The W3C Workshop on the "Role of Mobile Technologies in Fostering Social Development" aims to understand specific challenges of using mobile phones and Web technologies to deliver services to underprivileged populations of Developing Countries. People and organizations who have an interest in the role of mobile phones and the Web in social development and who wish to participate in the workshop are invited to submit position papers to the Workshop Committee (by email to [email][email protected])

The beleaguered UN peacekeeping mission in Sudan, handicapped by lack of troops and helicopters, has come under fire for its unusually high costs. Alpha Oumar Konare, chairman of the African Union Commission, says it is "scandalous" to spend 2.0 billion dollars annually on the upkeep of a proposed 26,000-strong joint African Union-UN Mission in Darfur (UNAMID), when Africa's urgent needs are elsewhere.

A conference on “The Potentialities and Challenges of Constructing a Democratic Developmental State in South Africa” to be held at a venue within the Cradle of Mankind, Gauteng, South Africa, and will take place on Wednesday 4 to Friday 6 June 2008. The Human Sciences Research Council calls on scholars with knowledge of the South African political economy to submit abstracts on the themes listed within the attachment to the convener of the conference, Dr Omano Edigheji ([email protected]) by 28 March 2008.

Blessing-Miles Tendi argues that If Mugabe is to stand trial for crimes against humanity, he must do so as close as possible to the site of his crimes - Zimbabwe.

On February 27, 2008, the BBC’s John Simpson asked Simba Makoni if he ‘would not stand against the principle of sending President Mugabe to The Hague’.

Makoni replied: ‘No. We will be a full member of the international community and we will act in accordance with the normal standards of international justice’.

International newswires immediately went into an excited frenzy about the prospect of Mugabe standing trial at the International Criminal Court (ICC), which functions to try individuals for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.

This ‘international’ excitement needs to be shot dead in its tracks.

Since the treaty for the ICC was assented to by countries around the globe in 1998, 105 countries have ratified the treaty to date. Zimbabwe is not one of these 105 countries hence the ICC has no jurisdiction over Zimbabwe.

Furthermore, the ICC treaty came into effect in 2002. The ICC can only prosecute crimes committed after 2002. The crime that could provide the strongest basis for Mugabe standing trial at a court such as the ICC is the Gukurahundi atrocities. However, the Gukurahundi was perpetrated before 2002.

Mugabe cannot stand trial for the Gukurahundi at the ICC.

Mugabe committed many crimes after 2002 but the burden is on those who advocate for Mugabe standing trial at The Hague to prove how these crimes qualify as genocide, war crimes or crimes against humanity.

And while it is within the power of the UN Security Council to refer a human rights situation to the ICC for investigation, this has failed to materialise for years now and it is debatable whether consensus for such a measure can ever be reached given some of Zimbabwe’s long standing allies on the Security Council.

States that have not ratified the ICC treaty can opt to accept the court’s jurisdiction but for Zimbabwe, this option is undesirable and unnecessary.

Zimbabwe’s justice system has been corrupted by Zanu PF over the years but it remains competent and it has retained a considerable level of independence despite manifold state pressures. More importantly, there is a pertinent tension between the universal jurisdiction embodied in the ICC and the local.

Justice that is local or national is better felt than justice delivered in distant international courts such as the ICC.

Justice at The Hague is not felt by widows deep in Tsholotsho who lost their husbands to the Gukurahundi. It is not felt by the homeless and displaced victims of Murambatsvina who are living like cockroaches on Caledonia farm. If Mugabe is to stand trial, he must do so as close as possible to the site of his crimes - Zimbabwe.

The appropriate place for Mugabe to face the judgment of history is in Matabeleland where he had thousands slaughtered and in the areas where Murambatsvina was conducted.

There are many unanswered questions in Zimbabwean history, and there is a need for national healing and reconciliation. Mugabe has a part to play in addressing these issues, and he can only do so adequately if his fate and confessions are a national affair.

The likes of John Simpson, the ‘international’ media, the executive director of the International Bar Association Mark Ellis, and some members of the British House of Commons, who make a lot of noise about Mugabe standing trial at The Hague must be reminded that Zimbabweans have a strong historical perspective, and that Zimbabweans are not blind to their double standards.

For instance, were it possible for Mugabe to stand trial for the Gukurahundi at The Hague, serious questions about British sins of omission and commission in Zimbabwe would arise. Britain was aware of the killings in Matabeleland but in 1983, at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Summit in India, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher did not raise the matter of the Gukurahundi.

In the same year, Malcolm Rifkind, Foreign Office Minister, visited Zimbabwe and held diplomatic consultations with Mugabe. Rifkind did not mention the Gukurahundi in his report to the British House of Commons on his return to London.

Perence ‘Black Jesus’ Shiri, the dreaded commander of the Fifth Brigade during the Gukurahundi, was the first Zimbabwe National Army (ZNA) officer to attend London’s Royal College of Defence Studies as an honoured guest in 1986. The Royal College of Defence Studies describes itself as ‘the senior Defence academic institution in the United Kingdom… the most prestigious institution of its kind in the world’.

Retired General Edward Jones, Director of the British Military Advisory and Training Team (BMATT) in Zimbabwe from 1983 to 1985, explained the motive for Britain’s offer of tenure at the Royal College to Shiri as follows: “Undoubtedly, he was the man who was going to be important in Zimbabwe and I think it was important that we should influence him positively in so far as we could.” In 2000, Tony Blair’s Labour government authorised the sale of spare parts for British made Hawk 200 jets to the Zimbabwe Air Force, now commanded by the same Perence Shiri. Farm invasions during the Third Chimurenga were coordinated by ZNA officials with Shiri playing a key coordinating role.

The military man whose excesses Britain had turned a blind eye to in the past, honoured at London’s Royal College and supplied with military parts became a key impediment to attempts at ending the violent farm invasions. In light of this, the ‘international’ moral grandstanding about Mugabe going to The Hague must be abandoned.

There is no powerful ‘international’ lobby for Tony Blair and his associates - or George Bush and his cronies for that matter - to stand trial at the ICC for their naked crimes in Iraq. The few criminal cases the ICC is dealing with today involve countries such as the Central African Republic, Sudan, the DRC and Uganda. Thorny questions about African sovereignty are brought into play by this focus on crimes in Africa. There is clearly one standard of international justice for the powerful and another one for the weak.

The ‘international’ clamour for Mugabe to stand trial at The Hague must be seen against this background.

*Blessing-Miles Tendi is a researcher at Oxford University.

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

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/353/mar12_001_kenyanpundit.gif reports on Kenyan Women’s March for piece as part of the International Women’s Day celebrations last Saturday.
“Kenyan women have endured tragedy in the past two months. Too many of us have lost family members and homes. Others of us have done what we can to help them. Regardless of how we have fared, none of us feel we have done enough to ease the anguish of our nation. It is time to stand up and be counted. No matter who we are or which part of Kenya we come from. Put your best foot forward to unite in solidarity and march for peace.”

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/353/mar12_002_mshairi.gifLondon, Kenyan blogger, http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/353/mar12_003_blacklooks.gifBlack Looks marks International Women’s Day by celebrating the lives of African lesbians through the works of South African photo activist, Zanele Mutholi exhibition titled, “Faces and Phases”.
“The essence of each of the women is captured through their faces which together with stance and clothing are expressions of their sexuality. The photos [both this exhibition and others by Zanele] give an insight into how we create meaning of ourselves and the world around us, the feelings from inside which drive us to being who we are. I can’t express where these feelings come from, I just know they are deep inside and the only relief is to let them out by expressing them physically and emotionally. When those meanings - attitudes, beliefs, expectations, dreams, everything that is YOU - challenge patriarchy and social mores they become stigmatised and hold painful consequences for those who dare to release their inner selves. In such hostile environments, coming out is an act of resistance and creating meaning through community is a further act of resistance and also one of survival.”

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/353/mar12_004_nthambazale.gifhttp://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/353/mar12_005_fiyanda.gifNigerian talk show host and blogger, Funmi Iyanda publishes her interview with former US Secretary of State, Madeline Albright. The interview is also on YouTube on the New Dawn site. Although the interview is never really challenging it does touché on a host of issues from the US elections, to 9/11, Muslims, Rwanda, Zimbabwe and “trade dealing in Africa” and you guessed right “poor people are not stupid” and even more interesting the markets in African cities are full of traders selling everything from spark plugs to tins of milk – what revelations! But then it’s possible that many Americans including Secretary’s of State, think we live in barren lands, surrounded by flies, living off food hand outs.
“As long as I live I will not forget this, we were in Nairobi and went to the slum there and to a place called the 'toy market', and it has nothing to do with toys, but it's just called that. It was filled with people selling in stalls, selling...with mud up to my hips, basically, but stores where people where selling spark plugs to each other, t-shirts to each other and they came and we had a semi formal meeting and I was so impressed - poor people are not stupid, poor people are entrepreneurial and that is the part that was so good. You know what happened? And I will describe it to you…it was so incredible. First of all they did a performance about HIV/AIDS, but mostly what they were explaining to me was that they had set up their own credit system. And they had trust enough to put one Kenyan dollar a night into a pot, which is about 10 cents American money. And they then had system whereby they lent money to each other. They created a credit bank and were able to lift themselves up as a result of that.”

