PAMBAZUKA NEWS EDIÇÃO EM PORTUGUÊS 97: Golpe parlamentar no Brasil - mobilizações e protesto populares | Demitido Governo na Guiné Bissau
PAMBAZUKA NEWS EDIÇÃO EM PORTUGUÊS 97: Golpe parlamentar no Brasil - mobilizações e protesto populares | Demitido Governo na Guiné Bissau
Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo has returned home to uproar after signing a peace accord with rebels at a meeting near Paris. The deal has sparked huge anti-French protests in a country already split by civil war. Tens of thousands of protesters attacked the French embassy and French-owned businesses. But in France, other African leaders, the European Union and the United Nations gave their stamp to the deal.
Nigeria's House of Representatives on Tuesday voted to revisit the Child Rights Bill and reverse its decision last October to reject the bill on the grounds it offended certain cultural sensibilities.
Malawi President Bakili Muluzi on Tuesday sacked a senior minister opposed to his plans to amend the constitution so he can stay in office beyond the current legal limit of 10 years. Commerce and Industry Minister Peter Kaleso had been removed and his position handed to Muluzi ally Paul Maulidi.
The Poverty Analysis Initiative team is organizing three activities in Africa, under the Attacking Poverty Program, at the end of January and in early February. A high-level meeting in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, should establish a regional forum for supporting empirically based policy analysis, and monitoring and evaluation of poverty.
It appears that all the major obstacles involving the Burundi peace process have been overcome and a peace force will be in that country soon, Deputy South African President Jacob Zuma said on Wednesday. "We believe that in a matter of days many things will be happening. We believe we have crossed all the major hurdles and implementation (of the peace force) will start soon," he told the Johannesburg Press Club.
An international relief agency this week said the effects of food shortages in Mozambique were a lot worse than what had been reported. Following a visit to the southern African country, World Relief President Clive Calver said there was a grotesque unawareness about the impact of the food crisis, especially in remote areas.
A British conservationist, fighting to save a rare breed of zebra from extinction, has stressed that its future is intertwined with Ethiopia’s food aid dependency. Dr Stuart Williams is battling to save an estimated 500 Grevy's zebras which live in the mountainous areas of southern Ethiopia.
Kenneth Gwabalanda Mathe, an official of Zimbabwe’s main opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change, appeared at the Victoria Falls magistrate’s court, charged under section 12 (a) of the Public Order and Security Act, for having given comment to a daily newspaper.
A sustained financial and diplomatic commitment from the United States to conflict resolution in Africa was crucial to regional and international security, with the historical role that the US had played in destabilizing many African countries giving Washington a "unique responsibility" to engage with African efforts to achieve peace and stability, according to a new Africa Action report entitled "Africa Policy for a New Era: Ending Segregation in U.S. Foreign Relations." At a media briefing launching the report Adotei Akwei, Africa Advocacy Director of Amnesty International USA, said "the U.S. pre-occupation with the geo-strategic value of African countries in the 'war on terrorism' must not trump efforts to promote human rights and advance democracy."
The inaugural Nkosi Johnson International Soccer Challenge will take place on February 9. The Kansas City Wizards from the United States will play against two premier soccer league clubs to raise funds for Nkosi's Haven. All the money raised during the two games will be contributed to Nkosi's Haven in honour of the boy who touched so many hearts with his Aids message.
The Seattle-based Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has announced a $200 million grant to establish the Grand Challenges in Global Health initiative, a joint venture with the National Institutes of Health that will seek to identify critical scientific challenges in global health and increase research on diseases that cause millions of deaths in the developing world.
The Zambia Episcopal Conference (ZEC) has secured relief commodities from its cooperating partners amounting to $190,000, (about K5 billion) for distribution.
The European Union (EU) will grant 50 million Euros in the forthcoming five years for Angola. In a first phase, the amount will be used in humanitarian aid, the returning and resettlement of war displaced people, reinsertion of former UNITA soldiers, health improvement, agriculture and de-mining.
Zambia is slated to receive more than K 420.4 million for AIDS programmes from the Global Fund on HIV/AIDS, Malaria and Tuberculosis.
The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has welcomed South Africa's $20 million donation for the agency's emergency food operation for southern Africa.
Discover all the methods available for you to make your voice heard against the war on Iraq by visiting the web link provided. Use fax, email phone and snail mail to join the campaign against the war.
Nestle have recently settled a claim against the Ethiopian government, reducing the claim from $6 million to $1.5 million and agreeing to immediately donate the money back to be spent on famine relief. Visit Oxfam's campaign web site and find out more about their campaign against the coffee giants and how you can help make trade fair.
