Political unrest has been widespread in Ethiopia since May elections that took the opposition close to securing a surprise victory over the ruling party. Last week, violence swept through the capital Addis Ababa as security forces cracked down on those participating in actions to protest the election result. Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem calls for calm on both sides.

Since the May general elections in Ethiopia the country has been gripped by conflict. The country is only slowly returning to normal after a week long stay away called by the opposition who believed that the government robbed it of victory through unfair means. Both in June soon after the elections and now, several people have been killed and many more imprisoned.

While elections are supposed to indicate where the wishes of the people reside and both winners and losers are expected to respect the results, it is not often that easy in situations where neither is prepared for the result. Sometimes defeat can sound like victory and sometimes victory can be interpreted as defeat if the cost is too high. Both scenarios are playing themselves out in Ethiopia. The opposition has reason to be jubilant because in spite of the fields not being level they gained victories - some of them highly symbolic - against the ruling EPRDF.

In Ethiopia it is clear that neither the ruling EPRDF nor the two main opposition alliances, the Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD) and United Ethiopian Democratic Forces (UEDF), were prepared for the results and the obligation that the results impose on them in a democratic setting.

For the first time since the EPRDF came into power 15 years ago it faced a more challenging and credible electoral opposition. It lost all the seats in the capital to the opposition and lost to the opposition in other regions in particular the Amhara region. Its immediate response was to see the result as a challenge to its authority. It was obvious that its political and security intelligence misinformed it about its popularity. It was clear to most observers that after 15 years the EPRDF has become vulnerable. As the likelihood of an armed overthrow of the regime has diminished even among the country's largest nationality, The Oromo (who have been the longest military opponents of the EPRDF), peaceful resistance and democratic opposition has grown.

As it happened to other post revolutionary regimes across Africa whether in Zimbabwe or Uganda, the longer the EPRDF stayed in power the less 'grateful' people became for its liberation struggle. Uganda is the more obvious parallel. Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, like President Museveni before him, became a former revolutionary turned free-market reformer with new best friends in Washington, London, Brussels, and other patented capitals of what he would (before) have called, rightly, 'centres of imperialism'. Like other Clubbers in the now ageing 'New generation of African Leaders' Meles is a very fiercely intellectual leader who is able to stoutly articulate and defend his positions.

Again. like Uganda, Ethiopia is heavily dependent on aid but somehow the EPRDF until recent years managed to stave off Western intervention in its political affairs. A kind of dual mandate partnership (familiar to Ugandans) developed whereby Meles pursued neo-liberal economic policies of the IMF/World Bank and the dominant western powers gave him a huge discount on internal political matters.

But acceptance in the West also comes with its own conflicting demands and expectations. It is always the case that the more our leaders become popular abroad the less they are at home and the more complacent they become about their domestic constituency - hence they are ill-prepared to think of any possible defeat.

The opposition on the other hand - after overcoming initial timidity, lack of clarity or better alternative socio-economic policies - begin to unite in opposition. Some people will just want change for the sake of it. Younger generations also emerge who now take the gains of the past as their starting point - not the ceiling on what is possible. This is where former revolutionaries in power become reactionaries, taking political opposition to be treason, shooting demonstrators, jailing leaders of the opposition and generally punishing the people for not voting wisely (i.e. electing them in perpetuity).

The opposition too, having spent too long in opposition is often unprepared for its victories and reacts either too triumphantly or with selective de-legitimation. The former exaggerates how close they believe they have come to seizing the state house while the latter makes them to always query the result only in areas where they did not win.

A process of mutual demonisation ensues between an insecure government humbled by the polls - especially losing in the capital where the government is based - thereby becoming psychologically an occupying force. The opposition on the other hand suffers the delusion that its control of the centre and a few cities also mean that it is de facto government and is often tempted to behave so by unleashing 'people power' which is often met by a government show of power. This situation needs statesmanship and leadership to break the impasse. The tragedy for Ethiopia so far has been the absence of such vision. The government needs to accept that those who voted against it have neither committed any sin or crime while the opposition also have to accept that those in power are not from Mars but fellow Ethiopians with whom they have political differences. There cannot be meaningful dialogue if the government uses guns and prisons as its first weapon of choice and the opposition regards the government as illegitimate.

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

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Tajudeen Abdul Raheem visits Khartoum for the first time in eleven years. In 1994, Sudan was at the height of Islamist rule, but now the hotel halls are filled with international NGO staff and Southern rebels struggling to change from their battle fatigues to fancy suits. There are many challenges ahead for peace in Sudan – not least of which are the expectations of the masses – and the new order will have to go beyond a change of uniform or the swapping of army camps for fancy hotels.

I was in Khartoum last week attending a conference of the regional organisation, Inter Governmental Agency on Development (IGAD), on building consensus around a peace and security strategy for the sub region. It was a follow up to a previous meeting early this year conveyed by IGAD with the support of the Addis based Inter Africa Group.

For many years IGAD has been synonymous with two of Africa's long running conflicts that have now been negotiated: Somalia and Sudan. Both have taken several years but IGAD leaders, supported by the African Union and other international actors have been very patient and persistent.

That patience paid off in the formation of a Government of National Unity for Somalia but unfortunately the government is yet to take the full reins of power in Mogadishu. The prospect for lasting peace in Somalia is also seriously in doubt given the increasing consolidation of self-rule in Somaliland.

However the Sudan negotiations, through Machakos and Naivasha, culminated in the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) between the Sudan Peoples Liberation Army / Movement (SPLA/M) and the Government of Sudan and the inauguration of a Government of National Unity with power sharing between the South, North and Centre and some representation for other parties.

While there is a lot of confidence that the peace may hold despite the unfortunate death of the charismatic 'strong man' of the SPLA, John Garang only three weeks after assuming office as the first vice president of Sudan, there are continuing concerns that Sudan's peace is not comprehensive enough given the continuing death and suffering in the Darfur region, where the Government of Sudan continues to aid and abet its Janjaweed militia allies in their attacks on mainly Black African Darfurians.

So both peace agreements that IGAD is justifiably proud of are not perfect. However this alone should not deny the organisation cautious optimism about its capacity to be a collective regional instrument for promoting regional integration and development and to be a forum for peaceful resolution of peace and security issues concerning the peoples of the region.

The conference was an attempt to document the often informal processes that led to the peace negotiations, reflect on the experiences and build consensus on a vision for the future. The conference can claim a modest success on this initial sharing of perspectives. The consensus document agreed after the three-day meeting - that brought together academics, think tanks, CSO activists, policy makers, diplomats, and foreign friends of IGAD –points to continuing engagement by IGAD within a framework of a people-driven and people-friendly regional integration vision.

While peace and security issues are of utmost importance, participants agreed that they are not just for inter state relations of governments or armed groups alone: The vision must be broadened to embrace human security and wider engagement of all stake holders. IGAD has to look at other aspects of regional integration that can promote wider peace in the region: regional citizenship, promotion of democratic governance, protection of human rights, informal linkages through social groups, students, women, youth, education, development of regional infrastructure, etc.

While the IGAD meeting was the reason I was in Khartoum, my main interest also included seeing for myself how the transition is shaping up - especially since the death of Comrade John Garang. The last time I was in Khartoum was 11 years ago. I had gone there to persuade the original NIF government of Dr Hassan Al Turuabi and General Omar Al Beshir to participate in the 7th Pan African Congress. They were angry with us for inviting Dr Garang and 'treating him like a head of state' when they considered him then a 'dangerous rebel'.

Arriving in Khartoum I could not help recalling the Chinese prayer 'May you live in interesting times'. If Garang was not dead I would have met him, holding court in the Khartoum Hilton, as the Vice President of the country with the same people who did not even want him at a Pan-African gathering a few years before. By coincidence it was the same hotel I was put in by the Government in 1994. Of course the atmosphere now and then were completely different.

In 1994 Sudan was at the dizzy heights of its Islamism, the NIF government reveled in its pariah status in the west and even considered it some kind of chivalry for Allah. The composition of those then milling around the Hilton was different. I remember there was a big American delegation of the Muslim-Christian Council led by Nation of Islam people, and other Islamist delegations from one country or the other across the world, all guests of the government.

But now the Hilton is dominated by: BINGOs, RINGOs, UN types, consultants, business wheeler-dealers and other assorted vultures of peace out for a grab of the peace action. But the most important residents in the hotel are the new SPLA/M elite looking every inch out of place. They reminded me of Miles Collines Hotel or Meridien in Kigali in 1994 after the defeat of genocide or the Intercontinental Hotel in Kinshasa after the exit of Mobutu.

You see the new rebel elite, recently made ministers in cities they had left several years earlier or never entered. The ones that fascinate me most are the former rebel commanders, in their new suits, usually ill-fitting because they are more used to their jungle fatigues. It is always amusing to watch these commanders trying to become civilians. Soldiers do not walk they march! So you see these big guys in their fancy suits and many of them with bulging inside pockets. There is also the problem of learning the new pecking order because you do not want to offend the new Big Men (and their few Big Women) who have become Honorable this, Excellency that, etc.

But beyond all this it was mixture of 'sadness and joy' returning to Khartoum. Sad that John Garang who had done so much to bring about this change was not there, but happy to see his colleagues continuing the struggle. Everyone I spoke to and commiserated on the death of our dear comrade left me with those comforting words "aluta continua'. They need this spirit if they are to make peace meaningful for southern Sudanese people and the generality of Sudanese.

Peace dividends must go beyond the exchange of military uniforms for smart suits; or from make-shift camps to the comfort of 5 star hotels and ministerial villas. There are just too many challenges ahead. First, there are the huge expectations of the masses that now that their 'boys' are in power their conditions will improve. This is a tricky one because the South has known only war and therefore the only industry is crude military-industrial in nature.

Two, many Southerners displaced by the war in northern cities, especially the millions in Khartoum, are hoping to escape the indignities of second class status in the north for the south where the SPLA and allies will be in charge. What work will they do? Where would they live?

Three, those remaining in Khartoum will need symbolic and practical measures that will begin to reduce their feelings of second class stature and apartheid type discrimination. How can one explain why most of the manual laborers digging around Khartoum in the many construction sites in a booming newly enriched oil country are Southerners? Why are most of the waiters, bellboys, cleaners etc in the Hilton of Negroid extraction? These are uncomfortable questions but they cannot be avoided if peace is to make sense to all these marginalized peoples.

Four, as it stands now the peace deal seem to be mainly between the north and the south with the assumption that both Beshir's wing of the NIF (a.k.a National Congress Party) and the SPLA/M will remain firmly in power both in Khartoum and Juba. So what will happen to other marginalized groups such as SPLA/M 's former allies in the NDA, rebel groups in Darfur and others that may also restart hostilities?

There are many other challenges but one vital one I have to mention is the question of a referendum due half way through the six year transition. I have no doubt in my mind that an overwhelming majority of southerners will vote for independence. Indeed one has the feeling that Dr John Garang was probably the only person left in the movement who still believed in a united 'New Sudan'. His death meant that the last ‘one nation’ Sudanese southerner has died and the road now (no longer if but when) leads to an independent Southern Sudan.

I know this conclusion is difficult to accept for many Pan Africanists but we have to ask ourselves what kind of unity we are building if citizens cannot feel or be treated equally in their own country. An optimistic half way house may arise if the Government of Sudan can demonstrate through genuine good will, real remorse and real actions during this fist phase in the transition that it has indeed changed. I am not naturally a pessimist but I have my doubts if the extremist core of this regime really wants peace in the Sudan or wish to devour their enemies in phases. It may be the case that the transitional period offers opportunity for a trial separation with a certain divorce after the referendum.

* 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]

September was a bad month for Nigeria. First Chima Ubani, 42, director of the country's premier human rights NGO, the Civil Liberties Organisation, died in a car crash. Then, veteran activist Dr Yusuf Bala Usman died on September 24. Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem remembers the lives of two extraordinary activists and calls for their spirit of struggle to be remembered.

The past week has not been a good one for the endangered species of committed progressive people in Nigeria. In the middle of the week there was the tragic death, by yet another road accident, of Comrade Chima Ubani,42, director of the country's premier human rights NGO, the Civil Liberties Organisation (CLO), a foremost defender of the poor, and a shining star for consistency and total commitment to the struggle for the liberation of the ordinary people in the face of the successive autocratic military regimes of the 80s and 90s in Nigeria and the creeping elective dictatorship of Obasanjo since 1999.

Ubani died in an accident between Maiduguri and Kano in the north-east part of the country, where he had been part of the key leaders of civil society and the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) mobilizing support for a successful series of national strikes across the country against yet another increase in the price of petroleum products. His body was returned to Lagos on Saturday.

That same day (Saturday 24 September, 2005) yet another tragedy struck at the Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital, with the death of a senior comrade, veteran struggle activist, radical historian and organic intellectual in the tradition of Frantz Fanon and Amilcar Cabral: Dr Yusuf Bala Usman.

Many people outside of Nigeria may not have known him personally but more would have become aware of him by reputation and remember and mourn the sad loss. It was an inconsolable weekend. For my generation of student activists Bala Usman was the icon of our times whose radical scholarship and political activism caused us to ask very uncomfortable questions about the kind of knowledge we were being taught and the society we were living in.
The 70s and 80s were full of epic battles and the cold war was at its peak. In Africa, the liberation of Southern Africa, including the former Portuguese colonies of Angola and Mozambique and Guinea-Bissau on the West coast, Zimbabwe and South Africa from settler regime and apartheid were prominent on the agenda.

The struggle against neo-colonialism was also intense and anti imperialist struggles were being waged across the underdeveloped world from Africa through Asia to the Middle East and Latin America. These were days before donor-driven formalized struggles that have today turned many revolutionaries into ‘resolutionaries’. They were periods when imperialism was called its proper name and not disguised under euphemisms like globalisation, friends or partners!

Bala and his peers of equally committed scholar-activists from across the continent who were teaching in various universities in Nigeria in those oil boom days opened our eyes and ears to the world around us and inspired us to believe that we can change it for the better.

