Today the United Nation’s General Assembly will be voting again on an issue concerning Cuba, as it has done for almost four decades now. The subject is the continuing blockade of the small Caribbean socialist nation by its bullying neighbour, the lone superpower (some will say hyper power).

The Assembly will undoubtedly call for the end to this punitive measure on Cuba by the US, not for any act of aggression or intent to do so, but just because Cuba has dared not to organise its society along the cut-throat vulture capitalism of its neighbour. For daring to imagine different worlds, successive US governments since the early 1960s have sought both to eliminate Fidel Castro and destroy Cuba’s socialism. In an enduring victory for common peoples across the world, the big guys have never won in this case!

Before the revolution of 1959 Cuba was a playground to the US. A combination of ideologically driven obsession with regime change in Cuba and nostalgia for US hegemony in the country fuelled by the powerful Cuban-American interests in the state of Florida in particular and across the US has meant that a rational debate on what threat, if any, this small island posed to the US has been almost impossible.

One does not expect that in an election year in which all opinion polls and forecasts predict a very close run between the incumbent hawkish Republican Bushman and his patrician democrat rival, reason can prevail on America’s negative policies against Cuba.

The rest of the world has no vote in the US elections even though its outcome has grave implications for all of us. However, all of us do have a voice in the United Nations even if the UN is a pejorative nomenclature inside the US. That voice should be used to restate again to the US that it cannot claim global leadership and at the same time defy global consensus and civilised standards. It cannot give itself the role of global Sheriff and act like a rogue.

Bush may have cowed many countries and peoples into quiet acquiescence in his irresponsible behaviour internationally but there is a growing concern at its exercise of power without responsibility both within America itself and internationally. The vast majority of the peoples of the world must use today’s vote on the illegal blockade on Cuba to yet again demonstrate to the US that the rest of us will have our say and exercise our right not to be colluders in US brigandage.

The usual suspect client states of the US, most notably Israel, will vote against the censure resolution while most countries of the world will vote for it. A small number may even abstain. Some African countries (a very small minority I am happy to say) in recent years have chosen, out of fear or misplaced loyalties or even diplomatic incompetence by officials, to abstain. Abstinence on such an issue is voting along with US bullying of Cuba.

Unfortunately, Uganda was one of those few African countries that abstained in last year’s vote despite assurances from the highest level to the contrary. Not long ago President Museveni bravely admitted in public that he was hoodwinked by Bush on Iraq and regretted the mistake in supporting the illegal occupation of the country. He needs to correct another US related diplomatic mistake by causing Uganda’s ambassador to the UN to vote in support of the UN resolution calling for an end to the blockade against Cuba.

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

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The award of the Nobel Peace Prize to Kenyan Environmentalist, Mama Wangari Mathai of Kenya has been greeted with justifiable chorus of cheers from around the world and in Africa and the African Diaspora even more ululation, praise songs and loud talking drums. If anyone is deserving of such global acclaim he or she does not come more unprepossessing than this people's Professor who had dedicated her life to a very simple task: planting trees in order to safe her environment from destruction and degradation as a result of excessive exploitation. Who would have thought that such a an ordinary act could be so threatening to the state, local companies and the multinational corporations to make this African woman victim of state violence, intimidation, arrest, detention and other kinds of harassment?

Her impact on Kenya on the Moi regime and its land grabbing elite was similar (even if on a smaller scale) to another simple demand of a different historical epoch. Mahatma Ghandi demanded of the British colonial overlords in India to allow Indians to wear Indian dresses that they had made themselves and also get Salt from their own waters as their ancestors had done from time immemorial. This of course struck at the core of the colonial economy in a way that was very profound. If Indians only bought Indian made things and produced what they consumed then both the British colonial trading houses and their local agents will be out of business. From wanting to determine what they produced and consumed these Indians will (as indeed it came to pass) eventually demand to be their own rulers.

In the early years she suffered all kinds of derision. She was ridiculed as 'the tree woman' by those blinded by their financial interest in turning all lands into money regardless of the impact on the people, environment and the future of our cities and countries as a whole. Africa's governing elite from Independence up to now are dominated by ideas of 'modernisation' which ideologically they mean not just industrialisation, agricultural mechanisation and building of cities but also cultural westernisation: the aping of everything western especially western habits of crass materialism. Even when conscious groups in the West have woken up to the dangers that such a life style posed to their long-term existence and that of humanity our development planners are still stuck at classical modernisation at all cost. Thus people like Wangari who dared to raise environmental concerns were seen as enemies of progress and development. The state murder of Writer and environmental activist, Ken Saro Wiwa and his 8 other colleagues by Abacha in Nigeria is a demonstration of how dangerous being an environmentalist is in Africa. Wangari's tree planting forced her on collision course against powerful vested interests of private land lords, land grabbers in government and their business friends, big local companies (often owned by powerful politicians or controlled by their cronies) and multinational corporations all united around profiting and profiteering from Land regardless of the impact on people and environment. But she became a champion of the urban poor in their ghettoes and slums and rural masses and their insecure and constantly threatened tenure of smallholdings.

