Pambazuka News 713: Justice for despots, power to the people

Pambazuka News invites articles on the question of oppression in Africa to help readers make sense of the need to be critical in analysing the connectedness of African struggles and to reflect on the role this intersectionality can play in building collaboration in speaking truth to power in Africa.

Fahamu, on behalf of the SOTU coalition, is seeking to engage a consultant researcher or team of researchers to conduct an assessment in Kenya to determine the level of compliance with and implementation of key AU legal instruments and policy standards and the impact of their implementation on citizens’ quality of life.

Pambazuka News 711: Pushing back: The people vs. elite power

Development used to be a battle against deprivation and dependence. Nowadays it’s more about supporting the liberalisation of markets.

To achieve the seemingly elusive African renaissance, the leaders have to steer the societies and the peoples away from the current practice of reliance and expectation from the outside, to a firmly rooted belief in self and local solutions.

Africa and the world have entered a century of global low intensity warfare, marked by the devolution of military power away from the modern state to the entrenched landscape of private armies, mercenaries and militia groups.

The endorsement of a leftist party is a vote against global lenders imposing governance prescriptions on countries in crisis. If Greece successfully pushes back against its lenders, it will open the door to countries of the Global South to restructure their relationships with lenders such as the World Bank and IMF.

Here is the official program of the Greek coalition of the radical left, SYRIZA, which won the elections this week.

Tagged under: 711, Contributor, Features, Governance

Government’s R350 million disaster fund for 32 drought-stricken KZN municipalities, fails to reach the people

If the government says this is crime, why are all the victims of this crime 'foreigners', and not white, Indian or black South Africans?

The next elections are in October 2015 and Allasane Outtara is already preparing to seek a second term. But the country is deeply divided by the violent crisis that brought him to power and ongoing repression of opponents. Ouattara has only achieved a shaky stability. The country needs complete disarmament of rebel soldiers, equitable justice and a true political dialogue.

Tagged under: 711, Eric Edi, Features, Governance

Many critics of capitalism suggest that capitalism is not the main problem in the world. They do not want to appear, in the eyes of the people and the ruling elite, as too radical or ‘ideological’. But the forces for social change must embrace revolutionary engagement with robust ideological clarity: Capitalism is the problem.

Pambazuka News 710: Unmasking tyrants, rebels and liars

Phumlani Ndlovu never saw much of 2015. When he was invited to visit friends on Friday 16 January he never expected he could be lured to his death. His lifeless body was found early the next morning near Block 40. He had been gunned down during the night, shot over ten times in the chest and head by faceless killers. He was only in his early thirties when he died.

Given Nigeria’s past and recurring history, does one realistically expect this state to defend Baga from Boko Haram, comment or mourn the murder of the 2000 from Baga – almost 49 years to the day after it embarked on the murder of 3.1 million of its Igbo population in a studiously-organised genocide that is still ongoing?

It matters pretty little who wins the elections next month. Years of political brinkmanship, reprehensible military dictatorship, corruption and irresponsible leadership have served to make nonsense of the true meaning of nationhood in Nigeria. The struggle for fundamental change must continue.

On 26 November 2014 the celebrated Congolese medic received yet another international accolade. Following this prestigious recognition, Congolese intellectuals and political observers are wondering whether Dr. Mukwege should join politics. Instead, he should contribute to strengthening the Congolese civil society.

The Federal Government of Somalis as constituted today does not represent the populations under the authorities of Somaliland, Puntland, Jubbaland and Southwest regions. The Provisional Constitution designed to shackle the arbitrary and capricious behavior of rulers has become a worthless piece of paper for lack of compliance and respect.

A new campaign will be carried out this year in Kenya to promote active citizenship, effective national governance and the realization of the fundamental freedoms and human rights contained in various key AU policy standards and legal instruments.

The Israeli lobby in South Africa, including the SA Jewish Board of Deputies, have – not unexpectedly - been trying to discredit Leila Khaled’s forthcoming 6-16 February tour.

The Congress of South African Students (COSAS), representing learners in South African Pre-Tertiary level, welcomes the planned visit in February of one of our own, Palestine Freedom Fighter against the racist regime of Israel, Comrade Leila Khaled to South Africa.

