The council of the European Union cautions that until a legitimate political settlement is agreed upon, the EU and its Member States will not conduct business as usual with Kenya.

The Council adopted the following conclusions:

1. The Council expresses its deep concern that the violence, uncertainty and instability in Kenya continue.

2. The Council reiterates the urgent need for Kenya’s leaders to engage seriously and flexibly in order to bring an immediate end to the violence and to ensure security, stability and the protection of human rights for all in Kenya. The Council calls on the Kenyan parties to engage constructively in a genuine spirit of compromise in order to find a legitimate political settlement.

3. The Council strongly supports the efforts by the Panel of Eminent African Personalities, led by Mr. Kofi Annan, and stands ready to provide any further assistance it can to this process. The Council reiterates the necessity for the International Community to stand united behind the dialogue process chaired by Mr. Annan. The Council will monitor this process closely. Individuals who obstruct the dialogue process or who encourage violence will have to face the consequences.

4. The Council welcomes the agreement between the Kenyan parties on 1st February to take immediate steps to end the crisis. It is encouraging that the parties plan to address the long term issues as well as the short term ones. The Council welcomes the intention by the Kenyan parties to establish a Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission aimed at bringing about debate and consensus on how Kenya should address the root causes of the crisis.

5. The Council welcomes the response by the United Nations to events in Kenya, both politically and in support of the affected civilian population.

6. The Council welcomes the agreement by all parties to an international investigation into the violence since the elections and calls for further co-operation by the Kenyan authorities with the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Special Advisor for the Prevention of Genocide of the Secretary General of the UN.

7. The Council reiterates that until a legitimate political settlement is agreed, the EU and its Member States cannot conduct business as usual with Kenya. The Council will continue to closely monitor the situation in Kenya and support all efforts towards ending the violence and ensuring democracy, stability and respect for human rights. "

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

Community Based Human Rights Network declare full support to the Annan led committee and the progress that has been made so far.

CONCERNED with the political developments in our country resulting from the disputed presidential elections that have triggered politically and ethnically instigated violence affecting most parts of our country and has resulted in the killings of over 1000 people, displacements of an estimated 300,000 people, a third of whom are children who should be in school, teachers and health workers that should be at their workstations alleviating the physical and emotional effects of the violence, and destruction of property worth billions of shillings and the economic effects that this continues to have which include the price hikes of basic commodities,

NOTING the polarisation, negative ethnicity, repression, governance crisis and more so loss of confidence in state institutions.

UNDERSTANDING as human rights defenders that the on going crisis has resulted to violation of fundamental human rights such as rights to life, human dignity, self determination, right to education, right to food, security, information, property, development, protection, freedom of assembly, expression and association, right to information as well as freedom of the press.

APPRECIATING the significant steps through mediation by the Annan led National Dialogue and Reconciliation committee.

WE representatives of the 21 Community Based Human Rights Networks drawn from all the regions of Kenya, purposely convened at the SavelBerg Retreat Centre to discuss the aforestated crisis, wish to outline our observation and proposed remedial measures that in our view will curb the recurrence of a similar scenario in future, while giving adequate redress to the current situations.

WE note with concern that incidences of politically, instigated violence have been experienced in the past especially to the run up to the general elections of 1992,1997 and now 2007.These incidences were generally viewed as state sponsored violence whose purpose was to dispel the increasing demands for comprehensive and people driven reforms. The current crisis took the form of political contestation. It is our observation however, that the driving force for all these clashes were similar. This includes among others:

1. Historical injustices dating back to colonial times especially with regard to distribution of essential resources such as land.
2. Failure to address the constitutional legal policy and institutional reforms in order to redress the above injustices.
3. Negative ethnicity perpetrated by the political class to achieve selfish ends. Tribal political mushrooming.

It is our believe that a permanent and lasting solution can and must be found. In this regard, we wish to declare our full support to the Annan led committee and the progress that has been made so far in regards to;

Constitutional, legal and policy and institutional reforms targeting.
a) The Electoral Commission, The Executive, The Judiciary, Parliament
b) Redress poverty, insecurity and general inequalities
c) Redress historical injustices dating back to the colonial period through a properly constituted and independent truth and justice commission
d) Find a political solution to the current crisis at local levels (division and District levels)
e) Ensure that the state takes up primary responsibility for the IDPs, with non governmental and faith based organizations only playing a complementary role, in dealing with IDPs adhere to the UN Guidelines on IDPs in the numerous IDP camps within Kenya and those in neighbouring countries
f) Note particularly that the state has a duty to safeguard and respect the interests of the IDPs as per the International Humanitarian laws that oblige the state and its agents to provide protection to all IDPs that have a well founded fear for not returning to their homes. The camps must not be closed down without respecting the humanitarian laws.
g) We demand that the state ensures that law and order is maintained by averting further violence (including that perpetrated by state agents) and destruction of property by distinguishing between genuine grievances and the exploitation of the ongoing crisis to resort to criminal activity for personal gain under the pretext of expressing genuine grievance
h) Ensure that in maintaining law and order, state agents do not resort to witch hunting and victimization of real or perceived political opponents,
i) That Hon. Mwai Kibaki and Hon. Raila Odinga must put Kenya’s interests before their own personal interests.

SIGNED BY:

1. Narok Human Rights Networks
2. Wajir Human Rights Network
3. Pro-Active Youth Group, Kangemi
4. Miss-Koch Initiative, Korogocho Nairobi
5. Isiolo Network Human Rights Network
6. Daniel Muoti-Centre for Human and Civic Education, Mwingi
7. I.D.P’s network-Transzoia KTC
8. Kinango Human Rights Network
9. Taita Taveta Human Rights Network
10. Mombasa Human Rights Network
11. Siaya Human Rights Network
12. Laikipia Human Rights Network
13. Mara River Resource Centre
14. Mukogodo Human Rights Network, Laikipia
15. Citizen Land Network, Kibwezi
16. Nyando Human Rights Forum
17. Human Rights Education and Outreach in Schools.
18. Kakamega Human Rights Network
19. Kwale Human Rights Network
20. Ndula Information and Human Rights Resource Centre
21. Mt. Kenya Human Rights Network.

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

The The National Civil Society Congress calls for a Marshall-‘Anan’ Plan that will ensure that the country is rebuilt and put on a path to growth, development and prosperity amongst other things.

This is a constitutional moment! While some parties want to negotiate the future of Kenya on a flawed foundation of the current constitution, the National Civil Society congress (the Congress) wants a new constitution to be the basis of negotiating the future.

The congress therefore recommends a mediation package in this order:

RECOMMENDED MEDIATION PACKAGE:

1. The enactment of an Interim constitution to fundamentally transform Kenya’s governance; The congress has proceeded to prepare a progressive draft building on all the constitutional drafts that have been produced so far in the country and will be putting it to public discussion and scrutiny shortly.

2. The establishment of a transitional government that oversees the reconstruction of the country and carrying out transitional justice process;

3. The unveiling and implementation of a Marshall-‘Anan’ Plan that will ensure that the country is rebuilt and put on a path to growth, development and prosperity; and

4. A Truth, Justice and Restitution Commission

ON TRANSITIONAL GOVERNMENT:

The National Civil Society Congress examined seven options and finally settled at a ‘transitional constitutional and political arrangement’ as the best option. Having already acknowledged that the opportunity for a constitutional moment for our country has never been more ripe than it is now. The congress intends to galvanize the whole country using our networks on the ground to influence the mediation talks for the only constitutional and political arrangement that will save this country from similar-future catastrophe as we have witnessed since December 29th, 2007.

The other options were:

1) Maintain the Status Quo;
2) Presidential Election petition through the Court system;
3) A re-run;
4) Re- tallying of Presidential votes/Forensic audit;
5) Fresh election;
6) Coalition government;
7) Power sharing;
8) Transitional constitutional and political arrangement.

ON INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY:

Kenya as a member of the global community and has thus submitted herself to international support, scrutiny, evaluation and even criticism.

Regionally she is a member of a number of political formations;

- The East African Community (EAC);
- Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD);
- African Union (AU);

Internationally, she is a member of;
- Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM);
- The United Nations (UN).

As a member of these political groupings, Kenya has signed and ratified various regional and international instruments on democratic governance and human rights.

In addition we in the past have offered ourselves as peace mediators for Somalia, Sudan and Uganda and have volunteered Kenyan troops to various countries as part of UN Peace Keeping Missions.

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

Lucy Hannan looks at the human toll of the Kenya crisis and calls for the Immediate assistance for the huge population of migrant returnees.

I am a television and print journalist providing material for international media outlets and humanitarian organizations. I followed a convoy of displaced Westerners from Tigoni, Central Province, to Kisumu town, Nyanza 9 – 11 February. We drove through Naivasha, Nakuru, Kericho, Mau Summit, and Kapsoit to Kisumu town.

MOVEMENT OF DISPLACED POPULATIONS

Thousands of people are on the move. It continues during the ‘wait and see’ period of mediation. People are seeking safety in their ancestral homeland while there is an opportunity. In many of the towns I passed through, ethnic segregation has effectively been completed. Post ‘cleansing’-violence, there is a new phase of aggression which is less overt but bold and uncompromising. Armed gangs patrol urban and rural areas, issuing threats and maintaining segregation.

Westerners are relocating West, and displaced Kikuyus moving towards Nairobi. Trucks piled high with furniture and household possessions characterize traffic flow on all parts of the route, most concentrated around Nakuru, Kericho and Kisumu. Yet major camps for the displaced have not emptied, indicating the population shift is massive and continuous; costs and logistics are inhibiting movement of the poorest; and, fear of attack and reprisals have not reduced despite the recent calm. The Showground (Kikuyu) and Stadium (non-Kikuyu) in Nakuru were still full on Sunday evening, including new arrivals.

Quote from Richard Maiko (Kisii), Kericho; waiting three days on the side of the road with house contents: ‘I live in Baraka estate, which is mixed, where there have been problems of burning and threats since the time of elections….I am married to a Kalenjin and thought I was ok. There are gangs of Kalenjin in the estate who move around looking for Kisii and Kikuyu.. Three days ago (Wednesday) they came to my house and said to my face: we don’t want to see Kisiis here, and we don’t want to hear about being married to a Kalenjin. Leave or die.’

There is a politicization of transportation and assistance for the displaced. ODM groups and individuals are assisting Luos and Luhyas to move; with donated bus lines and trucks, and funds raised from allied diaspora groups. Displaced Kikuyus are pursuing promises by the government to rebuild or relocate. Andrew Muturi, heading a group of displaced Kikuyus in Kisumu town, said ‘we are in dialogue with the DC, and have been offered a subsidy, we are making a claim for rebuilding. We have received no money but have been told it will take 7-21 days.’ He lives in Kondele police station and runs the gauntlet through town to the DC’s office in an atmosphere of threat. On Friday a Kikuyu was beaten to death in Kisumu town. Muturi says there is a case of a Kikuyu patient driven out of the hospital, and believes he as a Kikuyu no longer has access to the bank.

There is tangible bitterness from displaced populations that the ‘other side’ variously receives more assistance or sympathy. In Kisumu, this directly affects humanitarian assistance, with political divisions and accusations of partiality between NGOs. In the present climate in Kisumu, the Red Cross, for example, is considered government-allied. All arrivals are being taken to St Stephens Church run by local NGO, church and diaspora groups, despite better Red Cross resources and capacity. Heavy rain has exacerbated poor conditions for the displaced – many sit on plastic chairs all night in wet areas. There are problems with separated children, trauma, hunger, property loss, sickness - particularly respiratory diseases and diarrhoea as a result of long periods in police stations and previous camps. A small number say they have no ‘home’ to go to.

