PAMBAZUKA NEWS 110
PAMBAZUKA NEWS 110
Witches haunt Kinshasa, the Democratic Republic of Congo's violent capital. With pinched faces, bloodshot eyes and swollen bellies, they are horrifying to see; plaguing the city's streets by day, and retiring when nights falls to stinking graveyards and typhus alleys. And all of them are children. Olivier's plight is all too common in war-ravaged Congo. According to Save the Children, of Kinshasa's estimated 30 000 street-children, virtually all have been abandoned by their families, having been accused of witchcraft.
President Thabo Mbeki is to petition UN Secretary General Kofi Annan urgently to get UN peacekeepers in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to be more aggressive in defending civilians in the war-torn country, or to make way for African intervention, the Sunday Times reported in an early edition.
Oil services giant Halliburton, already under fire over accusations that its White House ties helped win a major Iraqi oil contract, has admitted that a subsidiary paid a multi-million dollar bribe to a Nigerian tax official. Halliburton, once run by US Vice President Richard Cheney, revealed the illicit payments, worth US$2.4 million, in a filing last Thursday with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
Having staked their fortunes to Nepad, President Mbeki of South Africa and to a lesser extent President Obasanjo of Nigeria are committed to proving the Nepad mantra that African solutions to African problems can resolve this crisis. And while a successful resolution of the Zimbabwe crisis will go a long way to easing investor fears, and perhaps force the G8 to come up with real cash for Nepad, the crisis in Zimbabwe should remind us that many African countries have yet to come to terms with the legacy of colonialism.
We request you to include us in the next publication. We are a community based youth organisation dealing with youths from the slums of Nairobi, Kenya, known as Kibera. We are involved in the fight against AIDS and also deal in youth empowerment and advocacy, amongst other issues. We are currently depending on members’ good will for our day to day work and this has slowed our impact in the community despite our promising work. We hereby wish to request any support from concerned readers and organisations to come to our aid.
Fredrick Ouko
Kibera Community Youth Programme
The year 2002 was a year obscured by the questioned integrity of presidential and parliamentary elections of the preceding year, according to The Afronet Zambia Human Rights Report which looks at the realities of human rights promotion, protection and enforcement, as monitored and verified in the year 2002. Most events either directly related to the elections and events at that time or are an indirect offshoot of the electoral contentions still abounding. For information on the Report contact Afronet - Research and Fact Finding, on the email e-mail: [email protected]
Real spending on poverty reduction is falling, too little money goes to the poor north, and officials lie in their reports, a government report on Mozambique's implementation of its anti-poverty programme posted on the International Monetary Fund (IMF) web site says. In particular it notes that the government promised to increase poverty spending as a share of GDP, yet the government's own figures show that spending fell from 19.1% of GDP in 2001 to 18.4% of GDP in 2002. The biggest cut was in education. Read more about this report, about women and cashew nut production in Mozambique and about new revelations regarding the assassination of former Mozambican President Samora Machel.
Can non-formal radio and correspondence courses provide basic education to Africans bypassed by the school system? What are the key constraints, problems and success factors in the field of distance education in Africa? Could greater commitment of resources to distance education plug discriminatory gaps in African formal education systems?
Does secondary education meet the needs of girls in rural Africa? What is being done to make curricula more relevant to girls and to reduce the excessive focus on examinations? Why have official statements on the shortcomings of curricula and examinations not been translated into policy changes?
Like many developing countries, Lesotho gives high priority to improving its education system. The government's targets by 2011 include universal primary enrolment and improvements in higher secondary enrolment, coverage of early childhood provision and national levels of basic literacy. What implications do these targets have for teacher education? Can the country afford the teachers it needs?
Zimbabwean-based online resistance organisation Zvakwana reports that its activists are pleased to see that creative persons are embarking on their own protest initiatives. This is an example of an SMS recently received: "When you feel nobody loves you, nobody cares and everyone is ignoring you: Ask yourself, "am I Zanu PF"."
T’is absurd isn’t it? Does it make sense then
For a strong man living in a house of stone
To murder a peasant dwelling in a mud hut,
When the inevitability of death is common to both of them?
The peasant in his own simple way
Accepting the inevitability of death as God’s will,
Is free to speak his mind and stay
Than live in constant fear and flee to the hill.
The strong man, on the other hand, lives in distress
And with every murder imagines new enemies
Causing him to ensconce himself in a fortress
Still refusing to accept any peace treaties
Surely t’is much easier to afford the peasant clean water
Schools, clinics and paved roads for his harvest;
For if the peasant’s mind is at peace and at rest
The strong man need not live in fear!
T’is absurd isn’t it?
A black man who fell in love with a tall, slender Afrikaner woman found out this week the outlawed Immorality Act - which prohibited love across the colour-line - still exists as far as his employer is concerned. Johannes Montoedi of Wolmaransstad said he was fired this week from Buisfontein Safari Lodge, where he was employed as a driver, because of his affair with a white woman.
The column scheduled for this week would have given a breakdown of the actual financial loss to the poorest of the poor despite more widespread and increased government grants and other assistance. It was also to have given details of the possible effects of a R73 million contract awarded to a British think-tank to "provide technical assistance for restructuring public services in South Africa". But that can wait. The macro view has given way to the micro. Only because I quite literally bumped into Thembinkosi earlier this week. Over two days, we established a rapport. His story comes from the increasingly crowded margins of the labour movement; from the ranks of the non-unionised and often frightened workers who live a hand-to-mouth existence, selling their skills and all too frequently their lives in a viciously competitive and grossly exploitative market. It summed up the effects of a brutally competitive market and mass unemployment at a human level.
