Mr. Edward Clay, the British High Commissioner to the Republic of Kenya threw both pairs of his hands and feet into a serious controversy with the Kenyan government last week. In a memorable choice of words he blasted unnamed government officials for being corrupt and behaving "like gluttons" and "vomiting on the shoes" of foreign donors.

The truth is that there are many Africans in different countries who will recognise those graphic words and apply them to their countries. So if the diplomat had spoken true words why the furore? Is it because the truth hurts?

Many people including government ministers will admit privately that he was right but are angry that he spoke out. It is not in the nature and business of diplomats to be so blunt. After all it is said that a diplomat 'is someone sent abroad to lie on behalf of his country'. It should have been added too that the same person is not expected to be openly truthful to his hosts and is expected to be awfully nice to them at all times.

That is the code that Edward Clay had broken. The responses in Kenya depended on whether you are a supporter or opponent of the faltering NARC government of Kenya. There are many of us who are neither in both camps but are still caught in a dilemma as to how to respond to the Clay bluntness.
Only 18 months ago President Mwai Kibaki led the overarching multi party alliance to an unprecedented victory over KANU. It was a silent revolution that was welcomed and celebrated across Africa, promising people's power and peaceful democratic changes as opposed to violent military ones. Kenya showed itself able and willing to follow the democratic path and we were all thrilled. But in just under two years the illusions are clearing. It was an unrealistic, even if unavoidable, mass expectation that the new government will quickly transform Kenya from the corrupt and authoritarian KANU power structure it inherited.

However, ordinary Kenyans, while giving NARC the benefit of the doubt, had a right to expect some light at the end of the dark tunnel. This was not to be. They are harvesting more pain and misery from their would be liberators. The uneasy alliance is unravelling and bursting at the alter of ethno-regional politics and unbridled ambition on the part of the hydra headed leadership of the coalition.

The promised transparency, accountability and clean government have given room to KANU-type corrupt business as usual. Maybe this is not surprising given the solid KANU history of most of the leaders themselves. What can one expect from KANU refugees?

The ordinary people that were inspired to hope for a different Kenya now despair at the politicians who seem to care little about the country but a lot about their bank balances. Many of them went for the treasury like hungry lions in reckless abandon.

Things are so bad that many people are beginning to miss former president Moi and KANU. At least they are devils they knew for four decades and were predictable. The new hungry lot cannot just be second-guessed! The paralysed and paralysing leadership of the gerontocratic President Kibaki does not help the situation. Zimbabwe and Kenya's presidencies are unique on this continent. Between the President and his deputy there are probably more than 150 years! Are these the people to inspire the future: tired old men who are tiring the country!

So why are people complaining about Edward Clay for daring to say in public what many know to be true and opposition parties and CSO activists have been saying about the Kibaki leadership?

For someone who takes special delight in being irreverent to those in officialdom my instinct is with Clay. Yet I am still troubled by the politics of the bluntness. The man has a right to say whatever he wants to say without being hounded for it, whether he is a diplomat or not. The world can do with more outspoken ambassadors and other diplomats. We are surely tired of people just wearing suits whatever the climate and saying sweet nothings in the name of diplomacy.

But my problem with Clay and all the aspiring Clayites of Western diplomacy in Africa is the selective nature of their bravery and courage. They seem able to say and do things in Africa and other poorer countries that they wouldn’t dare to say in the West or North America. In fact, many of them behave in Africa like latter day colonial governors and bureaucrats. They have views on everything and our spineless media collude in their delusions of grandeur by giving all their whims and caprices saturation coverage. How many times has one seen lead stories on African televisions and other media of Western Ambassadors 'donating' ordinary footballs to one hapless school or the other? That is news! Many of them deliberately cultivate the image of being 'the opposition' to the government hosting them.

But more importantly I will accept the opinionated interference of Western diplomats in Africa if and when African diplomats in Europe or America are also able to do the same about the countries they are sent to. How would the British take it if an African Diplomat to the court of St James were to express his or her view publicly on the various failings of the hypocritical Blair regime? Can you imagine an African diplomat in Washington just repeating some of the more moderate stupidities that daily emanate from Bush's white house?

The fault is not that of Western leaders or their diplomats but our own colonial mentality that makes us accept from Westerners what we cannot take from our own compatriots and fellow Africans. We need a mental revolution, 'by any means necessary', as Malcom X would have said.

* 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]

Perhaps not unexpectedly my interim report on the then concluding 3rd ordinary session of the Assembly of the African Union, generated a stream of private responses. Many of them were very positive towards the AU but very cautious about its prospects especially given the human and material challenges needed for the new organisation to deliver on its noble objectives. Others queried the basis of my optimism and accused me of being too optimistic. I can only respond with that famous quote: “Pessimism of the intellect and optimism of the will”.

While hindsight may dictate caution to us, foresight should inspire us to keep our eyes on the prize. Africa is changing and will continue to change for the better, in our life times.

The AU is more open than the old OAU. The quality of current leaders may not be equal to the array of icons and inspiring leaders of the anti colonial nationalist era. “The founding fathers” as we call them (unfortunately, all fathers) were leaders thrown up by specific historical circumstances where both their desires and those of the masses were organically linked in the united goal of ridding the continent and its peoples of colonial domination. Whatever method they chose that goal was paramount.

The current leaders are not that lucky. Even those among them who had come from revolutionary, militant pro-people, liberation or anti dictatorship backgrounds and struggles soon made peace with the hegemonic forces of anti-people doctrines and ideology fostered on the world by the IMF/World Bank and now sanctified by the WTO and unbridled exploitation through rapacious globalisation.

It is amazing how previously left leaning so called “new leaders of Africa” have become the new darlings of the Washington twin vultures. While they still sometimes mouth progressive political vocabulary they have become extremist neo liberals in their economic policies. Thus instead of ending hunger, deprivation and eradicating poverty, they are content to “alleviate poverty” through participatory poverty alleviation crap policies in which consultants are the major beneficiaries!

