http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/362/47403beat.jpgZimbabwe Peace Project (ZPP) as an organisation has strength in its permanent deployment of two monitors in each electoral constituency of Zimbabwe ensuring a grassroots presence. ZPP monitors work in the communities of their ordinary residence, which gives ZPP the leverage to sense potential violations and record incidents swiftly and discretely with a high degree of accuracy. ZPP received a worrisome report last week of the existence of torture bases in Mutoko and Mudzi constituencies in Mashonaland East province and our Provincial Coordinator took time during the weekend to investigate the incidents and gave us the following report:

War Veterans have unleashed terror in Mashonaland East with the assistance of the ruling party Zanu PF. War Veterans, youths and war collaborators are beating and torturing suspected opposition party supporters and local observers of the harmonised elections like ZESN.

MUTOKO SOUTH CONSTITUENCY

About ten war veterans using a new B1800 truck and two Toyota trucks all armed are moving around Mutoko beating up people suspected to have voted for MDC Tsvangirai they are forcing villagers to attend meetings during the day and in the evening with the help of Zanu PF youths beat up people. Bases of torture have been established at Corner Store, Kushinga, Jari, Nyahondo and Rukanda.

Last week on Friday, 11 April 2008 around 1900hrs about twenty people were beaten at Corner Store Base and those assaulted included Desmond Dovi residing in Village 13. The war veterans are led by one Chimhini and youths are led by Brighton Mutendera and Jimmy Chivambu. Our Coordinator spoke to a policeman who confirmed the beatings and the bases. The Coordinator said all those who observed elections on the ZESN ticket have been allegedly listed for beatings.

MUTOKO NORTH CONSTITUENCY

Armed veterans are moving around villages forcing people to meetings where suspected MDC members are being beaten up. Bases have been established at Charehwa, Chitekwe, Nyamuzuwe, All souls mission where doctors have fled for their lives.

On Thursday, 10 April a police officer by the name Ngorima said war veterans visited Mutoko police station where they ordered the Member in Charge to call all police officers at the station for a meeting. They were allegedly threatened with death if they arrest any of the perpetrators and were also ordered that during the run off all police officers should cast their votes at the office before the member in charge. Bases were also established in Mutoko East at Lot and Kawere villages and Bondamakara and Chikuhwa schools.

MUDZI CONSTITUENCY

Bases have been established at Nyamapanda, Dendera, Kotwa, Suswe and Chifamba. The same war veterans stated above are holding meetings in villages and people are being beaten. On Thursday, 10 April 2008 three MDC activists were heavily assaulted at Kotwa and are detained at Kotwa hospital. These war veterans have instructed all hospitals not to attend to these victims. ZPP is still trying to establish the identity of the three MDC activists.

MUREHWA NORTH CONSTITUENCY

On Friday 11 April 2008, war veterans and Zanu PF youths held a meeting at Murehwa Centre around 1600hrs. All shops were closed and war veterans fired two shots in the air to instil fear in the people. At around 17.30 hrs more than 100 MDC supporters toyi toyied in the centre and the war veterans and Zanu PF youths were outnumbered and were forced to disperse.

In Matenda village two ZESN observers Blessing Chirambadoro and another were threatened with eviction and are now living in fear.

MARONDERA EAST

ZPP Provincial Coordinator also visited the constituency and reported that by Friday 11 April 2008 three houses had been burnt down and people were being assaulted by Zanu PF supporters. On Friday three MDC activists were heavily assaulted at Rapid farm and they are being guarded by Zanu PF youths so that they do not access treatment. The victims were assaulted by war veterans.

MASHONA LAND WEST

One polling agent Aaron and three MDC activists Broderick Marigawa, Taka Ganje and Caleb Marufu were for the past two weeks living in mountains in Kanzamba village, Makonde constituency. The four are said to have ran away from their homes after serious threats of violence from Zanu PF men namely, Black Jesus of Mhangura, Thomas Ganure a soldier from the village, Lovemore Mupoto, Marko Gungungu, a Mashintini and one Brown all from the same constituency are said to be the perpetrators haunting the polling agent and the activists. The polling agent’s plight has been allegedly heightened because his parents belong to Zanu PF and are aiding the perpetrators in threatening the activists. The four are in dire need of legal and counselling services.

As ZPP we are getting frustrated with the situation prevailing in Mashonaland East and Mashonaland West and in other parts of Zimbabwe in direct contravention of the country’s laws and international laws that the Government is a signatory. These actions should come to a quick stop as no people should be terrorised continuously with perpetrators threatening police officers that they should not carry out their law enforcing duties by arresting perpetrators and intimidating Doctors and victims that they should not get medical assistance. These are serious forms of politically motivated violations and they should just come to a stop in the spirit of letting Peace Prevail.

