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This week's highlights

2007-05-31

http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/highlights/41724

FEATURES: Hakima Abbas reports back on an historic meeting of Chinese and African CSOs in Shanghai held at the same time as the African Development Bank meeting.

COMMENT AND ANALYSIS:
- Abdirahman Aw Ali on the case for African Union recognition of Somaliland
- Janice Golding considers research debates about biodiversity and climate change in Africa
- Henning Melber on black economic empowerment and kleptocracy in Namibia
LETTERS: Jens Galschiøt from Denmark on the banning of a sculpture in London
PAN-AFRICAN POSTCARD: Tajudeen asks whether the new president of Nigeria will be a new Robin Hood
BOOKS & ARTS: film Review: OBberlin-Inanda: The Life and Times of John Dube; Poetess poem

WOMEN AND GENDER: South Africa’s Sexual Offenses Bill welcomed
CONFLICT AND EMERGENCIES: AU yet to approve Darfur force
HUMAN RIGHTS: New Niger slavery study welcomed
SOCIAL MOVEMENTS: Niger Delta youth shut pipeline valve
REFUGEES AND FORCED MIGRATION: The accountability gap in refugee protection
ELECTIONS AND GOVERNANCE: New Nigerian leader faces catalogue of crises
CORRUPTION: Niger parliament votes out government over corruption
DEVELOPMENT: Farm subsidies a taboo at G8
HEALTH AND HIV/Aids: One million southern Africans in need of treatment
EDUCATION: Donors failing children in conflict states
LGBTI: Africa’s gays and lesbians combat bias
ENVIRONMENT: Uganda acts to save rain forests
LAND & LAND RIGHTS: Report on Rwanda’s Batwa
MEDIA AND FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION: 24-hour network launched
INTERNET AND TECHNOLOGY: Programme for low-cost PCs launched
PLUS: e-newsletters and mailings lists; fundraising and useful resources; courses,
seminars and workshops, jobs and books and publications

*Pambazuka News now has a Del.icio.us page, where you can view the various websites that we visit to keep our fingers on the pulse of Africa! Visit http://del.icio.us/pambazuka_news

African and Chineses CSOs discuss China in Africa

2007-05-31

Hakima Abbas

http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/41746

Heads of State, foreign ministers and central bank governors from seventy seven African nations met in Shanghai, China, last week for the African Development Bank’s (AfDB) annual meetings. The location of the meetings was pertinently and historically chosen in light of growing Sino-African relations, which, at the governmental level, have reached soaring heights and dimensions. Yet to be foreseen, however, are the implications for the people of Africa and China. It is to this uncertainty that a discussion was held on the peripheries of the AfDB fanfare between African and Chinese non-governmental actors in a meeting convened by China Development Brief, Fahamu, Focus on the Global South and the Transnational Institute.

The historic meeting of Chinese, African and other Southern non-governmental actors allowed for contemplative discussion and debate among academics, researchers and civil society organisations through open and critical dialogue. Participants included representatives from China, Kenya, Egypt, Sudan, Zimbabwe, Benin, South Africa, Mozambique, Burma, the Philippines, the Netherlands, UK, USA, Brazil, India and Australia. A new and nuanced perspective was illuminated that was neither merely rejectionist nor unquestionably accepting. The meetings began with reflections on the nature of Sino-African relations exploring the charges of neo-colonialism versus the expressions of South-South cooperation and mutual aid.

At the outset of the debates, Prof. Yan Hirong of the Department of Sociology at the University of Hong Kong challenged the vilification of Chinese relations in Africa in western media. She noted the importance of putting these trade and investment relations in the perspective of global trends where China is still a small player in Africa. However, Daniel Ribeiro from Justiça Ambiental in Mozambique observed that the impact of deforestation or the removal of livelihood on a community is itself colossal regardless of the size of Chinese investments in the particular nation. It is this impact that creates popular perceptions of Sino-African relations. Indeed, journalist Wang Yongcheng suggested that Chinese people view China to be helping Africa and are disconcerted by the apparent criticism and lack of appreciation. She said that little is heard in China about any negative effects of China’s involvement in the Continent. Ali Askouri, Piankhi Institute, provided an example of where Chinese corporations have been involved in projects that have a negative impact on communities in Africa. The Merowe Dam Project in Sudan is the largest hydropower project currently under construction in Africa. It is being implemented by two Chinese contractors and funded largely by China Export Import Bank. The construction of the dam will however cause the displacement, and affect the very survival, of some seventy thousand people living along the riverbanks. In Mr. Askouri’s view, it is unconstructive to debate whether Chinese actions are worse or better than those of western States as all actors should be held to the highest standards of accountability. Rather, he turned to his Chinese counterparts to find out how affected communities can effect change in the practice of Chinese corporations in Africa.

China’s government espouses the tenets of non-interference and non-conditionality in Africa as demonstrating recognition of self-determination in contrast to the neo-colonialist conditionality of western donors. Professor Xu Weizhong from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences considered hypocritical the cant advanced by western nations that perpetuates the perception of Africa as an economic burden rather than the prop from which industrialisation of the north was achieved and continues to be upheld. And in the same vein noted that “in the end Africans must be the deciders of their own destiny and must have the right to say whether their relationship with China is good for them or not.”

The non-interference and no-conditionality policy has many critics charging China with failing to encourage good governance. But yet African participants like Ali Askouri were not asking China to not invest in Africa, in fact he noted that the affected communities along the Nile River basin of Sudan are not, per se, against the dam project, but sought avenues to constructively bring the voices of Africa’s people to the table and wondered what role Chinese civil society could play in holding their government accountable.

While Chinese civil society is growing, it is still testing its position relative to the government and the people of China. Organizations are primarily focused nationally and have little experience or knowledge of China’s actions internationally despite parallel issues of concern. Their relations with the government tend to be cooperative rather than antagonist given that influence is most effectively leveraged in China through negotiation rather than the “naming and shaming” style of western NGOs. African civil society tends to be experienced and mature in their advocacy nationally and regionally but have little understanding and exposure to Chinese political waters and processes for change. The meeting began a much-needed open dialogue that needs to be continued and increased to enhance the opportunities of Sino-Chinese relations for communities in Africa and China.

The special issue of Pambazuka News, African Perspective on China in Africa (http://www.pambazuka.org/en/issue/282), was translated (courtesy of China Development Brief) into Chinese and distributed to participants at the meeting.

At the meeting, Hakima Abbas discussed the outcome of the meeting with two of the African participants whose attendance at the meeting was facilitated by Fahamu.

Interview with Sara Musa El Saeed, a consultant with Christian Aid, Sudan. Being a consultant most of the answers are the personal perspective of the interviewee.

Pambazuka News: Why do you feel a meeting of African and Chinese non-governmental actors is important at this time?

Sara Musa El Saeed: Until now most of Africa-China relationships (or at least in the case of Sudan) are at the political/governmental level with minimum, if any, other levels of involvement. It is felt that non-governmental sector involvement might help in maintaining fair and just relationship with communities’ rights and concerns being observed. There is complete ignorance from both Chinese as well as African civil society organisations such as existing organisations, their focus, scope, expertise etc., which are the basic information required if any future cooperation is to take place thus this meeting is hoped to provide this forum for getting to know each other.

Pambazuka News: What are your key reflections on Sino-Africans relations coming out of the China in Africa meeting?

Sara Musa El Saeed: Still, I feel the two sides don’t know each other well enough to be able to plan future plans and/or joint activities or cooperation, so I think this meeting needs to be followed up with continued dialogue and discussions as well as other more specific meetings to create windows for discussion on specific issues such as the environment, HIV/AIDS etc., just to mention a few of the issues raised during the meeting.

Also, the general public on the two sides are not aware of what is going on, how this might affect them, how to address the relations, both to maintain best benefits out of this involvement as well as stop any harmful effects that might result for the two sides. I believe that this could be the role of the CSOs on the two sides of the equation. There are many similarities in the areas of concerns such as the environment, funding, political environment that could be prohibiting at some points, HIV/ADS, funding constraints which the two sides could cooperate in solving and share their available expertise and know-how. However this needs to build trust, contacts/connections and exchange of information, which cannot happen without closer contacts and knowing each other.

Pambazuka News: How do you think African civil society can enhance the opportunities and mitigate the threat of Chinese relations with Africa?

Sara Musa El Saeed: CSOs are in direct contact with communities that might be affected by these relationships. In many cases they are in a better position to get information and knowledge of the type and effects of the relationship in the respective area/region and assess the damage that might result from it. Also and hopefully they can be the organisers of their communities to plan and act together to mitigate and address such negative impacts. In fact what I am also dreaming of is that these meetings form a discussion area for African CSOs among themselves to organise networks and regional groups in case of larger effects that might affect the region (such as in the case of forests that are shared among more than one country, dams such as along the Nile basin etc.). Also (I might be dreaming) but if the same happened among Chinese CSOs and these groups from the two sides joined hands and formed pressure groups and information exchange centres I think CSOs would be a real force to stop negative impacts of any governmental or economical agreements.

Pambazuka News: How do you envisage Chinese and African civil society organizations, academics and researchers developing alliance to enhance the opportunities for communities in Africa and China?

Sara Musa El Saeed: As I said in the beginning, there is a knowledge and information gap among CSOs on the two sides and I think it is the role of the academics from the two sides to provide this missing information through research, studies, policy analysis and reforms etc.

Pambazuka News: What concrete outcomes do you hope to implement, or be a part of, coming out of the meeting in Shanghai?

Sara Musa El Saeed: We need to start thinking of how to keep the momentum and consolidate the Shanghai meeting by setting goals and future plans, this could be done by having continued dialogue and discussions among the current group, and I would be happy to take part in these discussions and dialogue be it through emails, meetings etc. In terms of follow up action, this is something I was hoping to come up very clearly from the meeting, however I think there has been some points raised which need to be followed up and formulated in the form of future plans or follow up action and again I would be happy to help in formulating these plans. I will be sharing the report of the meeting, which I hope to get from the organisers, as well as my own report and would be discussing with Christian Aid what role they can play in future actions.