Instead of the old demands for genuinely democratic governance in which the people are both the object and subject of development, today we aspire for “Good Governance” i.e., government without politics! It means running the economy as if the people do not matter and wanting a non-political government of experts! So the progressive African leader of today is at best a political equivalent of a successful Bank Manager. They aspire to run competent states, deliver on macro economic policies dictated by imperialism and trusting somehow that growth will ultimately lead to development for their underdeveloped countries. That is why they cannot be as ambitious, daring and pro active as the immediate post independence leaders.That is why even the best of them are often not loved but either respected or feared or both.

What is evidently emerging even in this essentially conservative governance agenda is the extreme limitation placed by the forces of globalisation on the ability of each of these states to experience growth beyond a very lowly placed ceiling. While they may experience macro economic “miracles” their peoples remain untouched by the wand in their “micro” existence. This is an objective situation that is propelling the new push for deeper regional integration. Most of the states have realized that they cannot, and have no chance of going it alone.

Even those who had thought of themselves as “chosen few” favourites of the West, soon realize they are as dispensable as their predecessors of the cold war period and even more quickly so today.

There is also a shared realisation that as Africans whether ruler or ruled we need to take responsibility for our destiny. Many issues that would have been conveniently swept under the carpet are now discussed openly and action sought to correct them. The continuing growth and confidence of Civil Society Organisations (CSOs), of which NGOs are a critical part, and the general opening up of democratic space across the continent is making many things possible and we are beginning to dream again even if there are flashes of recent nightmares.

Maybe as I approach middle age I am becoming more reformist but I see incremental changes and possibilities.

For instance just a few years ago it would have been impossible for Mr. Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary-General, to deliver the kind of speech he delivered to our heads of state and government last week. He told them bluntly that they should stop derailing the forward march of their people for democratic development by tinkering with their constitutions to prolong personal rule of some leaders.

There were no talks of “interference in the internal affairs” of a sovereign member state as would have been the stand only a few years ago. There were no calls for apology or threats of walkouts. Instead the outgoing chairperson, Chissano, of Mozambique, picked on the theme in a friendly way and told his fellow leaders that it was time to do the honourable thing and respect the constitution of their various countries.

He also showed what can be done by using his chairmanship to inaugurate Swahili as a working language of the AU . It was recognised so but no serious attempt had previously been made to make it effective. The city of Addis Ababa, through its energetic mayor, Ato Akbede, renewed its commitment as hosts to the OAU/AU by giving land to all African embassies and also renaming avenues after individual countries. It was also gratifying to arrive in Addis without visas and be received through special immigration booths proudly welcoming you as AU guests.

One hopes that this will not just remain a one off arrangement just for conferences but a permanent good practice that should spread across Africa so that we stop being “others” on our own continent.

As we reviewed the last Summit with my two good friends and colleagues, Abdul Mohammed and Alex De Waal, we all felt there was something missing. We could not put our hands to it immediately. There were no great passions or roaring speeches to be remembered for decades. But there was a lot of sobriety in articulating the issues and course of action. If that means that Africa is moving from pompous words to serious action not many Africans will complain about not having inspiring leaders at the moment. The dearth of truly inspiring leaders is not confined to Africa. Mandela is virtually a lonely figure in that patented club globally.

* 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 Third Ordinary Session of the Assembly of Heads of State and Government of the African Union has concluded its deliberations at the UN Conference Centre, Addis Ababa, the Head Quarters of the Union.

The Assembly is the highest decision -making body of the Union. Since the inauguration of the Union in 2002 the Summit has become an indication of the level of commitment of the leaders to the renewed enthusiasm for African Integration and Pan-Africanism. Most member states were represented by their Presidents, Prime Ministers or Heads of State. There were also many CSOs from Africa, the Diaspora and international organisations in attendance and also numerous advocacy and other parallel events on the back of the Summit.

In the past military coups and military dictators dominated the politics of Africa summits of the old OAU. In 1980, Master Sergeant Samuel Doe of Liberia did not even think twice before assassinating the serving Chair of the OAU, William Tubman, and promptly demanding to take Liberia's seat at the Lagos Emergency Summit. General Yakubu Gowon was overthrown by the Nigerian Army while handing over the Chair of the Organization to one Field Marshall Alhaji Dr Idi Amin Dada, self proclaimed Conqueror of the British Empire, in Kampala in 1975.

As the leaders feared insurgencies and military putsch in their countries many sat tight at home not bothering to attend OAU summits. They accumulated contributions due to the organization with reckless abandon. Until the Cairo Summit of 1993 the OAU did not even have a policy to sanction erring members. At that Summit The OAU began to name and shame failing states. The most dramatic effect of this policy was felt at the Durban Summit when the media got hold of the full list of non-paying states. This practice has now been codified in the new Constitutive Act of the Union. There are various sanctions against states that do not pay their dues such as withholding their rights to participate at AU meetings, voting on policy issues, etc. This has improved the efficiency of the payments even if black holes still exist in the funding of the organization especially with its new expansive institutions and noble ambitions.

The truth is that the AU cannot just survive on the formal membership dues of the states. There is no comparable multilateral institution that does. They rely heavily on the generous contribution of the richer member states who are willing to put their money where their mouth is. If Germany and other key EU countries, Japan , Canada and Scandinavian countries withdrew contributions from the UN the organisation would go bankrupt. We have seen the adverse effect of a reluctant and opportunistic US punitive relationship with the UN in the past two decades. The EU will not survive without the huge contributions of the key troika states: Britain, Germany and France.

