The Global Week of Action for Trade Justice has started. Ten million people will be taking action, thousands of events are planned and hundreds of organisations are involved in 80 different countries across the world. Find out more by clicking on the link below to read an information sheet from the organisers.

The World Summit on the Information Society that Tunisia will host in November 2005 will feature a number of side events in addition to the official summit program, due to take place from November 16-18 at the El Kram exhibition hall, near Tunis. Side events will include debates, workshops and exhibitions, from November 14 -19 at Le Kram exhibition hall. The deadline for the submission of applications for the organization of side events is April 30, 2005. Applications are available online at www.wsistunis2005.tn

Visit Action Aid's Get on Board website and find out about their travels from South Africa to the G8 summit in Gleneagles, Scotland, in July. At the website you can send a postcard or a message to G8 leaders.

Madagascar is a country rich with weird and wonderful wildlife, plants found nowhere else in the world. There are unique orchids, trees, chameleons, frogs - hundreds of species trapped in time - which have evolved in their own peculiar ways. But Malagasy people are among the poorest on earth, the economy desperately needs a boost, and beneath the precious forests are minerals that could make the country wealthy.

This UNESCO publication clarifies the human rights imperative and logical dictates of child development knowledge for eliminating corporal punishment of children. It provides guidance for selecting and applying constructive disciplinary practices that respect the human dignity of children. The publication includes three major sections: The Human Rights Imperative for Ending All Corporal Punishment of Children; Corporal Punishment: Prevalence, Predictors and Implications for Child Behavior and Development; and The Way Forward to Constructive Child Discipline.

The World Movement for Democracy has announced a posting on "What's being done on...human rights networking?' This installment highlights different approaches to networking among organizations promoting and protecting human rights. Whether focusing on a single human rights issue or a broad spectrum of topics, all human rights groups share a common goal: human dignity and respect for rights. To achieve their objectives, they rely on a variety of methods, including networking. Some groups thus form unofficial or official human rights networks to become more effective.

Pambazuka News has received a number of responses to recent articles that we have carried about Zimbabwe. Two of these are reproduced here and below them are responses from two of the authors of recent articles.

Anti-Mugabe, pro-white supremacy
Simon Hinds, London

Why did so many liberals forge an alliance with imperialists when faced with black self-determination in Zimbabwe? Even liberal 'ownership' of human rights was a weapon of attack when black people said 'we want our land back from the descendants of white imperialists'.

According to a list of African-American groups, Zanu-PF has carried out one of the biggest land transfers in history. In the 2002 elections, most observer groups reported that the election represented the will of the people. In February, the Daily Telegraph reported that Tanzania's leader Mkapa exonerated Mugabe of blame for political violence, economic crisis and food shortages.

The Zimbabwe government finally rejected the IMF in the late Nineties after its policies caused unemployment and de-industrialisation. It finally succumbed to pressure for land reform. When regional governments decided militarily intervention was necessary in Democratic Republic of Congo, Zimbabwe alongside other countries went in. In areas held by Western-backed armies, diamonds were grabbed and hundreds of thousands were killed.

There was a clear neo-colonial response to this that included funding the Movement for Democratic Change and other opposition groups. The Commonwealth split on Zimbabwe along racial lines, when African regional states rejected the Western demonisation, when Mugabe was hailed as a hero by black South Africans. Amara Essy, secretary-general of the African Union, formerly the Organisation of African Unity, endorsed Mugabe's initial rejection of foreign election observer teams, and the Union has endorsed the recent elections. Yet still, liberals sided with neo-colonialists.

What was liberal opinion? New York Times opinion page editor Anthony Lewis in 5 May 2001, summed it up. He stated: 'The title of worst government on Earth, the most brutal, destructive, lawless...can probably be claimed by Robert Mugabe's regime in Zimbabwe'. But this ridiculous exaggeration was echoed by The Guardian, The Independent, Amnesty International and other liberal organizations.

Black people were susceptible to this propaganda, but not entirely. In 2003, the UK black newspaper, The Voice reported that 40 per cent of the black people they questioned regarded Mugabe as a dictator. Yet, 30 per cent regarded him as a strong leader. The majority thought Western interest in Zimbabwe was motivated by racism.

Not all liberal organizations signed up for racist propaganda. On the media web site, Spiked, Barrie Collins, a researcher in African international relations at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, wrote:

"Since the end of the Cold War, the USA and the UK have got used to a high degree of compliance on the part of African governments - and they are no longer prepared to tolerate those that insist doing things their own way… It is Western meddling in Zimbabwe that is undermining the accountability of the government to its electorate, since it has forced the contestants to respond to an external agenda. This is a far bigger threat to democracy than any of Zanu-PF's bullying tactics." (http://www.spiked-online.com/Articles/00000002D428.htm)

Pressure for land reform in other parts of southern Africa will occur. Will liberals continue to support white supremacy? Around the world, black people have worked with white liberals. Perhaps, black Africans can no longer afford to do this uncritically.

