his nephew can be president of the US!), but it is now universally being prayed for all across the continent. If many Africans have their way they will voluntarily become proxy voters come November!

But while I recognize the mix of historical, socio-psychological, emotional and great expectations that Obama’s candidacy has inspired among Americans and also in Africa and in her diasporas, we should have no illusions that Obama will suddenly make America do right by Africa or the rest of the world, for that matter. He is going to be an American President who happens to be of African origin. He is never going to subordinate America’s interests to ours where they clash in a fundamental way but he may package them less arrogantly and may add more honey to the poisoned chalice that any super power dishes out to smaller states - that is unless those states are firm in the defence of their own interests so they can get a better, if not fairer deal.

*Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem writes this column as a Pan Africanist.

*Please send comments to or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/

The recently established Tanzania Media Fund (TMF) seeks to promote media independence and quality, with a particular focus on expanding investigative journalism. TMF will support media houses, editors and journalists to deepen their work and foster innovative learning. The Fund is funded by a multi-donor group and hosted by Hivos Tanzania. TMF seeks Tanzanians for the post of Programme Manager, who will play a key role in forming the leadership nucleus and setting up the TMF. Competitive remuneration and a challenging and creative work environment that promotes learning will be offered to the successful candidates.

Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem looks at the Yar Adua's administration and the political mileage the stolen election has cost him and argues that the only Yar Adua will win back legitimacy is "through public policies that reduce poverty, deliver education, creatre decent jobs for the millions of youth roaming the streets, empower women. bring security to cities, towns and villages and light up all homes, industry and streets of Nigeria."

May 29 was Democracy Day in Nigeria. It marks the day in 1999 when the Nigerian Generals returned the country to civilian rule albeit under a recivilianised former General, Olushegun Obasanjo. After 8 years of civilian politics under Obasanjo, the best that can be said is that democracy remains a national aspiration especially in terms of its capacity to deliver on the bread and butter issues that afflict the majority of Nigeria's boisterous millions. While the kind of brutality, arbitrary arrest, gross violation of the rights of citizens and other excesses that were characteristic of the direct military dictatorship of previous military regimes especially that of the kleptocratic Babangida and Abacha's sadistic regimes are no longer the case, it is perhaps an indication of the impatience of the public or the short memory of the chattering classes in the country that some people will argue that 'Obasanjo is worse than Abacha'.

The current scandals being exposed about the regime of Obasanjo and the financial recklessness of companies and individuals allied to his nightmare team of free loading parasites not withstanding, I do not agree with those who believe that Obasanjo's has been the worst regime Nigeria has ever had. By all means the atrocities, bad judgements and policy hypocrisies of the regime should be exposed and those guilty punished. The fact that these matters are coming to light, albeit after the regime has left office, is indeed part of growing demands for accountability. It may have been delayed but it sends out a message that there is no statute of limitation on abuse of office and betrayal of public trust. Many of those who are now clamouring for Obasanjo's head, or were public critics of his regime while he was in office, could not do the same under either IBB or Abacha. That in itself should count for something. But there are just too many people who cannot forgive Obasanjo for his arrogance and holier than thou attitude.

This year's Democracy Day also represents the first year of the administration of Alhaji Umar Musa Yar' Adua. The stench from Obasanjo's administration continues to hang over Yar Adua and the obsessions of those after Obasanjo and his cabal is making it look like Yar Adua's regime is a mere extention of Obasanjo's. As far as many of these people are concerned no change has taken place and the ghost of Obasanjo is seen looming large and haunting every room in Aso Rock. The low profile personality of Yar Adua and his even lower lustre style have combined to enthrench this view that he is a dithering and indecisive president. Hence the various sobriquets applied to him and his regime: 'Mr Go-Slow', 'Mr Hold-Up', and 'Mr No-Show' etc. They all point to the frustration of the public at his seeming lack of dynamism. It is a regime that has been too cautious and that caution is inducing executive inertia.

The circumstances under which Yar Adua was imposed as a candidate and eventually being handed the keys to Aso Rock meant that the legitimacy issue initially made it too defensive. There was uncetainty about how long it would last and some wrong-headed optimism that the courts would invalidate the robbery of the electorate.

These issues made the government less ambitious from the start, waiting to see what would happen. It was not as though Yar Adua had nothing else going for him. I argued then and continue to believe that he would have won without rigging. No serious observer could objectively claim that either of his two closest rivals had won. He also had a personal reputation of not being corrupt and a record of leading a decent administration in Katsina State for 8 years. So there were people willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. But the regime was caught between being grateful to the Obasanjo PDP robbery machine which gave it the stolen mandate and robbed public which wanted the new President to distance himself from his benefactors. Neither could be fully satisfied.

