Media and other reports over the weekend of April 2-3 2004 said that President Sam Nujoma has now officially “confirmed he would not seek a fourth term” of office and that he has “laid to rest speculation over the fourth term once and for all”. It has also been reported that Nujoma would now abide by the Namibian Constitution and would step down on March 21 2005 when his third term ends. Read the Press Statement by Nujoma: “The President of SWAPO reiterated his earlier decision that in accordance with the Constitution of the Republic of Namibia, he will not seek another term of office, and will step down at the end of his term on 21st March 2005”.

This obviously “shock” announcement, which purports to have been made by Nujoma himself, came after a rather tumultuous SWAPO Central Committee (CC) meeting held over the said weekend. This ‘official’ announcement is a far cry from another “shock” announcement by Nujoma who only on March 30 2004 reportedly indicated to a Reuters’ reporter that he might go for a fourth term “if the people” wanted him to do so. Vox populi, vox Dei, meaning “the voice of the people is the voice of God”.

Also, please note that what is conspicuously missing from the above statement is the fact that it does not say that Nujoma would not accept or entertain any further demands from any quarters that he stands for a fourth term.

Since 2002, Nujoma has been making similar flip-flop statements about his desire for a fourth term: in some cases he has indicated that he would step down, inter alia, because of his age, while in others he has indicated that he would go for a fourth term, among other things, because he was “still young”.

Over the April 2-3 2004 weekend, however, Nujoma cited only the constitutional limitation as the prime reason for his stepping down. In the past, when considering whether or not he would stand for a fourth term the Constitution did not appear to matter. The President has no track record of spontaneously adhering to the Constitution. Why all of a sudden now?

On Sunday evening April 4 2004 NBC TV News showed “joyous” SWAPO members in what appeared to be a celebrating mood. This mood was apparently caused by their decision that Nujoma should step down and that three candidates - announced in this order, Hifikepunye Pohamba, Nahas Angula and Hidipo Hamutenya - be nominated to vie for the presidential post. The winner of the three will be determined at the extraordinary SWAPO congress to be held on May 28-29 2004.

Media reports also indicated that central committee (CC) members turned down and rejected three of Nujoma’s four nominees, who included Secretary General Ernest Tjiriange and his deputy John Pandeni.

Hence, the “joyous” mood on the part of the committee members appears to confirm media speculations that there was “fierce” opposition to Nujoma’s fourth term bid. In the likely event that this, indeed, was the case, it is fair to conclude that a victorious palace revolution (or revolt) against not only the fourth term but also Nujoma’s authority has occurred during the said CC meeting. That is to say, Nujoma was subdued, vanquished and forced to shelve - albeit temporarily - his fourth term bid and all other collateral plans associated with the said term of office.

During the Politburo meeting on March 30 2004 Nujoma is said to have issued an ultimatum to his subordinates to choose between two things: either to accept Pohamba as the sole presidential candidate or to face a fourth term for him. Politburo members, however, “fiercely” opposed and defied such ultimatum.

My question is: how and why should Nujoma allow himself to be humiliated or insulted by people whom he has the executive power to constitutionally dismiss summarily in the same manner he had appointed them? In terms of both the country’s Constitution and SWAPO’s own constitution, Nujoma has the power to summarily dismiss anyone not towing his line. He also has popular support among rank and file SWAPO members to disciplining anyone seen as disloyal to him. Simply put, President Nujoma is unstoppable!

Nujoma is bound to retaliate and punish those who dare to oppose his plans for many years. He has done so in the past with Tony von Wietersheim and recently with Hage Geingob, Ernest Tjiriange, Nangolo Mbumba and others. Constitutionally, President Nujoma has also the executive power to sack the entire Cabinet and even to dissolve the National Assembly if he so wished.

Hence, I am cautiously optimistic that Nujoma will, indeed, step down come March 21 2005. Or am I? Such optimism is based on my observations of incidental events or occurrences inside and outside this country, including:
Nujoma has been preparing for the fourth term at least since the dismissal of former Prime Minister Hage Geingob. This was followed by the demotion of Finance Minister Nangolo Mbumba, followed by the removal of Ernest Tjiriange from his post as Minister of Justice.

Hidipo Hamutenya who, according to media allegations, Nujoma fears or dislikes the most - and neither Nujoma nor Hamutenya has so far dismissed these allegations - was removed from his powerful and influential post at the Ministry of Trade and Industry and transferred to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs minus the portfolio of the equally influential Minister of Information and Broadcasting.

Since August 2002 Nujoma or those he has sent encouraged or instigated among others Owambo traditional leaders and rank and file SWAPO supporters to march in favour of the fourth term. He has commissioned the construction of a multimillion Namibia dollar new State House. I am not a bit convinced that Nujoma would build a castle to be inaugurated by Lucas Pohamba, his favoured successor, let alone for Hidipo Hamutenya or Nahas Angula.
Rank and file SWAPO members credit Nujoma personally for having “liberated” this country and for being the only person capable - and I agree - of keeping SWAPO Party unity, from where national unity and peace as well as the relative stability flow, in this country. Under these circumstances, Nujoma cannot now, all of a sudden, be expected to shelve all these good things on which he has been working so hard at.

As in 2002 during his address to the opening of the SWAPO CC over the April 2-3 2004 weekend Nujoma made it clear that Party divisions were unacceptable, warned against infighting and urged unity among SWAPO members. Indeed, there are “widespread” divisions and “a potential rift” within SWAPO as various factions vie for support within and possibly without the ruling Party.

Seeing that the three leaders that the SWAPO CC has nominated to compete for the presidency would engage in what could be viewed as sowing Party divisions and disunity as well as posing a threat to national stability and security, this could be used by Nujoma and others as an excuse.

Hence, he could even use his constitutional powers to dissolve Parliament in accordance with the provisions of Article 57, read together with Articles 26, 32 (3)(a) and 50 of the Constitution. In this case, presidential and National Assembly elections would be held within 90 days to create a completely new Parliament and new Cabinet with Nujoma as new Head of State. Hence, there would be no need for holding a national referendum referred to in Articles 63 (2) (g) and 131 of the Constitution.

Furthermore, as a human rights activist specializing also in early warning systems, I smell a rat due to the over-intensive interactions between the principals of Namibian and Zimbabwean governments lately. I am particularly deeply alarmed by ominous signs of a Zimbabwe-style human rights and humanitarian crisis developing in this country. In addition to the aforementioned internal Party divisions within SWAPO there are several indicators pointing out to this scenario.

I am alarmed at the frequency of both high and low profile visits to this country by high-ranking Zimbabwe officials, especially those who have been pivotal in engineering and sustaining the current human rights and humanitarian crisis in Zimbabwe, including Nujoma’s principal ally Robert Mugabe.

It is my belief that President Nujoma, called “a Mugabelite” by some media, is probably the closest ally of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe in the whole world. According to media reports, Mugabe has indicated he would not step down when his present term of office comes to an end sometime in 2008. If this is true - and I believe it is - then why on earth should Nujoma step down now, leaving his friend Mugabe to face a very hostile world alone?

Last November Mugabe arrived here under cover of secrecy. The exact purpose of his visit has not [yet] been disclosed officially. But according to State-controlled media, Mugabe came here for bilateral talks, including “the strengthening of security cooperation”.

Hence, my suspicion is that Nujoma and Mugabe might have signed a mutual defence pact along the lines of the SADC mutual defence pact concluded at Dar es Salaam, Tanzania in August 2003. The Namibian Parliament has since ratified the SADC pact paving the way for SADC Member States to intervene diplomatically, politically and militarily in the internal affairs of another country to remove a threat to national security and integrity and restore or enforce peace.

Prior to the Mugabe visit, Zimbabwean Home Affairs Minister Kembo Mohadi visited Namibia sometimes in July 2003 and paid a courtesy call on President Nujoma. Mohadi also held talks with his Namibian counterpart, Home Affairs Minister Jerry Ekandjo, and visited several police stations in Windhoek and possibly elsewhere in the country.

Then came the “shock” announcement in the evening of February 25 2004 when Namibian Prime Minister Theo-Ben Gurirab “out of the blue” stated that there will be a land expropriation drive in order to “speed up” land reform in the country. This announcement came on the eve of the visit to this country by Mugabe’s propaganda Minister, Professor Jonathan Moyo. Moyo is a principal engineer in the Mugabe’s land grab fiasco.

The Moyo visit entailed touring Namibia’s Government-controlled media institutions: NBC, New Era and Nampa as well as the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB). The visit peaked in the signature of a MOU between the two countries apparently on media matters. The content of such MOU has never really been disclosed. Professor Moyo called his visit a ‘happy coincidence’.

On March 11 2004 Zimbabwe’s Defence Minister Sydney Sekeremayi paid a low-key visit to Namibia where talks were held with President Nujoma. Sekeremayi then headed north apparently to inspect Namibia’s military installations at Grootfontein and possibly other places in the country. The Zimbabwe Defence Force (ZDF) has at least two aircraft in this country, purportedly to help in the evacuation of flood victims in the Caprivi Region. The question is: was Namibia now really unable to deal with the flooding situation in the Caprivi Region?

Over the April 2-3 2004 weekend, Mugabe seconded to Namibia six of his “experts” in land reform to “advise” and “train” Namibians on the techniques of “compensation” for expropriated lands. There has never been similar compensation in Zimbabwe in respect of any lands expropriated by Mugabe. Moreover, Minister Lucas Pohamba recently explained in Parliament how disagreements over the amount of compensation for expropriated land could be taken to land Boards.

Hence, in my opinion these Zimbabwe contacts are no mere coincidences. Nor can they be seen in isolation. They are interconnected, interrelated, interdependent and mutually reinforcing.

Again, such contacts come at the time when there is wholesale ambiguity on whether or not President Nujoma would go for a fourth term as well as widespread media speculations that there is “stiff” resistance within and without the ruling SWAPO party against the 4th term for Nujoma, if not against Nujoma himself as both President of SWAPO and Namibia. This scenario is similar to the situation prevailing in Zimbabwe prior to Mugabe’s seizure of white-owned farmlands and his unleashing of violence on civil society organisations and the political opposition in that country.

Hence, the true picture is bound to emerge in the days, weeks and months to come, possibly before the extraordinary SWAPO Congress scheduled for May 28 –29 2004.

* Phil ya Nangoloh is Executive Director of the National Society for Human Rights, Namibia.

* SEND COMMENTS ON THIS EDITORIAL – AND OTHER EVENTS IN AFRICA – TO [email][email protected]

In January 2004, Monsanto, a multinational agribusiness company, quit Zimbabwe because of what it called “poor economic conditions”. On 19 January 2004, Monsanto SA (Pty) Ltd revealed that it had applied for a food and feed safety clearance in South Africa for its genetically modified (GM) Roundup Ready wheat.

Such a clearance would mean that future importers of the GM wheat would not need to obtain import permits, more seriously it would mean that importers do not have to comply with bio-safety rules. On 9 March 2004, UK’s Environment Secretary, Margaret Beckett announced that UK ministers had agreed in principle to the growing of a single variety of GM maize in England. This agreement comes after five years of intensive national debate in which more than 50% of the Britons who participated said ‘NO’ to the introduction of GM crops.

There is no doubt that the push for genetically modified food is coming from big business. While previously the cry was that GM products would widen consumer choice, now the lie is been peddled that GM crops and seed are good because they will help developing countries deal with hunger. Multi-national agribusiness companies have been at pains to display their credentials of feeding a hungry world. If the aim of big agribusiness companies like Monsanto is to feed the hungry, why would it withdraw from a country like Zimbabwe where over 40% of the population need food aid?

The point must be made that far from dealing with hunger, GM crops could worsen it. Through patenting seeds, multinational agribusiness companies will establish a monopoly on food production. Because of advancement in technology, these companies can manufacture seeds that will not grow without patented chemicals. Seeds can also be created in such a way that they cannot reproduce. This would do much harm to farmers, indigenous people and local communities, in terms of their rights and interests, including the right to use, save and exchange seeds and other biological resources.

Much of what has been touted as development has failed to bring happiness and social justice to the majority of peoples of the world. In many countries particularly in the developing countries people are deprived of natural resources that constitute the bedrock of their lives. Agriculture is an extremely important sector in Africa, as it provides food and livelihood for its people and is the backbone of African economies. There seems to be no overwhelming benefit of GM crops other than profit for transnationals.

