http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/362/47412violence.jpgSam Kabele looks at the fault lines along which violence in Zimbabwe is traveling and calls for solidarity the Zimbabwean people

At the time of writing President Mugabe is refusing to engage with his reasonably supine fellow southern African leaders, concerned about the crisis and lack of declared results from the presidential elections. Instead he has chosen the path he knows best, that of formal and informal state-inspired violence with reports coming in especially in Manicaland of targeted intimidation and beatings of opposition activists, especially in areas that swung to MDC. The votes in the parliamentary elections went so overwhelming for the opposition that the government was unable to fix that election and we thus had a historic victory for the Movement for Democratic Change. It seems clear the ruling ZANU-PF party are desperately trying to avoid a similar meltdown in the presidential ones. So, unsurprisingly, Zimbabwe’s High Court refused to rule on the MDC’s urgent application for release of the presidential election results on April 14. 

As President Mugabe opts for the path he knows best, that of formal and informal state-inspired violence, it is worth asking how we even reached the stage where the opposition was allowed to win the parliamentary elections and where the usual violence and intimidation appear not to have paid off. Were the ruling party over-confident and the rest of us, expecting the usual stolen election, too dismissive of the effect of the crisis on ordinary Zimbabweans – urban and rural? Of course in any normal situation, hyperinflation signals an end to any ruling government, but Zimbabwean ‘normality’ has been different since 2000, and arguably before that. Given the normal retaliation that ZANU-PF unleashes when it is threatened as in 2000 after the referendum (farm invasions etc) and Operation Murambatsvina after 2005, there is a second and probably more important question. Who is willing and able to stop a descent into repression and violence? And, thirdly, who in Zimbabwe and the region has the strategic vision to change this? Is there still the possibility of a peaceful transition (even if not a transformation as such)? 

The ZANU-PF government has largely appeared impervious to international pressure to reverse repression and its economic policies. Zimbabwe has few close allies, after leaving the Commonwealth, having been near to expulsion from the International Monetary Fund (perhaps the only possibly advantageous element), its policies criticised by the UN and some African institutions like the African Commission on Human and Peoples Rights, and with its elite subject to ‘smart’ sanctions from the EU, Switzerland, US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. It has retained some African, Chinese and some Third World state and popular support by astute playing of the ‘anti-imperialist card’.   Is, however, the southern African region now sufficiently worried to push harder for real change after the (unadmitted) failure of their negotiation process and the obvious gerrymandering of the ‘harmonised elections’?

CAN ZIMBABWEANS CONTINUE THE MOMENTUM OF THEIR MASSIVE REJECTION OF ZANU-PF?

Whilst the results dribbled out, the courts are largely supine and the counter-offensive starts. After the failure of the negotiation process and the obvious gerrymandering of the ‘harmonised elections’ perhaps the real question is whether their self-interest in a reformed ZANU-PF without Mugabe is likely to continue? With the exception of South Africa’s ANC president Jacob Zuma - who called for the election results to be declared after meeting Zimbabwe’s opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai - the region has been largely silent. It has, however, after its weekend summit issued a lame statement calling for the election results to be ‘expeditiously’ declared and for the parties to contest any run-off. This is despite evidence of increased intimidation and violence and strong opposition from regional civil society.

The only path appears to be people power, but is the fearful population, committed peaceful forms, subject to eight years of intimidation, and having to engage in every possible strategy for mere survival able to sustain this? Recent general strikes such as the one called for from 15th April cannot really be anything other than staying at home since only 8% of Zimbabweans are actually employed. 

It has been argued that in any transition Zimbabwe should be characterised as a post-conflict state since it exhibits many characteristics of a society in violent conflict due to the scale of economic collapse and casualisation, political violence and social trauma, the breakdown of basic services (although the party structure of ZANU-PF remains intact), mass flight of people and capital. Zimbabwe currently has the highest rate of inflation in the world, with an annual rate of over 100,000%.

1. Wages have plummeted as the cost of necessities spirals out of control.  About 80% of the country’s population lives in poverty, while about 3 million people have left the country in search of work.

2. Failed agricultural policies have meant widespread food shortages of food with this year’s harvest predicted to be one of the lowest on record.

3. Agriculture was the motor of the pre-crisis economy, but is massively depleted in production and export. Zimbabwe once a food exporter (in good years) is now food insecure with up to half the population reliant on food aid.

4. The above is particularly worrying given the generalised HIV and AIDS pandemic and life expectancy being the lowest in the world at 34 years for men and 33 years for women.

5. The humanitarian crisis is exacerbated by government food distribution being manipulated to secure votes.

6. Demands for change emanating from civil society have been routinely suppressed by the state, including the use of assaults, arrests and torture.7 The number of health professionals fleeing the country has escalated while resources for the health sector have collapsed, with dire effects on the around 20% of the population with HIV or AIDS.  

The strategies of the Zimbabwean state of both structural and physical violence in all its parallels with the last years of apartheid seem to be both unravelling and at the same time becoming more vicious. The combination of centrally directed and presidential-inspired incitement to violence, including sexual violence, securitisation of state institutions, state of emergency in all but name, the use of informer networks and covert ‘Third Force’ hit squads to brutalise the opposition and destroy its structures before elections, and the manipulation of the media and hate speech attacks, all seek to provide ideological justification for the demonisation of the opposition and licensed informal violence. However, whether through over-confidence or under pressure from South Africa and the region, there was less violence in this election with both the opposition factions of the MDC and the ZANU-PF ‘renegade’ Simba Makoni being able to campaign in rural areas. 

Several post-Mugabe scenarios are possible, including a transition to Mugabeism without Mugabe, an MDC-led government, the rise of a reformist faction within ZANU-PF, a broad government of national unity, a military coup, or even a descent into chaos. But at present a Mugabe hardball response urged on by the ‘Jacobin’ faction inside the party around a presidential run-off seems likely. Violence and intimidation have worked in the past to keep the president in power, have tended to divert the party from its internal divisions, and sidelines the ‘moderate’ ZANU-PF faction which is tempted to reach out to MDC and the international community – not least to try to safeguard their businesses, and other resources including land. Use of the militia and to some extent the police also avoids using the military some of whose loyalty is suspect – at elite level where the would-be kingmaker is thought to have bankrolled the Makoni presidential bid, and at lower ranks level, where many soldiers presumably voted MDC. 

