In flight to Nigeria, Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem encounters a howling young man being deported from the United Kingdom. How is it that the youth of African countries will do anything to leave their place of birth and slave away in poorly paid jobs in rich countries? What kind of societies are being constructed in African countries when remittances act as the only method of survival for whole commmunties?

Today is Africa Day and I wish to share a very painful story with you.

One has heard or read many horror stories about detentions, forceful removals, and deportation of Africans accused of being 'illegal immigrants' or failed asylum-seekers, almost always from one European country or the other. Most people are not likely to encounter this directly. In February this year I came face to face with the inhuman way it is done.

I was travelling to Nigeria with a former radical lecturer, mentor to several generations of Nigerian students and intellectuals, Dr Patrick Wilmot. In 1988 he was kidnapped by security officials of the IBB regime (government of Ibrahim Babangida) and forcibly removed from Nigeria, a country in which he had lived in for almost 2 decades and despite the fact that he was and still is married to a Nigerian.

Wilmot's 'crime' was allegedly, 'teaching what he was not paid to teach'! Wilmot is of Jamaican origin but has lived longer in Nigeria than in Jamaica and is better known to Nigerians and considered 'one of us' by many. Yet in one night the military government yanked him away from his family and academic community and landed him in the United Kingdom, a country in which he had never lived in before and had nothing but a painful historical link of slavery and colonialism. Britain finally gave him legal residence and later citizenship and London has remained his home since 1988.

In spite of fears and anxiety by friends and colleagues unsure about the selective efficiency of the African state when it comes to real and imagined 'enemies', Wilmot was happy to be returning to a country from which he was deported. I was never officially deported from Nigeria but have become expert at being 'prevented to leave or enter the country' throughout the military regime and even under the current 'democratic' order. My travelling with Wilmot was both a personal and political assurance that we could face any trouble together and tough it out.

From checking in and boarding you know you are Nigeria-bound and in many ways feel like you are already in the country. As loud as Nigerians are infamous for, that evening there was an unusual noise coming from the back of the plane, distinct from the racket of voices around. The voice grew more disquieting as we sat so I went to check in the next cabin.

At the back of the plane was a young Nigerian man, definitely not more than 25 years old, sandwiched between two bully-built white British police/immigration officers and handcuffed to both of them. I made enquiries from the airhostesses since my initial attempt to talk to the man's captives was rebuffed. The hostess casually informed me that it was nothing unusual, that these things happen fairly regularly, that the man was being 'removed' and assured me that his noise would reduce as soon as the flight settled.

Meanwhile, the removal police were trying their best to calm down the howling young man as they would 'calm' an aggressive dog or cat. On his part he was just crying, howling, swearing, and whining like a trapped animal. It was so dehumanising and I felt humiliated for him and for Africa. Even sadder still was the general indifference of most of the other largely Nigerian passengers. Many of them have become inured to this kind of routine humiliation of fellow citizens. One even advised the whaling young man to 'shut up and try again when you get home'.

Here was Dr Wilmot, happy to return to a country from which he was unceremoniously thrown out, on the same flight with a young man being unceremoniously returned home. One got the impression that if he was left unshackled he could attempt jumping out of the plane. He wanted to be anywhere but home.

How bad can it be that a young man who should have his whole life ahead of him should be so frightened of going back home? What kind of society have we created where our young people see no hope in remaining in Africa and would do anything to leave it? We are even beginning to valorize poor jobs, bad pay and immigrant insecurity by gleefully talking these days about how important 'remittances' are to the welfare of Africans trapped in poverty at home. This actually makes it imperative for many young people to devise even more desperate means to opt out of Africa in order to become Western-Union life-savers to their families. Some countries are now even trying to launder that exploitation as part of Overseas Development Assistant (ODA)! And some of our own organisations in the name of Diaspora initiatives are directly or indirectly offering justification for this by only looking at the 'contribution' that remittance is playing instead of the wider conditions and the long term negative impact of whole communities dependent on handouts.

We do not tell the truth about the degradation, racism and exploitation that most of our people suffer in those 'shitty jobs', 'early morning and late night' that makes our peoples the last to go to sleep and the first to wake up!

These horror stories about immigration are repeated everyday across Africa and the world. Some of our own governments, despite being responsible for the economic and political conditions that are making many Africans leave home, even connive in the routine humiliation in their forcible return from different countries in Europe. Some of them are willing to accept payments from European countries in exchange for taking fellow Africans (not necessarily their citizens) that are deported from Europe.

Who says slavery is dead? This is official people trafficking by any other name and it is done with impunity by countries who have signed all kinds of international conventions allegedly protecting human rights. The same countries that are forcing us to globalise, open up our economies and markets, but are unwilling to open up their markets for our goods and our labour.

In spite of the humiliations many more people from across this continent will do anything to get a visa to go to the West and if that fails, anywhere else but Africa. Many years ago I had written about this phenomenon and suggested then that were a slave ship, properly labeled, to appear in any port city in Africa, people would rush into it proclaiming that they were fit to be slaves! It is worse today; we are in many ways financing our way into slavery both at home and globally.

As if the bad treatment from others was not enough, intra African trade and free movement of peoples are denied through branding of fellow Africans as 'aliens', 'foreigners', 'non indigenes' and 'settlers' even inside the same country. Pan Africanist entrepreneurs delivering goods and services to African people as when and where needed are criminalised as 'smugglers'.

They say Rome was not built in a day.

Today being Africa Day, we need to ask ourselves: if Romans were not there who would have built Rome? You need to ask yourself whether by your action or inaction you are part of the problem or part of the solution.

Happy Africa Day!

* Dr Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is General-Secretary of the Pan African Movement, Kampala (Uganda) and Co-Director of Justice Africa

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

Tajudeen Abdul Raheem returns home to Kampala just as Yoweri Museveni is inaugurated for his third term. It’s a case of ‘no change’ that history will judge severely.

I was ' home' in Kampala last weekend. And what a time to be back, with all the reverie and revulsion in some quarters about the 'inauguration' or 'coronation' of President Museveni for his 'sad term' or his 'first term' under the new multi-party democratic framework.

