http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/386/49336pen.jpgIs the pen mightier than the panga? This was the question confronting Kenya’s literary establishment in the opening days of 2008, as war spread throughout Kenya’s urban centers and across the fertile Rift Valley in the nation’s heartland. As belligerent armies of unemployed youth paraded before news cameras armed with the one weapon all Kenyans have access to, pangas (machetes) once again became the symbol for death and destruction in Africa. Spoken words, it seemed, coming from the podiums of politicians of every stripe, were what helped ignite this chaos in the first place; was it possible that written words from a more thoughtful source might help reverse the spread of violence? Or barring that, could it at least make sense of the chaos and thereby ensure that when peace returned, it stayed?

Kenya’s writing community didn’t wait long to find out. Three days after the killings began, a truly unique creature was born: the Concerned Kenyan Writers group, a broad and passionate coalition of almost one hundred thinkers, philosophers, poets, journalists, novelists, film-makers, and just about every brand of outraged humanist a person could imagine.

The CKW began simply, as a ‘google group’ whose members submitted prose for the whole group to debate and critique; part workshop, part battleground of ideas, the stories, essays, poems and rants that were posted to the google group would go on to grace the pages of newspapers like The New York Times and the Mail & Guardian, magazines like Nigeria’s Farafina, and dozens more international publications. And despite its name, the CKW quickly grew to include writers who didn’t hold Kenyan passports, but nevertheless felt a strong enough connection to the country to play an active role in its rehabilitation – writers like Kalundi Serumaga, the Ugandan radio and print journalist, and Petina Gappah, the Zimbabwean writer/activist.

But the impact was greatest inside Kenya’s borders. Within a month of its creation, the CKW had grown to encompass virtually every literary institution; Kenya’s three major newspapers, for instance, were ably covered by Rasna Warah, a columnist for the Daily Nation, Martin Kimani, writing for the weekly East African, and Tony Mochama, whose weekly ‘Smitta’ column in the Standard reaches more of Kenya’s youth than any other printed space in the country. Together, these three (and many more like them) presented stories to millions of Kenyans that went beyond the usual stenographic political coverage. They poked and prodded the consciences of not just politicians, but of readers themselves, urging the public to share in the responsibility for what befell the country.

And they went far beyond newspapers. Tony Mochama, normally known for his sharp-witted interviews and vodka-soaked poetry, published a short story, “The Road To Eldoret,” describing one man’s ill-fated drive through Rift Valley. The tale appeared in a small but vivid collection called After the Vote, alongside stories like Simiyu Barasa’s “The Obituary of Simiyu Barasa,” in which the journalist-turned-filmmaker describes his own death at the hands of imagined rioters; and an untitled essay by playwright Andia Kisia who, in imagining her parents’ witnessing the birth of Kenya, realizes that “the country was a continuous experiment with the ever present possibility of failure, a fragile thing that had only just come into being and might very well go out of being…”

Published in early May, After the Vote was the first post-election book to hit the shelves. Many other like-minded initiatives had already come to the public’s eye, though, like the special edition of Wajibu magazine that came out in mid April with doves and flames on the cover and words by every Kenyan writer of note inside. One of those writers was Wambui Mwangi, who had recently started a multimedia project called Generation Kenya aimed at exploring and celebrating the identity(ies) of post-independence Kenya.

Was it ironic that Mwangi should have sprung her project into motion in December of 2007, at almost the exact moment that Kenya revealed its darkest side to itself and the world? Certainly, “Kenyan-ness” suddenly seemed much less of a cause for celebration by the time December 27th came around. But Mwangi adapted her website, to the new circumstances and used it as a platform to profile the countless ‘mashujaas’ (champions) who had performed acts of heroism on grand and modest scales throughout the election. It turned out to be what Kenya needed most – true and heartening stories that spoke of hope and a fundamental integrity in the Kenyan character at a time when barbarians dominated the stage. The GenKen project resonated so well with the public that the Nation Media Group is now including it as a supplement in their pages, the most widely read in Kenya.

Not to be outdone, the diaspora intelligencia contributed from afar as blogs and websites roared to life – perhaps none more vocally than KenyaImagine.com, whose cast of writers provided an ongoing narrative of the Kenyan drama. Managed by a handful of editors living as far afield as England, the US and South Africa, KenyaImagine blended the humour and absurdity of the post-election period so deftly it was hard to imagine the people running it could be living anywhere but inside the heart of the story. Other sites used their cyberpens to do more than tell stories; they raised cash for aid, like like Dipesh Pabari’s Sukuma Kenya, which pulled in 1.2 million shillings and funneled it towards reconstruction efforts in Kisumu.

