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Walter Rodney: 33 years later

The death anniversary of Dr. Walter Rodney is upon us and still no closure

Oscar Ramjeet

2013-06-12

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/87813

cc W RThe person suspected of killing Rodney is reported to have died in 2002. However the Rodney family and his supporters still want to know who was behind the assassination of this great man

It was on June 14, 1980, when for the first time, the BBC 7.15 Caribbean report was blocked from the Guyana Broadcasting Corporation because the powers that be did not want the public to learn of the assassination of Dr. Walter Rodney, the popular and powerful historian whose life was snuffed out the night before – Friday the 13th… ‘Black Friday’ – by a bomb which was in the form of a walkie-talkie.

Up to this day, 33 years later, the authorities still fail to bring to light who was behind the daring murder of the great leader who bridged the racial gap between Indo- and Afro-Guyanese.

The Forbes Burnham administration failed to hold an Inquiry, but the Desmond Hoyte-led government in 1988 – eight long years after the slaying – ordered an Inquest, only after Rodney’s widow, Patricia Rodney addressed a sorrowing letter, followed by protest from a group called “Women in Guyana” which sent a petition via Rodney’s mother to President Hoyte.

However that Inquest was “marred by grave defects” by the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) when it visited Guyana. The finding of the Coroner “death by accident or misadventure” was said to be unsatisfactory and flawed for many reasons.

What is disturbing is that Dr. Cheddi Jagan when he took office in 1992, instead of ordering a high-powered Commission of Inquiry, threw cold water by stating that he “wondered what the conviction and imprisonment of the suspect would do for Walter Rodney”. He however conferred Guyana’s highest award – The Order of Excellence – on Walter Rodney posthumously. The Guyana Archives many years later was named after him.

Jagan’s action did not find too much favour with the historian’s son, Shaka, who held a fast and vigil which prompted Caribbean Rights and the ICJ to be involved. Steps were taken to repatriate the suspect, Gregory Smith, from Cayenne in French Guiana, after he was formerly charged with murder in 1996 and
a warrant of arrest was issued by the then Chief Magistrate, K Juman Yassin.

Smith, a former Guyana Defence Force sergeant left for French Guiana the day after the murder and was using another name, Cyril Johnson. His extradition was delayed because the French government prohibited extradition for offences involving capital punishment – the death penalty.

Smith is reported to have died in 2002 from stomach cancer. However the Rodney family and his supporters still want to know who was behind the assassination of this great man who was deemed persona non grata by Hugh Shearer, Jamaica Prime Minister, which led to student demonstration at Mona Campus of the UWI, lead by Ralph Gonsalves, who was at the time Head of the Students Union. Dr. Gonsalves is now the Prime Minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

After his ban in Jamaica, the Burnham administration denied Dr. Rodney a job at the University of Guyana, which forced him to move into politics. His book “How Europe Underdeveloped Africa” was a best seller in the 1970s.

Britain announces compensation for Mau Mau victims

Official government statement read by Foreign Secretary

William Hague

2013-06-11

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/87802

cc M WGovernment acknowledges that Kenyans were subject to torture and other forms of ill treatment at the hands of the colonial administration, but refuses to accept liability for the atrocities

With permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to make a statement on a legal settlement that the Government has reached concerning the claims of Kenyan citizens who lived through the Emergency Period and the Mau Mau insurgency from October 1952 to December 1963.

During the Emergency Period widespread violence was committed by both sides, and most of the victims were Kenyan. Many thousands of Mau Mau members were killed, while the Mau Mau themselves were responsible for the deaths of over 2,000 people including 200 casualties among the British regiments and police.

Emergency regulations were introduced: political organisations were banned; prohibited areas were created and provisions for detention without trial were enacted.

The colonial authorities made unprecedented use of capital punishment and sanctioned harsh prison so-called ‘rehabilitation’ regimes. Many of those detained were never tried and the links of many with the Mau Mau were never proven.

There was recognition at the time of the brutality of these repressive measures and the shocking level of violence, including an important debate in this House on the infamous events at Hola Camp in 1959.

We recognise that British personnel were called upon to serve in difficult and dangerous circumstances. Many members of the colonial service contributed to establishing the institutions that underpin Kenya today and we acknowledge their contribution.

However I would like to make clear now and for the first time, on behalf of Her Majesty’s Government, that we understand the pain and grievance felt by those who were involved in the events of the Emergency in Kenya.

The British Government recognises that Kenyans were subject to torture and other forms of ill treatment at the hands of the colonial administration.

The British government sincerely regrets that these abuses took place, and that they marred Kenya’s progress towards independence. Torture and ill treatment are abhorrent violations of human dignity which we unreservedly condemn.

In October 2009 claims were first brought to the High Court by five individuals who were detained during the Emergency period regarding their treatment in detention.

In 2011 the High Court rejected the claimants’ argument that the liabilities of the colonial administration transferred to the British Government on independence, but allowed the claims to proceed on the basis of other arguments.

In 2012 a further hearing took place to determine whether the cases should be allowed to proceed. The High Court ruled that three of the five cases could do so. The Court of Appeal was due to hear our appeal against that decision last month.

However, I can announce today that the Government has now reached an agreement with Leigh Day, the solicitors acting on behalf of the Claimants, in full and final settlement of their clients’ claims.

The agreement includes payment of a settlement sum in respect of 5,228 claimants, as well as a gross costs sum, to the total value of £19.9 million. The Government will also support the construction of a memorial in Nairobi to the victims of torture and ill-treatment during the colonial era.

The memorial will stand alongside others that are already being established in Kenya as the country continues to heal the wounds of the past. And the British High Commissioner in Nairobi is also today making a public statement to members of the Mau Mau War Veterans Association in Kenya, explaining the settlement and expressing our regret for the events of the Emergency Period.

Mr Speaker this settlement provides recognition of the suffering and injustice that took place in Kenya. The Government of Kenya, the Kenya Human Rights Commission and the Mau Mau War Veterans Association have long been in favour of a settlement, and it is my hope that the agreement now reached will receive wide support, will help draw a line under these events, and will support reconciliation.

We continue to deny liability on behalf of the Government and British taxpayers today for the actions of the colonial administration in respect of the claims, and indeed the courts have made no finding of liability against the Government in this case.

We do not believe that claims relating to events that occurred overseas outside direct British jurisdiction more than fifty years ago can be resolved satisfactorily through the courts without the testimony of key witnesses that is no longer available. It is therefore right that the Government has defended the case to this point since 2009.

It is of course right that those who feel they have a case are free to bring it to the courts. However we will also continue to exercise our own right to defend claims brought against the Government. And we do not believe that this settlement establishes a precedent in relation to any other former British colonial administration.

The settlement I am announcing today is part of a process of reconciliation. In December this year, Kenya will mark its 50th anniversary of independence and the country’s future belongs to a post independence generation.

We do not want our current and future relations with Kenya to be overshadowed by the past. Today we are bound together by commercial, security and personal links that benefit both our countries. We are working together closely to build a more stable region. Bilateral trade between the UK and Kenya amounts to £1 billion each year, and around 200,000 Britons visit Kenya annually.

Although we should never forget history and indeed must always seek to learn from it, we should also look to the future, strengthening a relationship that will promote the security and prosperity of both our nations.

I trust that this settlement will support that process. The ability to recognise error in the past but also to build the strongest possible foundation for cooperation and friendship in the future are both hallmarks of our democracy.

Tunisia: The rocky road to elections

Farida Ayari

2013-06-11

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/87801

cc T UTunisians are concerned that the uprising that overthrew the Ben Ali dictatorship has failed to bear any meaningful result. The ruling coalition is only interested in its own survival and national institutions are very weak

The path from dictatorship to democracy is riddled with roadblocks. Take Tunisia, the genesis of the 2011 Arab spring uprisings. A mass rebellion that began with a fruit vendor’s self-immolation led to the departure of Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, the North African country’s dictator since 1987. But how do citizens transform a political upheaval into a stable, democratic and accountable government?

It has been a bumpy transition, as Tunisia and its neighbours have shown. After secular-minded Mr Ben Ali fled into exile on January 14th 2011, a special commission tasked with producing electoral law and organising elections was set up. Comprised of 155 legal experts, representatives of political parties and civil society, it worked with the transitional government. Nine months later, their efforts gave birth to Tunisia’s first ever democratic elections, held on October 23rd 2011.

The country’s newly-engaged citizens voted in a temporary National Constituent Assembly made up mostly of political neophytes without any experience in government or law. A ruling coalition composed of the Islamist party Nahda and two secular parties dominates this 217-seat temporary parliament. This is where Tunisia’s latest troubles began.

The assembly’s main task is to draw up a new constitution that will eventually lead to elections for permanent offices. So far, members have written three drafts, the latest of which should be endorsed by a two-thirds majority vote, or via a referendum (if the assembly is unable to reach the two-thirds majority). Though Nahda, the dominant party in the ruling coalition, has promised to keep sharia law out of the constitution, secularists fear that if the party wins by a larger margin in the next elections, Islamic law could creep in.

This is where Tunisian politics become even trickier to understand. While the assembly is fighting over the constitution, it is also wrangling over two other items: a new law that establishes a new electoral commission and draft legislation that will determine how the full-term president and parliament will be elected. The main question on everyone’s lips: will Tunisia’s next elections be free and fair? At this pace, no one can safely predict when they will take place, let alone whether they will be democratic.

In December 2012 the assembly passed a law creating the new electoral commission, called the Independent High Authority for Elections (ISIE). (A temporary body with the same name had organised the October 2011 elections.) The assembly passed the law easily because the main opposition coalition boycotted the vote, and preferred to protest against the Revolution Protection League (LPR) for allegedly attacking the headquarters of Tunisia’s main labour union. The LPR is widely regarded as Nahda’s militia.

Monia Abed, former head of the first ISIE’s legal department, is very critical of the law that created the new electoral commission because it gives the executive branch undue political influence, compromising the commission’s independence.

The administration—including the interior and other ministries, the police, the army and regional governors appointed by the ruling party coalition—can refuse cooperation with the electoral body. For instance, the interior ministry could refuse to open identity registers to remove dead citizens from the voter registration lists. Or the police could refuse to protect the polling stations, usually located in schools.

The new law allows the ISIE to turn to the administrative court for redress if the executive blocks the election in any way, but this is an unwieldy process that can take several weeks.

“This is a blatant power grab by Nahda,” says Ghazi Ghraïri, secretary-general of the International Academy of Constitutional Law, an NGO based in Tunisia. “The ruling party is running scared that they will be voted out in the next election and are thus not willing to ensure free and fair elections.”

People are disappointed with Nahda’s management of the country. Critics accuse the party of giving more than 1,500 jobs to its cronies and other loyal supporters. Although it is still Tunisia’s most popular party, its rating dropped from 25% in May 2012 to 19.5% in January 2013, according to an opinion poll conducted by Tunis-based Emrhod Consulting, a market and social research firm.

Economic indicators have worsened: unemployment has climbed from 13% in 2010 to 17% in 2012, the latest figures available from the National Institute of Statistics (NIS). Inflation is at nearly 6% and the central bank’s hard currency reserves cover only three months of imports. Across the country, standards of living are dire, with 2.5m out of a population of 10.5m living below a poverty line of $2 a day, according to the NIS.

In addition to undue executive branch influence, the law has reduced the number of regional ISIE offices to four. In comparison, the first ISIE had offices in all of Tunisia’s 24 regions during the 2011 election. This compromises the monitoring of elections and increases the possibility of tampering.

“Will Nahda have the means, maturity and openness to allow the required neutrality for free and fair elections?” Mr Ghraïri asks.

The new electoral commission’s two-headed structure is also undermining its independence. The first line of command is a nine-member council. Each member must win a two-thirds vote in the Nahda-dominated assembly. Since March the assembly’s selection committee has been sifting through the 1,000 people who have applied for the six-year posting on the electoral commission. The prime minister, also a Nahda
member, will nominate one of the council’s members as the electoral commission’s president. This candidate will need to be approved by the constituent assembly.

The second head of the new ISIE is the executive director, appointed by the nine-member council, who will be the head of the commission’s secretariat and in charge of administration, finance and technical issues. The relationship between the council and the secretariat is not defined clearly.

While the assembly is wrangling over the electoral commission’s appointments and structure, the assembly’s committee charged with writing a new constitution presented its third draft on April 22nd. Observers are predicting that the assembly will adopt the new rulebook in July or August.

But strangely enough, the constitution will not define an electoral system. A draft electoral law, also the subject of much heated debate, will outline the election structures to pick a new full-term president and parliament. So far, Nahda and the opposition, a motley collection of anti-fundamentalists, have agreed to compromise on a hybrid system. A general election will be held to elect the president and parliament. The majority party in parliament will then choose the prime minister.

But the general elections for president and parliament will use different systems. The draft legislation may include a provision calling for a two-round presidential election if none of the candidates can win an absolute majority outright, according to Mr Ghraïri and other observers.

Once this has been agreed to, the next task of the constituent assembly will be to agree on the parliamentary elections. For parliament, Nahda was initially lobbying for a simple majority vote in which the victor is the candidate who wins the most votes even if it is not an absolute majority. Under this system, also known as first past the post, Nahda could win the majority of constituencies, even if only by a small margin. Jawhar Ben Mbarek, a constitutional law and elections expert, said this system would return the ruling party to power with about 62% of the vote.

After long and harsh negotiations between the main political forces of the country, the ruling party agreed on April 25th that the draft electoral law will stipulate a system of proportional representation for the parliamentary elections. If Nahda does not change tack, the constituent assembly will incorporate this provision into the electoral law.

Proportional representation was used to allocate the seats for the constituent assembly after Tunisia’s October 2011 elections. Many African countries, including South Africa, use proportional representation to minimise dominance by larger parties and to ensure that small parties can gain access to the legislature.

Tunisia, like other emerging democracies, is discovering the difficulty of writing a new rulebook and establishing a new system of government. Wrangling over the constitution and the electoral law will continue for many more months, as will the process of choosing members for the new electoral commission.

Once the electoral law and constitution are adopted, the next hurdle will be registering Tunisia’s voters. Up to half of Tunisia’s eligible voters are not registered, said the first ISIE in its final report published in February 2012. With a voter turnout of roughly 50% in the 2011 election, only one quarter of eligible Tunisians cast their ballots.

