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Though applauding the success of this year’s record-breaking Stand Up action on global poverty, Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem wonders whether revitalising the UN’s Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) will simply amount to lining the pockets of a few individual African recipients in positions of power. Taking up the example of the National Resistance Movement (NRM) in Uganda, the author situates such latent misappropriation of resources within a broader problem of one-time liberation leaders lingering in power. Once a genuine force for changing the system, Yoweri Museveni’s NRM, Abdul-Raheem argues, have now become the system.

In this week’s postcard Tajudeen takes issue with what he calls ‘noisy western diplomats’ and their tendency to speak out injudiciously against the misdeeds of African governments. In the same vein, he deplores African envoys for their silence in the face of misrule and injustice on the part of host governments. He calls on African diplomats to stand true to the shared values on human rights, protection of the weak and vulnerable respect for the dignity of Africans, and not to abdicate this role to western diplomats

Following the arrest of Lieutenant Colonel Rose Kabuye in Frankfurt, Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem explores the core hypocrises and injustices underpinning France’s attempts to try a key figure in the Rwandan genocide. The author contends that France has since 1994 been attempting to wash its conscience through denial and counter-narrative, and that whatever one may think of Paul Kagame’s current regime the recent French indictments should never be mistaken for justice. Far from a move towards genuinely bringing an alleged player in the genocide to justice, Abdul-Raheem suggests judicial developments in the France reflect the guilt of a former imperial power with blood on its hands.

Miriam makeba was an icon who used music to serve Africa and the cause of humanity. The ancestors would be pleased to receive her as a worthy daughter who gave her best. She lived through apartheid, fought it and survived to see a liberated multiracial dsemocratic state, was part of the liberation wars against colonialism across Africa and civil rights in America and she dies after the election of the first Black person to be president of the USA. She will have a lot to report to the ancestors. And how proud they will be that she was on the right side of all these struggles. Go well, Mama Afrika, your memory is forever green and your music everlasting.

In light of the current global economic downturn and bailout plan for the rich, Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem examines the hypocrisy and profound limitations of a neoliberal market orthodoxy ostensibly hostile to state intervention yet increasingly reliant on its restorative role. Berating the continued failure of Western institutions to provide adequate conditions and support for African development, the author urges African governments to turn their backs on foreign ‘aid’ and instead concentrate on their own course of action.

There are indications that after so many false starts, grand standing, braggadocio and unrealistic demands, both sides in the Zimbabwe conflict are finally negotiating genuinely and a deal may be reached soon. It will be a tribute to the much criticised President Thabo Mbeki's tenacity but also a final realisation by the hawks on both sides that neither can finish the other without finishing the country.

One recalls a statement I made at a public meeting in Harare in 2000 soon after the unexpected defeat of Mugabe and ZANU PF in the referendum on the constitution. The Public Forum at Hotel Monomopata was organised by SARIPS (a formidable institute then, under the leadership of Prof Sam Moyo). The CDD Observer Group was led by Former President of Liberia, Prof Amos Sawyer, who also spoke at the forum. One of the speakers, Dr Ibbo Mandaza was booed because of his pro-Zanu PF stance.

My key contribution in that Forum was that the government was not prepared for defeat while the opposition was not prepared for victory. My conclusion was based on extensive conversations we had with different groups and leading figures on both sides. When we met Prof Jonathan Moyo, one of the key figures propelling the government proposals, at his Sheraton residence and office the day before the referendum, I asked him what will happen if they were defeated. His answer was that there was no way they could be defeated and if it happened, there was going to be chaos. When the delegation met Morgan Tsvangirai, the MDC leader, the same day, his response when I asked him what would happen if they won, was that there was no way Mugabe would allow it. He was convinced that the government would jail all opposition leaders.