It was obvious that the PDP had more influence in the making of the new government. Yar Adua did not seem to have much room for manouvre therefore the party prevailed. All he had was his personal credibility as revealed in his innauguration speech where he assured the country he would be a servant leader and lead by example. That he was not Obasanjo and was not given to what Nigerians call 'I too know' and associated 'Baba-cracy' (rule of Baba by Baba for Baba!) was a positive development. His simplicity and austere outlook encouraged many Nigerians who are tired of the profligacy and ostentatious high living of Nigeria's power elite.

However governing a country as diverse and routinely mismanaged polity like Nigeria requires more than just being nice and wanting to do good. It seems that Yar Adua has become a prisoner in Aso Rock, distrusting his corrupt party and the wheeler dealers across the country. Unfortunately they have been so preoccupied with this that they have not been able to leverage the potential public support and good will from many Nigerians.

The PDO operates like a regime under siege - withdrawing into a tiny laager of few trusted people around the presidency. While this may have worked in a provincial setting like Katsina, it is not working any wonders in Abuja. Many people may want to help Yar Adua but they do not have entry points. The system's core is still dominated by malevolent individuals whose only claim to their position is because they have been part of previous misrulers! Yar Adua's small band of believers' inability to have its own narrative and grand vision has made it become vulnerable to other people's agenda. The most successful in filling this executive vacuum created by Yar Adua's excessive caution is the anti- Obasanjo lobby. While it is important to hold all leaders accountable the same Nigerians will blame Yar Adua for doing nothing later.

Let those who want to go after OBJ do so by all means possible under the law but Yar Adua needs to embark on his own programme very aggressively. A programme that will help launder the stolen mandate through public policies that reduce poverty, deliver education, create decent jobs for the millions of youth roaming the streets, empower women, bring security to cities, towns and villages and light up all homes, industry and streets of Nigeria. He needs to throw caution to the winds and break out of the presidential prison that Aso Rock has been for him for the past one year.

*Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem writes this column as a Pan Africanist.

*Please send comments to or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/

One can understand the rage, pain, and disappointment, that informs Pius Adesanmi’s but a cooler, more dispassionate view of South Africa may have cast more light on the issue For all his preamble about making ‘psychic’ reconnection to Africa and escaping the dominant racial generalisations about Africa in the West, Adesanmi shows a marked inability to escape these very race stereotypes. Perhaps this is part of the point he wishes to make but he shows a surprising willingness to reproduce these stereotypes. When he encounters the squalor and danger of inner city Johannesburg he can only recount his experience in the very race terms he condemns earlier.

Does Adesanmi not know that other cities in Africa and the world have mugging, violence and robbery on an almost equal scale. Has he been to Lagos recently? Yet Adesanmi’s fixation on race – all those inscrutable black faces - does not allow him to recognise or indeed consider the new demographic pressures on the limited public and social infrastructure in Johannesburg; a city that draws poor Africans not only from the immediate surrounding area but also a large regional hinterland extending beyond the Equator. Population pressure on infrastructure in African cities built for small affluent white colonial populations are not new.

Adesanmi then goes on to imply that Nigeria liberated South Africa single handed with little help. This would be news to South Africans and many other Africans. Yes, Nigeria did contribute significantly to the liberation of southern Africa. But its role – somewhat belated - was not the key defining moment for South Africa’s long struggle. The frontline states – particularly Mozambique and Tanzania – contributed more over a longer period. Yes, the struggle to overcome apartheid seized the imagination of young informed Nigerians but it also captured the attention of whole generation of Africans, inspiring music, literature, art and politics across the continent. It did not capture of the imagination of Nigerians alone.

The xenophobia that drives everyday urban life and current disturbances are not a new phenomenon and probably have deep roots in Apartheid South Africa. The South African view of ‘Africans’ who come from north of the Limpopo as ‘black’, physically repellent and possessed of incomprehensible and inelegant languages is not new. Indeed the word ‘ African’ is a historically ambiguous term in South Africa, freighted with all the contempt and violence of Apartheid. The conflicts and competitiveness of post Apartheid South Africa have only added new hostility to old contempt ‘Insider/outsider’ or ‘native/stranger’ strife is one of the perennial and defining binaries of African politics. The fact that Black South Africans have turned on other Africans is a sad surprise – we expected more of them - but, on reflection, it is not a million miles away from the ethnic clashes in Kenya earlier this year or the anti- Ibo pogroms in Nigeria in the 1960’s.