Therefore the relatively richer countries of Africa have to put their money where their mouth is. Thus the most important item on the AU Summit agenda at the past meeting was the approval of ‘The Vision, Mission and Strategic Plan of the AU’ as put forward by the AU Chairperson, the indefatigable Alpha Konare.

It was accepted in principle but there are still concerns about the implementation including translating the plan into a popular mobilisation document accessible to the vast majority of Africans.

But the funding issue is what is occupying everybody's mind and rightly so. I think this is a red herring because I believe that the resources are there among African states to make it happen if they so wish. It is also defeatist to always put cash before strategic vision. If we agree on our vision and strategy we can now go about the logistical issues in a more coherent way.
There are debates about prioritisation and harmonisation. But the key issue for me is for us to look at more creative was of getting the necessary funds primarily from our own resources. For a start, all the rich states such as Nigeria, South Africa, Libya, Egypt, Algeria, Botswana, Angola, DRC (when it gets its act together), etc must dig deeper into their pockets. Even a fraction of some of the looting by the Nigerian or Angolan military/ political elite will go a long way in helping the AU. We could also consider:

- A dollar tax for the AU on all airline tickets to and from Africa deductible at source in member countries.
- Oil producing states in Africa can pledge X barrels of crude oil per day to a Trust fund for the Union.
- Union tax on businesses and labour benefiting from the intra African liberalisation of trade, commerce, freedom of movement.
- Creatively finding ways in which both the historic and immigrant African Diaspora across the world can make contribution both in human and material terms to the AU.

There are countless other means through which the Union can be funded from African sources. After exhausting our internal and Diaspora sources then we could invite others who are genuinely interested in partnering with Africa to come and help in areas we have identified and on terms dictated by us.
It will require great sacrifice and new ways of doing things both at the governmental and civil society levels of our societies. But it can be done, needs to be done and has to be done. If not now, when and if not us, by whom?

The agreement on the strategic plan for me represents a good starting point to mobilise our different forces for this task. Anybody who wants to help us should do so under that plan and not initiate anything else. Africa needs fulfilment of past promises not new ones.

* 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 African Union has continued to confound many Afropessimist critics both inside and outside Africa by making steady, even if very difficult and sometimes acrimonious progress, in the past two years since its formal inauguration in Durban, on July 9, 2002.

That progressive pull received a dynamic push with the election of former President of Mali, Prof Alpha Konare, as the Chairperson of the AU Commission and 9 other Commissioners (making a total of five men and five women each representing the 5 regions of Africa) at the Maputo Summit in July 2003.

Konare is a charismatic figure, convinced Pan Africanist and a man whose honesty of purpose and faith in Africa and her diaspora shows through easily. Despite being a former head of state, he does not appear to have lost his idealism. Many AU watchers are anxious that his idealism may not be shared by many of the heads of state and even those who do may not be willing to or are unable to put their money where their mouth is. The job of ensuring the union gets the proper political and financial support from our governments should not and cannot be left to Konare alone.

One fundamental difference between the old OAU and the new AU is that while the former was a Leaders' forum the latter envisages a people-driven Union with roles and various entry points for all sectors of our society. The potentially democratising institutions of the new Union have been taking shape in the past three years. They include elected Commissioners, the Pan African Parliament, the Economic, Social and Cultural Council (ECOSOCC), mainstreaming of Gender, etc.

Initially attention was devoted to the Executive bodies like the Permanent Representative Committee, Executive Committee, Assembly of Heads of State and Commissioners. Now the gear has shifted to the potentially democratic and democratising institutions such as the Pan African Parliament, which was inaugurated in March this year and the statute on ECOSOCC which is due for approval at the forthcoming summit and launching in November.

The Summit is also expected to approve the protocol on women. Further progress will be made as the African Court on Human and Peoples rights become a reality. The why and how questions will also be deliberated upon with the draft vision, mission and strategic plan of the AU being brought for approval at the Summit. The Summit will have to decide too on where the permanent site of the Pan African Parliament will be.

Initially the Libyan Jamahirriya wanted to host it and South Africa made its willingness to do so known. Eventually Libya dropped its bid and Egypt entered the race against South Africa. Cape Town, South Africa, is my favourite for many positive reasons. The country has a dynamic parliament which Egypt does not have.

In the past one-year Konare and his team have been busy consulting, brainstorming and building consensus around the various aspects of institutionalising and operationalising the noble ideals of the Union.
By no means has everything been smooth sailing but the pace has been most encouraging. There is a new optimism but more than that there is a developing critical mass of leaders both in government and Civil Society who want the Union to work regardless of what those who never wish Africa well or have given up on us in any case, may say. Others can give up on us but we should never give up on ourselves.

Initially many Africans were (rightly, in many cases) suspicious and cynical about the AU. The criticism was mainly based on previous experience of grandiose ideas that ended up in paper graveyards and also the legendary lack of political will by many of our leaders. However, one has seen a steady pool of Africans especially in organised sections of Civil Society including NGOs who have been engaging the process and expanding the frontiers of entry points offered through the Constitutive Act of the Union.

I was at a pre-summit meeting of the AU/Civil Society Forum in Addis last weekend. No AU summit is now complete without a Civil Society Forum. Once the Summit approves the ECOSOCC statute and it is launched later this year the informal linkages that began in 2001 (the first OAU/Civil Society Forum called by Dr Salim Ahmed SAlim) will be given autonomous legal and political framework. By no means are Civil Society linkages limited to the ECOSOCC. Every aspect of the work of the AU demands Civil Society engagement and the Commission is actively encouraging it. Civil Society in Africa does not have a monolithic outlook.

Indeed some are guilty of the various criticisms we daily make of our governments. Its diversity is its strength. There are dangers that some Civil Society individuals and organisations who have had privileged access to the old OAU may still use their influence with the rump of the old OAU bureaucracy to privilege themselves but I am optimistic that this will not last for too long.

