Muslim leaders in Kenya's North Eastern Province have resolved to campaign against the promotion of condoms as a means of preventing HIV. The decision was made after a recent meeting on the theme of "Islam and Health", attended by more than 60 Muslim scholars and teachers in the provincial capital of Garissa.

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has called for a moratorium on the expansion of large mechanised farms in Sudan's central semi-arid regions, sounding a warning that it was a "future flashpoint" for conflict between the farmers and pastoralists. Northern Sudan's huge commercial farms have been blamed for fuelling conflict, driving small-scale farmers off the land and into menial jobs, environmental degradation and human rights abuses.

Two soldiers were killed and two others injured on 20 May when their army patrol in the Casamance region was attacked by armed men allegedly from the rebel Mouvement des Forces Démocratiques De Casamance (MFDC), an spokesman for the army told IRIN.

In the same week that the Johannesburg High Court declared prepaid water meters to be "unconstitutional and unlawful", the City of Cape Town indicated it intends to roll out more than 20 000 water meters within the next year. Previously, Judge Moroa Tsoka found the City of Johannesburg's imposition of meters that cut off residents' water supplies once they reach the free basic monthly limit to be "unlawful and unreasonable".

A regional conference on refugee protection and migration in the Gulf of Aden wrapped up in the Yemen capital on Tuesday with delegates stressing the need for more assistance to support refugees in host countries."For 16 years, I feel that the world forgot about us, so I appeal to all of you – and especially to our Arab brothers – to help us, support us and visit us in Yemen," said an emotional Somali refugee woman, who has been living in Yemen for the past decade. "Yemen, a poor country, has borne the main burden of hosting us, so please help us."

The UN refugee agency on Wednesday provided 2,000 blankets and 2,000 mats to victims of a wave of xenophobia in South Africa's Gauteng province. The distribution, aimed at meeting immediate humanitarian needs, was conducted in several police stations in the province in north-east South Africa. Attacks on foreigners since last weekend have left dozens dead and caused an estimated 13,000 people to flee their homes. Most are migrants from other nearby African countries, but there are also refugees and asylum seekers among the displaced.

Northern Uganda leaders returned empty handed last week from South Sudan after waiting in vain for days to meet Joseph Kony, right, the elusive commander of the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army, LRA. Kony’s no-show was the second time in two months that he has snubbed peace negotiators and appears to have killed what hope remained that a peace deal, 22 months in the making, will be signed.

War on Want, a dynamic organisation working in solidarity and partnership with people across the developing world while undertaking cutting edge anti-poverty campaigns in the UK and beyond, is recruiting for the position of International Programmes Director. Responsible to the Executive Director, the appointee will lead in the planning, implementing and monitoring of War on Want’s international programmes work, as well as contributing to the overall management of the organisation as a member of the senior management team.

The Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) has noted with concern the rising tide of violence leading to loss of human life, destruction of property and livelihoods, against foreign nationals in the Republic of South Africa.

In this Africa Liberation Day Postcard, Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem warns that "if care is not taken to take decisive action to stop the violence against other Africans and challenge the widespread xenophobia, South African businesses and other interests across Africa will soon become legitimate targets, not just for demonstrations, but for campaigns of boycott and who knows, even targets for sabotage and revenge attacks across this continent."

This Sunday, 25 May 2008, is Africa Liberation Day. This year’s celebration marks the 50th anniversary of this day set aside for reflection, celebration and rededication to the cause of Africa and Africans’ total liberation from social, economic and political injustices, initially by external colonialists but later neo-colonialists and their local agents. Today the struggle continues against the local oppressors and their foreign patrons in a renewed attempt at re-colonising Africa - through the combined forces of unpatriotic national leaders who sell our countries to anti-people globalisation and uncritical adoption of neo-liberal policies that continues to impoverish our peoples and ensures that the majority of Africans remain poor, even though ours is one of the richest continents in the whole world.

Central to the agenda of Africa’s liberation is the notion of ‘Africa for Africans’ and the unification of Africa ‘from Cape to Cairo’. As symbols go, both points were chosen not because they are the most symbolic representation of Africa, but because of the extreme geographic poles of this vast continent and its diversities. Yet both cities and the countries they are in have, at best, contested Africaness. Cape Town never fails to remind us that it remains a European enclave (that may apply to leave the AU and join the EU, if that is possible!). While a trip to the vibrant souks of Cairo by an African visitor is not complete without at least one Egyptian trader asking: ‘Are you from Africa?’; completely oblivious to the fact that Egypt is in Africa and that the proud civilisation that makes them feel superior to others, including other Arabs, was very much an African civilisation.

