Pambazuka News is pleased to reproduce for our readers this well received essay by Alice Walker in which she looks at Obama using various lenses such as black feminism and international solidarity while reflecting on race, class and gender

I made my first white women friends in college; they were women who loved me and were loyal to our friendship, but I understood, as they did, that they were white women and that whiteness mattered. That, for instance, at Sarah Lawrence, where I was speedily inducted into the Board of Trustees practically as soon as I graduated, I made my way to the campus for meetings by train, subway and foot, while the other trustees, women and men, all white, made their way by limo. Because, in our country, with its painful history of unspeakable inequality, this is part of what whiteness means. I loved my school for trying to make me feel I mattered to it, but because of my relative poverty I knew I could not.

I am a supporter of Obama because I believe he is the right person to lead the country at this time. He offers a rare opportunity for the country and the world to start over, and to do better. It is a deep sadness to me that many of my feminist white women friends cannot see him. Cannot see what he carries in his being. Cannot hear the fresh choices toward Movement he offers. That they can believe that millions of Americans -black, white, yellow, red and brown - choose Obama over Clinton only because he is a man, and black, feels tragic to me.

When I have supported white people, men and women, it was because I thought them the best possible people to do whatever the job required. Nothing else would have occurred to me. If Obama were in any sense mediocre, he would be forgotten by now. He is, in fact, a remarkable human being, not perfect but humanly stunning, like King was and like Mandela is. We look at him, as we looked at them, and are glad to be of our species. He is the change America has been trying desperately and for centuries to hide, ignore, kill. The change America must have if we are to convince the rest of the world that we care about people other than our (white) selves.

True to my inner Goddess of the Three Directions however, this does not mean I agree with everything Obama stands for. We differ on important points probably because I am older than he is, I am a woman and person of three colors, (African, Native American, European), I was born and raised in the American South, and when I look at the earth's people, after sixty-four years of life, there is not one person I wish to see suffer, no matter what they have done to me or to anyone else; though I understand quite well the place of suffering, often, in human growth.

I want a grown-up attitude toward Cuba, for instance, a country and a people I love; I want an end to the embargo that has harmed my friends and their children, children who, when I visit Cuba, trustingly turn their faces up for me to kiss. I agree with a teacher of mine, Howard Zinn, that war is as objectionable as cannibalism and slavery; it is beyond obsolete as a means of improving life. I want an end to the on-going war immediately and I want the soldiers to be encouraged to destroy their weapons and to drive themselves out of Iraq.

I want the Israeli government to be made accountable for its behavior towards the Palestinians, and I want the people of the United States to cease acting like they don't understand what is going on. All colonization, all occupation, all repression basically looks the same, whoever is doing it. Here our heads cannot remain stuck in the sand; our future depends of our ability to study, to learn, to understand what is in the records and what is before our eyes. But most of all I want someone with the self-confidence to talk to anyone, "enemy" or "friend," and this Obama has shown he can do. It is difficult to understand how one could vote for a person who is afraid to sit and talk to another human being. When you vote you are making someone a proxy for yourself; they are to speak when, and in places, you cannot. But if they find talking to someone else, who looks just like them, human, impossible, then what good is your vote?

It is hard to relate what it feels like to see Mrs. Clinton (I wish she felt self-assured enough to use her own name) referred to as "a woman" while Barack Obama is always referred to as "a black man." One would think she is just any woman, colorless, race-less, past-less, but she is not. She carries all the history of white womanhood in America in her person; it would be a miracle if we, and the world, did not react to this fact. How dishonest it is, to attempt to make her innocent of her racial inheritance.

I can easily imagine Obama sitting down and talking, person to person, with any leader, woman, man, child or common person, in the world, with no baggage of past servitude or race supremacy to mar their talks. I cannot see the same scenario with Mrs. Clinton who would drag into Twenty-First Century American leadership the same image of white privilege and distance from the reality of others' lives that has so marred our country's contacts with the rest of the world.

And yes, I would adore having a woman president of the United States. My choice would be Representative Barbara Lee, who alone voted in Congress five years ago not to make war on Iraq. That to me is leadership, morality, and courage; if she had been white I would have cheered just as hard. But she is not running for the highest office in the land, Mrs. Clinton is. And because Mrs. Clinton is a woman and because she may be very good at what she does, many people, including some younger women in my own family, originally favored her over Obama. I understand this, almost. It is because, in my own nieces' case, there is little memory, apparently, of the foundational inequities that still plague people of color and poor whites in this country. Why, even though our family has been here longer than most North American families - and only partly due to the fact that we have Native American genes - we very recently, in my lifetime, secured the right to vote, and only after numbers of people suffered and died for it.

When I offered the word "Womanism" many years ago, it was to give us a tool to use, as feminist women of color, in times like these. These are the moments we can see clearly, and must honor devotedly, our singular path as women of color in the United States. We are not white women and this truth has been ground into us for centuries, often in brutal ways. But neither are we inclined to follow a black person, man or woman, unless they demonstrate considerable courage, intelligence, compassion and substance. I am delighted that so many women of color support Barack Obama -and genuinely proud of the many young and old white women and men who do.

Imagine, if he wins the presidency we will have not one but three black women in the White House; one tall, two somewhat shorter; none of them carrying the washing in and out of the back door. The bottom line for most of us is: With whom do we have a better chance of surviving the madness and fear we are presently enduring, and with whom do we wish to set off on a journey of new possibility? In other words, as the Hopi elders would say: Who do we want in the boat with us as we head for the rapids? Who is likely to know how best to share the meager garden produce and water? We are advised by the Hopi elders to celebrate this time, whatever its adversities.

We have come a long way, Sisters, and we are up to the challenges of our time. One of which is to build alliances based not on race, ethnicity, color, nationality, sexual preference or gender, but on Truth. Celebrate our journey. Enjoy the miracle we are witnessing. Do not stress over its outcome. Even if Obama becomes president, our country is in such ruin it may well be beyond his power to lead us toward rehabilitation. If he is elected however, we must, individually and collectively, as citizens of the planet, insist on helping him do the best job that can be done; more, we must insist that he demand this of us. It is a blessing that our mothers taught us not to fear hard work. Know, as the Hopi elders declare: The river has its destination. And remember, as poet June Jordan and Sweet Honey in the Rock never tired of telling us: We are the ones we have been waiting for.

* Alice Walker is a Pulitzer Prize winning author. This article first appeared at The Root,

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

Jegede Ademola Oluborode looks at various marginalized groups in relation to human rights in Nigeria.

INTRODUCTION

"Burdened in the midst of hope!"

With the wave of democracy sweeping across Nigeria once again in 1999, and more fundamentally since 2003, efforts have been made towards institutional development aimed at laying political foundation for Nigeria to realize its potentials. Basic freedoms in the form of political and civil rights, whether sincere or otherwise, at least appear to have featured predominantly in these efforts. Little or no attention is however being given to economic, social and cultural rights so well encapsulated in several international and regional instruments to which Nigeria is signatory.

In a regime of neglect to crucial rights, Marginalized Groups, and their category is ever growing, suffer more. This is perhaps because, apart from contending with inattention which appears to be common fate of all, the harms and injuries faced by these groups, due to inadequate legal framework and political leadership commitment to their concerns, are gradually emerging and may dominate human rights discourse in the coming decades. Using the marginalized group as a barometer, attempt is made here to appraise human rights violations in Nigeria and predict its future situation. The Essay concludes on the note that unless there is a renewed commitment to embrace and apply human rights as vehicle of positive change, the future may only be remarkable for intense agitations and bitter protests of the marginalized.

HUMAN RIGHTS AND MARGINALIZED GROUPS IN NIGERIA

The human rights concerns and needs of Nigerians, particularly the Marginalized Groups remain unaddressed. The approach adopted below is to define and describe the human rights situation of the marginalized by variables such as disability, sexual orientation, religion, region and gender.

DISABILITY

Section 42 of the 1999 Constitution of Nigeria guarantees the right to freedom from discrimination in all its forms against any person. The provision may be considered applicable to persons with disabilities. Prior to 1999, the Nigerian with Disability Decree of 1993 made copious provisions for the protection of human rights of persons with disabilities. In its Section 3, provisions were made for their human rights and privileges while Section 14 established a National Commission for Persons with Disability. As beautiful as this piece of legislation is, nothing concrete has however been done to match its provisions with action. To date, the National Commission for persons with Disabilities has not taken off. Contrary to section 9 of the Decree, transport is not free for the disabled, national news and official broadcasts do not provide sign language for interpretation in accordance with section 19, while it has been difficult in the circumstance of our electoral process for the disabled to exercise their rights to vote and be voted for. In spite of the social rights guaranteed under the Act, most disabled live off begging on the city streets.

Two significant Bills for persons with disabilities were introduced at the National Assembly in year 2000 namely; (1) A Bill for an Act to provide Special Facilities for the Use of Handicapped Persons in the Public Buildings and (2) A Bill for an Act to Establish a National Commission for the Handicapped Persons and to vest it with the Responsibility for their Education and Social Development and for the Connected Purposes . Nothing significant came out of these Bills.

Nigeria has signed the Convention of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and its optional protocols. At a Forum to sign the Convention, the then Minister of External Affairs, Mrs. Joy Ogwu, noted that Nigeria was in the process of signing a Disability Law . Except for the National Disabled Trust Fund (Establishment Bill) presented in 2004 by Senator. Chris Adighije which is still dragging at the National Assembly, no such Law appears to have been passed till date. Section 21(1) of the 1999 Constitution provides that no treaty between the Federation and any other country shall have the force of law except to the extent to which any such treaty has been enacted into law by the National Assembly. Lack of political commitment to appropriate legal framework and implementation of the existing laws underlies the violation of Disability rights in Nigeria.

By 2018, events are more likely to reveal that it requires more than a piece of legislation or endorsements of international conventions to realize the rights of person with disabilities in Nigeria. Appropriate legislations will benefit from Human rights education and advocacy in the coming decades. Human rights activities in this regard will also be complemented if there is an upgrade of legal education to accommodate Disability Rights.

SEXUAL ORIENTATION

Section 214 of the Nigerian Criminal Code penalizes consensual homosexual conduct between adults by fixing 14 years as punishment. Similar position appears to be taken in the Sharia Codes against sodomy . The effect of this framework is that relationship and marriage ceremonies between the people of the same sex are criminal in Nigeria. In a letter routed through the Human Rights Watch by a network of national and international NGO's, the foregoing trend has been criticized as inconsistent with international legal regime which emphasizes that granting lesbians and gays the basic rights of expression and association is a good public health measure capable of boosting government efforts to curtail the spread of HIV/AIDS .

It does appear that the greatest challenge in the struggle for lesbian and gay rights activism in Nigeria presently is the lack of understanding of major policy and law makers about the public health significance of gay and lesbian rights. Predictably, this trend may continue in the coming two decades and may be characterized by a clash of two views; public morality and public health. One can only speculate about the dominant view in the future. One thing is certain though, behavioral and social practices can not be shaped by a piece of legislation without other tools of public health education to complement, more so by pieces of legislation which tend to undermine gay and lesbian rights.

RELIGION

The secular nature of the Nigerian State is well captured in Section 10 of the 1999 Constitution which provides that the Government of the Federation shall not adopt any religion as State Religion. Islamic law has however come into operation in the northern part of the nation such as Sokoto, Kebbi, Niger, Kano, Katsina, Kaduna, Jigawa, Yobe, Bauchi, Borno, Zamfara, and Gombe with extensive jurisdiction covering criminal cases. People have been tried for different manners of offence and received sentences based on the provisions of the Sharia. The Sharia provisions on sentences have been subject of international condemnation lately as amounting to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, including death sentences, amputations and floggings. The manner in which Sharia is applied violates women rights to freedom from discrimination, particularly in adultery cases where standards of evidence differ based on the sex of the accused.

Christian groups notably Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) has consistently asserted the threat that rapid islamisation of the northern part of the nation portends for the minority Christians. The plank of their position has been that such trend may occasion inter-religious crises and reprisal killings in different parts of the country. Lack of judicial pronouncement and federal position on the issue of the nation’s secularism heighten the anxiety of the minority and discourage them from taking advantage of their right to freedom of religion.

In the coming two decades, controversies, particularly in relation with religion and constitutional provision on secularism of the nation will increase. Agitations for Sharia law will likely continue in the nation with increasing protests by members of other religious groups notably, Christians. Clashes as well as reprisal attacks along religious grounds are not ruled out with the minority suffering the most in the majority’s efforts at domination.

REGION

Underlying the hydra-headed conflict situation in the Niger Delta region (Ondo, Edo, Delta, Imo, Abia, Bayelsa, Rivers, Cross rivers and Akwa Ibom States) is the perceived grave violation of human rights of the communities in the region. The situation has its roots in the discovery of oil in the region by the Royal Dutch Company in the late 1950s and has continued till date. The allegation of the people from the Niger Delta-Region in Nigeria is that attempts by Government to alleviate the regions problems have been insincere.

It has been observed by the Human Rights Watch, and rightly so, that the Federal Government policy towards conflict in the Delta has vacillated between heavy-handed attempts at imposing order and attempts to bring reconciliation . In September 2005 federal authorities arrested Niger Delta People’s Volunteer Force (NDPVF) leader Asari on charges of treason. In what seems to be a reconciliatory move, charges against him were later dropped by the new administration of President Musa Yar’adua who had earlier indicated an interest to convey a National Summit to address Niger Delta question. Meanwhile, hostage taking and kidnapping still continue to characterize the conflict face of the Niger Delta region.

Lack of an a-political comprehensive blue print development programme for the region as well as political commitment has over the years accounted for the deep human rights crisis of the Niger Delta region. In the coming decades, issues of self determination, police brutality, illegal occupation and detention will bitterly rage in the Niger- Delta region and may degenerate into humanitarian crises unless political leadership realizes the need for a review of the legal regime of ownership and control of oil resources vested in the Federal Government through legislations such as The Petroleum Act 1969 and Land Use Act to accommodate the concerns of the communities in the areas.

GENDER

The legal framework for the observance of womens rights remains hazy in Nigeria and it is a major bane to the realization of their human rights. The argument in this respect has been whether the Constitution as it is, entails a comprehensive set of provisions on human rights capable of supporting the emerging body of womens rights particularly, reproductive rights embodied in international instruments such as (The Convention of the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) of 1981) to which Nigeria is signatory and the consensus of Conferences such as (International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD),1995) which Nigeria approved.

The provisions on human rights in the 1999 Constitution do not provide for, the rights to health, a standard of living adequate for health and well being and the right to enjoy scientific progress and to consent to experimentation as envisaged in the World Health Organisation Bill on Sexual Rights. Issues such as health, economic and social rights are only accommodated in the Fundamental objectives and directive principles of state policy in sections 13 to 24 of the constitution.

The consequence of the foregoing is that whereas the provisions on human rights are actionable in court, the 1999 Nigerian constitution does not make provision for the enforcement of fundamental objectives of the state or for accountability of the same. It merely provides for policies and directives to be made on such matters. In line with these directives, the government has made several policies including the following:
- National health policy (1996)
- National Women Policy (2001)
- National Reproductive Health Policy (2002)
- National HIV/AIDS Policy (2002)

However, these policies are merely directive and neither confers on any individual a right that is actionable nor the duty to hold government accountable for their performance in Nigeria. Equally too, certain rights in the Constitution are abstract and too narrow to avail protection as reproductive rights. These are as follows;

- The right to be free from discrimination: this imposes criteria which is rather onerous to establish.

- The right to dignity of the human person: it apparently does not envisage the broader issues of child labour, female genital mutilation or the concept of ‘marital rape’.

Apart from the foregoing lack of basic legal framework for reproductive rights which calls into question the relevance of government service to women, the representation of women in governance remains a major challenge. Although Obasanjo’s administration appears to have made an appreciable success in this regard, much still remains to be achieved.

In the coming two decades, gender gaps in Nigeria will evolve still in a dynamic version. Foreseeable gender inequities in the future may not necessarily feature between groups but within the same group.

CONCLUSION

In describing the future of Human Rights situation in Nigeria, some hope could be sensed, but the question to anticipate is how political leadership in Nigeria can take advantage of its new breath of democracy in gaining the confidence of its diverse and marginalized citizenry. Using a human rights-based approach in reforming all its vital systems and sectors of government remain the major strategy for positive change. Otherwise, the coming decade may only be remarkable for intense agitations and bitter protests of the marginalized with all its attendant human rights wrongs. This is a great burden which is greatly to be feared!

