With higher petrol prices, biofuel has been touted as a possible answer to the world’s energy needs. But Mariam Mayet explains how the argument for biofuels can also be used to mask the introduction of genetically modified crops. In reality, biofuel would require massive state support – support that could be spent on other socio-economic priorities.

On the 12th May, Syngenta South Africa (Pty) Ltd, a subsidiary of Swiss Agrochemical giant, Syngenta, notified the South African public of its intention to seek commodity clearance for its genetically modified (GM) maize, Event 3272, for use in the production of ethanol. [1] This precedent setting application, the first GM application for commercial approval in the world for a non-feed, non-food GM crop, (using a food crop), has simultaneously also been launched in the US, the EU and China.

The application by Syngenta illustrates its expediency and desperation: Syngenta hopes to cash in on a potentially lucrative burgeoning global bioethanol market, riding on the back of escalating oil prices and supply fluctuations, while at the same time, securing new markets for its GM products where there is little risk of consumer rejection.

However, Syngenta’s application is also mysterious, for two reasons. The application made to South Africa is for clearance to expedite imports and not for growing. It is a guarded secret as to where Syngenta hopes to grow the GM maize. South Africa does not import GM maize from the US, for several reasons, including the fact that the US has approved many more GM events (varieties) than has South Africa and contamination by unapproved GMOs cannot be ruled out or avoided. [2] In any case, the US will rely on its own domestic market to sustain the demand for ethanol from maize in that country. South Africa, does, however, import huge amounts of GM maize from Argentina. Will Argentina become the factory farm or will it be another developing country?

Second, the application seems to be superfluous in the light that Diversa Corporation, well known to anti-biopiracy activists, recently brought to the market, the same enzyme alpha-amylases, used in Syngenta’s GM maize. The enzyme is derived from a deep-sea micro-organism [3] and is meant to convert the starch present in maize into sugars for processing into ethanol. This same rationale is being given by Syngenta to the South African authorities as motivation to grant approval for the GM maize! What makes it all the more curious is that Syngenta owns substantial shares in Diversa.

Interest in ethanol as a biofuel is not new. It began during the oil crisis of the 1970s at that time when several countries, led by the US, began to phase out lead from gasoline. In 1978, the US Congress approved the National Energy Act, which included a Federal tax exemption on gasoline blended with 10% alcohol. Federal subsidies also reduced the cost of ethanol to around the wholesale price of gasoline. [4] Thus, in the US, ethanol relies heavily on subsidies to remain economically viable as a gasoline- blending component. The current Federal subsidy of 51-cents-a-gallon makes it possible for ethanol to compete as a gasoline additive. The US also imposes a 54-cent-a-gallon tariff on imported ethanol, thus promoting its domestic ethanol production.

However, gleaning from the literature, the ethanol subsidy is due to expire in 2007/8, and it is not clear whether ethanol will continue to receive political support.

In the US, ethanol is derived mainly from maize and is blended in quantities up to 10% in gasoline (also called E10 or low-blend). In terms of the Energy Bill passed called “EPAct 2005”, the volume of ethanol will be increased from the current 4 billion gallons/year to 7.5 billion. It is reported that a booming ethanol industry will consume 20% of the 2006 US maize crop, cutting the maize surplus in half by 2007, or 1.14 billion bushels. Some 54 million tonnes of the 2006 maize crop is projected to go to ethanol plants, up 34% from 40.6 million tonnes). [5]

There are 97 ethanol plants in the US with a capacity of 4.5 billion gallons (17 billion litres) a year. There are 44 projects under way that will add 1.4 billion gallons of capacity this year. By early 2007, the US it is expected to be producing at a rate of 24.6 billion litres of ethanol, requiring 2.15 billion bushels of maize. [6] This implies an increase in maize production in the US to sustain the demand for maize. Currently, the US is the world’s largest maize derived ethanol producer, accounting for 33% of the global market. Brazil is the world leader in ethanol production, derived from sugarcane, accounting for 37% of the global market. [7]

At the beginning of 2006, South Africa phased out the use of lead, which created a boon to the ethanol industry, as ethanol can be used as an additive to boost the octane number of unleaded fuel. In addition, and following on from the lead of the US, at the launch of the National Energy Regulator of South Africa in November 2005, Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka said that the South African Cabinet had approved a proposal by the Departments of Minerals and Energy (DME), Agriculture and Land Affairs, and Science and Technology, to explore biofuels as an important component of South Africa’s energy mix.

Touted as a cleaner, greener fuel, by reducing CO2 emissions by 60%, ethanol is said to bring huge socio-economic benefits through especially job creation. According to Busi Nxumalo, South Africa’s Energy Development Corporation’s (EDC) business and market analyst, a strong local biofuels industry will also make a significant contribution to South Africa’s GDP. According to him, if a 10% blended bioethanol is achieved, it will add 0,25% to the country’s GDP. In addition, a 10% blending ratio will enable South Africa to save R2.5-billion a year in imports, which equates to a reduction of 1% in overall national foreign expenditure. [8]

Industry lobby groups are feverishly pushing the South African government to create the economic regulatory framework to do two things: to make the blending of ethanol into petrol mandatory for oil companies, and to allow a 30% reduction in the fuel levy to be extended to bioethanol industry, as it currently does, the biodiesel industry. Indeed, Ngubane has said very recently that the EDC was investigating the viability of adding a 10% ethanol blend to petrol. [9]

However, once maize is harvested, three energy expenditures in ethanol production raise the total costs. These include energy to the transport of maize grain to the ethanol plant, energy expended to provide the capital equipment requirements for the plant, and energy expanded in the plant operations for the fermentation and distillation processes. The effective energy balance of ethanol as a biofuels is therefore in doubt.

A study by Pimental and Patzek shows that turning plants such as maize, soyabeans and sunflowers into fuel uses more energy than the resulting ethanol or biodiesal generate. [10] Ethanol for example can’t be transported via pipeline - it has to be carried from distillation plants via truck and railraod, which creates additional energy costs. Thus, bio-ethanol from maize has a much worse energy balance and does not have environmental benefits.

Using maize for ethanol production is costly in terms of land use, fossil energy, and most importantly it subverts valued human food and animal feed from direct use. The fact that ethanol production has a negative energy balance further precludes its place as an alternative liquid fuel for the future. It must also be borne in mind that maize prices are the dominant cost factor in ethanol production, and ethanol supply is extremely sensitive to maize prices. Ethanol production will drop when maize is in short supply and prices are higher.

It is therefore apparent that bioethanol production for a fuel blend will require enormous government assistance and subsidies to be viable for the bioethanol industry as a whole, subsidies that can be more appropriately allocated to other pressing socio-economic priorities for South Africa.

* Mariam Mayet from the African Centre for Biodiversity. This article is based on a briefing document produced by the African Centre for Biosafety entitled “South Africa, Bioethanol and GMOs: A heady muxture”

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

References:
[1] Such clearance would be given by the Executive Council, Genetically Modified Organisms Act, and will therefore serve as a blank cheque, for the international grain traders, to ship the GM maize into South Africa in huge quantities.

[2] Personal Communication, National Department of Agriculture, February 2006.

[3] “It came from beneath the sea” Nature Biotechnology, Vol. 23, No.10, Oct. 2005, pp. 119-1201.

[4] Joseph DiPardo Outlook for Biomass Ethanol Production and Demand, Energy Information Administration.

[5] Ethanol, Biodiesel eats into Corn Stockpiles, 15 May 2006 http://www.planetarket.com/dailynewstory.cfm/newsid/36348/story.htm

[6] According to the United States Department of Agriculture’s chief economist, Keith Collins. Ethanol, Biodiesel eats into Corn Stockpiles, 15 May 2006 http://www.planetarket.com/dailynewstory.cfm/newsid/36348/story.htm

[7] Worldwatch: State of the World 2006, Chapter 4, Endnote 13.

[8] South Africa Sows Crops-to-Energy Seeds, Engineering News 5 December 2005.

[9] Energy body probes ethanol-mixed petrol, 17 May 2006 http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/July05/ethanol.toocostly.ssl.html

Despite making some progress towards developing an inclusive process for women within the World Social Forum (WSF) movement, profound problems remain that are likely to manifest themselves in the lead up to the WSF meeting in Nairobi in 2007, says Onyango Oloo, in this paper presented at a public forum on “Gendering the WSF Process”. It’s not a lost battle, however. Oloo suggests that action can still be taken through which men can show solidarity with their women comrades.

Conceptual Underpinnings

First things first:

In talking about gendering the World Social Forum process, it is crucial for my readers to grasp what I am NOT talking about.

I am NOT talking about “women’s issues” nor am I trying to “solve” or “resolve” “The Woman Question”.

Rather, I am trying to explore the problematics thrown up by the age-old power dynamics between men and women and contextualizing this within the history of planning and organizing for successive WSF events.

And I have embarked on this task for reasons that are far from “academic”; I am not driven solely by theoretical and intellectual preoccupations about the subject of gender.

I happen to be right in the middle of the logistical, programmatic and other aspects of social mobilization, fund-raising, outreach and publicity for the next edition of the World Social Forum taking place in Nairobi, Kenya from January 20th to January 25th 2007.

As a man, I am keenly aware of the baggage of male privilege that I was born with growing up in a world defined by patriarchy, misogyny and other forms of oppression against and domination over women. As a Kenyan, I am also cognizant of the inescapable fact of the world capitalist economy buttressing these age-old oppressions by punctuating every thing with class and confining historically determined societies within an overall imperialist vortex which in the Kenyan and African context manifests itself as neo-colonialism.

Over the last quarter century or so, neo-liberal policies downloaded to Kenya and other African and Southern countries via multilateral agencies such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Trade Organisation (WTO) etc etc have worsened the already lopsided power dynamics between men and women in the spheres of the economy, political representation, social and cultural relations, not forgetting the ideological imperatives of the day.

As humankind struggles to realize and implement the vision of an alternative, more egalitarian and social justice oriented world, one is quite conscious that we are doing so within the context of class struggles and gender tensions which define our everyday existence. Progressive women and men continue the fight to build a better world even as we explore the stark reminders of persistent sexism, pervasive patriarchy and rampant misogyny that seep into our work despite our subjective commitments and best, sincere and earnest intentions against these manifestations of oppression, marginalization and even outright contempt and hatred towards women.

It should therefore surprise no one that the World Social Forum process, unfolding against the complex tapestry of real and concrete social conditions cannot be hermetically sealed and insulated from all the troubling manifestations of inequality between men and women and other aspects of the lopsided power dynamics between the two genders.

Before proceeding further, let me pause and share some capsules capturing various testimonies, perspectives and experiences from the World Social Forum process itself:

Testimonies and Critiques Regarding Gender and the WSF Process

1. …even while trying to build another world based on principles of participatory democracy and social justice, internal contradictions remain in the WSF. One of the most notable are weaknesses in maintaining gender inclusiveness. The majority of participants in the WSF are women, but most of the presenters on panels are men, continuing the stereotype that men are the producers of knowledge. The raises the question of what the WSF will do to assure more participatory democracy in terms of gender balance? - Marc Becker, April 12, 2006 (http://www.yachana.org/writings/beautyqueens.html)

2. Other aspects of the forum were more problematic. "One huge issue at the WSF was gender dynamics," Nadja Millner-Larsen, a recent graduate from New York’s Bard College, said. "There was an enormous lack of women on the panels at the social forum. I attended this one panel on the anti globalization movement and at the end of it a lot of women stood up and said "how can we create another world when we don’t have healthy gender dynamics in these panels?"

"Some of the men said, ‘Okay, we should pay attention to this.’ But others on the panel had this age-old response that been going on in the left since the sixties. They said, well, classes aren’t equally represented, nor race, therefore you shouldn’t be so outraged by the underrepresentation of women."

"This is skirting around the issue," Millner-Larsen continued. "If a black person in a white audience asked why there aren’t black people on a panel, the speakers wouldn’t say, ‘Relax there aren’t any women either.’ Here we are thirty years later and we are still arguing class and gender against women…it’s shocking. To allow this unequal gender distribution to be sanctioned within the official forum obviously has this kind of trickle down effect in the youth camp."

In addition to hundreds of robberies and numerous fights in the Youth Camp, rapes were reported there as well. "There was a high level of violence in the Youth Camp, Millner-Larsen explained. I felt more scared there than I really have traveling anywhere else. I got the sense that being alone in the camp was a really dangerous thing." - Benjamin Dangl, commenting on the WSF in Porto Allegre (http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/177/63/)

3. However, it was felt that the women's movement still rests on the margins of the WSF. In his testimony, Candido Grzybowski, Sociologist, Director of IBASE, and member of the WSF organizing committee, states that "women were just 43 percent of WSF delegates, although they make up over 50 percent of the world's population! It is sad to acknowledge, but WSF was still limited in terms of its social female face". He continues: "In the WSF, I'm learning something fundamental, that will certainly change my role in the Forum and at IBASE. Women are a 'minority' created by ourselves within civil society. With respect to that, there is no point in blaming capitalism, neoliberalism, globalization, exclusionary states, etc. This is a major problem that is engendered, developed, and maintained in the culture of civil society itself." -(http://www.dawn.org.fj/publications/docs/cardosawsf.doc).

4. Trains are a good example. Seldom have I been so scared as when I took the train to the forum one morning and did not go on the women’s wagon. There was no space there, I thought – before discovering that the space given to me in a wagon full of men was a form of hell.

In this appalling, everyday situation women struggle to find space for themselves, and somehow they succeed. The WSF is the same; neither women nor the gender issue in general was better represented in the official programme this year as compared to previous years. The same men dominated the ‘star’ panels; some, who clearly think too highly of themselves, participated in several seminars at the same time. Who (to name just one) did not see Walden Bello deliver a speech and then say: “excuse me, I have to go”, and run off to the next seminar?

Many panels consisted entirely of men. Some trendy activists, who think that they are super-feminists because they know a bit of gender theory, agreed to sit on panels without a single woman. Everywhere you could see “homosocial” relations: men preferring to talk to men, men favouring men when organising a seminar or editing a book. Women being forgotten and given the same proportion in a space as Indian women will get in the train. All of this has been there since the forum process started and was still there in Mumbai – but somehow it was challenged and overtaken by women who decided to occupy more space than they had been given.

I’ve heard so many people say: “something must happen to this WSF process. It can’t go on like this.” But, this year, something did happen.
A “new” issue – women’s rights – has moved into the centre.

Many “old” problems remain. The approach to solving them may be through proposals that some will find uncomfortable. It’s like the women’s wagons. I’m sure that many would oppose the idea of separating men and women travelers. Well, before judging you should be a woman traveling in a train in India. The wagons “for everybody” consist only of men, who will harass and molest any woman who ventures aboard. It was women themselves who fought to have the women’s wagons.

If the WSF panels “for everybody” consist only of men, who talk about and analyse everything, and the women-only panels speak solely of women’s issues – and that continues regardless of how many think it’s wrong – then maybe we have to make rules. One rule we could make for the WSF is that all-male panels are allowed only to talk about men’s issues.

If people refuse to understand the obvious, perhaps we need to make rules until they do? I’m not suggesting that that would be a positive thing, but the success of the women this year will have an impact that will mark the forum process for more than just a few days in Mumbai.

But this World Social Forum (Mumbai 2004) should not primarily be remembered as an event where we started to make rules, but as a beautiful political festival dominated by women. According to gender research, women are perceived as “many” or “in majority” when we occupy 30% of a space. At this forum, women were approximately represented in accordance with our proportion of the world’s population: around 51%. I think that is why many observers perceived women to be everywhere at this forum. - America Vera Savala (http://www.zmag.org/content/print_article.cfm?itemID=4910&sectionID=1)

Prevailing Gender Dynamics Within the Eastern African Context

Eastern African Women have played and are playing a crucial role in planning and organizing for the upcoming WSF 2007 event. In the host country of Kenya for example, the only member from Kenya of the International Council is a woman; two of the four Kenyan representatives to the African Social Forum Council are Kenyan women. The main representative of the Ethiopian Social Forum to the ASF/WSF gatherings is a woman; in Tanzania at least five of the leading WSF organizers in that country are women; in Uganda almost half of the representatives to the WSF Nairobi 2007 Organizing Committee are women.

At the inaugural WSF Nairobi 2007 Organizing Committee held in Nairobi from April 22nd to April 23rd 2006 half of the chairs of the plenary session were women. At the same meeting, 27.5% (22 out of 80) of the participants were women. Women are also very well-represented in the overall Organizing Committee itself. Prior to and following that pivotal meeting, FEMNET, one of the leading African women’s civil society organizations (and represented in 3 Commissions for WSF 2007) initiated a series of meetings to bring together women involved in the WSF process.