However, ambiguities about being African are not limited to the two cities or countries. 45 years after the OAU was headquartered in Addis, many Ethiopians still talk of, or see Africans, as others. In Egypt and South Africa, the anti-Africa feelings extend to areas that are ‘more African’ than both cities. The tragic events unfolding in South Africa around townships close to Johannesburg may have come as a surprise to those not familiar with the ‘rainbow’ nation after 1994, but not to Africans living there. We were all on a high about the end of apartheid, and swallowed the triumphalism and claims of exceptionalism as the legitimating ideology of the new post-apartheid state. If ever there was an inappropriate slogan ‘rainbow nation’ (later discovered not to include the colour black in it), this was it. It invited everybody but the majority black people.

I have been a regular visitor to South Africa since the inauguration of Mandela and have seen the rise in anti-African xenophobia, bigotry and discrimination against Africans. This took the form, from day one, of an anti-African racist immigration and visa regime.

Unfortunately as with everything else, the ANC leadership particularly Thabo Mbeki, tried to intellectualise the problem instead of addressing it. Remember, this is a President who claimed he had never known a person who had died of AIDS; and when confronted by a grim rise in crime, he retorted by asking whether crime was rising or it was more regularly reported. Government propagandists even suggested that there was some conspiracy by enemies of the new government to discourage investment and undermine the new dispensation. While there may be some truth in this, given the skewed media ownership and control in the country, one must beg the issue. Media does not create crime waves.

The denial default of the Thabo leadership means that problems are not nipped in the bud but rather debated endlessly, subjected to all kinds of panels, probes and investigations without end.

The anti-African xenophobia went through these motions. Initially it was thought that xenophobia was limited to some illiterate citizens (ignoring the ugly heads of university campuses, public parastatals, NGOs and board rooms). Illiterate citizens who would soon be rid of their ignorance as prosperity spread a la neo-liberal economic policies predicated on perpetual growth, with enough economic crumbs dropping off the tables of the new black bourgeois elite for the masses. Of course this is not how it is turning out. The new elite have proven to be more rapacious and the economic model they chose is not delivering as envisaged. But instead of the excluded masses turning on their elite, they find it convenient to vent for their anger and frustration in refugees - migrants from Africa who they blame for their inadequate housing or for stealing their jobs.

It is instructive that this violence is directed predominantly at other black Africans principally Zimbabweans, Nigerians, Somalis, Mozambicans and other southern Africans. They are the majority of other Africans in the country. How come this ‘anger’ has not extended to white immigrants from Europe and the former Soviet Union? Why it is not directed at new immigrants from Asia including Chinese and Indians?

It is encouraging that after initial shock sections of the South African establishment (the Human Rights Commission for example), and more importantly parts of the civil society, especially the churches led by the Methodist Church (that has been providing refuge to African refugees and asylum seekers before this crisis) are beginning to speak out openly. There are also attempts by local communities to reclaim the streets from criminal bigots. President Thabo Mbeki’s reaction remains professorial: ‘What is behind this? Who is behind it?’ I heard him asking on SABC Africa. Why can he not understand that we do not expect questions from our leaders? We expect answers and actions; concrete actions. If the South African political leadership is failing us, why are African leaders whose citizens are being killed not saying anything? Can you imagine if even one European, Canadian or American citizen had been attacked, what the noise would have been like?

And what about our busybody civil society? Why are there no demonstrations in front of South African embassies and High Commissions across this continent and abroad? Are they waiting for donors? Did we need donors to demonstrate against white apartheid? Why are we silent in the face of this creeping black apartheid? There is no point in making moral claims by reminding South Africans how the rest of Africa sacrificed in cash and kind for their liberation. Their memory has proven too short for that. There is no point reminding them that many of them were refugees in the rest of Africa and there was no similar incident of mass xenophobia against them.