* Jegede Ademola Oluborode is a legal practitioner and a human rights activist in Nigeria.

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

François-Xavier Nsanzuwera reflects about Captain Diagne Mbaye, a true exemplar of Pan-Africanism who dies in Rwanda as he fought against the 1994 genocide

In April 2008, the world commemorates the 14th anniversary of the genocide of the Tutsis of Rwanda. The estimated figure of the victims of this genocide stands at more than one million people. However, as rightly expressed by the Court of Appeal of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), the world will probably never know the exact number of fatalities. Speaking about the campaign aiming at exterminating the Tutsis in 1994, the Court of Appeal stated that "That campaign was successful to a dreadful degree; although the exact numbers may never be known, the great majority of Tutsis were murdered while many others were raped or otherwise harmed."

This remembrance also coincides with the closing down of the ICTR. This ad hoc international criminal tribunal, established by Resolution 955 (1994) of the Security Council of the 8th of November 1994 must complete in 2008 the trials already brought before the Court and those before the Court of Appeal by 2010.

This Tribunal closes down at a time when all the observers, including its detractors, recognize that it has reached its cruising speed, mainly in 2003.

As of today, 27 accused have been finally convicted, 27 cases are still awaiting judgement, one is pending before the Court of Appeal and 5 people have been acquitted. Two cases were transmitted to a national court of law, namely those of the abbot Wenceslas Munyeshyaka and the former prefect of Gikongoro, Laurent Bucyibaruta. The Prosecutor also requested the Court of the ICTR to authorize the transfer of some cases to Rwanda, pursuant to Rule 11 bis of the Rules of procedure and evidence.

Even if not all the torturers were apprehended and judged, the legacy of the ICTR will be considerable. Some observers tend to always assess the performance of the ICTR through numbers, namely, numbers of people judged and the financial cost. The importance of the legacy of the ICTR to the world is fundamental.

One of the achievements of the ICTR lies in the recognition of the genocide of the Tutsis. The judgements rendered by the various Courts and the Court of Appeal of the ICTR confirm that a genocide occurred in Rwanda. The already quoted decision of the Court of Appeal of the ICTR renders it clearly: "The fact of the Rwandan genocide is a part of world history, a fact as certain as any other, a classic instance of a “fact of common knowledge."

This judicial notice drawn up by the Court of Appeal, in its decision of 16 June 2006, constitutes an effective weapon in the fight against all the revisionists and those denying the existence of the genocide in Rwanda.

The jurisprudence of the ICTR contributed also to the development of the corpus of international humanitarian law. Paying tribute to the co-operation between the Government of Rwanda and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, Mr. Ban Ki-Moon, Secretary General of the United Nations, stated, during his visit to Rwanda said that "the good co-operation between your country and the ICTR has not only made possible the promotion of national reconciliation; it also played an important rôle in the development of the jurisprudence in international criminal law." (Fondation Hirondelle, 31 January 2008)

Mr Ban Ki-Moon stressed that the legacy of the ICTR is a testimony of the common fight against impunity.

On the 7th of April 2008, our thoughts will go not only to the victims and the survivors of the genocide but also to all those men and women of different nationalities, from different legal backgrounds who were the pioneers of the work accomplished by the ICTR. They were not in Nuremberg and not in Tokyo in 1945 but they were in Arusha. They brought their contribution to this building of justice, one of the pillars of reconciliation.

This memorial should also be an opportunity to think of the Just, these men and women who, while risking their lives, saved the Tutsis whose very life was threatened. At the time of the celebration of the World Women’s Day at the ICTR, the Prosecutor, Mr. Hassan B Jallow, stressed the heroic role played by Rwandan women, like Zula Karuhimbi, who saved their Tutsi compatriots during the genocide.

Today, my thoughts go particularly to a man who lost his life in Rwanda during the genocide, namely the Senegalese Captain Diagne Mbaye. He was a blue helmet of the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR) and he fell under a bomb. He was in the prime of life, the time when one enjoys life, makes projects and fulfils those things he/she has always been dreaming of. He was young and handsome but was also particularly courageous and so generous that he lost his life in Rwanda, far from Senegal, the country where he was born.

I do not know the exact circumstances of his death. I came to know him on the 10th of April 1994 at the Hotel des Milles Collines where my wife and I had just found refuge. This man was our guardian angel during our stay at the Hotel des Milles Collines from the 10th of April to the 28th of May 1994. During the two months that we spent at this hotel, Captain Diagne Mbaye went every day into the town of Kigali to help people in danger. Every day he would bring back to the hotel many entire families thus saving their lives.

After the genocide, several survivors recounted to us the courageous acts of Captain Mbaye. Many a survivor has bad memories of the UNAMIR. The latter reminds them of the abandonment, a sort of treason for those who believed in the Arusha Peace Accords and for those who believed in the peacekeeping mission of this force. However, some men within this institution risked their own life to save people. One can mention the commander-in-chief of this mission who, without inadequate means, remained with some few people and witnessed the tragic moments of the history of Rwanda and the world. The genocide has left its mark on his life. When he went to testify before the ICTR, General Romeo Dallaire paid tribute to the victims of the genocide. He saved the honour of the international community which gave up on the victims for three months. I have much respect for this man whose suffering makes him close to many survivors.

The courage of Captain Diagne Mbaye and his demise in the cause of Rwanda, right in the middle of the genocide, reconcile us with our mother continent. For three months, the world and Africa watched the genocide without doing anything, while the whole of mankind stared at the macabre images shown on the television screens. However, in Rwanda, some men and women of honour did what they could to save lives.

If today the younger generations must learn the history of the Holocaust, the genocide of the Armenians, the genocide done by the Khmers Rouges and the genocide of the Tutsis in Rwanda, it is important that they also learn the history of the courageous people, like Captain Diagne Mbaye, the people who, like him, remind us of our common humanity. During the horrible times of wars and genocides, these brave men and women save our humanity, our "ubuntu". The abbot Alexis Kagame and His Lordship Desmond Tutu wrote many articles on this beautiful word of “ubuntu” that is found in several Bantu languages. In Kinyarwanda, the word “ubuntu” means generosity, humanity, the fact of being human.

During this month of painful memories, my thoughts go to Captain Mbaye who died far from his motherland and his people and to all those, amongst his comrades, who remained men of honour. Somewhere in Rwanda, somewhere in the world, each time the international community remembers the genocide of the Tutsis and the massacre of Hutus opposed to the ideology of the genocide, there are men and women who think of Captain Diagne Mbaye and at what his memory represents, namely courage, dedication to duty, sense of honour and selflessness.

*François-Xavier Nsanzuwera is affiliated with the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.

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

Salma Mlidi uses the 20th year anniversary Tanzania Media Women’s Association (TAMWA) to reflect on African women's activism

On March 29, 2008 the Tanzania Media Women’s Association (TAMWA) began a week long commemoration of 20 years of advocacy for women’s human rights. Among activities earmarked to mark the occasion include the opening of a self sponsored office building; the launch of a Fundraising Campaign for a Women’s Media and Documentation Centre; and a book launch of TAMWA’s story in pioneering social transformation in Tanzania as experienced by members, supporters and friends.

TAMWA was officially launched and registered in 1987 by 10 women pioneers working in the media with two major aims: to agitate for a positive portrayal of women in the media; and to raise the academic and professional standards of female journalist to enable them to assume positions of influence in the media with the expectation that they will have a voice with regard media content and output in so far as its portrayal of women.

Twenty years later TAMWA has much to celebrate about. Arguably TAMWA is the foremost advocacy organization for women’s right in Tanzania. TAMWA’s command of the local media is unparralled and stems from years of capacity building and advocacy of media heads in various media institutions. Nevertheless, in Tanzania, TAMWA is best known for her work in gender based violence. Soon after her formation TAMWA made it her business to expose crimes against women that were otherwise considered taboo e.g. domestic violence and notably wife beating, incest, and family neglect; and sexual harassment in the workplace.

TAMWA also addressed the larger phenomena of sexual abuse against women and children in Tanzania contributing to the impetus of increased local responses to address the phenomena e.g. by the Tanzania Women Lawyers Association. Undeniably, Gender Based Violence (GBV) is the mother of activist struggles in Tanzania thanks to a large part to TAMWA’s relentless advocacy on the subject. Other than the ongoing Campaign on breast cancer by the Tanzania Medical Women’s Association (MEWATA) which is mainly service oriented no other advocacy campaigned has been as successful as the Campaign to Stop GBV launched by TAMWA in the mid 90’s.

Through innovative strategies like media advocacy, action research and campaigns TAMWA made sure that her advocacy agenda was current news and popular, not just with legislators and bureaucrats but with the local populace. It is not unheard of that activists visiting any village in Tanzania would be approached by concerned villagers about human rights violations against women and children in the belief that the activist who cared enough to visit them represents TAMWA. While Tanzania now has a number of women’s rights organizations TAMWA remains the most recognized and coined by men and women alike.

TAMWA’s advocacy ensured that GBV was not only named but was also unpacked and demystified. Certainly fifteen years ago many Tanzanians did not know about the prevalence of FGM in the country. Personally, I learnt about the practice in France after watching a documentary prepared by Sudanese women on alternative forms of cutting. However, building on her research work on crimes committed against women undertaken with journalist in various regions of Tanzania, TAMWA exposed FGM and made it a national agenda. Consequently, Tanzania was among the first countries to outlaw FGM and to have an active anti-FGM network at regional and national levels.

Another less publicized issue was the deaths of old women accused of witchcraft in west and north western Tanzania. TAMWA made the link between the deaths of old women to economic insecurity experienced in most poor rural communities. Access to landed resources increasingly endangered the lives of old women occupying land that younger relatives wanted to access and control. Other than changing the dominant perspective about the issue i.e. about witchcraft beliefs, TAMWA was able to lend impetus to and influence the content of the Land Campaign in the late 1990’s to address the question of women’s access and control of landed resources.

In many ways TAMWA activist trajectory informed and continues to inform my own activist trajectory. I was introduced to TAMWA in the early 90’s when I was still doing my LLB helping out in what was then know as the Library and Documentation Unit. This was the beginning of my own official activist trajectory and as Fatma Alloo, the first TAMWA Chair, puts it, “Of channeling my anger against injustice towards more productive activist enterprise”. Other than having first hand access to feminist literature from different parts of the world, I got to meet many authors and or subjects of books in the centre satiating my growing zeal for alternative leadership figures and visions.

Just as the Tanzania African Nationalist Union (TANU) Women Wing and later Umoja wa Wanwake Tanzania (UWT) was a pioneer for women’s interests pre and post independence, TAMWA pioneered autonomous women rights organizations as well as autonomous advocacy agendas. Figures that led TAMWA also offered the first real taste of female leadership outside the dominant party structure. The growth of private media houses meant that TAMWA personalities were recognized nationally, oftentimes as readily as leading government figures.

The pedestal TAMWA has come to enjoy in the civil society sector means that the successes and struggles she achieves impact on the larger women’s movement in Tanzania. Thus when in the mid nineties TAMWA suffered an organizational crisis bought on by rapid organizational growth, burn out and rifts between the ranks that otherwise would be normal in an organizational context but that spiraled to become personal because of the absence of an awareness in how to manage the health of a dynamic, visible and politically charged organization, mushrooming advocacy organizations held their breath. They were conscious that TAMWA’s failure would reflect not just in the women’s movement but also in the larger civil society sector that was beginning to attract some level of sanction on account of its work.

Perhaps the crisis appeared bigger than it actually was because the emerging activist sector while commonly survives on camaraderie, trust and enthusiasm had not had to deal with the full force of what it means to be empowered individuals. Also the age old habit of selfless devotion and sacrifice ‘serving others’ most women succumb to may have been transferred to the activist space such that some members may have felt not adequately appreciated. Indeed in an activist space the actors are many, the roles more visible and the stakes are higher such that it is not uncommon for egos to become more sensitive to criticism or doubt. Nonetheless, TAMWA survived and emerged stronger. In fact the crisis introduced the notion of organizational health and anti burn out measurers to CSOs. Following an emotional OD intervention members were able to come to terms with their reality and create a healthier space to address existing and perceived weaknesses. TAMWA had to change and since she has learnt the value of reinventing herself and her agenda making it timeless.

TAMWA’s records successes not just institutionally but also with her membership which comprises of exceptional pioneers. Edda Sanga was Chief Comptroller and acting head of Radio Tanzania before her retirement while Joyce Mhaville manages the largest private radio and television network in the country. Fatma Alloo, Halima Sheriff and Rose Kalemera all among founder members have also worked in the civil society sector serving and serve in a number of prestigious boards. Pili Mtambalike and Rose Haji work for the Media Council of Tanzania and MISA Tanzania respectively. Young women journalists who interned at TAMWA are mostly employed as media consultants and directors in the private sector. Mahfoudha Alley Hamid a TAMWA veteran was a member of the first East Africa Legislative Assembly and currently serves as Deputy Chair for the Tanzania Human Rights Commission while others like Zainab Vulu serve as Parliamentarians and others like Halima Kihemba and Betty Mkwasa in local government administration.

As I danced and ululated in celebration with women I had known and grown with for 20 years, I could not help but feel a strong sense of achievement. Members I had not seen for a number of years trickle into the new headquarters to join in the momentous occasion. There was laughter and congratulations all round. By sheer will the vision of 10 women, who the whole world seemed to ridicule had lived on, thrived and triumphed! It inspired and gave birth to other smaller social justice movements at local and national levels.

The Tanzanian First Lady, Mama Salma Kikwete graced the occasion. I was gripped by a strange disquiet as she posed a challenge to TAMWA for the next twenty years. As I looked around me, I wondered would I recognize my sisters (and brothers) in activism 20 years from now? Certainly, mostly TAMWA members and ‘official’ activists” attended the event. I would have loved to see greater participation of the population that TAMWA spent 20 years advocating for. Perhaps a public solidarity walk would have been more appropriate to facilitate a broad based commemoration. Also while there were a few men in attendance, many men representing media organizations stayed away. How could they then be seen to lend moral support to women’s human rights when such support is not felt in physical terms?

While TAMWA’s successes fill me with pride I can’t help but worry about the implications. I worry whether the agenda we have fought so hard to push is getting co-opted as more young women with activist potential are being lured by the private sector which sector is reverting to selling the sexualized image of young women. It is no secret that other than plastering images of young and supposedly successful women in marketing ads, many companies employ younger women because of the ‘sex appeal’ they offer. Another consideration is the lower wages they attract in contrast to male executives. This is not to say that young female media practitioners are not worth their salt. Rather there is a real concern around the original agenda of using the media to conscientize about and advocate for women’s human rights being compromised in the era of a liberal media and economy.

The detachment of young women from the struggles of past is palpable as most activists organizations and initiatives remain dominated by middle aged and retired women. Young professions have sold out to the liberal economy as most become preoccupied with becoming successful in the market and portraying an outer image of success through apolitical consumerism. Gender discrimination has mutated or gone underground such that young female professionals appear clueless about the struggles of past that brought about the even playing field they now enjoy. Mistakenly, and perhaps because they come armed with an education, they think this is how things were and will continue to be.

Indeed, TAMWA produced young professionals and executives who can compete with handsome pledges to her fundraiser providing much needed relief from over demanding and increasingly tightfisted funders. But I wonder if in so doing whether the women’s movement is not opening herself up to an elitist and consumerist culture that is unconcerned with the means through which she achieves her end? Or is it a matter of redefining our values?

*Salma Mlidi is a political activist.

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

While the kenyan elected leaders are battling it out over appointments to lucrative cabinet ministerial posts, Musa Radolo reports on the country’s journalists as they battle post election violence psychological trauma

A majority of the journalists in the country were either directly or indirectly hit by the problem while on duty as a result of being the first witnesses of violence victims and deadly personal encounters while covering the grisly post general elections violence which gave birth to the current jostling for cabinet ministerial posts.

The bickering over the posts that has since hit a stalemate comes in the wake of signing of a power sharing deal between the protagonists, Presdident Mwai Kibaki of Party of National Unity (PNU) and Raila Odinga of Orange Democratic Party (ODM) brokered by former UN secretary general Koffi Annan that saw the end of the violence resulting from the disputed 2007 general elections presidential results.

For the last three weeks, the badly psychologically traumatised journalists have been pouring out their extremely painful experiences during the violence that have remained to haunt them to date without getting relevant medical attention.