Contrary to innocent speculations that I had come specifically for the big day itself, I was in Uganda for two meetings. My first meeting - on inauguration day - was one hour away in Jinja and organised by HURIPEC and the Political Science Department of Makerere University. The theme of the workshop, whether by design or mere coincidence was 'Debating Form and Substance in Africa's New Governance Models'. It was a meeting of the usual and the not so usual suspects on the activist-scholar circuits of this continent.

On the 'usual side' were the conveners themselves, my good friend the shoe professor (he had sworn that if Museveni did not win the Presidential elections he would [eat] his shoes), Joe Oloka Onyango, Yasin Olum, Susie Nansozi and others. From across Africa there was Adebayo Olukoshi, head of CODESRIA. Jibo Ibrahim, newly appointed Director of the Abuja-based Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD); Cherryl Hendricks, from the Institute for Security Studies in Johannesburg; Muthoni Wanyeki, Director of FEMNET in Nairobi and several others were also present. The veteran Mzee Dan Nabudere was there lending his wisdom and insight. On the 'unusual' side were a bright group of up and coming scholar-activists from Makerere. I had agreed to participate at the last minute, selfishly hoping to catch up with old friends and comrades. But the workshop did surprise me most pleasantly in terms of originality. For as long as Africans continue to think profoundly about our condition and possess the courage to offer solutions and act on them Africa will never surrender.

Needless to say that events in Kampala cast their shadows over the discourse. The presence of a dozen African heads of state and/or heads of government in one city, plus numerous other representatives of reportedly more than thirty states, cannot go unnoticed even by the most cynical group of activists and scholars. Kololo Hill (venue of the inauguration), between Museveni and his guests, on 12 May had all the forms of emerging models of governance. I had joked to the organisers that it was not possible to model governance without governors and there were governors of governors in town.

By the time I left my scholar-activist colleagues in Jinja and got to Kla, the swearing in was over but the 'swears' in some quarters and ululations in others. The long march back to their various villages and poor slums by the numerous supporters of the sworn-in candidate was in full force.

The publicists have been spinning the 'coronation' as an epoch-making new dawn. Although the initial enthusiastic announcement of 30 heads of state being expected turned out to be grossly inflated the turn out was no less impressive. But their claim before the event that 30 heads of state were coming is what made the turn out of 12 look like a failure. The other presidents of the East African community were there. The growing influence of Rwanda and a new realism in the relationship between Uganda and Rwanda was evidenced by President Kagame's presence and the special mention and excitement it received in the media. As regional powers go, Thabo Mbeki, South Africa's philosopher king, was there. The grand old man of anti Western belligerency loathed by the West but always a winner with many Africans, Uncle Bob, was there. The DRC compensated for the absence of Kabila Jr, (obviously held back by his own scheming for a 'first ' term in elections due soon) by sending two surplus vice presidents. There was also the president of Djibouti and the president of Somalia. Toss in the president of Burundi and other dignitaries and you cannot begrudge the National Resistance Movement their few hours in the sun. To crown it all Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria, who could not make it for the coronation, came in for the after party.

I could not help recalling that there was a time when Museveni’s visionary leadership was the beacon of hope for many Africans and the envy of many of his colleagues. Every one wanted to be his friend then. But now he needs to be everybody's friend, hence the long list of would be visitors. A regime that depended so much on internal support is now running on an artificial supply of energy from other African leaders. A president that used to be envied by his fellow presidents for being western-friendly has now returned back to the fold as anti-western, albeit in a very selective way. A man who used to be feted is now desperate to fete others. On the other hand those same leaders who used to deride him as a 'western stooge' are now best pals with him. What is form and what is substance?

The day after the inauguration I went for my second meeting. It was a preparatory meeting for CSO’s involved in the UN Conference on Least Developing Countries, of which Uganda (in spite of decades of HIPC, AGOA, donor-support, etc), along with 33 other African countries, are members. By coincidence the coordinator was a comrade from Nepal very active in the popular struggles for democracy in Nepal. Understandably many participants wanted to know more and get better information beyond what we have seen on our televisions recently. The irony was not lost on many of us that while the Nepalese were trying to remove the monarchy and enthrone democracy, in many African countries the challenge is in preventing democracies from becoming monarchies or elective dictatorships. People used to come and consult Museveni on new ideas, now the likes of Obasanjo are visiting him to find ways of conspiring against the wishes of their own peoples. History will judge and do so most severely. How times have changed even as the supporters of Museveni cry 'No Change'!

* Dr Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is General-Secretary of the Pan African Movement, Kampala (Uganda) and Co-Director of Justice Africa

* Please send comments to

Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem visits a Pan African Parliament session in South Africa and reports back on the progress of one of the African Union’s most important institutions. After two years of existence, the PAP is making progress, although teething problems remain.

The Pan African Parliament (PAP) has been sitting for its Fifth Ordinary Session in Midrand, South Africa. On its agenda are: the rationalization of Economic Communities (RECs) in Africa; Peace and Security in Africa focusing on the Great Lakes region, Darfur, Cote d'Ivoire, Chad and the DRC; PAP and civil society linkages in enhancing effective implementation of NEPAD/APRM; the PAP audit and strategic plan.

I have taken the trouble to identify the agenda partly to let all Doubting Thomas’s know that the PAP is not just an assembly of eminent MPs from across Africa who meet occasionally as a kind of Pan African Parliamentary lobby group. It is also to show critics and cynics that despite its statutory 'advisory' role, according to the Constitutive Act of the AU, the parliament is finding its feet and developing a pro-active programme of action to make itself relevant to the yearnings of African people to make the dream of unity a reality.

The PAP is one of the most important institutions in the AU that distinguishes it from the old Organisation of African Unity. The latter was statutorily and in practice a leaders' forum, whereas the former seeks to be a pro people and people - driven organization, hence the inclusion of democratic and potentially democratizing institutions like the Parliament, ECOSOC, African Court of Human Rights, etc.

