"I understand that there are South Africans here tonight - some of whom have been involved in the long struggle for freedom there. In our struggle for freedom and justice in the United States, which has also been so long and arduous, we feel a powerful sense of identification with those in the far more deadly struggle for freedom in South Africa. We know how Africans there, and their friends of other races, strove for half a century to win their freedom by non-violent methods. We have honoured Chief Lutuli for his leadership, and we know how this non-violence was only met by increasing violence from the state, increasing repression, culminating in the shootings of Sharpeville and all that has happened since…Today great leaders - Nelson Mandela and Robert Sobukwe - are among many hundreds wasting away in Robben Island prison.

-Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (London 1964)

In the eyes of the African Diaspora Nelson Mandela came to represent an image that was “larger than life.” In his years of prominence Mandela represented the deep historical voices of Black Nationalism and the Pan African dreams of a cross Atlantic Ocean connection. Nelson Mandela was a voice for a world wide struggle for African liberation and a global movement that would by 1990 secure his release from the prisons of South Africa.

The roots of the Pan African connection extend well beyond the beginnings of the Pan African Congresses of the early 20th century. These early efforts would be continued in the organizing of Marcus Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association, the Harlem Renaissance, the Council on African Affairs, and the birth of the Civil Rights movement. As the African American movement increased its challenges to racism and exclusion the voices of Black Nationalism were fueled with the three visits of Malcolm X to Africa, the leadership of Kwame Ture, the Black Power Movement, the Black Panther Party, and the consistent presence of Queen Mother Moore.

Malcolm X emphasized the urgency of a Pan Africanist struggle when he presented his last major speech of 1965 “The Last Message”- one week before his assassination. In that speech Malcolm highlighted the assassination of Congolese Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba and spoke clearly on the complicity of the United States and Western powers in the events in South Africa. A few years earlier the Student Non Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) had declared in its founding manifesto that “we identify ourselves with the Africa struggle as a concern for all mankind. “ If there was one African leader that represented that Pan African struggle in the latter part of the 20th century, it was indeed Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela.

African Americans in the Diaspora knew well of Kwame Nkrumah, the Mau Mau in Kenya, Ahmed Ben Bella in Algeria, Gamal Abdel Nasser in Egypt, Samora Machel in Mozambique, and Amilcar Cabral in Portuguese Guinea. Mandela’s legacy for African Americans was that he was one part of a growing awareness of southern African and the entire African continent. The same zeal that African American communities and their supporters brought to the anti apartheid struggle was manifested in support of SWAPO, FRELIMO, ZANU, ZAPU, and the PAIGC. It was however, South African that was seen as the almost invincible levee that ensured white privilege and colonialism throughout the “Motherland.” At times we chose to debate our allegiances to either the PAC, the ANC, ZANU or ZAPU. At the end of the day our goal was to ensure that there was a victory for African people on the African continent.

It was a remarkable nation wide movement with Nelson Mandela as the “stamp” that reached into churches, labor unions, universities, organizations, and grassroots communities. When we sponsored anti apartheid benefits , and raised high the demand of freeing Nelson Mandela it was in many senses about finishing some parts of a Civil Rights Movements that had been left semi done.

Perhaps it is too early to make a thorough analysis of Nelson Mandela and his transition from liberation fighter to president to diplomat. The liberation that we all fought for of the African continent is not yet in its final stages-either in Africa or abroad. It is not however too early to realize that African liberation and self determination will require much more than timely rhetoric. Its mandatory that Pan Africanists remain engaged with Africa and the struggles throughout the Diaspora with the same principles that we utilized to ensure the release of Nelson Mandela.

Happy 90th Birthday!

*Walter Turner is host of Africa Today, KPFA Radio (www.kpfa.org), co- author of "Africa Libertation and American Activists over a Half Century, 1950-2000" and Chairperson of the Social Sciences Department, College of Marin.

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

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.

On Saturday 12 July 2008, following a call by CIVICUS: World Alliance For Citizen Participation, Amnesty International and the Global Call for Action Against Poverty (GCAP), citizens of Africa will unite to express their solidarity with the people of Zimbabwe who are suffering persistent violations of their rights. Saturday represents the launch of a Pan-African Campaign of Solidarity for Zimbabwe, and will be followed by events continent-wide.

There has been a lot of opprobrium directed at African leaders for lacking the political will to put in check if not end Mugabe’s misrule. However I have a different take on the outcome of the recent Sharm El Sheikh Summit of the Heads of State and Government of the African Union.

Media reports and public reaction both in Africa and outside of Africa have been highly critical and dismissive of the AU resolution. For many, this was yet another unprincipled stand by the African leaders, many of whom have no better democratic credentials than those of Uncle Bob’s. So what would you expect from such a group the cynics ask? As understandable as this position is, it fails to take cognisance of the changing dynamics of intra-African diplomacy. For that failure those holding this view become unwitting allies of President Mugabe whose tainted and stale reading of Africa convince him that no African leader can criticise him.

Mugabe said this much soon after his one-man presidential run-off and his hurried ‘swearing in – just in time to rush off Egypt. He claimed that none of the leaders had cleaner hands than his, which are certainly bloody. In a sense he was daring those with cleaner hands to cast the first stone. It was desperate bravado from a man who has lost all claims to moral or political integrity. He exonerates himself not by proclaiming his innocence but declaring that he is not the only one guilty. No doubt his fellow riggers and robbers feel uncomfortable.

I skipped the AU summit in Egypt and did not feel guilty about it.

In the past 15 years I can count the number of times that I have missed the OAU/AU summits. And in the few times that I have, it was due to unavoidable circumstances.

I have been part of a core of African activists who have remained engaged with our premier diplomatic and political organisation long before it became fashionable as it has become today. Those were bleak times when the OAU was a pejorative term, a symbol of all that was wrong with Africa especially its leaders.

Today everybody talks of engaging, interfacing, collaborating and working with the AU. It is looked upon as an important forum for African leadership, African problems and African consensus on global issues. African and non-African NGOs in particular have in recent years ‘discovered’ that relating to the AU is important for their advocacy and even funding!

“The next day mother forced me to wear the ZANU-PF T-Shirt and to attend an everyday compulsory ZANU-PF meeting. When we arrived at the meeting place I heard war veterans boasting that they had just acquired new knobkerries to beat those who had absconded from the previous day's meeting. At first I thought it was a joke, but was shocked to see a young man being dragged in front of everyone, and thereafter being severely beaten… We are told that there is a struggle between Zimbabwe and England but it feels like a struggle between the rich and the poor in Zimbabwe” writes Nsingo Fanuel.
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Excitement gripped me when I was finally able to go back across the border, from South Africa to visit my family in Zimbabwe. Pleased as I was, I tried to ignore all the media reports about the country's disregard of acceptable and proper treatment of human beings. Before going home, I braced myself for whatever the hell was to befall me! Imagine going back home to unpredictable situations, disastrous conditions, or even impending death - and when home is Zimbabwe this is no exaggeration. If you are returning South Africa you are immediately suspected of being MDC. Anyway, going home was the only way to please my mum!

From Johannesburg I boarded a bus directly to Harare, Zimbabwe. I paid 300 Rands for the trip and took at least seven hours to reach the Beitbridge Border Post. The border was highly-congested, with border officials dragging their feet at main checkpoints. My stay there was four hours. We left for Harare at around 5 o'clock in the morning and it took eight hours to get there.

I was shocked by the state of the capital city. There was no transport to ferry me to my small city of birth, Marondera. Familiar with my country's economic woes, I immediately settled on the fuel disaster as the explanation. However, I waited by Fourth Street, just behind Roadport for any transport, and soon thereafter a smoking, dusty, ready-for-scrap Mazda T3500 lorry arrived. I jostled alongside other stranded commuters and climbed to the back. Along the way the driver demanded Z$500 million, as transport fares. He said this was to enable him to buy fuel.

As we drove past Ruwa, a small town just outside Harare, the fuel black-marketeers waved down the driver. Only in Zimbabwe could fuel run dry, but never for the black-marketeers. Immediately, the driver parked by the roadside, but was told to restart and get fuelled hidden in a small patch of thick bush from the army or police. He complied. I tried to get as close to the black-marketeer and gathered the two were arguing over the exact price of the 'precious liquid.’ It seemed the young man was attempting to refuel the lorry before settling on the actual price.

When I arrived in the newly-crowned city of Marondera (formerly a town, and recently given a city status), I just slept overnight, eager to catch the morning bus to my mother's plot, allocated to her by the ruling Zanu-PF party. The house in Marondera belongs to my grandfather, my mother's stepfather. Currently, the four bed-roomed tiny property is home to my mother's sister, together with her three children. Her first-born is a boy, who has two younger sisters as well. The next morning I took a lift to the Baker Plots, grabbed from a Mr. Baker, a white farmer. Mr. Baker is one of the 4,000 white farmers whose farms were forcibly grabbed by the ruling government in 1997, under pressure from the late former Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans' Association leader, Chenjerai Hunzvi.

I paid Z$200 million from Marondera to Baker's. Initially, the driver of the small, out-of-date Datsun Pulsar had asked for Z$300 million, arguing that the exchange rate of the Zim Dollar versus the South African Rand was unpredictable, thus the need to cater for the unexpected devaluation of the dollar. True to his utterances, and as I was to experience for myself during my short stay in Zimbabwe, the Z$ falls on an hourly basis. To stay on the safe side, one has to keep a close and tight guard on the 'now indispensable' Tito Mboweni product.

As I reached the place, I was greeted by a commotion of chants of slogans and shouts by ruling party youths at the local shopping centre. Then there was another shocking horror, the shelves in one of the stores were the emptiest and grubbiest in the whole world! Immediately, I rushed for my mother's plot, and when she saw me, she burst into tears, wondering how on earth God had spared me from the 'Xenophobia Attacks'. We hugged and kissed, and I told her, 'Give thanks to Abahlali baseMjondolo', to which she, who has never lived in a shack, responded curtly, 'Who the hell's that?!' I mumbled in answer to her as I felt my struggle for land and housing as an 'Umhlali’ would shock her.

When we were seated, I began by narrating how good Abahlali had been to me and told her all about the red T-shirts – at the same time pulling out the colours with pride, and showcasing the movement logo, all to her surprise. 'That's politics, my son!’ my mother worried. I continued with the different marches that I had been part of, the camp meetings, the regular fortnightly meetings, office work, drinking and eating from the same plate with the president of Abahlali. I wondered if the same could be done with the ailing and wilting Bob. I wondered at the ease by which I was proud to wear the Abahlali red. I thought about how difficult and burdening it must be to have to wear the old dictator's picture on a shirt. Free at last, ain't I?

The one and only cock was made to suffer the consequences of my return, as is the African custom. It had to be sacrificed for my arrival. How good the meal was, as my sister's authority and expertise over the rural pots proved itself! No spices, just the boiled chicken and a few grains of salt. Of course no cooking oil or any fatty additives whatsoever these days. But the meal was perfect.

The next day mother forced me to wear the ZANU-PF T-Shirt and to attend an everyday compulsory ZANU-PF meeting. She was very worried that I would be under suspicion after having been away. When we arrived at the meeting place I heard war veterans boasting that they had just acquired new knobkerries to beat those who had absconded from the previous day's meeting. At first I thought it was a joke, but was shocked to see a young man being dragged in front of everyone, and thereafter being severely beaten. A certain headman was also being accused of defecting to the opposition MDC. He however managed to save his skin because of his ill-health, otherwise he would have received the canning. But others have been ironed on their backs until they admit to being MDC and promise that they have seen the errors of their ways and that they will be loyal to ZANU-PF.

When I was to return, mother wrote a letter to the President of Abahlali, stating how grateful she was for my good upkeep. She further narrated how difficult it was to survive, mentioning the billions of ZimDollars-for-nothing needed to survive on a daily basis. To this day, I feel pity for her.

When I got to Beitbridge on my way back to South Africa, I overhead some youths openly debating on who the richest man in Zimbabwe was. All the tycoons and bigwigs mentioned in that debate are Zanu-PF loyalists. One talkative youth even went to the extent of boasting about Phillip Chiyangwa, nephew of Robert Mugabe and former MP for Chinhoyi West. The youth was saying Chiyangwa's pair of shoes could cost approximately US$5,000.00. His car could talk, he had a machine to wash his teeth, six wardrobes of shoes – from his Bulawayo-based G & D Shoes Engineering, twenty wardrobes of suits and so on. For your own information, the fallen MP was also booted out of the ruling party for allegedly engaging in espionage, selling all the 'top secrets' to the then Tony Blair-led government in England.