Interview with Charles Mutasa, Executive Director of AFRODAD, Zimbabwe

Pambazuka News: Why do you feel a meeting of African and Chinese non-governmental actors is important at this time?

Charles Mutasa: There is more Chinese involvement in the African continent than ever before. A lot of business deals are being sealed between African leaders and Chinese leaders. Citizen concerns over the new investors in the continent have been voiced within many civil society platforms. The Sino-Africa summits at the African Union level have signalled to the world the need to interrogate this new phenomenon. Many countries are resorting to China as a counter weight for their tired relations with the west - the “look east” policy. China has been mentioned as supporting dictatorships in Africa especially the Sudanese government over Darfur human rights abuses and, as such, there is need to interrogate the new Chinese interest versus human rights.

Pambazuka News: What are your key reflections on Sino-Africans relations coming out of the China in Africa meeting?

Charles Mutasa: There is no citizens’ involvement in the whole Sino-African relations. This needs to be factored in by building CSO networks and linkages. There is a need to identify the best practices of the Sino-Africans relations and strengthen them and at the same time do away with weaknesses or disadvantages to Africa from the linkage. There is also a need to avoid the problems Africa had with the bank and IMF and ensure that they are not repeated in Sino-Africans relations. Both the Chinese and African governments must be engaged on issues of human rights and environmental protection, among others, as they do their business. People to people relations can also better transform the Sino-Africans relations – if there relations remain solely at the political leadership level the continent will benefit very little. Thus linking CSOs, academics, experts and others will help nurture the relations for the benefit of all.

Pambazuka News: How do you think African civil society can enhance the opportunities and mitigate the threat of Chinese relations with Africa ?

Charles Mutasa: At a regional level CSOs need to use various platforms (ECOSOCC, NEPAD, UNECA, trade unions, women movements and Pan African Parliament) to engage African leadership and advise it on the best way forward. The AU must have one continental approach guiding country engagements with China - it must be strategic and based on comparative advantage. The use of research, advocacy and the media will help in this case. Exposing, naming and shaming certain deals can help ease the situation. At a national level, open and transparent country stakeholders debates and assessment of projects and deals will help.

Pambazuka News: How do you envisage Chinese and African civil society organizations, academics and researchers developing alliance to enhance the opportunities for communities in Africa and China?

Charles Mutasa: There is a need to have exchange programs between Chinese and African NGOs; the promotion of sports, competition and cultural activities; university to university linkages; joint field missions to projects; annual meetings and Sino-Africans side events.

Pambazuka News: What concrete outcomes do you hope to implement, or be a part of, coming out of the meeting in Shanghai ?

Charles Mutasa: Exchange programs between China and African NGOs, joint field missions to projects and joint research and advocacy activities.


Interview with Antony Otieno Ong’ayo, Transnational Institute, The Netherlands. Country of Origin: Kenya

Pambazuka News: Why do you feel a meeting of African and Chinese non-governmental actors is important at this time?

Antony Otieno Ong’ayo: The meeting improved the NGO’s knowledge on policy issues, relevant national legislation and policies in their respective areas of engagement as well as relevant knowledge sharing resources (this implies sharing examples, experiences and lessons with peers).

Pambazuka News: What are your key reflections on Sino-Africans relations coming out of the China in Africa meeting?

Antony Otieno Ong’ayo: The need for partnerships and programmes focusing on learning more about how CSOs use evidence to influence policy processes, improving information and communication activities. The need for Chinese and African NGOs to take advantage of new circumstances, and focus on how to make use of interactive technology since technology is not only a tool but part of a co-evolutionary process that shapes organizational forms and practices. The need to access correct information from government as a way of finding issues to raise with them.

Pambazuka News: How do you think African civil society can enhance the opportunities and mitigate the threat of Chinese relations with Africa?

Antony Otieno Ong’ayo: Engagement in the transformation of national, international and trans-national political space. The need for consultations in different geographical regions of the developing world to learn more about the role that CSOs currently play in using evidence to promote development policy and practice, and explore what they need to do better.

Pambazuka News: How do you envisage Chinese and African civil society organizations, academics and researchers developing alliance to enhance the opportunities for communities in Africa and China?

Antony Otieno Ong’ayo: Working together to generate useful insights for improved practices. Identify opportunities for small-scale collaborative work and exchange programmes (at institutional, organisational and individual consultation capacity).

Pambazuka News: What concrete outcomes do you hope to implement, or be a part of, coming out of the meeting in Shanghai?

Antony Otieno Ong’ayo: Undertaking research in any area of China-Africa relations, the impact of Chinese investment from various perspectives especially on labour and human rights issues, the impact on policy issues among African governments, writing for publications in China and Africa (for China Development Brief and Pambazuka if frameworks for such contributions are created).

There is a need for another forum where concrete issues can be discussed as a follow up to the Shanghai meeting. In this meeting, concrete measures and action frameworks can be developed whereby some clear objectives could be set and an action plan developed to help realise such objectives. They can include joint activities (research, surveys, but also experience and information sharing which can be documented and shared between NGOs in China and Africa). Some policy recommendations can be developed for use in the dialogue process with Chinese and African governments of specific issues that are the main concern of civil society in both continents. A dialogue framework can also be developed through which those participating in the China Africa relations can engage with the African and Chinese governments, investors and financial institutions concerned as an alternative voice to influence policy on behalf of the communities affected by either political or economic policies that are implemented under Sino-Africa relations.

* Hakima Abbas is AU Policy Analyst with Fahamu

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

Somaliland: The case for recognition

2007-05-31

Abdirahman Ahmed Ali

http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/41720

Abdirahman Aw Ali presents the case for African Union acceptance of Somailand into the union.


It was January 28, 2007 as I boarded my plane from New York to London on my way to South Africa. I was reading the Financial Times when I noticed in an article that Kosovo was to declare statehood, and how the European Union (EU) is setting the stage for Kosovo to be an internationally recognised state. I could not help myself asking why the African Union (AU) is not playing the same role with my birth place, Somaliland?

On May 18, 2007, Somaliland Republic (former British Somaliland) celebrates 16 years of self-rule. It has had a thriving democracy since it has decided to re-instate its sovereign independence from Somalia after the fall of Siad Barre regime in 1991.

As a Somalilander myself who ran away from Siad Barre's atrocities as a young man in the late 1980s and settled in the United States, I have mixed feelings as I see my people celebrating the 16th anniversary of Somaliland's birth.

On the one hand, I am extremely proud of the people of Somaliland, and its leaders for what they have been able to achieve over the past 16 years. On the other hand, I am less excited, and amazed by lack of the AU in leading the promotion of Somaliland's cause by sending a strong signal to other African countries that they do care and that they reward peace, stability, and democracy (acknowledging people's choice).

It is very clear why the European Union is serious about the status of Kosovo. The EU is planning to avoid the risk of war and violence that would again destabilise the Balkans region. The million dollar question is why the AU is not farsighted enough to avoid a potential and imminent war between Somalia's southern leaders, and Somaliland that will undermine the stability of the whole region?

Somali's southern leaders are not known to respect the rule of law and the wishes of its citizens. This is the main reason that Somaliland people are fully determined to fight for sovereignity status following the roots of independence from Great Britain on June 26, 1960.

31 UN member states recognised Somaliland as an independent state before uniting with the Italian Somaliland on July 1, 1960 to form what was known as Somali Republic.

Somaliland is only seeking recognition within the borders received at that moment. Somaliland, not officially recognised by any state, has been functioning as constitutional democracy with a President directly elected by the people, added by a parliament and local government also directly elected by the people.

Somaliland did not even have a university for 31 years of union with the southern Somalia. Today they have four universities despite lack of recognition. They have four private owned telephone and mobile operators where they did not have any in the past 31 years of union with the south. And the list goes on.

Some people do not truly understand why the people of Somaliland decided to go alone, and break their partnership with the south. Some people even speculate that the issue of Somaliland is tied with the stability of the southern Somalia, and the union will be back when the rest of the south becomes stable. As a matter of fact, there are many reasons why Somaliland re-took its independence, and broke its partnership. But in my personal view, I would only focus on two important reasons.

Firstly, British Somaliland had voluntarily entered a union with Italian Somaliland in pursuit of irredentist dream of a 'Greater Somalia' (including parts of Ethiopia, Kenya, and Djibouti).

It was clear to everybody in both regions that it was never intended to stop with the union of the two regions, but to pursue the other three remaining regions.

Therefore, that dream effectively died when Djibouti got its independence in 1977, and decided to go alone without joining the existing union. If Djibouti people had that freedom to make that choice, it is only fair that the people of Somaliland can make similar choices to decide on their fate.

The main argument here is that the Somali union in 1960 did not achieve the reason it was formed which was a greater Somalia. Somaliland's voluntary union at that time was based on that formation. If that dream did not materialise, Somaliland could go alone like the other regions did where Somalis live including Djibouti, Kenya, and Ethiopia.

Secondly, another very crucial point that made the people of Somaliland go their separate ways from the South is the suffering and injustices that the people of Somaliland endured for 31 years of marriage. They have suffered at the hands of Southern rule governments particularly during Siad Barre's 21-year rule.

The whole world knows that those governments even bombarded Somaliland cities. Therefore, it is a trust issue. If you had a business partnership with another person and you have suffered and lost everything, and you would have to re-start your business. Would you again trust to create another partnership with that person? It is fair to say that the people of Somaliland have a trust issue with their brothers in the South, and will not join them again within a union despite a lack of recognition by the international community.

It is important to note that the AU sent a fact finding mission to Somaliland in 2005 in order to respond to the concern that Somaliland recognition would create a fragmentation of Somalia, or other AU member states.

The African Union fact finding mission in 2005 concluded 'the case should not be linked to the notion of "opening a Pandora box"', and the report recommended that the AU 'should find a special method of dealing with this outstanding case' as soon as possible.