It has not been easy for the parliament to take off properly since it was inaugurated two years ago. There was a lot of politics about where it was going to be based. Libya was one of the countries that offered to host it. It has the resources to do so but many felt that while they may have a huge building there may not have been much of a parliament because of the maverick nature of the Libyan political system. In the end South Africa won and it was a very good decision because despite one's reservations about the Pan Africanisation of Apartheid power relations, the country is one of the most vibrant democracies on the continent. It also has resources to support the infrastructure of a parliament. The South African parliament already uses 11 national languages, therefore providing for a PAP that officially uses 6 working languages was not a problem at the level of facilities. South Africa has fulfilled its obligations about providing a permanent home to the PAP, with a custom-built parliament equipped with the latest techno facilities including individual offices for all the 200 parliamentarians and 24-hour Internet access. Many of the parliamentarians do not even have these facilities in their national parliaments.

However the building and technical support is not what makes a parliament. It is the quality of what they do inside their sessions and how much they impact on the lives of ordinary Africans that will give or deny legitimacy to the parliament.

I had the honor of visiting (along with a number of civil society activists) the PAP in session last week. We found a generally enthusiastic, warm and people-friendly PAP. From the speaker to the clerks to the parliamentarians, they did not mind that we had not made any formal appointments but had just dropped by and they were willing to engage and entertain our queries.

They all wished that more Africans would take and interest in and interact with the PAP. Maybe two years is too short for the parliament to be visible to all Africans, but we need to take more interest in it. The South African Broadcasting Corporation is trying its best to popularize the work of the parliament by having daily broadcasts of interviews, features and discussions on the PAP while it is in session. The PAP also needs the support of media in all the African countries for people to know that it exists - and exists for them.

The challenges that the PAP faces derives from the structure and powers conferred on it. One, it is merely advisory therefore its debates and proceedings are not binding on countries. Two, it is not directly elected thereby denying it Pan African legitimacy. It is either elected or appointed from national parliaments which makes it like a kind of continental subcommittee of parliaments. Three, by statute it is only required to meet twice annually, with each session lasting not more than 30 days.

In reality most sessions have been for two weeks because of limited resources. The parliamentarians do not get any extra allowance apart from per diem and transport for the duration of their stay, which is covered by their national governments. This has meant in practice governments limiting themselves to the statutory meetings, with little money for any activities in between the two sessions. It has 10 subcommittees, which must also meet during these ‘sessions’. Consequently the PAP is not able to perform its monitoring, oversight and advocacy functions effectively. Four, there is also a high turn over in membership due to different electoral timetables in the 53 countries. This means that at every session more members are being sworn in while experienced members are being lost. A departing member called PAP the most prominent transit lounge in Africa! For instance, three of the five members from Uganda will not be returning for the next session because they lost their seats in the last parliamentary elections. One way of stopping this is to have PAP elections at the same time in all the countries and separate it from national elections and parliament. We cannot have an effective PAP without offering Pan African citizenship and full participation to all Africans wherever they may be.

Finally, our leaders have to put their money where their mouth is by making available the resources that PAP needs to function. We cannot have PAP running like another donor-driven NGO or aid-addicted state bureaucracy.

* Dr Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is General-Secretary of the Pan African Movement, Kampala (Uganda) and Co-Director of Justice Africa

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Mozambique is the latest favourite of the international community, following in the footsteps of disgraced Uganda which held the position in the 80s and 90s. Tajudeen Abdul Raheem scrapes away the veneer of growth rates and donor funding to look at issues of governance and accountability. He concludes with news about the African Monitor, launched this week to monitor whether development promises are being kept by both donor and recipient nations.

If you read anything about Mozambique today and the 'tremendous progress' the country is supposed to be making, one cannot help recollecting similar rave reviews and reports about Uganda in the late 1980s through the 1990s. The statistics are very familiar: over 6% growth rate, expanding opportunities for business, IMF/World Bank ideology, a confident middle class, and an environment open to foreign investment, INGOs and Donors.

In the case of Uganda there was also identification with 'A Strong Man' who is considered an 'enlightened' or 'benevolent' dictator. Of course the ovation for Uganda is no longer as enthusiastic as it used to be. This is not only due to the economic limitations of macro economic rejuvenation in a dependent economy but also the limits of political tolerance between the ruling party/clique and president on the one hand and their erstwhile and over indulgent foreign supporters. In some senses Museveni has become the tail trying to wag the dog or in another sense a beggar who cannot accept the ultimate loss of sovereignty stemming from an economy that is too much dependent on outside forces and support.

So it was with Uganda in mind that I arrived in Maputo last week. There are no doubts about the visible signs of a country in some kind of rebirth after a painful history of armed conflict largely the result of regional destabilization of neighboring apartheid South Africa and the immoral logic of the cold war. Many new buildings are going up and old ones being rehabilitated.

There are more than twenty big donor agencies and organizations in the country who are basically the engine of the new growth. It is a reward for successful peaceful settlement of the war against RENAMO, ideological capitulation or pragmatic realignment away from the former Stalinist model and endorsement for the political leadership.

But as in Uganda this support came with costs that increase everyday. One, it is not sustainable that a country be so dependent on foreigners through both direct budget support and resources for its capital development. Two, such endorsement comes with political consequences that often lead to collisions in the future, especially after a period of stabilization. Those who pay the piper will want to call the tune eventually. Also the growth may not guarantee any long lasting development.

Speaking to some of the officials of the key government ministries, the story is similar to what many people in financial and economic ministries in many African countries will recognize. Just take the example of the time that the government of Mozambique spends on a twice-yearly review with donors. Each round takes 45 days each, which means 90 days in the year. This means that the working year is actually reduced, so what time is spent by government officials on actually working to deliver services to their own people? Those who are condemned to these endless missions and evaluations know that as a consequence of these meetings more meetings and missions are generated. In a way development becomes paper-driven. No wonder the 'miraculous' average growth rates bandied about often mean nothing to the vast population condemned to eke out their living in the 'micro' level.