A former Transnet official is facing prosecution after he allegedly accepted bribes worth more than R1-million from a company that was part of a Siemens-led consortium which won a major contract from the parastatal. Anver Hendricks, former national maintenance and support manager for the National Port Authority, a division of Transnet, has been formally charged with corruption in the Cape Town Regional Court for accepting bribes from the parastatal's suppliers.
Two hundred ethnic Hema refugees were airlifted from Bunia in eastern DR Congo on Sunday and given what we assume is temporary sanctuary at Old Entebbe Airport as the security situation at home spun out of control. In Bunia, there are real fears of an implosion that would set off a long-feared orgy of killings. As the Uganda People's Defence Forces withdraw from Ituri province, they are leaving mayhem in their wake. It is extremely confusing that the Lendu militia, who only recently were supposed to enjoy Ugandan patronage, are now the ones fomenting chaos.
Fierce fighting has broken out between thousands of ethnic militia in an eastern province of the Democratic Republic of Congo, with UN troops coming under heavy fire. Battles in the town of Bunia in Ituri province have left at least 18 people dead, but there are fears that the toll could be much higher. This week the bodies of many of those killed lay in the town's streets, some for days.
The outgoing Nigerian parliament last Thursday passed a controversial law that substantially reduces the powers of the country's anti-corruption agency, overturning a presidential veto on the law. The law limiting the powers of the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) was approved by both houses of the National Assembly in March but President Olusegun Obasanjo refused his assent.
On May 13th, senior officials of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank and World Trade Organisation (WTO) will meet in Geneva ostensibly to promote greater "coherence" amongst their policies. There are good reasons to be concerned. Over the past decades, the IMF and the World Bank have systematically promoted controversial policy reforms in developing countries. Typically these include liberalization of trade and financial flows, deregulation, privatization and budget austerity. Strategies for this purpose have required many developing countries to break with past policies and to pursue closer and faster integration into the world economy. As a result, the economies of developing countries have been characterized by slow and erratic growth, increased instability, and rising income gaps.
Related Link:
* IFI's Join Forces
http://ipsnews.net/interna.asp?idnews=18139
Crude oil from a ruptured pipeline oozed across farms and into a creek in southern Nigeria, unleashed by what residents and officials said Monday was tampering by unidentified saboteurs. A spokesman for Shell's Nigerian subsidiary said workers had found signs of "excavations" and "disturbed vegetation" surrounding the broken pipeline at Ubianuge village, near the oil port of Warri.
Global warming could lead to a 10 percent drop in the production of maize in developing countries over the next 50 years, according to a new report published Monday by two key international research centres in the journal Global Environmental Change.
Amnesty International has expressed deep shock at the Sierra Leone Parliament's ratification of a reciprocal impunity agreement with the United States of America (USA). "This is a completely unacceptable decision especially at a time when the country is starting the process of dealing with the mass human rights abuses that have taken place in its recent past," the organisation said.
Deforesting the Earth makes clear that forests are not eliminated by mere logging but overwhelmingly by clearing for agriculture. Forests cut for wood production, no matter how abusively, usually grow back--even if often quite altered in composition. So the story of deforestation is also the story of the development of farming systems, and it is fundamentally driven by growth in human numbers. But that growth itself is tied to the development of a global industrial economy, in which extraction of wood products has played a critical part.
For the first time since the breakout of AIDS, infection rates are showing widespread signs of stagnating or declining in some of the hardest-hit urban areas in sub-Saharan Africa, according to a new US analysis. US and United Nations officials have found a decline or leveling off of HIV rates in cities in 11 countries, greatly expanding earlier reports that the deadly virus was in retreat in Uganda and among young people in Zambia.
The southern African country of Zambia has set a new record - one which no country would wish to hold. The average life expectancy in the country is 33 years - by far the lowest in the world - and it is all due to Aids.
As statistics on maternal mortality ratio indicate that about 40% of women die through childbirth, the deputy Health minister Moses Dani-Baah has reiterated government's commitment and determination to improve access to health delivery among women.
"Understanding Environmental Policy Processes" answers the following questions: How are environmental policies created and once put to effect, why are they so difficult to change despite sometimes becoming detrimental to the environment they are set up to protect? African environmental policy is largely controlled by Northern concepts of how the environment should be handled - are these Northern ideals best for Africa itself? What can be done to make policy making more participatory?
The UN Security Council is exploring "all options" to see how it can best respond to the crisis in Bunia, UN News reported on Monday following consultations between members of the 15-nation body at UN headquarters in New York.
In his December 2002 report to the UN Security Council, Secretary-General Kofi Annan identified Burundi as one of five conflict-ridden countries across the world where children were being used as soldiers. However, while most of the armed groups named by Annan were opposition factions, his UN report pointed a finger at the Burundian government for abusing children by sending them to the frontline.
Major human rights groups in Kenya have warned that the ongoing constitutional review process is being undermined by powerful political interests to deny Kenyans the changes they wanted when they voted in the opposition National Rainbow Coalition (NARC) last year.