From Tree planting she moved on to Land reform, town and country planning issues, rights of users, demands for open green spaces for the public, preservation of historic and heritage sites, etc. In all these fronts Wangari and her growing supporters found bureaucratic obstacles and official hostility. It became clear that the freedom to plant trees and the right of poor people to decent housing and farmers' right to grow crops they like on lands handed down from generation to generation are directly related to the quality of governance, its legitimacy and its respect for its peoples. Tree planting like the right to clean drinking water or education and health services were intricately linked to democratic rights of the whole country. Environment like all issues that concern human beings are about power and politics. She and her constituencies became part of the political activism against the corruption and autocracy of the Moi/KANU power structure. But even in the opposition alliance, which finally defeated KANU Wangari Mathai, remains a difficult partner because she was not willing to sacrifice her environmental concerns to the powers that be. Even though she is now a minister in government that position has not hindered her and she remains one of few Ministers in the NARC government that is still regarded as being true to their convictions. For many it did not take them long to abandon their principles in favour of their new comforts and privileges of office.

By this honour Wangari has shown that you do not have to sell your soul in order to be successful in politics. As many had rightly pointed out her Nobel Laureate is also a positive celebration of the African Woman, Salt of the earth, the solid foundation of our communities and societies whose labour remains largely unpaid for and often unrecognised. But above all else it is an inspiration to all those who still value principles and selfless commitment to public good.

Congratulations, Mama Wangari.

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

The self-chosen prophet of the World's self-anointed 'Political God' (paraphrasing President Mugabe's recent blunt remarks at the UN General Assembly) otherwise known as Tony Blair, British Prime Minister, is on a mercy mission to Africa. Yesterday he was in Sudan to add whatever is left of British diplomatic and political pressures and his hugely depleted arsenal of personal influence on the Al Bashir regime to stop killing its own citizens. It is very difficult to know who the Khartoum government really responds to, therefore all kinds of pressure needs to be brought to bear from all corners. Why they would listen to Blair I don't know but it gives good footage for Blair's public at home who have become too suspicious of their Prime Minister.

From Sudan Tony moved on to Addis-Ababa, the capital city of Ethiopia and head quarters of the African Union. He is attending a meeting of the Commission that he had set up to advise him on his missionary interest in Africa: Blair Commission for Africa.

It is very unAfrican not to show empathy to a man who had recently been hospitalized (Tony has just undergone a 'minor' heart operation) who cares so much about Africa that he did not put off this meeting even though people would have understood if he did. So I must say Pole, Bwana Blair! Karibu Afrika!

I hope the lights in the various rooms where he would be meeting his African hosts will be brightly lit and he would be putting on the best magnifying lenses that Her Majesty's Health service can provide so that he can distinguish between these Black people in suits! We would not want him to make the same 'mistake' as his hapless Foreign Minister, Jack Straw, who had shaken the hands of President Mugabe at the UN General Assembly apparently without realizing it was him! One would have thought that given the priority the British government had disproportionately given to encouraging 'regime change' in Zimbabwe and demonizing President Mugabe the British Foreign Minister will recognize him, lit room or unlit! Perhaps David Blunket, the British Home Office Secretary and enforcer of tough immigration rules and other authoritarian law and order regulations, is not the only member of the cabinet visually challenged. I am hoping that Mr. Blair, a great believer in spin that he is would have committed to memory the image of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, President Benjamin Mkapa, the ECA Executive Secretary, Dr KY Amoako and other eminent dark people on the Commission that he will be meeting. Maybe they could make it easier for him by wearing nametags!

The Addis meeting is the first the Commission is holding in Africa since Blair set it up. But holding this session in Africa does not detract from the cynicism that has continued to dodge this commission which many believe to be yet another liberal-do-gooder interventionism manufactured in Europe (London, or more precisely NO 10 Downing Street, in this case). Africans did not decide the agenda and terms of reference of the commission. Blair did not bother to ask many Africans if they wanted yet another Commission on the challenges of our development. If analysis, good intentions and promises alone can deliver, every African will be living in paradise. Why did Blair have to set up another Commission when he was one of the G8 leaders who had encouraged Mbeki and Obasanjo and the other so called Group of 5 African states to be running around with NEPAD (KNEEPAD to critics like me) from one G8 meeting to the other. The African leaders are still on their knees while Blair has removed his pad and has now moved on to his own Commission.

The initial cynicism by many was countered by supporters of Blair's missionary activities as too pessimistic and too hypercritical. They also point at the prospect of Britain and Blair (if he is still British Prime Minster) heading both the EU and the G8 next year as providing opportunity to put Africa at the center stage internationally.

I have no doubt that in his own way Blair does care about Africa (after all did he not declare us 'a scar on the conscience of the world' in a famous triumphalist Labour party conference speech a few years ago). It is what that care translates into that worries me. Does he care more for African children and women than he does for those Iraqis that he and his American gangster boss, Bush, are killing everyday in the name of liberation? It should worry us that his tunnel vision of the world is being transplanted on to Africa. This is a man who believes that he is always right and even when he is proven to have lied or be mistaken he (allegedly the most openly religious Prime Minister in modern British politics) is unwilling to say sorry, let alone show remorse and ask for forgiveness. To be fair, many Africans will recognise that 'know all' mentality in many of our own dealers who like to call themselves leaders across this continent.

Therefore even if one is to suspend disbelief for the time being and give the Blair Commission a hearing because it is coming from Blair, the credibility deficit will not go away. Why should Africans and the rest of the world believe in the innate goodness and honest motives of a Prime Minister distrusted by his own party and country? The messenger has become the message.

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

When in 2002 the crumbling Moi and KANU regime in Kenya nominated, with obvious orchestration from President MOI (a.k.a. MY OWN INTEREST), the son of the former founding President, Mzee Jomo Kenyatta, as its presidential candidate, I was one of many outside observers who commented that the old Fox was desperate and desperately hanging unto any straws.