What we need to do is to demystify the widely held belief that every African wants to emigrate there and that Africans in South Africa are taking jobs away from South Africans. The University faculties are full of other Africans, especially Southern and Western Africans. Would South Africa be able to sustain the entire educational system without the skills of these academics? The Somali stores that are being burnt grew because of a niche in the market not being met. South Africans also need to be made aware that the prosperity of their country, which they think the rest of Africa is coveting, is not wholly generated from within; prosperity, internal and external jobs are increasingly dependent on the rest of Africa. DSTV, MTN, South African Airways, Shoprite, water and management corporations, farmers, banks and other South African businesses, are rapidly expanding and minting money across Africa.

If care is not taken to take decisive action to stop the violence against other Africans and challenge the widespread xenophobia, South African businesses and other interests across Africa will soon become legitimate targets, not just for demonstrations, but for campaigns of boycott and who knows, even targets for sabotage and revenge attacks across this continent. A country that sees itself as the beacon of African renaissance, originator of NEPAD and chief lecturer on human rights, democracy and constitutionalism should be ashamed of itself for treating other Africans so appallingly. Especially in light of the fact that many of their leaders were themselves refugees or migrants in other African countries for several years. The bigger shame, however, will go to other Africans, should they remain silent in the face of this brutality and gross abuse of their rights.

On Africa day say “No!” to an attack on any African, from Cape Town to Cairo, wherever you may be. You can do something. Do so now.

*Dr. Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is the Deputy Director of the UN Millennium Campaign in Africa, based in Nairobi, Kenya. He writes this article in his personal capacity as a concerned Pan-Africanist.

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

In this vivid and personal account, a trade unionist walks through the unfolding xenophobic attacks in South Africa.

19 May 2008:

Friends, this is simply an account of what I saw and experienced in a twenty four period. It might be incomplete. It is not an analytical piece as such, but I hope a small step towards trying to understand what had taken place in this city, in this country that I have come to love.

Last night as we drove from the centre of Joburg to the eastern suburb of Kensington, we wondered why the police helicopter was circling over Jeppes Town, the historic centre of this city built on gold. The area is now mostly an industrial relic and has seen far better times, part wasteland, part small enterprises and a big part, home of one of the largest mens hostels in the City.

We had been discussing earlier the violence in Alex, the eruptions in other parts, and what we felt was the cause, and the inadequate response of the State. We had participated earlier in the day in a demonstration called by our Union Federation to protest against rising food prices, and against xenophobia, an issue that had been tagged on after foreigners had been brutally attacked in Alexandria township and other places. We had taken our son and his friend, and their enthusiasm had helped to minimise the disappointingly low numbers who had turned up.

We slept that night within earshot of police sirens and the whirring of helicopters and wondered what we would wake to.

At 9.00am Lesego rang the bell. A small boy for his sixteen years, wirey but capable of dribbling a football as if his feet had magnetic powers. I let him in, and he looked terrified. He had traveled from Soweto, as he did every fortnight, to come and do odd jobs to earn an allowance that he depends on to survive. We would normally have a talk about his schooling, the continuing absence of contact with his mother, and his living conditions. We hoped this might help him be capable of getting through the next hurdles he inevitably faced.

But this morning, it was fear that was etched on his face. Scrunched up in his pocket was the small round hat favoured by members of the Moslem community. Getting off the taxi at Jeppe Station, he noticed a crowd of men beating two people on the ground with knobkerries. One of those doing the beating looked up, saw him and shouted, ‘Hey you, alien, come here’. He didn’t wait to answer. Snatching the hat from his head, he sprinted like a springbok, and ran the kilometre to our house in sheer terror.

A quiet and reserved young man, we somehow managed to calm him down with sweet tea and reassurances. He was thinking hard before he finally spoke.

‘These people have not been educated’ he said. ‘They think it is the foreigners who are to blame. I fear them, but I also feel sorry for them. They think that killing poor people like themselves is going to make it better for them’.

Later I dropped him in town to connect with his taxi to Soweto, and the shack where he lived alone without electricity to read his homework and prepare for his exams the next day. Without the means to cook himself even a simple supper.

As I circled town to return home I came across hundreds and hundreds of bedraggled people, milling around an infamous taxi rank area. I pulled up next to a police woman on duty. I asked her what was going on. ‘It’s the Zimbabweans’ she said matter of factly, ‘They have come out of the Methodist Centre because there is trouble there’ And when I asked her what sort of trouble she simply said ‘Something to do with Bishop Verryn’.