Umkhonto we Sizwe Military Veterans Association welcomes the planned visit of the Palestine struggle icon and freedom fighter, Leila Khaled to South Africa. This is amid the racist oppressive Zionist Israel sympathisers’ noise against such planned visit.

The lobby to industrialise food production in Africa is not only pouring money into plantation projects on the ground, it is changing African laws to serve foreign agribusiness as well. This is the main finding of a new report from the civil society organisations Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA) and GRAIN.

Whether with the jihadists in Libya, working on both sides of the dirty war in Algeria, manipulating the Tuareg in Mali, or working with the Saudis, the French intelligence and security have worked closely with branches of US intelligence and military to keep the flames of war and insecurity burning. The recent mobilization over the Charlie Hebdo attack was meant to divert working people’s attention from this complicity that is linked to the capitalist crisis.

Despite the controversies surrounding its founder, Kwanzaa is Afrika liberation politics. It emerged in context of the Black Power movement in the US that was committed to fighting the violence of white supremacy, capitalist economic exploitation and patriarchal domination of Afrikan women. These issues remain unresolved.

The failure of Rwanda’s Faustian bargain— trading democracy for development and ending up with neither — should come as no surprise to students of history and human nature.

The brutal kleptocracy of Equatorial Guinea hopes to gain a measure of international acceptance by hosting the African Cup of Nations (AFCON) soccer spectacle that kicked off last weekend. The oil and gas wealth generated by this “Kuwait of Africa” provides the economic wherewithal for the ruling elite to buy favours while the bulk of the population wallows in repressive poverty.

The deadline for disarmament of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) has passed without the Congo-based rebel group surrendering. The FDLR’s future is uncertain, but there are a number of reasons why these anti-Kagame rebels are reluctant to disarm.

The former Chief of Appeals and Legal Advisory Division at the ICTR has challenged the article, ‘The Kagame-Power Lobby’s dishonest attack on BBC documentary on Rwanda’, on the questions of victor’s justice and RPF impunity, and offers an across-the-board defense of his former employer. That defense consists of a stream of misrepresentations and wild accusations without merit.

The 2014 elections were a disappointment for those who had hoped for change. Despite strong opposition from Renamo and the newer Mozambique Democratic Movement, Frelimo maintained the grip on power it has had since independence, despite accusations of serious irregularities. Real alternatives, however, are more likely to come out of Mozambique’s social movements.

The captured rebel commander should be encouraged to be an insider witness and provide information about the atrocities committed by his group and the Ugandan military in the 20-year war in the north. His evidence may confirm the suspicion that President Museveni deliberately permitted the war to drag on in order to punish northerners and under-develop the opposition stronghold.

Simukai traces back some of the historical roots of the Ebola outbreak and other public health crises. Without understanding the political history of public health, he argues, we are not able to understand the current crises or successfully tackle health challenges in the future.

Dr Assoa Adou, a former minister of environment in the government of President Laurent Gbagbo, was recently arrested for his political activities. A strong figure of the FPI party, he fled into exile in Ghana after the electoral violence of 2010. In Ghana, he chaired the coordination of the FPI in exile but returned after three years.

In this interview, human rights organizer Jackson Doliscar details increasing violations of human rights by the Martelly dictatorship, with the active support of the United States.

Big leader cults have a long history in South African politics. So to argue that South Africa needs new leaders is to misread the key political task on the leadership question. What the country really needs are new models of leadership that break fundamentally from the cult of the big leader, and organisational forms that create the basis for more sustainable leaderships to emerge.

Internal colonies – that is, spaces governed by ‘the rule of difference’ – persist today but the politicisation of the term ‘colonialism’ has impeded a sober discussion of the subject in many cases.

In this response piece, Kerrie Thornhill critiques a recent editorial in defence of street violence as a political act. She calls for acknowledgement of Afrocentric as well as indigenous feminist contributions to non-violent social change.

Pambazuka News 714: Reclaiming Africa's revolutionary roots

The Local Organising Committee of the 8th Pan African Congress, Accra, Ghana wishes to inform the Pan African world that the 8th PAC will be held in Accra, 4 – 7 March, 2015 at the Accra International Conference Centre.