And then there is Kwani?, the annual anthology of east African literature spearheaded by Binyavanga Wainaina, who was one of the driving forces behind the creation of the CKW itself. Kwani? was halfway through production of their fifth volume when the election struck and rendered all other topics irrelevant. Instead of pursuing their original table of contents, the editors decided to clear the plate and start fresh; in February, Kwani? sent a dozen writers on the Testimonial Project; they gathered over two hundred interviews from across the country, drawing out voices that were involved in all sides of the conflict for an unprecedented glimpse of what January’s chaos looked like on the ground. Other writers, some of whom had already been commissioned to follow the campaign, were brought in to flesh out the narrative, bringing creative nonfiction, poetry, essays and analysis to the mix. The result will be launched in August, a special twin issue that promises to be the most authoritative and comprehensive reflection to date on this most indelible of historical periods.

That launch coincides with the Kwani Litfest. Writers from all over Africa are coming to Nairobi for the first week of August, an event that may provide the first real opportunity to reflect on a different sort of question – the most painful one for writers, of just how much difference their work has made. There is little doubt that the Kenyan crisis has inspired an already talented crew of writers and forced them to reach for new heights. But the question does remain: Can their collective pens defeat the swords that were drawn in January?

For now those blades are sheathed, while the scribes continue to wage their sharp-tongued war on the status quo. It will take some time to tell how deeply into Kenya’s conscience the country’s writers can cut with their words. In the meantime, the activation and engagement of Kenya’s literary community is already proof that at least one good thing has come from this country’s descent into madness.

*Arno Kopecky is a Canadian journalist and travel writer, currently based in Nairobi. His dispatches have appeared in several international publications, including The Walrus magazine, Utne, Harper's, The Toronto Star, and Kenya's Daily Nation, for whom he reported extensively on Kenya's post-election chaos. He is currently an editor with Kwani?, a literary anthology of east African words, photography and art.

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

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/386/49335wainaina.jpgAurelie Journo (PhD Literature student) talks to Binyavanga Wainaina, the founder of Kwani? about this year's Kwani? Litfest that will take place in Nairobi and Lamu from the 1st to the 15th of August. As the discussion went on, they found themselves broaching several subjects ranging from the state of the media in Kenya, to the role of the writer in times of crisis, with digressions on post-colonial theories and ideology.
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PAMBAZUKA NEWS: When you created Kwani? in 2003, the idea behind it was that “the literary intelligensia, together with African publishers and founders of literary projects ha[d] lost touch with a generation of Africans who are tired of being talked down to; who are seeking to understand the bewildering world around them.” Five years later, do you feel things have changed?

BINYAVANGA WAINAINA: The first challenge we face is one I would call that of "low expectations." Today, we see how far we still are from something really vibrant, but the reactions from outside vary from praise, which is nice, to complaints, accusing us of no longer being « underdogs ». The latter is shocking for me as it is not how I see myself. In the end we can say that what we have become has more to do with the lack of other things. (what things lack of other platforms/infrastructures for writers) Our main aim is to make it grow still, with demands from people, older generations for example, to include them. We have not become a new Department of Literature, we just want to make people access literature because we can.

The second element is the origin of Kwani?. The people who created Kwani? were on the cliff of hip-hop, excited by the new developments in Kenyan music scene, but not really into it. They were lovers of the written word, who had been great readers since childhood. In their teens, they saw books disappear, and had a problem with the didactic nature of the books written at the birth of the Kenyan nation, books that were telling us how to be and what to think. These books didn't really talk to us, to people born after independence, who felt less need to prove their identity with reference to ideology or colonialism. Many people consider our aim was to break with Ngugi wa Thiong'o, for example, but I don't see the evolution in literature that way, I feel our inspiration cannot be limited to national literature. After 40 years of independence, we just felt the need to create the infrastructure, the space within which we could express ourselves. The harsh criticism made against the intelligenstia at the time was maybe an overreaction, but the main message was to stand up against the idea, well spread within literary and academic circles, especially in Nairobi, that with Ngugi wa Thiong'o and Chinua Achebe, everything had been said, that the job in terms of literature had been done.