Post general elections violence trauma counselling sessions for media practitioners has so far revealed extremely disturbing varied traumatic experiences from the practitioners based across the country. Tearfully describing situations in which they invariably found themselves in as they discharged their duties for their respectful media houses. Making revelations of untold stories of their harrowing encounters at the mercy of marauding deadly merciless gangs or police.

Tear provoking experiences that in most cases threatened their very lives as they found themselves between hard rocks and steel. Simply because they had been identified as reporters or photographers of some mainstream media houses perceived by the violent gangs either as being pro-PNU or the ODM.

The media practitioners based in various regions of the country perceived to be ODM strongholds and working for media houses perceived to be pro-PNU were in danger just like their colleagues in a vice versa situation. The dangers were as real as those experienced by any ordinary Kenyan caught up in circumstances generated by the post election violence – perceived to be either an ODM supporter in a PNU stronghold or the other way round.

The worst experiences for the “messengers” were that despite being on duty just like the members of the disciplined forces – the police - became victims of police brutality – yet their only ammunition or tools of defence were – pens, note books and cameras. Their tools of trade.

The ministry of information and communications acknowledges the deadly risks involved saying that during the coverage of violent conflicts (post general elections), journalists and photographers often found themselves in the frontline of the events to get the best images and stories.

“This invariably exposes them to undesirable but necessary risks and experiences. Such as the gruesome images witnessed may haunt the journalists/photographers and cause them psychological illnesses that have far reaching ramifications including at work places and families,” says the permanent secretary Dr. Bitange Ndemo.

The critical question here being the serious health problems and complications they developed and experienced before during and after the last general elections. Many had never been exposed nor prepared for the gruesome scenes and risky personal experiences they encountered – especially in the post election violence.

Dr. Ndemo says that evidence gathered and symptoms reported so far range from anxiety and depression to emotional numbness and substance abuse. Post traumatic stress being another major cause for concern as it threatens the mental state of the affected media practitioners at the work place as reported by scores of media houses.

A round table meeting held in Nairobi immediately after the violence started slowing down of media stakeholders reported: “Journalists and media practitioners are traumatised but are lacking counselling to deal with the post violence trauma and the self denial.”

Another major challenge that was identified at the meeting was the urgent need to address serious issues of interpersonal relationships within the newsrooms of the different media houses occasioned by the partisanship and the huge chasm/divide the last general elections created between journalists in their places of work.

During one of the ongoing counselling sessions it emerged how a photographer with one of the mainstream media houses in the country was unable to take the harrowing and numbing gruesome pictures of the scenes he had witnessed and the deadly violence he and colleagues nearly became victims of.

The photojournalist had been assigned to cover the violence in Nairobi’s sprawling Kibera slums. What he saw and witnessed was extremely shocking and devastating beyond words. It completely paralysed him into a glaring zombie.

When he went back to the newsroom the News Editor asked: “How was the situation and Where are the pictures?”

He replied: “It was terrible. It was horrible. I have never seen anything like that. It is unbelievable. I have no pictures. I did not take any. I couldn’t. It was too much.”

It was only on further inquiry that the news editor came to establish the exact circumstances that made the photographer to be completely unable to un-sling his camera and fire away to capture the scenes. It was even later that the editor realised that he had been adversely affected psychologically and had to be taken for treatment and counselling.

This state of adverse psychological impact hit hundreds of journalists across the country who were deployed to cover the post general election violence by their various media houses. Two months after the end of the violence, they are still suffering from the post elections violence trauma.

None had been prepared nor had they ever been trained on how to handle and cope with such situations. None of the media houses had budgeted for dealing with the post general election psychological trauma for their editorial staff.

In recognition of the desperate situation in which the Kenyan journalists are still wallowing in – the post general elections violence trauma, the International Media Support (IMS) has swiftly swung into action to counsel those who are suffering. None of them had tried to seek treatment nor counselling. They had no resources or knowledge of where to go and what to do.

The initial phase of the programme targeting 150 journalists and photographers spread across the country is ironically being spearheaded by the Kenya Association of Photographers, Illustrators and Designers (KAPIDE) jointly with the Kenya Correspondents Association (KCA) and not the Media Owners Association nor the Media Council of Kenya. The target areas are those worst hit by the violence – Nairobi, Nakuru, Eldoret, Kisumu and Mombasa.

A research conducted last year by the African Women and Child Features (AWC) established that members of these two associations contribute more than 85 per cent of the news content that comes out of Kenya’s media outlets.

This percentage tends to go higher during the general electioneering years as media houses’ focus tends to shift from the city to the provinces or rural Kenya on political campaigns and elections. Members of these associations are also the worst paid and most ill equipped to carry out their duties.

Those affected say that as they found themselves in the thick of the deadly violence, unlike their colleagues reporting for the international media outlets – without bullet proof vests nor gas masks, sometimes without vehicles.

“We survived by the grace of God. Because we found ourselves taking cover as bullets from police guns whizzed all over. Some of our cars were lobbed with tear gas canisters inside. We were constantly in danger from police guns and tear gas as well as crude weapons wielded by marauding blood thirsty gangs,” said Joseph Cheruiyot.

He went on: “The situation got so bad in Kibera that if you were identified as a reporter or photographer for media houses perceived to be pro-PNU you were at risk of losing your life. Worse still people refused even to talk to the local media houses’ journalists because some colleagues covering the events for international media houses were paying out cash to get information.”

The provinces and the districts were the very areas which were hardest hit with the violence that saw more than 1200 people killed and 150, 000 displaced from their homes into the Internally Displaced People’s camps where many are still residing.  Journalists/photographers based in these areas were the worst affected. Yet the most ignored by their media houses.

“The media owners and employers in the media industry should also recognise the importance of emotional psychological and physical effects that are caused by their professional hazards,” says the permanent secretary.

He argues that besides the hazards the journalists/photographers experience in the field, many employers increase their stress levels because of the demands to meet targets within specific timeframes, whereas the staff were working under difficult circumstances and environments.

The situation was not made any better by virtue of the fact that many journalists found themselves in circumstances forcing them to offer help to critically injured victims of the violence at the risk of their own lives, yet they are not trained even in the rudimentaries of first aid.

A leading psychology doctor at University of Nairobi’s faculty of medicine, Dr. Sobbie Mulindi says the post election violence trauma can cause a lot of medical complications for the journalists/photographers who were affected unless counselled and treated immediately.

Dr. Mulindi who is spearheading counselling sessions of the affected journalists says that many of the media practicing victims risked developing deadly health problems like hypertension, general heart ailments, kidney complications, nervous breakdowns among others.

“Many journalists who were affected tended to resort to alcohol and substance abuse, abnormal behaviours which can lead to disastrous consequences. Psychological trauma has to be dealt with urgently. Apart from putting at risk the lives of the affected persons, it is possible that it can also be transmitted from one generation to another,” he said.

The doctor says that immediately the violence broke out with a team of other psychological trauma experts in Nairobi mobilised counsellors based in HIV/Aids VCT centres across the country for induction and deployed to IDP camps to counsel the victims of the post general election violence.

* Musa Radoli writes for the Royal Media Group in Kenya is the Secretary General of the Kenya Correspondents Association.

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

Joram Nyathi candidly makes the case that what ails African democracies is change in the absence of real alternatives.

A lot has been said about the Kenyan election debacle. Lessons have been drawn locally on both sides of the political divide. Unfortunately most of these lessons are no more than self-serving wishes. In my view, the real lesson is the danger of obsession with change for its own sake, and in that quest, embracing every claimant to power as the Messiah. Zimbabweans are guilty of this propensity.

South Africans look worse. Reading the South African media about President Thabo Mbeki's alleged autocratic rule in the few weeks before Polokwane made me feel like we in Zimbabwe were ruled by angels. So intense was the hatred for Mbeki that his rival Jacob Zuma was assured of the ANC presidency despite his soiled name. It was as if the name Zuma represented a cure for Aids, crime and racial inequality in SA.

It is perplexing. Here is a man who answers to every act of misdemeanor from rape to influence-peddling to outright corruption and tax evasion being elevated to the pedestal of a saint who is being victimised by a cruel sitting president whom he has challenged for office! In any civilised society, the accusation of corruption, let alone rape, should make any decent person recuse himself from the presidential race. Zuma would have magnified his own stature. He doesn't need to be convicted.

Things were never going to be easy for Mbeki from the start: matching Nelson Mandela's affability, dealing with a recalcitrant ruler such as President Robert Mugabe who is universally reviled by those he has hurt, and given growing anti-intellectual sentiment in politics in Zimbabwe and SA. But in Zuma we have a man who can stand up when later accused of rape, violence (leth' umshini wami), corruption, racketeering, fraud and philandering and say with a straight face: "When I campaigned I didn't hide who I am."

In the face of all this grunge you have influential organisations such as Cosatu threatening the judiciary with a "bloodbath" if Zuma is brought to court.

The biggest lesson from the Kenyan post-election violence is the danger of electing into power democratic charlatans without institutional fireguards to ensure such people can be removed later without bloodletting; and our fascination with the politics of tribe and other irrational considerations which blind us to people's motives for getting into politics. It is the danger of choosing leaders for where they come from ahead of enduring values necessary in nation-building.

Anyone who opposes a hated sitting president automatically becomes a democrat. Mwai Kibaki was feted as a democrat for defeating Daniel arap Moi without anyone examining his democratic credentials. The election was judged free and fair. In five years the guy has shown his true colours and those who elected him are shocked by his "transformation" from what he never was to a corrupt dictator and tribalist. To me there was no betrayal of the people but an exposure of bad choice.

The irony is that Western democracies which are quick to point to us torch bearers of democracy subject their would-be leaders to a very rigorous vetting before they are elected. I am fascinated by the ongoing campaign by the Democrats in the United States. This is not a country in any serious political crisis like we are, yet its leader must pass through the crucible of public scrutiny and explain fully what his policies are, what he wants to do and how. It is not enough to chronicle the current leader's failures. Any imbecile can do that. Talking democracy and human rights is cheap -- the test is on delivery.

Unfortunately in desperation for change, any change, we are shy if not afraid to confront our future leaders with hard questions about who they are and their shortcomings. Yet it is the political leader ultimately who gives the nation its international character.

The other lesson from Kenya is the threat of violence if elections are rigged. Forcing people to vote in a certain way on the threat of violence amounts to democracy by fear. It does not represent the free will of the people. It is the need to select for leadership people of integrity. We need leaders who are able to accept loss and victory in an election with dignity and know when to quit.

Kenya's Raila Odinga might have a cause to complain, but to me there is no point in voting for a leader of hooligans, who, after a disputed electoral result, rampage in the streets, burning, raping and murdering people in church. There was nothing among the poor Kikuyu in the slums of Kibera and Mathare to show that they had unfairly benefited from Mwai Kibaki's rule ahead of other tribes. Nor is there evidence that those being targeted for attack voted for him. Yet we read that boys and girls as young as six years are being raped for voting for Kibaki or for simply being Kikuyu.

In any case, if the Kikuyu are being targeted as an ethnic group because Kibaki is Kikuyu, then by inverse rule Odinga forfeits the claim of a "people's president" if only his Luo clanspeople and a few others voted for him.

The trouble with wanton violence is that it never affects the criminal leader himself. Does anybody for once nurse the illusion that Charles Taylor or Joseph Kony will ever fully pay for atrocities they have committed against their people in Liberia and Uganda? Or that Odinga is justified in causing the deaths of over 600 Kenyans because he wants to go to State House?

Broadly, the Kenyans are paying for what has become the bane of African politics -- short-term and opportunistic considerations in the selection of national leaders. Lack of long-term vision in the beginning comes to haunt us in the end.

*Nyathi is the deputy editor of the Zimbabwe Independent. This article first appeared in the The Zimbabwe Independent.

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

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/358/47049zimba.jpgRasna Warah reminds Zimbabweans that Kenya can only be a model of what not to do - the cost in terms of lives, a shattered economy, internally displaced populations, and broken trust is to high a price to pay.

Many Kenyans including myself, are shocked to learn that their country is now considered a role model by many Zimbabweans who have been seriously contemplating “doing a Kenya” if the results of the elections this weekend are not to their liking.

I suppose given the state of their economy, and the fact that the country has been ruled by the last of Africa’s Big Men for close to three decades, Zimbabweans are beginning to believe that the only way fundamental changes can be brought about in their country is by breaking into the kind of violence that Kenyans experienced in the weeks following what many believe to be rigged elections.

One argument put to me recently was that a country has to go through violent conflict in order to emerge as a better nation.

Shortly after the violence broke out in many parts of Kenya, I attended a meeting in Dar es Salaam where participants seriously debated whether what was happening in Kenya was a necessary prelude to fundamental reforms needed in society.

At one point, a stunned delegate from Rwanda was even asked whether the genocide in Rwanda had been worth it as it had paved the way for a more democratic and open society that was based on progressive, egalitarian laws.

He responded by saying that the price Rwanda had paid for its peace and democracy was too high, not just in terms of the cost of reconstruction, but because it was written in the blood of hundreds of thousands of his country’s men, women and children.

It is very tempting to believe that had it not been for the violence that engulfed Kenya in the last two months, the two leaders, Mr Raila Odinga and President Kibaki, might never have agreed to form a coalition government dedicated to bringing about much-needed reforms and constitutional changes.

But was it the fact that more than 1,200 people were killed and some 350,000 were internally displaced that melted their hearts, or was it international pressure from Western governments and the international community that forced them to reach a compromise?

Many believe it is the latter. Kenya is strategically important to Western governments for many reasons.

A crisis in Kenya has the potential to spill over to the entire Eastern Africa region and the Horn, as the port of Mombasa serves as a crucial transport link for neighbouring countries and is a strategic gateway to the troubled Middle East.

Moreover, the United States considers Kenya as a useful ally in its war against terror, especially because the country borders Somalia and Sudan, two countries that have been a thorn in the flesh of the US government for more than a decade.

Zimbabwe on the other hand is landlocked, has no significant ally among the world’s most powerful nations, has no oil or other minerals that are of critical importance to the Western world, and is on the brink of economic collapse.

A violent civil war may stir Britain, South Africa or the African Union into action, but it will barely elicit a yawn from the United States or the European Union.

But even if, by some miracle, the world did unite to liberate a strife-torn Zimbabwe, the price the country will have paid will be so great, it will take years to recover.

In Kenya, two months of violence not only cost lives, but hundreds of millions of dollars in lost revenue, property and jobs.

It is estimated that the first week of violence alone cost the country US$1 billion. Tourism, one of the biggest income-earners, dropped dramatically as tourists cancelled bookings or left the country in droves.

Inflation soared as vital road links were cut off, making it difficult for farmers to reach their markets. Seven land-locked neighbouring countries that relied on Kenya’s transport networks for imports suffered severe shortages.

But the real cost of the crisis was borne by the people of Kenya, who are still reeling from the impact of the violence.

Reports indicate that the incidence of rape tripled in the months of January and February, with a majority of victims being under the age of 18.

Lawlessness in various parts of the country, including Nairobi, spawned ethnically-based militia groups who killed or forcibly evicted people from their homes and neighbourhoods. Some of these groups are still operating in parts of the country.

Almost every Kenyan was directly or indirectly affected by the violence. As a nation we are traumatised and it will take us a long time to trust again.

If that is the price of democracy, then it is a price many Kenyans are not ever willing to pay again. Zimbabweans should take note.

*Ms Warah is an editor with the UN. The views expressed here are her own and do not necessarily reflect those of the United Nations. This article was first published in Kenya's Daily Nation

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

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/363/47047africom.jpgThis Africa Action resource provides examples of statements from African leaders from multiple regions who stand opposed to AFRICOM

"The stand that many African countries have taken against the military command is one that needs to be supported and needs to be explained to the U.S. public so there is a greater understanding as to the implications of U.S. policy and why it is being rejected." - Bill Fletcher Jr., Former President of TransAfrica Forum [1]

Due to the perceived importance of Africa in the U.S. "war on terror" and the increasing U.S. dependence on African oil, President Bush announced on February 6, 2007 the establishment of a Unified Command for U.S. military forces in Africa, known as AFRICOM. According to Bush, "The Africa command will enhance our efforts to bring peace and security to the people of Africa and promote our common goals of development, health, education, democracy, and economic growth in Africa."[2] Africa Action challenges the veracity of this assertion in a recent statement, available at:

African nations have repeatedly declared their opposition to the hosting of U.S. bases on the African continent and the militarization of their relations with the United States. As a result of this dissent, AFRICOM is currently based in Stuttgart, Germany. Civil society leaders and journalists in Africa have objected that AFRICOM will pursue narrowly defined U.S. interests at the expense of both the sovereignty and welfare of the African nations.