ELECTIONS

The background to the elections was of fear of state-sanctioned violence through use of police, military and militias with the aim of ensuring a ruling party victory at whatever cost8.  Conditions for free and fair elections in the called for in the recent pastoral letter from the Catholic bishops were not followed. Key aspects of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Principles and Guidelines Governing Democratic Elections, ratified by the Zimbabwean government were not respected.9  These included the pro-government bias of the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC)10, insufficient mechanisms for voter registration and roll inspection and ZEC failing to clearly publicise boundaries of new voting constituencies and locations of polling stations. There was also the disqualification of three million diaspora Zimbabweans, lack of voter education, state domination of the media and a lack of independent international and civil society observers.  

All reports from partners and credible observers note that the organisation of the elections was partisan, the opposition parties had little access to state media and to rural areas of the country, and the state media overwhelmingly privileged the messages of the ruling ZANU-PF party11. Nor was there sufficient time between the unilateral announcement on 25th January of the election date for political parties to organise their campaigns. Indeed the electoral commission itself was disorganised as well as partisan. The weighting of the new constituencies is also towards the rural areas – normally seen as government strongholds where opposition parties rarely get access. (But it seems that rural voters were less intimated, including in areas that were formerly ZANU-PF-leaning, although there have to be concerns about any second round where there are no observers). There were widespread reports of government attempting to buy voters’ allegiances through provision of agricultural equipment and (deferred) pay rises to the armed forces and teachers. President Mugabe also amended the electoral law on 18th March to allow the police into polling stations - widely seen as an intimidating tactic, although it is not certain that it was that effective. 

WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE NOW IN RELATION TO ELECTIONS

The conditions of the post-election period do not promise well for Zimbabwe escaping from its current interlinked crises and hence helping to stem the increasing poverty of its citizens. Civil society is currently working out its strategy, but it is uncertain what the MDC’s is bar the general strike weapon and Tsvangirai’s regional tour of uninterested leaders. There are worries in civil society that violence and intimidation will characterise any possible second round and that manipulation of results is aimed at gaining either an outright victory or to provide a weakened MDC that will be railroaded into a spurious government of ‘national unity’ to provide greater regional and international legitimacy for continued ZANU-PF misrule. 

It seems that any effective response to the Zimbabwean crisis must be African-led, however unlikely that currently seems.  There should be support and encouragement for the efforts of the African Union (AU) and SADC to provide stronger political mediation in the post-election period aimed at securing government commitment to political and economic reform and to the restoration of basic rights of citizens. Secondly, there is a need to respond to the long-term humanitarian crisis and its effects on the people of Zimbabwe. 

Even if Mugabe were to win the run-off vote he faces a country in total meltdown. A transition point - if not a transformation point - now appears inevitable. The immediate tasks will be to reform the security and legal sectors; create legitimate institutions of government; political reconciliation; rebuild the state; economic recovery, normalisation of relations with the international community for aid; debt relief  and investment. All will take place under circumstances in which Zimbabweans will be extremely vulnerable to externally imposed agendas.

Sequencing of reform will be vital. A return to due process of law and transparency needs to take place with depoliticisation, demilitarisation and demilitia-isation of formal and informal state institutions top of the agenda. Perhaps Zimbabwe can then start to move away from a culture of violence, impunity, corruption and cronyism.

Addressing the question of land will be a volatile process. There will need to be a detailed investigation into who has what land under what conditions. It would be politically unacceptable to return to the highly unequal colonial-pattern of land ownership. But for those former commercial farmers prepared to share their expertise innovative land sharing/ renting schemes could be piloted.

The tasks will be immense and there is already talk of creating a Trust Fund to help Zimbabwe’s absorptive capacity which will be fairly modest. Measures to help the skilled and the diaspora return will need to be balanced with employment creating schemes for those who stayed,without overwhelming what few social services remain. Health care professionals could be invited back, initially on a short term basis without losing residence rights elsewhere, and with a range of inventive packages.  

A national convention process could be vital in producing a new people-driven constitution. A stakeholder conference to take this forward could address issues of constitutional reform, electoral reform, land reform, truth recovery and economic and social recovery.

Promoting justice and reconciliation will be a long term process, but Zimbabwe is one of the best-documented sustained human rights abuse processes. Finally from a rather longer run historical view are we seeing the end of the sustainability of the nationalist/ liberation project as it is unable to recuperate and reproduce itself except through violence? State authoritarianism had the dual inheritance of the interventionist settler state and the command politics of the liberation movements.

The seeming illogicality of the politics of disorder has been functional for rewarding clients and supporters, once the original nationalist coalition of workers, peasants, trade unionists, urban dwellers, students and intellectuals had been destroyed through structural adjustment, elite accumulation strategies and corruption. ZANU-PF has been unable to address what Chris Alden saw as the interlinked crises of illegitimacy, expectations and governance; it has only been able to respond through violence/ clientilism, destruction of the disparate social forces opposed to it such as farmers, farmworkers and urban dwellers through militarisation/ militia-isation. This has been accompanied by a location of the crisis as external – Western imperialism and ‘sanctions’. Whilst these have their niche the crisis is overwhelmingly local although not without an initial external dimension that Patrick Bond has pointed to - acceptance of settler debts, ESAP etc, with an ideological debate around ‘who is a real Zimbabwean’? This has acted to exclude urban, white, farmworker, professional etc Zimbabweans through denial of their legitimacy as citizens. The battleground is not just economic and political but also ideological through identity, exclusion and exclusion questions and demonisation of non-ZANU supporters, ruralisation/ totems etc.  

For now Zimbabweans need the greatest international solidarity and pressure on regional governments. The UN Security Council should also be a forum for laying open the human rights abuses which are likely to get worse in the days and weeks ahead. 

*Sam Kabele is a human rights activist. 

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

Raj Patel and Eric Holt-Giménez look at the food protests as "angry rebellions of hungry people fed up with the inequitable global food system.' They argue that neoliberalism and global capitalism have eroded policies that would have protected the already poor from sliding into starvation.

It was just a matter of time… and not long at that. The world food crisis and the explosion of “food riots” across the globe has been turned into an opportunity. By whom? By the same institutions that created the conditions for the crisis in the first place: proponents of the new Green Revolution.

In their April 10 editorial entitled The World Food Crisis, the New York Times warns that increases of 25-50% in the price of food and basic grains have sparked unrest “from Haiti to Egypt.” The Times rightly lays part of the blame on the doorstep of northern countries’ thirst for ethanol, pointing out that the substitution of fuel crops for food crops, “[Accounts] for at least half of the rise in world corn demand in each of the past three years.” A rise in demand means a rise in price. This puts food out of reach of poor consumers.