PZN: Contrary to last year, the Kwani? Litfest will take place this summer, from the 1st to the 15th August, in Nairobi and Lamu. Can you tell us more about the creation of this festival and its objectives?

BW: The festival, at first, was inspired by the Summer Literary Seminars, founded in 1999 by a Russian-born American, Mikhael Iossel, who organised those Seminars in St Petersburg. The seminars aimed to work on creative writing. Several Kenyan writers, like Tony Mochama, participated in those seminars and a friendship was born. Mikhael Iossel's wife being Kenyan-American, the idea was hatched to bring those seminars to Kenya. The first couple of years, however, the American travel ban on Kenya made it hard to organize a wide-reaching event. The festival only brought together 8 writers in 2003. But the idea was there, and these writers travelled together and shared their ideas. Eventually, in 2005, many things came together: the ban on travel was lifted, we had our own budget, and it made it possible to bring the SLS to Kenya, with other workshops and travels around Kenya. The festival took on its actual format, with one week of intensive workshops in Nairobi and one week in Lamu, where networks of writers could be created. Our aim this year is to make it grow. The aim of the festival is really what I would call cross-polination, reinforcing the relations between writers, building networks, while providing useful information on publishing deals, blogging, advice on others' work, etc... Farafina, the Nigerian magazine, was born during the Kwani? Litfest. There are so few infrastructures today in Africa that cooperation between African writers is paramount. Kenyan writers will go to the Sable Litfest, for example, in The Gambia, even if the money is not there to pay for their plane ticket.

PZN: With the presence of Ishmael Beah, Aminatta Forna (Sierra Leone), Doreen Baingana (Uganda), and Chimamanda Adichie (Nigeria), to mention but a few, the festival is clearly international. How do you account for this?

BW: In the 1980s and 1990s, African writers were insulated, so defending their literary terrain today has to go through international cooperation. I would also say that we don’t have enough just in Kenya to limit ourselves to a strictly national festival. I also believe that creation takes place when there is friction and dynamic contact. Of course, this can happen on both national and international levels, but I would say that the literary traffic is and has always been international. The American students who come for the festival, for instance, are often disoriented when they arrive and they realize that they are not there to teach us how to write, but rather to learn. When people's heads knock is when they change. It is true that in the « geopolitical world of literature », Africa is still under-represented, but the festival is also a way for us to change this state of affairs. The aim of the festival is not didactic, its agenda was never really a planned project, it rather happened organically, so to speak, through interactions between people and exchange. Thus, the festival, as a place for networking and exchange, creates a platform that had disappeared in Africa after the 1970s.

PZN: Because of practical considerations and of the December 2007 elections, you decided to hold KLF this summer. Given what has happened after the elections, the festival and its participants will focus on the role of the writer in conflict and post-conflict situations. What is your view on this issue?

BW: My view is that the writer is at the service of the people. He is the one who creates a picture through which people process their experiences and their identity. However, I am hesitant as to whether his duty can be bullet-pointed, especially for writers of fiction. I believe that writers are always at the mercy of their imagination, and that imagination can not be commanded. The Kenyan writer, given the events that followed the elections, had his head engaged in this, and had to talk about it. Thus, the creation of the Concerned Kenyan Writers forum, where a dialogue and a debate were initiated. This space received a huge amount of reactions, of testimonies and reflection around what had happened. But in terms of fiction, I think books dealing with it will come much later. If you take for example, Chimamanda Adichie's Half of a Yellow Sun, it was written long after the Biafra war. However, it's impact was huge because, there was a whole generation who felt they could not talk about it, and her book made it possible to talk about it. The meaning of all that happened can not be seen now, I think, because of the many things that have to be said. I think that journalism dominates the discourse right now, because fiction takes much longer and is weaker when it is about situations or people who are still alive.

PZN: You mentioned the division between journalism and creative writing, but with the development of Kwani? one gets the feeling that you have tried to promote non-creative fiction. Does it have to do with a particular aesthetic position, realism?

BW: I think it has more to do with the particular nature of this country. If you watch the news, you come to realize there is not much being said about Kenyans. The news really represents a report on 10 or 20 families and what they do for Kenya. The Kenyan media focus so much on facts that the real stuff of life in Kenya is often left out. This absence accounts for the need for creative non-fiction that deals more with characters than with facts. Billy Kahora's story on David Munyakei touched many people and the reactions it got were very profound. You mention aesthetics, but I think the major factor is that Buru Buru for example has never been written about, and it has more to do with building the nation in print. Most people have never seen themselves in print, and it is one element that makes them real. If you ask a student to write about a Kenyan character, he will find it difficult. This is what we wanted to change, to make people discover themselves and their country by putting their daily lives and actions in print.