At the same time, out of the 7 Commissions of the WSF Organizing Committee, only 1 is convened by a woman despite the fact that women constitute nearly half of the membership in those commissions. In one of the key decision bodies - the Nairobi Local Committee - 2 of the 5 members are women. The WSF Nairobi 2007 Secretariat is still very much male-dominated. At the inaugural WSF Nairobi 2007 Organizing Committee women called for the setting up of a Women’s Commission - although this issue was never resolved or decided upon.

From the above it is clear that Eastern African women are right in the thick of things when it comes to planning, organizing and mobilizing for WSF Nairobi 2007. Simultaneously the process to the 2007 Nairobi event remains male driven and centred. One can safely assume that the testimonies and perspectives shared in the preceding section will find their equivalents within our regional context. Most of the population in the Eastern African region remains rural-based. Over half of that population is female. Yet the organizing and planning for Nairobi 2007 is centred in the major urban centres like Nairobi, Kampala, Dar es Salaam, Zanzibar town, Mogadishu and Addis Ababa. This has direct implications when it comes to ensuring effective participation of ordinary Eastern African working class and peasant women in the planning and execution for WSF Nairobi 2007. Young adult women (not just in Eastern Africa) have been complaining that there is an assumption that “Youth” = “Young Male” thus marginalizing female youth who in our local context outnumber their male counterparts. One could cite other examples, but suffice to say that the issue of women remaining at the margins of the WSF process is a reality within Eastern Africa as well.

At the end of the day, this reality of women’s marginalization should not be an earth-shattering shock to anyone. The WSF process is a microcosm of concrete conditions in the world today. The gender dynamics within the World Social Forum are a reflection of the actually existing power relations between women and men all over the world.

Just confining ourselves to the Kenyan situation for a few minutes, it is not contested that the prevailing grinding poverty in this country has a greater impact on Kenyan women - even though women are the primary producers of food, the main engines in the unpaid household economy, the chief child care providers, the ones who bear the brunt of taking care of the elderly, the HIV infected and AIDS orphans. There are only a handful of female cabinet ministers and their assistants in the bloated Kenya government.

Every single day there are literally dozens of stories in the local print and electronic media of women being killed, raped, defiled, battered, brutalized and otherwise assaulted by their spouses, fathers, uncles, brothers, sons and other men in their immediate lives as well as total strangers who see females (from babies under a year old to grandmothers pushing a century in existence) as vulnerable, “weaker” targets for their violence prone male power trips.

Recently there was a huge national furor when a Kenyan woman MP introduced a bill to legislate against a huge array of sexual offences including marital rape. Male Kenyan MPs led the charge in ridiculing and rubbishing the Bill with one notorious MP quipping that African women mean “Yes” when they say “No” to uninvited sexual advances. The newspaper columns were full of commentaries and letters to editors from battalions and garrisons of Kenyan men feeling threatened in their bastions of male privilege and therefore unwilling and/or unable to appreciate the terror of rising rape incidents and manifestations of violence against Kenyan women; radio stations were bombarded with phone- calls and mobile text messages from across the country as the male backlash against the Njoki Ndung’u Sexual Offences Bill intensified with gusto.

Notwithstanding the fact that sections of the bill were poorly drafted (as in the startling shifting of the burden of proof from the accuser to the accused) Kenyan male MPs managed to weed out many of the path-breaking recommendations of the bill. For instance, these male MPs and their non-parliamentary brothers in arms across the country considered it a huge “triumph” when the clause criminalizing marital rape was excised from the final, hugely diluted Act of Parliament.

A couple months ago this writer was horrified at the way the crowd at a certain Mombasa night club approvingly cheered when a stand up comic gleefully made fun of a Kenyan woman who had been viciously gang-raped just the previous week. Listening to the sports commentaries on the radio or browsing through certain weekly columns by male writers, it is evident that sexism and misogyny in Kenya cuts across age, class, tribe, race, religion, creed, urban/rural divides and other cleavages in society.

One should therefore not be surprised to see manifestations of these unequal power dynamics between men and women in the actual WSF process itself. If anything, the situation as far as the planning and organizing for Nairobi 2007 seems to reflect a reality that stands a cut above the day to day interactions between men and women in Kenya and the rest of the Eastern African region.

Towards WSF Nairobi 2007: Learning from Past WSF Gender Pitfalls

When one looks at the gender dynamics informing the WSF 2007 process, one is filled with optimism and left brimming with hope. This despite the parlous panorama painted in the preceding section; this despite the unflattering global audit of power relations between women and men around the world.

Why then the optimism? From which spring gushes the hope?

The optimism comes after taking stock of how women around the globe involved in the WSF process have been successfully challenging the bastions and assumptions of male privilege; the optimism is inspired by the fact that an increasing number of men in the WSF family are self-critically re-examining their own roles and seeing how these roles keep women marginalized. The hope emanates from Dennis Brutus’ (a WSF veteran in his own right) poetically dubbed “stubborn hope”: the stubborn hope of the oppressed and marginalized to reclaim centre stage through determined collective struggles. On the Eastern African plane, the optimism and hope comes from the presence of many strong feminists who have helped to build the Social Forums in Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya, Ethiopia and Somalia and a core of progressive men who realized early in the process that the active participation of women and interrogating assumptions of male domination and female marginalization are key indicators of the growth and maturity of the Social Forums in this part of Africa.

Despite these plaudits, the path ahead is rocky; it is hilly and it is thorny.

Speaking as a man anxious to contribute towards a reconfiguration of this lopsided gender equation, I strongly feel that it is about time Eastern African men started a deeper process of questioning ourselves.

One of the places to begin this reflection and rectification has to do with the question of taking up space. One of the mantras of the World Social Forum is for people to claim their space. But in doing so, as men, suck up all the oxygen? Do we stifle others? Do we silence others? Do we literally take up TOO MUCH space? How often do we speak? How long do we speak? In speaking often and loudly, do we perhaps silence others - especially our sister comrades in struggle for a better, more alternative world?

When women speak, do we men listen? How often do we fidget, start side conversations with “our brothers” or interrupt our sisters when they are speaking? When women are through with their presentations do we as men acknowledge what they are saying or were we waiting for OUR chance to speak without bothering to switch on our active listening ears? Do we question the socially determined gender roles at such meetings (as in who takes the minutes, prepares the tea and cleans up)?

It is not once when I have heard concerns raised by women in the WSF process dismissed by otherwise very progressive men as yet one more instance of the often derided “Western bourgeois feminist” contagion - a charge that often silences even the most articulate of African women.

By making that anti-feminist charge, even some of the most overtly “progressive, radical, anti-imperialist ” Eastern African men are often guilty of consciously or unconsciously participating in a covertly sexist attempt to belittle the concerns and demands of women.

The F-word – FEMINISM - is surprisingly dreaded even by dyed in the wool “socialists” “Pan Africanists” and self-declared “revolutionaries” - which is a pity because in my opinion one CANNOT be a socialist, a Pan Africanist or a self-declared revolutionary and hold as anathema the straightforward credo of feminism: equality between women and men.

Sadly, sometimes the most implacable foes of the feminist idea in the Eastern African region are some African WOMEN who in a weird sense of bonding with their African BROTHERS rush to take up cudgels against their OWN SISTERS IN STRUGGLE who insist on pointing out gaps and flaws in the gender dynamics of a given process like the WSF.

Being part of the WSF 2007 Secretariat I am confronted with the practical task of practicing what I preach.

In other words, what concretely can Eastern African men involved in the WSF process do in re-gendering the planning process in order to engender more equal and equitable relations between women and men?

One take off point I believe, is in more and more Eastern African MEN supporting the calls of sisters like Roselynn Musa of FEMNET who have called for the establishment of a Women’s Commission as one of the sub-structures of the WSF Nairobi 2007 Organizing Committee. The arguments I have heard AGAINST the notion of a Women’s Commission with regards that women are represented in ALL of the Commissions and that gender is a cross-cutting concern in the whole planning process is an argument that can NOT be sustained upon further reflection. Youth too, are represented across the board and youth issues are cross-cutting as well. Yet, there is in fact not just a Youth Commission but a whole process of setting up and running a Youth Camp.

Another place to begin taking action is in devising strategies, policies, instruments and structures that will help reduce the level of violence against women attending the WSF event in Nairobi next year. I am zeroing in on the incidents of rape at past WSF events and how we can all work together to turn around this situation. We must go beyond treating Rape as a law and order problem that can be ameliorated by deploying more cops to the WSF site. To do so is to betray an insufficient understanding about the complexity of rape and other instances of violence against women because it reduces the issue to a one –dimensional phenomena of women being accosted and ambushed by “strange men” prowling the Kenyatta International Conference Centre and Uhuru Park for foreign and local female victims.

If we were to adopt this blinkered approach for next year’s WSF event, we would be letting off the hook other potential and actual assailants of WSF- attending women. I am talking about the scientifically proven and documented reality that more often than not, women are raped and assaulted by men they know, men they work with, men they are familiar with. How do women guard against fellow WSF male participants or even fellow delegates from the same organization and the same country. Rape is the extreme, but how about under-reported cases of sexual harassment, unwarranted touching and groping, offensive sexist jokes and exposure to pornography?

These are not problems that are easily amenable to mechanical legislation or a reductionist resort to more police presence - forgetting that all over the world police forces are often implicated in rapes and other forms of violence and harassment against women.

I suggest that in combating rape and other manifestations of violence against women during the next edition of the WSF scheduled for Nairobi in January 2007, men and women can work together, in first sensitizing ALL delegates about rape and violence against women as a manifestation of sexism, misogyny and patriarchy - concepts that are totally alien to the WSF Charter.

Beyond the sensitization should be put in place enforceable sanctions for people who are caught in perpetrating these outrages. In addition to this, the Program, Methodology and Content Commission can send out a specific call for workshops, panels, seminars and teach-ins that address questions of rape, sexual harassment and violence against women. The Logistics Commission could set up banners, stickers, brochures, leaflets and banners campaigning against rape and sexual harassment within and among the WSF delegates.

The Youth Commission could organize an orientation session with the same themes heavily represented. The Culture Commission can organize screenings or performances that highlight the experiences of rape survivors and women who have been through wife battery and similar forms of violence.

The Social Mobilization Commission can carry out a campaign to identify and recruit women and men who have worked in rape crisis centres and counseled victims of violence so as to set up such centres within the sites of WSF Nairobi 2007. The Media and Publicity Commission can come up with special pamphlets or produce short video documentaries campaigning against rape and violence against women.

The Resource Mobilization Commission can try and mobilize funds to recruit and train in house security organized to deal with incidents of rape and violence against women. Perhaps there should be special provisions for women who are survivors of rape and sexual violence to get housing and accommodation that lowers their fears of a repeat occurrence - by opting for billeting (solidarity accommodation) with other women, living in secure female only hostels etc. And yes, deploying more police and other regular security personnel can help reduce the number of rapes and incidents of violence against women during the WSF event next year.

In doing all this, the WSF Nairobi 2007 Organizing Committee should and must work with organizations like the Coalition on Violence Against Women, FEMNET, FIDA, Equality Now, AWEPON, Sahiba Sisters Foundation, TAMWA, Five Centuries Theatre Group, WIPPET, ENDA-Ethiopia, Kenya Human Rights Commission, OXFAM, Action Aid, MS Kenya, Heinrich Boll Foundation and other civil society bodies that have a proven track record in these areas.

What else can Eastern African men do in terms of changing the gender dynamics of the WSF process for the better?

Perhaps I will pause here.

I fervently urge everyone reading this to get hold of Roselynn Musa’s presentation on the same subject during the recently convened Heinrich Boll Foundation supported forum on “Gendering the WSF Process” held at the Ufungumano House on Thursday, May 25, 2006.

* This paper was first presented at a public forum on “Gendering the WSF Process” held at Ufungamano House in Nairobi on Thursday, May 25, 2006 and financially supported by the Heinrich Boell Foundation. Onyango Oloo is the National Coordinator, Kenya Social Forum

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

Below is the latest quarterly update (April to June 2006) that Equality Now received from SOAWR members who are working on the campaign for ratification, domestication and popularization of the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa. Also included is information on the status of ratifications, meetings attended by SOAWR members and upcoming events which may be of interest to SOAWR members.

During this quarter the Steering Committee approved one more membership application received from the Centre for Justice Studies and Innovations (CJSI) in Uganda. This brings the total of SOAWR members to 22. Two additional applications from Liberia and Somalia are being reviewed.

Country Level Campaigns

Burkina Faso

Voix de Femmes reported that the Chief of State of Burkina Faso signed the Decree of Promulgation of the law authorizing ratification of the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa on March 31, 2006. The only step that remains is depositing the instrument of ratification with the African Union. The deposit document has been prepared and was sent to the Secretariat of the Government and was signed by the Chief of State on June 16, 2006. Currently, the document is with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs which is responsible for sending it to the African Union Commission through Burkina Faso’s Embassy in Addis Ababa.

Meanwhile, Voix de Femmes continues with activities to raise awareness about the Protocol and they have integrated these activities within the scope of their program regarding women’s rights and violence against women. They hold 2-hour educational sessions three times a month on Thursday afternoons for women who have domestic issues including marriage, divorce and inheritance. Youth and students also benefit from these sessions.

Ethiopia

IAC is planning two workshops, the first in September 2006 for legislators and parliamentarians on the domestication of the Protocol and other legal instruments. IAC anticipates there will be 56 participates from IAC’s 28 member countries. The objective is to train the participants on advocacy for ratification or enforcement in their respective countries of the Protocol and other legal instruments which protect women and children. The second conference is a regional youth forum which will be held during 21-25 November 2006, and will include 56 youths from the 28 IAC countries. The objective is to reinforce youth networks which were established in 2000 to campaign against female genital mutilation, and to train them on communication and validate a youth training manual developed by IAC. A specific session on the Protocol and its application is also on the conference agenda.

The Gambia

In April, the African Center for Democracy and Human Rights Studies (ACDHRS) reported that the Gambia has removed the reservations that it has earlier place on four articles of the Protocol. The African Union Commission has, however, not officially received this revision from the Gambian Government. ACDHRS is following up on this.

The ACDHRS organized and hosted the NGO forum during the 39th Session of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR). The Forum, which brought about 135 participants and facilitators together, noted that this year is the 25th Anniversary of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights. The Forum addressed several themes including new developments in the human rights and democracy situation in Africa. While Africa has seen significant and positive developments in human rights and democracy in this time, improvement is necessary with respect to human rights, good governance, and the rule of law. The Forum commended the participation of civil society organizations working throughout Africa to encourage the African Union to take responsibility for the enhancement and promotion of human rights. It noted the significance of the entry into force of the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa, congratulated the countries which have ratified it, and urged those who have not yet done so to ratify without delay. Strategies for the ratification and implementation of the Protocol to the African Charter on the Rights of Women in Africa were exchanged as a basis for future collaboration. The NGOs attending the Forum expressed need to collaborate on efforts to advocate for ratification, domestication, and implementation. In a statement read by Hannah Forster on behalf of the NGO’s, attending the Forum, at the opening of the ACHPR, the NGO’s congratulated The Gambia for lifting its reservations to the Protocol. The NGO statement urged States to implement the African Union’s Solemn Declaration on Gender Equality in Africa at the national level.

The First Meeting of the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights - The office of the African Union Commission Legal Counsel convened a meeting during the African Union Summit for the purpose of swearing in the newly elected judges and to brief them on the African Union Commission’s work especially on its working relations with the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights. The court has not elected a president yet which was deferred to September 2006 in Addis Ababa.

Guinea Conakry

Though Guinea was among the first countries whose Parliament approved ratification of the Protocol, thanks to the strong mobilization efforts led by CPTAFE and its partners on the ground, to date Guinea has not yet officially deposited its instrument of ratification with the African Union Commission. The delay is attributed to the current political crisis where the President has been ill for several months now.

Convinced that the Protocol must first be fully accepted by the community in general and women in particular, CPTAFE engaged in an immense sensitization campaign. It identified 30 young women, 30 young men, 30 older women and 30 older men throughout the country. These 120 people underwent a full day of training on the Protocol. Upon return to their communities, these trained people undertook a vast education campaign on the Protocol focusing on the following components: origin and genesis, contents, achievement in the field of women’s human rights, regional character, and necessity of personal engagement of women in the fight for their rights. Interactive broadcasts on community radio were organized in four regions of Guinea.