Uhuru, the anointed one, was a relative new comer to Kenyan politics and had nothing going for him other than his surname. His first foray into politics was both a personal disaster and comeuppance to Moi/KANU for taking the loyalty of Kenyan voters for granted assuming that the people of Gatundu, the Kenyatta constituency, will vote for anybody or anything, for that matter as long as Kenyatta was the last name. In 1997 Uhuru contested and lost most embarrassingly to a relatively unknown Nairobi architect, Mwihia, in a great electoral upset. Many felt that Uhuru’s political end came from the beginning and predicted his sunset before it even rose.

To choose someone who could not even deliver his father’s feudal estate as a presidential candidate, five years later, was indeed a sign of desperation. Needless to say that Uhuru and KANU deservingly lost that election to an overwhelming desire for democratic change by Kenyans that produced the current multiparty alliance government led by President Mwai Kibaki.

Not a few analysts and observers thought that the unwilling politician (pressed by family, Moi and KANU interests) that Uhuru was he would gracefully retire from politics and go back to the family business that he understood better. But he has hung on and he seems to be gaining both in confidence and acquiring personal political credibility that may yet make him a viable alternative leader for the country. Thanks to the unbridled ambitions of various fat egos in the NARC alliance the Kibaki government is virtually in paralysis and is increasingly forced to rely on KANU direct or indirect support to thwart his alliance partners. The exasperation of the jubilant and triumphalist electorate of 2002 is such that many are beginning to look back at KANU years as probably ‘not too bad after all’. Even those who will not go that far may say with extreme despair that ‘this is not what we expected’ and some will even argue that ‘the new lot are as bad as KANU’. Politics of despair works in favour of a shrewd opposition. Since most of the big parties are in the governing alliance this leaves KANU as the only credible formal political opposition. Uhuru accepted his defeat most gracefully and one must say that even Moi disengaged himself in a surprisingly dignified way much to the pleasant surprise of many critics who thought that the Old man would not go out peacefully. Since 2002 Uhuru seemed to have been putting his personal stamp and authority on KANU in a moderate reform agenda to ease out the Old guard, exorcise Moi’s ghost and also show Kenyans that he is much more than just his illustrious surname.

Take his recent frank statement to a KANU meeting apologising to Kenyans for the mistakes and wrongs done by KANU in its 40 years strangle hold on the politics, economy and society of Kenya. According to a BBC report ‘Mr Kenyatta noted a long list of acts KANU could be held responsible for. These included the repression of opposition activists, the lack of government accountability and politically motivated tribal clashes’. Quoting Uhuru directly: "I offer my most sincere apology to all Kenyans for mistakes made during the tenure of our party and call upon our members to join in this apology,"

How many politicians on this continent will be this humble and honest? Would a Babangida in Nigeria who robbed and ruined the country for 8 years and is now clamouring to return to finish his demolition job be contrite enough to say ‘sorry’? Someone who annulled a democratic election and has never explained to the public is now hoping to bribe his way back to power through democracy without remorse or shame or even sense of irony! 10 years after Genocide in Rwanda many MRND leaders and their allies in the clergy and other apologists continue to deny the Genocide and despite many of them professing religious faith have never expressed remorse let alone ask for forgiveness. IN Uganda how many of those anti Museveni Multi partyists who are rightly criticising the government and struggling against its growing excesses have ever taken the time to accept their own past responsibilities?

The queries are endless about the lack of political responsibility by both government and opposition in Africa. Many of our Opposition politicians think all they have to do is just oppose. But the opposition of today could be the government of tomorrow or in some cases were the government of yesterday. What kind of democracy is it that we are trying to build where governments (previous, present or future) do no wrong?

Uhuru’s honest confrontation with the ghosts of KANU past, whatever his motivations, is a breath of fresh air.

I disagree with him when in the same meeting he reportedly insisted that the responsibility is not collective. Politically it was a party based regime therefore KANU cannot claim successes without owning up to the failures too. However I am in full agreement with him in his "… call upon all individuals - present or past... responsible for those acts and omissions which so much aggrieved Kenyans to publicly own up, offer their individual apologies and seek forgiveness from the people of Kenya," How many politicians in government and outside of government will take up the challenge for political responsibility for their actions or inactions?

Last week in Nairobi at a summit of the leaders of the East African Community (EAC) countries the envisaged political federation of the region was given a new push. A committee has been set up to look at the modalities and submit its report to an ordinary summit of the leaders to be held November 30 this year.

This is a landmark progressive development with implications for other regions of Africa (ECOWAS, SADC, IGADD, etc) and the whole of Africa through the African Union. It is a good example that should spread and do so quickly. Unfortunately the media in the region and outside of it are not giving the matter the due consideration it deserves.

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, a firm believer in the federation, was so incensed by the media's lukewarm attitude that he branded Ugandan journalism and journalists 'useless' for not giving proper coverage to the issue. As a freelance member of the profession I will not go as far as the president who is not known for saying 'room for improvement ' where 'very bad' will fit. I don't think the local media is 'useless' instead I will say that it suffers from two serious (but politically curable) diseases: petty localism and external ideological dependence.

One makes it grab as headlines any local issues no matter how silly. The other makes it victim of 'download the downloadable' from the internet about any other issues that are an 'inch' outside the national boundaries and even more embarrassingly sometimes, national issues outside of the capital city!

