The United Nations refugee agency has this week begun an operation to return hundreds of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) to their homes in the troubled north-eastern province of Ituri by the end of the year.

Africa’s rural poor are facing a “perfect storm” of rising food prices, climate change and population growth, the head of the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has warned, urging the international community to take more concerted action to help the continent’s most vulnerable people.

Thousands of teachers and hundreds of nurses in Burundi went on strike last month to protest the government’s inability to meet its commitments to increase wages and improve working conditions. In an attempt to end the strike, the government reiterated its promises to grant civil servants the 34 percent pay raise that it announced in May 2007. It remains unclear, however, whether the government will be able to keep up its end of the bargain.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has announced that it will write off Liberia's debt by securing $842 million from its own institutional reserves and donor country pledges. The move comes after the Fund endured heavy criticism in the international media last month for not following through on its commitment to Liberia, eighteen months after the country had met the IMF's stringent policy conditions.

The Kenyan Community Abroad (KCA) has set the stage for the first Presidential Debate in Kenya's history. The debate will be held in November 22nd at the United States International University, Nairobi. There are currently four candidates vying for the position of the President of the Republic of Kenya and we, Kenyans abroad and the people of Kenya at large, look forward to their participation in this historic event that will set forth a new chapter in the advancement of an African democracy.

Commissioner Faith Pansy Tlakula, member of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights with special responsibility for freedom of expression talks to Hakima Abbas about how the African rights system works and the challenges it faces.

Hakima Abbas (HA): Please could you provide us with a brief overview of the situation of freedom of expression in Africa.

Faith Pansy Tlakula (FPT): It’s difficult to give an overview of the situation in Africa as a whole. As I have pointed out several times since my appointment, the standards exist in principle and freedom of expression is indeed protected in Africa by different instruments. So, as far as the adoption of instruments is concerned, there doesn’t seem to be an issue. However, in practice, freedom of expression is not yet a reality for many people on the continent so the issue is implementing the existing principles. While the media in Africa has begun to act as a cornerstone of democracy and source of balanced information in some states, there is clearly still place for improvement in the right to freedom of expression.

In my reports to the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (the commission, hereafter), I have repeatedly expressed my concerns over reports of alleged violations of the right to freedom of expression in a number of African states and I am constantly receiving a considerable number of such reports.

These allegations included, but were not limited to:

• Harassment, threats and intimidation of journalists and media practitioners, undue political interference with the media, victimisation of media houses deemed critical of government policies, seizure of publications and destruction of equipment, and closure of private media establishments
• The adoption of repressive laws or amendments to existing legislation that limit freedom of expression and the free flow of information
• Reports of disappearances, arbitrary arrests and detention of journalists and media practitioners, who in some cases are held incommunicado and for extended periods of time without charges or due process of law
• The murder of journalists with impunity, torture and other forms of ill-treatment and death in custody of journalists and media practitioners.

HA: What mechanisms are in place in Africa to guarantee freedom of expression?

FPT: The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights was established in 1987 by virtue of Article 30 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (the charter, hereafter) with the specific mandate to promote human and peoples’ rights and ensure their protection in Africa. The promotional mandate of the commission involves education and sensitisation with a view to creating a culture of respect for human rights on the continent. The protective mandate of the commission entails essentially the receipt and consideration of complaints alleging human rights violations. In addition to these two main mandates, the commission is also empowered to interpret the charter at the request of a state party, the African Union (AU), or an institution recognised by the AU.

Under Article 9, the charter guarantees every individual the right to receive information and express and disseminate their opinions within the law. Although this right is considered as a cornerstone of development, its protection under the charter could be said to have been severely watered down by the clawback clause inserted within the same article. Indeed, while the first paragraph provides for an unlimited right for every individual to receive information, the right of every individual to express and disseminate their opinions within the law, as provided for in paragraph 2, may be interpreted by some states in a manner that unreasonably limits it.

Aware of the importance of upholding respect for the right to freedom of expression to the nurturing of democracy, human rights and sustainable development, and faced with many violations of the right to freedom of expression, the commission has, throughout the years, adopted various measures to strengthen the promotion and protection of this right.

One of the first initiatives taken by the commission was through pronouncements and recommendations made in the context of individual communications. Indeed, the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights has, through its communication procedure and the broad interpretation powers it enjoys under the charter, developed jurisprudence on human and peoples’ rights in general, and the right to freedom of expression in particular.

The commission has also dealt with issues of freedom of expression in Africa through resolutions and declarations and by promoting dialogue with member states when states’ reports are being considered, or when commissioners make promotional and fact-finding missions to member states.

Moreover, at its 32nd ordinary session held in Banjul, Gambia in October 2002, the commission adopted, by resolution, the Declaration on Principles of Freedom of Expression in Africa. The declaration sets out important benchmarks and elaborates on the precise meaning and scope of the guarantees of freedom of expression laid down under Article 9 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights.

In view of the situation of the right to freedom of expression in Africa, the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights initially appointed a Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression in Africa in December 2004. I was appointed as mandate-holder in December 2005.

The state of freedom of expression on the African continent prompted the commission to adopt a resolution in November 2006. Expressing its concerns over the current situation, the commission called on member states to:

take all necessary measures in order to uphold their obligations under the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights and other international instruments, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights providing for the right to freedom of expression

but also to:

extend their full collaboration with the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression in Africa, in order to strengthen the right to freedom of expression on the African continent and work towards the effective implementation of the principles enshrined in the Declaration of Principles on Freedom of Expression in Africa and other applicable human rights standards in the region in order to achieve this goal.

Finally, in order to ensure effective implementation of the charter, the AU established the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights (the court) under the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights establishing an African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights (the protocol). The protocol was adopted in June 1998 and entered into force in January 2004. Twenty-three states have ratified the protocol so far and the court is now operational. The court will act in an adjudicatory and advisory capacity. According to the preamble and Articles 2 and 8 of the protocol, the court complements the protection mandate of the commission under Article 45 (2) of the charter. Unlike the commission, the court’s decisions are binding and final and not subject to appeal.
Under Article 3 of the protocol:

1. The jurisdiction of the Court shall extend to all cases and disputes submitted to it concerning the interpretation and application of the Charter, this Protocol and any other relevant Human Rights instrument ratified by the States concerned.
2. In the event of a dispute as to whether the Court has jurisdiction, the Court shall decide.
The court can therefore enforce other human rights treaties ratified by African states.
The protocol also allows the court to issue advisory opinions, in accordance with Article 4, which provides that:

1. At the request of a Member State of the OAU, the OAU, any of its organs, or any African organisation recognised by the OAU, the Court may provide an opinion on any legal matter relating to the Charter or any other relevant human rights instruments, provided that the subject matter of the opinion is not related to a matter being examined by the Commission.
2. The Court shall give reasons for its advisory opinions provided that every judge shall be entitled to deliver a separate or dissenting decision.

Besides, the court may also ‘try to reach an amicable settlement in a case pending before it in accordance with the provisions of the Charter’.

HA: What are the challenges of guaranteeing respect for freedom of expression in Africa?

FPT: Obviously, there are many challenges but they also differ from country to country. In some cases, it could be lack of understanding of the principles, and in others, a total disregard for them, which shows the importance of adopting a country-specific approach to this issue.

As I mentioned earlier, African states are obliged to uphold the existing principles of freedom of expression. They have to ensure respect for the rights recognised by the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights and to support the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights in its work to guarantee the implementation of the charter. Moreover, Principle XVI of the Declaration of Principles on Freedom of Expression in Africa clearly provides that: ‘States Parties to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights should make every effort to give practical effect to these principles’.

One should not be too pessimistic, however, as the progress and achievements made over the last few decades deserve neither to be underestimated nor forgotten. These achievements, which include the adoption of the Declaration of Principles on Freedom of Expression in Africa and the appointment of a Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression, simply need to be seen as the ground on which we now have to build an African continent characterised by free media and the free flow of information.

HA: What is your role and mandate as Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression?

FPT: In a nutshell, my role as special rapporteur is to monitor freedom of expression in Africa and report to the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights accordingly. My role includes monitoring violations of the right to freedom of expression on the continent, recommending to the commission measures to address the violations and assisting AU member states to review their national media laws and policies to comply with the principles set out in the declaration. Part of my mandate is also to take action on behalf of alleged victims of violations of the right to freedom of expression, including by sending appeals to member states, asking them for clarifications on reports forwarded to me by different reliable sources.

In addition to, and in conformity with, the relevant resolutions of the commission, my work reflects the provisions of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, the Declaration of Principles on Freedom of Expression in Africa as well as other relevant international and regional human rights instruments including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (especially Article 19), the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (especially Article 19), as well as other treaties, resolutions, conventions and declarations relating to the right to freedom of opinion and expression.

According to the resolution on the mandate and the appointment of a special rapporteur on freedom of expression in Africa, my mandate includes:
• Analysing national media legislation, policies and practice within member states, monitoring their compliance with freedom of expression standards in general and the Declaration of Principles on Freedom of Expression in particular, and advising member states accordingly
• Undertaking investigative missions to member states where reports of massive violations of the right to freedom of expression are made and making appropriate recommendations to the commission
• Undertaking country missions and any other promotional activity that would strengthen the full enjoyment of the right to freedom of expression in Africa
• Making public interventions where violations of the right to freedom of expression have been brought to the rapporteur’s attention. This could be in the form of issuing public statements, press releases, or urgent appeals;
• Keeping a proper record of violations of the right to freedom of expression and publishing this in reports submitted to the commission
• Submitting reports at each ordinary session of the commission on the status of the enjoyment of the right to freedom of expression in Africa.

In the conduct of this mandate, it is possible and, I believe, highly desirable for me to hold meetings with government officials to make recommendations about applying accepted standards of freedom of expression. This advisory role is crucial to the success of this mandate; I hope member states will gradually come to see it as a useful tool in helping them to comply with their obligations under international human rights law.