There were many radical scholars, some of them exiles and refugees from the Idi Amin and Obote 2 regimes in Uganda, including Prof Yolamu Barongo, the indomitable Okot a P'itek and Ocello Oculi. There were others like Yusf Bangura, AB Zack Williams and others. There were radical scholars from the Diaspora too like Dr Patrick Wilmot who was later deported from Nigeria by the Babangida regime. People Like Ali Mazrui were regular guest lecturers on Nigeria's campuses, trailing one controversy or the other. By no means were all the radical lecturers only Africans or people from the Diaspora.

The high point of this was the Centenary of Marx conference held at Ahmadu Bello University in 1983. Some of the sectarian political and intellectual battles that were to decimate the left forces can be traced to this period. Bala was very prominent in these debates and enjoyed for many years the status of first among equals. He was born into the royal house of Katsina in northern Nigeria and did not have to do anything to survive. He could just have demanded and be given anything he wanted by way of personal pleasures and riches by virtue of being a royal and growing up at a time when the Emirs held sway.

Bala could have combined his royal spoon with his academic erudition and choosen to be part of any government or ruling clique across the country and feed fat on the sweat and blood of the people of Nigeria. But Bala chose to side with the masses. He became a traitor to his class. He committed class suicide and remained a revolutionary throughout his life. He could have checked out of the country like many of us (some voluntarily, some of us stranded, and others through coercion or for tactical /strategic reasons) but he did not. He believed that he was best able to contribute directly from the home front.

Whatever political or intellectual disagreements anyone may have developed with Usman in a life steeped in struggles on many fronts, even his worst critics will pay him the tribute of saying he remained true to his convictions.

Nigeria is indeed made more impoverished both intellectually and politically now that the loud and very clear and thunderous voice of Bala will no longer be there to speak unpleasant truths to power in a potentially great country damned by successive little-minded leaders impervious to any knowledge that could go beyond their noses.

It is perhaps befitting to a life of struggle that Bala's last public duty that many will remember for its high drama was at a conference last month called by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on corruption. Bala was one of the participants. President Obasanjo was the chief guest and he addressed the audience with his usual monologue and holier-than-thou pomposity.

At intervention time Bala was on the floor and he, as was characteristic of his fearless and fierce intellect took on Baba Iyabo (Father of Iyabo, as Obasanjo is also known in Nigeria) and tore into the empty shrines of his timid anti-corruption crusade and leader-centric governance. As we all know, Obasanjo is such a big 'democrat' that he cannot understand or continence anyone disagreeing with him.

He ordered his security goons to seize the microphone from Bala. Somehow the security heavies could not find the over 6 feet tall Bala who was standing with a microphone in a hall full of all the high and mighty in Nigeria. The conclusion of many was that even the security guys were sympathetic to Bala's lampooning of President-Know-All.

That was Bala Usman: Bold, full of guts and fearless before those who think of themselves as our lords and masters. Of course the hypocrisy of conspicuous grief after death of a public figure is already suffocating the country. The President was one of the first to send condolences on the two departed comrades declaring one “a brilliant young activist” and the other “a statesman”. It is customary to pray for the departed: May the spirit of Bala and Chima remain restless and continue to haunt us to continue the struggle for which they lived and died actively serving.

* 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]

Hurricane Katrina could become a catalyst for global cooperation if only the US would learn from the disaster that it is co-tenant in the world and not a landlord. In the meantime, writes Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem, Africans have a duty to show solidarity towards the victims of the natural disaster.

I have never really understood how Hurricanes are named and by whom. The scale of the devastation of New Orleans means that anytime one hears the name Katrina, images of mass suffering will readily come to mind.

Second week into the natural disaster we are nowhere near a common understanding of why the world's richest and allegedly most powerful country appeared prostate before the forces of nature. A bigger part of the controversy is based on a number of questions.

One, how natural was it if it had been long forewarned? Two, could it have been prevented? Three, if it could not be prevented should the communities not have been better prepared to deal with the consequences? Four, what was the level of culpability of local, state and federal officials in making the consequences of the disaster even more tragic either by acts of omission or commission, actions and inactions? But above all is the question of political accountability and responsibility for the consequences of the disaster.

George W. Bush, self-appointed saviour of the world, gung ho macho-militarist and prophet of pre-emptive action in far-flung places around the world either did not see the Hurricane under his nose or did not have any missiles to throw at it.

He has rightly been criticised for his reluctance (yet again) to get out of his holiday bed. But this slow reaction has become typical of Dubya. The man has been such an executive truant that he simply could never be found where he is supposed to be. Even when 9/11 (that he hijacked as his life's purpose and regime-defining issue) happened Bush was missing and remained in hiding for several days.

The rest of the world has continued to watch with both horror at the devastation and subdued bemusement and incredulity at the ill-preparedness of the Americans in the face of this tragedy. If it was in some third world country (especially Africa) there would be loud cries (no more louder than those from Washington) about irresponsible leadership.

There are three immediate lessons that I see. The first lesson is a very simple one. Every one of us, in emergencies, need help, rich or poor, big or small. Who would have thought that less than a year after the tragedy of the Tsunami that devastated several countries mainly in South East Asia and parts of East Africa, some of these countries including Sri Lanka, India and Indonesia would be coming forward to offer help to the USA!

The second one is that natural disasters do happen and can happen to any country. It only proves that we inhabit the same world even if some countries may deceive themselves that they are God's Landlords on earth. There is no territorial sovereignty over natural disasters.

The third lesson has to do with being humble and never saying never. As in a popular soap, the rich also cry and the poor also laugh. Last September, a Category 5 hurricane devastated Cuba with 160-mile-per-hour winds. Cuba evacuated 1.5 million of its citizens before the storm. Consequently even though many homes were destroyed not a single Cuban died! The USA does not have all the answers to both its problems and global challenges. It can and must learn from others whose system it may like, whose leaders it detests but who have better knowledge and experience than the US in managing emergencies.

The other aspect of the disaster has to do with what it teaches us about America and the American way of life, its self-image, the projection of global military power and the reality inside the country.

The controversies are still raging as to whether racism or class are the main reasons why Bush and the US establishment have responded so shoddily. Personally I do not think it is a case of either or and I do not believe that one reason alone can explain the situation. It has to be a combination of reasons at the heart of which both class and race are fundamental factors.

America does not care about its poor people. This is not unique to the US ruling class since so many rulers do not care about their poorest, as most Africans will attest. However America as the richest country on earth is expected to look after its own. If it cannot why should anybody in the world accept its claims to wanting to solve other people's problems for them?

The truth is that the American dream has always been a self rationalization ideology for the rich. It has always been a harvest of huge nightmare for the poor and underclass in the system. Structurally and historically a disproportionate majority of these groups are of African-American origin therefore they bear greater part of the suffering. I am sure middle class African-Americans, with their 4-by-4’s, wider social networks beyond New Orleans and credit cards got out of harm's way as quickly as their white counter parts, but the bulk of their poor cousins had nowhere to go and perished in their thousands. Even those who could go elsewhere could not do so in good time because poverty had already condemned them to inadequate and vulnerable housing that Katrina gulped up at its first deadly kiss.

As a predominantly black place the majority of the victims would be black. Therefore race cannot be far from the surface. Indeed so black is the face of suffering globally that many people, including many Africans, initially thought the pictures were from yet another blighted African country. The shock was that these are pictures from America. Africans are known for their generosity, solidarity and kindness in the face of extremes of adversity but somehow we have not responded predictably to the tragedy in New Orleans despite the obvious connection. Are we so numbed by it that we are also shocked into delayed reaction or have become inured by familiar suffering that we cannot be bothered any more?

This is not just about African government’s responding. It is about African leaders in the diaspora too. It is not about Africans in Africa alone. It is about global Africa, at home and abroad. Where are we at this hour of need for our peoples stranded in New Orleans? We have to show that we as Africans have a duty to care and take the obligation seriously. That solidarity comes in different forms. America needs the rest of the world even if it was initially reluctant to ask for it. It has no missile shield defence system against natural disasters.

One good that may come out of this could be a grudging restoration of American faith in global institutions like the UN whose humanitarian agencies (in spite of general criticisms) are better equipped to deal with these type of emergencies. If the US learns from this disaster that it is a co-tenant, not the landlord of the world, then this tragedy could become a catalyst for global cooperation that may make the suffering of the people of New Orleans not to have been in vain.

* 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]

Tajudeen Abdul Raheem, missing in Nigeria for the last five weeks, discusses the aspirations of the continental powerhouse to African and international leadership. Despite its stated intentions, the country just doesn’t seem able to get its act together, he writes, using as examples Nigeria’s loss of the African Development Bank presidency to Rwanda and its quest for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council.

I must begin this piece with a thousand apologies to my readers for the spasmodic and epileptic appearance of this column in the past five weeks. It would have been easier for me to advise my editors and readers that I was going to be on holiday for X number of weeks. But as a 'good African' the idea that I should be on holiday was anathematic to the cultural instinct.

Whether peasants or presidents we are programmed to work till we die even if the evidence of the work may remain scanty. If you suggest to an African that he/she should go on holiday he/she starts suspecting that you want to get rid of him or her! Annual leave and a period set aside when you throw caution to the winds and just relax are anathematic to many Africans, rich or poor, urban or rural. Our lives are a kind of permanent emergency needing constant urgent attention. Therefore we keep trying to fit in permanent work without break – as well as the numerous immediate and extended family demands on our time and endless socio-cultural, multi tasked economic coping mechanisms in addition to endless community, and village must do activities!

The other and perhaps more pressing reason has to do with the objective fact of where I have been in the past five weeks: Nigeria. Somehow the country is not synonymous with holidays! The hassle and tussle of survival in Africa's allegedly No 1 country and self-declared super power is one that will task the best spirits of the most eccentric adventurer. As regular readers of this column will know, over the past five years when I became a legal visitor to Nigeria again - after more than a decade of being 'wanted' by the various caricatures of leaders - whenever I am in Nigeria this column is never regular. All kinds of objective and subjective circumstances conspire to make this column less than regular whenever I am in the country. Hence the various editors (whose papers carry this column) have developed a kind of 'Nigerian discount' for my lapses in beating deadlines. The amazing thing is that I have written this column without failing from all kinds of places before, including blighted war torn Eastern Congo, remote places in Burkina Faso, on French keyboards in a Café where people spoke only French or local languages I did not understand; and also from newly liberated post Genocide Kigali. Nigeria is on the face of it not at war but not a peace therefore everything is a daunting obstacle race!

Yet this is a country that has proclaimed since independence from the British in 1960, its 'manifest destiny' not only to lead Africa but Black people wherever they may be in the world. The irony is that many Africans or even African countries are not disputing this putative leadership. They only wished that Nigeria were able to lead effectively. If anything stands in the way of Nigeria it is its own self-doubt and its inconsistencies that is undermining its claims to leadership.

Take the example of two out of many issues currently occupying the chatters of foreign policy minded academics, policy wonks, sections of the media and some civil society activists: Nigeria's recent loss of the Africa Development Bank (ADB) presidency to Rwanda and Nigeria's quest for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council.

The national pride was greatly hurt that 'little Rwanda', despite not having majority African support in most of the tortuous stages of the ADB presidency contest, defeated Nigeria in Tunis after a deadlock in Abuja.

A number of things counted against Nigeria, which my Nigerian friends are unwilling to come terms with. One, the country's influence does not go far beyond Abuja itself. If you bring people to Abuja you can have your way but outside of it they may change their minds. Two, Nigeria is too complacent in its diplomacy, believing that its case is 'too clear.' Three, this complacency makes its officials to believe that the country is the only selling point whoever the candidate is. Four, Obasanjo's obsession with external validation was once again proven to be pointless. He bends over backwards (often against national instinct for anti western independence) to please America in particular and the West in general yet when it matters their own geopolitical interests dictate clipping Nigeria's wings in Africa and building sub regional counter checks. Five, it is not only the West that is interested in cutting Nigeria to size. There are many seemingly friendly African countries who desire the same though they may not openly articulate this. South Africa is an obvious candidate in this category. So is Egypt, Libya, and many other pretenders to leadership of Africa. There are smaller and less resourced states who cannot make such claim but play the bigger or better resourced African states against each other, buttering their bread in all ways and most of the time going for the highest bidder. It’s a kind of cash and carry diplomacy.

Post apartheid South Africa has many reasons to be grateful and friendly towards Nigeria but it also has many reasons to check mate Nigeria's regional influence as it seeks its own economic and strategic interests on the continent. It wants business with Africa's largest market but also contests the leadership claims of Africa's sleeping giant. No amount of personal rapport between leaders and diplomatic niceties can hide these contradictions. Nigeria's folly is in believing that 'there is no problem.'

Six, and perhaps more importantly under Obasanjo, Nigeria has developed a more personalised diplomacy around 'Baba' and whatever whims catch his erratic moods. Professional, well-trained and experienced diplomats of which there are many in Nigeria's foreign ministry have been relegated to mostly onlookers or undertakers for a very interventionist and domineering presidency. It is very clear that Obasanjo believes he is his own best foreign minister in addition to being the best in everything Nigerian! The ‘Babacracy’ (or is it ‘BabaCRAZY’?) that undermines Nigeria's nascent democratic order has been extended to foreign affairs, making it impossible for anybody to have any positive influence unless Baba allows them.

There are many more reasons that Nigerians need to wake up to if they are going to realise many of their assumed and oft repeated diplomatic and strategic goals in Africa and the world. Otherwise they will forever be beaten by so called small countries backed by larger interests.

And this is where Nigeria's immediate foreign policy goal of securing one of the two anticipated African seats on the UN Security Council in the ongoing UN reform proposals also runs into serious troubles. If Nigeria has its house in order no African country would be bold enough to challenge its claim - rather they would be clamouring for the second seat. However, even in West Africa where Nigeria claims to be the sub regional power, Senegal is also in the race. If Nigeria cannot have the unanimous support of its own backyard why should it expect the unanimous endorsement of the rest of Africa?