Some months earlier, the Methodist centre managed by the Bishop as a makeshift refuge for hundreds of destitute Zimbabweans, had been raided by the police in a military style operation that belonged to another era. Purportedly looking for ‘illegals’ the police had unceremoniously thrown the destitute and their few possessions into the street, had publicly assaulted perfectly innocent people, and then arrested many of them on completely spurious grounds. Bishop Paul and others were later to respond by having the entire action severely criticized by a court of law, and declared completely illegal. But the damage had been done.

The leadership of the police had given a very public indication that they regarded ‘aliens’ as unworthy of fair treatment under the law. Refugees, wherever they were from, were to be treated as if they were less than human, and therefore human rights guarantees under the famed South African Constitution, were not to apply.

Worse, they sent a clear message to the persecuted Zimbabwean community. Do not look to the police for protection. These thoughts returned many times over the next few hours.

By now, radio news reports had started to tell what had happened the previous night, but not before my partner had phoned them and reminded them of their duty to report what was happening on our doorsteps. When approached, the public broadcaster listened carefully and promised to increase reportage, and did by the time of the next hourly bulletin. The commercial station was less receptive, and continued to air a truncated and inaccurate report for three more hours.

As I drove up Main Street in Jeppes Town, events of the previous night were clear to see. Buildings, once occupied by tens of families were still smouldering, a fire engine stood nearby, several police cars with lights flashing had blocked roads leading to the Jeppe Hostel.

Jeppe Hostel, as it is known locally, had been at the centre of other storms in the past. In the tumultuous eighties and nineties it had been the centre for Inkatha Freedom Party activity in the area. ANC and COSATU activists who ventured there took their life in their hands. So called ‘black on black’ violence that resulted in dozens of deaths were centred on the train station in Jeppes Town.

The hostel itself is now chronically overcrowded, squalid and seriously unfit for habitation, it houses thousands of poor working class men and some of their partners. It is surrounded by an urban squatter camp, made up of once busy outlets, workshops and factories that are now lived in by those who cannot or who are unable to live in the hostel. Adjoining factory floor space is divided by makeshift curtains to mark the living spaces of the working and unemployed poor. Sanitation, electricity, clean water, privacy, safety are all luxuries in this community.

As I continued up the road I noticed that despite the police presence, large groups of men carrying ‘cultural weapons’ (various clubs, machetes, bottles) were standing on the corners, watching, waiting. Many others, mostly family groups, were standing in their doorways looking anxiously out.

Further up the road still, I slowed to pass the building where Lesego had witnessed the beatings and from where his pursuers had emerged. A miserable building of perhaps ten electricity deprived flats. A large group of men, some middle aged, others in their early twenties were standing and watching passers by, their weapons visible for all to see. The police it seemed were keeping a safe distance.

Back at home, we listen to the news reports, and start to receive anxious calls from friends. One comrade, Paul, who worked for the trade unions in Zimbabwe for many years is here to receive treatment and staying with his brother in Cleveland, a working class suburb close by. He and his brother’s family have sought refuge in the local Catholic church. He described how he witnessed mobs of drunken men from the large Denver Hostel moving from house to house asking the occupants questions in Zulu. If the reply was made in Zulu, then the visitors asked for money and moved to the next house. If not, the house was looted, the occupants assaulted, and thrown out onto the street to make a hasty escape as best they could. In between these raids, dozens of people are ‘arrested’ by the same mobs walking in the street, and are interrogated, systematically robbed and assaulted. Calls to the police for protection produced nothing.

‘Are you safe in the church’ I enquire. ‘Well we have nothing’ he replies, ‘and we have heard that our place was raided for a second time an hour ago, and so we don’t expect to find anything left, if and when we return. Right now we are at the mercy of the Salvation Army and the Red Cross. They are bringing food and blankets’.

I think to myself, the Red Cross are saving people in suburban Johannesburg.