COSATU and SAMWU provide labour news daily by e-mail. This free service focuses on labour news stories and features, primarily from South Africa, but also from the rest of Africa. It includes news briefs and daily labour news summaries as well as a weekly digest of key news stories. To subscribe, visit the web site provided.
[email protected], previously known as Somali Civil Society News, is delivered by email every two weeks and is part of a project that aims for the achievement of permanent respect for human rights, justice through rule of law, pluralism, good governance and sustainable peace in Somalia and Somaliland. The name of the newsletter has been changed to [email protected] to ensure synergy between this newsletter and the one that is also produced periodically by the NOVIB Somalia project that is also known as KARTI. For more information on this project visit http://www.somali-civilsociety.org. The newsletter contains links to stories about the Horn of Africa region in various content categories. For free subscription send an email to [email protected]
AF-AIDS is a regional forum on HIV/AIDS in Africa, moderated by the Health & Development Networks Moderation Team (HDN, www.hdnet.org) with technical support from Health Systems Trust (HST) on behalf of the AF-AIDS Policy and Steering Committee (HST, HDN & SAfAIDS). To join, send a blank message to [email protected]
African Rights questions plans by the Government of Rwanda to release around 30-40,000 genocide detainees on bail. Announced in a Presidential communiqué on 1 January 2003, we fear that this unexpected decision will undermine efforts to deliver justice for the victims and survivors of the 1994 genocide through the gacaca courts.
Genocide suspects who have confessed - but not those accused of leading the killings - , minors who were between 14 and 18 years old during the genocide, elderly prisoners, the chronically ill and “other persons accused of ordinary crimes” will be included in the releases. The measure will apply only “to detainees who run the risk of being imprisoned for longer than provided for under the law”. While it is entirely understandable that the government must seek to prevent illegal detentions and the injustices they entail, we believe that this must be weighed against the potential havoc that the releases could wreak in the administration of genocide justice and that an alternative solution should be sought.
It was clearly stated that the prisoners will remain subject to justice and are merely being offered “provisional liberty”. This is unlikely to reassure genocide survivors and witnesses who will be anxious that the suspects may gain an opportunity to attack their accusers or to evade justice through corruption or by going into hiding or exile. Mass “provisional liberty” represents a foray into the unknown. It is doubtful whether the Ministry of Justice or any other government department could offer assurances as to what the consequences will be. In every aspect of the genocide prosecutions, and from the outset, the Ministry of Justice in Rwanda has been forced to broach uncharted territory and take on overwhelming challenges, but this move is certain only to compound its existing struggles.
Judicial institutions, which are already severely over-stretched, must now hasten to examine the cases of the relevant detainees within a month; this at a time when the nationwide launch of gacaca has brought its own pressures. And as the gacaca courts begin their work, many of them will now face additional and unanticipated practical difficulties. Firstly, the State can no longer guarantee the presence in court of the prisoners who have confessed. In this respect the sole reliable factor in the gacaca trials has been complicated. Even more worrying is the potential for released prisoners, returning to their communities, to intimidate the residents, thereby preventing wider participation in the trials and causing damage and trauma to individuals. Government assurances to increase the provision of counsellors and tighten security in court are to be welcomed, but inevitably cannot safeguard prosecution witnesses and judges in the period before the hearings.
As African Rights' forthcoming report, 'Gacaca Justice: A Shared Responsibility', highlights, the implementation of gacaca is already encumbered by the reluctance of witnesses to name perpetrators and by several logistical problems, including shortcomings and gaps in the law, the inadequacy of some judges (Inyangamugayo) to their task, and dwindling popular attendance in some areas. But crucially, we believe the releases will undermine popular confidence in the process - the very factor upon which, our findings show, the success of gacaca depends. On the basis of our past research upon attitudes to justice, there is every reason to be concerned that the releases will have a negative impact upon all the parties involved in gacaca.
Although these are not the first releases of genocide prisoners, they involve by far the largest numbers to date. Previously the government singled out selected groups of prisoners for unconditional release on humanitarian grounds; these were the elderly, the chronically ill and minors. The fact that this latest batch will also include these groups but apparently on different terms - in that they will be tried - is bound to be a source of confusion.
Reactions among detainees to these earlier releases, as detailed in African Rights' June 2000-report: 'Confessing to Genocide', give some indication as to how this latest development will be received by them. At the time, prisoners and justice officials alike voiced near unanimous opposition to the release of elderly prisoners, arguing that many of them had led the slaughter, influencing the youth. Furthermore, the selective releases encouraged the hope among detainees that if they maintained their silence, the economic burden of imprisoning them would eventually ensure wholesale releases. This was a major obstacle to the functioning of the confession and guilty plea procedure, as it was implemented prior to gacaca. Gacaca gained a better reception as detainees anticipated much more lenient treatment and speedier trials. They are bound to have felt frustration at the delays so far and the releases will relieve this for some. But rather than prompting others to genuine confession it may be that they will encourage opportunism, with prisoners offering partial or inaccurate confessions simply in the hope of immediate release. Overwhelmingly, the releases will reinforce the perception that the government lacks the capacity to properly administer genocide justice.