Unfortunately, AU actions stopped there. Why cannot we Africans decide for ourselves, with Europeans doing so and the EU leading the way? I hope I can one day be proud of our African leaders through the AU leadership when I see that they are taking a far sighted approach like the EU doing on Kosovo.

The more the AU delays dealing with the Somaliland case, the more it makes the situation in East Africa difficult, and increases the risk of war and questions the credibility of the AU.

The Somaliland case is a time bomb for the African Union and the international community cannot really afford to ignore the issue. On the other hand, Somaliland's multi-party democracy system is a rarity in Africa, and the Muslim world.

The African Union needs to seriously consider Somaliland's formal application of AU membership and reward people's choice of democracy. Somaliland is a state where the power truly belongs to the people.


* Abdirahman Aw Ali is is from Somaliland and based in the USA.

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

Climate change makes us forget

2007-05-31

Janice Golding

http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/41718

The threat of climate change is real and potentially horrific. But, as is argued here, the whirring engine of the climate change research buzz seems to pretend that everyday threats to biodiversity in Africa have disappeared into oblivion.


George Berkley, the 18th century Irish philosopher and theologian, is most well known for the conundrum, 'If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, does it make a sound?'

Today, this insight on the ‘truth and the existence of things’ is ever relevant to our research institutions and what it is they are doing for nature conservation. If no one perceives or documents the loss of biodiversity, then the tree will not make a sound when it falls. Because the tree did not exist in the first place.

Now the caveat of Berkley’s philosophical meandering is this: he did not claim the existence or non-existence of entities. He claimed that man’s suspicion that things exist actually enlivens the existence, and therefore makes it ‘real’. So, conservationists not only suspect existence of many as yet unnamed gems of biodiversity, but they are quite certain of their bountiful existence.

This matters a lot, because almost 300 years after Linnaeaus gave us the tools to classify and name species, scientists in the 21st century continue to make startling discoveries. Think of the Bornean leopard subspecies now dominating the headlines. In southern Africa, recent discoveries include the Upemba lechwe antelope from the Katanga area in Zambia; the scarabid insect order that was discovered on Namibia’s Brandberg, and the monotypic tree genus, Icuria, from coastal Mozambique.

And yet, the brows of our botanical research institutions are deeply furrowed. It seems they are grappling with the practical ramifications of understanding the effects of climate change on unknown species in unknown landscapes. Is it possible to study climate change effects on things you don’t know even exist and for which you have no information? James Berkley would have thought so.

The threat of climate change is real and potentially horrific. Drier and warmer weather patterns forecast increased hunger of starving bellies and thirst in barren landscapes. Nature will suffer too. And, global warming will also throw its shadow on undocumented virgin territories.

The use of surrogates is a kind of information replacement therapy useful to climate change studies. Frogs, spiders or birds can be used as methodological substitutes. Even the properties of ecosystems can be helpful in filling the void. What it actually amounts to is that nature can be helped without actually knowing for sure that it actually exists. This amazing metaphysical feat that brings together rather elegant ideas on truth and science into the real world appeases most people; except, I would imagine, the pragmatic, gung-ho field practitioner. The one-and-only bush James Bond with the khaki micro-shorts and the steely resolve to protect nature at all costs.

Thus, on how ‘science noire’ is perceived: Our James Bond practitioners work at the coal face. They require precise, unfaltering answers on how to deal with prevailing, every-day threats like poaching, the bushmeat crisis, depleting firewood trees, and the trafficking of tropical timber. Try fleecing them with hypothetical academic grey matter, and they may ridicule the desktop climate change nerds to ‘get real and get with the real programme’.

The whirring engine of the climate change research buzz seems to pretend that Africa’s everyday threats have disappeared into oblivion. But, those involved in the scourge of biopiracy and land rights conflicts, and the violations of oil multinationals thieves are all bastards who are omnipresent in the pillaging of Africa’s natural resources.

Climate change hides all this exploitation and injustice under the carpet. The very threat of the climate change agenda is that its appeal is so earnest that it makes us forgetful of the biodiversity skullduggery. It turns away political focus and public interest. It blinds budget frameworks and it softens the policing of biodiversity regulations. And this is the heart of the problem.

Quite frankly, I am bored hearing that climate change is a new vehicle for getting recalcitrant corporates around the environmental table. Almost as if to say, that, what the biodiversity agenda could not achieve, climate change can.

Climate change can leverage funding from businesses that the biodiversity movement could not. Yes, it is true and that's great. But the one magnificent achievement that makes the biodiversity movement stand head-and-shoulders above the climate change buzz is the fact that it instilled a love and respect for nature. It wooed us with the miracles of nature: rivers and mountains, gorillas in mist forests, polar bears in snowscapes, indigenous tribal groups and cultural rights. It inspired appreciation for exotic travel (think ecotourism) and ardent support of charities (e.g. 'save-the-girl-child-in-Africa'). And, it gave us big, flirtatious hearts, generosity and a sense of diversity in a complex world.

Climate change has instilled a fear of nature - a dark uncertainty and a shared global fate. The passion for nature has been replaced with diplomacy: now it is all clinical thinking, economic elbowing and political stratagems. It even raises suspicion and rivalry at work – who is the culprit who left the lights on? May the person who flew to Paris instead of taking the Eurostar rot in hell. The love affair with nature, it seems, is over.

Everything we had planned, for a sustainable future in Africa in the 1990s, post-Rio epoch, such as the protection of ecologically sensitive habitats, animal migration corridors, CBNRM models – now needs to be fundamentally rejigged. Strategies that have taken so long to devise in Africa need to be modified. Why? Because climate change says so: new objectives should examine how existing strategies must be altered in relation to climate change. This is all good and well.

But, African conservation scientists need to keep banging the drum that the conservation problems of yesterday, are still the problems of today. Instead of nodding in agreement and cosseting the new climate change dogma, scientists need to emulate the classic character of the bush James Bond. We need to be bold. Speak out, and find ways to utilise the climate change ethos to keep Africa’s everyday biodiversity issues mainstream. Needless to say, I have great respect for committed practitioners who keep a beady, slightly sceptical eye on the horizon. Or perhaps its just the fantasy of the khaki shorts that is so alluring.

No matter how one looks at it, it will become increasingly difficult to locate a secure research space for many conservation scientists, taxonomists in particular. Intrepid adventurers who obtain samples of species potentially new to science will get little joy under the new research banner. Herbaria have built their tradition on naming species. Every African country has at least two state-run herbaria. If African conservation scientists do not ‘get with the real programme’ in order to boom, then they are certainly going to bust out and turn into white elephants.

George Berkley’s oft-quoted discourse on the nature of things presents a marvellous revelation. All sorts of stuff that affect named and unnamed forms of biodiversity can take place in nature, of which we are not directly aware, like climate change. Even if we don’t hear the sound of a tree falling, it remains the human responsibility of good virtue to take action. Conservation scientists should not forget the real biodiversity issues in Africa. Cherish nature and keep the love alive.

* Janice Golding is a doctoral candidate from South Africa at the Environmental Change Institute, University of Oxford.


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

Namibia for sale: BEE - business as usual

2007-05-31

Henning Melber

http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/41722

Black economic empowerment (BEE) continues to cultivate human and natural exploitation for the benefits of few at the expenses of far too many. It turns de-colonisation into a private business for self-enrichment. Henning Melber on the ensuing kleptocracy in Namibia and the possibility of another Zimbabwean style tragedy.


A Namibian parliamentary committee hearing was told in April 2007 by the executive secretary of the state-owned Namibia Development Corporation (NDC) in liquidation (during apartheid days the 'Bantu Investment Corporation'), that the tens of millions of Namibian dollars dished out earlier as credits to black empowerment initiatives will in most cases not be repaid – even though many of the lenders are among the nouveau riche.


Limits to liberation
Ever since independence in 1990, Namibia’s government has blamed the country’s exploitation under settler colonialism for the unabated social disparities. Indeed, the transfer of political power left, as part of a negotiated settlement, the existing socio-economic structures largely untouched. The inequalities were endorsed as status quo in terms of constitutionally protected ownership and property rights. Limited social changes had to be induced inside this legally binding framework guided by a policy of 'national reconciliation' and 'affirmative action'. As a result, the privileged segment of society became racially less exclusive.

But according to the empirical evidence presented by the annual Human Development Reports of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Namibia remains among the most unequal societies in the world – despite an average per capita income ranking it as lower middle-income country. A World Bank commissioned report alerted in 2005 that these inequalities 'represent a threat to national cohesion, peace, and political stability'. A UN country assessment warned of an unfolding humanitarian crisis due to the combination of HIV/Aids, food insecurity and the ineffective delivery of critical social services to the most vulnerable groups.

Despite such concerns, the government has refused to introduce a Basic Income Grant (BIG) - demanded for years by a broad church-based alliance - as not feasible in terms of its fiscal constraints. But more than a billion Namibian dollars was spent on a luxurious new high security state house complex. Nonetheless in April 2007 it was justified as a 'pro-poor' measure during the budgetary debate in parliament. A SWAPO MP demanded in all seriousness that posh cars should be exempted from the speed limit on Namibia’s roads.


Power, privilege and poverty
Black economic empowerment (BEE) has so far served the interests of a new political-bureaucratic elite from the ranks of the erstwhile liberation movement. Those who liberated mainly themselves profitably cashed their access to the country’s resources through their political and public service offices.

Corruption and misappropriation of funds nourished a parasitic minority. This had been spectacularly confirmed by several high calibre cases of fraud and self-enrichment schemes looting pension funds and other public finances. Shady business practices illustrated in a textbook way the infamous 'fat-cat syndrome' prevailing. Prime Minister Nahas Angula called the abuse of several hundred million Namibian dollars from the state administered pension funds on get-rich-quick schemes masquerading as BEE 'just asset-stripping'.

In a revelation of self-enrichment schemes, described by the locally published Insight magazine in March 2006 as 'the mother of all empowerment deals'. Since mid-2006 another 'horde of black economic empowerment groups' have come under increased scrutiny. The deal set up between the South African oil giant Sasol and a conglomerate of locally created pseudo-firms without any proper offices, named a former trade union leader and several high-ranking government officials operating within an intricate web of pseudo-enterprises, as its main Namibian beneficiaries. As the former trade unionist declared in defence of the deal, the shareholders were 'just black entrepreneurs who needed the money and took advantage of a given situation'.