CPTAFE succeeded in including the popularization of the Protocol in all its social projects in Guinea. Parallel to this work in the field, staff and volunteers went door to door to the decision-makers and advocated for the deposit of the instrument of ratification. In the past year, Guinea has changed government three times and the Minster of Foreign Affairs, who is specifically responsible for the Protocol, has changed four times. CPTAFE met with the Ministers of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, Health, Interior and Social Affairs and sensitized them all on the necessity to support the domestication of the Protocol.

On 12 May 2006, Guinean Radio and Television organized a large debate on the subject of the ratification and application of the Protocol in Guinea and Africa. This program, which brought together Guinean specialists from government and civil society, allowed for wide scale dissemination of information to the public on the progress that has been achieved for human rights in general and women’s rights in particular. Following the last meeting of the Board of CPTAFE and their partners held on 29 June 2006, it was proposed that CPTAFE would use theatre, a method of popularization which has had a lot of success in the fight against FGM, to popularize the Protocol in the public domain.

* Please click on the link below to read the full update.

The internet and more so blogging has enabled a growth in freedom of speech amongst civil society groups and individual activists and citizens across the continent. In China, Iran and the Middle East the governments have been active in monitoring and restricting access to the internet by it’s citizens. The first African country to ban websites was Tunisia which hosted the second phase of the WSIS (World Summit on the Information Society) was held in Tunisia last November. The irony was not lost on many of the participants who held their own workshops and seminars promoting freedom of expression despite threats from government employed thugs. Earlier on March 1st Tunisian journalist Muhammad Abou was arrested and subsequently imprisoned for publishing an article on a banned website where he compared the President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

The first reports that the Ethiopian government was blocking blogs hosted by blogger.com came on the 18th May as Ethiopian blogger, Ethiopian Life reported that his blog had been blocked along with a number of others. Later Meskel Square asked “Where have all the Ethiopian Blogspot Bloggers gone?. In addition, Free Our Leaders and Ethiopian Review were also unavailable. In total 75% of Ethiopian blogs tracked on Global Voices are no longer accessible from Ethiopia.

The Ethiopian blogosphere has been one of the most vibrant on the continent and highly critical of the government of Meles Zenawi. Though the government is still denying any involvement in the shut down there is really no other explanation. Ethiopian bloggers in the Diaspora continue to relentlessly attack the tyranny of Zenawi’s government and question the US and other Western countries who continue to support his government. Ethiopia is not the only country trying to prevent African citizens an online presence. RSF reports that the Gambian government has hacked into the website of exiled Gambian journalist, Pa Nderry Mbai, who runs the Freedom Newspaper and posted “a false statement of allegiance to an associate of the president together with the names, addresses, phone numbers and e-mail addresses of all its subscribers, describing them as “informers”(http://www.freedomnewspaper.com/).

The false statement was made worse by the exposure of people’s names and email addresses who had set up user accounts on the site. Mbai’s email and phone number in the US were also published. Those living in Gambia are now at personal risk of arrest and detention by the Gambian government.

The same day, the Gambian police ordered all those “who continually supplied him with information which he used to castigate and vilify the democratically elected government of His Excellency President Alhaji Yahya Jammeh” to report to the nearest police station within 24 hours or face immediate arrest.
The hacking was done from an IP address in Southampton, England.

The implications for activists and dissidents in Africa are obvious. How safe is your personal information? How safe are you? This is especially worrying for those blogging from Ethiopia, Tunisia and Egypt - governments which have arrested and detained bloggers and journalists in recent months. Egypt has been particularly viscious…. in it’s response to bloggers. On May 7th activist and blogger, Alaa Ahmed along with 11 others, was detained in prison by the Egyptian police. They had all been arrested for supporting another group of protestors. According to a Human Rights Watch report, the thousands of police were deployed against protestors proving once again that President Mubarak “is committed to zero tolerance when it comes to peaceful dissent”. Despite the arrests, Egyptian bloggers launched a collaborative campaign against the governments repression and to free the arrested activists and bloggers. Alaa Ahmed was not the first Egyptian blogger to be arrested. Last October, 21 year old activist, journalist and blogger, Abdel Karim Seliman was also arrested and detained for 18 days. His writings were confiscated by the Egyptian state security.

In Zimbabwe where freedom of speech died many years ago, the government is planning to enact legislation that will allow it to monitor the phone calls and mail of anyone suspected of threatening national security or involvement in criminal activities in the country. The Interception of Communications Bill will include the monitoring of email and there is no doubt in my mind that the government will seek ways to block internet usage and particularly blogs from operating within the country. In truth the Bill is simply another tool for the government to continue its repression of the people of Zimbabwe and places Zimbabwean bloggers at an increased risk to their personal safety.

Two African countries that have had relatively free press and freedom of speech, South African and Kenya, are now hinting at curbing free expression. In the case of South Africa the government is proposing legislation that will monitor require mobile phone providers to monitor and intercept phone calls.
The proposed law requires operators Vodacom, MTN and CellC to put in place systems for the interception of cellphone communications, and to keep detailed information of all their clients, as well as phones and SIM cards .

The providers such as Vodocom (http://www.citizen.co.za/index/article.aspx?pDesc=17511,1,22) are angry at the legislation which will increase their administration costs on a scheme they say is unworkable. They will face huge fines for not complying with the proposed legislation - the “Regulation of Interception of Communications and Provision of Communications Related Information Bill” (http://www.legalbrief.co.za/filemgmt_data/files/RIC%20Bill.pdf) and of course they will loose millions in revenue as their customer base is reduced by as much as 20 million people (http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/article.aspx?ID=BD4A206373).

However from a user perspective the Bill has implications for both privacy and access or use of mobile phones. As always it is the poor that will mostly be affected by this legislation. If you dont have an address, do not work in the formal economy or are an illegal immigrant then under the Bills regulations you will no longer be able to use a mobile phone. The second hand sale of SIM cards which again is used by mostly poor and rural people will be criminalised as failure to report the sale or exchange will result in a prison sentence of up to 12 months.

The governments cites the high crime rate as the main reason behind the legislation. There is no doubt about the high level of crime in South Africa and that mobile phones are used in carrying out many crimes. However it will be the poor, the migrants, the low paid or those employed in the informal sector who will suffer most and become even more disenfranchised from society and not the criminals who as one report states (http://www.citizen.co.za/index/article.aspx?pDesc=17511,1,22) can afford to buy SIM cards from a neighbouring country, use them and dispose of them with ease.

Last month the Kenyan Internal Security Minister, John Njoroge Michuki place an advert in the Daily Standard where as Kenyan blogger, Thinkers Room wrote “not so subtly dishes out warnings to radio talk shows, newspapers and Internet bloggers……. Bottom line – bloggers are now on the government radar”. He continues….”I won’t be cowed online but I jolly well will keep a very low profile physically.”

Africa’s dictators and paranoid leaders are beginning to discover cyberland where, unlike traditional media (newspapers, radio and TV), freedom of expression is much more difficult to control. Nigeria, has a huge online presence not only from bloggers but from news portals, forums and discussion groups – most of them highly critical of the present government. Two weeks ago, a Nigerian photographer, Jide Adeniyi-Jones, was refused publication of an article by various Nigerian newspapers so he simply sent the article to various bloggers who published it on his behalf. Many dissidents and activists from the Niger Delta and Igboland who are calling for secession already use the internet to publish their writings which would be banned in Nigeria. How long before they find themselves on the governments radar.

* Sokari Ekine is Blogging Africa editor for Pambazuka News

* * Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

Political parties are indispensable for making democracy work and deliver. Finding the proper conditions for better internal functioning and effective legal regulation of political parties is of key importance anywhere.

This report is a result of world-wide research and dialogue with political parties as part of International IDEA’s Political Parties’ programme, where International IDEA is working with national and regional research partners to improve insight and comparative knowledge. The purpose is to provide for constructive public debate and reform actions helping political parties to develop.

Political parties researched: Alliance for Democracy; All Nigeria Peoples Party; All Progressives Grand Alliance; and Peoples Democratic Party.

Methodology

Nigeria currently has 33 registered political parties. Some 24 of them were registered just before the 2003 elections, while three were registered in February 2006 after the completion of the research. Most of them are very small and have little impact on the political process. The four parties chosen for this report were selected because they won the largest number of parliamentary seats in the 2003 elections. The desk study phase on the country context and external regulation of political parties drew on an analysis of the country’s constitution and laws, as well as published sources. Unpublished materials—such as party documents, newspaper reports and mimeographs—were also consulted.

Interviews were held with paid, full-time party officials at the party secretariats. The interview process on the internal functioning of the political parties was difficult and time-consuming, since all four parties underwent periods of internal crisis during the research period. Indeed, some of the party offices were closed and under police protection, or were occupied by one faction of the party. The situation improved by April 2005, however, and it was then possible to administer the questionnaires with the help of party staff at their secretariats.

Background

Nigeria is a federation of 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory of Abuja. It has a presidential system of government with an executive President, a judiciary and a bicameral National Assembly (Senate and House of Representatives) whose members are elected. Political crisis during the First Republic led to intervention by the armed forces and a civil war between 1967 and 1970. It also led to 30 years of military rule, except for the four-year period between 1979 and 1983. In 1999, the military government organized general elections and President Olusegun Obasanjo thereafter took office.

The last general elections were in April 2003. The next are scheduled for 2007, because those elected at the state and federal levels have a four-year tenure, with a maximum of two terms for the executive. The human rights situation has improved relative to the period of military rule, but there are still several human rights violations. The population lives in profound poverty, largely due to mismanagement of the economy and widespread corruption. In Transparency International’s last report, Nigeria was ranked sixth from last on the organization’s Corruption Perception Index (CPI).

The ruling party is the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), whose winner-takes-all outlook, coupled to the authoritarian tendencies of incumbent President Olusegun Obasanjo, pose a threat to the country’s democracy. Stability is also threatened by communal clashes, as well as violent insurgencies in many parts of the country.

Nigeria’s first general elections were held in 1960 when the British colonial authorities were preparing to hand over power to a local political leadership under the parliamentary system of government. The second general elections in 1964 were marked by boycotts in many areas. This led to the end of the First Republic in January 1966 and a military takeover of power. The armed forces ceded power to civilians in 1979 under the leadership of President Alhaji Shehu Shagari. Widespread electoral irregularities and other malpractices, however, were decried by opposition parties, as well as by civil society following the 1983 elections. This led to another military takeover in December 1983.

The military regime of General Ibrahim Babangida organised elections in 1992. The elections were inconclusive, however, because the result of the presidential election was annulled just before the vote-counting was completed. A new election was held by General Sani Abacha in 1997, but these too were inconclusive. General Abdulsami Abubakar, who succeeded Sani Abacha, organised the elections that brought the present incumbent, President Obasanjo, into power. President Obasanjo presided over the last general elections in April 2003. Both elections have been generally acknowledged by the opposition parties, civil society, and local and international observers as beset by large-scale irregularities.

During the military government of General Ibrahim Babangida (1985-1993), an eight-year transition programme began. General Babangida went further than the earlier regime in the regulation of political parties, decreeing that only two political parties would be registered. He instructed politicians to choose one of these parties as the platform for the attainment of their political ambitions. His government also wrote the parties’ constitutions, funded them and built offices for them throughout the country.

General Sani Abacha, who succeeded Babangida, registered five political parties. Remarkably, he induced all five parties to adopt him as their sole presidential candidate, but he died shortly thereafter. He was succeeded by General Abdulsalami, who registered three political parties and organized general elections that led to the election of General Obasanjo in 1999.

On the Freedom House World Country Ratings, Nigeria is classified as partly free in terms of political rights and civil liberties. This rating has been unchanged for the past five years.

Regulatory framework

Sections 221-229 of the 1999 constitution make elaborate provision for the registration, functioning, conduct and finances of political parties setting difficult conditions for the registration of political parties. As a result, only three parties were registered to contest the 1999 elections. This was partly because the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), the country’s election management body, imposed conditions for registration that were more stringent than the provisions of the constitution. The Electoral Act was later amended and the procedure for registering parties was liberalised somewhat. Nonetheless, Nigeria retains a very illiberal regulatory regime for the registration and functioning of political parties.

The effect of these conditions is that parties that emerge must be very big, very rich and have the capacity to bring together money-wielding forces from different parts of the country. In effect, the major factor in party formation is not the aggregation of people with similar ideologies or interests but the establishment of ethnic coalitions led by regional barons with strong financial backing.

Internal functioning and structure

Election of leadership

The most important aspect of the parties’ internal functioning is that the regulatory framework outlined above tends to give rise to a situation in which political ‘godfathers’ play a major role in internal party politics. Parties have formal procedures for the election of their leaders but these procedures are often disregarded; when they are adhered to, the godfathers have means of determining the outcomes.

At the party congresses, leaders are elected and candidates are nominated for elective positions. The elections, however, are usually pre-determined and party bosses tend to have the final say in the selection of leaders. This process leads to the continual internal party crisis that the country has experienced. Party bosses or godfathers are unwilling to allow internal party democracy, a circumstance that leads to frequent conflicts and constrains the development of parties as popular organizations. Indeed, over the years these party bosses have developed comprehensive techniques for eliminating popular aspirants from party posts and for preventing them from being nominated for elective positions.

Techniques for the elimination of popular aspirants

Nigerian parties have a wide range of techniques to eliminate people from party primaries, including the use of power by powerful ‘party owners’, party barons, state governors, godfathers and so on; zoning and other forms of administrative fiat; violence by thugs or security personnel; bribing of officials and voters to support particular candidates; and simply disregard for the results declaring the loser as the winner

Policy development

Given this history, policy development tends to be disarticulated from policy implementation. While formal party structures such as the National Conventions and the National Executive Council have responsibility for policy formulation, the policies that get implemented in practice tend to reflect the desires of godfathers rather than formal party organs. Given this context, Nigerian party life is characterised by a very low level of debate on policy options and by members that are only active during election periods. There is urgent need for Nigerian parties to prioritise the issue of policy development.

Funding

Parties are partly funded by the state. The regulatory framework requires that parties prepare regular audited financial reports. Most party funds, however, come through party financiers and the details of these sums rarely enter the formal process of party accounts. Indeed, the role of money in contemporary Nigerian politics is so overwhelming that it tends to supersede other considerations. Precisely for this reason, the country’s political parties provide only very limited opportunities for marginalised individuals—youths, the poor and women.

Marginalization of women in politics

The marginalisation of women from political power in Nigeria’s patriarchal political system dates back to the colonial era, and women were not allowed to vote in Northern Nigeria until 1976. This marginalization has continued into the Fourth Republic. Of the 11,881 electable positions available during the 1999 elections, only 631 women were in contention. Only 181 of them won (a mere 1.62 per cent of the total positions).

Following the political party primaries for candidates in the 2003 elections, it became evident that the elimination of women through a well-orchestrated process of manipulating the outcome of most primaries was virtually party policy across the board. Indeed, the primaries were a charade because most popular candidates—female and male—were eliminated by party barons and replaced by other candidates who enjoyed the support of state and party executives. Studies of 15 female political aspirants reveal the following means of marginalizing women.

The indigeneity ploy

The 1979 constitution introduced the concept of ‘indigeneity’ into Nigerian public law to guarantee a fair regional distribution of power. Over the years, the principle has been subverted to discriminate against Nigerian citizens who are not indigenous to the places where they live and work. Women married to men who are non-indigenes of their local governments suffer discrimination. In their own constituencies, they are told that by marrying out, they have lost their indigeneity. In their husband’s constituency, they are told they do not really belong because indigeneity is based on the consanguinity principle.

Challenges and opportunities

Nigerian political parties were conceived to be cohesive, national bourgeois parties. Nonetheless, the aim or political project of most Nigerian parties has been the development of a national system for sharing out the ‘national cake’ as a system of patronage. This is why the parties are established as coalitions of various factions of regional and economic rent-seekers. Most party leaders see their political party activity as a means to further their business interests.

Nigerian political parties face two challenges. First, an extremely high level of corruption has made politics a competitive business. Second, the regulatory framework for the establishment of parties should to be changed so that new parties do not have to forge coalitions of the wealthy as a basis for their registration.

About International IDEA

Founded in 1995, the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) is an intergovernmental organisation that seeks to promote and develop sustainable democracy world-wide.

About CDD

The Centre for Democracy and Development is a non-governmental organisation which aims to promote the values of democracy, peace & human rights in Africa and especially in the West African sub-region.

The full report is available at the link shown.