Let Peace Prevail

*ZPP envision a Zimbabwe that would transform into a society that cherishes the pursuit and realisation of justice, freedom, peace, human dignity and development.

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

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/363/47347woman.jpgStephen Lewis argues that the level of rape and sexual violence in the Congo is an act of criminal international misogyny, sustained by the indifference of nation states and the delinquency of the United Nations.

Today is a day that has largely – and rightly – been given over to Dr Mukwege and his astonishing and heroic work in the Congo. Driving the work is the endlessly grim and despairing litany of rape and sexual violence. All of us assembled in the Superdome talk of V-Day and the Vagina Monologues. In the Congo there’s a medical term of art called ‘vaginal destruction.’ I need not elaborate; you’ve heard Dr Mukwege. But suffice to say that in the vast historical panorama of violence against women there is a level of demonic dementia plumbed in the Congo that has seldom, if ever, been reached before.

That’s the peg on which I want to hang these remarks. I want to set out an argument that essentially says that what’s happening in the Congo is an act of criminal international misogyny, sustained by the indifference of nation states and the delinquency of the United Nations.

Dr Mukwege and others have said time and time again that the current saga of the Congo has been going on for more than a decade. It’s important to remember that this is a direct result of the escape of thousands of mass murderers who eluded capture after the Rwandan genocide, thanks to the governments of France and the United States, by fleeing into what was then called Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The wars and the horror that followed have been chronicled by journalists, human rights organisations, senior representatives of the UN secretary-general, the UN Office of Humanitarian Affairs, the Security Council, agencies, NGOs internationally and NGOs on the ground, and in the process accentuated and punctuated by the cries and pain and carnage of over five million deaths.

The sordid saga ebbs and flows. But it was brought back into sudden, vivid public notoriety by Eve Ensler’s trip to the Congo in July/August 2007, her visit to the Panzi hospital, her interviews with the women survivors of rape, and her visceral piece of writing in Glamour magazine which began with the words ‘I have just returned from Hell’. Eve set off an extraordinary chain reaction. Her visit was followed by a fact-finding mission by the current UN under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs who, upon his return, wrote an op-ed for the Los Angeles Times in which he said that the Congo was the worst place in the world for women. Those views were then echoed everywhere (including by the European parliament), triggering front-page stories in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times and a lengthy segment on 60 Minutes by Anderson Cooper of CNN.

Largely as a result of this growing clamour against the war on women in the Congo, and the fact that Eve Ensler herself testified before the Security Council, the UN resolution that renewed the mandate for the UN peacekeeping force in the Congo (MONUC, as it’s called) contained some of the strongest language condemning rape and sexual violence ever to appear in a Security Council resolution, and obliged MONUC, in no uncertain terms, to protect the women of the Congo. The resolution was passed at the end of December 2007.

In January 2008, scarcely one month later, there was an ‘act of engagement’, a so-called peace commitment signed amongst the warring parties. I use ‘so-called’ advisedly, because evidence of peace is hard to find. But that’s not the point: the point is much more revelatory and much more damning.

The peace commitment is a fairly lengthy document. Unbelievably, from beginning to end, the word ‘rape’ never appears. Unbelievably, from beginning to end, the phrase ‘sexual violence’ never appears. Unbelievably, ‘women’ are mentioned but once, lumped in with children, the elderly and the disabled. It’s as if the organisers of the peace conference had never heard of the Security Council resolution.

But it gets worse. The peace document actually grants amnesty – I repeat, amnesty – to those who have participated in the fighting. To be sure, it makes a deliberate legal distinction, stating that war crimes or crimes against humanity will not be excused. But who’s kidding whom? This arcane legal dancing on the head of a pin is not likely to weigh heavily on the troops in the field, who have now been given every reason to believe that since the rapes they committed up to now have been officially forgiven and forgotten, they can rape with impunity again. And indeed, as Dr Mukwege testified before Congress just last week, the raping and sexual violence continues.

The war may stutter; the raping is unabated.

But the most absurd dimension of this whole discreditable process is the fact that the peace talks were ‘facilitated’, or effectively orchestrated, by MONUC, that is to say by the United Nations. And perhaps most unconscionable of all, despite the existence for seven years of another Security Council resolution, number 1325, calling for women to be active participants in all peace deliberations, there was no-one at that peace table directly representing the women, the more than 200,000 women, whose lives and anatomies were torn to shreds by the very war that the peace talks were meant to resolve.