AFRICAN GOVERNMENTS REACT TO AFRICOM

Regional organizations have been most vocal in their critique of AFRICOM, and last August, the Southern African Development Community (SADC) was the first to issue a clear message of dissent against the Bush initiative. SADC is made up of 14 African nations including South Africa, Angola, Botswana and the Democratic Republic of Congo. On August 29, 2007, SADC announced its position "that it is better if the United States were involved with Africa from a distance rather than be present on the continent." The SADC Defense and Security Ministers further stated "that sister countries of the region should not agree to host AFRICOM and in particular, armed forces, since this would have a negative effect. That recommendation was presented to the Heads of State and this is a SADC position." [3]

The initial reactions of African leaders to President Bush’s declaration last February were characterized by confusion and distrust. While the U.S. Department of Defense made clear that AFRICOM was moving forward at full-speed, its objectives and specific details of what it would entail had not been enunciated clearly. In September 2007, half a year after the Bush announcement, President Festus Mogae of Botswana said, "We have not taken a position [on AFRICOM] because we don't know how the animal will look like. We are still discussing the issue." [4]

While individual countries within SADC are allowed to reach their own decisions regarding AFRICOM, none have since strayed from the official position of this important regional body. Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa reaffirmed his country’s stance on October 2, 2007, when he stated "none of us is interested" in hosting the command. [5]

Other key regional organizations made up of nations across Africa have declared their condemnation of AFRICOM and its implications for U.S-African relations. The 25-member Northern African Community of Sahel-Saharan States (CEN-SAD) has backed SADC’s position on the establishment of U.S. bases and stated that CEN-SAD "flatly refuses the installation of any military command or any foreign armed presence of whatever country on any part of Africa, whatever the reasons and justifications." [6] The Arab Magreb Union also voiced strong opposition to the placement of U.S. bases anywhere on the continent.

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has stated resolutely its opposition to American bases in the region. At the forefront of this effort stands Nigeria, whose leadership unequivocally denounced the possibility of American troops being based in West Africa.

However, several months after first coming out with this stance, Nigerian President Yar’Adua issued a statement during his December 2007 visit to Washington that seemed at first to dramatically shift the Nigerian position on AFRICOM: "We shall partner with AFRICOM to assist not only Nigeria, but also the African continent to actualize its peace and security initiative, which is an initiative to help standby forces of brigade-size in each of the regional economic groupings within the African continent." [7]

In response to these controversial remarks, the Nigerian public and members of parliament expressed their outrage at this apparent shift in position. Consequently, the day after President Yar’Adua’s initial statement, he retracted his comments and announced that he had been misquoted.

On, December 14, 2007, Yar’Adua reiterated Nigeria’s original position on AFRICOM by stating, "I did not agree that AFRICOM should be based in Africa. What we discussed with Bush is that if they have something to do for Africa that has to do with peace and security, they should contribute. I told him that we African countries have our own plan to establish a joint military command in every sub-region (as we) have in economic groupings." [8]

Nigeria’s Foreign Minister Ojo Maduekwe clarified this confusion: "President Yar’Adua’s statement on the proposed AFRICOM is consistent with Nigeria’s well-known position on the necessity for Africa to avail itself of opportunities for enhanced capacity for the promotion of peace and security in Africa; Nigeria’s position on AFRICOM remains that African governments have the sovereign responsibility for the maintenance of peace and security in the continent, especially in the context of the proposed African Union Stand-by Force and in this regard, the need for support and assistance by Africa’s development partners, such as the United States, in the provision of training, funding and logistics for African militaries was duly acknowledged." [9]

The only member of ECOWAS to break from this position is Liberia. President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has pledged her support to the new command, stating that "AFRICOM is undeniably about the projection of American interests – but this does not mean that it is to the exclusion of African ones." [10] It is important to note that the government of Liberia, a country with a unique historical relationship to the U.S and a fragile democracy still emerging from the challenges of civil war, stands alone in its support for AFRICOM.

CIVIL SOCIETY AND CITIZEN RESPONSES

Though the government of Liberia has been very supportive of AFRICOM, many in Liberian civil society have objected. Ezekiel Pajino of the Center for Democratic Empowerment in Liberia, calls AFRICOM "a deadly plan of U.S. military expansion on African soil." Pajino states, "AFRICOM will be the legacy of Bush’s failed foreign policy that threatens future generations throughout our continent." [11]

Other African civil society leaders, academics, bloggers12 and journalists across the continent share this unease. Ikechukwa Eze in Nigeria’s Business Day writes, "Apprehension exists about the extent to which AFRICOM may violate rules of sovereignty and its attempts to replace the AU." [13] This comment and others like it raise a number of issues, including the sovereignty of African countries, the role of private military contractors (PMCs), the function of the U.S. military in administering development assistance, and U.S. interests in controlling access to African resources at the expense of ordinary Africans.

Professor Hamza Mustafa Njozi of the University of Dar es Salaam warns that "if what has befallen other countries is any barometer, the Americans will need a military base in Tanzania." With reference to potential oil deposits currently being explored by multinational corporations in Tanzania, he said, "Military presence is necessary to ensure total control of this vital resource as well as the continued pillage of our gold mines." [14] Commenting on President Bush’s February 2008 trip to Africa, Sakin Datoo, chairperson of the Editors Forum of Tanzania, said, "Bush is being portrayed as a savior of Africa due to the dollars he is bringing along with him on his trip. But Tanzanians are able to see through this façade. Bush only cares for his own interests and nothing else . . . any illusion that we will provide a military base for the U.S. army should be erased." [15]

Africa Action stands in solidarity with the many African voices speaking out against AFRICOM and urges the U.S. to base its foreign policy towards Africa in a similar respect for the African people.

*Brooks Harris and Matt Levy contributed to this resource.

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

***For notes and links to more readings, please visit this link:

The SADC Observer Mission to the 2008 elections noted several anomalies that run against the grain of the principles of democratic elections within the southern African region but still endorsed the process leading to the 29 March elections as free and fair.

Addressing journalists in Harare on 30 March 2008, the head of the mission Jose Marcos Barrica noted the issues of equal access to the state media by political parties and candidates, access to information on the electoral process and the “irresponsible statements” by security chiefs, as some of the anomalies. He, however, said the issue of access to the state media had improved as the election date drew close.

Barrica said the statements by the security chiefs such as Police Commissioner General Augustine Chihuri and Commissioner of Prisons Paradzai Zimondi that they would not salute Morgan Tsvangirai leader of the opposition MDC in the event of him winning the presidential race, should have been publicly denounced.

In its preliminary report on the elections, the observer mission also noted that information on the electoral and voting process should also have been published in advance but still commended the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) for doing everything to ensure that the elections would be held despite the logistical problems encountered.

It its pre-election position findings on the presidential, parliamentary, senatorial and local government elections held on 29 March 2008, MISA-Zimbabwe noted with grave concern that with polling only a few weeks away and almost four years after the adoption of the SADC Guidelines, there is little evidence on the Zimbabwean government’s willingness to relax its grip on the state media and allow opposition political parties or opposing voices to freely air their campaign messages and views on ZBC radio and television.

MISA-Zimbabwe noted that ZBC, Zimbabwe’s sole national state broadcaster continued to demonstrate its partisan tendencies where it concerns providing fair, balanced and equitable coverage of the ensuing election campaigns.

The live broadcast of the launch of the ruling Zanu PF’s election manifesto by ZBC on 29 March 2008 to the exclusion of a similar exercise by the opposition MDC led by Morgan Tsvangirai the previous week at Sakubva Stadium in Mutare and that of Independent presidential candidate, Simba Makoni in Bulawayo is one such glaring omission or commission denying citizens access to alternative information which should have been noted by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) in its mandate.

In terms of the Electoral Laws Act (As Amended 2008), ZEC should also have drawn up regulations for free, fair and balanced access to public broadcasting. As of 4 March 2008 and 25 days before polling ZEC was still to come up with such regulations for purposes of monitoring the media to ensure accurate and fair coverage of the elections to stem encouragement of violence, racial, ethnic and religious hatred.

Meanwhile, asked why the SADC election team had endorsed the elections as having been free and fair when ZEC was still to announce the results almost 20 hours after polling had closed at 7pm on 29 March 2008, Barrica said their mandate was only restricted to observing the pre-election period in terms of the SADC Guidelines.

Urging all political parties to respect the will of the people, he warned Zimbabweans against allowing for the prospect of civil war saying as an Angolan he had the experience of the negative impact of that scenario.

“I reiterate SADC’s commitment to continue supporting the people of Zimbabwe in their efforts to deepen democracy and realise the dignity of Zimbabweans. The voice of the people of Zimbabwe need to be heard and heard by the people of Zimbabwe,” said Barrica.

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

International development agencies, Progressio, Trócaire, Tearfund and FEPA today call for immediate action to stop what appears to impartial observers as government-led election rigging of Zimbabwe’s March 29th polls.

All four agencies are concerned about the slow release of election results, which as Noel Kututwa, Chairperson of the Zimbabwe Election Support Network says “is fuelling speculation that there could be something going on”. Marwick Khumalo, head of the Pan-African Parliamentary Observer Mission, has also expressed concern over the delay.

Our mutual partner, Pastor Promise of the Zimbabwe Christian Alliance said: “SADC principles and guidelines governing democratic elections stipulate that counting of votes shall be done at the polling stations. This was done and completed yet ZEC is withholding the results which are already public knowledge as they were posted outside each polling station. With Kenya’s violence so fresh in our minds, it is not acceptable to delay the timely announcement of results as if to provoke the already highly charged electorate. It’s extremely urgent that ZEC announces all the results immediately.”

Specifically, the agencies are concerned that:

- In some cases, officially announced votes do not appear to be tallying with those registered and displayed at polling stations;

- It has taken over 30 hours to collate and begin to announce election results, which were posted up outside polling stations two days ago;

- The pace of announcement has been painfully slow. By 3pm on Monday 31st March the Electoral Commission had announced parliamentary poll results for only 30 out of 210 constituencies. Results for senatorial and presidential polls are also still pending;

- The delay in announcing results and the failure of the Electoral Commission to satisfactorily explain the delays to the general public is contributing to tensions and could lead to a situation of instability in the country;

- The Southern African Development Community (SADC) has already issued its statement on the elections. According to article 6.1.12 of the SADC guidelines, observers monitoring elections are obliged to issue a statement on 'conduct AND outcome'. The SADC observer mission only issued a statement on conduct of elections yesterday afternoon and has now declared its work finished.

In light of these serious concerns, we urge governments to take the following critical actions:

- African and especially southern African leaders should ensure that the SADC observer mission fulfils its obligations to the people of Zimbabwe by following through on assessing the counting process and declared outcome of the polls;

- There should be an SADC investigation and response to the allegations of fraud made by independent outside and domestic analysts and observers, in particular with respect to why the announcement of results was delayed when polling stations results were already reported;

- African Union and national leaders should be prepared to lead a process of mediation in the event of a disputed outcome;

- The UK, Ireland, EU and member states should encourage African leaders to insist that the SADC principles are rigorously followed, in particular on ensuring that the results announced reflect the will of the people;

- Security forces in Zimbabwe are also urged to respect the verdict of the people.

*Progressio is an international development agency working for sustainable development and the eradication of poverty.

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

Stephen Marks argues in this extended review of recent publications about China that there are few other important global players whose affairs are so exclusively analysed on the basis of ignorance and stereotype. There is little understanding outside China about the differences of perspectives of Chinese intellectuals - they are far from being a homogeneous group.

China is no longer a topic - it’s a dimension. On every issue, from global warming to the credit crisis, China and its impact can no longer be ignored, not as a subject apart to be left to experts, but as an integral component of the global picture, on which every analyst or commentator has to have an opinon.

And as we all do when we have to come up with an opinion on something of which we know nothing, we reach off the shelf for a ready-made answer. In the case of China, these are easy to find.

There is the cold-war image of China the sinister Communist dictatorship. There is the older racial image of the sinister ‘inscrutable’ Chinese. And for Africa, there is the image of the voracious Chinese imperialist, concerned only to rape the ‘eternal victim, the dark continent’, of its precious resources. (see ‘' by Emma Mawdsley.)

There are few other important global players whose affairs are so exclusively analysed on the basis of ignorance and stereotype. Across the world, those who follow international politics are aware of the major policy debates in Washington between neo-cons, traditionalists and ‘multilateralists’. The ebb and flow of federalist currents in the EU are common knowledge. Even the revival of Russian assertiveness under Putin can be analysed as a modern trend, without invoking the ghost of Stalin or images of the Russian Bear.

But as Mark Leonard, Director of what calls itself ‘the first pan-European thinktank’, asks us in his recent book, ‘how many of us can name more than a handful of contemporary Chinese writers and thinkers?’ Indeed, if we are honest, ‘a handful’ would be generous where most of us are concerned.

The chief merit of Leonard’s contribution [What does China think? Fourth Estate 2008] is to show us what we are missing, and whet our appetite for more. The same feeling of stumbling across a hitherto unknown continent of argument and debate around central issues of our time comes from Zhang Yongle’s summary of the range of ideas in a leading Chinese intellectual journal in his article ‘Reading Dushu’ [New Left Review 49 second series, Jan Feb 2008].

It is no surprise to be introduced to the ideas of ‘New Right’ economist Zhang Weiying, a pioneering advocate of the free-market economic reforms which led to China’s astonishing record of 9 per cent growth year after year for three decades.

But cliches will be shattered by exposure to the thinking of some of China’s ‘New Left’, who have no wish to turn their backs on the market at home or abroad, or to turn the clock back to a central command economy, but instead are grappling with the same issues of combining market institutions with social justice and equity, as their counterparts in the West and South.

Economists Wang Shaoguang and Hu Angang argue persuasively that a central state which was at once stronger and more democratic could curb unaccountable regional power centres which currently waste resources through corruption and duplicated prestige investments. The resulting resources could finance a welfare safety-net which would give the public confidence to consume, thereby strengthening the domestic market and reducing China’s dependence on Western consumer demand.

Other writers such as Wang Hui and Cui Zhiyuan lament the ‘new enclosure movement’ which is ripping-off public property, and discuss ideas such as an Alaska-style ‘social dividend’ for citizens from the profits of state-owned enterprises, which would provide a ‘social wage’ to replace the largely dismantled welfare state.

Slightly more exposure abroad has been given to the environmental critique of Pan Yue, quantifying the horrific human, ecological and economic cost of the environmental degradation that has accompanied China’s breakneck growth. Though appointed to head the official State Environmental Protection Association, his report has been shelved, and widely ignored on the ground. But its concerns are certainly reflected, however inconsistently, in official pronouncements.

When it comes to political institutions, the Chinese debate is also far from the stereotype of Stalino-Maoist totalitarianism, though still remote from any Western concept of democracy. There have been some widely-trumpeted experiments in village-level democracy, contested inner-party elections, and consultative innovations such as ‘citizens juries’ and public policy hearings. But these remain few, localised and untypical.

Moreover, their champions do not see them as leading to multi-party democracy but rather to a ‘chinese model’ of ‘deliberative democracy’ where the central government allows a range of consultative opinions to be presented to it, supplemented by low-level electoral participation.

However, as new leftist Wang Shaoguang points out, this represents in effect a convergence with the West where the established electoral democratic system is increasingly perceived as ‘hollowed out’ and formal, and is frequently being supplemented by consultative processes, citizens juries and local referendums. Could China and the West be converging on the same destination from different starting-points?

The debate that Leonard reports on issues of global governance is equally stimulating, and shows a keen awareness that Chinas’s interest lies in promoting a notion of ‘soft power’ against the one-dimensional US obsession with hardware.

Many of us are familiar with solemn Western debates about how to ‘manage’ China’s rise, so as to ‘assist’ the new arrival to be a ‘civilised’ member of the ‘international community’ just like an assumed Western ‘us’. So it is a pleasant and amusing surprise to be introduced to the mirror-image debate in Beijing about how to ‘manage’ the West’s decline.

This debate came out into the open in 2006 when Wang Yiwei, a young scholar, asked in a newspaper article ‘how can we prevent the USA from declining too quickly?’ Shen Dingli argued that China’s goal should be ‘to shape an America that is more constrained and more willing to co-operate with the world’.