*Dr. Jibrin Ibrahim, is Principal Researcher at the Centre for Democracy and Development; Fabian Okoye and Tom Adambara are Research Assistants at Global Rights.

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

Ivory Coast, a failing state in West Africa, is a formerly wealthy country is in urgent need of increased attention by the international community. The state is collapsing under the weight of a protracted rebellion that controls half its territory, sharpening ethnic differences, and leading to a dramatic decay in the quality of life of the population. The insufficient international peacekeeping presence prevents a full-scale civil war erupting, without however allowing a return to peace. This no-war no-peace situation also threatens the stability of the whole West African region. But there are lessons to be learned from the experience of East Timor.

East Timor, where the UN created the fragile state of Timor Leste barely four years ago, has once again made tragic media headlines. Despite its smallness, it is once more illustrating an important shortcoming in international politics, and as such captures top world media attention. The current chaos and the collapse of government authority clearly prove that the past nation-building efforts of the international community were insufficient to create a viable independent state in East Timor. The granting of independence after a brief 30 months of UN temporary administration, meant to create a modern state, was premature. The country had suffered too much under the 25 year brutal Indonesian occupation that followed its colonial experience under Portugal, a master that had done little to prepare it for independence. The fragility of the UN state building job has been clearly revealed by the tragic events of recent days, as the country fractures along several lines. The dramatic appeal of its governing authorities for international assistance to restore basic law and order shows that the Timor Leste state has failed and that its ‘sovereignty’ is illusory. The costs of this failure in terms of human suffering for the Timorese population and of instability for its geographic region in South East Asia and the South Pacific are considerable. The expenses that countries contributing to the restoration of order in Timor Leste have, and will have, to bear are also significant.

Despite the past intense publicity aimed at portraying the UN state building efforts in East Timor as successful, we now see that this was not so. It may be tempting to blame “the UN” for this failure, as it has become fashionable to do when the organisation is unable to do magic in the field of peace keeping. Or it may be tempting to blame the Timor Leste authorities for their poor governance capabilities. In my view, none of these would be just. Instead, I feel that we should use the East Timor example to examine some underlying principles that govern our contemporary world affairs, and draw lessons that would be helpful to deal properly with other failing state situations. There are, after all, several such cases at present. They represent still unresolved and burdensome legacies of 20th century colonialism which continue having a serious negative impact on world peace.

As follows from the argument of my book on the subject, the failure of Timor Leste is no surprise. Together with many others, I anticipated it. The East Timorese people suffered from the unwillingness of key UN member states to commit the necessary resources to the lengthy process of state building to prepare the country - over which the UN held sovereignty- for viable independent statehood. Instead, to cut expenses, they pressed for a speedy withdrawal and the granting of a premature independence. Those locals in East Timor keen to become the new power elite eagerly encouraged this irresponsibility.

Having been so strongly geared to the dismantling of colonial empires in the past, the UN members never made the organisation pay much attention to developing a capacity to prepare colonial territories or failing post-colonial weak states for successful independent statehood. It is encouraging to note that now, may be partly as a result of the recent East Timor experience, the UN is setting up a Peace Building Commission (PBC), aimed at strengthening weak states so as to become viable in post-conflict phases. Hopefully key UN member states will muster the necessary political will to endow the PBC with adequate resources to handle this difficult and lengthy task properly instead of just cosmetically. Strengthening of fragile states is crucial for peace, to advance democracy and prosperity. But it is a long process which requires a significant investment. The returns of this outlay are well-worth it. As Timor Leste has just shown us, skimping on state building is not.

Timor Leste would benefit from a strong state building support through the PBC or by some other competent international agency. This will be the only way to ensure that a viable state is eventually put in place in East Timor. The benefits for its population and for the stability of its entire geographic region would be significant. Even if they have to pay for such state building, the longer term savings for its neighbours are considerable. Being called in to keep the peace, as Australia, New Zealand, and Malaysia are doing at present is, after all, very expensive.

But Timor Leste is not an isolated case. There are many failing post-colonial state examples crying out for strong international support to restore peace and strengthen state institutions. The PBC will not be short of work if its principals among the UN membership allow it to take on these needy clients.

Ivory Coast, a failing state in West Africa, is one particular example which I mention since I am currently involved with it. This formerly wealthy country is in urgent need of increased attention by the international community. The state is collapsing under the weight of a protracted rebellion that controls half its territory, sharpening ethnic differences, and leading to a dramatic decay in the quality of life of the population. The insufficient international peacekeeping presence prevents a full-scale civil war erupting, without however allowing a return to peace. This no-war no-peace situation also threatens the stability of the whole West African region.

In the view of many of its people, including that of the Ivorian civil society organisations I am currently advising, what Ivory Coast urgently needs is a stronger commitment by the international community to empower the UN to undertake a peace-enforcement action to end the rebellion and restore government authority. Once this is achieved, a strong peace building and state strengthening program, possibly through the UN Peace Building Commission, would be appropriate. During this time, an UN-supported transitional government should conduct intensive reconciliation and civic education activities to restore national unity. The severely damaged state institutions would need to be repaired and their administrative and professional capacity strengthened. Only after the accomplishment of all this would the holding of elections for a new government be meaningful and lead to sustainable peace.

Our big question at present, which is in urgent need of an answer, is whether lessons such as those that have been provided to us by the tragic East Timor experiences have been learned by the international community? Is the political will to empower the UN to do a proper state building job in failing post colonial states going to emerge at last? This negative legacy of 20th century colonialism will not be resolved by continuing to pretend that the UN can perform magic in this field without being provided the means to strengthen fragile states. It is high time for the international community to face this reality and to master the political will to act. The birth of the UN Peace Building Commission is the perfect time to do so. The Ivory Coast is an excellent field in which to apply the lessons that East Timor has taught us. Will it be done this time around?

* Dr. Juan Federer had a long involvement in the liberation process of East Timor. He now is Projects Director of the Center for War/Peace Studies of New York (www.cwps.org). His book The UN in East Timor: building Timor Leste a fragile state (Charles Darwin University Press, 2005) decries the lack of sufficient commitment by the international community for proper state building in East Timor, anticipating the recent crisis.

The French version of this article first appeared in Pambazuka News French Edition No 9 (http://www.pambazuka.org/fr/category/comment/35730)

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

The World Bank, under its president of the last year Paul Wolfowitz, has been talking tough in the fight against corruption. But how sincere is Wolfowitz when it comes to dealing with the World Bank’s role in financing corrupt regimes of the past and the cancellation of these illegitimate debts? The answer is simple. He’s not, says Gail Hurley.

One could be forgiven for thinking that Paul Wolfowitz has spoken about corruption and nothing else during the year that he has held the post as World Bank President. Although his predecessor, James Wolfensohn, also highlighted corruption as a serious obstacle to development, Wolfowitz has significantly elevated the issue as a World Bank priority. Wolfowitz’s anti-corruption rhetoric has captured media headlines. But how comprehensive, consistent and effective are the plans and actions behind the talk? How far can the Bank really go with this agenda, in particular where the Bank itself has been the cause of corruption, and odious and illegitimate debts, in the past?

It appears as though the Bank’s focus on anti-corruption looks set to continue. In February, the World Bank, in cooperation with other multilateral development banks and the IMF, agreed to create “a framework for preventing and combating fraud and corruption”. It is to be ready for the Bank/Fund Annual Meetings in September in Singapore. On a recent trip to Indonesia, Wolfowitz presented a “long-term strategy” for using the Bank’s money and expertise to help developing countries rid their governments of bribe-taking and other dishonest practices. A key component will be the deployment of anti-corruption teams in many World Bank country offices. At the World Bank’s 2006 Spring Meetings, Wolfowitz correctly acknowledged that “for every bribe-taker, there is a bribe-giver, and often, that comes from a developed country” and any thorough approach to corruption must examine corruption by companies and individuals in the North, not just the South. In a recent leaked paper obtained by Eurodad, the Bank claims to be “raising the bar on governance and anti-corruption” even further. The paper, entitled “Raising the Bar on Anti-Corruption: Improving Governance and Accountability, Fostering Development” outlines possible ways forward for the Bank, including promoting good governance and accountability and supporting international efforts for the repatriation of stolen wealth.

The story presented so far however focuses very much on the “corruption of today” and pays scant attention to the “corruption of yesterday”. Remarkably absent from the anti-corruption strategy presented by officials so far is any critical examination of the Bank’s lending practices to poor countries in the past. The World Bank has over the years been involved with and lent to some of the world’s most notorious and despised regimes such as Mobutu Seke Seso of Democratic Republic of Congo and Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines.

Bank documentation at the time of these transactions, or published shortly afterwards, confirms that many Bank officials - at both country-level and in Washington DC - were perfectly aware of the nature of the regimes in place and that many loans were simply transferred into the bank accounts of the dictators and their generals. It was plain therefore that they did not reach the poor or foster economic development. Despite their odious and illegitimate nature most of these debts continue to be serviced today, at the expense of essential investments in poverty reduction and economic development.

How can any approach to weed-out corruption be successful or comprehensive if it does not look critically at the lending practices undertaken by the institution in the past? The Bank should learn the lessons of the past, accept co-responsibility for its mistakes and agree to cancel Bank debts resulting from loans where Bank officials knew much of the money would be diverted by corrupt elites. Wolfowitz says the real issue at stake is “how to promote good governance and accountability”. Accountability must begin at home, by addressing the mistakes - and in some cases downright negligence - of the past.

A serious inquiry into past Bank lending practices and the problem of odious and illegitimate debt will likely be resisted by Wolfowitz (who said as much at the Spring Meetings when I challenged him on this point). He argued that the governments represented in the Bank would not be happy if he raised this issue. But Wolfowitz has already challenged the Bank’s members on a number of issues. And we have seen the Bush administration acknowledge the odiousness of Iraq’s debt burden.

Iraq is a country with a very significant burden of odious and illegitimate debt, a clear case study of lending for geopolitical strategic and ideological purposes rather than any concern for the welfare of the overall population. The US government indeed acknowledged this in 2003 when United States Treasury Secretary John Snow remarked to Fox News that “certainly the people of Iraq shouldn’t be saddled with those debts incurred through the regime of the dictator who is now gone”.

Another country which Wolfowitz knows well is Indonesia, where he served as US Ambassador from 1986-1989 during the General Suharto years. His recent visit to Jakarta provided the World Bank President with an excellent opportunity to pledge to examine Indonesia’s case. Respected Indonesian NGO, the International Forum for Indonesian Development (INFID) argues that “it is widely known that approximately 30% of the World Bank loans during the reign of Suharto were corrupted”. Moreover, the debts were accumulated by an authoritarian regime and no public consultation took place. For years, the World Bank continued making transactions with Indonesia. The Bank supported and strengthened the authoritarian regime, says INFID.

A leaked 1997 World Bank report supports these allegations. The report found that as much as 20 to 30% of the budgets linked to development funds were embezzled and World Bank loans were clearly involved. Other internal reports attest to staff knowledge of the regime in place and the fraud taking place. Despite this clear awareness, loans increased. There was also an increase in World Bank loans to the Indonesian Government during the occupation of East Timor.

Indonesia’s total external debt stands at US$134 billion. Of this sum, public and publicly guaranteed debt amounts to US$ 80 billion. To pay this debt, the government put aside 26% of the 2006 state budget. In contrast, education was allocated only 5% and health 2%. Poverty levels are high and increasing in Indonesia: 50% of the population lives in poverty and earns less than US$ 2 per day. The World Bank is one of the country's largest creditors with approximately US$12 billion in claims.

Instead Wolfowitz chose not to use this opportunity to critically reexamine the loans that Indonesians argue involved corruption and fraud and yet which they are required to service under the current system.

One World Bank shareholder which is taking action on this is Norway. It is one of the first Northern countries to open dialogue on odious and illegitimate debt and to call for an international focus on this critical issue. Firstly, Norway has asked the World Bank to undertake a study of odious and illegitimate debt and has put money aside to support this research. Secondly, Norway’s Development Minister Erik Solheim has committed to more closely examine the illegitimate debts claimed by Norway, notably those incurred through the Shipping Export Credit Campaign of the 1970’s.

The débacle involves the export of Norwegian ships to developing countries (such as Ecuador, Peru and Jamaica) between 1977 and 1980. It exported these ships mainly to secure employment for a ship-building industry in crisis. In the case of Ecuador, the Norwegian authorities demanded state guarantees for the ships and when, after the first four years, the company stopped paying the remaining debt was transferred to the state. Ecuador has been servicing the debt for 16 years and its value today is five times the original amount. Minister Solheim has made the very welcome statement that he wishes to draw a line across this mistaken and damaging low point in Norway’s development cooperation policy and in the context of next year’s budget will look to take unilateral action to cancel these claims, citing the lending as irresponsible. All eyes will be on Norway over the coming months to see if the country will indeed cancel these claims and NGOs will push for a clear and public acknowledgement of the injustice and illegitimacy of these debts. Kjetil Abildsnes of the Norwegian Debt Campaign said in a recent statement to the press: “It remains to be seen if Solheim is tough enough to declare these debts illegitimate. We hope to get an answer [soon]. Norway can then become the first creditor in the world to recognise parts of developing country debt as illegitimate.” 

The World Bank - and other bilateral and private creditors - should take a leaf out of Norway’s book and take a critical look at the past. The Bank in particular has no excuse: Norway has put aside money to support research into this issue and it would seem to fit logically and perfectly within the anti-corruption theme that Wolfowitz is so keen to take forward. Indeed Wolfowitz must recognise that any comprehensive approach to corruption must necessarily involve a frank and open critique of past Bank lending practices leading to the cancellation of debts found to be odious and illegitimate.

Cancellation of odious and illegitimate debts has the power to transform the lives of the world’s poor as well as foster reform of an international financial architecture skewed in favour of creditors. Developing countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Philippines, Indonesia and others continue to service debts of highly questionable origin when the benefits of debt cancellation have been clearly recognised.

Wolfowitz and World Bank Executive Directors need to place this issue firmly on the Bank Board agenda. NGOs will continue to press the Bank to do so and we hope that Norway will also do the same in particular because Minister Solheim has stated that “there can be no doubt that Norway wishes to be in front on this issue”. In the meantime, Wolfowitz should stop labelling his approach to the corruption problem as comprehensive. It is not.

It is not a question of being “stuck in the past”: the debt service on illegitimate loans has an impact on poor people today. Urgent action is needed at the international level. The funds the Norwegian Government has pledged to the World Bank and UN to support further research should not sit idly in the coffers of either the Norwegian Treasury or the World Bank but be put to good use to develop an international consensus – in equal partnership with relevant stakeholders – on how to tackle the issue of odious and illegitimate debt.

* Gail Hurley is with the European Network on Debt and Development (Eurodad) [email][email protected]

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There is a crying need for an international agency for women. Every stitch of evidence we have, right across the entire spectrum of gender inequality suggests the urgent need for a multilateral agency. The great dreams of the international conferences in Vienna, Cairo and Beijing have never come to pass. It matters not the issue: whether it’s levels of sexual violence, or HIV/AIDS, or maternal mortality, or armed conflict, or economic empowerment, or parliamentary representation, women are in terrible trouble. And things are getting no better.

This Panel can create such an agency and show fundamental courage by doing so, or it can tinker at the edges of ‘gender architecture’ and consign the world of women, yet again, to perpetual second-rate status.

I’m not going to equivocate about my expectations: I expect the Panel to take the road of least resistance, and come up with some high-sounding scheme, probably with a few choice rhetorical morsels about ‘gender-mainstreaming’ and expect that that will do the trick. It won’t. If that’s the chosen path, I can confidently predict that we’ll be back again, less than ten years from now, driven by a new impetus for UN reform, the Millennium Development Goals unmet in a majority of countries, and the lives of women will be every bit as hazardous, compromised, marginalized and desperate as they are today.

Stephen Lewis is UN Special Envoy for AIDS in Africa

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The unwillingness of governments, multilateral bodies and big business to promote rudimentary democracy and social justice in Zimbabwe is now glaringly obvious. Renewed solidarity initiatives can be taken with more confidence by grassroots activists on both sides of the Limpopo River and beyond, writes Patrick Bond.

Item: Kofi Annan appears to have been intimidated into not taking a trip to Harare, after Thabo Mbeki raised expectations he would achieve a breakthrough.

Mbeki last week passed the buck to Annan and Robert Mugabe: ‘It’s best left to them, to the UN and the Zimbabwean government and hopefully that will produce its outcome so that we remove this particular matter from the international agenda.’ Mugabe simply refused to give Annan an audience.