My question is this: if people spend government resources to enrich themselves, to the extent of living luxurious and flamboyant lives, whilst 90% of the population are suffering, even starving, what is the motive behind this? If a pair of shoes is worth a life, how come the leadership is failing to dish out its leftovers or excesses towards the livelihood of the poor? Does ZANU-PF care about ordinary Zimbabweans at all? What other assets are the ruling party cronies hiding throughout the world? We are told that there is a struggle between Zimbabwe and England but it feels like a struggle between the rich and the poor in Zimbabwe.

As the events further unfolded, some MDC youths arrived at the Beitbridge Rank, not knowing what was about to befall them. Within ten minutes of their arrival, the police began chasing them away, accusing them of serving a puppet leader, and warning them of arrest. The opposition youths could do nothing but listen to Mugabe's bees.

Immediately afterwards, an old, forget-my-past Mazda 323 dragged itself towards the rank and out came the ugliest face I have ever seen, wailing a loudhailer that 'Operation Mirai Zvakanaka' was to start in ten minutes time, therefore every street-trader, and all the ladies by the vegetable market, should 'shut down' and attend an urgent meeting. 'Operation Mirai Zvakanaka' means 'Operation Get Rightly Sorted Out', literally, 'Operation Know Your One and Only ZANU-PF Party.' In Abahlali we come to a meeting with all our different ideas and experiences and discuss things together until we see a way forward together. We are free. In Zimbabwe ZANU-PF tells you want to think. If you don't publicly say what you have been told to think, you will be beaten, sometimes even killed.

After the ten minutes were over, the meeting was held, with youths 'sorting-out' everybody who they had seen walking around without attending to the urgent call. I felt pity for Morgan Tsvangirai and his colleagues. Surely, this wasn't an atmosphere for free and fair elections. Surely, this wasn't an atmosphere for people with their own ideas to be safe. There is no freedom here.

The army is also brutalizing the people, the police have become the opposite of real protectors, and everybody is scared. What will happen to me now that my mother has been Zanufied? How will she fare if the MDC wins the June 27th run-off elections? Will I be made to carry the burden that she put herself in?

On the other hand, the 4,000 white farmers, whose farms were grabbed took their case to the SADC Tribunal. The question is this: If Uncle Bob retains power, and the farmers win the case on the 20th July, is he (Uncle Bob) going to budge, and immediately trigger a war? If he gives in to the tribunal demands, where is my mother going to go at her current old age, together with my brother and three sisters?

Or above all else, shouldn't I start a political party as soon as possible? A political party that is for land and freedom? A political party based on the full involvement of the poor, the street-traders who have been chased away from their stalls, the shack dwellers whose homes have been destroyed, the people who have been beaten and tortured? A political party in which people like my mother will be able to speak freely and will know that they will not be old and without a place where they can live and look after their children?

*Fanuel Nsingo is an Abahlali baseMjondolo activist.

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

It is so sad that a leader who came as a new Nkrumah is going down as a Mobutu, writes Tajudeen Abdul Raheem about Mugabe. It is a grave understatement to continue to describe him as an embarrassment to Africa. He is a dangerous autocrat who does not care anymore if the whole nation crashes with him. He needs to be stopped and stopped now.
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It is extremely sad to watch, hear or read about the tragic events happening in Zimbabwe. Not even the proverbial ostrich, notorious for burying its head in the sand no matter what is happening around, it can claim not to notice.

This week's withdrawal of the ppposition presidential candidate, Morgan Tsvangirai, is not surprising at all. In conditions such as those orchestrated by the ZANU-PF regime and its ageing revolutionary turned autocrat, holding a credible election is impossible. Mugabe has made it clear, and his security goons and freelance political enforcers have repeated it in words and brutal actions, that on no condition would he hand over power to the MDC and Morgan. So why bother to hold an election at all? Mugabe is willing to accept only one outcome: his continuation in office.

In conditions like these, an election is not an indication of democracy but a conspiracy against the masses. The issues facing Zimbabweans are no longer about electoral disputes but a one-sided civil / political war situation where the state and its agents are persecuting their political opponents and those they believe to be their supporters.

It is not only the coercive instruments and institutions of the state that are extremely and openly partisan. They also allow their supporters to operate with impunity. The army, the police, security and intelligence services, state and government officials, and party officials all operate as outlaws, while militias operate as regular officers. It is a post liberation state gone full circle. The people's state has become the enemy of the people.

The problem is political. Therefore the solution is also political. Our first responsibility is to discourage President Mugabe from his destructive self-succession in going ahead and contesting against himself on the 27th of June. If he insists, as it is likely, the immediate response should be a withdrawal of official observer teams that may have been sent there, recall of ambassadors, travel advice to nationals not to go to the country and possible evacuation of citizens. All these will signal to Mugabe that Africa is serious.

If he goes ahead with the farce, African countries must publicly state that they do not recognise his election. That should invite immediate break in diplomatic relations to demonstrate to President Mugabe that we mean business.

If western pressure alone could have done it, Mugabe could have gone many years before now. He has survived western diplomatic isolation because African states and leaders, even those opposed to him, have refused to accept Western dictates on the matter. He has exploited this to his advantage without giving back any significant concessions even to his closest allies and defenders, like Thabo Mbeki.

Mugabe has become a collective embarrassment to Africa and we need to be rid of him. It is no longer enough to say he is not alone. The fact that there are other thieves is not a plea against prosecution by those caught in the act. Those who continue to focus on Western hypocrisy and multiple standards on the matter are guilty of being accessories to the continuing suffering of the people of Zimbabwe.

As African leaders arrive this weekend in Sham El Sheik for the AU summit, we must campaign in our various countries, lobby foreign ministers, African ambassadors in our countries and our heads of state to take firm stand against Mugabe to ensure a credible political negotiation for a transitional government in which both ZANU-PF and MD and other stakeholders share power for a limited period, with an eye toward a level playing field for democratic elections. This is not possible with Mugabe therefore he needs to be eased out.

Africa has been an experimental laboratory for all kinds of transitions. Zimbabwe itself has historical memory of different transitions that were initially thought to be impossible. Ian Smith died of old age in a free Zimbabwe in spite of his atrocities against Black Zimbabweans. A negotiated settlement may indemnify Mugabe too while the cause of justice and democracy is enhanced by him seeing other people (including those he called traitors) govern the country. The handwriting is on the wall but Mugabe cannot read it; therefore African leaders should spell them out in BOLD letters to him.

It is so sad that a leader who came as a new Nkrumah is going down as a Mobutu. It is a grave understatement to continue to describe him as an embarrassment to Africa. He is a dangerous autocrat who does not care anymore if the whole nation crashes with him. He needs to be stopped and stopped NOW.

*Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem writes this column as a Pan Africanist.

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

His Excellency Mr. Antonio De Aguiar Patriota, Brazilian Ambassador to the United States 3006 Massachusetts Avenue, NW Washington, DC 90008

Her Excellency, Ms. Theresa Maria M. Quintella, Consul General of Brazil 8484 Wilshire Blvd. Beverly Hills, CA 90211

Your excellency,

It is time, after nine months of uneasy anxiety, that some authority charged in the name of the international community with responsibility for security in Haiti, advise the international community, that is, the international public, of its findings in regard to the scandalous kidnapping or disappearance of Haitian citizen and patriot, Mr. Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine.

The date of Mr. Pierre-Antoine’s disappearance is well established. It is also known that he had been helping human rights delegations from two countries -the USA and Canada, countries with famous courts and parliaments.

Please do not misunderstand this appeal. It has great hope in the United Nations as a peacekeeping agency and much hope in the evolution of democracy in Brazil, which holds a leading position in the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti. My disappointment is therefore considerable. Every son and daughter of Haiti deserves the protection of the law and of special international arrangements. Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine is a son of Haiti, one who is well-known in the region and is becoming better known in the world. His international reputation is a standard of judgment of the peacekeeping force. Their reputation will rise or fall with his fortunes. In the present day world, news of violations is highly saleable.

The world knows of no position by the official agencies in Haiti, whether domestic or international, on this important instance of inhumanity. When this matter was raised from the floor at a Conference on Haiti’s children at a University in San Diego, USA, the Ambassador of Haiti to the USA made a spirited response. Not only did he establish the non-involvement of the government of Haiti in the kidnapping of Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine, but he effectively defended the government, assuring the audience that it had no hand in the unfortunate affair. No one had even suggested that it had. He said that Mr Pierre-Antoine was probably a rival candidate of some other person and hinted that in such circumstances disappearances have sometimes occurred. I do not have a record of his statement before the gathering, and I am open to any correction he or any other party may wish to offer.

All the Ambassador was able to do was to vindicate the Haitian government. But Mr. Pierre-Antoine’s lawyer was present and rose to rebuke the government for its silence and its alleged failure to exercise its national responsibility.

The government of Haiti being ruled out as complicit in Mr. Pierre-Antoine’s absence, the hemisphere to which Haiti has always been central turns its searchlight on that multinational force considered to be of vital assistance to a historically crippled domestic government, and on the leadership of that force, the Republic of Brazil, a major hemispheric partner. Their presence there leads the uninformed to presume that they are there to supply the kind of expertise and clout which cannot be expected of the government in Haiti’s present circumstances. In these times of secretly employed but widely known intrusive surveillance, satellite observation on land, sea and air, clandestine wiretapping and other equipment useful in both offence and defense, there is a credibility gap. The public is not inclined to believe that a few thugs in Haiti have so completely baffled the human capacity of the leading States of the hemisphere.

This matter of the disappearance of Mr. Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine must therefore be taken to the bemused population of the hemisphere and the world at present waiting with impatience for some word of encouragement from the United Nations and its peacekeeping forces.

These forces must be aware of the kidnapping and disappearance of Haiti’s first Prime Minister, Toussaint L’ouverture. The French regime of that time, a regime of soldiers, treated TOUSSAINT’S fate with a silence similar to that with which Mr. Pierre-Antoine’s kidnapping is now being treated. Is this French model the model for the UN troops and its officials?

Questions rush to mind. The hemisphere certainly and the international community wish to know what task force has been set up to track the disappearance of Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine and other persons, regardless of their political attachment, who may be less well-known but in similar circumstances.

It is possible to have wrong notions about what happened to LOVINSKY. It is possible to make statements and then find the need to revise them. Is it possible in an age such as this, known for invasive surveillance, for criminal secrets to be so well-kept?

In the military context of a peacekeeping force, silence for two weeks on the part of the Commanding Authority may be advisable, after it has made an initial statement of concern assuring the public of its active pursuit of the offenders. Silence for three weeks may be cause for concern, yet understandable if it had given the necessary assurances. Silence for nine months becomes its opposite, and is no longer silence but an eloquent confession of incapacity, or worse, lack of concern.

If a citizen of Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine’s prominence and popularity can be “caught up in the air”: then the fate of the unknown citizen in Haiti under the aegis of the United Nation’s force is not an enviable one.

Questions persist: When did the authorities first hear of this kidnapping? What specific steps have they taken? Who is keeping PIERRE-ANTOINE’S wife and their children informed? Are there no suspects? Is the kidnapping seen as self-inflicted? Have the suspects, if any, evaded the UN’s multi-national capacity? Were there secret landings of aircraft unknown to the official guardians? Was he spirited away in a small boat and have all suspects been called in? Has Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine been rendered? Where are the international media, famous for increasing effectiveness? Have state and media conspired not to investigate the fate of this man? Is he held by the forces of law and order, and if so where are his rights? If he is held, on what allegations or reasonable suspicion? Was this man, who was well known for his committed to non-violence and aimed to become a senator, suspected of planning to blow up the parliament?

Your Excellency, Ms. Theresa Maria M. Quintella, I ask you to transmit this letter to your government in Brazil without delay. Out of respect for President Lula as an elected Head of State the author shall release it to the international media in the Region and in all continents not before the end of the second day of its dispatch to the Head Consulate Officer of Brazil in Los Angeles.