Many African governments as a result of their collective political failure and mismanagement of the resources of the continent have made themselves supervisors for foreign interests and are now conditioned to be accountable to donors and Western agencies. They are often too scared or intimidated to resist unless when their narrow political interests (like continuing stay in power) are concerned. Yet donor demands and interventions are collectively undermining the capacity of our governments and peoples. Even our largely foreign sponsored NGOs (increasingly substituted for civil society) are also more accountable to their funders than the people they serve. Many of the so called opposition politicians spend more time complaining, whining and pining to foreign (and usually Western ) diplomats and other aid officials than organising to politically challenge misruling governments.

Our governments sign up to international commitments like the Millennium Development Goals in addition to mountains of other Intra African protocols or agreements like NEPAD and the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) without expecting to fulfill them.

Not a few Africans are fed up with this situation but too many of us agonise instead of organising. But Njongonkulu Ndungane, the Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town, following in the tradition of activist priests like his predecessor, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, is hoping to reverse the trend of governance without accountability both on the continent and internationally. And he is challenging other Africans to join him. On Wednesday 3 May, after almost a year of consultations across the continent among civil society, NGOs, governments, International agencies and multilateral institutions, he launched the African Monitor. The mission is to make sure that African governments and non African governments meet up to the commitments they have made under various instruments, chiefly the MDGs, NEPAD, G8, etc.

It is a very daunting task. However because Ndungane has a wide constituency of faith based groups (not limited to Christians or Anglicans but involving other faiths)and also due to the existence of so many groups working (often in isolation) across the continent, the African Monitor may actually provide a useful service in building bridges of activism and policy engagement and ensure accountability through high level advocacy backed by grass roots activism.

As I have argued elsewhere, Africa does not need new commitments or promises, just a fulfillment of old ones we made to ourselves and made by others. While our governments are used to being formally accountable to outsiders, the African Monitor hopes to make them accountable to their own peoples and also monitor the accountability of others to us. In a way it may operationalise one of the few good things in the APRM, the principle of 'mutual accountability' between us and those who claim to be our 'international partners'. As the South African vice president observed in her conclusion at the workshop that preceded the launch, even the monitors need to be watched.

* Dr Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is General-Secretary of the Pan African Movement, Kampala (Uganda) and Co-Director of Justice Africa

* Please send comments to

“How nice it would be if whites were to say ‘I’m sorry’ and ‘thank you’ to the vast majority of people in this country who have been so forgiving about the past.” – Archbishop Desmond Tutu. April 27 is Freedom Day in South Africa. Tajudeen Abdul Raheem tackles the legacy of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the country’s racist past.

Desmond Tutu, former Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town, is a global figure recognised as a symbol of peace and racial tolerance, probably only taking second place Nelson Mandela, Madiba. Post-Apartheid Tutu, in his wonderful humour and sober combination of theological pacifism with advocacy for social justice and political change, continues to be a voice for the underprivileged not only in his home country but also across the world. He is one of the few individuals around the world without even the political power of a ward councilor, but who wield enormous influence through the moral leadership they offer built on personal integrity and consistency in their commitment to social justice. Tutu has continued to judiciously use that power to speak truth to power inside and outside of South Africa.

He will be remembered for his role as the Chairperson of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa. The Commission was a bold move by the post-apartheid democratic government to help the millions of individual and group victims and perpetrators of the apartheid state and its crimes to come to terms with the past through full disclosure, demonstration of remorse, willingness to atone through personal forgiveness and in some cases administrative and judicial justice and other compensation.

It was a controversial step for a nation whose past atrocities and the consequences were only too painfully glaring, practically in every aspect of life. There were many people who felt then that the main liberation movement, the African National Congress, had already given away too much to the old racist power bloc and that the TRC absolved it further. Not a few people felt that the requirement of remorse was too subjective to be meaningful. Who is to say merely saying sorry meant that the person saying it meant it?

The procedures of the TRC transfixed many across the world with details of the gross violation of people's rights that competed with well-documented Nazi atrocities.

As the TRC continued its proceedings, one could not escape the conclusion that apartheid atrocities orchestrated by the state and its functionaries in a deliberate way for several decades were being put on the same basis as excesses (though condemnable and should not be condoned) by the various anti apartheid organisations especially the armed wings of Umkonto We Sizwe , Azanian Peoples Liberation Army and others. The trial of leading icons of the struggle like Winnie Mandela received mixed reactions. This was not because people supported the crimes for which she was tried but suspected that a woman so badly treated by the apartheid state was also being judicially persecuted by a government she helped bring about because of her controversial relationship with it. The disclosures of human rights violations of the liberation movements somehow made some of the racists feel a kind of dubious vindication in that the Blacks were as bad as them.

Over the months, the TRC became not so much a centre for engineering a new social contract between South Africans in this wonderful and romantically brand new RAINBOW nation (coined by Tutu and seized upon by everyone caught up in the optimism of the times, even though the rainbow has every colour in it except Black!).

Perhaps that symbol of a rainbow nation symbolically represented the balance of power in a post apartheid South Africa where Blacks formed government but essentially are still not in power in many ways. Real economic, social and political power still resides among whites. It is not the classic neo-colonial state as we know in the rest of Africa but rather a power structure that is still very much racialised with a small new Black elite happily acting as overseers. In the face of Tutu's Commission many former leaders of the apartheid state including former President P.W. Botha were defiant and saw no reason to apologise for their crimes. People like the Afrikaner Resistance leader, Eugene TerreBlanche and his types became a symbol of the worst of the racists, determined to resist any change.

No doubt there were many white people who genuinely supported the struggle and suffered many indignities including torture and death, but the majority of apartheid's victims remain black South Africans. Also, whether a white person supported or did not support the apartheid state, they were beneficiaries of its misrule. Does that mean that all whites should feel guilty forever for the crimes of apartheid? It cannot mean that, but they should also not rob Blacks of their painful memories by attacking anybody who suggests that the past should be remembered and atoned for as a racist or someone not interested in 'moving on'.