Mugabe, the social justice champ
Kuthula Matshazi, Canada

What kind of social justice do you advocate for in Africa when you denigrate the very man who wants to achieve social justice for the Black people through the land reform? Now are you going to tell us that the election was rigged? Are you sure that you not trying to confuse African people - and the world opinion indeed - that you are neo-colonialists in the making of missionaries of the 18th century colonisation?

MARY NDLOVU replies: Mugabe is a very shrewd and clever man, and it is sad that he has been able to dupe well-intentioned people into thinking that because he is black and because he has undertaken a large land transfer everyone that criticises him is a white racist. Perhaps it is easy for those who have run away from Zimbabwe to Canada or are sitting in London to theorise about the great revolution for social justice that has taken place. In Zimbabwe, one has to face the hard realities. Seizing land from productive farmers to correct an historical injustice may seem just to some. But it does not constitute a successful social revolution unless it is used to redistribute productive capacity to the dispossessed. While some disadvantaged individuals have received land and been able to farm it productively, the vast majority of recipients have been civil servants, members of the armed forces and ZANU PF hacks with other jobs; the award of land has been a means to reward party loyalists and compromise and silence potential critics. The effect of the transfers and the violence which accompanied it has been the complete collapse of commercial agricultural production, the disappearance of tourists, the decline of manufacturing, the disintegration of public services, the spread of hunger and starvation and the impoverishment of all Zimbabweans except the few. These few have established themselves as an exceedingly corrupt parasite class which produces nothing, but lives, through state revenues, off the taxes of the small minority who do work. Hardly the redistribution of wealth and the advent of justice about which so many of us dream.

Surely Zimbabweans would have to be the stupidest people on earth to choose to support a government which turns a once thriving society into chaos and desperation. Even those who received land have voted in large numbers for the MDC, because they are unable to use their land, and only hold it at the pleasure of the local ZANU PF bosses. Why should I vote for someone who is responsible for my unemployment, for my inability to access health care or my children’s education, and promises to get rid of Blair who I have never seen and never heard of and restore something called sovereignty which I cannot eat? Why can some people not accept that when African governments fail to deliver what the people want, opposition parties will gain the support of the people? Yes, most certainly the election was grandly rigged, and the facts and figures are now emerging to prove it.

The fact that Southern African regional governments choose to ignore the agony of ordinary Zimbabweans and endorse failed policies and gross human rights abuses does not mean that it is only whites who condemn elections which are not free and fair, or take a stand against injustice. It was President Obasanjo of Nigeria who blocked Zimbabwe’s return to full membership of the Commonwealth, and the African Union in January 2005 adopted the report of its own African Commission on Human and People’s Rights which roundly condemned human rights abuses in Zimbabwe. This gives us hope that before too long we may be able to move beyond black and white lenses and see reality in its full range of colours. Then we should be in a position to build democracy and create social justice simultaneously.

STEVE KIBBLE responds: Is it really so difficult to move beyond the simple binaries of black/white, imperialist/ anti-colonialist, (neo)liberal/ revolutionary nationalist etc? My article was precisely an attempt to situate the fight for social justice beyond these confining modes of thought into a genuine people-based politics. Furthermore it was based on a genuine solidarity between North and South, expressing the views of those in Zimbabwe who have consistently opposed the structural adjustment programmes instituted by ZANU-PF in the 1990s, the turn to authoritarian nationalism from 2000 as well as the ‘shock and awe’; of a resurgent US seeking to impose its view on the rest of the world. The sad aspect is not only that certain ‘anti-imperialists’ do not recognise this, but how similar authoritarian nationalism and neo-liberalism are in their stunted view of the world, their resort to demonisation, and their lack of engagement with the lives of people as actually lived on this planet.

The world continued to move closer to the universal abolition of capital punishment during 2004, according to a report on the death penalty worldwide by Amnesty International. In Nigeria, the National Study Group on the Death Penalty, set up by President Olusegun Obasanjo in November 2003 published a report recommending the imposition of a moratorium on all executions until the Nigerian justice system could guarantee fair trials and due process. The Federal Government had not imposed a moratorium by the end of the year. In Malawi, President Bakili Muluzi commuted 79 death sentences and there have been no executions in Malawi since 1992. Lastly, in Senegal the Senegalese parliament passed a law abolishing the death penalty for all crimes. The law was adopted by an overwhelming majority. Senegal had not carried out any executions since 1967 but continued to pass death sentences, most recently in July 2004. It is the fourth West African state to abolish the death penalty, following Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau and Côte d'Ivoire.

The growing tendency to refuse diversity is generating a new kind of discrimination based on a combination of factors including race, religion, ethnicity and culture, the Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance, Doudou Diène, said in an interview. According to Diène, discrimination exists both in the developed and developing world. In the former it is visible in the increasing rhetoric against migrant and refugee populations and in the latter poverty and conflict were renewing old and negative forms of identity construction.

