Mikhael Missakabo reveals the extent to which Canadian mining companies are benefiting from instability and weak institutions in the Democratic Republic of Congo to reap huge profits while paying little attention to the ecological and human cost of their actions. These companies have become adept at hedging their bets in the ongoing conflict and negotiating contracts that literally impoverish the host country. All that remains in their wake is environmental and economic and social ruin.

Taking up the example of the small village of Dumasi in Ghana’s Western Region and drawing upon her experience of filming a documentary entitled , Alexandra Sicotte-Lévesque discusses the destructive action of the Canadian Golden Star Resources mining company and its pressure on local people for forcible resettlement. While Canada’s anti-poverty agenda cancelled some CAD$18 million of Ghana’s debt in 2004, the author highlights the core contradictions of a Western nation that is conversely unwilling to accept any extraterritorial responsibilities in conflict with the needs of its own domestic economy. As Sicotte-Lévesque underlines, the principal poverty faced by local Ghanaian communities is above all one rooted in a lack of information, a lack underpinning a vicious cycle characterised by poor communities getting poorer as mining companies get richer.

Through examining the broader context behind the recent US election, Onyango Oloo argues that Barack Obama’s emergence as an exceptional figure of leadership is to a great extent circumstantial. In his timeless historical appeal, the new president-elect merits comparison with Nelson Mandela and will likely be remembered favourably by posterity regardless of the potential ineffectiveness of his policy over the long-term. Situating Obama’s victory within a broader political move across the Americas towards left-wing governance – notably in Venezuela, Brazil, and Bolivia – Oloo contends that the real challenge for forces of the global Left will centre on building on and exploring the successes of a veritable popular movement for democratic reform.

Alarmed with Barack Obama’s choosing of one of most conservative Democratic figures as his chief of staff in the shape of Rahm Emanuel, Stephen Zunes asks whether the new president-elect will see the influence of his progressive base blocked from the White House. While the author underlines that the appointment will scarcely lead to a Clinton-esque centre-right agenda, the promise of change to have featured so prominently throughout Obama’s campaign will only be realised through revitalised efforts on the part of civil society to stem any potential conservative co-opting of the new administration.

Following the Waki report on Kenya’s post-election violence, the KNCHR offers its response to the report and its strong opposition to any political attempts to discredit the report’s findings and undermine justice. The KNCHR contends that an informed citizenry represents the last line of defence for democracy against those who abuse power. Keen to see Kenya’s political problems resolved within domestic institutions and mechanisms to avoid the need for intervention by the International Criminal Court (ICC), the KNCHR likewise urges Kenyan parliamentarians to work towards upholding justice and challenging any scope for impunity for those in power.

Drawing on examples such as Thabo Mbeki’s role in damaging HIV/AIDS policies in the early 2000s and a current case in a San Franciso court against Chevron for 1998 murders in the Niger Delta, Patrick Bond argues that a similar process of critical treatment is appropriate for Barack Obama’s new leading economic advisor, Paul Volcker. Citing the opinions of a number of prominent political commentators, Bond reviews Volcker’s disastrous economic policy at the end of the 1970s, highlighting the deleterious effect of high US interest rates on developing countries’ debt repayments and economic development. But with Obama set to ‘accelerate Africa’s integration into the global economy’ under Volcker’s influence, the author argues that it is crucial the new president-elect seek alternative economic viewpoints to dominant neoliberal policy less rooted in brutal US national self-interest.

In a broad discussion of the political circumstances behind Barack Obama’s election victory, Paul Tiyambe Zeleza argues that the US has finally grown up. This is maturing both in the sense of witnessing the election of an individual of African descent and in ending the forty-year Republican neoliberal hegemony, and is a development reflective in no small part of the Democrats’ ability to articulate a campaign true to contemporary socio-political conditions in the US. For while many challenges will face the administration-in-waiting, Obama’s ability to appeal to a diverse range of voters, Zeleza contends, represents an invaluable means of satisfying cosmopolitan Americans’ desire for renewed global respect.

As he explores the general sense of euphoria to have greeted Barack Obama’s election victory in cities around the African continent, Pius Adesanmi considers the significance of the possessive ‘we’ commonly employed in African citizens’ descriptions of the new US president-elect. Deeply constrained by the expectations of some of the less level-headed parts of the US electorate, Obama’s potential pro-Africa posturing may well be limited by the need to remain palatable to the American populace. But if effectively harnessed, the author argues, Obama’s ascendancy represents a genuine opportunity for Africa’s community of conscience to fundamentally redress the anti-humanity, pro-resources plundering of the continent to have characterised Western countries’ and African leaders’ approach over the past five hundred years.

Reflecting on his time as United Nations Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa (2001–2006), Stephen Lewis highlights the sustained failure to facilitate female leadership and offer effective protection for women perpetrated by UN agencies and African countries’ political leaders. Drawing on examples such as the complete absence of a single woman’s voice at January’s DRC peace negotiations, Lewis emphasises the widespread lack of opportunity for female leadership and representation. Just as he underlines the extent to which violations of the DRC’s resources have been inextricably linked to violations of the country’s women, the author argues that rape has become an essential strategy of war as a means of subduing entire communities. As a challenge to this cauldron of sexual violence, Lewis argues for the pressing need for a United Nations agency for women in order to begin to tackle issues of profound inequality, oppression, and abuse until now simply neglected.

