Pambazuka Blog Review – July 23, 2009: Corruption in Patrimonicide

The CHRDA blog publishes the complete text of a paper by Prof. Kofele Kale of Southern Methodist University in Dallas in which he calls for the elevation of corruption to the Status of a crime in positive International Law. Prof. Kale describes this new crime as “Patrimonicide”:
“I submit that what has been taking place in the last five decades or so is a coordinated plan whose effect, if not objective, is the destruction of the essential foundations of the economic life of a society. It is the systematic looting and stashing in foreign banks of the financial resources of a State; the arbitrary and systematic deprivation of the economic rights of the citizens of a nation by its leaders, elected and appointed, in military regimes as well as civilian governments in Africa, Asia, Latin America and Europe, on a scale so vast and never before seen in history. As the man who coined the word “genocide” sixty years ago argued, a new crime deserves a new name…
I have somewhat immodestly taken the liberty of inventing the word ‘patrimonicide’ as the name for this new international economic crime. The word comes from combining the Latin words ‘patrimonium’ meaning “[t]he estate or property belonging by ancient right to an institution, corporation, or class; especially the ancient estate or endowment of a church or religious body” and, of course, ‘cide’ meaning killing. It is submitted that indigenous spoliation is the very essence of the destruction (or killing, if you please) of the sum total of a nation's endowment; the laying waste of the wealth and resources belonging by right to her citizens; the denial of their heritage.”

Inside Somalia has excerpts of a recent report by the House of Lords EU Committee on Money Laundering and Terrorist Finance which criticizes the UK for being complacent in dealing with pirates off the coast of Somalia:
"Any study of terrorist financing has to take account of the proceeds of piracy. The Government say that they have not found a link between the two. We believe that they would find one if they looked for it, making the same effort as they have, with other states, in naval operations.
We regard this as an extraordinarily passive and complacent attitude. The Government, together with other states, are far better placed than individual ship-owners to decide whether ransoms are likely to be used to finance terrorism but they seem unwilling to shoulder this responsibility. We think that they should.
In our view the likely reason no link has been found between piracy and terrorism is that no link has been sought."

27 Months reviews an innovative Thin Client Computing platform called Ndiyo and says it has the potential to resolve issues of computer access and use in Africa:
“The conventional PC-based networking model is so intrinsically wasteful and expensive in terms of energy, resource and time inputs that it has effectively blocked access to ICT in poorer nations... Instead of making PCs cheaper, Ndiyo makes them easier to share...
The Ndiyo model and the philosophy behind it are very compelling, for several reasons.
On a practical level, the environmental benefits and energy cost savings of an Ndiyo-type system are obvious. A client which consumes 5 watts verses 300 or more is clearly advantageous. I imagine it would be possible to provide backup power to an entire Ndiyo cluster with a single UPS device, or even to supply constant power using a renewable energy source. This is a big consideration for developing countries where power infrastructure is often less than reliable or nonexistent.
Ndiyo also provides an alternative to traditional Western notions of how technologies should be deployed, used and paid for in developing countries. Negroponte’s One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) and refurbished PCs are two different approaches that spring to mind. Refurbished PCs are potentially transformative, but have a lot of hidden costs including power consumption, spare parts, support and maintenance. Perhaps instead of unloading tons of obsolete PCs on developing countries, a market-oriented solution with new or refurbished flat panel monitors could be tried instead, used with Nivo clients to build robust clusters.
The Ndiyo cluster also leverages ideas from mobile phone sharing—a concept which needs no introduction to Africans, and takes greater account of conditions on the ground where these systems will be used.”

Zambian Economist comments on reports that some members of the ruling MMD party are backing attempts by the Zambian opposition to impeach President Banda:
“The possibility of MMDMPs rallying behind the impeachment is something that I had not anticipated… The reason is simple: weak incentives. In the event of an impeachment, Parliament has to be dissolved with a new general election held. There's a reason why previous presidents have kept that provision - precisely because it raises the cost of reneging within the ruling party. Basically, it makes it difficult for those within the ruling party to remove a sitting President, because doing so would automatically send the whole party to a general election. No serious MMD MP wants to go and face an electoral vote with an uncertain outcome. So by ensuring that impeachment triggers general elections, the sitting President is immune from pressure from his party, thereby providing further opportunity for centralising his authority…
Is there a deal between the Opposition and the MMD parliamentarians that has somehow strengthened the very weak incentives ensured by the existing constitutions?”

The latest issue of Palapala, the online literary magazine carries a response by Dibussi Tande to novelist Patrice Nganang’s argument that the use of the term “Anglophone Cameroon literature” to describe literature from the English speaking region of Cameroon marginalizes that literature:
“Anglophone Cameroon Literature” is not an aberration, and like other “minority” literatures in world, it is intricately tied to the unique experiences of the Anglophones within the Bilingual Cameroon Republic. It is a literature which does not only have to deal with issues of literary quality and quantity, but, unlike its Francophone counterpart, also has to engage in a relentless political fight for recognition as the other major component of mainstream Cameroonian literature.
The literature from the former British Southern Cameroons is not merely “Cameroon literature in English” as some would like us to believe. If that were the case, then English translations of Ferdinand Oyono’s Une vie de boy (“Houseboy”), Mongo Beti’s Mission terminée (Mission to Kala”) or even Nganang’s Temps de chien (“Dog Days”) would be classified as “Anglophone Cameroon literature”. But that is not the case. Anglophone literature goes beyond a colonial language to embrace a specific territory, a specific socio-cultural space, and a specific historical reality…
Anglophone literature will develop and take its rightful place on the Cameroonian literary pantheon, not by submerging its identity into a vast Cameroonian “national literature” that is synonymous with Francophone Cameroon literature, but by creating a distinct literary space and trajectory which reflects its own historical, political and socio-cultural realities.”

* Dibussi Tande, a writer and activist from Cameroon, produces the blog Scribbles from the Den

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