In South Africa, social movements are strongly opposing the granting of a commodity clearance permit that would allow the US firm Monsanto to import genetically modified wheat into their country. This is a legitimate concern because South Africa risks becoming a dumping ground for GM crops. Africa should be on guard not to fall for the marketing charm of companies like Monsanto who will go all out to open new markets in the continent.

No doubt Africa will be told that allowing companies like Monsanto to establish businesses in the continent will encourage foreign direct investment. This is exactly the kind of foreign direct investment that Africa should not accept because it will harm the continent’s bio-diversity and communal ownership agreed under the Convention on Bio-Diversity.

There is need to be ever sensitive to the issue of appearance versus reality. Those who have ever watched a magician’s show will know how the success of the show is determined by the extent to which the magician has mastered the art of deception through distracting attention. The magician misdirects with one hand while the other hand does the tricks.

Those who support GM crops have become magicians. They say GM crops will reduce world poverty and hunger. When this argument is questioned they change tune and say we shouldn’t worry about GM crops because most of them are being grown to feed livestock rather than people. As if to appease us we are further told that GM crops will be grown and managed under conditions that will not harm people and the environment.

In the interests of justice and morality we must ignore the magician’s tricks and demand to have a look at his other hand - the hand that is always under the table. It is the hand under the table that is pushing small farmers out of business. It is the hand under the table that is seeking to establish food monopolies. It is the hand under the table that is threatening traditional food industries. We should not allow a situation that reduces peoples livelihoods to a magic show.

Embracing GM crops unquestioningly is to attach our livelihoods to the markets. It is to disregard recognition of and provision for, the rights of farmers, indigenous people and local communities, in relation to their knowledge and biological resources.

* Percy Makombe is the Assistant Editor of the SEATINI Bulletin, in which this commentary first appeared. For more information and subscriptions, contact SEATINI, Takura House, 67-69 Union Avenue, Harare, Zimbabwe, Tel: +263 4 792681, Ext. 255 & 341, Tel/Fax: +263 4 251648, Fax: +263 4 788078, email:
Email: [email][email protected], Website: www.seatini.org

Eleven international and African organisations and networks called on the new Pan-African Parliament to set an ambitious agenda as it was inaugurated in Addis Ababa. The organisations, including the African Women's Empowerment Network, Eastern African Sub-regional Support Initiative for the Advancement of Women, FEMNET, PADEAP, Pan African Movement, Fahamu learning for Change, Fahamu SA Trust, MWENGO, Justice Africa and Oxfam GB, called on the new Parliament to embrace improving governance, giving citizens a voice and improving the human rights environment in Africa as a key priorities. For most poor people and especially women in Africa, parliaments are far removed from the day-to-day realities and challenges they face. The Pan African parliament is far from being representative (one MP for every 2.6 million people) therefore the 256 parliamentarians must go beyond being a talk shop to advance the issues that face millions of poor Africans.

Imagine an Africa free from conflict, developing rapidly through an equitable and sustainable relationship with the rest of the world. In this Africa there is an entrenched culture of respect for human rights. Populations are healthy and governed by fair, transparent and accountable governments. This is the vision, but African parliamentarians gathered in Addis Ababa this week will be only too aware of the steep slope the continent faces in overcoming its many challenges so that all its people may live in harmony.

The Pan-African Parliament of the African Union has been established with the intention that it will ultimately function as a kind of continental democracy, representing all the peoples of Africa. In its initial stages it will only have consultative and advisory powers, but over time it is hoped that it will evolve into an institution with legislative powers, whose members are elected by universal adult suffrage.

In the context of the challenges facing Africa, the Parliament has many objectives relevant to Africa’s development. Some of these are to facilitate the implementation of the policies of the African Union, promote human rights and democracy, encourage good governance, and promote peace, security and stability.

The protocol states that: “In terms of its advisory powers it may examine, discuss or express an opinion on any matter, either on its own initiative or at the request of the Assembly or other policy organs and make any recommendations it may deem fit relating to, inter alia, matters pertaining to respect of human rights, the consolidation of democratic institutions and the culture of democracy, as well as the promotion of good governance and the rule of law.”

Clearly – and even in their advisory capacity - this does enable members of the Parliament to highlight key areas of concern relating to conflicts, human rights and good governance in Africa. It is therefore fitting to briefly recap on Africa’s status in key areas such as conflicts, human rights, good governance, gender equality and trade and development.

CONFLICT:

Africa began 2004 on an optimistic note. During 2003 long-standing and destructive conflicts such as the civil war in Angola were finally ended and there appeared to be a renewed commitment to brokering peace on the continent, as evidenced in efforts to resolve the civil war in Burundi.

However, the success of deals such as the one in Burundi will have to stand the test of time, while other conflicts around the continent are still cause for grave concern. In Sudan, peace talks have not prevented continued conflict in the Darfur region, while the war in Northern Uganda between the Lord’s Resistance Army and Ugandan government has intensified.

Meanwhile, several other regional conflicts, such as in West Africa and the border dispute between Ethiopia and Eritrea, are simmering and require close attention. Reports of sporadic violence in the DRC continue to surface. Zimbabwe remains a cause for concern.

Much work remains to be done before Africa can be truly at peace. African parliamentarians will face the challenge of how they contribute to conflict resolution and prevention on the African continent through oversight, reform of laws and the entrenchment of human rights.

HUMAN RIGHTS:

Protecting and enforcing human rights is one of the key challenges facing the continent. Human rights abuses are prevalent throughout Africa. According to Amnesty International’s 2003 Africa Report human rights abuses were committed with impunity across Africa in the year under review, especially in Burundi, Central African Republic (CAR), Republic of Congo, Cote d'Ivoire, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Liberia, Sudan, Senegal, and Uganda.

Torture, ill-treatment, and secret detentions were widespread and the death penalty continued to be imposed extensively by criminal courts in 14 countries, with actual executions in Nigeria, Sudan and Uganda, said Amnesty. Freedom of expression is far from being an established right, with journalists facing extreme harassment on a daily basis in many parts of the continent.

Amnesty International points out that the Constitutive Act of the African Union (the Act) attaches a particular significance to human rights in a more comprehensive manner. This is an area where African Parliamentarians can and must intervene.

TRADE AND DEVELOPMENT

Most of the countries of the world that were poorer in 2000 than in 1990 are in sub-Saharan Africa, according to the United Nations Development Programme’s Human Development Report 2003. The report argues that to reverse declines, development strategies must focus not only on economic growth, but also on more equitable distribution of wealth and services. The Report also calls on developing country governments to prioritize spending on the basic services that poor people need most: “primary schools, not universities; rural clinics, not technologically advanced hospitals in big cities”.

Africa has put forward its own development plan, the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (Nepad) as the fix-all solution to Africa’s development problems. The plan seeks greater integration of Africa in the world economy and commits to standards of good governance across the continent. Nepad has faced criticism from some quarters, especially in civil society. Opponents of Nepad have argued that greater integration of Africa into a profoundly unfair international economic system is a recipe for disaster and say the top down implementation of Nepad smacks of the imposition of neo-liberal economic solutions for the continent.

Africa has shown strong signs of intent to deal with the unfair terms of trade it faces in its trading relationship with the developed world. During the World Trade Organisation ministerial meeting in Cancun, Mexico in 2003, the continent signaled that Africa would demand fairer terms of trade with the rich world.

Debt is another key problem still hampering Africa’s development. In 1996, the Highly Indebted Poor Country Initiative (HIPC) committed to partial debt cancellation, but according to a report from the New Economic Foundation, progress since 2000 has been “glacial”, hamstrung partially by onerous conditionalities. If African governments are to free up significant resources to meet the Millennium Development Goals, it is clear that the debt situation will have to be speedily resolved.

GENDER EQUALITY

There has been some progress towards gender equality on the African continent, but it is generally agreed that the continent has a long way to go before women achieve full equality.

Five of the 10 commissioners of the African Union are women, and females hold a significant percentage of government posts in Rwanda, South Africa, Cape Verde, Gambia, Mali and Zimbabwe, according to a news report quoting the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). But less than 15 percent of economic managers in Africa are women, the UNDP says, while just 10 percent of parliamentarians and eight percent of government ministers on the continent are female. Women are also more likely to suffer from the HIV/AIDS virus and suffer more from the effects of poverty.

A big step forward was taken on 11 July 2003 when the African Union adopted the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa, a supplementary protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, which was adopted in 1981.

The new Protocol covers a broad range of human rights issues. For the first time in international law, it explicitly sets forth the reproductive right of women to medical abortion when pregnancy results from rape or incest or when the continuation of pregnancy endangers the health or life of the mother.

In another first, the Protocol explicitly calls for the legal prohibition of female genital mutilation. In other equality advances for women, the Protocol calls for an end to all forms of violence against women including unwanted or forced sex, whether it takes place in private or in public, and a recognition of protection from sexual and verbal violence as inherent in the right to dignity.

GOVERNANCE

Coups, counter-coups and rigged elections: Africa is notorious for its governance problems. Consensus has emerged that in looking at the social, political and economic problems facing Africa, the missing link is the absence of good governance.

In February, African leaders agreed to start a review process on the key areas of good governance, democracy, human rights, transparency and domestic business environment under the peer review mechanism of the New Partnership for Africa's Development (Nepad).

According to the United Nations Integrated Regional Information Network (IRIN), the countries whose review is expected to take place in 2004 are Ghana and Rwanda, in April and June respectively.

Kenya and Mauritius will also to be reviewed but the process for these nations is expected to end in early 2005. The purpose of the peer review is to foster the adoption of appropriate laws, policies, standards and practices that lead to political stability, high economic growth and sustainable development on the continent. Nepad established the peer review mechanism in 2003 in a bid to counter Africa's reputation for bad governance.

Links to background news and information:

* Protocol establishing the Pan-African Parliament
http://www.africa-union.org/rule_prot/protocol-panafrican-parliament.pdf
* Other organs of the AU
http://www.africa-union.org/organs/Pan-African_Parliament.htm
* Meetings of African Parliamentarians on the Pan-African parliament
http://tinyurl.com/create.php
* Statement to the AU summit on behalf of the meeting of African parliaments
http://www.au2002.gov.za/docs/speeches/ginwala.htm
* An Underwhelming Response to the Pan-African Parliament
http://www.ipsnews.net/africa/interna.asp?idnews=22592
* Africa at large: Pan-African Parliament to open March 2004
http://www.afrika.no/Detailed/4510.html
* SA wants to house African parliament
http://www.suntimes.co.za/2003/06/22/news/africa/africa10.asp
* Senegal ratification paves the way for Pan African parliament
http://quickstart.clari.net/qs_se/webnews/wed/bm/Qafricanunion-parliame…
* The new African parliament: a giant step towards unity
http://mathaba.net/x.htm?http://mathaba.net/0_index.shtml?x=40204
* The Pan-African Parliament: An opportunity for African women
http://www.sarpn.org.za/documents/d0000608/page2.php
* African Union adopts protocol on the rights of African women
http://www.equalitynow.org/english/navigation /hub_ph01_en.html
* Pan-African Declaration on PRSPS
http://aidc.org.za/sapsn/declaration/kampala.html
* Africa united: not helpless, not hopeless
http://www.newint.org/issue326/keynote.htm
* Is Pan-African unity possible?
http://www.newint.org/issue326/colours.htm
* A History of Pan-Africanism
http://www.newint.org/issue326/simply.htm
* Ordinary people and pan africanism
http://www.newint.org/issue326/future.htm
* New meanings of Pan Africanism in the era of globalisation
http://www.nu.ac.za/ccs/files/Panafri1.pdf
* Monitoring the MDG’s: A List of the MDG’s with links to key indicators showing progress
http://unstats.un.org/unsd/mi/mi_goals.asp
* Amnesty recommendations to AU session
http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGIOR630012003?open&of=ENG-2AF