In the 1960s the former British colonies of East Africa through the East African Community (EAC) were a beacon of regional integration envied by other regions, not just in Africa but even internationally. This was a period of nationhood and nationalism as former colonies asserted their right to govern themselves and exercise sovereignty over their affairs. Supranational organisations that required loss of sovereignty were not popular. In practice they operated as multilateral bodies cooperating on specified issues rather than integration agencies.

The late AM Babu, a radical icon in African Nationalism from Zanzibar and later a minister for Economic Development in Tanzania after his small island country was united with mainland Tanzania in the mid 1960s, used to reminisce about the early years of the East African Federation and the Pan Africanist dreams that inspired many of them in those days. He told us how ministers from the West European countries used to ask him and his colleagues how they were managing their federation without too much squabbles. These were days when the European Union was little more than a trading cartel around steel. By that time the EAC already had a common educational system and university, a common airline, and a communications and transport system.

Unfortunately, as the crisis of neocolonialism deepened across Africa the real gains of the union, rather than be a continuing source of further integration, became victim of bad politics and governance leading to its break up in the 70s. But even after its break up the remnants of the federation, in spite of division of assets, survived through infrastructure, both human and material. For instance telephones between the three countries remained local but more than this trade, commerce and movement of people have continued to defy the colonial boundaries and the internecine power struggles between the leaders over many years.

Indeed the political instability of a country like Uganda for most of the 70s up to the mid 1980s and Kenya in the Moi years succeeded in creating new regionally aware people who have had to live outside their countries among their neighbours. Many of the leaders were educated in each other's countries and therefore made friends across the region. This people to people contact and the force of interactive economic activities ensured that regionalism continued to survive in spite of the state elite. For instance Museveni remains popular in Tanzania especially in his old University of Dar es Salaam whereas Tanzania’s Benjamin Mkapa is more popular at Makere University. Many of the political leaders and activists were contemporaries at these universities.

After the overthrow of Idi Amin in 1979 mostly through the efforts of the Tanzania Army and Ugandan exile groups based in Tanzania it was hoped that EAC would return to its glory days. But those were times when Kenya was a cold war darling of the West and had delusions of surviving and doing better than her neighbours. So ideological suspicions did not help rebuild the Union. The Obote 2 regime was also too unstable internally to be a credible regional player.

However with relative stability returning to Uganda from the late 80s under Museveni the idea of a renewed EAC began to flourish. Moi's Kenya, though the regional economic power with more to gain from further integration, remained suspicious of its neighbours and for much of the 80s and early 90s Kenya's reluctance slowed the movement back to integration. But Kenya was fast losing its 'oasis in an ocean of crisis' status as Uganda under Museveni became a new darling of the West with Aid money and 'generous' IMF/World Bank facilities turning the once basket case of Africa into another 'miracle'.

At the same time the pressures of globalisation were beginning to take their toll just as the cold war was thawing after the collapse of the Eastern bloc. Like in all regions of the world the East African states were being driven by the forces of economic necessity in a predatory globalisation to move closer to each other. Consequently ideological and political suspicions were thrown aside as new efforts took place to restart the romance long suspended between the states. This culminated in the East African Cooperation treaty.

By this time Museveni's revolutionism that Moi had feared had become an economic counter-revolution with vestiges of his revolutionary past only surviving in his no party movement politics. Tanzania had also abandoned its Uhuru Na Ujama as privatization took roots and historical anti capitalist ideology of the country turned against collectivist solutions deemed socialist. The economic convergence of the states made it easier for them to see and deepen their integration efforts. Collective survival dictates the tempo.

There were cautious steps initially in order to avoid problems of the past and rebuild bridges but progress has been incremental since the late 1990s. The EAC has a parliament appointed from among elected legislatures in all the three countries. It has agreed to set up an East African court. It has signed Custom Union agreements and has a timetable for a common market and monetary Union. The final bloc in its regional integration efforts is a political federation of the states. It has also set conditions under which other states in the region can ascend, to membership. Rwanda, after its elections last year, should not have any obstacles in its ascension to full membership. If Burundi's peace process culminates in an elected government acceptable to the people it should also be able to gain full membership.

The bigger prize should have been the DRC but in the current circumstances one has grave doubts. However some of its regions, especially the volatile Eastern region, are culturally and economically part of the EAC therefore some real politic will be needed to accommodate that reality.

Uganda, that was the bane of the old EAC, has been very upfront and almost impatient in the current drive. In a twist to history, Tanzania that has been the home to both regionalism and Pan Africanism in the region, later became the one slowing down things. This was mainly due to the relative weakness of its emergent bourgeois interests who feared that Kenya capitalists would swallow them up.

There are many challenges ahead but regional federation is indispensable for a Pan African Union envisaged by the Constitutive Act of the African Union.

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

* Please send comments to [email protected]

Today the Security Council of the United Nation is meeting to discuss the pitiful situation in Darfur. The same body had given the Government of Sudan an ultimatum of one month (which ended Tuesday 31 August) to disarm its killer allies, the Janjaweed Militias, that have been running rampage with impunity in the Western region of the country.

Many independent observers, humanitarian NGOs and concerned people doubted then that the Sudan government would meet this deadline or even had any intention of doing so. The suspicion was that the government would use that time, albeit a short one, to gain more time and pretend it was doing something in order to ease the mounting diplomatic pressures on it.