Joseph Kony, the leader of Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), has fled Southern Sudan with about 300 fighters and 600 captives to northern Uganda, security sources said.
The Cote d'Ivoire army is continuing to recruit young Liberians from Guiglo refugee camp in the west of the country to fight against Ivorian rebel forces in the area, according to UN officials and Liberian residents in the camp and the commander of French peacekeeping forces in the area.
- More than a year since President Marc Ravalomanana took power in Madagascar, close to an estimated one-third of the residents in the capital, Antananarivo, remain mired in poverty. "The truth is that nothing has changed. But I still believe President Ravalomanana will do something," said 36-year-old Aimeline Razanadrosoa. "We need everything - food, water, clothes; but also some money so that my children can go to school."
The triumph of President Olusegun Obasanjo and his ruling party in Nigeria's general elections was as sweeping as it was unprecedented. But given widespread accusations of electoral fraud on a massive scale, their resounding victory has a hollow ring.
Ruud Lubbers, the head of the UN refugee agency UNHCR, has said it was vital to secure a political settlement to the long-running civil war in Liberia in order to end conflicts in neighbouring West African countries, which have forced over two million people to abandon their homes.
The Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ) has welcomed the Supreme Court’s ruling striking down clauses in the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA) that criminalized the publication of falsehoods as unconstitutional. "This indeed, represents a measure of success for those fighting to protect Zimbabweans’ gravely threatened rights to freedom of expression and opinion," the organisation said. However, the MMPZ warned that the victory was likely to be short-lived. "AIPPA contains many other repressive clauses that are unlikely to survive a test of constitutional scrutiny and while some of these are being challenged by media organisations, government already has tabled amendments to the Act, including those sections that have just been struck down, which will reverse the gains of this court action, assuming they are passed by Parliament."
The Freedom of Expression Institute (FXI) has just released a report on the activities of its Anti-Censorship Programme (ACP), which has been in existence since June 2002. A decision was taken to establish the Programme last year, after the FXI experienced a sharp rise in the number of censorship cases it was being called on to handle. In the report, the FXI notes that its decision to establish the Programme has been vindicated, as censorship is clearly increasing in South Africa.
A Group of youthful journalists concerned with the unabated spread of HIV/AIDS in the country has come together and formed an association. The Association of Journalists Against AIDS in Tanzania (AJAAT) has 13 founder members, all in their twenties and early thirties, and was registered by the Registrar of Societies on March 24 this year.
Community media provide a vital alternative to the profit-oriented agenda of corporate media. They are driven by social objectives rather than the private, profit motive. They empower people rather than treat them as passive consumers, and they nurture local knowledge rather than replace it with standard solutions. Ownership and control of community media is rooted in, and responsible to, the communities they serve. And they are committed to human rights, social justice, the environment and sustainable approaches to development.
The World Association of Newspapers has written to the authorities in Djibouti voicing "serious concern" at the detention of journalist Daher Ahmed Farah and the seizure of his newspaper. According to reports, Mr Farah, editor of the newspaper Le Renouveau and leader of the opposition Mouvement pour le renouveau démocratique, was arrested on 20 April. Mr Farah was placed in solitary confinement at Gabode prison after his arrest and only his mother has been allowed to visit him.
What would your life be like if you never had the chance to go to school? It may be difficult to imagine, but this is the reality for 115 million children around the world. At last year's G8 Summit, eight of the world's richest nations agreed to provide the funds needed to help the poorest countries ensure education for both boys and girls. A year later, they have done little to fulfill their commitment. Don't let world leaders break their promise. Please sign the petition to make sure G8 countries are reminded of their commitment when they meet again this June.
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies on Wednesday launched a regional campaign to fight the stigma and discrimination surrounding the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Supported by the African Network of People Living with HIV and AIDS (NAP+), the poster competition seeks to promote greater understanding and compassion for people living with HIV/AIDS in East Africa.
The MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai says his party is mobilising its structures for the "final push" in the struggle for the removal of Zanu PF and the establishment of democratic governance in the country.
Related Link:
* PETITION TO REINSTATE MAYOR MUDZURI
http://www.africapulse.org.za/index.php?action=viewarticle&articleid=1233
Africa appears to be getting more attention from the Pentagon as the U.S. military makes major geostrategic shifts in its global deployments. While the Defense Department has made no formal announcements about U.S. plans to acquire base rights on the African mainland, other moves suggest that interest toward that end is growing. On May 8, the Pentagon announced that a U.S. counter-terrorism warship, the USS Mt. Whitney, is returning home from its tour off the coast of the Horn of Africa, but not before leaving its command personnel and equipment at Camp Lemonier in Djibouti, which has acted as the main U.S. base for counter-terrorist activities off-shore and in the region since after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. The Mt. Whitney's departure means that Camp Lemonier will now be home to 1,800 U.S. troops, sailors, fliers, and civilian personnel at a highly strategic point sandwiched between Ethiopia and Somalia and just across the Red Sea from Yemen.
When a mentally ill Somali man was shot and killed by police in March 2002, Omar Jamal was there. When a 66-year-old Somali was beaten to death at a bus stop in Oct. 2001 and the FBI was hesitating to investigate it as a hate crime, Omar Jamal was there. When brawls were breaking out between African-American students and Somalis at a large high school in Sept. 2001, Omar Jamal was there. And when the FBI began investigating Somali charities and currency transfer businesses after Sept. 11, he was there as well.