All this leads observers to remain sceptical that elections will take place in the last quarter of 2013, as the government and the assembly’s president suggested recently. At the earliest, the next elections are more likely to take place in 2014.

* Farida Ayari is a freelance journalist based in Tunisia. This article was first published by Africa in Fact

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The unfinished business of total liberation - Africa’s islands

Akyaaba Addai-Sebo

2013-06-11

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/87800

cc R AIt is generally held that decolonisation of Africa ended with the fall of apartheid in South Africa in 1994. But the truth is that Britain, France, Spain and Portugal continue to colonise a number African islands

Dr. Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana was categorical in his thinking about the ‘liberation and unification’ of Africa. He left no doubt that the total ‘political and economic’ liberation and unification of Africa included all the islands of Africa in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, the Red Sea and the Mediterranean Sea. To emphasise this and to ensure that posterity does not relinquish, by benign neglect, any territory of Africa, Nkrumah in his books used maps with annotated listings of Africa’s islands to etch in the consciousness of the reader the fact that these islands are integral to the imperative of Africa’s total liberation and unification. To Nkrumah, no African land mass must be under colonisation, trusteeship or be alienated from the cause of African unity.

As we mark the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) and its Coordinating Committee for the Liberation of Africa (Liberation Committee), we must wake up to the fact that the United Kingdom, France, Spain and Portugal still hold a sizeable colony of islands in Africa’s territorial waters. It is refreshing, however, to note that some African countries, on their own, are laying claim to some of these ‘overseas possessions’ of these European ‘powers’.

As I write, it is ‘Not Yet Uhuru’ for the following islands: Ascension Island (United Kingdom); Saint Helena Island (United Kingdom); Tristan da Cunha Archipelago (United Kingdom); Bassas de India Atoll (France); Europa Island (France); Glorioso Islands (France); Iles Esparses (France); Juan de Nova Island (France); Mayotte Island (France); Reunion Island (France); Tromelin Island (France); Canary Islands (Spain); Ceuta (Spain) and Madeira (Portugal).

The disputed island territories are Bassas da India, Europa Island & Juan de Nova Island (Claimants: France and Madagascar. France claims sovereignty over these various uninhabited islands, and currently controls and protects them from its military base in nearby Réunion. They are in use as nature reserves and meteorological stations.); Glorioso (Glorieuses) Islands (Claimants: Comoros, France, Madagascar and the Seychelles. A nature reserve which is manned by French military forces; Mayotte (Claimants: Comoros and France. Operating as a French overseas collectivity since the 1970s, these islands are geographically part of the Comoros Islands, and just like their neighbours - the Glorioso Islands - they are also claimed by Comoros; Plazas de Soberanía (Claimants: Morocco and Spain. This is a collection of small Spanish-controlled city states and islands in North Africa, which all surround Morocco, and which have a combined total population of just over 140,000); Tromelin Island (Claimants: France, Mauritius and the Seychelles. France claims sovereignty over, and controls, this 1 mile long and mostly flat island, but Mauritius and the Seychelles both dispute the French ownership of this uninhabited isle) See disputed territories.

Nkrumah’s famous pronouncement that ‘...The independence of Ghana is meaningless unless it is linked up with the total liberation of the African continent’ also meant that the decolonisation of the African continent is meaningless unless it is linked to the total liberation of Africa’s islands. Growing up in the 1950s and 1960s it was etched in our memories that ‘Africa without Madagascar was like a table without a chair; was like a tree without a trunk; was like a hand without fingers’; and such like puns that we would spin out of our heads as we played around in song, dance and games. This was the catechism of total liberation and unification in singsong rhymes which made the task of Africa’s decolonisation our conscious responsibility to prosecute ‘by any means necessary’. The core of this task was and has always been the ‘decolonisation of the mind’ from ‘mental slavery’ with due respect to Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o and Bob Marley.

This is what Nkrumah purposely set out to achieve with the setting up of an ideological institute and the Young Pioneers Movement. I was a proud Young Pioneer and when the army and the police struck on 24 February 1966 to overthrow the Nkrumah regime I had the presence of mind then to mobilise my fellow young pioneers at school to march into town to resist. We therefore remain colonised in mind, body and soul if we can alienate our islands from our collective consciousness while our Heads of State in a summit session duly dissolved the OAU Liberation Committee in June 1994 at Tunis. South Africa was our last settler colony to be liberated but in reality this is not so, as the pun ‘Africa without Madagascar...’ still rings true, with some of our islands still under colonial domination.

The Heads of State at the summit in Tunis recognised that ‘the mandate given to the Liberation Committee in 1963 has been satisfactorily accomplished’ and therefore decided ‘to formally terminate that mandate’. The ‘mandate’ did not preclude the islands of Cape Verde, Comoros, Madagascar, Mauritius, Sao Tome and Principe and Seychelles from becoming independent nation states within the African Union. The mandate in a nutshell was assisting and expediting the process of decolonization and the elimination of apartheid. This therefore means that in the euphoria of the defeat of the apartheid regime we let slip off our minds the remaining task of the decolonisation of all of Africa’s islands. Battle fatigue and the psychological trap of the feeling that South Africa was the last frontier overpowered our sense of responsibility to these islands and as such we recklessly abandoned these islands to the UK, France, Spain and Portugal.

The question may be asked of what use are these far-flung islands to Africa? The answer lies in why is it that the UK would go to war, far, far away into the deep south of the Atlantic Ocean in order to secure the Falklands Islands and keep it in UK’s sphere of interest? The rationale here is made unambiguously clear by a White Paper on Overseas Territories issued by the British government on Thursday, June 28, 2012. The document on the Overseas Territories (OT) declared there would be ‘no weakening’ in Britain's resolve to defend the Falkland Islands and other Overseas Territories. The paper – which sets out a vision for the future of the 14 British Overseas Territories – was signed by the United Kingdom’s Prime Minister David Cameron and Foreign Secretary William Hague, and pledges to continue to ensure the ‘sovereignty over the Territories.’ In the text, the UK vows to guarantee the Overseas Territories citizens’ ‘right of self-determination’ and states the commitment to maintain military presence in order to assure UK’s sovereignty over the South Atlantic territories. Foreign Secretary Hague said: ‘We want OT to be vibrant, flourishing communities that proudly retain British identity’. Here the OT includes St Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha, all part of Nkrumah’s list of islands of Africa that has yet to be de-colonised. (en.mercopress.com/2012/06/28/)

The British ‘proudly’ seek to stamp and proudly retain their identity wherever they may be in the world in furtherance of their own self-interest. Nkrumah propagated the concept of the African Personality in order for Africans to proudly retain their identity. In May 1963, the founding fathers of the OAU set up the Liberation Committee to proudly stamp and retain our African identity by freeing the remaining parts of Africa, which were still under colonial and racist domination. Through the sterling work of the Committee the British, French, Portuguese, Spanish and Afrikaans could not retain their respective identities in continental Africa. The British White Paper – which sets out a vision for the future of the 14 British Overseas Territories - must be a wakeup call for the African Union Commission. It must as a matter of urgency seek a fresh mandate to apply themselves to the business of total decolonisation of all of Africa’s islands. In other words, the African Union commission must set out a vision for the immediate decolonisation, defence and development of our islands and affirm Africa’s sovereignty over these islands. It is our glorious ancestors who left us with the metaphor that: ‘You have something of value if you have land. You have something of value if you have water. Water is life and land is your essence. When you alienate land a bit of you dies.’

The African Union commission must act with a sense of urgency. Here it has the benefit of hindsight and South Africa, Namibia and Mozambique should offer themselves as the ‘frontline states’ as Tanzania and Zambia did. The task of decolonisation of these islands must not be left alone to our island nations of Madagascar, Mauritius, Comoros, Seychelles and also Morocco. Morocco remains part of Africa despite pulling out of the African Union over the refusal of the member states to recognise Morocco’s surrogate colonisation of Western Sahara for its phosphate and other rich minerals resources to serve the interest of the United States.

The total decolonisation of Africa’s islands is a task that has to be undertaken and executed and I am personally calling on the African Union Commission to seek the wise counsel of Presidents Kaunda, Nujoma, Chissano and Mbeki and Ambassador Mohamed Sahnoun of Algeria and Speaker Theo-Ben Gurirab of Namibia. I strongly believe they will recommend the urgency of a fresh mandate to decolonise Africa’s Islands. Ambassador Sahnoun was the first Assistant Secretary-General of the OAU with special responsibility for the Liberation Committee. Dr. Theo-Ben Gurirab, outstanding freedom fighter and diplomat, was a former foreign minister and prime minister. The new mandate and vision to finish the business of decolonisation and total liberation must be anchored on the maxim: ‘African lands in African hands’.

Finally, in the words of Nkrumah: ‘...To us, Africa with its islands is just one Africa. We reject the idea of any kind of partition. From Tangiers or Cairo in the North to Cape Town in the South, from Cape Guardafui in the East to Cape Verde Islands in the West, Africa is one and indivisible.’ (AFRICA MUST UNITE; p. 217)

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Popularizing new neo-colonial governance processes for African minerals?

An analysis of Canada’s North-South Institute’s ‘Governing Natural Resources for Africa’s Development’ conference

Paula Butler and Evans Rubara

2013-06-11

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/87799

cc P ZThere seems to be an unspoken foreign goal to prevent control of mining policy throughout Africa from falling into the hands of nationalist, pro-community political forces who will promote a vigorous resource nationalism agenda

On May 9-10, 2013 Canada’s North-South Institute hosted a conference in Ottawa called ‘Governing Africa’s Natural Resources’. Held in the elegance of the Fairmont Chateau Laurier, Ottawa’s premier hotel, the event’s line-up of panellists featured representatives of the Canadian government and of selected African governments (Nigeria, [1] Liberia, Ghana); multilateral agencies (notably OECD/DAC and UNECA); selected civil society groups (for example Transparency International and Revenue Watch); academics; and the mining sector. The event was sponsored by two Canadian mining companies, Teck and Kinross; two federal government agencies, CIDA and EDC (Export Development Corporation); and one civil society organization. Notably absent from the conference were well-known academics with long experience and expertise on African mining, and representatives of leading civil society organizations such as Third World Network-Africa, Miningwatch Canada, etc. Moreover, there was no formal representation from any communities in African countries where Canadian mining or exploration is occurring. In fact, only 18 of the 187 attendees at the conference were from African countries. Any possibility of a wide-ranging debate over the terms of the African mineral resource sector was thus largely precluded by the composition of panellists and participants.

For those who have been following the neo-liberalized burgeoning of foreign-investment-led mining in African countries since the late 1980s, there was nothing particularly new or startling about the content of this conference (apart, perhaps, from the fact that it was being run by the North-South Institute). In our view, the conference presents a good example of the continuing institutionalization of a set of managerial mechanisms and discourses aimed at maintaining control of African mining by and for largely private, foreign interests. It offered a few insights into some of the latest strategies, or strategy refinements, of Western (particularly Canadian) mining interests.

First, there is no question that private foreign interests – particularly Canadian companies, who currently operate some 700 mining projects in 35 African countries, want access to African minerals, and that there is competition among foreign nationals for such access. It is now a cliché to identify the African continent as the last great untapped mineral frontier - a treasure trove of resources. This situation should, and to a limited degree does, give African governments more bargaining power vis-à-vis a range of foreign investors. For Canadians and other non-African investors in African mining, these circumstances require careful positioning and a shrewd game-plan. In our view, the unspoken goal is to prevent control of mining policy throughout the continent from falling into the hands of nationalist, pro-African, pro-community political forces who will promote a vigorous ‘resource nationalism’ agenda. Significantly, there was a deafening silence throughout the conference with regard to South Africa’s mining regime (with its Mining Charter, ‘Black Economic Empowerment’ quotas, veto powers of communities vis-à-vis new mine developments, etc) in comparison with Tanzania, which was touted throughout the conference as the darling of Western advisors on African mining policy. (No mention of course of the aggressive role played by Canadian mining companies, Canadian lawyers and Canadian diplomats to establish the pro-foreign-investor content of Tanzanian mining codes since the mid-1990s.)

If the unspoken goal is to maintain control of the terms of African mining policies, a key problem facing foreign interests is to avoid the charge of neo-colonialism. Thus a classic strategy – used extensively during the formal colonial period – is to put an African face on African mineral policy. In this regard, it is significant that the term ‘African agency’ was used by various speakers throughout the conference. At first glance, the term seems to suggest an important shift toward greater control of mineral policy and development by citizens, communities and governments of African countries. But, used by a group of neoliberal bureaucrats and technocrats, the term functions as a sophisticated rhetorical and institutional strategy: it circumscribes what it purports to support. As used throughout this conference, ‘African agency’ is something that can be exercised only by African government bureaucrats, consultants and academics who have internalized and accepted the logic of neoliberal policy prescriptions for African mining sectors – prescriptions that keep foreign investment (and foreign investors’ terms) the central feature.

Throughout the conference, frequent references were made to international institutional processes that appear to put an African face on the continent’s mining policies and appear to transform the African mining sector in ways that will now enable African economies to harness mining to economic or ‘developmental’ growth. The African Mining Vision, formally a joint product of the African Union and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, was referenced frequently in the conference as one guiding articulation of how mining could be conducted in the continent in ways that would benefit African communities and economies in tangible ways – that would, in short, be compatible with and foster sustainable development. However, we want to raise a few red flags about the AMV.

The AMV has emerged as one of the latest of a succession of international/multi-lateral policy initiatives – starting, in recent decades, with the World Bank’s seminal 1992 Strategy for African Mining - to develop African mining in a manner that will protect foreign and private access to the continent’s resources. Like most other continental plans and visions for the development of Africa’s mineral wealth, it was initiated by a small group of technical experts within the UN system (that is, UNECA and the AfDB). Some among these may well have had developmental objectives in mind, yet such objectives were still subject to a neoliberal policy framework – an agenda that is fundamentally serving the interests of capital. With its array of policy measures to harness mineral wealth to African development processes, the AMV appears to represent the ‘best offer’ to date that the international community has been willing to accommodate with regard to the distribution of benefits from mining. (Indeed, the African Economic Outlook 2013 report, ‘Structural Transformation and Natural Resources’ – referenced at the conference by Lahra Liberti of the OECD – identifies the new approach to African mining as ‘improving resource-rich countries’ ability to receive an enhanced share of revenues and use them to best promote broad-based development.’ This appears to assume that African countries are not in the driver’s seat when it comes to their mineral resources and can only, at best, hope for an improved ‘share’.)