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/353/mar12_006_yblog.gifYBlog ZA comments on the disgusting racist video produced by students of the University of the Free State in which Black workers were subjected to eating pissed on food and other horrible acts. Yblog responds to a statement by “among others, Nadine Gordimer, Andre Brink, John Perlman, Max du Preez, Arthur Chaskalson, Zapiro and Phillip Tobias.”that states this most never happen again. As Yblog writes, these kind of racist violations and worse happen every day all over the country. Nonetheless I don’t agree that with his submission that they and the media are dehumanizing the whole episode by blowing it out of all proportion. The fact that this kind of racism well any kind exists daily is no reason not to publish and be outraged at this particular incident.

“Quite frankly, people, I think you’re dehumanising the whole episode by blowing it out of all proportion. First, I'd like to hear from the workers involved. They've been conveniently airbrushed from the story. Have they no opinion (untutored)? Are they not able to speak for themselves?

I guess not. They are, after all, mindless peasants who just happen to be black. Not that we have anything against mindless peasants. Or black people, for that matter. Some of my best friends...

Secondly, I wish to God you'd put your names to documents worthy of such pious indignation. What of the rape and pillage of our country by all and sundry? Violence, corruption, gangsterism, racketeering, substance abuse, and income disparity all combine to form a lethal cocktail, the kick of which we have yet to feel. What of our kids — violated, butchered or disappeared at an increasingly alarming rate? What of our refugees — hounded as amakwerekwere countrywide and denied local citizenship unto succeeding generations?”

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/353/mar12_007_africanloft.gifAfrican Loft reports on Henry Okah - the “Guerrilla Entrepreneur” of Niger-Delta, not yet a billionaire but possibly making his way up the steps. My only hope is that if he does get there he will share his wealth with the people and put electricity in my home town and other towns and villages in the ND....... please, ah beg ohoooo!

“The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (“MEND”) is a militant indigenous people’s movement dedicated to armed struggle against the exploitation and oppression of the people of Niger Delta and the degradation of the natural environment by foreign multinational corporations involved in the extraction of oil in the Niger Delta and the Federal Government of Nigeria. MEND has been linked to attacks on foreign owned petroleum companies in Nigeria (source: Wikipedia).

Henry Okah is rumored to be the founder of MEND and the master strategist behind the militant operations that have cut Nigeria’s oil production by 25 percent. In February this year, Okah was arrested in Angola while on a business trip, he’s presently in government detention on treason charge”

* Sokari Ekine blogs at www.blacklooks.org

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

For close to two decades, Cameroon was considered a bastion of stability in Africa, that is, until last week when that veneer was shattered by four days of widespread rioting. The riots were triggered by a hike in fuel prices amidst ongoing attempts by the Biya regime to scrap presidential term limits. Here is a review of some of the blogs that wrote about these events.

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/353/mar12_01_africannotes.gif goes beyond the immediate cause of the riots to look at the broader issues at stake:

“Cameroon on media? Nothing special! It's not about soccer or les indomitables. This time around it is about riots and Biya…

Seen in the wider perspective, the riots are rather reflections of the public's resentment towards the administration of President Paul Biya. Though he downplayed the demonstrations as a mere game of apprentice sorcerers. That is a typical African big man allegation.

Whenever there is a public anger the leaders rarely try to see the real issue. It is rather a custom to seek a lame excuse for that and scorn the usual suspects like the opposition and human right activists or even neighboring countries. The same thing is happening here. Cameroon is said to be a notoriously corrupt country. The administration should take responsibility for condoning the practice.”

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/353/mar12_02_africaworksgpz.gifPascal Zachary also blames the Biya regime for the uncharacteristic violence that rocked the country last week:
“The unrest in Cameroon… makes me weep. Among the best endowed nations in the world — both in terms of landscape, fertility of its soil, and talents of its people — Cameroon has been condemned to suffer awful political rule. Even by African standards, Biya’s 25-year reign over this picturesque West African country has been a disaster. While he has rarely organized killing sprees, he quietly has demolished country that ought to be among the most successful, not only in Africa, but in the developing world. Instead of planning a permanent retirement somewhere in Europe (where he seems to spend a great deal of time anyway), Biya wants to inflict more wounds on his long-suffering countrymen. What a shame. Biya is a president who rarely holds meetings with his ministers and he refuses to allow his government to even publish a phony budget. He is indeed a ghost (his nickname in the country). I am sad at the thought he may haunt Cameroon for years more.”

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/353/mar12_03_princehamilton.gifPrince Hamilton wonders what exactly President Biya hopes to achieve with another term of office when he has little to show for after a quarter of a century in power:
“I am just appalled that President Paul Biya still thinks he will do something despite not having achieved much in his 26 years. I think that with the president’s recent speech and policies, it shows that he has run out of inspiration that never existed in the first place. It is high time he hands over the presidency to another person.

Cameroon is blessed that no Cameroonian has been able to infiltrate the country with weapons, if not the story would have been different. Notwithstanding, you can only suppress a people for a time but at a given time they will look for means to break their shackles than live as eternal slaves.

The government has been using sports as the opium of the people but this time it failed woefully. The raising of gas prices after the Lions won their semi final match against Ghana during the recent African Cup of Nations was a miscalculated opportunism.”

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/353/mar12_04_cameroongoon.gifCameroon Goon appeals to the Cameroonian community in the US to show up in great numbers for planned demonstrations at the Cameroon embassy in Washington DC:

“Please come out and let's remind Paul Biya and his accomplices that after 25yrs of tyranny, subjection, poverty and intimidation, we are tired and want him to leave peacefully in 2011. He should park out of Etoudi, heading straight to his palace in Mvomeka (his village). Let us come out and remember the 17 people already killed. Let us come out and pray for Cameroonians the world over. Let us pray for our children and remind the Cameroonian government that Democracy means: government of the people, by the people and for the people. We don't want any other forms of democracy, be it 'avancée' or 'moderne'. We just want democracy; the simple type. The type of democracy that would mean there is some form of sustainable economic development ahead for Cameroon and it's people!”

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/353/mar12_05_princereport.gifPrince Report publishes the reaction of the “British Southern Cameroonians Restoration Government” (one of the movements advocating for the independence of Anglophone Cameroon) to last week’s events:

“The brutality that was carried out against our citizens this past week adds a sweltering sense of urgency to the restoration of our stolen sovereignty. The most important thing you should do at this time is refraining from involving yourselves in the political affairs of the foreign country next door to us and east of the Mungo River. For these matters in the Cameroun Republic are veritable distractions from our total focus on restoring our independence. Paul Biya's brutality on our citizens this past week should make it even clearer and even more urgent that we should not waver for a single moment from our determination to take our national sovereignty.
[...]
To our neighbors suffering the brutal weight of this Biya regime, we offer our sympathy--since we fully share your grief--and we rise to stand with you as you fight to reclaim your God-given right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Biya's heavy handedness with you continues the state terrorism that Ahidjo directed against your parents in the 1960s. Time has not erased from human memory Ahidjo's genocide which killed more than half a million of your patriotic parents in the first decade of your independence “almost all of them Bassas and Bamileke. Time is not going to erase memory of the massacre that Paul Biya is now carrying out against your children today in 2008. Have no doubt that the world is witnessing that only the name has changed, for Biya's regime is a mere continuation of Ahidjo's 1960s regime.”

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/353/mar12_06_kenopalo.gifKen Opalo is simply incensed at Biya’s determination to hang on to power no matter the cost:

“The 75 year old has had over 25 years to make the lives of Cameroonians better but failed miserably. Over 40% of his country people still live below the poverty line. Official unemployment figures show that about 30% of the labor force is unemployed. Real figures are much higher than this (knowing how incompetent African statistics bureaus are). One wonders what more this old man has to offer to his country after he gives himself another seven years in office in 2011.

Whatever happened to basic decency? Why is it that our leaders feel that they can do whatever they want and get away with it? Do these people have any shame?

If anyone close to Biya reads this please tell him that third term amendments are kind of last-century. Obasanjo ought to have been the last shameful attempt at this. Africa will not claim the 21st century and indeed not even the fourth millennium if we keep up with this third term amendment nonsense. So get real President Biya. Competition breeds excellence, so let competition thrive.”

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/353/mar12_07_dibussi.gifIn the same vein, Scribbles from the Den publishes an appeal by a group of Cameroonian writers to MPs of the ruling CPDM, asking them not to go along with attempts to amend the constitution:

“It is not only dangerous but also criminal for the Head of State to play games with the Constitution. Attempting to amend Article 6 of the Constitution of the Republic of Cameroon which limits presidential tenure to two terms is, undoubtedly, one of those crimes for which our country shall pay an onerous price in the future.
[…]
For once show some courage; steer clear of infamy! Our future is priceless; do not gamble with it! Most importantly do not play with fire! Amending Article 6 of the Constitution of the Republic of Cameroon would weaken the institutions that protect Cameroonian citizens against act of barbaric abuse. For too long, we have lived as if we do not see the mishaps that have befallen our neighbors. Suffice it to say that recent incidents in Côte d’Ivoire, Kenya, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Somalia, not forgetting Chad, testify to the fact that a single foul play with the Constitution could plunge the entire nation into insurmountable chaos. The civil strife that these countries have experienced lends ample credibility to our conviction that Cameroon’s social stability is fragile, very fragile indeed. Cameroonians are peace-lovers; do not compromise it! Otherwise, you shall be judged in front of the tribunal of History.”