A popular school of thought within critical poverty research holds the view that it is the concentration of economic and political power in the hands of narrow privileged groups that creates and perpetuates inequalities. According to such an understanding, the analysis of power is fundamental to any examination of poverty. Privatisation of public resources results in political-administrative power as personalised power; in politics as a kind of business enterprise; and in vertical clientele relationships of a neo-patrimonial nature. The result is an increasingly authoritarian and incompetent state that rarely responds to public pressure.


The (class) struggle continues
Since independence, Namibia has produced a crypto-capitalist, petty-minded self-enriching new black elite, which spends its energy exploiting the public purse. There is an absence of a meaningful, profit-generating industrial sector, where capital would be additionally accumulated through surplus production based on the exploitation of value adding labour - which implies at least employment for a majority of people. The creation of individual wealth relies on the privatisation of natural resources (mainly in the sectors of fishing, mining, agriculture and tourism) or benefits linked to privileges in the public sector and state owned enterprises. Public procurement and other outsourcing activities by those occupying the commanding heights of the state agencies turn 'affirmative action' and BEE into self-rewarding schemes among loyal members of the erstwhile liberation movement.

Such co-optation into the ruling segments within an already existing socio-economic system is far from social transformation. BEE continues to cultivate human and natural exploitation for the benefits of few at the expenses of far too many. It turns de-colonisation largely into a private business for self-enrichment. A result of such kleptocracy is the gradual loss of legitimacy. Zimbabwe-type decay is the writing at the wall. De-colonisation of such kind is not about redistribution of (relative) wealth for the ordinary people. It is self-enrichment for a new elite and business as usual.


* Dr Henning Melber is executive director of the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation in Uppsala, Sweden where he was research director at The Nordic Africa Institute, 2000-2006. A son of German immigrants, he joined SWAPO in 1974. Hw was director of The Namibian Economic Policy Research Unit (NEPRU) in Windhoek, Namibia between 1992 and 2000.


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

A Robin Hood president of Nigeria?

2007-05-31

Tajudeen Abdul Raheem

http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/panafrican/41748

Maybe Yar Adua will become a Robin Hood in exchange for the PDP robbery of votes.

The innaugural speech, on Tuesday, by Nigeria’s newly sworn in President, Alhaji Umar Musa Yar’ Adua, was not a speech that will make it to the list of even ‘1000 great speeches’ one has ever heard.

But with following words he defined his Presidency:

‘I will set a worthy personal example as your president.

‘No matter what obstacles confront us, I have confidence and faith in our ability to overcome them. After all, we are Nigerians! We are a resourceful and enterprising people, and we have it within us to make our country a better place. To that end I offer myself as a servant-leader. I will be a listener and doer, and serve with humility.

‘To fulfill our ambitions, all our leaders at all levels whether a local government councilor or state governor, senator or cabinet minister must change our style and our attitude. We must act at all times with humility, courage, and forthrightness. I ask you, fellow citizens, to join me in rebuilding our Nigerian family, one that defines the success of one by the happiness of many.

‘I ask you to set aside negative attitudes, and concentrate all our energies on getting to our common destination. All hands must be on deck.

‘Let us join together to ease the pains of today while working for the gains of tomorrow. Let us set aside cynicism and strive for the good society that we know is within our reach. Let us discard the habit of low expectations of ourselves as well as of our leaders.

‘Let us stop justifying every shortcoming with that unacceptable phrase 'the Nigerian Factor' as if to be a Nigerian is to settle for less. Let us recapture the mood of optimism that defined us at the dawn of independence, that legendary can-do spirit that marked our Nigerianess. Let us join together, now, to build a society worthy of our children. We have the talent. We have the intelligence. We have the ability.

‘The challenge is great. The goal is clear. The time is now.’

No one who knows Umar Yar’ Adua would have been surprised that the speech was not earth shattering. The man’s personality is not given to any speeches, small or big let alone flamboyance or dramatic gestures.

If a Man who has been a Governor of one of Nigeria’s 36 states for the past 8 years could still remain anonymous to the public in a country where even Local councillors not to talk of State governors and Ministers, will never let you forget ‘who I am’ it should tell us something about the man. It is not just that many people did not know him he appears unwilling to allow many people into his inner recesses, hence not many can say this is what makes him thick. This quality has made many to underestimate him. Instead too much attention is placed on his main sponsor, General Olushegun Obasanjo and how he imposed Yar Adua as a candidate and used ‘do or die’ machinations to ensure his election.

There is a democratic need to continue to challenge the credibility of the process but as at 72 hours ago Umar Musa Yar’ Adua is the President of Nigeria, de facto and de jure. We cannot be blaming any problems on Obasanjo anymore . As the Americans say : the buck stops at Yar’ Adua’s desk now.

Whatever role Obasanjo played in getting him to Aso Rock people in power are not known for showing too much gratitude. Look at Chiluba and Mwanawasa in Zambia or Muluzi and his successor in Malawi and long before that Ahmadu Ahidjo and Paul Biya in Cameroun.

Or reflect on the role the English Noble wannabe, Charles Njonjo, played in facilitating President Arap Moi’s takeover in 1978 and how they dramatically fell out with ‘little known’ and supposedly ‘unremarkable Moi’ who out-manoeuvred not just Njonjo, but also those within and outside KANU who thought they were better than him.

Even Obasanjo was ‘imposed’ on Nigerians by the generals and in particular the so-called Hausa-Fulani power elite. Although he is a Yoruba but was not the choice of his kinsmen and women, but it suited the interests of the ruling elites of Nigeria.

Obasanjo soon declared himself against both the political and military cliques that engineered his transition from ‘prisoner to president’ who in their arrogance (typified by IBB and Atiku) thought he would just be a pawn in their hands. Yar’ Adua therefore is not the first ‘unknown’ to become president of Nigeria. Even the first Prime Minster of the federation, Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa was a reluctant leader. Obasanjo in both his first regime as a military Head of state (1976-1979) and rebirth as a born again civilianised general (1999-2003) was a leader ‘against my personal wishes and desire’.

It was his second term (2003) and the sad attempt at a third term that he wanted the crown directly for himself. The worst of all the underestimated heads of state in Nigeria was General Sani ‘Viagra’ Abacha whom everyone believed could not ‘rule Nigeria for one day’. For over 5 years he remained in power through share indifference and mendacity.

If Obasanjo could use state power to transform himself from a political nonentity into a political gladiator that cornered and wasted his sponsors so can Yar’ Adua. In order for Yar’ Adua to gain any credibility he has to show himself as his own man. And all indications are that he will do that because the few glimpses into the man’s past being shared by the very few people who had been close enough suggest that he is that type of Man.

However he is unlikely to show his independence in any confrontational way. He will just ease Obasanjo into the sidelines while still publicly paying handsome tributes to his legacy, much the same way that Moi institutionalised his personal rule while claiming he was following in the full steps of Mzee Kenyatta (Nyayo!). There is nothing in the speech that will indicate any significant policy shift from Obasanjo’s market–driven neo-liberal reform agenda, stabilising the system, controlling corruption and rebuilding the deplorable infrastructure of the country and transforming economic growth into development that may deliver on the bread and butter issues to Nigeria’s overwhelming ‘poverty amongst plenty’ population. That is what the official mantra has been.

What Yar’ Adua brings to the table is contained in the first line in the concluding sections of his very brief speech that I quoted above: ‘I will set a worthy personal example as your president.’ He has set himself to succeed or fail through his own example. He has a record of being relatively above board which was one of the factors that favoured him above his more flamboyant rivals. He delivered a competent welfare administration in Katsina state.

He will need to do more than that as president before he succeeds in turning the huge debits on credibility that he is starting with and begin to build up political capital that may gain the grudging respect of disillusioned Nigerians who have always yearned for credible leadership under whom they could all feel proud again to be Nigerians.

The ‘election’ was certainly not the democratic expression of Nigerians. The paradox though is that I believe very strongly that Yar’ Adua could have won. I do not think many Nigerians believe that either Buhari or Atiku ‘won’. Therefore both could not have been denied what they did not win. The PDP denied Nigerians including PDP supporters the opportunity to vote. Instead of a democratic mandate Yar’ Adua is now saddled with Stolen goods. The only reparation that may redeem him now is to deliver on the bread and butter issues and launder the electoral robbery into a Robin Hood turn around!

* Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is the deputy director of the UN Millennium Campaign in Africa, based in Nairobi, Kenya. He writes this article in his personal capacity as a concerned pan-Africanist.

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

Your Voice Against Poverty bans controversial sculpture

2007-05-30

Jens Galschiøt

http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/letters/41702

Your Voice Against Poverty bans controversial sculpture. The artist says: 'The sculpture is free for another exhibition - if anybody has the guts.'

The African women's NGO Rainbo has been forbidden to exhibit a controversial sculpture at the Your Voice Against Poverty rally at the brink of the Thames in London on 2 June 2007.

The Danish artist Jens Galschiot is astonished. He declares: 'I have been censored by totalitarian regimes, but I have never imagined my sculptures to be banned by "progressive" Western NGOs.'

The ban has been decreed by BOND, the organiser of the event, allegedly motivated by a wish to please affiliated Christian organisations. The banned piece of art is a handsome bronze sculpture depicting a crucified pregnant teenager, created by the Danish sculptor Jens Galschiot. The sculpture titled 'In the Name of God' has been cast in various varieties as an accusation against the crusade against contraception and sexual education orchestrated by Christian fundamentalists led by President Bush and the Pope.

The sculpture was scheduled to arrive in London on Thursday carried by a volunteer from the artist's workshop. But now the artist has been left over with tickets already booked and paid and an unwanted sculpture. 'Therefore I'll lend the sculpture for an exhibition to other organisations, art galleries or museums in London, if anybody has the guts - otherwise I'll have to cancel the journey', the Danish artist says.