The very high transparency and democratic credentials as provided for in the Act of Union and emerging protocols will weed out usurpers as more organisations from an ever wider spectrum of both organised and unorganised CSOs and individuals claim their right to participation. More democracy is what we can look forward to not less of it. It is most disappointing that even at this late stage some ambassadors were still trying to prevent the ECOSOCC statute from being passed because their distrust of CSOs and NGOs and mortal fear of their capacity to advocate for accountability from governments.

However it is an indication of how far we have travelled that such ambassadors were an insignificant minority.

Many people including ambassadors sitting on the permanent representative committee have been anxious about the draft strategic plan of the AU, believing that it is too ambitious and costly. No doubt there are challenges ahead. How can a new organisation, whose predecessor was starved of its meagre annual budget of $45 million by reluctant member states and indifferent heads of government, hope to raise an annual $600 million to support its new institutions and mandate. I take the concerns seriously but I think they are misplaced. Lack of money should not prevent us from having dreams and working towards their realisation. Those who do not have dreams suffer nightmares. Has Africa not suffered enough nightmares?

I can neither believe nor accept a situation where our governments can fight unjust wars without going to donors or the IMF/World Bank but cannot find the resources when it comes to building a peaceful and united Africa. We all have a duty to help build and sustain the popular coalition and movement necessary to ensure that the Union fulfils its mandate. The AU should not and cannot be yet another donor-driven agenda. The responsibility is yours and mine.

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

* Please send comments to [email protected]

It was World Refugee Day on 20 June 2004. It was marked with various degrees of enthusiasm in different countries around the world. I have been scurrying the net to no avail to find out how many African countries actually celebrated the day. Perhaps not surprisingly the regions that have produced the largest number of refugees on this continent have been those most up front about the day.

The Great Lakes and Horn of Africa countries are very much aware of the day and have both official and unofficial activities organized around the day. Southern Africa is also another region where, for historical reasons, awareness about refugee day does exist.

However as former refugees become ruling elite in various countries the triumphalism of liberation is waning general enthusiasm around this day. It does not mean that there are no refugees in other regions of Africa. For instance, West Africa has continued to rival the Great Lakes region in recent years in terms of producing refugees due to the unjust wars in Liberia, Sierra-Leone, Guinea, Ivory Coast and other conflicts across the region. In the north of Africa too there are refugees especially from the decades old civil war in Sudan, conflicts in Chad and other neighbouring states.

There is a general tendency to regard refugees as 'the problem' of international humanitarian agencies and the UNHCR. Many governments also see refugees only in terms of security concerns. In spite of these negative attitudes a number of African countries and communities need to be acknowledged for the enormous support, solidarity and protection they have continued to provide to refugees.

The truth is that most of the refugees produced by a combination of dictatorial regimes, bad governance, genocidaire or xenophobic governments and many unjust wars across this continent remain on this continent.
Only very few make it to places outside Africa especially Europe and North America. Yet these rich countries complain about the impact of refugees on their socio-economic and political lives. Different right wing and neo fascist parties exploit issues of refugees and migrants to gain leverage in politics by fanning anti immigrant and anti-asylum seekers sentiments in their countries. In Europe most asylum seekers are no longer from Africa or other third world countries but from Eastern Europe, yet the racism of right wing groups are directed at Africans and Asians.

A poor country like Tanzania has been host to millions of African refugees for more than four decades without seeking compensation from anyone. Until the arrival of genuine refugees under the control of criminal fugitives from the genocide of 1994 in Rwanda the people and government of Tanzania were generally very welcoming to refugees.

My good friend and a leading authority on refugees and forced migration, Dr Khoti Kamanga of University of Dar, has done extensive research in this area. I had the benefit of hearing him again this week in Nairobi at a Meeting on the Great Lakes Region organized jointly by the International Peace Academy (New York) and the Africa Peace Forum (Nairobi).

Kamanga's argument is that the legal framework for refugees in Tanzania in relation to rights and citizenship is as backward as that of other African countries but Nyerere's progressive political leadership was what made the difference in terms of attitude towards refugees. And one can see how the same Tanzania has regressed since the passing of the Mwalimu. A country so welcoming to refugees before has, under the present regime, become so narrow-minded and politically vindictive as to deny citizenship to people because their parents may have come to Tanzania as refugees.

Uganda is another country that prides itself (especially under the current NRM regime) of having a positive and progressive attitude towards refugees. It was not always so because if the Rwandese refugees in the country and across the region had been fully accepted maybe the need to return home by force of arms might not have arisen, as they would have made homes wherever they found themselves.

Africa must redouble her efforts to remove the conditions that continue to manufacture refugees and internally-displaced persons across the continent while all of us must do our best to receive, work with, show solidarity and traditional African hospitality to all those fellow Africans and non Africans who may have sought refuge amongst us. As they say : 'No condition is permanent' especially in Africa where bad governance continues to undermine civil life in many countries. Just look at how many of the current leaders in Kampala, Kigali, Asmara, Addis, Pretoria, Monrovia, Freetown, Kinshasha, etc have been refugees at one point or the other in their lives. This sad truth should impose both moral and political responsibility on us to treat refugees with respect and respect their rights as human beings.

At the Nairobi meeting Zachary Lomo, of the Legal resource centre at Makerere, spoke passionately in defence of refugees. He expressed a great shame which I share as an African at the existence of refugee camps for Africans on the African continent. The most decent thing to do is to work towards the destruction of these humiliating camps by a process of resettlement, voluntary repatriation when condition permits, full citizenship rights for refugees who wish to naturalise, and automatic citizenship rights to children born to refugees.

It is not just narrow-minded xenophobic African politicians and governments who may be alarmed at this suggestion. The multi billion dollar industry of global humanitarianism will be opposed to it because their careers, bank balances, consultancies, budgets, etc depend on our misery.