RESOURCES FOR PAN-AFRICAN PARLIAMENTARIANS

Relevant organisations and useful websites

* An A-Z of African regional integration
http://www.focusintl.com/whoswho1.htm
* Africa Action
http://www.africaaction.org/index.php
* Africa Commission on Human and People’s Rights: Links
http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/africa/comision.html
* African Centre on Democracy and Human Rights Studies
http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/africa/ACOHRS.htm
* African Gender Institute
http://web.uct.ac.za/org/agi/
* Africa Human Rights Instruments
http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/instree/afrinst.htm
* African Human Security Initiative
www.africanreview.org
* Africa Information Centre
http://www.africainformation.net/
* African Population and Health Research Centre
http://www.aphrc.org/
* Africa Security Dialogue and Research
http://www.cdd.org.uk/
* Africa South of the Sahara: country and regional guide
http://gill.stanford.edu/depts/ssrg/africa/guide3.html
* African Union
http://www.africa-union.org/
* Alliance for Conflict Transformation
http://www.conflicttransformation.org/index.asp
* Alternative Information and Development Centre
http://aidc.org.za/
* Association for Women’s Rights in Development
http://www.awid.org/index.pl
* Bretton Woods Project
http://www.brettonwoodsproject.org/
* Centre for Democracy and Development
http://www.cdd.org.uk/
Coalition for the International Criminal Court
http://www.iccnow.org/
* Centre for Civil Society at the University of Natal
http://www.nu.ac.za/ccs/
* Development Policy Management Forum
http://www.dpmf.org/
* Dialogue Webpage for conflicts worldwide: Africa
http://www.dwcw.org/cgi/wwwbbs.cgi?Africa
* Electoral quotas for women website
www.quotaproject.org
* Fahamu - Learning for Change
http://www.fahamu.org
* FEMNET
http://www.femnet.or.ke/
* Focus on the Global South
http://www.focusweb.org/index.php
* Global Coalition for Africa
http://www.gca-cma.org/
* Jubilee Movement International
http://www.neweconomics.org/gen/rweo_top.aspx?page=952&folder=146
* Justice Africa
http://www.justiceafrica.org/index.html
* Mwengo
www.mwengo.org/
* Pan-African HIV/AIDS treatment action movement
http://www.phrusa.org/campaigns/aids/news082502.html
* PanAfrican Women’s Liberation Organisation
http://www.wougnet.org/Profiles/pawlo.html
* Parliamentarians for Nepad
http://www.parlanepad.org
* Pan African Movement
http://www.panafricanmovement.org
* Pan African Congress Movement for Humanity
http://www.crin.org/organisations/viewOrg.asp?ID=1968
Safer Africa
http://www.saferafrica.org/
* The African Forum Network on Debt and Development
http://www.afrodad.org/
* The Institute for Human Rights in Africa
http://www.africaninstitute.org/html/institute_for_human_rights_and.html
* The Human Rights Trust of Southern Africa
http://www.sahrit.org/
* The Parliamentary centre
http://www.parlcent.ca/africa/panafrica_e.php
* The Southern African Regional Poverty Network
Http://www.sarpn.org.za
* Third World Network Africa
http://twnafrica.org/
* Women of Uganda Network
http://www.wougnet.org/
World Organisation Against Torture
http://www.omct.org
* 50 years is enough network
http://www.50years.org/

Useful Newsletters and Mailing Lists

* AF-AIDS
"A regional HIV/AIDS information network for Africa (in English and French)...Over 200 organisations working in or with African Nations in the response to the epidemic have already joined the forum." To join send e-mail to: [email protected] with the word 'join' in the subject line.

* AFRO-NETS
The AFRO-NETS mailing list has been set up to facilitate the exchange of information between the different networks active in Health Research for Development in the Eastern and Southern African Region. It is a forum for discussion that can support collaboration between the networks in the fields of capacity building, planning and conducting research, transformation of research recommendations into action, etc. The list also serves as a forum for announcing meetings, training courses and other events of interest to the networks. Subscribe by sending an email to [email protected].

* Africa Focus Bulletin
The Bulletin will feature material from a range of Africa-focused organisations. It will be limited to an average of 2 to 3 issues a week and offer selected material relevant to promoting international policies that advance economic, political, and social justice and human rights in Africa. Contact [email protected] to subscribe or unsubscribe.
http://africafocus.org

* Africa Trade Agenda
African Trade Agenda is produced by the Political Economy Unit, Third World Network-Africa. TWN-Africa is co-ordinator of the Africa Trade Network. For more info contact: TWN-Africa, Box 19452, Accra-North, GHANA. Tel, 233 21 511189/503669
Contact: [email protected]
www.twnafrica.org

* E-Africa: Journal of Governance and Innovation
To subscribe, email your name, job title, organisation and country to [email protected]. To unsubscribe, email to [email protected].

* Elections Talk
Election Talk from the Electoral Institute for Southern Africa is available in both electronic format and hard copy. It will now appear fortnightly to give the latest briefing on the forthcoming elections in the SADC region. These policy briefs are written by regional experts to give you a succinct overview on the latest developments in those countries holding elections in 2004.
Contact: [email protected]
http://www.eisa.org.za/PDF/et7.pdf

* Femnet Bulletin
The African Women's Economic and Policy Network (AWEPON) is a network founded on the principle that women have the fundamental right to shape economic policies that impinge on their lives. It has partners in several African countries and works with them to strengthen the capacity of women especially at the grass root and national levels to influence the shape of economic policy. Find out more information about Awepon and other organisations by reading the Femnet bulletin. http://www.pambazuka.org/index.php?id=20811

* Global Campaign for Education e-newsletter
The Global Campaign for Education is an independent coalition of NGOs and trade unions campaigning for the right to free, good quality education and immediate action on the Education for All goals. Their email bulletin is produced as an information resource for activists and practitioners. To subscribe, send a message with the word 'subscribe' in the subject line to:
[email protected]
http:// www.campaignforeducation.org

* Independent Advocacy Project governance news
Independent Advocacy Project (IAP), the Nigerian good governance group, promotes - through advocacy, coalition building, research, publications and information sharing - respect for good governance in Nigeria. IAP produces a monthly electronic journal and you can contact [email protected] if you are interested in subscribing.
Contact: [email protected]

* SADC Barometer
The SADC Barometer, a quarterly analysis by the South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA), focuses on key issues and trends affecting the Southern African Development Community (SADC). For more information or comment, please contact the SAIIA SADC researcher and SADC Barometer editor, Richard Meissner on +27 (0)11-339-2021, e-mail: [email protected] or [email protected].

* Seatini Bulletin
Seatini focuses on trade issues. For more information and subscriptions, contact SEATINI, Takura House, 67-69 Union Avenue, Harare, Zimbabwe, Tel: +263 4 792681, Ext. 255 & 341, Tel/Fax: +263 4 251648, Fax: +263 4 788078, email: [email protected],Website: www.seatini.org

* Pula – A newsletter on women and ICT’s in Africa
Pula is the newsletter of the Association for Progressive Communications Africa Women (APC-Africa-Women). Pula aims to promote and profile the work and activities of women's Information and Communication Technology (ICT) initiatives in Africa and to act as a communicative tool to link women to each other and to initiatives and opportunities. To subscribe or unsubscribe email [email protected]

A selection from the Pambazuka News Archives:

* The Challenges before Africa and the African Union
http://www.pambazuka.org/index.php?issue=112
The challenges facing the African continent are enormous. On every front: economic and industrial development; scientific and technological know how; electrification; agriculture; education; healthcare; housing; telecommunications; transport; peace and stability; institutional respect for social, economic, political and human rights, and all other indices of modern society the continent is yet to fulfil its potential.

* Ensuring a pro-poor focus in Agriculture and rural development through Nepad
http://www.sarpn.org.za/documents/d0000491/index.php
The New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) recognises the central role of agriculture. But the bias towards a certain model of agriculture - commercial and export orientated - points to gaps in its conception of a more wider and deeper perspective on rural development.

* Nepad: What is it? What is missing? http://www.sarpn.org.za/documents/d0000550/index.php
The New Partnership for Africa's Development (Nepad) has gone by many names. Critics have depicted Nepad as a 'neo-liberal' project, clearly contrary to the views of its supporters who see Nepad as a revolutionary plan. Whatever name and epithet one chooses, Nepad has clearly generated a great deal of debate, says this paper prepared for the labour research organisation Naledi.

* The Maputo Declaration
African Civil Society Statement To The Second Summit Of The Heads Of States And Governments Of The African Union
http://www.pambazuka.org/index.php?id=16150
"We are convinced of the crucial role played by civil society in development and governance and further call on the AU member states to establish the necessary mechanisms to involve civil society in policy making, development planning, implementation monitoring and evaluation in accordance with the African charter on popular participation and development...”

* The role of the state in development in the SADC region: Does Nepad provide a new paradigm?
http://twnafrica.org/resdetail.asp?twnID=225
Academic discourse and development policy debates have grappled with the contentious issue of the state-market interactions in Africa’s development agenda and process, particularly since the 1960s independence era. At the heart of this debate has been the contestation over agency for development: what is the key locomotive or engine of development? This article revisits this debate and critically interrogates the extent to which the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) presents a new paradigm in development thinking in the African continent

* ‘No Longer Dinner’: African Activists speak on Cancun
http://www.pambazuka.org/index.php?issue=126
Picture this. An island strip of expensive Florida styled hotels, white beaches and brilliant blue skies, disturbed by the violence of wrought iron barriers the length of the Convention Centre and 20,000 armed Mexican police and federal paramilitary. More than 10,000 people land on the island strip for the Inter-ministerial, 3,000 accredited NGO officials - but only 180 from Africa and 30 Africa Peoples Caucus activists on the outside; 1,200 accredited media journalists, of whom fewer than 100 from Africa; roughly 600 European Commission staff, but only 10 African Union staff and consultants. While the Italian delegation consisted of 106 people, there were 45 on the Kenyan delegation and 3 on the Gambian delegation. Towards the end, long and anxious hours waiting for the secretive green room discussions to end… The tears ... and then the shouts of joy and relief when the Kenyan Head of Delegation leaked the news of the collapse of the talks at 3pm on Sunday, 14 September. Africa emerged from the talks a major negotiating player, no longer the dinner of other trading partners, but defining the direction and outcome of the talks in Cancun.

* Barriers to African Regional Integration: The International Aid System and Corporate Interests
http://www.pambazuka.org/index.php?issue=115
Why is the entire African continental economy no larger than Spain's, at $580 billion? Why is the combined GDP of the 40-plus countries that lie between South Africa and Egypt scarcely bigger than the annual turnover of ExxonMobil? There's a weary consensus that blames low prices for Africa's agricultural exports, corruption, cash-starved infrastructure and, increasingly, the devastating economic impact of AIDS. But less explored is the perverse logic of dividing Africa's small economic space into fifty sovereign entities. Regional economic integration is an absolute prerequisite for poverty reduction: expanding markets, attracting investment, and increasing savings. Unfortunately, there are powerful interests that stand in its way – mainly the politicians and bureaucrats who extract rent from their possession of sovereign privileges to tax and regulate.

>> To find more relevant articles on African issues, visit www.pambazuka.org and type your keyword in the search box to access nearly 20 000 archived articles.

>> For more articles relevant to the Pan-African parliament, visit the Conflicts and Emergencies, Women and Gender, Elections and Governance and Development sections of this edition of Pambazuka News.

The Argument

We have become so used to the rhetoric of the “global village” that talking about African nationalism sounds anachronistic and outdated. But that is exactly what I wish to address. In this paper, I will explore the “National Question” in Africa and its erstwhile expression, nationalism, in three sections. First, I will discuss the rise of post-Second World War nationalism and its true essence, if you like. Then, I will address the debunking of nationalism in the post-cold war period under the apparent hegemony of neo-liberalism and so-called globalisation. Finally, still holding high the Gramscian adage, “pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will,” I anticipate the insurrection of a second nationalism.

Post-War Nationalism
The Essence of Nationalism

Introducing his book Freedom and After, Tom Mboya remembers what he calls the “proudest day of my life.” That was December 6, 1958, the opening day of the All Africa Peoples Conference in Accra, Ghana. Earlier in the same year, there had been a conference of independent African states, of which only eight existed at the time. “These two conferences,” says Mboya, “marked the rediscovery of Africa by Africans.”