HA: What is the relationship between the special rapporteur and the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights?

FPT: It is a very close relationship. Indeed, unlike United Nations special rapporteurs, for instance, who are independent experts, the special rapporteurs are members of the commission, actual commissioners, who are appointed to a specific mandate. This means that I am not only the Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression in Africa but I am also one of the 11 members who form the commission.

Besides, in view of the fact that we work part-time as commissioners, the bulk of the work is entrusted to the secretariat of the commission. The secretariat, for instance, will assist in the preparation of missions, drafting of mission reports and speeches, undertake research, hold organising workshops and seminars, raise funds for activities, etc. At the moment, there is one legal officer at the secretariat who is specifically assigned to my mandate.

HA: What impact have your role as special rapporteur, and the work of the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights more broadly, had on human rights for the people of Africa?

FPT: The work of the commission has had an impact in several ways as you can see from my responses to the previous questions. For instance, under its promotional mandate, the commission raises awareness about the existing human rights standards and can assist in elaborating on these standards. For instance, as far as the right to freedom of expression is concerned, I could mention the adoption of the Declaration of Principles of Freedom of Expression, which elaborates on Article 9 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights. The declaration is indeed a good example of the impact of the work of the commission in general and of the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression in Africa in particular, which has been key in the elaboration of the declaration.

HA: Some might say that, given the continued human rights violations that plague the continent, the African human rights system including the commission is a failure. Would you agree?

FPT: Of course, I would disagree that the system is a failure. Obviously, huge challenges remain, but we also have to look at the achievements, even if these sometimes appear very limited compared to the challenges. Realistically, the situation on the continent will not change overnight but we have to be optimistic and use our strengths and build on our achievements to move forward instead of thinking about our past mistakes – some might say failures – unless we are looking back only to learn from these past experiences.
HA: What do you see as the challenges and strengths of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights?

FPT: I think that we all know about the challenges, including limited resources (financial and personnel), which create a lot of other difficulties. However, since we are celebrating the 20th anniversary, I would like to focus on the strengths of the commission, which include its ‘accessibility’. The commission is the forum where NGOs, individuals and other alleged victims of human rights violations can have their voices heard. It is also the place where a true dialogue can be initiated between member states and alleged victims or organisations that want to bring a situation to the attention of the public at large. It is noteworthy that since the last ordinary session, the number of NGOs enjoying observer status with the commission has reached 367 and that the number of national human rights institutions with affiliate status has also grown over the years.

HA: In November 2007, the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights will be celebrating its 20th year of existence. What do you feel has been the greatest accomplishment of the commission?

FPT: Increased sensitisation and recognition of the work done by the commission by different stakeholders. To have existed for 20 years is an achievement indeed, but at the same time, 20 years is a rather short period for an institution with a mandate as wide and far-reaching as that of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, given all the challenges it has to face. We must look at what has been achieved so far, take stock and fix ourselves realistic objectives for the future.

HA: Moving forward what do you think would strengthen the work and impact of the ACHPR?

FPT: I have mentioned the increased recognition of the work done by the commission, but there is a need for the commission to reach a wider, grassroots audience. I believe that the better the mandate and work of the commission are understood by everyone on the continent, and abroad, the greater the legitimacy of the commission and consequently the more collaboration it will receive from AU member states. We need to build more bridges.

HA: How can civil society and citizens in Africa help to ensure freedom of expression on the continent?

FPT: There is an obvious need for civil society, NGOs and other actors including me as Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression in Africa, to keep raising awareness of the principles of freedom of expression in Africa, to campaign for the implementation of the relevant instruments and to call on governments to respect their obligations under international human rights law by bringing their laws in line with international standards. Civil society and the citizens of Africa can also help in collaborating with my mandate by, for instance, continuing to send in information on alleged violations of the rights.

Only collaboration between all the actors involved, including, obviously, the full participation of the states, can ultimately lead to full respect of the right to freedom of expression on the African continent, and so the real co-existence of nations based on the principles of democracy. Indeed, together we can help states implement these principles by adopting a culturally sensitive approach, taking into account the different situations prevailing in each country and region of the continent. That is where the importance of raising awareness becomes truly relevant and where the work of a mandate such as mine draws all its significance.

* Hakima Abbas is the AU Policy analyst for Fahamu Networks for Social Justice

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

The African Union has established institutions and laws for safeguarding the rights of children in Africa, but African governments have yet to prove their commitment to doing more than multiplying these legal mechanisms, writes Mireille Affa’a Mindzie.

Children have the right, without discrimination, to special care and protection from their family, society and the state.[1] While practices such as child labour have a long history in Africa, and particular cultural or traditional practices have a negative impact on the health and development of thousands of children, it is nonetheless true that African children have traditionally received care and protection from their parents and care-givers.

Modernisation has brought with it a wide range of abuses endured by African children, such as economic and sexual exploitation, gender discrimination in education and access to health, and their involvement in armed conflict. It is estimated that sub-Saharan Africa has the highest child labour rate in the world, with approximately 80 million children, or 41 per cent of those under the age of 14, working.[2] These figures are influenced by factors such as migration, early marriage, differences between urban and rural areas, child-headed households, street children and poverty. Furthermore, while child mortality on the continent declined between the 1970s and early 1990s, this trend has since reversed. Endemic diseases such as malaria and tuberculosis have undermined efforts to mitigate and stall the spread of HIV/AIDS.[3] It is estimated that 19,000 African children die daily from easily curable diseases, and that 80 per cent of the world’s HIV-positive children under the age of 15 live in Africa.[4] With regard to violent conflict, up to 100,000 children, some as young as nine, were thought to be involved in armed conflict in mid-2004.[5]

To address the issue of child abuse and ensure better protection of children, member states of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) have developed laws and institutions to monitor and advocate for child rights. In July 1990 African governments adopted the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child.[6] The African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (ACERWC), the supervising organ of the charter, is the main mechanism for promoting and protecting the rights of children in Africa. With the transformation of the OAU into the African Union (AU) and the new emphasis placed on human rights and popular participation, the continental protection of children has moved from political rhetoric to legal and judicial safeguards. This paper will look at how ACERWC can be strengthened so as to implement its mandate effectively. It will analyse the mechanisms that have been put in place to ensure better protection of children’s rights in Africa, and consider what remains to be done for this protection to be seen on the ground.
Towards effective protection of children’s rights in Africa
The African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child is the first regional and comprehensive binding instrument proclaiming the human rights of children. The adoption of the charter closely followed that of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). The charter was justified on several grounds, including the multiple compromises that were necessary to achieve adoption of the UN convention, the limited participation of African countries in its drafting, and the consequent lack of consideration given to situations particular to Africa. The charter proclaims a series of rights encompassing civil rights and fundamental freedoms, economic, social and cultural rights, and specific rights for the protection of children in the African context.

Some of the specific features of the charter include a stronger definition of the child than in the UN convention, strict prohibition of the participation of children in armed conflicts, protection of internally displaced and refugee children, protection of imprisoned expectant mothers and mothers of infants and young children, and protection of girls who become pregnant before the end of their education. The charter reiterates the call to eliminate social and cultural practices affecting the welfare, dignity and development of children, including the use of child beggars, child marriage and the betrothal of boys and girls. Like the UNCRC, fundamental principles guiding implementation of these rights include non-discrimination, the best interests of the child, the life, survival and development of the child and child participation. Besides the rights of the child, the charter provides for the responsibilities that every child has, subject to their age and ability, towards family and society, the state and the international community.

The African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, established under the charter, is mandated to ensure the promotion and protection of the rights enshrined in the charter, to monitor their implementation, to interpret the provisions of the charter when requested to do so by AU member states, by an institution of the AU, or by any other person or institution recognised by the AU or any state party, and to undertake any other task as may be entrusted to it by the assembly of heads of state and government, the chairperson of the commission or any other organ of the AU or the UN. The ACERWC has 11 members elected by the AU Executive Council for a five-year non-renewable term; the first were elected in July 2001. The committee held its first meeting in 2002 in Addis Ababa, and has so far held nine meetings. Its current members represent Botswana, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, Lesotho, Mali, Nigeria, Senegal and Togo.

The committee is competent to examine periodic reports from states parties on the measures they would have adopted to give effect to the provisions of the charter, to consider individual communications or complaints on any matter covered by the charter, and to investigate any matter falling within the ambit of the charter. The committee has so far received five state reports, from Egypt, Kenya, Mauritius, Nigeria and Rwanda.[7] It is to consider two individual communications alleging the violation of child rights in Uganda and Kenya. Promotional visits and missions have been undertaken in countries such as Madagascar, Namibia, Sudan and Northern Uganda, and future missions are planned to the DRC, Liberia, São Tomé and Príncipe, Tunisia and Zambia.

Criticisms have surrounded the creation of the committee as a specific institution charged with the promotion and protection of children’s rights, alongside the existing African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights.[8] Inadequate funding and resources for the committee since it was established have raised further questions about the need for a separate child rights mechanism in Africa. For instance, no permanent secretary for the committee has so far been appointed according to Article 40 of the charter.[9] Since its first members were elected it has been deprived of the staff needed to implement and co-ordinate its activities. The body relies for the most part on an overloaded AU Department for Social Affairs. During its ninth meeting, the AU commissioner for social affairs suggested that the committee reduce its meetings from two to one a year until it is provided with a fully functional secretariat.[10] It also lacks sufficient funding to support its programmes and activities. For the past five years the committee has survived thanks to the generosity of international agencies such as UNICEF and international NGOs including Save the Children Sweden and Plan International. Other civil society partners, such as the Banjul-based Institute for Human Rights and Development in Africa, have been instrumental in developing legal documents necessary for the committee to implement its mandate.

For the committee to grow as an independent and effective mechanism for advocating and monitoring children’s rights in Africa, it should be taken more seriously by the AU. In other words, the committee should be provided with all the resources needed to discharge its mandate. It should also be linked to other AU human rights organs, namely the African Commission and the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, as well as to the overall continental political framework.