So however we are to analyse the complex and changing reality of the ‘actual’ China, the cliches of the conventional wisdom – the ‘evil Communist Tyranny’, the ‘inscrutable oriental’, or the new imperialist raping and looting Africa – are clearly more a hindrance than a help.

Which therefore leads us to ask why these unhelpful images persist. One obvious approach would be to ask whose interests are served by portraying China in this way. Less obvious, but also perhaps more interesting, is to make a comparison with the first encounter between the West and China, in which the prevailing stereotypes were not negative but on the contrary, rather idealised.

Leading philosophers of the 18th Century Enlightenment, including such figures as Leibniz and Voltaire, frequently referred to China in the most glowing terms. This followed an explosion, reminiscent of our own days, in the volume of Western publications about China.

According to the German scholar Thomas Fuchs (

Now these utopian images of China did indeed draw on aspects of reality. But their purpose was not so much to understand the real China, as to say something about the society of the West. Could the same be true of today’s negative image?

For example, the ‘neoconservative’ US columnist Robert Kagan goes so far as to argue that China's policy towards Sudan and Zimbabwe is determined not so much by economic self-interest as by political solidarity with their dictatorial regimes, and foresees a Sino-Russian 'League of Dictators'. [Robert Kagan League of Dictators? Why Russia and China Will Continue to support Autocracies Wahington Post April 30 2006.]

Is he really trying to say something about China’s policy? Or is he using a certain image of China in order to say something positive by contrast about US policy – just as the Enlightenment philosophers used their idealised image of China for the opposite purpose?

Likewise when China’s African role is reduced to a supposed re-run of Europe’s exploitative colonial past, is the real purpose a better understanding of China’s role? Or is it to imply, by comparing China’s present to the West’s past, that the West’s present is different to the West’s past?

Of course, just as with the idealised China of the European past, the demonised image of today can also draw on aspects of reality. But perhaps any such correspondence is, also as in the past, purely incidental to other more important functions.

To separate fact from fiction, and disentangle reality from the myths, an indispensable first step must be to acquaint ourselves with the actual and often surprising debate taking place within China itself.

However before we all get carried away we must remember that these debates are taking place within limits which, while far broader than the generally accepted cliches would suggest, are still constrained by a government which does not claim to subscribe to Western concepts of democracy and individual rights.

Paradoxically, the lack of western-style political pluralism enhances the role of ‘insider intellectuals’ and their debates. And as Leonard points out; ‘The Chinese like to argue about whether it is the intellectuals that influence decision-makers, or whether groups of decision-makers use pet intellectuals as infornal mouthpieces to advance their own views’.

But either way, if China is a central component of the issues that we face in every continent, including Africa, so the ideas that contribute to shaping its policies, and those who frame those ideas, should be part of our reality too.

* Stephen Marks is research associate with Fahamu.

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

Under AGOA, Ramatex Textile & Garment Factory, a Malaysian company moved to Namibia. Herbert Jauch looks at the cost of allowing companies to operate without government regulation, tax exemption and government sanctioned suspension of worker rights in Export Processing Zones.

The closure of the Ramatex clothing and textile factory in Windhoek last week, marked the end of one of the most controversial investments in Namibia since independence.

The way in which the closure occurred once again showed the disregard of the company for its workers as well as the host country.

The company managed to mislead Namibia (in particular the government) time and again by providing false information to hide its true intentions of using the country merely as a temporary production location.

While trade unions and government are still trying to achieve some compensation for the retrenched workers, we need to draw some hard lessons from the Ramatex experience.

This article sketches some of the events surrounding the company's operations in Namibia and suggests that a fundamentally different approach to foreign investments should be pursued in future.

When Namibia passed the Export Processing Zones (EPZ) Act in 1995, government argued that both local and foreign investment in the first five years of independence had been disappointing and that EPZs were the only solution to high unemployment.

The EPZ Act went as far as suspending the application of the Labour Act in EPZs which government described as necessary to allay investors' fear of possible industrial unrest.

Namibia's trade unions on the other hand opposed the exclusion of the Labour Act and after lengthy discussions a "compromise" was reached which stipulated that the Act would apply in the EPZs, but that strikes and lock-outs would be outlawed for a period of 5 years.

In 1999, the Labour Resource and Research Institute (LaRRI) carried out a comprehensive study of Namibia's EPZ programme which found that EPZs had fallen far short of the expectations of creating 25 000 jobs and facilitating skills and technology transfer needed to kick-start manufacturing industries in the country.

At the end of 1999, the EPZs had created very few jobs although millions of dollars had been spent on promoting the policy and on developing infrastructure with public funds.

By 2001, Namibia still had not managed to attract any large production facility through its EPZ programme. This changed when the Ministry of Trade and Industry announced that it had succeeded in snatching up a project worth N$1 billion ahead of South Africa and Madagascar, which had also been considered by the Malaysian company Ramatex.

This was achieved by offering even greater concessions than those offered to other EPZ companies, such as corporate tax holidays, free repatriation of profits, exemption from sales tax etc.

Drawing in the parastatals providing water and electricity (Namwater and Nampower) as well as the Windhoek municipality, the Ministry put together an incentive package which included subsidised water and electricity, a 99-year tax exemption on land use as well as over N$ 100 million to prepare the site including the setting up of electricity, water and sewage infrastructure.

This was justified on the grounds that the company would create close to 10 000 jobs.

The plant turned cotton (imported duty free from West Africa) into textiles for the US market.

Ramatex' decision to locate production in Southern Africa was motivated by the objective to benefit from the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) which allows for duty free exports to the US from selected African countries who meet certain conditions set by the US government.

Even before the company began its operations in 2002, it made headlines, as it became the most talked about investment in Namibia.

The debate around Ramatex revolved around the massive size of its operations, the establishment of a new industry and the controversies surrounding the company's environmental impact and working conditions.

A study carried out by LaRRI in 2003 found widespread abuses of workers rights, including included forced pregnancy tests for women who applied for jobs; non-payment for workers on sick leave; very low wages and no benefits; insufficient health and safety measures; no compensation in case of accidents; abuse by supervisors; and open hostility towards trade unions etc.

Tensions boiled over on several occasions.

After spontaneous work stoppages in 2002 and 2003, Ramatex finally recognised the Namibia Food and Allied Workers Union (NAFAU) as the workers' exclusive bargaining agent in October 2003.

The recognition agreement was supposed to pave the way for improved labour relations and collective bargaining.

However, the union was unable to make progress on substantive issues and on several occasions reported Ramatex to the Office of the Labour Commissioner for unfair labour practices and the company's unwillingness to negotiate in good faith.

Despite several attempts to find a solution through mediation, no agreement was reached.

By September 2006, the company had not raised wages and benefits and claimed that its operations in Namibia were running at a loss.

Ramatex' workers, however, had run out of patience and declared that they would go on strike unless their wages were significantly improved.

When the company refused to meet their demands, they went on strike in October 2006, bringing the operations to a standstill.

Within 2 days, workers achieved what 4 years of negotiations had failed to deliver: Hourly wage increase from N$ 3 to N$ 4 plus the introduction of some benefits such as housing and transport allowances.

Ramatex used a significant number of Asian migrant workers, mostly from China, the Philippines and Bangladesh.

Although the companyclaimed that they were brought in as trainers, most of them were employed as mere production workers with basic salaries of around U$ 300 - 400 per month which were higher than their Namibian counterparts.

The import of Asian workers also served the company's strategy of "divide and rule".

Workers were divided according to nationalities, received different remuneration and benefits and found it hard to communicate with each other.

As a result there was hardly any joint action by all Ramatex workers.

Protests by Namibian, Filipino and Bangladeshi workers were isolated and found no support from their Chinese counterparts while protest by migrant workers usually resulted in the immediate deportation.

At the height of Namibian operations in 2004, Ramatex and its subsidiaries employed about 7000 workers, including over 1000 Asian migrant workers.

Following retrenchments in 2005 and 2006 (including the closure of one subsidiary), this number dropped to 3 400 (including 400 Asian migrants) in early of 2007 and further to about 3000 by the end of that year.

These trends provided a clear indication that Ramatex was preparing for closure.

This followed the end of the global clothing and textile quotas in 2005 and could be observed all over the continent.

In Ramatex' case, the company indicated it was planning to expand in Cambodia and China and negotiations are underway for the establishment of 2 new plants in Vietnam.

Ramatex' global strategy always regarded Namibia as a temporary production location although the Namibian government seemed to think otherwise.

Ramatex' claims of losses of up to N$ 500 million in Namibia seem devoid of truth.

Ramatex pays no taxes in Namibia, receives water and electricity at subsidised rates and is exempted from import duties in the USA.

It is thus almost impossible for the company to make losses in Namibia and the truthfulness of Ramatex' claims is highly questionnable.

The economic assessment of Ramatex' operations must also take into account the substantial environmental damages caused by operations including the pollution of Goreangab dam and underground water resources.

The Namibian government had been warned by Earthlife Africa but did not take precautionary measures. Instead, the municipality announced near the end of 2006 that it would take over the company's waste management.

Ramatex should have been held fully accountable and forced to rectify the damage at its own costs.

Ramatex represents a typical example of a transnational corporation playing the globalisation game. Its operations in Namibia have been characterised by controversies, unresolved conflicts and tensions.

Worst affected were the thousands of young, mostly female workers who had to endure highly exploitative working conditions for years and in the end were literally dumped in the streets without any significant compensation.

Ramatex had shown the same disregard for workers when it closed its subsidiary Rhino Garments in Namibia in 2005.

Workers had observed the company shipping equipment out of the country but when confronted, Ramatex initially denied plans to close its subsidiary but then retrenched about 1 500 workers in April.

Overall, Ramatex' presence in Namibia was a disaster for the country and some hard lessons will have to be learned to avoid a repeat in future.

When dealing with foreign investors there is an urgent need to ensure (at the very least) compliance with national laws and regulations, workers rights, as well as environmental, health and safety standards.

Experiences elsewhere have shown that compromises on social, environmental and labour standards in the name of international competitiveness lead to a "race to the bottom", leading to a process of self-destruction.

In the case of Ramatex, the Namibian government abandoned its role as regulator and some officials defended Ramatex.

The case has shown the problems of blindly accepting any investment as beneficial.

Instead of adopting an open-door policy towards foreign investment, Namibia (and Africa in general) need to adopt selective policies that channel investments into certain strategic sectors that will have a lasting developmental impact.

They require a very clear and strategic development agenda that is not based on blind faith in foreign investment as the panacea to our development problems.

The lack of alternative programmes for effective economic development and job creation places government in a weak position to negotiate adherence to labour, social and environmental standards with foreign investors.

This has to be the starting point for breaking the chains of dependency.

The project on Alternatives to Neo-Liberalism in Southern Africa (ANSA), for example, is an attempt to develop a different and comprehensive development strategy for the region.

The ANSA proposals will be introduced in Windhoek next week and hopefully will pave the way for a more open-minded discussion about a suitable development strategy.

* Herbert Jauch is head of research and education for the Labour Resource and Research Institute (LaRRI). This report was written prepared for The Namibian by the author.

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

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/370/46930rift.jpgSince the outbreak of post-election violence in the Rift Valley, there have been numerous reports in the local dailies claiming that the root cause of this conflict is ‘the land question’. Without exception, these reports fail to inform or educate us precisely because of their misrepresentation of history. Horace Njuguna Gisemba seeks to rectify this.

Given the scale and the urgency of the current crisis and its repeated association with the so-called ‘land question’ it is time for a complete unpacking of the history behind colonial and post-colonial settlement in the White Highlands. Only then will we determine with certainty whether land is at the centre of the ongoing systematic evictions in the Rift Valley.

The first argument that is normally presented is that the North Rift region (Uasin Gishu, Trans Nzoia, Nandi and West Pokot Districts) exclusively constitutes the ancestral land of the supra-ethnic group we have come to term ‘the Kalenjin’, i.e. the Nandi, Keiyo, Pokot, Tugen, Marakwet and Kipsigis. A quick etymology of geographical names in the North Rift region such as Uasin Gishu, Eldoret, Sirikwa, and Kipkaren confirms that the Maasai long lived in and named these places. Indeed, it is the Maasai who were displaced from these lands by the colonialists and therefore, any question of restitution to ancestral owners – if at all it can be achieved - must of necessity be resolved with the full inclusion of the Maasai.

In the early 1900s colonial settlement in Central Kenya displaced many Gikuyu families. In their search for productive agricultural land, many of these families gradually moved west through Kijabe and into the Rift Valley. At the same time, white settlers moving into the Rift Valley aggressively recruited Gikuyu farmhands from Central Kenya who became their tenants at will. Between 1904 and 1920, 70,000 Gikuyus had migrated to the Rift Valley. By the end of the 1930s that community had grown to more than 150,000, many of whom were second and third generation Rift Valley Gikuyus. As the tension between these increasingly successful squatter farmers and their white landlords heightened the white settlers in some districts decided to do away with squatters altogether. In 1941 the first Government re-settlement scheme for Africans was established in Olenguruone north of Nakuru and it absorbed many of the Gikuyu squatters who were being driven out by their white landlords. But the larger majority of the Gikuyu, numbering over 100,000, were forcefully repatriated to Central Kenya between 1946 and 1952. This cyclical pattern of Gikuyu removals from Central Kenya, then settlement in the Rift Valley, followed by forceful evictions and painful repatriation back to Central Kenya, should be the subject of real concern. For each time they have occurred (1952, 1991/92, 1997 and 2007/2008) these returns have generated bitterness and inflamed the Gikuyu in Central Kenya. As a barrage of Kenyan historians agree (David Throup, Tabitha Kanogo, David Anderson, Frank Furedi, Rosberg & Nottingham) these reactions ignited the 1952 Mau Mau Uprising, and in 2008 they have been the reason for the vicious revenge attacks of the past two weeks.

The eviction of the Gikuyu from Olenguruone in the late 1940s and early 1950s made room for a new government-initiated settlement of Africans in the White Highlands. This 1955 settlement was conceived for the purposes of benefiting loyal African farmhands. Given that this re-settlement was taking place at the height of the Mau Mau uprising, the colonial authorities were quick to exclude the Gikuyu people from this scheme. The question of loyalty was to determine another pattern of settlement in the run-up to Independence and soon thereafter - some departing white farmers chose to gift their parcels to trusted farmhands. This is the history behind the ownership of farms running to hundreds and even thousands of acres by some people of Teso origin in Trans Nzoia District.

The third wave of African settlement in the White Highlands was the Million Acre Scheme which begun in 1963. On the eve of Independence the departing colonisers negotiated a scheme by which white settlers were bought out of their farms by the in-coming Kenya government. The money for this purchase was made available as a loan by the British government, hence the acrimonious dispute that pitted Jomo Kenyatta on the one hand and Bildad Kaggia and Jaramogi Oginga Odinga on the other. The argument of the latter nationalists was that there was no justification for a people to buy that which had been forcefully wrenched from them. The vehicle that the independent Kenya government used to facilitate the acquisition and subsequent distribution of these lands was the Settlement Fund Trustees (SFT). SFT was a separate legal entity whose trustees were government ministers. It is important to note that the SFT exists to this day and the records of all their transactions from 1963 to date, including those allocations that were made in the Moi era, are available for perusal at the Ministry of Lands.

Through the 1960s and 1970s the SFT would, through the local dailies and village barazas, advertise and invite applications for allocation of land in recently created settlement schemes. These schemes were constituted from the farms that the SFT had acquired from the white farmers. The conscious process of designing these schemes involved several steps. First was the amalgamation of parcels and sub-division by use of aerial surveys into economically viable units, including the provision of access roads. This was followed by conversion of the land registration system from the complex Registration of Titles Act (RTA) to the simpler Registered Land Act (RLA) which was borrowed from Australia. Along with that, the government made loans available not only for the purchase of land, but also for the acquisition of livestock, farm inputs and other developments. These loans, which were part of a revolving fund, were administered by the SFT.

As individuals responded to the advertisements and applied for allocation of land, grassroots leadership and enterprise were ultimately critical to the ways in which communities organised to make the best of the emergent SFT opportunities. For instance, it was the power of what John Lonsdale defines as positive ethnicity that saw the Maragoli community congregate to purchase SFT land in Lugari District which, though it lies in Western Province, was part of the White Highlands. Matunda Scheme, which straddles Rift Valley and Western Province, attracted the Abanyore people. Likewise the close-knit Abagusii people drew each other into significant purchase of the Sinyerere Settlement Scheme in Trans Nzoia District. There was no political patronage in this manner of settlement. Rather, it was solely the desire for productive land that drove these traditionally agricultural communities to participate in these schemes.

