This view represents a consulted way forward recommended by Women and Men of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA/MOZA). We are an organisation owned by its 60,000 members who hold qualifications in daily survival and degrees in nonviolence despite the deeply polarised political environment in Zimbabwe since 2000. WOZA was born in the community and seeks to draw the attention of preoccupied politicians to people?s needs, namely bread and butter issues; or as WOZA likes to put it, bread and roses issues - bread representing food and roses representing the need for lasting dignity.

At the moment, the highway that is Zimbabwe has two vehicles going in opposite directions, Zanu PF, the so-called 'liberation war party' and the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). These parties speed along preoccupied with their own importance, hardly ever taking the off-ramp to consult with the suffering masses.

WHAT DO WE WANT POLICY MAKERS TO FOCUS ON?

The reality on the ground for Zimbabweans right now is tantamount to torture. For representatives of political parties to sit at the negotiating table cutting an elite power-sharing deal whilst ignoring the crashing economy and the undeclared civil war by Mugabe against ordinary people is a crime against our humanity. We suspect that they do not understand the day-to-day struggle of ordinary Zimbabweans. As a result WOZA is determined to hold our placards up high to get their attention and demand that they address our needs.

The industrial and mining towns on the Eastern outskirts of Johannesburg are unlovely places. They’re set on flat windswept plains amidst the dumps of sterile sand left over from old mines. In winter the wind bites, the sky is a very pale blue and it seems to be all coal braziers, starved dogs, faded strip malls, gun shops and rusting factories and mine headgear. All that seems new are the police cars and, round the corner from the Harry Gwala shack settlement, a double story facebrick strip club.

But even here the battle for land continues. The poor are loosing their grip on the scattered bits of land which they took in defiance of apartheid more than twenty years ago. The state is, again, sending in bulldozers and men with guns to move the poor from central shack settlements to peripheral townships. In every relocation many are simply left homeless. It is very difficult to resist the armed force of the state but people do what they can. Officials are often stoned. In principle the courts should provide relief from evictions that are not just illegal but are in fact criminal acts under South African law. There have been notable successes but it is often difficult to get pro bono legal support, legal processes are slow and the evictions continue.

In the Harry Gwala settlement the poorest women are on their hands and knees searching for bits of coal to bake into lumps of clay to keep the braziers burning. S’bu Zikode from Abahlali baseMjondolo in Durban and Ashraf Cassiem from the Anti-Eviction Campaign in Cape Town are here to meet with the Harry Gwala branch of the Landless People’s Movement. These are all poor people’s movements that have been criminalised and violently attacked by the state. The meeting is to discuss strategies for holding onto the urban land that keeps people close to work, schools, libraries and all the other benefits of city life. This is what it has come down to. Militancy is about holding onto what was taken from apartheid.

We, civil society organizations acting on behalf of the people of Zimbabwe, today reassert our commitment to the struggle for a transition to democracy.  In doing so, we stand firmly by the principles of democratic constitutionalism that are embodied in the People's Charter and which represent the birthright of every Zimbabwean.  

Given the present environment of fear and oppression, we declare that democratic reform must be preceded by the cessation of violence, restoration of law and order, and facilitation of humanitarian relief.  If such conditions are met, we are prepared to support the installation of a transitional government created after consultation with all stakeholders.

We believe that a transitional government would provide an appropriate vehicle for ushering democratic reform.  The transitional authority would have a specific, limited mandate to oversee the drafting of a new, democratic and people-driven constitution and the installation of a legitimate government.  We wholeheartedly reject the suggestion of a power-sharing agreement that fails to immediately address the inadequacy of the current constitutional regime.

The transitional government must be established in line with the following:

1. Leadership by a neutral body.  The transitional government should be headed by an individual who is not a member of ZANU-PF or MDC.

2. Broad representation.  Individuals from a broad sector of Zimbabwean society should be incorporated into the transitional government.  This should include representatives from labor organizations, women's and children's rights groups, churches, and various other interest groups.

3. Specific, limited mandate.  The transitional government should be tasked with facilitating the drafting and adoption of a new constitution and then holding elections under the new constitutional framework. It should only govern the country until such time as the government elected under the new constitution is installed.  The negotiating parties should provide a very clear timeframe for this process, with no more than 18 months of rule by the transitional government.

4. People-driven constitutional development.  The process of drafting a new constitution must include broad-based consultation with the public.  Interest groups such as women, labor, churches, and media should be given special opportunities to provide input.  The draft constitution should not be enacted until it has been ratified by the public in a national referendum.

5. Restoration of good governance.  State institutions such as the judiciary, police, security services, and state welfare agencies should be depoliticized and reformed.  Steps should be taken to fight corruption and promote accountability for public officials. Restrictions on press freedom should be lifted and access to state media outlets should be opened.

6. Transitional justice initiatives.  The transitional government should design and implement a system to bring to justice the perpetrators of gross human rights violations.  This framework for transitional justice should be embedded in the new constitution. In the event of the above conditions not being met, civil society commits itself to continue in actions that increase pressure on whosoever will be holding state power to embrace people-centered democratic process.

*This press statement was issued by civil society following the national civil society consultative meeting.

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

“Leaders are meant to lead and to be led [by those who elected them]” - Lindela Figlan, Abahlali baseMjondolo movement

Fourteen years since the transition to democracy, leadership in South Africa is in a state of flux—and South Africans know a thing or two about leaders. For every Mandela, after all, there is an Mbeki. In his seven years of presidency, Mbeki has mistaken denialism for leadership and appeasement for diplomacy. The liberation victors in the ANC have tied up the ruling party in its own historical mythologizing, determined to hold its grasp on the state. Now, for every Mbeki, there is the possibility of a Zuma.

In May, immigrants living in the townships and shack settlements of South Africa woke to find that they no longer had a place in their adopted homeland, as their neighbors chased them out of their houses and shops. Yet for ten days while pogroms burned, their country’s leader was nowhere to be found. Even afterwards, Mbeki and other leaders, in failing to acknowledge the profoundly xenophobic nature of the state, and blaming the violence on the poor themselves, did little to calm the storm. Thousands have since left in mass exodus.

Of course, turning to neighboring Zimbabwe to provide a shining example of good leadership in this dearth finds none as Robert Mugabe and his military junta continue their absurdist drama: struggle heroes turned autocrats, fighting their own people instead of fighting for them. For South Africans, whose roster of liberation fighters reads off names like Tambo, Sisulu, Biko, First and Hani, the present situation is somewhat of an anomaly.