Yours sincerely,
Eusi Kwayana

Cc: United Nations Secretary-General
Congresswoman Maxine Waters
Amnesty International
Pax Christi
Global Women's Strike, Los Angeles
Haiti Action Committee

* For more information on the disappearance of Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine, see also: and [email protected] or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/382/48919joinmdc.jpgExperiences in Guyana, in Kenya and in Zimbabwe have taught us that it is a mistake to adopt western standards of victory as our own, write Horace Campbell and Eusi Kwayana. Victory for us must mean reconciliation of divided populations. Reconciliation will fail utterly if it is imposed; or allows free rein to corruption, militarism or if it ignores the choices of the people in valid elections. We have responsibility as progressives and Pan-Africanists to Zimbabwe.
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Zimbabwe, a week before the run off elections for the Presidency, presents many progressive Pan Africanists with a conflict, be it in analysis or action.

There are four main competing interests in Zimbabwe, as it is today. First, but not in order of importance are the interests of the ruling party and its supporters. These are followed by those of the Opposition, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) and its supporters. Next are the vested interests of the white minority settlers supported heavily by the United Kingdom and the neo-conservatives of the Bush Administration in the United States. Finally, but first in rating, there are the interests of all the producers (workers, poor peasants, farm workers, traditional healers, cultural workers, students, traders, hawkers etc.) in Zimbabwe. This last group has been rendered poor and powerless by the present government of Robert Mugabe and the ruling party, the Zimbabwe African National Union, Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF).

In the past weeks the state-run daily, The Herald, reported that President Mugabe has warned that he will take the country to war to keep the ruling party in power. The Herald quoted Mr. Mugabe as saying he will not let the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) take power. Mr. Mugabe on many occasions said that an opposition victory would be tantamount to giving the country back to its former colonial master. The president has repeatedly accused the MDC of being sponsored by Britain. Mugabe declared in a speech that:

“We fought for this country, and a lot of blood was shed…We are not going to give up our country because of a mere X. How can a ballpoint fight with a gun?”

This kind of talk is dangerous and should be condemned by pan Africanists and decent persons everywhere.

ZIMBABWE AND THE QUESTION OF IMPERIALISM

First, there should be an attempt to clear the landscape of certain obstacles. Zimbabwe was in growing trouble before the sanctions imposed by the governments of Britain and the United States. Still, the attempt to bully a small country’s ruler who was in turn bullying his compatriots draped Robert Mugabe in the role of a hero against imperialism. The attempt encouraged a blundering ruler to stay on course. The ZANU-PF forces and sympathizers have blamed the disastrous economic situation on the sanctions. Yet, the political leaders have accumulated wealth in such a conspicuous manner that their consumption of luxury goods stands out in a country where more than 80 per cent of the eligible workers are unemployed. Millions more Zimbabweans have been rendered as economic refugees in Africa and beyond.

Zimbabwe‘s situation has some striking parallels with that of the recent history of Guyana in the Caribbean, where rivalry between anti-colonial forces started long before independence and was only draped in flags at the moment of Uhuru, without serious attempts at a deep resolution of the difficulties. Once in power the Burnham regime did nothing to resolve the ethnic conflict but superimposed on it a parliamentary dictatorship. Forbes Burnham consolidated this dictatorship while brandishing non-alignment and support for African Liberation. Yet, Walter Rodney was assassinated by the regime of the Peoples National Congress in 1980 because he was part of a movement that wanted to transcend the politics of division and exploitation. It is this kind of anti imperialism that has been used by many dictators to cover up the repression of their own citizens.

In Africa, the home of Ubuntu, there was no thought of employing indigenous mechanism of conflict resolution. Instead the Zimbabwe maximum leader adopted methods of control patterned on the deformed systems of Eastern Europe. He ignored the option of applying Ubuntu (or its national expression - in Zimbabwe as hunhu) as a way of healing. As in Guyana there was a reliance on external forms and vanguardism. We did not learn, whether in Zimbabwe or Guyana, to surround universal science with our own ethos.

MANIPULATING ETHNIC AND REGIONAL DIFFERENCES

In 1987 the fusion of ZANU with the Patriotic Front led by Joshua Nkomo was done in such a way that the post-colonial world knew little about it, except that it led to the virtual silencing of the section of the liberation front that had been led by Joshua Nkomo. In the merger of the two wings of the national liberation movement there was also too much reliance placed on foreign tutelage, much of it from trusted allies of African liberation. This fusion had been orchestrated to end the divisions within the political leadership of Zimbabwe. One of the tragedies of the post liberation Zimbabwean society was the massacre of thousands of citizens of the Southwestern region of the country. Progressive Pan Africanists were silent when these massacres of the Ndebele took place in the early eighties. We, by and large, ignored these atrocities in the interests of solidarity with the dominant force in the country, and the need to not to make too much of small skirmishes, lest we “play into the hands of imperialism”

The best way for us (as African, Asian or Caribbean peoples) to keep the enemy at bay is to have a praxis of respect for all national forces and apply the highest principles of our culture as an indigenous method for the resolution of conflict.

Of late the western media and certain forces within the United Nations have been reporting the possibility of talks of power sharing, and the arrangement of some form of a transitional authority. While the spirit of these discussions may be guided by the search for social peace, it is urgent that these discussions between the various elements are not carried out behind the backs of the people and do nothing to undermine the political will of the people. But above all there must be an engagement by all to ensure that the elections and its aftermath does not deteriorate into the kind of violence and destruction that was witnessed in Kenya after the elections of December 27, 2007. At all costs, war must be avoided. The present leadership cannot expect to be supported when it terrorizes its own people and unleashes the very same Rhodesian military apparatus (the Joint Operation Command) against the opposition and unarmed civilians.

The present situation in Zimbabwe is confused by the circumstance that President Robert Mugabe has been a heroic figure in the continent of Africa, the Diaspora, among African observers and well-wishers. And he would have remained so, if the Pan African world had assisted Zimbabweans with friendly criticism of the government when the flaws began to show. Instead, the whole movement and the international left, including us, remained silent, some longer than others, hoping that such a well-resourced government would correct its own shortcomings. Earlier we had special cause to be partisan to Robert Mugabe, who had extended solidarity to our colleague Walter Rodney when he was being persecuted by the Guyana government.

It does not worry those who would defend the Zimbabwe government absolutely and in all circumstances that the imperialists have their embassies and observation posts and espionage networks in all of these places and are fully posted on developments in Zimbabwe. In this they have an advantage over those in the diaspora whose leaders think it is good policy to hide the truth from their constituencies about what is really going on in Zimbabwe. Those in the Global Pan African world who continue to defend Mugabe have in effect kept their constituencies in ignorance of information essential for human development in the name of solidarity. This is not the way to help the millions of working people learn how to govern.

ZIMBABWE AND LAND

Even in the ranks of those who feel compelled to defend Mr. Mugabe against British and US imperialists we feel bound to point out that it took twenty years after independence for the Zimbabwean government to heed the call of the peasantry for the reclamation of the land. Those who refuse to be critical of the Mugabe government repeat the claim that the Lancaster agreement had imposed constitutional constraints that prevented the redistribution of the land to the people. However, in 1992 the Parliament of Zimbabwe had unanimously passed the Land Acquisition Act that gave the government the power to redistribute the land. Instead, the government of Mugabe dithered and hedged seeking to conciliate international capital and the commercial farmers.

It was only after the massive opposition from the working people in 1997 and after the loss of the referendum of February 2000 that the ZANU leadership opportunistically launched the Fast Track Land reform process. This opportunism has only been surmounted by the fact that the best land went to the political elite who was not real farmers. Opportunism and cronyism exposed the reality that for land reform to be beneficial for the mass of the population, reform must involve the political empowerment of the poor, especially farm workers. The new black landowners did not treat the farm workers any better than the previous settlers. If anything, this experience exposed the reality that the issues of the health and safety of farm workers and their children are just as important as the question of land ownership. Farm workers whether working on farms owned by blacks or whites must be paid a living wage and must have adequate protection from pesticides. They must be accorded full political and economical rights instead of being forced to live in a semi-slavery state.

The experiences of land acquisition in Zimbabwe pointed to the reality that land reclamation by itself could not solve the problems of the Zimbabwean society. There had to be transformation of the credit, transportation, agricultural marketing, seed production, distribution of fertilizers, water management and all of the aspects of economic relations associated with agriculture. Workers and poor peasants in all parts of Southern Africa must strengthen their organizations so that land reform is not carried out in their names yet leave them in greater impoverishment.

TRANSPARENCY AND ACCOUNTABILITY

We want to go on record in saying that neither the government of Britain nor the government of the United States has the moral authority to oppose the present government of Zimbabwe. Imperialists and neo- conservatives have their own agenda when imposing sanctions and we are against sanctions in Zimbabwe. Progressive Pan Africanists must remain vigilant so that brutal oppression of the Zimbabwean peoples is not countenanced in the name of anti-imperialism.

These sanctions have not prevented the rulers of Zimbabwe from looting the Treasury and participating in the very same forms of speculative capitalism that is lauded by neo-liberals. Under the ZANU-PF leadership the Zimbabwe Stocks Exchange {ZSE} has ballooned to phenomenal levels as a result of the speculative activities of the rulers in Zimbabwe. In a country where the economic crisis has meant increased poverty for two years the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange offered investors the highest returns in Africa. For two years in a row, 2005 and 2006, the Africa Stock Exchanges Association (ASEA) reported that the ZSE was the best performing Stock Market in Africa.

Robert Mugabe and the ZANU-PF may be against imperialism but this group is not against capitalism or the looting of the assets of the society. The government of Cuba has been blockaded by the United States for more than forty years. Yet this government did not support a small class that looted and got rich while the majority of the population remained poor and terrorized.

Those who support the working peoples of Zimbabwe must insist on transparency in dealing with transnational corporations and the integrity of the ruling personnel in their day-to-day activities. This call for accountability is especially important in so far as though we are opposed to the threat of war coming from ZANU PF we are not encouraged by the policies and posture of the leadership of the MDC. These elements have displayed an amazing level of intellectual subservience to the West and to the ideas of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Zimbabwe needs leaders who place the interest of the working people first. It is proper that all progressives support the Stolen Assets Recovery Initiative of the United Nations so that corrupt leaders cannot stash away funds when the people suffer.

ENDING THE SILENCE OF PROGRESSIVE PAN AFRICANISTS

We should not remain silent when thousands of Zimbabwean women are arrested and disgraced as prostitutes, when, as elsewhere, virgins are despoiled by men in search of cures.

We should not be silent when homosexuals are subjected to cruel and inhumane treatment, student movements repressed, and when unarmed people are subject to a level of police and militia brutality none of us would ignore in our countries of residence.

One of the most despicable acts of the Mugabe regime was the forced removal of more than 700,000 poor people from the urban areas in 2005. When the apartheid regime used the same coercive forces to carry out forced removals we went up in arms against it. This brutal act by the ZANU-PF went without condemnation from the Pan African movement.

When we ponder the considerable diplomatic and political resources of the African continent, we find it is not impossible for a dual policy of conditional opposition to the sanctions to be combined with a policy of respect for all Zimbabweans, and their equal entitlement to human rights (regardless of gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and religious or political opinion).

Experiences in Guyana, in Kenya and in Zimbabwe have taught us that it is a mistake to adopt western standards of victory as our own. Victory for us must mean reconciliation of divided populations. This in each case may best be approached through widespread national conversation spelling out its purpose. Reconciliation will fail utterly if it is imposed; or allows free rein to corruption, militarism or if it ignores the choices of the people in valid elections.

The Republic of South Africa has one of the world’s most advanced constitutions, because after the experience of Apartheid, the people resolved to hold their democracy to the highest human standards. These aspirations are now being undermined by a political leadership that provides cover for the repression in Zimbabwe while remaining virtually silent in the face of xenophobic violence against Africans who believed in Pan Africanism.

In the USA millions of African American and Latino students are held back because too many educators implicitly believe in a Bell Curve and have low expectations of black and Latino students. We are aware of the embedded anti- people challenges imposed on African countries from outside affecting their competitiveness and ability to transform their societies. However, we recognize no Bell Curve regarding the leaders’ potential for setting examples of conduct and governance which rank among the best available.