"This rediscovery of Africa by Africans was ‘in complete contrast to the discovery of Africa by Europeans in the nineteenth century.’ The Conference of Independent African States had marked the birth of the African personality, and the delegates had all agreed on the need for Africa to rise and be heard at all the councils of the world affairs. "

The conference was attended by some five hundred delegates from political parties, trade unions, and organisations involved in the great awakening that was African nationalism. Patrice Lumumba and Roberto Holden were there, so was Dr. Kamuzu Banda. The nationalist upsurge in the post-war period in Africa was a great moment for a people that had been denied humanity by centuries of slavery and colonialism. Ideologies centered on Kwame Nkrumah’s “African Personality” or Leopold Senghor’s “Negritude” or Kenneth Kaunda’s “Humanism” or even Mwalimu Julius Nyerere’s Ujamaa expressed one central theme, nationalism.

The quintessence of nationalism was, and is, anti-imperialism. It was a demand and struggle against, rather than for, something. It was an expression of a struggle against denial – denial of humanity, denial of respect and dignity, denial of the Africanness of the African. It was the struggle for the “re-Africanisation of minds” or to “rebecome Africans,” as Amilcar Cabral put it. Archie Mafeje sums up the period well:

"It was the historical experience of racial humiliation, economic exploitation, political oppression, and cultural domination under European and American slavery, colonialism, and imperialism that gave rise to theories of ‘African personality’ and ‘Negritude.’ At the centre of these theories was the question of the liberation of the Black man – his identity or the meaning of ‘being-Black-in-the-world.’ It was a philosophical or moral justification for action, for a rebellion which gave rise to African nationalism and to independence. The latter was the greatest political achievement by Africans. It was an unprecedented collective fulfillment."

Early African nationalism should not be confused with the traditional discourse on the expression and development of nations in the womb of capitalism in nineteenth century Europe. Rather, it was an expression of a people that was an antidote to White supremacist rule. In a sense, it is correct to say that nationalism was the process, a process of struggle, in the formation of nations. In that sense, perhaps, nationalism preceded nations. Militant nationalists grasped this to some extent although they did not express it as consistently nor did they wholly appreciate the defining characteristic of nationalism, that is, anti-imperialism. In explaining the objectives of the Tanganyika African National Union (TANU) to the UN Trusteeship Council in 1955, Nyerere said:

"Another objective of the Union is to build up a national consciousness among the African peoples in Tanganyika. It has been said – and this is quite right – that Tanganyika is tribal, and we realise that we need to break up this tribal consciousness among the people and to build up a national consciousness. That is one of our main objectives towards self-government."

This formulation is no doubt problematic. It lends itself to the reactionary side of bourgeois nationalism, or what later came to be called “nation-building theories.” Let us look at another formulation; this time, from a leading member of a national liberation movement and an avowed Marxist – Marcelino dos Santos, then a leading member of FRELIMO. In an interview with Joe Slovo of the South African Communist Party, Dos Santos analyses the tension between tribe and nation:

"The main conditions for [the] successful rejection [of tribalism] are present. On the general point of whether we have already moulded a nation in the true sense of the word, I want to say that a nation is based on concrete realities. And the most important reality in the present stage in Mocambique is the fight against Portuguese colonialism…It is our common fight against our common oppressor, which plays an outstanding role in creating a national bond between all the diverse groups and cultures…Of course, a nation is a product of history and its formation goes through different phases. In this sense, the work for the final achievement of nationhood will continue even after independence, although the fundamental elements of nationhood are already in existence and in the process of being further developed in Mocambique. "

Dos Santos’ conception of nation formation does not differ fundamentally from Nyerere’s presentation of “nation-building,” although their points of departure appear different. Dos Santos, like Slovo, takes as his starting point the Marxist theory of nation (this, presumably, is “the true sense of the word”), which, in its Stalinist version, emphasises the European conception of a nation – common territory, language, culture, and economy. If these ingredients are not present, or not present to a sufficient degree, you have a tribe at worst or a nation in the process of being formed at best. Implied in the European conception of nation also is the idea of voluntarism, that is, forming or building a nation from the top. Perhaps the point to underline in Dos Santos’ exposition is that the anti-colonial struggle is an important ingredient of nationalism. The problem with Dos Santos- and Nyerere-type formulations is that the nationalist petty bourgeoisie, when it rose to power, wavered on anti-imperialism and ended up with top-down statist notions of “nation-building.”

I find Amilcar Cabral’s propositions more fruitful. They contain a germ of great potential in understanding the historicity and specificity of the National Question in Africa. Cabral suggests that post-war African nationalism was a struggle not only to reclaim history but also to assert the right of the African people to make history: “The foundation of national liberation lies in the inalienable right of every people to have their own history.”

Cabral also makes the point that “so long as imperialism is in existence, an independent African state must be a liberation movement in power, or it will not be independent.” These are profound insights. First, nationalism is constituted by the struggle of the people against imperialism, thus anti-imperialism defines African nationalism. Second, nationalism, as an expression of struggle, continues so long as imperialism exists. Third, the National Question in Africa, whose expression is nationalism, remains unresolved as long as there is imperialist domination.

Archie Mafeje builds on these insights, observing that “all the struggles in Africa and most of the Third World centre on the National Question.” He perceives nationalism as the common denominator underlying the different interpretations and connotations of the National Question. Furthermore, he says, nationalism is always a reaction against something. In African history, nationalism has been a reaction to imperialist domination. As proto-nationalism, the reaction was against the colonial phase of imperialism, or political domination by aliens. Since independence, meta-nationalism has been coping with the changing modalities of imperialist domination.

The dominant discourse on the National Question has run along different lines, however. In both the political right and left, the central debate has been over whether Africa has nations and nationalities or tribes and ethnic groups. In the Eurocentric worldview, nations represent a higher level in the evolution of social and political formations than tribes. Fed on Stalin’s rather schematic formula, and therefore unable to find nations within the territorial units called African countries, even radical Marxists, like Slovo, have found it difficult to theorise adequately about the National Question. In the hands of rightwing pundits, it has been worse. The so-called lack of nations has been used to debunk and delegitimise African nationalist movements and their achievements. With the current hegemony of neo-liberalism and the imperialist comeback, the spokespersons of imperialism have been quick to condemn nationalism as nothing more than an expression of ethnicity and tribalism.

Note this typical sample from an editorial in US News and World Report:

"In the Third World, there had been grand ideas of new states and social contracts among the communities, post-colonial dreams of what men and women could do on their own. There were exalted notions of Indian nationalism, Pan-Arabism, and the like. Ethnicity hid, draped in the colours of modern nationalism, hoping to keep the ancestors – and the troubles – at bay. But the delusions would not last. What was India? The India of its secular founders – or the ‘Hindu Raj’ of the militant fundamentalists? What exactly did the compact communities of Iraq – the Kurds, the Sunnis, and the Shia – have in common? The masks have fallen, the tribes have stepped to the fore."

This type of denigration strikes at the heart of nationalism, that is, at anti-imperialism. Be that as it may, let us look more closely at the various aspects and expressions of nationalism.

* This is an extract from a paper 'The Rise, The Fall and The Insurrection of Nationalism in Africa' by Issa G. Shivji, Professor of Law at the University of Dar es Salaam Tanzania. The paper is from Keynote Address to the CODESRIA East African Regional Conference held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, October 29-31, 2003. To read the full paper, please click on the URL below.

The recent decision by Uganda's President Museveni's to turn to the International Criminal Court (ICC) for investigations of atrocities by the Lord's Resistance Army has generated a lot of excitement in international human rights circles. Unfortunately, as the February 21 massacre by Joseph Kony's rebels has demonstrated, international prosecution may not be the inspired choice required to stop the carnage.

Judicialisation of conflict is what states do as a substitute for effective action. As a strategic choice for ending conflict, it is also a guaranteed failure. It proved the wrong prescription to the 1990s conflicts in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. In 1993, the United Nations Security Council created the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) ostensibly to stop the violence, but in reality to avoid doing anything about the conflict. Every single diplomat at the Security Council knew that what was required was a military solution or negotiated end to the inter-ethnic slaughter.

Rwanda, even more dramatically, demonstrated the timidity of the world in stopping conflicts. The UN had peace-keeping troops on the ground in Rwanda but when blood started to flow, the world decided to cut and run. General Romeo Dallaire, the commander of UN peacekeeping forces in Rwanda then, has stated that he could have stopped the genocide with 5,000 good troops and a muscular UN mandate. Instead, he was ordered to leave. The creation of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) was partly a gesture of contrition by states that had retreated to the safety of their borders and abandoned Rwanda to its fate. In both Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, resort to a judicial option was a way of appearing to do something without doing anything.

The lessons of these conflicts for Uganda are unfortunate but clear. The relevance of international law during conflict rests on the training, intentions and gun power of the fighters and their command. The individuals responsible for the February 21 massacres have as much knowledge of the Geneva Conventions as they do of brain surgery. President Museveni's invitation to the International Criminal Court therefore, while an important affirmation of individual criminal accountability for grave violations, it skirts the more immediate concern of stopping the atrocities.

The decision is flawed in both timing and effectiveness. Its timing elevates a downstream process of prosecutions to the upstream stage of regulation and cessation of conflict. Prosecutions are usually an after-the-conflict matter. They come after the fog of war has cleared. Commencing prosecution of 'enemies' during conflict imperils truce negotiations and is a disincentive to those who may be willing to surrender. It is why the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia refrained from indicting former Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic before and during the Dayton Peace Process. In any event, it is one thing to draw a list of the rebels alleged to have committed atrocities, but a different reality to attempt to collect evidence amidst the war.

The 18-year-old war in northern Uganda has now turned into the classic African 'stale-mate wars', with neither side able to deliver a decisive victory. What Uganda needs at the moment is a strategy of militarily defeating the rebels or negotiating a ceasefire. Given Kony's modus operandi, a negotiated peace settlement may be elusive in the short run.

If the only viable option is military, President Museveni may have to collectivize the security dilemma facing Uganda. The trail of the military supplies to the Lord's Resistance Army needs to be examined to hold to sanction those complicit in the conflict. The African Union Protocol creating a Peace and Security Council has only recently come into effect. Part of its mandate is to stop the atrocities similar to those perpetrated by the Lord's Resistance Army. With the new African Union, African Court of Human Rights and the NEPAD mechanisms, African leaders have pledged to generate solutions to Africa's many problems. The African Union has vowed not to repeat the spectacular failures of its predecessor, the Organisation of African Unity (OAU). Uganda may be well advised to test this commitment by requesting for assistance in its war against the Kony rebels.

External assistance to Uganda is however bound to be complicated by the country's recent military entanglements in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The five reports by the UN Panel of Experts on the Illegal Exploitation of Natural Resources and Other Forms of Wealth of the Democratic Republic of Congo, have fingered the Ugandan military for its involvement in illegal exploitation of minerals in the DRC and escalation of the conflict in that country. The tense relations between Uganda and Rwanda following the clashes between their forces in the DRC complicates a regional approach to security.

For Kenya and Tanzania, the insecurity in Uganda is a threat to the anticipated economic recovery of economies already battered by terrorist attacks. It is these two countries, more than any other in the region that must work with Uganda for a solution to the Kony insurgency if an integrated East Africa is to become a reality. In the long term, East African security experts need to re-imagine borders as regional rather than national. Security solutions are however determined by the political policies and choices of leaders. An East African security mechanism is only possible in the context of consensus on values by East African leaders. Internally, the three East African countries are yet to clear their decks of key governance issues. Mobilizing national support for regional peace work in the absence of local security and vibrant structures of domestic accountability is an uphill task.

However, the victims of Kony's war in northern Uganda will not wait for democracy to flourish in East Africa or the International Criminal Court to conduct its investigations. They are not victims of a random robbery or murder. Kony's massacres are a full-blown insurgency devoid of any humanitarian pretensions. If amnesty is what it will take to save lives, it is a choice that Uganda may have to explore in spite of obvious moral qualms. A military victory is more likely to deliver judicial justice to Kony's victims. But it requires political will at different levels and possibly more than the Ugandan military to deliver.

* Recent Pambazuka News articles on Uganda:
- Confronting impunity through the ICC: Is Africa ready and waiting?

* Mutuma Ruteere is a Phd candidate in Political Science, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, USA and a researcher on human rights and humanitarian law.

* Send comments on this editorial - and other events in Africa - to [email protected]

* NOTE FOR EDITORS: Please note that this editorial was commissioned from the author for Pambazuka News. While we are pleased that several print publications have used our editorials, we ask editors to note that if they use this article, they do so on the understanding that they are expected to provide the following credit: "This article first appeared in Pambazuka News, an electronic newsletter for social justice in Africa, Editors are also encouraged to make a donation.