But in midst of this crisis, hope for a new kind of leadership can be found in an unlikely place: the Kennedy Road shack settlement , in Clare Estate, Durban. In the middle of a Saturday night in June, a group of thirty odd women and men , some as young as 17, has gathered in a small room that serves as a community-driven crèche during the week. They are here to induct newly elected leaders of their organization of shack-dwellers who collectively call themselves Abahlali baseMjondolo. The Abahlali, since emerging in 2005, has grown to become the largest social movement in the country, with members in more than 40 settlements and over 30,000 active supporters in the province of KwaZulu-Natal.

Xenophobia, refugees and immigration politics in their own right have negative connotations when examined through the lens of universal values, moral truths or scriptural teachings which form the basis of our humanitarian civilization, but when translated and practiced through the lens of racism, religious chauvinism, cultural and ethnic ‘otherness,’ the consequence can be horrendous and catastrophic.

Matthew J Gibney (2004) examines the emergence of Xenophobia, Refugees and Immigration politics in liberal democracies and its response to the ‘crisis’ as framed by these states. Gibney cites the earlier work of Hannah Arendt, her sustained critique of Europe’s creation of nation states, thus depriving ‘ethnics communities’ of citizenship rights and ‘manufacturing’ them as ‘outcasts’ in their own societies. In so doing it established the fragmentation of peoples , thereby indelibly etching into modern civic politics, the concept of ‘otherness.’ Thus it also adds another hue to the many shades of ‘identity’ to the ‘rainbow of whitism’

In Africa, however, cultural, genocidal and hegemonic racism, has been and still is one of the primary social evil of our times, moreover so, systematically infecting caste, class and linguistic dissonance for over 500 years. More concretely racism has through its imperial, colonial and apartheid processes de-socialized and pathologized whole generations of ‘non-white’ peoples. The historical damage to the continent continues to be immeasurable. But all this has been the strategies of whitism – imperialism, colonialism and now globalization. The ‘white church, military, law and education’ have been the chemistry of this ‘culture of otherness’ and the hallmark of Globalism. The 5% of the world whose philosophy has been ‘manifest destiny’ own over 80% of the world’s wealth and power and are the gatekeepers of this super-state system.

In 1980 the Zimbabwean “povo” (people) celebrated a victory over settler colonialism and Western imperialism. We celebrated with them. For us, this was a step closer to Namibian sovereignty, even though the overwhelming victory of ZANU was time-wise a detour on our long road to Independence. The unexpected result had taught Western imperialism a lesson. It shattered its manic assumptions that one could orchestrate and manipulate an election, even if the people are allowed to cast a secret vote at the ballot. Without major intimidation the “povo” used the weapon of an electoral process, by voting for the cock (the symbol for Mugabe’s ZANU), and not the archbishop (Abel Muzorewa, who was considered the blue eyed boy of the West). The people knew what they wanted: a government of their own choice, which they had reasons to believe would represent their interests.

Almost three decades later, 18 years into Namibian Independence, we have to face the sobering realities: Mugabe and his loyal clique in ZANU/PF messed it up. By the end of the 1990s they had lost the “povo.” While they blamed Western imperialism for this, it was in the first place their own elitist neocolonial project, which betrayed the liberation gospel and thereby the people. From the start, the new rulers were not shy of ruthlessly violent practices. Remember the genocidal mass violence in Matabeleland shortly after Independence (“Gukuhurundi”). Tens of thousand innocent people were tortured, maimed, raped, mutilated and slaughtered between 1983 and 1985 by the North Korean trained Fifth Brigade. Only because being Ndebele they were considered guilty of being in support of Josuah Nkomo’s ZAPU, a competing liberation movement finally coerced into the ZANU/PF alliance. With a few exceptions (notably the Catholic church inside Zimbabwe), those who knew remained silent and thereby endorsed if not encouraged the perpetrators to further cultivate their dehumanizing version of “chimurenga” against the people.

Salome (not her real name) slowly stands up to tell her story after about five other women had spoken. In a clear gentle voice she begins to narrate her own experience that leaves one confused, hurting and the feeling to immediately act.

“My name is Salome. My home is 70 kms away from here in place called Ritchuru. I used to live there in my parent home until things changed for me about 3 years ago. One day when I was coming to Goma town to sell some wares I met about three soldiers on the way to the market. I knew two of them but without saying a word to me they began raping me repeated and then left me for dead. I was rescued by some good Samaritans and taken to the hospital at Heal Africa. There I received treatment and later decided to report these men to the police. These men were arrested and I was told we would go to court.

I travelled back to my village in Ritchuru but when I came back after about two weeks the first people I saw in the market place were these soldiers who were walking very confidently and looked like they did not have any problems. I go t so scared and quickly ran away so that I would go somewhere safe. Do you know why? Because I felt they were even going to do worse things.

After this happened me I began asking myself several questions which I could not answer because a few years before then I saw my own mother being raped. She later died of HIV/AIDS. I have also recently discovered that I am HIV/AIDS positive.

FAWE is a Pan- African organization with operations in thirty-five countries in Africa. FAWE Sierra Leone was started in 1995, at the height of the civil war. One of the Chapter’s many emergency intervention which was borne from the determination of women to restore dignity to other women and girls is the programme of assistance to victims of gender –based violence in internally displaced camps, returnees and juveniles in domestic settings. In February 1999, after the allied forces regained control of the capital, it was reported that a number of FAWE school students were raped while the rebels were retreating. As some of these victims had already been subjected to rape in their areas of origin, FAWE decided to address the issue of rape once and for all, break the silence and create a culture that says no to violence against women.

The invasion of January 6 necessitated an intervention which included medical and counseling services for abducted girls and later boys too. FAWE’s mandate of helping the girl –child to be educated to her full potential compelled the intervention. After deliberations with other agencies, the Rape victims programme was started. The initial collaborating agencies were FAWE, Sierra Leone Association of University Women (SLAUW), Ministry of Social Welfare, Gender and Children Affairs and MSF- Holland. Each local partner contributed counselors while MSF- Holland conducted counseling workshops to help improve skills. Later in the programme, UNICEF also became a strong partner.

The first step of the intervention was public sensitization on radio and television. During the first three months, April –June 1999, the programme was supported by FAWE international with MSF –Holland providing drugs. By the end of June over one hundred and twenty- nine (129) victims have been treated medically and counseled. The need to continue the programme became evident as abductees escaped or were released in batches. After consultations with MSF Holland, FAWE was able to get additional support from them in the form of funding for the whole programme. In collaboration with other agencies the Rape Victims programme started. Different teams were set up - sensitization, medical, counseling and Skills training – to implement the programme. In the end, 2110 abductees benefited from this programme in the western Area of whom 1,168 were raped victims. From 1999 – 2002, a total of seven thousand raped victims from nine displaced camps and settlements in six provincial towns were assisted.