Pan-African organisations and Pan-Africanists who are interested in participating in the 8th Pan African Congress may contact Mr. Kwasi Adu on: [email][email protected]

For further information, interested participants should also visit the 8th PAC website at: www.8panafcongress.com where registration can be done online. Other relevant information about the Congress will be published online on a regular basis.

Kwesi Pratt Jnr.
Chairman
Local Organising Committee

The Fahamu Emerging Powers in Africa project will be conducting a three-day Journalist capacity building workshop in Nairobi. The workshop seeks to strengthen the voice of African media on investigating and reporting the impact that emerging actors (including China, India, Brazil, South Korea and Turkey) have on Africa’s external engagements and development landscape.

Pambazuka News 709: Charlie Hebdo and the hypocrisy of selective rage

“Je Suis Charlie” has become a sound bite to justify the erasure of non-Europeans, and for ignoring the sentiments, values and views of the racialized “other.” In short, Je Suis Charlie has become an arrogant rallying cry for white supremacy that was echoed at the white power march on Sunday in Paris and in the popularity of the new issue of Charlie Hebdo.

Tagged under: 709, Ajamu Baraka, Features, Governance

Rape cartoons are funny if it's inconceivable to you that you could ever be raped. If you live in a bubble of gender privilege that insulates you from all consequences of rape culture.

Why is Abuja not ‘the capital of the world’ today? Why is it that African leaders will fly to Paris to express camaraderie and unity after seventeen Europeans are murdered, but are entirely absent if and when 2,000 Africans are butchered?

Tagged under: 709, Features, Governance, Ian Taylor

The Catholic Archbishop of Jos Ignatius Kaigama has raise a timely and profound issue: There should be global mobilisation not just when terrorism rears its ugly head in Europe but also when Africans fall victim in their homelands.

Murder is wrong when committed by individual gunmen with grudges and it is still wrong when it comes from a drone strike. A unity march should denounce human rights abuses, of which warfare is the worst.

In the wake of the attacks on Paris, hypocrisy has won and the world is basking in a warped victory. Bigots have been celebrated and their right to offend defended, without any critical view of the excesses of Charlie Hebdo magazine. It is such attitudes that fuel Muslim anger.

Perhaps five million of France’s six-and-half million Muslims are Algerian. Most are poor, regarding themselves as second-class citizens in the land of equality. There is a critical historical context to this and the Paris attack that needs to be appreciated.

Muslims are almost always expected to apologise for any terror attacks in the name of their religion. How can this be justified? On the other hand, there is no global outrage whenever people are killed and maimed in senseless wars waged by Western powers. Why?

In the wake of the brutal murders of journalists at Charlie Hebdo, PEN calls on Governments to implement their commitments to free expression and to desist from further curtailing free expression through the expansion of surveillance.

The absolute, unconditional revulsion experienced by Europeans in the face of these deaths should make us wonder why they do not feel the same kind of revulsion in the face of a similar, if not much higher, number of innocent deaths caused by conflicts that, at bottom, may have something to do with the Charlie Hebdo tragedy.

Where are the marches in Africa for the Baga massacre, where 2,000 mainly women, children and the elderly were killed by Boko Haram? Where are the public condemnations and editorials of outrage for Baga?

How can one pretend to fight against terrorism while continuing to hold strong ties with nations that sponsor different Jihadist groups, and that export a reactionary and obscurantist ideology? Different fundamentalist groups have been backed, trained and financed by the West (including France) for decades.

How have the great capitalist democracies demonstrated their commitment to free speech? The US military has killed journalists in the Middle East. Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is still being pursued... And are Charlie Hebdo’s crude and vulgar cartoons really about free speech?

Tagged under: 709, David North, Features, Governance

Pambazuka News 708: Black power rising: Struggles for a just order

The eminent Africanist revolutionary Amilcar Cabral declared that: ‘no power in the world will be able to destroy this Cuban Revolution.’ America’s recent decision to resume relations with Cuba proves Empire’s failure to destroy the Revolution. But Cubans must now guard against a capitalist onslaught.