As we make progress both at expanded sub regional levels and at the AU it may not be necessary to have these camps anymore because the full freedom of movement and settlement of Africans across Africa will become a reality. A refugee is that human being denied a place to call 'home'. If we accept every African as being at home wherever we may be then the need for refugee camps in Africa will be removed permanently.

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

* Please send comments to [email protected]

I was going to write this week’s postcard on the passing of Ronald Reagan. He has been described as many things: ‘the man who changed America and the World’ , ‘one of the greatest Presidents’, the ‘conqueror’ of the Soviet Union and the harbinger of the collapse of Socialism. Historical figures are often divisive and depending on where one stood on the issues ‘the Messiah’ may turn out to be ‘the villain’ and the ‘liberator’ becomes a ‘tyrant’. I do not share the effusions on Reagan because his Presidency did not mean anything positive for Africa.

He was a supporter of Apartheid South Africa. His ‘positive engagement’ was a comprehensive destabilization and destruction of many lives and property in the whole of the Frontline states. He showed his contempt for African lives when he compared that Judas of African Liberation, Dr Jonas Savimbi, of Angola, to Abraham Lincoln, who freed the African Slaves in America. He is the ideological father of the current US president who believes in bombing people to freedom. That's why Reagan bombed Tripoli in 1986 against all norms of international law and decency.

These are just to mention but a few things orchestrated by this original Cow Boy president who is now presented as some kind hero. It is not only in Africa that he supported atrocities; he ran amok in Latin America whether in Honduras, El Salvador or Nicaragua. In his war against the Sandinistas, who led a popular revolution against an American puppet governing class, Reagan ignored international law, mined international waters and refused to recognize the authority of the UN or the International Court of Justice. Do all these sound familiar today? So do forgive me if I am not wasting my mourning on Ronald Reagan.

But I am mourning for another former President . Even though he is not dead yet his largely ignored trials and tribulations deserve our sympathies. He is the former President, Pasteur Bizmungu, of Rwanda. He was reportedly sentenced (on Monday) to 15 years imprisonment on a three-count charge of ‘embezzlement’, ‘associating with criminals’ and ‘incitement to civil disobedience’. He got five years for each count to run concurrently.

Human rights organisations have pointed out some of the grave flaws in the trial itself, since the man was first arrested in 2002. There are grounds for criticizing the legality of the process itself and how the charges evolved.
But the legality of the matter aside - even the veracity or otherwise of the case can be put aside - the politics of it is what most people see. Whatever the prosecutors say this has been and will remain a political trial. The initial charges were of threatening national security, but the court has now acquitted him. The other charges of which he was now been found guilty came later.

Would he have faced trial if he was still President? Certainly not! Could he have faced any trials if after resigning he kept his mouth shut and was not trying to organize an opposition party against his former RPF comrades?
These questions beg more questions. His persecutors want the world to believe that his trial is a demonstration of the rule of law and independence of the Rwandese Judiciary. However it is said that ‘it is not enough for Justice to be done it must be seen to have been done’. There is nothing in the circumstances that led to the former President's arrest in 2002 and the various twists and turns and the deliberate humiliation of the man that will persuade any independent observer that he could ever get justice from his former colleagues.

Rwanda is not a ‘normal’ state or society but it has confounded critics by the giant strides it has made in trying to confront its painful history and build a better society since the end of genocide. No doubt the RPF has been the major player in this but it could not have succeeded without the good will of most Rwandese.

The outstanding challenges it faces cannot be surmounted if this cooperation cannot be received voluntarily from its citizens. As an RPF person and its first post genocide president, Bizmungu has certainly been a partner in these struggles. When he felt that he had no more room for contributing through the ruling party and government he resigned and tried to form his own party.

It should not be a crime to form political parties to contest public opinion and canvass for support. Even Uganda - that has continued to dither on this matter - knows that it is tilting against the force of history. While parties are allowed in Rwanda it is obvious that the ruling elite do not want effective parties that can be credible to the populace. That is why they are criminalizing political disagreement. By all means any political party that promotes disaffection between the populations or supports genocide should not be allowed. But the temptation to treat any opposition to the RPF as ‘ethnicity’, ‘divisive’, ‘interahamwe sympathisers’ or a threat to national security must be resisted.

President Paul Kagame and RPF won a decisive victory in the last general election. That mandate does not mean that anybody that did not or does not support the government is an ‘adui’. The mandate should have made the government feel more secure and confident but it seems that they do not trust themselves or the electorate that gave them the mandate. Otherwise why turn a man who was for many years popularly seen as an ineffectual stooge into a martyr?

I know that this line of thinking will not go down well with many of my friends in Kigali but what are friends for if one cannot speak truth to power?

Bizmungu's treatment in the hands of his own former comrades is most appalling and will do the RPF and the government of President Kagame and the people of Rwanda more harm than good. One is not advocating that because he was a former president he should be above the law but this is not about finer points of law because the politics of the trials has compromised the morality of the matter.

* Dr Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is General Secretary of the Global Pan African Movement, based in Kampala, Uganda and also Director of Justice Africa, based in London.

* Please send comments to

Last Tuesday was Africa Day. Unfortunately this will be news to many Africans, including leading newspapers, politicians, political parties, media establishments and even many governments across this continent that passed through that day without any sense of its historical significance.
It was May 25 1963 that the Organisation for African Unity was formed. In recognition of that historical date May 25 became Africa Day across Africa and in the Diaspora. A time was when the day used to be remembered and celebrated as Africa Liberation Day in solidarity with the struggles for the liberation of African countries (mostly in Southern Africa) that were still under settler colonialism and apartheid.