The pacifist Tutu himself was at the receiving end of both the liberal and conservative backlash last week for saying in an interview during a conference marking the 10th anniversary of the TRC and organised by the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation: “How nice it would be if whites were to say 'I'm sorry' and 'thank you' to the vast majority of people in this country who have been so forgiving about the past.” The reactions of many white south Africans including bleeding heart liberals to this statement that I have been following on the pages of the newspapers just goes to show how the past continues to weigh heavily on the present and has implications for the future. Every time historical debt is mentioned Whites tend to feel defensive and reel out their numerous contributions to the struggle. But the truth of racialised economic power in South Africa is that Whites as a group continue to be on top during and after apartheid. The fact that it is only Tutu's critique of their attitude that gets all the attention and not his frequent critique of the government for leaving behind the poor of South Africa (who are mostly Black) is itself proof if any is still needed of who is the privileged group in the new South Africa.

The voice of people like Tutu needs to be heard and acted upon. A philosopher, not frequently quoted these days, once formulated that while “...life must be lived forward it must be understood backwards”. That understanding is still very much in dispute among South Africans, even though they have made a lot of progress that many did not think possible only 15 years ago.

* Dr Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is General-Secretary of the Pan African Movement, Kampala (Uganda) and Co-Director of Justice Africa

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Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem tackles the public split between Nigerian vice-president Alhaji Abubakar Atiku and president Olushegun Obasanjo. The conflict is deadlocked: Atiku can’t quit for fear of what his president will do to him, while Obasanjo can’t fire him because his deputy has just enough power to hang on to office.

In many countries, a vice president who has shown so much public outrage and disagreement with his president and has been so officially ignored and embarrassed by his boss as the vice president of Nigeria, Alhaji Abubakar Atiku, would have resigned as a matter of honour. Similarly, a president, who finds himself in such confrontation and so personally and politically distrusts his deputy, would have had him sacked.

The fact that neither has been done despite the open hostility between Atiku and President Olushegun Obasanjo should tell us something very sad about the politics and power dynamics of Africa's largest country: No principles and no scruples, just personal ambitions even at the expense of the people of the country! This lack of principles is not uniquely Nigerian but it does not make it right.

Atiku cannot resign because the second he is no longer vice president he would have lost all immunity (which often operates as impunity among our elected officials). He must be scared that his embittered boss may put him in handcuffs, send him off to Kiri Kiri (Nigeria's maximum prison) on a thousand and one charges which can easily be dusted up from the files. The obvious one, which has been used to silence or 'persuade' some of his supporters to reconsider their opposition to the President, has been trials for corruption through the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).

Atiku has been preparing to be President for a long time and will do anything to achieve his ambition, but going to prison is one of the few prices he is obviously not prepared to pay. Hence he has to remain in office untill the last possible second, when Obasanjo will not be able to do anything to him officially.

The President, on his part, has not been able to sack him because he lacks the political support of the National Parliament to carry it through. Instead, he has chosen to humiliate, subvert, corner, marginalise, undermine and also go after anyone suspected to be loyal to him within the ruling party, the political and business establishment, in the hope that Atiku 'will see sense', mend his ways or just quit.

It is an admission that the President does not control all the ace cards despite the mantra of his supporters reminding Nigerians that General Chief Matthew Olushegun Okikiola Obasanjo is the President, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, Commander of Police, Commander of Prisons and Commander of Customs, Head of Traffic Police, Chief of Federal Road Safety Corp, etc, etc!

But what is the dispute between Obasanjo and Atiku? A very simple matter really. Atiku wants to succeed Obasanjo as President, just like Gordon Brown (who is not even Deputy Prime Minister but the Finance Secretary) has been wanting and waiting to succeed Tony Blair as British Prime Minister. It is not that Blair is very happy about it, but there is almost nothing he can do about it because the Labour Party will decide eventually.

But in the case of Atiku, his and Obasanjo's party, the People's Democratic Party (also more appropriately known as 'People Deceiving People') is not a party but a cabal of political contractors beholden to whoever is in control of the contracts. Despite not having a political, military, or even an ethnic base, in 1999, after Sani Abacha's death, Obasanjo, still recovering from his jail experience, was asked by other generals if he would consider going back to Aso Rock. Once ensconced in power, Obasanjo has become the tail that wags the dog, proving once again that a donkey can rule and twist Nigeria to his whims and caprices as long as it is occupying Aso Rock!

Ibrahim Babangida, Atiku and others who facilitated Obasanjo's ascent thought wrongly that he had no choice but to stick to them after coming to power. In 2003 they flexed their muscle again but their personal and class greed forced them to reach another deal with Obasanjo. Soon after the massive rigging in which Atiku was a major facilitator, Obasanjo went against them again and has remained so since then. He became president twice in spite of the wishes of Nigerians. Therefore, he cannot care less if the whole country is now opposed to his changing the constitution to facilitate what in Uganda many opposition people call a 'Sad Term'.

Does this make Atiku the martyr for democracy that his propagandists claim? Definitely not. He has not articulated any policy difference from Obasanjo's IMF/World Bank-know best neo-liberalism. Between him and Babangida, the other front-running contender, the choice is one of sunset or darkness. Obasanjo's people are using this to blackmail Nigerians that there are no alternatives. They are being half clever because the reason there are no other alternatives is because the incumbent has placed 'No vacancy' on the Aso Rock gate. The real choice is not between Obasanjo and these people but really between Nigerians and the military/civilian plutocrats!

* Dr Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is General-Secretary of the Pan African Movement, Kampala (Uganda) and Co-Director of Justice Africa

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"I am officially announcing that Iran has joined the group of those countries which have nuclear power.” These 17 words were uttered live on television last Tuesday, by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran, to a cheering crowd of jubilant compatriots proud that their country had joined this patented club of countries whose wishes may not be ignored by the rest of the world because of their ability or potential to back their power with nuclear technology.

It is a small club of nations that can intimidate the rest of the world. Until recently, that club was almost exclusively White and Western (including the Zionist State of Israel), with the exception of China. But North Korea, India and Pakistan are also members now. All experts agree that Iran has not become a full member yet and may take a few more years to be able to make nuclear bombs but it has now demonstrated its potential.

