Zimbabwean women with HIV/AIDS who present with AIDS-related Kaposi sarcoma (AIDS-KS) are younger than male counterparts of similar AIDS-KS status and have a more severe course of KS, according to the findings of a cross-sectional study published in the March 1st edition of the Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes.

We are sad to bring you news about the impending departure of Patrick Burnett from Pambazuka News and Fahamu.

Patrick joined Fahamu in 2002 as a part-time research assistant for Pambazuka News. The impact of his presence on the Pambazuka News team was felt immediately. The quality of news and information appearing in what was to become later the Links and Resources section changed radically. Pambazuka News began providing a space to many of those who were engaged in social justice struggles in Africa whose voices were rarely heard.

A broader range of editorials and essays from activists and analysts began to appear in Pambazuka News as a result of Patrick’s work. And at the same time, he helped to manage a sister newsletter, Equinet News.

In January 2004, Patrick was appointed News and Information coordinator and took on primary responsibility for expanding Pambazuka News and involving a team of volunteers across the continent. The structure and quality of Pambazuka News began to develop in ways that we had hardly foreseen, matched by the steady and rapid growth in the number of subscribers and contributors.

A year later, in 2005, Patrick became the Online News Editor of Pambazuka News. Under his leadership, Pambazuka News was to win a range of international awards as the newsletter gained recognition as the principal forum for analysis, debate, discussion and information about the struggles for social justice in Africa.

There is little doubt that we owe much of the success of Pambazuka News to Patrick. Few people realise how much hard work is done by so few people to produce Pambazuka News. Gathering information across the continent, commissioning and reviewing articles, chasing recalcitrant authors to keep their promises, writing articles, undertaking research on multiple and complex issues - these are just some of the tasks that are involved. Combine that with the tyranny of the weekly deadlines, it is surprising that anyone is able to keep going.

Patrick has wanted, for some time now, to move on and develop his own work in journalism. He has been amazingly generous in agreeing to postpone his departure by several months pending our appointment of an online news editor and a researcher for the Links and Resources section of Pambazuka News. With these tasks completed, Patrick will be leaving on April 20, once the 300th issue of Pambazuka News has been put to bed. That we have reached this age is a testimony to Patrick's contributions.

As we celebrate the birthday of our 300th issue next week, please join us also in celebrating Patrick’s contribution to Pambazuka News. Patrick – thank you for all you have done. Go well. And keep in touch.

Firoze Manji
Editor Pambazuka News

If Tony Blair’s Government is as concerned as it claims to be about the people of Darfur, then it should at the very least abide by its international obligation to protect these Darfuri asylum seekers and issue an immediate moratorium on the further removal of non-Arab Darfuri asylum seekers to Sudan.

The U.N. Security Council, whose primary mandate is to prevent wars and preserve world peace, will once again break tradition next week when it debates the newest threat to international security: climate change.

The UN refugee agency and the World Food Programme will later this month open an exhibition in London of powerful images of displaced people and returnees in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).The exhibition, "Exposed and Hungry: Life in eastern Congo," will feature pictures by American freelance photographer Susan Schulman focusing on the issues of bringing shelter, protection and food to people in the volatile eastern regions of the DRC.

UNHCR's repatriation programme for South Sudan topped the 50,000 mark this week when a group of 84 Sudanese refugees flew to the town of Yambio from Central African Republic (CAR).

Kabissa has submitted a project proposal idea to NetSquared - an organization that is working to spur the adoption of new “social web” tools among organizations working for social change. Kabissa has entered the competition which is very steep with 150 projects participating.

People in Africa are now increasingly competing to get access to arable land and pastures. Open land conflicts are becoming more and more common across the continent. This paper by the Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS) is based on experiences gained by the three authors through previous research activities and assignments in different parts of Africa and reading of existing literature.

In spite of the previous protests and the international pressure exerted upon the Nigerian government since the infamous Anti-gay bill, all efforts now seem to have come to a standstill pending the federal elections on 21 April this year.

Lack of archived material on lesbians in South Africa has prompted photographers Jean Brundrit and Zanele Muholi to conduct a workshop entitled "Making Herstory". The project trains participants to acquire basic photography skills that will enable them to document their past, present and future.

The Web2ForDev International Conference will promote the adoption and dissemination of appropriate, low-cost and replicable Internet-based applications by actors in agriculture, rural development, and natural resource management. It aims to inspire participants to use and develop their own information management and communication systems based on these applications. The Deadline for submission of proposals is 30 April 2007.

The Nigerian president's declaration of a public holiday has delayed a supreme court hearing into whether the vice-president may stand in next week's election.
Olusegun Obasanjo has designated Thursday and Friday, 12 and 13 April as a holiday, directly threatening the electoral campaign of Atiku Abubakar.

One of the Democratic Republic of Congo's key opposition leaders has left the country, ending three weeks of living under the protection of the South African embassy in Kinshasa. According to one witness, Jean-Pierre Bemba boarded a private jet bound for Portugal on Wednesday, where he is due to have medical treatment.

Abdulkadir Ashir "Nadara," head of the privately-owned TV station Universal TV, journalist Bashir Dirie Nalei and cameraman Hamud Mohammed Osman were arrested on 8 April at Mogadishu airport and have been held since then. The three journalists had covered a press conference by President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, during which "Nadara" had asked him about favouritism in his choice of officials.

Forget statistics on literacy, child mortality and access to clean piped water: In Angola, the shopping-mall is the key indicator of social and economic development. As OpenDemocracy's Lara Pawson reports, Luanda’s poor are paying a heavy price for the gleaming condominiums and shopping-malls arising around them.

If Nigeria successfully holds local and federal elections on 14 and 21 April, it will be the first time that an elected civilian government will hand power over to another. Will the elections hold? Will clear winners emerge? Will alleged losers accept their defeat with good grace, actuated by the larger national interest? Ike Okonta places Nigeria’s forthcoming elections in historical and political context.

Given the country’s turbulent political history, the choice confronting Nigerians in these difficult times is between democracy and national disintegration. Some analysts would like to add a third into the mix: a military coup d’etat. But I have firmly ruled this out. Ambitious officers might well attempt a takeover, but Nigerians’ current deep aversion to military rule will see to it that they will not last in office.

In times past the army always stepped into the breach when the politicians failed to abide by the rules of the game, using the coup to truncate the party-political process, abolish the constitution, and govern the country from their barracks. The armed forces had a modicum of respectability in the 1970s, fresh from a bitter civil war. They were viewed – at least in the western and northern parts of the country – as the nation’s saviour.

But the Babangida and Abacha regimes (1985-1998) exploded the myth of the Nigerian military as guarantors of peace and drivers of national progress. The campaign for democratic rule that seeded in the late 1980s was deeply-rooted, popular and enduring for the simple reason that ordinary Nigerians had by this time seen through the mask of the soldiers. Now they clearly recognised that their very survival depended on them winning back the right to govern themselves or elect their representatives as they saw fit.

Ordinary Nigerians are still struggling to consolidate the democratic government they won at such high cost in 1999 when their protests finally forced the General Abubakar-led junta to hold elections. It is not likely that they will tolerate another military adventurer, no matter how well-meaning, in the corridors of power.

If the mass of Nigerians prefer to live in a united country rather than go their separate ways – and all available research points to the former – and if they are firmly set against renewed military rule – as indeed they have – then it stands to reason to argue that they will work strenuously to ensure that the elections are duly held.

After all, multi-ethnic nations are best held together by dialogue and consensus. They will also likely engage the electoral process with great care knowing as they do now that inconclusive or chaotic elections could throw Nigeria on to the path of disintegration along the ever present fault-lines of religion and narrow ethnic nationalism.

They will want the elections to be peaceful, transparent and the results fair and credible. They will want the victors to demonstrate humility in their triumph, and the losers to accept that democratic elections are not a one-off event but an on-going process, holding out the hope of their own triumph in the next electoral round. Above all, Nigerians will want the out-going Obasanjo government to display statesmanship; and with an eye on history, to ensure that all conceivable obstacles to a smooth transfer of power to its successor are removed.