But then confusing economic demand with actual availability, the Times jumps to a dubious solution. Quoting World Bank president Robert Zoellick, the paper calls for “[A] ‘green revolution’ to increase farm productivity and raise crop yields in Africa.” This was of course, a likely response from the World Bank, the institution that, along with the International Monetary Fund, forcibly applied the Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) responsible for destroying the capacity of African nations to develop or protect their own domestic agricultural systems from the dumping of subsidized grain from the U.S. and Europe. Over the same 25 years in which SAPs were being implemented, the Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) invested over 40% if its $350 million/year budget in Africa’s “Green Revolution.” The result? A big zero. Actually, it was worse, because as African marketing boards, agricultural ministries, national research programs and basic infrastructure fell under the scythe of the mighty SAPs, Africa’s agricultural systems steadily eroded. Now their entire food systems are hopelessly vulnerable to economic and environmental shock—hence the severity of the current food price inflation crisis.

How do CGIAR and other Green Revolution champions explain this debacle? The Green Revolution, they claim, ‘bypassed” Africa. If that is the case, then where on earth did CGIAR spend all that money? If not, and the Green Revolution was simply a failure, then how will more of the same solve the present food crisis?

Of course, the Green Revolution is not just one institution, and it is not static. The new genetically-engineered Green Revolution is a conglomeration of public and private research institutions, supported by both tax dollars and conditional investments from a handful of powerful seed/chemical and fertilizer monopolies. The Green Revolution is an industrial modernization paradigm, as well as a campaign for penetrating agricultural markets in the Global South. But above all, the Green Revolution is a political strategy designed to gain and keep control over the Global South’s food systems firmly in the hands of northern corporations and institutions. It is precisely this political dimension of the current food crisis that is so tacitly avoided by the New York Times, the World Bank, and other Green Revolution promoters.

The politics of food, however, are inescapable. Food First associate Raj Patel, author of the recently-released book Stuffed and Starved(http://stuffedandstarved.org/drupal/frontpage), points out that “food riots” have to be understood historically, in the context not of shortages, but of poverty, not of lack of technologies, but of lack of democracy.

“Historically,” writes Patel, “there are two things to look out for. The first is a sudden and severe entitlement gap; a gap between what people believe they’re entitled to and what they can in fact achieve. Agricultural prices have risen because of a perfect storm of biofuels, rising meat consumption, oil price increases, low grain reserves, and bad harvests. That inflation has meant that people believe they ought to be able to feed their families at one level, but end up being able to feed them significantly less. The existence and spread of this entitlement expectation gap is one of the things that matters in the precipitation of food riots.

But there’s a second element. Riots tend to occur in places where there isn’t any other means of making the government listen. It’s a sign, in other words, that democratic proscesses do not exist or have been exhausted. Haiti has long been beset by political instability, and now led by U.S. backed, president, René Préval. He recently commanded people to return to their homes, perhaps not realizing that through their protests, the people were commanding him to make their food cheaper…

But the real question here is why governments are unable to respond to the needs of their citizens. There are two answers. First, the policies that would mitigate the price rises (grain reserves, tariffs, social expenditure for poor people) have all been eroded by decades of neoliberal and free market global trade and development policy.

In order to implement this policy, governments have had to close their ears to the demands of their people. The World Bank won’t give loans without ‘structural adjustments’ that cut deeply into social programs. There has been a strong financial incentive, in other words, for governments to behave less democratically.”

The current protests—over 50 people have been killed in the last two months—are less chaotic riots of starving people than they are angry rebellions of hungry people fed up with the inequitable global food system. The solution to the present food crises is not bringing in the institutions of “disaster capitalism” that created the disaster in the first place. The solution is to democratize the world’s food systems, taking the control away from the handful of agri-food oligopolies and putting it back in the hands of the farmers and consumers who are supposed to benefit from agriculture.

*Raj Patel is the author of "Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System" and Eric Holt-Gimenez is the Executive Director of Food First (www.foodfirst.org).

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

Throughout his childhood, Gordon Turibamwe, 20, was sickly, suffering from frequent bouts of malaria and chest infections, but his father only told him he was HIV-positive when he was aged 16, something Gordon says caused him serious trauma. "I was so shocked and so angry with my dad for a long time," he told IRIN/PlusNews. "I immediately thought I was going to die, I had very little hope."

The Kenyan government has embarked on an ambitious national programme to fast track the national rollout of male circumcision as a means of preventing HIV. Results from three randomised controlled trials in South Africa, Kenya and Uganda, in 2006 showed that following circumcision, the incidence of HIV infection was reduced in men by more than half.

Individuals enrolled on HIV prevention trials in Africa should be asked if they have had anal sex, suggest investigators in a article published in the online edition of Sexually Transmitted Infections. Their study found that 18% of women enrolled in their study had recently had receptive anal sex and that undiagnosed anal sexually transmitted infections were present in many of these individuals.

The Knight Health International Journalism Fellowship seeks experienced journalists with a background in health journalism to lead a high-impact, results-driven Fellowship in Sub-Saharan Africa.

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/361/47261pills.jpgCarol B. Thompson argues that the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa will undermine nutrition, destroy indigenous seed varieties and knowledge systems and create dependency on patented seeds. She calls for a debate so that all the stakeholders can be involved in the future of food production in Africa

The Gates and Rockefeller Foundations propose to increase food production on the African continent, “eliminating hunger for 30-40 million people and sustainably moving 15-20 million people out of poverty,” through their initiative of an Alliance for a Green Revolution for Africa (www.agra.com).

We all share in the goal of eliminating hunger on the African continent. However, we are also aware of the risks to health and nutrition posed by the previous green revolution in Asia and Latin America. As farmers dedicated more and more land to growing new varieties of wheat, rice, and maize, less land was available to women to grow vegetables (vitamins, minerals), and the commercial production of pulses (protein) stagnated. How will this proposed “green revolution” affect production, food security and human health in Africa?

Similar to the green revolution of the 1960-70s, increasing yields of a few crops to provide food for the hungry remains the central justification for this proposed African green revolution. The 1960s varieties of seed required fertilisers, pesticides, and water at very specific times or the yield was worse than traditional varieties. Indian farmers, for example, did increase production of wheat ten-fold and of rice three-fold. Learning from this experience, the current AGRA initiative also includes training African scientists, setting up marketing networks of small seed companies, and credit schemes. Other major differences are that the seeds will be genetically modified (GMOs) and patented, in the 1960s in India, they remained in the public domain.

The benefit of increased yields, however, came with many environmental, economic and social costs in the green revolution on the 1960-70’s.. The massive increases in the use of fertilisers and pesticides contaminated the water and soil. Small-scale farmers could not sustain the purchase of all the inputs and had to sell their land. Studies in India show that only farmers with at least 6-8 hectares of land could afford the high-tech agricultural production. Inequality within villages increased, with many moving to the cities. As Secretary General U Thant summarised in 1970, “There is already a growing a body of relevant literature on the experience in various regions and localities which strongly suggests that the prosperity resulting from the Green Revolution is shared by a relatively few.”