In a few days Zimbabwe will hold a run -off election between the Zanu PF and the MDC. The first, the ruling party, has discredited itself. The challengers do not seem to be a party of Reconstruction, but it reflects popular discontent. Any thuggery and strong arm methods, arrest and harassment of opposition candidates, intimidation and other forms of bullying and repression must be seen as a deliberate attempt to once and for all disable Zimbabwe’s popular will. It will make the work of healing ten times more difficult.

* Horace Campbell is a Professor of African American Studies and Political Science at Syracuse University. He is the author of the well-known book, Rasta and Resistance: From Marcus Garvey to Walter Rodney. He is also the author of Reclaiming Zimbabwe: The Exhaustion of the Patriarchal Model of Liberation.

* Eusi Kwayana is the veteran Pan African activist of Guyana and the Caribbean. His most recent book, the Morning After is a call for an end to the manipulation of racial insecurity in Guyana by those who promote inter ethnic violence in the name of liberation. His other books include, No Guilty Race and Scars of Bondage.

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

This radio interview addresses the question of Charles Taylor's possible involvement in the assassination of Thomas Sankara.

It seems to me that the world over, and more so in our developing nations, that our very existence is built on risk. Women’s ability to bring life into the world is full of risks; the ability of the child to survive past her childhood is surrounded by risks; the ability of the child to obtaining basic schooling is a momentous risk. And the risk of a young girl falling into the poverty trap is greater than her succeeding in life - writes Salma Maoulidi.
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Twice in one week I refused to be served by two men, both vendors, who would not heed my request that they wash their hands before serving me. Consequently, I forwent satiating an appetite for delicious oranges in one instance and ‘muhogo wa kuchoma’ in the other. And this is not the first time I have had to forgo appeasing my fetish for local yummies. One night I went to bed hungry after one man decided to serve me my portion of Swahili delicacies using his bare hands. I asked him to use a serving spoon and skewers. He responded by rudely asking me to leave his stall.

It is surprising that these men react extremely negatively (and even violently) to requests of consideration for a client’s welfare, in this case mine. They would not even have a discussion about why they could not or would not heed to my requests. I did not need to explain myself but just so that I left nothing to chance I clarified that we all know what men do when they need to relieve themselves. How could I be sure that cleaned up after, or if that he had not scratched himself somewhere wicked?

Momentarily the resistance I witnessed offered a vivid image of what women who have to negotiate with men over a condom must face. While a woman is keen to protect her self during intercourse her male partner has no sense of obligation towards her well-being. At all times his needs seem to eclipse all else. Indeed, if being asked to wash one’s hand to serve another causes such resistance and uproar what must putting on a condom entail?

For almost a week after the event I tried to figure why it was hard for the men to understand that what they were offering me with their bare hands would be consumed by me and enter my system. I, therefore, had no choice but to be prudent as to where what I consume originates and how it is served. It is enough that it is sitting by the side of the road. I don’t need the extra risk of exposure from a known carrier of bacteria. Did they honestly believe that I would trust their hands over my judgment? That I would defer to their ego over my wellbeing? Better safe than sorry I urged myself on as I turned my back to the oranges, muhogo and other choice bites.

I will not be surprised if someone attempts to explain such behaviour from a cultural perspective. I don’t think there is anything indigenous about risking another’s life but what I do buy into is the link between risk and a way of being. Indeed, it seems to me that the world over, and more so in our developing nations, that our very existence is built on risk. Women’s ability to bring life into the world is full of risks; the ability of the child to survive past her childhood is surrounded by risks; the ability of the child to obtaining basic schooling is a momentous risk. Rather she risks dropping out after a few years of schooling to work or to get married. The risk of a young girl falling into the poverty trap is greater than her succeeding in life.

WHY IS A DISCUSSION ON RISK RELEVANT?

Someone mentioned to me recently with regards the power outage in Zanzibar that if this was in another place (and perhaps in another era) the government would be sued for non performance, for the inconvenience caused and for the sheer negligence that leads to subjecting a whole population to power blackout, and for failing to have an emergency plan.

Elsewhere heads would have rolled: a few hours of power blackouts is serious enough let alone a whole month! But this is Tanzania so the President and his Ministers explain away the situation asking citizens to remain calm and preserve as they as they do other mess-ups by the leadership.

One would think that one scandal is enough to warrant a government to clean up its act lest it resigns. Not so in Tanzania. In the same week a few schools closed down because of food shortages. Apparently suppliers stopped sending food supplies to schools due to back payments in the millions of shillings. The ministry concerned through the Deputy Minister Mwantum Mahiza issued a weak statement asking suppliers to bear up as the Ministry has just completed an assessment of the contracts before sending them to Treasury for action.

Imagine our future is risked by poorly conceived and executed contracts! This fiasco happens at a time when students are gearing for their final ‘A’ level examinations. So the suppliers are promised action but what about the students, who will make up for their lost study time? How is it that the Ministry can have overlooked paying suppliers for months while they know children are in schools? No wonder national secondary education results have been dropping…

I worry about the placid response to all this goofing by the taxpayer. Indeed our sense of outrage over recent scandals involving grant theft in government is short lived. Imagine our national pride is compromised in order to appease political egos and we heed calls to stay calm. Our sense of justice is compromised so as not to risk offending the powerful and their friends or those who may be harbouring them. We watch as materialism and expediency puts at risk our sense of what is ethical - and morally just and applaud this as development.

Annually Tanzania remembers the victims aboard MV Bukoba on Lake Victoria who died after the Captain risked taking on extra baggage (perhaps to compensate for the transport shortage) resulting in a massive loss of life. Just recently in Lake Tanganyika another accident has claimed the lives of scores of passengers from all parts of the Greater Lakes. According to official reports overloading is to blame. Was this not a risk?

More disconcerting in all this is the power outage - a matter of national security not addressed as such. Indeed it is not only a grave matter with respect to the risk of an invasion or sabotage but with respect to the threat to life and livelihoods it has posed and continues to pose to local communities. How many people have died as a result? What is the sheer cost of running on generators for extended periods when oil prices are soaring? Who, I wonder, will meet these unexpected costs?

As the world braces itself for food shortages and soaring food prices how much food has wasted away in freezers? How much income has been lost when industries and business fail to operate or to operate maximally? Will the revenue authorities bear this in mind as they go after our taxes? Surely citizens cannot be expected to pay taxes but remain silent and docile when authorities mess up.

More shocking to our nationalist sensitivities is the reason behind the longetivity of the outage. Apparently the only one who can fix the problem is an expert from Norway. After four decades of national independence, why is an area of national sensitivity like power still in the hands of foreign experts? And this is by a government that claims the political right to protect the isles against a take over from some gulf state!

Incredulous as it seems, it is becoming increasingly clear that our belief that we have entrusted the governance of this country to people who know what they are doing is wrong. It is abundantly clear that highly paid professionals and people who claim to have high qualifications posing as politicians and bureaucrats don’t have a clue about what they are doing. Conversely those who do have a clue may not care enough to make a difference. The result is pure misery for the common taxpayer.

It is no wonder that a friend of mine signs off all her messages with quote that reads “experts made the titanic but an amateur made the ark.” The Americans would say “go figure!” but I say we need to figure a way out of this leadership mess.

*Salma Maoulidi is an activist and the Executive Director of the Sahiba Sisters Foundation in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

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

When Eritrea earned independence from Ethiopia in 1991, it was seen by many as a revolutionary moment that would usher in freedom and equality. But more than fifteen years later, the “reality is the liberation-army-turned-government is led by a brutal dictator and his handful cronies. There are no systems of representation or participation in the government. Sadly, those who paid the highest price in the armed struggle, the former fighters men and women are the ones who suffer the most today,” Yet in the midst of it all Nunu Kidane finds hope.
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My country Eritrea is in the news again and hardy on a positive note. The conflict with Djibouti reported in the New York Times and European press is not the news I would have liked to read about. Over the past decade, starting with the border clash with Ethiopia in 1998, Eritrea has been the cause of, or in some way directly linked to conflict and destabilization of the Horn of Africa half a dozen times.

What saddens me is that Eritrea, during the days of the struggle for independence, was a country that held such high hopes and promises for us as Eritreans, and for the Horn of Africa, indeed for the continent as a whole. It is a small country in North East Africa, by the Red Sea, with approx 4.5 million people, which a fierce sense of independence and pride in the people’s ability to do it on our own.

When it won de facto independence in 1991, it appeared indeed the defiant attitude of going against the grain of global political trends had paid off. The future looked hopeful and the people were united in the insurmountable challenge of nation building ahead.

Whenever I introduce myself as Eritrean in academic circles or with progressive Africa supporters from the old days, they tell me how much they had supported Eritrea’s struggle for liberation. They tell me their pride in supporting the women’s equality movement that was grassroots and led by Eritrean fighters, a model of self determination and securing full rights for women at all levels. The liberation movement was more than an armed struggle; it was visionary in planning for social and economic transformation of a country and its people that linked with the struggle of people in similar struggles the world over.

Whenever I or other Eritreans are greeted in such ways, for what our country used to be, there is a deep sense of loss and sadness that overcomes us. It is difficult to know what to say in response because the reality of what Eritrea is today cannot be further from the vision of our aspirations at the time of independence some 17 years ago.

The reality is the liberation-army-turned-government is led by a brutal dictator and his handful cronies. There are no systems of representation or participation in the government. Sadly, those who paid the highest price in the armed struggle, the former fighters men and women are the ones who suffer the most today. Both at the hands of the government as prisoners in their own ‘free’ country, as forced fighters in various conflicts with Eritrea’s neighbors, or from the high cost of food and fuel and the worsening economy which has left nearly one third of the country malnourished and at the brink of starvation.

In the early days of the Eritrean struggle for independence, Eritrean women were celebrated as heroes unlike any seen before in Africa. Despite the traditional limitations of the conservative culture which does not allow women to participate in any social and religious activities alongside their brothers, Eritrean women in the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (EPLF) proved that cultures could be challenged and changed. Women wearing short military pants, hair in afro, slinging Kalashnikovs were our pride in depicting strength of body and character. Unlike other liberation fronts where the women were relegated to the kitchens and as support to their male counterparts, Eritrean military forces were made up of nearly thirty percent women. Not only was the military integrated fully, but women held leadership positions and participated in all health, education and agricultural programs that supported the rural communities. Violation of women’s rights was a serious crime and rape was punishable by death.

Where are those women now? What happened to their voices and the ‘equality’ that was supposed to translate into economic power? If one were to do a quick search on google for “Eritrean women” you would hardly find any evidence of the history of these women fighters. Right after you go past the postcard tourist photos of women in traditional drab and right past the “date Eritrean women” link, you may find the link to the National Union of Eritrean Women. Although still in operation, a discredited association which parastatal despite claiming to be non-governmental. Not only is it a weak association, but the NUEW has betrayed its historic mission by being a mouth piece of justifications and rationalization of the government for the repression and violation against Eritrean women today.

The Eritrean diasporic community was highly supportive of the struggle at home, financially and in policy advocacy in the US, Europe and the Middle East. It was the most mobilized of all African immigrant communities in the world, sending millions of dollars each year, from remittances of the hard working members of its population eager to return home after liberation. Eritreans were drunk with national pride that bordered arrogance and chauvinism, convinced that Eritrea was unique in what had been achieved during the liberation struggle, and once independent, it would prove to be a model of economic success and envy of the world. We in the diaspora were too trusting of the leadership and never posed questions of political balance and accountability process of our leaders. We were the cash cows that sent money regularly to our families and the movement and we were to pay a high price for this, still do.

A few years back, I spoke to Prof. Horace Campbell, a good friend and author of author of “Reclaiming Zimbabwe” about the sad state of affairs in Eritrea. Professor Campbell had supported Eritrean movements and the EPLF in the decades of the struggle. I described to him the state of paralysis that Eritreans in the diaspora seem to be in, stuck in disbelief that the reality of economic crisis and political repression is indeed the same country they had given so much for. Stuck in a state of apathy that comes from a profound state of betrayal by those we trusted most.

His response has been useful for me to reflect on. He said that this moment in history would pass and Eritreans would again “reclaim” their liberation for its true value and meaning, for social transformation into an equal society guaranteeing the rights of its people. However, he emphasized that this current state of crisis is an important stage for Eritreans to go through in order to never repeat their blind trust on their leaders. Difficult as this period is, that Eritreans at home and in the diaspora will draw the important lessons of discerning and challenging those who claim to lead and represent us. We will fully engage and set up mechanisms and systems of accountability of leaders and political groups, challenged to prove in open democratic ways, how they stand to serve their people and their country honestly.