KISUMU TOWN

Kisumu town is in a critical transition stage and has imminent potential to become ungovernable.

The government and the security forces have lost legitimacy and respect. Raila Odinga/ODM has apparent ubiquitous support. Post-election violence has been through different stages: first, protest rioting and the targeting of Kikuyu businesses and property; next, ethnically-directed retaliation attacks; then, focusing on economic privilege or ‘discrimination’ within the Luo community itself.

It has entered a ‘wait and expect’ period. There is a widespread belief among the population that ‘mediation and negotiation’ means coming to the decision that Raila must be given what he was denied, i.e. the presidency. The process of mediation, at the moment, is considered legitimate and just: but time is likely to be a factor. Like the delay of the election results - which triggered the first round of violence in Kisumu – delays over reaching an agreement could have the same effect. In such a case, the local political class will also lose credibility and legitimacy. There have already been threats against Raila’s property (Molasses Plant and Bondo home) if he is seen to ‘betray or delay’.

‘Stolen votes’, and security force killings, are a general preoccupation, across the board. Government is generally held in contempt; and security forces are unable or unwilling to carry out their work, despite public fear of gangs and criminals who have moved into the vacuum. Security forces attempting to impose any sort of control or authority – like dismantling existing road blocks or shooting criminals – is seen as state repression, or political dissent. Bringing murder charges against the policeman filmed shooting two young men dead appears to have made no difference to this perception. The trial has the potential to become very political. There is suspicion that the officer charged – a Kalenjin – is in fact a ‘fall guy’ for a Kikuyu officer and the case will be a whitewash.

Ajulu, businessman, living in Polyview estate: ‘We organized our own security groups and patrol night and day. There were gangs who said they were looking for Kikuyus, but they would just identify an affluent-looking house, demand entrance, and then take what they could get. We had to actually fight these gangs…..I now have three pangas in my house …. We have become a target. It has been difficult at times for people like me to drive a vehicle, cars have been taken….for example, from town centre to Kisani there are about six road blocks and when things are bad you get charged about 100 shillings at each, harassed and threatened.’

Young boda-boda driver who has manned road blocks and demonstrated: ‘We are waiting for Tuesday to hear the result of the talks. If Raila is not president, we will fight…. We will kill each other.’

ARRIVAL OF MIGRANTS

Returning migrant labourers are now forced to live with families that they were previously supporting. It is a ‘poor impoverishing poor’ scenario. A tea picker in Tigoni, for example, gets paid about 5 shillings per kilo, sending home about 2-3,000 shillings per month to an unemployed extended family.

A high population of Western migrant workers resided in Central Province because Nyanza is a consuming rather than producing region, with poor economic indices. Nyanza migrants were described to me as an ‘underclass’ typically without property, credit facilities, job security or education. They are returning empty-handed. Many had lived for decades in Central Province, with a secondary, nominal relationship to their ancestral land.

There is nervousness among the Kisumu population what the impact of this influx will be. ‘They are coming to depend on us and we can’t afford it. We struggle, and they will struggle for what little is here, so we will be struggling among ourselves.’

Resentment for this is put in a political context: underdevelopment in Nyanza is perceived as deliberate economic and political marginalization and the failure of the government to give Luos ‘our turn’.

RECOMMENDATIONS

It would seem necessary to devise a practical strategy to explain the mediation and power sharing process in Kisumu town during this period, by civil society rather than politicians. Local politicians and leaders are held hostage by a hardline constituency who have an enormous sense of distrust and injustice over the election results – so politicians are under pressure to ‘perform’ to expectations rather than explain, as was the case this weekend by a visiting group of MPs. Taking into consideration the reaction in Kisumu during the delay of election results, there should be concern about any perceived delay in the mediation process – particularly during News Blackout. Since the December riots, Kisumu town has gone through progressive stages of violence, including unprecedented state violence. A new trigger could make Kisumu ungovernable.

Immediate assistance for the huge population of migrant returnees would seem to be an essential component of any solution, as, apart from humanitarian reasons, in the present context, its absence or inadequacy is perceived to be deliberate marginalization; and returnees are particularly vulnerable to the state and security vacuum.

*Lucy Hannan is a Television and Print Journalist.

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

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/347/feb21_01_everythinliteratu… reprints an interview of Nigerian playwright Shehu Sani, whose play, Phantom Crescent, has been condemned for criticizing the application of Shari’a law in Northern Nigeria. In the interview, the author, argues that:

“The fact remains that in democracy, people must have the right to express their opinions. And you cannot hide under the guise of any religious dictates to undermine and subvert the rights of the citizens. I’m a Muslim and I don’t believe we have any spiritual leaders… Now, if you happen to be in political office you have to live up to the responsibility as a political leader who has won an election and has a contract with the people. You don’t have to hide behind religion, using prohibitive laws to disguise yourself while you have not lived up to your obligation. I believe these are issues which we have to clearly separate. And my play is simply to educate, enlighten and to pass a clear message. It is also to inspire people to stand up to the defence of their rights because it is only by doing that that we can safeguard our democracy.”

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/347/feb21_02_innocentsdeal.gifInnocent Chia revisits ongoing attempts by the Biya regime in Cameroon to eliminate term limits and contends that Cameroonians in the US should be at the forefront of efforts to scuttle Biya’s plans:

“Write to your Congressman or woman about the plan of President Biya and his cohorts to change the constitution for a life mandate... The carnage in Kenya can be replicated in Cameroon if the world, led by the U.S ant its leaders, fails in reading the Red Flag warnings that such wanton manipulation of the people and the Constitution represents. About 40% of Cameroon's budget comes from America! You may recall that President Bush recently axed American aid to Kenya, forcing that other dictator to abdicate his unilateralism and to begin discussions on a joint government with the opposition. It is therefore imperative that Cameroonians in the United States fill the in-boxes of the representatives with mail about the impending doom facing Cameroon. Do not doubt the power of a single mail.”

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/347/feb21_03_akin.gifAkin is outraged by the exorbitant allowances that Nigerian legislators receive:

“…it is interesting that they are concerned about such minutiae as their wardrobe … In a throwback to the colonial days of the District Officer they would have domestic staff that would include a steward, a cook, a housekeeper and a gardener.

They also get paid for being on recess and we can assume there are two recesses in a legislative year and we also pay for their newspapers.

I know not of any job anywhere that offers this kind of largesse, ordinary people are usually supposed to pay for all these things out of their basic salaries.

It would be different if the legislators really get down to doing stuff that helps build Nigeria but with them fed and fattened to the extent that they would not be able to get out of their opulent furniture to walk through the widest doors on earth, this would be gravy-train par excellence and it grates.”

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/347/feb21_04_madgenius.gifhttp://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/347/feb21_05_kenyaimagine.gifWriting on [...]
The US is concerned about the security ramifications in the Greater Horn of Africa which it has been trying to hold together. A quick look at the map of Eastern Africa gives America little solace. Somalia is in anarchy with a multitude of warlords and radical Islamists, Sudan is involved in the Darfur war and Ethiopia is near war with Eritrea, which the US accuses of sponsoring terrorism. Between the grim sketches is Kenya, America's hope in the region which is now teetering on the verge of instability.
[...]
Thus, security cooperation especially anti-terrorism measures has for long been an important aspect of Kenya-U.S. relations, underscored by airbase and port access. Despite the current political disagreements between the US and Kibaki government, the safety measures of this bond will endure.

That is why the US thus will not stand and watch as its most frontline state in the region disintegrates and is impatient to get any deal through which will guarantee stability. It is worth nothing that its voice has radically shifted from the election being irregular to its international interest of security.”

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/347/feb21_06_dibussi.gif[email protected] or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/

John Samuel argues that the opiates of new conservatism, fundamentalism and other forms of politics of exclusion- make a bad divine comedy of Politics and makes a tragedy of democratic process.?

??In the beginning there was word, word was with God and word was God. Then the Priest came to represent the Word and the God. Then came the sword. Sword was with the Prince. And sword was the Prince. Then prince became the state and State became the sword. Then came the trade. Trade was with the merchant. Trade was Merchant. Merchant became the Market. Market became the Missionary. Hence, the World was made of words, swords and trade. Word was spread through the sword. Words sustained the sword. Then trade helped to spread the word and the sword. Here began the divine comedy of words, sword and trade. Priests, Prince and Merchant ran the world with their words, swords and trade. This divine comedy is the mother of all politics.??

Politics is the dynamics of power-relations in a given society at a given point in time. Power relations often get channeled thorough and negotiated by social institutions. Historically, socio-cultural institutions like religion, clans, tribe and family played a very important role in channeling, mediating and negotiating power and political process. ??Divinity was evoked to legitimize and sustain power in the realm of religious institutions and religion often subcontracted such process to family by “legalizing” and legitimizing the most important events of human life- birth, death, and procreation through male-female relationships.

Religion created the soft-power through beliefs, knowledge, myths, rituals and institutions. Such a sense of soft-power was a pre-requisite to build hard power through the sword. Priest became the first ideologue of political power. He gave moral legitimacy for domination through patriarchy. The Brahmin, Mullah, Monk, or the Bishops interpreted the world and legalized the words- by making the norms, canons and law. Priests played multiple roles as philosophers, theologians, teachers, sorcerer and alchemists. Priests created the “order of things”. Priest was a necessity for the entry and sustenance of the Prince. The most common form of evident power was always the “physical” contestation to acquire and dominate. This gets institutionalized through weapons, army and war. Military provided the bull-work to dominate and sustain power for the Prince- from Darius to Alexander to the Romans, from Genghis Khan to Ottomans Turks, from Napoleon to Hitler, and from Stalin to George Bush!??

Power was legitimized by the Priests, disguised as philosophers or teachers, and sustained by the Military of the Prince. The hegemony at given time was managed through the process of creating consent (often through religious –social networks) and coercion (by the Military power of the Prince). Priest and the prince together made the Law and Order- where they combined the power of the word and the sword.??

With the emergence of trade, market, and surpluses, money began to play a role in shaping politics. Eventually the art of politics was managed by the Prince (with weapons and army), Priest (who derive authority from the divine) and the Merchant (who financed war). The entire colonial project and imperialist politics were driven by the old power trinity of the Prince- Priest and Merchant. They used trade, sword and bible to appropriate territories, markets, culture and human mind. In many ways religions and priests provided the moral and ideological framework to capture and dominate the world. Most of the major religions spread across the world either through sword or trade. Hence, the priest was an ideological necessity to give moral veneer to any act of atrocity and domination. All major religions have the smell of blood acquired through war and plunder at one point or other point in history. Patriarchy, totem and taboo and identity based contestation became the underlying factors to acquire, sustain and manage power relationships.??

Then the nation-state came. Prince, Priest and Merchants were not supposed to be in charge. “We the people” were supposed to be in charge of the modern manifestation of power. New institutional formations came into being to channel, negotiate and sustain power. That is how political parties came in as a modern social- and political institution, in the context of the liberal democratic politics and state. ??With the separation of the Church and State, a relatively secular democratic process emerged in many of the countries in Europe and other parts of the world. Secular democracy became the flavour of the month. Thus the priest and the merchant retreated to background of the political process. The emergence of the political parties helped to replace the old political nexus of Prince-Priest and the Merchant. In the process, the new power-elites competed with each other, in the name of various political parties, to capture and sustain the state power. Those leaders in the business of capturing and sustaining state power, through “democratic processes, became the modern day equivalent of the Prince.?????