Streams of stinking water run ceaselessly through the alleys that cut across the hillside of Margoso, Luanda. Generations of citizens have walked there and lived there, accustomed to the smell, and condemned to be forgotten.

It is on these alleys, in these slums on which politics has turned a blind eye, that a generation of young people, excluded and uprooted, have fomented a new political revolution through rap and through the repeated frustration that comes from having been robbed of their rights as citizens.

MCK, 22, has won notoriety. On 26 November 2003, José Eduardo dos Santos's presidential guard killed car-washer Arsénio Sebastião "Cherokee", 27, for singing MCK's rap "Technique, Causes and Consequences", a.k.a "I know what's up". Cherokee has in turn become a symbol of injustice in Angola.

Going down those alleys on the way to his house, MCK jokes about his social status, especially when, in the morning, he sets about fetching water in a drum which he carries on his back, on his shoulder or in his hands, whichever feels most convenient.

"I am the youngest in the family and I have to fetch water every day," he says.

His room is extremely cramped, even for one person. In the rainy season, prayer is the only thing that holds his house together – as well as his faith. Other rap activists cling to survival in the same way: Furacão and Keyta Mayanda, not to mention Brigadeiro 10 Pacotes, who was responsible for organising the thirtieth day memorial mass for Cherokee.

The outrage, evident on the faces and on the posters which line Marçal slum, where the deceased lived, is a sign of a mature understanding of the real relationship between the people and the regime.

The rappers managed, on their own initiative, to collect nearly one thousand dollars to give the victim's family: a sum that puts to shame the maize flour and beans the presidential guard left at the home of the deceased.

Moreover, MCK assumed responsibility for putting Cherokee's two children through school. He markets his CDs directly, and his meagre profits are put towards this cause. This is revolution.

"We have to promote a revolution of the mind in order to correct what happened in 1975. Colonialism ended, but the system remains the same. We count for nothing in our own country," argues Keyta Mayanda.

"You pressed 'play' and fell into a trench of ideas," goes the first track on MCK's CD: thirteen tracks with the suggestive name of "The trench of ideas".

This album, and others that are yet more radical in tone such as "Know the truth and the truth shall set you free" by Brigadeiro 10 Pacotes [Brigadier 10 packs], were recorded and produced in improvised studios.

The minibus taxi drivers who provide transport for the masses are willingly helping to arouse consciences, to politicise the masses. This controversial music, banned by the authorities, plays on the stereos in these overcrowded vehicles; music whose value lies in the content of its lyrics as well as in its beat.

"The government plays a different guitar" by Brigadeiro 10 Pacotes is the most controversial and also the most commonly heard song on this distribution circuit. It is a direct challenge to the Big Chief.

Frantz Fanon warned African politicians that the politicisation of the masses does not, and cannot, come through political speeches: "Politicisation means opening the spirit, awakening the spirit, enlightening the spirit."

In the slums, home to the masses - to an absolute majority - the silence of the people has become imprisoned by misery, paralysed by war and oppression. Track 11, "Echoes of rebellion," awakens a dormant spirit: balumuka. It looks at "a people suffering at the hands of the rulers". It examines the importing of western disguises by the political class, which has been looting the resources of the people and justifying it with "pretty speeches".

"Echoes of rebellion" calls on citizens to "be prepared / the people's silence speaks / the people's passivity is bursting the balloon". The verses take up the message about and for the people:

"We are politically tamed
Economically colonised
Culturally stagnated
Socially retarded … "

From where does this critical consciousness come? MCK says it comes from the life that he sees around himself. He has finished high school, but has neither access to the public university nor the funds to enter the private universities. Nevertheless, this consciousness is also the result of the gains made by press freedom. The singer keeps under his bed a large collection of press clippings, full of cases of corruption, misrule and whatever else. "We write our lyrics based on what we get from the press and from Rádio Ecclésia [the Angolan Catholic radio station]."

Despite its unimpressive circulation (on average 30 000 copies per week among Luanda's 3.5 million inhabitants), the independent press has been the driving force behind a growing democratic consciousness. And in a spontaneous reciprocal gesture, track six of "Trench of ideas", entitled "Topics for the article" is a tribute to the independent press which inspired it, as well as a parody of the dressed-up official version of events. With a forced, ironic optimism it explores what has changed and what remains the same: "The police beauty salon has new hairstyles … Parliament is just a sham / and whoever can do anything isn't part of it … the young are lost in a desert like camels."

And the chatter still continues at the scene of the crime, the Mussulo quayside, where the Dos Santo's guards tortured and killed Cherokee, by drowning him, in broad daylight in a public place. There where the elite go to relax and enjoy the kind of privileges which in Angola are reserved for a few. There, in truth's cemetery, where the people's silence is celebrated with mocking smiles. It is all part of the same process.

Music has no place in the grand scheme of politics in Angola. Especially not rap, invented in the 1970s by imaginative people living on the edge of society in the ghettos of New York's Bronx.

With neither change nor elections in sight, what consequences will this have for the abyss that separates the regime, the opposition, the city centres, the Luanda slums, the demobilized soldiers, the governors' palaces, and the rest of the country?

* Rafael Marques is a Angolan journalist

All over Cameroon, dark clouds are giving way to blue skies. But while the rains are ending, consumers are increasingly worried about their electricity supply and the anticipation of blackouts is a long way from becoming history. In the last three years, power supply has been very erratic. In this connection, the privatised utility, AES-SONEL, is talking-up prospects of investments that are afoot to turnaround the state of events. And amid the uncertainty, Sino-Cameroon relations are taking a twist towards dams. The head of state, Paul Biya, in September flew home with a baggage of dams ready for Chinese financing. These include the construction of three mini-hydropower plants by China International Water and Electrical Corporation (CWE) on the rivers Ntem, Nja, and Kadey. However, beyond government's interest in dams lies a minefield of equity and sustainability issues. Who are the actors and what are their true motives? Are their interests aligned with sustainable development?

The privatisation of electricity provides a background to comprehending some equity issues surrounding the proposed projects. The process, masterminded by the World Bank, was dispossessed of public scrutiny and participation. The recommendations of the International Finance Corporation's consultant - the private sector arm of the World Bank - blueprinted the privatisation of the National Electricity Co-operation (SONEL) in 2001. In the recommendations that were fleshed into a concession agreement, the construction of a big dam over the river Lom-Pangar was mandated to AES SIRROCO: a US based corporation. However, the Lom-Pangar issue predates privatisation. The French - enamoured by the project in 1990 - contracted the consultancy Coyne et Bellier, to carry out a feasibility study on the dam. The study was motivated by the relation between a quasi-owned French company, Alucam and SONEL. Alucam's intent to double its aluminium production capacity depended on cheap hydropower.

* Read the rest of this article by clicking on the link below.

It is now over two years since the New Partnership for Africa 's Development (NEPAD) was launched in Abuja, Nigeria and perhaps time to review the progress that this project for supporting development in Africa has made. Stripped to its bare bones, the NEPAD is a "partnership" with the developed world whereby African countries will set up and police standards of good government across the continent--whilst respecting human rights and advancing democracy--in return for increased aid flows, private investment, and a lowering of obstacles to trade by the West. An extra inflow of U.S.$64 billion from the developed world has been touted as the "reward" for following approved policies on governance and economics.

The sad fact is that there has been very little concrete progress, although plenty of meetings, summits, pronouncements, and speeches have marked the NEPAD thus far, the latest being in Kigali last weekend. Why there has been little concrete progress so far is because of the very nature of post-colonial African politics. Most commentaries ignore the reality that power in African politics must be understood as the utilization of patronage and not as the performance of legitimacy drawn from the sovereign will of the people. In other words, in spite of the façade of the modern state, power in most African polities progresses informally, between patron and client along lines of reciprocity. It is intensely personalized and is not exercised on behalf of the public good. Zimbabwe is a good example of this, but most other African countries broadly follow this pattern, including such NEPAD stalwarts such as Nigeria, Gabon, Congo-Brazzaville, etc. Very few countries (Botswana a prime example) have avoided such a state of affairs.

In a traditional patrimonial system, all ruling relationships are personal relationships and the difference between the private and public spheres is non-existent. Under a neo-patrimonial system the separation of the public from the private is recognized (even if in practice only on paper) and is certainly publicly displayed through outward manifestations of the rational-bureaucratic state: a currency, a flag, borders, a "government," and even bureaucratic offices etc. However, in practical terms the private and public spheres are habitually not detached and the outward signs of statehood are often façades hiding the real workings of the system. Consider the fate of Air Zimbabwe and Harrods shopping sprees by Mugabe as a good example; perhaps an extreme example but indicative of a broader trend, which varies across the continent.

* Read the rest of this commentary by clicking on http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2004/0402nepad.html.

* If you'd like to comment on NEPAD, please send your views to [email protected]

Not long ago, the Internet's ability to provide instant, inexpensive and perfect copies of text, sound and images was heralded with the phrase ''information wants to be free.'' Yet the implications of this freedom have frightened some creators -- particularly those in the recording, publishing and movie industries -- who argue that the greater ease of copying and distribution increases the need for more stringent intellectual property laws. The movie and music industries have succeeded in lobbying lawmakers to allow them to tighten their grips on their creations by lengthening copyright terms. The law has also extended the scope of copyright protection, creating what critics have called a ''paracopyright,'' which prohibits not only duplicating protected material but in some cases even gaining access to it in the first place. In addition to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the most significant piece of new legislation is the 1998 Copyright Term Extension Act, which added 20 years of protection to past and present copyrighted works and was upheld by the Supreme Court a year ago. In less than a decade, the much-ballyhooed liberating potential of the Internet seems to have given way to something of an intellectual land grab, presided over by legislators and lawyers for the media industries.

In response to these developments, a protest movement is forming, made up of lawyers, scholars and activists who fear that bolstering copyright protection in the name of foiling ''piracy'' will have disastrous consequences for society -- hindering the ability to experiment and create and eroding our democratic freedoms. This group of reformers, which Lawrence Lessig, a professor at Stanford Law School, calls the ''free culture movement,'' might also be thought of as the ''Copy Left'' (to borrow a term originally used by software programmers to signal that their product bore fewer than the usual amount of copyright restrictions). Lawyers and professors at the nation's top universities and law schools, the members of the Copy Left aren't wild-eyed radicals opposed to the use of copyright, though they do object fiercely to the way copyright has been distorted by recent legislation and manipulated by companies like Diebold. Nor do they share a coherent political ideology. What they do share is a fear that the United States is becoming less free and ultimately less creative. While the American copyright system was designed to encourage innovation, it is now, they contend, being used to squelch it. They see themselves as fighting for a traditional understanding of intellectual property in the face of a radical effort to turn copyright law into a tool for hoarding ideas. ''The notion that intellectual property rights should never expire, and works never enter the public domain -- this is the truly fanatical and unconstitutional position,'' says Jonathan Zittrain, a co-founder of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School, the intellectual hub of the Copy Left.

The TAC has strongly welcomed the government's operational treatment plan for HIV/AIDS of November 2003. We also welcome the efforts being made by some provincial governments, including Kwazulu-Natal, Gauteng and Western Cape, to implement this plan. Overall, we recognize that there has been tangible progress by government in improving policies, budgets and plans to prevent and treat HIV infection.

However we are alarmed that this progress and the efforts of national and provincial government health departments and officials are being undermined by inaccurate comments by President Mbeki and Minister of Health, Manto Tshabalala-Msimang. On the evening of 8 February 2004 an interview with President Mbeki was broadcast live on SABC television and radio. Regrettably, his comments on HIV/AIDS contained serious factual misrepresentations. This and his single mention of "AIDS", in passing, in his State of the Nation address to Parliament on February 6th 2004 suggest that he still he refuses to accept the seriousness of the epidemic. We are concerned that this is causing confusion in the public and despair among people with HIV/AIDS and health professionals. The publication of the Operational Plan increases the need for leadership - rather than reduces it.

The President stated that no studies have been done using death data to determine AIDS deaths and that the only reliable death statistics we have are for road accident deaths. This is untrue. There have been two studies examining death registration data to determine mortality due to AIDS. Both were conducted by state institutions, Statistics South Africa and the Medical Research Council (see footnote 1). The Statistics South Africa report was commissioned by Cabinet. Both studies demonstrate the increased and massive mortality due to HIV. Their findings are included in a recent publication of the Health Department titled 'Health Statistics'.