Antiretroviral drugs are "affordable" and launching a program to deliver the medicines to HIV-positive people throughout South Africa is "feasible," according to a cost study completed by the country's national health and finance ministries.
The Government has re-affirmed its commitment to rid the country of corruption. Corruption distorts policy making and derails priorities setting, the Permanent Secretary for Governance and Ethics, John Githongo said. The new reform initiatives by Government were geared towards rekindling donor trust, Githongo said.
If there's one phrase I could do with hearing less of during 2002, it's "civil society". I'm not alone. Many of my friends, community activists and organisers in a number of countries also cringe at the ritualized, ubiquitous usage of the phrase. We shudder at the thought that we might be mistaken for being part of it. Civil society is a construct which allows politically and economically powerful institutions to decide who is in, and who is out, when and if it suits their interests. Furthermore, it has the added value of sounding broad and inclusive enough to add a gloss of legitimacy to any institution, programme, or system which can be shown to the public as somehow engaging with civil society, whoever that is.
This report from Bread for the World argues that if developing countries are to build their economic potential in agriculture, industrialized countries like the United States and European Union nations should live up to their free-trade rhetoric and work together to eliminate trade-distorting subsidies and tariffs. New research released in the report indicates that the elimination of subsidies and protection in industrialized countries would allow developing countries to triple their annual net agricultural trade.
DemocracyNews is an electronic mailing list moderated by the National Endowment for Democracy as the Secretariat of the World Movement for Democracy. To subscribe to DemocracyNews, send an e-mail to [email protected]
When the US State Department's Walter Kansteiner visits the region this week he needs to press President Thabo Mbeki on what the South African leader means by democracy. Does it mean a representative government accountable to voters? Or is having millions of enrolled voters put crosses on ballot papers just the modern equivalent of a mediaeval coronation? Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe, of course, is firmly in the mediaeval coronation camp. He began justifying plans for a one-party state right after winning power in 1980, says this commentary for ZWnews.com.
Karti News is released every two weeks and contains the latest news and information about Somalia, Somaliland and the Horn of Africa. The newsletter has sections on the peace process taking place in Kenya, human rights, health and education, women and gender and civil society. Karti News forms part of a project whose overall objectives is the achievement of permanent respect for human rights, justice through rule of law, pluralism, good governance and sustainable peace in Somalia and Somaliland. To subscribe, send an e-mail to [email protected] with only the word 'subscribe' in the subject or body of the message.
The Equinet Newsletter is the newsletter of the Network for Equity in Health in Southern Africa. The Newsletter is delivered by e-mail twice a month and includes the following sections: Editorial, Equity and health general, Resource allocation, Public-private subsidies, Household poverty, WTO, economic and social policy, Human resources, Human rights and health, Research and Policy, Popular participation / governance and health, SADC News, Useful Resources, Letters and Comments, and Jobs and Announcements. Subscription is free.
The Wellcome Trust, a research-funding charity that aims to improve human and animal health, hopes to use new research findings to help develop medicines for people living in and travelling to regions afflicted by malaria. The announcement came after British scientists said they had made a breakthrough in finding a permanent treatment for malaria. The trust funded the research.
Five charities in South Africa are set to benefit from donations using short message service technology (SMS) on cellphones. People donate by sending a premium-rated SMS that costs R10, compared to a normal rate of a few cents. The proceeds from the initiative that runs until 31 July will be collected by Supersport Charity Challenge and distributed to Cotlands Baby Sanctuary, the CHOC Childhood Cancer Foundation, the Red Cross, Reach for a Dream Foundation and the Ithemba Trust. To ensure people's participation, those who donate using SMS technology will be entered into a draw to win a car.
The Interim Programme Manager's role will be to guide the Social Protection and Welfare Programme's progress through a number of tasks, whist reviewing the team's structure and performance levels, identifying any barriers to development and recommending changes to address these.
The International Rescue Committee seeks a Training Consultant to work closely with the GBV Coordinator and GBV Manager, in Kailahun, Sierra Leone. The goal of the GBV Program in Sierra Leone is to build the capacity of community-based structures to respond to and prevent incidents of Gender-based Violence.
The objective and responsibility of this mission is to promote and safeguard MSF's Identity and Principles and to be overall responsible by co-ordinating the appropriate, effective and efficient management of the MSF operations in-country through the CT (Coordination Team) in accordance with the MSF mandate and the MSF-CH Operational Policy.
The Iringa International School is searching for a Senior School Maths and Science teacher. The school is small and somewhat limited in resources, but the diverse student body is serious about learning from an intelligent, curious, and qualified Maths and Science Teacher.
"Eyes on the ICC" is an annual publication of ISC-ICC aimed at (1) providing students, young professionals and academics with an opportunity to publish their work on the issues relating to the International Criminal Court; (2) pursuing in-depth analysis of those issues; and (3) educating the American public about the International Criminal Court and the issues surrounding it. We invite paper and book review submissions from students, young professional, academics and journalists. The deadline for proposals is June 15, 2003.
Lund University Libraries has launched the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ, http://www.doaj.org), supported by the Information Program of the Open Society Institute (http://www.osi.hu/infoprogram/), along with SPARC - The Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition, (http://www.arl.org/sparc). The directory contains information about 350 open access journals, i.e. quality controlled scientific and scholarly electronic journals that are freely available on the web. The service will continue to grow as new journals are identified.