The UN resolution was not just about the Government of Sudan - it also called upon the armed rebels to observe a ceasefire and cease any violence against innocent civilians. Further the resolution called for active resumption of peace talks under the auspices of the African Union and broad support for the AU's peace monitors.

One month later has there been any positive development to assuage the doubters? The sad answer is a definitive “No”. The humanitarian crisis continues to worsen for the people of Darfur and all kinds of humanitarian agencies are feeding fat on their misery through endless appeals, a huge chunk of which may not reach Darfur. On the political front, there have been more talks about talks than a real political breakthrough in addressing the political issues behind the conflict.

The Abuja talks hosted by General Obasanjo as Chair of the AU and also Chair of the AU peace and Security Council is more or less in impasse. There were lots of motions without movement. However in order to keep the efforts on track a lot of diplomatic speak is being employed to dress up the situation and talk up little gains.

The small gains include, one, the rebels attended the Abuja talks at senior level thereby abandoning their initial misguided belligerency in boycotting a previous AU talk in Addis in July. Two, the Sudan government by sitting at the table with the rebels, has diplomatically and politically acknowledged that it was recognising rebel political groups even if it does not recognise their aims. Three, the meeting also offered opportunity for the AU and others interested in the Sudan conflict to learn more about the complexity of the many conflicts in the Sudan.

Many had (wrongly for years) seen Sudan only in terms of its Arab/African fault lines or the religious prism of Islam/ Christianity. In Darfur these assumptions take different permutations. Also many naively assume that peace will break out once the SPLA and Khartoum long-negotiated peace deal takes full effect. While the North/South conflict may have the most prominence internationally Sudan has been fighting all kinds of bitter wars on many fronts with all kinds of marginalized and disaffected sections of its huge country, the largest on the African continent. That simplistic understanding of Sudan has led many well-meaning peace initiatives by different African states and other members of the international community to collapse.

However the Arab/African dynamics of the conflict is threatening the effectiveness of AU action and seriously endangering its consensus. It is playing into the hands of militants in the conflict especially in Khartoum. So what would the UN Security Council be deciding today on Darfur? China and Russia and Arab allies of Sudan including some African states, ignobly blocked a more censorious resolution that would have made sanctions mandatory if Khartoum failed to deliver. Now there will be further negotiations on what to do.

Allies of Khartoum will continue to insist that it is doing enough and willing to do more but that the time was short. Its opponents will retort that it has no intention of doing anything but merely buying more time to defeat or considerably weaken the rebels militarily and also intimidate the civilians into submission. The evidence for the past one-month does not augur well for the government.

The case for a more effective pressure to be brought to bear on the government is clear. While the UN's support for the AU effort is most desirable it is also important that the AU's engagement be more robust. It should move beyond peace monitoring to peace -making and enforcement. It has given too much room for Khartoum to bog it down in procedural and administrative issues. The constitutive Act of the Union unlearnt the dubious notion of 'territorial integrity and sovereignty ' of the old OAU which became the Dictators' charter. Thus there are now clear grounds under which the Union can intervene in the 'internal affairs' of its member states. The Darfur situation is a clear test of Africa's commitment to new ways of governance and solidarity.

Even if for political reasons the AU may not want to see the situation in Darfur as 'genocide', by any definition, it is a gross violation and systematic abuse of rights of Darfur Africans on a mass scale.

The AU cannot just be negotiating small numbers of troops with Khartoum but must be more aggressive in enforcing its mandate. This will mean more troops, which a number of states have indicated they are willing and able to contribute. A number of human rights organisations including Human Rights Watch have called for Chapter VII of the UN charter to be invoked so that the AU troops on the ground can be increased and its mandate expanded to include protection of civilians.

The silenced voices of those killed and being killed right now and the agony of those fleeing death stalking their villages and towns, not to talk of the agony of the innocent women being raped and children being traumatised in Darfur demands no more words or yet another plan but direct enforceable action against the Janjaweed militias. Asking or relying on the Government of Sudan to do this will be like asking turkeys to vote for an early Christmas. The time for action is now: no more excuses from Khartoum.

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

* Please send comments to [email protected]

"A prophet has honour" as the saying goes - but "not in his village" is the concluding refrain. How else could one begin to understand the recent tragedy that befell prominent African literary and political figure, Ngugi wa Thiongo and his wife on their maiden visit to Kenya meant to end Ngugi's almost two decades of exile from the dictatorship of the KANU regime that had detained him without trial and persecuted him into and even in exile.

They were violently attacked and viciously robbed in the apartment they were staying in -a relatively secure area of Nairobi, a city that is dubiously mimicking the Nigerian commercial city of Lagos or South Africa's Joburg in notoriety. It is no wonder that Nairobi is now infamously referred to by residents as Nairobbery!

The couple took a very brave and courageous stance of disclosing the full details of their ordeal, which included the rape of Ngugi’s wife. What a way to be welcomed back to a country that you have given so much of your life, energies and resources for. It is an Afropessimist’s wish come through and true!

Our hearts go out to Ngugi and his partner and we send our solidarity at this grave hour and wish them the courage and conviction to weather this storm. If Ngugi had imagined this and written it in one of his novels or political essays many people would have dismissed it as fantasy. It is indeed true that life is, unfortunately, often stranger than fiction.

If this had happened during the nightmarish days of the Moi dictatorship many, including myself, would have been quick to point to the ruling regime and its hirelings as the culprits, thereby giving the criminal attack a political colouring. While Ngugi may not be a card carrying member of either the ruling Rainbow Alliance parties or any of the formal opposition parties no one is seriously suggesting that the attack was politically motivated. From all the reports of his hugely welcomed return home there has been nothing to suggest that he has uttered or done anything to ‘provoke’ this attack.