Later in the morning I pulled into a garage to buy newspapers and see almost fifty men in groups talking on phones and to each other in a very excited manner. I started a conversation and discover that these are all displaced Nigerians who live in the Malvern suburb of Johannesburg. They mostly left their homes last night. Some slept at friends, and others in their cars. One had his car burned out when trying to escape, and managed to run into the back of a supermarket and hide. They describe how the night before, hundreds of hostel dwellers chanting ‘Zula Nation’ surged into their neighbourhoods and started breaking into houses and cars, and assaulting those walking the streets.

One older man told me of a South African neighbour who climbed over the garden fence and provided an escape route through a broken fence into a park. For most of the men, their anxieties centre on the plight of their families who they had left behind. Many had South African partners and their children stayed behind in the hope that they would be able to ‘pass the Zulu test’, make a cash ‘contribution’ and be left in peace.

One middle aged man who works in the local hospital as a radiographer’s assistant told me that his wife speaks Zulu and his children too. He left them behind last night as the neighbourhood shop was being ransacked and destroyed. In a distressed state he said, ‘I couldn’t take them with me. If we had been caught they would have been treated like foreigners, and who knows what would have happened. This is truly horrible. This would never happen to you people in Nigeria’ he said.

This is certainly an instance of cell phone technology being a life line. I noticed that a pump attendant has run an extension cord around the back of the garage to the place where the Nigerians were huddled, and they are busy recharging their phones.

I ask a small group if they have plans to somehow try and organize to protect one another and their communities, to ensure that they do not become victims. A young man of around thirty takes his time to reply. ‘Can you imagine the reaction of the police, the media and the government if we organised a self defense or community safety organization? We would become the target, not those who are attacking us. The police hate us already, the newspapers call us drug barons and pimps, and who do you think ordinary South Africans are going to believe?’

Everyone was silent. A phone rang. The same young man answered, listened carefully and then said, ‘The Nigerian High Commissioner has told us all to stay calm’.

As I return home I pass another group outside a local church. They have the look of North or East Africans, and I pull up and ask if they are OK. ‘The priest is coming to meet us here’ says one. I ask where they have come from, and they point towards Bez Valley, another working class suburb near by. They are Somali’s and I ask if they have experienced any trouble. No, they say, but rumours are making them afraid. Last night there was gun fire close by, and they know they will be targets if the situation worsens. We look like foreigners says one.

Later in the afternoon I receive more calls from Paul and his Zimbabwean family from inside the church haven in Cleveland. They have had news that a neighbour tried to resist a forced entry, and has been murdered. Stabbed repeatedly and left in the front garden of his house.

At four thirty, I travel with a friend to Malvern to help evacuate a Rwandan family who settled in South Africa after the genocide in that country. Small groups of young men are walking up and down the surrounding streets. Police sirens and shouting can be heard nearby. The family gather up a few belongings and are resettled in a local hotel courtesy of the NGO who employ the mother. We take the children, and the parents follow closely behind in their own car. It’s a solemn drive for the three children and our attempts at humour are politely tolerated.

I have a conversation with another Rwandan and he tells me that some people might think that evacuation is an over reaction, but he says, ‘We have learnt to smell danger of this type. The marauding gangs, the inability of the police to keep control, the under-reporting on the radio, the pent up frustrations, the absence of neighbours ready to help or warn. All of these things we have seen before, and now we can smell them’.

At five thirty I make my way back towards Jeppes Town to collect my son from his friend’s house where he had spent the night. He had heard shooting earlier, and the police sirens and had seen the helicopter circling. They had stayed within the grounds of the closed estate, and played football. On the way home, I fielded dozens of questions from him about what had been happening, and as if on cue he said ‘If you are poor, how can you blame others who are also as poor as you, it doesn’t make sense Dad?’

Later that night, we drove down Jules Street and saw municipal workers starting to clear up the mess left behind from shop burnouts and looting. A row of ten shops was completely destroyed, and small groups of men carrying clubs were still to be seen in full view of the police. We came away from the scene feeling that this was not over. There was more and possibly worse to come.

On the news late last night, the police said they had restored law and order in most parts, and that arrests of suspects had been made, and serious charges would be made against them.

This morning, my Zimbabwean friend called to say that two more people had been killed a short way from the church where he was hiding, and that gunshots and screams had kept everyone awake all night.

The newspapers carry a front page photograph of a man who was set alight by a mob. It reminds me of the Buddhist monks who campaigned against the war in Vietnam. Is this a war?