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

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

We, Daughters and Sons from the Kongo assembled in the Kodya dia Moyo Study Group, are hereby denouncing the events which took place in Lower Congo, more precisely, in Luozi and Nseke Banza.

1. For the record we would like to restate:

That the Kongo people are dedicated to peace, justice and truth;

That the ongoing massacres in Lower Congo were triggered by a legitimacy crisis which, in turn, stems from:
1. An election result achieved by corruption and intimidation;
2. A way of exercising power, by the provincial executive, under the control and partisan interests of the AMP and the Central Government through the Interior Ministry instead of the people of Kongo through its provincial Assembly;

That, subsequent to the unraveling of Kongo culture, the marginalization and pauperization of its people, since the 2nd Republic, the Bundu dia Kongo has set itself up as a body for the rehabilitation of the language, the cultural values and the conscience of the Kongo. Hence its current impact on the Kongo people;

That the rapid intervention police force is made up of former army soldiers who were once members of the Katangese gendarmes, and of the so-called Dragons and commando units from Mobutu’s days and trained as soldiers;

That the results of previous investigations have never been published and the appended recommendations never carried out;

II. We condemn:

The disrespectful treatment shown to our dead by throwing their bodies into the river;
The resorting to heavy military weapons by the police force;
The use of disproportionate repressive measures to resolve political problems;

III. We demand:

That heavy military weaponry be no longer used by the police;
That the governor act as an elected official and not as someone appointed by the Minister of the Interior;
An international investigation of the massacres by a credible organization;
The organization of a Provincial Round Table as had been recommended by the National Assembly;
That the current governor respond publicly, in the Provincial Assembly of the Lower Congo, to questions regarding the events mentioned above;
An explanation as to what happened to the 300 Interahamwe who were rejected in Bandundu, and then were sent to Lower Congo;
That the media use with utmost caution any image or language which might trigger and/or encourage the spreading of xenophobic sentiments throughout the country;

IV. We Call;

On all people from Kongo to remain calm and vigilant;
On elders to perform social catharsis by organizing a reconciliation process;
On solidarity towards those who have been affected by the massacres. We hereby call on local NGOs to act as intermediaries in this process.

We offer our deepest condolences to those families who have been affected

For the Kodya dia Moyo

Prof. Ernest Wamba dia Wamba

(The US ‘War on Terror’ Exported to Rwanda)

Rwanda and Burundi, the fight between the Hutu and Tsutsi, have always been their own unique legacy of the preferences exercised by their former colonial masters and the consequences of that preference for the lighter and more European looking Tsutsi over the Bantu Hutu. I remember once first hearing of this was in the fifties when we, in Southern Africa heard of the 7'Tsutsi been shortened at the knees by the Hutu, I do not know if it was a myth, but that is my first recollection of hearing about the Hutu and Tsutsi, unless my memory serves me wrong, the two were once one country. One watched the unfolding saga of what is now termed by those who were directly responsible for the disaster the "genocide in Rwanda". One was wondering why the calls for action by France and the then commander in the region for intervention by the United Nations was blocked by the US and its allies calling this a cynical move by France.

The US Ambassador, who, just female, as the the Ambassador in Iraq before the first Gulf War, (both women who had sinced passed away) also asked for assistance. None was forthcoming, as one watched this nightmare unfold, one began to see the purpose to the madness. This was a carefully orchestrated move to include DRC in the Master plan that now, includes Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Rwanda and Uganda, a recolonization of the North Eastern and Central African region. Mombasa and the the cost of Tanzania and let us not forget Djibouti would then allow control of the waterways and ocean at the Horn of Africa, the recolonization of Sierra Leone, Guinea, Liberia would provide a foothold in the Gulf of Guinea.

When one hears the Security Council is now acting as the League of Nations did before WWII, supporting so called members of the international community, "civilized world" euphemisms for former and current Aryan Power flirts and 21st Century fascists. They are now, with a weak and ineffective African Union, to lay claim to our natural resources and rights. Tsutsis never were or are part of DRC, they now have a country that was created and supported by the so called "civilized world" the "market" that was just opened by Kagame, is being set up to be the the clearing house of wall that is now, supposedly, since we Africans seem incapable of preventing what our fathers, mothers and elders have gifted to us, the recolonization of Africa. The destruction of the rail links and the disruption of the trade network between those countries has caused the panic, since all that we hear about assisting Africa has nothing to do with Africa and Africans but the pillaging and rape of our continent.

We need to confront the Kagame, Museveni, Nkunda, the gentleman in Ethiopia and what now is appearing to be the inclusion of Kenya and Tanzania, we need to demand that those who claim to represent and lead our countries be held accountable by those who have had the luxury of an education, especially legal education. We need Africans to speak up for Africa. Why are we having alleged hollywood movie stars, and irish singers and many ngos and the rest speaking for us? What happened to all of us who were educated after decolonization? Why are we stuck in the West, driving taxis, doing jobs that just keep us alive when we could have those of us on the continent agitate for the return of the skilled workers, Africans abroad? Why are we saddled with so many foreign "aid workers" who really are members of foreign intelligent agencies taking care of our most vulnerable populations?

Something is seriously wrong with US, AFRICANS. We need to take a good look at ourselves, sons and daughters of the soil and ask ourselves are we worthy of the name African? After all, we can see how, with the Fortress Europe and the closing of all the avenues of immigration in the West, and the fish food that our fellow brothers and sisters are becoming attempting to flee the nightmare that life has become in most of our countries, that we have nowhere to run, Africa is OURS, there seems to be a problem with both us and those who would rule us of this truth, this reality, Africa belongs to us, sons and daughters of the soil. There is nowhere else to run, so it would behoove us to start looking at the reality we have allowed, and start implementing African solutions for African problems. Not bush, sarkozy, brown or any other white person, but African solutions to African problems. Time is running out, they have already devoured and exhausted all they stole from the indigenous peoples of the lands they claim as theirs, are we going to allow them back into Africa?

Often I am content with your atricles, especially when they address substance; however, the recent articles dealing with Kenya's slaughter of many people who were used as pawns by two quislings only to continue filling their coffers and kowtowing to USA imperialist interest - you can do better by exposing the actual interest of the two servile contenders.

The National Constitutional Assembly strongly condemns the arrogance being displayed by the Zimbabwean government and President Robert Mugabe for being at liberty to authorize who will come and observe elections this March.

President Mugabe has already hinted that he will invite only his friends and those perceived to be enemies of the state will not be welcome to come and observe.

The Zimbabwean leader was also recently quoted as saying those in the European Union and Commonwealth were not invited to come and observe elections. The NCA is worried that Mugabe is taking his elevating personal feelings about own foes ahead of national interests.

The NCA is worried that because Mugabe had differences with the Commonwealth he is taking those differences to an election which himself is a competitor and dictate who is supposed to come and this contradicts his gospel of patriotism as he is putting personal interests above everything.

Foreign Affairs Minister Simbarashe Mumbengegwi told diplomats in Harare on Thursday that the government had selected 47 foreign observer teams, "on the basis of reciprocity, objectivity and impartiality in their relationship with Zimbabwe."

"Clearly, those who believe that the only free and fair election is where the opposition wins, have been excluded since the ruling party, Zanu PF, is poised to score yet another triumph," Mumbengegwi said.

It is the feeling of NCA that such moves by the government already jeopardize chances of those elections being legitimized by the international community and traditional supporters of ZANU PF will obviously endorse the elections as free and fair just like in the past.

NCA wants to notify all concerned in the upcoming 29 polls that the coming elections should not be reduced to a birthday party where only friends are invited but that it is a national election which should be open to scrutiny from diverse societies.

Already signs of rigging are set in place, the voters' roll is in shambles, the delimitation of constituencies was done in a patronage base and these signs coupled with manipulation of state resources for campaign purposes such as the reserve bank, national youth militia to intimidate opposition supporters will even make this election worst and far from being legitimate.

The NCA reiterates its long standing point that only a new people driven democratic constitution in Zimbabwe will make it a point that an Independent Electoral Commission will be responsible for accrediting who comes and observe elections in the country.

Currently the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission which obviously is dominated by ZANU PF stalwarts and sympathizers is failing to independently execute its duties as there is massive interference from the foreign affairs and presidency department.

The NCA calls on SADC, AU and all concerned parties to condemn such activities which are being demonstrated by the Robert Mugabe regime in trying to secure yet another victory through controversial means.

State media said Russia was the only European country invited while 23 African and several Asian nations would also monitor the polls, along with teams from regional economic blocs.

All 13 SADC states (Angola, Malawi, Zambia, Botswana, Namibia, Tanzania, Mozambique, Swaziland, Lesotho, South Africa, Mauritius, DRC and Madagascar) have been invited alongside 10 other African countries, namely Senegal, Algeria, Egypt, Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana, Libya, Uganda, Ethiopia and Sudan.