All evidence supports the contention that the majority of Nigerians are working hard to achieve this outcome. But there are also worrying signs on democracy’s road, as the country approaches the elections. Some of these danger signals are born of residual structural problems in the polity; the rest are largely attitudinal, driven by the personal quirks of certain political actors. It is important that we highlight these danger signs, separate those that can be remedied from the intractable, and urge well-meaning Nigerian political actors to channel their energies towards those that can be remedied. The point of political diagnosis is to identify and remove elements that impede the healthy functioning of the polity.

Three danger signs

Nigeria’s current political regime is a very young electoral system struggling to achieve democratic consolidation. Thirty years of military rule foisted a culture of impunity, authoritarianism, and disempowered citizenship on the people. The vital institutions that support representative government – a free and robust press, an independent and impartial judiciary, and political parties driven by policy issues and buoyed up by a freely associating and enlightened citizenry – that began to emerge in the 1940s when the struggle for independence really commenced, were stifled following the first military coup in January 1966.

Efforts of progressive politicians and civil society leaders since the end of the civil war in January 1970 have been directed largely towards winning back the open civic space in which these crucial institutions can thrive and prosper again. The Second Republic of 1979-1983 was too short a period for these supportive institutions of representative rule to re-embed in the wider society. Generals Babangida and Abacha’s unrelenting and all-encompassing attacks on the civic-political space killed off the tender shoots that began to bud during that brief spring. In a real sense therefore, the advent of the Third Republic in 1999, for all its imperfections, offered the first real opportunity, after the demise of the First Republic in 1966 and the bloody civil war which followed in its wake eighteen months later, for the institutional ramparts of democratic government to take root again.

This is the reason why Nigerians will go into the April 2007 elections without the benefit of real political parties and politicians to represent their views and interests. The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the ruling party, has since 1998 when it came into being, transformed into a bloated, vote-rigging machine intolerant of opposition within or from rival parties. Run along highly authoritarian lines and dependent on the president for funds and policy, the PDP has been reduced to a branch of the government. The latter is also subject to the whims and commands of President Obasanjo.

The leading opposition parties – All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) and Action Congress (AC) - are run along more consensual lines. But they are hampered by a lack of experienced and trained personnel; a narrow and opportunistic membership base; perennial shortage of funds; and a domineering presidency which has not hesitated to use government largesse and paid agents provocateurs to undermine them.

The judiciary, after the battering it endured at the hands of the soldiers, is still struggling to find a credible role for itself in the new civilian dispensation. The Nigerian press is fiercely combative and fearless, but journalists are yet to make the transition from being guerrillas fighting off military dictatorship to cool-headed analysts nudging politicians and public discourse towards policy issues.

To correct these structural problems will require time and a great deal of political skill. Because they will endure into the coming 2007 electoral cycle, the gaps they will open up in the political system could be exploited by a ruling party anxious to retain power at the centre and in the states. Having rigged the 1999 and 2003 elections with impunity, the PDP will be sorely tempted to enact a repeat performance this April, taking advantage of the weakened opposition, a cowed judiciary, and a still tactically-challenged press. This is the first danger sign on the road to the elections.

Whilst Olusegun Obasanjo is still the head of the federal government, he is no longer in power. This might sound paradoxical; but the architecture of power in Nigeria is as multilayered as it is complex. Obasanjo rose to prominence in the Nigerian armed forces in the late 1960s riding on the coat tails of the northern coup-makers of July 1966, most notably General Yakubu Danjuma.

Burdened with his close friendship with Major Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu, leader of the abortive January 1966 putsch in the north, and with his own role in that event still shrouded in mystery, Obasanjo had necessarily to demonstrate his loyalty to the new power elite – led by Col. Yakubu Gowon, Col. Murtala Muhammed, and Major Danjuma. It was on the rump of this group that he relied when Muhammed was assassinated in February 1976, after he had replaced Gowon as head of state the previous year and he (Obasanjo) was asked to step into the breach. He reigned; but real power lay with chief of army staff General Danjuma and chief of staff, supreme headquarters, General Shehu Yar’Adua. Obasanjo’s pay-back was his strident defence of ‘Nigerian unity’; and along with this, a pro-northern political stance when the time came to hand over power to politicians in 1979.

This pact, forged in the turbulent period of military rule in the 1970s, was to be replayed in 1999 when the northern military and political elite, reeling from attacks from pro-democracy elements in the wake of General Babangida and Abacha’s excesses, looked for a safe pair of hands to cede power. This was meant to be a tactical manoeuvre, designed to placate frayed nerves in the progressive camp in southern Nigeria. Babangida, acting on behalf of a loose coalition of northern elites, though by no means all northern interests, again sought out Obasanjo and finessed the politics that took him to Abuja as President in May 1999.

Throughout his military and later political career, Obasanjo never took any risks that could put his life or career on the line. He was content to let others take the risks, including dangerous military putsch. He would emerge from the shadow when the gun smoke had cleared and scout for rich pickings. Obasanjo’s sole attempt to make a bid for real power on his own behalf was the ill-fated attempt to get his minions in the PDP to tinker with the constitution that he might stay on as President beyond the two terms stipulated by the constitution. The powerful coalition of Babangida, Danjuma, and Vice President Atiku Abubakar – all northerners - united with pro-democracy elements in the press and civil society and promptly slapped down Obasanjo in May 2006.

That episode, more than anything else, demonstrated where real power in Nigeria lay. It also pointed to Obasanjo’s fragile position in the country’s nascent democratic game. He would, ideally, like to retire as a king-maker now that he can no longer extend his stay in office. But he has never had a secure power base to call his own: neither in the armed forces; nor in his Yoruba region home where he is distrusted by a populace who still see him as a northern ‘stooge’; nor in civil society; nor amongst the intelligentsia who regard him with a mix of loathing and disdain.

Nevertheless, Obasanjo has made it clear that come April he is determined to steamroll his chosen presidential candidate, Umar Yar’Adua, younger brother of the late Shehu Yar’Adua, into State House. The northern political elite is equally determined to demonstrate that Obasanjo has neither the right nor the political clout to appoint a new political leader for them. They see the April polls as the proving ground.

Obasanjo and his unpopular party will go into the elections with the full backing of the PDP state governors who are anxious to ensure continuity and thus shield themselves from later prosecution for corrupt enrichment and a supine police force with armed elements drawn from the army and paid thugs that Nigerian cities now have in abundance. This group will have to confront a vengeful Northern elite and their allies in the south, grouped around General Muhammadu Buhari, presidential candidate of the ANPP, and Atiku Abubakar, Obasanjo’s vice president, whose bid for the top job under the Action Congress is still under a cloud.

Were the supporting institutions of Nigeria’s young democracy autonomous and functioning, all eyes would have turned to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and the courts to ensure free and credible polls; thus removing the prospect of a free for all between these two bitterly opposed political factions. But INEC, following its recent pronouncement banning Vice President Abubakar, a noted critic of Obasanjo, from contesting the presidential election even though the electoral act does not accord it such power, has demonstrated that it is an interested party, on the side of President Obasanjo and the PDP government.

The Buhari and Atiku groups have stated that they view INEC as a partial entity that will work on Obasanjo’s behalf during the elections. This means that they will put into place their own independent machinery to police the electoral process and ensure that neither the INEC nor PDP’s agents rig the polls. Obasanjo, who was recently quoted in the press as saying that the election would be a ‘do or die’ affair for him will be expected to use the machinery and financial resources of the government to ensure that his will prevails. The inevitable clash between these juggernauts will reverberate in wider Nigerian political and civil society, already stretched to breaking point. This is the second danger sign on Nigeria’s democracy road.

Then there is a third danger sign, as ominous as the first two. This is the international politics of oil and the extent to which the major oil-consuming nations in Western Europe and North America seeking to secure their strategic interests will attempt to shape the political outcome in Nigeria to their advantage. At the heart of this realpolitik is the growing armed insurrection in the Niger Delta, fed and sustained by five decades of economic exploitation and political marginalisation that the local communities have suffered at such terrible cost.