The recent bitter spat between hip-hop artists Iggy Azalea and Azealia Banks over alleged identity theft reveals the commodification, capitalization and appropriation of Black identity, within a Western culture of violent and obfuscated race relations.

Tagged under: 708, Features, Governance, Imruh Bakari

Acclaimed writer and Nobel Laureate VS Naipaul has spent much time traveling in and writing about Africa. But his views of the continent are ignorant and bigoted, like those of most foreign visitors before him. It is disappointing that such a towering literary figure who should know better chooses to see Africa and her people through a lens of racism and colonial prejudice.

The protest movement arising from Ferguson has captured the world’s attention, heralding a new generation of radical Black organizers. A similar scenario is unfolding in South Africa. This movement needs support.

Conspiracy theories that Ebola – and HIV – are bio-weapons created by the West to depopulate Africa refuse to die away. Leaks from within Western establishments and the behaviour of these capitlist powers fuel the theories. They are difficult to ignore.

With Zambia’s presidential by-election set for 20 January, voters must carefully consider which candidate will be able to increase peace, democracy, equality and prosperity by implementing good government practices and encouraging national unity.

2014 in South Africa was marked by a number of large-scale national scandals. Far more insidious, however, are the small, subtle, everyday distortions or omissions of truth which have become pervasive in our political discourse. These distortions, championed by politicians, characterize the public, the media, NGOs and academia.

Is 2015 the year of change in Zambia? With the 20 January presidential by-election fast approaching will there be a shift from a growing democracy to a mature democracy? Can the nationa finally shed the coat of corruption and become a truly democratic society that can trust and rely on its elected officials?

The Emerging Powers Programme based in Fahamu is offering a one-week course -- in Nairobi -- analyzing the footprint of Africa’s engagements with emerging powers from the Global South. The course provides a unique opportunity for civil society practitioners (in particular activists, community based leaders, undergraduate and postgraduate students, commentators, journalists and trade unionists) to unpack and debate the nature of the relationship between Africa’s regional economic communities and key actors from the Global South. The course is designed to provide insights into the linkages and influences these emerging powers have had on the “Africa Rising” narrative and the continent’s integration into the international system.

15 sponsored places are available for applicants for this course that intends to strengthen civil society's understanding of and engagement with Global South nations whose presence is growing in Africa.

Follow the link below for more details on the workshop and how to apply.

Understanding the Emerging Powers Footprint in Africa: A Civil Society Perspective and Guideline - See more at:

Deadline: 15 January 2015

2014 ended on a happy note for the Cuban people following the release of their three compatriots who were held unjustly by the US and the announcement of improved relations between the two nations. In this address to the nation, the Cuban president expresses his view of these developments.

The latest spill should nudge policy elites and community activists to begin properly preparing for a post-carbon future. It is time South Africa – and the world - questioned its overconsumption of fossil fuels, especially via overpriced and dangerous pipelines.

Tagged under: 708, Features, Governance, Patrick Bond

The political superstructure of the U.S. is dominated by right-wing ideology that completely ignores the growing demands for decent wages, adequate housing, quality education, an end to law-enforcement abuses and the cessation of military hostilities abroad. African American masses who are most affected by these injustices need new alliances to fight this system.

Although the mission of Jesus on earth has always been understood as being spiritual, a closer look at his life and work exposes a social and political philosophy geared to building a better world for all people.

The politically insitaged violence that rocked Kenya seven years ago is slowly being dumped in the dustbins of history for political expediency. Alleged villains have since paraded themselves around the world as the victims – and won more than sympathy at home and abroad. But the real victims still cry for justice.

The black lives taken by the murderous assault on Panama 25 years ago should be a sober reminder that U.S. state violence is not confined to ghettos and barrios of the U.S., but is a central component of a racist, colonial, capitalist project.

Dear Editor,

Ordinarily, I would say police violence is more of a police militarization problem than one of race. However, this is St. Louis County we're talking about here.

There is still Klan activity in STLCO-- white robe-wearing, cross-burning KKK.

Check out the Wikipedia entry for Rosa Parks Highway. That was where the Klan used to participate in the state adopt-a-highway program.

About five months before the Michael Brown shooting, an STLCO PD lieutenant was fired for directing those under his supervision specifically to target racial minorities.