In our view, the AMV will only bring developmental benefits to African communities and countries to the extent that is reflects input from community voices and ‘ownership’ by African governments backed by communities. Moreover, it would need to set common continental terms for the entry of foreign capital - recapturing what we would call the ‘African development vision’ of the early 1960s articulated by Kwame Nkrumah. Lastly, it would also need to be supported in its entirety by the international community and not in a selective or piecemeal fashion. However, although the AMV was ‘workshopped’ in 2009-2010 with African civil society and faith-based organizations, it does not reflect any significant contributions from such groups. As was indicated at the conference by Antonio Pedro, Director of East Africa sub-regional office of UNECA in his conference presentation, individual African countries are left to implement this ostensibly continental vision at the national level. This leaves the continent as a whole vulnerable to intra-African competition for foreign capital which has demonstrated its willingness to coerce policy content at the national level in many countries (for instance, through bilateral trade agreements). Overall it remains unclear as to whether the AMV will be adequately resourced, and whether it will operate on terms set by African citizens and governments as opposed to terms set, whether directly or indirectly, by outside interests. Thus one could conclude that the AMV lacks clout and potentially functions as a useful decoy, allowing foreign mining interests to pay lip service to the African Mining Vision as a way of legitimizing their presence in the continent.

At the same time, a number of competing mineral resource management blueprints are circulating. Some influential private interests have developed their own prescriptions for mineral development in the global South, including the African continent. Notable among these is the Natural Resources Charter, conceived by Paul Collier and now widely endorsed by the corporate sector and some governments. The NRC is a classic manifestation of emergent modes of pseudo-democracy that characterize private neoliberal governance. Its ‘participatory’ processes have no formal political accountability and effectively eliminate African state structures. Moreover, as Timothy Shaw noted in his presentation to the conference, there are a host of other ‘transnational and private’ initiatives to govern and manage the African mining sector. In relation to African citizens, who should be entitled, through formal democratic political processes, to exercise a voice over the governance of national resources, these transnational and private foreign initiatives are non-democratic and non-accountable in nature. The majority of African citizens are effectively excluded from mineral resource governance processes.

This brings us back to our main contention with the thrust of this conference. The focus on ‘governance’ sounds to our ears like new language for an old form of external control that used to be called colonialism. One of the indicators that we are still in the institutional and ideological realm of neo-colonialism is the emphasis placed throughout the conference on what Africa ’lacks’. Even while the continent is receiving a new spin as a place of ‘hope’ – that is, a continent ‘newly ready for investment’ - it is still simultaneously deemed to be a place dreadfully short of what is required to really bring it into developmental modernity. Thus ‘lack of capacity’ was one of the most persistent themes that ran through many of the conference presentations. African countries were purported to lack capital, technology, skills of all sorts (that is, ‘human capital’) and inadequate political will and competence on the part of African ‘host’ governments to negotiate with foreign capital from a position of strength. Moreover, corruption topped the discussion as to why African countries had to date not benefitted adequately from their minerals. In fact, Andre Bourassa, in his presentation, stated that he had travelled throughout the continent (admitting publicly that he couldn’t remember if there were 54 or 55 African countries) and had never found any ‘resource curse’; rather, he had found a ‘governance curse’. In other words, ‘African incompetence’ – a vintage racist-colonial charge – explained why African populations had not to date benefitted from their countries’ resource wealth. Such aspersions seem primarily designed to justify continued foreign control and domination of the mining sector: in short, ‘Africans’ don’t have what it takes to develop their own minerals, so foreigners must take charge and do it for them. Ostensibly to counter this problem, plans are well in hand for the establishment of a regional mineral training centre where African citizens could acquire the geo-scientific and technical skills to service the continent’s foreign-dominated mining sector.

The assertions of ‘lack of African capacity’ that were heard throughout the conference indicated frustration on the part of foreign actors who would like to get on with mining and do it efficiently – in a manner that could be, or could at least be seen to be, a ‘win-win’ situation. But this ‘win-win’ requires African host states with the capacity to manage and regulate an industrial, foreign-investment-dominated mining industry according to the interests and prescriptions of foreign capital, and a citizenry able to work in the sector. In the alleged absence of such states and capacities, foreign actors need to continuously intervene to aid the production of the relevant capacities. As indicated above, the motivation for such interventions is to protect the foreign ‘win’ side of the ‘win-win’ fiction: in other words, to maintain foreign access to African minerals, even while the impetus is made out to be developmental achievements for African host states and their societies. The rhetoric of ‘African incapacity’ thus operates simultaneously to render invisible the active suppression of mining vision capacity oriented toward the prioritization of community interests (for example notions of resource nationalism and resource sovereignty), and the existing political capacity for African self-determination. The latter remain the primary threat to foreign (Canadian) interests in the continent.

To conclude, our assessment of this conference is that it may have been designed principally to impress and garner buy-in from the Canadian corporate mining sector with a view to disseminating a progressive image for the mining sector. The concept of creating a forum to bring people together to share views on African mineral resources and development was promising. But, if this was the intention, the composition of participants and panellists was problematic. As noted above, there were glaring absences from African and Canadian civil society actors involved in natural resources issues. There were no critical voices from African governments. Panellists seemed to have been very carefully selected to reinforce the emerging dominant policy prescriptions for African mining. Indeed, the registration cost alone ($225 without the gala dinner) prevented participation from many others who would have been interested to attend, even including some African embassy staff in Canada. Those Africans who came as invitees of NSI did not present a critique of the dominant paradigm but rather seemed selected to endorse it. In short, the messaging of the conference seemed highly controlled, in subtle and not so subtle ways. Thus the ‘governance’ of African resources, as discussed at this conference, does not acknowledge the central right to self-determination vis-à-vis mineral resource wealth due to African peoples and economies.

* Paula Butler is a scholar and educator whose work encompasses anti-racism, anti-colonialism and critical analysis of globalizing neoliberal power. For close to two decades she worked in global social justice movements with a focus on North-South relations, including solidarity work with organizations in East, Central and Southern Africa. Currently, she makes her living as a university professor, teaching in Gender and Women’s Studies (Trent University) and continuing to build on doctoral research on Canadian mining in African countries.

* Evans Rubara is a social justice campaigner with expertise in policy engagement on social, political and environmental justice issues in Eastern and Southern Africa and internationally. He is a member of the larger group in Africa engaged in creating discursive platforms to address malpractices in the extractive sector related to foreign direct investment and international relations. Evans is currently a graduate candidate in environmental studies at York University – Canada, specialising in Critical Development Studies and Policy.


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Is Kenya the new haven for tax dodgers?

Martin Kirk and Blessol Gathoni

2013-06-11

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/87803

cc J GThe plan looks fine, but in practice it means Kenya would become a see-no-evil, hear-no-evil haven for tax cheats and money launderers, governed by lax regulation that puts all the power in the hands of the multinational corporations

Tax havens such as Ireland and the Cayman Islands have become a key driver of vast inequality around the world, siphoning somewhere between $21 and 32 trillion from the global economy. As financial structures, they exist for one purpose only: to let the rich get around the taxes that pay for the infrastructure and services that everyone relies on. And now there is a new push underway to bring tax shelters to yet another part of the globe: Africa.

Until recently, there has not been a major tax haven in mainland Africa, despite failed attempts to create one - notably in Ghana and Botswana. But we may now be looking at the most serious attempt to date. Kenya, it seems, may be in the sights of the City of London: the effective Tax Haven Capital of the World. The City Authorities, and their 'independent' lobbying arm, CityUK, have been negotiating with the Kenyan government to help it develop, to use the official term, into an [url=http://www.standardmedia.co.ke/m/story.php?id=2000076574&pageNo=1 'International Financial Centre'[/url]. The calculation being made is that another hub in the international financial architecture benefits everyone interested in the rapid movement of capital. A win/win for financiers and those who can afford to access this elite system.

This may sound benign or even worthwhile. Kenya, after all, must develop. Its progress, once the pride of Africa, has taken a severe hit in the last decade thanks to a noxious mix of bad weather (droughts) and bad politics (the 2007 protests, etc.). With over just under half of the population below the poverty line, and growth rates well below the continental average, becoming an 'International Financial Centre' might sound like a sensible idea. But what does it really mean?

When speaking to business insiders, Kenyan authorities are clear: they plan for Nairobi to become a regional 'offshore' financial services hub, modelled on Ireland. In practice, this means that Kenya would become a see-no-evil, hear-no-evil haven for tax cheats and money launderers, governed by lax regulation that puts all the power in the hands of the multinational corporations.

Much of the blame lies with Britain. Being the midwife of new tax havens is increasingly a feature of the City of London's offer to the world. As a senior former banker testified to Parliament this year, 'They may be sitting in London, but they are exploiting other countries' tax regimes'.

This should be a source of intense embarrassment to David Cameron, as he uses his pulpit as Chair and host of next month's G8 summit to present the rich world's prescription for tackling tax evasion. Can people in the developing world have much faith in the man who not only presides over the Tax Haven Capital of the World, but who routinely goes to fight for it on the issues that really matter?

Kenyans are alert to the dangers. Activist groups, including ours, The Rules, are running a campaign to try and block the imposition of a staggering 16 percent tax hike on staples such as milk and maize. When a person with an average monthly income of $150 already spends over half of that on food, any tax increase is a significant burden. The effect on the poorest, who regularly spend 80 percent or more of their income on food, is nothing short of extortionate. It becomes unforgivable by a government that is not only allowing corporate exemptions and theft to the tune of $1.1 billion a year to go unchallenged, but is deepening their connections with those, like the City of London, who thrive off such business. Campaigners see all this as a portentous step along the path to reorienting Kenya's tax regime; a path they believe is leading inexorably to Kenya becoming Africa's flagship tax haven.

This is a concern to Africa but also to America and the rest of the world. The ability of multinational companies to access tax havens so that they reap huge profits but not pay their dues simply shifts the costs of national budgets onto ordinary citizens the world over. As the G8 Summit approaches, leaders like David Cameron must not be allowed to paint themselves as reformers, whilst turning a blind eye to the expansion of the tax haven system.

The last thing the world needs is for multinationals like Apple or Starbucks to have yet another offshore piggy bank unreachable by the IRS. It is a lose-lose situation for both Africa and the world.

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The war on Africa: U.S. imperialism and the world economic crisis

Mineral resources and the quest for strategic advantage guide western foreign policy on the continent

Abayomi Azikiwe

2013-06-12

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/87805

cc P ZCapitalism has failed to provide adequate housing, jobs, medical, educational and other services to many people in the West. As well, China’s global influence is rising. These are some of the reasons behind the US quest for mineral resources and strategic dominance in Africa and Middle East

For more than two decades the United States and other Western European imperialist states have been escalating their military intervention in Africa and other geo-political regions of the world. This has been taking place during the so-called Post-Cold War era with the collapse of the Eastern European socialist states and the Soviet Union during the late 1980s through 1991.

Africa was viewed during the period after the Second World War II as an ideological and political battleground between the emerging national liberation and socialist movements on the one hand and the imperialist states led by the U.S. on the other. One major outcome of World War II was the consolidation of economic and political hegemony of Washington and Wall Street.

During the Second World War the U.S. established military outposts in Algeria, Libya and Liberia. After 1945, the struggle for national independence in Africa, the Middle East and Asia would accelerate.

In Latin America, even though an independence struggle was waged in the 19th century, the phenomena of neo-colonialism became the dominant character of relations between the states in South America and the U.S. In the Caribbean, the struggle for genuine independence was waged from the 19th through the 20th century in Cuba, Puerto Rico, Haiti, Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana and other territories.

In the U.S. itself with the advent of Cold War ideology and political repression under McCarthyism, perspectives and political organizing around Africa became a highly contentious arena of struggle. The Council on African Affairs (CAA) and the Civil Rights Congress (CRC) during the early 1950s came under fierce attack by the U.S. government and were driven out of existence.

Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois and Shirley Graham Du Bois, both leading figures in the CAA and the CRC, were persecuted in the early 1950s for their interventions in the movements for world peace and solidarity with African liberation. The Du Bois’ wrote in December 1958 for the All-African People’s Conference held in Accra, Ghana that the future of Africa lies in socialism.

The Du Bois’ said that “Africa, ancient Africa, has been called by the world and has lifted up her hands! Africa has no choice between private capitalism and socialism. The whole world, including capitalist countries, is moving toward socialism, inevitably, inexorably. You can choose between blocs and military alliances, you can choose between political unions; you cannot choose between socialism and private capitalism because private capitalism is doomed!” (The World and Africa, p. 307)

IMPLICATIONS OF U.S. DOMINANCE IN THE WORLD IMPERIALIST SYSTEM

Later during the 1960s when the various national liberation movements and independent African states embarked upon the armed struggle as a necessity to fight the U.S. and NATO backed colonial and settler-colonial states in Africa, Pan-Africanist and socialist strategist Kwame Nkrumah identified U.S. imperialism as the major force in the movement for genuine territorial sovereignty on the continent. The U.S., although paying lip service to supporting the anti-colonial movements, sought to stifle and manipulate the national liberation movements for the benefit of Wall Street and the Pentagon.

Nkrumah wrote that “The modifications introduced by imperialism in its strategy were expressed through the disappearance of the numerous old-fashioned ‘colonies’ owing exclusive allegiance to a single metropolitan country through the replacement of ‘national’ imperialism by a ‘collective’ imperialism in which the USA occupies a leading position.” (Handbook of Revolutionary Warfare, p. 5, 1969)

Nkrumah continued noting that “The US-European post-war alliance not only enabled the USA to benefit from the advantages of the European market, which had hitherto been largely closed to its penetration; but also opened up new horizons in Asia, Africa and Latin America where the USA had already superseded European supremacy and established neo-colonialist domination. The militarization of the US economy, based on the political pretext of the threatening rise of the USSR and later of the People’s Republic of China as socialist powers, enabled the USA to postpone its internal crises, the first during the ‘hot’ war (1939-1945) and then during the ‘cold’ war (since 1945)” (ibid., p. 6)

The postponement of these internal crises has apparently run its course. Imperialist war no long delays the impact of the inherent failures of capitalism related to its incapacity to provide housing, jobs, medical services, education and municipal services to the majority of its people. Nonetheless, in its destructive character, imperialism continues on the path of endless war and pursuit of ever-rising rates of profit.