Thus does the United Nations violate its own principles.

Now let me make something clear. In the nearly 25 years that I’ve been involved in international work I’ve been a ready apologist for the United Nations. And I continue to be persuaded that the UN can yet offer the best hope for humankind. But when it goes off the rails, as is the case in the Congo – as is invariably the case when women are involved – my colleagues and I, in our new organisation called AIDS-Free World, are not going to bite our tongues. There’s too much at stake.

What makes this all the more galling is that in many respects, the UN is the answer. Those of you who intermittently despair of ending sexual violence should know that if the UN brought the full power of its formidable agencies to bear, tremendous progress would be made, despite the indifference of many countries. But therein lie these cascading levels of hypocrisy.

You heard today about the collective UN campaign to end rape and sexual violence in the Congo - 12 agencies united in this common purpose. But with the exception of some magnificent UNICEF staff on the ground, of whom Ann Veneman, executive director of UNICEF, has every right to be proud, the presence of the other UN agencies ranges from negligible to non-existent. This is all largely an exercise in rhetoric. Even the UN Population Fund, ostensibly the lead agency in the Congo, is pathetically weak on the ground and on its own website talks of the problems of funding.

It does induce a combination of rage and incredulity when the UN tries to pawn itself off as the serious player in combating sexual violence when the record is so appallingly bad. In fact, it could be said – indeed, it needs to be said – that the V-Day movement and Eve, relatively miniscule players by comparison, have probably done more to ease the pain of violence in the Congo than any one of 11 UN agencies. Who else, I ask you, is building a City of Joy, so that the women who have been raped can recover with some sense of security and become leaders in their communities?

Is there an answer to this collective abject failure of the international community to protect the women of the Congo? There sure is, and the answer sits right at the top. The answer is the secretary-general of the United Nations.

I don’t know who is advising the secretary-general on these matters, but he’s being led down a garden path soon to be strewn with ghosts that will haunt his entire stewardship and leave an everlasting pejorative legacy. I know how the UN works. I’ve been an ambassador to the UN for my country, the deputy at UNICEF, an advisor on Africa to a former secretary-general, and most recently a ‘special envoy’. In the incestuous hotbed of the 38th floor of the UN secretariat, where sits the secretary-general, critics are scorned, derided and mocked. And exactly the same will happen to me. But I want all of you to know here assembled that it need not be.

If the secretary-general were to exercise real leadership against sexual violence instead of falling back – as his advisers have suggested – on statements and rhetoric and fatuous public relations campaigns, he could turn things around. What in God’s name is wrong with these people whose lives consist of moving from inertia to paralysis?

The secretary-general should summon the heads of the 12 UN agencies allegedly involved in ‘UN action’ on violence against women and read the riot act. He should explain to them that press releases do not prevent rape, and he should demand a plan of action on the ground, with dollars and deadlines. He should equally summon the heads of the ten agencies that comprise UNAIDS and demand a plan of implementation for testing, treatment, prevention and care for women who have been sexually assaulted, with deadlines. I’m prepared to bet that UNAIDS has never convened such a meeting, despite the fact that the violence of the sexual assaults in the Congo create easy avenues in the reproductive tract through which the AIDS virus passes. Dr Mukwege talks of increased numbers of HIV-positive women turning up at Panzi hospital.

The secretary-general, taking a leaf from Eve Ensler, should insist on a network of rape crisis centres, rape clinics in all hospitals, sexual violence counsellors, and Cities of Joy right across the Eastern Congo, indeed, across the entire country. The secretary-general should demand a roll-call, an accounting, of which countries have contributed financially to ending the violence and in what amounts, plus those who have not, and then publish the results for the world to see so that the recalcitrants can be brought to the bar of public opinion. (By way of example, how’s this for a juxtaposition? Over the course of more than a decade, the UN trust fund to end violence against women has triumphantly reached $130m. The United States spends more than $3bn per week on the war in Iraq.)

But there’s more. The secretary-general should launch a personal crusade to double MONUC’s troop complement. The protection provisions for women in the new so-called peace accord cannot be implemented with current troop numbers, large though they may seem.