Informed Africans from other parts of the continent should recognise that South Africa – culturally, socially, economically and politically - is very much part of the rest of Africa; challenges, dilemmas and hopes. We should appreciate this even though South Africans seem unable to realise this.

In response to , I would certainly not be surprised. When Secretary General General Ban-Ki-Moon took office at the U.N., he announced that his first priority was, of course, Darfur. Not the Iraq War, not the Afghanistan War, not South Korean farmers committing suicide for lack of tariff protection, but, "of course": Darfur.

A Cairo appeals court’s decision to uphold the sentences imposed on five men jailed in a crackdown on people living with HIV/AIDS underscores the Egyptian government’s dangerous indifference to public health and justice, Human Rights Watch has said. The May 28 ruling upheld the maximum three-year prison terms for each of the five, following a months-long campaign targeting men with HIV/AIDS. A total of nine men have been sentenced to prison so far.

In response to the violence against foreigners, the Western Cape Civil Society Emergency Task Team has activated an SMS emergency system for citizens to respond to the violence. The Task Team, a coalition of TAC and over 20 NGOs, has activated a “NO TO XENOPHOBIA” SMS lines across South Africa. Says Peter Benjamin of Cell-Life: “Almost everyone has a cell phone. South Africa, make your voice heard to counter the violence. Tell everyone that South Africa belongs to all who live in it.”

Participants in the 2008 CODESRIA Gender symposium will be invited to consider the mixed landscape of gender and citizenship that has been forged out of contemporary globalisation with a view to reflecting on ways of overcoming the new barriers that have emerged alongside the old obstacles that have persisted in the search for a better engendered citizenship. The Symposium will be held in Cairo, Egypt, from 08 – 10 October, 2008.

SciDev.Net proudly announces its second joint IDRC–SciDev.Net Science Journalism Award and seeks applications from journalists in all developing countries. The award consists of a six-month internship giving the recipient invaluable journalistic experience and demonstrates SciDev.Net’s commitment to build capacity in science communication across the developing world.

Health-e has won the community media category of the Excellence in Media Award for Global Health, sharing the stage with the Wall Street Journal which scooped the print section. The Washington-based Global Health Council has recognised South Africa’s specialist news service, health-e, in its annual awards for excellence in media.

The second edition of the African programme on Rethinking Development Economics (APORDE) is about to start in Stellenbosch. This fully-funded training programme (26 participants have been selected via a competitive application process) is a joint project of the dti and the French Institute and Development Agency.

As of Tuesday 27 May 2008, there are 20 000 displaced foreign nationals being sheltered in 65 sites across the Western Cape province. The number of those seeking shelter differ greatly from site to site as does the nature of the housing. Communities have opened their halls, mosques and churches to provide shelter and amenities to survivors of xenophobic attacks and those fleeing in fear of being attacked.

The Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), AIDS Law Project (ALP) and the AIDS and Rights Alliance for Southern Africa (ARASA) jointly condemn Helen Zille, the Mayor of Cape Town, for her continued insistence on setting up internment camps in remote locations throughout the Cape Town Metro area to deal with the thousands of people displaced by xenophobic violence and harassment over the past two weeks.

It’s with a great sense of loss that Art for Humanity (AFH) reports the tragic death of celebrated KZN artist, Gabisile Nkosi in the early hours of this morning, 27 May 2008. Gabisile was involved with AFH for almost 10 years with her participation in two of AFH’s print portfolio projects. In 2000, Gabisile contributed a linocut, "Break the Silence" which discouraged the practice of polygamy in rural areas to AFH’s “Break the Silence” HIV/Aids awareness print portfolio. In her artist statement, Gabisile emphasized the important role art plays in advocating social issues, “If you want to get a message across, it’s better to do a colourful visual rather than text. As an artist, I feel privileged to play a role in HIV/Aids awareness through the medium of visual art.” AFH treasures the opportunity of having worked with Gabisile. She made such a powerful impact with her capacity as an artist and as an educator in numerous communities. Her passion, kindness and commitment to helping others through art inspired and touched many lives. We will miss you Gabi.

A truck carrying 60 000 copies of the most popular Zimbabwean newspaper has been burned out. The driver, Christmas Ramabulana, a South African, and a distribution assistant, Tapfumaneyi Kancheta, a Zimbabwean, were admitted to hospital after the attack. The newspaper, the Zimbabwean on Sunday, was printed in South Africa and the truck crossed the border at Beit Bridge on Saturday.

The African social science research community has been paying close attention to the evolution of the situation at the National University of Kinshasa. It is now four months since academic activities have been paralyzed as a result of a lecturer’s strike for decent wages. For a couple of days now, students have become prey to the police because they decided to conduct a march to pressure the government to respond positively to the lecturers’ demands.

