ActionAid International, is a unique partnership of people and organisations in 40 countries in Africa, Asia, the Americas and Europe. ActionAid International works with over 9 million of the world's poorest people to eradicate poverty and marginalisation and the injustice and inequity that cause it. ActionAid International has recently relocated it's International Secretariat to Johannesburg, South Africa and several exciting job opportunities currently exist. Appropriately qualified and experienced applicants are invited to submit CVs for the following positions: Head of Governance Development; Head of Human Resources and OD; Head of Finance and Administration; Accounting Officer; Executive Assistant; HR Administrator; Reception/Front Desk.

The Landless People's Movement (LPM) is accusing police of assaulting and torturing its members while in police custody. The allegations came out at a joint media briefing this week by the Freedom of Expression Institute and the LPM on alleged incidents during which the State "repressed" the LPM over the election period in Johannesburg.

South Africa's the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) has welcomed the re-appointment of Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, with whom the organisation has had a fraught relationship over the last four years. “The re-appointment of Health Minister, Dr Manto Tshabalala-Msimang will be a disappointment for many of us, especially the range of actors in the health sector. However, we urge Minister Tshabalala-Msimang to re-establish a working relationship in the interest of fulfilling the mandate of our people,” said the TAC.

Thabo Mbeki has placed his political legacy in the hands of 12 formidable women, a leader of an apartheid party and a few good men. Women now make up 43% of the national cabinet, designed to implement policies that were developed over the past 10 years and, more importantly, deliver services to the people. The representation of women in the cabinet is the highest it has ever been in this country - and in Africa.

On Tuesday, President Thabo Mbeki was sworn in for his second and final term as President of South Africa. The inauguration attracted so many African and world leaders and the occasion was as grand as can be expected of a country that continues to enjoy the respect and goodwill of different peoples across the world.

This is because South Africa's liberation from the clutches of racist oppression and humiliation of African peoples has become an inspiration to many people across the world. Many still wonder that just over 10 years ago, the re-elected president, along with the majority black population of South Africa’s could not even vote, let alone be voted for.

So many Western countries and leaders that have been falling over themselves to proclaim their friendship with South Africa, take pictures with the venerable and universally venerated Nelson Mandela, were the same people who kept their racist cousins in power through active collaboration or deliberate inaction or both.

Margaret Thatcher regarded the ANC as a typical terrorist organisation like the IRA in Britain and opposed both sanctions against South Africa and the release of Mandela and other freedom fighters from apartheid jails. Ronald Reagan, like successive American administrations before and after him, opposed the liberation of South Africa and touted constructive engagement with the apartheid regime that was destructive for both South Africa and the whole of Southern Africa. Tanzania, Angola, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Botswana and other frontline states paid too heavy a price for their support for liberation. Effectively, the socio-economic progress and development of these countries were postponed until after South Africa's liberation.

It is necessary to recollect these sacrifices and historical facts because in the last 10 years of liberation, there seems to be accelerated forgetfulness or selective amnesia about the collective burden, sacrifice and triumph that South Africa represented for most Africans, especially and the freedom loving peoples of the world in general.

There was tremendous international solidarity for the struggle in the former Soviet Union and Cuba, among left-wing and liberal elements in the West, the churches, allied forces and across a large part of Third World countries in the Caribbean, Asia, Latin America, etc. In the Arab and Muslim world, too, there was diplomatic and political support that linked the South African struggle with the quest for freedom by the Palestinian people. Israel, of course, actively supported and collaborated on intelligence and security and defence with apartheid South Africa, despite the fact that many of the Boers were sympathetic to Hitler during the Second World War: racists were united by racism.

While it is the effort, determination, sacrifice and dedication of the people of South Africa and the clear leadership of the main liberation movements, principally the ANC, which finally led to the liberation of South Africa it is equally true that the solidarity movement in and out of Africa helped most significantly.

Both at the official and popular level there is a tendency to greater appreciation of the non-African support while taking the African solidarity either for granted or minimising it. Yet on South Africa, most of our countries, regardless of ideology at home and abroad, were united and stayed the course to the end.

Reading some accounts, it will seem that the anti-apartheid movement alone liberated South Africa. Other accounts validate only the reconciliation phase of the struggle and the change of heart by the racists and willingness of the ANC leadership to negotiate. It is indeed true that victory has many fathers while failure is an orphan!