And finally, the secretary-general should pull out all the stops in getting the UN to agree that the Congo is the best test case for the principle of the ‘responsibility to protect’. Heads of state universally endorsed this principle at the UN in September 2005. It is the first major contemporary international challenge to the sanctity of sovereignty. It simply asserts that where a government is unable or unwilling to protect its own people from gross violations of human rights, then the international community has the responsibility to intervene. That responsibility can be diplomatic negotiation, or economic sanctions, or political pressure or military intervention – whatever it takes to restore justice to the oppressed. The principle was originally drafted with Darfur in mind, but it is equally applicable to the Congo. We have to start somewhere.

The secretary-general has a tremendous challenge. He has the opportunity, the wherewithal, the influence and the majesty to save thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of women’s lives, physically and psychologically. And once the process began in earnest in the Congo, it would spread to all dimensions of violence against women everywhere.

To whom else is such an opportunity given? The secretary-general has said that violence against women is one of the gravest issues of our time. Well if that’s the case, surely he can understand that speeches aren’t enough. And if he truly believes what he says, then let him stake his tenure on it. I believe that the struggle for gender equality is the most important struggle on the planet. Ban Ki-moon should say to the 192 countries that make up the UN ‘either you give me evidence that we’re going to prevail in this struggle or you find yourself another secretary-general’.

‘Ah,’ people will say, ‘Lewis has finally lost it’. I don’t think so. We’re talking about more than 50 per cent of the world’s population, amongst whom are the most uprooted, disinherited and impoverished of the earth. If you can’t stand up for the women of the world, then you shouldn’t be secretary-general.

Alas, I guess I know whether that will happen. We’ve already had signals. Last autumn, in an unprecedented initiative, a high-level panel on reform of the UN recommended the creation of a new international agency for women. The recommendation was based on the finding that the UN’s record on gender has been abysmal. If that agency comes into being, headed by an under-secretary-general, with funding that starts at $1bn a year (less than half of UNICEF’s resources) and real capacity to run programmes on the ground, issues like violence against women would suddenly be confronted with indomitable determination. The women activists on the ground, the women survivors on the ground, the women activist-survivors on the ground, would finally have resources and support for the work that must be done.

But the creation of the new agency is bogged down in the UN General Assembly, caught up in the crossfire between the developed and developing countries. The secretary-general could break that impasse if he pulled out all the stops. He and the deputy secretary-general make speeches that give the impression that they support the women’s agency. In truth, the language is so carefully and artfully couched as to gut the agency of its impact on the ground were it ever to come into being. Again, the advisers read the tea leaves in a soiled and broken chalice.

This weekend has been filled with hope in the struggle to end violence against women. Thoughtful, decent men have come to the fore on this very platform, and women from so many countries have made the case for sanity in words that are moving and compelling in equal measure. I have chosen to link the Congo and the UN because as Eve said at the outset, the Congo is the V-Day spotlight for the coming year, and the UN can truly break the monolith of violence. We just have to apply unceasing pressure so that the issue is joined rather than manipulated.

I don’t have Eve’s rhythm and cadence. But I cherish a touch of her spirit, a lot of her anger, and a microscopic morsel of her trusting love, commitment and courage that will one day change this world.

*Stephen Lewis,is the co-Director of AIDS-Free World. These remarks were delivered at the 10th Annual V-Day Celebrations, New Orleans, 12 April 2008.

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

On the 27th of March 2008 at about 12:30pm, I boarded the British Airways flight BA75 and I went straight to seat 53C. On getting to my seat, there were noises from an individual being forcibly restrained but who was not visible because some police officers and some plain clothes people held him down. The noise continued for more than 20 minutes and I was concerned because the individual was screaming in agony and shouting in pidgin English "I go die" meaning, I will die. I pleaded with the officers not to kill him and my exact words were "please don't kill him". The British Airways staff said that the officers were doing their jobs and that nothing was going to happen. The noise became louder and other passengers started getting concerned and were complaining especially about their safety. Eventually, a member of the cabin crew announced that the passenger was going to be removed and the passenger was removed from the plane and we all thought that was the end of the situation.

Five minutes later, two members of the cabin crew arrived with about 4 police officers and told me to get off the plane. I asked what the matter was and they said that I was not going to travel with the airline because the cabin crew thought I had been disruptive by questioning the noise being caused by the person that was removed. I pleaded with them that I was going for my brother's wedding and that I had all his stuff with me. I was dragged out of the plane as if I was resisting arrest. As we got to the corridor that linked the plane with the terminal building, I was slammed against the wall and made to sit on the floor. I was still pleading with them telling them that they had completely misunderstood me and that I was only complaining about the situation regarding the disturbances caused by the deportee they were trying to restrain and subdue. I was on the floor for about 20 to 25 minutes. Another passenger was brought to the corridor as well and he was also pleading with the officers. I was later put in the back of the police van at about 1:50pm and I was locked up there for about an hour or more still handcuffed.