As a gender activist and secondly, as a Parliamentarian, I will provide an understanding of the Sierra Leone Parliament by highlighting its work thus far in relation to sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV). I will give a situational analysis of the prevalence and incidence of sexual and gender-based violence in Sierra Leone before, during and after the war and its consequences on women, girls and society at large. This will be followed by responses of government bodies at ending sexual and gender-based violence. I will then give an insight into the laws of Sierra Leone as far as they relate to sexual and gender-based violence. The role of the Sierra Leone Parliament in addressing sexual and gender-based violence will be next described, followed by a discussion on how Parliament partnered with CSO in this regard and end by making suggestions for the way forward for effective strategies to address impunity in Africa.

PREVALENCE OF SEXUAL VIOLENCE AND GENDER-BASED VIOLENCE IN SIERRA LEONE

Domestic and gender-based violence, we all know, has social, economic, psychological, physical and emotional cost both to the individual and society. Yet such cost have been largely under-estimated and ignored, and it is not generally seen as a security issue.

In Africa, in particular, SGBV has been surrounded by a culture of silence and impunity. The range and complexity of the underlying causes make it a difficult issue to address. SGBV not only manifests itself as physical violence such as sexual abuse of women and children, but also includes forms of structural violence such as discriminatory laws and practices that prevent women from owning property or holding positions of authority within their communities.

In short, SGBV has been viewed as a security issue because it is a human rights violation and therefore impacts negatively on the ability of men and women to secure and enjoy their basic rights. It can also feed into broader societal violence and can consequently compromise the country’s development strides.

Let me first and foremost start by emphasizing that the theme: Ending Impunity on Sexual and Gender Based Violence is a befitting one. This conference could not have come at a more opportune moment. The high prevalence of SGBV in our continent and the Great Lakes region in particular has heightened resolve to work together for action, to turn rhetoric to practice.

There have been countless initiatives at international and regional level aimed at putting to an end to Sexual and Gender Based Violence, culture of impunity and other forms of related crime. However, we have not done enough to eradicate these types of crimes and those who have perpetuated these crimes have gotten away with impunity. Therefore this an opportunity to join forces to address the gaps in our actions and accelerate the implementation of the urgent responses to this pandemic problem, ensure prevention, protection, access to care and justice to the victims.

THE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON THE GREAT LAKES REGION AND THE FIGHT AGAINST SEXUAL VIOLENCE

The International Conference on the Great Lakes region has been the incubator for the formulation of landmark protocol and model legislation for the region in the areas of Prevention and Suppression of Sexual Violence against Women and Children. The Protocol seeks to fill the legal void that prevails in most of the legal systems in the countries of the region as a response to the systemic rape of women and children in the Great Lakes Region.

On the eve of the Pan African Conference on Sexual and Gender Based violence that ACORD and seven other like minded partners [1] deemed necessary in order to re-mobilize energies on ending impunity on SGBV, I would like to engage with the subject through a slightly different lens. The question of violence against women has been a constant pre-occupation of mine; professionally, academically and in the personal space. Perhaps my re-engagement with it was more vivid during the recent post election crisis in Kenya not because the experience unparalleled other contexts but because this was my home and as a woman this became a real fear for me in ways that it never had been before. I would like to concern myself with the young people; those popularly referred to as youth whose Africa’s future is said to rest with.

On the 25th of May 2008, a number of like minded organizations [2] came together in Nairobi to commemorate Africa liberation day. I was requested to contribute to the discussions through a speech on Africa’s liberation and youth. It serves to reason that on this day (and thereafter), a day that we are aptly reminded crystallized the youthful nature of our continent, given that most of our independence leaders were in their thirties, we should take time to problematise this category called youth and what hope or vision it holds for this continent.

I find ‘youth’ a particularly difficult subject to engage with, despite the fact that the UN officially considers me to fall within this category. This difficulty arises due to the transitional nature of the term youth and its very constituency. Further, the connotations of youth particularly in my context (Kenya) are unsavory to say the least. The term youth has for a very long time been used to refer to unruly groups of young men, mobilized by politicians to bully, steal and harass their opponents often in the run up to elections. These outfits then morph into vigilante groups, who in the absence of quick money and a job description linked to elections find alternative ways to exist and this comes in the form of thuggery.

Agency for Cooperation and Research in Development (ACORD) became involved in Uganda in 1979. This was immediately after the “Liberation war” which saw the departure of Idi Amin’s regime. The first programme was in the North of the Country based in Gulu district. ACORD was majorly responding to the emergency needs as a result of the war. ACORD has now expanded its programme in the whole of Acholi sub region, Amuru, Gulu, Kitgum and Pader, West Nile sub region, Adjumani and Moyo and the Western part of the country Mbarara programme all under ACORD in Uganda programme. The main intervention currently is focusing on developmental issues and to address the injustices in service delivery by using the right based approach to development as a strategy. ACORD is also engaged in Advocacy and Lobbying for the voice less society in the region to present their issues to the policy makers for a better life. In 2004, ACORD conducted a research to find out the relationship between HIV/AIDS and Sexual and Gender Based Violence. The result of the study showed very strong linkages between the two.

The war in Northern Uganda started in August, 1986 when the Ex-UNLA soldiers who fled into Sudan following their defeat by the National Resistant Army (NRA). In January they crossed back into Uganda and attacked NRA detaches in Gulu district. The attackers returned under the auspices of Uganda Peoples’ Democratic Movement/Army (UPDM/A). This report was presented by; Charles Asowa Okwe Makerere University-Kampala during a two days international conference that was organized by ACORD in February 1997. This event opened a volatile situation in as far as security in Uganda was concerned. The war resulted to massive population dislocation as people flee from the war zones to the safer areas within their districts and beyond.

In some of the affected districts, the situation was more pathetic. People were not only displaced, but some were forced to commute between their homes and trading and urban centers on a daily basis. Children as young as two years old used to commute from their homes to the trading centers looking for shelter. The situation increased cases of defilement and rape as young girls were at the mercy of the older men for material support. The younger boys were too being exploited by older women and sugar mammies and being promised easy life if they accepted their demands.