Since the advent of the first Gulf war in 1990-91, going through the occupation of Somalia during 1992-94, through to the failure of U.S. policy in Egypt to the second occupation of Somalia through proxy between 2006 to the present period, where in the aftermath of the war on Libya and the imposition of sanctions against Zimbabwe and Sudan, the capitalist system in the West continues to decline economically. No matter how many Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) field stations are constructed or drone attacks carried out throughout Africa, Washington has not been able to address the rising rates of poverty, joblessness and austerity throughout the capitalist states in Western Europe and North America.

The U.S. ruling class through its quest for mineral resources and strategic dominance has focused a tremendous amount of attention on Africa and the so-called Middle East. The founding of the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) in 2008 under Bush has enhanced its operations under Obama.

The first full-scale operation of AFRICOM was the war of regime-change carried out against Libya in 2011 in cooperation with other European imperialist states and their allies. It is no accident that Libya has the largest known oil reserves in Africa and had under the Jamahiriya, the highest living standards on the African continent.

In Somalia, the CIA and AFRICOM have been involved in propping up the Ethiopian occupation and the latter Transitional Federal Government regime since 2006. The African Union Mission to Somalia, AMISOM, is largely a U.S.-controlled military operation which is financed by Washington and provided with political, intelligence and diplomatic cover. Somalia is the source of oil and other strategic interests for imperialism and both the U.S. and NATO have large-scale naval vessels off the coast of the Horn of Africa nation in the Gulf of Aden.

The intervention into Somalia of the Kenyan Defense Forces in 2011 had been planned by the Pentagon for at least two years. Despite efforts by Washington and its allies, the situation in Somalia is by no means stable. A French Special Forces commando unit’s attempt to free intelligence officials from Paris being held in Somalia proved to be a disaster as Al-Shabaab wiped out the entire crew and eventually executed the leading commander of the failed raid.

In Mali and Niger, the U.S. is backing up French military intervention. The Pentagon had trained the Malian army prior to the March 2012 coup and is largely responsibility for the incapacity of the national military to address the Tuareg rebellion in the north.

Niger is now another location for a U.S. drone station and at least 100 Special Forces are operating inside the country. During December 2012, the Obama administration announced that 3,500 Pentagon troops would be deployed in at least 35 African states over the course of the year. Nonetheless, France and the U.S. have been unable to halt armed actions against foreign forces in Mali and Niger. In Mali, the resistance to French occupation is widening with mass demonstrations recently in Gao and the open criticism of the Hollande doctrine of military intervention throughout the region of West Africa.

The presence of U.S. military and intelligence forces in Africa is designed to bolster the strategic mineral and territorial interests of Wall Street. Africa is now supplying greater amounts of oil, natural gas and other essential minerals to economic interests of the ruling class.

AFRICA AND REGIONAL BLOCS OF THE GLOBAL SOUTH

With the growing role of the People’s Republic of China on the continent, Washington and Wall Street are concerned that they will lose their post-World War II advantage in Africa. Hence due to the declining economic influence of the U.S., the capitalist are relying more on aggressive military and intelligence operations to undermine Africa’s long term interests which are more in line with other continental states as well as other geo-political regions of the world including Asia, the Middle East and Latin America.

The advent of regional blocs such as the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) has served to provide the African Union member-states with both economic and political alliances that are outside U.S. and European Union influence. In regard to China, the socialist state has provided direct economic trade and development assistance which is far superior to the traditional relations established by the imperialist countries which enslaved Africans and colonized the continent for centuries. FOCAC has held five summits since 2000 and this is paralleled by the fact that now China is Africa’s largest international trading partner.

China supported both Zimbabwe and Sudan when the U.S. and Britain sought to impose even harsher sanctions on these states through the United Nations Security Council. Zimbabwe maintains a “Look East” policy which has been significant in the survival of the Southern African state in the aftermath of its land redistribution program beginning in 2000 that prompted the West to enact draconian sanctions and regime-change plots against the ZANU-PF government.

The U.S. and Britain have sought the overthrow of the National People Congress (NPC) government in Sudan through the partition of the country in 2011 and the ongoing conflict in Darfur. Sudan prior to the partition was the largest geographic nation-state in Africa and is an emerging oil-producing country with close links to China and Iran. Israel and the U.S. have bombed Sudan on numerous occasions because Khartoum does not support Washington’s foreign policy objectives in Palestine and throughout the Middle East.

Uprising in Tunisia, Egypt, Morocco and Algeria during 2010-2011 saw the U.S. attempting to manipulate these developments to maintain Cairo, Tunis and Rabat in their own sphere of geo-political influence. The government in Algeria was able to resist these efforts while Libya faced an all-out onslaught that resulted in the destruction of the national infrastructure of this North African state, the theft of its foreign reserves and the abolition of its leading role on the African continent.

Other economic and political alliances have surfaced in the last few years which have impacted U.S. militarist policies toward Africa. The Southern African Development Community (SADC) has maintained its support of Zimbabwe which has been critical in its survival and economic recovery.

The Africa-South America Summit has held three gatherings, the latest of which was in March, in order to enhance cooperation and to form a bloc against U.S. efforts to undermine anti-imperialist governments in Latin America and developing relations between Africa and non-Western regional entities. Iran has also strengthened its relations with Africa and Latin America causing serious concerns on the part of the U.S.

The joining by the Republic of South Africa of the Brazil, Russia, India, China (BRICS) grouping has resulted in new initiatives being discussed including the creation of a development bank as well as independent foreign policy positions on Syria and Iran that are at variance with U.S. imperialism. The failure of U.S. foreign policy toward Syria has been greatly determined by the role played on the part of Russia, Iran, China and Hezbollah in southern Lebanon along with other regional forces of the Global South who do not want another war of regime-change in the Middle East. Such wars could very well be carried out with greater determination in Sudan, Zimbabwe, Nigeria, South Africa and Somalia which would be against the interests of the peoples of Africa and working and oppressed peoples throughout the world.

THE PRINCIPAL AND PRINCIPLED ROLE OF THE ANTI-WAR MOVEMENT IN THE UNITED STATES

Our role in the United National Anti-War Coalition (UNAC) has been centered on developing and maintaining a clear anti-imperialist position that views U.S. imperialism as the principal threat to world peace. Africa is a focal point for military intervention by the Pentagon, the CIA and NATO and the anti-war and peace movements in the U.S. must be concerned about these trends and take decisive actions to thwart them.

UNAC at its founding conference in Albany in August 2010 unanimously passed a resolution opposing U.S. military intervention of any kind in Africa. We opposed the war of regime-change in Libya and have gone on record against the French invasion and occupation of Mali.

This coalition is by far the largest and most representative peace alliance in the U.S. We must build upon our successes in order to widen the organizations and grouping that we encompass so that we can further influence the anti-war struggle throughout North America and Western Europe.

Through our efforts in solidarity with the peoples of Africa, the Middle East, Central and South Asia, Korea, the South Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean we enhance the capacity of the 99 percent to confront the owners of capital who are the principal purveyors of death and destruction throughout the world. It will be through this unity of purpose and action that war and exploitation can be eliminated throughout the planet.

* Abayomi Azikiwe is Editor, Pan-African News Wire

NOTE: These remarks were made at the Left Forum during a panel entitled "The War on Africa." The panel was organized by the United National Antiwar Coalition (UNAC) and chaired by Joe Lombardo. Other panelists were Ana Edwards of the Virginia Defenders in Richmond,
Margaret Kimberley of Black Agenda Report and Patrick Bond, a professor at KwaZulu-Natal University in South Africa.

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Syria and the sham of ‘humanitarian intervention’

Ajamu Baraka

2013-06-12

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/87804

cc M LHumanitarian intervention provides the U.S. the perfect ideological cover and internal rationalization to continue as the global ‘gendarme’ of the capitalist order. America should leave the rest of the world alone

I continue to be amazed at the ease with which the dividing line is blurred between what is real and what is fiction in the reporting on Syria by the Western media. The press in the U.S. continues to dutifully report on the “objective diplomacy” by the Obama administration to broker a “peaceful” resolution to the conflict in Syria. However, those stories of noble and innocent efforts to avert the catastrophic human suffering that has eventually engulfed Syria has sanitized the bloody complicity of U.S. policy. Diplomacy, for the U.S., has meant calling for regime change from the outset and then encouraging Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Israel, their client states in the region, to arm, train and provide political support for a military campaign with the objective of effectively dismembering the Syria State.

Two years later, with tens of thousands killed, millions uprooted and the delicate social fabric of the country shredded by sectarian brutality, the next phase in the propaganda war leading to more direct intervention by the West to finish off the regime is being organized in the form of a
peace conference scheduled to take place in June.

Co-sponsored by Russia with a stake in maintaining the integrity of the Syria State, the U.S. approach to the conference, however, gives the impression that the gathering is a charade meant to mollify those elements in the U.S. Congress and public still hesitant to support another expensive military adventure. The U.S. demand that a peaceful solution to the conflict is predicated on a “transitional government” being established in which Assad should play no role, means effectively that there will be no serious attempt to resolve the conflict short of regime change and the surrendering of Syrian sovereignty. The U.S. position also confirms the real objective of the conference which is to justify more direct military intervention by the U.S. once the conference “fails” to bring peace.

While this is absolutely clear for many people around the world, the U.S. public, along with much of what used to be called the progressive and/or radical sectors, continue to be hoodwinked by some of the most crude and obvious manipulations I have ever witnessed. It was precisely the smooth efficiency with which the public was being manipulated that motivated me to write an earlier article on Syria that attempted to offer an explanation for the reasons why U.S. State propagandists, and I include the mainstream media in this category, have been so successful in confusing the general public and dividing the anti-war, anti-imperialist movement.

I believe part of their success has been due to the fact that they have used the concept of humanitarian intervention as one of their main tools. In my article, I made the argument that humanitarian intervention, along with the concept of the “right to protect” (R2P) has developed into the most effective ideological weapon the liberal human rights community provided Western imperialism since the fall of the Soviet State. Humanitarian intervention has proven to be an even more valuable propaganda tool than the “war on terror,” because as the situation in Libya and now Syria has demonstrated, it provides a moral justification for imperialist intervention that can also accommodate the presence of the same “terrorist” forces the U.S. pretends to be opposed to. And of course, in the eyes of the U.S. government, tyrannical and dictatorial governments that need to be deposed are only those that present an obstacle to the realization of U.S. geo/political interests—never those paragons of freedom and morality like Saudi Arabia and Israel.

As I said in my earlier article:

“Humanitarian intervention provided the U.S. State the perfect ideological cover and internal rationalization to continue as the global “gendarme” of the capitalist order. By providing the human rights rationale for the assertion that the “international community” had a moral and legal responsibility to protect a threatened people, mainstream human rights activists effectuated a shift in the discourse on international human rights that moved the R2P assertion from a contested legal and moral augment to a common-sense assumption. And because of their limited perspective, it did not occur to any of these theoreticians that what they propagated was a thinly updated version of the “white man’s burden.” The NATO intervention in Bosnia and Kosovo, the assault on Iraq to “save” the Iraqi people from Saddam Hussein, and most recently the NATO attack on Libya that brought to power a rag-tag assortment of anti-African racists, have solidified the idea among many in the U.S. that humanitarian intervention to protect human rights through aggressive war is justifiable. The consequence of this for U.S. policy makers and for the likely targets of U.S. aggression in the global South is that if properly framed, war could be moved back to the center of strategic options without much fear of a backlash from the American people—a development especially important for a declining power that appears to have concluded that it will use military means to attempt to maintain its global empire.”

The propagandists of the U.S. war strategy have been spectacularly successful in inculcating this shift in consciousness in the general population and the self-muting of the anti-war and anti-imperialist movements in the West, with the exception of a few organizations. The assertion of the right to unilaterally attack any State that it deems unfit for sovereignty is not a new articulation of White supremacist, imperialist ideology but in this current period where there are few constraints on the global exercise of “White power,” the internalization of this position by the European and U.S. publics, irrespective of ethnicity or race, has made the world a much more dangerous place for Black and Brown people: 50,000 killed in Libya, 80,000 in Syria, 1,000,000 in Iraq, and 30,000 in Afghanistan.

The normalization of war as a contemporary expression of the West’s responsibility to bring liberal democracy and capitalist freedom to the non-White hordes, and the fact that most of the people being killed in the process of “being saved” by the West are non-European, is a graphic confirmation of the White supremacist assumptions of humanitarian intervention. The people being “saved” by the West are framed as people who would embrace the Western way of life if given a choice. That is why Madeline Albright could say with a straight face that the “price was worth it” in response to the 500,000 children that died in Iraq as a result of U.S. sanctions.

So as the U.S. government prepares to wage war in Syria, the imperative for all of us who believe in peace and fundamental human rights is to attempt to persuade as many people as possible to choose peace instead of the war objectives of the 1%. The Syrian government has a significant social base that is made up of Alawites, Druze, Christians and significant numbers of Sunnis who fear the takeover of the country by Islamic fundamentalists. This is a fact that is being hidden from the public in the U.S. Those in the U.S. who would like to see an end to the bloodshed in Syria, and I believe that is the majority of people, should call on their representatives to support real initiatives for peace that respect the sovereignty of Syria and the desires of all of the people in that country.

But really what the people of Syria and the world want and many have demanded, is for the U.S. and its Western allies – the minority who make up 10% of the world but pretend to be the world – to intervene into their own societies who are experiencing their own humanitarian crisis brought on by a moribund capitalism and leave the rest of the world alone.

* Ajamu Baraka was the founding Director of the US Human Rights Network ( USHRN ). Baraka is currently an Associate Fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) and is editing a new book on human rights in the U.S. entitled: “The Struggle for a People-Centered Human Rights: Voices from the Field.”