The sculpture has been exhibited at World Social Forum in 2007 in Nairobi, Kenya and for a couple of months in front of the Lutheran Cathedral of Copenhagen in cooperation with the dean and the parish council who wanted to make a statement that not all Christian circles are supportive of the crusade of the Pope and the fundamentalists.

For the moment feminists in Nicaragua are using a specimen of the pregnant teenager for a comprehensive campaign against the alarming maternal mortality. In addition they have made hundreds of miniature models of the sculpture to be distributed to parliamentarians, members of the judiciary and other outstanding persons.

On 22 May 2007, the African women's NGO Rainbo and Jens Galschiot have separately sent a protest to all member organisations of BOND. The Danish sculptor declares:

'For decades I've been staking my sculptures to ignite a debate about the North/South relation - and the inequitable distribution of the world's resources. My huge sculptural manifestations have been a well-known and appreciated component of international NGO rallies such as the European Social Forums in London, Paris and Athens, the WTO Ministerial Conference in Hong Kong 2005, Jubilee 2000 in Prague - just to mention a few examples.

For sure, I have been censored by totalitarian regimes, e.g. the Chinese government, and I have been expelled from Mexico for the "crime" of erecting a "Pillar of Shame" against the Acteal massacre in co-operation with the CNI, the indigenous peoples' organisation. But I have NEVER had an experience like this: that "progressive" NGOs like BOND or other democratic western NGOs make an attempt to obstruct the exhibition of one of my sculptures. Indeed, such "progressive grassroots" circles, are the last ones that I would deem to be supportive of the crusade against contraception and sexual education orchestrated by the Pope and President Bush.'

As no argument has induced the organisers to change their absurd decision, Jens Galschiot has now decided to publish the affair. For more information:

Jens Galschiot's address to the NGOs:
http://www.aidoh.dk/BOND Rainbo's address to the NGOs:
http://www.aidoh.dk/Rainbo-letter Free photos of the sculpture:
http://www.aidoh.dk/?categoryID=215 More information about the planned exhibition in London: http://www.aidoh.dk/London

Jens Galschiot can be contacted at aidoh@aidoh.dk

Oberlin-Inanda: The life and times of John Dube

Film review

2007-05-30

Mwenda Ntarangwi

http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/books/41703

Mr. President I have come
To report to you
That South Africa
Is today free

When President Nelson Mandela said these words facing the grave of John Libangibalele Dube on the 21 April 1994, as he cast his vote in an all-race election in South Africa, he was both participating in and creating history. He became the first president of a free Republic of South Africa and also a torch-bearer of an 82 year political movement under the ANC.

In 1912, John Dube was elected the first president of the ANC (then called the South African Native National Congress), after it was formed the same year. It is quite symbolic that Mandela chose to cast his vote at the polling booth in the Ohlange High School, built by John Dube as a way of cultivating self-reliance and self-determination among his people. Now we can view this history through a documentary produced in 2006 entitled Oberlin-Inanda: The Life and Times of John Dube.

Oberlin-Inanda is produced and directed by the Carleton College professor of French, Cherif Keita. It weaves together the life of South Africa's pioneer educator, entrepreneur, and politician John L. Dube.

The documentary not only shows the incredible vision and energy Dube had but also the various transnational and trans-racial links that made his work so important to South Africa's cultural and political history.

In a presentation that is itself a personal journey for Keita, this documentary allows the viewer to witness the incredible determination that Dube had in using education as a tool to bring about pride and change among his people in Natal.

In a showing to a gathering of scholars meeting held in Lisle Illinois to discuss the role of US liberal arts institutions in promoting the study of Africa, Keita stated that he came upon this project through divine intervention.

A native of Mali himself, Keita has now become pat of the Dube family because of the time, resources, and social networks invested in producing the documentary.

He is working on a sequel that follows the story of William Wilcox who has historical connections to Northfield Minnesota where Keita currently resides.

Born in 1871 to a family of recent Christian converts, Dube was raised within a new frame of morality and sensibility but stayed rooted in his own Zulu culture. In his commitment to his own community, while aware of new avenues provided by this new Christian morality, Dube was able to bring about so much change for his own people.

When he had an opportunity to go to America in 1887 through the help of William Wilcox, an American missionary to the Zulu, Dube got his most important break in life. Keita notes that Wilcox was instrumental in Dube’s trip and stay in America.

As a missionary in Zululand, Wilcox was committed to the empowerment of the local people especially in his determination for Black clergy to take charge of their local congregations. It could be because of this commitment to self-realisation for Blacks that Wilcox recommended that Dube attend the Hampton Institute in Virginia which is famed as the alma mater of Booker T. Washington, who himself was committed to educating Southern Blacks in the US for self-employment and empowerment.

Dube asked Wilcox to help him get into Wilcox’s alma mater, Oberlin College, itself being historically significant because it is the first college in the US to admit women and Blacks. While Dube Dube did not go to Hampton, he ended up pursuing interests in technical training as did Booker T. Washington.

After leaving Oberlin College Dube had a short stint in New York where he was able to attend some lectures given by Booker T. Washington before returning to Zululand to start his own school in Inanda.

Upon returning to South Africa armed with funds raised from White American philanthropists, Dube built the Zulu Christian Industrial School which was later named Ohlange Institute. Arguably the school was modelled after the Tuskegee Institute built by Washington and celebrates some of the most influential South Africans in his time and beyond.

Keita’s documentary runs like a book, with the usual advantage of bringing in vivid images of the past together that he juxtaposes with those of today. He is able to show still photos of Dube, his school, and even some of the earlier versions of the school.

The documentary starts with a shot of Keita in Ohlange school talking to the current students about the history in which many of them may not have taken much interest. He takes the viewer through a series of chronological activities that followed Dube since he left Natal to go to the US and back.

There are a number of issues that Keita raises through this documentary. Throughout the narrative the viewer is aware of the role played by Dube’s networks among Whites in making his dream come true. In a post-apartheid South Africa, it is sometimes hard to realise the foundations of Dube’s success through the financial assistance of Whites but Keita gives us a story of courage, determination, and a struggle for the common good.

This is a must see documentary by those interested in cross-cultural issues and especially in South Africa’s higher education and its links to the US.

Produced and directed by Cherif Keita, 2006, 55 minutes, colour. Distributed by Villon Films, 4040 Ontario Street, Vancouver, BC V5V 3G5, Canada, www.villonfilms.com


* Mwenda Ntarangwi, PhD, Augustana College, Rock Island, Illinois, USA.

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

One Woman's Story

2007-05-30

Poetess of the People

http://www.poetessofthepeople.blogspot.com/

One Woman's Story…

She lost herself to sacrifice
She thought after a while,
She'd find herself, mould the parts of her she'd lost
Bring back the dreams of her youth

She lost her secondary school education
For the sake of the boys
"The boys have nothing,
you can always get a husband, her parents said.
Her dream to be a doctor
Exchanged for an early marriage
'We need the bride price, they said.

Sacrificed sexuality by facing the knife
Sacrificed her laughter in a marriage gone bad
So she could save her name
As if she ever had a name
Or a personality
She was an empty shell
Filled and emptied at others' whim

From there on sacrifice was her middle name
For the husband, the kids
the in laws, her father, her mother
Her friends, anyone and everyone

So one day she looked it up,
That dreaded word sacrifice
And realized it didn't mean
She had to give up what she desired
Sacrifice is about choosing passion
over other interests!

At 40 she put paid to sacrifice,
She was labeled selfish and unkind
When she left her home for school
To pursue her dream to be a doctor

Celebration of Africa

2007-05-30

http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/books/41699

Word from Africa presented by Africa Beyond and SABDET

Saturday 2 June 2007, 12-8.15pm

A day-long celebration of African languages! Join us in exploring the diversity of Africa and its cultures through literature, music and visual arts. All sessions will have English translations or commentaries, or will be in English. The venue is British Museum. The line up includes Freddie Macha and Ngugi wa Thiong'o.

Actualising the United States of Africa dream

2007-05-30

Posted to The Statesman

http://www.pambazuka.org/aumonitor/index.php/AUMONITOR/comments/actualising_the_united_states_of_africa_dream/

President Kufuor, chair of the African Union, in concluding his Africa Day speech observed the following:

'All these efforts will bear ready and abundant fruit only if we start with deepening the partnership arrangements among ourselves as Africans before we go out as a continent to access what others can bring to support our efforts.

Fortunately, there is a growing recognition among us today of the need to provide our union with a stronger continental machinery in order to work on agreed strategic areas of focus, including a common understanding of continental integration and the constraints against such an integration process.

We therefore look forward to the July 2007 summit in Accra dedicated to the "Grand Debate on Union Government" which, hopefully, will help us identify the strategic goals, objectives and actions that will help our embattled continent to gain its rightful and dignified place in the globalised world.'

Yet, the news that the Accra summit, 25 June - 6 July 2007, will be the 'Grand Debate on Union Government' may not necessarily be encouraging. Debates we have had plenty. Declarations, decisions, protocols, agreements, treaties, we have signed many.

Our main difficulty has been in implementation, having the will, structures, personnel and discipline to realise our goals. So, before we can get excited about July's grand debate we must first examine how the AU has managed to implement its own time table to date.

The African Union has set for itself the ambition of building, by the year 2025:

'A united and integrated Africa; an Africa imbued with the ideals of justice and peace; an inter-dependent and virile Africa determined to map for itself an ambitious strategy; an Africa underpinned by political, economic, social and cultural integration which would restore to Pan-Africanism its full meaning; an Africa able to make the best of its human and material resources, and keen to ensure the progress and prosperity of its citizens by taking advantage of the opportunities offered by a globalised world; an Africa engaged in promoting its values in a world rich in its disparities.'

The fundamental vision is, therefore, to 'build an integrated, prosperous and peaceful Africa, an Africa driven and managed by its own citizen and representing a dynamic force in the international arena'.