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/387/49363betweenrock.jpgAt the summit of the African Union in Ghana in July 2007, Robert Mugabe was given a standing ovation. Later he went outside the conference to deliver a roaring anti–imperialist speech at a huge public rally. At the Nkrumah square Mugabe was hailed as one of the most steadfast revolutionary leaders in Africa. One year later, at the African Union Conference in Cairo, Egypt, Robert Mugabe was shunned by most leaders and condemned by those who opposed the authoritarian and dictatorial methods of rule. One day prior to the conference Mugabe had been sworn in as President after a non-election where he was the only candidate. This was a far cry from his initial inauguration in April 1980 when he was sworn in as Prime Minister before a throng of hundreds of thousands. Bob Marley had led the popular anti-racist and anti-imperialist forces to this celebration and had sung, Africans a liberate Zimbabwe. By June 2008 Robert when Mugabe was sworn in his regime had degenerated from a party associated with the legacies of Patrice Lumumba and Kwame Nkrumah to an organization associated with the militarism and repression of Mobutu Sese Seko and Hastings Banda. Working peoples all across the region led and inspired by the Congress of South African Trade Unions opposed the Mugabe government and called for its isolation. Nelson Mandela was moved to declare that one was witnessing a “tragic failure of leadership in Zimbabwe.”

It is this failure that needs to be contextualized not simply as a Zimbabwean phenomenon, but as one of the forms and content of politics and political engagement in an era of economic depression and discredited neo-liberalism. All over the African continent the poor and oppressed have borne the brunt of the food crisis, the energy crisis, the health pandemics, and the crisis of the financial markets. This is the cataclysm that is being termed the worst capitalist crisis since the depression of the 1930’s. While spokespersons for capitalism such as Alan Greenspan have noted the depth of the contradictions between capitalist wealth and the impoverishment of the peoples of the globe, the G8 discourse on increasing aid flows block serious analysis of the impact of the capitalist depression in Africa and other parts of the downtrodden world. Food riots and other forms of spontaneous expressions of resistance have been taking place in the absence of clear organizational forms to respond to this capitalist depression. It is in South Africa where the workers are organizing against the high food prices with marches.

Inside a country such as Zimbabwe the internal political contradictions and the dire economic conditions serve to compound the oppression of the Zimbabwean peoples. It is this oppression that calls for both clear analysis and action on the part of those who want support the oppressed and are not accessories to their oppression by overt and covert support for the Mugabe regime. The Zimbabwean working peoples have been well organized and it is in part the quality of their organization that exposed the Mugabe government and the ZANU-PF party. These organized workers and human rights activists exposed a clique of political careerists and militarists that represented itself as an anti-imperialist force in Africa. From among the ranks of the working peoples emerged various political organizations. The political party that emerged out of this alliance of working peoples is the Movement for Democratic Change. (MDC).

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/387/49362g8escapism.jpgThe meeting of G8 leaders in Hokkaido, Japan, proved to be an exercise in escapism. The final communiqué of the G8 leaders is more of a recycled rhetoric of broken promises. This meeting, held in the midst of financial, fuel, food and climate crisis, failed to recognize the gravity of the crisis. The G8 leaders’ posturing of confidence will not help to solve these issues. This would further increase the legitimacy crisis of G8 as a credible forum to develop any viable solution for the ongoing problems of hunger and injustice- partly perpetuated by the corporate and institutional interests of G8 countries.

The original grouping of rich industrialized nations – G7- emerged in the context of the oil crisis of the 1970s. Now after almost thirty years, G8- that includes the co-opted Russia- face the challenge of being responsible to address the looming crisis of finance, fuel and food. The balance sheet of G8 in the last thirty years clearly shows that G8 as an institutionalized venue failed to provide any meaningful solution to the issues of poverty, war, inequities and injustice that confront the world. While they have managed to impose the neoliberal policy paradigm- with the strategic use of World Bank and IMF conditionality- on the developing world and poor nations of the world, they have not been able to do anything substantial to address trade inequities, aid diversion and debt trap. In fact, G8 leaders, instead of solving these issues, often used the Summits to push forward the interest of the rich countries, with lots of window dressing and rhetoric about poverty reduction, and more aid for the poor countries. In 2005, they promised to write off the debt and double the aid to Africa to address issues of poverty, disease and sustainable development. After three years, these leaders stand exposed in the graveyard of broken promises.

Though a new grouping of G5, countries, including India, China, South Africa, Brazil and Mexico, are being co-opted in to the periphery of the G8 Summits. The G5 Countries too have failed to influence the agenda or outcome of the G8 process. So it is high time for the G5 countries to ponder the very validity of being in the periphery of the G8 Summit- legitimizing the agenda setting role of the rich and powerful countries. Instead of playing the second fiddle to the rich American- European axis and a co-opted Japan, it is high time for G5 to explore the option of reviving the G20 process as an alternate option to discuss and to adopt collective measures to address the issues that confront humanity and the world. This requires a fresh imagination and political will from the part of the G5 leaders.

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/386/49338kwani.jpgKwani faculty comprises a selection of some of the most exciting contemporary writers from Africa and beyond. Setting new agendas, they will teach, explore, debate, read and engage through a wide ranging series of panel discussions, literary lunches, workshops, and readings throughout the 15 days of KLF.

This powerful collection of individuals regularly write for some 75 publications and media outlets between them including Vanity Fair, The New York Times, Granta, New Yorker, Conde Nast Traveler, The Province, The Guardian, The Observer, The Times, The Sunday Times, Harpers and Queen, Focus on Africa, The Economist, Wasafiri, Sable, Travel Africa, Chimurenga and more.
Faculty

Chimamanda Adichie (Nigeria): Her novel, Half of a Yellow Sun, won the Orange Prize in 2007 and was a sensation in Nigeria for its subject – the Biafran war.

Doreen Baingana (Uganda): Author of Tropical Fish: Stories out of Entebbe, which won a Commonwealth Prize in 2006, among others. Her stories have been nominated twice for the Caine Prize.

Ishmael Beah (Sierra Leone)– His memoir, A Long Way Gone, that tells of his time as a child soldier has sold close to a million copies.

Binyavanga Wainaina (Kenya): Kwani? founding editor Binyavanga Wainaina is a Caine Prize winner and contributor to numerous international publications, including Granta, Vanity Fair, the New York Times, Mail and Guardian, and many more.

Aminatta Forna (Sierra Leone) – Former BBC journalist, writer and tutor, her creative non-fiction work The Devil that Danced on the Water chronicled the life of her father in opposition in Sierra Leone.

Simiyu Barasa (Kenya) - A Kenyan filmmaker and writer. He was Writer/Director of the Feature film ‘Toto Millionaire’ (2007) and has written for numerous Kenyan dramas like Makutano Junction, Tahidi High and

Wingu la Moto. His fiction has appeared in Africa Fresh: Voices from the First Continent. His opinions have appeared on NewYork Times, Nigerian Guardian, and South African Southern Times.

Dayo Forster (Gambia): Born in Banjul, her first novel, Reading the Ceiling, was short-listed for the 2008 Commonwealth Writer’s Prize Best First Book for the Africa Region. She has written articles for the East African, BBC radio, Farafina magazine and many other publications.