There are too many negative views about other Africans. It is not just the Whites who look down on Black Africans from the rest of Africa. Many black South Africans have also bought into the racist propaganda that the rest of us have been sleeping and it is South Africa that can wake us up.

The last 10 years have been both challenging and triumphalist for both the people and the Government of South Africa. Many have been willing to show understanding even while expressing some disappointment. But as President Mbeki starts his second and final term, I don't think that many will show generous understanding anymore. They will expect some fast movement both internally and in foreign policy.

For me, I make only one demand of the President: Remove the humiliating demands and requirements on Africans visiting South Africa. It is not enough to say other African countries do the same. President Mbeki can lead on this issue from the front.

Three years ago, Prime Minister Meles of Ethiopia liberalised visa regulation for Africans. I have not seen a notable rise in African presence in Addis. Nigeria signed the protocol on freedom of movement within the ECOWAS region at the height of its oil boom economy. Yet all West Africans did not move to Nigeria.

I know South Africa is a beautiful country with a lot of opportunities, but I can assure you that the whole of Africa is not queuing up to enter the rainbow nation. On the other hand, since the end of apartheid, the South African invasion of the rest of Africa through MTN, Vodacom, South African Airways, M-Net, DSTV, Shoprite, a new 'Boer Trek' buying up fertile agricultural land across Africa and other serious business ventures, are unmistakable.

* Dr Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is General Secretary of the Global Pan African Movement, based in Kampala, Uganda and also Director of Justice Africa, based in London.

* Send your comments to

Some of the worst human rights violators of the apartheid era, including a man who helped kill 14 civilians while they slept, have been employed as security contractors in Iraq. A South African killed in Iraq two weeks ago once worked for a secret apartheid death squad known as the Civil Co-operation Bureau. The CCB specialised in assassinating civilians who sympathised with black liberation movements. Gray Branfield, 55, was the latest South African casualty with a record of human rights abuse to have obtained lucrative employment with one of the many private security companies operating in Iraq.

No one story explains post Apartheid South Africa, a nation trying to enact political, economic and racial reconciliation, all at the same time. The towns of Riviersonderend, Ceres and Swellendam, located in the Western Cape province's rural farm belt, each offer radically different profiles of the nation, on this the tenth anniversary of South Africa's first democratic election in 1994. "We have got political freedom, but not economic freedom," declared Alan Thompson the Colored African National Congress deputy Mayor of Swellendam-the third oldest European-founded settlement in the country. Then he grinned stressing ANC success: "Structurally many things have changed, the streets have been tarred, housing has been built, there is electricity [in the townships]."

The Anti-Censorship Programme (ACP) of the Freedom of Expression Institute (FXI) has released its third six monthly report highlighting censorship activities and other violations of the right to freedom of expression in South Africa. The report notes with concern that censorship activities are still on the rise, especially in relation to individuals and organisations embarking on popular forms of expression. For instance, it highlights a recent case where the state, without legitimate reasons, prohibited a peaceful demonstration planned by the Anti-Privatisation Forum in Johannesburg. When the Forum's members went ahead with the march in spite of the ban, 57 of them were arrested and arraigned in court.

ActionAid International, is a unique partnership of people and organisations in 40 countries in Africa, Asia, the Americas and Europe. ActionAid International works with over 9 million of the world's poorest people to eradicate poverty and marginalisation and the injustice and inequity that cause it. ActionAid International has recently relocated it's International Secretariat to Johannesburg, South Africa and several exciting job opportunities currently exist. Appropriately qualified and experienced applicants are invited to submit CVs for the following positions: Head of Governance Development; Head of Human Resources and OD; Head of Finance and Administration; Accounting Officer; Executive Assistant; HR Administrator; Reception/Front Desk.

The swearing in of head of state Thabo Mbeki coincided with the tenth anniversary of South Africa's first all-race election in 1994, which put an end to over three centuries of colonial and apartheid rule. Not to be outdone, members of the Volksversetaksie, a pressure group which claims to articulate the grievances of Afrikaans-speaking whites, or Afrikaners, organised an alternative event Tuesday under the slogan 'Ten Years - Ten Grievances'. Their complaints focus on South Africa's land reform programme, crime and violence, alleged racism - and what the group describes as an attack on Afrikaans culture.