PZN: Among the events planned at the Kwani? Litfest, there is one entitled "Revisioning Kenya", a symposium where speakers who do not come from the literary world, such as the Nigerian anti-corruption official Ribadu or Virgin's Richard Branson, will discuss solutions for Kenya . Could you tell us more about this?

BW: The idea behind this was a conference I went to in Californian called the TED conference. The speakers come from varied backgrounds, and have 18 minutes to deliver their speech. During these conferences you meet people that produce great ideas in all fields.I think that in a post-violence situation it is a great service to provide such a platform, although it does not deal directly with literature. It serves to remind people that a territory of better ideas exist that is beyond politicians and their mediocre ideas. This new territory can be a source of inspiration for writers.

PZN: Another discussion that may take place during the festival, will have more to do with literature and its theories. It is entitled "The fallacy of Post-colonial Fiction." Ngugi Wa Thiong'o and other writers are very interested in the post-colonial debate. What is your position on this?

BW: To be honest, I had not been briefed on this panel discussion. I would say my approach towards literature is more pragmatic than theoretical. As I have told you before, I am not an academic, I am not a theorist. However, I read and consume post-colonial theory, but more as a citizen interested in new ideas. I would not read it to be placed on the theoretical map as a post-colonial writer, a modernist or in any other box created by the Literature Departments. If you asked me if I consider myself a post-colonial writer, I would answer that it's like asking a lion if he considers himself as part of the fauna and flora, the answer is that the question is of no interest to him. I am not saying that the debate in itself is useless. The academics needs us and we also need them, but as an author I reject being put inside a box, you could call this the dismissal of the box approach. Kwani? has always been and will hopefully remain resolutely not what people want it to be. We don't know what we are, but we are finding out, by trying, and sometimes failing. This is a very good defence against people trying to tag you.

PZN: In your Caine prize winning short story, Discovering Home, you travel from South Africa to Kenya to Uganda. Discovering Home is thus also about the cultural multiplicity that makes you who you are. With the post-electoral violence, identity has been a central issue. How do you feel about this?

BW: I am quite resentful of identity politics. The American notion of it has become "memeness." What is this ? It's me-me ness, narcissism and egocentrism if I understood well, disguised as empowerment. I recently read a short story about a Hawaiin-American girl working as a volunteer in Lamu who was offended when people there called her "China-girl." She read this as racism, as a rejection of her cosmopolitan identity. Her pose as a victim, through this issue of identity really irritated me. In such cases, identity politics is a language that has permeated the system and ceased to be useful. It is strongly linked to the location of power. I have met many Kenyan students in the USA who tell me they don't know who they are, but I just feel like telling them, "you are simply Kenyans living in the USA, what is so problematic about this?"

I don't adhere to the Rushdian notion of global citizen, because I have trouble seeing exactly what it means. Identity is the product of so many commitments, ideas, and natural circumstances. On the other hand, nationalism and its offshoots tend to try hard to limit the vision you have of your possibilities. Many people ask me about my name, claiming it is not Kikuyu, so I have to define my "Kikuyuness", whereas my name precisely comes from the Kikuyu naming system, even if my mother is Ugandan.

Nativism is profoundly dangerous, and too many ideas about African writing are infested by it. With this binarity between nativism and global citizenship, most citizens miss out on sensible evaluation about identity. I think all of our identities are precisely in between those two extremes. The influence of American culture should thus not be seen so negatively, as it has led to the development of Kenyan hip-hop in sheng in the 1990s. I would say this movement was a proper literary movement, that carried a culture. In as much as it is a true bottom-up phenomenon, it has empowered people in a very powerful way. I met young people from Turkana who knew Ukoo Flani Mau Mau, which shows how far this movement reaches. The new generation of hip-hop, cyber cafés, and open TV is a generation of networking. I consider myself part of the in-between generation, neither that of Ngugi wa Thiong'o nor that of hip-hop, a « cursed generation », who didn't invent forms, and are thus instinctively drawn to recognize what there is, to report on what is out there to be seen. For us, ideology and aesthetics have to take the backseat, our aim is to make literature a living thing, to move things along by promoting networking and focusing on the chemistry at work when people meet.