As an Eritrean, my sense of pride in my national identity, my country and my people continues unchanged. The current leadership does not represent me, nor speak for me and other Eritreans. I do not feel conflicted or confused by those who claim to call me unpatriotic for being openly critical of the current regime. It is in fact the opposite is true; I speak out for love of my country and my people, not to do so would be ignoring the pleas of those silently waiting in crowded prisons, not to do so would be to ignore the calls of Eritreans who are waging a different struggle inside the country, against a repressive state that is bent on holding on to power against the wishes of its people.

*Nunu Kidane is a native of Eritrea and a member of Friends of Aster Yohannes. Aster is a former fighter and admirable woman who has been imprisoned since December 2003. Read more about her at:

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

I was greatly offended by Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem's article, which amalgamated complex political and historical situations in different countries into a faulty continuous fabric. I was at first shocked to read the one-sided statement that Kenyans "swore that Raila would never be president, not because of anything other than his being Luo...A 100% Luo is not good enough for them as President of Kenya but they are supporting a 5O% Luo to be president of the USA!"

Abdul-Raheem's statement is grossly skewed and full of contradictions. First, which "Kenyans" does he talk about, since both those who voted for and against Raila are Kenyans? Second, the majority of people celebrating Obama's Democratic party ticket were from Raila Odinga's core support group, not from outside that group as Abdul-Raheem suggests. This means that his accusation of hypocrisy does not hold. Third, many voters also swore not to vote Kibaki for the simple reason that he was Gikuyu, and women and children were burnt in an Eldoret church to reaffirm that promise. Were they not as myopic as those who swore not to vote a Luo president? Abdul-Raheem's condemnation is one sided, implying that evil is evil depending on the ethnicity of the perpetrator. The blame (and heroism) in Kenya during the turbulent period at the beginning of 2008 goes all round; there are no innocent parties but collective responsibility in the form of declining morality, decadent institutions and poor political leadership.

Perhaps the most offensive characteristic of Abdul-Raheem's article is the collapsing of the ordinary African voters with the African politicians. The politics of "ivoirete" in Ivory Coast, for example, was a largely political problem to suppress the candidacy of one candidate. The French government subsequently intervened in the crisis by arming the rebels, destroying the government's air-force fleet, and making a mockery of the country's sovereignty by summoning the principle protagonists like schoolboys to sign a peace deal in France. However, Ivoirians were more perceptive than Abdul-Raheem. They protested the deaths and casualties at the hands of the French army.

The argument that Obama celebrates his heritage which is not an impediment to his campaign lacks concrete evidence. If anything, the most worrying aspect of Obama's achievement is his distancing himself from Black American history. In his memoir "Dreams of my Father" Obama terms black nationalism as sustained by hatred. He makes ceremonial mention of the Civil Rights movement and gives no credit to Black American heroes for paving the way for his candidacy. While Obama has achieved a great feat, it has come at the cost of the moral integrity of African peoples worldwide. But as Kali Akuno has brilliantly argued ("Barack Obama and the New Afrikan Question"), the euphoria and unexpectedness of his victory mean that we have to go back to the drawing board and figure out a theory that still fights for the African poor without alienating them as they celebrate Obama's achievement.

Kali Akuno demonstrates that we need carefully balanced and meticulous reasoning to analyze and articulate a vision for Africans worldwide after Obama's victory. We cannot do this if we collapse history into simplistic formulas that deny the complexity of African societies worldwide. After all, we are the same ones who condemn racism for simplifying our histories and judging what happens in Haiti, the US and Zimbabwe on exactly the same historical schema simply because the people's complexion is similar. We should not do the same by blurring the distinction between Africa's political class and the ordinary voters across different national boundaries and historical peculiarities.

For Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem, "Obama’s nomination and his eventual victory should make us reexamine our legal, political, cultural and social attitudes about citizenship and stop using it as a means of exclusion and marginalisation."
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There is a carnivalesque celebration across Africa greeting Senator Barrack Obama historic presidential campaign. The excitement is such that one would be forgiven to think that Obama was about to be sworn in. No where is this excitement more infectious than in Kenya, the homeland of Obama’s father.

Even Kenyans who in the closely fought Presidential elections of last year swore that Raila would never be president, not because of anything other than his being Luo, without any sense of irony, are part of the Obamamania. A 100% Luo is not good enough for them as President of Kenya but they are supporting a 5O% Luo to be president of the USA!

Kenyans are not alone in these contradictory responses. I am not sure how many of the millions of Africans celebrating Obama’s possible victory would as enthusiastic were Obama running for office in their countries. Can you imagine an Obama as a presidential candidate in Ivory Coast? Would he not be reminded that he is not African enough? How could he pass the ‘ivorite’ test when even a former Prime Minister of the country born in the country was disqualified? If Obama had run in the Nigerian election would he have generated the same mass adulation?

This a continent in which a former President (Kenneth Kaunda), who was founding father of the country, a man who served as President for 25 years had his citizenship stripped off him by his successor because his parents allegedly came from a neighbouring country, The former President of Tanzania, Benjamin Mkapa, had the citizenship of a number of Tanzanians annulled just because they disagreed or he suspected that they did not agree with him politically. One of them was a serving High Commissioner and the other a former member of Parliament and leading member of the ruling party. As part of his campaign of prolonging his gerontocracy President Mugabe stripped some Zimbabweans of their citizenship. The journalist, Trevor Ncube, was declared a Malawian but his siblings who were not considered sympathisers of the opposition remained Zimbabweans. Ethiopia and Eritrea shamelessly engaged in tit for tat denationalisation of innocent citizens because of the senseless war between the two leaders. There are so many extremely bad examples of routine denial of citizenship across Africa.

The ease with which political opponents are foreignised across Africa would never have given any hope for an Obama to even dream of becoming a local councilor let alone aspire to the Presidency.

Even within the same country claims of who is an indigene, a settler, a resident, etc are used to disempower fellow citizens. And if you are a woman who married across ethnic or national boundaries you are doubly disempowered. You may not be fully accepted by the Man’s group or country and your group/country will disown you for marrying out.

Obama’s nomination and his eventual victory should make us reexamine our legal, political, cultural and social attitudes about citizenship and stop using it as a means of exclusion and marginalisation. Obama did not have to hide his African and non-African origins and heritage and both are not considered to be disadvantages to his political ascendancy. Instead he is celebrating and using them as a political selling point saying that the diversity of his heritage and upbringing equip him to lead a multi cultural America in an even more diverse world. Without stating it directly he challenges the WASP (White Anglo –Saxon Protestant) hegemony with a global cosmopolitanism that makes the provincialism of the likes of Bush antithetical to the wider interests of the US in the world. When he says he understands the world and could make the world understand America, it is more believable coming from him than from any of his opponents.

Obama’s victory should open the doors of opportunity for the enjoyment of full citizenship rights to all Africans wherever they may be from Cape Town to Cairo and lift the veil from the injustices that continue to surround citizenship across the continent. If we can be happily anticipate an Obama victory in the US elections we should be equally prepared to accept that a Munyarwanda raised in Uganda can be president of Uganda; A Nigerian of Ghanaian or Togolese extraction can be President of Nigeria; an immigrant from Zimbabwe or Mozambique who are targets of negrophobic attacks in South Africa today or their descendants can aspire to be president of South Africa in our life-time.

If we cannot accept this we should stop the hypocrisy. If an Obama is good for America he or she should be good for Africa too. Show that you really care about Obama’s promised brave new world of tolerance and inclusion by recognising the many Obamas near you.

*Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem writes this column as a Pan Africanist.

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

Tajudeen walks us through the skepticism that initially greated the Obama candidacy, the pitfalls of the hubristic Clinton campaign and Obama's strengths but cautions us that Obama will be an American President who happens to be of African origin. He is never going to subordinate America’s interests to ours where they clash in a fundamental way.
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I must confess that I am one of those pundits who did not give Barrack Obama a significant chance of winning the Democratic Party presidential nomination. For most of December as we witnessed the tragic conflicts in Kenya with two good Professors/comrades/Pan Africanists, Horace Campbell and Okello Oculi, I was most scathing about Obama, while Horace did his best (including giving me the two books of Obama) to educate me, with Okello playing partisan moderator.

Much as I tried I could not bring myself to understand what the man really stood for. He was, and still remains, all things to all kinds of people. Maybe that is his strength. But it all seemed like a David and Goliath duel between him and the well-oiled political and financial machine of the presumed front-runner for the Democratic nominations, Hilary Clinton.

Not a few of us thought that Obama was just another protest candidate who would have his few moments in the limelight and then fizzle away as Hilary romped home to certain victory. How wrong we were! Even the Clintons, the power couple, misread Obama’s strengths. They mistook the political hurricane for a storm in a teacup until it was too late. They threw their considerable weight at him but somehow, in a twist of fate, he became more than Bill Clinton and Hilary could manage. Obama is the Teflon candidate reminiscent of the first Clinton campaign. Nothing sticks as the Chicago senator just ran and ran.

Why did we get it wrong? One, we thought Obama was a Black candidate and believed that the USA was not ready for a Black president. Two, even his Blackness was doubted because he did not come from 'traditional' African American/ black backgrounds and his CV was too short as both a Black/African icon.

The enigma of Obama is in making his opponents and critics underestimate him while he builds a broad spectrum of popular support that eats away at the support base of his critics. He believed in the small ordinary people and organized them into an electoral movement built on hope.

Obama did not have to be a Black candidate. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton have both done that. He did not have to revisit covered grounds hence he became the candidate who happens to be black. There is no way he could have become a serious contender if all he has was his skin colour. The initial ambiguities of many African American elite who were used to putting their faith in 'the good white liberal' like the Clintons raised the prospect of a Black candidate without a Black base which the Clintons already took for granted. But the initial disadvantage among the Blacks who thought he was not black enough actually made it possible for him to attract a broader section of White Americans.

Bush has so damaged Americans’ faith in themselves and made America even less loved if not universally hated that Americans consciously or unconsciously expect a messiah to make them feel good about themselves again - and if not instantly loved, at least less hated by the rest of the world.

It is that yearning for the ‘feel good’ aura that has led many to believe that Obama is the man of destiny and the harbinger of ‘Change you can believe in.’ You may not put your finger on it. It may not add up to a grand vision but it is uplifting enough to rouse America. The Clintons misjudged the moment and Hilary has had to fight in such a despicable way that discussing them now leaves a bad taste in the mouth of many former supporters who used to love ‘the lovable rogue’ Bill Clinton.

Though Bill Clinton was a ‘feel good’ president worshipped by many, his wife was not always endearing to many. Indeed Obama is more like Bill than Hilary. If Hilary had not been his opponent, Bill might have been one of the early democrat grandees that would have declared support for Obama. Spousal loyalty (nothing extraordinary considering the pains he has caused Hilary over the years) combined with the power couple’s delusion of themselves as the democrats’ counter to the dubious aristocracy to the Bushes, contributed greatly to their undoing.

In defence of his wife, Mr. Feel-Good became Mr. Sour grapes and a not so skin-deep liberal who thinks he is entitled to Black and poor white working people’s votes as a right and that such loyalty is transferable by osmosis to any Clinton.

Instead of quitting in a dignified way they have fought almost to the bitter end. Those who fight to the finish get finished. Are the Clintons so bitter in defeat that they would actually prefer McCain to Obama?

The next few days will tell. However, now that Obama is the candidate in waiting, attention will shift to whether he can beat McCain come November. Whether he wins or not he has already lifted the ceiling on the ambition of every Black person in America. There is already victory in the symbolic importance of his candidacy. The prospect of his victory, barring assassination (as it happened to Robert Kennedy before being elected or earlier John Kennedy, after being elected) is very real. His victory will see a repackaging of the American dream as a country where anyone can make it.

Initially support for Obama candidacy was most unanimous in Kenya (where many may not vote for a Luo President but are quite convinced that his nephew can be president of the US!), but it is now universally being prayed for all across the continent. If many Africans have their way they will voluntarily become proxy voters come November!

