A campaigner for transparency in the international oil sector, employed by the nongovernmental organisation Global Witness, was released on bail on Wednesday after she was arrested in the oil-rich Angolan enclave of Cabinda and charged with spying. Dr Sarah Wykes, an experienced researcher into the links between corruption and human rights in resource-rich economies, is not allowed to leave the country and might have to wait for a year for the trial to begin.

Since 10 January 2007, the workers of Guinea have been on strike to demand better living conditions, respect for public morality, and the enthronement of democracy. In the face of the demands presented to the Government by the workers' union, CNTG-USTG, supported by the majority of the peoples of Guinea, the government of President Lansana Conté has adopted an approach laden with contempt for the citizenry and the use of naked force against the populace. Dozens of protesters in Conakry, Simbaya, Lambanyi, Matoto, Télémelé, Mamou, Kankan, and Labé have been murdered in cold blood or maimed for life by the security services. And yet, in spite of the ferocious repression unleashed by the government, the Guinean people have, at great personal and collective peril, intensified their self-mobilisation on a scale not seen since the historic defeat of colonialism. Invariably, the response of the regime has been to do even more of what it has always done best: Arrest and torture union leaders and ordinary citizens, impose a state of emergence/state of siege presided over by the military high command, and threaten even more mayhem against the populace.

CODESRIA, as an organisation of African intellectuals who are fully conscious of their social responsibilities cannot remain indifferent in the face of the latest act of naked repression that the Conté regime has deployed against Guineans, repression that has crippled the country, impoverished its peoples and brought the state to the brink. The Council observes that academics in Guinean universities who have been part of the popular movement for change have not been spared the repressiveness of the regime and the principle of academic freedom that is a foundational pillar of CODESRIA has been put at bay in Guinea. The Council would, therefore, like to add its voice to the voices of democrats all over the world who have expressed their solidarity with the people of Guinea and denounced all forms of dictatorship. The Council also joins the Guinean trade union movement and other social movements in the vanguard of the struggle for change in their demand for democratic and equitable management of the Guinean commonwealth.

The struggles of the people of Guinea remind us that freedom is not given but won – often at a high cost. This we know very well as members of an institution which produced the Kampala Declaration on Academic Freedom and the Social Responsibility of Scholars (see the CODESRIA Website: to prevent the wanton abuse of freedoms in the African higher education system. I would, therefore, like to invite all members of the Council to take a moment to remember the people of Guinea and to solidarise with them, doing so in the settled knowledge that their victory will be another important step towards democracy and development in Africa - just as it was when Guinea's historic 'No' against Charles De Gaulle's project of a French federation to perpetuate colonial rule emboldened and accelerated the African independence project.

Members of CODESRIA wishing to express their solidarity with the people of Guinea and their struggles are invited to send their messages to: [email][email protected] and they can rest assured that the messages will be forwarded to the trade union and academic staff leaderships in Conakry. We have a duty at this time to let the people of Guinea know that they are not alone!

Adebayo Olukoshi
Executive Secretary, CODESRIA

THE 2007 WORLD Social Forum in Nairobi highlighted some of the strengths--but also problems and limitations--of the international conferences. In fact, questions remain over the future of the WSF, with no meetings scheduled for 2008 and no location announced for the next planned event in 2009.

The Eritrean government and civil society have expressed optimism that efforts to combat female genital mutilation (FGM) were bearing fruit, saying the campaign against the practice was gaining support in rural villages where excision was most common.

The Daily Nation reports that at least 10 election petition cases remain unresolved with less than 11 months to the General Election. And as the country moves closer to elections, there are fears that some of the incumbent MPs could take advantage of loopholes in the existing petition laws as a tactic to delay the cases until Parliament is dissolved, thereby allowing them to serve the full five-year term.

The AIDC is seeking a coordinator for its Education and Campaigns Unit. The AIDC is a dynamic NGO pursuing alternatives to neo-liberal globalisation through activist orientated research, publications, education, campaigns and coalition building. The Education and Campaign unit formulates its education programme and supports its campaigns and in particular its Right to Work Campaign. Deadline for applications is 17 February 2007.

Human rights campaigners have appealed to the International Labour Organisation (ILO) to suspend Kenya's membership for continuing to resist efforts to reform its archaic labour laws. The laws fail to address issues of employment, occupational health and safety or work injuries among others -- seriously undermining the constitutional rights of Kenyans.