Five Asian countries -- China, India, Malaysia, Indonesia and Iran -- and four countries from the Americas -- Brazil, Jamaica, Venezuela and Nicaragua -- will observe the elections.

African regional organisations invited are SADC, the African Union, the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa, NAM, the Economic Community of West African States, Pan African Parliament, Economic Community of Central African States and East African Community.

Among the invited sub-regional organisations are the Africa, Caribbean and the Pacific, Association of South East Asian Nations, MAGREB Union, Community of Portuguese Speaking (Lusophone) Countries and Inter-Governmental Authority on Development.

South Africa has indicated it will send an observer mission with 54 members drawn from government, the parliament, the political opposition and civil society.

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

Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR) deplores new public statements by the commander of a state institution which ostensibly exists to impartially protect the safety and integrity of all people of Zimbabwe, regardless of their political persuasion. This comes in the light of the intemperate and unlawful utterances made by the Commander of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces (ZDF), Constantine Chiwenga, which were published in The Standard on 9 March 2008.

According to The Standard report Commander Chiwenga stated that two of the presidential candidates, Morgan Tsvangirai and Simba Makoni, were “sell outs”, reiterating that:
“Elections are coming and the army will not support or salute sell outs and agents of the West before, during and after the presidential elections. We will not support anyone other than President Mugabe who has sacrificed a lot for the country”

Upon further enquiry as to the role of the army in a democracy the ZDF Commander is reported to have asked:
“What is wrong with the army supporting the President against the election of sell outs?”

These statements echo similar threats made just two week ago on 29 February 2008 by the Commissioner of the Zimbabwe Prison Service, Retired Major General Paradzayi Zimondi, which ZLHR has already condemned, in which he stated that:
“If the opposition wins the election, I will be the first one to resign from my job and go back to defend my piece of land…We are going to the elections and you should vote for President Mugabe. I am giving you an order to vote for the President.”

ZLHR again expresses its concern over a developing trend where senior members of influential state institutions such as the Zimbabwe Republic Police, the Zimbabwe Prison Service and the Zimbabwe National Army resort to intimidating their subordinates, the electorate and ordinary Zimbabweans prior to elections for the purposes of manipulating their vote in favour of the incumbent President and ruling party. Uniformed forces’ influence over the electoral process is generally unacceptable under national and international law.

These statements intimidating the electorate go back as far as the run up of the 2002 Presidential elections when the Commissioner of Police and then Commander of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces Vitalis Zvinavashe made similar pronouncements.

This conduct essentially amounts to an attempt to use the cover of the electoral and other democratic processes to establish de facto military control, and are thus inconsistent with any of the principles of democratic rule.

According to Section 133B (c) of the Electoral Act, it is a criminal offence to intimidate people with the effect of compelling or attempting to compel them to vote for a particular political party or candidate. Section 134 (3) (b) goes on further to prohibit and criminalise any undue influence, whether duress or threats, upon a voter which influence seeks to make them vote or not vote during an election. The SADC Principles and Guidelines governing Democratic Elections also impart upon member states, including Zimbabwe, the obligation to ensure that elections adhere to the principles of freedom of association and political tolerance. Commander Chiwenga’s statements serve to directly intimidate both members of the ZDF and the electorate, through implied threats of violence, from voting freely for a presidential candidate of their choice, as is their right.

It is therefore clear that the ZDF Commander is in breach of the law and the regional guidelines, and should be prosecuted by the appropriate authorities forthwith.

ZLHR is also concerned by reports that members of the armed forces are allegedly being sent to their rural homes to campaign for the ruling ZANU PF party. ZLHR wishes to make it clear that the use of such a state institution as the army, which is supposed to be a non-partisan arm of the state, for party political purposes is clearly an abuse of state resources, moreso where such resources will be used to intimidate the people from voting freely.

ZLHR urges the law enforcement authorities and the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission to take action and speak out against these continuing statements which will surely create an environment of fear and intimidation in the run up of and during the March 2008 Elections, depriving the electorate their right to exercise their choice and cast their vote freely.

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

On Thursday our members of parliament will be formally called to national duty to bring to life the Harambee House Accord. Our members of parliament should not be left alone in that duty. As citizens we are also called to national duty.

First is to be informed. The mediators of Kenya's political crisis have set up a web site with links to all the agreements so far, statements and other material that is informative.

The web site is

Many of us publicly celebrated the signing of the Harambee House Accord, but our members of parliament have been uncharacteristically silent. Between now and when debate on the Harambee House Accord begins they will need encouragement to avoid selfishness, narrow party interests and visualise the national interest. As citizens, it is our national duty to provide that encourage, remind our parliamentary leaders that this is not just about them. It is about all of us.

For instance, the Serena Accord of 1st February, 2008 calls for politicians of different persuasions to hold joint rallies to advocate peace. A few were held the day and weekend that accord was announced. Then what happened?

The Serena Accord also states that militias need to be demobilised and disarmed. But it does not say who should do this or when this should begin or end.

But our focus as citizens should not be limited to the Annan-mediated accords.

For example, under the arrangement elaborated in the accords, there is not going to be a significant opposition in parliament. So who will act as a check on the government? Ensure that what the politicians have agreed to is implemented? As citizens we will be required to be more vigilant than before.

In the months to voting day, lots of questions were raised about the type of political parties we have. The chaotic nominations of parliamentary and civic candidates prompted many of those questions. The general sense was, "Well, that is politics for you". It doesn't have to be that way. And there's a possible answer: the Political Parties Bill.

It was passed by parliament in November and is waiting for the assent of President Mwai Kibaki. The importance of this bill is it proposes to steer our political parties to become mature organizations that are responsive to their members and have a national agenda.

For a detailed analysis of the bill you can go to http://www.capf.or.ke/document/Political_Parties_Bill_2007.pdf

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/353/46564report.jpgKjell Havnevik, Deborah Fahy Bryceson, Atakilte Beyene and Prosper Matondi look at the destructive role the world bank has played in African agriculture and food production

Agriculture’s dominant role in Sub-Saharan Africa’s local, national and regional economies and cultures throughout pre-colonial history has been foundational to 20th century colonial and post-colonial development. No other continent has been so closely identified with smallholder peasant farming. Nonetheless, smallholder farming has been eroding over the last three decades, perpetuating rural poverty and marginalizing remote rural areas. Donors’ search for rural ‘success stories’ merely reinforces this fact. Certainly many farmers have voted with their feet by increasingly engaging in non-agricultural livelihoods or migrating to urban areas. In so doing, the significance of agriculture for the majority of Africa’s population has altered.

The World Bank has played a prominent role in shaping agricultural policy in Africa. Under structural adjustment conditionality of the 1980s, the World Bank’s prescriptions became largely mandatory for the debt-ridden national economies of the continent. Its influence over a country’s policies is now generally in direct inverse proportion to that country’s economic strength. Thus, most African countries have to greater or lesser degrees espoused and implemented World Bank development policy for the last 25 years, and African agricultural sectors, in effect, demonstrate through continuous low growth rates and deepening rural poverty, the impact of World Bank policies.

A recent evaluation of the World Bank’s research output, chaired by Angus Deaton, challenged the institution’s reputation as the world’s ‘knowledge bank’ referring to its habit of taking ‘new and untested results as hard evidence that its preferred policies work’, singling out the flagship World Development Reports published annually as a medium through which advocacy of the World Bank’s favoured policy recommendations sometimes takes precedence over balanced analysis.

On the face of it, the WDR 2008 espouses a continuation of World Bank rural policies of the last quarter century. First, it argues that agriculture is key to poverty alleviation, especially for African smallholder farmers. The majority of Africa’s poor live in rural areas and farm to varying extents. Second, it stresses that liberalized national markets will remain the primary force for achieving productivity increases and poverty alleviation.

Accelerated growth will be achieved through agricultural productivity improvement but the ‘green revolution’ model of state investments and subsidized support for agricultural inputs are discounted. African states are seen to be seriously flawed and therefore best restricted in scope and decentralised to preclude government intervention in the national economy. Smallholder households will participate in commodity, capital, land and labour markets, to seek multiple pathways out of poverty; either through encompassing agricultural production, rural non-agricultural enterprises or out-migration.

Beneath these entirely business-as-usual policies, there are starkly contradictory objectives: the humanitarian concerns of poverty alleviation clash with a Darwinian market fundamentalism. ‘Market fundamentalism’ is defined here as the unshakeable belief in the innate nature of the market as a prime mover of exchange and optimizer of production without regard for the political imbalances and social biases of markets as historical institutions. States are seen as potential concentrations of vested interests and power in stark contrast to markets as neutral forums of exchange.

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/353/46564agri.jpgWill African peasant farmers’ lot improve or decline further? The report has a casual way of not distinguishing the radically different policy needs of small as opposed to large-scale agriculture. In global agricultural commodity markets, African smallholder producers have been losing market share continually over the last three decades. Africa’s traditional export crops, the beverage crops: coffee, cocoa, tea, as well as cotton, tobacco, cashew, etc. have steadily declined to now quite negligible export levels. The comparative advantage that African smallholders held in these crops has been undermined by far more efficient producers elsewhere. There is no evidence provided to suggest that the broad masses of African small-scale peasant farmers will experience anything other than continuing difficulties in meeting the rigours of global commodity market chains with their highly regulated standards and time schedules.