And that is surely what will happen during the Kwani? Litfest...

*For more information on the festival and the workshops go to the Kwani? website:

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

As dusk descends, preparations continue apace outside the main entrance of the National Museum. Trees planted in sturdy plastic bags brought in for the occasion are being wrap-dressed in gold shimmery fabric. A disco set of powerful spotlights alternate green, blue, red, shining through the customised Kitengela stained glass windows of the newly built reception area. The monotonous “one two, one two” of the sound test irritates – it always does. A large cardboard cut-out of the Gedi ruins is placed in one area; a model of the oryx and the lioness in another. Pacing through this activity is a woman, painted toenails showing hints of white from panic scrunched toes, hair akimbo as she rakes her fingers through it in distraction. It appears that the newly minted Minister for Tourism has decided to introduce himself to the diplomatic community outside the newly minted National Museum in Nairobi. And she, the proposer, and organiser is struggling to get all details in place before the jamboree kicks off.

I know that feeling. At the last Kwani Litfest in 2006, I got caught in Nairobi’s notorious evening traffic, made worse by an accident, on the eve of a fundraiser that I was in charge of called Authors in Conversation. As I sat, gridlocked, on a single lane road that really had nowhere to go, the phone didn’t stop ringing. First it was the DJ, Chimurenga editor Ntone Edjabe, saying that the owner of the venue had been so rude that he didn’t want to take part any more. Then it was the main attraction, MG Vassanji, who’d been insulted by the interviewer who had just confessed that he hadn’t read a single Vassanji book. He didn’t want to take part any more. Vassanji’s call was followed by the interviewer – who up to this point had thought he was the interviewee, having brought out a book himself just recently – he too didn’t want to take part any more. With all the major players resigning with just minutes to spare, it was actually a relief not to be at the event. That is until I received a call from the panicked restaurant to say nobody was manning the front desk, so everyone was coming in to our fundraiser for free. Squished on Tarifa Road between a matatu on one side and a green Peugeot on the other, I too raked fingers through carefully combed hair as I felt weeks of plans and organisation slip into chaos.

This feeling of hopeless panic was to descend on me over and over again in the next fortnight. It happened when the photocopies of manuscripts for a workshop didn’t materialise; when dinner in Lamu’s fort arrived so late that half the participants wandered off in search of other food; when a tutor fell through the bottom of a fibre glass boat as he leapt in excitement from a dhow (the same tutor who, only minutes earlier, had been rescued from a roaring tide that had yanked him far away from the boat). Oh, and when the additional luggage on our return charter from Lamu included spoils such as wooden carved chests, large mkeka’s, lamu chairs and other such cargo that the pilot, fearing that his overweight plane would just bounce from the runway into the sea refused to take off until great chunks of luggage was removed – resulting in a two hour haggling negotiation with a scheduled airline to take the goods.

Such is the world of Arts Management or Event Organisation. For some enterprising souls, this moniker involves securing a million dollars to helicopter a posse of people up north to dress Poi mountain in gossamer thin red silk carried up its sheer face by barefoot dancers who have learned to mountaineer for this specific purpose – to peg, in a gesture of oblique Samburu symbolism, said fabric to the climbing cleats driven into the rock by a more prosaic batch of Czech mountaineers. The scene is then painted at speed by disabled French dwarfs from the renaissance movement of art while Mongolian throat singers provide an appropriate and stimulating sound stimulus to the entire shebang. Ah, Creation!

Our approach is more prosaic. The Kwani team agonised as to whether to have a Litfest at all this year as the violence struck, stuck and spread across Kenya; bonfires and machetes uniting the land in the horror of our very own gruesome trance dance. It quickly became clear, as tourists hopped, skipped and jumped out of their bikinis and safaris suits and leapt onto leaving planes that holding our event, revised, revisioned and fully reflecting all that writers can do in unpacking a nation’s crisis was in fact completely vital.

Of course, some elements, regardless of theme or urgency don’t change. Having started so late meant that funding was painfully short. No urging from Mongolian throat singers then. Instead underpaid organisers, together with no pay volunteers work out how to structure, guide and direct opinionated creative people to (just for a short time) co-operate with the timetable, and the requests of the event. Simultaneously we persuade sponsors and attendees that what they are about to see/hear/read/pay for is in an awesome enough activity for them to part with some cash – even if it doesn’t involve yards of gossamer silk.