I just read the call for solidarity with Haiti on February 7, and I felt good that our brothers and sisters in Haiti are being heard. 2007 is the 50th anniversary of Ghana’s Independence. Between now and 2011 there will be a number of 50th anniversaries in Africa including the assassination of Patrice Lumumba.

One of the things which seem to be coming to me all the time, while visiting here in Maputo, is the kind of house arrest that Aristide has been submitted to in South Africa. Shouldn't South Africans, Africans from all walks of life come out and call for Aristide's freedom to travel anywhere, including going back as a free citizen to Haiti? Is he kept under house arrest for his own good/safety, or is he being kept away from the public eye so that we all forget about him, in the same manner Toussaint L'Ouverture was taken to France and let to die?

If we are true to our conscience, if we claim we are proud of what was done when Mandela was finally freed, then, is it not logical that we ask, as loudly as one can, the kind of questions which are not being asked with regard to Aristide and his quasi solitary confinement? Is it not the case that by keeping him under house arrest or something equivalent, and not allowing him to speak up, one is in fact colluding with those voices which went out of their way to accuse Aristide of all kinds of crimes. Why is it that so many people on the left would not rather talk about Aristide's situation?

What does it mean, today, to think emancipatory thoughts? If fidelity to the Subject who emerged out of Haiti in 1804 means keeping alive emancipatory politics, why do we keep quiet when innocent children, women, human beings are being killed in Cité Soleil, simply because in that place there are people who keep calling, among other things, for the return of President Aristide? For 200 years, and counting, Haiti continues to stand out both as a place in history to be proud of, but it continues to be treated as if what happened there should never have happened. Given this history, one has to ask oneself, is that why the powers that be, looked to South Africa as the best place to keep him under House Arrest?

I really did mean to write a thank you note, but I suppose I slipped into one of my favourite exercises: could I make you (Pambazuka), you who are already doing a fine job, to reach higher and outperform yourselves? If you can look at the above as a jumbled, rumbling, rambling poor attempt, I offer my apologies, but, at the same time, ask for your understanding, and think of this way: Can we promise ourselves that, as of today, 2007 till 2020 (the same 13 years it took the slaves --1791-1804), to bring Haiti back to where it was supposed to be. If we can do it before 2020, better still, but I am sure that, along the way, we shall find ways of pushing ourselves further beyond the current emancipated oases.

* Jacques Depelchin is author of “Silences in African History: Between the Syndrome of Discovery and Abolition,” and Executive Director of the ‘Ota Benga Alliance for Peace, Healing and Dignity in the Democratic Republic of the Congo’.

Campaigners are to protest outside of the French embassy in London this week (Friday 2nd February) to urge the French government to stop representatives of the Zimbabwean government attending an international summit. Union members, Zimbabwean exiles and human rights campaigners are joining protests outside French embassies across Europe. They are calling on the French government to apply a European Union ban on Zimbabwean government members and prevent them from attending an African summit the French government is hosting in Cannes next month.

A worldwide campaign for Decent Work was launched in Nairobi, Kenya at the World Social Forum by the Decent Work Alliance and with the help of Wangari Maathai, Kenya's 2004 Nobel Peace Prize winner. It aims to place Decent Work, a concept covering equal access to employment, living wages, social protection, freedom from exploitation and union rights at the core of development, economic, trade, financial and social policies at the national, European and International level through public campaigning and lobbying.

Two leading political parties are preparing budgets running into billions of shillings to finance their candidates in this year’s General Election. While ODM Kenya has a tentative budget of Sh2 billion, Narc Kenya’s leadership is working on its own estimates for the election which sources said could go up to Sh5 billion.

The United Nations forces in Haiti (MINUSTAH) — backed to the hilt by the US, France and Canada — are continuing their bloody assault on the poor majority, targeting especially leaders and supporters of the Lavalas grassroots democracy movement.

Amnesty International's global Urgent Action network provides an effective and rapid means of preventing some of the most life-threatening human rights violations against individuals. Tilahun Ayalew (m), Anteneh Getnet (m), Meqcha Mengistu (m), all officials of the Ethiopian Teachers' Association (ETA) are prominent members of Ethiopia's main teachers' trade union, which has been critical of the government. Tilahun Ayalew and Anteneh Getnet are reported to be in custody, and are believed to have been tortured. Amnesty International considers them prisoners of conscience, detained solely for the non-violent expression of their opinions and trade union activities.