** This article was first published by Global Research.

* BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

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Special Issue on Brazil in Africa: Call for articles

2013-06-13

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/Announce/87610

Pambazuka News is planning a special issue on ‘BRAZIL IN AFRICA’

As we reach an audience of approximately 26,000 subscribers weekly, we are calling on our readers and writers to submit articles for this special issue to cover any of the following themes (or a theme or issue of your choice):
• The historical links between Brazil and Africa
• South-South geopolitical links between Africa and Brazil via BRICS
• Issues relating to gender, youth, multinationals, social justice, environmental issues, the media, cultural links (i.e. music, literature, the arts) between Brazil and Africa
• Ideas on how to advance greater links and understanding between Brazil and Africa

Texts must be submitted to: editor@pambazuka.org or pambazukaeditor@gmail.com

WORD LENGTH: Texts must be between 1000-3000 words

DEADLINE: is 30th June 2013 for submission

Your name and a two line bio must be submitted at the end of the article.

THE EDITORS

The need for justice for Walter Rodney

Wazir Mohammed

2013-06-12

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/87812

June 12: Celebrating a farce

Ogunjimi James Taiwo

2013-06-12

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/87814

"The only thing that walks back from the tomb with the mourners and refuses to be buried is the character of a man. This is true. What a man is, survives him; it can never be buried." - J.R Miller

"He who has done his best for his own time has lived for all times." - Johann von Schiller

As the clock strikes 12 to herald the new day, June 12, 2013, there is the need to re-evaluate today, stroll down memory lane, open our eyes to the deceit that we've been sold, and come, with one fell swoop to the conclusion that we are still light years away from a true democracy

On June 12, 1993, there was a huge daylight robbery. Only that this time, the robbery was carried out by the nation's leaders; those who were supposed to uphold the law. The annulment of the election by General Ibrahim Babangida led to series of protests, arrests and detention. Moshood Abiola in 1994 declared himself President, and was arrested by General Sanni Abacha, and imprisoned for four years.

Twenty years and numerous lives later, Nigerians keep calling for June 12 to be declared Democracy Day. Perhaps they are right to do so, but I am of the opinion that calling for June 12 to be declared as Democracy Day is jumping the gun. We must demand some apologies first. We must ask General Babangida to apologise to Nigerians for stealing our mandate. We must tell him to apologise to Nigerians for allowing his actions to lead to power being hijacked by one of Nigeria's fiercest dictators ever, General Sanni Abacha. We must ask Professor Kofi Annan and Emeka Anyaoku to apologise to Nigerians for deliberately misleading the world into believing that MKO had renounced his mandate when they visited him in jail. We must ask the group of 'International Coroners' that carried out the final autopsy on MKO to release their autopsy report; we deserve the truth after spending 20 years listening to lies. We must ask the court to allow General Sanni Abacha's Chief Security Officer, Al-Mustapha to release the audio and video evidence he claims are with him to show how MKO was beaten to death. We must ask the American Susan Rice to tell us what her mission to visit MKO on the day of his release was, and how a man who was hale and hearty could suddenly fall sick and die. It would be too huge a joke if we neglect all these and keep on calling for June 12 to be declared Democracy Day.

Besides that, it will be a joke to celebrate democracy day, to see the very enemies of democracy, dancing in their agbadas, celebrating a non-existent democracy. It will be a huge joke for June 12 to be celebrated as democracy day in honour of MKO and yet his legacies have never been kept. Between 1972 and 1998, 26 years, MKO helped in providing 63 secondary schools, 121 mosques and churches, 41 libraries, 21 water projects in 24 states of Nigeria, etc. Yet the same people who want to celebrate Democracy Day on June 12 are the same people who have let his legacy perish off, they are the same people who, although in power, have failed to meet a record set about 20 odd years ago by a man not in power.

What could be more ironic than celebrating June 12 without electricity, without potable water, with high child mortality rate, with 70 percent of Nigerians below poverty level, with roads that have become death traps, without good hospitals, with insecurity at an all-time high, with abuse of office and mud-slinging in positions of authority, with looting the nation's treasury with reckless abandon, with freedom of speech now limited to speaking to yourself, with unguarded comments and illegal arrests; what joke could be funnier than celebrating June 12 as democracy day under these conditions?

Before June 12 can be celebrated as democracy day, Nigerians must see dividends of democracy. The legacies of MKO that has been allowed to cool off must be re-ignited. Governance must be transparent. Leaders must be prepared to be held accountable by the citizens. Freedom of Speech must be free indeed, even when it involves speaking the truth to authority. Providing social amenities must become a top priority for the nation's leaders. All the inter and intra-party bickerings and 'un-constructive' war of words must stop. It goes beyond renaming government and non-government agencies and institutions after MKO, celebrating him will mean continuing his legacy and living his dreams of a new Nigeria.

Unless these are done, we may continue celebrating June 12 as democracy day, we may even start celebrating July 7 and August 24 (date of death and date of birth respectively) as democracy day, we may even rename all the states in Nigeria after him, or declare a week as public holiday in his honour, we will all be celebrating a farce and a non-existent word in the vocabulary of governance in Nigeria.

God bless Nigerians!

Ignored lessons of a struggle

Abdulrazaq Magaji

2013-06-12

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/87807

June is here! The 12th day of the month is Democracy Day in the south west, a work-free day when pro-democracy activists, academics and political leaders join millions of Nigerians in the region to mark a significant day in the nation’s calendar. It has been the ritual since 1993. That year, Nigeria barely escaped a catastrophic plunge when the military government of President Ibrahim Babangida cancelled an election, the product of a painstaking political engineering for which government spared no expenses. Among others, government decreed two political parties, one, a little to the right and, the other, a little to the left, and proceeded to build and furnish offices for the political parties from local council to the federal level. There were hiccups here and there but, on the whole, the transition-to-civil-rule programme proceeded fairly well and President Babaginda was on a roller coaster to put sceptics to shame. Then came June 12, 1993, the last major milestone in the transition calendar, but which turned out to be the longest, never-ending, day in the country’s history. The dam literally broke and at the end of the day, all that President Babangida laboured to achieve simply went up in smoke!

For Nigerians, June 12, is not a day to be forgotten in a hurry. It was a year of hope because one man who defeated poverty to become one of the richest persons around had vowed to banish poverty from their country. As a politician and presidential candidate of his party, the Social Democratic Party, Moshood Abiola travelled across the country just like his opponent, Bashir Tofa of the National Republican Convention, in search of votes. Rights groups also look upon 1993 with nostalgia because the year won them a major trophy in their campaigns to see the back of the military. In every sense of the word, 1993 is a long time even in the history of nations. It looks and sounds like yesterday but 1993 is not exactly yesterday. June 12, 1993 brought out the worst in Nigerians, a time you never knew who to believe. In the heat of the crisis, a professor of law at the University of Lagos, a man who was later appointed vice chancellor in one of the universities in the south west, caused a stir in his analogy of Newswatch, once Africa’s best quoted newsmagazine, with Ikebe Super, once Nigeria’s best-selling comic on the laughable excuse that Newswatch refused to join the sensational journalism and the high-wire politicking that characterized the period!

It was indeed was a period when Newswatch recorded high unsold copies, an alarming situation that was informed by the wise judgment of management of the newsmagazine that, June 12, a transient event , should not befog the magazine’s editorial focus. Apparently, our professor friend and many Nigerians were not impressed. Few countries can survive the type of events that came with the cancellation of the June 12 presidential election. Miraculously, Nigeria successfully negotiated a dangerous bend, the type that overwhelmed drivers elsewhere to crash vehicles of state. On a personal note, the year is made even more historic because the second of my three daughters, a toddler at the time the country was thrown into an avoidable political impasse ignited by the cancellation of the presidential election, has just been mobilized for the mandatory one-year national service! How time flies!

Still talking about time and its propensity to fly, June 12 reminds Nigerians of the extra mileage some of their opportunistic compatriots could go for self and group-serving purposes. In the thick of the confusion that surrounded the cancellation of the election, Olusegun Obasanjo, the man who eventually became the main beneficiary of the impasse, told Nigerians, not with his tongue in his cheek, to seek their messiah elsewhere not in the person of Moshood Abiola, his townsman who was duly cleared to contest the election and who many believe was the undeclared winner of the June 12, 1993 presidential election. Unfolding events in the aftermath of the cancellation of the election were to suggest that Obasanjo’s shocker, execrable as they come, was the least that awaited Nigerians as they grappled with the crisis of an inconclusive election is capable of provoking. And the deluge of shockers came in torrent.

By November of the year, the creaky interim arrangement put together by President Babangida before he had stepped aside three months earlier, no longer able to suck in sustained attacks from rights and pro-democracy activists, was eased out by the military. Before the military struck, lives put at more than one hundred and sixty had been lost after Nigerians trooped out to demand the actualization of the June 12, 1993 presidential election. These were precious lives of Nigerians who hearkened to the voice of prominent Nigerians, among them Nobel honouree, Wole Soyinka, late Gani Fawehinmi and Moshood Abiola who, unable to stomach the usurpation of powers by the interim government, goaded the military into overthrowing it to pave way for the ascension of Abiola. For instance, Professor Soyinka applauded the Movement for the Advancement of Democracy, MAD, a crazy group for advancing ‘a valid reason’ (Swear in Abiola!) to hijack a domestic flight. On his part, Gani Fawehinmi openly canvassed for the progressive wing of the military, whatever that meant, to overthrow the interim civilian government. The military did strike on November 17, 1993, an action which the coup plotters rationalised by accusing President Babangida of unilaterally annulling the election, an action which the coup leaders, being senior members of the Babangida administration, had canvassed. The coup leaders failed its first test when, rather than doing the bidding of the pro-democracy activists, they began to entrench their positions by promising to steady the country for a shadowy return to democratic rule in the not-too-distant future. To pertinent Nigerians, this signalled the abortion of a dream, an indication to Abiola, the unannounced winner of the election, that the coup plotters did risk their necks to cede power to him.

Earlier in July, Moshood Abiola after the leakage of a letter he wrote to President Babangida to re-affirm his commitment to their decades of friendship did say that he had taken his case to the court of God. But within a week, he was propped into exhuming a hatchet he had buried when, at the end of the consultative meeting of his party, the SDP, in Benin City, he picked the gauntlet and subsequently internationalized the struggle to force the government of President Babangida to announce full details of the election. The same manipulative hands, ever- present and ever-devious, were at play again to prop Moshood Abiola when the military returned in November, 1993. Nigerians did not have to wait for too long for proof of the double-dealings, appropriately tagged the betrayal of the century, of the pro-democracy activists. After all, they have lined their pockets through waging a well-oiled, foreign-funded but mainly hypocritical campaign to restore democracy and when it mattered most, especially when the return of the military threatened the source of those funds, most of them dashed, with the speed of lightning, to jump on the military train to feather their own nests; not that of Moshood Abiola. And, typically, the spineless pro-democracy activists, typical of barefaced ingratiating talkers, flaunted reprehensible excuses, glossily-coated and sweet-scented from the outside but excessively malodorous from within, for jettisoning June 12; an idea they hitherto claimed was as inviolable as it is sacrosanct! That was the better-forgotten but painfully recurring era of justifying ethical paralysis with untenable excuses ranging from a dubious urge to serve one’s country, helping to push the frontiers of democracy from within, contribution to the process of national healing to such epidermic claims as pandering to calls of people back home and desire to stop charlatans from hijacking the country. Nigerians cannot rely on such uninspiring men and women, people who are incapable of comprehending the message of June 12, not to talk of promoting its painfully-ignored ideals.

Despite the hollowness that characterized the era, June 12 still holds a major lesson but which, for some curious reasons, the country has continued to ignore. And this is how to replicate the magic that made the June 12, 1993 presidential election the most credible and most transparent election so far conducted in the country. At a time the world is towards electronic voting, Option A4 as President Babangida called it or, whatever name it might be given after it is re-branded, may sound and look like the stone-age electoral idea that it was derisively called by critics who later turned round to applaud it. Yes! Option A4 is archaic but it has distinguished itself as the antidote for the façade of elections in the country! And because it works, Option A4 should suffice for a country which, to all intent and purpose, still shows traces of the stone- age! For now, the way forward is not to appropriate billions of Naira for electronic voting machines especially at a time bush lamps are employed to collate election results.

* Abdulrazaq Magaji is based in Abuja, Nigeria

African integration: Africa's year

Süreyya Yiğit

2013-06-12

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/87815

How many of us know that 2013 is the year of Africa?

It was 50 years ago that a major movement for regional integration, consisting of 32 governments, came together in Addis Ababa to establish the Organization of African Unity (OAU). Many people may not know about this momentous occasion, although it deserves to be commemorated throughout the whole year and, in truth, all over the globe.

The newly created OAU’s desire was to promote the unity and solidarity among African states and act as a collective voice for the African continent. The cooperation and building of stronger ties among African states was one of the major aims in order to achieve a better life for the people of Africa.

After World War II, intelligent leaders such as Kwame Nkrumah, Jomo Kenyatta, Julius Nyerere and Patrice Lumumba not only sought independence from their colonial masters but understood so well that survival and prosperity depended on economic and political integration. That integration had to be on a massive scale -- at a continental level.

The idea of integration continues to resonate throughout the whole continent and was in evidence at a formidable academic conference organized by the Africa Institute of South Africa and the Tshwane University of Technology (TUT) held in Pretoria, the South African capital, during May 20-21. The conference entitled ‘50 years after the founding of the OAU: Africa must unite or perish’ considered the prevailing challenges facing Africa including strengthening and improving the efficiency of the AU, ensuring that Africans have a feeling of ownership and strong attachment to the AU as well as entrenching pan-Africanism as a viable program of action to unite Africans by appreciating their differences.

At the conference, the particular difficulty of African integration in terms of the disunity of Sub-Saharan Africa was put forward by yours truly. It remains, unfortunately, very much a fragmented region, composed of 47 small economies. Their combined GDP equals only half of Spain’s, or the equivalent of Belgium. Moreover, these countries continue to suffer from high production costs and low levels of investment which makes the eradication of poverty an uphill task. Therefore, one could summarize the whole continent as one constituted by small countries with small economies and even smaller markets.

