Khadija Sharife

When does exercising the right to development, as envisioned by a sovereign government, conflict with human and peoples’ rights (HPR)?

What does Manuel Vicente’s rise to top office in Angola mean for Zimbabwe, and what role does China play in all of this? Vicente is believed to be pegged at vice president by José Eduardo dos Santos – one of Africa’s longest running dictators, bound to win the next Angolan elections in 2012.

‘The last time I spoke to my mum, she said “mwanangu tichiri musango” – meaning my son, we are still in the bush,’ said 'China', a Zimbabwean civil society activist based in South Africa.

Few would deny that Libya's lifetime president, Muammar Gaddafi, is the perfect caricature of a 'third world' dictator.

The recent approval of Zimbabwean diamonds mined from the US$800 billion Marange fields, by the Kimberley Process (KP) chair, the DRC's Mathieu Yamba Lapfa Lambang, has prompted a global 'human rights' outcry with KP members such as Canada, the EU[1], and US claiming there was 'no consensus'.

Alongside pneumococcal diseases such as meningitis and pneumonia, rotavirus-related diarrhoea is a primary childhood killer in developing countries, thought to snuff out the lives of 500,000 children each and every year. An overwhelming 85 per cent of these children are African and Asian.

Poverty at home when she was growing up caused Thandi Dlamini* to drop out of school in Grade 11 – two years prior to matriculation. Her lack of education prevented her from obtaining formal sector work.

African nations such as Zambia are often seen as grossly corrupt. Yet it is corporate tax ‘avoidance’ on the part of mining companies that costs the nation hundreds of millions annually, while lining the pockets of middle-men in countries such as Switzerland.

Africa has long been synonymous as the poster child of the resource curse. Illicit financial flows, often siphoned through corruption and mis-pricing, are estimated to cost the continent $200-billion annually.

During the 1970s, Zambia was one of the world's leading copper producers, extracting over 700,000 tonnes per annum. These days, Zambia leads the ranks as a top copper producer at more than 800,000 tonnes (2010). Much of the success has been credited to the privatisation of the copper industry.