The ACERWC within the African Union architecture

Effective protection of child rights in Africa requires harmonised interaction between different elements of the continent’s overall human rights framework. More specifically, for the committee to succeed in the short to medium-term, closer links should be forged with existing mechanisms for promoting and protecting human and child rights. The committee has started collaborating over state reporting procedure with similar organs, such as the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, and at the regional level with the African commission and the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights.[11] Given the similarity of most of their functions and procedures, this collaboration should be taken further.

For instance, the committee could benefit from the court’s years of experience. The commission could inspire the committee with regard to implementing its promotional and protective mandate. The committee could further benefit from the long-standing relationship developed between the commission and civil society organisations, namely human rights NGOs. In this regard it is important to note that at its 9th meeting, the committee decided that from its 11th meeting the participation of NGOs would be linked to their preliminary application for, and granting of, observer status.[12] The committee has adopted criteria for granting observer status to civil society organisations and is encouraging the formalisation of its partnership with NGOs. However, since it relies significantly on the engagement of civil society to disseminate the charter and publicise its mandate and work, thus supporting and strengthening its overall structure, restricting participation of NGOs to those granted observer status has the potential to weaken its meetings, both in terms of their frequency and content.

Beyond the collaboration initiated and encouraged between the committee and the commission, it is proposed that the two should work towards establishing an integrated human rights body, mandated to promote and protect both general and specific human rights in Africa, including children’s rights.[13] Membership of such a combined body could be increased from 11 to 18 people. Besides rationalising the promotion and protection of human rights within the African Union, the proposed merger would help to centralise funding. It would also clarify the collaboration of both the Child Rights Committee and the commission with the court and, in future, the African Court of Justice.

The African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights was created under the 1998 Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, with the aim of strengthening the protective mandate of the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights. Although the protocol establishing the court was adopted before the children’s charter entered into force, the document set out the competence of the court over relevant international and regional human rights instruments ratified by African governments,[14] including the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child. However, the protocol did not specify the modalities of collaboration between the court and the committee. In July 2004, the decision of AU member states to merge the court with the proposed African Court of Justice provided an opportunity expressly to envisage the relationship of the committee (and the commission) with the court. In that sense, the draft Merger Protocol on the African Court of Justice and Human Rights expressly recognises the African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child.

As with the commission, the committee will play a key role in the court’s seizing.[15] This is confirmed by Article 29 of the draft merger protocol, which specifies that the court shall have jurisdiction over all cases and legal disputes submitted with regard to the interpretation of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, the Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa, and any other legal instrument relating to human rights that is ratified by AU member states.[16] As well as states parties to the merger protocol, African inter-governmental organisations, national human rights institutions, and individuals or relevant NGOs accredited to the AU or to its organs, the African commission and the African Committee of Experts shall be entitled to submit cases to the court on any violation of a right guaranteed by the African Charter, by the Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa, or any other legal instrument relevant to human rights ratified by the states parties concerned. The statute also indicates that the court shall bear in mind complementarity with the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights and the committee when drafting its rules of procedure.[17] The first session of the African Court of Justice, held in Banjul in July 2006, started with briefing sessions on the commission and the committee.[18] The court has since started drafting and has adopted part of its rules of procedure. Collaboration between the main regional human rights mechanisms should thus be further encouraged.

As the central judicial organ of the AU, the court will help reinforce the legal value of the recommendations adopted by the committee in relation to cases of violations of children’s rights in Africa. The court’s decisions shall be final and have a binding effect. Unlike the commission and the committee, the court may, after establishing that violations of rights have occurred, order appropriate measures to be taken to remedy the situation; this can include the granting of fair compensation.[19] Moreover, although the committee was established as part of the AU framework, the constitutive act of the AU makes no direct reference to it. By expressly stating that the AU executive council shall be notified of the court’s judgments and monitor their execution on behalf of the assembly, Article 44 of the merger protocol will help to reinforce the legal protection of human and child rights on the continent.
Political support for child protection
Beyond the collaboration of the committee with other AU human rights mechanisms, effective protection of children in Africa calls for stronger interaction of the committee with the continent’s administrative and political institutions. For instance, the AU Commission, through specific departments and commissioners’ offices, namely the Office of the Commissioner for Social Affairs, Political Affairs and Peace and Security, has a crucial role in publicising the AU’s concern for children in Africa, as well as putting the issue on the agenda of the AU’s political institutions. Moreover, the permanent representatives’ committee, the executive council, and the AU Assembly should strengthen their involvement in issues affecting children in Africa. Unambiguous support should be given to the committee when adopting its budget, electing its members, and adopting and following up its activity report. As the supreme organ of the AU,[20] and the primary enforcer of reports and recommendations from its other organs,[21] the AU Assembly of Heads of State and Government further has the power to monitor the implementation of the AU’s policies and decisions concerning children,[22] as well as ensuring compliance of all member states through peer pressure.[23]

The new AU peace and security architecture provides another opportunity to strengthen the protection of African children, specifically those affected by war. The objectives of the Peace and Security Council include the anticipation and pre-empting of armed conflicts, as well as the prevention of massive violations of human rights.[24] The council also aims to promote and encourage democratic practices, good governance, the rule of law, human rights, respect for the sanctity of human life, and international humanitarian law.[25] These objectives could support advocacy for children’s rights within the overall prevention of conflict, monitoring of the rights of children caught up in armed conflict, and supervision of child reintegration processes and promotion of child rights within regional peace-building and post-conflict reconstruction processes.[26]

Finally, monitoring institutions and mechanisms such as the Pan-African Parliament,[27] the Conference on Security, Stability, Development and Cooperation in Africa (CSSDCA),[28] and the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) and its related African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM),[29] can play a key role in harmonised protection of human and child rights in Africa. The CSSDCA process aims to consolidate the work of the AU in the areas of peace, security, stability, development and cooperation. It provides a forum for the elaboration and advancement of common values within the AU’s main policy organs. Through the CSSDCA’s ‘stability calabash’, which focuses on the need for democratisation, good governance and popular participation within member states, and mainly through its ‘development calabash’ that addresses the improvement of general standards of living,[30] the committee could inform the CSSDCA process and contribute to monitoring and facilitating implementation of the AU strategy in terms of these themes. Under the NEPAD initiative and its Peer Review Mechanism, the promotion and protection of the rights of the child and young people is one of the nine key objectives of the ‘Democracy and Good Political Governance’ thematic area. This aims to ensure that African constitutions reflect democratic principles and provide for demonstrably accountable governance and political participation. The African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and, in principle, the new African Youth Charter, provide standards to monitor these objectives. At the end of the APRM process, reports on countries reviewed should be tabled and publicly considered by the committee, as is intended for the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights and other key regional and sub-regional structures.

In conclusion, there are clear efforts under way to protect child rights in Africa. However, much more needs to be done for children to participate effectively in the continent’s efforts to achieve sustainable peace and development. African governments are yet to prove their commitment to child rights beyond the mere multiplication of instruments and mechanisms.

* Mireille Affa'a Mindzie is a Senior Project Officer in CCR Conflict Intervention and Peacebuilding Support (CIPS) Project.

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

For references and notes, see link below.

Despite diverse stories of exile and exclusion, refugees, internally displaced persons and the stateless all have one core experience in common: they have been removed from their communities as a result of a severe breakdown in the relationship with the State authorities charged with protecting their rights. In Africa, writes Hakima Abbas, the severing of state protection and the exclusion of individuals and groups is widespread.

According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) 2.4 million refugees in Africa are compelled to seek protection outside their country of nationality or residence. An even greater number are also displaced from their homes but unable to cross an international border—over 11 million Africans are classified as internally displaced persons (IDPs). Quantifying those who are stateless in Africa—whether through denationalisation, expulsion, or the imposition of barriers to proving membership of the community—is a more difficult task. It is estimated that worldwide the number of stateless persons is 11 million, but many believe that this is a gross underestimation.

The Open Society Justice Initiative’s multi-year research on citizenship and discrimination in Africa found that statelessness was a complex spectrum of experience, from de jure statelessness at one end, to those who are de facto stateless, or whose citizenship is under threat, at the other. Some victims are high profile politicians or activists who have been declared individually de-nationalised, such as Zambia’s founding President Kenneth Kaunda. In other cases, entire populations have been excluded from full and equal citizenship, such as 1.5 million Zimbabweans whose parents were born elsewhere. Using this approach, at the very least, 10 million persons can be qualified as stateless in Africa.

While international law recognizes that national governments have the primary responsibility for protecting the rights of those within their borders, individuals who are unable to create a strong link with the state are often left in a vacuum. Stripped of the protection of their own governments, these groups—refugees, IDPs and the stateless—constitute a millions strong population of disenfranchised persons who are increasingly looking to regional mechanisms to address their urgent needs. As the premier human rights institution on the continent, the African Commission on Human and Peoples Rights (the Commission) has been at the forefront of the effort to carve out a new layer of protection for these African citizens.

The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights

Since it first started operating in 1987 the Commission has been the principle mechanism charged with promoting and protecting the human rights of all those on the continent of Africa. In its stewardship of the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights (the African Charter), the Commission has both a human rights monitoring role (which includes the examination of periodic State reports) and direct protection functions.

As a promoter of human rights, the Commission has identified the situation of refugees and displaced on the continent as a priority. In 2003 the Commission signed a Memorandum of Understanding with UNHCR dedicated to strengthening collaboration between the institutions and in June 2004 the Commission confirmed the appointment of a new Special Rapporteur on Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons (Special Rapporteur) .

It is perhaps, however, through the Commission’s direct protection functions that it has contributed most to the strengthening of the rights of the excluded on the continent. The Commission has the power both to launch investigations in special circumstances and, most importantly, to consider specific complaints, or ‘communications’, alleging rights violations, brought to its attention by individuals or organisations. Through a developing jurisprudence, the Commission’s consideration of the situation of the excluded has allowed for the elaboration of standards relating to their rights, a particularly vital function in a context where it is rare that that refugees or the stateless can seek protection at national level, due to practical and legal obstacles.