PROFESSOR MUCHIE’S PROPOSALS

One of the main organizers of the conference, Professor Mammo Muchie, professor of innovation studies at TUT, highlighted the central elements of a coordinated approach necessary to ensure the realization of a genuine continent-wide integration. According to Muchie, whilst recognizing that Africans are indeed varied, their similarities ought to come first is an important starting point. It is through such an approach that Africa can be put first or being African comes before all other identities, thus, permitting Africanness to become a means to express self-definition, self-determination and freedom.

In terms of the ineffectiveness of the AU and its lack of agency, Professor Muchie accepts criticism by highlighting the case of Libya. According to him, this had proven to be a good lesson to learn from, as Africans should have tried to unite and address the problem first before non-Africans had invited themselves and been permitted to push their own agendas forward. When Africans fail to produce a united front and are unwilling to coordinate their actions then they will continue to face external powers putting forward their own solutions to national and international crises.

The Arab Spring points to a rather worrying dilemma for the whole continent. Whilst it can be argued that African states are all sovereign and proceeding toward democracy their economies continue to struggle. In many ways whilst there is advancement in terms of democracy there is a lack of development which leads one to question whether African states have been liberated only to remain poor.

THE ROLE OF ETHIOPIANISM

Professor Muchie’s convincing suggestion to ensure future unification is to concentrate on past success. He identifies the role that the Christian religion has played in Africa. Africans were treated as slaves and forced to feel inferior in the past. Ethiopians led the way in breaking free from the Church, establishing their own churches to achieve religious independence. This Ethiopianism which won the battle over religion became the precursor to political independence, providing support for other rebellions that took place in the continent.

Given this historically progressive role carried out by Ethiopianism, he argues powerfully that a newer version is best placed to push Africa onto unity. The current conception of Ethiopianism makes no qualms that it is not race, tribe, region, religion nor language that precedes Africa. Africa, simply put, is first. Furthermore, Africa is for the Africans. Ethiopianism, therefore, can be encapsulated by seven notions: dignity, pride, confidence, self-worth, self-reliance, independence and freedom. Finally, in order to quicken the pace for continental unification the revival of Pan-African Congresses are advocated.

The main drawback for African integration remains what it was half a century ago: the gap between expectations and capabilities.

The good news is, whilst the expectations have not changed -- political union remains the goal -- the capabilities are immeasurably greater when compared to 1963. For too long heartfelt supporters of the continent have been waiting to see, whether disembarking from the ports of Tangier or Cape Town; crossing on foot into Suez; or whether landing at Kinshasa or Freetown airport, a diplomatic sign that reads ‘AFRICA.’ Having understood Professor Muchie’s arguments, one need not be disheartened concerning the unity of Africa. To do so, would be tantamount to abandoning the cause.

*Dr. Süreyya Yiğit is Eurasia advisor at the Center for Middle Eastern Strategic Studies (ORSAM) and a lecturer at İstanbul Aydın University.

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African unity leading Africa towards disaster

Mo Dhillon

2013-06-12

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/87816

I’d like to challenge the AU to tell me which tribunal or judiciary in Africa will ever convict a sitting head of state. This attempt to renege on a commitment to the ICC is nothing more than a sinister plot by Africa’s dictators to save themselves from any kind of accountability. It was initiated by the late Colonel Gaddafi, who bailed the AU out of a financial crisis, thereby buying the loyalty of other African leaders whose necks were also on the line. To save himself from international justice, he wanted Africa out of the reach of the ICC. Shame on such leaders! Contrary to any suggestion of restoring national sovereignty, the aim of these people is for Africa to be out of the Rome Treaty so that they can continue with their evil intentions where money and power counts for everything and the ordinary African can rot.

AU PROMOTES IMPUNITY

Our memories in Africa are very short, particularly in the case of perpetrators of genocide, rape and murder. Those who support the AU line that accused Kenyans should be tried locally should remember that not so long ago parliament and other local bodies preferred to hand over cases to ICC. Remember the slogan that was on the lips of all Kenyans: ‘Don’t be Vague, Ask for Hague.’ Kenya was given 12 months to put their act together and they did not move an inch. The Kenyan authorities were going to investigate several thousand of other perpetrators but none was investigated due to lack of political will despite some of the perpetrators being recognizable carrying out crimes against humanity. The AU is becoming a laughing stock in promoting impunity.

The early history of Kenya’s ICC cases seems already to have been forgotten. After the post-election violence in 2008, the Peace Accord appointed the Waki Commission which produced 529 pages report on 16 July 2009 along with 6 boxes of documents and supporting material. A sealed envelope containing names of those considered most responsible for the violence was given to Kofi Annan as mediator. The Kenyan government tried for one year to establish a local tribunal but parliament blocked this, leading to the involvement of the International Criminal Court. The ICC Prosecutor, Luis Moreno Ocampo opened the envelope, inspected its contents and re-sealed it, before proceeding at Kenya Government’s request to carry out investigations and develop the resulting cases for ICC.

THE INTENTION OF NEIGHBOURS

Kenya must smell the rat behind the intentions of our neighbours in Ethiopia, Uganda and Sudan, who are guilty of gross human rights violations in their own countries. Most recently, these include muzzling the media and arresting journalists and civil rights workers, but there is a long track record of crimes against humanity in each country. The AU has failed miserably to bring the perpetrators to book, as have the local judicial systems.

Until fifteen years ago, I filmed all the OAU meetings since its inception in 1963. For most of that time, the fight against apartheid in South Africa was the only factor that held this organisation together – otherwise I’m sure it would have disintegrated. It is a matter of record that crimes against humanity on the rest of the continent have far outweighed the evils of apartheid both in terms of scale and sheer lack of accountability. Why the double standard?
It is abundantly clear that most of Africa’s leaders are more concerned with protecting themselves than they are with securing justice for ordinary people. Although we in Kenya have made enormous strides in securing personal freedoms over the last twenty years, I am deeply concerned about the negative influence of our dictatorial neighbours in Uganda, Sudan and Ethiopia, where media houses are being closed down for flimsy reasons, where opposition is not tolerated and large numbers journalists and activists languish in dungeons without being charged. Kenyan genocide victims need closure just like the victims of Charles Taylor in Liberia, where the ICC was applauded for a job well done. There can never be adequate compensation for loss of life, limbs or dignity but at least some measure of justice was served.

Members of Kenya’s government are shouting empty slogans about protecting their sovereign rights, in complete contradiction of their earlier position. I trust that the Kenyan people can see for themselves the total insincerity of those who are driven by nothing more than fear for themselves, and total disregard for the victims of violence.

Mo Dhillon

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Dousing the flames

Reasonable discussion of Ethiopia’s renaissance dam

Fasil Amdetsion

2013-06-12

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/87817

Two momentous events, each occurring within 4 days of one another, have put Egyptian politicians and journalists in a febrile mood.

Ethiopia’s diversion of the Nile (conducted after giving ample advance notice to Egypt and Sudan, to whom the Nile flows from Ethiopia) as part of ongoing construction of a 6,000 MW generating mega-dam—Africa’s largest and Ethiopia’s first on the river, was followed by the 1 June submission to all 3 governments of a report by an international panel (composed of Ethiopian, Egyptian, Sudanese, and international experts) evaluating the engineering, socioeconomic and environmental impact of the dam.

EGYPT, ETHIOPIA AND THE NILE

The reactions to these recent developments go beyond opposition to Ethiopia’s Renaissance Dam and highlight the difficulties inherent to reaching a future agreement on apportionment of the Nile’s waters between all of its 10 riparian states. In particular, between Ethiopia, which previously lacked the financial wherewithal to exploit the river, 85 percent of whose waters spring form within its borders; and Egypt, which uses 75 percent of the Nile, but contributes nothing to its flow.

The effects of the acerbic and misleading commentary in the Egyptian press about the dam and the panel’s report should not be underestimated. If misconceptions become deeply rooted in the minds of the public, it will become exponentially harder for the governments involved to reach agreements which are suitable to citizens’ needs and which meet their people’s expectations.
Certain Egyptian media outlets have, for example, alleged that the postponement of the report’s finalization—twice— ostensibly occurred at Ethiopia’s behest, because Addis was unhappy with the report’s contents. Not true; the panel delayed its report of its own volition and on its own initiative, as independent committees are wont to do. What’s more, Ethiopia has accepted the findings of the report which states that the dam meets international standards, but recommends further studies in certain areas.

A perpetual favourite source of misinformation is the invocation of the looming specter of Israeli involvement in Nile-related projects. This most recent spate of reports is no exception, as Egyptian journalists have again resorted to the same scarecrow claiming that Israeli firms are involved in the dam’s construction. Again, not true. The companies involved are Italian, Chinese and Ethiopian, and the dam’s $4.8 billion price-tag is being met by Ethiopia.
These stories are deliberately designed to inflame, not inform. The climate of mistrust they help spread does not advance the cause of an amicable solution to the Nile issue.

VITRIOL OF EGYPTIAN POLITICIANS TELEVISED

On the domestic political front, things have not fared much better. Two days after submission of the report, President Morsi convened a meeting whose participants were drawn from a broad swath of political parties. The meeting was stunning for the jaw-dropping levels of vitriol directed towards Ethiopia and Sudan.

The prescriptions offered by those in attendance are a source of apprehension. The recommendations ranged from feigning an imminent military attack by Egyptian forces in order to reap political dividends (one wonders if aside from provoking the wrath of Ethiopians, such politicians have calculated the complications arising from the involvement of the abovementioned international companies), to colluding with insurgents opposed to Ethiopia’s federal government. Unbeknownst to the politicians, the meeting was being televised live.

The Egyptian stock market was down following the meeting and prominent opposition politician El Baradei called on Morsi to apologize to Ethiopia and Sudan for the participants’ verbal fusillades.

One can only hope that these are the mere foibles of politicians seeking to extract short-term gains from a manufactured ‘crisis.’ After all, President Morsi, Egypt’s Irrigation Minister and a prominent Egyptian general have all categorically ruled out the military option.

A WAY FORWARD IS NECESSARY

Given where things stand, what next? A logical first step would be to douse the flames of discord. Politicians must refrain from belligerent statements and responsible media outlets should correct the irresponsible reports of their ill-informed or ill-intentioned counterparts.

The International Panel of Experts and their report must also be allowed to promote trust and dialogue among the parties, as originally intended. International committees dealing with trans boundary waters have a mixed record. A tripartite committee composed of Turkey, Syria and Iraq has had a lackluster record with regard to joint development of the Euphrates. The Indus Waters Commission, comprising India and Pakistan has instead been remarkably successful, with both countries realizing that water is too precious to quarrel over, despite having gone to war three times over Kashmir and being at loggerheads over multiple issues. In this case, the work of the International panel is most likely to have the desired effect if all parties abide by the terms agreed to during its set-up. Namely, keeping the report confidential in order to allow uninhibited discussions between the parties and exhibiting a genuine political willingness for compromise.

Finally, consultations between riparian states over the projects they are undertaking within their borders constitute a positive precedent. But discussions ought not to be the sole province of any particular country. A similar protocol ought to be followed for projects which take place in the Sudan and Egypt. For future discussions to yield the most fruit, countries must also move decisively towards treating the Nile as an integrated basin, and this requires that the other sub-Saharan riparian states (South Sudan, Uganda, Kenya Rwanda, Tanzania, Burundi and the DRC) be included in deliberations as well.

*Fasil Amdetsion is Senior Policy and International Legal Advisor at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ethiopia. The opinions contained herein do not necessarily reflect the position of the Ministry.
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Court Poll decision is legal sophistry

Percy F. Makombe

2013-06-12

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/87808

In arriving at judgements, it is important that courts do not cultivate the unsavoury impression that they are hell-bent on taking us back to the Court of Chancery in Dickens’ Bleak House. The Court of Chancery was entrusted with the responsibility of making fair and reasonable judgements but it was not fulfilling its function. The word chancery itself is a term in the art of boxing. If you are in-chancery it means your head is held in someone’s hand and he punches you. If one gets into Chancery Court, one is thumped, one is hammered. That was the feeling I got after reading the decision of Zimbabwe’s Constitutional Court ordering President Robert Mugabe to hold elections by 31 July, 2013.

The majority decision is an exercise in legal sophistry. It is much easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for this decision to make sense. The decision is not only poorly argued but represents a clear and present danger to the holding of credible elections in the country.

At the heart of the contestation is how parliament ought to be dissolved and how soon elections take place after this dissolution. According to the constitution there are two ways by which Parliament can be dissolved. It is either through a presidential proclamation or at any rate an automatic dissolution after the parliament’s five-year term comes to an end on 29 June, 2013. Either way it is clear that elections must be held four months after parliament is dissolved.

Section 58 (1) of the constitution which is cited as the basis of the majority decision penned by Chief Justice Chidyausiku is clear and unambiguous on when elections must held. It states that:

“A general election and elections for members of the governing bodies of local authorities shall be held on such day or days within a period not exceeding four months after the issue of a proclamation dissolving parliament under Section 63 (4) as the president may, by proclamation in the gazette, fix.”

The majority decision advances the position that there are two ways of reading this section depending on what the chief justice calls “punctuation and emphasis”. In Reading A, section 58 (1) would be read as if there was a colon after the word “on” : A general election and elections for members of the governing bodies of local authorities shall be held on: such day or days within a period not exceeding four…”

As constitutional expert Derek Matyszak has clearly articulated, the introduction of the colon dramatically changes the section to mean that the election has to be held “on” the dissolution of parliament and not “within a period not exceeding four months”.

Says Matyszak: Inserting the colon in Section 58 (1) after the word “on” has the effect of removing the application of the phrase “within” a period not exceeding four months after” from the portion of the section referring to automatic dissolution under 63(4). With a proper and grammatical reading of the sentence, the phrase must apply to dissolution by proclamation and to automatic dissolution”.

Elsewhere in the judgement the Chief justice makes the fair comment that in interpreting the Law, the courts must follow an interpretation that does not lead to an absurdity. The mind boggles why the Chief Justice decides to introduce a colon in a sentence that does not have one and thus unwittingly leads the court to an absurdity.

In giving the president two months to hold the elections, the decision cites the holding of the March 2008 harmonised elections as an example. Digging up Statutory Instrument 7 A of 2008, the chief justice gives the example of this proclamation which was issued on 24 January 2008 and dissolved Parliament with effect from midnight leading to elections in slightly over two months. One imagines that the reason why this example is given is to buttress the point that it is possible to organise elections within two months. This understanding is misleading to say the least because the context is remarkably different to the one in 2008.