In the course of democratic exercise of capturing and sustaining the state power, merchants once again came to the forefront as the financiers of the political parties and electoral process. This nexus of political elites and powerful corporate elites appropriated the modern state and institutions of governance. With the emergence of neo-liberal policy framework, the cash-rich corporate leaders began to influence political and policy making process through financing political parties, electoral process and through knowledge- media network. ??While this new nexus subverted the democratic process and appropriated the policy making process, political party leaders lost the moral authority to influence society or people. This made them increasingly dependent on religious institutions and networks to seek social legitimacy and to gather votes. They needed the blessings of Bishops- Mullahs or Swamis or Monks to sustain to their State power and electoral base. Thus, the priest too returned to the forefront of the political process.?

So the old nexus of the Prince, Priest and Merchants are back in their new avatar of the power trinity of political leaders- transnational corporations- new religious networks and leaders. In spite of secularism and democracy, religion refuses to fade away from politics (with their divine commissions, sanctions, authority and vested interests). Religious leaders and networks too adopted a marketing approach, using modern media, advertisement, high-tech networking and strategic influence to increase their power and presence. Military and market are still in charge in most of the countries in the world. In many cases, both the religious institutions and the military are in the business of discrediting, undermining and sabotaging political parties to sustain their power. Media often play a subservient role to Market and Religion- as both are sources of revenue. Instead of being the fourth-estate among the democratic institutions, Media has become the pimp of the new power trinity... They have successfully appropriated the state power and institutions of governance- by subverting the political process.??

The interesting thing is that most of the authoritarian military regimes do not touch religion and many a time they rule in collusion with religion or religious institutions. Such religious institutions or network are also well entrenched social network to channel power, to collect information, to manage, to control and to dominate through power-networks of the prince and the priests. The prince and the priest tend to seek validation and resources from the merchant to sustain the power. All three of the “power-characters” see political parities as a necessary modern evil! This new power nexus has either appropriated political parties as an instrument to capture state power or discredited political parties to directly capture the state power through military coup. ??Thus democracy has been reduced to a formal electoral mechanism or a farce. Democracy is often used as a mere veneer of legitimacy to capture and sustain State- Power. In fact, the priest is back in the form of new conservatism, in the form of vote-bank, in the form of new fundamentalism and in the form of new identity politics. As the political parties and leaders get seduced into the big money and corrupt practices, the religious leaders (Bishops, Mullahs, Swamis and Monks) tend to influence society through their media, social network and identity politics; harvesting on the new insecurities and paranoia in the context of consumerism, advanced capitalism and terrorism.?

Thus Politics itself is being turned into a Divine Comedy- where Priests once again return to the centre stage with their divine aura and new marketing techniques to become the king-makers in the postmodern world. Prince and Merchants get into in to a new power-sharing. In the process, state becomes subservient to market, with the blessings of the Priest. Citizens are reduced to consumers or believers- who are ready to buy and follow, who are ready to kill themselves or be killed for their beliefs. When the citizens are robbed off their sense of agency, most of the “mass” end up as the puppets of the merchant or priests and they dance to tune of the prince. This dancing of “mass” –alienated from the sense of agency- to the tune of Priests – to the tune of new conservatism, fundamentalism and politics of exclusion- make a bad divine comedy of Politics. It makes a tragedy of democratic process.?

It is high time to reclaim the state and democratic process from the new avatars of the old nexus of Prince-Priest – Merchants. It is also time to ensure that the Bishops-Mullahs Swamis and Monks do not make a divine comedy out of democracy.

* John Samuel is a human rights activist and is currently International Director of Actionaid, based in Bangkok.

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

My wish: That every day is Valentine Day

In the midst of the post-election violence plaguing Kenya, Constable Andrew Maoche found the strength to contribute to the mayhem by shooting on January 31, 2008 David Kimutai Too, the newly elected parliamentarian from the Orange Democratic Party (ODM) in Eldoret. Unlike the first killing of an ODM legislator in Nairobi, allegedly by thugs, this was explained as a fight over a woman, a love culture, police even in Tanzania are notoriously known to practice when settling their love woes.

Apparently, the late David Kimutai Too had overpowered Constable Andrew Maoche’s attempts towards winning the love of a female traffic officer, one Eunice Chepkwony, in what is now described as a love triangle (undoubtedly to imply some ill intent on the part of the woman, the object of their sorry advances). While Constable Andrew Maoche is presently behind bars, David Kimutai Too is safely interred, ironically with Ms. Chepkwony who was also shot that fateful morning. I find this whole incident very symbolic and want to use it as the basis for my subject this week: love.

I feel compelled to speak about love for two main reasons. First it is because of the controversy that Valentine Day increasingly causes globally: Only recently Saudi Arabia banned any Valentine celebrations in the Kingdom. I wonder if it is because of religious considerations or a deeper unwillingness to address its significance. I also know that nationally there are raging debates about observing Valentine less so because it has become a money spinning scheme and less so on account of its significance in our human relationships with those we are most intimate with. I ‘zoom’ on love because it is subject, or rather a condition that causes many of us much distress, heartache and heartbreak as soulfully stated by Tina Turner, and thus warrants serious exploration.
Love, this mysterious word, used sparingly after a relationship has been formalized, but abundantly when it is just sparkling and we are still in hot pursuit of that which makes the heart flicker. Love, a word that is used to explain a range of emotions and feelings but at the same time a word that is used to justify a range of actions and indiscretions. Love, a word so potent in effect that it can cure chronic problems and conditions- heath or otherwise- but prove equally fatal.

So what is this condition termed love? In my feminist engagement I have found it more helpful to work from what it is not or at least should not be about, rather than make assumptions or conclusion about what it is. My shemeji (brother in law) once complained to me about how my sister would not listen to him and his wishes. His particular grievance was that she failed to cover herself when going out of the house causing him much anxiety and pain. I must admit such a complaint was beyond any expectation I had and more so considering that this was a man who was educated and had met my sister at college. Careful not to take a position on their relationship and respecting the fact that my sister, much as she is someone’s wife, is also an adult who is free to decide and exercise choices she thinks prudent, I asked him, “How did she dress like when you met her and why is it an issue now?”

I knew that he could not claim otherwise as, although she dressed modestly by common persons’ standard, she was not in the habit of covering as has recently become fashionable. In truth, I am at loss at people who meet others in particular circumstances and then feel that their love interest needs to magically transform once they pair with them, to fit the image he or she had of them. Thus, you will hear many women claim defiantly, “I will change him, you will see”. Likewise, you will hear men boast, “If you are my girl/wife you would not …” The audacity by which such demands or claims are made cannot, and should not, be remotely associated or interpreted as motivated by love. Doing so is not only misguided but selfish.

Listening to my shemeji make such demands so early in the relationship nudged me to facilitate a soul searching encounter where I helped him assess what he envisions from the relationship, a vision that would not only be about what his expectations are but also about what her expectations are. For example although her parents went through great pain to educate her in the hope that she would assist in educating her younger siblings, she was now a home-bound wife dependent on his mercy for “spare change” he would periodically give to her, and which she would pass on to her retired parents. But unlike him, she was not complaining perhaps being deeply in love wanted to please her habibi/hababi.
My philosophy, which I shared with him, was to love freely without expectation, condition or obligation (in the sense of compulsion or feeling the other owes you a debt). Love is not just about the butterflies and the giggly feeling we have when we remember the name and the face that makes us glow inside and sing off-key without a care; it is also about tolerating and even respecting the individual traits that make the other so attractive and ultimately delightful to us. Surely, love should not primarily be about changing another to your image: If you want an image of yourself, by all means go and clone yourself! But if it is another that you love, then you have to be willing to accept their imperfections and their differences- not just physical but also intellectual- as being integral to their identity just as it is integral to the soundness of the relationship. You love another for whom they are and for what they make you to be (which hopefully is empowering and happy) and achieve. Perhaps more of us need to appreciate that if love is about giving then it is also about receiving, not just taking.

This said, I should not be understood to preach that couples should not be in the habit of negotiating a relationship. Or that you take any bull--- on the pretext of applying Salma’s philosophy such that you end up like Mary J Blige in ‘Not going to cry’! La hasha. I believe that healthy (not necessarily long lasting) relationships are negotiated and not left to chance. It does not matter that you are dangerously attracted to another. It is important that you and the other must have minimums upon which you build your relationship. These minimums act as the core values of sorts which, I think, are indispensable to building trust and respect in the relationship. Unfortunately, may of us don’t want to waste valuable lust time on these basics. Others fear that establishing them may be interpreted as being too difficult, too choosy, too demanding or too untrusting in the powers of love. After all love leaves us powerless, helpless, defenseless and all traits that signal our unwillingness to take responsibility for such an important aspect not only of our romantic selves but also of our ability to experience life to its richest.

I strongly beg to differ dominant and skewed notions of what ‘love is’ and do so on the basis of accumulated experience of examining the foundation building romantic, and even platonic, relationships I see around me. It is not that love should not or could not have a potential for reward. Rather, the wisdom of love should make us realize that just as I give to a relationship, freely and in appreciation of what my other deserves from me (in recognition to what they mean to me), the only expectation I have is –given that the basis of our relationship is healthy and free- they would seek, in their peculiar way, to appreciate me in a deserving manner.

Thus, it is not about keeping score of how much each has invested (or failed to) in kind but to be confident enough that a strong sense of mutuality reigns in how we express, each in our unique way, love.
Undoubtedly, Constable Maoche’s actions are not unfamiliar to many of us. We witness or hear of them daily. Many of us think kulazimisha (force, compel or hold at ransom) is to love. Just as some of us are busy trying to change another soul to fit an image we want, many more are busy trying to meet the expectations of others in who we choose to love. I remember when I was at the Hill a colleague bold enough to present his paper to me, as we called a love declaration or proposal then, reasoned, “Can you imagine, Salma, if I am seen with you!”, a statement that cost him dearly not because of its sincerity but because of what motivated his advance: I was now a prize to be shown-off!

Alas, many relationships remain that- shows for the benefit of others. You won’t leave an abusive partner for fear of what others may think or say. You won’t date someone who makes you feel so good and alive because of what others may think or say because it is not what would be expected of you. And, although you love and accept your partner as they are, you may feel compelled to pressure them into changing to fit the expectations of others e.g. your parents or friends or Lord forbid, your boss... We thus enter into relationships full of show and pretense of who we are, scared to show and be who we really are. Then you wonder why you wake up one day and ask yourself- who in the heck is this person sleeping next to me, whose face I am looking into but I can’t seem to see or feel?