Item: Last Friday, the head of the European Commission’s Harare mission and the Austrian ambassador to Zimbabwe wrote a letter to the Herald newspaper firmly stating, ‘There are no economic EU sanctions against Zimbabwe. There have never been economic EU sanctions against Zimbabwe.’

The bureaucrats were right, and they pointed out that for the latest year data are available, 2004, ‘Zimbabwe had a trade surplus of E261 million [R2.23 billion] with EU states.’

Item: A few days earlier, South African Foreign Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma told parliament that Pretoria would not wield targeted 'smart' sanctions against Zimbabwe's rulers: ‘It may not be a very useful tool to use right now because it doesn’t seem to be yielding results, even in the hands of the most powerful block in the world.’

Of course not, but for a simple reason: Pretoria is a smart-sanctions ‘buster’ by permitting the Zimbabwe elite’s shopping visits, real estate speculation and illicit financial holdings. If Pretoria joined in imposing smart sanctions, the results would be immediate and formidable.

Item: big business is again hopping into bed with Mugabe, according to Dianna Games of the SA Institute of International Affairs writing last week in Business Day: ‘Many South African companies believe that Zimbabwe is still a better and easier place in which to do business than many other African countries because of its strong business culture, diversified industrial base and relatively good infrastructure. And many companies are still making good, albeit often declining, profits.’

Pointing out that more than two dozen large SA corporations employ about 20 000 Zimbabweans in mining, retail, franchising, commercial agriculture and banking, Games concluded, ‘There may be no better time for investors to take a long, hard look at the opportunities that Zimbabwe presents right now.’

That was also a point made last year by Tony Hawkins, professor of business studies at University of Zimbabwe and well known to Financial Times readers: ‘South Africa has gained market share in exports, tourism and services. SA’s share of investment in Zimbabwe has also risen as there has been an element of bargain-basement buying by some mining and industrial groups.’

Added Hawkins, ‘SA is also taking significant skills from the country, especially scarce black skills in health, education, banking, engineering and IT. It would be too much to say that SA has benefited in net terms, but there is a good deal of evidence to suggest that it is securing some gains from the crisis.’

Reflecting business confidence in Mugabe’s ability to hold on, two large multinational firms – South Africa’s Implats and the French bank BNP Paribas – last week announced, respectively, a R1.7 billion platinum investment (36% of which represents a gift to government for crony ‘empowerment’) and a R332 million credit secured by future nickel export revenues.

Another new Mugabe ally is the brutal dictator of Equatorial Guinea, Teodoro Obiang Nguema, who visited Zimbabwe in March and whose country’s oil began flowing to Zimbabwe last week. Nguema wants the British mercentary Simon Mann extradited from Harare, where Mugabe’s forces are holding him after he transited Harare in a 2004 attempted coup bid.

Is pressure being applied by the West, as Mugabe often claims? Aside from an arms embargo on the government, the EU’s smart sanctions apply to just 100 key ZANU(PF) leaders, and take the form of travel bans and a threat to freeze any assets they place in European banks. There are similar provisions in the US, but these countries together provide in excess of R1 billion in aid to Zimbabwe, largely for food and humanitarian relief.

No one calls for that aid to be turned off because it feeds millions of people for whom Zimbabwe’s own farms – especially the small-scale and peasant sectors – generated maize surpluses, prior to the more general meltdown of the country’s agricultural infrastructure. The starvation threat has less to do with the takeover of white farms and more to do with the general lack of access to rural transport, fuel, pesticides, fertilizers, farm implements, electricity and the like.

What about a renewed diplomatic initiative from the West? A good reflection of the US imperial agenda in Zimbabwe may be last week’s report in a Harvard University journal authored by Todd Moss and Stewart Patrick of Washington's Centre for Global Development.

Moss and Patrick argue against existing sanctions: ‘The US and EU may need to review their sanctions legislation to ensure that it does not create a legal problem or disincentive for re-engagement or private investment.’

They also argue that a post-Mugabe Zimbabwe government will ‘have to deal with an inherited external debt of some $5 billion. Clearing arrears will be the first step, but the arrears accrued within the past few years account for nearly half the current debt stock, suggesting that some special dispensation may need to be found with the multilateral institutions and the Paris Club of creditors.’

In contrast, the position advocated by civil society campaigners, such as the Zimbabwe Coalition on Debt and Development and Zimbabwe Social Forum, is that the vast but useless 1990s loans advanced by the International Monetary Fund and World Bank should be completely cancelled.

Indeed, following the lead of the Archbishop of Bulawayo, Pius Ncube, Zimbabwean civil society may need to more publicly advocate serious sanctions, given the lack of pressure from opportunistic politicians and businesses.

Patrick Bond, director of the UKZN Centre for Civil Society in Durban, is coauthor of the book Zimbabwe's Plunge - and author of Uneven Zimbabwe. This article first appeared in The Mercury on June 7.)

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Eve Odete, part of the SOAWR coalition delegation, reports back on the events in Banjul where Niger's rejection of the AU Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa is roundly condemned. Despite that set back, support for the protocol grows, boosted in particular by the launch of the joint publication from SOAWR and the AU Commission of 'Breathing life into the African Union Protocol Women's Rights in Africa'.

The Seventh Summit of the African Union and its preliminary sessions, the Executive Council and Permanent Representative Council, has just ended in the Smiling Coast, the Gambia. As I look back at the press coverage during the summit, I scan a rainbow of grandiose arrivals including the outgoing Secretary General of the UN, Koffi Anan, the President of Libya, Muammar Gaddafi, the President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Thai diplomat, and the Chinese investor. Beyond the official Summit theme, Rationalization of Regional Economic Communities and Regional Integration, and the evidently charged geo-political agenda, did anything else happen?

Niger in Focus

‘The action by the national Parliament of Niger to reject, in its entirety the AU protocol on the Rights of African Women sets a dangerous precedence for the rest of Africa’ lamented Madame Djatou Traore, president, CONGAFEN Niger. Such was the clarion call by Solidarity for the Rights of Women in Africa, SOAWR, throughout the Summit, and it resonated among key policy makers. Caroline Osero-Agengo of SOAWR in congratulating the Gambian National Assembly for lifting the reservations on the Protocol called on the Vice-President Vice President and Secretary of State for Women’s Affairs the Gambia to use the opportunity of the AU Summit to urge her counterpart in Niger to take steps to reverse the recent decision by the National Assembly of Niger. She said “for the millions of women and girls that continue to be stalked by the female genital mutilation and other harmful practices across Africa, the Protocol offers an opportunity to rectify the absence of laws against the harmful cultural practices’’ Is it the spirit of the Summit that generates an immediate commitment by Her Excellency Dr. Isatou Njie-Saidy to urge the Speaker of the National Assembly of Niger to revisit the issue?

It is June 25 and the plenary room at the Kairaba Hotel is filled with over 100 women and men under the banner of the Solidarity for the Rights of African Women Coalition for a public symposium. I see faces from the previous day’s public forum also hosted by the African Center for Democracy and Human Rights. One after the other, participants dissects the Protocol. We hear painful stories of an aunt having to dissuade her niece from disfiguring herself through FGM and the joyful stories of a female excisor change profession to become a tailor. ‘’Nowhere is the dividing line between the past and the future more clear than the struggle to eradicate harmful cultural practices and to expand the power of women over their own bodies, assets and relationships.’’ Says Irungu Houghton. I note the sustained participation of the Special Rapporteur on Women’s Human Rights, Angela Melo, and hear her commit her good offices to urge member states to accelerate the ratification of the Protocol. Commissioner Melo singles out the National Assembly of Niger, deploring their recent action to reject, by a close vote in parliament, the Protocol in its entirety. She pledges to send a mission to Niger to persuade the government to rescind the decision. Commissioner Melo further deplores the lack of political will in Africa in advancing Protocol.

The long awaited, high profile public launch of the joint AU Commmission / SOAWR publication, and ‘Breathing Life into the AU protocol on Women’s Rights’ is here [1]. The ceremony attracts over 100 citizens and dignitaries from The Gambia and elsewhere in Africa attending the 7th Ordinary Summit of the African Union. In Launching the book, Her Excellency Dr. Isatou Njie-Saidy, calls for urgent public information campaigns for the women to understand and demand protection under the provisions of the Protocol. She commends the book to everyone present, all Government departments, NGOs, institutions of learning and individual women and men. ‘I encourage the organisers to translate into local languages and distribute the book far and wide’ She says.

In her speech during the launch, Winnie Byanyima, director, AU Gender, Women and Development Directorate, and moderator of the session, emphasizes the significance of the Protocol to the life of women in Darfur and reiterates the commitment of her Directorate to take into consideration their plight.

Ambassador Said Djinnit, Commissioner for Peace and Security Council applauds the ardent campaign by the women’s movement towards the development and the ultimate ratification of the Protocol. He reiterates his call to both men and women to sustain the efforts, and his firm belief in the rights of women and gender equality. He traces his personal experience as OAU Assistant Secretary General of working with women civil society leaders and Ambassadors to negotiate the adoption of a progressive and visionary Protocol. He closes by arguing, “You cannot transform a continent while keeping women away from decision-making. We need to develop alliances with each other.”

The book makes a clarion call for the universal ratification, domestication and implementation of the Protocol and is available from SOAWR members and the African Union Commission.

Common advocacy front is negotiated

The culmination of the AU pre-Summit Women’s Forum is a resolution adopted by the forum stating key policy messages for consideration by the AU [2]. The resolution is further strengthened when a joint AUC, SOAWR and FAS meeting agrees to consolidate their positions into one Resolution for submission to the Summit (see below). Adopted on 27 June 2006, the resolution addresses among others, the enforcement of the principle of gender parity in all key AU organs, the acceleration of the ratification of the AU protocol on the Rights of women, and the enhancement of human security in situations of conflict.

Further discussions with the Gender Directorate agree the consolidation of a common advocacy platform for the women’s movement in subsequent summits to ensure effective influencing of the AU agenda. Winnie further urges the women’s movement to strive to influence the summit agenda more proactively by negotiating common positions in line with the summit themes. A way of working to this end was agreed. I can’t agree more.

The visibility of the campaign during the summit is enhanced by several national and regional media hits following three well-attended press conferences and coverage of the high profile events. To cap this, and widely televised, is a green card issued to the vice president of the Gambia in honor of the exemplary role of the National Assembly in lifting all reservations to the Protocol.

In spite of my frustrations with flight connections to Banjul and the helicopter ride in Sierra Leone, I return home satisfied that the list of champions on the Protocol has grown.

* Eve Odete is Pan Africa Policy Officer for Oxfam GB.

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

[1] Breathing life into the African Union Protocol on Women's Rights in Africa is published jointly by SOAWR and the AU Commission, and can be ordered at http://www.africanbookscollective.com/

[2] Resolution Adopted at the pre-Summit Women's Forum in Banjul:

Despite the Protocol on the Rights of Women coming into force in November 2005, the event has gone unmarked in Kenya because of preoccupation with the referendum, writes Ann Kithaka. Concern about women's rights are not being taken seriously and impunity seems to be the norm.

24th day of November 2005 will remain an important day in the calendar of advancement of women rights in Africa. It is the day that the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa (simply known as the Protocol on African Women Rights), joined a plethora of international treaties, convention, declarations, protocols and pacts that have been juggled at the international arena to ensure that all people access and enjoy a scoop or dollop of human rights at all cost. They declare, define, dictate, affirm and reaffirm the nature and parameters of these rights.
Yet here in Kenya, the day passed unnoticed, un-archived and un-applauded; perhaps because we were all under the electrifying grip of the referendum euphoria. No champagne bottles were cocked at five star hotels to mark its birth regionally.

Nationally, we are still in the throes of labor pains; our country is yet to ratify the protocol. Who knows; we might go the Niger way and beget a still born. (God forbid!)

Women of Kenya are in the dark about our country's ratification status and progress. Our women rights activists, civil society and national NGOs remain tight lipped; playing the cards close to their chests for reasons known to them. The only time we get to learn of this protocol is when we delve into the internet and encounter articles by activists like Roselynn Musa (1), Irungu Houghton (2), and Faith Cheruiyot (3) posted on the Pambazuka website. Yet how many of us have the privilege to access the internet for this information?

The truth is that even on the International Day for Women, which was celebrated on 8th March, no prominence was given to this protocol at the national level. No full-page advertisements were carried out in our daily newspapers to inform us about the protocol or other international laws that protect the rights of women. That is why our parliamentarians passed a watered down Sexual Offences Bill that took away the marital rape and sexual harassment clause in the false belief that they had the last word on the matter. How mistaken!

Somebody needs to jolt our men with the news that justice has gone global; and as argued by Betty Murungi it is time we 'locate ourselves within the global international law context' and move with the times. We cannot continue to live in isolation as the world matches on.

Most of our men, including politicians see the 'battle of sexes' every time they hear the word 'women rights and empowerment!'  Without reason and common sense, they will don themselves in full 'machismotic' battle gear and  ready themselves to do battle with 'them!', the 'them' being their poor mothers, daughters, sisters and wives, but do they know it?

They forget that women's position in society is the barometer that indicates its social progress. On this area, we are still at the bottom of the pile; see the percentage of women in our August house and positions of leadership! It's so pathetic.

Even without national laws being promulgated to comply with international law, any woman can shop for gender justice and equality at the regional and international courts. All that is required is awareness through empowerment.

The civil society must now disseminate information to the masses and stop the current trend of playing to the international gallery.  They must teach the rural women how to become activists in their own backyards; how to say no to marital rape and gender based violence. They must show our young women in schools and colleges how to say 'no' to sexual harassment and endemic FGM. They must mentor young girls to take over leadership reigns. Roselynn Musa ably argued that human rights should be taught in our schools. This will not only create an intergenerational dialogue but also break the gender barrier created by our patriarchal society.  With both girls and boys being brought on board at a malleable and pliable age, impunity, cynicism and gender clan-ism will be eradicated.

The question that the activists should be answering is this: when is human rights advocacy going to come out of the woods so that grassroots women can receive the message of their emancipation? It appears that today, empowerment is a reserve for the 'born' correct sisters in big towns and especially those who studied abroad.

I feel that it is time that we gave practical solutions to human rights violations, be it in the public domain or behind closed family doors.

All that is needed is a clear roadmap to the land of Canaan where equality and justice reign supreme.

As a person who works in our national criminal justice system, I am bewildered by the lack of pro- activism by gender activists (excuse the pun) in rape cases; they only appear on the scene after a rapist has been acquitted for lack of sufficient evidence. It's a classic case of appearing at the barn when the horse has bolted! It's a cliché but how appropriate.

They will cry 'wolf!' only when they know that it will put their name and organization in the papers; and will not bother to appear during the court trials. Have they heard about watching briefs and amicus curie appearances?

It appears that all their actions are geared towards pleasing international audiences and appear to have no scruples when they play Russian roulette with other peoples' dignity. It has become normal for women rights activist to expend all their energies in producing acres and acres of action plans and resolutions that end up on the spotless desks of their international donors and sponsors while doing zero to impart the same to those who need them most. I am yet to hear of any activists who have offered to interpret these international instruments into local dialects so that the message can reach the rural and slum woman.

In the meantime, impunity reigns supreme, making nonsense any progress made at these international gatherings. People who weld power, whether conferred by state machinery or societal norms use it to deny others their basic rights. They take advantage of our lethargic national detection and enforcement mechanisms to perpetuate human rights abuse. Our justice system appears impotent to do anything about it. Sexual offences have become legion; and it no longer matters whether you are male or female; everybody is game nowadays.

Investigations of gender based violence are carried out by police officers who have no specialized training in this area. Mothers who are usually the first to receive reports of defilement from their daughters will wait weeks before reporting to authorities when their husbands are away. Sometimes out of court settlements are carried out by the parents and a little girls virginity and sanity have been pegged at a few cows and coins. Public officers at the grass root level preside over these family meetings and due to complicity and ingrained attitudes allow 'reconciliation' to go ahead to avoid family conflicts. This is because most of the abusers are close family members.

Whenever the activists shout 'human rights violation' and 'infringement' the victims and culprits alike arch their eyes and say; 'there they go again; those lawyerly types who went to those Ivy League colleges abroad. They have nothing better to do than shovel foreign ideas at the expense of our traditional norms'.

Women rights proponents are treated frustrated middle aged women out to upset the status quo and some apple carts. In this scenario human rights discussions become confrontational, pitting this group against the other; husband against wife; captor against the captured; international law against national law; western culture against African culture. And when this happens, it is the most vulnerable members of our society who suffer.