The Protocol Establishing the African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights came into effect on 15 January 2004. More recently, at the AU Assembly in July 2004 a decision was taken to merge the African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights with the Court of Justice of the African Union. What are the implications of this merger? Africa needs an effective human rights court to ensure respect for human rights and an eventual end to human rights violations. The Conference would have to consider procedural, logistical and resource issues, which would ensure that the African Court of Human Rights is an effective one.

Amnesty International says it is "particularly concerned" with access to services which are essential for the enjoyment of human rights. "If individuals and communities are denied such access because of their economic status, ethnic origin, gender, sexual orientation, religious persuasion, or any other arbitrary, discriminatory measure, then that action constitutes a grave violation of their human rights. Denial of access to these services could cause grave violations of physical and mental integrity of individuals and groups, and would thus constitute a human rights violation. Access to basic necessities of life is critical to sustain any society based on human dignity, and the State has an obligation to provide such services."

With warnings that the virus of racism is on the march around the world and urgent calls for a global assault on the scourge, with new proposals to strengthen human rights and panel sessions on overcoming hate crimes, the United Nations today marked the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.

Europeans are becoming more intolerant of immigrants and one in five want them sent home, a study released by the European Union racism watchdog showed. The study, based on pan-EU opinion surveys between 1997 and 2003, found a significant increase in support for the view that there were limits to a so-called multicultural society. There was also a significant increase in the minority of people who supported repatriating immigrants, to 20 percent, the study said, without providing the scale of either increase.

The office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reported in March 2005 that "the number of asylum seekers arriving in industrialized countries fell sharply for the third year in a row in 2004, reaching its lowest level for 16 years." Despite the lower numbers, governments of industrialized countries still face public concern that the asylum system is "out of control." How much of the drop in applications comes from a lower demand for asylum and how much from stringent legislation is not clear.

On Friday 1 April 2005, organisations and national platforms involved in the Global Call to Action against Poverty are asked to target representatives of rich creditor countries with a demand for debt cancellation, and to wear the white band. Through Embassy Actions, this GCAP mobilisation will focus on the embassies of the G7 - Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK and US - calling for full cancellation of the debts of the most impoverished countries. Particular emphasis will be on the French and German embassies to encourage their leaders to sign-up to debt cancellation - although each national platform should decide on its own target, based on its own national context. The action comes ahead of the meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund in Washington DC on 16 and 17 April.

"For too long, when it comes to corruption in Africa, the West's position has been "do as I say not as I do." In Sierra Leone and other countries, debts were racked up knowingly by African ministers and Western lenders in the full knowledge that they would not be repaid. This was not mere irresponsible borrowing, but planned larceny. This – not bleeding heart sentiments – is the reason that its debts should be written off," writes author Aminatta Forna in the UK's Independent newspaper.

The Ministerial meeting of the Group of 20 developing countries operating in the WTO on agriculture issues concluded on 19 March with the adoption of a Declaration and a press briefing in which Ministers from participating countries took part. The Declaration of the G-20 Ministers called for the elimination of all export subsidies in agriculture within five years. It asked for substantial reductions in trade distorting domestic support by developed countries.

Tuberculosis was last year's most overlooked tragedy. TB killed more people than all wars, earthquakes, floods, tsunamis, airline accidents, terrorist acts and murders worldwide the past year, and with much less fanfare. The deaths of these 1.8 million people were arguably all the more tragic as almost every one of them could have been prevented if they had been properly treated with highly-effective anti-TB medicines. This report asks, "Who is succeeding in preventing these tragic deaths?" In examining the most recent data that countries have provided to the World Health Organization, this independent report finds that some countries - even among the poorest such as Cambodia and the Democratic Republic of Congo - are doing quite a lot. The report also finds that some countries - Nigeria being perhaps the most conspicuous example - are doing frightfully little.

The Zanzibar International Film Festival (ZIFF) of the Dhow Countries, East Africa’s largest cultural event is located in Zanzibar around the magnificent, historical venues along the waterfront of Stone Town. The festival celebrates the unique cultural heritage of Africa and the Dhow countries of the Indian Ocean region and their global Diaspora. The Festival promotes an extensive programme of Films, Music & Performing Arts, Exhibitions, and Workshops for Women, Children, Film Industry, Music Industry and Literature.

This paper, the first in the Lancet Neonatal Survival series, focuses on the growing proportion of child deaths that occur in the neonatal period (the first four weeks of life), accounting for 38 per cent of all child deaths in 2000, or 4 million a year. While 99 per cent of neonatal deaths arise in low and middle income countries, research focuses on the one per cent of deaths in rich countries. The highest neonatal mortality rates are found in sub-Saharan Africa. The authors conclude that the Millennium Development Goal for child survival cannot be met without achieving substantial global reductions in neonatal mortality. They argue that inequity should be addressed as a priority.