The role of the Commission as adjudicator: carving out a basic set of protections

The Commission confirmed early on in its decision-making history that the rights protections granted by the African Charter were not limited to nationals should be secured to “all persons” within the jurisdiction of State parties to the treaty. The case of Rencontre Africaine pour la Défense des Droits de l’Homme (RADDHO) v. Zambia concerned the detention, ill treatment and eventual mass expulsion of 517 West Africans from Zambia. Since then the non-discrimination and equality protections in Article 2 and 3 of the Charter have been used by the Commission as the foundation stones for its construction of a folder of protection for the excluded. In Organisation Mondiale Contre la Torture and Others v Rwanda the Commission later explicitly confirmed that refugees were among the categories of persons protected from discrimination on grounds of their status.

Unlike many international human rights treaties, the African Charter specifically guarantees the right of the individual “when persecuted, to seek and be granted asylum in a foreign territory, in accordance with the legislation of the state and international conventions [..]”. In Organisation Mondiale Contre la Torture (OMCT) and Others the Commission ruled that the expulsion of Burundian Hutu refugees from Rwanda constituted a violation of the right to seek and enjoy asylum, but also of the protections in the Charter against the expulsion of legally admitted persons and mass expulsion. In the same case the Commission also demonstrated how the due process provisions of the Charter could provide additional protection to the excluded, declaring that the manner of the expulsion of the refugees had violated Article 7 (1) – the right of every individual “to have his cause heard”. The Commission has yet to give guidance, however, on whether the right to have a “cause heard” could be interpreted to encompass the right of access by an asylum seeker to a fair refugee determination status procedure—in the OMCT case the persons concerned were already recognised as refugees.

The situation of the stateless has been tackled by the Commission in a number of cases, using a variety of provisions, particularly centred around extrapolating a right to protection against arbitrary denationalisation. Although the Charter does not specifically protect the right to nationality, the communitarian aspects of the rights regime established by the Charter affirm the principle of the “right to belong,” through protection of the rights of “peoples” to self-determination, development, a satisfactory environment and “existence” (Article 20).

In the Mauritania cases the Government of Mauritania was accused of harassing, detaining, and eventually forcefully expelling thousands of ‘Black’ Mauritanians, its own citizens. The Commission ruled that the expelled Mauritanians had been stripped of their citizenship in a discriminatory—and therefore illegal—way and that the government should take appropriate steps to facilitate their return. In the case of John K. Modise v. Botswana it was both the act of denationalisation and the treatment of Mr Modise that resulted which attracted the censure of the Commission. Mr Modise had been rendered stateless by the Government of Botswana and deported to South Africa. Further to his ultimate removal back to Botswana Mr Modise was confined by the authorities to a strip of no man’s land between Botswana and South Africa and rendered homeless. The Commission found that the treatment of Mr Modise taken as a whole violated his basic dignity—and Article 5 of the Charter. It will be interesting to see to what extent in the future the Commission will continue to interpret the types of conditions suffered by those forced into statelessness as amounting to a violation of Article 5.

The Charter and the findings of the Commission have also provided a context within which solutions to the breakdown of State protection can be sought. The Commission has tackled, for example, the root causes of exclusion, examining the human rights violations suffered by those who have lost the protection of their State. In the leading case of John D. Ouko v. Kenya the Commission showed itself as a forum where state responsibility for the creation of the refugee phenomenon could be analysed – an issue often neglected by refugee advocates where the focus is on the urgent need for States to provide refuge. The Ouko communication concerned a Kenyan citizen who had been recognised as a refugee in the Democratic Republic of Congo further to fleeing persecution and detention by Kenyan authorities. The Commission found that the persecution and forced flight of Mr Ouko had violated a number of articles in the Charter, including Article 12 which protected Mr Ouko’s right to leave, and return (voluntarily) to, Kenya.

The responsibility of the state which provides asylum has also come under scrutiny at the Commission. In the case of African Institute for Human Rights and Development v Guinea the communication centred on a spate of abuses, including rape, detention, and killing which were suffered by Sierra Leonean refugees, in the wake of a speech by the President of Guinea urging all foreigners “searched and arrested”. The Commission ruled that the President’s speech, as an incitement and de facto authorization for the resultant attacks and expulsions, violated article 12(5) of the Charter. The Commission also found that there had been violations of the right to life, property and dignity of the refugees in addition to noting that the targeting of Sierra Leonean refugees violated Article 4 of the OAU Refugee Convention on the Specific Problems of Refugees in Africa.

In the Mauritania cases the Commission not only focussed on the arbitrary denationalisation of the complainants’ but also on the deplorable conditions in which the deportees had been held, finding a violation of Article 16 – the right of every individual “to enjoy the best attainable state of physical and mental health”. It is hoped that this approach will be followed in future cases relating to the standards of treatment in refugee or IDP camps, especially where freedom of movement is restricted by the authorities and people are confined to the settlements in contravention of international law.

The role of NGOs

All of the key cases considered to date by the Commission which touch on extrapolating the rights of the forcibly displaced and the stateless have been brought to the attention of the Commission by human rights and civil society organizations on the continent. It is not just in the realm of moving forward the Commission’s jurisprudence, however, that NGOs have been active. At the bi-annual meetings of the Commission it is usual for one of the statements to the Commission by NGOs to be dedicated to a review of the situation of refugees and IDPs on the continent, contributing to the overall monitoring function of the Commission.

It is acknowledged also that the work of NGOs dedicated to advocacy on refugee and IDP rights was critical to encouraging the Commission to create the position of Special Rapporteur. Since his appointment, first as focal point, and then as Special Rapporteur, Commissioner Nyanduga has been very active, conducting a series of missions which have done much to highlight the plight of the displaced (see article in this issue). The work of the Special Rapporteur, however, does need to be better supported to increase its effectiveness—resources at the Commission are highly stretched. NGOs can assist through seeking observer status before the Commission to play a more active advocacy role, and helping to mobilise funds for the functioning of the Rapporteur system.

Challenges

As an independent rights arbitrar the Commission suffers from a number of defects, the greatest perhaps being the non-binding nature of its rulings. It is also fair to say that as a deliberative body of State appointed experts, the Commission can find itself subject to political pressure. Despite this, the Commission can point to a history of courageous position-taking which has belied many of the predictions of politicisation. In recent years, however, it has been suggested that, the progressive stance which marked the evolution of the Commission is suffering a backlash. Some point, for example, to the fluctuating approach of the Commission’s jurisprudence to “exhaustion of domestic remedies”—a threshold consideration for admissibility of communications. In the past the Commission demonstrated a rather liberal attitude to interpreting this concept, particularly where asylum seekers, refugees and the stateless were involved, but it is now building a more elaborate set of hurdles.

Others note the difficulties encountered by the Commission in conducting its broader monitoring functions, particularly in reaching consensus on response to the humanitarian and human rights crisis in Darfur. The official report of the Commission of its mission to Darfur, presented at the third extra-ordinary session of the Commission in Pretoria in September 2004, has still not been published. This report was the first comprehensive African Union assessment of the human rights situation in Darfur, including focussing on the plight of IDPs. Although adopted officially by the AU, publication remains hostage to political manoeuvring, as the text awaits the comments of the Government of Sudan. .

What next for the Commission and for the excluded?

The foundation of the African Union in 2002 expressed a regional commitment to creating a more effective, integrated political and economic union with human rights situated at the heart of its principles and objectives. There are a number of areas where the Commission can be encouraged to use its position in the new African Union human rights firmament to promote the rights of the excluded. The new AU institutions, from the African Court to the AU Economic, Social and Cultural Council (ECOSOC) all present opportunities for the Commission to contribute to the setting of human rights benchmarks. The Commission has already been explicitly assigned functions, for example, with respect to the peer review mechanism under NEPAD and the Conference on Security, Stability, Development and Cooperation in Africa (CSSDCA). A

The Commission, however, is the human rights touchstone, not just for the new AU frame but for other continental processes which address human rights concerns—the International Conference on the Great Lakes is just one process comprising a series of new laws relating to the rights of the excluded. The Commission can ensure complementary efforts and exchange of jurisprudence with such mechanisms. It will be essential, also, for the Commission to act as a a guide to regional courts as they are increasingly called upon to adjudicate on the rights of the excluded who may also claim rights from a sub-regional organisation—the East African Community is currently, for example, adopting a Bill of Rigths where freedom of movement and protection of the regions “citizens” will be paramount. Attention also needs to the paid to the promotion of the Charter and its jurisprudence at national level where the potential for the case law of the Commission to be cited in domestic proceedings is ripe but rarely exploited. National human rights commissions might be mobilised by the Commission in this regard.

Finally, the Commission can be a forum for the promotion of the new norms and standards which will certainly be required to respond to the changing nature of displacement and exclusion on the continent. Among the areas requiring particular elaboration include access to citizenship and the reduction of statelessness, the right of freedom of movement for IDPs and refugees, due process guarantees in asylum proceedings, rights of access to domestic courts (often restricted for refugees), the social and economic rights of the displaced and their hosts, and the implications for State responsibility of delegating protection of the excluded to international organisations. NGOs of course must play a role in identifying the strategic opportunities for litigation that will facilitate this work. They may also need to explore, alongside the Commission, where normative developments—new protocols to the Charter (such as perhaps on the right to a nationality)—may be required.

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

Korir Sing'Oei Abraham argues that Africa’s opposition to the adoption of rights for indigenous peoples — who are often nomads or hunter gatherers — has largely been informed by misconceptions and myths. He points out that the right to self-determination sought by these marginalised groups has been recognised by the AU as being consistent with the principles of a country’s territorial integrity.