Another government endorsed study, the Impact of HIV/AIDS on the Health Sector(see footnote 2), found high AIDS mortality among health-care workers and estimated that 13% of health workers deaths from 1997 to 2001 were HIV-
related. The study found that the HIV "epidemic has an impact on the health system through loss of staff due to illness, absenteeism, low staff morale, and also through the increased burden of patient load." In response to a question on his silence on AIDS, President Mbeki stated that his doctors informed him that diabetes is also an epidemic. He then questioned why no-one talks about diabetes, suggesting that AIDS unfairly dominates debate on health-care to the detriment of other diseases.

This too is misleading: the President's choice of diabetes as an example of a disease neglected in debate is unfortunate. Drugs for treating diabetes are heavily overpriced; there should be a campaign for their reduction. But unlike HIV (until November 2003), diabetes is treated in the public health sector. However, the President should be aware that according to an initial investigation into the burden of disease estimates in South Africa released in 2003 by the MRC, AIDS was responsible for 39% of lost life-years in 2000 -- more than the next 10 worst diseases. Diabetes is the 12th worst disease and is responsible for slightly more than 1% of lost life-years. The two diseases are incomparable in scale.

President Mbeki stated that few countries 'can hold a candle to South Africa's HIV/AIDS programme'. A number of developing countries do much better than South Africa when it comes to HIV prevention and treatment, often with far fewer resources. And certainly, the political leaders of many much poorer developing countries do better than South Africa in their public messaging. With its relative wealth and more sophisticated public health care infrastructure, South Africa should be leading the response in Africa to HIV/AIDS, but it is not. Currently, South Africa treats approximately 1,500 people in its public sector, who are not on drug trials, paying for their own medicines or being sponsored. Throughout South Africa, fewer than 40,000 people are on treatment. South Africa now has a competent implementation plan on paper, but its roll-out is being delayed.

By contrast:
* Brazil's government treats over 100,000 people and has less than a quarter of South Africa's HIV infections. Its prevention and treatment programmes are incomparably better than South Africa.
* Botswana is treating approximately 15,000 and Cameroon approximately 7,000 people.

TAC believes that confronting HIV, and mitigating its impact on the progress of our country, demands that we are truthful with ourselves and that we enter into genuine partnerships for HIV prevention and treatment. The continued failure of the President and Minister of Health to deal appropriately or caringly with the epidemic is undermining the delivery of decent health-care to millions of poor people. This is one of the most important challenges facing South Africa; the President and Minister of Health must lead not confuse and obfuscate.

- Footnote 1: See
20death/Causes%20of%20death.pdf and http://www.mrc.ac.za/bod/complete.pdf
- Footnote 2: See

The World Social Forum is one of the most significant civil and political initiatives of the past several decades. Since the first World Social Forum (WSF) was held in Porto Alegre in January 2001 in Porto Alegre, Brazil, as a counterpoint to the World Economic Forum held in Davos, Switzerland, its call for ‘Another World is Possible!’ has been echoing as an alternative to challenge the neoliberal order. This year’s gathering in Mumbai, India, between 16-21 January was the fourth edition.

Official statistics estimate that about 80 thousand people represented by 2 660 organisations from 132 countries participated. Others put the number of participants at 150 000. The Mumbai gathering was different from the previous WSF meetings. First, Mumbai as a venue was no place to romanticize about poverty, unlike Porto Alegre, where poverty can be hidden. Despite the fact that it is India’s financial capital, two-thirds of Mumbai's people live in indescribably dirty shantytowns, where there are no water, taps or toilets in most homes. Taking a walk through Mumbai, one could not afford to ignore the signs of a sick economy.

Secondly, bringing the WSF to India afforded an opportunity for most poor Asians who could not in the past meet the cost of flying and living in the rather posh Brazilian city of Porto Alegre to have a feel of what happens at such world jamborees. One can safely say the majority of those who attended were from India and its neighbouring countries. Besides the usually refined criticism about the lack of transparency and democracy in the World Trade Organisation, International Monetary Fund and World Bank that characterizes these meetings, this time the majority, mostly Asian delegates, came, spoke, sung, danced, marched and denounced problems associated with the caste system, war, cultural imperialism, deep social and economic injustices and capitalism. They condemned the “Bushes and Blairs” of this world for the allied forces’ presence in Iraq, hailed socialism/communism and condoned Dalitism, as well as denounced the apartheid regime of Israel. Issues about dwelling rights and liveable cities, the caste system and “untouchable” Indians, the unsustainable situation of debt in poor countries of the world, and the coercive use of force by governments, multinational corporations and international financial institutions dominated the discussions.

The third difference was the African Social Forum (ASF) scenario. Of prime importance, Africans made a break-through in terms of their numbers at the WSF. Compared to the past three gatherings I attended, the Mumbai edition recorded the highest attendance of African civil society activists in the history of the WSF. I think around 350 to 400 Africans residing and working in Africa were in Mumbai. This was a big enough group to put the continent’s problems across. The ASF under the leadership of its secretariat in Senegal produced a daily paper, Africa Aflame, that captured and took into consideration Africa’s uniqueness and issues.

* Read the rest of this article by clicking on the link below. Please send comments to

The African Social Forum has grown in stature and can now meet IC criteria required for an entity to be seriously considered to play a leading role in the convening of the annual global meeting that parallels the Davos World Economic Forum. In my opinion, the main one was the ASF role in strengthening and mobilising social movements in Africa to participate in WSF as part of the process leading to consolidation of the world social movement. Its processes saw the building of an African space for the formulation of concerted alternatives to neo-liberal globalisation, based on a diagnosis of the latter's social, economic and political effects. The Forum helped define social, economic and political reconstruction strategies, including a redefinition of the role of the State, the market and citizens' organisations.

Armed with two basic documents crafted in Bamako (Mali) in 2002, and Addis Ababa (Ethiopia) in 2003, those pursuing anti-capitalist struggles within the framework of WSF will acknowledge that ASF has opened new avenues to define citizen control procedures to ensure that political change promotes the expression and implementation of alternative, credible and viable responses to corporate-led globalisation. The Mumbai Africa meeting failed to consolidate this foundation and found itself bogged down in process issues that should have been addressed before all proceedings. In my reading of the programme, some of the concerns should have been captured in the first session. We would have been briefed of developments in the IC and what issues Africa was chasing in the context of Mumbai.

This would have been the moment to emphasise that after Addis, the ASF recommendations, placed emphasis on the following working themes and strategies: promoting national, sub-regional and thematic forums and making sure that these spaces, initiated in a decentralised and autonomous way, are organised by national and sub-regional social and grassroots movements. Secondly, it would have been prudent to reiterate that emphasis was now being placed on promoting the participation of organisations of the African social movement in the World Social Forum through activities, alliances and a marked presence, and finally, encouraging alliances between components of the African social movement and international social movements, especially those in the south. Thirdly, we should also have been told that the African social forum activities being held in the context of Mumbai 2004 have resulted from a number of processes on the continent and scenarios had emerged after organising two Forums in Africa, that our context (distance, local priorities of the movements, multiplicity of agendas both at continental and international levels, poverty) compels us to define a more appropriate pace to link up with the global movement without competing with continental and regional priorities. Fourthly, the organising committee of the African Social Forum should have outlined how it had come to the conclusion that it was preferable for the global forum to serve as a space for the convergence of decentralised and autonomous initiatives rather than a repetition of continental events.

* Read the rest of this article by clicking on the link below. Please send comments to

On the 19th January 2004, Monsanto SA (Pty) Ltd stunned South Africans when it announced that it was seeking a food and feed safety clearance for its genetically modified (GM) Roundup Ready wheat to expedite future imports. This application must be seen against the backdrop to the fact that GM wheat is not grown commercially in any part of the world and is years away from regulatory approval in Canada and the United States of America (US) where research and experiments are still continuing and no approval has yet been granted.

Once Monsanto obtains such approval, the legislative weakness in the South African biosafety law expressly excludes future importers of Roundup Ready wheat from the need to obtain import permits. Biosafety oversight will in that event, effectively cease to exist. Such future importers of the Roundup Ready wheat would then have carte blanche to import the Roundup Ready wheat into South Africa, and thereby not have to comply with the biosafety oversight procedures in the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety (Biosafety Protocol). Crucially, approval from the South African authorities will provide Monsanto with an enormous political coup to convince other African countries that its Roundup Ready GM wheat is “safe”. It will also go a long way towards laying the groundwork for control over the very lucrative wheat market in Africa.

In this context it is worth noting that Africa imports approximately 30 million tons of wheat per year. The US government has targeted Africa as a major market for its wheat, especially since competition from the European Union (EU) and Russia is not as fierce owing to dwindling wheat exports from these countries. The US expects its exports to climb to 30 million tons during 2004, an 8-year high, and “sales to Africa will be a major reason.”

Monsanto's Difficulties with obtaining approval in Canada and the US

Monsanto Canada and Monsanto Corporate have applied for regulatory approval for its Roundup Ready GM wheat in both the USA and Canada. However, to date, neither the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, nor Health Canada, have granted approvals for general cultivation and human safety respectively. Monsanto Canada's failure to obtain such approval is partly due to the groundswell of resistance from farmers and farmer organisations in Canada. Two years ago, the organic farmers of Saskatchewan filed a class action lawsuit to stop Roundup Ready wheat. On 27th May 2003, the Canadian Wheat Board (CWB), a farmer-controlled grain marketing agency called on Monsanto Canada to withdraw its environmental safety assessment. Recently, Agriculture Canada announced that it was abandoning its long running project involving GM wheat it had been developing in partnership with Monsanto. Jim Bole from the government Department of Agriculture Canada said that this decision reflected the concerns of Canada's wheat customers.

In the US, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is still in the throes of conducting a voluntary safety review of Monsanto Corporation's Roundup Ready wheat for human and animal consumption. Monsanto Corporation is still awaiting approval from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA.) The FDA, USDA and EPA share regulatory oversight for GM crops in the US where there is no overarching comprehensive biosafety legislation.

Paying Lip Service to Biosafety

The central question that the South African government must answer, is what data exactly, will it use to consider, assess and evaluate Monsanto's application, particularly since the field trials and safety evaluations are still taking place in the US and Canada? Why is it that Monsanto is so confident so as to seek a food and feed safety clearance from the South African government? South Africa's bias in favour of GMOs is well documented. Its biosafety laws pays lip service to the notion public biosafety concerns. It has long since been described by environmental and development lawyers as showing “a cynical disregard for contemporary international and national environmental principles, as well as for the development imperatives of South Africa”. Monsanto's application also has implications for the integrity of the Biosafety Protocol. The First Meeting of the Parties to the Protocol will take place in Malaysia from 23rd to 27th February, a momentous event in global genetic engineering regulation since the Protocol entered into force only on 11th September 2003.

South Africa is a Party to the Biosafety Protocol but it has not yet revised its GMO Act, to give effect to the Biosafety Protocol. South Africa's Constitution does, however, make it clear that the Biosafety Protocol is binding on South Africa.

However, the safety approval sought by Monsanto is in respect of non-existent GM wheat, whereas the Biosafety Protocol applies to real situations of cross border trade in genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and not to speculative trade in respect of non existent GMOs. An early decision now in favour of the import of Monsanto's GM wheat, relieves South Africa of the obligation later, to abide by the regulatory requirements of the Biosafety Protocol, including its critically important Precautionary Principle. Such a pre-emptive move by Monsanto is clearly calculated to undermine the spirit, intention, principles and objectives of the Biosafety Protocol.

Pre-emptive Bid For Control Over Lucrative African Wheat Market

Monsanto Corporation needs the lucrative African wheat market. Its loss widened to $97 million it its fiscal first quarter in 2003, and this excludes its $69 million goodwill write off related to its global wheat business. North Africa imports approximately 18 million tons of wheat per year, and Sub-Saharan Africa approximately 10 million tons. South Africa itself is a net wheat importer, having imported 1.2 million tons of wheat during 2003, owing to the worst crop in a decade. The provision of wheat as food aid is also an important factor for the push for the African wheat market. For instance, Ethiopia, the centre of diversity of wheat, imported 600, 000 of wheat last year as food aid from the US and EU.