Stanley Gazemba (Kenya): Trained as a journalist, Gazemba lives in Kangemi, Nairobi and writes for Sunday Nation and Msanii Magazine. He is the author of The Stone Hills of Maragoli, which won the 2003 Jomo Kenyatta Prize for Literature, as well as 5 children’s books.

Parselelo Kantai (Kenya): One of Kenya’s foremost investigative journalists, Kantai is the former editor of the east African environmental quarterly Ecoforum. He wrote and oversaw the publication of “A Deal in the Mara,” which shed light on the corruption in the management of the Maasai Mara. He has contributed to a series of East African magazines and dailies and is currently working on a novel set during the 1970s Kenyatta years.

Muthoni Garland (Kenya): A Kenyan writer and publisher based in Nairobi. She writes stories for children and adults, including the Caine Prize-nominated novella, Tracking the Scent of My Mother and is the founder for Storymoja which encourages Kenyans to read for pleasure.

Jonathan Ledgard (UK) – Correspondent for the Economist and author of the novel Giraffe, he is a specialist writer in conflict, currently based out of Kenya.

Dr Lee (South Korea): Coordinator of the spectacular Jeonju Asian African Literary Festival, Dr. Lee is well versed not only in conflict, but in publishing and encouraging a reading public.

Tony ‘smitta’ Mochama (Kenya): A poet and journalist who lives and works in Nairobi. A Law graduate, Tony is also a vodka connoisseur, gossip columnist extraordinaire, and has a collection of short stories coming out soon titled – ‘The ruins down in Africa’. He has also been called a ‘literary gangster’, from time to rhyme. His collection of poetry, ‘What if I am a literary gangster?’ was published by Brown Bear Insignia in 2007.

Wambui Mwangi (Kenya): A scholar and a writer. She lives in Toronto and Nairobi, teaches at the University of Toronto, and blogs occasionally on Diary of a Mad Kenyan Woman. She is the Director of GenerationKenya, a new multimedia project that explores the identity of post-independence Kenya.

Yvonne Owuor (Kenya): A storyteller based in Nairobi, her short story Weight of Whispers won the 2003 Caine Prize, and she has recently completed her first novel, Red Rain.

Nii Parkes (Ghana): A poet, short story writer, journalist and songwriter, Parkes has been published in magazines and newspapers across the continent.

Shailja Patel (Kenya): Kenyan poet, playwright and theatre artist, Shailja Patel, has performed her work in venues ranging from New York’s Lincoln Centre, to Durban’s Poetry Africa Festival. Her one-woman show, Migritude, received an NPN Creation Fund Award.

Kalundi Serumaga (Uganda): Independent filmmaker, media consultant, and host of a politically focused radio show in Kampala that several politicians (including President Museveni) have vowed never to return to.

Monica Arac de Nyeko (Uganda): Winner of the 2008 Caine Prize for her story The Jambula Tree.

John Sibi-Okumu (Kenya): John Sibi-Okumu is a renowned Kenyan actor, writer, playwright, and teacher.

Rasna Warah (Kenya): A columnist with Kenya’s Daily Nation newspaper and an editor with the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-HABITAT). She is the author of Triple Heritage, has contributed fiction and non-fiction stories to Kwani? and will launch her anthology at KLF 2008.

Neil Graham (Canada/Scotland) – Formerly a Kenya-based journalist, Neil Graham recently retired from teaching journalism at Langara College in Vancouver. He was perviously managing editor of The Province, one of Canada’s largest newspapers.

Dipesh Pabari (Kenya): Writer, Education and Communications consultant. He sits on the Editorial Board for Awaaz Magazine and Wajibu and blogs regularly on Sukuma Kenya. His short story anthology for children entitled, “The Unlikely Burden and other stories,” was recently translated into Kiswahili.

Andia Kisia (Kenya): Writer, playwright and perpetual student, Andia is a recipient for a fellowship at the prestigious Royal Court Theatre in London.

*For more information on the festival and the workshops go to the Kwani? website:

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

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/386/49336pen.jpgIs the pen mightier than the panga? This was the question confronting Kenya’s literary establishment in the opening days of 2008, as war spread throughout Kenya’s urban centers and across the fertile Rift Valley in the nation’s heartland. As belligerent armies of unemployed youth paraded before news cameras armed with the one weapon all Kenyans have access to, pangas (machetes) once again became the symbol for death and destruction in Africa. Spoken words, it seemed, coming from the podiums of politicians of every stripe, were what helped ignite this chaos in the first place; was it possible that written words from a more thoughtful source might help reverse the spread of violence? Or barring that, could it at least make sense of the chaos and thereby ensure that when peace returned, it stayed?

Kenya’s writing community didn’t wait long to find out. Three days after the killings began, a truly unique creature was born: the Concerned Kenyan Writers group, a broad and passionate coalition of almost one hundred thinkers, philosophers, poets, journalists, novelists, film-makers, and just about every brand of outraged humanist a person could imagine.

The CKW began simply, as a ‘google group’ whose members submitted prose for the whole group to debate and critique; part workshop, part battleground of ideas, the stories, essays, poems and rants that were posted to the google group would go on to grace the pages of newspapers like The New York Times and the Mail & Guardian, magazines like Nigeria’s Farafina, and dozens more international publications. And despite its name, the CKW quickly grew to include writers who didn’t hold Kenyan passports, but nevertheless felt a strong enough connection to the country to play an active role in its rehabilitation – writers like Kalundi Serumaga, the Ugandan radio and print journalist, and Petina Gappah, the Zimbabwean writer/activist.

But the impact was greatest inside Kenya’s borders. Within a month of its creation, the CKW had grown to encompass virtually every literary institution; Kenya’s three major newspapers, for instance, were ably covered by Rasna Warah, a columnist for the Daily Nation, Martin Kimani, writing for the weekly East African, and Tony Mochama, whose weekly ‘Smitta’ column in the Standard reaches more of Kenya’s youth than any other printed space in the country. Together, these three (and many more like them) presented stories to millions of Kenyans that went beyond the usual stenographic political coverage. They poked and prodded the consciences of not just politicians, but of readers themselves, urging the public to share in the responsibility for what befell the country.

And they went far beyond newspapers. Tony Mochama, normally known for his sharp-witted interviews and vodka-soaked poetry, published a short story, “The Road To Eldoret,” describing one man’s ill-fated drive through Rift Valley. The tale appeared in a small but vivid collection called After the Vote, alongside stories like Simiyu Barasa’s “The Obituary of Simiyu Barasa,” in which the journalist-turned-filmmaker describes his own death at the hands of imagined rioters; and an untitled essay by playwright Andia Kisia who, in imagining her parents’ witnessing the birth of Kenya, realizes that “the country was a continuous experiment with the ever present possibility of failure, a fragile thing that had only just come into being and might very well go out of being…”

Published in early May, After the Vote was the first post-election book to hit the shelves. Many other like-minded initiatives had already come to the public’s eye, though, like the special edition of Wajibu magazine that came out in mid April with doves and flames on the cover and words by every Kenyan writer of note inside. One of those writers was Wambui Mwangi, who had recently started a multimedia project called Generation Kenya aimed at exploring and celebrating the identity(ies) of post-independence Kenya.