Despite several years of exile and political activism his return had largely been non political, to the great disappointment of many of his former comrades and youthful activists who had hoped that Ngugi's temporary return would fuel some political fires and provide a focus for more sustainable opposition to the faltering leadership of the Rainbow politicians. But Ngugi had stuck to his literary, cultural and academic activities.

So one has to conclude that the attack was criminal rather than partisan. However it does have many political implications. If a prominent "son of the soil" well known locally and internationally cannot feel and be secure in his native capital city then who on earth is safe in that city? Kenya has become like Nigeria where the minister of Justice was murdered by hired killers and up to now the killers and their sponsors "have not been found".

If a Minister of Justice cannot get justice where is the rule of law in that country? Who will blame Ngugi if he goes back to the U.S. and never makes any attempt to return to Kenya again? I hope and trust that this tragic incident will not diminish their political activism and vision for a secure and democratic Kenya in a humane world.

Crime against persons and property and the gratuitous violence that often attend them are serious problems for many African countries. Standard left-wing, progressive views will try to explain away these things as symptoms of deeper structural problems of inequalities and injustices in "the system" whereas right-wing persons will see these as "just criminals who deserve no sympathy". I don't know whether it is old age catching up with me but I am beginning to find faults with many of my comrades on the left. I am still not comfortable with the rightist instinct to personalize the issues but I am more and more drawn to "personal responsibility" of the offenders no matter the circumstances.

Nobody forced those people to plan and execute their violent crime against Ngugi and his partner. Worse still they needed not rape their victim and the physical torture suffered by both of them were simply gratuitous. The physical wounds will heal but the psychological stress and trauma will take long for both his partner and Ngugi.

Let us hope that their courage in not hiding the horrible truth may actually help them to deal with it in their private lives and may also provoke further action and debate on general insecurity across the country but especially the gender dimensions of generalized violence in many of our countries. Rape remains a taboo topic in many of our societies yet it is taking place everyday in all kinds of situations, armed robbery being one of the extreme contexts including war. It is about time we stop the denials and defensiveness around it and face it squarely: Rape is worse than death therefore its perpetrators must be dealt with sternly and victims supported by various means.
Pole Sana, to our good friend, Ngugi, and his partner.

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

* Please send comments to [email protected]

The untrammelled exercise of power, without legal, political or moral restraint is the bane of many countries across Africa. That is why the abuse of power tends to manifest itself in a more grimly way amongst our peoples. It is not that politicians in other societies are not wilful or whimsical, but there are other institutions that can checkmate them or restrain them and control their excesses.

These will include the formal separation of powers between the Executive, Judiciary and Legislative functions. But outside of that are other autonomous and independent institutions and organisations that offer alternative centres of power and consensus building on values and goals of their society. They include vibrant political parties whether in government or opposition, independent media, religious institutions, academia and intelligentsia and above all an active citizenship including vocal public figures and dynamic civil society organisations at various levels in the society. All these will make varying claims on a democratic system that often restrain and engage with those in power.

I say often because sometimes there may be a dissonance between these forces and things may (and do) break down. But the essence of a democratic state is that periods of extreme pressures on the system tend to be temporary and society can look forward to a peaceful resolution of differences and return to the normal dynamic chaos of a democratic society.

There is nothing in Sudan that a genuine people-driven democratic governance cannot help to resolve. I say democratic governance not the more fashionable 'good governance' much beloved by NGOs and Donors. You can have a good government without it being essentially democratic.

The continuing tragedy in Darfur makes clear the need for democratic governance. If their government treated all Sudanese as equal citizens with the same rights and obligations, the impunity with which one section of the community can kill or exterminate another section of the society would not have risen. If the government of Sudan is one that cares about its people it will not be aiding and abetting these sectarian killings and hate campaigns.

Furthermore, if there are reasonable hopes for those who desire a change of government in Khartoum (as a means of effecting policy changes) then a resort to arms could have been avoided. This is not in defence of violent changes but a restatement of the old dictum: 'Those who make peaceful changes impossible make violent change inevitable'.

It is a central problem of the Sudan that all attempts at peaceful resolution always take for granted the existence of the Khartoum government of the day. The peace deals then become regime specific rather than for all Sudan. A comprehensive settlement in the Sudan has to be one driven not by the needs of the government of the day and armed groups they consider threats but all Sudanese otherwise rebel groups will continuously become more militant. Africa has had too many bitter and painful experiences of many pretenders to power and false messiahs, offering themselves and their rebel groups as liberators only to become worse than those they claim they have come to liberate people from. Therefore as we rightly criticize the government of Sudan for abrogating its responsibility to defend all its citizens and maintain the rule of law we should also look critically at the rebels, their promises, their actions and what alternative vision of society they are offering.

If the government is a killer government what are the rebels doing to protect the victims? How are people despite the emergencies and death that surround them being involved in decisions? It cannot be enough that rebel groups build good will from the badness of the government. The stress should shift from what they are opposing to what they actually stand for.

Talks between the government and the Darfur rebels are due to begin in two weeks in Abuja under the auspices of President Obasanjo, who is both Chair of the Peace and Security Council and the African Union. The SLA and JEM have both said they would attend after failing to show up in a previous AU brokered talks in Addis.