Meanwhile the politicians and media commentators proffer explanations and condemnations, and it suddenly dawns on me that the only people I have not spoken to or have heard from are the perpetrators. And I wonder, what on earth do they think they are hoping to achieve?

22 May 2008:

Three days later, and it seems everyone is aware of the gravity of the crisis. The President of the country has sanctioned the use of the army though they are not yet deployed to keep the peace.

Two days I ago I went to visit my comrade Paul from Zimbabwe, who had been sleeping in Germiston Town Hall for the past two nights. He is a born organiser and has been serving on the committee that manages the food, sanitation, facilities for children, and security.

He takes me on a tour of the Town Hall, a place we have used in the past for May Day rallies. It’s a little run down but still maintains some of its former glory. Now it is one massive bedroom. More than three thousand people are staying here, and most are very afraid. I speak to many others, and hear very similar stories of extreme bullying, violence, theft, and a sense that they have been abandoned to their fate. My friend has been sleeping on a chair because floor space is limited, and its getting cold. Not everyone has a charity blanket, and there is not enough food to feed all. In the absence of proper communications, rumours ripple like Mexican waves across the multitude that are assembled outside, and generate fear.

One large room has been reserved for women, and many are carrying small children and receiving baby food and nappies. It’s clear that many are in a traumatized state, and barely smile when greeted. One can only shudder when thinking about what they have gone through.

I have a brief conversation with a couple of municipal workers inside the building who are members of my union, and am struck by their sympathy towards the refugees despite the increased workload, and near impossible conditions. The toilets have limited capacity, and the kitchen has never had to be put to use to feed such numbers, but union members are working hard, being decent and helpful. One of the shop stewards tells me ‘Everyone here is so grateful for the little that we can do, but I cant stop feeling ashamed that this is happening in my locality. No one deserves to be treated like this’

Paul collects his few possessions and we leave for home where he will stay for the foreseeable, but not before he says a tearful farewell to his committee members, and is reassured that his relatives and others are in relatively safe hands.

This morning the news reports of attacks on communities seem to be more sporadic, although they do appear to be spreading into other Provinces.

Another demonstration has been called for Saturday, by a conglomeration of left groups and community campaigns. I am hoping that there can be a united response, that is inclusive, and non sectarian. I hope the unions will support it despite difficulties that exist between the left groups and the trade union movement.

There is a great deal of speculation about the ‘troubles’ being started by a ‘third force’, some form of underground organization bent on subverting the peace and creating disharmony. It’s mostly speculative. It is clear however that many of the attacks have been coordinated, and especially at a local level. Similar sized groups have been moving from house to house on assigned streets for example, and of course, chanting and demanding the same things. But there are also attacks that appear more opportunistic, and often following a rally or large gathering.

Much of the commentary and analysis from both left and right seems to me to be very simplistic, as if the analysts are not talking to people on the ground, are not asking questions like for example, why in the gatherings of the xenophobic there are so few women? What does this tell you about the men of this country? Why for example, there has been virtually no action against white people? What does this tell you about what is happening in communities that experience grinding poverty? So many questions. So much to be done.

During the Pan African Parliament (PAP) deliberations, which concluded this week, Fatima Hajale, a South African parliamentarian, argued that PAP’s peace and security policies should focus on human rather than state security. During PAP’s consideration of the report of the electoral observer mission to Zimbabwe, the leader of the mission, Swaziland parliamentarian Marwick Khumalo, stated that power-sharing between Robert Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangirai may be the only solution to curb human rights violations in the country. As Zimbabwe prepares for a runoff election on June 27th, Human Rights Watch has echoed the call of African civil society organisations for the African Union (AU) to send election observers and human rights monitors to promote free and fair voting during the election and to publicly call for an immediate end to all forms of violence.

In further peace and security news, the AU praised, this week, the progress made in Comoros since the successful military intervention of the Union army with the support of the AU on the island of Anjouan to oust Colonel Bacar. The AU’s longer term peacekeeping aspirations will depend largely on regional contributions toward the African Standby Forces, which are due to be active by 2010. However, in the southern African region (SADC), the contribution will depend largely on South Africa, yet “the clash between the over-deployment of SANDF [South African National Defence Force] and the reality of its funding and capabilities means that troops committed to the SADC brigade might not be available”.