Although I write for the romantics and the foolhardy in love, I think this philosophy of love applies to other types of relationships we have with others. My description of love in form, substance and feeling is captured in Chaka Khan’s timeless My funny Valentine. It is a song of few lyrics but with powerful effect. It captures love that is expressed selflessly, with surrender. Ultimately, love is about a freedom that allows one to bask from and in the radiance and energy of another. It is the freedom to find pleasure even in that which others may find amusing without a care in the world. It is appreciating that each one of us, as are our experiences, are unique, aspects that make us whole and endearing to one another. It is about finding oneself in the spirit of another and appreciating that what you reflect in terms of feeling towards the other is in most cases the feeling you have towards yourself.
I share of the priceless sonnets that delight me so much with the hope that those who own the copyright would indulge me in this rare act of chivalry to human kind motivated by a need to advocate for sensible and compassionate romanticism on this Valentine Day:

My funny Valentine, sweet comic Valentine,
You make me smile with my heart
Your looks are laughable, Unphotographable
Yet, you are my favourite work of art
….
Don’t baby, don’t change your hair for me
Not if you care for me
Stay little Valentine, baby stay (undoubtedly remain they way you are)
Each day is Valentine, each day is Valentine’s Day

Therefore, I don’t see why love is allowed to become ugly, violent, cruel, debasing, dispiriting, possessive, consuming and hurtful. Why can’t it instead be liberating and all the synonyms that go with the word i.e. beneficial, healing, energizing, invigorating, therapeutic, cathartic and whatever else that makes us glow and grow when we have been blessed to find and experience it? May I wish you, and those you love, eternal Valentine.

*Salma Mlidi is a political activist.

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

Kola Ibrahim argues that unless the Nigerian students and workers take on the government and make it rescind its commercialization of education, it will be become exclusive to rich.

For those who still nurse the illusion that the present Yar'Adua's government will be different from the past should be having a rethink as the current capitalist government is bent on continuing the neo-liberal economic policies of the past especially as it concerns the education sector. Just few weeks ago, the minister of education, Igwe Ajah Nwachukwu was quoted in two forums reiterating the government's decision to hike fees in all Nigerian universities. The new policy will see already impoverished students coughing out tens of thousands in a country where over sixty percent are officially recognized as living in penury; and where government find it a onerous task to pay N11, 000 minimum wage for workers.

This new policy is to say the least anti-poor and incoherent. It is anti-poor because it will definitely deny thousands of youth access to university education while placing the burden of funding education on parents and students many of whom are from poor working class, peasant and wounded middle class background. It is incoherent because it failed to justify the logic of government’s so-called increased budgetary allocation. If the federal government claimed to have increased budgetary allocation - which in the real sense is a ruse - why then is the need to further place burden of education funding on poor parents and students since the increased (?) budgetary allocation is meant to, at least, lessen the burden of parents and students, and to improve standard. The new regime of fees to be introduced could hardly resolve a single of the problems confronting the education sector. The hypocrisy of the government is further shown by the fact that no public probe has been made into billions being squeezed out of the pockets of parents and students, and the huge billions being budgeted for education yearly but looted through crooked means making most of the facilities in our schools at all levels continue to rot despite increased charges.

The real reason why the government cannot undertake a serious and holistic probe of the education fund is because the budget itself, drawn up in the boardrooms of IMF/World Bank officials are built on the sandy foundation of neo-liberalism which means acute cut in social spending vis-à-vis education, health, etc and concentration on policies that will enhance the profit of the business community and the international moneybags in Nigeria, that is through budgetary allocation for bailing out big private businesses – who have been engaging in rapacious exploitation of the resources of the country especially the human labour – after they might have run into competition crisis. The rest of the budget is used to invite the foreign experts through consultancy projects that have little on no impacts on the lives of ordinary Nigerian. This is why a huge chunk of the education budget is allocated to seminars and lectures on issues such as AIDS/HIV when in actual facts many young ladies are taking to prostitution as a result of the failed education sector.

As against the so-called much lauded thirteen percent of the budget being allocated to education, the real education budget is less than 8.8 percent. The thirteen percent that has received unprecedented applause from our "respected" public analysts and the media is only for the recurrent/over head cost which does not cover the developmental projects such as expansion of facilities. To further show the hypocrisy of this government, the 13 percent does not include increase salaries especially for teachers (majority of whom are living in abject poverty), reduction in fees paid by poor students, etc. already the university lecturers are already bemoaning the stagnation in university special grants. In the real sense, the increase in recurrent budget is meant for consultancy service. Even, the highly anti-poor Obasanjo government budgeted about 11 percent for education at its inception. The capital budget that could have expanded the facilities in schools received little or no increase.

Therefore, the budget is a continuation of the old ruinous policy of cut in education budget in a bid to maintain fiscal balance for non-existent investors. Coupled with this is the continuous commercialization of education especially in order to lay the basis for its total privatization which has been achieved in the primary education sub-sector. Is it not instructive that all governments, especially state and federal government have laid the basis for private takeover of secondary schools as this sub-sector has witness unprecedented rot with mushrooms of private secondary schools – mostly owned by public officials and their acolytes –growing of the rot. In the University sub-sector, the same process is going on with public universities being under funded while private ones charging hundreds of thousands continue to increase. The new agenda is to commercialize public education to a point where public education will be totally unattractive to the people and thus lay the basis for their eventual privatization. This is what is being planned for the Law Schools and the Unity Schools. While the law school fees was hiked 100 percent to N230,000, which has denied hundreds of law students access to this year's law school programme, new generations of students are not allowed into the unity schools so as to justify their rottenness and thus eventual privatization. Already less than ten percent of university-aged youth are currently in schools or have graduated. Nigerian resources if judiciously used could fund free and qualitative education but the neo-liberal, pro-rich, anti-poor market-oriented policies which subsequent Nigerian governments have committed themselves to will not allow this.

Between 1999 and now, Nigeria has accrued nothing less than over N10 trillion naira with practically nothing to show for it than opulence for the few. This money is enough to lay the basis for massive development of the country economically and politically but the neo-liberal ideology teaches Nigerian leaders to subject provision of social service such as functional education, affordable healthcare, massive transportation development (road, rail, water), job creation, food and energy supply, etc to market forces, that is the law of the survival of the fittest which gives the service to the highest bidder. These policies have meant that it is the rich that will be buying up the country’s resources at token while majority will not be able to afford the huge cost needed to access social service. This is in addition to the mindless looting of the nation’s wealth by the unproductive Nigerian ruling class and their private collaborators, both local and foreign which itself is facilitated by the market idea that deify the ruthless private sector. All societies that have developed does so based on government massive intervention in the provision of basic facilities for the industrialization of the country including social services. Even the much glorified Asian Tigers were massively supported by the US as a counterweight against the fast developing ‘communist’ China. Also in Nigeria, the little development, universities, research institutes, health institutions, road and rail constructions, etc that we have had was products of the massive investment in developmental projects by past governments of the 1970’s and ‘80’s. in fact, introduction of top up fees contributed to the early and inglorious exit of Tony Blair in Britain.

Unless the NIGERIAN students and workers are ready to take on this government and make it rescind its anti-students education commercialization, education will be made the exclusive preserve of the rich. It is unfortunate that no students' union or NANS structure in the country has taken any step to stop this policy not even on the law school fee hike, yet students' unions are being destroyed in preparation by university administrators for the introduction of this policy while various state governments have already begun the process, for instance Lautech (N6,000 to N40,000), UniOSun (Between N160,000 to N300,000), Tai Solarin University (N50,000), etc. Crisis are already brewing in many campuses where education are being or are going to be commercialized – UniAbuja, ABU, OAU. Those institutions which have destroyed students’ unionism such as UI and UNILAG have turned the campuses to ghost of themselves with students being in serious insecurity and living under unfavourable living and studying conditions with no students' body to agitate for them.

It is funny that a government that wants to create an industrialized economy by 2020 is not ready to dedicate not even 20 percent of its budget to education when UNESCO prescribed 26percent for a developing economy. It is unfortunate that many students' unions have turned themselves to the extension of their various managements. Notwithstanding this, students across the country must pressure their local students’ union leaderships and NANS leaders to declare “days of actions” to include press campaign, rallies, lecture boycott, protest marches to demand for proper funding of education by at least 26 percent of the budget as prescribed by UNESCO for developing economies coupled with DEMOCRATIC running of the education sector to include education workers’ unions and students' movements. If the NANS leadership fails, genuine radical students’ unions and organizations must build a radical pan-Nigerian students’ platform to lead this campaign. They must reach out to workers’ movements and link their demands with that of other oppressed strata in Nigeria as a basis of building supports.

The current ruling class is ready to defend its class interest through neo-liberalism, unless the workers, students, peasants and the oppressed through their organizations such as NLC and TUC, students’ unions, ASUU, market men and women organizations, community movements, etc must resist this by fighting for their own class interests through the struggle for an egalitarian society which can only be achieved through nationalization of the commanding height of the Nigerian economy under the democratic control of the working and toiling people themselves. This raises the need for a radical, socialist-oriented, working people’s political party that will fight for powering order to enthrone the working people’s government which will develop the vast resources of the country.

*Kola Ibrahim Activist from Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife Member, Education Rights Campaign (ERC).

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

Dear Andile,

I hear your disappointment (Kenya: struggling for peace? - and share it.

Which is why I work with Kenyans for Peace WITH Truth and Justice. This is a coalition of over 40 legal, human rights, and governance organizations (including grassroots collectives representing the youth of Nairobi's slum areas), and individual Kenyans, such as myself. Prior to the elections, many of these organizations were already ferocious advocates for justice and equity for all Kenyans.

From the outset, KPTJ has insisted that any resolution of the crisis must address the injustices at all levels - historic, and current - which precipitated this catastrophe. KPTJ has categorically rejected calls for "peace" and "dialogue" from the parties who are really seeking violent suppression of the poorest and most disenfranchised Kenyans, so that "normal life" may resume for the wealthy.

KPTJ continues to offer an analysis of the violence in Kenya that traces each strand of violence to its source, and to hold the initiators of each form of violence accountable. We have challenged the excessive use of police violence, and "shoot to kill" orders, as well as uneven and selective policing that allowed Nairobi slums and marginalized areas of the country to burn, while police ringed an empty Uhuru Park to prevent peaceful assembly and protest. We have named the specific militia mobilised in Central, Rift Valley and Nyanza provinces, by individual political actors, and described their operations.

Relevant excerpts from KPTJ statements that speak to your concerns:

Calling for peace is not enough. We will only slide into civil war if we cannot see through this. We must resist the fear, name the problem accurately and desist from the build up to the declaration of a state of emergency, the deployment of the military or, worse, the usurpation of civilian governance by military governance. (Muthoni Wanyeki, ED, Kenya Human Rights Commission)

The cause of the current political crises in Kenya is two pronged. First, the poorly managed electoral process dealing with the Presidential Poll result. This acted as a trigger for the Second more entrenched and deep rooted problem that manifested itself in the explosion of violence of a magnitude unknown in post-independent Kenya. The simmering anger that was ignited is a result of a combination of historical injustices from the time of Kenya's colonial past, and the failure of successive governments of Kenyatta, Moi and Kibaki to address comprehensively the problems of inequality of its citizens.