This issue includes:
* John Buchan, from the "Borders" to the "Berg": Nature, Empire and White South African Identity, 1901-1910, p. 3
* Peter Henshaw, Sol Plaatje Reconsidered: Rethinking Plaatje's Attitudes to Class, Nation, Gender, and Empire p. 33
* Peter Limb, Rites of Rebellion: Recent Anthropology from Zambia p. 125
provides space for activists in the emerging mass social movements to debate key issues facing these movements. The journal is now in its third issue, which focused on the debates and campaigns on the war in Iraq. We are building a subscriptions base in order to ensure that the journal is financially stable and is able to come out regularly.
The relationship between African women and Feminism is a contentious one. Embedded in this connection is the question of whether sisterhood - a mantra assuming a common oppression of all women and signifying feminist international/cross-cultural relations - describes the symbolic and functional representation of African Women. In this book, the contributors, who are aware of the global discourse on women as articulated by Western feminists, interrogate the issues raised by the (mis)representation of African women by both Black and White American feminists. The implications of the dominance of Western men and women in the production of knowledge about Africa are also explored.
The Human Rights Trust of Southern Africa (SAHRIT) is organising a course to bring pertinent economic, social and cultural rights issues to the fore. It will be an opportunity for participants from the different backgrounds and countries of Southern Africa to share information and experiences. At the same time study visits will be carried out and presentations and panel discussions by different regional and international experts will be conducted. The course is intended for professionals, researchers, activists, defenders and trainers to broaden their knowledge and further develop their human rights expertise about the substantive and institutional aspects of the promotion and protection of economic, social and cultural rights at national, regional and international levels.
This conference will provide a forum for debate on the extent to which rhetoric, practice, activism and social engagement within Africa's civil society have yielded any outcome as far as political emancipation and people's livelihood are concerned. Beyond exploring the term civil society and its application to African historical and contemporary conditions, this conference is chiefly interested in the everyday processes of interaction through which civil society organisations and individual actors have/not managed to induce or contribute to any social transformation, and in the potential for these actors to play any significant role in the challenges confronting Africa today.
Topics include International Approaches to Post-Conflict Justice in Rwanda, Domestic Approaches: Gacaca and the Domestic Courts and Conflict and Compromise between the different models of justice.
The Association for Progressive Communications (APC), with the support of the Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation (CTO), is planning a training course on "ICT Policy for Civil Society" in Kampala, June 16-19. The objective of the course is to build the capacity of civil society organisations to understand policy on information and communications technology (ICT) issues so that they become confident enough to critique and influence ICT policy processes in their own countries and at regional level. This course will be followed by a public meeting on June 20 on ICT and Development.
I like your editorial about cancelling Africa's debt. I cannot agree with you more that all the strategies designed to alleviate the debt burden of poorer countries have been aimed at protecting the lenders and ensuring that the debtors do not reach the point where they will refuse to pay on account of inability.
Being an African myself I am always angry at the gullibility of some of our leaders in believing that the developed countries have genuine concern about our plight. I have always believed that they do just enough to keep us from going overboard and adopting policies that will be detrimental to their economic interests.
What our leaders should be doing is to form a united front as you stated in your conclusion - not only to lobby but more importantly to develop a formidable economic unit that can dictate terms. If we keep to the status quo where our economic interests are inextricably subject to the former colonial rulers’ dictates, no amount of talking, lobbying or pleading will change anything. After all, the developed countries are not in business for our own health but theirs.
Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa says he'd like a woman to succeed him once he leaves. In the past, only two women have ever stood for president, both in 2001. Neither faired well at the polls. At the moment, many Zambians are split about having a woman president. Even though some women think it's unlikely to happen, they say the national and international dialogue sparked as a result of the President's comments, is a great thing.
Nigeria is a riddle. With its 125 million inhabitants, it is Africa's most populous nation, and given its abundant human and natural resources, it seemed destined to become a regional colossus. It didn't happen. Seen from abroad, indeed, few countries have become so famous for all the wrong reasons. Television viewers know Nigeria as the country where some 200 people died last November in riots protesting their country's hosting a Miss World competition (the pageant moved to London). In news columns, Nigeria is known as the land ranked for three successive years as the world's second most corrupt country by Transparency International, a German-based monitoring group. On the World Wide Web, Nigeria is notoriously associated with spam e-mails headed "Urgent Reply" or "Confidential," promising riches beyond belief to those gullible enough to supply confidential banking information, a scam garnering an estimated $100 million annually from mostly elderly Americans.
Beyond the R1,4-billion Eskom write-off of electricity arrears announced last week is a deeper political significance. The social movements, or "ultra-left" as they were labelled by the African National Congress last year, are beginning to make an impact on policy.
The U.S. decision to confront a European Union (EU) de facto ban on genetically modified (GM) food might knock down the world's main resistance to the controversial process and scare developing countries into opening their doors to GM crops, say analysts.
Appreciate the platform you provide for Civil Society Organisations.
Akin Olaniyan
African Media Support Initiative, Lagos, Nigeria
Iraq received the $270 million in food pledges it needed within five days of a UN appeal. At least $1 billion is needed to feed around 40 million people in need of emergency food aid across East and Southern Africa and in Cote D'Ivoire until the end of the year, international aid agencies say. While international donors have belatedly pledged $800 million in emergency food assistance over the past month, there are increasing indications that sub Saharan Africa will get nowhere near what it needs to provide basic food rations for millions of people.