Paradoxically, the World Bank has a long tradition of championing smallholder farmers. Structural adjustment policies were implemented in the name of ‘getting the prices right’ to promote market efficient resource allocation for the benefit of smallholders. Consistently World Bank agricultural policies have displayed contradictory tendencies and a glaring discrepancy between stated objectives and actual outcomes. Nonetheless, the World Bank has rarely been held to account. Peasant farmers have been too dispersed and without a voice whereas heavily indebted African governments are too dependent on the World Bank’s conditional aid to criticize the policies it enforces.

WORLD BANK POLICY AND AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTIVITY

African agriculture was in the World Bank’s spotlight 25 years ago with the publication of the Berg report entitled Accelerated Development in Sub-Saharan Africa: An Agenda for Action (1981) and the World Development Report 1982 on the theme of agriculture. These reports identified African state policy intervention, particularly in the form of producer subsidies and parastatal marketing, as key problems to resolve in order to achieve higher agricultural productivity. The encouraging improvements in maize yields from the improved input and fertilizer packages that several African governments were distributing on a subsidized basis went unacknowledged, while the dramatic change in terms of trade following the oil crises of 1973/74 and 1979 and the subsequent world market economic shocks that the continent experienced were largely sidestepped – internal rather than external causes of the African economic crisis were stressed.

In the aftermath, as African countries one by one fell into heavy debt and SAP conditionality was imposed, the blooming of a potential green revolution fostered by policies of several African states during the 1970s was nipped in the bud. Unlike the green revolution of India, Indonesia and the Philippines, which had afforded its farmers several years of state-supported input subsidy, Africa’s green revolution was stillborn.

In stark contrast to Asia, Africa remains seriously food insecure. The investment in improved agricultural input packages and extension support tapered and eventually disappeared in most rural areas of Africa under SAP. Concern for boosting smallholders’ productivity was abandoned. Not only were governments rolled back, foreign aid to agriculture dwindled. World Bank funding for agriculture itself declined markedly from 32 per cent of total lending in 1976-8 to 11.7 per cent in 1997-9.

But some form of an agricultural revolution is vital to the future of today’s African smallholders. This is not because of their need to remain in the agricultural sector, although this may be the desire of many. Rather it is because the food security afforded by a green revolution provides the necessary foundation and insurance for individuals, rural households and nation-states to develop non-agrarian occupational specializations as well as constituting an important impetus for the growth of other sectors.

Reviving African attempts to rekindle African green revolution efforts, are ruled out. The World Bank’s refusal to endorse a concentrated state-coordinated and international donor supported effort to raise African productivity is likely to preclude the African rural poor’s agriculture from expanding beyond basic subsistence. There is, however, one notable concession in the WDR 2008. African smallholders may be allowed ’smart’ producer subsidies, which must be restrictively targeted and delimited primarily to fertilizer. Considering that farmers in OECD countries have kept their agricultural subsidies relatively intact throughout the last 20 years as African farmers saw their far more modest subsidies whittled away, this is a small consolation. The average support to OECD agricultural producers fell from 37 per cent of gross value of farm receipts in 1986-88 to 30 per cent in 2003-2005. While this represented a 7 per cent decline, the total amount of support increased over the same period from $242 billion a year to $273 billion a year (WDR 2008).

LARGE VERSUS SMALL-SCALE AGRICULTURE: CONTRACT FARMING AND RURAL WAGE LABOUR

Under current market fundamentalist thinking, large-scale agriculture is deemed to be competitive, not small-scale family production. The WDR 2008 infers that the lack of competitiveness of African smallholder commodity production will necessarily catapult many farmers into contract farming or agricultural wage employment. The wider relevance of contracting in an African context lies in its potential for increasing economies of scale and assuring quality.
Contract farming and agricultural wage labour are recommended when accompanied with fair remuneration and working conditions. The question remains how such just conditions are to be secured. Large-scale farms and agri-business are not charities. A deluge of farmers, exiting the smallholder sector as ‘refugees’, and flooding rural labour markets, will meet with extremely low returns and harsh working conditions.

Contract farming is usually selective in its outreach, often restricted to locations near big cities or major roads. Socially, over time it tends to exclude smaller, poorer producers, and the crops grown are primarily export cash crops rather than food staples. It constitutes a top-down take-it-or-leave-it approach with limited technical transfer. Undoubtedly it can benefit some farmers, but it is not an omnibus solution to low productivity and food insecurity for the majority of African peasant farmers.

Similar arguments are made for the efficiency of large-scale farm and plantation production. In relinquishing their autonomy, do smallholders gain in terms of income and security of employment? Smallholders’ bargaining power in contract farming can be very limited particularly in relation to the increasing influence of supermarket value chains. Agricultural wage labourers tend to have even less room for manoeuvre with casualization of the agricultural wage labour a common tendency. The WDR 2008 admits that agricultural wage labourers have been known to face highly exploitative working conditions.

Meanwhile, African states have initiated a host of incentives (tax rebates, physical and moral security) for foreign investors to attract foreign currency into the country. Historically, the majority of investors and European settler farmers were concentrated in Southern Africa producing commercial export crops as well as food products such maize, wheat and beef. More recently, they have ventured into horticulture, safari ranching and tourism.

The WDR 2008 suffers from a logical inconsistency between its acclaimed goal of poverty alleviation for African smallholder farmers and its conviction that large-scale commercial farming is the inevitable future of farming. African small-scale family farmers must meet the productivity levels, rigorous product standards and delivery schedules of international value chains to compete effectively, yet without necessary support.

At present hundreds of millions of African peasant smallholders are not competing successfully in global commodity markets. The World Bank adopts a matter-of-fact position that they will relinquish their autonomy as agricultural producers and work as contract farmers or wage labours in large-scale agribusiness or alternatively leave agriculture to seek their livelihood elsewhere. Their sanguine attitude towards peasant labour redundancy does not tally with their professed concern for the African rural poor. Beneath the WDR 2008’s public relations spin about poverty alleviation, they are conferring carte blanche support to a ‘survival of the fittest’ economic trajectory in which the grossly imbalanced commercial interests of large-scale OECD subsidized farmers, supermarket chains and agribusiness have full scope to compete against unsubsidized peasant farmers engaged in rural ways of life that that have managed hitherto to endure for millennia.

LAND FOR THOSE LEFT BEHIND

African smallholders have a ‘loser’ status in the WDR2008, but the World Bank appreciates that allowing the global market to fully decimate African peasant agriculture would spell political and human disaster in the weak African national economies where farmers’ only option is to join over-crowded rural and urban informal sectors where average levels of capitalization, skills and productivity are exceptionally low. Thus the African countryside of the future is in effect likely to be relegated to a large ‘holding ground’ to ensure basic welfare of the rural population and provide labour for other sectors of the economy as and when needed.

In a significant departure from the World Bank’s otherwise consistent efforts to promote the extension of market relations throughout African commodity, labour and capital exchange the World Bank now stresses that a rural pro-poor agenda requires attention to customary tenure rights and land management systems. The World Bank position is now supportive of evolutionary land tenure, seeing customary tenure as central for ensuring the poor’s security as local tenure regimes evolve towards market-based practices. To stave criticism that it is supporting traditionalism, the World Bank has tried to press for reforms of the traditional authorities safeguarding customary land tenure, and in so doing asserts that customary land tenure can strengthen women’s land rights, promote decentralized land institutions, and raise productivity – features rarely if ever formerly identified with customary tenure in the past.

The reality is that customary land rights are no longer the central issue in many African countries. Smallholder farmers are often in competition with large-scale farmers who receive preferential state support. Small farmers have already been or are currently being pushed into vulnerable ecological areas outside their traditional home areas.

SMALL HOLDER MARGINALIZATION

The World Bank has not been held accountable for the agricultural policy misjudgements and blunders they have enforced in Africa over the last 25 years through structural adjustment policy and debt conditionality. Now, with impunity, they are throwing their weight behind the rapid redundancy of a potentially massive number of peasant smallholders in the name of African development.

The World Bank is recommending global capital’s destruction of an independent smallholder agricultural sector in the absence of clear employment prospects. This is radically different from the rapid depeasantization process currently underway in China. There, members of rural households are leaving the farm to work in booming industrial and service sectors of the national economy. Given the constricted parameters of African national economies, smallholder alternative options outlined by the World Bank are not convincing.

Rural non-agricultural activities are performed primarily on the basis of self-employment. The risks are high and financial capital and over-supply are the over-riding constraints. The rural informal sector is already heavily over-subscribed and known for its low, unreliable fluctuating levels of remuneration. Finally, there is the option to migrate to an urban area to seek employment. In most cases the outcome is very similar to that of participating in rural non-farm activities without the safety net of having farming members of the family nearby.

The WDR 2008 advocates the above listed options as escape routes to avoid directly experiencing the disintegration of peasant smallholder farming, but there is a realization that not all African rural dwellers will manage to join the exodus. For those who are left behind, the policy will have to be ‘social protection’ rather than ‘economic development’. In this sense the WDR 2008 marks a major departure in World Bank rural policy – African rural development policy will no longer centre on smallholder agency. Rather those who constitute the ‘relic population’, could be availed, a continued subsistence farming base, facilitated by the World Bank’s recent switch to acceptance of the historical evolution of customary tribal-based land tenure.