Arthur Flowers, better known now as “Mganga Maua” is a regular invitee of the Kwani Litfest. He has watched it evolve over the years and wrote in his blog of 2006:

“I have met so many strong African writers this trip, its been an experience

this kwani movement never ceases to amaze me

my workshop full of fellow teachers and academics who know the craft as well as i do

ive gained as much as ive given in that workshop a gathering of very powerful women that see things i dont see

often im sitting there with my mouth open catching flies”

Arthur and fellow writer Jeff Allen, were so inspired in 2006, that they decided to set up their own festival – kicking off next week in Ghana – check out their acitvites at
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In the UK, the advent of the Olympics being awarded to London led to an almost instant, 30% cut in Arts funding. A clear case of prioritisation for the UK government then. Of course here in Kenya, getting any funding at all from the government for such an event is well nigh impossible, as nothing is earmarked for such endeavours in the first place. More shame them. I prefer the Korean’s approach. In November 2007, the Koreans funded the beautifully organised Jeonju Asia-African Literature festival, to which I was invited. It was a massive event, funded by a government that understood if you feted writers who have the potential to alter their countrymen’s thinking, you can basically get them to do all the promo work for you. It’s a good approach. The good people I met in Jeonju and beyond are often on my lips and at my fingertips. I’ve rarely been so well fed, so comprehensively photographed, so carefully chaperoned, or shown such wonderful treasures as we were in South Korea.

See the Koreans figure that once us writers have softened up our nation by repeatedly extolling the virtues of our Korean trip in magazines destined to sit around in dentist’s waiting rooms, or newspapers to be passed through eight different hands, then our fulsome praise will touch a lot of people. Those words, these days can also be googled many years after the event, and all serve to build up positive PR about the country. And they are right. Now that I’ve seen how well they do things, how much space they now give to their thinkers, I am favourably disposed. When the Koreans come in with their products and services, I’ll sign up. They do a good line in digital dictaphone recorders by the way.

Anyone with a love for books must make a trip Paju Book City – their custom built, wetland surrounded, architecturally inspired new City – a whole area entirely dedicated to publishing the most beautiful of books. Here the new technologies of sophisticated printing presses merge with old techniques of producing beautiful hand made paper. A whole 360 publishing houses specialising in science, poetry, fiction, turn out hundreds of wonderfully designed, immaculately executed books for a 100% literate population that has one of the strongest reading cultures in the world. Your average Korean is an avid book purchaser, and they are able to support this thriving creative book making industry (and they possess the largest bookshop in the world).

This, by the way, is a nation, that in 1963 at Kenya’s independence shared the same level of GDP as we did. Look where a government policy, which includes proactively encouraging - and paying for - an interest in reading has taken them.
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Say something often enough and it embeds itself in a nation’s psyche. Write opinions that reflect support and uplift the ideas of the masses and you have a revolution. That’s why they lock up writers don’t they? Too dangerous, too powerful?

And yet we can’t even get the enthused, but nonetheless assistant Marketing Manager at Kenya Tourist Board (KTB) to return our calls. It seems that bringing in prize winning, best-selling authors into a country recently ravaged by the negative publicity of violence and disorder isn’t so relevant to changing the perception of this nation to outsiders. Our assertion, that we can show these powerful people, through the Kwani Litfest, a facet of Kenya that is fascinating and thriving enough for them to want to write about seems to carry as much weight as the Gedi ruins cut-out at the Ministry of Tourism big bash this week. “The weekend papers have been full of Kenya specials, so they (KTB) must be throwing some money around,” commented Aminatta Forna, one of our invited writers. “But to get an advert in Harper's Bazaar would cost them their entire annual budget and more.”

She’s got us an editorial and is arriving with a commission – a travel one no less from Harpers Bazaar to write a piece on her Kenya trip. For the price of an air ticket and a good hotel room, that’s valuable column inches being given over to the recovery a vital fact of this country’s economy.

If you type Kwani Litfest 06 into Google, over 1150 blog entries appear. And the reports are often glowing entries from writers who were wowed at Litfest 2006 and went on to tell the world about it. Similarly, a fat, favourable five-page spread in Vanity Fair appeared after its book’s editor attended in 2006, going to workshops, but more importantly swooning with pleasure at the gentle comforts and the delicious seafood of her Lamu sojourn. Her riff went something like this: “It seems everywhere one goes these days – those in the know are buzzing about an African Literary renaissance…. Nowhere is this more evident than at the SLS Kenya Kwani? Litfest this past December, where a historic number of writers, journalists and magazine editors from Congo to Cape Town, Bangalore to Boston have gathered to catch a ride on literature’s new wave…Fuelled by the internet (and few Western publishers who have rubbed the sleep out of their eyes), the African revolution is on your doorstep….Lucky, lucky you.”