Was it ironic that Mwangi should have sprung her project into motion in December of 2007, at almost the exact moment that Kenya revealed its darkest side to itself and the world? Certainly, “Kenyan-ness” suddenly seemed much less of a cause for celebration by the time December 27th came around. But Mwangi adapted her website, to the new circumstances and used it as a platform to profile the countless ‘mashujaas’ (champions) who had performed acts of heroism on grand and modest scales throughout the election. It turned out to be what Kenya needed most – true and heartening stories that spoke of hope and a fundamental integrity in the Kenyan character at a time when barbarians dominated the stage. The GenKen project resonated so well with the public that the Nation Media Group is now including it as a supplement in their pages, the most widely read in Kenya.

Not to be outdone, the diaspora intelligencia contributed from afar as blogs and websites roared to life – perhaps none more vocally than KenyaImagine.com, whose cast of writers provided an ongoing narrative of the Kenyan drama. Managed by a handful of editors living as far afield as England, the US and South Africa, KenyaImagine blended the humour and absurdity of the post-election period so deftly it was hard to imagine the people running it could be living anywhere but inside the heart of the story. Other sites used their cyberpens to do more than tell stories; they raised cash for aid, like like Dipesh Pabari’s Sukuma Kenya, which pulled in 1.2 million shillings and funneled it towards reconstruction efforts in Kisumu.

And then there is Kwani?, the annual anthology of east African literature spearheaded by Binyavanga Wainaina, who was one of the driving forces behind the creation of the CKW itself. Kwani? was halfway through production of their fifth volume when the election struck and rendered all other topics irrelevant. Instead of pursuing their original table of contents, the editors decided to clear the plate and start fresh; in February, Kwani? sent a dozen writers on the Testimonial Project; they gathered over two hundred interviews from across the country, drawing out voices that were involved in all sides of the conflict for an unprecedented glimpse of what January’s chaos looked like on the ground. Other writers, some of whom had already been commissioned to follow the campaign, were brought in to flesh out the narrative, bringing creative nonfiction, poetry, essays and analysis to the mix. The result will be launched in August, a special twin issue that promises to be the most authoritative and comprehensive reflection to date on this most indelible of historical periods.

That launch coincides with the Kwani Litfest. Writers from all over Africa are coming to Nairobi for the first week of August, an event that may provide the first real opportunity to reflect on a different sort of question – the most painful one for writers, of just how much difference their work has made. There is little doubt that the Kenyan crisis has inspired an already talented crew of writers and forced them to reach for new heights. But the question does remain: Can their collective pens defeat the swords that were drawn in January?

For now those blades are sheathed, while the scribes continue to wage their sharp-tongued war on the status quo. It will take some time to tell how deeply into Kenya’s conscience the country’s writers can cut with their words. In the meantime, the activation and engagement of Kenya’s literary community is already proof that at least one good thing has come from this country’s descent into madness.

*Arno Kopecky is a Canadian journalist and travel writer, currently based in Nairobi. His dispatches have appeared in several international publications, including The Walrus magazine, Utne, Harper's, The Toronto Star, and Kenya's Daily Nation, for whom he reported extensively on Kenya's post-election chaos. He is currently an editor with Kwani?, a literary anthology of east African words, photography and art.

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

As dusk descends, preparations continue apace outside the main entrance of the National Museum. Trees planted in sturdy plastic bags brought in for the occasion are being wrap-dressed in gold shimmery fabric. A disco set of powerful spotlights alternate green, blue, red, shining through the customised Kitengela stained glass windows of the newly built reception area. The monotonous “one two, one two” of the sound test irritates – it always does. A large cardboard cut-out of the Gedi ruins is placed in one area; a model of the oryx and the lioness in another. Pacing through this activity is a woman, painted toenails showing hints of white from panic scrunched toes, hair akimbo as she rakes her fingers through it in distraction. It appears that the newly minted Minister for Tourism has decided to introduce himself to the diplomatic community outside the newly minted National Museum in Nairobi. And she, the proposer, and organiser is struggling to get all details in place before the jamboree kicks off.

I know that feeling. At the last Kwani Litfest in 2006, I got caught in Nairobi’s notorious evening traffic, made worse by an accident, on the eve of a fundraiser that I was in charge of called Authors in Conversation. As I sat, gridlocked, on a single lane road that really had nowhere to go, the phone didn’t stop ringing. First it was the DJ, Chimurenga editor Ntone Edjabe, saying that the owner of the venue had been so rude that he didn’t want to take part any more. Then it was the main attraction, MG Vassanji, who’d been insulted by the interviewer who had just confessed that he hadn’t read a single Vassanji book. He didn’t want to take part any more. Vassanji’s call was followed by the interviewer – who up to this point had thought he was the interviewee, having brought out a book himself just recently – he too didn’t want to take part any more. With all the major players resigning with just minutes to spare, it was actually a relief not to be at the event. That is until I received a call from the panicked restaurant to say nobody was manning the front desk, so everyone was coming in to our fundraiser for free. Squished on Tarifa Road between a matatu on one side and a green Peugeot on the other, I too raked fingers through carefully combed hair as I felt weeks of plans and organisation slip into chaos.

This feeling of hopeless panic was to descend on me over and over again in the next fortnight. It happened when the photocopies of manuscripts for a workshop didn’t materialise; when dinner in Lamu’s fort arrived so late that half the participants wandered off in search of other food; when a tutor fell through the bottom of a fibre glass boat as he leapt in excitement from a dhow (the same tutor who, only minutes earlier, had been rescued from a roaring tide that had yanked him far away from the boat). Oh, and when the additional luggage on our return charter from Lamu included spoils such as wooden carved chests, large mkeka’s, lamu chairs and other such cargo that the pilot, fearing that his overweight plane would just bounce from the runway into the sea refused to take off until great chunks of luggage was removed – resulting in a two hour haggling negotiation with a scheduled airline to take the goods.

Such is the world of Arts Management or Event Organisation. For some enterprising souls, this moniker involves securing a million dollars to helicopter a posse of people up north to dress Poi mountain in gossamer thin red silk carried up its sheer face by barefoot dancers who have learned to mountaineer for this specific purpose – to peg, in a gesture of oblique Samburu symbolism, said fabric to the climbing cleats driven into the rock by a more prosaic batch of Czech mountaineers. The scene is then painted at speed by disabled French dwarfs from the renaissance movement of art while Mongolian throat singers provide an appropriate and stimulating sound stimulus to the entire shebang. Ah, Creation!