The United States and the European Union backed the Obasanjo government in 1999 and again in 2003 even though there was abundant evidence that those elections had been marked by rigging and violence. Obasanjo was seen as friendly to their interests. He was also seen as a competent general who could be counted on to rein in the youth activists in the Delta region and ensure that Western oil companies continue to extract oil undisturbed.

Local democracy and corporate social responsibility were thus sacrificed for cheap oil. This democratic deficit is at the heart of the present crisis in the Niger Delta. Continued backing for Obasanjo’s political agenda in April will certainly escalate this crisis, which in turn could spill out into other regions of the country igniting a political cyclone.

These then are the three major danger signs on the road to the April general elections. So far, ordinary Nigerians in their millions have remained spectators in this great game, even as their economic and social condition continues to deteriorate. They are waiting anxiously for the April elections to settle accounts with those whom they see as having betrayed them, leaving them worse off than they were in 1999. If they are denied their day in the voting booth, the three danger signs will meld with popular anger and frustration. There is no knowing whether Nigeria will still be there on the map when the storm settles.

Alternatively, Nigeria’s ruling elites can elect to head off this storm by insisting on fair elections. But how might the end game play out?

Endgame of a defeated General

President Olusegun Obasanjo will quit power in May. There is no getting around it. The current power constellation is firmly against him despite his strenuous efforts since he assumed office in 1999 to build an independent power base of his own. The question now is the manner of Obasanjo’s going, and how to ensure that Nigeria as a corporate entity remains after the storm has quietened.

Forecasting the ramifications of Nigeria’s coming general elections is now a booming industry in the United States and Western Europe. These forecasts and analyses run the gamut from the sober to the downright loony. Most centre on the rising armed conflict in the oil-bearing Niger Delta, and how the elections might likely impact the flow of oil to the Western countries.

But for Nigerians and other Africans, the stakes are higher. A conflict-ridden Nigeria in the wake of inconclusive or rigged elections will trigger powerful waves of chaos and anarchy throughout West Africa, suspend the ambitions of ECOWAS to transform the region into a belt of economic prosperity, and open up west and central Africa to natural resource hunters intent on fomenting war and pave the way for easy pickings.

It is therefore important that Nigerian political thinkers step out to combat the muddled, self-serving analyses of those who have put themselves forward as ‘interpreters’ of political trends in their country. Indeed, they are challenged to articulate a clear road map to fair, peaceful and conclusive elections: to an electoral outcome that will provide a framework in which the task of repairing the damage Obasanjo and his lieutenants have wrought these past eight years can commence.

The Washington based Eurasia Group had this to say about the coming elections: ‘An election delay and the constitutional crisis which will likely follow could tempt the country’s military and influential ex-military establishment – which ruled Nigeria for four decades – to consider re-entering politics...Obasanjo’s relationship with key figures within the ex-military establishment, such as former head of state General Ibrahim Babangida, former long-time National Security Adviser Mohammed Gusau and former Defense Minister Theophilus Danjuma, is currently strained. In any political crisis it is not clear that these powerful figures, and many others within the ex-military establishment, would back Obasanjo rather than someone else to replace him.’

Underpinning this controversial analysis is nostalgia for a return to military rule in Nigeria. This nostalgia is to be found mainly in neoconservative political and business circles in Europe and the United States whose favourite business model in Africa is using corrupt dictators to repress the ordinary people, thus paving the way for them to pillage the continent’s natural resources undisturbed. General Ibrahim Babangida, Mobutu Sese Seko and others of their ilk were feted in London and Paris and Washington for precisely this reason. There are many in the power corridors of these three cities that still yearn for the return of the ‘good old days’ of Babangida in Nigeria.

While it is true that the likes of Babangida and Danjuma are still powerful, due to the stupendous wealth they illegally amassed following the end of the Nigerian civil war in 1970, it would be a mistake to see power as influence in the country today. The generals have virtually no political influence in a country where the ordinary people view soldiers with a mix of contempt and loathing, and are determined to protect the right to vote they won back in 1999. Obasanjo was able to deny Babangida and Gusau the presidential ticket of the Peoples Democratic Party not because he himself is powerful, but because he was canny enough to recognise that Nigerians would not shed a tear for Babangida and Gusau when they were fed with a dose of their own medicine.

Likewise, Babangida, working in partnership with Vice President Atiku Abubakar, was able to frustrate Obasanjo’s plot to remain in office. Not because Babangida himself is overwhelmingly politically influential, but because he too recognised that the majority of Nigerians detest the President’s authoritarian pretensions and want to see the back of him in May 2007. Babangida tapped into this powerful current and Obasanjo’s third term ambitions bit the dust.

What the foregoing tells us clearly is that ordinary Nigerians and their desire for representative and accountable government are now firmly in the saddle and will ultimately determine the direction in which the country will go in May – democratic rule or a return to dictatorship. The wind, I hazard to say, is blowing in the direction of democratic consolidation.

The prospects of a successful military coup in the wake of chaotic elections this April are not very bright. It does not even register on the political radar of the Nigerian street. Nor are there signs among the rank and file in the armed forces that they are yet again beginning to see themselves as the nation’s saviour. The army’s sense of self-worth took a battering in the 1990s as Babangida and his successor General Sani Abacha systematically destroyed all hopes of social and economic progress in the country. Ordinary soldiers, who were deployed in the cities to shoot and maim democracy activists, and students have since those tragic events been lumped together with their commanders as destroyers of the nation. This unflattering image, still powerful and enduring, is one which officers and the other ranks are yet to live down.

We are thus left with a charged political arena in which the ex-military gladiators will have to slug it out among themselves, while an impoverished populace look on from the sideline, waiting for yet another breach in the rampart to claw back more of their purloined freedom. Olusegun Obasanjo had an easy ride in 1979 when, as military head of state, he worked in concert with his fellow generals to shape the general elections and handed power to their preferred candidate. Indeed, Obasanjo had declared a few months before those elections that victory would not necessarily go to the most qualified candidate, a clear indication that the likes of Malam Aminu Kanu, Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe and Chief Obafemi Awolowo, still widely venerated in the country, would not be allowed to take power.

Shehu Shagari, presidential candidate of the National Party of Nigeria, was the least qualified in a field bristling with intellectual and political giants, tempered and burnished in the furnace of the independence struggles of the 1940s and 1950s. Obasanjo, notorious for his envy of intellectuals and political figures more accomplished than himself, chose to put personal interest above the national imperative of supporting a politician and statesman able to guide Nigeria seamlessly from unaccountable military rule to a democracy delivering the essentials of life to a still hopeful and expectant populace.

The depredations of the Shagari years and punitive IMF-sanctioned structural adjustment, shortly after the return of military dictatorship, were Obasanjo’s parting gift to Nigerians in September 1979. The present challenge, insist Nigerian democratic activists, is to ensure that he will not have the opportunity to give the people a similar gift this coming May.

‘Popular’ political analysis led by the BBC presents Umar Yar’Adua, presidential candidate of the PDP, as the favourite to win the election. The argument is that a candidate has to have an enormous war chest and a powerful election-rigging machine – which the Obasanjo government has in abundance - to win. This analysis not only forecloses the democratic option - i.e. the choice of the majority of ordinary Nigerians freely expressed in the polling booth - it also subtly encourages the belief that there will be no credible challenge to the PDP machine this April.

This, then, is the area in which Nigerian democrats have been channelling their energies: to prove that free elections, without which any talk of democratic government is just much hot air, are possible in Nigeria. They are also looking ahead. In the eventuality that they are unable to ensure free elections, they plan to make the cost of rigging so expensive that the perpetrators will be forced into an untenable position, making it impossible for them to form a government.