I was formally arrested approximately 2:30pm and my rights were read to me. Before the arrest in the van, I managed to reach for my pocket and brought out my mobile phone. I made some phone calls to my wife, sister and a friend while the low battery sign was on because I was all alone and still handcuffed. I was later driven to the police station where I was formally checked in. I was in police custody for almost 8 hours and later released on bail after the interview with the duty solicitor and the detectives. I had £473.00 on me which was seized as well as £90.00 sent to my mother in-law from my sister in-law and £1,050.00 given to me by my cousin who is a doctor for the upkeep of his parents in Nigeria. All the money together was £1,613.00. I was told that I would appear in a magistrate court to prove the money was not meant for crime or proceeds of crime. The officer told me that they will like to see traceability and that I needed my payslips and bank account detailing my payments and withdrawals as well as my cousin's payments and withdrawals. I was released but without the money. I made my way to terminal 4 and arrived there at about 12:30am but the British Airways kiosks were closed. I was directed to the staff room and told them that I wanted to rebook my trip to Lagos. A lady told me to give her my ticket and she stated that British Airways has banned me from travelling with them indefinitely and that only the managers can use their discretions because I was a `disruptive passenger'.

I requested for my 2 piece luggage and she told me that the section will be opened later at about 5:30am and I will be escorted in to collect them. I slept on the chair and waited till about 5:30am and attempted to rebook my ticket but was told that British Airways refused to take me. I decided to go and pick up my stuff and I was told that my luggage were missing. I was handed a form with reference number LONBA90924. At this point, I became totally stranded because I could not leave without my luggage because it contained my brother's wedding suit, shirts and accessories. I was on the phone with my wife and she wanted to book an alternative flight that departs at 10:15am so that I could make it for the wedding. This was not possible because British Airways refused to disclose where my luggages were and did not remove my luggage from the flight when they called the police to arrest me. On Monday 31st of March, I appeared at the Magistrate court but was told that a decision was made about the £1,613.00 that was seized from me. The police had been granted a further 90 days to hold on to the money pending their investigation. I was given the officer's details as DC Webster 0208 721 9141. He requested 12 months bank statements and 6 months payslip to prove that the £473.00 that belongs to me was not proceeds of crime and also requested that the £1,050.00 that was given to me by my cousin for his parents should also be traced to my cousin's 12 months bank statement and 6 months payslip. DC Webster has promised to write me detailing these requests.

Still on Monday 31st of March 4 days after I was taken off the plane, I made extra efforts to find out the whereabouts of my 2 piece luggage (LONBA90924), because they have not been sent to my address as promised by calling the lost baggage section at 13:44hrs and spoke to a man called Neil who said that, it is difficult for them to trace my bags and that there is a strong possibility that they might be in Lagos. He suggested that I should call back in 24 hours. My bags were returned on Friday 4th of April. One week and one day after the incident. One of the bags was destroyed and the other was intact. I have wriiten to British Airways to complain and asked for my refund but I have not received anything from them yet.

I will not want to believe that the authorities involved in the situation deliberately or cleverly punished me unnecessarily out of frustration for not being able to restrain or subdue a deportee or that I as a fee paying passenger was accused of affray with violence when I was voicing my concerns about the disturbances caused by the deportees. I never mentioned any abusive or swear words neither was I physically threatening anyone. My luggage mysteriously was lost and I have been banned on all British Airways flights without a chance to say my part of the story to redeem myself. 200 passengers were asked to leave the flight because they expressed displeasure regarding the disturbances caused by the deportees and the officers trying to restrain him. My ticket was even refused to be endorsed by BA to enable me to fly with another airline.

I need full compensation of my loss and also a letter of apology from British Airways.

To ensure that anti-corruption action remains a top priority in the World Bank’s mission to reduce poverty, Transparency International (TI) will participate in the 2008 World Bank and International Monetary Fund Spring Meetings. TI will be represented by Christiaan Poortman, Director of Global Programmes, Nancy Boswell, President & CEO, TI-USA and Aneta Wierzynska, Senior Policy Director – Development, TI USA.

While welcoming increased international attention to the climate crisis, civil society groups from the global South and global North today are calling on the World Bank to withdraw its proposal to establish climate investment funds. The World Bank on April 3 detailed plans to establish at least two funds outside of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), a Strategic Climate Fund featuring a “Pilot Program for Climate Resilience” and a Clean Technology Fund.