It is sad that we are adept at paying lip service to these norms; we ratify international protocols and shelf the documents in our desk drawers without giving them teeth at the national level. The end result is that a husband who is battering his wife will taut her to 'call those human rights of yours to come and rescue you!' as he whacks her across the face.

It is true human rights can not be worn around the neck like a talisman; nor can they be waved around like a magic ward to stop the pedophile from preying on young girls and boys, but they can be invoked to curb impunity and restore dignity to all. They can be used to make us start to view ourselves as subjects and objects of international law; open our eyes to the broader tapestry of justice, equality and universality.

And this can only happen if we remodel our values, public policy and national ideals.

I dream of the day when woman rights advocacy will descend from the insulating warmth of five star hotel lobbies, descend to the village market, corner bar, church yard, chief's bazaar so they can benefit the lowly of the lowly.

1 (comments and analysis 2006-06-1)
2 (comments and analysis 2006-05-18)
3 (features 2006-06-15)

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Human rights groups in Nigeria are in an uproar over the unconstitutional removal of the Executive Secretary of the National Human Rights Commission. Mr. Bukhari Bello. Over 30 groups have made their stance clear, arguing that not only does this undermine the country’s constitutionalism, but it also subverts the rights of Nigerians.

Sequel to the removal of Mr. Bukhari Bello, by Federal Government as Executive Secretary of National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), International Human Rights bodies including Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA) yesterday (26 June) said they have withdrawn support from the National Human Rights Commission.

Meanwhile, 30 Nigerian civil society organisations have released separate complaints to Judge Louise Arbour, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, and Mrs. Salamata Sawadogo, Chairperson of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights calling for the restoration of Bello to his position, an urgent international investigation of the independence of institutions for the protection of human rights in Nigeria, including the judiciary and the National Human Rights Commission and suspension of Nigeria from consultative relations with both bodies if the government fails to rescind its actions.

On Monday, the Attorney-General of the Federation and Justice Minister, Chief Bayo Ojo, SAN, issued a letter to Bello, informing him of his removal as head of the commission.

The Minister said government was displeased with his criticisms of harassment and intimidation of journalists by the security services and denunciation by African National Human Rights Institutions of recent attempt at tenure extension and America’s role at Guatanamo Bay.

Mr. Bello is the Chairperson, Co-ordinating Committee of African National Human Rights Institutions.

They noted with dismay that the redeployment of Bello came at the time when the United Nations Human Rights Council is holding its inaugural meeting adding that Nigeria is one of the 47 elected members to the council based on its pledge to respect the promotion and protection of the rights of its citizens in general, as well as support the strengthening and independence of the National Human Rights Commission.

Condemning the action, Mr. Chidi Anselm Odinkalu, Director of the Africa Programme, Open Society Justice Initiative contended that the statements issued by Bello were in capacity as Chairperson, Co-ordinating Committee of African National Human Rights Institutions and that it was a collective decision of all the council members. “The Government of the Federal Republic of Nigeria has run carts and horses through the Paris Principles. They have undermined stability of tenure of the members of the Commission, compromised the Commission’s institutional efficacy and independence, and chosen to subvert the protection of human rights in Nigeria. The High Commis-sioner for Human Rights and the African Commission cannot stand idly by while these happen,” he said.

Speaking at the joint press conference, Dr. Nana Tanko, Executive Director of OSIWA said: “Nigeria is supposed to be in the forefront for respect of constitutionalism in the continent. Now they have set a bad precedence what is expected of other African Countries that are looking up to it? “For any democracy to work, the protection and promotion of the citizenry is very crucial. Issues should be looked at beyond individuals. “The action of Nigerian government by removing Bello negates all the work that has been done over the years in the area of Human Rights in Africa. If such removal must be done, due process must be followed. We have done a lot to support the National Human Rights Commission over the years but at this point we have no choice but to withdraw our support. We can’t imagine doing all that we have been doing and the government comes and makes a nonsense of all we have done.”

Chinonye Obiagwu, Co-ordinator of the Legal Defence and Aid Project (LEDAP), observed: “We are appalled at the treatment of Mr. Bukhari Bello. This is not just an issue about Mr. Bello. It is about the rule of law, due process, and proper governance. “If we allow this to go unchallenged, it is going to be a return to anarchy. This is a call to the trenches. It is very clear that government is no longer sensitive to constructive decision-making. We ask all members of civil society to suspend collaborative activities with the Federal Ministry of Justice until it makes clear that it will no longer interfere with the National Human Rights Commission.” Obiagwu pointed out that the Abacha government, which established the NHRC, appointed Mohammed Tabir, who was very critical of their policies, but never removed him.

He revealed that for the past five years a bill to amend the NHRC Act to give it more powers and remove government control has been pending at the National Assembly.

The groups contend that: “In taking this decision, the Justice Minister did not notify or consult with the Chairperson or other members of the Council of the National Human Rights Commission. On Monday, 19 June, the Chairperson of the Commission, Honourable Justice Anthony Igu promptly visited the Justice Minister to protest this interference in the independence of the NHRC and to affirm that the allegations on the basis of which the Attorney-General claimed to have acted fell firmly within the remit of the Executive Secretary and were done at all times on the instructions of the Council of the NHRC. “Principle 3(a)(iv) of the Paris Principles, A/Res/48/138, requires the establishment of National Human Rights Commissions for the purpose of ‘drawing the attention of the government to situations in any part of the country where human rights are violated and making proposals to it for initiatives to put an end to such situations and, where necessary, expressing an opinion on the positions and reactions of the government.’ “Principle 6 of the Paris Principles requires governments to ‘ensure a stable mandate for the members of the national institution, without which there can be no real independence.’ “In Article 26 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, which is domestic law in Nigeria, the government of Nigeria undertakes to ‘guarantee the independence of ….appropriate national institutions entrusted with the promotion and protection of the rights and freedoms guaranteed in the Charter.’”

For further details see:

* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

The World Cup has excited football fans around the globe, including African people of all nations. But while there are many reasons to be proud, especially of Ghana’s impressive win against America, there are also questions to be asked of the migration that players feel they must undertake to succeed in the football world.

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Ghana’s impressive defeat of the United States last week propelled them to the second round of the World Cup Finals, making them Africa’s only representative in the final sixteen. While Ghana’s success is a tremendous accomplishment for African football, it also provides a time for serious discussion of the difficult issue of labor migration and exploitation that is facing the sport. Of the 23 players Ghana brought to Germany, only 4 are signed with domestic clubs. The other 19 play professionally for clubs in Europe and Israel.

While the personal accomplishments of these athletes should not be disputed, the increasing flight of Africa’s finest players to Europe is indicative of a structural problem in African football. The “muscle exodus” as CAF president Issa Haytou has coined it, has grown tremendously in the past decade, fueled by the nearly 20 to 1 wage discrepancy between African and European clubs.[1] European clubs increasingly use their financial advantage to recruit Africa's best players when they are as young as 14 years old.

Sepp Blatter, the President of FIFA, has characterized the increasing labor migration as a form of neo-colonialism. “I find it unhealthy, if not despicable,” Blatter explains, “for rich clubs to send scouts shopping in Africa, South America and Asia to 'buy' the most promising players there. This leaves those who trained them in their early years with nothing but cash for their trouble. Dignity and integrity tend to fall by the wayside in what has become a glorified body market.” [2]

As the best talent is lured out of Africa, the quality of the sport on the continent is undermined. Local leagues are left with lower standards of play, reinforcing the conception that leaving Africa is the only choice for promising footballers.[3] In addition, African national teams' performance has historically been hurt when European clubs refuse to release African footballers to play for their home countries, fearing injury to their star players. While FIFA regulations now compel clubs to release players, there is a legal battle in the European Court of Justice as to whether clubs can demand monetary compensation for injuries that take place during national competitions.[4] If the legal challenge is successful, the potential financial cost to FIFA could put the current regulations in jeopardy.

By far the most damaging aspect of the current “muscle exodus” is the exploitation of young African footballers by profiteering agents. Youth tournaments held throughout Africa serve as recruitment venues for European agents. Some players, such as the stars of Ghana’s team, end up signing lucrative contracts with European clubs. However, for every success story there are scores of others who are brought to Europe to train and are then abandoned. The economist Wladimir Andreff explains, “Most young players transferred to European professional clubs ultimately do not sign a contract and then are left aside, cut off from their family, friends, and home country, with no source of income and no assistance.” These youth, left in Europe as illegal immigrants with no way to support themselves, in some cases, have even resorted to prostitution to survive [5]. While it is now against FIFA regulations to transfer minors from their home country, the practice continues to exist on the black market. "Non-affiliated football academies" in Africa continue to train and recruit young players for European export, bypassing FIFA regulations [6]. Since ambitious young footballers see moving to Europe as their only chance of success, they are easy targets for such exploitation.

As all of Africa celebrates Ghana’s success, it is an important opportunity to discuss the great potential of truly African national football and the dangers that the current “muscle exodus” poses to this as well as to the athletes themselves. Hopefully the success of Ghana’s national team will challenge the prevailing belief that moving to Europe is the only viable option for aspiring African footballers as well as raise awareness around the injustice that is currently football's status quo.

Matt Bosch is an intern with Fahamu.

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

[1] Andreff, Wladimir. “The Taxation of Player Moves from Developing Countries.” In Rodney Fort & John Fizel, eds., International Sports Economics Comparisons, Westport & London, Praeger 2004 (pp. 87-103).
[2] Blatter, Joseph. “Soccer’s greedy neo-colonialists,” Financial Times. 17 December 2003. London (pp. 19).
[3] Akindes, Gerard, Paul Darby, and Matt Kirwin. “Football Academies and the Migration of African Football Labour to Europe.” Presented at “Soccer, Nationalism, and Globalization.” University of California, Los Angeles. 31 May 2006.
[4] “Sport: Governance of Football Lies at Heart of Charleroi Court Case,” European Report. 12 June 2006.
[5] Akindes et al
[6] Ibid

Germany plays host to the World Cup this year, bringing thousands of soccer fans from across the globe together in one place. The World Cup will also lure unsuspecting girls and women from Africa and other parts of the world who have been tricked by promises of good jobs and high pay. The trafficking of girls and women for the purposes of sexual exploitation is an unfortunate consequence of an event of this kind, but one that must be paid careful attention to.

Germany is in soccer fever. From June 9th to July 9th 2006 Germany is host to an estimated 1 million foreign football fans and a further 2 million domestic supporters. Under the motto “A time to make friends”, the national authorities and tourist offices are determined to improve Germany’s image abroad and show that it can be a hospitable and friendly country. Much has been done in the hosting cities to ensure the visitors feel at home – but there are fears that it will not be fun and games for everyone involved. Traffickers and pimps are seizing the chance to make money by bringing thousands of young women into the country to satisfy the sexual appetite of the fans. In most cases, the women have no idea what is waiting for them when they accept a job offer abroad. The traffickers target vulnerable women from the poorest countries where hopes and dreams often cloud vision.

“Many of the girls who come to us for help were tricked into coming with false promises, thinking they will get work in hotels or restaurants”, says Sister Lea Ackermann, founder of the women’s aid organisation SOLWODI (Solidarity With Women in Distress). “They hear about a chance to earn enough money for their families and have very unrealistic ideas of life in the West. Even those who know they will be working in a bar or brothel have no idea of the exploitation, abuse and violence that is waiting for them. Often the women are locked up by the brothel owners and forced to work in prostitution under terrible conditions. They see little of the money they make – the pimps and brothel owners make money at their expense”.

Exploitation of African girls and women According to official reports, victims are trafficked to Western Europe from Asia, South and Middle America, Africa and Eastern Europe. Of the 998 women who contacted one of the 10 SOLWODI centres in Germany last year, 236 originated from African states, with Nigeria, Kenya and Ghana taking the lead. Not all women who contact SOLWODI-Germany are victims of trafficking in the norrower sense of the word. But in almost every case they are brought to Germany with hopes of a better life, only to be confronted with violence and sexual exploitation, whether in the sex industry or in a relationship. Take Kenya, for example, which is considered to be an emerging center for human trafficking. As a transit country, victims of traffickers are illegally brought from South Africa and Asia via Kenya’s harbours and across the borders destined for Europe, where they are exploited in domestic labour or commercial sex work. Kenya is also a country of origin, where Kenyan girls, in particular those from the Coast region, are first lured into sex work by rich tourists during their holidays. In some cases their exploiters even take them to Europe, but there is seldom a happy end to the story. Without legal documents or only a tourist visa, they have no way of legally finding work, which means they remain completely dependent on their exploiters. Solidarity with the victims Those victims who find themselves stranded in Germany and hear about SOLWODI can contact one of the 10 counselling centres spread across the country. SOLWODI-Germany offers its clients access to information and support and helps in finding ways out of the distressing situation. Where possible, clients are supported in taking legal action against their tormentors. Those eligible for SOLWODI’s returnee programme are helped by the counsellors to develop plans for the future. Together with non-goverment organisations in the home countries, the counsellors organise the return home. Depending on the individual situation, clients may be able to receive financial assistance with an income-generating project, such as setting up a small vegetable stand or a hairdressing business. In the case of Kenyan women, returnees may continue to receive counselling and support from the sister organisation, SOLWODI-Kenya, which has centres along the Coast in the Mombasa, Mtwapa and Malindi regions. SOLWODI-Kenya, which was founded over 20 years ago, has long been engaged in outreach programmes for women and girls at risk of being drawn into prostitution and offers counselling, education on women’s rights and HIV/AIDS, and vocational skills training.

Prevention is better than salvation As part of its World Cup anti-traffickign activities SOLWODI-Germany launched a prevention campaign to warn potential victims in the typical countries of origin and transit. Material was sent to more than 100 organisations in Middle and Eastern Europe, Asia and Africa to explain the dangers of accepting lucrative job offers in Germany during the months leading up to the World Cup. For those women who could not be reached by the prevention campaign and who now find themselves in trouble in Germany, SOLWODI has set up a multi-language hotline from 1st May till 31th July 2006. Helpers who speak both German and at least one further language are staffing the hotline, which is available around the clock. Although the hotline is set up for foreign women in distress, calls have also been received by male customers who have reported cases of suspected forced prostitution and violence in brothels they have visited. This goes to show that SOLWODI’s awareness raising activities within Germany have been successful in also reaching the male population. Since there is no market without demand, the customers play a key role in trafficking and forced prostitution.

The best way of preventing women from becoming victims lies in empowerment. Elizabeth Akinyi, SOLWODI-Kenya’s leader in Mombasa, says that most of the 15- to 18-year-olds who get into commercial sex work are often school drop-outs from poor families. Initiation into transactional sex for cash or goods and favours starts between the ages of 12 –to 13 years. Many girls have dropped out of school because their parents/guardians are not able to meet their basic needs, which entail food, education [fees, uniform, books etc], shelter and other needs like clothing. Girls who are victims of commercial sex exploitation of children [CSEC] do so to supplement family income.” It is important that they understand the dangers of being involved in commercial sex work and there are other alternatives and this can be discussed when they come to SOLWODI”, says Ms Akinyi. “Almost every girl who contacts us would prefer to quit commercial sex exploitation by men and instead go for vocational /skills training. We have a waiting list for girls who want vocational training. None of the girls want to remain at the mercy of men who abuse them. As soon as the girls get a chance to start a new life, they take it and work hard to succeed. CSEC is one of the worst forms of child labour and we need to advocate for these poor girls who do not understand the health risks involved. SOLWODI works with young girls from ages 8 to 25 year who are at risk and those already in sex work. Our biggest problem is finding enough funds to pay for the school and college fees. We also urgently need a rescue centre.”

Outlook As long as there are women living in poverty and misery, traffickers will have no problem finding new victims. Just how many girls and women have been trafficked to Germany for the World Cup 2006 will probably never be known. Most will return home disillusioned and dejected. Others will remain in the country at the mercy of the brothel owners. For the traffickers the World Cup was another opportunity to trick vulnerable women and girls into coming to the Europe. And they will be looking out for the next chance.

To combat trafficking and exploitation realistic alternatives must be offered to girls and young women to enable them to live an independent life free from exploitation and abuse. Empowerment, through education, training and start-up loan programmes like those offered by SOLWODI, is one the best ways to prevent girls falling victims to traffickers.

For further information contact: SOLWODI in Kenya: solwodi AT wananchi.com SOLWODI in Germany: info AT solwodi.de

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

Inviolata celebrates life, and yet another birthday, in Kenya, where over 600 people die from HIV/AIDS every day. This brave woman is confronting not only her own fears, but also the expectations of her community and Kenyan society about what it means to live with AIDS.