But while I recognize the mix of historical, socio-psychological, emotional and great expectations that Obama’s candidacy has inspired among Americans and also in Africa and in her diasporas, we should have no illusions that Obama will suddenly make America do right by Africa or the rest of the world, for that matter. He is going to be an American President who happens to be of African origin. He is never going to subordinate America’s interests to ours where they clash in a fundamental way but he may package them less arrogantly and may add more honey to the poisoned chalice that any super power dishes out to smaller states - that is unless those states are firm in the defence of their own interests so they can get a better, if not fairer deal.

*Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem writes this column as a Pan Africanist.

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

Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem looks at the Yar Adua's administration and the political mileage the stolen election has cost him and argues that the only Yar Adua will win back legitimacy is "through public policies that reduce poverty, deliver education, creatre decent jobs for the millions of youth roaming the streets, empower women. bring security to cities, towns and villages and light up all homes, industry and streets of Nigeria."

May 29 was Democracy Day in Nigeria. It marks the day in 1999 when the Nigerian Generals returned the country to civilian rule albeit under a recivilianised former General, Olushegun Obasanjo. After 8 years of civilian politics under Obasanjo, the best that can be said is that democracy remains a national aspiration especially in terms of its capacity to deliver on the bread and butter issues that afflict the majority of Nigeria's boisterous millions. While the kind of brutality, arbitrary arrest, gross violation of the rights of citizens and other excesses that were characteristic of the direct military dictatorship of previous military regimes especially that of the kleptocratic Babangida and Abacha's sadistic regimes are no longer the case, it is perhaps an indication of the impatience of the public or the short memory of the chattering classes in the country that some people will argue that 'Obasanjo is worse than Abacha'.

The current scandals being exposed about the regime of Obasanjo and the financial recklessness of companies and individuals allied to his nightmare team of free loading parasites not withstanding, I do not agree with those who believe that Obasanjo's has been the worst regime Nigeria has ever had. By all means the atrocities, bad judgements and policy hypocrisies of the regime should be exposed and those guilty punished. The fact that these matters are coming to light, albeit after the regime has left office, is indeed part of growing demands for accountability. It may have been delayed but it sends out a message that there is no statute of limitation on abuse of office and betrayal of public trust. Many of those who are now clamouring for Obasanjo's head, or were public critics of his regime while he was in office, could not do the same under either IBB or Abacha. That in itself should count for something. But there are just too many people who cannot forgive Obasanjo for his arrogance and holier than thou attitude.

This year's Democracy Day also represents the first year of the administration of Alhaji Umar Musa Yar' Adua. The stench from Obasanjo's administration continues to hang over Yar Adua and the obsessions of those after Obasanjo and his cabal is making it look like Yar Adua's regime is a mere extention of Obasanjo's. As far as many of these people are concerned no change has taken place and the ghost of Obasanjo is seen looming large and haunting every room in Aso Rock. The low profile personality of Yar Adua and his even lower lustre style have combined to enthrench this view that he is a dithering and indecisive president. Hence the various sobriquets applied to him and his regime: 'Mr Go-Slow', 'Mr Hold-Up', and 'Mr No-Show' etc. They all point to the frustration of the public at his seeming lack of dynamism. It is a regime that has been too cautious and that caution is inducing executive inertia.

The circumstances under which Yar Adua was imposed as a candidate and eventually being handed the keys to Aso Rock meant that the legitimacy issue initially made it too defensive. There was uncetainty about how long it would last and some wrong-headed optimism that the courts would invalidate the robbery of the electorate.

These issues made the government less ambitious from the start, waiting to see what would happen. It was not as though Yar Adua had nothing else going for him. I argued then and continue to believe that he would have won without rigging. No serious observer could objectively claim that either of his two closest rivals had won. He also had a personal reputation of not being corrupt and a record of leading a decent administration in Katsina State for 8 years. So there were people willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. But the regime was caught between being grateful to the Obasanjo PDP robbery machine which gave it the stolen mandate and robbed public which wanted the new President to distance himself from his benefactors. Neither could be fully satisfied.

It was obvious that the PDP had more influence in the making of the new government. Yar Adua did not seem to have much room for manouvre therefore the party prevailed. All he had was his personal credibility as revealed in his innauguration speech where he assured the country he would be a servant leader and lead by example. That he was not Obasanjo and was not given to what Nigerians call 'I too know' and associated 'Baba-cracy' (rule of Baba by Baba for Baba!) was a positive development. His simplicity and austere outlook encouraged many Nigerians who are tired of the profligacy and ostentatious high living of Nigeria's power elite.

However governing a country as diverse and routinely mismanaged polity like Nigeria requires more than just being nice and wanting to do good. It seems that Yar Adua has become a prisoner in Aso Rock, distrusting his corrupt party and the wheeler dealers across the country. Unfortunately they have been so preoccupied with this that they have not been able to leverage the potential public support and good will from many Nigerians.

The PDO operates like a regime under siege - withdrawing into a tiny laager of few trusted people around the presidency. While this may have worked in a provincial setting like Katsina, it is not working any wonders in Abuja. Many people may want to help Yar Adua but they do not have entry points. The system's core is still dominated by malevolent individuals whose only claim to their position is because they have been part of previous misrulers! Yar Adua's small band of believers' inability to have its own narrative and grand vision has made it become vulnerable to other people's agenda. The most successful in filling this executive vacuum created by Yar Adua's excessive caution is the anti- Obasanjo lobby. While it is important to hold all leaders accountable the same Nigerians will blame Yar Adua for doing nothing later.

Let those who want to go after OBJ do so by all means possible under the law but Yar Adua needs to embark on his own programme very aggressively. A programme that will help launder the stolen mandate through public policies that reduce poverty, deliver education, create decent jobs for the millions of youth roaming the streets, empower women, bring security to cities, towns and villages and light up all homes, industry and streets of Nigeria. He needs to throw caution to the winds and break out of the presidential prison that Aso Rock has been for him for the past one year.

*Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem writes this column as a Pan Africanist.

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

Kola Ibrahim looks at the legacy of Fidel Castro, the internationalization of struggle and calls for “working class activists from Kenya to Venezuela to Georgia to Pakistan and the rest of the world – to build a genuine working people’s political platform.” This year, an ailing but still going Fidel Castro will turn 82.

In addition to a conflicted identity, Mildred Barya argues that the xenophobic attacks in South Africa and Africa in general can be traced to the Berlin Conference and partitioning of Africa.

Until the colonial borders are removed we will not have lasting peace anywhere in Africa. Nobody is going to deconstruct the existing borders except a group of committed African thinkers and doers. The recent South Africa shame of brother against brother, sister against sister has clearly shown that we need to make the journey to Berlin quickly, to break the curse of borders that was inflicted upon Africa by the white colonialists in 1885.

The time is ripe to reverse the trend before other clean ‘fingers’ catch the infection and oozing pus from the festering, sore fingers. The disease is the same across Africa, it only manifests differently. It happened in Cote d’Ivoire in West Africa, it has happened in Kenya in East Africa, it happened in Rwanda and continues to spill in the Great Lakes Region. It is the same happening in the Horn of Africa, now it is happening in South Africa, soon the entire Africa might begin to smell from these rotting fingers if the African Union leadership and other concerned bodies, concerned people, do not step in to curb the disease and rename the land. It is time for us Africans to change this bloody, brother-sister-hunting course and write our history as Patrice Lumumba dreamt when he said:

“Africa will write its own history, and it will be, to the north and to the south of the Sahara, a history of glory and dignity…it will not be the history that Brussels, Paris, Washington or the United Nations will teach, but that which they will teach in the countries emancipated from colonialism and its puppets.”

South Africa reached pitch fever in its bursting hatred, clearly demonstrating a greater need for us to say; ‘Let there be no more South Africa but a country that accepts all Blacks, no matter where they may be coming from.’ Words alone do not bring a prophecy to pass; we are not in the days of miracles so actions must do. Short of action, South Africa’s president, Thabo Mbeki, must eat the papers on which he wrote Black Consciousness. What is Black Consciousness without the African personality and identity? What is Black Consciousness if it is not all Africa-Black-Inclusive?

It is a big shame that when we were beginning to recognize and celebrate the African presence globally, South Africa announced its own drum beat and danced to a different tune. When we were beginning to warm up to the World Cup come 2010, South Africa proved that it is not worthy to host the cup, that it is not ready, not yet ready. For if many South Africans cannot tolerate their brothers and sisters from the closest, neighbouring countries, how will they consider the people from far off lands? The saying that charity begins at home does not lie. Who will be safe to watch the World Cup in the folds of xenophobia? One would rather go to a less ‘privileged’ but safer country than being caught up in the throngs of xenophobia.

The way South Africa has given vent to reckless violence shows there’s something rotten at the core. We are not witnessing the surfacing of new fear, but a deep decay in the hearts and minds of the killing groups. It is not about hating the other foreigner. If anything, South Africans started with hating themselves. For a long time they have been killing what is considered their ‘own.’ They did not spare Lucky Dube; they do not spare thousands of women and young girls who are raped and murdered everyday, making South Africa one of the most dangerous countries to live in. The killings have been going on, it is only now that they have reached marginal proportions and gained a new definitive target: Black foreigners. Immigrants.

The murderers have forgotten a crucial piece of history: They have forgotten that many Africans wept with the South Africans during apartheid rule. Many African countries mobilized logistical, moral and physical support for the South African struggle. And many Africans left their safe homes to go to dangerous South Africa to fight for the freedom of South Africans. The people from Nigeria, Malawi, Zambia, Ghana, Mozambique, Angola, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Tanzania and several other places actively joined the South Africa struggle with good will and intentions of brother fighting for brother, sister standing by sister. They must rent their clothes now realizing not only the loss of unity that they embraced, but the shame and disgust that come with regression. The pain in a journey back to the broken road.

I did a small exercise with a large, African social group. I asked each one of the members to suggest which country in Africa they would not want to live in. 99 per cent circled South Africa. The most amazing thing is that places like Congo, Sudan’s Darfur, Chad, Somalia, Kenya and Zimbabwe where conflict is ripe and the residents are not just seated on volcanoes but are being boiled and cooked in the lava, many Africans still indicated a willingness to want to live there, to go there and help. To go and suffer with those who are suffering. This gave me hope that there is a revolution and there are Africans keeping true to the revolution, defying fear and other obstacles to fight for justice, progress and African-ness.

South Africa therefore has plunged in a senseless blood-spilling orgy. We cannot understand why this has happened if we do not recognize that a deep Identity crisis is at the bottom of the problem. Many South Africans have never quite accepted themselves as Africans. The logic therefore is simple. They cannot accept others who are Africans. Many South Africans haven’t felt safe in their own skin, in their country, in their own-ness, how then can they accept others? South Africa is warped in denial at many levels, confusion, reckless power and now, a terrible forgetfulness. This is the analysis: It will take a longer time cleaning up the South African psyche and reality than stopping all the violence in Congo and Darfur. The reason is because South Africa seems to be the only country so far that has an in-built denial system. In other countries when things are not going well, the masses and leadership to a large degree generally accept the dysfunctional phases and the need to change. There is a wide acceptability of things having gone wrong. In South Africa what you easily recognize is denial: It is not HIV/AIDS, it is not crime, it is not this and that... This is going to cost South Africa such a huge fortune in terms of time and name clearance.

How do we help South Africa to at least resolve the huge identity crisis and denial syndrome? The answer is in deconstructing and then reconstructing Africa as a whole and within that framework redefining who is a South African. Many of us know that our cultural ties and heritage go beyond colonial borders, yet we continue to wear the colonial blinds. Culture and politics have failed to make the interconnectedness shared among all Africans a check against violence. Perhaps it is time to go scientific. Here is how. If many of us are to do a DNA ethnic make-up test, we would discover various percentages of several ethnic groups that contribute to our genetic profile. This would give us good snapshots of who we are, our ancestry and our identity. We would realize we are yesterday’s people, we are much of today’s people and we will be tomorrow’s people too. In short, to borrow Alice Walker’s new book title, “We Are the Ones We Have Been Waiting For.” There isn’t going to be a so-called pure South African, the other Mozambican, Malawian, because in truth such identities do not exist, have never existed. They were coined up to suit the colonizers. Centuries down the road we still let them make us, shape us, define us. What more could be wrong with us?