The Sudan Government is very good at showing itself as a victim of conspiracies. They play whatever music suits the ears of their audience. In AU circles they play up Pan Africanism and the anti imperialist card while arming one section of Africans in their country to exterminate another set of Africans! When they are in the Arab League they play to Pan Arabism and Islam. It is not surprising that the recent Arab League meeting came out in support of Khartoum and made a plea for more time for Sudan to comply with the UN deadline of the end of this month. Why should the government have more time to continue to kill its citizens?

And they have a baby face Foreign Minister, well-spoken Dr Mustafa Ismail, to sell their bad case diplomatically and politically. I first met the urbane Dentist early in 1994. I had gone to persuade the government of Sudan to attend the 7th PAC in Kampala. They had been very suspicious of our efforts largely due to the bad relationship between Kampala and Khartoum. Khartoum was not happy that Dr John Garang and the SPLA were being given prominent platforms in the Congress.

Ten years on Mustafa has emerged as the star of Bashir's killer regime while his former mentor, Dr Al Turabi is languishing in detention; Bashir is holding hands with Garang; Kampala and Khartoum have restored diplomatic relations and my good friend, Mustafa, has changed masters without anyone noticing! He may have smoothed his way from Turabi to Bashir effortlessly, but the rest of the world should not be that gullible. It is obvious that Khartoum is using talks to delay any meaningful action and the rebels will be colluding in that if they do not actively engage with the peace process.

Dr Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is General-Secretary of the Pan African Movement, Kampala (Uganda) and Co-Director of Justice Africa ([email protected] or [email][email protected])

* Please send comments to [email protected]

The humanitarian crisis in Darfur shows no signs of abating at the same time as the national, regional and international politics of the conflict take on new dimensions.

Last week the UN finally agreed to a watered down resolution requiring the Government of Sudan to disarm and bring to justice the leaders of the Janjaweed militia that have been killing, maiming, raping and destroying the peoples of western Sudan. There is a deadline of 30 days. A stronger version of the UN resolution including the threat of imposition of sanctions had to be modified thanks to the combined opposition of China and Russia at the Security Council and also other dubious allies of the Sudan government in the General Assembly, principally Arab and Muslim states and their fellow travellers.

China's interest is quite clear. Its national oil company is the largest foreign investor in the new oil industry of Sudan. Russia is always cautious about UN intervention and censure against governments maltreating their own peoples. The Russian army has been committing atrocities in Chechnya for years without many cries from the UN or the usual self-appointed global policemen and guarantors of international peace and security.

The position of the Arab and Muslim countries is one informed by a herd instinct and a long historical misunderstanding of the basis of conflict in the Sudan. The herd instinct is further enhanced by the current global Islamophobia consequent to 9/11 and the criminalisation of every Muslim as an Al Qaeda suspect. The War against Afghanistan/ Iraq and the continuing tragedy of Iraq under the Anglo-American occupation has underpinned this 'need' for Muslims to stick together. Since Sudan is considered a Muslim country, therefore it must be supported against its enemies even if those 'enemies' happen to be the majority of her own citizens.

The racialist aspect of the Sudan conflict is one that sees the country as an Arab country therefore both North African and Middle East Arab states must express solidarity with it, right or wrong.

Both the religious and racial allies of Khartoum are wrong. Any Muslim should be outraged at what the NIF government has been doing in Sudan since 1989 when it came to power. Muslims must stop associating Islam with dictatorial regimes. In Darfur the Arab Militia, aided and abetted by the Khartoum government marauding through villages and towns and destroying people and property is supposedly Muslim. The peoples of Western Sudan that are victims of Khartoum and the Janjaweed are all Muslims too. So which kind of Islamism is this that kills fellow Muslims?

The Arabist view of Sudan is the most ridiculous. How many of these so-called Sudanese Arabs are really Arabs? The name of the country itself is a good give away: Balad al Sud. It means Land of the Blacks. Many are Arabised but not really Arabs and have taken to that identity as part of the power politics in the country and its unequal historical ties with Egypt and other Arab countries. In Darfur you will even find a significant part of the population to be of West African origin.

While identity, religion, race and other social factors may be part of the conflagration, the centre of it is power - unaccountable and illegitimate power exercised by a tiny oligarchy in the military, merchant families, hegemonic Muslim sects and clergy and their political infrastructure and networks. Darfur is for instance a victim of the split within the National Islamic Front personified by detained former spiritual leader of the organisation, Dr Hassan Al Turabi and his former protégé, General Omar Al Bashir, the President. Al Turabi's support is very strong in Darfur and because of that Darfur is enemy territory for the government.

What kind of intervention will work in Darfur? The American poodle in Britain, Mr. Tory Blair, is already talking about moral obligation to intervene and is reportedly considering sending British troops. This will not help in any way. Any direct British or American military intervention will not be helpful because it will muddy the waters given their bad record in both Afghanistan and Iraq. Supposedly Christian crusaders against allegedly Muslim soldiers again? Whose interest will this serve?

The Darfur crisis is a great opportunity for the new AU to show that it is really different from the old OAU. The Chairperson, Konare, has been upfront on the Darfur situation and he needs the support of Africa's leaders and the rest of the international community. The peace monitor group the AU has sent into Darfur is too small. And even smaller still are the 300 member troops that are supposed to guard them and also protect civilian victims. The mandate needs to be expanded to include peace keeping and peace enforcement including disarming, arresting and bringing to trial the perpetrators of the killings. The UN and other members of the international community who want to help should back the AU effort not to set up parallel initiatives.