Life at 20 marked the turning point. For many, life would have taken a downward spiral. But not for Inviolata Mbwavi. After going through the usual motion of shock, fear and denial, she resolved not to let the virus complete the hatchet job.

Fourteen years later, her steady hands aided by a number of other hands drive the knife into the red, ribbon cake. With each cut, the room drowns in rounds of applause. Another purple cake sits nearby like an impatient child begging for candy.

“The purple cake represents the years I have survived courtesy of the Almighty, while the other shaped like the red-ribbon, the years I have defied the virus.” Inviolata says as she gets hugs from friends and family.

When they finally break into the “Happy Birthday” it takes a completely new meaning. It is a celebration of life made new; living positively with HIV.

“This was the month I was diagnosed with HIV, I had just turned 20”, she later tells me.

Inviolata had stepped out of teenage life with optimism. But when the doctor waved her Elisa test-results, life crumbled. From her teenage years she carried HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. Then, pre-test counselling was limited and anti-retroviral treatment in the realm of illusion.

“Nowadays I don’t expect anyone who has tested positive to commit suicide, not to go to school, miss work or simply refuse to live. If we were to die we would have died then, but we’ve survived,” she says.

Life must have been a sip of hemlock, I thought.

“Invy, we love and value you…” a voice interrupts as if reading my thoughts. It came from one of her brothers, shouting from the furthest corner among a group of teenagers, munching a huge piece of roasted chicken.

Inviolata stands up, her open palm gently on her heart and stoops in appreciation, “Love you too bro, virus or no virus.” The room lights up into hearty cheers. Love, care and support had knocked out the wind from under the wings of the virus.

Born in a family of ten siblings, having many brothers and sisters means an abundance of love, care and support. Unlike a number of people living with HIV/AIDS in Kenya, Inviolata’s family has outpaced stigma and discrimination.

“Love and support from my family, friends and colleagues is the oxygen I have been breathing for the past 14 years.”

Slightly plump, Inviolata frequently breaks into a sweetly ringing laughter displaying a set of teeth, as white as the droppings of the oluru bird (the white only interrupted by gaps between her teeth), ringed-patterns on her neck staring back in coy pride- all these are the hallmarks of African beauty.

Inviolata heads the Network for Empowerment of People Living and Affected with HIV/AIDS in Kenya (NEPHAK). Her name is found in the oft minimal space in the anti-HIV/AIDS diary in Kenya.

Inviolata advises for those living with the virus, birthdays call for celebration. A symbolic defiance against a stealthy virus infecting 40 million people globally, 75% of whom reside in Africa and where 600 Kenyans die every day.

Her boyfriend, who is also HIV-negative could not attend the party as he was away on business. But Inviolata is proud of their eight-year relationship, despite pressure from his relatives for their son to find a serro-negative girl.

“Marriage for me has become complicated because of the African traditions which require that a woman be capable of giving birth. I cannot do that without putting my boyfriend at risk.”

At one time the pressure on them was so much that Inviolata almost broke up with her partner. But reassurance from her boyfriend, whose name she does not want to reveal, kept the relationship intact.

She remains, however, optimistic that over time, her prospective in-laws will change their minds and accept her as a wife. This is especially the case because of the abundance of medical intervention currently available in the management of HIV/AIDS.

The advent of Highly Active Anti-retroviral Therapy (HAART) has turned HIV/AIDS into a chronic though manageable disease away from the bare-knuckled killer it was a decade ago. This means more birthdays for those who are HIV-positive.

“There is life beyond the virus, I don’t expect those who test positive today to stop living.”

But despite Inviolata’s reassuring words, her face turns into a mask of sadness as a shade flushes across her smooth peeled-avocado face. After hesitation she reveals what has pierced her heart.

“There are those who still think we are children of lesser gods because of our HIV-status. We should celebrate more birthday to prove our determination to live to the fullest.”

The conversation had drifted to the brutal murder of a 15-year old HIV-positive boy in Nyeri. At this point one could hear a feather drop as everyone sat with hand on cheek (a pose reflecting deep sadness in African context).

Weeks earlier Inviolata had led a demonstration condemning the hacking to death of Isaiah Gakuyo by his guardian uncle. He had driven the forked end of a hoe into Isaiah’s temple, snuffing out an already frail life. His justification? Isaiah’s constant sickness because of the virus was an unnecessary bother, he was heard bragging. To date, he remains at large, courtesy of relatives who harbour him, a Children’s Department reluctant to raise a finger and a community hesitant to break the silence.

“The murder is a sign that stigma and discrimination is becoming an epidemic on its own. We still need to change attitudes towards people living with HIV/AIDS.”

And despite the fact that the war against stigma and discrimination is easing, they are determined to emerge victorious.

“Today it is Isaiah Gakuyo, tomorrow it could be you, your mother, father, or your loved one. Embrace us with love…”

The burst of the mwana wamberi song jolts us out of the sad pre-occupation. The song is sang among Luhya to celebrate the birth of the first born. Indeed it was appropriate for Inviolata, who like a first born in the family was leading the way in the anti-AIDS struggle.

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

Laurie Nathan, formerly the head of the Centre for Conflict Resolution in Cape Town, was a member of the African Union (AU) mediation team based in Abuja that facilitated negotiations for the Darfur Peace Agreement (DPA). In this interview he offers some perspectives on the negotiations and the Agreement.

Pambazuka News: Many analysts and observers have warned that the ceasefire promised by the DPA is unlikely to be attained. What are the main problems in this regard?

Laurie Nathan: The most obvious problem is that the Agreement has not been signed by all the armed groups in Darfur. Two of the rebel movements that participated in the AU mediation – the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) and the faction of the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SLM/A) that is headed by Abdul Wahid Mohammed al-Nur – refused to sign. The Agreement concluded on 5 May was endorsed only by the Sudanese government and the SLM/A faction headed by Minni Minawi. Abdul Wahid is the rebel leader with the most popular support in Darfur. Without his endorsement of the Agreement, there is little prospect of a lasting peace. [Note from Pambazuka News editors: Subsequent to this interview, reports indicate that some groups have now committed to the terms of the agreement. See for further details.]

In addition, there are numerous armed groups in Darfur that were not present at the Abuja negotiations. Most significantly, these groups include the Janjaweed, the rampaging militia that have been responsible for so much of the death and destruction in the region and that are used by the government to crush the rebels and their communities.

It should also be recalled that the government, JEM and the SLM/A have signed several humanitarian ceasefire agreements over the past two years and then violated these agreements repeatedly and egregiously. This constitutes fair warning of the possibility of further violations, especially if the signatories are not genuinely committed to the new agreement.

Another huge problem is that the AU peacekeeping mission in Darfur is hopelessly ill-equipped to oversee the ceasefire and protect civilians from attacks by government, militia, rebels and bandits. The AU has roughly 7,000 troops when it needs, according to the AU Force Commander, as many as 60,000 troops to cover inhospitable badlands the size of France.

Pambazuka News: Do you think the signatories are genuinely committed to the new agreement?

One of the most remarkable things about the Abuja peace process was that, for months on end, the negotiating parties were unable or unwilling to engage in serious negotiations. They made no effort to accommodate each other’s positions and showed no interest in trying to forge common ground. None of them was willing to make concessions to its opponents. There was no bargaining, let alone collaborative problem-solving.

Instead, the parties spent their time reiterating their demands ad nauseum, rejecting the positions of their opponents, trading accusations and recriminations, grandstanding for the benefit of the international observers and attempting to win support for their positions from the mediators. In the midst of this immensely frustrating experience, the head of the AU mediation team, Sam Ibok, was quoted as saying that “our experience over the past sixteen months had led us to conclude that there is neither good faith nor commitment on the part of any of the Parties”.

In light of all this, one of the most important points about the DPA is that it is not by any stretch of the imagination a negotiated settlement. It is a document which was drawn up by the mediators and which the Sudanese government and Minni Minawi signed under pressure from sections of the international community. The final draft of the text prepared by the mediators was presented to the parties on a take-it-or-leave-it basis five days before the final deadline of 30 April set by the AU Peace and Security Council.

The government and Minawi evidently believed that their interests would not be served by refusing to sign the document and being portrayed as spoilers. In the absence of real negotiations and hard-won concessions, however, none of the Sudanese parties has any sense of ownership of the Agreement and it is therefore unlikely that they are committed to it.

Several commentators have pointed out that the DPA contains more compromises on the part of the rebels than on the part of the government, particularly in relation to power sharing. (A summary and critique of the DPA appeared in the Sudan Tribune on 3 May; see www.crisisgroup.org and www.hrw.org The Darfur Relief and Documentation Centre has an excellent website (www.darfurcentre.ch). I would also strongly recommend “Darfur: A Short History of a Long War” by Julie Flint and Alex de Waal.

* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

"I was not aware of anything until they were hitting me. I think there were five policemen for every refugee. When we started to defend ourselves, there were many more coming. They came and attacked. I saw one person I knew. They were beating him and when he fell down, they broke his neck. One of the police broke his neck with his baton. One pregnant woman also died in the same place." – An interview with a demonstrator, as quoted in a report compiled by the Forced Migration and Refugee Studies unit at the American University in Cairo.

On 29 September 2005, Sudanese refugees began gathering at Mustafa Mahmoud Park in central Cairo for a protest that eventually swelled to between 1,800 to 2,500 protestors and lasted for three months until it was broken up by Egyptian security forces in the early hours of December 30. The protestors were demanding refugee status interviews, a clearer and transparent process, protection from the Sudanese government, protection of the vulnerable and investigation of detentions and mission persons. Egyptian security operatives forcefully ended the protest, an action that resulted in the death of 27 refugees and asylum seekers and the injuring of hundreds.

A new report compiled by the Forced Migration and Refugee Studies unit at the American University in Cairo and released this month, details the origins of the protest and the aftermath of its violent end on December 30. Entitled “A Tragedy of Failures and False Expectations”, it ends with recommendations to the parties involved. Coming as it does in a month when the world marks World Refugee Day, the report will be of interest firstly to those who followed the unprecedented protest and secondly to all interested in the rights of refugees.

Describing the situation in the park during the three months of the protest, the report states that although protestors were faced with obvious discomfort, there was an “unprecedented” level of community and solidarity in the park where the protest was held, situated near to the UNHCR offices. Meals were prepared in a communal kitchen, money was pooled to buy food and impromptu shops sprung up around the park. Art lessons and puppet shows were held for children.

But in the early hours of December 30, Egyptian security operatives moved in without warning, resulting in death, injury and detentions that lasted several weeks. The report says: "There are some indications that the level of violence was unplanned, or at least that not all security officers were enthusiastic participants in the mayhem. Two bystanders reported plainclothes officers shouting at low-ranking police to stop the beating but being ignored." The report describes the scene after the park was cleared as one of "stunned silence and desolation". "Hundreds of blankets and suitcases are strewn all over the park. Other private belongings, such as notebooks, family pictures, children's toys, and blue and yellow refugee identity cards, are scattered on the ground."

But the report is not only concerned with the events of December 30, but rather with what caused the protest. It intends not to assign responsibility, but to promote understanding of why the protest happened, what the issues were, and how similar tragedies can be avoided.

As such, the historical background provided in the report is extremely useful, describing how the first wave of Sudanese came to Egypt in 1955 as a result of the beginning of civil war. This continued into the mid 1980s, says the report. Further outbreaks of war led to more Sudanese arriving in Egypt in 1983. Most recently, the conflict in Darfur had led to a further exodus from Sudan. Egypt thus became a recipient country for refugees who were firstly in need of refuge from war and secondly seeking to be resettled in third countries, explains the report.

Responsibility for these people fell to UNHCR, whose Cairo office eventually developed one of the largest resettlement operations in the world, says the report. However – and this is where the problem comes in - only about 25 percent had the expectation of resettlement met, leaving them stuck in an Egypt often hostile to their needs. Acute problems detailed in the report relate to work, housing, education, public health and racist attitudes towards refugees and asylum seekers.

A more immediate catalyst to the protest came as a result of the 2004 ceasefire between the government of Sudan and the Sudan People's Liberation Army. The report explains that UNHCR suspended Refugee Status Determination (RSD) procedures for all Sudanese asylum seekers, instead providing applicants with yellow asylum seeker cards that provided temporary protection against forced repatriation. This decision, reviewed every six months, was based on the argument that this was a better method than possible rejection of applicants on the basis of a change in their country of origin. "Sudanese asylum seekers were deeply disappointed and worried by UNHCR's decision, especially as it put a heavy damper on their hopes for resettlement and relegated them to a longer waiting period under difficult conditions in Egypt," says the report.

It was these factors, contends the report, that combined to create frustration amongst the Sudanese refugee community in Egypt. "Their decision to sit in at Mustafa Mahmoud Park and to demand fundamental changes in their circumstances should have come as no surprise."

In terms of its comments and recommendations, the report highlights the role of all three of the major actors – the Egyptian government, the UNHCR and the leaders of the protest – for failing to prevent the events of December 30. "A series of failures on the part of the Egyptian government and UNHCR, combined with unrealistic expectations and grave miscalculations on the part of the demonstrators and their leaders, resulted in the tragedies of the forced eviction. This is a complicated story with many actors, each of whom bears some level of responsibility for the unnecessary deaths of so many people, including 12 children, and the physical injuries and psychological damage to hundreds more."

According to the report, Egyptian security used "excessive and disproportionate force in removing the protesters, leaving no alternatives or avenues for escape". The use of "indiscriminate violence" and lack of immediate medical attention was a matter for Egyptian and international human rights organizations to pursue. "With attention focused on asylum seekers and refugees, and the issue discussed openly in the People's Assembly, this may be an opportune time for the government to seriously consider the passage of domestic legislation to detail and systematize Egypt's obligations under the 1951 and OAU refugee conventions, as well as to make its policies and procedures clear. Without transparency and clarity, asylum seekers and refugees cannot access services, and this translates into frustration that could lead to a repeat of the protest strategy."

Turning to UNHCR, the report says that despite its mandate being the protection of refugees and asylum seekers, the agency had adopted a "hostile and confrontational attitude” towards the protestors. The attitude of UNHCR had served to confirm the protesters' grievances and frustrations. "UNHCR took a number of grave risks concerning the safety of the population in the park. It must accept accountability for a number of failures and miscalculations that, at least indirectly, led to the tragic results."

Perhaps surprisingly, the leaders of the protest and the protesters themselves also come in for criticism. The report says: "The protesters remained adamant about their demands throughout the three months and refused to accept any compromise that may have ended the protest, such as that offered by UNHCR in the failed December 17 agreement. While the protest leaders did accept and sign the agreement with UNHCR, dissenting voices within the park succeeded in overturning the decision, despite warnings from supporters and friends, and convinced others to continue the protest."

In conclusion, the report notes that if a similar situation is to be averted, the same problems and issues that led to the protest need to be addressed through long term solutions. "These issues include problems of communication and trust, the provision of adequate services that make life livable even in limbo, and a redefinition of responsibilities and roles," said the report

* The full 68 page report is available at

* To read an article detailing the response of UNHCR to the report, visit
- Compounding the tragedy of 30 December in Cairo

* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

South Africa's new health legislation, the National Health Act 61 of 2003, designed to tackle the public health crisis and the HIV/Aids pandemic, conflicts with binding commitments made by the former apartheid regime under the World Trade Organization's General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). This illegitimate trade treaty makes meeting the health needs of most South Africans far more difficult, says a new report released by the South African Municipal Workers Union and the Municipal Services Project.

South Africa’s new flagship health legislation, designed to combat a daunting and urgent public health crisis, conflicts with legally binding commitments the former apartheid regime negotiated under the World Trade Organization’s (WTO’s) General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS).

This trade treaty conflict threatens to undermine the much-needed legislation and, if left unresolved, would make meeting the health needs of the majority of the population far more difficult.South Africa’s dilemma should serve as a world-wide warning that health policy-makers, governments and citizens need to be far more attentive to negotiations that are now underway in Geneva to expand the reach of the GATS.

South Africa’s National Health Act (NHA) aims to remedy past injustices by creating a more uniform and egalitarian national health care system. It is the current government’s chief legislative response to continuing health care challenges in a country where the social and economic costs of the worsening HIV/AIDS pandemic have greatly exacerbated the structural problems inherited from the apartheid era. Scarce health resources are still disproportionately directed to rich and urban citizens. South Africa’s National Health Act (NHA) aims to remedy past injustices by creating a more uniform and egalitarian national health care system.