Obasanjo’s critics say the PDP government can only point to an abysmal record in office these eight years. The fundamental challenges that confronted Nigerian state and society in May 1999 are still staring Nigerians in the face: a new constitution that addresses the terms of association between the federating units and thus ensures political order; a home-grown economic strategy capable of tackling the scourge of mass unemployment and deepening poverty; and a social compact led by a visionary political elite restoring hope and love of country in a battered and increasingly cynical populace.

PDP candidates cannot therefore rely on their ‘performance’ in office to win the argument on the campaign ground. True, the campaign strategies of the other presidential candidates have been rather short on concrete alternative policies – the exception being Prof. Pat Utomi, presidential candidate of the African Democratic Party (ADP), and to a lesser extent, General Muhammadu Buhari of the ANPP. But these two candidates are in a powerful position to reap bountifully from the widespread distrust of the PDP and its politics of plunder and incompetence. In a free and fair context, Buhari and Utomi could easily emerge as hot favourites for president. The task, say those desirous of easing the PDP out of office, is to build a nation-wide coalition of vote-watchers capable of counting the vote and making the vote count.

Power at all costs?

The Obasanjo government has fired the first salvo in its ‘war’ to retain power at all costs. All manner of obstacles, including police harassment, were put in the path of Buhari’s campaign team as they went about canvassing votes in the northern part of the country in March. Desperate PDP officials, faced with the awful prospect of a long Harmattan out of government, and being made to account for the billions of dollars they frittered away on the altar of corruption and indolence, are likely to resort to even worse tactics as the electoral battle is joined.

Advocates of political liberty and fair play at the polls are preparing themselves for the bruising context ahead. They argue that given past performance, it would be foolhardy, even suicidal, to look to the Independent National Electoral Commission to conduct fair elections, and the police to maintain order. Recent actions and pronouncements of ranking INEC officials have made it clear that they are riding on Obasanjo’s PDP wagon. The use of the police to prevent rival politicians from campaigning is also a signpost pointing to close PDP-police collaboration during the elections.

Political parties working to replace the PDP government are increasingly looking elsewhere for countervailing civic machinery able to secure peaceful and orderly elections. Faith leaders, the independent media, labour unions, women’s organisations, ethnic associations and town unions, progressive student groups and democracy activists, among other non-violent civic organisations, are being actively courted, mobilised, and empowered to perform this function.

But they also recognise that it is not enough to focus only on policing the vote on election day. Leaders of these political parties and their allies in civil society say they are already thinking ahead and have factored in the possibility that their forces could be overwhelmed by the PDP juggernaut, as the vote tally stacks up against them. If that day comes, they could borrow a leaf from the recent elections in Mexico and peacefully mobilise their followers and sundry Nigerians desirous of fair elections to demand a recount or another round of elections.

They have also put the National Assembly and the judiciary on notice, for these institutions to stand ready to do their duty if the government in power proves beyond reasonable doubt that it is no longer capable of governing a fair and orderly transfer of power. There are strong speculations in the media that pressure could be brought to bear on Ken Nnamani, President of the Senate and third in line as President, to commence impeachment proceedings against Obasanjo and Vice President Abubakar, using a recent Senate report indicting both of fraud.

Continuing speculations concerning the health of PDP presidential candidate Umaru Yar’Adua, and Obasanjo’s strident assurances that all is well with him only point up the vulnerable position of both, even as ordinary Nigerians continue to yearn for a paradigm shift in the politics of the country. A recent meeting between Muhammadu Buhari and the leadership of the influential Christian Association of Nigeria during which the ANPP candidate gave firm assurances that he would not tamper with secular provisions of the constitution and favour his fellow Muslims unduly indicate that inter-ethnic and inter-faith coalition-building in pursuit of a broad-based response to the PDP is emerging. Likewise, the positive nation-wide response to Prof. Utomi’s visit to Oloibiri, the Niger Delta village where oil was first struck in 1956, points to burgeoning civic support for political leaders with a record of service and integrity.

It is these powerful supporting pillars of the dawning democratic moment that Obasanjo’s desperate end game is up against. The resort to election rigging and strong-arm tactics will not be an effective response to this moment. To rig the vote is one thing; to form a government based on rigged polls is quite a different ball game.

Presently Nigeria stands at a crossroads – to follow the path of democratic consolidation and its attendant fruits of stable, orderly and accountable government and prosperity; or to return to authoritarian rule and its diet of poverty, corruption, and ethnic conflict.

This drama is unfolding in a new international arena in which the peaceful rise of China and India as major economic powers are changing the balance of power, re-ordering the traditional flow of raw materials from Africa to the Western industrialised countries, and reshaping the way in which powerful corporations think about and do business on the continent. The present presents threats. But it also presents opportunities for resource-rich but technology and capital-poor countries such as Nigeria.

The proliferation of international terror networks, the resurgent scramble for nuclear bombs and other weapons of mass destruction, and rising ethnic wars on a mass scale make a compelling case for arenas of stable and peaceful government in resource-rich areas such as Africa.

Nigeria is one of the most important players on the continent, perhaps the most important. A peaceful, stable and democratic Nigeria can function as an agent of world peace, in a continent that has come up on the foreign policy radar of established and rising powers as crucial to their future economic health.

But a Nigeria in thrall to an incompetent and authoritarian government will open up this vast country to vendors of terror and pillage, further pushing the global order towards cataclysm. Fair elections are therefore as important to ordinary Nigerians as they are to those among the global powers anxious to navigate the new order into calmer waters.

* Ike Okonta is currently Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at the Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Oxford, UK. His book, When Citizens Revolt: Nigerian Elites, Big Oil, and the Ogoni Struggle for Self-determination (Africa World Press, Trenton, 2007) is forthcoming.

* Please send comments to

Grace Kwinje’s personal experiences under the blows and batons of Robert Mugabe’s men.

'I will go before the King, even though it is against the law. And if I perish, I perish.'

Esther 4:16 HARARE - 'What sort of woman are you Grace Kwinjeh?' 'Who do you think you are?' 'What are you trying to prove?' Questions asked by more than five baton stick wielding riot police officers as they beat me up on that fateful day at Machipisa Police Station in Harare on 11 March.

This was round one out of many.

Yet it was about the woman in me. It was about me as a woman and what I stand for or represent.

Each blow epitomised what they feared and hated in my defiance against them. This translated into the most brutal assault or dare I say attempted murder on me, on my person, my being; that woman in me.

I did not respond I stood still and took each blow as it came. I did not cry. I did not beg for mercy. None of the comrades present on that day cried or begged for mercy, none denounced the party or tried to negotiate themselves out of this horror of horrors that will never be erased from our memories.

Neither will the physical or emotional scars ever heal. No amount of therapy can heal what we went through on that day.

Sekai Holland a 64 year old grandmother was called a 'whore', 'Blair's whore' to be precise. 'No I cannot be Blair's whore he is my son' she said. How dare she respond thus?

Associate herself with the defiled Tony Blair? And so Sekai was danced on, interestingly by another woman. 'Iri hure raBlair rinoda varungu,' translates to 'this Blair whore loves white men'.

Sekai married for 40 years to an Australian was severely assaulted several times. She broke a leg an arm and three ribs. Why because as a journalist she made the double 'choices' of marrying a white man and belonging to the opposition; for that she had to suffer.

She had to be punished for going against the 'norm', the 'expected' by ZANU PF.

That woman in her was under attack verbally and physically. Her age? Not an issue.

The two young women we were with were not spared. The young 'whores' according to the officers had to be taught a lesson.

Together with Sekai and myself we were beaten on the buttocks. 'Rovai mazigaro' 'beat up the big bums' they shouted.

My black beret fell off and I got a beating for my blond hair. 'Hure rekuHoliday Inn rovai.' 'A Holiday Inn prostitute beat her up.' 'Look at the color of her hair.' The 'sins' were many. I colored my hair blond in protest after Registrar General Tobaiwa Mudede denied me a travel document on the basis that it was a 'state security document' and not a 'right.' I was slowly being rendered stateless in my own country.

And so as is the case too in opposition politics the attack on us women was more on our sexuality, we were assaulted, humiliated, demeaned in whatever way they could think of.