As Iranians jubilate ‘The World’ or more appropriately those who think
they are ‘The World’ through the global media they control and the rest of us follow, let it be known that our world is made more unsafe by this copycat scientific development in Iran. US State department spokesman, Sean McCormack, said to BBC: “we would have hoped that the Iranian regime would have taken this opportunity to choose a pathway of diplomacy as opposed to the pathway of defiance.”

The same words could have been quoted back to the US for many policies its government, especially under the bellicose George Bush, have pursued since it came to power. And I am not referring only to the foretold tragedy in Iraq. It would be more credible if those who preach to other nations to respect international rules, conventions and etiquettes were themselves impeccable in their observance of the same.

The US government should be the last government to shout foul because it has refused to allow international law or morality to stand in its way in the pursuit of its own interests. If it can obey international rules in a kind of reckless a la carte what right has it got to say other countries should not do the same?

I am not sure if the world feels as threatened by Iran acquiring what all experts know to be a capacity to make nuclear fuels as the US and EU countries are orchestrating. Many Africans openly or secretly jubilated when India detonated its nuclear bomb the same week that Pakistan launched its own.

The only regret many felt was that there was no African country able to do the same and redeem the continent and its peoples from ‘nuclear whitemail’. There were many African scholars and activists who opposed Professor Ali Mazrui’s call for an ‘African Bomb’ in the 1980s who now regretted their ideological opposition to the controversialist scholar.

I was a baby radical then and thought of Mazrui as a reactionary. Now I know better. In those days, Mazrui had ambitions for Nigeria to be able to counter the nuclear threat posed by apartheid South Africa. The idea that nuclear weapons are safe in the hands of Americans and their European cousins only and a danger to the rest of the world is not only patronising but also racist. If George Bush can be trusted with nuclear weapons why not anybody else? The only way to ensure universal nuclear disarmament is for all countries to renounce it and destroy the nuclear arsenal they have acquired. As long as some have it and others do not, those who do not will try to either acquire it, if they can or if they cannot, envy those who do. Iran is not the only country trying to acquire nuclear weapons.

How come nobody is talking anymore about North Korea whose capability is technically ahead of that of the Iranians and whose leaders have also declared their readiness to use it ‘for pre-emptive action’ the principle so beloved by Bush’s America? There is no doubt that the Iranian government under President Ahmadinejad has raised the stakes very high in a game of brinkmanship against American bullying.

Many countries have been cowered into submission but secretly wishing they could also play with the Tiger’s tail and get away with it.

Is it really surprising that the Teheran announcement came the same week when Western media was full of stories about Washington planning ‘pre-emptive strikes’ against nuclear installations in Iran by the US, including using nuclear weapons? Does anyone expect the Iranians to behave like sitting
ducks?

Teheran continues to protest that it is seeking nuclear technology for peaceful purposes. The Americans and many Westerners doubt this intention but many people in the world also doubt Western intentions. The US in particular, has not got a good record in identifying real threat to global peace and security. It was wrong in Iraq, in Afghanistan and why should anyone trust its judgement now? Russia, China, India, Pakistan and Israel have nuclear weapons and these countries are either neighbours of Iran or countries with strategic focus on the country and vice-versa.

Therefore Iran cannot be expected to willingly leave itself so vulnerable. Whether it is Ahmadinejad or any other leader, the nuclear option would have been a serious option in Teheran. Now that Iran has demonstrated its capability it may actually be opened to diplomatic discussions.

Unlike Israel which does not even accept any UN Non- Proliferation treaty and welcomes no inspectors, Iran may return to cooperation with International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) but like Israel, it may never fully disclose its capability, just to keep its regional rivals and enemies guessing: do they, don’t they?

How many Africans will really find it objectionable if there is an African state with such potential?

The capture of Charles Taylor should be welcomed, but there are several aspects to the former Liberian leader’s trial that are worrying, notes Tajudeen Abdul Raheem. Chief among these are the way in which the trial allows Liberia, and those complicit in Taylor’s rule, to externalize justice for his crimes.

I have been following the arrest and swift dispersal to the UN Special Court in Sierra-Leone, of the former President of Liberia, Charles Taylor, with mixed feelings. In spite of the tawdry politics surrounding the saga I share the relief of many from Liberia, Sierra-Leone and people of the West African sub region that this gangster of a president was finally caught.

As warlords and rebel opportunism go and their grotesque notoriety and infamy across Africa, Taylor was in a separate class of his own, probably only comparable to the late Jonas Savimbi. He was dubiously even 'luckier' than Savimbi because a nation fatigued by his mendacious war 'rewarded' him with the presidency of the country.

Savimbi 'only' got himself a negotiated vice presidency, after he had lost the popular polls (which he rejected) but pressures were brought to bear on the Angolan government to accommodate his megalomania. This included the ridiculous provision that named him in a special gazette with a compendium of rights and privileges as the 'official leader' of the opposition. All this capitulation to his vanity did not stop him from further conspiring to prolong the war until he finally fell on his sword.

Charles Taylor rode to power on the broken limbs and severed heads of his compatriots. Even as president, Taylor continued his brigandage through murders, smuggling of diamonds, laundering timber, gun running and human trafficking. He basically operated a criminal state infrastructure. But we must be clear that he is not alone, even though he may have been excessive.

The way Charles Taylor was caught just shows again how cowardly these dictators are once they are stripped of their terror infrastructure. It echoes how that other sad sadist, Saddam, was caught in a hole like a frightened rat. Taylor, who had sent so many innocent people to their untimely deaths, was caught trying to run across a border like the common smuggler he was. There was no exchange of fire, no resistance and no act of courage on his part. Even the bags of money that he was carrying and willing to trade for his escape could not help him.

However despite my sharing the relief of many I am not as enthusiastic that the cause of peace in the region will automatically be served by his trial and even conviction. For instance, who is talking about Saddam's trial now? Does it really matter if he is hanged, commits suicide or just rots away in prison?