The economic and social dangers of a “green revolution” for Africa are similar to those related to the commercialisation of health care: 1) piracy of both indigenous knowledge and plants (used for medicine and/or food); 2) privatisation of bioresources necessary for human health through patenting of plants; 3) privatisation of research which directs priorities and agendas. Rather than reducing hunger, these adverse outcomes could in fact reduce the food security of Africans, increase undernutrition and thus reduce immunity against disease.

Increased yields of one or two strains of one or two crops (“monoculture within monoculture,” as stated by a Tanzanian botanist) will not provide the basis for food security to support nutritional needs. The key to ending hunger is sustaining Africa’s food biodiversity, not reducing it to industrial monoculture. Currently, food for African consumption comes from about 2,000 different plants; in contrast, the US food base derives mainly from 12 plants. Narrowing plant diversity of food increases vulnerability for all because it a) reduces the variety of nutrients needed for human health, b) increases crop susceptibility to pathogens, and c) minimises the parent genetic material available for future breeding.

Manufacturing plants for food is very similar to manufacturing them for medicine. Indigenous knowledge designates a plant as important for nutrition or for medicinal purposes. But often, corporations simply take both the plants and the knowledge with no recognition, monetary or otherwise, to the original breeders of new medicine and foods. This biopiracy of food and medicinal plants is made legal by the patenting of living organisms, through international trade agreements.

Because African farmers will have to buy the new seeds, and the pesticides and fertilisers they require for increased yields, this green revolution initiative becomes a privatisation offensive against small-scale farmers who still retain control over their seeds. Of the seeds used for food crops in Africa, 80 percent is seed saved by the farmer herself or locally exchanged with family and neighbours. Farmers do not have to buy seed every season, with cash they do not have, for they possess a greater wealth in their indigenous seeds, freely shared and developed over centuries. The very best food seed breeders in Africa, the “keepers of seed,” are women who often farm less than one hectare of land. Across Africa, women are also the food producers, tending “gardens” full of diverse crops for local consumption, while the men concentrate on cash crop production. Even when the cash crop fails, food will most likely be available for the family, for those plots are intensively farmed and carefully watered.

The proposed green revolution would shift the food base away from this treasure of seed. Instead, African farmers would have to purchase patented seeds each season, thus putting cash into the hands of the corporations providing the seed, much as already has happened with plants used in medicinal compounds. Loss of control over seed reduces the control women farmers have over production, with risks to food security and nutrition. For AGRA, the seeds will not only be patented, but new varieties will undoubtedly be genetically modified organisms (GMOs). The perils of GMOs to environmental sustainability are well documented. Most African governments have ratified the biosafety protocol which allows them to deter research and production of GM food crops until sufficient data is available about its impact on human health and the environment, but AGRA is lobbying for governments to “fast track” approval for new varieties to be planted.

Research on African food crops certainly needs financing. The US National Research Council concluded in 19996 that a major African food crop, sorghum “is a relatively undeveloped crop with a truly remarkable array of grain types, plant types, and adaptability….most of its genetic wealth is so far untapped and even unsorted. Indeed, sorghum probably has more undeveloped genetic potential than any other major food crop in the world.”

As nutritious as maize is for carbohydrates, vitamin B6, and food energy, sorghum is even more nutritious in a range of essential nutrients for health. One of the most versatile foods in the world, sorghum can be boiled like rice, cracked like oats for porridge, baked like wheat into flatbreads, popped like popcorn for snacks, or brewed for nutritious beer. Because sorghum can tolerate dry areas and poor soil better than maize, it can provide nutritious food security in semi-arid regions and therefore, should become even more important under conditions of global warming.

Engaging African scientists to discover the potential genetic wealth of sorghum would assist African food security. In a first glimpse of foundation expenditures, however, we see funds directed to the Wambugu Consortium (founded by Pioneer Hi-Breed, part of DuPont) for experiments in genetically modified sorghum. By adding a gene, rather than mining the genetic wealth already there, the consortium can patent and sell the “new” sorghum at a premium price for DuPont.

Private expenditure on research and marketing of a few crops directs attention to crops that are profitable. Similar to health care, International Monetary Fund requirements for structural adjustment programs, supported by all donor governments, the World Bank, and the African Development Bank, have been removing African government expenditures on agricultural research and extension. Governments had to spend less on agriculture in order to repay their debts. Now, more two decades later, the private foundations step in to “save” food-deficit Africa.

High-tech answers to Africa’s food crises are no answers at all if they undermine human nutrition, privatise both indigenous knowledge and bioresources through patenting of plants, and transform the genetic wealth of the continent into cash profits for a few corporations. Public policy choices around the AGRA proposals have not yet been made within Africa. There is thus still an opportunity to call for assessment and debate on the health and nutrition impacts of these proposals, including by civil society working in health, and by parliaments, and by UN agencies. We need to openly challenge its goals, motives and methodologies before Africa’s political leaders accept them, and before universities and research centres divert their agendas away from other applied research that may offer a more sustainable and nutritious future for African food production. The future of African health depends on it.

*Professor Carol B.Thompson teaches Political Economy at Northern Arizona University. This article first appeared at

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

*** For references used in this editorial and a more detailed analysis of how Africa’s food biodiversity provides alternatives to chemical industrial agriculture, follow this link:

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/361/47258piracy.jpgIn this wide ranging Pambazuka News interview, Mariam Mayet, the director of the African Center Biosafety speaks about biopiracy, which she calls "the last frontier", the Alliance for a Green Revolution and its impact on Africa, and food and agriculture as social justice justice.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: I am here with Mariam Mayet, the director of the African Center for Biosafety (www.biosafetyafrica.net). Can you tell us about your organization?

MARIAM MAYET: We are based in Jo’burg and we have four main programs. We campaign against genetic engineering in food and agriculture. We campaign against bio-piracy particularly the theft of indigenous knowledge in the context of medicinal plants and new areas around marine bio prospecting.

We also work on the green revolution in Africa – and Agro-fuels. Basically we do a lot of cutting edge research, exposes of what multi-national companies are doing in Africa, and on the bio-tech industry. We look at the seed industry and where the GM-Agro fuels push is coming from. We work with a large network of other groups and communities.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: Can you talk a little more about bio-piracy – and patenting systems?