A session focused on sharing experiences and learnings on mobilising key constituencies will be convened during the WSF meeting in Nairobi. Presentations running 10-15 minutes are welcome from those willing to share experiences on issues they have mobilised around and campaigned on, the methods used, the impact achieved and lessons learnt. If you or your organisation are interested in participating at this session, please contact Eve Odete on tel +254 (0)20 282 0000 Cell: +254 (0)722 661 728 email: [email][email protected] or Irungu Houghton Direct line: +254 (0)20 282 1055 cell: +254 (0) 733 635 354 email: [email][email protected]

M’du Hlongwa explores the role of NGOs in the struggle for social justice. “Even some NGOs call us criminal when we speak for ourselves. We are supposed to suffer silently so that some rich people can get rich from our work, and others can get rich having conferences about having more conferences about our suffering. But the police never come to these conferences. These conferences are just empty talking.”

South Africa does not think of the poor. The poorest of the country are the majority but we are kept voiceless. The poorest I am talking about are the shack dwellers, the street traders, the street kids, the flat dwellers who can’t afford the rent and the ‘unemployeds’ from Cape Town to Musina in the Limpopo Province and from Richard’s Bay on the Indian Ocean to Alexander Bay on the Atlantic Ocean.

We always say that the fact that we are poor in life does not make us short-minded. We know that our country is rich. There are all the minerals like gold and aluminium, the water and the forestry, the trade and the industry, the agriculture, the art and the culture and the science and the technology.

The Freedom Charter said that the wealth of South Africa should benefit the people of South Africa but it is not like that. The land of our ancestors was taken for the farms and the forests. Our grandparents and parents worked on those farms and in the mines and factories and houses. Now we are either trying to make a living selling to other poor people or we are the servants who come quietly into the nice places with our heads always down, to keep them nice, and to keep them working for the rich. Most of our time goes into just trying to survive. To get some little money, to get water, to see a doctor, to rebuild our homes after they have burnt down, to get our children into school or to try and stop evictions. We shouldn’t be suffering like this.

Our shacks are flooded during heavy rains. Sometimes they are even washed away because the City won’t let us build proper structures or build proper houses for us in the city where we need to be to work and study. And our shacks get burnt down in fires because the City thinks that we don’t deserve to have electricity. We are always losing our belongings in these fires and sometimes loved ones, especially children and old people, are lost. The constitution says that everyone must have adequate shelter. We don’t have adequate shelter and the situation is not getting better. Now the city is trying to evict us and is leaving people homeless on the side of the road. How many lives will be destroyed before our voices are heard? How many children will drown in rivers on the way to school because ‘there is no budget’ to build bridges while casinos, and airports and theme parks have huge budgets? Who will do something about the fact that the police who are supposed to protect the people are always abusing us? Is it right that they come into our houses and ill-treat us, insulting us, stealing from us and hitting us? Who will do something about the fact that even when our youth finish grade 12, they just sit at home because there is no work and because our parents can’t afford to send us to university? Who will turn our economy from something that lets the rich get richer off the suffering of the poor into something that lets all the people make a better life?

The politicians have shown that they are not the answer to our suffering. The poor are just made the ladders of the politicians. The politician is an animal that hibernates. They always come out in the election season to make empty promises and then they disappear. But we know that lies are for the time being but truth is for life. These guys get into power by lying to us and then they make money. They don’t work for the people who put them up there. In fact our suffering ends up working for them. Their power comes because they say that they will speak for us. That is why in Abahlali [Shack Dwellers Movement] we started to say ‘Speak to us and not for us’ and why we vote in our own elections for people who will live and work with us in our communities and without any hopes for making our suffering into a nice job.

We know that our country is rich. We know that it is the suffering of the poor that makes it rich. We know how we suffer and we know why we suffer. But in Abahlali we have found that even though we are a democratic organisation that gets its power from the trust of our members and have never hurt one person, the government and even some NGOs call us criminal when we speak for ourselves. We are supposed to suffer silently so that some rich people can get rich from our work, and others can get rich having conferences about having more conferences about our suffering. But the police never come to these conferences. These conferences are just empty talking. When we have big meetings where we live, the police are even in the sky in their helicopters. These conferences demand our support but they never support our struggles. We are always on our own when the fires come, or when the police come, or when the City comes to evict us.