It is worth noting that even in the 1980s, under former President Moi’s regime, the SFT continued to acquire land. In Kipkabus, Uasin Gishu District, SFT took over a large parcel from East African Tanning Extract Co. Ltd (EATEC), a Lonrho subsidiary. Through sponsored economic mobility and political patronage it was allocated to members of the Kalenjin community.

Because of the publicity surrounding it, the fourth pattern of resettlement in the Rift Valley in the late 1960s and early 1970s overshadows all of the above. Perhaps on account of the elaborate organisational infrastructure attending to it and the entrepreneurial genius required to enable its proper realisation, references to this pattern of resettlement invariably carry grave misrepresentations. The venture capitalists who conceived this scheme saw an opportunity in the mobilisation of low income earners for the purchase of large-scale white-owned farms. They therefore set up public companies and in some instances cooperative societies. These became the vehicles through which they raised capital from the masses and then acquired farms that were being offered for sale on a willing buyer-willing seller basis. Examples of this abound, and records of the companies and their transactions should be readily available from the advocates who oversaw these processes. In Kitale, the Abagusii acquired a parcel that they renamed North Kisii while the Maragoli mobilised to purchase what was later to be known as Bidii Farm. Another group from the same community bought Vihiga Farm in Soy Divison. In Uasin Gishu, a group of Kalenjins set up Kapkures Farm Ltd and bought land in Moiben Division. Others bought land in Lessos through Barkeiwo Farm Ltd while Kaplogoi Estates Ltd and Sessia Farm Ltd made good of other opportunities within the district. The populous Gikuyu formed several land-buying companies, the most famous of which were Gema (Gikuyu, Embu Meru Association), Ngwataniro, and Nyakinyua and all of which bought land in the Rift Valley as well as in Central Province.

Farms such as Kiambaa, Kimuri, Yamumbi and Kondoo in Uasin Gishu District which are at the heart of the on-going violent post-election evictions were purchased by land-buying companies of this nature. In the initial years, the farms that were acquired in this manner remained as large-scale parcels and were only sub-divided through presidential edict in 1981. This edict by former President Moi was aimed at undercutting the growing influence of the venture capitalists who had used land-buying companies as a springboard for electoral politics. The names that immediately come to mind are Kihika Kimani, Njenga Karume and Stephen Kairo. The result of the sub-division was the creation of tiny parcels of land that were then transferred to the low-income shareholders who had formed the original land-buying companies.

Alongside land-buying companies in the willing buyer-willing seller resettlement model were transactions between departing white settlers and individual members of the emergent African elite. This class had access to funding from the Agricultural Finance Corporation (AFC) and was drawn from across the ethnic divide. Thus one finds large-scale farms in excess of 1,000 acres in the hands of Kalenjins, Gikuyus, Luos, Luhyas, Kisiis and Masaais in the Rift Valley.

The wrath of the Kalenjin peoples over what they consider the appropriation of their ancestral lands is not a new phenomenon, neither does it have its roots in the 1991/1992 ‘land clashes’. As far back as 1969, the Hon. Jean Marie Seroney (MP for Tinderet) had drawn controversy when he authored ‘The Nandi Declaration’ that demanded all non-Nandi vacate the ancestral land of this sub-tribe. The Kenyatta government reacted by imprisoning Seroney for sedition but his ideas did not die. Ironically, in 1991/1992 Moi and his foot soldiers were to adopt Seroney’s template for ethnic exclusivity (expanded to encompass the larger Kalenjin community) by evicting Gikuyus, Luos, Luhyas and Kisiis in their bid to secure political victory in the Rift Valley.

Borrowing from Kenyatta’s example of using land to reward cronies and in some cases emergent national heroes such as athletes and popular musicians, Moi expanded this other form of settlement in the Rift Valley. In the best practice of political patronage, Moi used state forests, demonstration and research land owned by parastatals such as the Agricultural Development Corporation (ADC) and Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI) to reward loyalists largely drawn from his community. This is how a select new elite acquired, at well below the market price, sizeable parcels of prime land in Trans Nzoia, Nandi and Uasin Gishu Districts. Apart from this latter settlement by political protégées all other forms of post-independence settlement in the Rift Valley were essentially valid commercial transactions. They were, in fact, no different from the commercial transactions by which the coffee farms bordering Kiambu District came to be transformed into the residential areas that we now know as Runda, Gigiri, Loresho, Kitisuru, Nyari and Rosslyn.

Towards the end of Moi’s tenure, EATEC decided to divest and sold off 49,000 acres on a willing buyer-wiling seller basis. Even so, these 2001 transactions caught Moi’s eye and he demanded that most of this land be sold to Kalenjins. The top EATEC management that had been summoned to State Lodge in Eldoret provided Moi with a list to prove that they had indeed taken cognisance of this concern.

Contrary to what has so often been posited as an irrefutable fact, there are several reasons why the eviction of non-indigenous communities from the Rift Valley has had nothing to do with the so-called ‘land question’. Indeed this systematic on-going violence is not about remedying of past injustices, land scarcity, growing impoverishment of the Kalenjin or protests against the outcome of the flawed December 2007 General Election. To keep repeating that the Gikuyu got to the Rift Valley through presidential favour fails to explain how the Kambas, Luhyas and Kisiis, who have never produced a president, became land owners and flourished in the Rift Valley. And if indeed it is the declaration of Mwai Kibaki as president that is the offending spark, then why are non-Gikuyus under attack?

Further, if this violence is about the pressure or scarcity of land, these issues would not wait to crop up in every election year. Does it take one five years to realize that they have a neighbour whose presence prevents them from tilling a larger piece of land or using that land to pursue some other profitable business? Given the vast state machinery that former President Moi had at his disposal from the end of 1978 he would long have righted purported land injustices against the Kalenjin. That he only picked up ‘the land question’ at the onset of multi-party politics in 1991 proves that his motivation was never simply the restitution of land to the Kalenjin. Rather, the clashes were instigated for political expediency.

The third reason why these aggressions are not about the scarcity of land is that the huge tracts of highly productive agricultural land in the hands of elite Kalenjins, a select caucus of the political class across the ethnic divide, non-Kenyan multinationals and Kenyan white and Indian farmers have never been the target of land invasion and redistribution. Genuine pressure for land would not be so selective in choosing the enemy. Indeed, pressure for land would not lead a Kalenjin man to drive out his Gikuyu wife as has happened in the current crisis.

Fourthly, in the on-going crisis the Gikuyus, Kisiis and Luhyas (on the Kapsabet-Vihiga border) who have been targeted for eviction have been given no notice to vacate. Were it simply about land, one would have expected the matter to stop upon their expulsion. That the Kalenjin warriors have designed an elaborate mechanism for vetting and exterminating fleeing residents at roadblocks signals that their goal is not the simple take-over of land. Further, the aggressors have gone so far as to follow victims who have already deserted the land and taken refuge in churches. The burning of these sacred sites and the inhuman killing of those who had taken refuge therein raises urgent questions about the moral ethos driving the Kalenjin community.

Claims such as Kipchumba Some’s in the Daily Nation of 9 February 2008 that the Kalenjin have reacted to their neighbours with so much aggression because they have been impoverished after selling their land to these ‘outsiders’ are ludicrous. For in the sale transactions that have taken place over the years, the Kalenjin were never robbed of their land, they always got market value for it. In 2001 EATEC was prevailed upon by Moi to reduce the sale prices and they did. Many Kalenjins who later sold what they had acquired from EATEC made profits of well over 600% within a space of six years. If their investments from these profits have not paid off, they can not now forcefully reacquire what they freely and voluntarily sold. It is akin to the original owners of Runda, Gigiri, Loresho, Nyari, Kitisuru and Rosslyn citing growing poverty and therefore coming to reclaim their ‘lost’ lands by burning the residences that diverse people have invested in.

It is clear that the passions and goals that have repeatedly driven the Kalenjin community in these intermittent spates of violence emanate from somewhere else. In each instance, they have targeted as the enemy communities whose industry has transformed the landscape of the Rift Valley economy. What drives them to attack these peoples and the means by which they have been galvanized for the onslaughts ought to be the subject of thorough investigation. A solution that looks to the restitution of ‘Kalenjin land’ will not be sufficient to address their imagined exclusion from profitable enterprise. The much-needed process of unearthing the driving impetus of the pre-planned evictions and murders, of finding lasting solutions and restoring harmony, is the rightful work of a Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission.

*Horace N. Gisemba is a former resident of Uasin Gishu District.

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

Brian Raftopoulos argues that the SADC mediated talks between ZANU-PF and MDC were undermined by the unwillingness of Zanu PF to allow for a significant opening up of political spaces in the country. He further argues that SADC's endorsement of an outcome that did not take broad democratic principles into account was in effect an endorsement of Mugabe

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/356/46870map.jpgThe 2007 SADC mandate to South Africa to broker an agreement between Zanu PF and the MDC should be seen as an extension of the “quiet diplomacy” that has been the hallmark of the South African and SADC approach to the Zimbabwe crisis since 2000. It took on an added urgency after the brutal public beating, arrest and torture of opposition and civic leaders in March 2007 and the widespread attacks on the MDC structures that followed thereafter. A combination of international pressure and the obligation by SADC to be seen to be taking action on the Zimbabwe question, led to an Extra-Ordinary SADC Heads of State Summit in Tanzania at the end of March 2007 at which South Africa was given the facilitation mandate on Zimbabwe.

There was widespread cynicism in many quarters both within and outside of Zimbabwe about the possibility of success of such an intervention, given the history of SADC’s supine position on Mugabe’s authoritarian regime. However it also presented an opportunity for national, regional and international forces to navigate a common approach out of the Zimbabwean debacle by reaching a political agreement that would be broadly acceptable to all sides.

For the MDC, weakened by the split in the organization since 2005, there was little alternative to such talks, as other methods of confronting the Mugabe regime had hitherto been handled with characteristic intolerance and repression by Zimbabwe’s ruling party. Mugabe, under strong pressure from SADC to enter the dialogue, had little option but to at least be seen to be willing to talk to the opposition. The South Africans, always keen not to make any interventions on Zimbabwe without regional support, saw this as an opportunity to push their “quiet diplomacy” agenda, and perhaps end up with their longstanding hope for a reasonably free and far election that would result in a Government of National Unity led by a reformed Zanu PF. The EU and the US, long frustrated by Mugabe’s intransigence and the regional and continental solidarity he continued to receive, also had little alternative but to allow the “point man” Mbeki the time to play his hand.

Mbeki started out with the intention that the dialogue between Zanu PF should achieve three objectives. Firstly both parties should endorse the decision to hold parliamentary elections in 2008. Secondly they should agree on the steps that should be taken to ensure that all concerned accept the elections as being truly representative of the “will” of the Zimbabwean people. Thirdly, that there should be agreement by all political parties and “other social forces” on the measures that should be implemented and respected in order to facilitate a legitimate election. The “other social forces” referred to the civil society groups who were cast in a more or less supporting role in the whole play.

Towards the end of 2007 the facilitation had, in the words of the MDC, reached “significant but not full consensus” on a number of areas in a political agreement covering issues of violence, sanctions, land, abuse of traditional leaders and food aid. The talks themselves, begun in an atmosphere of enormous distrust, appeared to have made some progress, with Zanu PF swallowing the bitter pill of negotiating with an opposition party that it had since 1999 labeled a foreign construction.

The dialogue also provided the divided MDC with an opportunity to work together as joint negotiating partners, even as attempts to re-unite the two formations were continuing parallel to the SADC facilitation. Discussions on the various aspects of the SADC dialogue added to the urgency of the need for the two MDC’s to at last work towards an election pact that would allow them to fight the 2008 Presidential and general elections together. Moreover it was clear to the MDC negotiators that if the talks were to break down with Zanu PF it had to be seen to be the fault of Mugabe’s party, and not due to any obstructiveness on the part of the opposition.

As matters transpired it was precisely the intransigence of Zanu PF and the unwillingness of Zanu PF to allow for a significant opening up of political spaces in the country, that lead to an impasse in the negotiations at the end of 2007. Notwithstanding some small changes to the media and public order legislation, the ruling party proved unwilling to make substantive changes on the issues that would affect the transitional political arrangements that would precede the 2008 elections. At the centre of the political deadlock that emerged in December 2007 were three areas: the date of the election; the timeframe for the implementation of the agreed reforms; and the process and modality of the making and enactment of a new constitution. Mugabe’s unilateral proclamation of the election date for 2008, outside of an agreement of these substantive issues, effectively put an end to the SADC facilitation process.

The SADC announcement on the 4th February 2008 that Mbeki’s facilitation had resulted in the political parties reaching an “agreement on all substantive matters relating to the political situation in Zimbabwe” and that the matters outstanding were merely procedural, was the worst kind of political dishonesty. What might have been a principled stand by the outgoing President Mbeki turned into another disgraceful endorsement of the politics of a repressive regime.

The SADC has once again demonstrated its inability to distinguish between Africa’s concern for imperialist interventions, and its commitment to the democratic and human rights of the region’s citizens. It has subordinated the latter to a grubby solidarity with a repressive political regime that has transformed a lofty Pan Africanist discourse into a spurious attempt to legitimize a authoritarian political project. The regional organization had an opportunity to send an unambiguous message to Mugabe that unless he fulfilled the objective of establishing the conditions for a broadly acceptable free and fair election, he could not expect the customary solidarity of SADC. Such a position could have changed the dynamic of Zimbabwean politics decisively and helped to ensure that further intransigence on Mugabe’s part would be met with stronger censure in the region.

That SADC once again took the line of least resistance has demonstrated its lack of commitment to questions of democratic principle, and its priority of protecting libration leaders who have long failed their citizens. However perhaps a Makoni victory in the forthcoming elections will satisfy the need by some SADC members for a reformed Zanu PF solution, for a long time the real objective of “quiet diplomacy.”

*Brian Raftopoulos, Director of Research, Solidarity Peace Trust. This article first appeared in the Mail and Guardian.

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

A Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA) summary of a report that looks at the suppression of women's political voices

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/356/46868woza.jpgWomen of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA) launched a report detailing the political violence experienced by their members in Harare on Wednesday 19 March 2008 at an event attended by diplomats, civic society leaders and members of WOZA and MOZA. The report is entitled "The effects of fighting repression WITH LOVE".

The report is a result of research conducted by WOZA on what violations its members have gone through as women human rights defenders and who the perpetrators of these abuses are. The report was launched to make public the findings and to urgently draw attention to the risks faced by women activists as Zimbabwe braces itself for an election. It is intended that those who read the report will be motivated to take action to remedy the damage done to millions of people's lives by a violent dictatorship.

The meeting was chaired by WOZA's partners, Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights, who vocalised their praise for the detail in the report and for the need for the women human rights defenders to be respected and for there to be justice for the abuses. ZLHR Board member and lawyer, Sarudzai Njerere said, 'the report is an important tool in documenting what Zimbabweans have experienced' and that 'we should all join WOZA in standing up for social justice".

Prominent activist and WOZA trustee, Mary Ndlovu launched the report by giving a brief outline of its contents. She highlighted that it encompasses the police response to peaceful protests by WOZA; that the majority of women interviewed reported multiple human rights violations; that it is apparent that police would like to intimidate and deter women from participation and that the police are in violation of domestic and regional professional codes and are committing criminal law offences all of which call for punishment although none seems to be forthcoming due to a breakdown and partial way the justice system now operates.

She went on to point out that the Zimbabwean government officials who give order to beat or detain the human rights defenders render Zimbabwe in violation of its own constitution and in breach of obligations under international law.

Two WOZA members also gave testimonies of their experiences at the hands of the Uniformed Branch and Law and Order department of the ZRP. One woman in the company of her four-year-old daughter, testified about their arrest and detention in horrid conditions for three days in 2004, well over the 48hour detention period permitted under the Public Order and Security Act (POSA). Her daughter was only three months old at the time and she only had two nappies with her and had to fight to access water to wash them when they became soiled. When members of WOZA tried to send disposable nappies in for her baby, police officers misappropriated them and she never received them. Despite this and further arrests and beatings, she remains an active member of WOZA.

Another woman testified that she had been abducted from her home in Bulawayo with her 18-month-old grandchild at 4am by Law and Order officers. They threatened to kill her by throwing her and the child in a dam. She had also been seriously beaten across the breasts by police and had to undergo extended medical treatment. These testimonies are indicative of the experiences of peaceful activists and reflective of the physical and mental torture they undergo in fighting for their basic freedoms to be realised.