With the DR Congo crisis presenting a complex mosaic of conflict, war, violence, rivalries, alliances, and competing interests, Jacques Depelchin reviews the background behind the country’s ongoing troubles and explores broader areas of responsibility. As the DRC seemingly destructs and self-destructs, the author asks whether people’s willingness to continue consuming mineral resources extracted from the country should more properly be situated in a tradition of Western peoples’ enjoying comforts at the expense of African populations dating at least as far back as the triangular Atlantic trade and subsequent colonial period. A fuller, more comprehensive understanding of the DRC’s history and Western history at large would reveal, Depelchin contends, an established practice of ‘doing away’ with figures deemed threatening to those in power, a practice of marginalisation that will ultimately have to be effectively tackled if future crimes against humanity are to be averted.

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/405/zim_women_tmb.jpgHighlight… the chronic lack of representation for women within each of Zimbabwe’s main political parties, Shereen Essof asks how Zimbabwean feminism should proceed in its essential challenge to the oppressive dominance of the country’s political elites. In a nation suffering the world’s highest inflation rate and among the world’s lowest life expectancy, the author asks what these statistics mean in practical day-to-day terms for Zimbabwe’s women. With Mugabe, Tsvangirai, and Mutambara continuing to fail to settle their differences and articulate a worthwhile path for their country’s immediate future, those at the apex of political power effectively hold their entire population hostage to their decisions, a state maintained in no small part by the behind-closed-doors nature of negotiations and ultimate absence of democratic accountability.

Focussing on the US’ new military initiative AFRICOM, Beth Tuckey sets out the central points of consideration for the new president-elect as his administration nears its first days. Emphasising that the military might of AFRICOM must not be permitted to usurp diplomacy as the feature tool of dialogue and negotiation, the author urges the new president to curb the excesses of resource-hungry US corporations and to prioritise African security and prosperity. While his presidency may yet yield some lapses of judgment, Obama’s commitment to diplomacy and greener energy represent a worthy point of departure, the direction of which will only be maintained by the continual vitality of civil society voices.

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/404/China_in_Africa_tmb.jpgWith China’s ‘rise’ prompting new questions around the country’s strategy and the motivations behind how it conducts its international affairs and foreign policy, Stephen Marks considers the direction the country may take in light of new developments. Dispelling simplistic interpretations of Chinese indifference to human rights and environmental concerns in countries like Sudan and Zimbabwe, the author that the Asia giant has an essential interest in promoting peace, social stability, good governance and equitable development in its African partner countries.

Reflecting on the fifth International Via Campesina Conference held in Maputo, Mozambique, on 19 October, John E. Peck examines the ongoing struggle around ‘biofuels’ and unpacks the extent to which global discourses on solutions climate change have been commandeered by multinational corporations. With a particular focus on Jatropha, the author explores the crop’s likely impact in Mozambique and the consequences for food sovereignty, land use, and contested resources, and argues that true progress towards sustainable agriculture will only be attained once governments cease to emphasise agro-fuel subsidies.

Reviewing the entrenched state of crisis engulfing the eastern DR Congo, Joseph Yav Katshung argues that it is only through strong political will that the conflict will begin to stem. As the author underlines, this is will on the part of a range of domestic and international actors, whose ability to articulate a clear strategy for enhanced civilian protection will ultimately determine whether vulnerable populations see the consequences of armed conflict reduced. Only on the strength of sustained political commitment, Katshung emphasises, can rhetoric translate into reality.

Drawing a broad contrast with South Africa’s anti-apartheid movement, Margot Bokanga argues that the crisis in the DR Congo will only be overcome through effective engagement between regional stakeholders, governmental authorities, international organisations, and national civil society groups. Harnessing the momentum behind campaigns such as the recent , the author hopes the current struggles may one day prove a mere story of the triumph of civil activism for future Congolese generations.

In his work on the Sidis of India, Abdulaziz Y. Lodhi discusses the historical experiences of a group of prominent East African ancestry in the Indian sub-continent. Exploring linguistic developments and the role of Islam in their broader integration, the author discusses the new championing of the Swahili language of a group keen to revitalise their cultural links to Africa and reconstruct their heritage. With the group gaining wider scholarly and public recognition in recent years, Lodhi also reflects on Bantu linguistic data observable in contemporary Sidi speech and the effect of new efforts at cultural revival spearheaded by touring Sidi musical performers.

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/404/China_businesses_lesotho_t… an engaging piece highlighting the inherent one-sidedness of Western media coverage of China’s presence in Africa, Stephen Marks explores the extent to which the Asian giant’s presence on the continent is primarily visible in its economic and diplomatic links rather than any military presence. While concerns over a so-called ‘Yellow Peril’ are scarcely predominant within US policy circles, the author argues, the Chinese presence on the African continent is primarily characterised as military, a characterisation that belies the essentially economic basis of the country’s relations with African countries. But with Chinese military expenditure now conspicuously on the increase, what will be the consequences for a changing relationship with Africa?

Underlining the fundamental absence of an effective legal framework around the mining sector’s increasing presence and power in the West African region, Moussa K. Traoré assesses the social and economic impacts of an industry that has uncovered riches for countries’ leaders while leaving local populations excluded and deprived. Concluding that far greater information and dialogue are needed between the companies, authorities, and local stakeholders, the author argues for an increased role for civil society as a means of ensuring industry benefits become more widespread.

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/404/Mine_Zimbabwe_tmb.jpgRefle… on an Institut Panos Afrique de l’Ouest (IPAO) training workshop for West African journalists held at beginning of October, Tidiane Kassé provides an introduction to the murky world of extractive industry in the region and the role of the media in informing public opinion.