I, myself, was prosecuted for having re-published some of the words of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. on-line. Here is my crime:

‘[U]nenforceable obligations are beyond the reach of the laws of society. They concern inner attitudes, genuine person-to-person relations, and expressions of compassion which law books cannot regulate and jails cannot rectify. Such obligations are met by one's commitment to an inner law, written on the heart. Man-made laws assure justice, but a higher law produces love.’ --ML K, Strength to Love p. 37

I would like to get this story out. It never drew media attention the way that the shooting did.

I think Alemayehu G. Mariam is the right one to tell the story.

Please forward this on to him.

Thank you.

Economically, the overall IMF objective is stabilising crisis-prone world capitalism on behalf, mainly, of Western financiers.

Tagged under: 708, Features, Governance, Patrick Bond

The mobile revolution. Geopolitical power shifts. A radically altered global economy. The world is changing, and so is the way that people fight for their rights. In order to be effective, Amnesty International’s (AI) International Secretariat needs to change how we work. That’s why we have opened an East Africa Regional Office in Kenya. And why we need your field research expertise with us on the ground.

Tagged under: 708, A I, Jobs, Resources, Kenya

The mobile revolution. Geopolitical power shifts. A radically altered global economy. The world is changing, and so is the way that people fight for their rights. In order to be effective, Amnesty International’s (AI) International Secretariat needs to change how we work. That’s why we have opened an East Africa Regional Office in Kenya. And why we need your field research expertise with us on the ground.

Tagged under: 708, A I, Jobs, Resources, Kenya

Pambazuka News 707:Thugs in power, poverty and Pope Francis

The Kenya government is pushing a raft of changes to security laws that if enacted would return the country to the dark days of dictatorship. An analysis of the Bill by the country’s statutory human rights body reveals that the proposed changes are momentous and seek to amend the Bill of Rights without a referendum and fundamentally alter the principles of criminal justice.

Sir Bob Geldof, this is 2014. Your time is up. Go away. Africa does not need stereotype-spewing, self-serving White saviours.

Want political economy that soberly unpacks power and wealth? Read two recent books by Samir Amin who defines the system’s current stage as “generalized-monopoly capitalism.” His study of it reveals what standard economics conceals and distorts.

When an African president accused of multiple crimes against humanity walks out of court by orchestrating an unprecedented and audacious obstruction of justice, it is not just a flagrant denial of justice to the thousands of victims. It is an outrage against all humanity. It is an affront to the rule of law. It is the triumph of injustice.

Regardless of one’s religious persuasions, Pope Francis’ views on poverty are quite progressive. He insists that as long as the problems of the poor are not radically resolved by rejecting the absolute autonomy of markets and financial speculation, and by attacking the structural causes of inequality, no solution will be found for the world's problems. Inequality is the root of social ills.

Tagged under: 707, Features, Governance, Yash Tandon

The narrative of“Africa is rising” has been echoing all over the world. A high-level international conference in China discussed what that really means and the role of agriculture and foreign stakeholders to create sustainable development that serves the African people.

Tagged under: 707, Features, Governance, Shen Xiaolei

There is no doubt in Kenya that the Jubilee Administration is hell-bent on eroding the democratic gains achieved in the country through many years of blood and tears. Uhuru Kenyatta must not be allowed to establish a new dictatorship.

While campaigns such as the Golden and Rusty Radiator Awards raise awareness of Western development organizations’ unjust views of the global South, they do not go far enough. Critiques of cliché media representation must be coupled with critiques of fundamentally unbalanced power structures.

The hastily drafted security bill infringes on many basic rights and freedoms protected in Kenya’s constitution and international human rights law. The authorities need to focus on how Kenyan security agencies have long violated human rights with impunity, and not empower these forces further.

Civil Rights leader Rev Edward Pinkney has been sentenced to 30 – 120 months in prison for forging a successful recall petition against Mayor James Hightower. He maintains his innocence in the face of a conviction based on flimsy evidence. The conviction – delivered within a context of heightened anti-racist and anti-capitalist struggle in the US – is seen by many as politically motivated.