In other words, those left in the countryside live on tribal communal ‘holding grounds’, akin to the Bantustans of the apartheid period of South African history, eking out an existence on the basis of exceptionally low-yielding, uncapitalized agriculture. Like the Bantustans, these holding grounds could function as labour reserves for the mainstream national economy and would most likely be based on conservative tribal customary legal frameworks not only with respect to land but in wide array of other spheres as well. It is indeed an irony that such a possibility resurfaces little more than a decade after South Africa managed to rid itself of this ‘separate and unequal’ model of rural exploitation in the name of development.

*Kjell Havnevik is a Senior Researcher with the Nordic Africa Institute, Uppsala

*Deborah Fahy Bryceson is a Research Associate at the African Studies Centre, Oxford University

*Atakilte Beyene has a PhD in Development Studies, and is affiliated with The Stockholm Environment
Institute, Stockholm, Sweden

*Prosper Matondi works in the Centre for Rural Development, University of Zimbabwe

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

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/352/we-remember.jpgWith presidential elections in Zimbabwe just around the corner, Patrick Bond and Grace Kwinjeh look at who the national, regional and international players are, and consider various people-centered alternatives.

INTRODUCTION

The March 29 election in Zimbabwe is very likely to result in Robert Mugabe winning, by hook or by crook, a slim 50%+ majority, so as to avoid a run-off. In the last presidential election, in 2002, his main opponent Morgan Tsvangirai – leader of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions from 1988-99, but subsequently also supported by business and most Western governments - officially received just 40% of the vote.

Massive irregularities – such as far fewer urban polling stations - were noted by all honest observers, and the pre-election playing field was skewed by lack of a free press, Tsvangirai's frame-up on a bogus treason charge, and his party's inability to campaign peacefully in many regions. He nearly certainly won, but was cheated out of a democratic, peaceful regime change supported by most progressives in civil society.

Since then, core degenerative dynamics have included economic rot, sustained political repression, and two important splits in the dominant parties, Mugabe's Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZanuPF) and the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC)-Tsvangirai.

THE MDC AND ZANU-PF INTERNAL SPLITS

The first split was when in October 2005, key officials of the MDC – led by secretary-general Welshman Ncube and Vice President Gibson Sibanda – broke away a small faction of supporters, due to what they claimed was Tsvangirai's ‘dictatorial style’. The catalyst was Tsvangirai's insistence on boycotting Mugabe's new Senate. Ironically, in this election MDC-Tsvangirai has posted candidates for the Senate.

A brand new leader was chosen for the breakaway group, Dr Arthur Mutambara, formerly a firebrand student leader opposed to Mugabe's early 1990s structural adjustment program and state corruption, who subsequently studied at Oxford and Michigan, and by the mid-2000s moved back to the region, to take a job at Johannesburg's Standard Bank.

An effort to rejoin the two factions failed when MDC-Tsvangirai demanded too many parliamentary seats in MDC-Mutambara's Matabeleland heartland, according to the latter. Then Mutambara dropped out of the presidential race once a brand new candidate – from the ruling party (the first substantial defection since 1990) – jumped in to challenge Mugabe on February 5.

In Zanu PF's case, the split may yet become serious, but now amounts to just renegade former finance minister Simba Makoni, a long-term favourite of neoliberal forces internal and external. By early March, only two other major ruling party figures, former revolutionary Dumiso Dabengwa and parliamentary leader Cyril Ndebele, publicly supported him. Makoni hoped for backing by the powerful couple Solomon and Joyce Mujuru (Zimbabwe's vice-president), not only failed to materialise, but Joyce then endorsed Mugabe to most observers' surprise.

Although she was once tipped as his successor, a different faction in ZanuPF led by Emmerson Mnangagwa is expected to reign once Mugabe finally retires.

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/352/46561.jpg COST OF MUGABE’S REIGN

But the damage done in the meantime, including the coming weeks of violent electioneering, will be extreme.

For example, the economic contradictions of running a growing patronage-based regime with a rapidly declining Gross Domestic Product are felt mainly in the inflation rate. Reserve Bank governor Gideon Gono made a stunning revelation in January: 67 trillion Zimbabwean dollars (US$33 million at the then effective exchange rate) were in circulation but could not be traced inside the financial system.

The banks had only Z$2 trillion cash on hand. Said Gono, "The rest of the money is with cash barons who have opened mini-central banks at their houses. Unfortunately the people doing that are influential citizens with leadership positions."

One accused was the former chairperson of the Finance Portfolio Committee in Parliament, David Butau, who escaped to Britain. Butau's rebuttal was that he was about to make a stunning revelation of "shady deals" by the central bank: "Gono should publish all the payments he made to Flatwater, to Michigan as well as declare how he bought shares in Doves." At least Z$7 trillion is estimated to have been captured by these shady shell companies in recent months.

Instead of coming to grips with cronyism, Gono's solution is to print infinite numbers of Z$, using expensive imported German paper. With inflation rising far beyond the 100,000% level, amongst the highest recorded in world history, there are only a few areas Zimbabweans can dump money into so as not to see it evaporate instantly: hard currency, real estate, local stock market shares and durable consumer goods.

As a result of the cash shortage thus caused, a large proportion of Zimbabweans suffered the Christmas and New Year holiday break without access to money. The shortages of cash and basic goods – electricity, clean water, petrol, most medicines, many foodstuffs - epitomises the freefall of a once quite prosperous site for a largish middle class.

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/352/46561cartoon.jpgMeanwhile the tiny, kleptocratic ruling elite grew wealthy at the expense of the vast majority of people, as unemployed soared to more than 80%. Life expectancy for an average Zimbabwean dropped to 32 and 37 years for females and males respectively, and AIDS medicines that were once available have become scarce. The education system faces near total collapse.

Without growing electricity supplies, there is little hope of an upturn. Mozambique's Hidroelectrica de Cahora Bassa power utility recently suspended supplies over an outstanding debt of US$26 million. The South African parastatal Eskom cut Zimbabwe's power supply when in January regular 'load-shedding' electricity shortages hit home.

As for the durable political repression faced by any opposition politician or civil society activist, anyone brave enough could have remarked upon Mugabe's monomaniacal and extremely violent tendencies from at least 1982, not long after the country`s liberation from white-ruled Rhodesia. Over the subsequent four years, the Matebeleland region witnessed the North Korean-trained Fifth Brigade massacre over 20 000 civilians, mostly of the Ndebele ethnic group.

THE BIRTH OF THE MDC

The West preferred to look the other way, courting Mugabe as an ally in part to persuade the apartheid government to begin gradually deracialising capitalism, the way Zimbabwe was – ever so gradually. By 1989, whites still received 97% of bank loans, though they were 3% of the population; during the 1990s white control of land actually grew thanks to liberalisation and lower state spending.

As the World Bank and International Monetary Fund began screw-tightening from 1984, intensifying the loan flows and neoliberal pressure in 1991, Zimbabwe's once impressive expansion of health clinics and schools, the development of a state-based middle- and lower-middle-class, and the sustenance of the inherited vibrant manufacturing sector, all waned.

Then the inevitable IMF Riots began in the early 1990s, growing in intensity and numbers of aggrieved constituencies until 1997. That year Mugabe began the political and economic zigzagging for which he is now famous. There were new patronage payments to liberation war veterans following embarrassing protests, and a new war against Democratic Republic of the Congo rebels (with Mugabe propping up Laurent Kabila), whose high costs were offset by army elite accumulation.

Alongside deep structural economic rot, the fiscal drain and threats of radical land reform led to a late 1997 currency crash. In 2000, after losing a referendum on a new Constitution, Mugabe authorised the war vets to invade white farmers' properties (some inherited from Rhodesian days but a large share paid for in cash since liberation in 1980 after the state declined its first option to buy), causing a substantial agricultural sector collapse. By then, too, corruption was so well entrenched that inevitably, civil society turned to alternative organisations for political inspiration. A Working People's Convention in 1999 mandated the trade unions to form a new party, and the MDC was born.

Was the MDC born free? Or free-market? By early 2000, it appeared the white business elite had captured the MDC, as economic spokesperson Eddie Cross promised the privatisation of "everything", including the schools. In subsequent years a more explicitly social-democratic ideology was adopted. But how deep?

In July 2007, for example, the first drafts of the MDC's 2008 electoral programme were shown to neoliberal officials of the Cato Institute in Washington; in contrast, it was only at last month's launch that Zimbabwean civil society got its first glance at the quite uninspired manifesto. Makoni's is just as vapid. And Mugabe's will change nothing.

SOUTH AFRICA: WHOSE FRIEND? WHOSE FOE?

Some may conclude, then, that the March 29 election is only interesting from the standpoint of personalities operating within preconstrained 20th century paradigms (nationalism and neoliberalism), with little or no mass popular content or appeal. And after all, nearly all the prior contested elections – since 1990 - have been marked by rigging, state sponsored violence, and repressive legislation curtailing media and political freedoms.