One needs to be more circumspect and cautious about a one-dimensional definition of justice, which has been tried several times without much success. How long did it take the Hague court to get Milosevik to trial and at the end what happened? Now that he has died without a verdict will his death resolve anything in Serbia?

Since it was established, defendants and their lawyers have bogged down the Sierra-Leone Special Court in procedural matters and deliberate delay tactics, hence not many of those indicted have been convicted. This includes the former militia leader turned defence minister, Hinga Norman. Charles Taylor's comrade in arms, Foday Sankoh, died in prison while awaiting trial. Did his death mean accountability for all the charges against him?

There are other aspects of Taylor's indictment that have always concerned me. He was indicted not for all the atrocities he committed against the people of Liberia but for his foreign misadventures in neighboring countries and especially Sierra-Leone. This has allowed the Liberian political class to externalize the resolution of their own political problems and outsource the search for justice and accountability. Internally he was more or less given impunity. If he had not been indicted for Sierra Leone he would have got away with his atrocities in Liberia. This is typical of most internal settlements in Africa that often reward perpetrators of violence in the name of 'national reconciliation'.

Taylor was not the only beneficiary of national impunity. All other politicians who collaborated with him and the various armed rebel groups for two decades also escaped an accounting for their actions. This is justice by second hand. Since millions of our people already depend on second hand clothes, second hand vehicles, second hand everything, justice coming via second sources is not altogether surprising!

Second hand justice may be better than no justice at all. By this precedent of outsourcing justice many presidents in Africa should not be sitting complacently in their mansions. They may be relatively 'safe' now but justice may catch up with them once they are out of office. For instance, it is now possible that after his third or fourth term, President Museveni could be indicted for the activities of his army or rebel groups he supported, in the DRC. President Omar Al Bashir may never be prosecuted for genocide in Darfur but can be indicted for LRA atrocities in Uganda. Internationally we should be looking at possibilities of Bush and Blair being indicted for their illegal war in Iraq or various French or Belgian leaders being indicted for genocide in Rwanda. Taylor's saga demonstrates that while 'The Strong Man' may intimidate his national compatriots into submissive peace it is possible for him to be tried for regional crimes against humanity.

It is not only Charles Taylor's supporters who will be monitoring this trial keenly. There is a need to widen the trial to include those companies and individuals (arms dealers, diamond dealers etc etc) who aided, abetted and facilitated him and his cohorts for all these years. This will certainly open up a huge Pandora’s Box. Senior elements in the new political establishment, including the president herself, cannot wash themselves clean of previous associations and culpability in Taylor's bloody match to Monrovia from 1989. That is why it is convenient for them to have him tried for his foreign intervention instead of welcoming the opportunity to try him at home.

If Taylor goes for broke and comes clean on his bloody career we might yet get to know those who facilitated his escape from a US prison, after which he went on to build a rebel army which was initially popular. Libya and Burkina-Faso are regularly mentioned as countries that helped him to power, but so did Jerry Rawlings in Ghana and the Late Houphoet-Boigny of Ivory Coast. Who are Charles Taylor's bankers? Where are his billions kept? Where would the blood trail stop?

There are millions crying out for justice but there are powerful interests too that may not want Taylor to face full justice. It is rather too early to be congratulating ourselves that Taylor is behind bars. In spite of all the contradictions and uncertainties, his arrest and impending trial at a symbolic level should warn our leaders that indeed 'no condition is permanent'. Strong men of today may become the weakling cowards of tomorrow. Taylor, Saddam and Milosevik must have once thought of themselves as untouchables, just like some of our presidents who are riding roughshod over the basic rights of their peoples. After Charles Taylor, some of them may be next.

* Dr Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is General-Secretary of the Pan African Movement, Kampala (Uganda) and Co-Director of Justice Africa

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Three years after the US-led invasion of Iraq, Washington and its allies insist that Operation Iraqi Freedom will end in victory, despite ever-increasing bloodshed in the country. Tajudeen Abdul Raheem hones in on the architects of the invasion, George Bush and Tony Blair.

This week is the anniversary of the illegal Anglo-American invasion of Iraq. President Bush and his British poodle, Tory Blair, have both been trying to put a spin on their continuing destruction of the country and its people to their very sceptical compatriots and a world that has stopped believing anything said by these global con men who cannot be relied on to even declare their names without inviting suspicions!

The war was never sanctioned by the rest of the world and despite many diabolical attempts in the past three years to give it some kind of moral and diplomatic seal of approval Washington and London remain isolated.

Blair never had a united country, party, parliament or government behind his militarism. That was why he had to lie about the 'imminent and immediate danger ' that Iraq allegedly constituted. The Weapons of Mass Deception (WMD) and 45-minute strike capacity of Saddam Hussein have been exposed for what they were: fantasies of a duplicitous war monger determined to please his American bosses at any cost. He has been crashing down the hill of public trust since the invasion. His handler, George Bush, initially manufactured a national coalition behind him but knowing what they now know millions of Americans have discovered that their dumb President used 9/11 to falsely lure them into an unjust war without end. The easy victory he promised has become a nightmare, forcing parallels with Vietnam.

Worse for Bush, his loony right intellectual and political gurus who provided specious ideological justification for the invasion are recanting in their droves. He has become a disciple whose prophet has been exposed as a phony.

Listen to two of the most hawkish war mongers. The first, Francis Fukuyama, the apostle of End of History and the ever rising advance of Western liberalism recently said: "By invading Iraq, the Bush administration created a self-fulfilling prophecy: Iraq has now replaced Afghanistan as a magnet, a training ground and an operational base for Jihadists, with plenty of American targets to shoot at.”

The second is fellow Republican hawk and a senior official before conflict of interest forced him out, Richard Perle. He said: "The military campaign and its political aftermath were both passionately debated within the Bush administration. It got the war right and the aftermath wrong. We should have understood that we needed Iraqi partners."