MARIAM MAYET: Pharmaceutical and cosmetic companies want to bring in new products to the market. They have to find the active ingredient to be able to produce a particular medicine (sometimes they stumble into things accidentally). But the way to get to the plant and the use of the plant is through local people. And when they come into our countries and they appropriate our knowledge and resources, without people’s consent, we call it theft or bio-piracy.

The last frontier of resources base is really our people’s knowledge in regards to medicinal plants and agriculture. And these are highly sought after. When a company finds a particular plant, and the useful properties in the plant they make a product from it, and then register a patent in regards to the use of that plant. And where they duplicate existing uses, we are able to challenge those patents.

For example, we found a company in Germany trying to patent two endemic species in South Africa and Lesotho but they are duplicating local uses. We were able to challenge this. So even in a European patenting system which is very neo-liberal and capitalist, it does not allow to register a patent over the use of something, if a community anywhere in the world has the same use. So we use the small margins to challenge bio-piracy. This was one case, but there are there are thousands of cases like this in Africa.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: Can you give Pambazuka readers other examples of bio-piracy?

MARIAM MAYET: Yes. Last year we published a booklet called “Out of Africa: Mysteries of Benefit Sharing.” We published 36 cases of dubious acquisitions in Africa, such as theft of the people’s knowledge to produce skin whitening cosmetic by the cosmetic industry.

The hoodia gordonii, a hunger suppressing plant gives us the quintessential case of bio-piracy. This is where the knowledge of the San to stave off hunger when trekking through the Kalahari was appropriated by Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) in South Africa and passed onto Phytopharm. Phytopharm registered a patent claiming that there were no indigenous people in South Africa, that the San had died off. Stealing knowledge is extremely rife in Africa.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: Let’s change gears a little and turn our attention to philanthropy, which Cecil Rhodes once called, philanthropy plus five-percent - which is to say that philanthropy paves way for profit making, or what others call the philanthropy-industrial complex. Can you talk a little about the role of Western philanthropy in Africa?

MARIAM MAYET: Philanthropy in Africa has some history especially in relation to the Rockefeller family. The Rockefeller foundation has a much longer history than the Gates Foundation for example. Gordon Conway who became one of the presidents of the Rockefeller Foundation published a book called the New Green Revolution in 1999. The Green Revolution push we are seeing in Africa is really his brainchild. Their philanthropy has come in the context of pushing a very distinct corporate agenda – to open markets for US corporations. For example in Kenya the Rockefeller Foundation has been involved in sponsoring Florence Wambugu’s sweet potato project because they want to open Africa up to GMOs. So if you give the impression that a genetically modified sweet potato can work because it is the poor person’s crop, there will be more willingness to accept GMO’s. So it is not philanthropy. It’s a form of investment, a corporatized agenda for resource extraction from Africa.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: There was an expose in the LA Times [http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-gatesx07jan07,0,68…[ on the Bill Gates Foundation where it was found that the foundation invests money in companies and corporations that cause the very same problems it is trying to solve, companies such as Shell. So the philanthropy arm is trying to save the environment, while the investment arm is making profit from its destruction…

MARIAM MAYET: Exactly, the Rockefellers made their money from Exon, which later became Chevron – so they have old oil money - this wrecked a whole lot of havoc environmentally and in terms of human rights.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: And also the idea of telescopic philanthropy, a telescopic philanthropy that sees far but not what is under its feet – for example there are a lot problems in the United States amongst minority communities…

MARIAM MAYET: Yes, why didn’t they give money to Hurricane Katrina victims? Why do they feel they have to come and rescue Africa? We say that the Green Revolution is a white man’s dream for a black continent. And this dream… this savior mentality is very missionary, very colonial, and imperialistic – and yes they should leave us alone. If they take away all the developmental aid, if they take all the food aid, and the military aid – we would be like Cuba. We would struggle for a while but eventually we would find our way. We would build our own local economies and vibrancy because all these development aid is also an industry unto itself, and it feeds off itself.

Who are the world’s biggest agri-business players? Take Cargil, which owns shares in seed companies, buys the harvest from farmers and transports it all over the world – they are more powerful than some governments because they are in charge of the international prices of grains and trade in grains. You have to really understand this whole capitalist agri-business system in order to understand the logic of the green revolution.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: AGRA, according to its website, is and “African-led partnership working across the African continent to help millions of small-scale farmers and their families lift themselves out of poverty and hunger. AGRA programs develop practical solutions to significantly boost farm productivity and incomes for the poor while safeguarding the environment. AGRA advocates for policies that support its work across all key aspects of the African agricultural “value chain”—from seeds, soil health, and water to markets and agricultural education. AGRA is chaired by Kofi A. Annan, the former Secretary-General of the United Nations”. They say that they are African led and now they have Kofi Annan who is serving as the chairman of AGRA – your response?

MARIAM MAYET: I think they are African followed because the vision was put in place by Gordon Conway from the Rockefeller Foundation. The Rockefeller Foundation brought in the Bill-Melinda Gates foundation, then started to recruit willing and compliant Africans – the coup de grace was Kofi Annan.

If it was African led we would not be asking for consultation and transparency. It would be coming from our farmers, coming from the ground-up. What is African led, are the local struggles, where people are clearly saying this is what we want. Go to speak to the people affected and they will tell you what they want – that would be African led.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: Can you talk a little bit about the packaging of AGRA? You have Kofi Annan, who has UN credentials, gentle spoken yet charismatic and Bill Gates who appears harmless. There is a lot of star power and money…

MARIAM MAYET: The things is the Green Revolution is a very a violent package because it puts powerful toxic chemicals into Africa. It displaces and destroys local knowledge and seeds. It favors those farmers who will be able to access the system, the more powerful farmers. This will divide the African peasantry.

AGRA also creates a lot of dependency and debt. It is violent. But the geeky sexy richest man who brought us wonderful technology, and gentle Kofi Annan – this is the savior face, our last hope. It is a very strategic move to push a very agri-business, corporatized market driven package – but it will fail in Africa because they do not understand Africa.

We are a very diverse people, we need local solutions that are multi-dimensional and multi-faceted – built on local knowledge and local seeds. You need to speak to people about how they adapt to harsh climates. To have a one-size fit all solution for Africa will be disastrous for us. Even in one country we have different eco-systems, different farming communities, different cultures, different eating habits.

We do not need to grow more foods for exports. We need to build on food sovereignty principles and give people equitable access to land, allocate the water fairly, support traditional farming methods, and create local vibrant economies, before we start exporting coffee, cocoa, and grow maize for export.

We are not saying that everyone must live on the land, or farm – we are talking about a local economy that is also integrated into the national economies. You cannot have two economies. We are talking about a vibrant whole.