In that same issue, Kwani founder - our very own Binyavanga Wainaina, who has achieved some notoriety and no small amount of power from his writings (see separate interview) was given another five pages to expound his opinions of Kenya and Africa. Add the ever more vocal and more immediate world of blogs; the kudos of stories in national daily newspapers from New York to New Zealand (as Vanity Fair would not doubt put it) and you can see that our gathering had some pretty good clout. One guy even wrote a whole book of poetry based on his experiences of Lamu. We plan to launch it at this year’s Litfest.

Despite all this hard evidence, it seems we are still viewed as a specialist esoteric group of individuals, not relevant enough to shaping this country’s ideas to be taken too seriously. Its’ enough to make you whip out your dictionaries of Korean characters (purchased in Paju Book City, and printed on thick luscious hibiscus flower paper), and start learning the language of a nation so as to move to a place where the critical importance of writers shaping a citizenry’s thought has been understood.

Except there are enough of us “in the know”, as Vanity Fair asserts, to see our influence filter out all over the Kenyan arena. We see excerpts of our ideas dotting the opinion pieces of journalists in the national press; we’re quoted by businessmen; our words are spoken with authority by donor agencies. We watch the hive of creativity grow and blossom into new projects that we barely dreamed of when we first thought of putting local and international writers of all hues and styles together in this particular sphere. We see heated arguments morph into brilliant collaborations.

There were 100 little adventures to be had at Kwani Litfest 2006. From swimming across the Lamu to Manda channel, to getting lost somewhere in the middle of the island, to eye-popping visits in Dandora and incredible poetry performances that are still talked about today - those many little organisational glitches, turned quickly into many, many triumphs. The Nigerian Litmag Farafina was born at a Litfest, as was the Pan African Literary Forum. Watch this space for the advent on an exciting international literary archive project called Goonj. All these created the many narratives that made up the Kwani Litfest 2005 and 2006.

KLF 208 is set to bring an even brighter cast of literary icons and events to Kenya during the first two weeks of August for a world-class celebration of African stories. From literary safaris a la Hemmingway to sailboat excursions on the Indian Ocean, plus the usual dose of 'Afropolitan' workshops, dinners and symposiums in the teeming capital of Nairobi, KLF 2008 will harness all of this country's vivid diversity. "Kenya has never been more relevant to global development than today," notes Binyavanga Wainaina, founding editor of Kwani? magazine and contributor to Vanity Fair, National Geographic, Granta, and other notable publications. "For the best writers on the continent to gather in a setting that embodies Africa's greatest hopes and deepest fears is an extraordinary opportunity."

The 2008 faculty also includes Chimamanda Adichie, the Nigerian star whose novel Half of a Yellow Sun won the 2007 Orange Prize for Fiction; Sierra Leone's Ishmael Beah, whose book A Long Way Gone thrust the plight of child soldiers into western hearts and minds; plus many more prize-winning journalists, authors, influential editors and publishers from across the literary spectrum.

In addition to honing participants' skills in poetry, fiction, nonfiction and journalism, this year's litfest will be informed by the horrific post-election chaos from which Kenya recently emerged. The role of the written word in conflict situations will be examined by writers fresh from the field, their experiences and insights sure to electrify colleagues and participants alike.

Join us for a collection of new incidents this year.

*Shalini Gidoomal is a freelance journalist, writer, businesswoman and inveterate traveller, born, and currently living in Nairobi. She has worked extensively on various UK and international magazines and newspapers, including The Independent, News of the World, Today, FHM, GQ and Architectural Digest. She profiled five Northern Irish photographers for the book Parallel Realities, and has worked in Kenya for the Standard and Camerapix. Her short stories and non- fiction have been published in The Obituary Tango, Jungfrau and Kwani 04. She is editorial co-ordinator for the Generation Kenya 45 project and festival director of Kwani Litfest 2008.

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

As a Zimbabwean it is really encouraging to see and hear fellow Pan -Africanists differentiate between Mugabe 's ideals and his actions and the quest for freedoms for African peoples.