Safety clearance will greatly assist Monsanto to convince key African importers who have already voiced concern over GM wheat, to accept it as being safe. Consider for example the following statements:

“On January 5, Algeria, which imports large amounts of durum wheat from the United States, announced that it would not import any genetically modified wheat. Egypt and Saudi Arabia are taking a similar tack with respect to wheat”

“If you have just one grain in a thousand which is genetically modified, the consumer is going to refuse it.”

Thus, it is evident from the above that the granting of the application sought by Monsanto will greatly assist it to capture the African wheat market. South Africa is hence, the entry point for the export of GE wheat into the rest of Africa that will be forced to succumb in a domino effect.

* Mariam Mayet is an environmental lawyer, with a BA, LLB, LLM (Wits) and heads the African Centre for Biosafety.

* Send comments on this editorial - and other events in Africa - to

* This is the text of a speech by author and activist Arundhati Roy at the opening Plenary of the World Social Forum in Mumbai on January 16, 2004.*

Last January thousands of us from across the world gathered in Porto Allegre in Brazil and declared — reiterated — that "Another World is Possible". A few thousand miles north, in Washington, George Bush and his aides were thinking the same thing.

Our project was the World Social Forum. Theirs — to further what many call The Project for the New American Century. In the great cities of Europe and America, where a few years ago these things would only have been whispered, now people are openly talking about the good side of Imperialism and the need for a strong Empire to police an unruly world. The new missionaries want order at the cost of justice. Discipline at the cost of dignity. And ascendancy at any price. Occasionally some of us are invited to `debate' the issue on `neutral' platforms provided by the corporate media. Debating Imperialism is a bit like debating the pros and cons of rape. What can we say? That we really miss it?

In any case, New Imperialism is already upon us. It's a remodelled, streamlined version of what we once knew. For the first time in history, a single Empire with an arsenal of weapons that could obliterate the world in an afternoon has complete, unipolar, economic and military hegemony. It uses different weapons to break open different markets. There isn't a country on God's earth that is not caught in the cross hairs of the American cruise missile and the IMF chequebook. Argentina's the model if you want to be the poster-boy of neoliberal capitalism, Iraq if you're the black sheep. Poor countries that are geo-politically of strategic value to Empire, or have a `market' of any size, or infrastructure that can be privatized, or, god forbid, natural resources of value — oil, gold, diamonds, cobalt, coal — must do as they're told, or become military targets.

* Read the rest of this speech by clicking on the link below.

The Genetic Engineering (GE) industry is facing a shrinking global market as more and more countries adopt biosafety laws and GE labelling regulations. Moreover, as a result of widespread and mounting consumer rejection and the difficulties experienced by Monsanto in obtaining regulatory approval of its GE wheat, it has decided to pull out of the European cereal market.

Africa and Asia are the new frontiers for exploitation by the agro-chemical, seed and GE corporations. The potential for US agri-business to profit from hunger in Africa through, ostensibly the provision of food aid, technical assistance, capital investment, agricultural research and the funding of biosafety initiatives are enormous. The United States' Agency for International Development (USAID) appears to be at the forefront of a US marketing campaign to introduce GE food into the developing world. It has made it clear that it sees its role as having to "integrate biotechnology into local food systems and spread the technology through regions in Africa."[1]

Through USAID, in collaboration with the GE industry and several groups involved in GE research in the developed world, the US government is funding various initiatives aimed at biosafety regulation and decision-making in Africa, which if successful, may put in place weak biosafety regulation and oversight procedures. USAID is also heavily involved in funding various GE research projects in a bid to take control of African agricultural research.[2]

Biosafety under threat

The Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety finally came into force, after years of negotiation, on 11 September 2003. This international binding environmental agreement is specifically designed to protect human health, the environment and biodiversity from the risks posed by GMOs. It was countries from the South, and the African group in particular, that consistently championed biosafety and reaffirmed the right of importing countries to ban or severely restrict imports of GMOs in the face of scientific uncertainty, based on the precautionary principle. To date, 65 countries have ratified the Protocol, with many more ratifications expected before the first Meeting of the Parties to the Protocol takes place February 2004, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia[3]. Only 18 countries in Africa have so far ratified the Protocol[4] but many more could be persuaded to do so, in order for them to qualify for one or other of the numerous biosafety capacity building initiatives taking place on the continent.

However, the hard earned victories won under the Biosafety Protocol may be under serious threat from these GE 'biosafety' initiatives. There is an ever present danger that African countries will be overwhelmed by the volley of technical experts they are peppered with by USAID and GE industry money and expertise, that they will succumb, despite their valid concerns, to these formidable forces. The fad is the drafting of national biosafety frameworks. With their failure to prevent the Biosafety Protocol from coming into existence, the opportunity to exploit the implementation of the Biosafety Protocol to promote weak and ineffective biosafety legal regimes and redirect capacity building towards GE rather than biosafety, has been seized in an attempt to garner much needed support for this dangerous technology.

Examples of USAID's Biosafety Initiatives in Africa

* USAID through the Association to Strengthen Agricultural Research in East and Central Africa (ASARECA) facilitates collaborative research between their 10 member countries[5], US public and private sectors and international agricultural research centres. It has developed a model for regional technical reviews within these member countries in close collaboration with national biosafety focal points.[6] The concern is that this initiative may well be used as a launching pad to foster regional acceptance of GE through weak biosafety regulations, and thereby promote the technology transfer and private sector investment in GE in Africa.

* USAID's Agricultural Biotechnology Support Project (ABSP) has established a partnership with seven Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries - Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe - to similarly provide technical training in biosafety regulatory implementation. Its ostensible goal is to promote conformity with the science-based standards of the World Trade Organisation's Sanitary and Phyotosanitary agreement and the Biosafety Protocol.[7] Needless to say, taking into account the US's WTO challenge of the European Union's de facto moratorium on GMOs, it is anticipated that every attempt will be made to ensure that biosafety regulations are consistent with the US interpretation of the WTO rules, rather than the Biosafety Protocol.

* USAID has awarded the Program for Biosafety Systems (PBS), a consortium, $14.8 million to assist developing countries to enhance Biosafety policy, research, and capacity.[8] Included in this list of developing countries are a number of countries in East and West Africa. The International Service for National Agricultural Research (ISNAR) heads the consortium. The consortium is reported as having amongst its goals, the rendering of assistance "to governments in making science-based decisions about the effects on biodiversity of introducing GMOs into the environment" and assisting such countries in regulating and conducting experimental field trials. If this is the case, then these goals are preposterous as they are unashamedly aimed at usurping decision-making powers of countries and their sovereign rights to perform regulatory functions. It is extremely ironic that the US, still not a Party to the Convention on Biological Diversity and cannot therefore ratify the Biosafety Protocol (and will not do so in the foreseeable future) should want to promote biosafety in Africa and the implementation of the Biosafety Protocol.

It appears that the US and the GE industry are pursuing a well-orchestrated strategy in Africa to lower resistance to GE and gain acceptance of this extremely controversial technology. These initiatives may be given considerable impetus by the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) plan to establish a high level advisory panel aimed at "facilitating trade in GM products between African countries by harmonizing biosafety regulations". [9] However, this panel has not yet been established and its terms of reference made public. The direction that such panel would therefore take will reveal itself in the future.

It is worthwhile also to mention that the United Nation's Environmental Program (UNEP) with funding from the Global Environmental Facility (GEF) is conducting a worldwide capacity building project involving more than 100 developing countries, several from Africa.[10] The main objective of this project is "the preparation of National Biosafety Frameworks in accordance with the relevant provisions of the Biosafety Protocol."[11] Its overall efficacy in capacitating African countries to establish sound biosafety frameworks remains to be seen. Crucially, the nature of its linkages with the USAID/GE industry biosafety projects if any will also become apparent with the passage of time.

Finally, what remains to be seen, is the extent to which South Africa's biosafety law will be used as a basis to harmonise biosafety laws on the continent. Zimbabwe, the only other country aside from South who has biosafety laws in Africa has already followed South Africa's example. South Africa's Genetically Modified Organisms Act is a poor example of biosafety regulation.[12] It is in effect, merely a permitting system designed to expedite GM imports into the country and releases into the environment. It specifically mandates that biosafety risk assessment involve no more than a paper audit, which entails a review of the 'safety' information generated by the corporations during product development.

Africa's redeeming assets

While on the surface, this picture appears bleak; there is a groundswell of NGOs, consumers, farmers, government officials, parliamentarians and scientists opposing GE in Africa. Benin for example, has imposed a moratorium on the imports and cultivation of GMOs.

Last year, several countries in Southern Africa resisted and seriously questioned the donation by the US through USAID, of GE food aid. Zambia refused to accept the food aid and effectively took a decision to ban the distribution of food aid within its borders. Malawi, Mozambique and Zimbabwe requested that all US imported GE maize be milled prior to distribution in order to prevent its inadvertent use as seed. Lesotho and Swaziland authorized the distribution of non-milled GE aid but not before it warned the public that the grain should be used strictly for consumption and not cultivation. This saga played an important role in heightening the debate within Africa on the health, social, economic and environmental impacts of GE crops. An offshoot of this is the publication by the SADC Advisory Committee on Biotechnology and Biosafety of their recommendations regarding GE food aid. These are significant because a key recommendation is that donors of GE food aid should comply with Prior Informed Consent principles and the notification requirements of the Biosafety Protocol. This is extremely important, given that the World Food Program has admitted that it has, since 1996 been delivering food aid that included GE food products, without warning the recipient countries.[13] It also calls for the African region to develop harmonized policy and regulatory systems based on the OAU African Model Law on Safety in Biotechnology (Model Law), and the Biosafety Protocol.

The Model Law is a set of holistic and stringent biosafety rules drafted by a number of African biosafety experts crafted specifically to protect Africa's biodiversity, environment and the health of its people from the risks posed by GMOs. The African Union Summit held in Maputo during July 2003 pointedly encouraged African countries to use the Model Law as a basis for biosafety regulation.[14] The adoption of the Model Law in Africa will give countries leverage to resist attempts by the powerful GE industry to use Africa as experimental and dumping grounds for their products. Africa's biodiversity and the health of its people, can only be protected from the risks posed by GMOs if Africa as a whole, subscribes to common and uniform biosafety standards, based on the precautionary principle.

These gems are important contributions towards maximizing Africa's chances to limit the risks posed by GE. It is clear, however, that much needs to be done. One of the key challenges for African civil society in particular, is to embark on strategies and initiatives directed at influencing and shaping policy, legislative and procedural frameworks on the continent and engage national and regional bodies such as SADC and NEPAD.

* Mariam Mayet is an environmental lawyer, with a BA, LLB, LLM (Wits) and heads the African Centre for Biosafety. This article was published in the current edition of the Third World Resurgence, Issue NO. 159-160. It is reproduced here with permission of the author. Click on the link below for references.

For at least one African activist who attended the just-concluded World Social Forum (WSF) in Mumbai, India, enough is enough. After attending the last four WSF meetings, Mohau Pheko, a gender and economic activist from South Africa, says she will not be attending the next event. Speaking to Terraviva (http://www.ipsnews.net/focus/tv_mumbai/viewstory.asp?idn=232) , the official newspaper of the World Social Forum, Pheko said: “Until and unless more grassroots people, especially from Africa, become part of this process I don’t honestly see the need to come and mix with the same people and say the same things to each other.” She makes a valid point, questioning how the neo-liberal order is supposed to be replaced by people-centred, people-oriented development when the “people” are absent from the forum that is supposed to shape that very development. "Besides as NGOs we have been delegitimised by our own governments and it will not only be strategic but logical that we stop analyzing on behalf of other people and bring the voices and make visible those who live the experiences we want changed on board,” she says.

War dominated WSF, with strong statements against the United States, such as when Indian author Arundhati Roy (http://www.thestar.co.za/index.php?fSectionId=129&fArticleId=331358) said: "For the first time in history, a single empire with an arsenal of weapons that could obliterate the world in an afternoon, has complete, unipolar, economic and military hegemony…It uses different weapons to break open different markets. There isn't a country on God's earth that is not caught in the cross hairs of the American cruise missile and the IMF (International Monetary Fund) cheque book." From an African point of view, poverty, massive external debt, HIV/AIDS and corruption were some of the key issues placed on the Agenda at the WSF. Although estimates of African attendance at the forum ranged from between 300 and 500 - a small amount out of the total 100 000 delegates and up from only 30 two years ago - WSF organisers say they will examine the possibility of holding the event in Africa in 2006, a decision that will greatly advance Africa's cause within the forum.