Comically again, amongst us victims were some of the worst male philanderers, but the issue with them remained political, exposing the misogynistic character of our society.

We were treated this way because we are women and nothing else.

As I reflect on, I do not regret the woman I am and the hard choices I have to make.

It is for these that in my life I have often been persecuted, socially, sexually or mentally and this time I have paid an insufferably heavy price that has left deep scars on my body and soul.

I challenge oppressive systems in all their forms not just to do away with Robert Mugabe's injustice, but also primitive actions by those in our midst that still place us women in the odd position, of being underdogs even in the struggle for a democratic and just society.

It is a double battle for both our political freedom and emancipation, none of which can be achieved without the other, otherwise it's a half-baked revolution, similar to the one we got at independence.

Zimbabwean women in politics have stories to tell. Opposition politics?
More stories.

Over the past months I have seen myself in and out of jail on various dubious charges mostly to do with organising and leading illegal demonstrations.

Once I was placed in solitary confinement at Rhodesville Police station for 48 hours. The aim here I suppose was just to traumatise me. As I sat there in that cell on my own I was afraid.

Afraid of many things to do with being tortured, raped or even being killed. By the grace of God I came out not touched.

A female freedom fighter can be killed at any time. In the wee hours of 12 March the military police came for me at Braeside Police Station, where I had been dumped half dead already, the night before.

A search for me by family and friends was in full scale at this time.

I was in a cell with two other women. One of them was actually nursing and praying for me as I was in great pain and bleeding. We heard the sound of cars outside. Foot steps then the jail door opened.

The officer in charge, Makore pointed at me and said 'uyu Kwinjeh' to four military intelligence officials. I held on to the two women I knew I was in danger.

Once again in the fence of Braeside police station, I was tortured by the officers. They said they had been given orders to kill and not negotiate with civilians. This was not a joke because by this time comrade Gift Tandare's body lay cold somewhere.

May his soul rest in peace. I did not know this. The rest I leave to God and his mercy for me on that night.

They asked me all sorts of questions as they beat me with short 30 centimetre really painful baton sticks. I fainted several times but each time they got me up and tortured me.

Until in the end I could not stand that is when they asked me to remain seated and stretch out my legs and they beat the soles of my feet. How I got back in the cell I do not know. All I know is my life was spared.

They stayed on vigil outside the fence waiting for further 'instructions'. Thank God some officials from the Lawyers for Human Rights found me before the 'instructions' came the next day.

And then it was drama after drama. Released to hospital under riot police guard; then no charges; re arrested while trying to leave the country then back to hospital under riot police guard.

Eventually with Sekai Holland we made it for medical treatment here in South Africa.

I thank the sisters and brothers for the solidarity that came in the form of prayers, demonstrations, night dresses, cake, books, fruit and water.

Above all for taking the risk of being associated with this kind of woman, by visiting us at the Avenues Clinic in full view of the police and CIO operatives.

I will end with a quote from Paolo Coelho's The Zahir, 'I don't regret the painful times; I bear my scars as if they were medals. I know that freedom has a high price, as high as that of slavery; the difference is that you pay with pleasure and a smile, even when that smile is dimmed by tears.' And so the woman in me will fight on. Aluta Continua!

* Grace Kwinje is the deputy secretary for international relations in the Morgan Tsvangirai-led Movement for Democratic Change.

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

The broken garden

The ash moon like a hole
siphoned all flowers
to adorn the other side.

Every plant of every seed
all gone for the sole
glory of hyper-powers;

gone forever is the star’s
confession, where we stood
in lineage a little while,

God’s hope, the life of soil,
the need that feeds my hours
in the night, muddied blood

let for gain. Look at the sons
of slavery among the saints!
© Rethabile Masilo

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/299/blog_ghanageek.gif reports on an ICT project for secondary school children in Ghana called the I2CAP competition.

'The I2CAP program is a secondary school level programming competition. We train the teachers who go back and train the students. Then we have regional competitions and finally the nationals. At the moment their tutors are taught in the Ruby programming language…They are given a bunch of problems of varying difficulty and graded on how well they can create a working solution…Its only been going on for almost 2 years and we finally got teachers in every region trained. The first nationals will be in september. The plan is to eventually be able to assemble a national team for the International Programming Olympiad'

100 kids took part in the project however Geek has some criticisms such as the age of the computers – its about time Africa stopped being the dumping ground of ancient computers – a 5 year old computer is about 30 years old in reality if not more.

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/299/blog_naija.gifMusings of a Naijaman comments on his adventures in London seeking out Nigerian food and newspapers and ends up at the Bukka in Kilburn High Road. And on the continuing drama that is the Nigerian elections he points to a piece in This Day on how to prevent Rigging.

'Over in Naija, the drama continues as the elections draw nearer with court cases and counter suits and sudden deaths and the rearing of violence - Simon Kolawole of Thisday had some useful pointers on how to prevent rigging (or at least stop PDP from rigging too much)'

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/299/blog_subzero.gifSubzero Blue comments on an article on the “so called “Seven Pillars of Middle East Reality” that stand in the way of peace with Israel. Subzero takes each “pillar” which he generally describes as [un]reality apart such as placing the onus of peace on Arab leaders

'This can't be more wrong; the Arab leaders wouldn't want anything more than to have the whole Israel-Palestine problem solved, a peace established, the ability to move on and leave the whole thing behind them. In fact, a number of the Arab regimes, if not most of them, already have secret ties with Israel, and are just waiting for the chance to make them public and announce normalization and all minorities living in the Arab world are under siege.'

'This is very very wrong, and a trip to any country in the Arab world where a religious minority exists can show that; Jews in countries like Tunisia and Morocco, Christians in countries like Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon, and the list continues; These people enjoy all their rights and freedoms, and live in peace alongside Muslims.'

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/299/blog_matubamurphy.gifMy Haven a blog by South African gay couple, Matuba and Murphy comment on an editorial in Behind the Mask (South African LHBT news site) titled “The Only Gay Jesus Christ” stating that Jesus was in fact bi-sexual. Haven’s response to the piece is that it is completely unfounded and baseless statement.

'Conduct your research or perhaps use acceptable quotes that shows insight and initiative! Behind the Mask should know better than everyone else not publish such bigotry. They advocate for the existence of homosexuals. They fight for the rights of those who are violated - yet they bash Christianity with unfounded lies! As far as I am concerned it is all lies because there is no basis!'

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/299/blog_eshun.gifeshuneutics continues with the Easter theme and Jesus Christ in his post on Indulgence – chocolate crucifixes and Easter eggs – the 80 million sold and the sheer waste of the packaging – 4,500 tonnes altogether!

'It was Ezra Pound who once said “We have the press for wafer”. And sadly, we do: and its views are about as intellectually chewy as a chocolate box. Nowhere has the press tied all perspectives together and suggested that it is the continual commercialisation of religion that has caused this wastage of natural resources. Probably, that would be a crusade too far.'

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/299/blog_model.gifBella Naija is one of Nigeria’s most popular blogs. Bella blogs on Nigeria popular culture: fashion, celebrities and Nollywood. This week the focus is on “Nigeria’s Next Top Model”…which is an event that will take place in London this month. Apparently there are “Top Model” events worldwide but this is a first for Nigeria

'I think it’s a good idea although I really wish this would have been more like the American Top Model reality show format with the whole thing taking place in Nigeria but I guess this is a start. I understand that subsequent ‘seasons/cycles’ will attempt to follow US Top Model format.'

There are rich pickings to be had for the winners – TV, advertising deals and the chance to become the 'face of Nigeria' – what better reward could any woman wish for!

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/299/blog_thinker.gifSudanese Thinker goes on yet another anti-gay rant with the proviso that “he doesn’t mean to offend anyone”. Of course ST is entitled to his own opinion but the whole piece is full of misinformation and plain bigotry. He ends up telling us of an encounter with “2 gay dues and a transsexual” and concludes that you cant judge people on the basis of their sexuality. And he even has some friends who are atheist as well! God what a relief on both counts.