Darfur is Africa's problem and the AU must show the leadership. One symbolic action that will show Khartoum that Africa means 'Never again' to genocide is to stop Khartoum from hosting the next AU summit as planned. How can we confer such diplomatic and political legitimacy on a government that is killing its own citizens?

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

* Please send comments to [email protected]

Last week, along with a group of about 40 (mostly Africans in Britain) I was a guest at a very beautiful stately guest house, Cumberland Lodge, amidst the luscious green of the picturesque English country side near the Windsor Castle, one of the many palaces of the English crown dotted across the United Kingdom. It is not far from London, if the Lagos -like traffic congestion allows you, but it is a very different and serene place, away from the concrete jungle and human automatons that London is fast becoming.

We were joking among ourselves with some of the other Africans in our group that these Basungus really do not know what a village is. There is electricity, pipe borne water, telephone (though the mobile connection was epileptic, maybe deliberately so to preserve the quiet atmosphere), good tarred roads, some of them connecting just fields or a few houses. There is even internet service for God's sake. With all these in Africa it qualifies to be the nation's capital! Anyway wealth and poverty like urban and rural divide, are merely relative.

But our purpose for invading the tranquil 'village' was not tourism but a consultative meeting of Africans in Britain under the auspices of the Royal Africa Society (RAS). The aim was to find ways and means of making Africans living in the United Kingdom to dialogue among themselves, build some consensus and devise strategies to make themselves more effective players in the affairs of their host community, Britain. People came from different walks of life and originally from different regions of Africa: business, academia, media, NGO and others.

The immediate background to the meeting (and sponsors of the gathering) is the Blair Commission for Africa. It was part of its consultation with different African constituencies. However both the RAS (under its new Africaphile Director, Richard Dowden ) and Africans working with it were clear that the meeting was about wider issues of Africans in Britain. To the extent that the Blair Commission came into it, it is merely as a strategic entry point for Africans in Britain to influence British policy towards Africa.

If the sole object of the meeting was about Blair's commission I doubt if many of the Africans there would have bothered at all. I know I wouldn't have. This because my view of the commission has been clear from the start. I do not think that we need another report on Africa's condition, we have enough gory details around. What Africa needs is not another bonanza for consultants and bureaucrats to feed off our misery but action to remedy the situation. Africa does not need new promises but fulfilment of old ones both those we made to ourselves and the ones others made to us.

I do not think that the Blair commission will make any difference to Africa in spite of the plenty of good will that it may generate because of Blair's presidency of both the European Union and the G8 in 2005. It is clear that Blair wants to showcase Africa but at a time when his international credibility (as a result of his reactionary cheering of Bush and amoral lack of remorse) is in tatters. Who will listen to him? Even if they do how many will believe him?

But in spite of my reservations I see the British joint presidency of these key multilateral institutions as providing opportunity for engagement by a number of civil society activists in Britain. The first beneficiaries of this will be the big British international NGOs in the broad development, humanitarian and conflict resolution lobbies. Their activities and priorities are often shaped by humanitarian emergencies (on which they feed) and the policies of the day so they will make extra miles from Blair's showcasing of Africa.

Another set of actors will be African organisations who are a bit visible in Britain and could engage in more guilt tripping of their fellow middle class liberals and thereby gain more resources and/or recognition as a result of the Africa euphoria during Blair's dual presidency. Even African journalists and British journalists with a focus on Africa will find that they are in more demand.

But if thoughtfully and strategically worked out the greatest potential of the Blair Commission could be to renew the so far untapped (beyond individual remittances) potential of the huge African Diaspora in the United Kingdom to become effective players at various policy levels. They have been around for a long time. They are in Britain but many do not feel part of it. Consequently the British government makes policies about Africa with little or no input from this constituency. And worse still African governments relate to the British government as if they do not have people in Britain.

The way some of these Diaspora organisations behave may also make one doubt where their feet are, whether in Africa and Britain. Some of them think because they are in the Diaspora they know best, the same arrogant attitudes they criticise Europeans about. Others think they should have the first and last say on any thing related to Africa and Africans without any mandate to do so from anybody. Still many take British government or NGO money and proclaim their independence! Another miserable lot proclaim revolution in Africa without the slightest idea of the conditions our peoples live in and are confronting. These kinds of posturing must stop.

Imagine the insult of Blair calling African leaders to advise him on Africa. Would an African leader set up a commission on Europe and ask European Presidents and Prime Ministers to serve in it? In the unlikely event that they say yes would you imagine such European leaders arriving in such an African capital without previous briefings from his or her own nationals and the EU intelligence, business , media, diplomatic, NGO and other sources. Would they be in Africa without meeting their nationals who are in that country? Yet this is what is happening with the Blair commission.

To the best of my knowledge Bob Geldof , with all his outbursts and outlandish ways, has been the only commissioner actively seeking engagement of Africans in the work of the commission. He has a track record of speaking truth to power internationally on global poverty, debt and suffering of the third world but Africa in particular. He often robs people the wrong way and sometimes comes across as crying more than the bereaved. He is also too hopeful about the Commission but at least he offers an entry point.

Africans in the Diaspora must learn not to throw the baby away with the birth water. They must engage as British residents and citizens, but more than that work in concert with African groups in Africa to engage the African leaders and others participating in the commission. If they wish to shave our head it should not be behind our backs.

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

* Please send comments to [email protected]