The Constitutive Act of 2002 sets up and mandates certain institutions to facilitate the realisation of this vision: the Commission serves as the engine of the Union; Member States as the political project managers; the Pan-African Parliament and ECOSOCC as democratic control and monitoring organs; the Regional Economic Communities are viewed as the main pillars or building blocks of the Union; the Court of Justice, like that of the EU, is envisioned, once established, to serve as the judicial and arbitration body, especially on commercial cases and harmonisation rules; and the African Court of Human and Peoples" Rights to operate like Europe’s ECHRJ.

African leaders fully recognise that the success of the African Union will, to a large extent, 'depend on effective understanding and collaboration between these various organs, as well as on respect for their individual roles and functions'.

The Union further recognises that it would not be able to garner the necessary political consensus for accomplishment of its mandate, unless it has in place an appropriate governance tool. The question then to ask is how well has the Union so far done to ensure the tools are in place?

It has over the last three years been pursuing a short-term strategy. The strategy, which spans 2004-2007 has the objective to consolidate the institutional pillars of integration, build the human network and forge a network of relations for the Continent. In our view, before ordinary Africans can begin to believe that the 'grand debate’ in Accra would not be just another talk shop, they must be told how far the Union has gone with this short-term strategy which ends this year.

Africans are right to be sceptical. Yet, Africans know that the medium term goal of converging all the regional economic communities between 2008 and 2015 and the long term goal of the continent’s integration by 2025-2030 are all achievable. What we want to know is if our leaders have shown by their deeds that they also share this belief.

It is time to make the formal organs of African unity work

2007-05-30

Eva Mwine

http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/aumonitor/41706

‘The road to hell is paved with good intentions.’Almost a year ago, presidential jets assembled in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The city’s five-star hotels were filled to capacity and the per diem dollars filled the pockets of Africans on a 'mission to save Somalia'.

AMISOM was the grand acronym that wrapped up the noble intentions. It was agreed that the force should be 8,000 soldiers, but only 4,000 were pledged at the summit. The rhetoric of unification, as always, was delivered with unquestionable conviction and the summit was flavoured with the re-invigorated spirit of pan-Africanism.

Almost one year down the road, only Uganda has honoured its promise. The good intentions of the others are wrapped up in a thousand excuses, one of such, of course, in keeping with the character of contemporary Africa 'we are awaiting the pledges from the international community'.

How can 53 countries, many of which have relatively large armies and exorbitant defence budgets, fail to put together and facilitate a contingent of 8,000 peace keepers? To those that are beginning to express reservations about the security of their troops, we must ask: Haven’t the dangers and dynamics in this war-torn country been more or less the same for what seems like eternity? Upon what then did their excellencies base their pledges in Addis-Abba?

Some argue that President Museveni is pursuing American interests in Somalia. The US has interests all over the world; the African Union cannot be expected to alter its agenda just because it will be perceived to be serving American interests. Whatever became of African interests!

One also wonders why the donor funds towards a unifying exercise that will strengthen the continent are not as forthcoming as the dollars they systematically pump into our economies. They know the strength that lies in unity and God forbid, Africa should discover this!

In 1985, the British prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, in her address to the American Congress said, 'Winston Churchill’s vision of a union of mind and purpose between the English speaking people was to form the mainspring of the West. No one of my generation can forget that America has been the principal architect of peace in Europe, which has lasted 40 years. Given the shield of the United States, we have been granted the opportunity to build a concept of Europe beyond the dreams of our fathers'.

Julius Nyerere rolled the tanks and Saba-Saba’s over the Ugandan border and blasted 'the last King of Scotland' out of office; to him we are eternally grateful.

For years, President Museveni, despite public perceptions of the day, stood with the African National Congress and the Southern Sudan People’s Liberation Army when all others regarded them futile efforts. Today, South Africans, southern Sudanese, Burundians and many others are reaping the benefits of those that chose to work the infallible principle of ‘strength in unity’. Most of these initiatives in the past have been 'informal' and it is time to make the ‘formal’ organs of African unity work because too many in the past have failed for lack of political will.

Charles Njonjo, a retired Kenyan politician of the seventies, personified this African vice, when he once proudly said, he drank champagne at the collapse of the East African Community!

Uganda is preparing to host Her Majesty, the Queen of England, and the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) 2007. Why can’t we be as passionate about the African Union? With all due respect, isn’t CHOGM, to a large extent, a glorification of our colonial past? I suggest that when we pray ‘God save the Queen’ we pray God save Africa too!

Second African financing for development conference to convene in Ghana

2007-05-30

ECA Information and Communication Service

http://tinyurl.com/33padc

The Government of Ghana in collaboration with the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) and the African Development Bank will convene a high-level conference ‘Financing for Development’, in Accra, Ghana, on 30-31 May, under the theme 'Infrastructure for Growth – The Energy Challenge'.

Participants will include African ministers of finance as well as ministers of Energy and senior officials from the donor community. The main focus of the meeting will be directed at the energy sector, particularly its financing needs and how to maximise its contribution to the growth agenda required to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by the 2015 target date.

Energy plays a critical role in advancing efforts to achieve the MDGS and improving the lives of poor people across the world. Lack of access to adequate affordable, reliable, safe and environmentally benign energy is a severe constraint on development.

The meeting is therefore expected to come up with sustainable approaches to improving energy access and the complimentary financing options, including viable private-public partnerships.

At the same time, the Accra Conference will take stock of progress achieved by African countries and donors in respect of the undertakings and commitments made at recent high-level meetings in Gleneagles, Abuja and Singapore. In that regard, particular attention will be paid to the commitments made in the areas of costed multi-year educational plans, financing of education, and mainstreaming of education in national budgets.

For further information on the Accra Conference as well as an ECA perspective on the current financing for development issues and challenges in Africa, go to the websites below:

http://www.financingfordevelopment.org/index.htm
http://www.uneca.org/atpc/Work%20in%20progress/48.pdf


Background

Many African countries are confronted with development challenges. Key among these is the lack of basic infrastructure to drive the development process. As part of efforts to overcome these challenges, African ministers of Finance met at a first conference in Abuja, Nigeria in May 2006 to dialogue on the way forward to address these developmental issues.

The Abuja meeting marked an important milestone in international discussions on development finance. Discussions dwelt largely on the challenges remaining in converting aid commitments into development, and ways to operationalise the 2005 Gleneagles G8 summit and 2005 UN General Assembly commitments in support of the MDGs in Africa.

As a follow up to the first conference in Abuja, Ghana is set to host the second segment in the series of conferences to further deepen the dialogue on Financing for Development. ECA is providing secretariat and technical support to the conference.

South Africa: Passing of Sexual Offences Bill welcomed

2007-05-31

http://www.genderlinks.org.za/article.php?a_id=721

Gender activists across the country received last week’s news of the passing of the Sexual Offences Bill by parliament with jubilation. After ten long years in the making, this means that, if assented by the National Council of Provinces (NCOP) and the President of South Africa, the bill will finally become a reality – a much-needed step toward greater protection against sexual offences.

Kenya: Court makes landmark ruling on women's right to husbands' land

2007-05-29

http://www.eastandard.net/hm_news/news.php?articleid=1143969245

In 1981, the Kieni East Divisional Land Control Board endeavoured to make an estranged wife — Margaret Mumbi — the joint owner of 37 acres of prime agricultural land in Naromoru settlement scheme. Little did the board know that a woman could not sue her husband over land whose acquisition she did not contribute to materially during his lifetime. Twenty six years later, the Court of Appeal, in support of a High Court decision in 2002, says the land control board has no power to award land.

Somalia: Giving Somali girls a chance

2007-05-31

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=72452

Hawa Aden Mohamed was motivated to establish the Galkayo Education Centre for Peace and Development by her own experience, particularly the opportunity to go to school at 14. "If I had not got that chance, where would I be now?" she asks rhetorically. "That is why I am a believer in second chances," she tells IRIN in Galkayo town, 700km north of the Somali capital, Mogadishu.

Rwanda: Lifting women out of poverty

2007-06-01

http://tinyurl.com/2gsn6n

There are a number of beautiful art items Rwanda can make by using local materials and hands. They are promoted through associations and trainings. Women can use the chance of the advanced skills and wide markets to advance in their standard of living. They have come together, organised themselves and formed associations. They are preaching the results.

West Africa: Villagers renounce female circumcision

2007-06-01

http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=309607

A total of 212 villages in Senegal and The Gambia agreed on Sunday to renounce female circumcision and weddings featuring child brides. About 1 500 inhabitants from the 12 Gambian and 200 Senegalese villages gathered in Diamakouta in southern Senegal near the Gambian border for a ceremony led by Tostan, a local Senegalese NGO working to eradicate female circumcision.

Southern Africa: Discriminatory beliefs against women and links to vulnerability to AIDS

2007-06-01

http://physiciansforhumanrights.org/library/report-2007-05-25.html

Physicians for Human Rights' study, Epidemic of Inequality: Women's Rights and HIV/AIDS in Botswana & Swaziland: An Evidence-based Report on Gender Inequity, Stigma and Discrimination reports the results of a population-based study conducted in 2004 and 2005 with 1,268 respondents in Botswana and 788 participants in Swaziland, designed to assess factors contributing to HIV infection.

Niger: New slavery study welcomed by human rights experts

2007-05-31

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=72487

People are still enslaved in Niger, but an announcement that the government has agreed to sponsor an independent investigation into the issue has raised hopes for change among some human rights experts. Lompo Garba, president of the National Commission for Human Rights and Civil Liberties, the group conducting the new study, said: "Slavery as it was in the past in Niger, for example people owned by other people, no longer exists.

Nigeria: Rights activists await break with the past

2007-05-31

http://www.ipsnews.net/africa/nota.asp?idnews=37965

The return of democracy to Nigeria in 1999 after years of military dictatorship has not brought an end to extra-judicial killings; rather, the number may have doubled in what is now often a daily occurrence, says the Civil Liberties Organisation -- a human rights group based in the financial hub of Lagos.