'I was extremely uncomfortable in the beginning and felt like cursing my friend but I convinced myself to remain respectful since I was a guest. At first, I conversed with everyone except the transsexual. After a while, the party got going when the host started blasting some really good old school hip hop music. Eventually we all conversed, laughed and joked around until I completely forgot the fact that 2 of the guys were gay and one was a transsexual. It didn’t bother me much anymore. Unlike previous cases, they didn’t try to hit on me and they didn’t make any flirtatious moves which was obviously a very good thing. As a result, I learned three new fashion words. Cetour, retro and bohemian (did I spell them right?). Moreover I started thinking and I gained a new perspective.'

The media literacy course is part of GMDC activities that seek to promote dialogue and debate around gender and media.

The idea of a United States of Africa is the visionary outcome of a Pan African Unity. Gichinga Ndirangu presents the case for a United States of Africa and points out some of the major stumbling blocks that need to be overcome before Nkrumah’s dream of a united Africa becomes a reality.

At the upcoming African Union summit in Accra, Ghana, a proposal seeking to establish a continental union government will be debated. Accra is a symbolic, if not significant host for this debate. It was here that Ghana’s founding father, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, first pitched for Pan African unity in his famous exhortation that Ghana’s independence counted for less unless, and until, the entire continent was liberated. It was Nkrumah’s view that in the absence of forging a common united front, Africa would remain shackled to neo-colonialism.

It was the period preceding the re-launch of the African Union in 2002 which witnessed renewed debate on Pan African unity. Libyan strongman, Muammar Gaddafi, then an intractable opponent of western imperialism, challenged African leaders to unite across common purpose and chart their destiny unshackled by the West. Gaddafi rooted for increased trade amongst Africans, the creation of common continental institutions including a federal government and the free flow of persons across borders. At its relaunch in Durban, the African Union took the sails out of Libya, reaffirming its commitment to the Pan African vision without unveiling a specific roadmap. The leadership of some of the continent’s key leaders – South Africa’s Thabo Mbeki, Nigeria’s Olusegun Obasanjo, Algeria’s Bouteflika and Senegal’s Sane Wade – initiated instead the New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD), which was seen as an attempt to develop a policy framework towards a unified vision on Africa’s development and bolster, in part, Pan Africanism. NEPAD’s vision was, however, restricted, being more intent on resource mobilization than on its vision for Africa’s social and political cohesion. Conversely, this year’s proposal for a union government revisits the attempts to consolidate Pan African political, social and economic integration and establishes important benchmarks in laying out a renewed vision for continental unity.

The hope, though not assured, across Africa, is that this year’s debate will move the pan-African vision of Nkrumah beyond its fifty-year stagnation. There is no doubt that this is a debate whose time has come, not least because the union government proposal finally reaffirms the quest for uniting Africa’s people across a common thread of shared values and joint purpose. Within the debate, there are many critical voices that claim to welcome the idea of African unity but caution that the hour for Pan African federalism has yet to come. In addition, Afro-pessimists within the ranks of the African Union are driven by the zeal to consolidate national sovereignty and regional hegemony rather than an outright rejection of the Pan African vision.

While hopes are high, consensus on this proposal will take time and effort given the disparity in positions as well as the high demands that will be placed upon each State to realize a union government. The AU proposal wants the union government created as a transitional arrangement preceding full political integration under the banner of the ‘United States of Africa’. This transitional arrangement implies that realizing the actual Pan Africa vision calls for more work, consultation and buy-in. Even then, the transitional vision is bold in its intent and envisions the establishment of parliamentary and judicial systems, common continental financial institutions and standardized monetary policies and procedures, among others. It is these preliminary propositions that Africa’s leaders will be called upon to give thought and focus to at the June summit in Accra.

After many years of internecine conflict within and between states, the need to harness Africa’s potential around a unity of purpose is a necessary and overarching imperative. At the heart of it, the proposal for a union government must be directed towards Africa’s transformation through creative and well-thought out strategies that advance integration and not the isolation or balkanization of any country or region.

The proposal should be used to catalyze developmental policies and programmes that are people-centred and rooted in the finest of African traditions, culture and values. The ideal of a people-centered and united Africa is one that must be welcome and advanced. It is also a prerequisite in an increasingly globalized world that has demonstrated the value in consolidating shared interests that drive policy formulation and implementation.

Not limited to political union, the proposal for a union government will also delve into the concepts and realities of potential economic integration. Colonialism bequeathed on most African states economic inequality and social inequity which have stifled the integration of Africa’s economies to the world market. Intra-African trade has been constrained by weak policy and institutional support at national and regional levels and internal structural limitations, which have narrowed the scope of exploiting the continent’s economic opportunities to the fullest extent. While economic integration has been a key but elusive priority for Africa’s leadership since the onset of political independence, what has been lacking is the handiwork to take this goal beyond the realm of conjecture and optimism. In 1963, the Organisation of African Unity unveiled a proposal to establish a continental African common market that was expected to coalesce into a Pan-Africa community straddling the economic, social and political spheres. Both the Lagos Plan of Action and the 1991 Abuja Treaty that established the African Economic Community (AEC) spoke to the need for such an African economic union. While this level of ambition has not matured to its full intent, the African Union has continued to look upon the various Regional Economic Communities (RECs) as essential building blocs in the quest for continental economic union.

Yet within the current arrangement, there is growing concern that Africa is spreading herself thin and wide in negotiating multiple trade arrangements, which stand to undermine her own development priorities. The common view is that there is limited scope to fully harness the potential of regional integration granted that new concessions are being exerted by Africa’s trading partners.

The African Union views deepening regional economic integration as an important pillar in Africa’s structural transformation. Given the complexity of regional integration in Africa, there is widespread concern that the undue emphasis on trade liberalisation in the ongoing negotiations with the European Union (EU) and other trading power houses could scuttle rather than consolidate economic integration.

The truth is that trade and trade liberalisation are not an end in themselves but a means to help the continent respond to its development challenges. The ongoing trade negotiations between African countries and the EU have shown the complexity of consolidating economic ties amongst African countries which are already pressured into negotiating with the EU under new configurations outside their natural and traditional economic groupings. The regions currently negotiating with the EU have been severely disrupted by overlapping membership to different negotiating configurations. As a result, there is a risk of countries undertaking trade commitments with the EU to the detriment of their traditional trading partners with whom they may have different agreements at the regional level.

In today’s new global economic dispensation, there are few alternatives to economic integration as a strategy in promoting sustainable socio-economic development. It is obvious that only by closing ranks within the framework of continental level initiatives like the African Economic Community and the African Union can Africa avoid further marginalization.

The union proposal acknowledges that African governments have made determined efforts towards consolidating regional economic blocs with the active support of the AU. But the history of consolidating continental unity is limited by many factors including the lack of political will, limited awareness among a large segment of Africa’s population and increased dependence on external assistance.

The African Union must, therefore, work towards providing an appropriate framework, which strengthens partnership between national governments, peoples’ representatives, civil society and other stakeholders towards promoting the continent’s economic and social development.

A union government will, on the one hand, secure the continent’s interests while, on the other, assert its due role in global affairs and build on the continent’s collective capacity to influence world affairs from a position of unity and strength. But, the current proposal could halt in its tracks if debate is merely confined to the hallowed halls of the African Union without active buy-in from Africa’s people. Since 2002, the AU has renewed momentum towards more effective and accountable governance structures. The next frontier in consolidating continental unity must involve making concerted efforts at the national level to develop institutions and processes that will advance the desired new continental architecture and which are rooted in peoples’ popular participation. The debate must include the voices and perspectives of a wide range of Africa’s people through the involvement of key institutions such as national and regional parliaments, civil society organizations and the media. This participation will broaden and deepen the debate that is, ultimately, about the people of Africa

* Gichinga Ndirangu is a consultant with the African Union Monitor.