The atmosphere is so charged that many of my Nigerian friends and comrades have lost all kinds of objectivity in assessing their situation and think I must be a traitor to be raising doubts about the country's ineffectual claims to continental leadership when it cannot even lead itself. Some even suggest that I have lost touch and I have no right to comment on Nigerian affairs because I have been away for so long from the country.

Yet what we are debating is not domestic affairs but international affairs. They need to persuade others not themselves but somehow this detail is lost in the petty nationalist jingoism that clouds these discussions. And they wonder why 'foreigners' cannot accede to their claims! If they claim that because a Nigerian lives outside of the country he or she has no right to talk about domestic politics they should at least have consistency in their own logic by being a little bit humble when discussing matters outside the borders of Nigeria. The 'foreign' Nigerians may have more to share with them by way of how others see Nigeria, which is far different from how many Nigerians see their country, its potential, place and role in both African and global affairs.

* 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]

Who would have thought that exactly three weeks after the historical and momentous occasion of the inauguration of the transitional government of national unity in Khartoum we would be mourning the death of the vice president of Sudan, under that peace agreement , Dr John Garang . In less than a month, the huge hope and expectations raised by the peace agreement (signed in Naivasha, Kenya , in January ), negotiated for several years and culminating in the inauguration of July 9, seem to be doomed .

The predictable riots in Khartoum mostly by grieving southerners and the even more predictable high handed response by the Sudan security forces only serve the cynicism of many people both inside and outside who have always believed that peace between the north and south, meaning Arabs and Africans is not possible.

Between July 7 and 9 the whole world watched the outpouring of emotions on the streets of Khartoum and other parts of Sudan as John Garang arrived for the innauguration of the transitional government. Little did we all know that the millions that turned out to welcome the newly rehabilitated rebel leader to a city he last visited 21 years ago and the many more who turned out on July 9 for the inauguration and saw him take the oath of office as the first vice president of Sudan were saying good bye to Dr John.

Like most people, when I first learnt of the disappearance of the helicopter in which Dr. Garang was travelling I immediately suspected foul play. It was a hope against hope between Saturday evening and Sunday evening when it was finally confirmed that the aircraft had crashed and there were no survivors.

The immediate consensus from many quarters was that foul play was unlikely. This quick verdict further fuelled one's suspicions. Before a definitive verdict was declared there should have been an investigation first. There were two reasons why many people believed the 'no foul play' explanation. One, Garang was travelling from Uganda, on one of President Museveni's aircraft flown by Ugandan crew. Since Museveni has been the closest regional ally of Garang it is inconceivable that he would have been party to any conspiracies against his long term comrade. The other reason I believe is that nobody wants to contemplate foul play because the peace process in which everyone has invested so much material and political resources for many years both regionally and internationally will be dead. Therefore fear of failure and desperation for victory dictates giving the benefit of the doubt.

Both reasons are not enough for us to suspend all disbelief. If you are an Arab chauvinist (as there are many among Sudan's ruling elite) who did not believe in sharing power with African Sudanese and who have spent all your live demonising Garang the January peace accord and Garang's swearing in on July 9 was a day of defeat for you. If you were also a Southern chauvinist who believe that peaceful coexistence with your Arab neighbours was not possible then Garang will be a traitor as far as you were concerened.

Between both groups killing Garag would have been on the cards but which of them had the means? Also If you were planning to take your revenge what other circumstance will give you the best cover for your dastardly act and a fool proof alibi than Garang travelling to his foremost allied country and in that country's aircraft manned by its citizens, to mount your counter attack? Even Agatha Christie could not have constructed a more perfect murder . Therefore while we are assured that Garang was under the safe care of his Ugandan allies, who will guarantee us that there were no enemies lying in the jungles of kidepo and environ as the helicopter headed for Lumbek? As for the other reason about wanting peace at all cost it has thrown blinkers in the eyes of many of us . While I am prepared to agree that the top leadership in Khartoum , i.e . Omar Al Bashir and Ali Osman Taha, may mean their commitment to peace we cannot say the same for some of their generals.

Those fervently opposed to the new peace deal do not need the permission of Khartoum to carry out there anti peace efforts. While they may be allies of Khartoum and could have been aided and abetted by them, Khartoum may not be able to control all their efforts. We have curent examples among the Janjaweed elements in Darfur who began as allies of Khartoum but now operate beyond the control of their former masters. Another pertinent example is the Sudan – Uganda deal that even gave Uganda right of hot pursuit into Sudan territory against the LRA. More than two years later LRA is still very much operating in Sudan with the connivance of sections of the Sudanese military and security establishment. Who is to say the same type of fifth columnists were not at work in the border regions of Uganda, Kenya and Sudan last Saturday?

We welcome Uganda's immediate setting up of an investigation panel and call for joint effort with the Government of Sudan, IGAD, and the African Union and international community to independently investigate the crash in order to assure those who are extremely doubtful that it was an unfortunate accident . The same was said of Samora Machel's crash but we know better now. Until we have the report of that panel it is difficult to say a proper goodbye to comrade John Garang . That will come later. For now one is full of why and who type questions. Before you accuse me of being a conspiracy theorist please let me share an anecdote with you. A Schizophrenic Man was accused of being paranoid and he retorted to his accuser: "The fact that I may be paranoid does not mean that there is no one conspiring against me."

* 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]

Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem, our regular columnist, reflects on Norway’s decision to suspend some of its aid to Uganda as a result of faltering democratic reforms. It’s interesting that the West is only now starting to express concern over Uganda after treating President Yoweri Museveni as its ‘darling’ for many years, points our Abdul-Raheem. Museveni’s response of rejecting foreign interference and claiming that the Ugandan electorate should decide on his third term is also questionable. Why didn’t he reject foreign interference when it worked in his favour and why didn’t he consult the electorate when the World Bank and International Monetary Fund came knocking on his door?

Norway has cut some Aid to Uganda reportedly in protest against the 'slow pace and direction of democratic reforms' in the country. The Norwegian Ambassador to the country, Tore Gjos, put a sum to this displeasure at "mishandling of the democratic process'' at a whopping amount of $4 million which is ten percent of total Norwegian Aid to Uganda. The British government earlier in April took a similar line when it withheld $9.5 million in budgetary support to the Uganda government.

It will not be surprising if one or two more so called Donor countries took similar action. But they will be merely symbolic. It is important to note that both the British and the Norwegians talk about 'withholding' not canceling their Aid altogether. So the opposition need not congratulate itself that its campaign against Museveni is succeeding.

No doubt the withholding of Aid has something to do with the stated displeasure at the zigzags in the transitional politics of the country from a virtual one party state to a formal multi party system. The irony is that return to multi-partyism canvassed by both the opposition parties and donor friends of the President for many years - especially after the first ten years of division of Labor between them and the President - is exactly what Museveni has come round to. Is it now a case of not heading the advice: 'Be careful what you pray for, you may just get it'!

From 1986 to 1996 as a reward for bringing Uganda up from the backwaters into a 'positive' role model through macroeconomic reforms Museveni was given a huge discount on the usual democratic conditionalities beloved of Western countries when it pleases them. For being the apostle of IMF/World Bank Structural Adjustment policies he was more or less allowed to shape the politics of the country in his own image. He left the economy to them and they left the politics to him. He became the darling of the west and Kampala a must destination for Western delegations desperate for some good news from Africa or wanting to feel good about themselves.

However the romance has gone bad for many reasons. One, Uganda is no longer the single success story it used to be. Just look at the stories about Mozambique today and you wonder if you were not talking about Uganda of the 1990s. Two, almost all African countries have accepted the reactionary neo-liberal orthodoxy that proclaims that there is no alternative to the market. With so many of them prostrating before imperialism there is no need to be specially disposed towards one particular state or leader.

Three, imperialism has only permanent interests, not permanent friends. This is something that African and other Third world leaders always miss. They think they are so close, so popular and well liked in Washington, Paris, London or Brussels and delude themselves that they are indispensable. They are as dispensable as disposable towels in a toilet. When their Western patrons are tired of them they turn off the tap. The same people who praise them to the heavens as 'the best leader possible' 'the savior of the country', 'the best they can offer' or 'without him there will be chaos' will turn round to condemn them in the direct opposite of those praises.

Four, one of the consequences of the collapse of the Soviet bloc is a more positive environment for democratic politics to take root in many countries. While the West is not necessarily interested in democracy but continuing domination / exploitation, in recent years they are becoming more sophisticated in trying to give democratic legitimacy to their domination through some legitimate domestic processes. Partly this is because civil society in the West itself demands that their governments support what they preach although where their interests are more threatened like Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Pakistan, they do not shout so much. Also domestic pressures in many countries challenge the West's hypocrisy and double standards but also make democratic claims on their rulers. However for the many Banana/Ugali republics in Africa their shouts are much louder and impact more direct.

President Museveni and his supporters have generally reacted in two predictable ways. One, they consider the threats of cutting Aid or withholding such and critical comments on the political transition as unacceptable foreign intervention. Their second counter is a seemingly democratic one. All the political issues, they argue, are to be decided by 'the people' therefore it is undemocratic for foreign countries to think they know better than the Ugandan electorate.

In principle both counters are legitimate but the politics is not. Uganda and President Museveni enjoyed so much foreign patronage and basked in it for so long that it is too late in the day to start decrying foreign intervention. They are not opposed to foreign intervention in principle as long as it is on their side. They obviously think that the saying 'those who pay the piper dictate the tune' does not apply to them.

The second argument about letting the people decide is the most unconvincing of the various populist responses from the NRM. They did not ask the people of Uganda when they went to the IMF/World Bank and prostituted themselves to all kinds of donors and foreign interests in the name of inviting investors to Uganda and building a middle class, so why now ask the people to decide only when you have contradictions with your friends? It is not every time that people vote that there is democracy or even a democratic outcome. Even Hitler came in through the ballot box.

The bitter truth though is that after this process is all over the same donors will crawl back to the state house in Kampala bearing their Greek gifts and the president will make his usual jokes, pet talks and foreign rounds and things will return to business as usual. It happened in 1996 and 2001 and who says it will not repeat itself even in the changing circumstances of 2006?

The NRM has succeeded in creating an opposition whose internal bickering and inconsistencies make many to fear them more even when they are alienated from the government. The opposition must learn from the experience of other pro-democracy groups in Africa like Senegal where it took more than forty years and an alliance of 17 opposition parties to get rid of Abdu Diouf or Ghana where Jerry Rawlings' party was fought to a standstill and eventual surrender through consistent battles within democratic spaces opened up through a constitution that he had orchestrated to perpetuate himself or his party if self -succession failed.

Or just look across to neighboring Kenya where after several years of squabbles and internecine warfare, once Moi was not in the picture the opposition was able to get rid of KANU. In both Ghana and Kenya it was important that the long-term ruler was not standing in the election. This is where the removal of limitation on presidential terms in Uganda posits different challenges for a coalition of opposition parties. As long as the President is standing it may be extremely difficult but as the Abdu Diouf experience in Senegal shows, it is not impossible.

What unites all three examples is the continuing engagement by the political parties within the skewed and unbalanced political field but at the same time niggling away at the authority of the ruling party. They did not achieve their victory through boycotts and I do not see how Uganda's anti-NRM groups will use boycott to get rid of Museveni and the NRM. How can they boycott a referendum simply because the government is on the same side. Why bother about the reasons of the NRM instead of concentrating on their own intentions for supporting a return to multi-party democracy? Why boycott the referendum and then contest the election to follow?

* 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]

Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is at a loss for words over the current Live 8 and G8 attention for Africa. “It is like being offered a handkerchief by the same person who is beating the hell out of you,” he writes, preferring to focus his attention on the just-concluded African Union summit of heads of state that took place in Shirte, Libya. It was at this summit, he argues, that decisions about he real future of Africa were being made.

How I wish I could write this article from beginning to end without mentioning the G8, Tony Blair, Geldof or any of the other busy bodies running around like headless chickens claiming they want to help Africa. I will try and try very hard.

One of the difficulties with becoming flavour of the moment is that you forget what you want for yourself as others divest you of the power to help yourself. Everybody loves Africa now and is going to desperate lengths to show why they are our new best friends!

It is like South Africa after the release of Nelson Mandela from prison. Suddenly we could not find any supporters for the loathed apartheid system anymore both inside and outside of South Africa. Even the Boer Nationalist Party that institutionalised apartheid became anti apartheid. Everywhere Mandela went powerful politicians in powerful countries in Europe and America who had shielded the apartheid regime from international sanctions and prevented censure of the racist regime in multi lateral forums including the UN Security Council, Commonwealth, EU, etc were all queuing up to have their pictures taken with the Great Madiba. They all reinvented their political CVs to show how all along they had been fighting for his release and an end to apartheid. One of the worst of this latter day friend of South African Liberation was Margaret Thatcher, who as British Prime Minister resisted any criticisms of apartheid South Africa, invited Botha on a state visit to London and described the ANC as a 'typical terrorist organisation like the IRA.'

Africa is in a similar situation now. It is difficult to know how to react to this sudden show of concern for a people that have been so marginalized and humiliated for such a long time. It is like being offered a handkerchief by the same person who is beating the hell out of you.

After last Saturday's multi-city parties the whole world is now programmed to look up to eight white men in dark suits meeting in far away Gleneagles, Scotland, to save Africa. None of them is an African.

Yet a much bigger assembly of another powerful group of people, all of them heads of state from across Africa, were meeting in the Libyan city of Shirte deciding on the future of Africa without a similar focus in the global media.

It is these people through their action and inaction who have the power to change things for the better or worse on this continent. Anybody who really cares about helping Africa needs to know what these group of unfortunately, all men, have been saying to themselves.