I have to say that we are also unhappy with the agricultural systems in Africa and this is why we are saying – that we have to stop talking about food security because this perpetuates the existing paradigms. We have to tell our governments - what the hell are you doing? You have messed up badly, and left a vacuum for the philanthropist to walk in - and take over our countries, in a way.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: So there are ways in which the African governments have been absent in the debate completely…

MARIAM MAYET: None of our governments are going to say no to resources because they are corrupt, and despotic – we have had very few democracies but have huge class differences.

In terms of Agri-ecology we can do a lot of work with peasant movements but we have to always bear in mind that our struggle is a social justice struggle – and we need to hold our governments accountable.

We have to keep demanding from our governments the same things - We want justice in rural areas, equality for women, access to lands, support of traditional farming, we want you to protect our seeds, we do not want GMO’s, we want you to listen to farmers, we want you to build agricultural schools for them, and put money in research and development. I mean look at Nigeria. Once the oil industry took off, it mortgaged its oil to international oil companies, but it stopped developing its own agriculture.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: What is at stake? Food systems?

MARIAM MAYAT: Food systems, social systems, our culture - the dynamics in the rural areas will change, there will be more debt, more dependency, and there will be a small commercial class of farmers.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: Can we talk a little bit more about food as social justice? What has the ANC government been doing in this regard?

MARIAM MAYAT: The ANC started off by giving up its many demands articulated in the Freedom charter and through the liberation struggle for nationalization of our mineral and energy companies. They made a deal with the industries, big business and the old government that we will not take the whole cake and nationalize it. What we will do is ask for a small slice of it, and we will call it Black Economic Empowerment (BEE). So it has been pre-occupied with BEE.

Yes we have a lot of political freedoms, we have a democracy - but it has a very neo-liberal agenda and very pro-industry orientation to all its policies. So for example, it is now allowing huge smelters to draw excessive amounts of electricity thereby increasing our carbon-emissions. We are building more coal-fired industries at the cost of 80 billion rands, but we are also going into nuclear technology. It is as if we are taking a big step back.

And along they way they failed to redistribute land back to the landless people, they failed miserably in terms of service delivery to the poor and that has seen a lot of violent protests. And it has failed dismally on its AIDS and HIV policy.

There is a lot of struggle fatigue, it is very hard to get the people mobilized beyond AIDS/HIV and service delivery but I think the time will come when we shall see a resurgence of social movements in Africa.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: Would it be fair to say that we need to redefine what democracy means to us and inject a component of social justice?

MARIAM MAYET: As I said, we are never going to achieve social justice within a neo-liberal paradigm because it is always going to be favoring certain classes. So we really need to think beyond political rights, we have to think about our social economic rights. We can only be free once we achieve social justice.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: One last question: Your thoughts on the 2010 South Africa world cup?

MARIAM MAYET: The world cup is going to be a drain of our resources – and we cannot justify the enormous carbon footprint we shall leave behind - where all these people from all over the world take flights to come to watch a soccer match – we will need 2 billion litters of water for all these visitors – we shouldn’t be hosting such an event. We have other priorities.

It is not that I do not care for soccer, I do – but really Africa should not be hosting mega-events like this, for only two sectors will gain – airlines and people who already have a lot of money. The money that is coming in will not filter down to the people. How is the world cup going to benefit the poor people? I do wish African countries all the best in the world cup but we also need to take care of our people and our resources.

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

African ministers on Wednesday agreed to tackle rising food prices that have threatened the continent's fledgling stability and economic growth. Although the hike "presents opportunities for increased food production in some of our countries", the phenomenon is not sustainable and has to be tackled, they said.

A network which will focus on ICT for Health - known as Afya Mtandao (Swahili for Health Network) - was officially launched on January 31st 2008 in Mwanza, Tanzania. The network unites Tanzanian health workers and promotes the use of ICT in the health sector by providing a knowledge-sharing platform for health workers, raising awareness if ICT in the health sector and providing ICT support services for health institutions.

This World Health Organization report on global tuberculosis (TB) control compiles data from over 200 countries to monitor the scale and direction of TB epidemics, implementation and the impact of the Stop TB Strategy. The paper finds that there were an estimated 9.2 million new cases and 1.7 million deaths from TB in 2006 including 0.2 million deaths among people infected with HIV.

The Kampala Declaration and Agenda for Global Action was formulated at the First Global Forum on Human Resources for Health that was held in Kampala, Uganda in March 2008. It recognises the need for immediate action to resolve the accelerating crisis in the global health workforce including the global shortage of over four million health workers that are needed to deliver essential health care.

Thousands of children in Burkina Faso are taking part in peer education programmes to promote awareness among the country’s young about the scourge of HIV/AIDS under a project backed by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). The African Youth Network Against AIDS, the youth arm of a non-governmental organization supported by UNICEF, has sponsored a network of clubs for young people that has grown to almost 2,000 and in which sport, education and other activities are used to teach awareness about how to avoid the disease.

A senior United Nations official has called for greater investments in agriculture and rural development to boost economic growth and reduce poverty in Africa, both of which are critical to achieving the global target of halving poverty and hunger by 2015. Rapid agricultural and rural development holds the key to eliminating poverty in Africa,” Kanayo Nwanze, Vice-President of the UN International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) told the meeting of African Union and the UN Economic Commission for Africa delegates gathered in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

The southern African nation of Lesotho has become the fourth country assisted by the United Nations-backed Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria to receive funds from the consumer-driven (PRODUCT) RED initiative. (RED), which gets a portion of the sales of sponsoring products for proven HIV projects in Africa, was launched in 2006 by Irish musician Bono and Bobby Shriver, nephew of former United States President John F. Kennedy.

Pambazuka News is pleased to reproduce for our readers this well received essay by Alice Walker in which she looks at Obama using various lenses such as black feminism and international solidarity while reflecting on race, class and gender

I made my first white women friends in college; they were women who loved me and were loyal to our friendship, but I understood, as they did, that they were white women and that whiteness mattered. That, for instance, at Sarah Lawrence, where I was speedily inducted into the Board of Trustees practically as soon as I graduated, I made my way to the campus for meetings by train, subway and foot, while the other trustees, women and men, all white, made their way by limo. Because, in our country, with its painful history of unspeakable inequality, this is part of what whiteness means. I loved my school for trying to make me feel I mattered to it, but because of my relative poverty I knew I could not.

I am a supporter of Obama because I believe he is the right person to lead the country at this time. He offers a rare opportunity for the country and the world to start over, and to do better. It is a deep sadness to me that many of my feminist white women friends cannot see him. Cannot see what he carries in his being. Cannot hear the fresh choices toward Movement he offers. That they can believe that millions of Americans -black, white, yellow, red and brown - choose Obama over Clinton only because he is a man, and black, feels tragic to me.