In regional news, Erastus Mwencha, secretary general of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), announced this week that COMESA, the East African Community (EAC) and SADC would meet later this year to attempt to harmonize trade policies so that “Africa can compete more effectively on world markets”. In West Africa, representatives of international organizations involved in agricultural development and water resource management have been invited to a one-day extraordinary meeting of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) ministers of trade, agriculture and finance to discuss and propose solutions to mitigate the effects of soaring food costs.

Further, in East Africa, the heads of electoral commissions met to discuss the harmonization of electoral processes throughout the region. The meeting recommended the formation of a forum of electoral commissions to “initiate development of policies, strategies and programmes that promote the culture of democracy and adherence to the rule of law in East Africa; to harmonize the laws, policies and strategies of National Electoral Commissions with a view to sharing information, expertise and election materials; and to share and harmonize their electoral calendars and road maps”. The heads of electoral commissions further recommended that a study be commissioned on the cost of conducting elections, with a view to reducing costs, and the initiation and implementation of a regional capacity building project for strengthening political and governance institutions in the region. In addition, East African ministers recently concluded a visit to China “to learn from the Chinese experience in infrastructure development and to garner support and partnership in developing the region’s infrastructures”. The outcomes of the visit will feed into the EAC Infrastructure Development Plan. While, at present, the East African Legislative Assembly (EALA) is holding its sixth sitting in Nairobi this week. The Assembly will debate and approve the budget estimates and the appropriation bill 2007. A seminar for legislators on “aid effectiveness, political parties and media” organized by the Association of Western European Parliamentarians for Africa will follow the EALA sitting on May 24.

Meanwhile, as the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR) will conclude its session in Swaziland on May 22, the Forum on NGO participation has issued its report and resolutions. The Forum highlighted the state of human rights and democracy in Africa as well as the rights of specific groups. During the Forum, strategies to strengthen collaboration between the mandates of the United Nations and ACHPR were developed. Similarly, strategies for the ratification and implementation of the Protocol to the African Charter on the Rights of Women in Africa were shared. Thematic special interest groups sessions were also held relating to refugees and internally displaced persons; minorities and indigenous peoples’; human rights defenders; lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex peoples’; impunity for violence against women and girls; among many others. An overarching theme during the Forum was the need for civil society to work together, and with the ACHPR, between sessions of the Commission to make activities more effective.

With civil society preparing for the Egypt summit of the AU, the 15% Now campaign has launched a countdown aimed at mobilising national and continental support to urge African leaders to restate their commitment to and urgently implement the Abuja 2001 pledge to allocate 15% of national budgets to health. Civil society organisations will also participate in a parallel forum on aid effectiveness during the Accra high-level summit in September. Pre-registration for the forum is required before June 15.

According to press reports in Spain, the government and army of Morocco are making preparations for a military attack on the territories controlled by Western Sahara's Polisario Front since a UN-brokered ceasefire in 1991. The alleged "preparations" are to be a reaction to the increased civilian activities by Polisario in its "liberated territories".

Despite a marked improvement in the security situation in Burundi in recent years, some 100,000 internally displaced people (IDPs) remain in settlements throughout the country, in addition to an unknown number living with host families. Many IDPs seem to have to a large extent integrated into the communities of neighbouring towns and villages, but there is little information on their situation, their needs or their aspirations.

President Thabo Mbeki has given the go-ahead to the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) to step in and assist police quell the attacks on foreign nationals. The attacks have left at least 40 dead, and thousands others displaced. "President Thabo Mbeki has approved a request from the South African Police Service for the involvement of the South African National Defence Force in stopping on-going attacks on foreign nationals," a statement issued on Wednesday from the Presidency read.

International action is needed to end the Lord’s Resistance Army’s reported new spree of abductions and sexual violence and to help execute arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court for the group’s leaders, Human Rights Watch has said. Human Rights Watch has learned that since February 2008 the insurgent Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) group has carried out at least 100 abductions, and perhaps many more, in the Central African Republic (CAR), the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), and Southern Sudan.