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

Maria was raped 48 hours ago today
We found this out the hard way
You see, Maria is five years,
10 months and 18 days old
She's less than a metre tall
Barely reaches my hip
Her corn-rowed head is bowed
As her gaze fixes on my knee

For 48 hours Maria didn't speak
She didn't eat
Maria didn't play
Didn't want to leave her bed

Today Maria is on her feet
We watch as she struggles to walk straight
She fights to carry her normal gait
Fights to hide the wince of pain
Fights to be a child again

Turns out Maria was raped by her father
On Monday before the sun quite went down
Rudely pulled atop him with all his might
Threatened to a whimpering silence
Her innocence plundered, tattered and forever scarred
As tear-filled eyes stared back without fight

Maria was raped by an economic system
that keeps her in a one-room house
She was raped by a President
Who does nothing to improve her life
Maria was raped by an MP
Who year after year spews out useless words
Deafens us with empty promises
She was raped by those among us
Who dare not speak out
Who bury their anger in silence

Her father's guilty as sin
Without doubt his act of unabated greed
Was full of shame
He must carry his own cross
Pay for this disgusting thing
But the system must pay too
And all who choose to turn a blind eye
For he should not bear the punishment alone

Lioness © 2nd April 07

Weapons of Mass Underdevelopment

On Wednesday April 4, the world celebrated International Mine Awareness Day. It has been a little over eight years since the International Mine Ban treaty, better known as the Ottawa Convention, came into effect. Although the treaty was opened for signatures on the 5th of December 1997, it only came into effect when Burkina Faso became the required fortieth signatory on the 1st of March 1999. In Africa, the event was marked with festivities in Angola, DRC, Eritrea, Kenya, Mauritania, Sudan and Western Sahara.

To date, there are still 13 countries who are not state parties to the treaty, and either actively produce, or have the capability to produce anti-personnel land-mines, the most notable of which are the United States, China, India and Russia. The total number of land-mines still stock-piled by the non-parties is a staggering 160 million. At the receiving end, in the period 2005-2006, a total of 58 countries reported new victims of all types of landmines and explosive remnants of war. This paints a chilling portrait of the devastating and lasting effects of the enterprise. The issue of land-mines and unexploded ordnance has not featured prominently in the media, since the late Princess Diana made it her cause célèbre, and yet these killers account for between 15,000 and 20,000 deaths and injuries every year (Landmine Monitor Report 2006), according to official statistics. Although still unacceptably high, this figure is down from 26,000 ten years ago, thanks to multi-lateral efforts around the globe and the cessation of hostilities in countries such as Angola and Mozambique, who accounted for a significant percentage of the casualties on the continent.

The spread of land-mines and other weapons in Africa can be contextualized within the post-colonial state building exercise of the 60s and 70s and the ensuing Cold War that made the continent a playground for competing influences. The instability that has characterized most countries of the continent can be traced to internal tensions fuelled by the Cold War and the vast stockpiles of leftover weapons. Even in countries that have been lucky to avoid major armed conflict such as Kenya, unexploded ordnance from foreign military training sites continues to destroy the lives of citizens.

Like landmines, small arms and light weapons (SALW) continue to threaten development on the continent at a social political and economic level. Conservative estimates put the worldwide circulation of SALW at a staggering 500 million. West Africa alone accounts for seven million, with similar numbers in the Great Lakes Region and the Horn of Africa. The deadly difference between the landmines and SALW is the latter's durability and re-use value, as exemplified by the ubiquitous AK-47 rifle. These weapons continue to threaten democracy and development on the continent.

The prolonged conflict in the DRC can be attributed to, among other factors, the means to challenge the state's monopoly of violence. This has compromised the role of elections as the only means of power transfer. The post-election period remains tense in the DRC, due to the continued presence of disaffected and armed groups. In Nigeria, the spectre of violence looms large, not to mention the low intensity conflict that continues to rage in the Niger Delta. Cote d'Ivoire, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan and Uganda are but a few other hot-spots on the continent.

Countries such as South Africa, Kenya and Ghana are at peace but still bear the social cost of SALW. Illegal arms flooding the black market from nearby conflict areas are fuelling crime and challenging the ability of the state apparatus to protect the livelihoods of citizens. The state of insecurity has a negative impact on the economy, the effects of which are invariably felt by the poor. When economic growth suffers as a result of costs associated with crime, a vicious cycle kicks in and the latter grows as more people are driven to illegitimate means of survival.

The arms trade is governed by supply and demand. Although South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya, to name but a few, are manufacturers of arms, the supply side is overwhelming from Europe, the US and Asia. Demand remains high on the continent, where political traditions still favour strong militaries to bolster unpopular governments that use force against their own citizens.

This is an election year on the continent. One would think this would stir feelings of hope, excitement and the sheer exhilaration at the prospect of peaceful change and the exercise of democratic rights. Sadly, these feelings are more often than not replaced with fear and resignation that the vicious cycle will go on.

Further Reading:

International Mine Information Network

UN Protocol on the Explosive Remnants of War
http://untreaty.un.org/English/notpubl/26_2d_E.pdf

Small Arms in Africa Briefing
http://www.cdd.org.uk/resources/papers/smallarmsmusah.htm

UNIDIR Scoping Study 2006
http://tinyurl.com/2tll92

UNDP: Development Held Hostage
http://tinyurl.com/yo6dx8

Human Security Gateway: Small Arms Survey
http://www.humansecuritygateway.info/data/item996551786/view

UNDP/ SEESAC SALW Awareness Support Pack
http://www.seesac.org/reports/SASP%202%20handbook.pdf

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/298/blogs_otherafrica.gif is a new blog from Senegal by Ndeyefatou. Her latest post “Discover Dakar, she posts a photo essay showing places and monuments in the city – one of my favourites is a piece of modern art depicting “Mother Africa”

“The Millenium Door. This was constructed in 2000 on the Corniche of Dakar. It has a door in its middle thats known as the Millenieum door . This door symbolizes the entry to a new century or millenium. At the top of the door there is a statue of a woman named Yaye Boye= Mother in wolof. She symbolizes mother Africa watching over its children.”

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/298/blogs_khanya.gifKhanya is another new blog this time from South Africa. Referring to the new South African blog aggregator, Amatomu, produced by the Mail & Guardian, Khanya asks “where are all the African bloggers”. Yet again that same question we have heard so many times before both referring to African men and women bloggers.

“Look at South African blog aggregator sites like Amatomu, and the vast majority of the bloggers there are white. And this in spite of the fact that it is run by the Mail & Guardian newspaper, which has several black journalists. So if there are black bloggers out there, why aren’t they showing up on Amatomu?............The disparity not confined to blogging, but is seen in other parts of the Web and in electronic communications generally. In Usenet newsgroups, for example, most of the South African newsgroups are dominated by whites, with a high proportion of whinging whenwes. The soc.culture.south-africa newsgroup did have one very articulate black poster a few years ago, but he was not one to suffer fools gladly, and went off to play golf instead.”

I don’t know why Black bloggers are not showing up on Amatomu but I do know that issues of access to technology exist for the not white population who make up the majority of the poorer sections of SA. With most Black people still living in townships and a further 20% living in shacks it is not surprising that blogging and technology in general is not being taken up. Most Black and people of colour complain about the cost of internet connection at home and lets face it if you have just spent 2 hours struggling to get home the last thing you want to do is go and find an internet café and start blogging.

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/298/blogs_sotho.gifSotho is possibly the only blogger to write about the recent elections in Lesotho. Knowing so little about Lesotho and Lesotho politics I welcome this short piece especially as he raises the question will the prime minister, Mosisili be taking after Mugabe?

“On Sunday elections were held in Lesotho. The small southern African “kingdom in the sky” was the continent’s first country to use a mixed-member proportional (MMP) system, in 2002. Sunday’s election was Lesotho’s second under MMP, and as I am not aware of any other African countries having opted for MMP (as opposed to MMM/parallel, which is used by several countries*), it must have been only the second African MMP election……………Lesotho politics is fraught with fallacies. There are even suggestions that the tiny mountain kingdom should be incorporated into South Africa before its tool late. In fact the only hope for the poor country is its big neighbour where there are more than 50 000 Basotho employed in the gold mines. Lately, its educated citizens are leaving in droves for greener pastures in the SA provinces. Is Lesotho becoming the next Zimbabwe? Is prime minister Mosisili taking after pres Mugabe?”