The General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) is no ordinary trade treaty. It is exceptionally complex and broad in scope. It aims to expand international commerce by restricting government measures that impede the ability of foreign companies and investors to maximise profit by supplying services, including health services. Once a national government agrees to cover a particular service sector under the GATS, this “specific commitment” binds all future governments, under threat of punitive trade sanctions.

This is the difficult situation in which the current South African government finds itself. In 1994, South Africa made GATS commitments covering a huge swath of the country’s health services. Almost all human health services delivered outside of hospitals by doctors, dentists, nurses, midwives and other health professions are directly and explicitly covered. However, these commitments are not classified under health but under the Professional Services sub-sector of Business Services. This bizarre classification system, together with the commitments having been made by the apartheid regime some 10 years before the drafting of the National Health Act probably explains why both South African trade and health officials denied for so long that the country’s health services are covered under the GATS.

The conflicts between South Africa’s health legislation and the international services treaty are substantial. In general, public planning policies that allocate health resources more equitably between urban and rural areas, between rich and poor people, and between public and private sectors conflict with the GATS prohibitions against limiting the numbers or activities of private sector service providers.

In particular, the NHA’s “certificate of need” system conflicts with the GATS Market Access rule (Article XVI). This system is the legislation’s primary policy instrument, requiring all health establishments to acquire a “certificate of need” in order to operate. The legislation gives the health minister the authority to grant or refuse certificates based on community needs, and to set conditions on certificates, such as requiring health establishments to service poorly-served regions or populations, or to train community health care professionals.

These basic measures, which are moderate and typical by world health policy standards, conflict with GATS Article XVI:2. This GATS provision explicitly prohibits the application of such “economic needs tests” to the approval of new facilities or the expansion of existing health establishments. The GATS also threatens the health legislation and related policies in other ways. The application of the GATS National Treatment rules (Article XVII) to all health sectors and sub-sectors listed in the South African schedule of commitments creates a host of regulatory issues and problems. Community-based control and decision-making, local training and technology transfer options, directed health care subsidies and incentives, and black economic empowerment policies are all at risk.

GATS negotiations are currently underway on Domestic Regulation (GATS Article VI:4). If these negotiations result, as planned, in new restrictions on non-discriminatory government regulation, the apartheid-era commitments covering health services would create further problematic conflicts with the National Health Act.

The approaches embodied in South Africa’s current health policies and its GATS commitments are incompatible. The government can choose either to conform to legally binding, but illegitimate, treaty commitments made by apartheid-era negotiators, or it can implement the NHA and related policies to try to achieve a more equitable health care system. The existing inequities within the health care system are in need of urgent reform. There is also an overarching responsibility, enshrined in South Africa’s now democratic constitution, for the state to protect health and other basic human rights. Accordingly, the morally and constitutionally valid way for the government to resolve these conflicts is to bring the country’s GATS commitments into conformity with South Africa’s health policy imperatives.

Failure to resolve this trade treaty issue promptly could, over time, divert effort and scarce resources from the central task of health care reform. It would enable foreign for-profit health service corporations, through their home governments, to launch GATS challenges that could thwart the implementation of the National Health Act and related policies.

There are several possible options for dealing with the GATS problem. One option is for South Africa to implement the National Health Act as planned, and deal with any potential GATS issues as they arise. This “wait-and-see” approach is, however, unlikely to be effective over time. Due to the stark inconsistency between the NHA and the GATS, disputes are to be expected. Losing such a case would expose South Africa to the threat of trade sanctions targeted against the country’s key exports.

Another option is for South Africa to withdraw its GATS commitments covering health services. This approach would resolve the immediate GATS threat to the NHA. A drawback, however, is that South Africa would be required to negotiate increased GATS coverage in other sectors to compensate affected WTO member governments for their service suppliers’ lost “market access” in health services.

A third, more ambitious approach would begin with the withdrawal of the GATS commitments. This would be accompanied by the South African government leading or participating in collective action by like-minded governments and citizen movements to tackle the threats that the GATS poses to progressive health policies. This would be consistent with the GATS and similar treaties being fundamentally changed to address the basic incompatibility between their commercializing imperatives and policies to realise health as a human right for all. The GATS is corrosive to a variety of public service systems and to regulation in the public interest.

Instead of the current negotiations to broaden and deepen GATS coverage, there needs to be a thorough assessment of the treaty’s defects from a health policy and public interest perspective, and joint international action for concrete changes to remedy its structural flaws. Bringing South Africa’s GATS obligations into line with its new national health legislation should be viewed as a necessary first step towards the vital goal of creating more democratic international governance frameworks for human and social development. Instead of the current negotiations to broaden and deepen GATS coverage, there needs to be an assessment of the treaty’s defects and joint international action to create more democratic international governance frameworks.

South Africa’s predicament is a cautionary tale. All the evidence suggests that the drafters of the Health Act either did not know about the country’s health commitments under GATS or had forgotten about them. The officials who knew about GATS resided in South Africa’s Department of Trade & Industry. But they knew nothing about the Health Act until it had already passed through parliament and were alerted to the problem by the South African Municipal Workers' Union (Samwu). These same trade officials now publicly accuse Samwu of being “unpatriotic” in bringing public attention to the conflict between GATS and the National Health Act.

* This is a summary of a report "The GATS and South Africa's National Health Act: A Cautionary Tale" based on a research project commissioned by the South African Municipal Workers Union and the Municipal Services Project, published in June 2006. Contact Jeff Rudin of Samwu ([email protected]) for more information or a copy of the report.

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

June 16 marks the 30th anniversary of the Soweto uprising against apartheid rule. Percy Ngonyama writes that South Africa’s youth have faced an onslaught from market-friendly economic policies. Rather than a day of celebration, the anniversary should be used as a platform to re-launch and intensify young people's struggles for a genuine "Better life for all".

In the days leading up to the 30th anniversary of the June 16 Soweto uprising, young people have been urged by the government and the SA Youth Commission to take part in planned nationwide commemorations. The 2006 "apathetic" youth have been heavily criticised for their disregard of important national events.

While it is typical to assume that the Soweto uprising was triggered solely by the use of Afrikaans - widely seen by most black people as the language of the oppressors - as a medium of instruction, the youth of '76 took to the streets also to protest against inhumane living conditions in the townships and the racist policies of apartheid's 'bantu education', which subjected poor young black people to an inferior education system characterised by an inadequate supply of educational resources in black schools.

Thirty years on, and twelve years since the advent of the much talked about April 27 1994 'miracle', for many young people very little has changed, and as a result, there will be nothing to celebrate on June 16 2006.

The appalling socio-economic conditions in the townships have worsened. Youth unemployment has reached crisis level. For many young people who are HIV positive and poor, which is usually the case, there is no hope.

Because of government's strict fiscal discipline, and President Thabo Mbeki and Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang's dissident views on HIV/Aids, life saving anti retroviral drugs are only available to a fraction of infected persons at public medical institutions. We are yet to see a genuine 'roll-out' programme being implemented. And the disease continues its reign of terror, amongst the youth, unabated. Every day, more young people die from HIV/Aids compared to those who died on June 16, 1976.

The majority of black schools are still without basic necessities, such as electricity and water, let alone computer and science labs. Most public schools have had to drastically increase their admission fees to cope in the era of budget cuts. The shortage of resources at most public schools is so endemic that even the education minister has lost trust in her own system. Both her daughter and son have been enrolled at prestigious private schools.

While the brutal apartheid government was responsible for the plight of young people in 1976, the current government's ill-advised neo-liberal, market friendly, capitalist economic policies are to blame for the plight of the children of the 1976 youth.

Despite these serious predicaments facing our young people, the government has prioritised multi-billion dollar mega projects, such as the elitist Gautrain, the corrupt arms deal, the 2010 Soccer World Cup and the ecologically destructive Coega development project.

Faced with a serious unemployment catastrophe, the government has introduced the Extended Public Works Programme (EPWP). This much-touted programme hopes to create 1 million jobs between 2004 and 2009. Thirty percent of these employment opportunities will be allocated to young people. However, the EPWP is marked by very serious shortcomings. The jobs are very temporary and pay next to slave wages. Furthermore, with only R25 billion allocated to the programme, the government needs to think again if it hopes to effectively address unemployment.

And given SA's huge apartheid induced services backlog, government would be well advised to embark on a massive recruitment drive of young people to build hospitals, clinics, schools, houses, roads, crèches, centres for abused and battered women, and other such urgently required infrastructure. Such a move could create a lot of decent employment opportunities for the youth.

Placing the crucial task of service delivery, as stipulated in the EPWP, in the hands of the private sector, will, as the past twelve years have brutally demonstrated, prove futile. Another initiative, The Joint Initiative on Priority Skills Acquisition (Jipsa), which, like the EPWP, also forms part of government's Accelerated And Shared Growth Initiative of South Africa (asgiSA), in true capitalist style, puts the blame for the high rate of youth unemployment on the victims, the "unskilled" youth.

The reality, however, is that a large number of unemployed youth have post grade 12 qualifications. Some are even in possession of tertiary qualifications. Over a hundred thousand graduates are unemployed or underemployed. Clearly, the "skills" being "prioritised" by Jipsa are not people centred, but skills required by capital to increase profits and to achieve the ambitious 6% annual growth rate by 2014.

So called 'youth empowerment' programmes have not benefited the majority of young people, but a few who are aligned correctly politically. The appointment of ANC aligned young people to senior positions in government and the private sector has not improved the lives of the majority of young people. But, one can be certain that the newly 'empowered' young people have become filthy rich, thus joining the ranks of the black petty bourgeoisie who appear regularly on covers of fashion and financial publications, and are described as 'shinning examples' of 'success' that should be followed by all young people.

Eight million of the economically active population are unemployed - meaning they have no form of income. Seventy percent of these are young people. Given this sad situation, one need not be shocked by increasing incidents of criminal activities involving young people.

The government hopes to deal with the symptoms and not the causes. During his 2006 state of the nation address Thabo Mbeki announced a plan to increase resource allocation within the justice system to ensure, in his words, that "crime does not pay."

What are the causes of rampant poverty? This is a question government bureaucrats always prefer to avoid, for the answer lies in market-friendly policies that promote cuts in social expenditure and cuts in corporate tax. The post apartheid government has reduced corporate tax by 16%. One percent amounts to R2 billion. These funds are desperately needed to improve the lives of the country's young people and to create decent and sustainable employment opportunities.

Young people do not part-take in national events, not because of "apathy" as widely purported by politicians and mainstream youth formations, but because of disillusionment and very justified anger at SA's new rulers, who have abandoned the progressive principles of the 1956 Freedom Charter and slogans declaring "Socialism is the future, Build it now", and have become deaf to people's desperate pleas.

The only voice they ever listen to now is that of financially well-endowed capitalists and financial markets calling on them to implement more 'trade liberalisation'. As a result, they are endlessly running amok like headless chickens, formulating, courtesy of handsomely remunerated experts, one failed neo-liberal policy after another, at the expense of the poor masses.

HIV/Aids, unemployment, poverty and other problems affecting young people need to be put on top of government's agenda. For this to be realised, young people need to follow the recent example of the French youth who have united and successfully prevented the implementation of pro-business labour laws giving 'carte blanche' to bosses, after two years, to fire young people under the age of 26 without providing reasons. Our experience, past and present, also tells us that mass protest, and mass based campaigns, is the only 'language' governments and the capitalists understand.

Evidently, mainstream youth formations, such as the government bankrolled Youth Commission which continues to sing poetic praises for the state's ineffective and exclusive youth empowerment programmes, and the ANC Youth League – which has prioritised the 'Zuma for president' campaign and beauty contests, such as the annual Miss South Africa beauty pageant, over pressing youth issues, and counts amongst its 'comrades' the likes of the late Brett Kebble - are not the answer.

The '76 young generation did not lay down their lives for the current criminal neo-liberal 'paradise'. It is therefore a sign of indifference to the plight of many young people to commemorate the 30th anniversary of June 16 with yet another 'kwaito bash' at the Durban ABSA Stadium.

The anniversary should be used as a platform to re-launch and intensify young people's struggles for a genuine "Better life for all". A step in this direction is the 'Right to Work Campaign' [R2W] - a campaign that seeks to make unemployment 'public enemy number one' - which is being launched in Cape Town from June 13-16, at a conference to be addressed by various prominent national and international social-movement activists and trade unionists.

* Percy Ngonyama is a social-movement activist based in Durban ([email protected])

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

In early June, Niger’s parliament voted against the African Union’s Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa by 42 votes to 31. Sibongile Ndashe urges the country to rethink it position.

African Union (AU) member states continue to deposit instruments of ratification of the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa and these are developments that we continue to note with renewed belief in the AU’s commitment to upholding gender equality. This is why Niger’s stance should not pass without comment.

It is a serious set back for Niger, that the country could have saved and should still save herself from. It is a set back for the women who fought and lobbied to see the Protocol come to fruition. It is a greater set back for women in Niger in particular. In a meeting that was held in Pretoria, in May, that was aimed at accelerating the speed of ratification and domestication of the Protocol, there were women present from Niger. The fact that on 18 January 2005, the Niger executive arm of government had approved the ratification of the Protocol and that the only outstanding issue was the adoption of the motion by the legislature was seen as an exciting development.

It is still not clear what went wrong. Niger is not a country that is fundamentally opposed to women’s human rights. Niger signaled its intentions to take women’s human rights seriously when it acceded to the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) on 08 October 1999. On 30 September 2004 Niger acceded to the CEDAW optional protocol. CEDAW has been referred to as the international bill of rights for women and the Protocol’s unique selling point is that it is seen as a regional bill of rights that aims to ameliorate hardships specifically focusing on the context upon which African women’s human rights violations are located.

Niger was party to the adoption of the AU solemn declaration on Gender Equality in July 2004. The solemn declaration has no legal force. It is a commitment by members of the AU to implement gender-specific measures related to: Economic, social and legal measures on HIV/AIDS; Gender mainstreaming of peace processes; and Systematic prohibition of the abuse of girl children as wives and sex slaves. It relates to systematic prohibition of trafficking in women and girls; Promotion of the gender parity principle; Guarantee of women’s land, property and inheritance rights; Education of girls and increasing the literacy of women, especially in rural areas; and Enforcement of the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa.

It also sets out in great detail the measures that will be adopted in order to give effect to the commitments. States undertook to sign and ratify the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa by the end of 2004 and to support the launching of public campaigns aimed at ensuring its entry into force by 2005.

There is more that has to be said about the Protocol that makes the Niger outcome even more baffling. CEDAW and the African Protocol on women’s rights are not mutually exclusive, if anything they serve to complement each other. The Protocol is not a radical document. There are conflicting opinions on whether the Protocol can even begin to call itself a feminist document. It seeks to negotiate space for women, asking that reasonable accommodation be made for women. It does not seek to dismantle patriarchal institutions, if anything it works around these institutions. Evidence of this compromise can be found on the provisions dealing with polygamy and inheritance rights. It is a compromise document and this is why it is really not clear what Niger law-makers could have found objectionable.

The proper application of democratic principles needs to be understood in its proper context. While it remains undisputed that Niger is a sovereign state and that the decisions made by its legislature have to be given full effect taking into account the powers given to the legislature in the Constitution, the understanding of the strict notions of sovereignty are increasingly showing signs of shifting. State parties, by engaging with the international community, at the very least are asking to be tested against standards that they have agreed to in international forums. Citizens of those countries also have a legitimate expectation that the instruments that its government binds itself to will see fruition at a country level.

The mere fact that the lawmakers voted against the Protocol should not be heralded as the proper application of democracy. It is not just what one votes against. If anything, the Protocol would serve to support democracy. Overemphasis on sovereignty and democratic principles on issues that pose no threat to a country’s sovereignty or democratic principles seems like an easy way out of a difficult situation.

It is hoped that Niger will be open to experiences of how other states have engaged with the Protocol. The Gambia serves as a good example in this regard. Initially the Gambia had ratified the Protocol with reservations but after careful consideration of the reasons behind the reservations by both the Gambian civil society formations and the state the reservations were lifted.

Niger owes it to herself and its citizens to reconsider why it did not pass the Protocol. If after engagement with the document it is still convinced that what is envisioned is not a society that Niger aspires towards then at the very least they could ratify with reservations. But it is unacceptable that the proper application of democratic principles and the rejection of the Protocol could be found next to each other.

* Sibongile Ndashe is an attorney with the Women’s Legal Centre, Cape Town, SA

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