The WSF is seen as an important event to enable civil society to form common ground and strategise over common problems related to the global policies that act to the detriment of citizens in the south. But as John Moru - Policy and Research Advocacy Officer with ActionAid, a nongovernmental organisation based in Nigeria's capital city, Abuja, told Terraviva (http://www.ipsnews.net/focus/tv_mumbai/viewstory.asp?idn=269 ): "Recognising the fact that poverty, corruption and ineffective public enterprises pervade the regions that have produced this large Mumbai gathering, it is so sad that going home after this historic event will bring me back to the stark realities of the enormous work to be done towards effecting the various recommendations of this Forum with scanty civil voices that need great amplification.”

Outside of the concerns of the African delegation, debate over the future shape of the World Social Forum is raging. Already, who controls the WSF and how has become a hot topic, as well as what is seen by some as a top-down approach to decision-making and a lack of transparency. This includes a questioning of exactly how open the WSF actually is. As Jai Sen has argued (http://www.choike.org/nuevo_eng/informes/1417.html), instead of being the “open space” that the marketing hype proclaims it to be, it is actually a highly structured and in some cases exclusive gathering, limited to those broadly classified as the 'left'. “In short, we are already witnessing the crystallisation and rise not only of corporatism but also of orthodoxy and dogma, which I suggest constitutes a fundamental challenge to the future of the WSF.”

In an essay on the WSF (http://www.choike.org/documentos/wsf_s502_albert.pdf), Michael Albert points out that in contrast to the localized forums worldwide, the WSF has yet to attain the same level of transparency and accountability. This is not to take away from the value of the WSF, he says, but “there are often sharp and even destructive differences between the WSF's layers of participants”. Albert puts forward eleven thoughts for the future of the WSF, which include emphasizing local forums as the foundation of the worldwide process; Mandating that the decision-making leadership at every level should be at least 50 per cent women; Having the Forums from wealthier parts of the world charge delegates and organisations and attendees a tax on their fees to apply to helping finance the Forums in poorer parts of the world; Feature grassroots activists from movements around the world much more prominently in major events and throughout all Forums to strengthen the WSF and local Forums as vehicles for their activity and counter tendencies toward elitism; Mandating that Forums at every level, including the WSF, welcome people from diverse constituencies.

It is clear from these and other articles written about the WSF, that the rapid growth of the WSF has in itself presented real challenges along the lines of governance and representivity that the WSF will have to overcome if it is to avoid being seen in the same light as the exclusive World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, the business only meet that the WSF was first set up to counter. In the meantime, and problems aside, as one activist writes “Participatory? I don't think the WSF processes are really participatory in a democratic sense, but it is open, and it is full of mutual respect (almost everywhere), and that is so valuable you forgive all the other problems.”

* Compiled by Patrick Burnett, Fahamu. Please send comments to [email protected]

* See the Women and Gender, Development, HIV/AIDS and Social Welfare sections of Pambazuka News for more stories from the WSF. Visit http://www.choike.org/nuevo_eng/eventos/1.html for more Up-to-date information on the WSF.

The history and the present life of the San, indigenous people of the southern Africa, is a sad story of a people who after surviving genocide at the hands of other African ethnic groups and European colonialists had to endure slavery and oppression, while in the process losing their land, language, culture, and traditional way of life.

In Botswana, where there is a population of about 60,000 San people, the government refuses to recognise the San as indigenous, claiming that every Motswana is indigenous in Botswana. This self-serving argument is presented to anyone who argues that historical and archaeological evidence has proved that the San people have lived and hunted in the southern Africa for over 35,000 years.

There is no official recognition of the San people as a distinct ethnic group in Botswana, and they are excluded in the country’s house of chiefs (1). A name used to refer to the San is “Basarwa” - a demeaning word suggesting servitude. They are among the poorest, totally marginalised and landless. Title deeds and the 1968 Tribal Land Act which aimed to regulate land allocation and rights (2) left the San people with no land to call their own.

In the name of development - meaning game lodges and safari companies which results in tourists and profits for the wealthy few, the San people have been, since 1997, subjected to forced removal from The Central Kalahari Game Reserve. The game reserve was set up in 1961 while Botswana was still a British Protectorate. The idea was to put all that belonged in the bush in a game reserve; you will remember that the colonialists referred to the San as “Bushmen”.

Before 1997, there were about 3,000 San people who lived in the 52,000 square km reserve (3) and in total there were six villages (4), but today there are only about 500 San people who still live in the reserve (5). A reason given by the government for the removal of the San people is that the game reserve is not for humans rather to preserve wildlife; furthermore, the government claims that it has become too expensive to bring basic services for the San people living in the reserve, hence it is moving them to a better site 60 km away from the reserve.

When the government came up with the idea to remove the San people in 1997, it stressed the point that those who were being removed would be given a “new and modern life”, replete with better clinics, schools, financial assistance for businesses, farm plots and livestock.

The real reason behind the removal of the San people is to create a tourism industry in that country while diversifying the country’s economy at the same time. The International Monetary Fund made it clear to the Botswana government that it must pursue the diversification of its economy and move away from dependence on diamond revenues, continued government spending and expansion of the civil service (6). Diamonds account for three quarters of Botswana export earnings, one third of its GDP and 50 percent of government revenues (7). This is generated by Debswana - a company jointly owned by the government and De Beers, and is the world’s biggest uncut diamond producer in value terms.

Survival International believes that the main reason for the government to remove the San people is that the game reserve which they once considered barren houses one of the world’s richest diamond fields. And according to the United Nations news agency, IRIN, test drilling has already taken place at Gope - a location within the reserve. Clifford Maribe, assistant director of the research and information division in the Government Foreign Affairs Ministry, has been quoted as saying: “The government has made no secret that there is general exploration for minerals throughout the country, including Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR). However, at this point in time, nothing other than the Gope deposit has been found in the CKGR” (8).

Moreover, according to the Survival International, the International Finance Corporation, part of the World Bank, has given credibility to the exploration by providing Kalahari Diamonds (part owned by Billiton - an Anglo-Australian multinational) with $ 2-million.

In their struggle to exist, the San’s traditional knowledge is also under threat. The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research of South Africa (CSIR) patented in 1997 a plant that the San used to eat to ward off hunger and thirst on long hunting trips. According to tradition, the San did not eat while hunting and the plant helped suppress appetite. The CSIR then licensed the UK- based Phytopharm, which in turn licensed the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer to develop the Hoodia cactus into a “miracle slimming drug”. It is reported that Pfizer hopes to have the “dieter’s dream” treatment in pill form by 2007. As for the San, royalties are coming their way; the mainstream media is quick to point out.

Perhaps the most revealing story of the day-to-day struggle of the San people in Botswana is an extract below, taken from a story by Saikuta, a storyteller from old Xade district that used to be in the game reserve.

“Just before the time of the year you call Christmas I went hunting and shot a gemsbok. The same day the Game Warden came around, took my hunting license, and said: don’t you see that this has expired a long time ago? And I said: but you know I can’t read. Never mind, this one is expired. So where is the animal? So I go with the Game Warden, show him the animal, and he takes it all, skin, bones, meat, horn. He takes it to feed his own family. He tells me that this time he will not fine me.

Every time I see him I ask for my new license. Take it easy, this is not the time for hunting. And I say: But this is the time when we San people go hunting. This is when the game is around. Nonsense, old man, you must wait until I tell you. This is the government game, and we decide when you are allowed to hunt.

Many, many days passed and we nearly died from hunger. My son was nearly dying from hunger. I know well enough, he belongs to the government. The government owns all of us, and we own nothing. So it was difficult for me to make this decision: should I leave the government’s son to die, or should I shoot one of the government’s elands. Which of the two had to die? So I went hunting. I shot an eland, butchered it, and went home, but the Game Warden was already there waiting for me: You shot an eland, now you must go to jail. They took me and the eland to Ghanzi district, and once we were there they started to sell the meat. And I asked: is it the meat of the eland that I shot that you are now selling? You are not allowed to sell game meat, that much I know. Now you watch yourself or you will stay in jail for so long that no one will recognize you when you come out.

So I was silent.

Then I came before the magistrate, and I told him the story as I have told you now. You are too old to hunt. You are supposed to live from the mealie meal that the government gives you, the magistrate told me. But I never received any mealie meal. Yes, your name is in the book. Go home and wait, and you will get a bag every month; the magistrate told me. Then he gave me six months suspended sentence. Now it is May, and the mealie meal has been distributed five times already, but my name is not in the book.

So now I again am faced with the same dilemma. Who should die, the eland or the son of the government.” (9)

* This article was first published on
Reprinted with kind permission of the author.

* Please send comments on this editorial - and other events in Africa -
to [email protected]

References:
1.United Nations news agency, IRIN.
2.The Inconvenient Indigenous, by Sidsel Saugestad
3.UN news agency, IRIN
4.The Inconvenient Indigenous, by Sidsel Saugestad
5.African Eye News Service
6.Business Day 25/11/99
7.Financial Times
8.UN news agency, IRIN
9.The Inconvenient Indigenous, by Sidsel Saugestad

I read, with a sense of relief, that Madiba has expressed his anger with the United States of America. Not a moment too soon. However endearing the 330 million individuals who constitute the American people may be, the mindset that this super power has produced is beyond doubt, a serious threat to world peace. Why? Well take a load of the arsenal for starters. Then let us consider this not so small matter of economic imperialism. Such a cool gig: got the bucks, call the shots. Sick last century stuff. Last but not least let us not overlook the danger of arrogant ignorance. When only a mere fraction of a wealthy population (18%) bother to get passports and they vote by virtue of their choices and exert a major influence on global affairs, please forgive this little African woman when she asks a few questions.

I arrived in America a few days after 9/11. I arrived from a small African country and was regarded as a heroine for being so brave as to fly! Perhaps having lived through a so-called terrorist war which was in fact a liberation struggle had immunised me to an extent against hysteria. I didn't feel brave - I was just longing to visit precious friends and there had been tremendous spontaneous compassion for the victims and their families in my homelands. We, who are no strangers to suffering and violence. People who had not even seen the, by now, nigh almost indelible images of the World Trade Towers morphing into Ground Zero. People who when they heard I was about to go to the USA said, "Ah sisi ... please tell America sorry for this terrible thing." People who do not have television sets but had heard, via bush telegraph, of what had transpired. People with heart per chance. African people. All I know is that back home we were horrified and saddened by the disaster. It was not wasted energy for empathy is always of value.

My compassion remains intact. However, the Hollywoodesque flourishes to the aftermath tarnished the bereavement. I heard literally hundreds of Americans say "We were hit on our own soil!" as if this were unique and apocalyptic. Eventually, I found myself saying to one, "Perhaps you could discuss this with the 100 or so countries your army is currently occupying. It could be an interesting bonding experience." My educated friend was clueless about this which I found disturbing. Bombs and refreshments to Afghanistan was a policy that went unchallenged as was the overnight erosion of internal civil and human rights. Right there in the heartland of the free and the brave. Stunning what you can get away with when you declare a unilateral global war against terror.

* Read the rest of this article by clicking on the link below.

As another year came to an end, democracy in Angola was carefully folded like a handkerchief and prominently featured in the chest pocket of its ruler’s jacket. The folding took place at the ruling Movement for the Popular Liberation of Angola (MPLA) 5th party congress in December, where it was expected that the conclave would send a strong signal on the course of democracy in the country, given that the democratic mandate of the current government expired in 1996, and that due to the war between 1998 and 2002 elections were postponed until peaceful days arrived. But as 2004 begins and almost two years into peace, there are no signs of even a date for elections that will set the normalization of State institutions in motion.

On December 09 at the party congress, the president of MPLA and only candidate, José Eduardo dos Santos, was re-elected for another five-year term, unanimously and by acclamation not by vote. When it came to suggestions for a fair democratic process by secret ballot only the president voted in favour of such a procedure. The other delegates, more than 1400 of them, voted for acclamation. There was only a single abstention.

* Read the rest of this article by clicking on the link below.