It is now eleven days since Zimbabwe held its disputed General Elections. It is very troubling that since 29th March 2008, the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission has not declared the Presidential election results and the people of Zimbabwe have not been given any credible explanation for the ordinate delay.
The holding of democratic elections is an important dimension in conflict prevention, management and resolution.

Zimbabwe's opposition leader Tsvangirai has squashed reports that he is prepared to clash with Robert Mugabe in the presidential run off within a period of 21 days as stipulated by law. Tsvangirai who was invited to attend a SADC's emergency meeting in Zambia said his party had won the elections and would what so ever not participate in the run off.

The United Nations and African Union envoys heading international efforts to resolve the Darfur conflict have travelled to the town of Juba for talks with the former southern Sudanese rebels as they seek to bring new momentum to the stalled political process. The UN’s Jan Eliasson and the AU’s Salim Ahmed Salim met with Salva Kiir, Sudan’s First Vice President, and members of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) Task Force on Darfur, UN spokesperson Marie Okabe told reporters.

Almost half a million Ivorians have received new birth certificates, the first step in a process to enable them to vote in national general elections scheduled for later this year, the United Nations Mission in Côte d’Ivoire (UNOCI) has reported.

Following its interim statement of 31 March on the 2008 Harmonised Elections in Zimbabwe, EISA has continued to monitor the unfolding events in Zimbabwe in anticipation of the announcement of the final and complete election results. This statement is a follow-up which highlights issues in the post-election phase that deserve urgent attention.

Journalists who covered and were psychologically affected by last year’s post election violence are now going to benefit from a trauma counseling programme that was launched last week. Organized by the Kenya Association of Photographers, Illustrators and Designers (KAPIDE) and Kenya Correspondents’ Association (KCA) and funded by International Media Support (IMS), the programme will provide trauma counseling to a total of 150 journalists.

People Development Consulting, , is searching for a committed collaborator, for a West African NGO based in Dakar. The job mission is to contribute, within the frame of the 5 Years Strategic Plan, to the consolidation of Information Pluralism and Media Development at the West African regional level through the implementation and visibility of the programme at regional and international levels. The deadline for application is April, 28th, 2008.

The Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa
(CODESRIA) invites abstracts and proposals for paper presentation at the second international conference it is organising on development as part of its revamped Economic Policy Research Programme. The conference will take place in Lusaka, Zambia, from 25 to 27 July, 2008.

Having watched and waited to see if anyone would mobilise nonviolent action and having seen none to date, around 800 members of WOZA and MOZA began their rollout of peaceful actions in Bulawayo. The group started their protest at the provincial court on Herbert Chitepo and Leopold Takawira.

In late November of 2007, in a small village in Selingue Mali, I joined over 100 small-scale farmer, pastoralist, organic and civil society organizations from 25 African and 10 non-African countries at a conference that questioned the relevance of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation initiative, the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA).

Together with the Rockefeller Foundation, the Gates Foundation has pledged a total of $150 million "to help millions of small-scale farmers and their families lift themselves out of poverty and hunger" in Africa. AGRA has promised do this by overhauling Africa's agricultural industry, from planting seeds to restructuring local and national markets.

What struck me during that conference taking place with much of the world unaware was the audacity and courage of these organizations. Abandoned by African governments hungry for the $150 million-purse, it was brave of them to question AGRA – a gift boasting the support of arguably the most powerful philanthropic machinery in world history.

Here was a side of Africa that the rest of the world does not see – Africans gathered not to ask for help from the West, but to discuss alternatives to that help in very serious, informed and fraternal ways, with their own knowledge, science and experiences as a key part of the solution.

AGRA's chairman is former UN General Secretary, Kofi Annan, hence AGRA's claim that it is an African initiative. But we tend to forget that Africa is huge – the continent can fit the United States three times and leave room for China, and houses over 680 million people! A truly African initiative needs to have the mandate of those whom it will affect the most.

AGRA with its super scientists is missing the point. Hunger in Africa is mostly a political and economic disparity problem. To end hunger, political stability, proper distribution of food and land within nations, and less emphasis on cash-crop farming and more on food- crop farming will be more effective, friendlier to the environment and less costly than the super-seeds that will require tons of pesticides - and eventually, cost a lot of money.

Also take the example of US farm subsidies that result in African farmers losing millions of dollars each year. Oxfam reports that in 2001 Malian cotton farmers lost $ 43 million dollars while US foreign aid was 37.7 million that same year. Why not lobby for fair competition and equal international trade rather than throw more aid and pesticides at the Malian farmers?