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/298/blogs_altmuslim.gif

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/298/blogs_squatter.gifSquatter City reports on a court ruling in Joburg that will allow the government to evict squatters.

“The Supreme Court of Appeal decision allows the government to evict approximately 300 people from six buildings in the inner city that it argues are unsafe and unhealthy. The court ruling does, however, require the city to provide temporary relocation housing for the people it evicts”

What Squatter City is reporting on is the move by the Johannesburg government to gentrify downtown Joburg and in the process remove the last remaining black population so that it may refurbish and construct new high rise expensive apartments for wealthy people.

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/298/blogs_ekwuruke.gifhttp://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/298/blogs_blacklooks.gifIn Black Looks Kameelah questions the way in which we speak about the highly complex situation in Zimbabwe and asks that we do not assume the MDC as the given and best alternative to Mugabe.

“This delicacy in speaking about Zimbabwe does not mean we stay silent—engaging in the quiet diplomacy that South African president Thabo Mbeki has seemed to master; it means that we develop the strategies to speak about Zimbabwe in productive ways.”…………. Granted–any words uttered about the negligence and brutality of specific African governments will be an invitation for the West. If it is not a formal invitation, then it is an instigation of the desire for greater Western involvement in Zimbabwe (and by extension Africa)—a desire that lingered below the surface awaiting the opportunity to exploit—and at the moment Africa has many crisis opportunities to exploit. It is a desire for involvement that can only be staged as legitimate when certain people speak in certain ways. With that said, how do we speak? When? Where? And to whom? Or, do we stay silent? Do we pussy-foot around the crisis at hand to preserve the sanctity of African political leadership? If we choose to speak, how do we speak in a way that does not invite neocolonial intervention, or mimic Western neo-con and neo-liberal narratives?”

Kameelah raises an important point in asking how do we speak of Zimbabwe. We need to be very careful of the kind of language we use and avoid language that is racially loaded and feeds into the West’s vision of Africa as opposed to a progressive vision which seeks a new form of African leadership.

* Sokari Ekine produces the blog Black Looks, and is Online News Editor of Pambazuka News.

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

The right to health is acknowledged as a universal human right. Good sexual and reproductive health services enhance public health and improve quality of life. Journalists can play a key role in getting these issues debated publicly. This PANOS media briefing explains some of the key issues and how to use researchers as a journalistic source.

An increasing number of black women want to formally own their own homes and land in the cities where they settled informally under apartheid. But the system is still stacked against them. Anna Weekes hears the incredible story of one woman’s fight to secure her own home in Cape Town.

Accustomed to their age-old freedom to roam, the nomadic pastoralists of Uganda are now having to cope with a law that seeks to settle and ‘modernise’ their communities. Sharon Lamwaka reports for PANOS on unforeseen implications for the survival of the long-horned Ankole cow, and for food security.

If you want to experience for yourself the widespread corruption that plagues Zambia, all you have to do is catch a taxi or jump onto a bus in downtown Lusaka. PANOS' Mildred Mpundu takes a taxi ride in Zambia to uncover the reasons behind corruption among traffic officers.

Like the rest of Africa, Kenya is waging a war against poverty to halve its hungry by 2015 – a global United Nations’ Millennium Development Goal. But has that battle reached poverty’s heartland? The large but marginalised rural communities where tens of millions are so hungry they are barely living. Mildred Barasa of PANOS reports from eastern Kenya.

In Kenya, major banks – like most banks on the continent - prefer to deal with ‘big’ clients. ‘Small’ clients find obtaining access to banking services almost impossible. One bank in Kenya has set out to change this. Zipporah Musau and Kwamboka Oyaru report for PANOS.

Uganda wants to teach its children lessons in finance and in doing so hopes to create a generation of entrepreneurs. Ssemujju Ibrahim Nganda reports for PANOS from Kampala.

This report captures the themes of the final session of the Free and Open Source Software for OER discussion, in which the International Institute for Educational Planning's two communities on free open-source software (FOSS) and open educational resources (OER) came together to share their thoughts on the two related movements.

In this report, IBRD's David McKensie states that although the main reason for many youth to use computers, the internet, and mobile phones is entertainment, the new ICT technologies are having wide-ranging effects on youth transitions. their agency."

According to a report by Magharebia news the Moroccan government has enacted a law explicitly forbidding money laundering and related financial crimes as a tool to combat both terrorism and organised crime.

The UN refugee agency and its partners are dealing with a new wave of displacement in south-eastern Chad following a deadly attack at the weekend against the villages of Tiero and Marena.

Thousands of people have been flooding into the small town of Balcad, north of Mogadishu, saying that life in the Somali capital has become unbearable. They are part of a massive exodus from battle-torn Mogadishu that has seen almost 100,000 people flee the city since the beginning of February, including some 47,000 in the last two weeks.

Ethiopia is looking to trademark coffees in the EU to benefit its poor farmers, in the face of opposition from Starbucks in the U.S. The Ethiopian move provides lessons for an African market that could be worth billions of dollars.

Kenyan activists are fighting to retain cultural designs that have been developed in East Africa but are being patented by companies in rich countries. After losing the kiondo basket trademark to Japan, the popular kikoi fabric design is currently at risk of being patented by a British company.

Financial and fundraising skills, and gender awareness within the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) organisations in Africa, seem to be priorities for the coming International Lesbian and Gay Association’s (ILGA) conference to take place in Johannesburg, South Africa, between 5 and 8 May this year. This is ILGA’s first regional conference in Africa, and it targets a large number of LGBTI activists and their work.

A new report by the International Institute for Communication and Development (IICD) looks at the options and challenges faced with regard to connectivity in Tanzania and gives an overview of types of connectivity available. Although rural connectivity is feasible in all areas of Tanzania, there are several challenges: The issue of last mile infrastructure, the cost of service, the ‘appropriateness’ of the type of services available and the support and sustainability of the service.

As the sixth mayor cyclone to hit Madagascar this season tears across the northeast of the impoverished Indian ocean island, a relentless succession of natural disasters has left nearly half a million people in desperate need of humanitarian assistance.

The European Commission said on Wednesday it was offering full free market access to former colonies in trade talks, with transition periods on rice and sugar. The announcement added further details to previous commitments by the wealthy 27-nation bloc to further cut trade barriers with the group of nearly 80 African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries.

At least 65 Chadians were killed and up to 8,000 driven from their homes when Sudanese Janjawid fighters attacked and destroyed two villages in east Chad over the weekend, Chad's military has said.

Voting has closed in Benin's legislative elections one year after Boni Yayi, Benin's president, took office with a pledge to fight corruption. Saturday's vote will be a key measure of support for Yayi, a former development banker and a political unknown when he was the surprise winner of the presidential poll in March last year.

Gambian freelance journalist and pro-democracy activist Fatou Jaw Manneh, was arrested by the National Intelligence Agency on 28 March on her arrival at Banjul International airport.

Gift Phiri, of the London-based daily The Zimbabwean, was arrested in Harare on 1 April for no apparent reason. He had time to send a text-message to a friend saying he had been arrested and that he thought it was for political reasons. The friend said Phiri had been sought by police since his paper started printing the names of police and politicians involved in recent arrests of opposition figures, human rights activists and journalists.

More than five years since the war officially ended, the bigger problem in Sierra Leone's health is the lack of resources and leadership to combat the multiple scourges of diseases ravaging the country's poor and sick from very preventable causes.

The Kennedy 5 Are now on hunger strike in Westville prison, and will appear in court on 13 April to ask for bail. This means that they will have already been in jail for one month before they even get a chance to ask for bail.They were arrested along with four others at 3:00 in the morning on Human Rights day, 21 March, 2007.