With the liberation of South Africa there seemed to be a feeling of 'victory at last'. It appears there are no great battles to unite our efforts and build solidarity both on the continent and in the Diaspora. The whole of Africa may now be under African rule but the agenda of liberating our peoples from poverty, ignorance and underdevelopment is as real today as it was in the 1960s and even more urgent.

The official decline in the status of Africa Day in many African countries dates back to the 70s/ 80s when many of them became fortresses to all manner of despotic regimes that did not even represent the people of that country let alone Africa. There were also a number of countries, aided and deluded by the opportunistic politics of the cold war who thought they could 'make it on their own' without their neighbours as long as they remained loyal servants of the West or the East. A few also tried to maintain Non alignment without credibility because in practice they were aligned to one power or the other but also courted the rival power as and when necessary. So Non Alignment became political and ideological promiscuity deployed by leaders to shore up their regimes.

It all seems so long ago now that being pro-this or pro that foreign power, was the biggest issue for our leaders while being pro-Africa was regarded with ideological suspicion.

For instance the Western powers and their ideological surrogates among our founding fathers regarded Nkrumah, because of his Pan Africanist commitment, as an ambitious 'communist' who wanted to be president of Africa! Lumumba was a 'dangerous communist' who had to be eliminated even though his own people popularly elected him. So was Nasser, in Egypt and Ahmed Ben Bella in Algeria. Even Pan Africanists like Oginga Odinga who did not become President were also targeted . I have just been rereading William Atwood's ‘The Reds and the Blacks in Africa’ and anyone who wants to know how the cold war heated up and burnt Africa should get that book.

The good thing today is that after several decades of trying to be like other people and dancing to their tunes, regardless of ideological leaning, the collective experience is that we can only be ourselves and we need each other to counter the threat of marginalization, rapacious globalisation and the consolidation of whatever little gains may have been accomplished in a number of countries. No one country can be a sustainable miracle if its neighbours are in hell.

This is what has motivated renewed enthusiasm in regional and continental integration in the past few years. The best expression of this is the African Union, which was inaugurated in 2002 in Durban, South Africa; consequent to the transformation of the old OAU, which began, with the extra ordinary Summit called in Sirte, Libya, in 1999.

The new Union, in spite of sniggers and jeers from internal and external Afro pessimists, has continued to make steady progress. The AU Commission is now in place and has worked at break neck speed since the assumption of office of the Chairman, former Malian President, Alpha Konare and his fellow commissioners last year. In March, the Pan African Parliament was inaugurated with 5 representatives each from all the 53 member states of the AU and the indefatigable Beatrice Mongela from Tanzania elected its speaker.
Last Tuesday, the Peace and Security Council was formally inaugurated.

The CSOs, NGOs, Pan Africanist groups and Diaspora organisations have been active in the process and final protocol of the Economic and Social Council of the AU through which all kinds of non governmental, civil society, professional and any interested groups across Africa and the African Diaspora can have institutional engagement with the African Union.

The African Union provides a new opportunity for re-engaging with the wider Pan Africanist agenda of uniting Africans. But why do so many of our peoples remain indifferent?

A lot has to do with the distrust and suspicion about any initiative that comes from African leaders. There are just too many painful scars on our physical bodies and body politic inflicted by trusting our leaders that people now generally want to err on the side of caution.

This credibility deficit means that African leaders have to show that they are really committed and they mean it this time. One thing they can all do to convince our peoples that they are serious is to remove all the bureaucratic anti -people rules and procedures that govern intra-African movement of peoples. It is simply ridiculous that most Africans find it difficult to enter another African country with their African passports.

And shamelessly it is easier if you are American or European to visit, work, and settle in African countries than it is for Africans!

If May 25 no longer has any historical resonance what about July 9 2002 which was the date of the formal inauguration of the AU? What better way to bring it to the popular consciousness of All Africans especially our young people in schools, colleges and universities and popular forces in general by officially declaring the day as, African Union Day in all our countries?
At present there are less than a dozen African countries that continue to honour Africa Day.

The leaders of Africa need to re-engage Africans directly and practically by freeing us to be free to move and settle, without let or hindrance, from Cape Town to Cairo and also grant the same freedom to our peoples in the Diaspora who choose to exercise the right. Otherwise Africa day or African Union will not have any meaning for our peoples. It will just be another day, in the plantation, as we wait for 'Uhuru'.

* Dr Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is General Secretary of the Global Pan African Movement, based in Kampala, Uganda and also Director of Justice Africa, based in London.

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They say “the truth is the first casualty of war”. But how do we communicate the truth? Whose truth? That of the victor or that of the vanquished? Who wins and who loses? In this era of multi-media revolution there are as many truths as there are terrestrial TV and satellite stations, radio stations, whether analogue, digital or internet based. The print media no longer has a monopoly of the printed word due to saturation coverage of all issues from all kinds of angles on the Internet!

Whichever angle you look at it war is an unpleasant business but the global reach of the media now brings it home to us more graphically. Our choice of sources now depends on how much we can take without vomiting. Consequently, other rivals have broken the sanitised rendition of the breakdown in humanity that war represents brought to us by the previously hegemonic Western media. What the CNN or BBC will not broadcast or air can be brought to you by other means.

Al Jazeera has now become a major source of news for the majority of the world who do not speak Arabic. It goes beyond hypocritical western sensibilities in covering Afghanistan, Iraq, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and other matters concerning its core constituency in the Middle East and, by extension, the Muslim world.

Without Al Jazeera both the US and British governments and their largely loyal media would have continued to cover up the atrocities being committed against Iraqis in the name of freedom, democracy and liberation by the Anglo-American occupying forces.

The same Western governments who considered the arrival of Al Jazeera, a few years ago, as a dawn of a new oasis for freedom of expression, pluralism and democratisation in the despotic Middle East now wish the station would just shut down. That’s why the US forces have bombed its offices in Iraq, and in Afghanistan before that, in calculated 'mistakes'. A number of its journalists have been harassed and some are being held in illegal detentions as Al Qaeda suspects.