WOZA National Coordinator, Jenni Williams, outlined the recommendations highlighted in the report. She also went on to say that in the light of WOZA's recent experience in Bulawayo on the 8th March 2008, International Women's Day, where over 50 members were brutalised, just weeks before the upcoming 29 March election, a free and fair climate for elections does not exist.

The report calls on the Zimbabwean government to immediately end violence against its citizens and on the Zimbabwe Republic Police to honour their commitment to the Police Act and the SARPCCO Code of Conduct for police officers. It also calls on the Southern African Development Community (SADC) to support human rights defenders rather than oppressive governments that deny people their domestically and internationally guaranteed rights and on the African Union (AU) to isolate representatives of the Zimbabwe government and any other government that fails to abide by its obligations under international law to respect human rights.

The international community was also called on to recognize the contribution of WOZA members as human rights defenders, and assist in the documentation and publicising of violations so that justice may be served in the future.

A further recommendation is for a Transitional Justice programme. The reports reads, "We call on Zimbabweans and non-Zimbabweans alike to assist in putting into place a mechanism which satisfies the wishes of the Zimbabwean people to see not retribution, but justice, truth and reconciliation, so that the guilty can do penance and the victims can feel healed of the many wounds they have suffered at the hands of state agents."

Whilst the report made mention of the trauma experienced by WOZA women as a result of their experiences, it was felt that the findings are significant enough to be released in a separate report due for release soon. What is clear however is that the women have experienced more trauma in an independent Zimbabwe than in pre-Independence period.

*To read the full report, please visit:

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

ICG warns that the international community needs to have contingency plans ready in anticipation of rigged elections in Zimbabwe on 29 March that could precipitate a potentially violent crisis

Zimbabwe: Prospects from a Flawed Election,* the latest report from the International Crisis Group, examines likely scenarios for Zimbabwe’s simultaneous presidential, parliamentary and municipal elections. Even though President Robert Mugabe has two serious challengers, including for the first time one from within his own ruling party, he probably has the means to manipulate the process before, during and after balloting, sufficiently to keep his office, though possibly only after a violent run-off. If that happens, no government will emerge capable of ending the country’s long crisis. “Zimbabweans desperately want change but have little faith these elections will produce it”, says François Grignon, Crisis Group’s Africa Program Director. “Even after the 29 March vote, a negotiated compromise will likely be essential to reverse a deteriorating political and economic situation but only the first step.”

The Southern African Development Community (SADC) mediation by South Africa’s President Thabo Mbeki, which once offered the most realistic chance of resolving Zimbabwe’s eight-year crisis, has failed. Primary responsibility lies with Mugabe, who unilaterally called snap elections and ruled out passage before the polls of the new constitution. His ruling ZANU-PF party has subsequently been using all the extensive means at its disposal to maintain an unfair advantage in the campaign. The bitterly divided opposition must also share blame: it gained relevancy from the mediation but was unable to agree on an electoral strategy at a time of acute national crisis.

If the election leads to further confrontation, the African Union (AU) should be ready to promptly offer mediation for a power-sharing agreement to produce a transitional government with a reformist agenda. A settlement need not necessarily remove Mugabe. He might serve as a non-executive head of state during a transitional period in advance of fresh elections. The important point is for the region to be prepared to act quickly if the elections do not produce a legitimate government that can deal with a national crisis whose consequences are increasingly being felt beyond Zimbabwe’s borders. With South Africa and the SADC having lost some credibility, the AU needs to take the lead.

The wider international community must also be ready to provide concerted backing to AU-led mediation. The EU and U.S. have little appetite to re-engage with a ZANU-PF dominated government, but if that is the result of a genuinely negotiated agreement that aims at reconciliation and renewal, they should not hold back.

“If the region’s leaders were again to recognise an illegitimate government, Zimbabwe’s dramatic economic disintegration would continue, and the inevitable next round of the struggle over Mugabe’s succession could easily provoke bloodshed”, warns Andebrhan Giorgis, Crisis Group Senior Adviser.
Pretoria/Brussels, 20 March 2008

*Read the full Crisis Group report at: The International Crisis Group (Crisis Group) is an independent, non-profit, non-governmental organisation covering some 60 crisis-affected countries and territories across four continents, working through field-based analysis and high-level advocacy to prevent and resolve deadly conflict.

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

Paul T. Zeleza while recognizing the historic nature and importance of the Obama speech argues that the circumstances that made the speech necessary reveal the extent to which the United States remains an arrogantly racist society

It finally came out, the predictable ogre of race and racism that has been stalking the US 2008 elections ever since Senator Barack Obama declared his candidacy and became a serious contender for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination following a string of overwhelming victories in the bulk of the 40 primaries and caucuses that have been held thus far.

For more than a week the gullible media and giddy pundits have deliriously played and pontificated on speciously spliced and decontextualized sermons from Senator Obama's former pastor, the recently retired Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and the Illinois Senator has tried to douse the manufactured flames.

In the end Senator Obama was compelled to give a much anticipated speech, a defining speech of his candidacy according to many of the white pundits who hog the media. And it is being called a great speech, delivered with brilliant calmness and inspiring courage. Many already regard it as historic in its searing honesty, eloquence, and fearlessness in addressing America's original and enduring sin of racism and its bitter fruits of anger and resentment among blacks and whites. I was deeply moved by this exceptionally well-crafted speech in ways that I am usually not by political speeches with their predictable banality, although I was troubled by the gratuitous obeisance to Israel and the quetionable moral equivalence of centuries old white anti-black racism and decades old white anti-black resentment.

As perhaps only a person of his complex biography could, he may have forced the nation to face up to, have a conversation about, its ugly racial past if it seeks to forge a brighter post-racial future. Senator Obama is not only biracial, but also the offspring of a recent African immigrant and an old European immigrant. Unlike many biracials of African American origin, he has no ancestry among the enslaved Africans. So he simultaneously has his feet in the intimate solitudes of the black and white worlds, of the old and recent immigrants, of Africans and Europeans who have created this complex, troubled, and fascinating country. He is a transnational biracial, a member of the new African diaspora with peculiar insights into America's racial soul and position in the world.

Only the future will tell what impact the speech itself will have on America's tortured silences and stilted conversations on race and the trajectory of Senator Obama's own candidacy. What is clear, however, is that the very fact that Senator Obama, not the white candidates, not Senator Clinton or Senator McCain, was required to address the issue of race is a disheartening testimony to the racism of America's racial discourse. Much as Africa is carelessly homogenized, stripped of the splendid diversities of its countries, conditions and contexts, and Europe is carefully differentiated, blacks in America often bear the homogenizing burdens of their race in a way the presumably unraced whites rarely do. Also, the same insidious Euroamerican racial ideologies that cast doubts on the full humanity of Africans on the continent, questions the full citizenship of African Americans in the diaspora. This partly explains why Senator Obama became answerable for Rev. Wright, for his patriotism, for his Americanness.

The racialized burden of race is also expressed in the very expectation of blacks and biracials to speak out on race, to be experts on race, to own race, to be raced in a way whites routinely are not. Typically in American public discourse, black commentators are often confined to racial commentary; rarely are they called upon to voice their opinions on the burning public issues of the day from the state of the domestic economy and international finance to foreign policy and war to pressing technological, health, and environmental matters, except where black people are victims or perpetrators. Even in this election, as James Thindwa has noted on The Zeleza Post, black commentators are notable for their limited presence among the chattering media pundits.

In this context, Senator Obama's race speech, notwithstanding its seminal significance and intervention in American racial discourse, falls into a predictable pattern. It demonstrates white America's failure to come to term with race and racism, that the enslaved Africans who were forced to come to these shores did not create racism, and their descendants do not benefit from it, and still do not, by and large, control the material and ideological apparatuses that sustain and reproduce it, that indeed the black identity imposed on, and adopted by, by a transnational biracial individual such as Senator Obama is the result of a long history of Euroamerican racialization and racism.

American can only transcend the cruel legacies of race and racism when blacks no longer bear the burden of speaking out on race and racism, when whites bear their own historic racial crosses. The fact that Senator Obama was forced to repudiate and explain his former pastor, reveal the vibrant and secluded world of the black church with its complex social gospel that is hidden from whites during Christian America's most segregated Sunday morning, and remind his nation of its imperfect union, shows America has a long way to go to build a more convivial multiracial, let alone, postracial nation worthy of all its citizens and the world's respect.

* Paul T Zeleza is editor of The Zeleza Post. This article was first published at

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

What happens when white feminism intersects with questions or race and class? How has Race and Gender being used to derail the Obama campaign? Linda Burham tackles these questions and much more

The Clinton campaign can do all the distancing it wants from Geraldine Ferraro’s chronic foot-in-mouth syndrome, but this is not the first time Obama has been cast as the beneficiary of affirmative action.

Here’s Erica Jong, more than a month ago, on the same issue. After allowing that “Obama is smart and attractive. Maybe he’ll be president some day,” she goes on to say: “Obama is also a token – of our incomplete progress toward an interracial society. I have nothing against him except his inexperience. Many black voters agree. They understand tokenism and condescension.”

Right now, black female voter that I am, I’m most definitely understanding the condescension – and righteous indignation – of white liberal feminists who believe Obama skipped ahead of them in line. I’m also understanding the sheer frustration of women who were headed towards an easy coronation, but then got sideswiped and stalled by an upstart prince.

It appears that all the mainstream, high-profile feminists got the same talking-points memo from the Clinton campaign. Ferraro, pit bull that she is, was just a little more raw in her delivery. If you didn’t get the memo, here are the talking points.

- Though the Democrats are blessed with an embarrassment of riches, with a black man and a woman contending for the nomination, Clinton is unequivocally the only one prepared for the rigors of the presidency.

- Obama is all fluff, no substance, glib and attractive, but also a cocksure, ageist upstart.

- Given the depths of Obama’s inexperience, his present popularity can only be explained by the reverse discrimination effect: he’s unfairly benefiting from his status as a black man.

- Older white women are supporting Clinton because they recognize bottom-line competence, know how to vote in their own best interests, grow more radical with age, and are ready to make history.

- White men are supporting Obama because of their latent or blatant sexism. They’re confused by the unfamiliar choices presented them, and more freaked out by the prospect of a woman in the White House than they are by the prospect of the first African American president.

- Maybe Obama will be a candidate to consider once he’s more politically seasoned, i.e., after eight years of Clinton.

- Sexism is the most pervasive and persistent form of discrimination.

- Racism is on the run, nearly vanquished save a few remnants.

From Gloria Steinem to Robin Morgan to Geraldine Ferraro to Erica Jong, they’re all playing the same tune. Now we can’t blame the women for fighting hard for their candidate, but it is disappointing, to say the very least, that in heralding Clinton as the proper choice for every feminist and all women they have also managed to dredge up some of the least attractive features of liberal feminism.

For nearly forty years feminists have wrangled over how to integrate issues of race, class, sexual orientation and other markers of inequality into a coherent, powerful gender analysis. Women of color insist on the complex relationship between racism and sexism and the central significance of racism in the lives of people of color. White feminists nod their heads, “Yes, of course, we understand, we’re with you on that.” Then comes the crunch, when the content of your feminism actually matters – as it does in this campaign – and they revert to the primacy of sexism over all other forms of discrimination and oppression. All the tendencies that got feminism tagged as a white, middle-class women’s thing are, brutally, back in play.

There’s a lot of twisting and turning going on in the effort to explain Obama’s viability. If he’s so completely inexperienced, why are people coming out to vote for him in record numbers? Must be that racism is dead but sexism isn’t. Must be that he’s an affirmative action baby. Must be that people are mesmerized, charmed and bewitched by his silver tongue. Must be that people are voting with their hearts for hope instead of with their heads for hard-headed competence.

In fact, it must be anything except that he’s knit together a coalition the existence of which most political actors could not have predicted, much less activated. Except that his politics and presentation of self have motivated millions of new voters and re-energized previously disaffected millions more in ways that her politics and presentation of self have not. Except that voters have weighed his experience and hers and concluded that she’s not bringing appreciably more to the table than he is. Except that she’s pegged her vaunted experience to her White House years and a fair share of voters (raise your hands y’all) were not enthralled with the policies of the Clinton presidency.

It’s just not such a terribly long walk from the Clinton campaign’s insistence on Obama’s lack of experience and complete unreadiness to lead to the notion that he’s gotten as far as he has not on his own merits, but as a result of the workings of some pro-brother bias. That is, to put it baldly, the playing field is tilted in favor of the minority candidate who, despite his thin resume, has managed to leapfrog over the more qualified white candidate. There’s a reason this reminds you of every reverse discrimination complainant from Allan Bakke forward. It undermines the legitimacy of affirmative remedies for identifiable, quantifiable discriminatory practices while simultaneously denigrating the qualifications of people of color in high places, whether they got there by means of affirmative action or not.

Then there’s the basic categorical confusion. Let’s go back to that historic juncture, wherein a black man and a woman are close contenders for their party’s nomination. If his race is noteworthy, Obama the black man (regardless of how many ways his blackness has been interpreted), then so too is hers. [For those of you who believe we’re living in a post-racialist society, if you haven’t tuned out already, you’ll probably want to skip the rest of this piece.] This is a contest between a black man and a white woman. Voters orient themselves toward Obama along a broad spectrum of racial attitudes ranging from, “Of course I’m voting for the brother” to “I’d never in a million years cast my vote for an African American.” And everything in between.

The point is, most sane people recognize that Obama’s race matters. Well then, how is it that Clinton’s doesn’t? If Obama’s blackness is a positive incentive for some voters, a liability for others and a source of confusion and ambivalence for still others, how is it that Clinton’s whiteness is a big fat neutral. Is it not at least theoretically possible that some voters are positively inclined toward Clinton because she is white?

There is a brand of feminism, amply critiqued but still very much alive, that focuses on gender bias while consistently downplaying the salience of race. And the easiest way to avoid acknowledging that whiteness comes with its privileges is to avoid acknowledging it at all. Whiteness as default, normative, unworthy of note. Clinton the woman; Obama the black man. In fact, Obama as doubly favored, as a man and, with reverse discrimination and tokenism in play, as an African American. Clinton, meanwhile, is hobbled by her gender and, since her whiteness is unacknowledged, neither advantaged nor disadvantaged by her race. This is the topsy-turvy world we’re being asked to accept as reality.

I, for one, am going to take a pass on delusion. In Mississippi, though Obama took the state, 70 percent of white Democatic voters chose Clinton over Obama. In South Carolina, Obama took over 75 percent of the black vote but only 15 percent of the over-60 white vote, with similar results in Alabama. Isn’t is possible that at least some of those white voters would prefer to see a white person in the White House, regardless of gender, than an African American? And isn’t it possible that whiteness is an element of Clinton’s appeal in Ohio, Texas and, potentially, Pennsylvania, states in which Reagan Democrats (and Nixon Democrats before them) were won over to the Republican Party, at least in part, on the basis of frankly racist appeals? As long as Clinton’s whiteness is unacknowledged, so too are the dynamics that work to her advantage in this campaign.

The deep disappointment in the voting behavior of Obama-supporting men (read white men; see above) while officially chalked up to misogyny, has, in the argument of some feminists, crept uncomfortably close to a howl of anger at racial betrayal. In a Chicago Tribune article entitled “Sexism, not Racism, Thriving,” a clearly frustrated Frida Ghitis claims “We may be winning the war against racism, but sexism is putting up quite a fight….Women are voting for Clinton and blacks are voting for Obama…. If we look for someone who looks like us, for whom should a white man vote?... White men are giving their vote to Obama over Clinton [i].”

Let us grant without argument that many men, and a good number of women as well, would prefer to see a man in the White House than a woman. Is this evidence that sexism is alive and well? Indeed it is. But, as our own political processes constantly remind us, voting behavior is more than a little complex. Perhaps white men should be excoriated for their persistent sexism; perhaps we should be celebrating their transcendence of a century’s-long resistance to placing African Americans, men or women, in positions of power.

Would it be better, and for whom, if white men were to line up with white women and, as the saying goes, “vote their race?” Could this be what liberal feminists are advocating? Is Elizabeth Cady Stanton in the house?