The fifth ordinary Summit of the Assembly of the African Union has just ended in Shirte. The leaders amongst other pressing issues had to address themselves to the dances for poverty and pledges for action from outsiders about Africa. They welcomed the initial debt relief package for developing countries out of which 15 African countries will benefit. However they called for universal debt cancellation that benefits all African countries, not just a select few.

This is a logical consensus given previous experience of African countries scandalously competing among themselves about who is more connected in Washington, London or Paris. Individually they sold out but collectively we may regain some dignity and credibility. They have to avoid being played against each other. The separate deal for debt relief for Nigeria is potentially one of those divide and rule tactics. It may limit Nigeria's capacity to talk on behalf of Africa and also neutralise it in bloc negotiations, whether in the WTO or in the IMF/World Bank. My own suspicion is that they have agreed to throw this carrot at Nigeria as an advance compensation for her not to get the much-coveted UN Security Council permanent seat, which will more likely go to South Africa.

Significantly, the AU summit did not dwell so much on aid but rather called for the abolition of unfair trading rules that rig international trade against Africa and asked for a clear timetable for the abolition of these subsidies. One can see that the African leaders are not taken in by various pledges on aid and rather want us to trade our way to prosperity instead of being aided to remain dependent. This contrasts with Prophet Blair's breakthrough in getting a calendar on aid targets. The AU is saying we need some fair-trade not some aid.

These are the messages that the African leaders invited to the G8 as side salads will be taking to Gleneagles. I really wish that these leaders would stop ridiculing themselves by appearing like an NGO lobby group at the Summit of Rich White Men. From next year they should have a face-to-face summit to review any progress on mutually agreed targets. After all that is what the mutual accountability principle in the African Peer Review Mechanism is all about. It is about us judging ourselves and also mutually judging each other with our so-called international partners.

Apart from the response to the G8, the AU summit made numerous decisions on a variety of issues that have direct impact on Africa and Africans in more of a way than anything a group of ageing rockers and an exclusive club of white men will do for Africa.

One of those defining issues is the call by the Brother Leader, Muammar Gadaffi, which President Museveni immediately supported, for an all-African Union government and a dismantling of all barriers to freedom of movement for Africans across Africa. While many dismiss this as hasty and too ambitious I would like to remind them to rewind to the reaction to Gadaffi's call for an acceleration of the integration process through a review of the OAU charter at an Extra ordinary summit in the same city of Shirte in September 1999. Then as now the idea was initially dismissed as far-fetched but within three years we had the African Union. Its institutions are now taking shape and at this summit the Libyan leader was upping the stakes for the AU to rise up to the next phase of the struggle for unity without which we will remain beggars and vulnerable to extra African powers. There is no point in asking the rich countries to open up their markets to us when we close ours against each other. We cannot sustainably globalise without Africanising.

* 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]

Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem reports on a week-long commemoration of the life of Walter Rodney, held in Guyana. Rodney was assassinated on June 13, 1980, but continues to be remembered for his principled politics, philosophy of human and self-emancipation, leadership by example and commitment to the masses.

On June 13 it was exactly 25 years since the assassination of the Guyanese scholar-activist, Walter Rodney. To commemorate his life the Walter Rodney International Commemoration Committee headed by Professor Horace Campbell and their local counter parts in Guyana organised a week long series of groundings across the country that culminated in the unveiling of a memorial plaque and opening of a public park around the spot where Rodney was assassinated on June 13 1980, by a remote controlled bomb.

The government of Burnham Forbes claimed that a bombing device he was carrying, allegedly to attack the central prison where some of the activists of his party, Working Peoples Alliance of Guyana (WPA) were being held, killed Rodney. This official lie could have turned his assassination into a perfect murder but for the fact that his brother, Donald, was with him in the fateful car and survived the explosion. A state security operative, Smith, was fingered as the perpetrator of the dastardly act. He was quickly spirited out of the country to French Guyana where he died a few years ago. The murder trail did not begin or end with Smith. Burnham Forbes regime and his party, the PNC, bears responsibility for the assassination and the cover up since then. It is sad that 25 years after the assassination and thirteen years since the PNC was replaced as governing party by the PPP no closure has been brought to the Rodney assassination.

The commemoration was not about Rodney's death but a celebration of his principled politics, philosophy of human and self-emancipation, leadership by example and consistent practice. It was also about Rodney's life-long commitment to the masses. Participants came from several countries and continents including the Caribbean, Europe, North America and Africa. Many of them were people who knew and worked with Rodney and others were those who were influenced by his writing.

Prof. Ali Mazrui was there as was Prof. Loxley. Both of them were at Makerere University when Rodney was at the University of Dar Es Salaam. In a very generous appreciation -despite ideological and political differences with Rodney - Prof. Mazrui paid tribute to Rodney and recounted with great humour and truthfulness the famous Mazrui-Rodney debate at the Great Hall of Makerere University, where for many years Mazrui was the leading academic.

Rodney's widow, Patricia, and their three children: Shaka, Kanini and Asha (the last two were born in Dar es Salaam) were there. Pat and her two daughters (one a medical Doctor and the other a human rights lawyer) were in Guyana for the first time since Rodney's assassination. Shaka (who is in business in Barbados) had been home before in the early years of the PPP government when he staged a hunger strike to force an inquiry into his father's assassination. The government did set up some commission, which soon fizzled out.

At the official opening, Dr Patricia Rodney gave a comprehensive appreciation of her late husband as a human being, imperfect but an ordinary man who did extra ordinary things. It was highly emotional to hear Pat sweeping through their trials and tribulations from Guyana to the UK to Jamaica to Tanzania back to Guyana in 1974 and leading to Walter's assassination 6 years later. The meeting recognised, applauded and saluted Pat's courage, determination and comradeship with Rodney. Often we treat our 'heroes' in isolation of their private lives and forget about their family lives and loves. Sometimes it is as if they died with the hero. Patricia was not just a wife to Rodney but a partner and comrade in arms. The way she has raised their children after his tragic death at a very young age of only 38 is a testimony to her fully shared commitment with Walter that a different world is possible.

For many Africans Walter's legacy remains his influential and seminal book: ‘How Europe Underdeveloped Africa’. A book that was published when Walter was only 29 years old having secured his PHD at the age of 24! By whatever standard -whether professionally or politically - Rodney was an exceptional person whose influence will continue among all struggling peoples desiring a different world and working to make it possible.

In ‘How Europe Undeveloped Africa’ Rodney laid bare the historical process through which Africa became the mess that we see all around us. He established that there was nothing natural or God ordained about the processes. They were man made and therefore changeable by act of human will and determination. He showed how Africa developed before contact with Europeans through slavery (400 years) and colonialism (100 years); what happened under slavery and colonialism and how both led to Africa contributing to the development of Europe while Europe was under developing Africa in the same process.

Rodney was not just a brilliant academic but also a committed political activist who put his knowledge at the service of the masses wherever he was. He was a scholar who proved through his life that the true test of knowledge was a proven capacity for action. Whether in Jamaica where he began his academic career or Tanzania where he became internationally prominent or in Guyana where he returned (initially to teach but the government withdrew the appointment when he arrived) Rodney was part of all the struggles around him.

In Dar, which was then a centre of progressive ideas, Rodney was part of the ferment, supporting the struggles and at times offering critical inputs. He made friends and comrades of many leading radical intellectuals and liberation fighters of the time and influenced generations of students. I wonder though what Rodney would have said to some of his comrades like President Museveni, who have captured state power and instead of building socialism and a new society have made their peace with imperialism and free market.

Sadder still, what would Rodney have made of Tanzania of today where the term Ndugu is more out of jest than the camaraderie of the past, a place where Uhuru "now has a new name …..mobitel" as caricatured in a an advert for mobile phones I saw a few years ago on the streets of Dar.

When he returned to Guyana and he was denied his professorial post at the University he turned to independent research, publishing the first volume of his definite ‘History of the Guyanese Working Class’. He showed how whether Indian or African, the Guyanese workers were exploited first by colonialists and later successive ruling elites - be they African or Indian. From that analysis he sought a solution in building an alliance of workers across the race and ethnic divide. That was how he and other progressive elements formed the Working Peoples Alliance whose aim was social transformation of Guyana. That political stance and his popularity across the divides made him a number one enemy.

But the remembrance has shown that though Rodney is dead his ideas and example continues to live on. It was very symbolic that one of the highlights of the activities was an all-night cultural extravaganza, ‘Rhythm for Rodney’ which was held in Burnham's former house where he and his henchmen were waiting for the news of Walter's assassination on that fateful evening on June 13 1980.

The theme of the groundings was ‘A different world is necessary' but it is not only necessary it is possible. The people of Guyana and other Caribbean states simmering under not so hidden racial bigotry and sectarian politics need Rodney's non racialist pro-people politics; Africa needs his non mercenary scholarship and political commitment to the cause of the masses while the world need his message of love for all humanity and optimism about the capacity of ordinary folks supported by organic intellectuals and other progressives to change their conditions for the better.

In addition to many practical resolutions and action points agreed on the final day of the groundings, we adopted two important resolutions. Both of them were directed at the Guyanese people and government but those outside can lend their support through active solidarity. The first resolution asks that Rodney's contribution to Guyana be recognised statutorily by him being declared a national hero.

The second resolution supported the call by Patricia Rodney and their family for a closure to be brought to the assassination through an International Commission of Enquiry. Without truth there cannot be any hope of reconciliation. You can support these calls by writing letters to the President of Guyana or any Guyanese High Commission, Consulate or other diplomatic mission near you. You can urge your foreign minister or Heads of State/ Government to raise these issues with their Guyanese counterparts at various multilateral diplomatic forums where they meet. As another Caribbean radical intellectual activist, CLR James used to say: " There is always something that can be done". Keep Rodney alive by doing something today.

* Visit the Website of the Walter Rodney Commemoration Committee for full reports of the Groundings and also other groundings across the world and related activities:

* 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]

Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem expresses concern that UK Prime Minister Tony Blair’s focus on Africa is going to be yet another Shakespearean tale, "… told by an idiot, full of sound and fury signifying nothing." Instead of Blair preaching to the rest of the world about Africa let the British government challenge other Western and richer countries by showing good example through confession and remorse and then tangible concrete action that shows that it has its mouth in tandem with its pocket.

Britain has adopted Africa as a centrepiece of its Foreign Policy this year. In his usual missionary approach the British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, has re branded himself from being the Secretary of State for America into Prime Minister for Africa. It was in this Africa mode that he went to America, earlier this week, to try to exact some concessions from his bully buddy, Bush. Blair's mission was to persuade Bush to buy into his three-pronged Africa programme: More aid, debt cancellation and international trade reforms. He arrived in Britain on Wednesday with a few million dollars in pledges from the Americans towards drought relief in the horn of Africa. There was also a promise to consider 100% debt cancellation for some 32 countries in Africa.

British NGOs and antipoverty campaigners have already condemned Bush's crumbs to Blair as miserly and far below the multi billion aid begging bowl Blair is expecting the rest of the richer countries to contribute to before their rich men's club meeting in Gleneagles next month. Bush defended himself by drawing attention to the fact that he had trebled aid to Africa already and given 15 billion dollars towards HIV/Aids in Africa. Of course what he did not say is that even more dubious than under the cold war, American aid is now more tied to compliant regimes in Africa no matter how unpopular they are with their peoples. This as long as they are on the side of his war without end in the name of international terrorism. Most of his AIDS money will actually be beneficial to American pharmaceutical companies and their very expensive medicines because the Americans are opposed to cheaper derivative drugs from India, Brazil, China or South Africa. Also the administration believes only in abstinence campaigns and it is prisoner to faith-based (meaning Christian fundamentalist) groups and lobbies. This means that what Bush gives with one hand is immediately taken with the other through his big business and religious sponsors.

As a Bush-Blair cynic I am not really surprised at the games being played by these global con men but unfortunately there are still too many people both in Britain and outside who still believe that Tony means well and somehow he can persuade Bush and the rest of the world to do right by Africa. My position is that instead of Blair preaching to the rest of the world about Africa let the British government challenge other Western and richer countries by showing good example through confession and remorse and then tangible concrete action that shows that it has its mouth in tandem with its pocket.

Even if he has now succeeded in getting Bush to use nearly the same language as him on debt cancellation this is where it stops. The devil as they say is in the details. The Bush people want debt cancellation to be paid for by the lending multilateral institutions such as the IMF and the World Bank. This may mean that money pledged for relief of poverty will be diverted to debt cancellation. In plain language: No new monies on the table just a recycling of what is already available. In biblical terms it means robbing Peter to pay Paul.

So where does this leave Blair and his big plans for Africa? Nowhere really. While he has put high premiums on persuading his American bosses the truth is that other G8 countries are not really singing their hymns from the same book as him. Germany, France and Japan have their own priorities and would not be lectured to by a British Prime Minister on his way out of No 10 Downing Street. Blair may be seeking his international legacy via Africa but both the German Chancellor and the French President are also seeking their own legacies too, and Africa may not play big in their calculations.

Also this premium on Washington ignores other multilateral creditors to Africa such as the Africa Development Bank which in many cases, is a bigger lender of development loans to many African countries. African countries still hold a majority stake in the bank. Why is Blair not canvassing them for support on his debt right off? It must be his patronising assumption that once Europe and America agrees which African dares oppose? Two weeks ago Blair's people made a big play on the EU countries agreeing to double aid to Africa as yet another major breakthrough. This will be done by 2008. But the same EU was already committed to making AID 0.7% of GNP for thirty years and renewed this pledge 5 years ago through the Millennium Development Goals of the UN. Are we to celebrate their promising to reach 0.50% when they promised 0.70% 30 years ago?

My concern is that this Blair focus on Africa is going to be yet another Shakespearean tale, "… told by an idiot, full of sound and fury signifying nothing."

Africans must stop looking outside for our progress. Our salvation is within us. We are our own liberators.

Does that mean there is nothing outsiders can do to help us? No, there is a role for others but we cannot adequately take advantage of other peoples' help if we have not decided what we want to do for ourselves and how we want to go about it.