It is late July 2006. A study and information visit by the Working Group of Experts on Indigenous Populations – part of the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights (the commission, hereafter) – is under way in Uganda. Uganda is one of the few African countries whose constitution boasts an extensive human rights regime of civil and political as well as economic, social and cultural rights. The visit, designed to disseminate the findings of a report by the commission in 2004 on the status of indigenous peoples in Africa, and thereby to engage in constructive dialogue with government officials and civil society in Kampala, is confronted with an insurmountable obstacle. A leading member of the Ugandan delegation overseeing the visit – Rosette Nyirinkindi, the head of the African Union division in Uganda’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs – is of the view that the visit’s objectives are contrary to the spirit of the country’s constitution, which seeks to foster peaceful coexistence among Uganda’s communities. According to Nyirinkindi, a seasoned diplomat who had previously served in her country’s mission in New York, the Ugandan constitution identifies all 56 ethnic communities residing in the country as indigenous. Therefore to set apart and focus on some of these communities to the exclusion of others, as the commission report had done, was a flagrant breach of Uganda’s constitutional and policy commitment to equality and a short cut to ethnic strife.

This is the classic scenario that confronts advocacy of indigenous rights in Africa. To raise indigenous issues in the continent demands that one respond to the question of to whom precisely indigenous rights may be ascribed. This then invites myriad other inquiries, including the usefulness of this distinction in promoting human rights and the link with the question of national integrity. This article will address some of these issues, and I hope give voice to the millions of pastoralists and forest communities who self-identify as indigenous people in Africa.

The context

It is difficult to analyse the question of indigenous rights in Africa without engaging with the question of statehood, and it is impossible to address the latter without considering its dubious origins. The colonial enterprise in Africa, marked by domination and annexation of territory, was masterminded by Leopold, the Belgian monarch, and Bismarck, the German chancellor. It reached its peak in the Berlin conference of 1884, which was convened ostensibly to regulate trading relations between European powers but ended by legislating for the partition of Africa. The result was the dismemberment of the continent into 53 multi-ethnic and odd states with no basis in scientific or social rationality save that of resolving territorial disputes between the colonisers. This certainly lends credence to the fledgling movement for the unification of Africa.

Colonialism was based on the ethnocentric belief that the morals and values of the European coloniser were superior to those of the colonised African. It involved egregious racial discrimination linked to pseudo-scientific theories that were buttressed by the Christian religious zealotry of the 17th and 18th centuries. This form of social Darwinism, that placed white people at the top of the animal kingdom ‘naturally’ in charge of dominating non-European indigenous populations, found a strong philosophical justification in the works of the German philosopher Hegel, amongst others. He claimed that sub-Saharan Africa was an ancient utopia which had remained shut up within itself: ‘the land of childhood, which lying beyond the day of self-conscious history, is enveloped in the dark mantle of night’. Its isolated character, argued Hegel, originated not merely in its tropical nature but essentially in its geographical condition. Hegel claimed that upland negroes continued to exist in a state of consciousness which he termed ‘the infancy of humanity’, hence the juridical concept of discovery that informed colonial property relations with conquered people’s territories.

The post-colonial state in Africa, emerging from this colonial artifice, reluctant to remodel itself, and having solidified the colonial boundaries through the ancient international legal principle of uti possidetis,[1] is fraught with weaknesses which have manifested themselves in serious ethnic conflicts, poor governance, wanton inequalities and chronic poverty. Indigenous rights in Africa must be assessed and asserted from this context.

Indigenous rights and people in Africa

While it is undeniable that the West ravaged and looted the entire continent through slavery, colonialism and neo-colonialism, the disproportionate disadvantage dispensed by these forces upon some communities in Africa is vehemently denied. Why is it so hard to appreciate that the Maasai, who lost over one million acres of grazing land in Kenya’s vast Rift Valley to the British, today constitute one of the poorest communities in the country? Does it take rocket science to appreciate that the expulsion of the Batwa from the Bwindi and Mgahinga National Parks in Uganda to pave the way for the protection of the mountain gorilla, a key tourist attraction, has led to the near-decimation of this hunter-gatherer community? Does one need to ask what contributes to the penury of the Herero in Namibia, whom the Germans butchered en masse and used as guinea pigs at the turn of the 20th century?

The worst part of the nightmare is that rather than pave the way for the reconstruction of Africa’s political and economic order, the departure of the colonialists ushered in a new set of black dominators who, taking advantage of the instruments and institutions of the colonial state, proceeded to plunder and loot the continent of its resources and completely closed the door to restitutive justice.

Contemporary public policy makers in Africa ignore the shame of colonialism and make vigorous attempts to construct a reality based on the ‘national interest’ rather than communitarian pursuits, which they consider provincial and therefore sectarian. It is this subsuming of identities, and its conflation with equality for all, that is largely responsible for the denial of indigenous rights.

Indigenous rights are considered a domain of rights which seeks to dislocate national priorities for communitarian purposes and does not fit the logic of state-centred development. That some communities have refused to align their interests with national development priorities is seen as failing to take on the responsibility and demands of progress. This view is part of a classical contention that disputes the relevance of recognising diversity in divided societies, a move that hegemonises the state. A critical analysis of indigenous rights and their beneficiaries would demonstrate the fallacy of this objection.

First, indigenous rights are grounded in the general notion of the universality of rights within a multicultural context as endorsed by the Vienna Declaration of 1993. That declaration unequivocally reaffirmed the inherent dignity and unique contribution of indigenous people to the development and plurality of society, and called for their full inclusion in the life of the state. It is therefore anathema to question the place of indigenous rights in the national discourse, for the two can comfortably coexist and support each other; the substantive inclusion of marginalised groups in national processes gives the latter broader legitimacy. By reinforcing the state where it would otherwise be absent, the promotion of indigenous rights, such as self-determined local governance and development, can lead to peace.

Second, indigenous rights must be seen as enabling substantive equality, thus spreading light to a group of people previously not reached by the transformative premise of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. While non-discrimination is held up as a jus cogens,[3] the fact that it is still difficult to achieve equality for all means that marginalised groups, be they women, children, minorities or indigenous groups, have to pursue strategies that go beyond formal equality to attain the promise of dignity for all people. Some have questioned how effective non-discrimination provisions are as a bulwark against the human rights deficiencies experienced by indigenous groups. Professor Kingsbury of New York University has argued, for instance, that the existing mechanisms have completely failed to deal adequately with the concerns of indigenous groups, and have merely served a symbolic and didactic purpose, hence the demand for more specific mechanisms.

Third, the collective conception of rights has often seemed to be a child of a lesser god within a human rights system that has historically pitted civil and political rights against economic, social and cultural rights. Collective rights, which are central to the struggle of indigenous people the world over, have suffered from being poorly articulated, which has prevented them from being regarded as the norm. Thanks to Article 27 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the progressive jurisprudence that has flowed from the Human Rights Committee on this article, a lot of ground has been laid for the protection of group rights to land and development, among other things. The rich array of solidarity rights provided for under the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (the charter, hereafter), which lend themselves well to the cause of indigenous peoples, is thanks to Keba M’Baye, the Senegalese jurist. His appreciation of the dynamics of African society inspired the document. In his 1972 monograph on the rights to development – Le Droit du Developpement comme un Droit de l’Homme – borrowing significantly from Karel Vasak, UNESCO’s director, M’Baye articulates solidarity rights to include the right to development, the right to peace, the right to an environment, the right to ownership of the common heritage of humankind, and the right to communication.

Thus, the notion of indigenous people and rights in Africa must be understood not merely in terms of a dictionary definition that emphasises people’s origins. The modern understanding of the term ‘indigenous peoples’ focuses on the lived experience of systemic marginalisation, discrimination, cultural difference and self-identification, in line with the emerging practice of the commission. The International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs (IWGIA) and the Working Group on Indigenous Issues of the commission have argued that:…the issue of indigenous peoples revolves around the assertion that certain marginalized groups are discriminated against in particular ways because of their particular culture, mode of production and subordinate position within the state and that state legal and policy frameworks have been impotent at addressing these challenges. This is a form of discrimination which other groups within the state do not suffer from. It is legitimate for these marginalized groups to call for the protection of their rights in order to alleviate this particular form of discrimination.[4]

The notion of indigenous people in Africa also overlaps with the concept of minority rights, another problematic but less controversial term in the continent.

Africa’s opposition to the adoption of standard-setting mechanisms and norms for indigenous peoples has largely been informed by misconceptions and myths. In 2006 an assault on the Draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, led by Namibia and Botswana within the African group in the UN, caused the General Assembly to postpone its decision on the declaration, thereby holding in abeyance substantive recognition of indigenous rights under international law. When the African Union’s assembly of heads of state and government met in Addis Ababa a year later, they justified the position of the African group on the grounds that indigenous rights as elaborated in the declaration would affect territorial integrity. The question that baffles many is whether the Batwa in Uganda, the Endorois in Kenya or the Bushmen in Botswana have designs to create their own separate states. Is it not obvious that the right to self-determination sought by these groups is one that can empower them and lead to their recognition and enhanced participation in public affairs? The Katanga v Zaire communication of 1976, which established that a variant of self-determination that ensures the inclusion of marginalised groups within a state is consistent with the principle of territorial integrity, was reiterated nearly 20 years later in the Ogoni v Nigeria decision by the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights.

The term ‘indigenous people’ should therefore be used in a practical way, to draw attention to and alleviate the particular form of discrimination from which communities suffer. In the African context these communities are almost always nomadic or hunter gatherers. By identifying with the term, they feel that the particularities of their suffering can be better articulated and can lend themselves to the protection of international human rights law and moral standards. The adoption of a flexible bundle of rights attributable to indigenous groups, rather than a constant struggle to achieve unanimous agreement on terminology (which has been elusive over the last two decades of discussion within the UN on indigenous rights) seems to me to offer a real possibility for appreciating indigenous peoples’ rights in Africa.