Our approach is more prosaic. The Kwani team agonised as to whether to have a Litfest at all this year as the violence struck, stuck and spread across Kenya; bonfires and machetes uniting the land in the horror of our very own gruesome trance dance. It quickly became clear, as tourists hopped, skipped and jumped out of their bikinis and safaris suits and leapt onto leaving planes that holding our event, revised, revisioned and fully reflecting all that writers can do in unpacking a nation’s crisis was in fact completely vital.

Of course, some elements, regardless of theme or urgency don’t change. Having started so late meant that funding was painfully short. No urging from Mongolian throat singers then. Instead underpaid organisers, together with no pay volunteers work out how to structure, guide and direct opinionated creative people to (just for a short time) co-operate with the timetable, and the requests of the event. Simultaneously we persuade sponsors and attendees that what they are about to see/hear/read/pay for is in an awesome enough activity for them to part with some cash – even if it doesn’t involve yards of gossamer silk.

Arthur Flowers, better known now as “Mganga Maua” is a regular invitee of the Kwani Litfest. He has watched it evolve over the years and wrote in his blog of 2006:

“I have met so many strong African writers this trip, its been an experience

this kwani movement never ceases to amaze me

my workshop full of fellow teachers and academics who know the craft as well as i do

ive gained as much as ive given in that workshop a gathering of very powerful women that see things i dont see

often im sitting there with my mouth open catching flies”

Arthur and fellow writer Jeff Allen, were so inspired in 2006, that they decided to set up their own festival – kicking off next week in Ghana – check out their acitvites at
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In the UK, the advent of the Olympics being awarded to London led to an almost instant, 30% cut in Arts funding. A clear case of prioritisation for the UK government then. Of course here in Kenya, getting any funding at all from the government for such an event is well nigh impossible, as nothing is earmarked for such endeavours in the first place. More shame them. I prefer the Korean’s approach. In November 2007, the Koreans funded the beautifully organised Jeonju Asia-African Literature festival, to which I was invited. It was a massive event, funded by a government that understood if you feted writers who have the potential to alter their countrymen’s thinking, you can basically get them to do all the promo work for you. It’s a good approach. The good people I met in Jeonju and beyond are often on my lips and at my fingertips. I’ve rarely been so well fed, so comprehensively photographed, so carefully chaperoned, or shown such wonderful treasures as we were in South Korea.

See the Koreans figure that once us writers have softened up our nation by repeatedly extolling the virtues of our Korean trip in magazines destined to sit around in dentist’s waiting rooms, or newspapers to be passed through eight different hands, then our fulsome praise will touch a lot of people. Those words, these days can also be googled many years after the event, and all serve to build up positive PR about the country. And they are right. Now that I’ve seen how well they do things, how much space they now give to their thinkers, I am favourably disposed. When the Koreans come in with their products and services, I’ll sign up. They do a good line in digital dictaphone recorders by the way.

Anyone with a love for books must make a trip Paju Book City – their custom built, wetland surrounded, architecturally inspired new City – a whole area entirely dedicated to publishing the most beautiful of books. Here the new technologies of sophisticated printing presses merge with old techniques of producing beautiful hand made paper. A whole 360 publishing houses specialising in science, poetry, fiction, turn out hundreds of wonderfully designed, immaculately executed books for a 100% literate population that has one of the strongest reading cultures in the world. Your average Korean is an avid book purchaser, and they are able to support this thriving creative book making industry (and they possess the largest bookshop in the world).

This, by the way, is a nation, that in 1963 at Kenya’s independence shared the same level of GDP as we did. Look where a government policy, which includes proactively encouraging - and paying for - an interest in reading has taken them.
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Say something often enough and it embeds itself in a nation’s psyche. Write opinions that reflect support and uplift the ideas of the masses and you have a revolution. That’s why they lock up writers don’t they? Too dangerous, too powerful?

And yet we can’t even get the enthused, but nonetheless assistant Marketing Manager at Kenya Tourist Board (KTB) to return our calls. It seems that bringing in prize winning, best-selling authors into a country recently ravaged by the negative publicity of violence and disorder isn’t so relevant to changing the perception of this nation to outsiders. Our assertion, that we can show these powerful people, through the Kwani Litfest, a facet of Kenya that is fascinating and thriving enough for them to want to write about seems to carry as much weight as the Gedi ruins cut-out at the Ministry of Tourism big bash this week. “The weekend papers have been full of Kenya specials, so they (KTB) must be throwing some money around,” commented Aminatta Forna, one of our invited writers. “But to get an advert in Harper's Bazaar would cost them their entire annual budget and more.”

She’s got us an editorial and is arriving with a commission – a travel one no less from Harpers Bazaar to write a piece on her Kenya trip. For the price of an air ticket and a good hotel room, that’s valuable column inches being given over to the recovery a vital fact of this country’s economy.

If you type Kwani Litfest 06 into Google, over 1150 blog entries appear. And the reports are often glowing entries from writers who were wowed at Litfest 2006 and went on to tell the world about it. Similarly, a fat, favourable five-page spread in Vanity Fair appeared after its book’s editor attended in 2006, going to workshops, but more importantly swooning with pleasure at the gentle comforts and the delicious seafood of her Lamu sojourn. Her riff went something like this: “It seems everywhere one goes these days – those in the know are buzzing about an African Literary renaissance…. Nowhere is this more evident than at the SLS Kenya Kwani? Litfest this past December, where a historic number of writers, journalists and magazine editors from Congo to Cape Town, Bangalore to Boston have gathered to catch a ride on literature’s new wave…Fuelled by the internet (and few Western publishers who have rubbed the sleep out of their eyes), the African revolution is on your doorstep….Lucky, lucky you.”

In that same issue, Kwani founder - our very own Binyavanga Wainaina, who has achieved some notoriety and no small amount of power from his writings (see separate interview) was given another five pages to expound his opinions of Kenya and Africa. Add the ever more vocal and more immediate world of blogs; the kudos of stories in national daily newspapers from New York to New Zealand (as Vanity Fair would not doubt put it) and you can see that our gathering had some pretty good clout. One guy even wrote a whole book of poetry based on his experiences of Lamu. We plan to launch it at this year’s Litfest.

Despite all this hard evidence, it seems we are still viewed as a specialist esoteric group of individuals, not relevant enough to shaping this country’s ideas to be taken too seriously. Its’ enough to make you whip out your dictionaries of Korean characters (purchased in Paju Book City, and printed on thick luscious hibiscus flower paper), and start learning the language of a nation so as to move to a place where the critical importance of writers shaping a citizenry’s thought has been understood.