When Bob Geldof was challenged about why he is organising a concert for Africa 21 years after his first one and there are no African musicians apart from Yousof N'dour, the pathetic response from one of his spokespersons was that he did not have African musicians in his address book. This from a man who is regarded as Mr Africa globally merely shows how Westerners regard Africans as objects of their sympathy rather than agents of changing their own situation.

We have to summon the courage to stand up to these new missionaries in Africa represented by western humanitarian NGOs and politicians like Blair and ‘Globatricians’ like Bob Geldof. Their 'good' intentions must match our aspirations. We should do it together where possible, do it alone where necessary but at every stage we should have the veto, not them. We cannot outsource our progress and development. To borrow a phrase recently used by my Good Ndugu, Firoze Manji, Editor of Pambazuka News: Nothing About Us without Us.

* 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]

Twenty years after Live Aid Sir Bob Geldof will take his charity music show to the stage again in multi-city concerts scheduled for Paris, Berlin, Rome and Philadelphia. Tajudeen Abdul Raheem is amazed that 20 years after Live Aid events like these are still being planned and executed without visible participation of Africans. The whole process, he says, is “like trying to shave someone’s head in their absence”.

Sir Bob Geldof (aka Saint Bob) on Tuesday ended speculation about staging a repeat of his 1985 Live Aid concert that raised global awareness about Famine in Africa. The successful re-release last Christmas of the record ‘Do they Know its Christmas time’, 20 years after the original release, fuelled speculation that Live Aid could be repeated in 2005.

Further pressures for this restaging had to do with the politics that led to the prominent role Geldof played in instigating Blair to set up his Commission for Africa (CfA). The CfA report committed the British government to making Africa a centre-piece of British Chairmanship of both the EU and the G8 from next month.

A number of campaigns by NGOs and development lobbyists in the UK culminating in the yearlong ‘Make Poverty History’ coalition are also contributing to shaping the British agenda.

The symbolism and propaganda value of these orchestrated coincidences were just overwhelming. The NGO world, but the very big international ones in particular, are more and more media-driven. Therefore packaging misery and targeting critical national and global events have become necessary tool kits for massive fundraising. In that context it was difficult to see how Geldof could resist the pressure for ‘another show’.

Despite initial declarations to the contrary the announcement Tuesday showed how Bob, despite being the global face of this humanitarian effort, is also driven by its opportunistic dynamics. The campaign has been so successful that even if he had refused to cooperate they would have manufactured another media saint to front it. It has become a global brand for sleek missionary activity on Africa. And there are plenty of mega stars and their publicists and assorted moguls of the entertainment industry who will do anything to harness the global good will and market that such a huge concert bring. Just as it is difficult for any big name to say no to Bob so it has become impossible for St Bob to say no to ‘one more time’.

The compromise show that may still be regarded by many as Live Aid 2 despite it being launched as LIVE 8. Despite the fact that it will bring together all the big names in Western music the concert will not be just about music and charity. Geldof and his colleagues, learning from both their two decades experience of doing charity and criticisms of opponents of Aid, have come to accept that charity (while still important as human demonstration of empathy and solidarity) is not the way forward for helping Africa. This is a very important shift. LIVE 8 will focus on the G8 leaders meeting the same week as the concert is being held in London and other 4 Western cities; Paris, Berlin, Rome and Philadelphia. In Britain the organisers are hoping that they will be able to mobilise a million protesters to converge on Edinburgh to demand an end to poverty in Africa, fair trade, debt write off and more aid for Africa. Similar protests are supposed to take place simultaneously in all G8 countries.

As one of those people critical of aid-addicted Africans and the Western aid pushers what can I possibly have against the proposed concert, especially the shift to some form of direct action? I welcome the shift and salute the courage of those building this solidarity movement for Africa. In particular shifting the debate away from aid may help to recover some of the loss of self-respect and attacks on the dignity of Africans consequent to constant negative images of starving Africa in order to extract Western sympathy. It may help to stop seeing Africa and Africans as victims but agents of our own fortunes and misfortunes, even if often in collaboration or collusion with others. More importantly the shift should help focus on the structural linkages between our mass poverty and the riches of the West. So pervasive has been the humanitarian disaster ideology about Africa that many westerners do not know that critical components of their computers, mobile phones, jewellery, motor cars, museums, and many of their day to day comfort items began life in Africa as precious metals and raw materials. While all these mental shifts are both desirable and necessary I cannot help being troubled by the processes of engagement. Even good things can be done in the wrong ways.

How is it defensible that 20 years after Live Aid and all the sea changes that Africa and the rest of the world have witnessed these activities are still being planned and executed without visible participation of Africans? It is like trying to shave someone’s head in their absence. Who are the big or small African artists, Musicians, cultural workers, etc, involved in this concert? Did they ask Hugh Masekela and was he too tired? Did Miriam Makeba say she was too busy? Is Fela Kuti unable to break an engagement? Where is Baba Maal? What about Yousou Ndor? What of Yvonne Chaka Chaka or Angelica Kidjo? Where are the Congo Musicians? We can go on and on. Could there not have been a symbolic African venue for this multi-city concert? Surely even if many African countries do not have the facilities South Africa does have the infrastructure to broadcast to the whole world?

Even the wider anti-poverty campaigns essentially use Africans as colourful canvasses to legitimise the narratives. They are wheeled on and off as the propaganda demands.

These omissions are not because of ignorance but the result of a mindset that “infantilises” Africans and cannot trust Africans to do anything for themselves including even telling the world where our shoes are pinching us. That’s why you see so many well-fed foreign ‘experts’ and increasingly their junior African partners getting huge sums of money to do poverty assessment and workshops across Africa. We are not even experts on our own poverty. Africans are the only people doomed to be perpetual students of their own condition and further condemned to be perpetually taught by outsiders as experts, consultants, activists, defenders or spokespersons!

It is a repackaging of the ‘white man’s burden’ ideology. The only way we can reverse this colonial mindset is for us to relearn the Uhuru spirit of doing things for ourselves and unlearn the mental slavery that makes us so vulnerable to outsiders.

Statistically, head for head, there are probably many millions more poor people in both India and China yet no western power dares suggest that they will create a commission for India or China. While India is seen as being able to solve her problems China is now even more feared as a serious global power.

Neither the Chinese nor the Indians will want to be invited by others to seek solutions to their problems.

No amount of marches in Europe and global concerts for Africa will end poverty in Africa if Africans are not marching in their millions demanding and enforcing pro poor and pro people policies and governance from their own governments and institutions. We cannot be spectators in our own affairs.

* 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]

On the occasion of Africa Day, Tajudeen Abdul Raheem argues that Kwame Nkrumah’s famous dictum that “the independence of Ghana is meaningless without the total liberation of Africa” is still true today. “While then it was regarded as the utopian wish of a romantic Pan-Africanist, in the face of today’s dual threat of re-colonisation and rapacious globalisation, those words should be made the opening sentence of the national anthem of every country in Africa.”

I wonder how many readers knew that yesterday, May 25, was Africa Liberation Day. Do not be ashamed if you did not notice it. I am not sure if many noticed the day either in many African countries and among different African Diaspora communities.

In years gone by the Day used to be marked officially by several governments and unofficially celebrated by many groups in Africa and the Diaspora. Now there are only scattered activities by people who have not given up on the belief that ‘A different Africa is possible’.

It is a day of solidarity with the various struggles of African peoples for justice, equality, human dignity, freedom, unity and liberation. It was founded in 1958 (April 15) and called Africa Freedom Day, as a result of the first All African People’s conferences called by the indomitable Osagyefo, Kwame Nkrumah.

Nkrumah is the foremost Pan-Africanist of all times, a fact remembered and honoured by Africans world wide who voted him ‘Greatest African of the Millennium’ in a BBC poll in 2000, despite orchestrated campaigns by supporters of other living or dead claimants.

The two conferences of 1958 were called by Nkrumah as Prime Minister of newly independent Ghana, to show solidarity and plan strategies for the total liberation of Africa from colonialism. Those conferences brought together the few independent countries of Africa and the representatives of nationalists groups and liberation movements from across Africa and a few observers from the Diaspora. Frantz Fanon was there with the Algerian Liberation Movement against French Colonialism, FLN, and it was in the second of those two conferences that the charismatic Patrice Lumumba was introduced to the world three years after he led Congo to freedom. He was later assassinated in a grand conspiracy between erstwhile colonial interests and local reactionaries, aided and abetted by complacent UN and global powers namely US, France and Belgium. Does the story not sound too familiar more than four decades later? How times have changed but somehow, remarkably, remained the same when it comes to the exploitation of Africa’s resources and oppression of Africans.

When the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) was formed in Addis, May 25 1963, Africa Freedom Day became Africa Liberation Day (ALD) as a symbol of the resolve, commitment and support of all Africa for the total decolonisation of the continent.

As ‘the winds of change’ blew away colonial rule from most of Africa it dug in in the former Portuguese colonies of Guinea-Bissau, Angola, Mozambique and through settler colonialism in apartheid South Africa, occupied Namibia and Ian Smith’s Rhodesia (Zimbabwe since 1980). Consequently ALD became synonymous with solidarity with these struggles and the near total support and solidarity that they enjoyed among all Africans at home and in the Diaspora and lovers of freedom globally.

Unfortunately while Africa was united against apartheid and colonialism the same could not be said for the struggles against the neo-colonialism that turned independence into a new form of dependence and oppression of African peoples. The same leaders that were giving support for the liberation of South Africa were busy stifling the aspirations of their own peoples for real independence and an end to neo-colonial power relations. While Africa was united against colonialism it was divided in the face of neo-colonialism and internal oppression by fellow Africans.

Instead of independence from colonialism developing into meaningful cooperation to advance concrete Pan Africanism and an all African union and government, the agenda shifted to the elite maintaining power in the various artificial states bequeathed by colonialism. Increasingly it became power for the sake of it in one state after the other. Consequently Africa became more vulnerable for the cold warriors, unequal international power relations, debt crisis, etc.

As Africa became a byword for the poorest cousins of the rest of the world there is no surprise that the enthusiasm for Africa Day disappeared in many countries. There was also triumphalism after the successful defeat of apartheid in South Africa in 1994. All Africans and friends of Africa were genuinely euphoric that South Africa became free in our life times. Somehow it was wrongly felt that Africa had finished its liberation wars. The OAU even officially closed its Africa Liberation Committee based in Dar es Salaam! But even in South Africa itself the end of apartheid, as important as it was, became the beginning of a new struggle for the majority of the people to fully reclaim their dignity and control their society. The agenda of liberation cannot be finished, it will only change from one generation to the other.

Nkrumah’s famous dictum that ‘the independence of Ghana is meaningless without the total liberation of Africa’ is still true today and even more relevant. While then it was regarded as the utopian wish of a romantic Pan Africanist, in the face of today’s dual threat of re-colonisation and rapacious globalisation, those words should be made the opening sentence of the national anthem of every country in Africa.

In the past few years Africa has been returning to the drawing board of Pan-Africanism. The new African Union with all its contradictions and the various struggles within and outside it represent an advance from the past while we seek further clarity and decisive action towards the future. It offers a wider scope for all Africans to be part of the solution instead of just complaining about the many problems.

Instead of constantly enumerating what this leader or that leader is doing wrong why don’t you ask yourself what, no matter how small, you are doing as an individual, a member of an organisation, part of a community, your profession and in whatever station you are, to advance the cause of Africa and the dignity of the African. We all can do something or do nothing.

As we say in the Pan African Movement: ‘don’t agonise! Organise!’. Just a thought: if people are no longer connecting to the historical inspirations for Africa Day why don’t we agitate for a proclamation of an African Union Day (July 09) as a symbol of our commitment to make Pan Africanism relevant for our times and the younger generation?

* 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 current corruption crackdown by Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo has been met with cynicism by some sections of the Nigerian public, who have questioned the motives of the president. In this context Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem remembers a humourous incident involving the president, some protestors and a new passport.

A couple of years ago President Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria was the chief guest at Uganda's independence celebrations. As to be expected the Nigerian high commission in Uganda held a reception for him and invited the Nigerian community in the country to lunch
with the president.

For most of my time in Uganda I was in the unusual position of being one of the 'prominent Nigerians' in the country. Even when I could not go to the country during the military dictatorship the high commission was still kind enough to consider me worthy of being invited to meet all kinds of delegations from Nigeria. Their attitude was quite different from that of the Nigerian high commission in London with which I had only public demonstration and picketing engagements with throughout the same period.

What passes for the Nigerian community in Uganda is actually mostly West African citizens resident in the country. Since Nigeria is the only West African country with diplomatic representation in East Africa and Central Africa its high commissions or embassies serve as a West African diplomatic mission. For me that is the clearest proof, if any is needed, that Pan-Africanism is common sense. It is not only desirable but cost effective, efficient and pervades all our lives consciously and unconsciously among our peoples and between our states - both deliberately but often out of necessity.

The only obstacle is our artificial states created to serve other people's interests. They are illegitimate in the lives of many Africans. They often demonstrate their presence through the numerous inconveniences they can put in the way of their citizens. Many of them are so insecure about their existence they try to proove their independence and sovereignty in everything, including declaring themselves independent of the truth!

At the Obasanjo reception there was a group of 'Nigerian Boys' (mostly serial adventurers in transit in search of greener pastures) carrying placards protesting against exorbitant fees for acquiring the then newly introduced computerised Nigerian passports and the long bureaucracy in getting them.

Obasanjo, speaking after the lunch, in a mixture of standard English laced with Yoruba accent and the more universal Nigerian Pidgin English, in the spacious grounds of the High Commissioner's residence, confronted the demonstrators directly. He assured them that he was not trying to make money for the government of Nigeria through a hike in money paid for passports. He said the hike in the fees was due to the high standards of technical design of the new passports, which cost more to produce. It was computerised with a requirement for fingerprints. All these were necessary not just to catch up with the latest technology but because according to the President "I am tired of being a 419 President".