For a start, I think all the so-called South Africans should do a DNA test, government sponsored. It will make us humble and teach us a thing or two about union and diversity which culture and governments have failed to teach us. Because we inherit a unique assortment of DNA from our mothers and fathers, it is possible for one’s DNA results to be different from a family members—even a sibling’s. Does this mean members of a family who discover unique differences and some noticeable similarities as well should pick up guns and fire at one another, in the name of a different DNA composition, one being more Shangaani than Zulu for instance?

Before any peace movement can stop us all from shouting ‘kill the other, kill them all…’ perhaps a DNA is what will save us and show that we have enough of ‘the other’ in us; in our cells, in our genetic make up and ‘bloody’ composition, thus stopping us from wrecking havoc on our selves, the other.

* Mildred K Barya is Writer-in-Residence at TrustAfrica (www.trustafrica.org)

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

As Africa marked the golden jubilee of African Liberation Day on May 25th, the African Union (AU) commission marked the occasion under the theme of "Meeting the Millennium Development Goals on Water and Sanitation", which will also be the theme of the AU summit to be held in Egypt this June. Concurrently, the committee of twelve African heads of states met in Tanzania to discuss the implementation of a Union government. While only five of the twelve heads of states expected to attend the meeting took part, those absent being represented by senior officials, the mini-summit approved several accelerators including the free movement of people, the establishment of financial institutions, regional infrastructure and African multi-national firms. Following the committee of twelve meeting, President Kikwete of Tanzania, current Chair of the AU, expressed shock at the xenophobic violence in South Africa but underlined that these were not government policy but “acts of vandalism”. This violence, among other events in Africa this year, are occasion for pause during this year’s Africa Day celebrations, according to Faten Aggad, who states that: “Africa Day should not only be a day to celebrate our diversity in the form of diplomatic functions and academic workshops. It should also be a day when we assess our future as a continent. For starters we should reflect on ways to create development-oriented governance systems”. He further assesses the challenges and opportunities of the African Peer Review Mechanism as a starting point for responsive and accountable African governance systems. In this regard, the AU commission will hold an East African meeting on the African Charter on Democracy, Election and Governance in Rwanda from May 29-31 aimed at promoting and encouraging ratification of the Charter. “The popularisation of the Charter and the strategies to mobilise as many signatures as possible during the ratification process are some of the main objectives of organising regional meetings”.

As the African Union prepares for the summit in June, which will take place in Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt, Francis Ameyibor provides analysis of the expectations and challenges for this meeting. Noting that the summit will be an important indicator of the performance of the new leadership of the commission, he further elaborates that the summit will “confront the adoption and implementation of a more responsive and rights based social policy framework for Africa. Among them are the non-implementation of existing social continental policy standards contained in various AU Decisions and Declarations and the MDGs, poor national and inter-ministerial linkages and inadequate resources.” Further, on “the formation of the Union Government of Africa, it is expected that the Summit would come out with a definite position, and stop the foot-dragging tactics”.

In regard to aid and development, a recent report has revealed that “on current trends the European Union (EU) will have given 75 billion less in aid by 2010 than it promised” and that European governments inflate aid statistics with debt relief and refugee costs. Assessing regional integration in terms of trade and development, Dot Keet notes that “neo-liberalism really narrowed the conceptualisation of regional integration. The World Bank and the IMF were promoting the paradigm called ‘open regionalism’, for and towards ‘global integration’, and this was backed by the EU.” She further asks how Africa can forge external agreements, such as the Economic Partnership Agreements with the EU, when regional protocols on these issues are not in place or have been reinterpreted from their original intention. Also affecting African integration, the European Commission has unveiled plans for a Mediterranean Union, bringing together 44 countries, including Mauritania, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya and Egypt. This Union is to have a co-presidency from the EU and a Mediterranean country lasting two years.

Lastly, the new commissioner for science and technology, Jean-Pierre Onvéhoun Ezin, plans to include education in the proposed African Science and Innovation Fund, in a move meant to avoid duplication of efforts, but which some fear will diminish resources for science.

In this essay, Horace Campbell looks at the importance of Africa Liberation Day, its changing relevances as Africans are betrayed by the architects of first independence and how, through struggle, we can reclaim and fulfill its promise.

INTRODUCTION

On May 25, 2008, peace loving peoples all over the world will celebrate African Liberation Day. This will be the fiftieth anniversary of the setting aside of a day to commemorate those who sacrificed for the liberation of the African peoples at home and abroad. In 1963, the Organization of African Unity was established in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Then, the main emphasis was on the liberation of territories from colonial rule. At the end of apartheid in 1994 new ideas of liberation were placed on the agenda for Africa. Questions of health, food security, environmental justice, decent education, the rights of women, the politics of inclusion and cultural freedoms were placed as the core of the liberation of Africa. African women at the grassroots are campaigning for a new form of popular power where African peoples will have the voice to intervene in the political process where they live and where they work. These men and women at the grassroots seek to give meaning to political participation and realize the dream of C.L.R. James who envisioned that ‘every cook can govern.’ This form of politics elevates the political participation of the people beyond periodic voting. African youths at home and abroad are looking forward to new institutions and new sites where the ideas of peace, love and human dignity will prevail.

THE ORIGINS OF AFRICA DAY AND AFRICAN LIBERATION YESTERDAY

At the All African Peoples Conference, held in Ghana, in 1958 it was agreed that one-day would be set aside as a national day of remembrance for African freedom fighters. Ghana had achieved its independence in 1957 and one year later Kwame Nkrumah called a conference of African workers, freedom fighters and champions for justice. Nkrumah who had been inspired by Garveyism and the self mobilization and self organization of the people took up the idea of African Liberation day and successfully promoted the idea to the leaders who formed the Organization of African Unity. The first celebration of Africa Day had begun in Harlem, USA by the followers of Marcus Garvey who had called for African Unity from as far back as 1919.

When Ghana achieved its independence in 1957 Nkrumah maintained that the independence of Ghana would be “incomplete without the independence of all of Africa.” Together with the principal freedom fighters within Ghana, Nkrumah established a Pan-African Secretariat within the Ghanaian government and appointed George Padmore to run the secretariat. The task of the secretariat was to act as the coordinating point for the establishment of links with freedom fighters on the African continent and for the secretariat to be a center for information to support those fighting for freedom.

At that historical moment freedom was conceived of as freedom of the peoples and freedom of the states from colonial rule. To carry forward this task the Ghanaian government deployed the resources to support freedom fighters, trade unionists and political activists for independence. This was the spirit that inspired the calling of the All-African Peoples’ Conferences in 1958. It was at this meeting where Patrice Lumumba was introduced to the wider Pan African struggles. In tandem with this people-centered activity, Nkrumah also convened the conferences of Independent African States to establish a diplomatic framework for the political union of Africa.

Because most of the present governments in Africa are opposed to the liberation of the peoples and the Union of the peoples of Africa the detractors of African Union present the struggle for the United States of Africa as a Gadaffi Initiative. Instead of Africa Day becoming a day to honor and celebrate those who struggled for independence, the day has been taken away from the people and the officials use this as another opportunity to organize embassy parties and dinners to seek assistance from the imperialists who are today called ’donors.’ Nowhere is the idea of Pan Africanism more devalued than where Pan Africanists seek to use the name of Pan Africanism to establish NGO’s to seek assistance from the very same forces that undermine African independence. Yoweri Museveni has used the current Secretariat of the Pan African Movement in Kampala as political football.

AFRICA DAY AND THE OAU IN PRACTICE

Fifty years after the start of the celebration of Africa Day in 1958 there are still colonial territories in Africa. The most well known is the case of the Western Sahara. The military invasion and occupation of Iraq by the USA demonstrated clearly the reality that the days of colonial occupation are not yet over. In North Africa and in Palestine the legacies and problems of military occupation reinforce and support the dictatorial rule of the Egyptian ruling elite.

At the time of Kwame Nkrumah, Nasser and the peoples of Egypt represented one base of support for freedom fighters. Today, the leaders of Egypt seek to establish a dynasty and hinder the full support for those fighting against occupation whether in Palestine or in Iraq. Peace activists in North Africa like peace activists in the other parts of Africa oppose occupation and genocidal violence. It is this reversal for the peoples that ensure that the politics of retrogression thrives. With the absence of committed leadership, militarists seize the discourse of liberation to establish movements for emancipation and liberation to foment genocidal politics. Genocidal politics thrives when the politics of exploitation, exclusivism, racism, militarism, religious dogmatism, extremism, and patriarchy intersect in a nested loop to oppress the people. Sudan is one society where the recursive processes of genocidal thinking, genocidal institution, genocidal politics and genoicidal economic relations are reproduced to perpetuate war and the wanton destruction of human lives.

There is a new peace movement across the globe and the celebration of Africa Day is one component of the struggles against genocide and genocidal thinking. This peace movement in Africa must link up with the global movement for peace so that liberation in Africa will be associated with emancipation, peace, social justice and the well being of the people.

THE OAU LIBERATION COMMITTEE

It was very significant that it was in those states that supported African liberation with moral, material and political support that this day was observed at the national level as a public holiday. After imperialism killed Patrice Lumumba and orchestrated a military coup d ‘etat against Nkrumah, Julius Nyerere of Tanzania and the Tanzanian people stood out in the ways in which the idea of African Liberation was respected and the society made tremendous sacrifices for the liberation of Africa. Julius Nyerere established a tradition of self-sacrifice that was followed by those committed to ending all forms of exploitation. The Tanzanian society could not have supported liberation and hosted the OAU Liberation Committee to spearhead liberation without the mobilization and politicization of the ordinary people.

One can compare the sacrifices of the Tanzanian peoples with the present Xenophobia in states such as South Africa and Angola where former freedom fighters have used the history of the liberation struggles to hold on to political power, to enrich themselves and diminish the meaning of independence and liberation The attacks on African migrants in South Africa and the violence unleashed against poor workers in 2008 represented one example of how the former leaders of the African liberation process have become obstacles to the further emancipation of Africa. Robert Mugabe and the ZANU-PF leadership in Zimbabwe represents the extreme example of freedom fighters who started out on the side of the people but used state power to enrich a small clique while shouting about imperialism. Robert Mugabe, Yoweri Museveni of Uganda, Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia and Isaias Afewerki of Eritrea represent leaders who once used the language of liberation while setting up militaristic states to oppress the people of Africa.

WILL THE PEOPLE PREVAIL?

The momentum and energy of the poor ensured that the OAU through the liberation committee supported the process of decolonization in Africa despite the fact that the generals constituted the majority at the summit. The formation of the OAU in 1963 had been a compromise among member states that could not agree on how to respond to the clear external manipulation of the Congo after those representing the interests of Western mining capital murdered Patrice Lumumba in 1961.It was in this Congo where the traditions of militarism, corruption and genocide had taken deep roots.

Those who yesterday opposed African liberation and supported dictators such as Siad Barre (Somalia), Arap Moi (Kenya) Félix Houphouët-Boigny y (Ivory Coast) and Hastings Banda (Malawi) now write books on failed states in Africa. This language of corruption and notions of Africa representing a breeding ground for ‘terrorism’ is one component of psychological war against Africa. The objective of the propaganda is for the young to forget the imperial crimes in Africa. In this way the dream of the young is to escape Africa to Europe.

The imperialists who orchestrated and planned the assassination of Patrice Lumumba have reframed their role in the destabilization of Africa and now write books celebrating their role in the destruction of African sovereignty. Larry Devlin who was the Chief of Station of the Central Intelligence Agency in Leopoldville (now Kinshasa) has written a book (Chief of Station) to cover up the crimes of US imperialism in Africa. Mobutu represented the biggest obstacle to African liberation and unity and for thirty five years Mobutism supported genocidal politics and genocidal leaders in Central Africa from Rwanda to Burundi and Uganda under Idi Amin. The clause of non-interference in the internal affairs of states was the expedient to protect the confraternity of dictators. Despite these setbacks, the people prevailed and are now placing the question of the union of the peoples of Africa as the urgent task of contemporary liberation.

The formation of the African Union in 2001 was a conscious effort to transcend the traditions of violence and militarism. Defeat through victory Just as how at the end of slavery in the British territories 1834 the slave masters were compensated, so in the period at the end of apartheid the West intensified the neo-liberal agenda of privatisation, liberalization and de regulation so that the architects of apartheid and their black allies could enrich themselves.