The tragedy in Iraq was foretold but the militaristic ‘shock and awe’ lunatic right that have seized power by an electoral coup in Bush's Washington were too convinced of their invincibility to listen to anybody or consider the legality and morality of their mass murdering enterprise. Now that the predicted tragedy is staring them in the face in the most gruesome way, instead of doing the decent thing by saying: ‘We are sorry, we miscalculated and misjudged everything’ and showing some remorse, they are seeking cover up under all kinds of excuses without giving convincing explanations.

Bush managed to talk about the gross abuse of Iraqi prisoners of war without saying sorry, not that it would have amounted to much, but he still could not bring himself to say it. The Emperor cannot be wrong. The British are still investigating and trying to prove that the pictures of its soldiers humiliating Iraqis are fake.

The saga is thanks to the doggedness of The Mirror of London that broke the silence and has valiantly refused to be silenced on the atrocities. The more Blair dodged the issues, the deeper it delved and found that whatever has been revealed so far is the tip of the iceberg of shameful conduct by the two occupying powers, both of whom claim to be lecturers in democracy, human rights and freedom to the rest of the world.

They even tried to brand the publication of the pictures as unpatriotic and endangering the lives of British soldiers! So much for the obligation of journalists to inform, educate and entertain in a democracy.

The British are deluded by their own self-image of being ‘good guys’ who may fight with their American cousins but not like them. Iraq is showing us that this is a distinction without a difference. Despite their history of fighting the Irish, violations of the rights of peoples in the colonies from Africa through Asia to the Middle East, massacre of anti-colonial resistance fighters like the Mau Mau of Kenya and many other atrocities, they still believe that their soldiers do not do bad things!

War dehumanises both victor and vanquished. The violation of the humanity of any person diminishes the humanity in us all. However, Western leaders try to shield their peoples from their cruel acts abroad through sanitised media and doctored vocabulary. So occupation is dressed up as “liberation”, torture is called “abuse” and resistance fighters demonised as “terrorists”, “insurgents” or “foreign fighters” without thinking twice that the Anglo-American occupiers are not Iraqis! They think they own the world and the rest of humanity are interlopers! That is why you hear more about American or British deaths but little about that of the Iraqis.

But more importantly they are careful not to show their people that war is about death, gruesome death. Also, the Western media refrains from showing the irrational violence of war when Western lives are involved. It is all right to show pictures of humiliated Iraqis or the routinely demeaning humanitarian NGO appeals for one African conflict or the other but somehow their audience cannot stomach seeing their kind being brutalised, dying or humiliated.

What kind of peace and security can the world hope to achieve if the destiny of the overwhelming majority of the world who are not Westerners is to be humiliated?

* Dr Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is General Secretary of the Global Pan African Movement, based in Kampala, Uganda and also Director of Justice Africa, based in London.

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On Tuesday the first formal session of the embattled British Prime Ministers Commission for Africa took place. The commission of 14 including Prime Minister Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia, South Africa’s Finance Minister, Trevor Manuel and Dr K. Y. Amoako, Executive Secretary of the UN Economic Commission for Africa and Live Aid hero and former Rock star turned global campaigner against poverty, Bob Geldof, was appointed earlier this year by Blair to study the causes of poverty in Africa.

The commission is also required to recommend concrete actions that can be taken globally to arrest the deteriorating condition of Africa in relation to other continents of the world in terms of growth and development.

The commission faces a lot of cynicism. This is understandable given the fact that the causes of poverty in Africa are not unknown. There have been too many reports on the condition of Africa. Therefore to many critics what has been lacking is the global political will to help Africa and Africans to develop the political will to help themselves.

The Blair Commission also invites parallels to a previous commission, the Willy Brandt Commission, of the 1980s. It made the right noises but its not-so-radical recommendations were not acted upon by the forces that matter internationally who had the power to reverse the image of Africa as the poor cousins of the rest of humanity.

Enthusiasts for the Blair initiative have three main arguments. One, Willy Brandt’s Commission was composed of ex-heads of government, principally former German Chancellor Willy Brandt himself and former British Prime minister, Edward Heath. It could only recommend but had no power or authority to put its pocket where its mouth was. Inevitably, the commission’s report became yet another document of pious hopes that governments could pay lip service to but not act upon without any political repercussions domestically or internationally. But this one has the backing of a sitting head of a major government and the representation of other powerful countries including the USA and Europe.

Two, the Blair Commission will benefit from two unprecedented historic coincidences. Tony Blair and Britain will be heading both the Vultures Club of the worlds dominant economic powers, the G8 and its first cousin, the European Union. And the British Premier would like to put Africa on top of the agenda. Finally, Blair’s people insist that he is very committed to Africa and would like to use all his powers to convince other global leaders to do something for the continent.

Now let us look at the other side of the argument. On Brandt’s Commission I will agree that an assembly of ex-this or ex-that could not have had any power of enforcement but only be hopeful of influence. However, the Brandt Commission failed not because of that but because it sought to realign Africa within the same global unequal economic relationship that has continued to disadvantage our peoples and other developing countries. It did not challenge the assumptions, it merely called for a pious change of heart from the beneficiaries of this systematic exploitation without asking for a fundamental change of the system.

It relied too much on the goodwill of the west without any faith in the ability of the poor and exploited peoples of the world to change their condition for the better, even though history teaches us that the goodness of oppressors is not enough and that reforms do not happen unless those who are oppressed are organised and able to resist to the point of threatening the whole system.

So a strategy that concentrates on mere change of heart at the top is doomed to become just preaching. Is the Blair Commission different in any way? It is dominated by Westerners! Even at the governmental level, Blair chose his African partners instead of going through Africa’s own multilateral organisations be they regional or continental (AU). If there is no African consensus during the process, why should there be one after the report?