419 is a decree passed by a military government in Nigeria meant to punish people who are engaged in advance fees fraud on contracts allegedly awarded by Nigerian governments, its agencies and parastatals. Any user of the Internet will now know that there is nothing Nigerian about these scams anymore. All kinds of fraudsters from other countries in Africa through the Middle East and other parts of the world have joined in usually claiming to be sons, daughters, wives, concubines, etc, of one big man or the other who recently died but left the putative relative the secret code to huge sums of money which he/she now wants to pass through your account!

The original Nigerian scam was straight-forward. It played on the corrupt ‘contractocracy’ (government of contractors by contractors and for contractors that the country had become). The perpetrators usually claim to have secured a huge contract from the ministry of defence, national oil parastatals or a big person in the central bank. They will then quote fantastic figures to a recent contract that they
have secured. However there will always be a snag, some cogs in the greasy wheel that have to be oiled. Someone needs to be 'given something' so that the monies can be released quickly. That is where, if you are a bent greedy person yourself, you will be roped in. They will suggest you help with x amount of money to speed up the process and bingo, you can laugh your way to the bank.

Obasanjo was candid with his audience and explained how he had met two young men in Yola prison - where he was imprisoned by Abacha - who had given him tutorials on how 419 worked. He always also expressed his indignation at being informed of Nigerians in prisons in very distant shores he had traveled to. Therefore the computerized passport was part of the government's strategy to control the access to the passports which were previously available to the highest bidder. I am not sure if computerisation has changed anything. The President believed that the new passports were difficult to forge.

Trying to be more Catholic than his Pope, the high commissioner went further than his boss by stating that the new passport was "impossible to forge". In the crude frankness that Obasanjo is famous for he looked at his Uganda representative with bemusement that made all of us listening laugh. He retorted: "Mr Ambassador, it is difficult but not impossible - nothing is impossible for a Nigerian.” Even the placard bearing demonstrators fell about laughing and threw away their placards. Obasanjo was being realistic about the ingenuity and the negative creativity of his compatriots, but still determined to be one step up fighting the corruption (perpetrated by a few) that has become a bye word for the country.

His current anti corruption crusade that has already claimed two ministers and also the dismissal of the inspector general of police recently are part of this war against corruption. It may not end corruption but hopefully bring about some fear and sense of shame that may make the Nigerian elite to think twice before plunging into the national treasury. It is a long way from reversing the culture of graft in public office but the spectacle of seeing the former inspector of police in handcuffs being matched into a courthouse may send signals that no one is untouchable.

This week another trial began of the former federal minister for education, Prof. Fabian Osuji (definitely no connection with the more noble British Fabian Socialists), the former president of the senate (the third in line in the country) and other top officials of the education ministry and some national legislators. The minister had allegedly bribed members of a subcommittee of the national assembly in order to get his ministry's budget passed without alteration.

Many Nigerians are very cynical about the trials, the timing and the motives of their president. I am no admirer of Obasanjo and his “I-know all” executive insecurities but the baby and the birth water should be separated. The fact that all thieves may not be caught should not mean that those caught should not be punished. The law may not catch up with all lawbreakers but there must be certainty that those caught will be punished according to the law without any fear or favour.

* 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]

Tony Blair (B.Liar to his enemies) is set for a third term after moving his New Labour Party so far to the right that it is almost indistinguishable from the opposition Conservative Party, writes Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem. His three-term reign, to the puzzlement of African leaders under international pressure to show commitment to good governance by stepping down after two terms, is bad news for ethnic minorities.

Next Thursday, May 5, is general election day in Britain. Barring a very dramatic shift through a last minute change of mind by millions of voters, the governing Labour Party will be returned for another term in office.

The election has been dogged by a number of clouds of uncertainties that may not have anything to do with a fundamental difference between the Labour Party and the main opposition Conservative Party. In fact the biggest problem for the Conservatives is that under Tony Blair (those who cannot stand him call him TORY B-LIAR!) his New Labour has outdone the Tories in their reactionary politics and policies, whether on immigration, law and order or the economy.

The second opposition party, the Liberal Democratic Party, is more distinguishable from the other two by a wide barge on key policy alternatives, but unfortunately these nice people (as they are generally believed to be) are undermined by the undemocratic ‘first past the post system’ that advantages the two main parties. Both Labour and the Tories are beneficiaries of a disproportionate distribution of seats in parliament as a result of having their core voters concentrated in key regions, thereby gaining a majority of seats even without a substantial majority of the popular vote. Unless proportional representation is introduced across the board (not just restricted to European Elections as at the moment) it would be difficult for any third party to make a breakthrough in Britain.

So the voters are forced to decide between one set of Tories and another one. Personality and presentation assume more influence in such a situation. British politics is significantly being Americanised and emptied of substantial ideological differences and political cleavages that may make it pointless choosing between either of the two dominant parties.

The outcome of the election is not a foregone conclusion in many of the marginal constituencies and among different kinds of disgruntled groups. First among these are natural labour voters who are disappointed in Tony Blair's arrogant leadership and toadyism to Bush - especially over Iraq and other foreign policy summersaults. The media and Labour politicians often disingenuously talk of those angry about Iraq as if they are all 'disaffected Muslims'. Muslim British are not the only section of the society that feel betrayed by a Prime Minister elected to serve Britain who chose to be foreign secretary of the USA! The issue has not and will not die away until Blair is no longer Prime Minister.

Second, ethnic and racial minorities feel that Labour has abandoned them as a key constituency in favour of pandering to increasing xenophobia and racism in the wider society. They can point to a raft of immigration and asylum seeking laws further compounded by panic draconian legislation on terrorism that directly or indirectly victimise Black and other ethnic minorities. Instead of leading by principle Labour has allowed the conservatives and their cheer leaders in the largely rightwing media of Britain to lead on these issues. In fact they are in some kind of grotesque competition on these and many other issues for the dubious title of 'The Nastiest' party of Britain. The Conservative leader, Michael Howard, used to have a virtual monopoly on this but successive New Labour Home Secretaries from Jack Straw through David Blunket to the current burly beast, Mike Reid, have done their nastiest best to close the gap.

So bad has Labour shifted to the right on these issues that a former ‘Leading Nasty’, one of Margaret Thatcher's Bull terriers, Norman Thebit, was briefly cast as a Liberal Democrat during the debate on the Terrorism Bill in the House of Lords. Even he could not help drawing attention to the unusual role Labour forced him into. For a man who spent all his political career bashing miners, challenging ethnic minorities to pass the cricket test or jump on their bikes or haranguing the public to accept police state diktats it was a big irony that even this uncompromising law and order grandee felt Labour had gone too far in its crusade against 'terrorists'.

The ideological convergence of the leading parties and the frustration by Labour voters about Tony Blair has generated fears that the turn out could be low. The educated guess is that a lower turn out may punish Labour but be good news for the conservatives.

I am just glad that I will not be in Britain and have not applied for the controversial postal ballot. Where I would have voted is one of those constituencies where even a dog wearing Labour's colors will be elected. In any case many Black voters tend to vote labour when they vote. However, under Tony Blair not a few are reconsidering this historical loyalty. Already in many London constituencies Black, Asian and African voters are switching locally. Like other voters tactical voting may be the means through which anger at Blair and particular war mongering MPs (including the mixed race MP for one of the London constituencies, Oona King) will be punished. There may not be many spectacular upsets but there may be a few symbolic 'enough is enough' messages to Bush's friend by this weekend.

If the Labour lead turns out to be much lower than predicted his tenure at No. 10 may be brought to a quicker end soon. But whatever the size of the majority, Blair is on his last term - despite the fact that there is no term limit in Britain. Among the Ekisanja supporters of President Museveni in Uganda for example (and also other Presidents in Africa toying with extending their rule) there must some confusion as to why a PM who has no limit on his terms is pledging not to run again while they are busy trying to get a president whose terms are constitutionally limited to stand again.

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

* Please send comments to

The wider civil society movement have to stop behaving like missionaries whose motives because they are allegedly doing ‘God’s work’, states Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem in connection with recent events in the AU’s Economic, Social and Cultural Council (ECOSOCC). Civil society has to hold itself to the same standards of accountability and transparency they demand from governments.

It was not unexpected that this column of last week on the orchestrated election of the Nobel Laureate, Wangari Mathai, as the President of the AU’s Economic, Social and Cultural Council (ECOSOCC) would generate so much private and public responses, especially on the internet. It is both an indication of the growing seriousness attached to African initiatives and African institutions but also proof of the global village that the world has become in the age of interactive multi media and new information technology. I have always been open about my enthusiasm for the Internet, even as I support many of the anti-globalisation causes! E-mail is one of the most democratising aspects of globalisation.

The responses are varied but can be broken down into two broad categories. Those that are in the realm of ‘to be expected’ and those that are more nuanced and proactive. The intriguing thing is that both aspects were often cohabiting in many of the responses. So lets deal with what should be more familiar. One, ‘why are you attacking Mama Wangari?’

My position is not about Wangari or any of her bureau members as individuals (many of them are well-known to me) but a defence of a fundamental principle of separation of state roles and civil society roles and obligations. Nobody will argue with a trade union organisation that replaces its general-secretary when he or she becomes a minister or a member of parliament. If a Minister is similarly elected as head of a trade union the government will expect the person to leave. Wangari is in the same situation at the moment and she can still make a choice since her appointing authorities have failed in their duty to know the difference between the two positions.

Two, I did not seek to denounce Wangari as a leader who originated from civil society and is still critically important to that constituency, but she has had a change of jobs and we should not blur the lines. It is important for civil society to have allies in government but government should not swallow it up. It is rank opportunism to think those lines do not matter simply because the current beneficiary is someone we respect and value. As one of my respondents pointed out she would have risen more in principled public estimation if she had done one of two honourable things open to her: refuse the post because of her government position or resign from government due to her commitment to the new post. By doing neither she has diminished herself and her standing.

The more nuanced responses are many and most of them share my concerns but give different mitigating circumstances. One, there is a pragmatist group that argued that ‘this is a done deal’.

Though civil society is part of governance it cannot and should not substitute for government. Therefore it must avoid any action that confuses both theatres of struggle. Two, some argue that what happened was legal and within the rules. Let me just stretch their limited imagination to remember that slavery, colonialism and apartheid were codified in laws of the day. Did that make them acceptable?

Three, one person even suggested that it was ‘backbiting’ to speak out after the event. Does this mean that we should only speak about an event only during the act itself or when we are physically present? If this dubious standard is applied to all public discourse we shall not have anything to discuss since most of the issues, decisions and life changing policies that affect us are taken outside of our purview and many, even outside of Africa. Does that mean that we have no rights to complain and should just bear our victimhood as a fait accompli? There is no statute of liberty on justice and none should be imposed on accountability.

Four, others argue that Mathai was the best choice because the other options being pushed by AU bureaucrats presented a worse case scenario. This is begging the issue. The AU could not have put guns to the heads of those present (even though they paid their bills) if a few people had voiced their opposition openly in the assembly instead of largely grumbling and agonising privately. Maybe the AU would have seen sense and taken them more seriously. The fact that Wangari was appointed in absentia, ‘unanimously’ meant that some of those present (who had strong reservations) did not, or were unable to follow the logic of their own convictions. I appreciate the fact that some of those present did not have speaking rights. Many others were even attending the forum for the first time and were on a learning curve that was too steep! They were required to make decisions about what they did not know. That ignorance strengthened AU bureaucratic manouvres.

Five, another person even suggested that the newly crowned Madame la Presidente ‘had no time to waste’ stating that she been given a great job to do and implying she is so busy that she should not be diverted by these debates. I can only say that even a good thing can be done in a very wrong way. And this is one of them. That kind of language coming from people who are supposed to be defenders of civil society exposes the lack of willingness by our leaders both in civil and political society to be accountable to the people they serve. Is civil society not supposed to have more democratic credentials than governments?

The whole process further exposes the orchestrated confusion between NGOs and civil society. While NGOs may be part of civil society they are not ‘The’ civil society. Unfortunately because of donor-driven agendas and mercenary activism, NGOs in Africa are now passing for civil society hence the new distinction between CSOs and CBOs! The former is dominated by middle class counter elite claiming to speak for the constituencies more ably represented by the latter.

However the more successful NGOs become the more integrated they become into national and international and multilateral structures of power. They move from advocacy into incorporation and cooptation. There is nothing wrong in people moving from civil to political society and vice versa or making a similar journey to the private sector. However the actors in the various sectors must be clear about the lines even when osmosis is desirable.

African NGOs and the wider civil society movement have to stop behaving like missionaries whose motives cannot be questioned simply because they are allegedly doing God’s work. We have to hold ourselves up to the same standard of accountability, transparency, level playing field and due process that we harangue our governments to uphold.

What happened at the ECOSOCC Interim General Assembly was clear: It was a stich up. Does this mean nothing good will come out of it? I am an optimistic political activist who, like Bob Marley, "may fight and run away but live to fight another day.” Therefore even if Wangari does not resign the interim ECOSOCC institutions should not be ignored. Maybe out of this fudge we could salvage an ECOSOCC that will work together and independently with emerging structures of the AU. It is not yet Uhuru therefore wherever we are and regardless of which side of the debate we fall, we should maintain interactive vigilance and challenge this largely AU-chosen representatives of CSOs to deliver to the diverse constituencies they are supposed to represent. They ought to be CSO representatives in the AU, not AU agents among Civil Society.

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

* Please send comments to

Tajudeen Abdul Raheem says the appointment of Nobel Laureate Wangari Mathai to the Economic, Social and Cultural Council (ECOSOCC) of the African Union represents a dangerous conflict of interest as she is already a Kenyan government minister. Wangari should either quit as a government minister or reject the ECOSOCC position, he argues.