A cry from the dark: living on the fringes

Groups that self-identify as indigenous live a peripheral existence. Most governments in Africa do not have disaggregated data or indicators to monitor the social, economic and political status of indigenous people. How then can they track progress towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals if the poorest of the poor are not even properly recognised? A major concern is that many states will focus on the bottom line of reaching the MDGs, rather than the matter of who reaches them or how. This risk was noted in the Human Development Report of 2003.[5]

Take the Twa in Burundi, Rwanda, DRC and Uganda, for instance. Their lifestyle and the rate of deforestation has kept them moving for decades and left them vulnerable – falling through the cracks of a modern social and legal system which would normally secure tenure on both their lands and livelihood assets. Growing pressure to preserve the few remaining rainforests in the most densely populated countries of the Great Lakes region means that they find themselves excluded from their traditional habitats. The Rwandan state has for decades been tightening its control over forest areas, driven by the need for more protective conservation policies, the growth of the tourism industry and security concerns along its borders with DRC, Burundi and Uganda. The Batwa have been the most affected by these measures, which have uprooted them from their traditional lifestyle and means of earning a living. They have been unable to make a successful transition to a sedentary life and a market economy.

Most indigenous communities, including the Twa, were never compensated when expelled from the ‘protected areas’ or ‘state reserves’ they used to live in, due to their traditional marginalisation and to flawed legal and policy frameworks. As a result, their living conditions have degenerated further. Today, most Batwa lead a shockingly impoverished existence. A recent report by a UK charity called the Forest Peoples Programme predicts that the Twa are in danger of extinction unless massive and concerted action is taken to reverse their decline.

Such is the state of many other groups of indigenous people, both pastoralists and hunter gatherers, from the Barabaig in Tanzania to the Tuareg in Mali.

The road less traveled

Indigenous rights, shunned by politicians across the continent, have found solace in an unlikely quarter: the judiciary. Reputed to be incorrigibly corrupt and inefficient, judiciaries across the continent have yet to be acknowledged as bastions of justice for the weak. It is here that the struggle for recognition and respect for indigenous rights has been most vociferously waged. From Botswana to Kenya, South Africa to Uganda, courts have become the theatre for dramatising the plight of indigenous people and the sheer scale of their destitution. In Kenya, a toothless goat was produced to persuade a court of allegations of environmental genocide perpetrated against the indigenous Il Chamus community. In Botswana, hundreds of members of the Basarwa community, clad in their colourful traditional attire, endured a 200-day hearing to demonstrate that they were indeed a recognisable group, contrary to the state’s assertion. Judicial proceedings have been used with mixed results to seek land restitution for an indigenous group in South Africa, halt state displacement of the Ogiek from the Tinet forest in the Rift Valley of Kenya, procure provision of social services for the Benet in Uganda, stop a multinational mining company from procuring a land concession in the Magadi area of Kenya for soda ash production, and secure language rights in Namibia.

Disappointingly, just as in the days of Brown v Board of Education at the height of the civil rights movement in the United States, when the Supreme Court issued judgments in favour of desegregation but racist and belligerent states refused to implement them, African governments have been reluctant to embrace with open arms the decisions of their own judiciaries. The government of Botswana, for instance, side-stepped the decision of its constitutional court and refused to allow the Basarwa to return to their hunting livelihood in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve. A year after the Kenyan constitutional court held that a constituency should be created for the Il Chamus in Baringo to ensure their participation in policy making, no action has been taken. A similar state of affairs prevails in Uganda, where two years after consent judgment was entered allowing the Benet rights to graze and farm the land they occupy, there has been no action by the administration to back up the court’s decision. In a continent that professes respect for the rule of law as a central tenet of its constitutional order, the failure to implement judicial decisions is a mocking indictment of Africa’s commitments to good governance and democratic ideals.

Undeterred, indigenous groups have seized on regional mechanisms to develop standard-setting precedents on indigenous rights, but their attempts have yet to bear fruit. In 2006 the Bakweri lands claim against the Cameroonian government was defeated when the commission declared the communication inadmissible. Indigenous people in Africa wait with bated breath for the commission’s decision with respect to the Endorois communication against the Kenyan government, which seeks the restitution of ancestral territory.

The media houses, belatedly, have taken their cue from these dramatic scenes and begun to highlight the folly of non-recognition of indigenous communities’ plight in Africa, enabling the African public and policy makers to consider their predicament. Mainstream civil society organisations such as ActionAid and CARE in Uganda have begun to demand state attention to indigenous rights as a means of attaining the Millennium Development Goals. The rise of organisations such as the Centre for Minority Rights Development in Kenya and the Indigenous Peoples of Africa Coordinating Committee (IPACC) in South Africa, dedicated solely to the struggle for indigenous rights in Africa, is also helping give visibility to these issues.

Good news, difficult to come by, is slowly emerging. Countries such as South Africa and Cameroon have taken the bold step of commencing processes to ratify ILO Convention 169, which extends a substantive regime of rights for indigenous people, including the right to free, prior and informed consent in relation to development processes on indigenous lands.

Not yet out of the woods…

Indigenous people’s struggles for recognition of their rights must be considered within the context of building multicultural societies in Africa, where diverse identities contribute towards the well-being of the whole. Without this paradigm shift, indigenous rights will continue to be perceived negatively, as instruments of parochialism and division. Yet to achieve this shift, Africa must rise up to the challenge of its own identity. Until then, it is ‘not yet uhuru’ for indigenous groups in Africa.

* Mr. Sing’Oei is the executive Director of the Centre for Minority Rights Development (Cemiride)

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

For notes, see link below.

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/328/fahamu_aubook_cover_200.jp… setting the scene with an account of how and why Africa has developed its own system for protecting human and peoples' rights, Hakima Abbas concludes that the success of the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights, in spite of 'the seeming lack of political will on the part of African states and governments to hold one another accountable for violations of fundamental freedoms', lies primarily in the distinctive engagement of civil society.

Since independence from colonialism, Africa has continued to bear witness to gross violations of human rights: from the genocide in Rwanda, leading to some 8000,000 deaths in as little as 100 days, to the continued violence in the DRC which has claimed more than 4 million lives, 1,000 people daily. The continent is home to some 120,000 child soldiers – more than a third of the global number. Africa has more internally displaced people than the rest of the world combined, with over 13 million people forced to flee from their homes and 3.5 million crossing international borders as refugees. The impact of HIV/AIDS has devastated whole communities, while access to health and information remains limited for some of the world’s poorest people.

While the Charter of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) recognised and upheld the principles enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), the organisation was firmly rooted in the doctrine of non-interference between states established in the liberation era when unity and solidarity against colonialism were the primary driving force for the institutionalisation of pan-Africanism. The concepts of sovereignty and independence that made the OAU an effective anti-colonial body were later used to stifle human rights protection by implying political apathy toward the abuse by African states against their own people.

Following the 1963 adoption of the charter of the OAU, African leaders were invited to study the possibility of adopting an African convention on human rights. At that time, states and other perpetrators of human rights abuses on the continent often used a cultural relativist argument to dispel criticism and resist change in policy and practice. Accusing human rights defenders abroad and nationally of ‘neo-colonialism’ and labelling the very concept of human rights as ‘western values’, they failed to acknowledge or be held accountable to African human rights principles and norms that had yet to be formally enshrined into a charter system. This was soon to change due, primarily, to the efforts of the Association of African Jurists.[1] As early as 1961, African jurists convened under the auspices of the International Commission of Jurists and formulated the concept of an African human rights charter and court. Yet, only in 1979, after repeated calls from these jurists, did the OAU under the leadership of Togolese Edem Kodjo finally address the issue of human rights and make clear their relationship with African development. By the end of the same year, a committee of experts met in Dakar, under the direction of the OAU, to draft a charter on human rights. The African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights was finally adopted in Nairobi, Kenya, in July 1981.

The African system of human and peoples’ rights is both universal in character and distinctively African in its scope and principles. Now under the auspices of the African Union (AU),[2] Africa has a wealth of human rights mechanisms, laws and norms,[3] at the centre of which lies the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (the charter, hereafter). Unlike other human rights treaties, the charter uniquely recognises collective rights, individual duties and third generation rights, while also characteristically underscoring the interdependence between political and civil rights and economic, social and cultural rights. Following its adoption in 1981, the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights came into force only in 1986 but has since been ratified by all 53 states of the African Union and is widely recognised within Africa, at least rhetorically, as setting the standard for the protection of human rights.
While some in the international community question the necessity of regional protection mechanisms given the very precept of universality enshrined in the concept of human rights, it is generally accepted that the advantage of such mechanisms are the common interest of states within a regional bloc in upholding human rights, the ability of these states and civil society within them to influence one another, as well as the ability to define human rights norms based on shared values within a region.[4] Such regional human rights mechanisms also exist in the Americas and Europe.

The charter laid the groundwork for the establishment of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (the commission, hereafter), which was established in 1987. The commission has as its mission to promote and protect the rights enshrined in the charter by considering periodic state reports on national implementation and respect for the rights enshrined in the charter; contributing to the development and definition of human rights norms and principles on the continent; hearing complaints from states, civil society and individuals on human and peoples’ rights violations, issuing reports containing findings on whether abuses have occurred and making recommendations to the state and other perpetrators to remedy these violations; conducting fact-finding missions and establishing special procedures, such as appointing special rapporteurs and working groups, on salient issues on the continent.

While the principles of the charter have been widely adopted throughout Africa, as has the mandate of the commission, the principle of non-interference between states seems still entrenched. To this day, the African commission has heard only one inter-state complaint since its establishment. Despite the seeming lack of political will on the part of African states and governments to hold one another accountable for violations of fundamental freedoms, the success of the commission lies primarily in the engagement of civil society in its work. The Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights does not explicitly define who is able to seize (appeal to) the commission with individual complaints but the commission itself has interpreted the charter to broadly permit individuals and NGOs to submit complaints. Additionally, at every session of the commission, an NGO forum – currently organised by the African Centre for Human Rights and Democracy Studies in Africa (ACHRDS) – precedes the official opening and deliberations.