For this, plus sustained repressive behaviour, Mugabe and more than 100 top officials face Western personalised "smart sanctions" - travel bans and account freezes – as well as an arms embargo. China and Russia subsequently became much more important trading partners.

But one major regional supporter of Mugabe continues to have influence: South African president Thabo Mbeki. Although displaced as African National Congress president by Jacob Zuma in December, and although Zuma's labour backers hate Mugabe and expect him to shift tack, there was no apparent change in the nurturing of the Zimbabwean dictatorship from Pretoria in subsequent weeks. South African officials continued to hope and "expect" a "free and fair election".

Mbeki had gained a mandate from regional governments to mediate the Zimbabwe crisis in March 2007, and managed to sucker both MDC-Tsvangirai and MDC-Mutambara into endless talks that gained superficial legislative changes. Late last year, amendments were made to the Electoral Act and the Access to Information and Privacy Act, but there is still no free press and highly constrained ability to even campaign for the coming election.

Worse, Mugabe unilaterally announced the 29 March election date, which the MDC desperately wanted postponed until June so as to vet the now-corrupted voters' roll and also gain more media and non-violent campaigning space. It was clear the Mbeki negotiations were a stalling and divide-and-conquer tactic, and that this worked to raise hopes of internal reform in the two MDC camps.

WHAT ARE THE ALTERNATIVES?

In the context of recent upheavals rocking Kenya over disputed elections, can Zimbabwe afford another stolen poll? Unfortunately, there may be insubstantial protests from the political elites who lose. A top official of MDC-Tsvangirai, Johannesburg-based former member of parliament Roy Bennett, specifically called on the party's constituents not to hit the streets, though he suggested no other recourse than more talks.

And the smaller MDC-Mutumbara seems able to stomach any level of state repression in the interests of elite participation, a matter embarrassingly obvious when Makoni snubbed Mutumbara's attempt at an alliance last month - yet the latter still endorsed the former.

In short, what was once a united opposition, one strong enough to defeat Mugabe's sponsored Constitutional proposals in a 2000 Referendum, is now deeply fractured, but on personality not substantive lines.

And sadly, a good many of those who might have insisted on the MDCs putting petty squabbling over trivial spoils behind them, in search of a common platform to not only dismiss Mugabe's government but generate a real socio-economic alternative, are no longer in Zimbabwe. A huge exodus of young Zimbabweans, the cream of the country's talent and literally millions of its hardest workers, have emigrated, desperate for survivalist opportunities further a field.

Thousands based in central Johannesburg, some have found refuge in Bishop Paul Verryn's Central Methodist Church. At any one time, says Verryn, he has 200 teachers sleeping on the church floor: "They are amongst the best teachers in Africa, Zimbabwe, until recently, has had the highest rate of literacy in Africa."

The Johannesburg metro police arrived on February 7 at midnight to arrest 1500 Zimbabweans, alleging they were illegal aliens. Police captain Bheki Mavundla bragged of his "sustainable crime-combat operations" aimed at "eradicating criminal elements from the district and building". In fact only 15 were found not to have papers, and thankfully this new version of apartheid-style "swart gevaar" – the Afrikaner's notorious fear of black immigration to the cities – was widely condemned in what is usually a quite xenophobic South African society.

Some like senate candidate, torture victim and war veteran Sekai Holland see hope in the latest political developments: "However most Zimbabweans are finally forced by this bad situation to talk to one another across all political divides, to find common ground to move on and build the country together. Mugabe continues to ignore these developments. It is a dangerous time, yet it is also a time of great opportunity if this current mood to work together continues,"

This leaves us to search for the main wellspring of hope for a Zimbabwean recovery within those courageous civil society forces who remain. In early February, reminiscent of the Working People's Convention nine years earlier, more than 5000 representatives of activist groups gathered for the National People's Convention. Key groups included the trade unions, Women of Zimbabwe Arise, the National Students Union, National Constitutional Assembly, Christian Alliance, Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition, and Lawyers for Human Rights.

The Peoples Charter adopted touched on many issues, ranging from constitutional reform, gender, elections, national economy- but the most fundamental statement to come out of this gathering was the resolve: “And hereby further declare that never again shall we let lives be lost, maimed, tortured or traumatised by the dehumanising experiences of political intolerance, violence and lack of democratic government.”

*Professor Patrick Bond is the Director of the Durban based Centre for Civil Society and Grace Kwinjeh is a South-African based Zimbabwean journalist.

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

I just ratified the petition and was completely surprised when I saw Cameroon as one of the red flagged countries that have refused to sign this incredible petition.

I am a Cameroonian and from the North West Province and really ashamed of my country. We have a female population of almost 3/4 the total population and relies heavily on the works of these ladies to keep the Socio-economic landscape of the country vibrant. Yet the dictatorial regime in power has decided to place Cameroon at the forefront of every bad thing happening in world. Cameroon is now well known for its Pro corruption and Anti-Human Rights stands in the world. US State Department Country Reports and Amnesty International depict a Cameroon where Women are still consider as second class citizen and highly discriminated against.

We (Cameroon) now pride ourselves to be among the very few countries resisting the protection of Women's rights. We the citizens of Cameroon deserves better. I have four sisters and do not see why they should have less protection than I do in many aspects in life. I am calling on the good youths of Cameroon to challenge Mr. Biya and his puppet Parliament to do the right thing at this defining period in history by signing the PROTOCOL TO THE AFRICAN CHARTER ON HUMAN AND PEOPLES' RIGHTS ON THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN IN AFRICA.

I personally applaud your initiative and will do my utmost best to make my parliament see reason to sign the petition.

Please do well to let me know if there is any thing we the youths of Cameroon in and out of the country can do, to bring this issue on the media table.

Madhuku Lovemore argues that Simba Makoni is hijacking the Zimbabwean struggle and will only entrench ZANU-PF type politics and suggests that no matter how flawed, Tsvangirai represents the best chance for change.

The emergence of the Simba Makoni "initiative/project" has raised justifiable questions about the direction of the continuing quest by Zimbabweans to end the dictatorship of the ZANU-PF regime and usher in a genuinely democratic dispensation.

One such question is: how should civic society relate to the initiative? More fundamentally, should it be the business of civic society organisations to pronounce their preferences among contesting presidential aspirants?

I have decided to take a few hours from my activist work and put pen to paper to address some of the pertinent issues arising from the Makoni "initiative/project".

In doing this, I am neither wearing the hat of an academic nor putting on the spectacles of the proverbial analyst. I am here articulating the views of a civic society activist who, since 1997, has been part of a movement that has certain beliefs, values and principles.

Accordingly, the views and positions expressed herein are partisan in that they are controlled by the beliefs, values and principles for which I have been an activist in the past 10 years. The starting point is to put my cards on the table. Based on the values and beliefs of the movement I belong to, the Makoni "initiative/project" is fundamentally misconceived. It will fail. It has no grassroots support. It misunderstands the nature of the responses required to address our deepening political crisis.

The founding stone of the initiative is the March 29 harmonised election. The planners believe that on March 29, Makoni will capture power from President Robert Mugabe through an electoral process presided over by none other than the President himself. To them, the reason why President Mugabe is still in power is because those who have challenged him in previous elections did it prematurely and lacked the requisite credentials, support and strategies. The time has now come, a person with the requisite credentials has been found and the support from appropriate circles is also available. According to them, President Mugabe is a democrat who respects electoral processes and will hand power to whoever is elected on March 29.

Makoni and his backers believe that peaceful street protests, stay aways and grassroots meetings advocating fundamental reforms such as a new, democratic and people driven constitution are inappropriate and misguided. All that matters is a carefully planned electoral strategy that "ambushes" (President) Mugabe and takes power away from him through the ballot.

The response to this approach is simple: the March 29, elections are being conducted under a defective constitution whose raison d'etre is to preserve the status quo. Elections under the current constitution cannot deliver change whatever the credentials of the contestants and however sophisticated their strategies.

Until Zimbabweans put their energies together and push the current regime to embrace a genuine and people-driven reform process that leads to a democratic constitution, power will not change hands through a mere election. Participation in the elections on March 29 cannot be for the purpose of winning power. It can only be for any other good reasons.

This brings me to the question of the day: if power cannot change hands under the current constitution, why are all major civic groups, including the National Constitutional Assembly (NCA), urging people to go and vote on March 29?

Different civic groups may have different reasons for urging people to go and vote. For the NCA, March 29 will not deliver a new President but it provides a platform for Zimbabweans to make a statement against the Mugabe regime's sins, which include being the author of the suffering of the people and above all, its refusal to embrace democratic reforms.

Casting a vote against (President) Mugabe on March 29 is a peaceful protest against dictatorship and a key step in the post election agenda of confronting that dictatorship and advocating for genuine democratic reforms. But the vote on March 29 is not just against (President) Mugabe. It must be a statement in support of a set of values, beliefs and principles, which guide our post-election struggle for change in Zimbabwe.

It is in this context that the presidential candidature of Morgan Tsvangirai of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) gains a windfall. The MDC was launched in September 1999 as a result of the deliberations of a Working People's Convention of February 1999. That Convention was convened by the ZCTU and was attended by most civic groups. The NCA played a key role at the Convention. At its launch in September 1999, the MDC had two main parents: the labour movement and the constitutional reform movement.