AGRA has not taken a definitive stand against genetically modified seeds. Instead it states that it does "not preclude future support for genetic engineering as an approach to crop variety improvement" leading many to understand it as Trojan horse for GM seeds.

It is important that AGRA takes a definite stand against GM seeds, which if introduced will create mass dependency on corporate engineered seeds, and at the same time make farming more expensive. This in turns means that poor farmers will be perpetually in debt. A similar tightening cycle of dependency on the one hand, and expensive seeds and pesticides on the other has recently led to thousands of farmer suicides in India.

The conclusion here is one that might seem like a paradox of a beggar having choice - AGRA will do more harm than good. Understanding this, the participants committed themselves to, amongst other things, demanding "transparency, and accountability from all Green Revolution institutions and seed, chemical and fertilizer companies."

In this Pambazuka News special issue on AGRA, in addition to our regular features, we are pleased to bring you an article by Galés Gabirondo - a development scholar and food sovereignty activist who looks at the Bill Gates philosophy of philanthro-capitalism. That is philanthropy that is also profit driven. We also interview Mariam Mayet, the director of African Center for Biosafety and Dr. Regassa Feyissa, the co-founder and Director of the Ethio-Organic Seed Action (EOSA).

In the next few issues, we shall be bringing you more interviews with food sovereignty and agra-ecology activists – all conducted at the Selingue conference.

Finally, over the years Pambazuka News has carried quite a number of articles on the Green Revolutions, climate change, agri-ecology and food sovereignty. For you easy referencing we have compiled some of them here below:

Africa: Food sovereignty declaration

Will Bill Gates’ Millions Save Us?
Jacqueline Tanaka

Sacrificing the right to food on the altar of free trade
Jagjit Plahe

African food sovereignty or AGRA
Mukoma wa Ngugi

African Agriculture and the World Bank: Development or impoverishment?
Kjell Havnevik, Deborah Bryceson, Lars-Erik Birgegård, Prosper Matondi & Atakilte Beyene

GM technology: a new panacea or another false dawn?
[email protected] or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/361/47259weat.jpgRegassa Feyissa in this interview talks about the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), the fallacy of food aid, knowledge systems in relation to traditional versus scientific and the need to create alternatives to AGRA

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: Dr. Regassa Feyissa is the co-founder and Director of the Ethio-Organic Seed Action (EOSA) and expert delegate to various international negotiations (International Undertaking, Global Plan of Action and the Convention on Biological Diversity). EOSA is leading a program on Agro-bio diversity in Ethiopia - with the goal of restoring and preserving genetic diversity.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: Lets jump straight into the Rockefeller-Bill Gates initiative – the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA). What impact will it have on the continent?

REGASSA FEYISSA: First of all, Africa is a very rich continent in terms of ecological systems, farming systems, and production systems. Culture and preferences also vary across the continent. It is not a continent to which you can apply a standardized application as has been done in Asia and even Europe.

I was surprised to read that AGRA has over 200 crop varieties ready to be used in Africa. But what varieties of crops are they going to bring to Africa? As Mexico provided maize to the world, Africa provided sorghum. Sorghum resisted destruction from the first green revolution because it is such an energetic crop. It adapts itself anywhere from 400 meters to 6,000 meters. The first green revolution and its standardized systems could not match sorghum. Sorghum is distributed across various ecological requirements. We have been talking for the last 50 or so years about rice, maize and to some extent wheat. Africa has had maize for 500 years introduced from Mexico. We have rice for more than 1,000 years, which is still more stable.

We have different root crops, and different cereals which are forgotten because of the colonial system of forcing its own wills and wishes – thereby destroying and pushing out African resources. But still some of the crops resisted and Africans are still living on them.

So what crops will AGRA bring in is what interests me and I am surprised about the 200 varieties. Why were African farmers not consulted? One has to consult the stakeholders who will be affected.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: Proponents of the Green revolution (in the 1960’s) always talk about successes in Latin America and Asia – Have they been as successful as they say? Are the farmer suicides in India an anomaly in an otherwise good system?

REGASSA FEYISSA: At the early stages production doubled and tripled. But that production level was merely for demonstration and could not to be reproduced over time. Up and till now farmers in India are still committing suicide. We have seen the South East Asia and Asian soils salinized, and farmers left without any options.

We can see the end-results of the first the green revolution in Latin America, Asia and even to some extent Africa where the colonial systems until recently dominated.

So this is the package that AGRA is promoting – and I am surprised that after all these experiences and information we have at the global level, that one can still come up with such crazy ideas. Is Africa short of food? Africa has plenty food. Why is there no concern for facilitating the flow of food in Africa?