In particular the challenges presented by landlessness, gender inequality, youth unemployment, the widening gap between the extremely wealthy and extremely poor citizens and the marginalization of some communities. Further political campaigns hyped up expectations of Kenyans in promising to redress these issues overnight whereas a structured and systematic approach with realistic time-lines is required to do so. Resolving the issues around truth and justice, particularly around issues of corruption and past violence also meant that the political class on both sides of the divide would have to give up their own in a "no sacred cows" policy which neither was/is willing to do.
(Njoki Ndungu, speaking before the US House of Representatives)

The KPTJ roadmap to a genuine resolution of the crisis includes:

- land redistribution
- transitional justice
- the implementation of a Marshall Plan for the huge segment of Kenyan youth who have been locked out of Kenya's much vaunted 6% economic growth in the past 5 years
- addressing the crisis of masculinity that has funnelled so many young Kenyan men towards militia activity and gender-based violence, to create a new model of Kenyan manhood based on gainful employment and equal relationships

The extent to which KPTJ threatens what you so aptly term "the abnormal normalcy of elite rule" is clearly demonstrated by the fact that our leaders and spokespeople have been labelled "traitors to their ethnicity", are receiving death threats, and have been warned that they are targets for assassination by the state machinery. They include:

Maina Kiai, Chairman of Kenya National Commission for Human Rights
· Muthoni Wanyeki, Executive Director of Kenya Human Rights Commission
· Haroun Ndubi, human rights lawyer, member of Kenya Domestic Observers Forum
· David Ndii, author of report on electoral irregularities
· Gladwell Otieno, Director of Africa Centre for Open Government
· Ndung'u Wainaina, staff member of National Convention Executive Council
· Njeri Kabeberi, Executive Director of the Centre for Multi-Party Democracy

To join the KPTJ mailing list, send an email to [email][email protected]

Thank you for caring deeply about truth and justice for all of us on this continent. And for holding us writers accountable to our words.

The Kenya post elections of late December 2007 to the present date has made me reflect on the following pertinent issues which most policy makers might tend to cast a blind eye on them. The issues are related to the treatment of people living with and affected by HIV & AIDS, especially women and children, as well as people with disabilities in the pre-election, the election process and the post election era.

- Have the law makers ensured that people living with and affected by HIV & AIDS, especially women and children, and people with disabilities, are not prone to violence prior to the elections, during the elections and the post election era?

- In the event that violence might break out in one way or the other, are there any mechanisms, that have been put in place to ensure that people living with and affected by HIV & AIDS will still have access to life saving drugs (ARVs- anti-retro viral drugs), as they get displaced?

- Have the resources been put in place to ensure that women and children have access to prevention methods , contraceptives and the post exposure prophylaxis(PEP) , so as to ensure that unwanted pregnancies ,contraction of STDs and HIV virus ,in the event that they are raped by their male counterparts in the face of violence?

The above issues might seem to be obvious and unimportant , but a personal opinion on the Kenyan post-elections era that has claimed many lives, shows that policy makers had not taken enough precautions on how to ensure that the lives of people living positive and people with disabilities are protected, especially for women and girls.

I can’t imagine how the internally displaced communities in Kenya are coping with the trauma of violence after the election. The Kenya post election era is a wake up call to Zimbabweans who would be taking part in the upcoming elections in March 2008 and other African nations which would be casting their votes this year. At the end of the day, what is more important is the preservation of people’s lives and health and not focus on trivial issues.

*Tafadzwa R. Muropa writes this letter in her personal capacity as a member of MISA Zimbabwe, Women’s Coalition in Zimbabwe and FEMNET

We can see conflicts everywhere in Africa. Some are visible, others are invisible.

The Africans must think about the real causes of the problems. We should think Africa and not only our countries or nations. We should think seriously about who we are. We are never what others say or think we are. We have some concepts but I believe that they are not OUR concepts. We should be honest we ourselves. What is really ours? We are really imitating the Europeans. We are Africans with our typical nature and history. We are not inferiors to other people; but we do not know who we are. Why? Because we are not honest enough to recognize our imposed limitations. Today is my first time to send my comment. It is a sort of introduction to what bit by bit we can share. I am very concerned with the Unity of and in Africa.

There are ethnic conflicts. We do not think Africa. We still think in terms of TRIBES. We need men of UNITY and for unity. I personally feel good in Zimbabwe. I Feel good in Cameroon in Gabon, in Ethiopia, in South Africa, in Botswana, in Uganda, in Rwanda, in Kenya and so forth. I feel comfortable with ALL peoples of Africa. I love all peoples of the world. I like the Chinese, the Europeans, the Americans, the Jews people and the Arabs.

In AFRICA we have to think deeper of our concepts. I am afraid but I think that the concepts we proudly exhibit are not our own concepts. We need some ORIGINALITY. We need some AUTHENTICITY. Not the word authenticity but we need AUTHENTICITY. Not a false AUTHENTICITY. How? We should COOPERATE. We are trying to COOPERATE with the EUROPEANS but there is NO UNITY among the countries and peoples of Africa. I cannot say among the Nations of Africa. We are countries; We have territories and populations; but WHERE ARE THE NATIONS OF AFRICA?

There are many aspects we can take into consideration so that we reach this goal. We have to stop CONTROLLING AND MANIPULATING OTHERS.I believe that this must be the first step. WE HAVE TO CHANGE WHAT WE ARE NOW. There is no other way. If we do not change NOW, the future of Africa will be according to what WE ARE SOWING NOW.

Thank you for accepting to share with Africa and my brothers and sisters in Africa.
Yours for the Unity of Africa.

Angola, Feb. 2008

Kofi Akosah-Sarpong argues that the key challenge for African leaders to work with states created by Europe in a way that they are able to appropriate the various ethnic groups’ histories and traditional values that form their nation-states, for peace and progress.

"We have met the enemy and he is us," Pogo

The December, 2007 presidential elections troubles in Kenya that saw over 1,000 people killed reveals the unresolved “rage” of Africa’s ethnicity, as the Polish-born novelist Joseph Conrad will tell you in his famous “suppressed rage” phrase that fits some of Africa’s deadly ethnic conflicts. Despite attracting charges of racism and paternalism in the “Heart of Darkness,” Conrad’s observation of Africa mired in something primal and savage may be as relevant as practicable in certain ways as some African ethnic conflicts and bad governments show.

Some of the ethnic conflicts and some of the bad governments tell Africans that the central issue of genuine consolidation of their nation-states isn’t well formed and that it isn’t whether the African nation-states weren’t created by Africans or in the ensuing creation by the Europeans some ethnic groups are thought to be incompatible as some Nigerians will tell you of some of the 250 ethnic groups that form their country. The key challenge is how African elites can work with their European creation in such a way that they are able to appropriate the various ethnic groups’ histories and traditional values that form their nation-states for peace and progress. For scholarship and research, as Daniel Tettey Osabu-Kle makes clear in “Compatible Cultural Democracy: The Key to Development in Africa,” part of the solutions of resolving some of the perennial African ethnic tensions and conflicts lies in “using modified, indigenous political structures and ideologies.”

In Ghana, the Konkomba and Bimoba, among some few groups, have been having on-again, off-again bloody conflicts. Still, in Ghana the Ewe ethnic group of the Volta Region, some of which groups have suffered some bloody chieftaincy conflicts recently, feel hated within the nation-state and one of their traditional rulers, Agbogbomefia of the Asogli, Togbe Afede XIV, has observed that not only the ideals of good governance can cure long simmering tribalism and ethnicity. In eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the story is as fearful and bloody today as Conrad’s 1902 “Heart of Darkness,” which was set in the DRC.

In Central African Republic, the ethnic conflict is so bad that it appears it has become a "forgotten emergency," country suffering from “more than a decade of political instability.” In Chad, in mixture ethnic conflicts, family feud and oil windfall over 100 people have been killed in the past weeks. In Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country with 250 ethnic groups and over 800 dialects, ethnic conflicts in some of the regions has become a daily diet and some Nigerians think their country is ungovernable. With nearly two million displaced people living in squalid camps and thousand killed, Sudan’s ethnic conflict ridden Darfur region is as true as Conrad’s character.

Once again, Kenya’s election-influence ethnic conflict reveals the weak foundation of the African nation-state. Despite its pretensions, as Robert Calderisi, author of “The Trouble With Africa: Why Foreign Aid isn’t Working,” recalls, from start, Kenya, if its troubles are viewed from the bigger picture, hasn’t been as cool as the uninformed thinks - its foundational ethnic structures weak. In the 1950s, in the land war among the Kikuyu ethnic group called the Mau Mau Rebellion, some 50,000 people were killed. In an assassination that traumatized Africa, Tom Mboya, a rising politician of his age group was killed. For fear of ethnic conflict, Nairobi, the Kenyan capital, was virtually shut down for three days when President Jomo Kenyatta died in 1978.

Still, to avoid ethnic conflict between the Kikuyu, who have ruled Kenya since independence in 1963, and the Luo, their main rival, as Calderisi argues, the ruling party, KANU (Kenya African National Union), chose an interim leader from a small group, the Kalenjin, Daniel Arap Moi, who ruled for 24 years. In a pattern where watchers argue reveal Kenyan leaders brewing ethnic conflicts during election periods to suit their political whims and caprices, in 1992 and 1997, in the western Rift Valley and along the coast, bloody conflicts were common feature, disrupting one of Kenya’s sources of income, tourism.

The Kenyan ethnic conflict also shows that for the past 50 years Africans have suffered from bad leaders who either have weak grasp of the traditional values wheeling their nation-states or do not understand their nation-states, from within their foundational traditional values, or do not care about their people’s peace despite their long-suffering and fatalism. But how durable is African peoples’ peace? Calderisi argues that in the 1990s as some of Africa’s states such as Sierra Leone, Liberia, Somalia and Zaire (DRC) smoulder, “eight in ten Africans were still living in peace. But it was false peace.”

Africans’ false peace emanates from the fact that their traditional values do not technically drive their nation-states’ progress but rather their ex-colonial ones, and in the ensuing confusion, creating false development processes among the over 2,000 ethnic groups with their over 3,000 dialects that form Africa – and creating all sorts of conflicts, some of which tension dates back to pre-colonial times, with the slightest mishap as the recurring ethnic conflicts in some parts of northern Ghana show. The false peace and deadly conflicts also show an Africa which two solitudes – the traditional and the ex-colonial neo-liberal/Western – not reconciled enough to harmonize the two Africas for peace and progress, as George B. N. Ayittey argues in “Africa in Chaos.”

In most of the 1980s, and good part of the 1990s, as African nation-states face severe crises and appear to be crumbling because of the rupture between ex-colonial legacies and African indigenous values, the London, UK-based African Confidential newsletter (January 6, 1995) explains that “There are signs everywhere that the era of the nation-state is fading and nowhere is this clearer than in Africa, where its roots are shallowest. The awkward marriage of the ‘nation’ in the sense of an ethnic coalition and the ‘state’ as the principal source of political authority is coming under pressure from above and below.” The fact is, the roots of African nation-state are not shallow, for it stands firmly in African traditional values. What is shallowest is the “state,” as ex-colonial creation, not skillfully and properly weaved into the “nation” as a development project.

How incompatible is the African state and the African nation, structurally and developmentally, is captured in Joshua B. Forrest’s investigative work “Subnationalism in Africa: Ethnicity, Alliances, and Politics.” Forest makes the case that the emergence of Africa’s subnationalism movements today, despite the near-commonality of African cultures, aim to rally political power as a way of seeking territorial autonomy within a particular nation-state because of either power issues as is seen in Kenya or natural resource problems as was seen in Sierra Leone or developmental inadequacies as Sudan show.

In a way, as Jeffrey Herbst analyses in “States and Power in Africa: Comparative Lessons in Authority and Control,” the problem of state consolidation from the pre-colonial phase, through the short but intense interlude of European colonialism, to the modern era of independent states, is riddled with misunderstanding and many unresolved issues by African elites. As Kenya, Sudan’s Darfur, Central African Republic, the Niger Delta of Nigeria, eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, among others, show, Herbst's makes bold analytical case that the conditions now facing African state-builders is to work to resolve what had existed long before the European colonialists came to Africa.