Many of us who are optimistic about the African Union do so not because of some naïve utopianism that ignores both the objective and subjective realities of Africa that may militate against the realisation of the renewal of faith in the noble ideals of Pan Africanism. We also do so not just as a defensive impulse against the more fashionable industry of Afro-pessimism. Our optimism is based on the concrete reality of our lived experiences and the brutal reality of the condition of many Africans today, both on the continent and in the Diaspora. These have made Pan-Africanism a precondition for our survival instead of it just being a dream. And some of us will even go further to assert that we need our dreams and we need to accelerate the process of their realisation because those who have no dreams to live for and work towards will suffer nightmares. And Africa has suffered enough nightmares!

The African Union did not emerge from a vacuum. It is the result of a critique and audit of our performance or lack of it in the four decades of the existence of the Organisation of African Union (OAU). The organisation was useful in building African consensus and mobilising our peoples against colonialism all over Africa and also in fighting Apartheid and settler colonialism in Southern Africa. Sometimes our frustrations at the way colonialism metamorphosed into neo-colonialism and dictatorships in many countries make us forget some of the positive contributions of the OAU towards our collective good, including it being the single most important diplomatic and political forum for all of Africa. Only Morocco has ever left it.

The Constitutive Act of the AU sought to correct some of the mistakes of the OAU charter in order to make the new Union more responsive to the needs and challenges of our time. It is different from the OAU in many important respects. It is potentially a more people-friendly Union. The OAU was an organisation of leaders and operated as such for most of its existence even when the leaders no longer represented anybody but themselves and their yes men or women.

The AU now seeks to be people driven and it has institutions to guarantee that. For instance, the Commission of the African Union is unique among all Multi-lateral institutions today in not only guaranteeing full participation of both men and women but in enforcing it. It has gender parity of five women and five men as its members. Of course the battle will not stop there because this practice is yet to percolate the whole of the emerging institutions of the AU. However since the principle is guaranteed and enforced at the highest level, hopefully it will only be a matter of time before this good example spreads downwards.

By far the most potentially democratic and democratising institutions of the Union are the Pan African Parliament and the Economic, Social and Cultural Council (ECOSOCC). The Parliament offers an historic opportunity for Pan-Africanism to stop being the exclusive preserve of the Presidents but a matter for all of us with a prospect for popular accountability through elected representatives. Unfortunately for the first five years it will only operate as an advisory body. The hope is that after this interim period the need to have a more permanent and powerful parliament with real overseeing powers and an effective check on the executive will recommend itself. One important area of reform when the protocol comes up for review could be the way in which the MPs are chosen. They should not be elected by indirect elections in national parliaments but should be elected directly by all Africans in all the countries they may be. This may transform all Africans into effective political players and no longer 'aliens', as is the practice at the moment.

The other institution which should be complementary to the Parliament in guaranteeing people power in the AU, with even bigger potential, is the ECOSOCC. In the past it was difficult for civil society organisations, NGOs, private sector groups, professional associations, etc to have access to the OAU. But the ECOSOCC envisages that most organisations and even individuals will have equal access to the AU and contribute their quota to the development of Africa. Like the Parliament it is also advisory for the time being.

The interim General Assembly of the ECOSOCC was launched in Addis Ababa last week. The Nobel Laureate, Wangari Mathai, was elected as the President of the Assembly along with other officials. She is a very popular person with an unflinching commitment to democracy and the ordinary peoples of Africa.

As an admirer of Mama Wangari I should be jubilating at her appointment but I am not because there is a potential for conflict of interest in her appointment that will undermine the credibility of the ECOSOCC. She is a minister in the NARC government of Kenya. It is not correct that a serving minister is put at the head of an institution that is supposed to be a people's forum. I can see the argument of visibility, clout and personal influence that may have weighed heavily on the minds of those who orchestrated her nomination, in absentia. But it is a wrong precedence. It sends wrong signals about the readiness of the AU to embrace civil society as an independent partner. We should not keep quiet because she is a much-loved 'one of us'.

Tomorrow it could be any other minister or government person and what would we say then? When governments manipulate elections, public opinion, and so on, we rightly shout and we should not maintain culpable silences because some of our own friends and colleagues are the direct or indirect perpetrators.

The AU bureaucrats have had an undue influence on the process of establishing the ECOSOCC, which risks making the institution a mere adjunct to the AU.

Another issue that shows the unwillingness of the AU to deal straight has to do with the role of the diaspora. The mission, vision, and strategic plan of the AU recognises the diaspora as the 6th region of Africa in addition to the five regions on the continent itself.

The Chairperson, Alpha Konare, is particularly focused on this yet in the ECOSOCC process the Diaspora has been represented by those chosen by the whim of the AU officials. Even at the launch of the General Assembly the few diaspora persons there were mere observers. This is partly due to the unresolved political intrigues around an acceptable definition of 'diaspora'. Some people want it to mean the historically dispersed Africans across the world especially North America, the Caribbean and Europe. Others focus on the more contemporary dispora of Africans directly from the continent, relative new immigrants in the diaspora. A sensible compromise should not be an either or debate but an inclusive arrangement that recognises the claims of all Africans and people of African origin wherever they may be. The AU should not dictate to Africans whether in Africa or in the diaspora.

Self organisation is the hallmark of civil society. A situation whereby the AU decides who the leaders of ECOSOC will be through manipulation of delegates and representation does not augur well for a union that wants the people to be involved as legitimate stakeholders. The Shenanigans at the launch of the ECOSOCC General Assembly would have made the former Stalinist countries very proudly nostalgic that their methods of 'democracy from above' continues to have appeal even without the need for a political party and cadres!

If the AU and its collaborators, co-conspirators and power worshippers in civil society who have brought about this unnecessary situation cannot see their opportunism one hopes that personal integrity and political consistency would dictate to Mama Wangari to either quit her government post or reject the ECOSOCC position. I have no doubt that she truly wants to help galvanise support for the fledgling ECOSOCC and the AU but all things considered I do not see how She can do both with good conscience.

* 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 people of Zimbabwe go to the polls today in a parliamentary election that should tell us something about the power balance in the country that was once a bright star but is now a metaphor for broken dreams and a continuing nightmare both for its people and other Africans.

The 'something' may not be a lot because I do not think that this election will give us an adequate reading of the real state of things. The government sees only victory and the opposition envisages an unfair defeat.

The stand-off between the main opposition, Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), and President Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) and the consequent pariah status of the country has paralysed the country for almost a decade now.

It is impossible to think of a final peaceful settlement or a way out of the impasse with Mugabe still at the helm of affairs. As I argued on a CNN interview yesterday the septuagenarian ex-Comrade is no longer part of the solution but central to the problem.

However, we all have to banish thoughts of hoping that the old man would do the decent thing and step aside for the sake of his party, country and people. His rhetoric on the campaign trail and belligerent tones do not indicate that Uncle Bob is for turning. He has developed a siege psychosis, grandiose paranoia and neo-fascist mentality which make him see all opponents whether within his party, the government or in the country, as traitors. He believes he is Zimbabwe and Zimbabwe is his. Having been in power for 25 years, Mugabe and his cohorts cannot imagine themselves ever losing power.

Therefore, ZANU (PF), at least the president's main faction of it, will do whatever is possible (both thinkable and unthinkable) to 'win' this election. Intimidation, brazen bribery, manipulation, and whatever tricks in the books of electoral brigandage have been deployed to ensure only one outcome - ZANU (PF) victory.

But this victory will be at an even greater cost this time given the level of dissent in recent months at the very heart of the ZANU (PF) elite itself.

Mugabe is not just fighting 'the MDC kids' but also many of his formerly loyal 'good boys' and veteran geriatrics, including former ministers and top commanders. While the party may lose a few seats to its latest ex-ZANU opposition, this may not be enough to unsettle the regime because they may not translate into more seats for the main opposition, MDC.

The MDC is likely going to hold on to its support base despite all the stratagems of Mugabe's storm troopers and routine violence and intimidation from both the state and its freelance militias.

The European Union has already declared the election a sham. The US government has also been blowing hot on Zimbabwe. Quite ominously both SADC and the AU have not been too vocal beyond expressing pious hopes that there will be free and fair elections and making an appeal to both sides to give peace a chance.

African leaders are really on a tight rope over Zimbabwe because of the racialist overtone of the issues. None of them want to be seen as agents of the West and White interests. Many of them (like other Africans), who may not necessarily agree with Mugabe, are however convinced that the land issue needed to be addressed. So whatever they do, they are damned. But all these have no impact on Zimbabwe. Indeed the more Europeans and Americans make a noise about Mugabe, the better for him to be casting himself as a Pan-Africanist David against Imperialist Goliath, and his domestic opponents, both MDC and non- MDC, as puppets of the West.

For Africans, both on the continent and in the diaspora the one-sided spectacles help make us either more understanding or ambiguous or apologetic (as many have become) towards the old man. On the other hand, MDC's links with largely white farmers and its popularity with anti–Mugabe Westerners make it suspect to many Africans.

There is a very strong hangover of cold war era ideology watered by contemporary Western inconsistency and brazen hypocrisy that makes many Africans instinctively suspect any African leader liked by the West while adulating the one that is hated by them.

Even those who look at the mass base, especially organised largely black working class, urban poor and progressive middle class support for the MDC, are also wary of its ambiguity on a number of key issues about the economy and reconstruction of Zimbabwe after Mugabe. There are fears that an MDC led by Morgan Tsvangirai will just be an imitation of the tragedy of yet another populist trade unionist, one Frank Chiluba, in neighbouring Zambia.

However, there is a principle that should guide all of us about Zimbabwe or any other country for that matter - the supremacy of the will of the people, freely expressed, without let or hindrance. If they choose puppets or dimwits, it is their right to do so and they will have another opportunity at the next election to change their minds. It is a right that cannot and should not be ceded to or usurped by a self-serving elite for its perpetuation in office. No leader or party owns the people. Voting wisely is as important as voting unwisely if they so choose!

* 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 former Pop Star, of Boomtown Rats fame, Bob Geldof, (also known as Sir Bob or Saint Bob) is not a very popular man in some very powerful quarters in Uganda these days.

Nothing new in that because even in the Irish republic where he was born and in Britain where he made his Pop name and was later Knighted by the British Queen - not for his Pop Music, but for inspiring the Band Aid appeal that caught global attention in 1984 in response to the Ethiopian famine - he is not universally popular.

He has earned a well- deserved reputation for being a loud-mouth (and here I should declare a potential personal conflict of interest because my mouth does not often have a stopper), rubbing people the wrong way and ruffling all available feathers in his crusade against hunger, debt and poverty in Africa.

I have had occasion to observe that he sometimes appears to be crying more than the bereaved. It is easy to be taken over by the cause and sometimes that may lead to the precipitate road of the end justifying the means. If there is a Guinness Book of Records entry for using expletives without caring whether it is president or prisoner, diplomat or peasants, that are listening, Bob Geldof should be a runaway winner. It is part of his stock in trade. Sometimes the theatrics stand in the way of the message he has which makes many to accuse him of either insatiable individualism or petulant exhibitionism. I have had one or two run-ins with him where it was bull for bull . But his publicity tactics have worked well for him because whatever he says often gets global attention.

And so it was typical of him at the launching of the Blair Commission for Africa report two weeks ago to send a verbal missile in an aside about President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni and his worst kept secret attempt to tinker with the constitution of Uganda and lift the restriction on two terms for the presidency so that he could stand again. Ekisanja (as the self succession bid is known in Luganda) has now reached global media. Thanks to Geldof asking Museveni to move off the state lodge!

Not unexpectedly the Ekisanja supporters have been up in arms decrying his impertinence: how dare he interfere in our sovereign affairs? What does this foreigner, a musician for that matter (some say with angry disbelief, as if musicians should have no political views), know about Uganda to be asking Mzee to step aside?

The uproar culminated in an obviously orchestrated demonstration by supporters of the President last Monday condemning Geldof’s brash pronouncement. While they were at it they also had non-diplomatic words for the British government for meddling in Uganda’s affairs. The UK High Commissioner to Uganda has been grumbling rather too loudly of recent and also a recent statement by a British Foreign Office Junior Minster voiced concerns about Uganda’s transition to a genuine multi party democracy.

According to newspaper reports there were many placards and slogans on display. They were broadly nationalistic, anti imperialist, very Pan Africanist, anti neo-colonialism, etc. But one in particular caught my attention: It said ‘yes to aid but no to foreign intervention!’

While Bob Geldof may not be surprised (and would have been disappointed if people were indifferent to his remarks) at attacks on him, I am not sure how he would react to a planned demonstration today by anti-Museveni, anti-third term and opposition supporters or activists in his support. They must be hoping they can enlist his support as a veteran global publicist for their local cause. In addition to Bob’s crusade to feed starving Africans the Ugandan opposition is adding delivery of democracy too! The bad news is that only recently Geldof in yet another choreographed outburst openly said he was tired of being regarded as ‘Mr Bloody Africa’.

The banner that said ‘yes to aid but no to intervention’ exposes the self-inflicted humiliating contradiction confronting many African leaders. They expect foreigners to build their roads, feed their people, construct their stadiums and hospitals but at the same time they want to assert their independence. Uganda under Museveni is typical of this disease. The country is talked up as a success story, though it is fast losing its shine to new ‘miracles’ like Mozambique. Yet its budget and development plans are more than 50% dependent on foreigners. How sustainable is this in the long run? No doubt the country has seen some economic growth under Museveni’s laissez fair economics but real development is still very much elusive. But it is a country that has now become an Aid junkie.

It will be ridiculous for those who are paying the piper not to want to dictate the tune. After all those who attended the Ekisanja demonstration must report back to those who provided them with the logistics, facilitation and the sodas that followed their successful mission to Parliament Avenue. As it is with individuals so it is with states and between states where the stakes are much higher.