Today, barely four years after it was inaugurated with much pomp and ceremony, Kenya’s new constitution is being undone. The Security Amendment Bill introduced in Parliament last week portends the return of the all-powerful, unchecked executive and its intrusion into almost every facet of Kenyans’ lives.

The proposed Security Laws (Amendment) Bill 2014 offends the constitution of Kenya 2010 by undermining the sovereignty of the people, the supremacy of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

Hamilton is a brilliant racer and a bona fide daredevil, already a legend. But in a world where so many people live in darkness starved of fuel, and oil extraction has caused so much suffering to communities, global warming and environmental activists must question motor sports: the misuse of fuel for the sole purpose of going fast.

What was Prof Mazrui’s most favorite quote? It was from a book by his mentor at Oxford, John Plamenatz: “The sins of the powerful acquire some of the prestige of power.”

A Norwegian state owned engineering company earlier this year chose to reject a deal for salt from Moroccan-occupied Western Sahara because they found that it would be in violation of their human rights standards. But a Danish company is doing the opposite.

At least eight human rights defenders were brutally arrested and assaulted on 18 December 2014 in Nairobi during a peaceful demonstration against the Security Law (Amendment) Bill.

Civil society groups across the Great Lakes & Horn of Africa regions have called on governments to acknowledge the outcry of South Sudanese people and engage in serious peace negotiations instead of stalling tactics while searching for military victory.

The 8th Pan African Congress has been rescheduled to March 2015. Writers, researchers, academics and everyone else interested are invited to send in articles covering a broad range of themes.

The new $15,000 literary prize will be awarded to the best Kiswahili unpublished manuscripts or books published within two years of the award year across the categories of fiction/short fiction collection, poetry and memoir and graphic novels.

Pambazuka News 706: We can’t breathe! Violence on women, Blacks and the poor

In December, progressive peoples across the pan-African world remember the birth of Mangaliso Robert Sobukwe. Dearly loved by his people and fiercely hated by his enemies, Sobukwe remains a tower of inspiration for Africa’s total emancipation from the forces of foreign domination.

The Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA), a Pan African platform comprising civil society networks and farmer organisations working towards food sovereignty, has submitted this Open Letter to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Dr. Wendy White from Iowa State University and the Human Institutional Review Board of Iowa State University expressing fierce opposition to the human feeding trials taking place at Iowa State University involving genetically modified (GM) bananas. The Letter is supported by more than 120 organizations from around the world.

America is gripped by a deep racial anxiety stoked by strategic political manipulation and fear of rapidly changing demographics. The current system dehumanizes the racial Other. It must be changed.

Statement of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Fatou Bensouda, on the status of the Government of Kenya’s cooperation with the Prosecution's investigations in the Kenyatta case

Political parties must disclose to the nation and to their members the nature and extent of support they receive from external sources to carry out their campaigns. Such support could lead to state capture.

Today’s withdrawal of the charges against Uhuru Kenyatta will inevitably disappoint the estimated 20,000 victims of the crimes charged in this case.

The circumstances under which the charges against Kenyatta have been withdrawn – based on alleged witness intimidation and lack of cooperation by the Government of Kenya – rather than vindicating him, have left many questions hanging over his role in post-election violence.

ICC judges decide not to adjourn the case further; decline to refer Kenya to the ICC’s governing body despite criticising the lack of cooperation from Kenya

The Prosecution’s complaints about non-cooperation by the Kenyan authorities is true, but the lack of evidence points more to a failure of the previous investigative strategy of the Office of the Prosecutor. The evidence is out there, the question is why the OTP did not have it before charges were proffered.

Bunge la Mwananchi has revolutionized grassroots politics in Kenya since the 1990s. In this second part of reflections on the movement, the writer examines Bunge’s challenges and its future. Part I of this article appeared last week.

In Ethiopia, as in many other countries, violence against women is ingrained in the social fabric. Civil society, governments, and citizens must work together to raise awareness and eradicate sexism and rape culture.

As DR Congo continues to be rattled by one of the worst and longest humanitarian crises of the century, the thousands of Internally Displaced Persons seem to slowly slide into the forgotten portion of international consciousness. A visit to IDPs camps in North Kivu reminds of the very real plight they continue to be in.

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