While former United Nations chief Kofi Annan, the African Union and the international community may work to douse off the Kenya election-fueled ethnic conflicts, the underlying challenge is how to stem off the country’s self-destruction in the long haul. That may involve not only Annan and the international community, whose work will soon end, but the appropriation of Kenyan/African traditional values and institutions, as George Ayittey argues in “Indigenous African Institutions,” into resolving the long-running tensions and conflicts that pre-dates Kenya that will make the over 70 distinct ethnic groups that form the Kenyan nation-state feel good.

The idea isn’t only to avoid “ethnic rage” disguised under false peace but also as Pogo, the Walt Disney cartoon character, says, "We have met the enemy and he is us" – that’s the understanding that Africa’s troubles, as George Ayittey explains in “Africa Betrayed,” should start from its elites’ bad behaviour and their inability to understand the continent from within its traditional institutions and values. And that makes the African’s so-called enemy himself/herself first and any other second. The hard reality is that either in the Kenyan elections or the Togolese elections in 2005 that saw over 800 people killed, as Thomas Spears argues in “Neo-Traditionalism and the Limits of Invention in British Colonial Africa,” Africa’s ethnic conflict has much to do with Africans’ pre-colonial conditions as much as its colonial and post-colonial circumstances.

*By Kofi Akosah-Sarpong is a journalist with the Expo Times Independent Sierra Leone.

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

The Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN) is looking for young development professionals for a number of positions in Africa which would give these professionals excellent exposure to cross sectoral development issues. These posts are particularly suited to development professionals seeking a unique and challenging international development experience. The individual would have an excellent opportunity to make a contribution to some of the most important challenges facing modern day Africa. Deadline: 14 March 2008.

President George W. Bush has been smothered with affection here, never more so than on Sunday, when he sat at a wooden desk under a sweltering sun with President Jakaya Kikwete by his side, and signed a $698 million grant of foreign aid to Tanzania. But while people here in the capital city of this east African nation are excited about Bush, another American politician seems to excite them even more - Barack Obama.

Equality Now, an international human rights organization has urged United States member states to make specific commitments to end sex trafficking. In a statement, the group said it was concerned that the issue of sex trafficking had been marginalised at the forum to Fight Human Trafficking now holding in Vienna, Austria.

Tim Newman asks whether Bushs' view of trade and investment is really not paternalistic.

A central aspect of President Bush’s trip to Africa is the promotion of neoliberal trade policies and foreign direct investment as a path to “empowerment” and a “culture of self-reliance and opportunity.” The president has explicitly rejected “the paternalistic notion that treats African countries as charity cases, or a model of exploitation that seeks only to buy up their resources.”

But will the impact of his view of trade and investment on workers in Africa truly end this paternalism?

In Liberia

Bush will end his trip by spending a few hours in Liberia. There he will try to cast himself in the role of the compassionate conservative who successfully intervened in Liberia’s long civil war, thus heralding in a shining new democracy led by Africa’s first democratically-elected female president. In his February 14 press conference, Bush celebrated increasing private capital flows to sub-Saharan Africa. But the workers supposedly benefiting from foreign private investment in Liberia might have a different perspective.
For example, Liberia’s largest investor and employer, Firestone, has been exploiting workers on its rubber plantation for over 80 years. The company has been the focus of an international campaign and a lawsuit in U.S. courts because of its use of child labor and abuse of workers’ rights. Affidavits collected from child laborers on the plantation recently filed in the lawsuit show clearly how foreign direct investment and trade often do not benefit workers.
Sixteen-year-old James Roe IV is a typical example of a Firestone worker. He began working at the age of nine on the plantation, cleaning cups of latex and cutting grass with a machete. At the age of 11, he began collecting latex and applying toxic chemicals to trees without any protective gear. When he was nine, James was injured at work when he cut his foot with a machete. But he could not get proper health care because he lacked an ID card required by the company to access the Firestone Hospital. Since he works from 4 a.m. to 3 p.m., he has been unable to attend school and has only achieved a second-grade education. James was forced to work to help his father meet his daily production quota because if he failed to meet the quota, his family would not be able to afford food.
Firestone workers have seen few benefits from their labor and are stuck in a generational cycle of poverty. On the other hand, Firestone has built a multi-million dollar tire business using Liberia’s rubber. Firestone’s investment in Liberia is a textbook case of “exploitation that seeks only to buy up [Africa’s] resources.”

AGOA

Bush will also be stopping in Ghana to meet with entrepreneurs who benefit from the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA). Since 2001, international monitoring organizations have scrutinized Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire for the widespread use of abusive child labor, including forced labor and trafficking, on cocoa farms that supply the main ingredient for the chocolate bars sold by major U.S. corporations like Mars, Hershey, and Nestle. These chocolate companies have dragged their feet for years and refuse to acknowledge that the low prices they pay West African farmers for their cocoa beans create a downward pressure on wages and labor standards. A recent Global Witness report also found that the cocoa industry has helped to finance conflict in Cote d’Ivoire. Instead of using some of his time in Ghana to highlight the injustice facing cocoa farmers, Bush will be using his platform to further promote trade and investment policies that do not adequately protect labor rights.

AGOA provides clear benefits, however, for corporate investors. For example, a textile factory owned by the company Ramatex chose to take advantage of AGOA by locating in an Export Processing Zone (EPZ) in Namibia. Incentives offered to Ramatex for setting up shop in the EPZ include: an exemption from import duties, an exemption from sales tax, a guarantee of free repatriation of capital and profits, access to streamlined regulatory services, a refund of up to 75% of costs of pre-approved training of Namibian citizens, provision of dirt-cheap factory facilities, and of course, weak labor regulations. Ramatex is then able to export its products duty free to the United States through AGOA.
Meanwhile, AGOA has led to an increase in the low-skilled garment sector in Africa where workers are often abused. For example, a recent report by SOMO titled Footloose Investors found that in Swaziland, “violations documented at Asian-owned factories in the last 6 years include forced overtime, verbal abuse, sexual intimidation, unhealthy and unsafe conditions, unreasonable production targets and anti-union repression.” These violations of workers’ rights do not represent the commitment to fair trade that Bush promoted at his February 14 press conference.

Bush’s talk about “a new era of development” looks like more of the same – abuse of workers and extraction of Africa’s resources for the benefit of wealthy corporations. While the Bush administration clearly embraces both paternalism and the exploitation of Africa’s workers and resources, there is another option. We can stand in solidarity with African workers by actively supporting their organizing efforts – from the Firestone rubber plantation to Group 4 Securicor workers in Malawi to cut-flower workers in Kenya. U.S.-based corporations should be publicly accountable for their abuses in Africa, and U.S. trade policies should provide strong protections for workers. U.S. citizens, meanwhile, should participate in corporate campaigns and scrutinize their own investments and purchasing decisions.

* Tim Newman is a Campaigns Assistant at the International Labor Rights Forum and a member of the Stop Firestone Coalition.

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

Dear Pambazuka Community,

We are very pleased to bring you this Special Issue, a collaboration with Foreign Policy In Focus (FPIF). First Clinton, then Blair and now Bush – it seems Africa is fast becoming a legacy maker. With Iraq up in flames and Afghanistan still at war, and with a Pakistan where democratic voices are assassinated, Africa (a few select countries) for Bush seems like a logical destination. But what is his legacy?

Activist organizations Africa Action, Africa Faith and Justice Network (AFJN), International Labor Rights Forum, and Jubilee USA Network tackle this question by looking at the various components to his foreign policy: AIDS, Global War on Terror/AFRICOM, and Debt Relief.

We have also included in this Special Issue the contact information and the general take of a number of these organization on Bush for those who may wish to follow up on this conversation.

A very special thanks to Emira Woods, Co-Director of Foreign Policy In Focus (www.fpif.org) for being the force behind this special issue.

Thank you,
Pambazuka Editors

Leaders from African advocacy organizations in the U.S and in Africa are available for interviews on President Bush’s trip to Africa scheduled for February 15-21.  The leadership can review the key policy areas that will be addressed by Mr. Bush on his final trip to the continent as president. They will also express their concerns about Mr. Bush’s presidential legacy as it relates to Africa.  A transcript from today’s audio press conference is available upon request. 
Suggested topics for discussion:
- HIV/AIDS (PEPFAR)
- U.S. Militarism in Africa
- Chinese influence in Africa
- U.S. Africa trade
- Africa Growth and Opportunity Act
- Debt cancellation
- Impact of the Bush presidency on Africa
- Recommendations for the next U.S. President
 
Experts in AFRICA

GHANA
Yao Graham, Executive Director, Third World Networks-Africa
(+233-21) 503669/503816 
Charles Abugre, Director of Policy and Advocacy, Christian Aid
+44207523107 

“The ‘Global War on Terror’ has dominated the foreign policy of the Bush Administration. It has promoted military engagements at the literal and strategic expense of development or diplomacy.  This is leading to greater instability and uncertainty throughout the African world, creating tensions within and between African countries and turning away from the paramount development priorities.” 

RWANDA
Bahati Ntama Jacques, Policy Analyst, Africa Faith and Justice Network
[email][email protected], cell: (847) 334-3614 
 
"The United States lends its support to President Paul Kagame due in large part to his complicity in the US "War on Terror." Yet, President Kagame has twice invaded DRC in the past and is likely supporting General Nkunda's rebel force in eastern DRC as a means of deflecting the Hutu army from Rwanda's border.”

TANZANIA

Sakina Datoo 
Chairperson – Editors Forum of Tanzania 
Forum for all Managing Editors in the country 
+255 754 317 632
[email][email protected]
 
“We value the aid we get from the US, but President Bush should know that Tanzanians care about much more than just aid. Our Father of the Nation, Mwalimu Nyerere stood for liberation of all oppressed people in the world. Bush’s oppressive foreign policy especially the War on Iraq, unequivocal support for Israel, a nation that is responsible for great torture of Palestinians, and threats against Iran, in addition to other harsh US foreign missions, deeply concern Tanzanians.” 
 
Additional Tanzania Contacts: Chamba Max Kajege – Coordinator, Tanzania Coalition on Debt and Development
+255 713608854

Julius Kapwepwe, Uganda Debt Network
[email][email protected],
+256-41- 533840/543974

LIBERIA

Ezekiel Pajibo, Center for Democratic Empowerment, Liberia
+27 11 728 1817 or + 27 826 997 616 

“The persistent difficulty in Africa is widespread poverty.  To deal with this, serious investment must be made in the development of Africa's human resources. This means that more Africans must have access to education, health and adequate nutrition.  No doubt, the militarization of Africa relations with the United States would not address these core issues.  This is why some of us, perhaps the majority of us, in Africa oppose AFRICOM.  President Bush's visit to Africa must not compel our leaders to accept AFRICOM in order to benefit from U.S. Foreign Assistance.” 
 
Additional Liberia Contacts:
Alfred Brownell, Director, Green Advocates
+2314790951cell
[email][email protected]    [email protected], cell: (828) 713-8753 
 
"AFRICOM reveals that the Bush Administration's foreign policy strategy relies on putting soldiers at the front of global operations. It is a command designed to fulfill a shortsighted vision of US national security that benefits only special interest groups like oil companies and private military contractors.”

DEBT
Neil Watkins, National Coordinator, Jubilee USA Network.
202-421-1023  

“Nearly all the countries the President will visit on his trip to Africa have benefited from debt cancellation which his administration strongly supported in 2005. As President Bush sees firsthand the life-saving impacts of debt cancellation he should take the next step by announcing strong measures to stop ‘vulture funds’ and other rogue lenders from eroding gains of debt relief.” 