The Inkatha Freedom Party has withdrawn its legal challenge to contest the declaration of the April 14 election as free and fair. IFP president Mangosuthu Buthelezi said although widespread irregularities occurred in South Africa and particularly in KwaZulu-Natal, the party had taken the decision not to proceed with the challenge in the interest of national unity. "It was never our intention to spoil the celebrations of our first decade of democracy. It is my earnest hope that our announcement will have the positive effect of ensuring that future elections will proceed without similar problems and acts of intimidation," Buthelezi said in a statement.

University students are saying hamba kahle (farewell) to South Africa's indigenous tongues as they turn their backs on studying African languages. Language experts said this week that they feared for the future of the nine official African languages as English became the language of technology, commerce and government. "Indigenous languages are under siege. Parents in townships equate education with competency in English," said Professor Mohlomi Moleleki, chairman of the Pan South African Language Board and head of African languages at the University of the Free State.

The South African government expressed concern this week after a news report highlighted the story of a young woman who admitted she was thinking of contracting the HI virus to access a disability grant. The young woman, Thato, said she had ten 'boyfriends' with whom she slept for money. She was supporting two nieces, her own child and a grandmother suffering from diabetes on the money she made, by being what she described as a "prostitute in disguise".

Protesting Wits University students tried to break into the main library and the closed cafeteria on the campus as they protested against the slashing of financial aid. Earlier they barged into lecture halls on the east campus turning desks over and tearing up engineering students' exam papers, in a successful bid to halt classes, a reporter on the scene said. Meanwhile a group of Wits academics have written a letter protesting about the heavy police presence on campus. Click on the link below to read the letter.

Less than 10% of HIV-positive individuals in South Africa will be eligible to receive antiretroviral therapy if World Health Organisation guidelines which mandate the use of anti-HIV therapy in patients with a CD4 cell count below 200 cells/mm3 are followed, according to a French-funded study published in the May 1st edition of the Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes. The study also found that this would have only a limited impact on the spread of HIV.

Cape Town radio man Zane Ibrahim was taken off an international flight minutes after it landed at Baltimore airport by United States Homeland Security personnel and interrogated for almost 12 hours. Ibrahim, an award-winning journalist and managing director of Bush Radio, had flown to the US from Cape Town via Amsterdam to deliver a keynote address on 10 years of South African democracy at a conference at Goucher College, near Baltimore.

Madam is white and bourgeoise. She likes to shoe-shop, watch soap operas and pose as a liberal of Johannesburg's wealthy northern suburbs. Her 80-year-old mother likes gin and tonic, rugby and firing her catapult at black street traders. Their black maid, Eve, wields a feather duster and plots in vain to wangle a pay rise. A decade after apartheid fell, characters in the cartoon strip Madam and Eve are icons of the new South Africa. Elections last week passed off peacefully and on 27 April the country will celebrate democracy's tenth anniversary with hymns to racial reconciliation. But the storylines in Madam and Eve betray the enduring edge in racial relations. Madam's mother beams as snow falls. 'Thousands of snowflakes landing everywhere. What can be more beautiful than a white South Africa?'

When Raven Naidoo entered university in the 1980s, he couldn't study engineering because of his Indian ancestry. "I was only allowed into certain universities that didn't offer the courses I wanted," he says. "To become an engineer, I had to apply to the Minister of Education to get permission to study, and they said no." It was just one example of the absurd levels to which the previous apartheid government stooped in order to enforce the privileges of a white minority, he says.

The National Arts Council (NAC) invites funding proposals in the following categories:

Regular Annual Funding

Deadline: 21 May 2004

Funding proposals from organisations, individuals, groups and institutions in dance and choreography, theatre, music, literature, visual arts or crafts.

International Bursaries

Deadline: 21 May 2004

Funding proposals from post-graduate students of dance and choreography, theatre, music, literature, visual arts or crafts.

Decade of Democracy (DOD) Special Funding

Deadline: 31 May 2004

Funding proposals from organisations, individuals, groups and institutions in dance and choreography, theatre, music, literature, visual arts or crafts to celebrate ten years of democracy in South Africa.

For more information contact the NAC on tel: 011 838-1383 or email: [email protected]

The UK Department for International Development in South Africa (DFID-SA), the Southern African Grantmakers' Association (SAGA) and the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA) have formed a partnership around the establishment of a regional funding facility and policy resource, provisionally named the Southern African Trust. The Trust will consist of a Regional Public Policy Learning Facility (RPPLF) and a grant-making facility. DFID has set aside GB£10mn and SIDA has also committed funds to the Trust.
The partners are currently calling for nominations for the Board of Trustees. The closing date is 10 May 2004.