There have already been substantial inconsistencies in genocide prosecutions due to the introduction, first, of the confession and guilty plea procedure and, secondly, gacaca. It is logical that the government should seek to harmonise the system by, as the President suggested, “affording” prisoners who confessed prior to gacaca “the advantages available to those who confess under the law establishing gacaca courts”. But the current situation of some 120,000 prisoners in Rwanda's prison has persisted for years and with it an understanding of the time constraints involved. It is unfortunate that there have been delays in launching gacaca nationwide and this is almost certainly at the root of the problem. But nothing was done to prepare people or the gacaca courts for the possibility of imminent releases on this scale. Any sense that the government is wavering in its commitment to implement the gacaca system in its original form will create public uncertainty and weaken resolve.
It is only six months ago that the first 12 pilot sectors began to implement the gacaca system. The sectors where the work is most advanced have just reached the stage of gathering the information necessary for categorising suspects. The witnesses who remain to be called include detainees who have confessed. A very large number of them may have given only superficial or partial accounts and fear being denounced for the crimes they have failed to reveal. Gacaca itself was introduced, in large part, because the confession and guilty plea procedure introduced in 1996 did not accelerate the pace of justice as hoped. It took time and considerable human resources to establish the veracity and comprehensive nature of prisoners' confessions, a process that slowed down the course of justice. Only after detainees have had the opportunity to confront the residents on the hills will it be possible to establish whether their confessions were full and sincere. If they are able to go home now, they will have the time to influence the outcome of their cases.
The communiqué will also undoubtedly affect the independence of the gacaca judges. These judges are not operating in a vacuum, but in a given social and political environment. Whatever the arguments to the contrary, in reality it will be extremely difficult for these judges to send back to prison thousands of detainees which the State has already taken the decision to free, especially in a country where respect for authority is deeply ingrained.
Moreover, in 'Gacaca Justice', African Rights emphasises that there is still no firm consensus about past wrongs and agreement about the meaning and purpose of justice initiatives in Rwanda. We suggest that the participatory nature of gacaca holds out the possibility of depoliticising the issue by placing it openly in the civil arena. The communiqué to release prisoners will have profound implications for the workings of the gacaca courts, and the sudden momentous decision will catch them unprepared. African Rights hopes the Government of Rwanda will pause and reflect how best to convince the people of Rwanda that genocide justice is a civil and moral enterprise rather than a political initiative or a lottery.
* African Rights – Working for Justice, is a rights advocacy organisation working in Rwanda. Email: [email][email protected]
Related Link:
* More genocide suspects released
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PAMBAZUKA NEWS EDIÇÃO EM PORTUGUÊS 96: Insegurança humana em Cabo Verde | Banco Mundial suspende financiamento a Moçambique
PAMBAZUKA NEWS EDIÇÃO EM PORTUGUÊS 96: Insegurança humana em Cabo Verde | Banco Mundial suspende financiamento a Moçambique
Redistributive land reform in Namibia is widely regarded as a precondition for sustainable rural development and poverty alleviation. This document briefly discusses the development of thinking on land reform and the development of land reform models prior to Independence. It refers to progress on land redistribution since 1990 and discusses some of the problems experienced.
Over 60 percent of HIV/Aids infections in South Africa occur before the age of 25, a recent report from the South African University of Cape Town has revealed. The report focuses on "high risk" sexual activity among the youth and makes particular reference to South Africa.
In today’s economically integrated world, trade matters more than ever before. This website has been created as a research, training, and outreach tool for people interested in trade policy and developing countries.
Ernest Mungwari, who runs one of Zimbabwe's biggest transport companies, Tenda Transport Private Limited is reported to have hired thugs to beat up Brian Mangwende, The Daily News bureau chief, in the eastern border city of Mutare.
Activists known as the Kensington 87, who were arrested in April 2002 for protesting water and electricity cut-offs in their communities that were linked to the ANC government's programme of privatisation, were due to appear in the Jeppe Magistrate's Court in Johannesburg for the fifth time on Wednesday. The Anti-Privatisation Forum (APF) notes in a press release that the case has dragged on for over a year, during which time hundreds of activists from the APF, the Anti-Eviction Campaign and other social movement organisations have been harassed, arrested and detained for various lengths of time as a result of their struggles for basic people's rights and needs.