HIV/AIDS
Dr. Paul Zeitz, Executive Director, Global AIDS Alliance
 Cell phone:  202-365-6786
 
"President Bush has had important successes in expanding access to HIV/AIDS treatment, but his latest actions tell another story.  Bush is proposing flat-lining AIDS, TB and malaria spending for FY 2009 and proposing a massive 40% cut in the US contribution to the Global Fund, despite his claim to be 'doubling the US commitment' to these programs.”   
 

Gerald LeMell, the executive director of Africa Action forecasts US Africa policy and argues that In this election year, the U.S. government will pursue a mixed approach to elections in Africa, upholding democratic ideals or looking the other way, depend- ing on military, economic and political alliances. Climate change will be a hot topic in U.S. electoral debates, but it is unlikely that the devastating environmental prospects for Africa will be featured, much less addressed, in U.S.-Africa policy this year.

The Bush Administration's fixation on security and the "war on terror" is already escalating the militarization of U.S. policy in Africa in 2008. In his last year in office, President George W. Bush will no doubt duplicitously continue to promote economic policies that exacerbate inequalities while seeking to salvage his legacy as a compassionate conservative with rhetorical support for addressing human rights challenges including conflict in Sudan and continued promotion of his unilateral HIV/AIDS initiative. The third prong of U.S.-Africa policy in 2008 will be the contin- ued and relentless pursuit of African resources, especially oil, with clear implications for U.S. mili- tary and economic policy.

Private Sector Role

Deepening U.S. military ties to the African continent are visible in both the official and private sectors. Since 2002, the U.S. International Military and Training Program (IMET) has invested approximate- ly $10 million a year to train African military person- nel, and the FY 2008 budget request increased this sum to $13.7 million. At the same time, under State Department oversight, commercial sales by U.S. manufacturers delivered $281 million worth of weapons and equipment from FY 2006-2007 to Algeria alone. Such licensed commercial sales to sub- Saharan Africa were just $900,000 in 2000, but for FY 2008 they are estimated to reach $92 million, an 80% increase from FY 2006. At present, the U.S. has Cooperative Security Location (CSL) agreements with five African countries, which are now opera- tional in Entebbe, Uganda; Libreville, Gabon; Accra, Ghana; Dakar, Senegal; and Lusaka, Zambia. There is also a new joint U.S.-Ugandan intelligence fusion center, just outside of Kampala in Uganda.

This escalation has not gone unnoticed. Concerned civil society groups in the U.S. and across the conti- nent of Africa have expressed persistent apprehension over the potential dangers of this change and the absence of any accountability in the process. Democratic governance, sustainable development and human rights are serious challenges in many coun- tries in Africa, but considerable progress has been made by activists, advocates, and civil society organi- zations over the last few decades. The militarization of aid to Africa could dramatically sharpen the slope of this already uphill battle for social, political and economic justice on the continent.

The militarization of Africa comes at a time when the continent can least afford it. An Oxfam report on armed conflict in Africa released in October estimates that the cost of conflict at the expense of the conti- nent's development over a 15-year period was nearly $300 billion. According to this study, between 1990 and 2005, 23 African nations were involved in con- flict, and on average this cost African economies $18 billion a year. By these figures, the cost of conflict was equal to the amount of money received in aid during the same period.

The fundamental question for many is whether the U.S. will utilize this increased military presence to support freedom, self determination, growth, pros- perity, and accountability on behalf of the majority of the nearly one billion people in Africa or if this new initiative will instead serve to oversee surrogate nations whose leadership is accountable first to U.S. security and economic interests.

AFRICOM's Inspiration

This growing militarization of U.S.-Africa policy is certain to escalate sharply in 2008 as the United States hurtles full speed ahead with the launch of Bush's still ill-defined Africa Command (AFRICOM). While AFRICOM appears to be a done deal, with a budget request of $389 for FY 2009, the public explanations and justifications for it can only be described as seriously confusing if not downright evasive.

In October 2003, James Jay Carafano and Nile Gardiner, both from the Heritage Foundation, a con- servative think tank, proposed to the Bush Administration the creation of a centralized Africa command for the U.S. military. The Carafano/Gardiner proposal makes clear that the objective is to preserve U.S. access to African oil and other natural resources on the continent. Africa pro- duces 90% of the world's cobalt; 64% of its man- ganese; 50% of gold; 40% of platinum; 30% of ura- nium; 20% of total petroleum; 70% of cocoa; 60% of coffee; over 80% of coltan and 50% of palm oil. The Heritage report also points to the strategic importance of Africa in the global "war on terror." This proposal resonated with the Bush administration.

Altruistic Motives?

AFRICOM began initial operations in October 2007 with temporary headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany. But much like 150 years ago when Western countries argued that their real goals in Africa were to bring liberty and democratic ideals to the continent, the Bush Administration has been trying to convince skeptical audiences in Africa and elsewhere that AFRICOM is ultimately driven by altruistic motives. AFRICOM's projected structure would place human- itarian work previously done by the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) under the directive of Department of Defense (DOD). To U.S. and African civil society groups, and even to AFRICOM's critics in Congress, the Bush administration has argued that the State Department will remain responsible for diplomacy and development while AFRICOM will "support" USAID and other humanitarian organiza- tions in the delivery of humanitarian aid and assis- tance. The Bush administration suggests there will be more civilian oversight of AFRICOM than any other military command. Yet it remains hard to see how African policy will not be driven by military engage- ment as opposed to a genuine partnership if the State Department and USAID are positioned under the Defense Department in AFRICOM. Military commands are simply not designed to do humanitar- ian work. For commissioned officers and the Defense Department, humanitarian work will never trump military objectives. This reality was clearly illustrated in Iraq when the State Department and humanitarian groups were simply cut out of planning discussions around the build up to the inva- sion and its aftermath. AFRICOM appears likely to follow a similar trajectory.

The United States is telling African governments that AFRICOM is simply a restructuring of African pro- grams currently split among the existing U.S. global military units of the U.S. European Command (EUCOM), U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), and U.S. Pacific Command (PACOM). General William Ward, AFRICOM's designated commander, made the case for his new command at a meeting with African Union (AU) leaders in Addis Ababa in early November, arguing that the United States has a national interest in helping to "stabilize" Africa. "We come and do things to assist our African partners in increasing their capacity, their capability to provide a stable environment here in Africa, " he said. When asked whether AFRICOM was "simply a militariza- tion of the continent" he replied, "Absolutely false; not the case." His answer is, of course, contradicted by the very reality of the increasing militarization of U.S. foreign policy in Africa over the last five years.

Soldier of Fortune

AFRICOM is being touted in Soldier of Fortune and other private military contractor industry publica- tions as ushering in a bountiful new job market. In Iraq, contractors hired by the U.S. government were accountable to no one, resulting in unacceptable human rights violations. It is reasonable to be con- cerned that mercenaries and other contractors hired for AFRICOM's work will follow a similar pattern. African voices from civil society and from democrati- cally elected African governments should be heard and heeded in decisions relating to the location of AFRICOM and its role in Africa. Thus far, only Liberia has given any public support for this initiative. Other nations and regional bodies including the Southern African Development Community (SADC) have expressed deep concern about a deepened U.S. mili- tary footprint on African soil.

It's important for Africa advocates in the United States to stand in solidarity with African civil society voices on the continent by challenging not only the existence of AFRICOM but seeking several impor- tant changes to the proposed program. AFRICOM should decouple the U.S. Department of State and USAID from the Defense Department to ensure that U.S.-Africa policy will be driven by diplomacy, devel- opment and genuine partnership, not military engagement. Clear lines of accountability and mecha- nisms for transparency must be established not only for AFRICOM but also for any private military con- tractors employed by the United States in Africa to ensure the protection of the rule of law, democracy and human rights on the continent. Funding for AFRICOM and the increasing militarization of aid and engagement in Africa should be reallocated to serve a comprehensive agenda that promotes just security by supporting sustainable development, deeper debt cancellation for impoverished countries in Africa, and fully funding the fight against HIV/AIDS and other health challenges on the continent.

AFRICOM raises more questions then the Bush administration is able to answer at this point. Who does the United States intend to stabilize by intro- ducing more military equipment and approving more arms sales into the region? How does the United States decide when to use force in "stabilizing" a con- flict? If people are protesting unfair corporate prac- tices near the grounds of an oil company, will the United States use force, or encourage the use of force by African military units, to protect these corporate assets? Will U.S. soldiers be accountable in any way to African governments or their citizens? To what degree will the United States employ mercenaries and other contractors in Africa? Will U.S. economic interests trump the rule of law, democracy and accountability in Africa? The answers to the questions above will go a long way to determine whether AFRICOM constitutes a solution to a bureaucratic challenge of a region divided between other global military commands or is actually likely to encourage future conflicts.

Kenya

It's only February, but the recent turbulence in heretofore-stable Kenya brings U.S. policy toward Africa in 2008 into focus. U.S. interests in Kenya are well documented. Kenya's role as a manufacturing and financial hub for East Africa makes it an appeal- ing partner for Western investments. The country's geographic location, bordering on Somalia, a col- lapsed state, also appeals to U.S. security interests, particularly given President Mwai Kibaki's history of unswerving support for the Bush Administration's "war on terror." It is therefore not surprising that the United States initially responded to the dubious offi- cial election outcome and immediate swearing in of Kibaki for a second term by calling on the Kenyan people to "accept the results…calmly."

Once it became apparent that the elections were clearly tarnished, various U.S. officials backtracked and engaged in a clumsy game of semantics regarding what was actually said. But all of Africa saw the U.S. rally around Meles Zenawi when he also claimed to win the Ethiopian election in 2005, despite over- whelming evidence that he and his Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) had lost badly. Zenawi immediately cracked down on the opposition and at least 200 people were killed and 700 were injured. The EPRDF never relin- quished control of power and two years later, Zenawi's U.S.-backed troops invaded Somalia.

U.S. support of favored illegitimate regimes like Zenawi's in Ethiopia and the unhelpful, contradicto- ry U.S. diplomatic response to the botched elections in Kenya risk encouraging leadership around the con- tinent to ignore the will of their citizens when they have international backing. Do these two instances foreshadow the standard AFRICOM response to con- tested elections in Africa?

Other Elections

In 2002, Kenya appeared to be a shining example of the possibilities of democracy and the genuine emer- gence of freedom and real stability, after frequent government critic Kibaki was elected in a contest regarded as free and fair. The spectacle of Kenya in turmoil is certainly distressing to other democratic movements across the continent in a year that will see several other important African elections that may expe- rience unhealthy influence from U.S. militarization. Longtime U.S. foe, but now a new oil friend and military partner, Angola, will have its first legislative elections in September. Half of the country has regis- tered to vote in the long-awaited polls as citizens hope to usher in a new era of multiparty democracy after Angola's 27-year civil war ended in 2002. The legislative elections were initially scheduled to be held in 1997. A presidential election will follow next year. The Angola opposition group, the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), has accused the government of deliberately delaying the elections. U.S. military operations in Angola have been growing by leaps and bounds since 2002, with arms sales up over of 1000% and ongoing International Military and Training Program trainings and security agreements with the U.S. Navy.