But African governments would like to eat their cake and keep same. They want to serve imperialism and serve their people even when the logic of the relationship is one of cat and mouse. They steal their peoples’ money and head for European and American banks with them and yet they want to be independent of Washington, London or Paris! Many of them have signed away the national economy, without referendum or even perfunctory consultation, yet when it comes to some very narrowly defined convenient political issues like our obligation to continue to choose them (or vote without choosing as some have described it) they suddenly declare the people are sovereign. What kind of sovereignty and selective empowerment is this that does not allow you to decide the way your national resources are managed or mismanaged? If the people are too backward to decide how their economy is managed why do you need their voice in determining how they should be governed and by whom?

They go to the IMF/World Bank without consultation. They fight wars without consultation but when they have problems with their donor-masters then they remember sovereignty, self-determination and Pan Africanism. Otherwise they are proud to be seen with their powerful friends from Europe and America. It is like wannabe Africans –Americans who only remember they are Black when they are in big trouble. Remember OJ Simpson? Now look at the pathetic Michael Jackson and his trial for paedophilia. Suddenly Rev Jesse Jackson is his spiritual counsellor.

This Ekisanja militia of Uganda of today or their cousins across the continent in similar battles to sustain ruling regimes are mere pawns in a cynical manipulation of the population to perpetuate personal or class rule. Where were those now carrying the banner of non-interference when Uganda and Rwanda tragically fought against each other, three times, in the DRC and both Presidents and their executive entourage traveled to Auntie Clare in London to settle their differences!

They did not listen to their own peoples, even their own cabinets, let alone neighbours or other Africans, but as soon as London called they were off like good boys. Why? Because Clare Short was in charge of DFID and was dishing out millions of British taxpayer money to Uganda and Rwanda. They even claimed that Clare was a mutual friend of theirs. But the same was said of Lynda Chalker before Clare and I am sure now both governments have ingratiated themselves to the DFID boss, Hilary Benn! But the dependence on outsiders (and external leverage in our affairs) is not just on the part of governments but is fast corroding our civil society at all levels especially in these days of donor-driven professional NGOs, MONGOs (my own NGO), NGI (Non Governmental Individuals), etc.

Yet we proclaim independence and demand sovereignty. Like Wole Soyinka challenged Late Sedar Senghor of Senegal, the apostle of Negritude: ‘A tiger needs not proclaim its Tigeritude’. You do not claim independence and self-determination but earn it by self-reliant actions and trusting your own people to decide the economic, social, cultural and political direction of their polity. It cannot be a tactical tool used when it is convenient.

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

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Last Friday the British Prime Minister's Commission for Africa report was published amidst fanfare, even bluster and brave talk about 'new beginnings' and 'great opportunity.' The reaction has generally been mixed whether in Africa or globally, including Britain itself. This is largely because Africa and her momentous challenges have never lacked focus but have always been short-changed when it comes to concrete action to realise the often declared good intentions.

As someone who has been critical of the Commission as an unnecessary project; a waste of time, energy and money that could have been put to better use; and a diversion from what Africans are doing and want to do for themselves, there is not much in the report to make me lose my scepticism. It has actually triggered more questions.

In its description and analysis of the problems it has nothing new to say and modestly makes no pretence to do so. It is a good summary of what we already know. Perhaps it is in some of its recommendations that some tactical if not strategic shifts can be discerned. I say tactical because both the analysis and the suggested solutions are essentially still within the same neo-liberal, market-only ideological hegemony of these times.

It is still seeking to adjust Africa to global forces despite timid recognition in sections of the report that trade liberalisation, privatisation and the donor-driven market mantra have hugely contributed to the collapse of infrastructure, social lives and caused great deprivation in Africa. Just like we had dubious notions of 'adjustment with a human face' to offer palliatives for the atrocities inflicted on victims of IMF/World Bank SAP policies in the 80s, the Blair Commission may turn out to be offering us 'globalisation with some human faces'.

But even in these there are doubts as to the concrete action that will follow the 100 or so recommendations. I don't think anybody believes that all the recommendations will be acted upon, but a number of key ones will remain a focus of action. They include increases in aid, debt cancellation, trade distortions that prevent fair trade, corruption, good governance, peace and security and others.

Out of these even fewer may emerge dominant. Aid will remain very high because it will satisfy the instant gratification of 'wanting to do something’ and doing it now. Yet doubling or quadrupling aid is not the issue for as long as Africa and other poor countries are trapped in the structural iniquities of trade. The truth also must be told that some countries in Africa, especially mineral or resource rich ones like Nigeria, DRC or Angola, do not need aid - they need a functioning government. Indeed all of the countries will be better off with fairer trade than any volume of aid. Aid will only strengthen the hands of the new missionaries of Western NGOs and humanitarian interventionism in Africa.

There will be a lot of talk about reforming the unfair international trade and financial system but when the crunch comes self interest of the richer countries may not allow any serious movement.

Debt cancellation for all may become more fashionable in the discourse but debt relief with conditionalities may turn out to be what will be achieved since the US government is not likely to support the necessary reforms that may mean it is not able to punish its enemies and reward its friends. Yet universal debt cancellation will give every country an equal chance of a fresh start.

The other issues that may get more money thrown at them will be support for regional and sub-regional institutions including the African Union, especially on peace and security issues. This may not necessarily be due to any new commitment for lasting peace in Africa, but because they are cheaper and politically less volatile for Western countries whose governments are not willing to risk the lives of their citizens in 'far away' places like Africa. It is a return to praetorian functions at a multi lateral level. Otherwise why is the new love and admiration for Africa's role in peace and security issues not extended to include our right to self-determination in economic issues and how we govern ourselves?

'The taste of the pudding' the English say 'is in the eating.' Therefore it is in the national and international action that the Commission's report is able to provoke that will make critics like myself to either, (happily) eat humble pie or claim victory in saying 'we told you so'.

Even on the day of the report itself the omens were, contrary to the 'feel good about Africa' spin of the sponsors, not all good. For a report that took the bold step of acknowledging that there was nothing African about corruption and admits that it is systemic and has both African and non African actors and perpetrators it was very ironic that its activities were held at the British Museum, a place that has been a major beneficiary of looted historical and aesthetic assets from all over the world but especially Africa. Tony Blair could have shown some genuine remorse and willingness to really change things for the better by handing over some of these stolen treasures as a symbolic gesture that business will not continue as before.

And this for me is the core of the matter. The Commission's report will get more buy-in if Britain leads by example instead of sermonising and lecturing the rest of the world on being good or fair towards Africa. It can race fast to meeting its own Millennium Development Goal target of 0.7% of GDP as a contribution to global aid. At present it is hovering at around 0.4% and hopes to reach 0.7% by 2015! So why set new targets if you cannot reach existing ones?

The Museum of London may be a depository of looted historical treasures but the city of London itself is a major player in the systematic looting of Africa: direct theft by companies and corrupt African leaders, money laundering, fictitious transactions, etc. Britain can show real leadership by being the first country to implement the recommendation of the report that calls for repatriation of such looted funds to the countries they were stolen from and also punishing businesses, banks and finance houses that aid and abet bribery and corruption in Africa. If Britain can do this, a course of action that it does not need the support of anybody to embark on, it can then challenge other countries to follow its good example.

This leads us to the challenge of all challenges that the report faces. It is based on the assumed influence of Britain this year as the country heading both the EU and the G8 countries. But that influence will itself depend on how credible Britain is. Thus the personal standing of Mr Tony Blair cannot be divorced from the matter. It is no secret that he suffers an enormous international credibility deficit as a result of his uncritical support for Bush, who has so far given him nothing back in return. His credibility may improve if Bush could help him out on this subject, but we cannot hold our breath. So who will listen to Prophet Blair in his new missionary activity in Africa?

Even the British people who elected him and his party and may well do so again (there being no reasonable alternative) no longer trust him. His credibility among the Africans he now wants to save, is even less. For some time President Thabo Mbeki, The Renaissance Man of South Africa, was a close ideological soul mate, but the relationship fell apart both over unrealistic pressures to be a poodle to Blair in Zimbabwe and disappointments over NEPAD. Nigeria's Mr Know All, General Obasanjo, who also liked to see him as a chum, is more circumspect again due to hurting knees from KNEEPAD and Western reluctance and British lack of co-operation in getting Abacha's stolen Billions. To many African leaders Blair is viewed either with suspicion or incredulity or both. Many are wont to question his interest in Africa, the Messianic tone and his perceived. For Blair therefore it is not just that the prophet has no honour in his village - even outside his village nobody trusts him.

There are a number of spins around the report, which I find most disingenuous and which risk the backlash that overkill salesmen or women get from wary customers. One, it is constantly dropped on you that a majority of the 17 commissioners are Africans. This is supposed to confer African ownership on the report. Do they not know that the majority of the colonial officials and the slave captors and buyers before them were Africans?

Two, attention is also drawn to the fact that two serving African leaders participated in the Commission. Someone should tell Blair that signing up to good intentions has never been an issue with our leaders - action is where the challenge is. Many of them will jump at any opportunity to show a grateful nation that their Dear Leader is respected internationally and has friends in Washington, Paris or London! The same leaders signed up to the AU and NEPAD and somehow managed to forget to mention that when the call came through from 10 Downing Street. What is the point in agreeing on the vision, mission and strategic plan of the AU and accepting NEPAD and yet rushing to sign up to another report? It is like being invited to your own funeral. Many of these leaders will still say yes whenever another call comes through from some other do-gooders, especially from outside Africa.

Finally, this year is presented as a 'Make or Break year.' Does that mean that any African who wakes up on 1st January 2006 would have made it? In spite of all the apocalyptic scenarios a majority of our peoples will still be alive that day and going about their survival in the best way they can and I bet it will not be because of Blair's commission.

* 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 relationship between many Africans and their governments is only comparable to the disillusion, distrust and suspicion that become the permanent bodyguards of a man or woman who has been jilted too many times.

If care is not taken such a person may not have any successful relationship again even when he or she meets the genuine person. The weight and hang ups of the past are such that they becloud the present and threaten future relationships. The alarm Bells are on 24/7 patrol singing: ‘not again’ or ‘once bitten twice shy’ or any other lyrics that warn against trust and building confidence. Just assume that the current relationship will end in the same bleak alley of past ones, do not raise your expectations and do not expect much. This defensive prop becomes a permanent shield against any disappointment.

Consequently potentially good and rewarding relationships are not given room for nurture and development. However as no human being is an island to himself or herself we are doomed to trust and take risks in sharing our lives with other people because without doing so whatever we may tell or convince ourselves about, our lives may never be complete.

Governments, like partners, are necessary evils. What can you do without them and what can you do with them?

How many Africans will run towards the police, the army or any of our security agencies when they are in trouble? Most of the time we are running away from them because if they are not the source of your problem you may compound your problem by running to them! That's why many Africans talk about ‘The Government’, ‘’Those in power’ or ‘The regime’, instead of ‘Our government’.

The alienation is not just against the coercive organs of the state. Even the civil arms of our governments are as anti people as their security counterparts.

Some years back I was amused by a friend, Dr Patricia Daley, who is a Geography Don at Oxford University (one of only two Black Africans who are full faculty members) when she asked me about the population of Nigerians in the United Kingdom. Apparently in the Census figures she was looking at at the time there were only 150, 000 Nigerians in the Queen's own country! I could not resist laughing because anybody familiar with the demography of Africans in Britain will know that even countries with a much smaller population in the UK than Nigeria (Uganda, Ghana or Sierra-Leone for example) will easily notch up that number and still be counting. So I told her maybe that was the number of Nigerians in Peckham or Dalston alone!

But what the figure showed was that many Africans even though part of Britain's ‘visible minority,’ were absent officially. Even our embassies cannot tell you how many of their citizens are resident in the United Kingdom or any country in the world for that matter. In some countries they do not even know what the actual population is anyway.

Many of these émigré Africans are directly or indirectly running away from their governments, therefore why should they go and register at their embassies or high commissions that they are there?

However Africa is changing and changing for the better and should and would continue to do so in spite of challenges here and there. This process requires new ways and cultivation of new attitudes in dealing with our governments and in the way our governments deal with us. There are good governments in Africa. There are reforming governments in Africa. Bad governance is receding even if at snail speed in some countries.

Look at the recent events in Togo. Baby Eyadema has been forced by sub regional and African consensus, to step down. Two weeks ago I wrote arguing that the military coup that led to him succeeding his could-not-have died-sooner dictator father, should and would not stand. There was no clairvoyance in that certainty. It was based on the good wind of change going across Africa. Because Africa was united in saying ‘No’ the rest of the world had no choice but to follow our consensus.

A few years ago this would not have been possible. Now that it is we should recognise it and work towards making this good practice standard practice. There is no point sniggering at it as many are doing. If we continue to see an unchanging or unchangeable Africa we are both undervaluing our democratic struggles and short charging our gains. Togo shows a new resolve on the part of Africans to enthrone constitutional rule in Africa. Even if Baby Eyadema is to be elected president after the transition it would have been done under the constitution, not military fiat.

We should not be timid or coy about praising our governments when they are doing well. We cannot build and institutionalise responsible government in Africa if we continue in the destructive culture of ‘Us’ and ‘them.’ Confrontation and condemnation should not be our first and only tool of engagement. We should seek co-operation where possible, embrace collaboration when desirable and embark on confrontation where and when necessary. These tactics and the strategies they demand need not be mutually exclusive. All of them are useful and necessary in building sustainable democratic societies and political communities that are at peace with them. We just need to deploy them where and when most applicable, or simultaneously at times.

Too much of our activism, especially in these days of professional foreign-controlled, donor-driven, materially -rewarding NGOism is too skewed in favour of oppositionism instead of positive engagement with our governments and institutions. You need to ask why European and American governments and charities should be arming you, aiding you and building your capacity to confront your own government? Why are they not building the capacity of Africans living in their own countries to be effective citizens where they are? Why should Africans or people of African origin in these countries be marginalised while they are promising you heaven on earth in Africa? Dependence on foreigners or their money will not build Africa. ‘Rome’, they say, ‘was not built in a day’, but the Romans were there and willing to build it.

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

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