What's a web blog? What do web blogs do? How can I blog? How can blogging benefit my organisation? Learn all you need to know to become a blogger by clicking on the link below.
By dawn, the convoy is ploughing through the bush, rolling east into a rising sun with 58 tonnes of emergency food for a settlement camp cut off without aid deep in Angola's famine territory. If these vehicles cannot make it, there is little chance of feeding the tens of thousands of people stranded in the province of Cuando Cubango, a wilderness so desolate it is known as "the land at the end of the earth".
AITEC WEST AFRICA 2003 is a highly interactive event for senior executives in government and the private sector who are seeking new insights into important strategic issues. Participants will exchange views, network and compare experiences with other key decision-makers and with expert speakers from the Information and Technology industry.
Concerns are being expressed over the reports that the International Telecommunications Union plans to propose at the WSIS summit in December 2003 the creation of an international cyberspace treaty to set forth basic rules on Internet taxation, copyright protection and crime prevention. Join the WSIS PrepCom 1 Mailing List (https://ssl.cpsr.org/mailman/listinfo/wsis-prep1/) to find out more and discuss the issue.
Despite delays caused by protocol, preparations for the AIDS vaccine trials in South Africa are still underway and clinical researchers and scientists are hopeful that the Phase One tests will start early next year. This sense of optimism follows months of discussion and debate amongst the Medicines Control Council, the government as well as the vaccines' developers. It is hoped that the extensive consultations will help accelerate the onset of the vaccines trials - the search for the ultimate hope in HIV prevention. Khopotso Bodibe from Health-E News Service went out to seek clarity on the outstanding issues.
Thousands of children are being smuggled into Europe from war-ravaged Somalia every year, with Britain the most popular destination, according to a UN report. "Child smuggling from Somali territories is now so widespread that it has become a critical informal institution," the UN information agency report says.
The 14 member states of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) have a mutual security pact as the centerpiece of their organisation, and if for no other reason than the tide of destabilising illegal arms that passes through their countries. ‘'The traffic in small arms and weapons of war through the region shows how closely linked our nations are in matters of security, and how vulnerable each state is to the security lapses in other countries, particularly neighbouring countries,'' an officer with the South African military told IPS this week.
Past and present economic policies implemented by African governments have failed to improve the lives of ordinary Africans, says the final statement of the Second African Social Forum (ASF), held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in early January. The Forum concluded that only a dynamic civil society organised in strong and active social movements "can and must challenge the neo-liberal political economy of globalization. The consensus was that we need to build a new African state and society, where public institutions and policies will guarantee cultural, economic, political and social rights for all citizens." Over 200 African women, men and young people from 40 countries participated. They represented social movements, trade unions, peasants' organisations, NGOs and research institutions.
As millions go hungry, some African leaders have splashed out on jets and fleets of cars. Paul Harris reports from Eritrea and Malawi on a natural disaster compounded by war and corruption.
The first of some 40,000 Liberian refugees are being repatriated from Ivory Coast. Hundreds of Liberian refugees have been cramming onto ramshackle buses in the southern town of Tabou in a desperate bid to go home, says the BBC's Tom McKinley.
The Southern African Book Development Education Trust, SABDET, has announced that it is partnering the British Council in the UK launch of Africa's 100 Best Books on 30 January 2003. Reading Africa, a briefing and networking event on the 100 Best Books initiative for reading promotion organisations, educationists, booktrade, press and media will be held at the British Council's London headquarters at Spring Gardens.
The International Monetary Fund could resume lending to Kenya from July - almost three years after it suspended support to the country over concerns about corruption. Abdoulaye Bio-Tchane, director of the fund's Africa Department, said last Friday that he was confident the new government of President Mwai Kibaki would take measures to combat official graft.
The west's attitude to developing countries when it came to trade was akin to a football team improving its position on the log only to find that the number one team had changed the rules and said three goals had to be scored to count as one, according to a United Kingdom committee of peers, who accused the west of "unjustifiable and objectionable" protectionism in its dealings with developing countries, in a report attacking the "shameful" level of global poverty.
The first international meeting of the Congo Basin Forest Partnership, an economic development and conservation program for six Central African countries, is set to open in Paris on Tuesday. Under pressure from population growth, poverty, unsustainable resource use, and political instability, the Congo Basin forests are the focus of a new initiative by a partnership of 29 governments, international organisations, environmental and business interests - the Congo Basin Forest Partnership.