The conference will be of interest to students, researchers, academics and others working in the fields of history, librarianship and archives. The conference will take places onTuesday 10 June 2008, 10.00 - 17.00, at the British Library Conference Centre, British Library, 96 Euston Road, London NW1 2DB.

The decision by Sierra Leone’s war crimes court to reject sentence reductions for two convicted militia members because they fought for a “legitimate cause” is crucial in ensuring justice for all victims of human rights violations, Human Rights Watch has said.

Government spokesperson Themba Maseko on Thursday ruled out the possibility of large-scale refugee camps for the victims of the recent attacks, saying that government was in favour of smaller, temporary shelters. Mr Maseko, briefing reporters on the outcome of the latest Cabinet meeting, said government preferred to create smaller, temporary shelters that would be more manageable.

Land has often been described as a key motivation for the Arabs and non-Arabs who actively participated in the “Janjaweed” in Darfur and southeast Chad (see article “Darfur: a Conflict for Land” in Alex de Waal (ed.), War in Darfur and the Search for Peace.) One of the primary traits of the Darfur crisis (like the Dar Sila crisis in Chad) can be described as a split between those members of the population with territories (hawakir) due to traditional, mainly pre-colonial land rights and those who have none.

The IRN is proud to announce that first issue of OUTLIERS, the e-journal of IRN-Africa. OUTLIERS is a collection of essays and creative work on sexuality in Africa. This issue is entitled 'Theorizing (Homo)Eroticism in Africa', and contains works by Sybille N. Nyeck, Terna Tilley-Gyado, Crispin Oduobuk-Mfon Abasi, Rudolph Ogoo Okonkwo, Shailja Patel, Cary Johnson, and Bernadette Muthien, among others.

The fact that no single woman MP was elected in the crucial House Committees in the 10th Parliament speaks volumes to an institution that is supposed to pass laws which are amenable to every Kenyan. This is not withstanding that the 10th Parliament will go down in history has having the highest number of women in Parliament and the highest number of Cabinet Ministers.

The World Bank has announced that it has set up a financing facility in the order of $1.2 billion to assist with the global food crisis. A week before the United Nations summit on the global food crisis, to be held in Rome, the World Bank has announced that it has set up a "rapid financing facility" to address the immediate needs of the global food crisis.

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and Japan has announced a new $92 million initiative to help Africa adapt to global warming. “Climate change is one of the most critical issues that governments and citizens around the world need to address,” said Olav Kjorven, UNDP Assistant Administrator and Director of Bureau for Development Policy.

International aid groups are rushing to provide assistance to tens of thousands of Sudanese civilians displaced by fighting in the disputed oil-rich Abyei area before seasonal rains hamper aid flows, aid groups said. Civilians fled the central town of Abyei during over a week of clashes between northern and southern troops earlier in May, prompting fears of further conflict just at the onset of the rainy season.

Deficient food supplies, inadequate fresh water and geopolitical risks are among the major threats to sustainable economic growth in Africa, a report released on Friday showed. Anger over high food prices has sparked protests in several African countries including Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Mozambique and Senegal.

Zimbabwe's ruling ZANU-PF party should be reformed, opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai said on Friday in a speech that may open the door to a national unity government. Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) won the March 29 parliamentary election with a slim majority, handing ZANU-PF its worst defeat since President Robert Mugabe led it to power after independence from Britain in 1980.

Two oral HIV tests have been shown to be highly accurate in a study conducted in Namibia and reported in the May 1st edition of theJournal of Acquired Immunde Deficiency Syndromes. The studies were conducted amongst patients infected with HIV subtype C and the OraQuick test was shown to be 100% accurate with the OrSure test being 98.9% accurate. The investigators believe that oral HIV testing could be used to help diagnose HIV in resource-limited settings, and assist in the gathering of surveillance information.

More than 10 million children around the world die before their fifth birthday every year, according to a new report by UNICEF, the United Nations Children Fund. The report, "The State of Africa's Children 2008," was launched on May 28 at the Fourth Tokyo International Conference on African Development in Japan. It looks at the successes and failures of governments regarding the health and survival of the children of Africa and is complementary to a broader UNICEF report on the health of the world's children.

Pregnant women and single mothers are languishing in a secret detention center in Tindouf, a southwestern province in Algeria, charges Brahim El Selem. "It is made out of mud bricks . . . You can't see the jail because it is a hole between two hills. "El Selem says the women's detention center--which he says he visited three or four times--confines almost 30 women, some with toddlers. The structure's zinc roof provides minimal protection from the Saharan desert heat, he adds.