When I have supported white people, men and women, it was because I thought them the best possible people to do whatever the job required. Nothing else would have occurred to me. If Obama were in any sense mediocre, he would be forgotten by now. He is, in fact, a remarkable human being, not perfect but humanly stunning, like King was and like Mandela is. We look at him, as we looked at them, and are glad to be of our species. He is the change America has been trying desperately and for centuries to hide, ignore, kill. The change America must have if we are to convince the rest of the world that we care about people other than our (white) selves.

True to my inner Goddess of the Three Directions however, this does not mean I agree with everything Obama stands for. We differ on important points probably because I am older than he is, I am a woman and person of three colors, (African, Native American, European), I was born and raised in the American South, and when I look at the earth's people, after sixty-four years of life, there is not one person I wish to see suffer, no matter what they have done to me or to anyone else; though I understand quite well the place of suffering, often, in human growth.

I want a grown-up attitude toward Cuba, for instance, a country and a people I love; I want an end to the embargo that has harmed my friends and their children, children who, when I visit Cuba, trustingly turn their faces up for me to kiss. I agree with a teacher of mine, Howard Zinn, that war is as objectionable as cannibalism and slavery; it is beyond obsolete as a means of improving life. I want an end to the on-going war immediately and I want the soldiers to be encouraged to destroy their weapons and to drive themselves out of Iraq.

I want the Israeli government to be made accountable for its behavior towards the Palestinians, and I want the people of the United States to cease acting like they don't understand what is going on. All colonization, all occupation, all repression basically looks the same, whoever is doing it. Here our heads cannot remain stuck in the sand; our future depends of our ability to study, to learn, to understand what is in the records and what is before our eyes. But most of all I want someone with the self-confidence to talk to anyone, "enemy" or "friend," and this Obama has shown he can do. It is difficult to understand how one could vote for a person who is afraid to sit and talk to another human being. When you vote you are making someone a proxy for yourself; they are to speak when, and in places, you cannot. But if they find talking to someone else, who looks just like them, human, impossible, then what good is your vote?

It is hard to relate what it feels like to see Mrs. Clinton (I wish she felt self-assured enough to use her own name) referred to as "a woman" while Barack Obama is always referred to as "a black man." One would think she is just any woman, colorless, race-less, past-less, but she is not. She carries all the history of white womanhood in America in her person; it would be a miracle if we, and the world, did not react to this fact. How dishonest it is, to attempt to make her innocent of her racial inheritance.

I can easily imagine Obama sitting down and talking, person to person, with any leader, woman, man, child or common person, in the world, with no baggage of past servitude or race supremacy to mar their talks. I cannot see the same scenario with Mrs. Clinton who would drag into Twenty-First Century American leadership the same image of white privilege and distance from the reality of others' lives that has so marred our country's contacts with the rest of the world.

And yes, I would adore having a woman president of the United States. My choice would be Representative Barbara Lee, who alone voted in Congress five years ago not to make war on Iraq. That to me is leadership, morality, and courage; if she had been white I would have cheered just as hard. But she is not running for the highest office in the land, Mrs. Clinton is. And because Mrs. Clinton is a woman and because she may be very good at what she does, many people, including some younger women in my own family, originally favored her over Obama. I understand this, almost. It is because, in my own nieces' case, there is little memory, apparently, of the foundational inequities that still plague people of color and poor whites in this country. Why, even though our family has been here longer than most North American families - and only partly due to the fact that we have Native American genes - we very recently, in my lifetime, secured the right to vote, and only after numbers of people suffered and died for it.

When I offered the word "Womanism" many years ago, it was to give us a tool to use, as feminist women of color, in times like these. These are the moments we can see clearly, and must honor devotedly, our singular path as women of color in the United States. We are not white women and this truth has been ground into us for centuries, often in brutal ways. But neither are we inclined to follow a black person, man or woman, unless they demonstrate considerable courage, intelligence, compassion and substance. I am delighted that so many women of color support Barack Obama -and genuinely proud of the many young and old white women and men who do.

Imagine, if he wins the presidency we will have not one but three black women in the White House; one tall, two somewhat shorter; none of them carrying the washing in and out of the back door. The bottom line for most of us is: With whom do we have a better chance of surviving the madness and fear we are presently enduring, and with whom do we wish to set off on a journey of new possibility? In other words, as the Hopi elders would say: Who do we want in the boat with us as we head for the rapids? Who is likely to know how best to share the meager garden produce and water? We are advised by the Hopi elders to celebrate this time, whatever its adversities.

We have come a long way, Sisters, and we are up to the challenges of our time. One of which is to build alliances based not on race, ethnicity, color, nationality, sexual preference or gender, but on Truth. Celebrate our journey. Enjoy the miracle we are witnessing. Do not stress over its outcome. Even if Obama becomes president, our country is in such ruin it may well be beyond his power to lead us toward rehabilitation. If he is elected however, we must, individually and collectively, as citizens of the planet, insist on helping him do the best job that can be done; more, we must insist that he demand this of us. It is a blessing that our mothers taught us not to fear hard work. Know, as the Hopi elders declare: The river has its destination. And remember, as poet June Jordan and Sweet Honey in the Rock never tired of telling us: We are the ones we have been waiting for.

* Alice Walker is a Pulitzer Prize winning author. This article first appeared at The Root,

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

Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem talks about importance of political parties and asks the question: When the nationalists were fighting for liberation from colonial rule the people raised funds for the parties - What does it say of contemporary politics that members are not able or willing to fund their own parties?

Accra is my favourite city on the West Coast of Africa, while I rank Maputo in Southern Africa first. I was in both last week for different purposes but the experience was always the same: marvellous peaceful cities by the ocean? I guess my fascination with both countries and their capital cities and the inspiration many find in them has a lot to do with Kwame Nkrumah and Samora Machel having walked those streets. In both cities I feel like being in the shadow of both larger than life figures in the Pan African Movement Both may not recognise the two cities (and the countries) now were they to rise from their graves but somehow their spirit lives or lingers on.

I was not in both capitals for holidays but for meetings. In Accra, I was attending three meetings in one, all organised by the Abuja –based Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD).In Maputo I was gate crashing the annual meeting of the Regional Bureau for Africa of the UNDP.

It is one of the three meetings in Accra that I wish to talk abut this week.  For two the past two years the CDD has been working towards developing a Political Parties Index (PPI) for West Africa. There are all kinds of Governance, democracy and Accountability Indexes (the latest being the Mo Ibrahim African governance index) measuring the state of our emerging or disappearing democracies, levels of popular participation, openness and transparency in the various systems competing for recognition as ‘democratic’. 