It has become clear that World Bank privatisation schemes are slated to be the new emphasis for that institution, says this article from The 50 Years Is Enough Network's Economic Justice News, which reviews three years of the global justice movement since large demonstrations and the meltdown in official negotiations at the World Trade Organization (WTO) ministerial meeting in Seattle, November 30 - December 3, 1999. The privatisation agenda is bad news for economic democracy, says the article, with essential services facing a sell off to the highest bidders.
The website of Peace Women - the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom - has a section that aims to provide a user-friendly, comprehensive annotated bibliography of books, articles and analyses on women's peace theory and activities, as well as NGO position papers, reports, speeches, statements and tools for organisational building.
Reporters sans frontières (RSF) has written to all the delegations taking part in the Ivory Coast peace talks being held in Linas-Marcoussis (south of Paris) between 15 and 24 January 2003, asking them to raise the issue of the media in the Ivory Coast. The organisation urges the political parties and rebel movements present to make a real commitment to establishing a freer and more responsible press in the country.
Vincent Matovu, managing editor of the local Luganda-language weekly "Mazima", has been held on remand in Luzira prison since 6 January 2003, in connection with the publication of two articles concerning the war between rebel groups and government forces in the north of the country.
The likely election of Libya to a key United Nations post on Monday will put a spotlight on its human rights record and on efforts by abusive governments to undermine the international human rights system, Human Rights Watch says.
Justice Minister Penuell Maduna has asked the Scorpions to probe the demise of the Saambou banking group last year on the basis of an independent report implicating executives in "suspicious" transactions, insider-trading and mismanagement, Business Day reported on Friday.
Senate Democrats on Thursday introduced the Africa Famine Relief Act, which would provide $900 million in emergency relief for Africa, including $600 million in food aid, $200 million in disaster assistance and $100 million in HIV/AIDS-related aid, the Associated Press reports.
Nigerian police have arrested three men allegedly contracted to print as many as five million fake voters' cards ahead of April's presidential and parliamentary elections. The operation, in which police also seized 500,000 faked voting documents, took place in Lagos following a tip-off a week ago but was only announced on Friday.
MWENGO, the Lesotho Council of NGOs are please to confirm that the 7th Domestic Resource Mobilisation Workshop will take place at the National Convention Centre in Maseru, Lesotho from the 11th to 13th February, 2003.
Raising Voices (www.raisingvoices.org) and UN-Habitat (www.unhabitat.org/safercities) are undertaking a field review of organisations and institutions working to prevent gender-based violence (GBV) in East and Southern Africa. The aim is to create networks and alliances between those working to prevent GBV through conferences and partnerships and to produce a publication that highlights successful approaches to preventing GBV in the region. All NGOs, government agencies, local authorities and other groups working on the prevention of gender-based violence are warmly invited to share experiences. Please contact Lori Michau for further information at [email protected] or follow the link www.raisingvoices.org/fieldreview to complete a simple questionnaire.
An international coalition of HIV/AIDS organisations and individual advocates are sponsoring a four-day global summit on "treatment preparedness" in March 2003 in Cape Town, South Africa. "Treatment preparedness" is a term used to describe HIV/AIDS treatment education and advocacy efforts that are designed to increase access to and demand for HIV/AIDS treatment and prepare communities for safe and effective use of HIV therapies.
The AIDS Therapeutic Treatment Now (ATTN) International Coalition asks you to sign-on in support of the campaign to urge major investors to divest GSK stock. Help stop corporate greed at the expense of human lives! Because of GSK's excessive HIV drug pricing, which set the standard for all HIV drugs, millions have died due to lack of accessibility to affordable drugs.
Fahamu, in association with the Department for Continuing Education at the University of Oxford, will be offering courses specifically designed to meet the needs of non-profit human rights and advocacy organisations in the SADC region (Angola, Democratic Republic of Congo, Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Seychelles, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe). Developed together with international and regional experts, seven courses will be run in the course of the next 8 months. Fundraising and resource mobilisation may be a high priority on your list, but in the kind of context you are operating in, the prospects of raising sufficient funds might not be so good. In order to be effective - in order to bring about equity and justice - you need to be able to effectively fundraise and mobilise your resources, and effect change. And yet many of you are not able to do this. That's what this course is for.
This article looks at the current state of Internet access in the African countries of Ghana, Kenya and South Africa. The different approaches for hooking onto the Internet backbone are discussed with a view to the availability and cost to Internet services for the community at large. This article further examines some causes of the current problems facing African countries and the high cost of Internet access to the ordinary person. Finally some initiatives to bridge the digital divide are presented and analysed in terms of how to maximize their returns.
The World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) NGO Gender Strategies Working Group (WN-GSWG) is pleased to announce the structure and corresponding schedule of the [email protected] discussion, an electronic mailing list that is one of the group's efforts in strategising and organising women's participation in the WSIS process.