The government of Côte d’Ivoire should take immediate steps to end impunity for members of a pro-government student group responsible for numerous acts of violent, criminal behavior, Human Rights Watch has said in a report. Since 2002, when a failed coup attempt plunged the country into a political and military crisis, the Student Federation of Côte d’Ivoire (Fédération Estudiantine et Scolaire de Côte d’Ivoire, FESCI), alternatively described as a “pro-government militia” and a “mafia,” has been responsible for politically and criminally motivated violence.

More than a year ago, the Consortium for Refugees and Migrants in South Africa (CoRMSA) requested that the Human Rights Commission (HRC) host public hearings to hold leaders accountable for not addressing xenophobia, hate speech, violence, and threats to human dignity. But CoRMSA was told that the HRC’s agenda was set for the year and that they would see what they could do. Clearly they have not done enough.

The Social Movements Indaba (SMI) – a co-ordinating national body of social movements, civil society and activist organizations – is organizing with its affiliated organizations and immigrant communities to roll back the groundswell of xenophobia.

In the years since its formation in 2002, the SMI has linked organizations of the poor in struggle for basic services, international solidarity and against police repression. At its last national meeting in December in Cape Town, the SMI identified xenophobia as a pervasive problem in communities and undertook to campaign against hatred of foreigners. Now that the crisis of hate crime is no longer foreboding and is terrifyingly HERE, there is no time to stall and wish we were better prepared. We are without hesitation committed to the struggles for social justice, internationalism and solidarity with all repressed people.

While the police have been deployed to try keep a lid on the pressure that has boiled over, this is no solution to the safety and security of all. As a xenophobic force in Johannesburg pre-existing the outbreak of violence, the police cannot be trusted to be more than the brute barrier between perpetrators and their targeted victims. The South African Police Services and Johannesburg Metro Police harass immigrants to solicit bribes as a matter of practice. Calling on the police to 'do their work' as president Thabo Mbeki and his government have done does not, therefore, address the issues of safety and security amongst immigrant communities. The refugee communities do not trust the police as impartial arbiters of the conflict. The police conducted a brutal raid on the Central Methodist Church on the 31st of January 2008 under the pretext of crime prevention. Criminalisation of immigrants is a smokescreen for deportation and bribery that the police has not cleared.

Long-lasting safety and security for all does not include deportation of foreign nationals, whether voluntary or not. Xenophobia's origins lie within the conditions of poverty in which the majority of south Africans live. Immigrants have been targeted for their ethnic difference and for their very similarity with their persecutors. Seen as competitors for scarce jobs and housing, south Africans have misdirected their anger at conditions of poverty that are unchanging. Their fellow brothers and sisters who are enduring the same cannot be responsible for what the economic and political system has created.

While we struggle for a change to the neo-liberal capitalist system that has created this reality, rearguard struggles for safety and security of immigrants in the country must continue. The SMI gives thanks for those humanitarian organizations, emergency services and churches that are trying to stem the tide of bloodletting and forced removals. We will organize against the creation of refugee camps and work towards the reintegration of immigrants in our communities. In working to recover our common humanity and restore calm, delegations from the SMI are meeting with community-based organizations in Alex and the inner city, and as the programme of action to roll-back the hate unfolds, the SMI will be going further afield to speak to affected communities.

The SMI is mobilizing social movements, immigrant communities, NGOs and concerned residents from poor areas around the province for a march this Saturday, the 24th of May. The march will gather at Marks Park (Empire and Hospital Road) from 9a.m., proceed through Hillbrow and stop at the Departments of Home Affairs and Housing before ending at the Library Gardens. The message marchers will be conveying is that our struggle is common and knows no borders.

— No one is illegal —

*The Social Movements Indaba includes amongst other organizations: the Anti Privatisation Forum, Jubilee South Africa, Imbawula Trust, Sounds of Edutainment, Umzabalazo we Jubilee, Lesbian and Gay Equality Project, Inner City Resource Centre, Kliptown Concerned Residents, Khanya College, Earthlife Africa (Johannesburg), Palestinian Solidarity Committee, Golden Triangle Crisis Committee, Samancor Retrenched Workers Crisis Committee, African Renaissance Civic Movement, Group of Refugees Without Voice.

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

The Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General (SRSG) for Sudan, Mr. Ashraf Jenhagir Qazi, has expressed his grave concern over the renewed hostilities in Abyei between the Sudan Armed Forces and the Sudan People's Liberation Army which have caused numerous casualties on both sides.