For starters, Zimbabwe is following two constitutions in the sense that although Chapter 7 of the new Constitution is the supreme law regarding elections it has to be guided by the Lancaster House constitution on the timing of elections. More importantly, the two constitutions must be read together with the Sixth Schedule of the new Constitution which outlines provisions meant to assist the transition from the old Constitution to the new Constitution. The amount of legal work that needs to be done before elections can take place is massively different from what was required for the March 2008 elections. According to Section 8 of the Sixth Schedule elections must be conducted in terms of the Electoral Law of which law must comply with the new Constitution. Put simple, the Electoral Act as well as other laws and regulations related to elections must be amended so that they are in compliance with the new Constitution.

Having read the full judgement of the constitutional court, there is no reason, however magnificently maintained that persuades me that the honourable justices who proffered the majority opinion sufficiently engaged with the new constitution and understood the various legislative provisions which make the July 31 deadline an impossibility. It is still not clear how the proportional system of representation mandated by the constitution will operate. There is need to amend the Local Government Act and the Provincial Councils Act. Reforms also beckon on criminal procedure and the justice delivery system as well as clarity on the operations of the Electoral Court itself. Making all these reforms is not a walk in the park and elections cannot proceed without these reforms. What is more the various amendments must sail through both Houses of Parliament and be signed into law by the President before he can announce an election date. Indeed according to section 157(5) of the new Constitution all amendments to the Electoral Law and to any other provisions relating to elections must be made before the proclamation of the election date.

There are also other processes that need to be considered that have implications on the absurd July 31 deadline. Section 6(3) of the Sixth Schedule makes it mandatory for a 30-day intensive voter registration exercise to kick in after the publication of the new constitution. The beginning of this process depends on the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) being properly financed and resourced. ZEC Commission chairperson Justice Rita Makarau says voter registration will begin Monday, 9 June and will run concurrently with the inspection of the voters’ roll. If we take the bare minimum scenario then voters’ roll inspection would close on Monday 8 July. The nomination court would sit 14 days later (that takes us to 22 July), and after 30 days (takes us to 21 August) of the sitting of the Nomination Court, elections can take place. If we master the suspension of disbelief necessary for a feigned belief in our ability to fast-track things it would still be impossible to meet the July 31 deadline. The only fast-tracking that can be done is if we assume that all amendments have been done and are operational. This would mean that an election date is announced during voter registration but even then it can only be announced 15 days before the conclusion of the voter registration exercise. This would mean the earliest elections can be held is 6 August.

For the avoidance of doubt, it is not desirable that the President and the executive can continue up to four months while parliament is absent, but it certainly is not unconstitutional. It seems to me that the proper balance would have been to extend the life of parliament for at most six months so that it can align the various laws and regulations with the new constitution. Those with short memories are peddling the fiction that President Mugabe is a true democrat because he does not want the country to function without a parliament for four months; nothing can be further from the truth. Lest we forget, in 2008, parliament was dissolved in January and only convened in August of that year and Mugabe was happy to run the show on his own. And no one should argue that Mugabe is a stickler for court orders because he is on record aiding and abetting the disobedience of court orders that are not palatable to him and Zanu PF.

In Dickens’ Bleak House, fog is an important symbol, and it is that condition in which things are mystified and people cannot see one another. The Court of Chancery is the source of this fog; it has a disastrous occupation with forms at the expense of solutions. It is the master of the bleak world and its attitude is that of polite smug and pretence. While it is too early to suggest that Zimbabwe’s Constitutional Court has gone the Court of Chancery way, its judgement does not inspire confidence. The judgement is full of palpable absurdities and is to put it mildly, preposterous. The only way that the July 31 deadline can be met is through violating the constitution.

*Percy F. Makombe is a development practitioner based in South Africa

Heroes let down badly by Kenya

Mohinder Dhillon

2013-06-12

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/87818

Undoubtedly Mau Mau freedoms fighters were the real heroes of Kenya, who shed their blood to see their country liberated from British rule. Many were brutally tortured, raped, some died and others lost limbs. This freedom movement was based on injustices over land.

Today, who is enjoying the fruits of liberation? It is certainly not those freedom fighters who paid such a high price . Independence has meant nothing for them. Kenyan politicians, many of them related to British loyalists, have been grabbing land for the last half-century. According to media reports, the Kenyatta family itself has illegitimately acquired land on a massive scale - equal to almost the whole of Nyanza. According to Forbes Magazine, ten Kenyan billionaires have assets worth over 100 billion Shillings each. Their companies are named by the magazine.

On the other side of the coin, freedom fighters like J.M Kariuki were assassinated for demanding a more equitable share of the fruits of Independence. Pio Pinto and Tom Mboya were gunned down in broad daylight. Most of the freedom fighters were denied access to any reward for their sacrifice.
Today is a historic day for the Mau Mau victims, who received an apology, admission and an expression of sincere regret for all the tortures carried out by the British authorities. The British government is making a token payment to authenticated torture victims and even building a monument in their honour in Nairobi. These freedom fighters owe their belated recognition to the Campaign for Moral Rearmament, human rights bodies, other organisations and private individuals who supported their fight for justice. At independence, the British government paid hundreds of millions of pounds to buy out white farmers in Kenya,who subsequently acquired the former colonial land which sowed the seeds of resentment that is manifest today in ethnic clashes and electoral violence.

In contrast to the British government, what has the government in Kenya done to settle Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) who are still living in miserable conditions? Pan African bodies like the African Union are actively campaigning against justice for genocide victims by interfering with the ICC in the Hague.
I pray and hope that present government of President Uhuru Kenyatta takes up the challenge and political will to balance the imbalance. Otherwise the road ahead will be fraught with danger.

*Mohinder Dhillon

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Why NGOs are jittery over Public Benefits Organizations Act

Suba Churchill

2013-06-12

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/87819

The recent appointment and subsequent swearing in of Cabinet Secretary for the Ministry of Planning and Devolution Anne Waiguru has set the stage for the commencement of the Public Benefits Organizations (PBO) Act, 2013. The PBO Act is one of the pieces of legislations passed by the 10th Parliament just before its term lapsed in January 2013. The law provides for the establishment and operation of public benefits organizations previously known as Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs).

Once the commencement date of the law will have been gazetted, the Non-Governmental Organizations Co-ordination Act of 1990 shall stand repealed, paving the way for a completely new legal regime in which non-state actors previously operating under the NGO Co-ordination Board will henceforth operate.

Unlike in the past when the docket fell under the Ministry of Home Affairs, the administrative and regulatory framework within which public benefits organizations has now been placed under the Ministry of Planning and Devolution.

But ever since the law was enacted, and as the clock ticks towards its coming into force with its commencement date expected to be gazetted by the Cabinet Secretary concerned, anxiety has gripped a number of local and international civil society groups operating in Kenya.

The relationship between local NGOs and the Government of Kenya has always been characterized by mutual suspicion. Indeed, the first local NGOs like the Kenya Human Rights Commission (KHRC) had to be incorporated abroad before gaining acceptance locally as registered entities.

NGOS ‘NOT TO ENGAGE IN PARTY POLITICS’

On page 65 of its manifesto, the Jubilee Coalition that formed the government after the 4 March 2013 elections has this curious provision: ‘the Jubilee Coalition government will introduce a Charities Act to regulate political campaigning by NGOs to ensure that they only campaign on issues that promote their core remit and do not engage in party politics. This will also establish full transparency in funding both for NGOs and individual projects.’

It is also not lost on keen observers that senior Jubilee government officials may not be happy with a number of NGOs that have been in the frontline supporting the Hague-based International Criminal Court in its efforts to bring those suspected to have been responsible for the post 2007 election violence.

More recently, local NGOs have rubbed members of Parliament the wrong way with their open and highly publicized support for the Salaries and Remuneration Commission that has reduced salaries for the MPs. There is suspicion that MPs can support any move to water down the Public Benefits Organization Act particularly those provisions that allow PBOs to engage in public interest litigation and advocacy.

For starters, the new law defines a public benefit organization as a voluntary membership or non-membership grouping of individuals or organizations engaged in public benefit activities in any or a combination of the following: legal aid; agriculture; rights and welfare of children; culture, working with or for persons with disabilities, energy, education; environmental conservation; gender issues, governance; poverty eradication; health; housing and settlement; human rights; and HIV/AIDS.

Other areas spelt out in the law that have traditionally been of interest to voluntary organizations and in which a PBO can engage in include information; informal sector; old age; peace building; population and public health; refugees; disaster prevention and preparedness; provision of relief services; pastoralism and marginalization; sports; water and sanitation; animal welfare and the youth.

For the avoidance of doubt and clarity, Section 5 (2) of the Act clarifies that trade unions as registered under the Labour Relations Act of 2007; political parties; religious organizations devoted to worship; co-operative and Sacco societies; micro-finance institutions and Community Based Organizations whose objective include the direct benefit of its members shall not be conferred the status of a Public Benefit Organization. Part II of the Act deals with matters of registration of Public Benefit Organizations.

While the general public has always assumed that any civil society organization operating in Kenya is registered as an NGO under the Non-Governmental Organizations Co-ordination Act of 1990, the reality is that there have been various modes of registration for the many outfits working in the country. While a significant number have secured their registration under this law, a number have in the recent past seem to prefer registering as Trusts with the Ministry of Lands while some are registered as societies or better still, as non-profit making companies.

The Public Benefits Organizations Act provides that ‘no organization registered under any other law in Kenya shall be registered under this Act while its registration under that other law subsists.’ What this, therefore means is that if for instance an organization currently registered as a Trust applies for registration under the PBO Act, registration of that organization under the PBO Act shall render invalid its previous registration under any other written law.

For purposes of registration and regulation, the law establishes the Public Benefits Organizations Authority, taking over the roles and powers of the NGO Coordination Board as a body corporate with perpetual succession and a common seal. There shall be a Board of the Authority comprising a Chairperson and a Vice-Chairperson; three other members and a host of Principal Secretaries from relevant government ministries.

The Chairperson of the Federation of Public Benefits Organizations – the new umbrella body for all PBOs that will take over the role of the National Council of NGOs shall also sit on the Board of the Authority.

INTERNATIONAL NGO’S TO REGISTER

International organizations intending to operate in Kenya shall also be required to apply to the Authority for a certificate to operate in the country whereupon the Authority can chose to exempt the organization from registration particularly in a case where the services of the applying organization are required as an emergency or where the applying organization does not intend to directly implement its activities or programmes in Kenya. But an international organization that intends to directly implement its activities in Kenya or in another country while based in Kenya will have to be registered under the PBO Act.

There have been concerns as to what happens to local and international organizations already working in Kenya before the effective date of the new law. Though a great deal of these concerns are likely to be addressed through provisions in the regulations, provisions of Section 7 (b) empowering the Authority to bestow the status of a public benefit organization should be brought to bear on such situations so that organizations already registered are not harassed unduly upon the coming into force of the new law.

*Suba Churchill is the Coordinator of the National Civil Society Congress.

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Unequal power: Unfair rationing of erratic electricity

Roland Bankole Marke

2013-06-12

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/87809

In Sierra Leone, solar lights are being installed around the country and extended to some provincial towns as well. But what is happening to the National Power Authority (NPA) that provides electric power supply to Freetown and its periphery? For weeks on end there has been no electricity in some areas and people are resorting to using coal goose (Iron), charcoal and firewood for domestic use that are prone to fire hazards that could destroy valuable properties and lives. The government propaganda machine had earlier told us that the hydroelectric power supply at Bumbuna is now fixed and up and running again. Are they speaking from both sides of their mouth? APC campaign promises include the restoration of electricity to regular mode nationwide, but that's not so. While some areas get regular power supply without interruptions, several others endure incessant blackout, and the cost of living and doing business is getting more expensive.

Now generators have to be put to work, not as stand-by units but as an acceptable form of reliable power supply. Yes, Kabba tigers are back at work full force and they consume more fuel, amid the cost of runaway fuel prices. Is this the agenda for prosperity designed only for the elected, selected and connected? I challenge government officials to dispute this indictment. Our people are tired of lies, propaganda and economic strangulation of the poor, who deserve a better life and future. Does one need to be ‘connected’ to enjoy regular electricity in Sierra Leone?

The difference between New APC and old APC is mere change of guard. I see no difference. Neighbouring Guinea has four working power stations that provide better electric service to its people. With our presumed superior educational system that turns out many engineers yearly, we still can't get the provision of dependable power supply right. What else could we get right? But high bills are still sent out. I see incompetence and selfishness at play here. Don't tell me that things were worse off under SLPP rule. For that's why APC was elected to do a better job. They are accountable to the people who gave them the mandate of another five years to rule. Setting the bar low in making blind excuses insults one's intelligence. The people are demanding government to do its work of serving the best interest of the people

Freetown is already congested and with the increasing use of all type of generators in providing electricity the danger and menace of pollution of the environment is a serious healthy concern, especially for the poor who could ill afford to feed themselves; more so getting access to affordable health care that’s a luxury not a necessity. Several occurrences of fire caused by lamps, candle and other naked flames continue to plague the nation. When these accidents are easily preventable. The voice of the people must be heard and could not be drowned in party politics when it comes to bread and butter issues and the duties of the government in providing basic essential services that make life less stressful and convenient.

Kelvin Doe, Sierra Leone's teen genius even mentioned in his interview when he visited United States that power supply in his neighbourhood is erratic and unreliable. How could this society nurse and blossom the promotion of genius and creative, scientific and technological minds? So much is hustling going on in government, lobbying for jobs that the government picks its loyalists rather than the best-qualified personnel for the jobs available. While the passion and desire to anchor the grip on power so soon after the elections never cease to amaze me.

Why the debate on constitutional amendment and the quest or idea of a third term of APC rule when elections were just held and the people’s business is left unattended and drowned in distractions? I’m I reading the mind of our politicians more deeply than it deserves? Probably not as many ordinary folks share the same views and are very concerned too. If all the big guns were experiencing the same menace and agony of the common people with regards to electricity malfunction and unfair rationing of this scare commodity, then this issue would have been rectified long ago.