The NGO forum has established itself as an important part of the commission’s work by providing reports on thematic and regional situations as well as providing a platform for joint civil society advocacy and action. In recognition of the important contribution of civil society to the commission’s work, the final communiqué of the NGO forum is read out to representatives of states, commissioners, and civil society during the opening ceremony of each commission session. The NGO forum has been successful in putting issues of importance on the agenda of the commission and in providing alternative information for the commission to consider alongside state reports. Further, the NGO forum has proved invaluable in creating a network of steadfast African civil society organisations that effectively engage pan-African policy makers and institutions to create real change in Africa. Holding not only the states and governments to account, the NGO forum has effectively pushed for greater emphasis on the commission’s work at the African Union, thus contributing to the furtherance of a culture of respect for rights in Africa.

In November 2007, the commission will be celebrating its 20th year of operation at its 42nd ordinary session in Congo-Brazzaville. At this juncture in the evolution of the commission and with the imminent operation of the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights,[5] it is important to critically assess the successes, challenges and effectiveness of the human and peoples’ rights system in Africa. The only true measure for such an assessment is the changes in reality for individuals and communities across the continent.
With this yardstick, it is difficult to ignore the failures of the present system as we observe the tragedies in Darfur, the ongoing crisis in Northern Uganda, the widespread violations of women’s rights, the systematic use of torture and other cruel and degrading punishment by state actors, among other violations that continue to be widespread in Africa. Given that the state is primarily responsible for guaranteeing human and peoples’ rights, it requires no leap of logic to conclude that without the political will to respect these rights, violations will continue unabated. But even beyond the will of states to hold one another and themselves accountable, the African human rights system faces very fundamental challenges. Among these is simply the lack of knowledge of these rights and mechanisms across the continent.

It is indeed true that there is a gap between the decisions made in most pan-African institutions and the people of the continent directly affected by these decisions. However, this fact is particularly detrimental when dealing with the commission since its recommendations and decisions are not binding, thus, they rely heavily on political will for enforcement. Yet, the states’ determination to implement the recommendations of the commission will continue to be deficient as long as there is no internal pressure for realisation. In order for the people of Africa to hold their heads of states and governments accountable to their obligations under the charter and the decisions of the commission, there needs to be widespread popularisation and promotion of these rights and recommendations. The commission, states themselves and civil society should lead this national sensitisation and institutionalisation campaign, with the media playing an essential role.

Suggestions have further been made that the African human rights charter system needs to be integrated into the legal culture in Africa by making it an inherent part of the curriculum in universities and law schools throughout the continent. This legal institutionalisation at the national level would ensure that the charter system is cited in national jurisprudence and used by lawyers who would, in turn, make it accessible to their clients.[6]

The current impediment to widespread publicity of the charter and the decisions of the commission has largely been the lack of a concerted multi-stakeholder effort across the continent. However, the charter itself contains a provision, unheard of in other regional human rights systems, which requires the assembly of heads of states and governments to approve the commission’s reports before they become public.[7] As a matter of course, the assembly has approved the publication of the commission’s reports. Yet, in 2004, this procedure, which had previously been taken for granted, was subjected to scrutiny as the publication of the commission’s activity report on a fact-finding mission to Zimbabwe was postponed by the assembly on the basis of the claim by the government of Zimbabwe that it had not been given the opportunity to respond. This unique precedent underlines the danger, especially in situations as politically contentious as the crisis in Zimbabwe, that the decisions of the commission may be made obsolete if silenced by African heads of states and governments.

Additionally, for the mechanisms, institutions and avenues for advocacy in Africa to be effective, the system must be utilised to its fullest potential. The use of laws creates precedence, the use of advocacy forums generates accountability and the sustained use of mechanisms enhances their powers of enforceability. However, the potential impact of direct advocacy within Africa has been little tapped by international NGOs and resource-constrained national or local human rights defenders. The underuse of this system is detrimental, with most solutions to human rights violations in Africa sought from outside the continent. While a global strategy is necessary, what is needed, to complement to the current emphasis on international protection, is a new approach that originates from the continent, embraces the existing system of protection and promotion in Africa and provides a pro-active Pan-African response to violations.

While one of the strengths of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights is the distinctive engagement of civil society, it is a tireless select number of African human rights organisations that have created the space for their engagement in the system through the NGO Forum and other platforms. While at the African Union level, efforts have been made by states to undermine access and meaningful engagement by civil society by creating criteria for observer status that favour governmental NGOs (GONGOs) rather than independent civil society organisations,[8] criteria for observer status at the commission itself allow for a wide range of civil society organisations and individuals to bring complaints before it. However, access to and engagement with the commission, as with other pan-African institutions, favours international NGOs because of the lack of resources, understanding of potential impact, and access to information available to national and local human rights defenders. Yet it is these local and national civil society organisations and activists that are critical in ensuring national implementation of the rights enshrined in the charter and enforcement of the recommendations of the commission. Despite this, the NGO forum successfully and critically attempts to amplify the voice of African human rights defenders in the proceedings. Such endeavours must be supported and expanded for the commission to be strengthened.

As of 2005, the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights had issued an average of ten decisions per year, as compared to the Inter-American Human Rights Commission, which made decisions in approximately 100 cases per year. There are several reasons for the stark difference, but the budgetary contrast is striking: the African commission has a budget of $200,000 for each session, whereas the inter-American commission has an annual budget of $2.78 million and $1.28 million in external contributions and, as with the African commission, holds two sessions per year.[9]

Further to budgetary considerations to strengthen human rights system, complementary treaties to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights have the potential to strengthen respect for human and peoples’ rights in Africa. Currently, the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, which came into force in 1999, has been ratified by 37 states and established the Committee on the Rights and Welfare of the Child to promote and protect child rights. However, if the commission remains obscure to many on the continent, the committee remains largely unheard of. Yet, other endeavours to complement the system have been more successful. In November 2005 the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa came into force. Having been adopted by the African Union in 2003, the protocol has been the fastest African treaty to come into force. This success is due primarily to the tireless efforts of women’s rights activists and human rights defenders across the continent, who formed coalitions, such as the Solidarity for Women’s Rights in Africa (SOAWR), to advocate regionally and nationally for the immediate ratification of the protocol without reservation. Proving that human rights protection and promotion is only as strong as the movement of defenders behind it, as suggested by Dr Issa Shivji,[10] the protocol lays the foundation for greater protection of women’s rights on the continent.

While the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, under Article 18 (3), addresses the rights of women, it has some shortcomings: its lack of a definition of discrimination, the scope of the rights it enumerates and its emphasis on tradition, which has been used, in some instances, to justify the violation of the rights of women. The protocol, however, is perceived to be groundbreaking in its breadth of rights. Though states seem to have readily adopted the protocol many have done so with reservations that are antithetical to the very principles of the protocol. It also remains to be seen how these states implement the rights enshrined in the treaty nationally. What seems certain, however, is that states will be held accountable to the commitments they have made under the protocol should the African women’s rights movement apply the same determination and coordination it used during the entry into force phase of the protocol to the domestication and enforcement phase.

In addition to the specialised treaty system that sits with the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, the African Union has finally established the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights to complement the protection of the commission. The protocol establishing the court came into force in 2004, after six years of waiting for the 15 state ratifications it needed, but the court has yet to become fully operational. While civil society hopes that the court can incorporate the lessons from the commission’s 20 years of experience, the political will so lacking to push the commission’s work to the fore of the African Union appears to still be missing in respect to the court. In a controversial step, the AU decided in July 2004 to merge the court with the African Court of Justice. What remains unclear is whether this merger, as yet still fully to be defined, will cause the adjudication of human rights cases to be delayed because of the differences in jurisdiction, rules and procedures of the two courts.

The establishment of the court is welcomed because it provides a legally binding recourse for survivors and victims of human rights violations as opposed to the recommendations of the commission, which rely so heavily on political will for enforcement. However, its potential to play a key role in providing remedy to victims is undermined by the fact that, unlike the commission, individuals and NGOs are unable to seize the court directly unless the state concerned has made a declaration under Article 34 (6) of the protocol establishing the court. Given the record of inter-state complaints at the commission,[11] this provision has the potential of rendering the court mute, except in cases that are referred from the commission. The complementarity between the court and the commission also remains unclear. For instance, Christof Heyns suggests that if in fact states made the declaration allowing access to the court by individuals and NGOs, the stipulation that such access be direct may undermine the commission as survivors and victims would be forced to chose, from the outset, between the potentially legally binding decision of the court and forfeiting the opportunity to seize the court by bringing a communication to the commission, where the best outcome would be a non-binding recommendation.[12] These and other similar issues certainly need to be resolved if the court is to strengthen the African human rights system.

Further to the additional protocols and protection mechanisms, other organs of the African Union dealing with good governance, development, rule of law and human rights, are complementary to the commission’s work. Notable among these is the New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD) and its associated African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM), which monitors states compliance with their obligations under regional treaties. It is vital that these processes are harmonised with the work of the commission so as to ensure the greatest protection for human and peoples’ rights. The objectives of the APRM are based on the four focus areas of the ‘Declaration on Democracy, Political, Economic and Corporate Governance’.[13] Less widely accepted than the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, the APRM has been acceded to by some 23 African states. Like the commission, the APRM has no enforcement mechanism but has been an important process in the few countries where the process has been carried out as it has included many stakeholders, including civil society, and has received regional attention. The commission’s decisions, recommendations and findings can and should provide reference for the APRM review. Further, the commission should participate in the preparation of the background report and review visits of the APRM in countries where communications have been heard and human and peoples’ rights violations found to have occurred, thus allowing for follow up and monitoring of implementation of commission decisions via consistent APRM reviews.[14] This state compliance with the findings and recommendations of the commission should be explicitly reviewed through the APRM as a means of strengthening enforcement and the protection of human and peoples’ rights.