Divided Ivory Coast leaders aim to hold long-delayed elections in the first half of 2008. Rebels have con- trolled the northern half of the West African state and world's top cocoa producer since a 2002-2003 civil war, but President Laurent Gbagbo and former rebel leader Guillaume Soro, who became prime min- ister in April 2007, agreed in March 2007 on a process of disarmament, reunification and organiza- tion of elections. Many observers inside and outside the country are concerned by the slow pace of progress on practical aspects of this agreement and fear that the elections will be postponed again. Despite the fact that the United States has so clearly supported undemocratic regimes when it has served a military, economic or other political interest, the United States claims to be aggressively working for "democracy" in Zimbabwe. Although some in the Bush Administration seem to be realizing that overt U.S. engagement in Zimbabwe has been counter-pro- ductive, the United States has been intensifying sanc- tions and increased funding of opposition groups. This economic pressure for regime change not only strengthens Robert Mugabe's hand when blaming outside forces for the current economic crisis but it has the potential to undermine the opposition's legit- imacy both now and if they were to gain power.

The United States ought to cease and desist from this antagonistic unilateral engagement and instead step back to work with other elements of the international community to develop a multilateral engagement. U.S. policies should facilitate bringing together regional actors like Southern African Development Community and the African Union with internation- al agencies in order to promote the democratic process, a national and popular constitutional reform process, economic justice and human rights. A major shift in South Africa's political landscape occurred at the end of 2007, when the African National Congress (ANC) announced that its inten- tion to back Jacob Zuma in the 2009 presidential elections. Given the ANC's overwhelming strength, Zuma will be the heavy favorite to win. Still, 2008 will be an important year in the lead up to elections South Africa.

Sudan's Multiple Conflicts

Perhaps the most interesting upcoming African elec- tion from the U.S. perspective will be in the Sudan. The U.S.-brokered and Kenya-hosted Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) of 2005 ended the civil war between North and South, and declared that the year 2009 will witness an unprecedented and internation- ally monitored general election in the Sudan. In 2008 it will be determined whether these elections are a realistic possibility. As deadly violence against civil- ians raged on in Darfur in 2007, serious fractures emerged in the North-South peace agreement. The complete implementation of all the provisions of the CPA, including a nationwide census to prepare for the 2009 elections is critical to the process of democ- ratizing Sudan and achieving peace and development for its entire population.

There is little indication, however, that President Omar Al-Bashir's National Congress Party (NCP) regime in Khartoum has any intention of jeopardiz- ing its hold on power, and it will attempt to delay the election process as long as possible unless it faces credible pressure from the international community. If a legitimate census is not carried out and a national electoral commission is not successfully established and operating in 2008, a serious blow will be struck both to the CPA and the ability of Southerners to wait for the 2011 referendum that will determine if the South will stay united with the North of Sudan or opt for separation.

This election will be of particular interest because the United States has taken a strong rhetorical stance against the Sudanese government regarding Darfur while simultaneously maintaining strong intelligence and military ties with Khartoum, including arms sales and official military trainings. On December 31, Bush signed divestment legislation into law and pledged to uphold sanctions against the Sudanese government. For the first time, the Bush administra- tion seems to be becoming more comprehensive, at least in its public statements, in its approach to Sudan.

New Envoy

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice swore in Richard Williamson as the new U.S. Special Envoy to Sudan on January 7 and the following day Bush made a statement committing the U.S. to supporting the implementation of the CPA, the deployment of an effective peacekeeping force in Darfur and the diplo- matic engagement necessary to support serious politi- cal dialogue between the region's stakeholders. Unfortunately, in the past several years, we have seen the Bush administration use powerful rhetoric that in reality meant nothing on the ground and masked insufficient or contradictory U.S. diplomatic action. Bush's statement says that the CPA, "laid the groundwork for lasting peace and unity for all of Sudan," a sentiment that is popularly promoted by policymakers and advocates alike. Africa Action's dia- logue with Sudanese in each region of the country reveals that the CPA - while a critical agreement that must be implemented - should not be held up as an exact model for all other agreements. Circumstances are different in every region and all new peace processes must both address these unique regional characteristics and avoid repeating some of the mis- takes of the CPA by being more inclusive, more par- ticipatory, and more transparent to the general Sudanese population.

The United States must also follow through with diplomatic engagement once peace agreements have been signed to ensure timely implementation. The real process of peace and justice happens after the political negotiations have been concluded when the agreements are put into practice.

If the Bush Administration is serious in its commit- ment to a comprehensive and productive Sudan poli- cy, it must prioritize these areas over the "war on ter- ror." It must use its influence on Sudan to ensure the prompt and comprehensive implementation of the CPA. In Darfur, it must use its leverage in the inter- national community to resolve the outstanding issues of UN command and control of the African Union/UN hybrid peacekeeping force known as UNAMID and to ensure that this peacekeeping force is fully resourced and deployed. The United States and the international community must not allow Khartoum to veto troop contributions from nations around the world. Tensions with Chad are heating up on the western border of Darfur, and the United States must begin to adopt a regional perspective when addressing this conflict.

There are over 8,000 helicopters among NATO countries, many of them that could pass the "hot and high" test needed to work in Darfur's extreme heat and high levels of dust. Darfur needs at least 70 of these, but contributing countries are resisting, argu- ing that they don't have the helicopters or that they are anxious about the command and control issues of UNAMID. The U.S. has the opportunity to finance the provision of helicopters by other NATO coun- tries as well as leverage the necessary international leadership to ensure UN command and control of the force. For myriad reasons, U.S. troops in Darfur are neither politically possible not practically desir- able. However, there might be ways for the U.S. to loan the United Nations the helicopters and other support vehicles that are essential for UNAMID. The deployment and support of UNAMID must go hand-in-hand with renewed efforts to build an inclu- sive and participatory peace process for the Darfur region and for the North of Sudan where new conflict is emerging. The International Criminal Court must get full international support to do the important work of accountability in Sudan's many conflicts.

Horn of Africa

The primacy of U.S. security interests and militariza- tion in the Horn of Africa has gone a long way towards further destabilizing an already volatile area. As part of Operation Enduring Freedom's Trans- Sahara Counter-Terrorism Initiative, U.S. naval ves- sels have engaged in several military strikes in Somalia. Over a thousand people have died since U.S. war planes bombed towns in southern Somalia and up to half a million people have fled the erup- tion of violence in Mogadishu to live in camps. The United States has allied with unpopular and repres- sive Ethiopian President Meles Zenawi and orches- trated the invasion of Somalia by Ethiopian troops. This appears to have accomplished little more than another human rights and humanitari- an crisis with hundreds of thousands of internally dis- placed people, untold num- bers of refugees in neighbor- ing countries, and regular reports noting the brutality of rape, beatings, shooting and indiscriminate shelling by all parties to the conflict in and around Mogadishu.

The exercise has weakened Ethiopia considerably in its still-unresolved border dispute with Eritrea (despite an Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Commission decision in 2002 which the Ethiopian government refuses to abide by even after both countries' repeated pledges that the decision of the commission would be binding and final). Ethiopia's actions have also angered and inspired ethnic Somalis in Ethiopia's Ogaden region. Given the increasingly complicated and tense reality on the Horn today, it would be interesting to see if American officials believe that U.S. policy in the region actually achieved any count- er-terrorism goals. Ironically, it is only in the interna- tionally unrecognized but clearly democratic state of Somaliland (known as northwest Somalia), that there is peace.

*For the full article, please visit the Foreign Policy In Focus (FPIF), a project of the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS, online at . Established in 1996, Foreign Policy In Focus is a network of policy analysts, advocates, and activists committed to “making the United States a more responsible global leader and global partner.” For more information, visit www.fpif.org

**Gerald LeMelle is the Executive Director of Africa Action and a contributor to Foreign Policy In Focus. Michael Swigert, Africa Action's Department of Policy Analysis and Communication Program Associate provided research support.

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

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Beth Tuckey argues that in the end, it is not the militarization of Africa that will guarantee security for the US but rather justice and equitable trade.

As President Bush visits Africa this week, it is important to reflect on the Administration’s global foreign policy strategy and how it is emerging in the African context. Since 9/11, the United States has ramped up its military capacity to fight a Global War on Terror – a war that instills fear in the American people and according to the Bush administration, a war that justifies a vast network of defense and security operations worldwide.

Though this war is being fought as a means of achieving national security, it is in fact likely to decrease global stability if it is not accompanied by a more equitable and diplomatic foreign policy. In the end, generating long-term security has less to do with fighting rogue terrorist groups than with bolstering the power of communities, increasing access to education, and forging a trade policy that is in the global interest.

Perhaps the most disturbing element of Bush’s national security strategy is the mission of the new US military command for Africa (AFRICOM). The current administration sees Africa as a possible threat both because of its geopolitical location near the Middle East and its substantial Muslim population. The American government also recognizes the natural resource wealth of the continent as a foundation for replenishing the world’s depleting oil supplies, allowing the US to maintain its dependence on foreign fuel.

To the public, AFRICOM is presented as a benign presence that will bring stability, peace, and prosperity to the African continent. Looking deeper, it is a military command that has been structured to bring security only to the US and to bolster the interests of the elite few, not the interests of Africans. Furthermore, AFRICOM gives the Department of Defense (DoD) a dangerous level of jurisdiction over the State Department, USAID, and other non-military agencies. Ambassadors, who have traditionally been the point-persons for US foreign operations, may now be overshadowed by General William E. Ward, Commander of AFRICOM.

Developments like AFRICOM reveal that the Bush Administration’s national security strategy relies on putting soldiers at the front of nearly all foreign operations. Unsurprisingly then, African civil society and many African governments have voiced a resounding ‘no’ to AFRICOM that only confirms the need for the US to re-evaluate its War on Terror and hunt for oil. The security concerns of the US government are in some ways legitimate, but the strategy has been such that Africans now feel endangered and harassed by the flawed agenda of the Bush Administration.

If indeed the new command is intended to bring security to the African people, the mandate must change. Ultimately, the US government must recognize the power of a just and fair foreign policy in Africa and must listen to the voices arising on the continent. By investing in other aspects of security beyond those of the DoD, the US could go a long way toward achieving stability and democracy in Africa.

What the people of Africa need is not increased military presence but debt relief, fair trade policies, jobs, expansion of education, and improvements upon existing US policies such as the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and the Millennium Challenge Account. If the US were willing to boost the budgets of the State Department and USAID toward those ends, we may find precisely the results the Bush Administration is seeking in terms of stability. Long-term security is not generated through armed soldiers but rather through teachers, women, youth, microfinance, and an overall fair and equitable foreign policy.

Ultimately, peace and democracy in Africa are elements that can be attained if America is willing to work in concert with Africans to determine their needs and desires. Pushing a military strategy that serves merely to benefit special interest groups like private military sub-contractors and the oil industry will only provoke opposition, as it has already done in many countries around the world. Advancing a diplomatic strategy that relies on true partnership with African governments, the African Union, and African civil society is the only approach that is in the mutual, long-term interests of the American people and the citizens of Africa’s many nations.

Oil and terrorism – and the corporations who benefit – preclude the US government from setting its sights on a more practical, just, and beneficial foreign policy strategy. The war in Iraq, AFRICOM, and the restructuring of the executive branch are merely pieces of an overall shift – a shift that must be opposed, not least because of its capacity to damage the lives of foreign citizens for the sake of America’s immediate special interests.

If President Bush truly wishes to offer a message of success in Africa this week, his best bet is to provide significant boosts to development without involvement from the Department of Defense.

*Beth Tuckey is the Associate Director of the Africa Faith and Justice Network

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