We need to remind all elected leaders that they should be servants of the people not masters and lords over those who own the political capital to kick them out of office as fast as they got in. The world is watching and the people are very angry and impatient, watching this saga go on indefinitely. Prompt action and effective communication is what it takes to solve this burning issue. But who would listen and act accordingly?

Activists oppose Isreali film festival in Kenya

An open letter to the French Cultural Centre, Nairobi

2013-06-12

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/advocacy/87806

Alliance Française,
Loita/Monrovia Street,
Nairobi, Kenya.

To the Alliance Française, June 6, 2013

RE: The Nairobi Israeli Film Festival, 2013

It has come to our attention that the Alliance Française will be hosting the Israeli Film Festival from June 11th to June 15th, presented by the Embassy of Israel. As Kenyans and people concerned about social justice and human rights, we would like to express our views on the hosting of such an event.

To begin with, we want to draw attention to the numerous violations of human rights that Israel commits on a regular basis. Beginning with its establishment in 1948, Israel has sought to permanently remove en masse the indigenous Palestinian population of the country for the creation of a Jewish state. Since then, Israel has denied Palestinians their fundamental rights of freedom, equality, and self-determination through ethnic cleansing, colonization, racial discrimination, and military occupation. [1] Israel has also repeatedly and systematically violated international human rights and humanitarian law and defied UN resolutions.

To give just a few examples: since 2006 when Hamas won the elections in Gaza, Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have been crippled by economic sanctions imposed by Israel. In 2008 to 2009, over 22 days during the military operation Cast Lead, Israel killed an estimated 1387 Palestinians in Gaza, including families and children, and repeatedly exploded white phosphorus munitions over populated areas, as has been carefully documented by Human Rights Watch. In November 2012, Israel bombed Gaza again in the Operation Pillar of Defense. According to B’Tselem, the Israeli Information Centre for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, 167 Palestinians were killed by the Israeli military. Over half of them were civilians.

In the occupied West Bank, a territory manned by military checkpoints, Israel has continued to construct settlements on occupied land, despite the fact that these settlements are considered illegal under international law. These are only some of the abuses Israel carries out in occupied Palestine. We have not mentioned in detail the detention of political prisoners, displacement of Bedouin communities, daily harassment and humiliation of Palestinians at checkpoints, bulldozing of lands, uprooting of olive trees and so on.

It is not only Palestinians who have suffered from policies implemented by the Israeli government or have been killed by the Israeli military. In 2003, American peace activist Rachel Corrie was crushed to death by an Israeli Defense Force (IDF) bulldozer. In 2010, 9 Turkish activists aboard a humanitarian ship to Gaza, the Mavi Marmara, were killed in an Israeli operation. Just three days ago, Israel made a decision to deport 60 000 migrants from Eritrea and Sudan to an unidentified third country. Last year, dozens of African asylum seekers were injured in violent race riots in Tel Aviv. [2]

In an official report commissioned by the South African government in 2009, the Human Sciences Research Council confirmed that Israel, by its policies and practices, is guilty of the crime of apartheid. Numerous others, including South Africans who have a deep familiarity with racial oppression, for instance Nobel peace Laureate Desmond Tutu, have spoken of life in the shadow of Israeli repression as akin to or worse to that under apartheid in South Africa. [3]

People all over the world are condemning Israel’s policies toward Palestinians. Many have joined the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign, which calls for a boycott of Israel until Palestinian rights are recognized in full compliance with international law. Israel citizens as well greatly support the call for BDS campaigns.

It is important to make the point that Israeli cultural and academic institutions, as well as cultural products like films, directly contribute to maintaining, defending or whitewashing the oppression of Palestinians, as Israel deliberately tries to boost its image internationally through academic and cultural collaborations. As part of the boycott, academics, artists and consumers are campaigning against such collaboration and ‘rebranding’. [4]

Importantly, a number of artists, especially musicians, filmmakers, and writers have refused to perform in Israel or have cancelled scheduled performances following pressure from the BDS movement including Bono, Snoop Dogg, Jean Luc Godard, Elvis Costello, Gil Scott Heron, Carlos Santana, Devendra Banhart, Dustin Hoffman, Meg Ryan, Faithless, the Pixies, Cassandra Wilson, Cat Power and Zakir Hussain. British writer John Berger, Indian novelist Arundhati Roy, US poet Adrienne Rich, British film director Ken Loach and screenwriter Paul Laverty are other prominent voices that have joined the call for BDS. [5]

As Kenyans and people who support the Palestinian struggle for freedom, justice and the end of apartheid, we are urging the Alliance Française to cancel the Israeli film festival and to find ways to raise awareness about the occupation in Palestine. It is ironic that the Israeli embassy wants to use this festival to ‘celebrate 50 years of its relations with Kenya’ and to ‘enhance Kenyan’s view of Israeli life and culture’ when Kenya has experienced its own history of colonization with its accompanying abuses, torture and repression. For us to celebrate our fifty years of independence and to acknowledge those who struggled and died for it, it is imperative that we take a stance against the colonization and oppression of others.

Should you need further reasons to cancel the festival, we would like to call attention to some of the problematic themes in the films that will be screened. The films ‘Turn Left at the End of the World’ and ‘Campfire’ both include the depiction of settlements, which, as mentioned above, are illegal under international law. Neither film addresses this fact, but rather, detracts attention by addressing themes such as romantic love and cultural communities.

A film festival may appear to be an innocuous public event, but in fact it is not. To support cultural products from Israel while Palestinians continue to struggle for freedom from Israeli occupation is to make a political statement. We urge you, as people who believe in the rights of all people to live in dignity and freedom from oppression, to stand in solidarity with the Palestinian struggle for self-determination and alongside the people globally who have committed to the Boycott, Sanctions and Divestment campaign against Israel.

Sincerely,

Kenya Palestine Solidarity Committee

END NOTES

[1] Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Campaign (online), “Apartheid, Colonization and Occupation,” http://www.bdsmovement.net/apartheid-colonisation-occupation

[2] The Guardian, (online), “African Asylum Seekers Injured in Tel Aviv Race Riots,” May 24, 2012, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/may/24/tel-aviv-protest-violence-immigration

[3] South African Artists Against Apartheid, http://www.southafricanartistsagainstapartheid.com/

[4] BDS Movement, (online), “BDS Intro,” http://www.bdsmovement.net/bdsintro

[5] BDS Movement (online), “BDS Victories,” http://www.bdsmovement.net/victories

Civil society reaction to State of the Nation Address

2013-06-12

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/advocacy/87810

(Kampala) Today June 6, 2013 a coalition of civil society organizations fighting for realization of the right to health in Uganda issued the following statement in reaction to President Museveni's State of the Nation Address:

"Uganda today is lagging behind the region and much of the continent in addressing crucial health priorities, from rising HIV incidence, to persistently high rates of maternal death, to preventable deaths from malaria and vaccine preventable illnesses. This is unacceptable.

Uganda cannot develop economically as a country without tackling those crises. Our development suffers when Ugandans cannot gain access to essential health services.

Ironically, scientific advances show that right now Uganda could benefit enormously from accelerated investments in the fight against these preventable killers--for example, by aggressively scaling up access to HIV treatment along with other high impact interventions, Uganda could prevent more than 100,000 deaths and slash HIV incidence by up to 60%. By equipping Health Centre IVs and IIIs with the equipment and personnel needed to provide emergency obstetric care, thousands of mothers' and babies lives could be saved.

But today the President gave only superficial mention to these issues in the State of the Nation Address that should have prioritized the fundamental issue of lack of access to quality essential health services.

For example: today staff in Fort Portal are striking over lack of pay; pregnant mothers are dying without access to safe blood due to lack of supply of testing reagents; nationally, rapid test kits for HIV detection are almost out of stock; midwives are paid almost nothing working at the frontline to deliver babies--this is disgraceful, and the Financial Year 2013/14 Budget must address fix these problems, or Parliament should not pass it. Furthermore, right now the President is not taking action in response to massive pressure from the EU and US to force Uganda and other least developed countries to accept a deal on generic medicines that would cripple our ability to access affordable treatment.

Unfortunately, we heard nothing in the speech today that indicates the fundamental change needed--genuine prioritization of the health sector through sufficient funding and the political will needed to ensure the sector functions well--bringing essential services to communities most in need, in order to save lives."

For more information, contact:

Samuel Senfuka, White Ribbon Alliance Uganda: 0704920043, bsenfuka@gmail.com
Dennis Odwe, AGHA Uganda: 0772637740, odwedennis@gmail.com
Moses Mulumba, CEHURD (Centre

Comrade Njoroge Wanguthi, a freedom hero

Gacheke Gachihi

2013-06-13

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/obituary/87821

The late Comrade Njoroge Wanguthi, a son of a Mau Mau member and a freedom fighter for the second liberation, was the embodiment of democratic struggles in Kenya in the last three decades. He was a cultural and political pillar of Release Political Prisoners (RPP), a grassroots political organization that was established by Mwakenya revolutionary activists and Mothers of Political prisoners at Freedom Corner, Nairobi, to demand for the release of political detainees of the Moi dictatorship in early 1980s and 1990.

Comrade Njoroge Wanguthi died on June 6, 2013 at Kenyatta National Hospital while struggling with a multiple stroke that resulted from many years of torture at Nyayo House and subsequent imprisonment in Kamiti Prison for seven years from 1986 to 1990. He was released due to pressure of the multi-party democracy movement and the Mothers who organized protests and a hunger strike at Freedom Corner. The truggle to bring a democratic state in Kenya is what Comrade Njoroge Wanguthi lived for.

After release from Kamiti, Wanguthi joined Release Political Prisoners committee where, with his comrades the late Karimi Nduthu, Tirop arap Kitur and others, he worked hard to transform RPP into a formidable grassroots movement anchored on the Mau Mau revolutionary heritage.

Councillor Wanguthi, as we called him, was also elected a representative of the people of Nyathuna Ward, in Central Kenya, from 1992-1997 with FORD-KENYA party in the first multi-party election. His decision to join a party that was led by Jaramogi Odinga, the father of democratic struggle in Kenya, at that time was the hallmark of values of patriotism and nationalist ideals in a country where ethnic political mobilization is still widely used to acquire power.

Comrade Wanguthi was frequent visitor to Jeevanjee Gardens, the political base of Bunge La Mwananchi (Peoples Parliament), to ground intellectual debates and advance political education at to help nature new cadres for grassroots movements to continue with the struggle for democratic change in Kenya. We also visited together the Mouselum of other freedom fighters such as Bildad Kaggia in 2009 in Karatina, under his leadership and Mau Mau War Veterans in Kenol Branch in Muranga.

If there was comrade who never gave apologies for his resistance to imperialism and corrupt system was it Njoroge Wanguthi.

He lived a humble life and suffered much. His death must sow seeds of a revolutionary heritage to the future generations.

On Saturday 15, June 2013 comrades and friends will gather at Gathiga Village in Kikuyu Constituency, not to mourn but to cerebrate the life in struggle of Comrade Njoroge Wanguthi and continue with the struggle inspired under RPP and sing revolutionary songs such as “Mambo ni yale yale ya ukoloni......” (Colonial oppression continues…) Aluta Continua!

* Gacheke Gachihi is a member of Release Political Prisoners and Bunge la Mwananchi (The Peoples Parliament) movement in Kenya

Angola wins, but German magazine wonders: Where is Angola?

Safia Dickersbach

2013-06-12

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/books/87811

With Angola, for the first time a sub-Saharan African country has won the Leone d'Oro/Golden Lion prize for the best national pavilion of the Venice Biennial. This distinction for an African national pavilion during this year’s 55th Venice Biennial has been greeted with inappropriate prejudice by "ART - Das Kunstmagazin", the leading art magazine from Germany. "ART" commented about the jury's decision with the question” "Angola! Where is Angola?" It claimed that hardly any visitor actually saw the work of the photo artist Edson Chagas in Palazzo Cini and speculated about "successful lobbying and networking" by curator Stefano Rabolli Pansera. The only reason which was given for these vague conjectures was the fact that Stefano Rabolli Pansera had already curated Angola's contribution to the architecture biennial a year ago. The German article is available here.

I ask myself what kind of "networking and lobbying" had preceded the Leone d'Oro/Golden Lion prizes which were previously awarded to the national pavilions of the U.S. with Bruce Nauman in 2009 and of Germany with Christoph Schlingensief curated by Susanne Gaensheimer in 2011? Was there also speculation happening back then about the reasons for these successes? Were those winning countries, artists and curators maybe too established and influential so that there was no reason to worry about illegitimate manoeuvring? Are only the Africans again considered prone to cronyism and patronage which "ART" more stately translated with "networking and lobbying" to make it fit to the aristocratic environment of Venice's palazzos? “ART” dutifully speaks about detractors spreading such rumours, but the question remains why an influential German art magazine provides ample space for vague suppositions by obviously resentful competitors.
"ART" is issued by the largest German publishing house Gruner & Jahr which itself belongs to the media conglomerate Bertelsmann. It is primarily financed by advertisements of major galleries, museums, art fairs and auction houses and it would be very interesting to find out which hidden agendas "ART" is pursuing with its lopsided coverage of Angola's success in Venice. Maybe some disappointment about the showing of its own major business clients during the event in Venice played a role as well?

The article was written by Ute Thun who calls herself "Senior Editor" at this magazine. Ute Thun mocked the choice of Angola's national pavilion to mirror the motto of the main exhibition "Encyclopaedic Palace" by calling the Angolan presentation "Luanda - An Encyclopaedic City", instead of ignoring the main exhibition's theme as allegedly all the other national pavilions did. The question is: What is wrong with picking up and variegating the main exhibition's motto? Does it mean that the artistic quality of Angola's contribution is inferior just due to its decision to artistically interpret the Venice biennial's central theme? Or does she want to tell us that the other national pavilions’ decision to deliberately ignore the main exhibition's theme proves their independence and intellectualism?

All in all it is somewhat disappointing to see Ute Thun's narrow-minded, almost stereotypic viewpoint on this year's winner of the Golden Lion, in contrast with the magazine's aspiration to cover the art scene from a global perspective.

* Safia Dickersbach, an art market practitioner, born in Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania, currently based in Berlin, Germany, is the Public Relations Director of Artfacts.Net, a British company which is the leading online database for modern and contemporary art.

Fahamu