In conclusion, as the ‘African renaissance’ of the new millennium is framed with the self-determined precept of African solutions to African problems, it is crucial that regional human and peoples’ rights protection are strengthened. Indeed, the African Charter and Commission on Human and People’s Rights provide a sound foundation, though not without inherent weaknesses, to guarantee the protection of these rights. As the commission advances towards its third decade, the challenges, failures and successes of its work must be critically assessed and the lessons drawn. In order to strengthen the protection the commission is charged with, African heads of states and government, through the African Union, must cease to de-legitimise the commission, be it through the lack of funding or the postponement of its reports; take all appropriate steps to facilitate a coordinated campaign to popularise the role and recommendations of the commission; ensure that the highest protection of human and peoples’ rights is guaranteed through complementary mechanisms and norms; and further strengthen civil society engagement with the commission.

The commission has proved itself to be the organ of the African Union that underscores the importance of African citizen and civil society engagement with pan-African institutions by illustrating that human rights protection is only as effective as the peoples’ movement spurring it on. Without the consistently active participation of African civil society, the ‘ghettoisation’ of the commission within the AU would have been absolute. Yet, through the efforts of the people of Africa demanding their rights, the commission has made waves in shifting the culture of denial and impunity among heads of states and other perpetrators of human rights violations, at least rhetorically, to one of recognition of the rights enshrined in the charter. It is high time these efforts were heeded so that the people of Africa can see real change in their lives and enjoy the rights and protection long overdue them. Only then will the man-made tragedies of Africa cease and the continent can, at long last, progress on the road to development.

* Hakima Abbas is the AU Policy analyst for Fahamu Networks for Social Justice

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

For references and notes, see link below.

West African military chiefs have charged that the United States has failed to consult adequately with countries that will be affected by a planned American military command for Africa. In a statement issued late on Tuesday at the close of a two-day conference of West African military heads, the group said the plan "had not been fully understood" by African countries and called for "further sensitisation by the United States authorities at the highest political level".

Zimbabwe’s judicial system has ground to a halt in a nationwide strike by magistrates, judges and prosecutors for higher pay, state radio reports. Broadcasts on Saturday said courts all over the country were deserted. A few police officers acted as prosecutors in minor cases on Friday, but criminal courts in the high courts in major centres were unstaffed.

The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) has turned down an opposition request for an all-party meeting to discuss voter registration and demarcation of voting constituencies for next year’s polls, ZimOnline has learnt. ZEC chief elections officer Lovemore Sekeramayi told the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) opposition party that there was no justification to call a meeting of the multi-party liaison committee because the matters the opposition was raising were discussed at previous meetings.

Africa's coastal infrastructure faces increasing danger of erosion from rising sea levels caused by climate change, the head of the U.N. Environment Programme said on Thursday. Achim Steiner, executive director of UNEP, told a news conference that port facilities, refineries and expensive private properties were already degrading as a result of global warming.

The resignation of First Deputy President Martin Nduwimana should help break a crippling political impasse and expedite peace talks in Burundi, according to an opposition leader. Nduwimana resigned on 7 November, saying he wanted to give the country's institutions a chance to resume work. “I handed my resignation to the head of state who accepted it,” Nduwimana said. “I don’t want to be an obstacle to peace.”

On the eve of the deadline of the finalisation of the economic partnership agreement (EPA) negotiations, chaos reigns. Ministers of the East and Southern African (ESA) grouping are gathering in Brussels, Belgium, next week for negotiations with the European Union (EU). It remains to be seen whether talks will stall and be carried over to next year, or if an ‘‘EPA-lite’’ will be accepted.

Over 90 activists from women’s pressure group WOZA and its male wing MOZA were arrested on Tuesday in Harare before being released the same day in the evening. The group was protesting over a variety of issues including unaffordable school fees, power and water shortages and escalating state sponsored violence against pro-democracy activists. Human rights lawyer Alec Muchadehama confirmed the arrest of at least 98 activists by lunchtime on the day.

A post-mortem carried out by a police pathologist in Bulawayo on the late MDC activist Clemence Takaendesa revealed that his body showed signs of physical beating, his family claimed on Wednesday. Takaendesa, who will be buried in Gokwe on Thursday, was shot dead last week Wednesday by retired army Brigadier Benjamin Mabenge on his KweKwe farm that he grabbed in 2001.

Aiming to facilitate efforts to achieve a lasting solution to the crisis in the strife-torn North Kivu province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), a senior United Nations official has held meeting with local authorities there. Assistant Secretary-General for Political Affairs Haile Menkerios, who was sent by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on the special mission last week, began his meetings in Kinshasa on Saturday, according to the UN Mission in the DRC (MONUC).

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/327/nov08_01_chikaokeke-agulu… comments on the death of pioneer Nigerian novelist Cyprian Ekwensi:

“I am deeply saddened by this news of the death of the pioneer Nigerian novelist Cyprian Ekwensi this week. He was 86. Ekwensi, the author of arguably the earliest major novel in Nigeria (People of the City, 1954) and other vastly popular novels--Passport of Mallam Illya, African Night's Entertainment, Lokotown, Jagua Nana, The Drummer Boy, etc--that, as secondary students in Nigeria in the 1980s, captured, intrigued, and liberated our fertile imaginations and youthful fantasies. His simple, uncomplicated plots, while a subject of longstanding critique by literary scholars, was the very reason we read, and re-read his incomparably entertaining works. He was the people's novelist... a man who used his unpretentious yet prodigious fictive imagination to instill in me and a zillion others the love for the novel and for literature. Rest, Old Man; travel safely.”

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/327/nov08_02_omodudu.gifAmodudu writes about Africans who make the treacherous journey across the Sahara and the Mediterranean in search of the European Eldorado:

“This is Africa's story; a people in desperate need of a solution. An enterprising people held down by socio-economic conditions on the continent who would not take this situation anymore. In 2006, over 6000 bodies of African migrants were picked up trying to make it across the Mediterranean to the Canaries Island. This figure is up by 600% from 2005….

What makes a man leave his home, a land overflowing with natural resources, perfect weather and the distinctively cheerful rhythm of the African continent, and then move to the frigid clime where hopes of survival rest on the number of knock-off sunglasses he is able to hawk on the streets of Europe. What makes a man make these choices? Poverty in Africa does not make the headline of the evening news anymore. However the reality of poverty is stark and hope is grim in some parts of Africa. The immigrants feel the need to leave whatever memories they have of their dear homeland and move to another continent where there is a faint shimmer of hope.

I picked up blogging late 2005 when I saw pictures of African migrants left in the Sahara desert to die. For many they speak to, there's a palpable sadness -- even regret -- over the decision to come to Europe. The reality rarely lives up to the dream, and the sacrifices they made are rarely offset by their new life.”

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/327/nov08_03_alexengwete.gifCo… blogger Alex Ngwete criticizes what he considers President Idriss Deby’s exploitation of the alleged kidnapping of Chadian kids by the French NGO Zoe’s arc:

“…in a country where the whims of the head-of-state have oftentimes force of law (where the court system has no jury of peers), President IDRISS DEBY, in a rush of hot blood into his brains, hurled vile abuse at the suspects in front of the world media, accusing them, without one iota of evidence, of being part of a vast network of criminals specialized in supplying new flesh to pedophiles and body parts to rogue organ banks! The spectacle at the Airport of N'Djamena, the Chadian capital, just showed the world how so-called conspiracies by opposition leaders are cooked by paranoid African heads of states to justify the extra-judicial elimination of their political enemies. In the meantime, Chadians are cheering their president for having thumbed his nose at the whites, all the while forgetting about the ongoing rebellion and the government's lack of transparency in managing the oil royalty revenues”.

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/327/nov08_04_civilexpression.g… blogger Abdurahman Warsame however views the situation differently, or at least from a different perspective:

“One of the most demeaning things for Africa - and Africans - is the growing trend in the West to adopt African children, and justifying it as an act of "charity" for Africa. Now, a French charity took this a bit further, they kidnapped 100 kids from villages in Chad to be sold to French families (or may be even worse)…

The people who did this will eventually be freed, France will interfere on their behalf saying that the whole thing was a well intentioned misunderstanding (and perhaps pay some money). The "charity" will also have many chances to repeat the same in other poor African countries…

The kids were obviously Muslims but were going to be sold to non-Muslim families, adding to the gravity of what might have been waiting for these poor kids. This is a sad, but expected, climax to the "adopting an African child" fashion in the West.”

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/327/nov08_05_namforum.gifNamForum, one of the rare blogs that focus on Namibia, reports that less that than 4% of Africans are online:

“While these overall figures look indeed quite daunting, overall growth in Internet use is exceptionally high in Africa: while the figures of Internet World Stats currently show only 34 million Internet users in the entire African continent, that figure is currently also growing at a more than just "healthy" 874.6% - putting it way ahead of Asia with "just" a 302% growth rate, effectively making it the fastest growing market for Internet technology in the world.

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/327/nov08_06_beninmwangi.gifBenin Mwangi fears that the new restrictions placed on airfreight produce imports to the UK would hurt African farmers:

“When I read this story my heart became heavy for the Kenyan and Ghanaian farmers who will likely lose income and might ultimately be forced to sell or reorganize their farms as a result of the harsh new standards imposed upon agricultural products flown into the UK from abroad... Up until very recently I’d always seen the growth of the international organic food market to be the best thing to happen to farmers in countries like Kenya or Ghana. Organic produce farmers in these and other African nations appear to have a comparative advantage over their European counterparts within this small, but growing agricultural sector. And indeed over time this industry did in fact become an African farmers' success story. However, according the UK Soil Association the air freighted produce imported into the country threatens to increase the country’s carbon dioxide emissions. As a result, they are making extreme efforts to tighten controls on air freighted produce imports.”

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/327/nov08_07_dibussi.gif Thus, rather than enlarging his public support, Biya narrowed it by his politics of exclusion. The result was an exacerbation of ethnic consciousness in the country, and systematic attacks against the political system by ethno-linguistic and regional forces which became commonplace during the multiparty years.”

* Dibussi Tande, a writer and activist from Cameroon, produces the blog Scribbles from the Den, www.dibussi.com

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