The voice of civil society in Africa is absent and even that of Europe has to rely on the maverick Geldof. One has to surrender disbelief to believe that the historic coincidence of Blair holding the G8 and EU Presidency in 2005 will make any difference to Africa. First, the G8 has had Africa on its agenda since but especially from its Genoa to Canada meetings.

The African pushers of the NEPAD agenda had false hope encouraged by Blair that a window of opportunity existed for the G8 to make a difference but where has that left them and their ‘kneepad’ now? As for Europe, the reputation of Blair and the influence of Britain are in grave doubt. He will be heading the EU at a time when his country may be in the middle of an election campaign to be followed by a rancorous referendum on Europe. Is this the prime minister that would influence his European counterparts to renew any commitment to Africa? A prime minister that has shown that his commitment to being poodle to Bush against Europe, the UN and the rest of the world, has lost any authority or influence to play a missionary for Africa.

And as for Blairs alleged commitment to Africa, I ask myself: how many British people will buy a used car from their prime minister now? But more importantly there is no shortage of reports, conferences, and workshops on Africa: Millennium Development Goals (MDG), UN Action Plan for Africa, G8 Action Plan and others. In Africa itself we have a whole raft of home grown initiatives from the African Alternative to Structural Adjustment Programmes. It is not words that Africa needs but concrete action from its peoples and the international community.

* Dr Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is General Secretary of the Global Pan African Movement, based in Kampala, Uganda and also Director of Justice Africa, based in London.

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On Tuesday, President Thabo Mbeki was sworn in for his second and final term as President of South Africa. The inauguration attracted so many African and world leaders and the occasion was as grand as can be expected of a country that continues to enjoy the respect and goodwill of different peoples across the world.

This is because South Africa's liberation from the clutches of racist oppression and humiliation of African peoples has become an inspiration to many people across the world. Many still wonder that just over 10 years ago, the re-elected president, along with the majority black population of South Africa’s could not even vote, let alone be voted for.

So many Western countries and leaders that have been falling over themselves to proclaim their friendship with South Africa, take pictures with the venerable and universally venerated Nelson Mandela, were the same people who kept their racist cousins in power through active collaboration or deliberate inaction or both.

Margaret Thatcher regarded the ANC as a typical terrorist organisation like the IRA in Britain and opposed both sanctions against South Africa and the release of Mandela and other freedom fighters from apartheid jails. Ronald Reagan, like successive American administrations before and after him, opposed the liberation of South Africa and touted constructive engagement with the apartheid regime that was destructive for both South Africa and the whole of Southern Africa. Tanzania, Angola, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Botswana and other frontline states paid too heavy a price for their support for liberation. Effectively, the socio-economic progress and development of these countries were postponed until after South Africa's liberation.

It is necessary to recollect these sacrifices and historical facts because in the last 10 years of liberation, there seems to be accelerated forgetfulness or selective amnesia about the collective burden, sacrifice and triumph that South Africa represented for most Africans, especially and the freedom loving peoples of the world in general.

There was tremendous international solidarity for the struggle in the former Soviet Union and Cuba, among left-wing and liberal elements in the West, the churches, allied forces and across a large part of Third World countries in the Caribbean, Asia, Latin America, etc. In the Arab and Muslim world, too, there was diplomatic and political support that linked the South African struggle with the quest for freedom by the Palestinian people. Israel, of course, actively supported and collaborated on intelligence and security and defence with apartheid South Africa, despite the fact that many of the Boers were sympathetic to Hitler during the Second World War: racists were united by racism.

While it is the effort, determination, sacrifice and dedication of the people of South Africa and the clear leadership of the main liberation movements, principally the ANC, which finally led to the liberation of South Africa it is equally true that the solidarity movement in and out of Africa helped most significantly.

Both at the official and popular level there is a tendency to greater appreciation of the non-African support while taking the African solidarity either for granted or minimising it. Yet on South Africa, most of our countries, regardless of ideology at home and abroad, were united and stayed the course to the end.

Reading some accounts, it will seem that the anti-apartheid movement alone liberated South Africa. Other accounts validate only the reconciliation phase of the struggle and the change of heart by the racists and willingness of the ANC leadership to negotiate. It is indeed true that victory has many fathers while failure is an orphan!

There are too many negative views about other Africans. It is not just the Whites who look down on Black Africans from the rest of Africa. Many black South Africans have also bought into the racist propaganda that the rest of us have been sleeping and it is South Africa that can wake us up.

The last 10 years have been both challenging and triumphalist for both the people and the Government of South Africa. Many have been willing to show understanding even while expressing some disappointment. But as President Mbeki starts his second and final term, I don't think that many will show generous understanding anymore. They will expect some fast movement both internally and in foreign policy.

For me, I make only one demand of the President: Remove the humiliating demands and requirements on Africans visiting South Africa. It is not enough to say other African countries do the same. President Mbeki can lead on this issue from the front.

Three years ago, Prime Minister Meles of Ethiopia liberalised visa regulation for Africans. I have not seen a notable rise in African presence in Addis. Nigeria signed the protocol on freedom of movement within the ECOWAS region at the height of its oil boom economy. Yet all West Africans did not move to Nigeria.

I know South Africa is a beautiful country with a lot of opportunities, but I can assure you that the whole of Africa is not queuing up to enter the rainbow nation. On the other hand, since the end of apartheid, the South African invasion of the rest of Africa through MTN, Vodacom, South African Airways, M-Net, DSTV, Shoprite, a new 'Boer Trek' buying up fertile agricultural land across Africa and other serious business ventures, are unmistakable.

* Dr Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is General Secretary of the Global Pan African Movement, based in Kampala, Uganda and also Director of Justice Africa, based in London.

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