The purpose of this job is to guide the development of Fundo de Credíto Comunitário as it becomes a regulated financial institution which promotes sustainable growth among the economically active poor in Mozambique.
Urgently required to manage a large operation which provides community service and health programmes for over 130,000 Congolese refugees in three camps, and a community development programme in western Tanzania.
The Head of Mission is in overall charge of all aspects of the Mission in the field. The HoM coordinates the programmes and represents Action Against Hunger in meetings with local authorities, other agencies and donors. He/she also manages the expatriate team, oversees the budgets, administration and local staff. The HoM is the link person between the Desk Officer in HQ and the field team for all aspects of the mission's running and for development of the mission strategy.
The International Human Rights Law Group is a non-profit organisation of human rights and legal professionals and activists engaged in advocacy, training and litigation around the world. The Law Group's mission is to empower human rights advocates and defenders at the national level to expand the scope of human rights protection for men and women, and to promote broad participation in building human rights standards at the national, regional and international levels.
Business leaders, politicians and the rich converge on the Swiss ski resort of Davos from 23 January for the World Economic Forum (WEF) - the annual gathering of the powerful which plays an important role in discussions of world economic and social policy. But the meeting takes place amidst growing criticism of corporate greenwash. Despite a high profile pledge made a year ago at the WEF in New York, WEF corporations have already demonstrated their unwillingness to embrace sustainability if it gets in the way of more profits. Friends of the Earth is highlighting cases of bad practices in the year since WEF 2002.
The Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ) says it is "imperative" that the private media should be tenacious in investigating seemingly harmless government policies such as the intention to establish information kiosks in rural areas. The MMPZ says the kiosks could curtail citizens' right to access information of their choice, says the MMPZ in its latest Weekly Update, which also deals with wrangles around local government and food shortages.
Former military rulers, who are blamed for much of Nigeria's woes, are back on the political stage - this time running as civilians in the April presidential election. And, no one is happy. "Unless a miracle happens, or less known parties form an alliance - none of them will pose a serious challenge to the big four parties which have nominated ex-military rulers as their presidential candidates," says Ronke Damilola, a political scientist in Lagos, Nigeria's commercial capital.
Africa's debt was illegitimate, odious and immoral, and had been paid many times over; it was Africa that was owed an immense historical debt for failed IMF/WB projects; debt was used as an instrument of domination and plunder of Africa's resources and the only solution to the debt crisis was its cancellation without external conditions. These were some of the conclusions of a workshop on debt help at the Africa Social Forum, which took place in Addis Ababa on January 6-7, 2003.
Despite energetic denials from President Mugabe, speculation surrounding the future of his presidency intensified as more details emerged of an exit deal, put together by his closest associates. The latest initiative has placed Mugabe in a vulnerable position as his government openly admits its failure to cope with food and fuel shortages.
The aggressive and militaristic approach to the world at large had little to do with the war on terror and everything to do with United States political domination over the world and its plunder of the world's resources for its own interests, said a resolution on United States aggression issued by the African Social Forum, held in Addis Ababa on January 6-7 2003. The resolution said it was "appalled" by the insistence of the United States to declare war on Iraq and rejected the use of United States military bases in Africa, such as those in Djibouti and Diego Garcia, to carry out this military aggression.
Zambia faces a "daunting outlook" for 2003 with expectations of another poor harvest, says a report from the office of the UN Resident Coordinator. The food crisis was brought about by a consecutive drop in food production in 2002 (down 40 percent on the previous five year average), due to drought. By the middle of 2002 inflation was at 23.7 percent and the national currency, the kwacha, had depreciated by 14 percent.
The debt crisis of developing countries has not yet been solved by current international debt management as designed by the Paris Club, International Financial Institutions (IFIs) including the IMF and World Bank, the London Club, and the G7. This paper presents the specific framework of an international insolvency procedure that relies on Fair and Transparent Arbitration Processes (FTAPs) to solve debt crises.
Hailed as a "quantum leap" in the fight against the HIV/Aids pandemic, the Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria has become a focal point for funding efforts to bring the epidemic to heal.
The political controversy in South Africa's KwaZulu-Natal province is continuing, even if the "political crisis" has been called off. The Inkatha Freedom Party, which governs the province, is blamed by the local ANC opposition of blocking food distribution to communities that are being ravaged by hunger and poverty.
Virva Hautala and Sanna Simonen lend a hand at a pump, manually extracting life-preserving water from a borehole beneath the parched earth. The Finnish aid volunteers urge the children queued with plastic containers not to waste the precious fluid, as they pump and carry their water rations on their heads back to homesteads, up to 10 km away.