It is strange that there are no Indexes devoted to Political Parties. Yet competitive liberal electoral politics is not possible without organised political parties. They provide the foundation for peacefully organising and mobilising the citizens behind alternative public policies. At least that is the theory whether they do this in practice is a different matter. Without vibrant political parties competitive politics may become capitalism without capital. There is a chequered history and experience of Political parties across Africa that makes many people to be either ambivalent or completely dismissive of them. It is not just the history of parties that induce ambiguity even contemporary experiences of parties do not inspire confidence. For instance If you are Kenyan or Nigerian where parties are more disposable than hotel towels why should you bother about them at all? 

In many countries political parties are merely convenient political machines deployed during elections for the attainment of personal political ambitions of whatever cabal ‘owns’ or can appropriate the parties. Most of them have no ideology, no clear or different policies from that of their opponents but just naked desire to grab power at all cost.  However political parties need not and have not always been like this. The struggle against colonialism be they the so called peaceful ones and the more militant armed struggles were led by great men and women organised in political parties and Movements. As bad as the situation  may seem now   there are formidable political parties in  a few countries including South Africa, Botswana, Tanzania, etc It is not surprising that west African examples do not readily come to mind. So what happened to all the political parties that fought for independence whether CPP/UGCC in Ghana or PAIGC in Guinea Bissau, SP in Senegal? As the region that had had the most intrusive of political interventions by the military perhaps the region has least experience of political parties as they remained banned under the various military regimes that became the norm for at least three decades in a majority pf the countries.

In West Africa you do not talk about military intervention rather the general rule was military in power with infrequent civilian interludes in many of the countries until the last decade and a half. In east Africa with the exception of the ‘coup prone’ Uganda   both Tanzania and Kenya have had very long experience of party rule but they both became long term One party regimes with the consequence that in spite of Multi party politics Tanzania remains a One party dominant state whereas in Kenya KANU’s monopoly of power did not survive multi partyism and it is more or less a dead party now. Museveni’s Uganda, aided and abetted by the same Western powers that were insisting on democratisation in many other states toyed with the ‘NO party democracy’ for ten years but had to give way to a multiparty system that is still very much skewed in favour of the ruling NRM (now rechristened NRM-O, as if indicating it will end in an Own goal eventually!).

In general parties that led the independence struggles, parties of liberation movement (like FRELIMO, MPLA or ZANU-PF) and their latter day successors, the armed revolutionary groups whether EPRDF in Ethiopia, NRA/NRM in Uganda, EPLF in Eritrea, have been reluctant to transfer power peacefully. Many of them were either overthrown in military coups or disgraced out of office (Zambia, Malawi and now ZANU-PF in Zimbabwe). From popular independence parties or Liberation movements they became personal instruments of a small elite around the leader (He, who must be obeyed!) often degenerating into a demobilising political force holding on to power through dictatorship and intimidating the citizenry. They used to inspire the citizens but as they remain in power beyond their sell-by dates they put the masses to sleep if not forced them to exile or early grave! The only exception so far has been the ANC but even this relatively disciplined party with a large cadreship is facing challenges of renewal as it enjoys unchallenged political hegemony as the ‘natural party of government’.

In spite of these failings Political Parties remain very important to the democratic renewal of our states and we need to take them very seriously. Political parties are staging a comeback as coups become less doable and even less acceptable. Former military regimes have civilianised themselves (Rawlings /NDC Ghana, Compaore in Burkina or NRA/M in Uganda) while older parties are being reinvented and new ones are on offer everywhere. In some countries serious contenders for power is probably not more than one or two or a combination of them with others as merely ‘also there’. If Kenya and now Zimbabwe are anything to go by ‘grand Coalitions’ of parties may be the way forward. This may bring back more interest in political parties.

It is not only in Africa that political parties and Voter interest in them have been ebbing. In the older democracies there are continuing downward trend in active membership of political parties. In Britain for instance more young people vote in Pop Idol than in elections! In America it is difficult to know what the fundamental difference between the democrats and the Republicans are except for Personality projections. Substance has given way to form with the media, lobbyists and PR companies telling people what to think and who to vote for but packaging them as Opinion poll and public opinion.

CDD’s Index will definitely be filling a vacuum in the available monitoring tools. As a pioneering effort it is being received with caution even by those involved. How do political parties contribute to deepening or hindering democracy? Are they democratic themselves? How do they hinder or enhance the full participation of marginalised groups be they Women, Youth, ethnic/religious or other political minorities?  Is democracy better served by national parties or could a case be made for decentralised party organisation that may address the political interests of marginalised groups? How do you decide which party is contributing? Is it by the number of seats in parliament or the number of seats contested?  There is also the controversial area of party funding. Should there be state funding or should parties be funded by their members? Are the parties democratic themselves before measuring their contribution ore non contribution to democracy?
Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem talks about importance of political parties and asks the question: When the nationalists were fighting for liberation from colonial rule the people raised funds for the parties - What does it say of contemporary politics that members are not able or willing to fund their own parties?

When the nationalists were fighting for liberation from colonial rule the masses of peasants, workers, even chiefs and the educated elite supported and raised funds for the parties. What does it say of contemporary politics that members are not able or willing to fund their own parties? The answer to these and many other questions may provide some  bases for rating  the parties or raise more questions when the CDD’s first cut emerges during next year. It may raise more questions than answers but a necessary process that should interest anyone interested in the health of our growing democracies.

*Dr Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem writes this syndicated column in his private capacity as a Pan Africanist. His views are not attributable to that of any organization he works for or is affiliated with.

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

More than one-sixth of Mozambique's 9 000 teachers are dying of HIV/Aids each year, lowering the quality of education and jeopardising future development, a government official told Reuters on Tuesday. Education and Culture Minister Aires Aly said in an interview that the pandemic had become a national emergency, eroding a critical human resource that is key to the poor Southern African nation's economic development.

Another hospital breakout in South Africa by drug-resistant tuberculosis (TB) patients desperate to spend the holidays with their families has some public health experts questioning whether forced isolation is either the most effective or humane way to treat such patients.

Efforts to combat the spread of tuberculosis in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have been slowed down by the problem of TB patients also infected with HIV, local health officials said. "The disease [TB] is on the increase because there is a link with HIV - there are co-infected patients. These are the patients who have caused the number of TB cases to be on the rise," said Guylaine Tshitenge, an activist of the NGO National anti-Tuberculosis League in Congo, during a march organised in Kinshasa on 24 March to mark the World Day to Combat Tuberculosis.