The MDC was formed as a political wing of these two movements to pursue, as a political party, the values and principles that these two movements represented. For example, the ZCTU would expect the MDC, as a political party, to fight for labour friendly policies. Similarly, the NCA expects the MDC to advocate for a new, democratic and people-driven constitution.

Thus, since 1999, there has existed a family: the labour movement, the constitutional reform movement and the political party mothered by these two movements. Each member of the family is a separate entity and independent from the others. The MDC is partisan.

The other movements are non-partisan. Like every other family, certain core family values are shared. In this particular family, the most important value is that Zimbabwe's political system must be transformed through people-driven processes and that a new, democratic and people driven constitution must anchor that transformation. The family is convinced that a "reformed ZANU-PF" is not the answer because it does not seek transformation.

The family has had its own problems. The MDC has not been consistent in defending family values. On many occasions, it has disappointed the family. There are two most recent disappointments. The first is its support for Amendment 18. It is common knowledge that the other family members were outraged by that misguided endorsement of piecemeal constitutional reforms. The second disappointment is the MDC's participation in this election under a defective constitution. The family's preference is "No elections without a new, democratic and people-driven constitution".

However, notwithstanding these disappointments, the family is agreed on the bigger picture of transforming Zimbabwe through people-driven processes. Whatever his weaknesses, Tsvangirai's presidential candidature symbolizes the founding values of our movement. Elections on March 29, being held under the current constitutional arrangements, will not make anyone other than (President) Mugabe, the president. Accordingly, a vote for either Morgan Tsvangirai or Simba Makoni can only be for other good reasons. For our family, our good reason is to support our kind of politics. It is to demonstrate that our kind of politics has the greatest support in the country and must therefore be vigorously pursued in the post-election period.

Our good reason is to use March 29 to set the agenda for the post-election period. As these elections cannot deliver a change of government, the competition between Tsvangirai and Simba Makoni is, to be blunt, "for No. 2 position." President Mugabe's "No. 1 position" is secured by the absence of a free and fair election. He has no genuine support. However, the competition for the "No. 2 position" is serious business. Making a choice between Simba Makoni and Morgan Tsvangirai is a big political statement, reflecting one's position as to the way forward in the current crisis. Morgan Tsvangirai represents the route we have been following since 1997. He is, as a person, not the answer. He represents the answer and must be supported.

A vote for Tsvangirai's presidential bid is a statement against a "reformed ZANU-PF" agenda. It is important that this statement be made against Simba Makoni and his group because their set of beliefs distorts our post-election agenda of a total assault against the system. This group does not believe in transformation – all they want is to replace (President) Mugabe. These ZANU-PF reformists have no post election agenda because they only have one plan: to win and govern. They are irrelevant in a post-election setting focusing on transformation. They do not believe in our methods. Fortunately, because of our grassroots presence, March 29 will show that the overwhelming majority of Zimbabweans support a total transformation of the system presided over by (President) Mugabe and not a mere tinkering with it They will reject the Simba Makoni initiative. Makoni will be a distant third in the presidential race. The situation will remain what it is today with one solution – pushing for a genuine people-driven transformation and free and fair elections under a new democratic constitution.

*Lovemore Madhuku is the National Constituent Assembly chairman in Zimbabwe.

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

This week’s AU Monitor brings you news from the Regional Economic Communities (RECs).

The Southern African Development Community (SADC) sent a delegation to the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to study its agricultural policy and “to learn from the ECOWAS experience in the implementation of the policy”. It is indeed the lack of political will to invest in agriculture that the United Nations has claimed is affecting Africa’s ability to halve poverty and hunger by 2015. Also in West Africa, ECOWAS ministers reaffirmed their commitment to negotiating development-oriented Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) with the European Union. Indeed, the EU has faced resistance from the majority of African, Caribbean and Pacific states in concluding negotiations and is currently attempting to increase pressure on these States to sign the agreements. However, a group of African Ambassadors met to commend the decision of the Assembly of Heads of States of the AU on the agreements which stated that: “EPAs must serve as instruments for the promotion of sustainable development, eradication of poverty and the reinforcement of regional integration in Africa, as agreed in the Cotonou Partnership Agreement”. ECOWAS also this week concluded a Memorandum of Understanding with the Chinese firm Sinohydro to develop West Africa’s electricity infrastructure. The MOU “requires Sinohydro to provide technical assistance that will enable WAPP to develop expertise in hydropower development, design, operations and power system planning”.

In East Africa, the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development held consultations to develop its peace and security strategy, while the East African Community (EAC) held the first regional meeting of heads of national human rights commissions. Further, the EAC continued to hold negotiations on a common market “whose heart lies in securing the free movement of persons, labour, capital, services and the right of establishment and residence.” Finally from regional blocs, the Community of Sahelo-Saharan States is preparing its 10th summit to be held in Benin in May 2008.

At the African Union, chairperson of the AU and President of Tanzania, Jakaya Kikwete, committed to finding a solution to the Kenya crisis, for which a political settlement has since been found. The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights concluded its fourth extraordinary session in which it deliberated on the situation in Kenya and Somalia, affirming its commitment to send missions to both countries to further investigate claims of human rights violations. Lastly, the Peace and Security Protocol of the AU has been adopted at the national level in Mauritania.

I enjoyed reading the article (Raila Odinga and his Nigerian Forty Thieves - for the use of language. I felt sad to feel that the future of South African politics looks to move into the same direction. Mr Zuma has taken over the leadership of the ANC, the majority and ruling party. Mr Zuma is most likely standing trial for corruption in August this year. His NEC (National Executive Committee) houses a number of convicted criminals. President Thabo Mbeki and some of his more prominent colleagues have consistnely been fingered for corruptive behaviour in the famous arms deal. Some 100 members of Parliament (mostly ANC) have been named as beneficiaries from fraudulent claims in the Travelgate scandal. They still hold their seats.

The only disturbing comment was that Mr Eugene Terreblanche was mentioned in this context. He seemed to have disappeared from the political stage and gone back to farming. SA sent Mr. Cyril Ramaphosa to Kenya, but he was sent home. He does have a reputation of being straight, honest and effective. He was considered to be a little one sided in his support and thus did not qualify as an unbiased advisor.

Other than the observations by Mr. Adesanmi, I would like to hear how Africa can get rid of these clowns with sticky fingers. Is it belated colonialism that keep these character in power?

Thank you for the interview Dear Mandela (http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/46432).

The topic of the documentary-in-making hits a very painful nerve: the tragic social crisis in post-Apartheid South Africa. It is indeed the poorest of the poor who do not get real opportunities to change their lifestyle. They are so often denied adequate access to safe and healthy living space or proper official representation, despite the apparent window dressing orchestrated by the ruling government. I hope this project, Dear Mandela, is completed soon. May the full length documentary be shown to many viewers so that its message can disseminate an unpleasant truth about our country's poor. Hopefully it will open the eyes of many to the sad state of poverty of too many of my country's men and women and awaken a national conscience to act against the suffering of many like those reflected in this film. We need to redress past wrongs in my country, not repeat them!

you wake in the night
lips shaped
around a word that has not
yet
arrived

you close your eyes
wait
for it to grow into a poem

a poem that might breathe itself
into heat, form
into a body merged with yours

and if you entered that body
with every sense
ferocious, tender
nothing witheld

it would become a doorway
you could walk through
clear-eyed
find your country

see it truly
for the first time

and if you stood
in the sticky churning
red mud of your country
naked to the wind
the carrion

refused to shut
your eyes refused
to shut
your eyes

the word would arrive
cymbal in your mouth

sing history
back onto itself, sing tearing
whole again, sing altered
tally sheets clean, blood
back into bodies, blades
back to the forge

sing women
unviolated, infernos
downward to soil, crops
greenly skyward, sing it all
back to the beginning

in a language
none of us
has ever heard

have you ever woken
in the night? Reached
for the body beside you
as if its living warmth
could teach your hands
a new language?

in the dark
it is your own bare skin
the holy innocence of belly
unslashed
the fearless softness of breast
unraped
that whispers back to you

beloved

history is a million terrors
tides that have engulfed your country
you were never going to arrive
in time

it began before you
will not suck itself
back through the doorway
of your longing

and a doorway
is not a body
to wrap you
in the night

a body
is not a poem
that will teach
the language you yearn for

the poem you seek
will never
fit
grape-round, grape-sweet
into the shape your mouth makes
when you wake in the night
lips open, crying
for all we once believed
we knew

all we once imagined
our struggles had made safe

crying
for all those
choked, drowned
in the quicksands of history
the history we did not arrive
in time to drain

beloved

what remains
blossoms out of the skin
of your belly
nudges into your palm
on your breast
a pulse you fit words to
one by one

breathe
see
choose

truth
work
love

you will wake with your fingers
wrapped around them
breathe     see      choose

wake with them salty
under your tongue
truth       work        love

they hold your right of return
to the country of childhood
they map where you will stand
in the scorched erupting soil

breathe   see   choose

they are your passport
to morning

*COPYRIGHT SHAILJA PATEL, 2008, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

**Kenyan poet, playwright, theatre artist, Shailja Patel, is a member of Kenyans for Peace With Truth and Justice. Visit her at

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