The Women of Uganda Network (WOUGNET) website has been selected as winner of the African Information Society Initiative (AISI) Media Award in the IICD - Local Content category. The IICD Award on Local Content Applications aimed to "recognize users of innovative or pioneering applications of ICTs to local content defined as 'the expression of the locally owned and adapted knowledge of a community' in Africa. Applications can be from any sector and use of any medium with a demonstrated link with ICTs that provide opportunities for local people to interact and communicate with each other, expressing their own ideas, knowledge and culture in their own languages."
Please add your organisation's name to this letter asking G8 leaders to put HIV/AIDS at the core of their 2003 summit. Please share this e-mail with colleagues.
South Africa and Nigeria were the main architects, protagonists and stakeholders in the process resulting in NEPAD and advocating it as the blue print for Africa's development. Their combined economic and political relevance gave weight to their initiative, which was actively supported by Algeria, Egypt and Senegal as other core countries in the initiative. Critical observers question if this is once again old wine in new bottles. And indeed, its catalogue of socio-economic proposals offers hardly any new conceptual approach. It is largely reflecting in a rather uncritical way the dominant neo-liberal paradigm and discourse of the international financial institutions (World Bank and International Monetary Fund). It hence offers no alternatives to the current trends of economic globalisation but instead adheres to the underlying concept of liberalised trade regimes and the dogma of the private economy.
CREDO for Freedom of Expression and Associated Rights has condemned the continued and systematic harassment of both Zimbabwean and foreign journalists by the Zimbabwean government. In a press statement, the organisations Coordinator Rotimi Sankore stated “the recent attempts by the Zimbabwean immigration authorities to arrest the Zimbabwe correspondent of the UK Guardian Andrew Meldrum is the latest development in a systematic campaign to intimidate the media into not reporting the harsh realities of present day Zimbabwe. The attempted arrests are clearly aimed at facilitating the illegal deportation of Mr Meldrum who has lived in Zimbabwe for 22 years and was acquitted last year by a Zimbabwean court of allegations he reported false information about Zimbabwe.”
The strong and divergent views Mozambicans have about a range of practices like polygamy, early marriage for girls and the male's position as the automatic head of the household, surfaced to public attention when a draft Family Law was introduced into parliament at the end of last month. The discussions in parliament over the draft followed countrywide debates, seminars and meetings held from as far back as 1982 with people from all walks of life, including women's and religious groups.
Women's groups in Swaziland are taking a more active role in shaping gender policy, ahead of the release of the first draft of the country's new constitution by King Mswati III. Property ownership, currently illegal for Swazi women, is one important area of concern.
The European Commission has approved a major project to support the second phase of a nationwide landmine impact survey for Somalia. In a statement on Wednesday, the EC said it had allocated US $1.73 million to the project. An EC official told IRIN that this second phase - to be implemented by the UN Development Programme and the UN Office for Project Services - will be carried out in the self-declared autonomous region of Puntland and southern Somalia, particularly in the Baidoa area, "security and access permitting".
The British ambassador in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Jim Atkinson, said on Tuesday that Britain would give US $900,000 in December for health projects in the DRC. The funding, part of a $27 million bilateral aid programme for the DRC, would be used to provide medicine and medical equipment, to rebuild health facilities and train medical personnel, Atkinson said.
A high school guidance counsellor’s office in Kampala, Uganda, was big enough for Deborah Serwadda to offer career advice and aptitude tests, but it was far too small to cope with the physically abused kids, runaways and their disintegrating families that routinely waited outside her door. A privileged upbringing as the eldest of seven children of an Anglican priest had prepared Serwadda to be an educator, and she had all the right credentials. "It wasn't enough," she says. "These kids were so badly off." She volunteered at Hope After Rape, a non-governmental organisation set up by a woman psychiatrist to counsel the rape victims who in Uganda were traditionally shunned, as though the rapes were somehow their fault.
Their place is usually in the classrooms teaching the students and propounding theories. But early last week, lecturers mostly from the Political Science Department of the University of Ibadan (UI), were in Seminar Room 1, Conference Hall of the university, for a round table discussion on what should be added or expunged from the 1999 constitution to make it more acceptable to all genders.
Burundi has often been in the news of late – and the standard news by-line has finally been modified. Until very recently one spoke – and heard speak of – “…the tragic civil war which has claimed between 200,000 and 250,000 lives, most of them civilian…” In the last months, these figures have been adjusted to reflect the consequences of ongoing violence and one now reads that anything from 250,000 to 300,000 lives have been lost in the bloody civil war that has torn this tiny landlocked Central African country for 10 years now. To these 300,000 dead we now dare mention, add over a million displaced (550,000 of them refugees in Tanzania), countless wounded, maimed and traumatized and those others who have disappeared, and you can easily understand why not one of the nearly 7 million Burundians has been left unscathed by the “crisis” as it is euphemistically called.
When Tamara Zulu's husband died, leaving her as the sole breadwinner, she turned to her skills as a tailor to support her five children. Then came Ms. Zulu's in-laws. A month after the funeral, relying on tribal traditions that assign inheritance rights to relatives of deceased men, the out-of-towners swooped in and took everything, including Zulu's only sewing machine. The suddenly destitute widow scrambled to rent tailoring equipment and feed her family.