It ought to be possible to point to the prevalence of sexism and misogyny, and their impact on Clinton’s campaign, without downplaying the longstanding, ongoing, pervasive impact of racism in the U.S. But this is not the path they have chosen. In order to bolster their case for Clinton’s relative disadvantage in the primary campaign, explain the white male vote in places like Iowa, Virginia, and Utah, and encourage white women to seize the historic moment, they impose a ranking order between racism and sexism, with sexism at the top, and insist on the declining significance of race.

Gloria Steinem: “Gender is probably the most restricting force in American life…. Black men were given the vote a half-century before women of any race were allowed to mark a ballot, and generally have ascended to positions of power, from the military to the boardroom, before any women [ii].”

Those of us who witnessed the response to Hurricane Katrina; who check in occasionally on the racial demographics of the incarcerated; who are aware of the racial divide in income and, more significantly, wealth; who recognize that the public schools grow ever more segregated while the push-out rate for Black and Latino students rises ever higher; who track the relative scarcity of African Americans in professional schools, as well as in a whole range of professions; who know that the infant mortality rate for black babies outstrips the rate for white babies by two to one; who watch the dynamics of gentrification, dislocation and homelessness – we are not convinced that racism is an insignificant remnant. And we’re hard pressed to understand why this argument should be any more tolerated when it comes from liberal feminists than when it comes from the more frankly racist right wing. Since I’m not running for president I can be blunt. The denial of the significance of racism is a deep and abiding form of the thing itself.

Much has been made of the gender tightrope Clinton must walk. She can’t seem too soft or too hard. She has to look attractive and expect that her hairdo, pantsuits, cleavage and ankles are all fair game for commentary. Tears will be relentlessly analyzed. She will be judged in ways that men never are. All of this is true, and an indication of how very far we have to go.

But, interestingly, Clinton can and does directly associate her campaign with a potential blow against gender discrimination. Obama cannot do the same with regard to race. Clinton regularly posits winning the presidency, breaking through that highest and hardest glass ceiling, as she puts it, as an historic win for women, more than 50 percent of the population.

Obama, meanwhile, does not have the latitude to explicitly associate his campaign with the interests of African Americans or an anti-racist agenda. Part of this is simply about the numbers. But there’s much more at work here. While Clinton has been walking her tightrope, Obama has been busy threading the very narrowest of needles. There may be dozens of ways for a white man to campaign for the presidency and, if our common history, both recent and remote, is any guide, just about any kind of white man can become president, as long as he has the cash and the connections.

Not so for the black man. At issue are not only his politics and his campaign craft, but also, crucially, how he inhabits his black manhood. (Now, up until a few months ago I couldn’t have imagined that there was any way for a Black man to become a serious contender – to thread the needle – so we’re all learning as we go here.) White folks, in general, don’t want to see any chips on the shoulders or any psychic scars on the soul. There isn’t a black male in America over the age of 10 who doesn’t have a few chips and scars, but letting them show is a major deal breaker in the halls of power. So props to Obama for a fine acting job.

There’s a bargain that white voters have struck with Obama, and here, in brief, is what it is:

“You can be black, and we’re happy to congratulate ourselves on voting for a black man, as long as you’re black in a way that doesn’t upset us, scare us, make us feel guilty, or make us feel too white.” Obama is holding up his side of the bargain, either because he’s temperamentally inclined to do so or because he’s carefully calculated what it takes to win over white voters, or some combination of the two. But the quality of his blackness is nonetheless an issue. This is the meaning of the insistence that Obama distance himself from his pastor, Reverend Wright, and from Minister Farrakhan. Way too many chips and scars. Way too little regard for what white folks think. And way too much attachment to the African American community. So, if Obama himself can’t be tagged as too black for prime time, maybe he’s too black by association.

Further, while Obama has assiduously courted the black vote, he hasn’t done so with an explicitly anti-racist message and he certainly hasn’t posited the African-American community as the core of his coalition. Why? Because to do so would sink his campaign like a hundred weight stone. This, in part, is the difference between the Jackson campaign, which built a disruptive, progressive coalition with Black voters and anti-racist politics at its core, and Obama’s liberal coalition that is inclusive of and reliant upon black voters without centralizing their concerns in a way that would scare off white voters. Jackson ran as a direct challenge to the status quo, implementing an inside-outside strategy without the burden of expecting a win. Obama’s first principle is viability, and he threads his needle accordingly.

It’s more than a little interesting that liberal feminists, so highly attuned to the ways in which gender frames how Clinton can run, are blissfully (willfully?) ignorant of how race and racism shape the Obama campaign. Black racial solidarity still reads as a threat in a way that gender solidarity does not.

One last talking point before we close: the voting behavior of white women. Every national election cycle we’re treated to lots of commentary about the gender gap and its meaning. More eligible women vote than do eligible men and women are somewhat more likely to cast their votes for Democrats than for Republicans. Clinton is undeniably running strongly among white women Democrats, especially those over the age of 50. Should we be reading this as further evidence that the older women voters get, the more radical they become, as Morgan and Steinem contend? [Steinem: “Iowa women over 50 and 60, who disproportionately supported Senator Clinton, proved once again that women are the one group that grows more radical with age.” Robin Morgan: “Older women are the one group that doesn’t grow more conservative with age…”]

The two party lockdown ensures that there’s no real way to register radicalism in presidential primaries or national elections. So let’s assume that those voting Democratic are somewhat more radical than those voting Republican. In the 2004 presidential election 55 percent of white women gave their votes to George W. Bush; 62 percent of white men did the same. A significant gender gap.

Meanwhile, 90 percent of African American women and a slightly smaller proportion of African American men voted for John Kerry. In the 2000 presidential election an astounding 94 percent of African American women voted Democratic. I can’t do the math, but I suspect that if you were to subtract the overwhelmingly Democratic votes of African American women the gender gap would narrow considerably.

Younger voters from 18-29 years old cast 54 percent of their votes for the Democratic candidate in 2004. Exactly the same percentage of voters 60 and over cast them for Bush.

I just don’t see the evidence that older white women constitute a hotbed of radicalism, or even consistent liberalism. Had they followed the lead of African American women in 2000 and 2004 we all would have been spared a whole lot of grief.

Liberal feminists have every right to spend down their political capital on behalf of Hillary Rodham Clinton. Hard choices have to made; political debts have to be paid. But it will not count as progress if a Clinton win is purchased at the cost of deepening the racial divide. It is inexcusable to support a candidate in the name of feminism while deploying racist argumentation, minimizing the existence and impact of racism, and denying the advantages of inhabiting the racial space called “white.” It will not be excused. Nor will it be forgotten.

*Linda Burnham is the co-founder and former Executive Director of the Women of Color Resource Center.

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

For Koulsy Lamko, France is at the center of war in Chad. He argues that France's central presence in Chad is only facilitating the continued fleecing of resources by a corrupt Idriss Derby government. The rebel leader, he concludes is only vying for a slice of the national cake

It would take a very wise man to understand and untangle the mess that is France foreign policy towards Chad. Regular observers would not be surprised by the erratic nature of the relationship over the decades; but the latest event in Ndjamena clearly demonstrate the inconsistent nature of a cynicism.

France coming to the aid of Idriss Deby, her protégé is simply history repeating itself. Over the last two decades, France has propped up a corrupt clannish regime that has shown its inability to improve the lives of its citizens. This is a regime that has ruled through terror, electoral fraud, manipulation of the elite and the politicized classes, intimidation of civil society, widespread corruption, and the diversion of public funds to military expenditure, among other things. That France should continue to prevaricate and gloss over these problems while continuing to trample over the fresh corpses of innocent Chadians is indeed lamentable.

Over the last three decades France has carried out a policy of propping up warlords and pillagers. By giving unconditional support to these mediocre and illiterate soldiers and predators governed by clan interest, she has consolidated the notion that power is only achieved through the barrel of a gun, while at the same time destroying any future hope for true independence.

For Chadians interested in peace, Idriss Deby and rebel leaders Timran Erdimi and Mahamat Nouri are birds of a feather – Members of the same family fighting for a slice of the same cake: political power and control of petroleum, which remains the country's only source of revenue following the destruction of industry and the food-processing sector! Politicians lacking in nationalist vision or ideals, devoid of direction and upon whom countless political and economic indictments can be heaped!

The fact that one could cling to power to the point of barricading himself right in the midst of hapless citizens held hostage in the conflict, while his assailants only war cry is that they “ want a power-sharing deal” reveals the ignoble intentions of all involved.

While one side cosies up to Franco-Africa, the other side lets itself get sucked by Sudan into the Darfur crisis, plunging the people of Chad in even deeper misery. Chad 's long suffering is evident when one traverses its deserted towns and villages. The Zoe's Arch incident is proof of this; what parent, however poor and desperate, would agree to hand over his or her child to a stranger? Here, illiterate warlords extract tribute and rule over oppressed populations, exercising limitless power. The media is spectacular in its mediocrity, and the few independent press who dare to speak up suffer the wrath of Deby's autocratic rule.

The French army has for along time monitored troop movements across the country. This time, admittedly, they were caught unaware by the advancing rebels whom the French media had previously given ample coverage. The official statements that followed; “France is Neutral”, then “France is not entirely neutral”, and finally “France will support the legitimate government of Chad, and take on its responsibilities” clearly demonstrate the cold-blooded duplicity that has characterised its involvement with Chad over the years. As the rebels advanced, it seemed as if victory was theirs for the taking. And they were quick to point out very loudly that France's interests would be “safeguarded, if not better protected”. Then just as suddenly, a counter -offensive is executed and the rebels are defeated. One wonders what could have weighed so heavily in Deby's favour: negotiations on the exploitation of oil resources in the Middle Chari region? The die is cast!

The fact that hundreds of Chadians died, thousands were injured and tens of thousands displaced is of little concern to the French government and its Special forces. Strategic geographical concerns, control of oil and other mineral resources and the maintenance of a “civilizing influence” are stakes too enormous for “La Metropole” to concede. In Franco-Africa, there is no price to high to pay, even if it comes at the cost of hundreds of thousands of lives. The Rwanda genocide speaks volumes on this count.

If Sarkozy was cynical enough to demand the release of the Zoe's Arch six while Chad was mourning her dead, he should have demanded the release of opposition leaders whose only crime was to dream of a new political dispensation based on constitutionalism, in the midst of military occupation and neo-colonialism aggravated by rapacious clanism. What is France doing in Chad? One would be hard put to come up with an answer! Defence Minister Hervé Morin's pussyfooting and grinning in N'djamena speaks volumes.

It would indeed be tragic if the divvying up of resources between partners and relatives was the sole cause for a putsch. These complicit politicians are still in some way players in Chad's democratization process. It is imperative that France stops its meddling. It must allow for a national dialogue to take place, for recent events to be laid bare and for a truth and reconciliation process to begin, so that the people of Chad can freely choose their leaders.

Translated by Joshua Ogada.

* Koulsy Lamko is currently Director of the University Centre for Arts and Drama in Butare and teaches Creative Writing and the Performing Arts at the National University of Rwanda.

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

Hillary Kundishora looks at the state of electronic and print media in Zimbabwe and argues that far from the media being the people's watchdog, it is the propaganda arm of the state machinery. With independent media harassed or banned, the promise of democracy has already been undermined

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/356/46657media.jpgThe electronic and print media in other value driven and politically mature societies, has acted as the free marketplace of ideas, and as such there is a direct and general causal link between economic prosperity and media freedom with the exception of China, but nevertheless the success story of China does not mean to undermine the causal link prevalent in much of the third and first word nations. The existence of this unique relationship consequently raises an important thesis about economic development and it elucidates a secret for development, which has been the magic for economic prosperity in first world economies.

The media has formed an important source of a knowledge structure, which has unfortunately in some instances in history been manipulated to favour the interests of a minority and selfish click. And as such the knowledge structure has formed an important power structure most widely sought through hook and crook and in the case of Zimbabwe all tricks including unorthodox means have been elicited in order to control the media for selfish reasons remotely connected to national interests.

Media freedom in much of colonial Africa was designed by architects of the colonial establishment with a sinister agenda which was however meant to advance the cause of racial apartheid and with the advent of independence, Africa sought to open all the secret cardboards stocked with skeletons for the world to see. Zimbabwe like other postcolonial states also opened up to scrutiny thus widely embracing values of accountability as opposed to privacy.

It is interesting to note that with the leaderships increasing variance from the values that underpinned the liberation struggle in Zimbabwe the postcolonial leadership ironically later made use of the same tools box which they despised and had fought hard against, to some extent there were now selling out the cause of the struggle for personal and selfish interests devoid of national interests. The ruling party has used its political muscle to manipulate, barn and restrict access to information it considers informing to the general public, in case the public will be able make other choices for the betterment of their destiny.

It is in this context that the birth of an over regulated and partisan media industry, and archaic legislations designed to emasculate the media should be viewed as the rise of the devouring demons. Like demons they consume all the good while leaving everything around in a bad state, and Zimbabwe's state media case is in most way similar to a demon afflicted individual. The end of freedom has given birth to a media which militates against the moral value systems on which independence was based upon, the media is now used as a tool to devour the very people it was supposed to develop and assist.

State resources have been poured to the advantage, favouring sectoral interests, partisan and ZANU PF interests in general to the extent that the level of misinformation in Zimbabwe leaves a lot to be desired. Worse still the propaganda continuum is reflective from the lowest ranking officials to the highest office in the land thus the media has been guilty of complicity and not probing issues while acting as a mental inflicting venom which subject people to massive cognitive bias.

It is important that intellectuals and scholars take stock of events in Zimbabwe so that they realise the role the state media has played in undermining the rule of law and natural justice. Instead of acting as a repository and curator of the rule of law and natural justice the press has been used to churn propaganda which if consumed is damaging to the recipients and the very national interests / sovereignty it purports to protect. The Rwandan genocide provides the testimony of how an equally irresponsible media can be so dangerous to the people it is meant to develop, like an weapon the media is a dangerous tool if in the hands of misguided and immoral people who value selfish interests and Rwanda's genocide offers much convincing testimony to this thesis.

If the state media could one day cease to be a tool furthering private interest and pursue a more inclusive approach which is national than sectoral, issues could be debated and scrutinised while it is acting as marketplace for ideas crucial in informing policy formulation and implementation. The state media could then act as a watchdog of national interests-not interests of cronies but interests favouring even vulnerable members of society.  In normal democracies through this way the media acts as a more reliable source of information for scholars, researchers and investors thus exhibiting and playing a causal link to economic development.

As the March 29 elections approach the state media has been conspicuous in churning out hate speech which is more sectoral than uniting in the face of crucial elections which are important in locating the compass which will be used in directing the country to prosperity. It is in this context that the role of the media in misinforming voters must not be left unchallenged, instead of responsibly reporting and offering all aspirants of public office equal chance to attract voters as is happening in America where Obama and Clinton are contesting without vilifying one another, the state media is busy presenting only the ruling party as the only peoples viable choice notwithstanding the damage it has caused to the collective aspirations of a people.

Simba Makoni a new and promising baby in opposition politics has of late been linked to the West and like Tsvangirai his predecessor they both have been branded sell-outs and an agents of imperialism, worse still Makoni has publicly been likened to a bull frog and a prostitute, of which prostitutes in the African context are heavily despised as immoral as they fall outside the mainstream of society. And for the state media it is fascinating that they have never bothered to unpack why Makoni has been a darling of ZANU PF for the past years yet today they accuse him of political promiscuity, only because he has refused to enter the books history for the wrong reasons and as such he has parted ways with the party that nurtured him.

In any other democratic country the ruling party will have been grilled as to what new there are offering to the people after presiding over the death of a once vibrant economy but alas there are the worst but being presented as the best in the general election. This raises the role of the state media in my thesis of a causal link between media freedom and economic prosperity and it indicts the state media for misinforming and diverting people from the real issues that must form the foundation for debate and consequently the election of public office bearers into public office. The diminished media freedom is responsible creating an atmosphere conducive for the proliferation of a kleptocracy, which has run down an economy once prosperous.

Like the annihilation of property rights, the level of media freedom is directly related to the decadence and the thesis further calls upon all loving and spiritual connected citizens to work extra hard to create a media which is free and accessible which consequently act as a source of reliable information and a curator of the peoples rights. The presents of an election offer the masses of Zimbabwe a chance of renewal and to choose the path to prosperity or continue the present path of doom, and for those in dire need of economic revival it is also indispensable that there be a free media in order that we achieve a stable economy. In fact it is crucial that we revert back to valuing the constitution, which is the supreme document that governs and lays out the rule law and freedom of expression as a corner stone for economic prosperity.

*Hillary Kundishora is a scholar of strategic management. You can visit his blog at

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