Firstly, through IMF and the World Bank the basic rights to education, housing, health care and decent wages have been eroded. This has meant that the African poor have borne the brunt of the world capitalist depression. When Alan Greenspan, (former head of the Federal Reserve in the USA) noted that this capitalist depression has been the worst since 1920, he neglected to note that the poor and the exploited in Africa bore the brunt of this capitalist depression. Food riots in Senegal, Ivory Coast, South Africa, Egypt, Somalia and the Cameroons are the outward signs of the stirrings of a new liberation movement where the peoples of Africa are demanding food, clothing, shelter and access to proper health care.

Secondly, African liberation now requires that the people control their governments and that issues of financial planning and budgeting are discussed in the villages, townships and cities of Africa. In Africa, the politics of retrogression has become the norm, and the leadership has taken – to cultural proportions - the tendency to turn their backs on the people as soon as they take office. Hence, though the African Union has stipulated that no leader can come to power through military coup leaders now resort to electoral theft as evidenced recently in Kenya and Zimbabwe. There is now an urgent need to create new democratic institutions to strengthen popular participation and representation. Parliamentary democracy on its own is not enough; it must be supplemented with and strengthened by other popular institutions and associations like the local governments, cooperative movements, independent workers, women, student and youth organizations, assemblies or organizations for the environmental concerns and for minority rights, and so forth A new leadership must ensure that this is the dominant political culture, with enough flexibility to allow for changes when changes are needed to strengthen and further consolidate that culture.

This new political culture will eventually shift power from the current corrupt and unrepresentative political groupings, to local communities whose chosen representatives will be accountable to the interests of these local communities first not those of a small center that monopolizes power in the national political groupings.

Thirdly, in the midst of the millions dying from the AIDS pandemic the African governments are being coerced to cut delivery of health care. The provision of health for the masses of the people represents one of the fundamental goals of liberation in this era. All across the continent the requirements for a healthy life are pressing when the poor are seeking environments with clean air, clean water, and neighbourhoods cleared of mosquito holding areas and homes that are not dilapidated.

LIBERATION AND ENVIRONMENTAL REPAIR

Environmental repair and environmental justice form the fourth link in the chain of liberation in this new century. All across the continent the present leaders glorify the extraction of petroleum resources without regard for the health and safety of the peoples. From the North of Africa down to the Namibian coast petroleum companies are looting African oil while destroying the environment. Nigeria represents an extreme example of where environmental racism abounds and where a small clique is enriched while the majority of the peoples are exploited.

As much as 76 per cent of all the natural gas from Petroleum production in Nigeria is flared compared to 0.6 per cent in USA, 4.3 per cent in the UK, 21.0 per cent in Libya. The flaring is one of the most severe of the numerous hazards to which the peoples of the Delta and the Rivers States are exposed. At temperatures of 1,300 to 1,400 degrees centigrade, the multitude of flares in the Delta heat up everything, causing noise pollution, and producing CO2, VOC, CO, NOx and particulates around the clock. The emission of CO2 from gas flaring in Nigeria releases 35 million tons of CO2 a year and 12 million tons of methane, which means that Nigerian oil fields contribute more in global warming than the rest of the world together. (Claude Ake, 1996)

It is in Africa where the petroleum companies are engaged in crimes against Africans and crimes against nature. Many of the gas flares are situated very close to villages, sometimes within a hundred metres of homes of ordinary citizens. Petroleum companies have been flaring at some sites for 24 hours a day for more than 30 years. Despite this record, the standard view of environmental management, is that the basic rights of private property and of profit maximization, come before the health and welfare of the peoples of Nigeria in general, and in particular, the peoples who live in the Niger Delta.

Concerns for environmental justice are kept subservient to concerns for economic efficiency and capital accumulation. Successive governments in Nigeria have been willing accomplices to this degradation, the oil companies are protected while the health and welfare of Nigerian society suffers irreparable. The cuts in the social wage of the population make it impossible for local communities to support health clinics and there is an absence of drugs in most rural hospitals. The oil revenue is recycled to prop up the political class. Since 1958, Royal Dutch Shell has extracted billions from the lands of the Niger Delta. It is in this situation where a movement has developed called Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta.

Should African freedom fighters be supporting the armed struggles in the Niger Delta when we are presented with the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta? Acts of militarism even in the face of the keenest oppression can only be supported in the present era when all other forms of popular political mobilization have been exhausted. This is the concrete lesson from the wars in Sierra Leone and “the revolutionary forces of Foday Sanko.” We have also learnt the limits of armed revolutionary struggles from the wars of liberation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. From the military campaign of Kabila, the intervention by Wamba dia Wamba, the senseless wars between Angola, Rwanda, Uganda, Zimbabwe and Namibia along with prolonged fighting in Eastern Congo there are clear lessons for liberation.

These acts of militarism and war force revolutionaries to grasp the meanings of liberation and liberation movements today.

The legacies of the defeat in the Congo The Congo stands at the heart of Africa and peace in the Congo will have a tremendous impact on social reconstruction and transformation in Africa. Regional cooperation between truly democratic states will change the African Union and there will be a quantum change in the politics of Africa when the ideas and principles of African wildfire spread to all parts of the continent. In order to forestall the full operation of the Peace and Security Council of the African Union, the United States has established the US Africa command to remilitarize Africa at the moment when the driving force behind African liberation is the peace and social justice movements. It is this peace and justice movement that inspired the continent wide opposition to the Africa command so much so that the US government has to resort to covert agreements to shore up the allies who are secretly colluding with western militarism.

Potentially were countries such as Angola, the DR Congo and the Sudan democratic states, they could collectively put together a major program of self-development, funded entirely by them for the whole Eastern and Southern Africa region. The West understands this and it is for this reason that the European Union and the USA are not supporters of peace and demilitarisation in Africa. In the face of the crisis of US capitalism the Chinese have emerged as a major force in the political economy of Africa. This new engagement has been significantly different from the period when the political leaders of China had supported the decolonization of Africa and provided support for Tanzania to build the Tazara railroad.

From liberation to emancipation As we come to the end of the first decade of a new century this moment provides one other opportunity to reflect on the tasks of liberation in the last fifty years and to assess how far the tasks and goals of liberation were realized. The crisis of the nature of human existence is manifest in all spheres of social relations; in the relations between humans (men and women), in the relationship between humans and the environment and in the forms of economic organization. It is now clearer that African liberation is not possible within the capitalist mode of production. When Walter Rodney wrote the book, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, he had stated unequivocally that capitalism stands in the path of further human transformation. Now this is even clearer with the nested loop of environmental crimes, food crisis, economic terrorism, pandemics and the absence of representative democratic forms.

African women are leading the call for a new definition of liberation beyond one where African males occupy the positions of power of European and send their children to schools to be educated in European languages and in the ideas of patriarchy, domination over nature and private property. Since the period of the anti-apartheid struggles there has been a deepening of the understanding of liberation to encompass issues that are common on both sides of the Atlantic such as regional economic integration, democratisation, the end to genocide, reparations, the emancipation of women, the end to sexism and heterosexism, the humanization of the male and the humanization of the planet. The African Liberation Struggle of Tomorrow How can Africans be validated as human beings and lay the foundations for a new sense of personhood? This question has been sharpened by the major turning point in human transformations with the revolutionary technological changes that carried potential for healing as well as the potential for destruction. Books on Apartheid medicine have pointed to the ways in which Africans are being used as guinea pigs. The questions of the worth of the value of African life, of human life will be contested in the 21st century.

Millions are dying from preventable diseases and the health infrastructure has deteriorated while health workers leave Africa in droves. Where Information technology and robotics are changing the nature of work, education and leisure and the traditional understanding economics, the advances in gene splitting technologies are changing the very ways in which plants and animals are produced. The information revolution is bringing telecommunications technology to most communities across the continent and the peoples are now able to keep in constant contact with their village communities. African youths are using this technology to bring knowledge and information to others in order to break the control over information. Imperialism seeks to tap into the cognitive skills of the peoples while the governments look to Europe for models of education.

Africa is the home of the richest biodiversity on the planet. While some leaders are struggling for land, the biotech and pharmaceutical companies are patenting African medicinal plants. The threat of the major biotech companies to patent life forms along with the new rules of the World Trade Organization relating to intellectual property rights contain the seeds of undermining all of the gains that were made in the context of the struggle for self determination. By presenting life as an “invention” the biotechnical companies and the food corporations seek to eliminate the African farmer altogether. It is against this background that Africa is providing the lead in the World Trade Organization against the patenting of life forms. In the book, the Liberal Virus: Permanent War and the Americanization of the World, Samir Amin has warned of the dangers to the pauperization of the majority of farmers in Africa if African government follow the model of agriculture of Europe and the United States.

AFRICAN LIBERATION AND THE CENTRALITY OF GRASSROOTS WOMEN

Whether it is in the area of food production, health care, care for the sick or the education of the youth there is a disproportionate burden that is carried by women of the grassroots. One of the most important new development in the debates on revolution and transformation in the 21st century lies in the centrality of the place of the black women of the producing classes in the struggle for social transformation. This discussion which is going on in Africa and in the Americas emanates from a long tradition of struggle by black women and the determination that the black woman would never be again be marginalized in the African revolution.

The ensuing debates on women’s rights, racism, class alliances, environmental racism, gender and social reproduction hold the seeds of the most profound understanding of the limits of the concentration on productive forces that was the hallmark of radical politics for the generation after 1917. The question of how the understanding of the oppression of women is linked to the household as a site of politics brings home the point that one cannot be politically progressive and support any form of domination or intolerance. The women's movement successfully challenged the labor theory of value and influenced our understanding of the centrality of household production in the capitalist labor process. These revolutionary women have deepened our understanding of the importance of care and that the discipline of economics will remain one branch of capitalist ideas unless it takes into consideration care and reproductive capabilities of women.

Female labor power was never calculated in the economic models of nineteenth century revolutionaries. Black women such as Sojourner Truth and Harriet Tubman yesterday and women such as Angela Davis and Nawal El Saadawi today placed the question of the liberation of women on the political agenda. Throughout the twentieth century the women’s movement internationally made great strides in placing the gender, care and housework as fundamental questions of revolution. However, in the main, this mainstream movement was dominated by conceptions of progress and reason that emanated from Western Europe.

It was the radical black feminists who have reflected on how the growth of emancipatory ideas has contributed towards the project of our collective emancipation. By framing and ending the separation of the woman question from the other sites of struggles and making gender transformation the central question of the struggle, the progressive women inside the left movement and in the radical formations have taken the political lead in the fight for justice. Hence in Africa today, the combined energies of the women from all parts of the Sudan are seeking to place the issues of rape, sexual terrorism, violation and gender oppression at the center of the debate on the future of the Sudan. Fundamentalism of all forms represents one component of the counter revolutionary period in which we live.

UBUNTU

There is need for a new orientation on liberation to conceptualize the values of ubuntu as the basis for liberation. The concept incorporates values of sharing, cooperation and spiritual health. Ubuntu, emancipatory politics and reparations are the key concepts for liberation tomorrow. The attainment of ubuntu is bound up with the political union of Africa. The concrete understanding of the cultural unity of Africa and the contributions of the African peoples towards human transformation are being refined every day through day to day struggles. Cheik Anta Diop who has studied the linguistic basis of African Unity emphasized the importance of African languages in the push for continental unity. African Liberation will be meaningless if it is not rooted in African languages and in the genius of the African woman. The aspirations of Diop, which were outlined in his book on the Economic and Cultural Basis for a Federated State, form the core of the African Union of tomorrow. Diop was clear that his idea on industrialization and regeneration of Africa was not based simply on the development of the productive forces without reference to the working people of Africa. Diop wrote clearly of the requirement of effective representation of women at all levels of governance.

The future of African liberation will be informed by a new mode of politics where ordinary African men, women and children will be able to revel in the idea of Africa for the Africans at home and abroad and tear down the borders of oppression and control which were created in 1885. The future of Pan Africanism and the AU must reinforce the traditional respect for the elders and should raise up a new tradition, respect for young people. This new tradition calls for Africa to lead the world in the use of all means to support the emancipation of African women and girls and to end all forms of oppression.

This is the essence of reparations, peace and justice!

*Horace Campbell is the author of the well known book, Rasta and Resistance: From Marcus Garvey to Walter Rodney. His latest book, Reclaiming Zimbabwe: The Exhaustion of the Patriarchal Model of Liberation is published by David Philip of Cape Town, South Africa.

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