The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) has set up the logistics to repatriate more than 900 Third Country Nationals (TCNs) who have been marooned for several weeks in and around the southeastern Liberian coastal town of Harper, in Maryland County.
A cholera epidemic, which has affected parts of western Uganda since January, is persisting amid fears that a fresh influx of refugees from neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo could exacerbate the situation.
The first batch of 2,880 Somali refugees who have been accommodated at Dadaab and Kakuma camps in northern Kenya, this week began returning to Somalia, more than a decade after they fled their war-torn country.
As renewed fighting erupted on Tuesday in Bunia, eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), humanitarian officials said movement around the town was almost "impossible" although the UN Mission in the country, MONUC, was reported to have secured the remaining limited humanitarian aid supplies.
Human Rights and gay activists have accused some southern African leaders of singling out gays and lesbians as "scapegoats" for their countries' problems. Human Rights Watch (HRW) and the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) on Wednesday released a 298-page report documenting harassment and violence against sexual minorities in Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
At least 25 people have been killed in a fresh outbreak of political violence in the volatile southern oil town of Warri, residents and officials said on Wednesday.
The Wits HIV/Aids Research Institute was formally launched 14 May at Hofmeyr House, Wits University. The institute will be headed by Geoffrey Setswe who comes from the Medunsa School of Public Health. He will take office in June. The Institute was established from a $500 000 donation from the Carnegie Foundation and is the brainchild of Prof James McIntyre of the HIV/Aids Perinatal Clinic.
Burkina Faso's government and education experts hope that the introduction of bilingual schools that teach pupils in both French and their mother tongue would increase school enrolment that are often as low as 12 percent in rural areas.
The financial and political corruption at the heart of the French state is being unravelled by a trial whose daily revelations are gripping Paris and terrifying its political class with fear of exposure. Veiled reference has been made to President Jacques Chirac in the trial, whose ghost hovers over decades of oil deals in West Africa, where he has close ties to leaders such as Omar Bongo of Gabon.
Walking the corridors of Zambia's largest hospital gives the average visitor, let alone its patients, an overwhelming sense of despair. Lusaka's University Teaching hospital lacks drugs and equipment. Its doctors and support staff are poorly paid and morale is low, impacting on the quality of care provided to the long-suffering patients. Last week, the almost 300-strong Resident Doctors Association (RDA) went on a two-day strike, demanding better pay and conditions. They returned to work after the government agreed to a 120 percent to 300 percent salary hike, but remain cautious over whether the government will stick to the deal.
New research from Christian Aid - along with important studies from some of the world's leading development specialists, and research by both the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund - indicates that poor countries dependent on oil revenues have a higher incidence of four great and interconnected ills. Oil, in these conditions, becomes the key ingredient in a 'lethal cocktail' of greater poverty for the vast majority of the population, increased corruption, a greater likelihood of war or civil strife, and dictatorial or unrepresentative government.
A ZNet Commentary by Mandisi Majavu
While the Texan ranger, George W. Bush and his loyal companion, Tony Blair were on their murderous mission in Iraq, the Congo war that has been going on for four years, and is reported to have killed more than 3-million people in that country, came to an official end. Dubbed "inter-Congolese dialogue", the negotiations that brought the government and the rebels to a give and take communication table, lasted for 14 months, resulting on 02 April 2003 in a "final peace agreement".
However, two of the heavyweights in the talks failed to turn up for the proceedings on the day of signing the final peace agreement. It's the same leaders who brought the first round of talks last year to a stop by signing an exclusive agreement: President Joseph Kabila and leader of the Ugandan-backed Movement for the Liberation of Congo (MLC), Jean-Pierre Bemba. That exclusive agreement was meant to make Bemba a prime minister; however, the deal went sour and now Kabila sees Bemba as his main threat. It is reported that after Kabila heard that Bemba was not going to make it for the signing of the final peace agreement, he cancelled -- fearing a coup.
Bene M'Poko, Congolose ambassador to South Africa, explains the absence of Kabila as a trivial issue. "The president did not need to be there, for it was just a closing ceremony. Everything that was of importance had been agreed on in his presence," he said.
The main points of the final peace agreement are that the four-year-old war must come to an end, and that the Ugandan and Rwandan troops must leave the DRC. When the war broke out in August 1998, Rwanda and Uganda sent troops to back the rebels who were seeking to oust the late Laurent Kabila. They claimed Laurent Kabila was backing insurgents who were threatening their national security. Zimbabwe, Angola and Namibia sent troops to back Kabila -- splitting the country into rebel and government-held areas.
Further, the final peace agreement demands that Joseph Kabila, with a "follow-up committee" for the inter-Congolose dialogue, pave the way for the transformation process that will last two years. At the end of that two years, it is hoped that the first democratic elections in 40 years will take place in that country.
Also, the final peace agreement demands that four deputy presidents be nominated who will be working closely with the president through the two-year transition to elections. As one of his deputies, Kabila has nominated Yerodia Abdoulaye Ndombasi, a former foreign minister once sought by a Belgian court for inciting genocide. From the Rassemblement Congolaise pour la democratic (RCD-Goma rebel movement), Joseph Mudumbi has made it clear that "it will be a real problem for all Congolose who want national reconciliation to work with someone who called for the massacre of one section of the Congolose people."