Others who supported the war have become publicly disillusioned. Despite their confessions though there is one thing common to all of them. They are recanting for American reasons without any concern for the Iraqis. When they talk of 'Casualties in Iraq' they do not mean the innocent Iraqi children, women and men murdered en masse at weddings, naming ceremonies or in detention centres – the so-called 'collateral damage' of Bush' s adventurism. They are only concerned about the couple of thousand of American and British killed in the war. While they are still counting their casualties in the lower denomination of four digits the Iraqi casualties are in the hundreds of thousands. In their minds it's only American and British lives that matter. The rest are just statistics. Even in death a Westerner's life is still worth more than that of other people. That's why Bush could falsely claim that 30,000 Iraqis 'more or less' have been killed in this war. Could he have said 'more or less' about American life?

As the late Bob Marley said: "You can fool some people sometimes,
But you can't fool all the people all the time."

The Hausa also say: "Mara gaskiya ko cikin ruwa sai ya yi gumi" (a dishonest person will sweat even if he is in water!). Bush and Blair are liars and murderers, who if only the world is fairer, should have been hauled before the International Criminal Court as war criminals who have continued to kill innocent civilians in another country that posed no threat to their countries.

The only other alternative now is to wait for their exits. In the case of Bush, there is a date which cannot come sooner. But Blair is the weaker of the two monsters. The Labour Party should do the world a big favour and begin a long process of atonement for the needless death of innocent Iraqis by changing the locks to 10 Downing Street. Blair’s latest exposure of offering peerages and other national honours for undeclared 'donations' or 'loans' to the Labour Party just shows how cynical and amoral a politician this man, (B-Liar) is.

If he had been an African leader the British government would have been one of the first big mouths to be condemning his corruption and lack of transparency. Blair helped Bush to undermine international law and he has now domesticated the same skills by finding loopholes in laws passed by his own government on party financing. The British people have enough very British reasons to be rid of this fraudster whom Nigerians would have easily recognise as a '419' Premier.

* Dr Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is General-Secretary of the Pan African Movement, Kampala (Uganda) and Co-Director of Justice Africa

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Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem travels to Beirut and reports on a meeting held to assess the past, present and future of the Global Call To Action Against Poverty.

When I told some friends and colleagues that I was going to Beirut their reaction was one of concern: What is taking you there? How many Africans will be there and what would take a Pan-Africanist to Beirut? To the second question the answer is very simple. I have never been anywhere without finding an African. You will find at least one or two Nigerians. Indeed any place you do not find a Nigerian you will be well advised to find your lady luck elsewhere! Africans are the adventurers of the latter part of the 20th century and the most mobile in the 21st.

European migrants, asylum seekers and refugees of the past centuries have re-written their history to read like epic stories of adventure, courage and the spread of 'civilisation' and 'progress'. In the future Africans may also repackage the desperate search for economic opportunities by our economically active populations across the world as adventure stories.

The first question is a reaction to the image of Beirut that many people have internalised, shaped by its prolonged conflicts of the '80s where pictures that have become familiar today about Iraq first confronted the world. The image of Beirut as a lawless city of armed bands and hostage-takers has endured. Hence the concern of my friends.

However Beirut is as normal as any mega city in the world. Of course if you look critically enough the symbols and memories of its not- so- distant past of armed occupation and current semi-armed status is not difficult to find. There are still buildings riddled with bullets and security men in hotels with bulging suits concealing weapons. But life just goes on.

I am in Beirut attending a conference of the Global Call to Action Against Poverty (GCAP). This coalition of various NGOs and CSOs from all the regions of the world was formed in 2004 to campaign for the eradication of poverty. Immediately in their sights then were the different international political opportunities presented in 2005 for fighting for a better international order, addressing inequalities, between peoples , nations and peoples, and within countries and making the leaders of the world accountable to the peoples of the world.

Britain had declared 2005 the year for Africa and the coincidence of the UK heading both the EU and the G8 raised hopes in certain quarters that some progress could be made in building a fairer international order. British NGOs were very important in building and shaping the global campaign. This was both a positive and negative benefit to the campaign.

There were many doubters including myself. But the GCAP coalitions believed in taking advantage of the situation to force certain debates, mobilise around a number of issues and put forward alternative policy positions. While they cannot claim to have achieved most of their policy platforms they can congratulate themselves that at the level of popular mobilisation, the issue of poverty has gained political priority internationally. Governments and international institutions were forced to react to the demands. The progress made in terms of policy changes may have been modest but focus on the issues was very significant.

Some of my own concerns about the 2005 activities had to do with my suspicion that come 1st January 2006 poverty would still be afflicting billions of people across the world and the media and 'saviours' of 2005 would have moved on to other things. I believe then and now that it requires more than a few concerts, symbolic gestures by richer countries, celebrity 'clicks against poverty' and endorsement by other media friendly figures for poverty to be wiped from the surface of this very rich earth we inhabit. Poverty amidst plenty is not just about specific policies but the structure of socio-economic systems both nationally and internationally. Therefore ending poverty amidst plenty requires changing the structures of power nationally and internationally. It will not be an act of charity but a deliberate demand for justice.

The Beirut meeting provided an opportunity for the GCAP activists to asses the year, savour their victories and examine the challenges that remained and decide where they go from hence.

The consensus is that the campaign should continue but with a more realistic inventory of its expectations and greater attention focused on regional and national efforts and mass activism to end poverty. The meeting made an honest assessment of 2005, guided by an independent review by external evaluators.

In spite of criticisms, some of them very biting and potentially divisive, the GCAP coalition partners are going to continue the campaign and review the struggles again at the end of 2007. While 2005 was dominated by international issues and what many critics called 'events chasing' the next phase is going to be shaped by issues of national and local campaigns on how to make governments both in the north and the south accountable to their peoples and honor the commitments they have made in 2005 and in the UN through the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

While 2005 was dominated by the celebrities and campaigners in the north the next phase of the global campaign against poverty is going to be focused on peoples action, where ever that may be, thus putting into action that slogan from the women's movement: thinking globally and acting locally.

* Dr Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is General-Secretary of the Pan African Movement, Kampala (Uganda) and Co-Director of Justice Africa

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