A unique gathering of parliamentarians and journalists from 11 Southern African Development Community countries has reached a remarkable decision - to call on their governments to repeal legislation which restricts the freedom of the media and freedom of expression and offends human rights generally.
Southern Africa's food crisis is not a short-term transitory phenomenon that will be over when this year's harvest is gathered. It points, instead, to a failure of development policies and the impact of HIV/Aids, for which there are no easy solutions, humanitarian officials acknowledge.
A student from the University of Pretoria's Centre for Human Rights has been arrested in Zimbabwe, for allegedly being involved in a plot to overthrow the government.
The author argues that while the health challenges posed by HIV/Aids are widely recognized, the specific impact of HIV/Aids on children remains poorly documented, analysed and addressed. Much debate has focused on adult prevalence, death rates and ways to control the epidemic in the short-term. This study calls for a new focus on the wider impact of HIV/Aids on children's lives, including falling school enrolment, increased malnutrition and rising poverty.
Thank-you very much for the newsletter. The valuable information given has struck up hot debates amongst my colleagues and I. Being a South African, and things going fairly well in our country, we tend to be naive and forget what is happening on the rest of the continent. Thanks again for allowing access to such vital information.
The National Programme on Immunisation (NPI) has just released a report that shows a continuing and dramatic decline in the incidence of fatal childhood diseases in Nigeria. Diseases covered by the report include tetanus, poliomyelitis, diphtheria, measles, tuberculosis, yellow fever, and cerebrospinal meningitis, which have been responsible for high infant mortality in the country.
As governments and health officials look for ways to control the spread of HIV/AIDS in developing countries, they should not overlook the influence of communication, according to the authors of a new book, "Combating AIDS: Communication Strategies in Action."
The Benetech Initiative, a Silicon Valley nonprofit, has announced the release of The Martus Human Rights Bulletin System, an open source technology tool designed to assist human rights organisations in collecting, safeguarding, organising and disseminating information about human rights abuses. Currently, much of the violation and abuse information gathered by grassroots human rights groups is lost to confiscation, destruction, or neglect, making it difficult or impossible for prosecutors, truth commissions and others to use the information as evidence to hold the perpetrators of human rights abuses accountable for many of their crimes. The Martus software enables grassroots NGOs to securely store their records on off-site servers with easy-to-use software, preserving crucial evidence for research, investigation and prosecutions.
A fund has been launched in Kenya to put an electric fence around one of the east African nation's largest forest reserves to protect it from illegal loggers, poachers and general human encroachment.
Tanzania has launched an initiative to raise the performance of girls in science examinations and to encourage more girls to study science subjects at school. The project involves holding intensive science-training camps for girls, and also training science teachers how to encourage girls to learn about science.
A prominent Ugandan politician has urged all parliaments in African countries to set up science and technology committees to increase the effectiveness with which science and technology are integrated into economic and social development. The suggestion was made this week by Amuriat Oboi Patrick, the chair of a science and technology commission set up last year by the parliament of Uganda to do precisely that.
Experts on the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women have expressed optimism that the newly elected Government of Kenya would commit itself to countering the traditional forms of discrimination that persisted in that country, as the Committee considered Kenya's reports on compliance with the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women.
Continuing violence backed by Rwanda and Uganda in Ituri and Kivu provinces, as well as in other areas could "derail" the peace process in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), warned representatives of the Congo government last Friday.
Efforts by Nigeria to mediate in resloving the political and economic crises engulfing Zimbabwe may get a boost as Foreign Affairs Minister, Alhaji Sule Lamido, travels to Harare to deliver a letter from President Olusegun Obasanjo to his Zimbabwean counterpart President Robert Mugabe.
Former THISDAY reporter, Miss Isioma Daniel, whose article about the last Miss World pageant allegedly sparked deadly riots in Kaduna says she will probably spend the rest of her life in hiding. In an exclusive interview with the BBC, Isioma Daniel said her initial guilt soon turned to anger that some people could use a newspaper article as an excuse to "unleash their anger, their frustration with other aspects of their life".
About 10,000 Somalia refugees in Kenya are to be resettled in the US. They will be airlifted from the Kakuma and Dadaab camps in Turkana and Garissa districts from next month, the NGO facilitating the relocation programme said.
Ten forest officers have been sent packing as the Narc government intensifies war on corruption. Environment, Natural Resources and Wildlife Minister Newton Kulundu said the suspended officers have been "destroying the very resource they are supposed to guard".
Following a meeting on Thursday between President Omar Hassan el-Bashir and U.S. Special Envoy to Sudan, John Danforth, it has been announced that delayed peace talks between the government and the Sudanese People's Liberation Movement and Army (SPLM/A) will get underway on Wednesday, January 22, according to reports out of Khartoum and Nairobi.