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: In one your presentations you spoke about how during the 1980’s famine the Southern part of Ethiopia had lots of food while the North starved – yet food and aid were seen as the answer as opposed to finding ways of distributing food that was already in the country.

REGASSA FEYISSA: When the famine in Ethiopia happened, in the Southern and Southern West parts of Ethiopia, food was being dumped. There were no mechanisms and infrastructure to bring food from the South to the North.

This is similar in African countries- there is no effort, there is no investment to try and improve Africa’s resource base to such an extent that it is of use to the people. This is unless it is market and profit, driven.

There is so much emphasis on tea, on coffee and cocoa –whereas major food-crops such as root-crops, and cereals of different types were not even considered by the architects of the first green revolution.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: What role does food aid play in Western imagination? On the one hand you have philanthropists coming to aid Africa – but in practice you have harmful practices such as giving western farmers subsidies, which depress the world market for the African farmer.

REGASSA FEYISSA: I think as an Ethiopian, we have a lot of experience in food aid. There were a lot of people who came to help – and we still owe them gratitude.

But with that said some of the volunteers who came to help had never seen wheat, barley or sorghum growing and they made a mess of things. For example, we ended up planting winter wheat. Most of the aid workers were [supposedly] coming as experts, but I know one bus driver who was the head of a medical center.

The aid was to stop people from dying. The country’s policy back then was to hide food in the Southern parts while millions died in the North…

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: Was this punitive?

REGASSA FEYISSA: I really cannot say that it was for punishing because when the moment this phenomenon occurred, the politicians claimed that all was under control – at the expense of millions. But after the famine, aid became a tradition to such an extent that it destroyed the psychology of the people in the rural areas. As the population increased, this indiscriminate flow of aid really destroyed the psychology of society.

What aid leaves behind, is it not so much lesser than what Africa gives to the world?

Structural Adjustments Programs are still affecting African governments. We were not allowed to have market boards. Market boards only exist in powerful countries. African countries were asked not subsidize agriculture, public services and so on.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: Can we talk about some African centered solutions? Using African traditions, and African grains such as sorghum etc.

REGASSA FEYISSA: I am very concerned about the term traditional…

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: Because it juxtaposes tradition and science?

REGASSA FEYISSA: What is scientific and what is not scientific? The scientist observes knowledge that has already been created. There are those who created that knowledge - but the scientist who observes claims his understanding is scientific, and that the other traditional. Tradition is used to mean backwards. This is absolutely wrong.

There is nothing static in nature – everything is passing through a process. There is no static knowledge. Knowledge is the interaction of humans and their environment that is changing. This is how knowledge expands and develops. The views and perceptions of the so-called scientific are based on the existing practical and pragmatic knowledge.

But no one can deny that there is a need, as long as time and opportunities allow for us to enhance knowledge and the practices referenced to as traditional. What makes so-called traditional knowledge different is that it is wide-based, whereas scientific knowledge is narrow. It is a child of practical knowledge. It is denying its parents – that is the danger – it remains hanging in the air.

And this is the disaster that the first green revolution was built upon. The first green revolution killed itself, it committed suicide –we shall see about the second one - by denying its parents.

Both traditional and modern knowledge are integrated, and support one another. Knowledge is not static. Anything that is static is dead.

Particularly for Africans, we have to enlarge our world outlook, practices and knowledge, but not by neglecting the modern one because time is subsistence itself. You have to qualify information and practices so that they match your livelihood and environment into the future.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: Are there Pan-African solutions?

REGASSA FEYISSA: The perception that AGRA is coming to swallow you is a kind of… for me… I have never surrendered this way. Many surrendered, just gave up, in the first green revolution. Right now from the very beginning many are surrendering in the name of farmers; but we cannot do this on their behalf.

We have to think about alternatives. It is not about polarizing, it is about the capacity to come up with better alternatives to AGRA that counts – to show and teach those who for good or bad are coming up with these things. There are better ways.

In Africa, there is a lot of experience, expertise, and information but they are not compiled or documented. This is I think is why it is very easy for us to be divided, or have conflicts created amongst us. We have to organize ourselves and open up our doors to those who are here to genuinely help.

There is the perception that Africa should switch to agra-ecology. This is the wrong approach. Africa is already practicing agra-ecology. This is why we are trying to stop AGRA. It is disrupting our agra-ecological approaches and practices. It is actually us who are recommending agra-ecological approaches to North America and Europe.

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