I want to say clearly that I am a Professor of my suffering. We are all Professors of our suffering. But in this South Africa, the poor must always be invisible. We must be invisible where we live and where we work. We must even be invisible when people are getting paid to talk about us in government or in NGOs! Everything is done in our name. We are even told that the 2010 World Cup is for us when we can’t afford tickets and will be lucky to watch it on television. The money for stadiums should go for houses and water and electricity and schools and clinics. Even now shacks are being destroyed and street traders are being sorely abused by the METRO and SAPS police to make us invisible when the visitors come. This World Cup is destroying our lives. I call 2010 ‘The year of the curse’. South Africa is sinking. It will only be rescued if the poor take their place in the country.

But before 2010 is 2009. This is the year of the National Elections in our beloved country. When the elections come I want to see who will be queuing in that hot or rainy day to vote. I see voting as the same as throwing your last money in a flooded river. I believe that many people who voted before want to go and ask to get their X’s back. Abahlali sensed this early and in the 2006 local government elections we said “No Land, No House, No Vote”. We said that whenever we have voted for people who say that they will speak for us, they hibernate afterwards. We said that we would struggle for land and housing against all councillors. We said that we would make ourselves the strong poor by building our settlement committees and our movement.

We got beaten for that by the police. Some of the NGO people said that we were too stupid to understand what elections were for and that we needed ‘voter education’. They need an education in the politics of the poor. They should come and live in a settlement for even just one week before they say that we are too stupid to understand our own politics. Our boycott brought the percentage of voters in the areas where we are strong right down. In these areas the councillors can’t claim to represent the poor and we have made our own organisations, which do represent the poor because they are made for the poor by the poor, much stronger than the councillors. Abahlali is much stronger than Baig and Bachu and Dimba.

I am sure the number of non-voters who choose to work very hard every day struggling in their communities instead of giving trust to politicians will be multiplied in 2009. I will personally be pushing for Abahlali and our sister organisations to take the ‘No Land! No House! No Vote!’ campaign into the 2009 National Elections. Oh! South Africa the rich, sinking country! There is no more need to vote for politicians in this country. I always say to people that they should vote if they ever see even one politician doing something good for the poor.

But from the local government to the provincial and national parliaments I only see politicians on gravy trains and holidays and in conferences with the rich. They are the new bosses, not the servants of the poor. They deceive us and make fools of us. They ask us for our vote and then disappear with our votes to their big houses and conferences where they plan with the rich how to make the rich richer. Their entrance fee for these houses and conferences is us. They sell us to the rich. Can anyone show one politician who has stood up to say build houses not stadiums? Can anyone show one politician who has said that Moreland’s land should be for the poor who are still waiting to be a real part of South Africa and not for more shops and golf courses? Can anyone show one politician who has said that it is wrong for the police to beat us and arrest us when we want to march? Can anyone show one politician who has stood with us when the police shoot at us?

Let us keep our votes. Let us speak for ourselves where we live and work. Let us keep our power for ourselves. The poor are many. We have shown that together we can be very strong. Abahlali has now won many victories. Other organisations are working hard too. Let us continue to work to make ourselves the strong poor. Let us vote for ourselves every day.

• M’du Hlongwa lives in the Lacey Road settlement in Sydenham, Durban. He is unemployed and his mother works as a cleaner in a state hospital. He was the secretary in the first and second Abahlali baseMjondolo secretariat but did not stand for election for a position in the 2007 secretariat in order to be able to complete his book on the politics of the poor and to try and gain access to a university to study to be a teacher. However he continues to be an enthusiastic ordinary member of Abahlali baseMjondolo and to do volunteer work each week day morning work for people living in HIV/AIDS. He is 26. For information on Abahlali baseMjondolo visit

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

Please find available through the link below the AWOMI programme for the World Social Forum in Nairobi.

Poets from south and east Africa will participate in a remarkable cultural initiative at this year's World Social Forum. The WSF, this year hosted in Kenya – it's first time in Africa – will see more than 80 000 people from global civil society descend on Nairobi to actively engage with the social struggles facing the world today.

As the countdown to the 2007 World Social Forum gains momentum, anti-globalisation activists from around the world are no doubt rolling up their sleeves for spirited debates on the flaws in the current economic order. In Cameroon, however, such debates are already under way.

At the Seventh World Social Forum in Nairobi, Women’s Learning Partnership (WLP) will present an interactive panel and dialogue with women’s rights activists from Africa and the Middle East who will discuss strategies to strengthen social movements, particularly the women’s movement, in an era of crisis for civic organizing.

The 7th World Social Forum (WSF) will be held from 20 until 25 January 2007 at the Moi International Sports Center Kasarani, Nairobi and is expected to host up to 150,000 delegates from all over the world. Over 1,000 activities will take place in the 106 spaces provided at the venue.