Luanda is the kind of city that, at once, depresses and lifts your spirits. It is also more than a city; spending a while in it is an experience, the memory of which, instead of fading over time, lingers on only to strangely intensify, as more insights prod the mind, and deeper emotions fill the heart. The blessing of peace in Angola is accompanied by an almost tangible sense of urgency among the people we worked with, that not a day should be lost now in the awesome task of looking ahead and rebuilding a nation crippled by thirty years of civil war. One NGO poised to do this is Angola 2000, who with Open Society funding, entered into a collaborative partnership with the Alternatives to Violence Project (AVP) from South Africa. Angola 2000’s vision is to nurture the fragile but oh so longed for peace, by sharing among all Angolans, AVP’s practical skills of authentic communication that builds respect for self and others, and the effective non-violent resolution of interpersonal conflict.
Though the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) stresses the importance of increased investment in order to strengthen Africa's external trade, its proposals to achieve the intended objectives remain far from achieved as market access from Africa continues facing exceptions and postponements, said Dot Keet, a Research Associate of the Alternative Information and Development Center (AIDC), South Africa, at the recently held Africa Social Forum.
The southern Brazilian city of Porto Alegre will serve as the venue for the third World Social Forum from January 23-28, with organisers expecting attendance to top 100 000 in the gathering of social movements, non-governmental organisations, intellectuals and leftist groups from around the world - all striving under the banner of "A better world is possible". The WSF was inaugurated in January 2001 as a counterweight to the World Economic Forum, which brings together corporate executives, political leaders, economists and financiers in Davos, a Swiss city. Even more promising than the growth of the event, writes Michael Albert in a commentary ( http://www.enda.sn/Forum%20social/english/index.htm
* Statements from the African Social Forum
- FORUM CONDEMNS US AGGRESSION
- DESCRIBING AFRICA'S DEBT - ILLEGITIMATE, ODIOUS AND IMMORAL
http://www.portoalegre2003.org/publique/
* Choike - A Portal on Southern Civil Societies
http://www.choike.org/
The idea of identity is an interesting one to most Africans, largely because it has remained so vexed. The author claims that not only is there no all-encompassing concept for identity in much of Africa, but that there is no substantive apparatus for the production of the kind of singularity which the term seemed to require. The implication of history for an Africans' sense of 'who we are' is complicated, and extends far beyond the scope of academic theorisations of identity.
A strange phenomenon in the shallow waters of South-western Africa - regular eruptions of toxic hydrogen sulphide - is about to be mapped and studied. These gas discharges change the ocean's blue colour into turquoise and result in extensive fish deaths. The research vessel (Meteor) has left Cape Town to find out why.
Debt management policy plays an important role in ensuring and maintaining long-term debt sustainability. This document assesses the current status of external debt management in heavily indebted poor countries.
Global economic governance refers to the institutions, norms, practices and decision-making processes from which rules, guidelines, standards, and codes arise in order to manage the global economy. This paper from the South Centre looks at suggestions for ways of bringing about the reform of international institutions and therefore the global economic system.
With peace seemingly entrenched after nearly three decades of civil war, Angolan society now strives for normalcy. But, warn observers, the end of the war is merely the beginning of a long, hard road to development.
The year 2002 in Southern Africa was marked by a scramble for food by the over 14 million people who face starvation, and by humanitarian agencies begging international donors for the urgent funds needed to buy food and to prevent a catastrophe.
The Director of the PATH/AYA Uganda project office provides day-to-day management of the Kampala office and its staff, representing PATH/AYA at partner meetings and is accountable to the Adolescent Health Strategic Programme Leader and senior PATH management for ensuring that project deliverables and timelines are met. Ideal candidate will have experience living and working in Anglophone Africa with demonstrated cross-cultural skills.
An experienced video journalist and project manager to serve in Kigali as Country Director, providing technical advise and training to Internews staff in Rwanda as they continue to produce bi-monthly video newsreels on the justice process for Rwanda is needed. In addition, the Country Director manages the programme budget and coordinates development of budgets for continued programme activities. French language skills, report and proposal writing ability required.
The US makes no secret of its desire to expand its oil imports from Africa, aware of its present dependence on the unstable Gulf producers. "It is undeniable," said US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Walter Kansteiner last year, "that this (oil) has become of national strategic interest to us." Will US tactics in Sudan duplicate its Iraqi strategy of selective support for undemocratic governments that bolster Washington's regional needs, followed by equally selective sanctions and finally threat of all-out war to secure essential oil reserves?