The three vice-presidents are Jean-Pierre Bemba, the leader of the MLC, Arthur Z'Ahidi Ngoma, from the unarmed political opposition and Azarias Ruberwa Manywa, a founder of the Rwandan-backed Rassemblement Congolais pour la democratic (RCD-Goma rebel movement), an advocate for the recognition of the Banyamulenge, Congolose of Rwandan origin, as Congolose citizens. At one stage, in 1981, the notorious -- to say the least -- Mobutu Sese Seko, the Congolose president at the time, stripped the Banyamulenye of their citizenship, rendering them stateless, and thus preventing them from running for national political office. Their citizenship has since been restored, according to M'Poko.
The four vice-presidents are due to take the oath of office on 28 May in the DRC capital, Kinshasa. Also, on the same day, the installation of the government comprising "all parties" will take place. The parties referred to are the two main rebel groups: the MLC and the RCD-Goma, and, also, the unarmed political opposition, plus the RCD-Kisangani / Mouvement de Liberation.
Although all the plans are being put in place, it has been reported that fighting in the northeastern part of the DRC, Bunia, is still going on. MONUC -- the UN mission in the DRC -- has been reported as saying it "greatly deplored" renewed hostilities in Bunia, the principal city of Ituri district in the northeastern of the country. MONUC explains the objective of the fighting between armed factions of ethnic Hemas and Lendus as a battle to seize control of Bunia in the wake of the Ugandan People's Defence Force pull-out. The fighting in Ituri erupted on 03 April, the day after five African leaders, including the Ugandan president, Yoweri Museveni, decided at a summit held in South Africa, that Uganda should withdraw its troops from the DRC by 24 April. According to reports, "between 150 and 300 people" died on the first day of the fighting, which lasted three hours in about 15 villages. Be that as it may, M'Poko assures us that the war is over, and what we are witnessing now is just a "skirmish". As if this is suppose to put us at ease.
In a move to bring about peace and stability, about 800 Uruguayan UN troops have been deployed to northeastern DRC, ahead of the deployment of 2 000 Bangladeshi peacekeepers, Gen. Mountanga Diallo, the force commander of the UN operation, was reported saying. Another stumbling block in the way of the "follow-up committee", which has the potential of reversing the whole peace process, is the quarrelling among the parties for the post of defence minister. As has become a tradition in African politics, whoever controls the army has state power.
The mediation, which is South African, proposed that the defence minister post, including the post of command of ground forces, be granted to the RCD-Goma. However, the MLC, the RCD-Kisangani / Mouvement de Liberation and the government do not agree that the RCD-Goma should hold the two posts. As the rebel forces are going to be united with the national military, the military issues remain the sensitive ones. Although it should come as no surprise, the Kabila government has already secured itself the post of chief of staff of the military.
As if this is some sort of a chess game, South Africa's leading newspaper, Mail and Guardian, reported that if the South African president, Thabo Mbeki, and his team succeed with an internal settlement in the DRC, "it will arguably be South Africa's finest diplomatic achievement to date." One would be compelled to conclude that even the parties involved in the peace process entertain the same idea. After the Cape Town summit on 08 April, which Mbeki masterminded, at the post-summit press conference, one of the journalists asked how relations were between Uganda and Rwanda. The Ugandan president, Museveni, declined to comment; instead he asked Mbeki to do so. While these "no I do not want to speak, you speak" games are being played, it's a matter of life and death for the 50-million people in Congo.
As the civil war is officially over, yet another war awaits the Congolose -- the economic war. At the beginning of July last year, the World Bank promised to loan Kabila $420-million if he continues with his "economic reforms". The reforms of course are none other than privatisation, creating an environment where everything is commodified, and exploitation made legal. Need I say more?!
There is a lot of pressure on the shoulders of Kabila, only 30 years old, no political experience, not much education, but an extensive military background. He spent most of his youth in exile -- in Tanzania and Uganda, where he received military training. As a young officer, it is reported that he had a reputation for brutality. When he came into power in January
2001, after his father's death, he was a commander-in-chief of the land forces.
However, with education or not, political experience or not, on 07 April, Kabila took the oath of office as head of a transitional government that aims to bring peace and liberty in that country. Under the new constitution drawn up by delegates from the government, rebel movements, militias, civil society and the political opposition, Kabila enjoys all the prerogatives of head of state.
For that reason only, the hopes and eyes of the young and old in Congo rest on him. The hopes and eyes of the world not only rest on Kabila, but on Uganda and Rwanda. Be that as it may, I say the same of Joseph Kabila as Che Guevara said of his father: "Nothing leads me to believe he is the man of the hour."
(http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2003-05/13majavu.cfm)
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LINKS:
* CONGO FIGHTING DASHES HOPES FOR PEACE
* MBEKI BACKS USE OF DEADLY FORCE
* MOVEMENT AROUND BUNIA "IMPOSSIBLE"
* UN SECURITY COUNCIL DISCUSSES CRISIS IN BUNIA
- See the Conflicts Crises and Emergencies section of Pambazuka News.
A senior police officer has denied knowledge of claims by the State’s principal witness in the treason trial of opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, that the British government and the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) were involved in the alleged plot to assassinate President Robert Mugabe. Assistant Police Commissioner Moses Magandi told the High Court that the first time he learnt of the purported British and CIA involvement in the alleged assassination plot was when he read about the allegations in the Press.