Zimbabwe: Open season on lawyers

2007-05-31

http://www.worldpress.org/Africa/2806.cfm

It was a case of jumping from the fire into the frying pan for Law Society of Zimbabwe president Beatrice Mtetwa and a number of her colleagues, who recently had to flee from charging, truncheon-wielding police officers. The lawyers ran for safety into the offices of the Justice ministry only to find more officers waiting there to bash them.

DRC: UN human rights commissioner urges accelerated prison reforms

2007-05-31

http://africa.oneworld.net/article/view/149445/1/

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Louise Arbour, has criticised the appalling conditions in prisons in the Democratic Republic of Congo, while also suggesting the authorities compile an inventory of earlier serious human rights violations. "Congo’s prisons are overpopulated because there are many prolonged detentions as most detainees don’t have access to justice," she said.

Nigeria: Pipeline protest enters thrid day

2007-06-01

http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=310045

A protest by villagers at a major oil export pipeline complex in Nigeria entered a third day on Thursday and no crude was flowing through the facility, a protest leader said. Villagers from K-Dere occupied the pipeline hub at Bomu, which feeds the Bonny shipping terminal, on Tuesday and forced Shell to shut 150 000 barrels per day of output.

South Africa: Trade union seeks to boycott Israel

2007-06-01

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/865408.html

South Africa's largest trade union federation will launch a campaign against "the Israeli occupation of Arab lands" this week, demanding that Pretoria impose a boycott on all Israeli goods and break diplomatic relations. South African Intelligence Minister Ronnie Kasrils, who is Jewish, told Haaretz that he actively supported the initiative - which contradicts the policy of his own cabinet.

Global: The accountability gap in refugee protection

2007-06-01

Mauro De Lorenzo

http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/refugees/41773

There is an accountability gap in refugee protection in the developing world. Host states consider refugees to be the responsibility of the "international community," and are pleased to cede their sovereignty on this issue to UNHCR, an unaccountable international organization. Yet, legally, host states are responsible for the human rights of refugees within their borders. UNHCR plans, manages, and funds refugee camps in developing countries, yet denies responsibility for the human rights conditions in those camps, blaming host governments.
There is an accountability gap in refugee protection in the developing world. Host states consider refugees to be the responsibility of the "international community," and are pleased to cede their sovereignty on this issue to UNHCR, an unaccountable international organization. Yet, legally, host states are responsible for the human rights of refugees within their borders.

UNHCR plans, manages, and funds refugee camps in developing countries, yet denies responsibility for the human rights conditions in those camps, blaming host governments.
But why do refugee camps exist? And why does UNHCR do status determination? It wasn't always that way, and it doesn't have to be that way. Why is accountability for refugee rights handed off like a baton in a relay race? Today, I don't want to just catalogue problems, but to seek a structural explanation for why there is an accountability gap, and make some proposals for overcoming it.

All of you are familiar with USCRI's anti-warehousing campaign.

This, in my opinion, is one of the most innovative and important human rights campaigns going on now anywhere, on any topic. It takes on some powerful entrenched interests amongst NGOs, international organizations, and governments. Why? Because "helping" refugees--the "care and maintenance" operations that have been the hallmark of refugee aid for the past thirty years--is very lucrative for operational NGOs, much like distributing U.S. food aid is. It is like a business, it sustains them. That is why, at least for food aid, there is a lobbyist-lawyer who represents everyone involved in helping supposedly starving people and lobbies Congress to increase food aid. This includes port authorities, farmers, bag manufacturers, ink manufacturers, shipping companies, rail companies, and so forth. That is why there are groups that lobby Congress for ever more money to support policies that promote the encampment of refugees. USCRI challenged that comfortable consensus.
USCRI's campaign made explicit what everyone who has ever worked in a refugee camp knows: refugee camps are inhumane.

It is impossible to enjoy human rights in refugee camps. Former High Commissioner for Refugees Sadako Ogata stated this, and it has been reiterated by her successors. It is a truism. Refugees are denied basic rights like freedom of movement and freedom to work. In some camps they are forbidden to grow food. Historically UNHCR, WFP, and host governments looked askance at refugees selling or bartering their rations. Camps are sometimes militarized, and refugees, particularly boys, are subject to forced recruitment or extortion in support of the "war effort." The concentration of refugees in one place makes this a lot easier. An Oxford biological anthropologist named Ken Porter found that Burundian refugee children in camps in Tanzania in the 1990s were significantly shorter than local Tanzanian children, suggesting chronic malnutrition. Refugees in Kakuma in the 1990s also suffered chronic malnutrition--a doctor who worked there and often spoke with researchers about the state of malnutrition in the camp had his contract "un-renewed" for being too open about it. Unni Karunakara of MSF, a public health expert, found that encamped Sudanese refugees in West Nile in northern Uganda were healthier than their self-settled counterparts, but were significantly more likely to suffer violent attacks.

Yet even though everyone knows camps are an abomination, it seems no one can be held responsible for their continuing existence. Even though UNHCR pays for the camps and runs them, it blames host governments. Yet host governments respond to the incentives in front of them, and there is lots of money for encampment. Host governments and UNHCR are rarely criticised by human rights groups for the very existence of camps. In Uganda and Kenya, UNHCR played a role in designing encampment policies, and promoted a strategy for "urban refugees" that insisted on their deportation to camps. Donors give UNHCR the money to run the camps, tending to believe that there is no viable political alternative.

Few ask whether there are other ways to help refugees and their hosts.

The answer is that there are alternatives, but they are rarely considered. In almost any protracted refugee situation, there are thousands of families who "escape" the confines of the humanitarian regime and make their own way in towns and as sharecroppers in rural areas. They are usually ignored by aid agencies, and they often do not benefit from legal protection. Legal protection is essential because it is what prevents a refugee from "re-foulement"--deportation to the country where he or she fears persecution. But they remain there because they judge they are better off economically or in terms of safety. This was the case with Ugandans in Sudan in the 1980s and with Guineans and Guinea-Bissauans in the 1960s in Sierra Leone. In the course of my own research on eastern Congo, I found letters in UNHCR's archives from the 1960s from local officials in Kivu asking UNHCR for more refugees! The local leaders found that the refugees were adding to the area's agricultural productivity, and that the assistance UNHCR was providing benefited everyone in the area.

Today, UNHCR and aid agencies (the latter usually under contract to UNHCR as an "implementing partner") build parallel health and education services for refugees that citizens do not have access to. In a number of cases, these structures have been deliberately destroyed when the refugees go home, to discourage them from coming back. Malawi hosted hundreds of thousands of Mozambican refugees in the 1980s, and despite great numbers and significant environmental damage, did not force them into camps. Similarly the anthropologist Art Hansen documented the self-settlement of Angolan refugees in western Zambia. Such refugees are usually the most agriculturally productive members of society. Even in Iran and Pakistan, many Afghans led their lives outside of camps.

It is possible to assist refugees differently. We can design strategies for helping refugees that promote integration and economic development.

You may be less familiar with refugee status determination (RSD). UNHCR is the largest refugee status decision-maker in the world, deciding some 88,000 cases in about eighty countries in 2005. UNHCR's manuals and guidelines are a paragon of best practice. The reality is different.

Here is a description of the situation in Kenya in the late 1990s by an evaluation team of the Jesuit Refugee Service. According to my sources, things have not changed much since then:

If granted an interview, she will sit in the waiting area from early in the morning probably until late afternoon and even then she may not be interviewed. . .. She will then be invited to return on another given date. . . . [She is eventually interviewed]. When she returns she will be delivered with her decision. She will be told that her letter is available for collection at the gate of the Wood Avenue compound. She will be handed it by one of the guards stationed at the gate. Reasons for the decision are not given. If it is a rejection she will have to deal with the shock, disappointment and above all stress alone for she will be told that there is nothing anyone can do for her. . . . If she has received a rejection with a 14-day appeal right she can go to the UNHCR office in Westlands to make her appeal. No one tells her this. And the letter does not tell her either. If she finds out what to do it will be by chance.

Refugees in UNHCR RSD faced issues of confidentiality--for example, in Uganda, some refugees found others of their own nationality, or from the host government, reading their case files, because UNHCR sub-contracted initial screening to a local NGO. Refugees are rarely given reasons for rejection of their application, much less a legal argument. Often the rejection seemed based on an intuitive judgement by a protection officer about "credibility." "I can tell if someone is lying or not in the first minute of the interview," said one UNHCR official. Really? I can't, can you? I have done hours-long interviews with hundreds of refugees over the past nine years, and I have little confidence in my ability to distinguish amongst liars, exaggerators, nervous truth-tellers, and traumatized people with disjointed memories. There is no clear appeal procedure in UNHCR RSD. Sometimes the appeal was to the original decision-maker. Interpreters were not always provided. Secret evidence is used. Any of these faults makes a mockery of due process.

I had assumed that UNHCR's questionable involvement in RSD was limited to poor countries. But a colleague recently received a query from a Mexican government asylum official, Barbara Perez-Martinez--a query, not an accusation, Ms Perez-Martinez stressed--about UNHCR involvement in a case in Spain. She recently granted asylum to a Colombian man who was persecuted by the FARC. He had been receiving threats from the FARC for a while, and went to Spain to claim asylum. He never got out of the airport. He was held in a room for four or five days, and different UNHCR officials visited him. On the second visit, he was told his case was rejected and was asked to sign a paper agreeing to be sent back to Colombia. He never had access to the Spanish government asylum procedure. A month after returning to Colombia, he was attacked by the FARC members who had been threatening him and was hit 27 times with a machete in his back, arms, face, and head. He lost his right eye and his left arm had to be reconstructed. About two years later he made it to Mexico, and was granted asylum there a few weeks ago. He asked Ms Perez-Martinez whether it is possible to take legal action against UNHCR. Is the testimony true and complete? If so, who is accountable?

Who is accountable? You cannot sue the UN. Ultimately, according to the judgement in D. vs. Turkey before the European Court of Human Rights, European governments are still responsible even if UNHCR makes a negative decision.