Except there are enough of us “in the know”, as Vanity Fair asserts, to see our influence filter out all over the Kenyan arena. We see excerpts of our ideas dotting the opinion pieces of journalists in the national press; we’re quoted by businessmen; our words are spoken with authority by donor agencies. We watch the hive of creativity grow and blossom into new projects that we barely dreamed of when we first thought of putting local and international writers of all hues and styles together in this particular sphere. We see heated arguments morph into brilliant collaborations.

There were 100 little adventures to be had at Kwani Litfest 2006. From swimming across the Lamu to Manda channel, to getting lost somewhere in the middle of the island, to eye-popping visits in Dandora and incredible poetry performances that are still talked about today - those many little organisational glitches, turned quickly into many, many triumphs. The Nigerian Litmag Farafina was born at a Litfest, as was the Pan African Literary Forum. Watch this space for the advent on an exciting international literary archive project called Goonj. All these created the many narratives that made up the Kwani Litfest 2005 and 2006.

KLF 208 is set to bring an even brighter cast of literary icons and events to Kenya during the first two weeks of August for a world-class celebration of African stories. From literary safaris a la Hemmingway to sailboat excursions on the Indian Ocean, plus the usual dose of 'Afropolitan' workshops, dinners and symposiums in the teeming capital of Nairobi, KLF 2008 will harness all of this country's vivid diversity. "Kenya has never been more relevant to global development than today," notes Binyavanga Wainaina, founding editor of Kwani? magazine and contributor to Vanity Fair, National Geographic, Granta, and other notable publications. "For the best writers on the continent to gather in a setting that embodies Africa's greatest hopes and deepest fears is an extraordinary opportunity."

The 2008 faculty also includes Chimamanda Adichie, the Nigerian star whose novel Half of a Yellow Sun won the 2007 Orange Prize for Fiction; Sierra Leone's Ishmael Beah, whose book A Long Way Gone thrust the plight of child soldiers into western hearts and minds; plus many more prize-winning journalists, authors, influential editors and publishers from across the literary spectrum.

In addition to honing participants' skills in poetry, fiction, nonfiction and journalism, this year's litfest will be informed by the horrific post-election chaos from which Kenya recently emerged. The role of the written word in conflict situations will be examined by writers fresh from the field, their experiences and insights sure to electrify colleagues and participants alike.

Join us for a collection of new incidents this year.

*Shalini Gidoomal is a freelance journalist, writer, businesswoman and inveterate traveller, born, and currently living in Nairobi. She has worked extensively on various UK and international magazines and newspapers, including The Independent, News of the World, Today, FHM, GQ and Architectural Digest. She profiled five Northern Irish photographers for the book Parallel Realities, and has worked in Kenya for the Standard and Camerapix. Her short stories and non- fiction have been published in The Obituary Tango, Jungfrau and Kwani 04. She is editorial co-ordinator for the Generation Kenya 45 project and festival director of Kwani Litfest 2008.

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

Human security should come first in seeking conflict resolution in the Horn of Africa. Favour should be shown to partners that protect their people - whether they are state or non-state actors - and not just to those who claim to protect western interests. And all states in the region should be required to conform to “the normal conventions of international conduct.”

These are the main conclusions of a new Chatham House report by Sally Healey in ‘Lost Opportunities in the Horn of Africa: How Conflicts Connect and Peace Agreements Unravel.’ The conclusions, despite their diplomatic wording, amount to a clear criticism of outside and especially Western policy in the region. But the underlying analysis provides a valuable conceptual tool-kit for challenging the concepts used more widely for understanding conflict.

The report looks at three peace processes in the Horn - the Algiers Agreement of December 2000 between Ethiopia and Eritrea; The Somalia National Peace and Reconciliation Process of October 2004, and the Sudan Comprehensive Peace Agreement of January 2005.

Each of the three processes is unique, and their most obvious common feature is that the results are mixed. The Algiers Agreement has not led to a permanent settlement between Ethiopia and Eritrea. The two instruments created at Algiers to help reach a permanent peace - the boundary commission and the UN force - have both run out of steam. At least the two sides have not returned to open war. But their enmity continues, and is played out by proxy elsewhere in the region, especially in Somalia.

When the African Union (AU) Heads of State committed to allocating at least 15% of annual government budgets to their health sectors In Abuja, Nigeria in 2001, they also called on high income countries to fulfil their own commitment to devote at least 0.7% of their GNP as ODA to developing countries and to cancel Africa’s external debt in favour of increased investment in the social sector.

The Abuja target, thus, consists of three components; African countries should:

- mobilise domestic resources for health (15% now);

- unencumbered by debt servicing (Debt cancellation now); and

- be supported by ODA (0.7% GNP to ODA now).

After the significant fall in public sector funding of the health sector funding associated with structural adjustment programmes and market reforms, most African countries clearly need to increase public sector investment in health. Poorer groups have considerably worse health than the better off and economic growth and achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in the region is seriously undermined by the prevalence of HIV and AIDS, TB, Malaria and other diseases. Eleven of the 16 countries in east and southern Africa spend in their public sectors less than the US$34 needed for the most basic interventions for these conditions, let alone the US$80 needed for more comprehensive health services. Very few East and Southern African (ESA) countries have health care spending levels anywhere near this amount, and there are thus major unmet health needs. Ten of the sixteen countries in the region, if they met the Abuja target, would, however, increase their public financing to health above the level of US$34/capita needed for the basic health programmes.

The world’s attention has been riveted in 2008, by election crises in Africa, first Kenya, and now Zimbabwe. In both cases, challenges remain in converting electoral victory to political power. Can a victorious opposition come to power in the face of an obstinate incumbent? This question is particularly relevant when the incumbent regime controls the coercive apparatus of the state and the opposition only has the ballot in its corner. In the battle of the ballot vs. the bullet, can there ever be a fair match?

Historically the answer has been no. But new developments on the democratic front in Africa in the last decade have strengthened election support and monitoring by key regional bodies, the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the African Union (AU). In 2004, SADC adopted ‘Principles and Guidelines Governing Democratic Elections’ aimed at ‘enhancing the transparency and credibility of elections and democratic governance as well as ensuring the acceptance of election results by contesting parties”. The African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance adopted by the AU in 2007 to, among other things, ‘promote the holding of regular free and fair elections to institutionalize legitimate authority of representative government as well as democratic change of government”, consolidated gains on the electoral front. These developments have strengthened the electoral process on the continent, creating the space for opposition parties to compete fairly. At a minimum, international supervision through these protocols compels sitting governments to desist from outright repression and undemocratic practices.