Why does the accountability gap exist? My critique of UNHCR is not really about UNHCR per se. It is certainly not about the personal characteristics of UNHCR officials. It is an argument about incentives and structures of accountability. The reason the accountability gap exists is that UNHCR is seen as, and often is, the provider of services and legal protection to refugees, and you cannot sue the UN. It has sovereign immunity under international law. Host governments of developing countries are not seen as responsible for refugee rights. But, if host governments were responsible for status determination, there would at least be the possibility of using courts and other legal measures to improve observance of refugee rights. UNHCR has a key role to play in increasing adherence to refugee law amongst host governments, but it cannot do it so long as it is performing the state's functions for it.

Indeed, in many circumstances UNHCR acts as a state. In refugee camps, it hires NGOs to provide social services. In some places it oversees camp security forces. It creates structures to arbitrate disputes. It establishes health systems, and sometimes holds elections for camp leadership positions. The host governments are not involved. In one camp in Kenya for example, UNHCR forcibly transferred an Ethiopian refugee who was holding human rights classes--which included criticism of UNHCR and the way it ran the camp--to another camp because UNHCR feared his activism could cause unrest. This recalls the actions of British colonial officials who used to exile troublesome Africans to the Seychelles until they cooled down. Yet even though it is performing state-like functions, UNHCR's actions are subject to no judicial or political control.

I recently argued that refugee rights advocates hold UNHCR to a very low standard and international human rights organizations. UNHCR always acts surprised and wounded when it is criticized, and implies that such criticism is ill informed, malicious, ideologically driven, and wholly inappropriate. UNHCR after all is on the front line of helping refugees, it responds, and its staff work in dangerous places, and so forth. But why should the fact that you consider yourself a humanitarian absolve you from being held to professional, legal standards? Should we be tolerant of medical malpractice because doctors are only trying to help? Should police overreach be ignored because their work is dangerous and they perform an essential public service? Should we fail to be angry when state child protective services do a poor job and children are later abused?

I think it is appropriate to focus carefully on UNHCR's role because of the power and influence it wields on refugee policy in developing countries and because historically, its operations have received very little public scrutiny. It is able to wrap itself in a cloak of humanitarian immunity, not to mention sovereign legal immunity. But just because you help people does not mean you should be beyond scrutiny.

I often hear refugee advocates complain about unfairness in the U.S. asylum system. From my perspective--comparing it to the situation in developing countries--it looks very different. The American refugee system is the best in the world. There are several levels of administrative and judicial review. The provisions of refugee law are interpreted generously. A recent court decision, for example, found that women who had experienced circumcision are refugees, even though they do not fear a repetition of the persecution.

The U.S. also resettles more refugees every year than any other country--by an order of magnitude. However the U.S. usually fails to fill the quota of allowable refugee admissions every year. There are many reasons for this, but one reason is that in some regions--particularly in Africa--the U.S. has historically relied on UNHCR to propose candidates for interview by U.S. asylum officers. Over the past few years the U.S. government has begun giving a greater role to U.S. NGOs in the field to propose candidates for resettlement. This is a positive development, which should be built on. American organizations are more accountable to the American people and have a more holistic approach to determining vulnerability than UNHCR does. It is appropriate that American organizations should play a key role in supporting the U.S. government to select the individuals who are most in need of resettlement to the United States. And once refugees arrive, they are quickly integrated into the mainstream of American life--at warp speed compared to the pace and depth of immigration in Europe. It is organizations like yours, who assist refugees in their first months of transition to life in the United States, that make this possible.

Earlier this month, I had a stopover in the Nairobi airport while returning from a trip to Rwanda. In the departure lounge, I encountered a large group of Banyamulenge--Congolese Tutsi--refugees. They are survivors of the Gatumba massacre of 150 people in Burundi in 2004, and they were on their way to the United States. I had worked in the Gatumba camp just before the massacre in the context of my doctoral research on the history of the Banyamulenge, and I was in the camp the day after. They were excited, a bit bewildered, and worried about how cold it is in places like Kentucky and Minnesota and Albany, New York. It is a source of pride that the only country that had the capacity and compassion to take this group in is the United States. This special resettlement operation was possible because of tireless work by the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration of the U.S. State Department together with an American NGO.

But resettlement is not enough. It is not a solution for the vast majority of the world's refugees. Very few will ever qualify for resettlement in a Western country. The quest for resettlement also creates perverse incentives that can make refugee protection more difficult in poor countries, because non-refugees often attempt to enter the process as part of a migration strategy. That is why everyone concerned with refugee rights should be involved in monitoring and activism on behalf of refugee protection abroad.

I suggest a multi-pronged strategy.

First, as the people closest to new refugees in this country, begin to have conversations with new arrivals about the protection failures they experienced during the long years before they were resettled. This will give you your own holistic understanding of where the challenges are and who is responsible for what.

Second, insist on high standards from UNHCR in the administration of refugee camps (for as long as they continue to exist) and in its status determination procedures--the same standards we demand from our own government. UNHCR cannot fulfil its primary function--which is promoting refugee law--if it fails to measure up to its own standards. I have suggested that UNHCR should withdraw from status determination and insist on alternatives to camps. But other reasonable people can propose different pathways to reform.

Third, pressure host governments on refugee rights, just as we do on all other human rights. Under international law, they have the primary responsibility to protect the refugees on their territory. The fact that UNHCR often enables them to escape this responsibility does not make it moot.

Fourth, rely more on the 1969 OAU Convention's less individualized criteria for refugee status, such as "fleeing disturbances of public order" and rely more on prima facie status determination, which does not require consideration of individual circumstances. One way to reduce procedural failures in individual status determination when resources are scarce is to do less of it.

Fifth, support practical work in developing countries to help refugees realize their rights, especially legal aid for refugees vis-à-vis both UNHCR and host governments. Help bring refugee rights cases to domestic courts--something that UNHCR is pleased to do in the United States through amicus briefs filed in the U.S Courts of Appeal and the U.S. Supreme Court, but almost never does in poor countries.

The U.S. government will continue to play the leading role in the world on refugee policy. Leadership on refugee policy should be seen as a meaningful contribution to our overall foreign policy goals.

The U.S. should expect UNHCR to meet higher refugee protection standards. We should take the lead in pioneering new methods of refugee assistance that do not involve encampment. There are past successes that can be built on. We should provide assistance in such a way that refugees can settle themselves and enjoy the full panoply of human rights; their hosts will benefit from their presence as well.

Finally, in this time of political acrimony over immigration--which is really a debate about the identity of America in the next generation--let's make sure to maintain and strengthen the American tradition of being the world's ultimate safe harbour. In the long run, the benefits of asylum redound more to the host than to the refugee.

Mauro De Lorenzo is a resident fellow at AEI.

More...

CAR: UNHCR plans aid for newly arrived Sudanese refugees

2007-05-31

http://tinyurl.com/yvzkn5

The UN refugee agency is planning the delivery of emergency aid to thousands of Sudanese refugees who have crossed into the Central African Republic (CAR) to escape ground and air attacks on their homes in the Darfur region. At least 1,500 Sudanese have arrived in the past two weeks in Sam Ouandja, but more are turning up every day and UNHCR is taking this into consideration. The remote town in north-east CAR's Haute-Kotto district lies about 80 kilometres from the border with Darfur.

Uganda: Living with the Lord’s Resistance Army

2007-06-01

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=72444

Every evening, a line of young girls with yellow jerry cans on their heads and babies on their backs walks to the camp water point on the edge of the forest. They pump water under the protective eye of the young men with guns, and shy away from visitors and outsiders. These are the girls of the Lord’s Resistance Army, at the LRA headquarters on the Sudan-Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) border.

Somalia: 90,000 refugees return to Mogadishu

2007-06-01

http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=310185

About a quarter of nearly 400 000 refugees who deserted Mogadishu during fighting earlier this year have returned to the Somali capital, the United Nations refugee agency said on Friday. But life in the war-scarred city was tough, with shortages of electricity and water, uncollected garbage clogging the streets and many businesses and schools shut, the agency said.

Nigeria: Youths shut pipeline

2007-06-01

Hector Igbikiowubo

http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/socialmovements/41777

In yet another twist to the unfolding scenario in the Niger Delta, Kedere youths in Ogoniland have shut the valve on the Bomu manifold located on the Trans-Niger pipeline, effectively shutting-in 150,000 barrels per day of crude oil output from the Shell Petroleum Development Company operated joint venture. This caused oil prices to rebound slightly after falling sharply the previous day. Shell announced Wednesday that 150,000 bpd of crude oil production has been locked in at its Bonny Light terminal in Nigeria after pipelines were sabotaged.
In yet another twist to the unfolding scenario in the Niger Delta, Kedere youths in Ogoniland have shut the valve on the Bomu manifold located on the Trans-Niger pipeline, effectively shutting-in 150,000 barrels per day of crude oil output from the Shell Petroleum Development Company operated joint venture.
This caused oil prices to rebound slightly after falling sharply the previous day.
Shell announced Wednesday that 150,000 bpd of crude oil production has been locked in at its Bonny Light terminal in Nigeria after pipelines were sabotaged.
While explaining the development a company spokesman, who did not want his name in print, explained that negotiations were currently ongoing to get the youths to open up the manifold to allow free flow of crude oil from the wells.
“Although we do not have any response from the youths yet, we believe that before the close of business activities today, we will have cause to cheer,” he said.
The shut in volume effectively brings the total shut-in volume in the country to about 850,000 barrels per day.
Militant attacks in the region have cut peak Nigerian crude production by around 25 percent for more than a year.
The attack comes the day after the new Nigerian President Umaru Yar’Adua found militants receptive to his conciliatory inauguration speech, raising hopes of increased stability in the crude-rich Niger Delta Region.
Feelers from the creeks indicates that the militants may have decided to give Yar’Adua measured respite. Perhaps this disposition informed the release of the four American hostages on Wednesday by the Niger Delta Frontier Force (NDFF).
At 10:43 a.m. in London, benchmark Brent crude contracts for July delivery were up 42 cents at US$68.55 per barrel.
Meanwhile, New York crude contracts for July delivery were up 54 cents at US$63.68 a barr