The article, , is great but it really needed to show that cunning and foxy Mugabe only moves with the tide and does all this only to keep himself in power and for his own selfish interests. One only needs to look at the Mugabe who worked for and was a darling of Western interest soon after independence and went on killing not only the Ndebeles whose leadership was pro-Soviet Union at the times but also dumped every freedom fighter who fought for Zimbabwe' s independence.

He never attended any local cultural event but went into every cricket match and would go shopping in the UK I do not know how many times. It was only when the freedom fighters held him captive that he paid them the Z$50,000 gratuities. Even the land issue was not Mugabe idea but the freedom fighters. Mugabe only followed suit. Doing otherwise would have weakened him.

On Tsvangirai being labelled a puppet of the West, again Mugabe was always one good western puppet because he would come to the west to blackmail Nkomo and Zapu and accuse them being pro-communist and wanting to grab land. This is why Nkomo was called 'child of the soil.'

One would like to believe that is how Mugabe became a darling here and was awarded degrees and knighthoods. He then fell out with his western masters when he could not dance to their tunes and protect their interest. A close look at even the recent events would reveal some of Zanu' big financers are British.

So who is the really is a puppet here? Is Mugabe not just playing fox. Finally, liberators should not be sole owners of that liberation. Mugabe must understand that even my grandmother in Chipinge fought for the independence of Zimbabwe but she cannot hold on to it as if it is a private unlimited.

Pan -Africanist need a bigger, in depth discussion on such issues -otherwise the likes of Mugabe will hijack all this for their own selfish agenda. And to criticise or differ in views with Mugabe is still Pan African.

I stand to be corrected and if need be, to be humbled.

In response to : In 1999, I wrote an article published in The Namibian newspaper calling the Mugabe regime in Zimbabwe another chapter in Africa's narrative of dictatorship and murder. The others being the regimes of Nkrumah, Kenyatta, Kaunda, etc.

Leftist ideologues reacted with predictable horror. The problem why dictators like Mugabe will continue to thrive in Africa is because we make excuses for them. They are nationalists, socialists, or Africanists, etc. This kind of argumentation ridiculously suggests that it is okay for a leftist, nationalist or Africanist to murder and pillage. It is only wrong when the killing is done by an imperialist.

The Left, especially African Left, must reposition itself to help in creating Africa's future. As presently constituted, the Left has provided the philosophical and ideological justification for various murderous regimes.

We demand the unconditional release of our patriotic colleagues in the civil society who were brutally manhandled and arrested this morning as they exercised their constitutional rights to demand the resignation of Amos Kimunya as Finance Minister.

Their right to freedom of peaceable assembly was brutally violated by members of the Kenya Police. We demand their unconditional release for they have committed no crime. The Police officers who directed the assault on Ann Njogu and her colleagues must be subjected to appropriate discipline by the Commissioner of Police.

Kenya is not a Police State and Kenyans will not surrender their constitutional freedoms or their right to complain against wrongdoing, or to speak against grand corruption and impunity.

The arrested members of the civil society must be released. In any event the man they were protesting against, former Finance Minister Amos Kimunya has resigned his office and stepped aside to facilitate investigations into the subject matter of the protest of civil society.

In the spirit of a transparent enquiry into the role played by numerous public officers and institutions in the grand corruption saga that is the Grand Regency Hotel ‘handover’ and sale, it is morally and legally right that no one should be punished for speaking out for the Kenyan people in their time of need.

* For more information, please visit -

Human security should come first in seeking conflict resolution in the Horn of Africa. Favour should be shown to partners that protect their people - whether they are state or non-state actors - and not just to those who claim to protect western interests. And all states in the region should be required to conform to “the normal conventions of international conduct.”

These are the main conclusions of a new Chatham House report by Sally Healey in ‘Lost Opportunities in the Horn of Africa: How Conflicts Connect and Peace Agreements Unravel.’ The conclusions, despite their diplomatic wording, amount to a clear criticism of outside and especially Western policy in the region. But the underlying analysis provides a valuable conceptual tool-kit for challenging the concepts used more widely for understanding conflict.

The report looks at three peace processes in the Horn - the Algiers Agreement of December 2000 between Ethiopia and Eritrea; The Somalia National Peace and Reconciliation Process of October 2004, and the Sudan Comprehensive Peace Agreement of January 2005.

Each of the three processes is unique, and their most obvious common feature is that the results are mixed. The Algiers Agreement has not led to a permanent settlement between Ethiopia and Eritrea. The two instruments created at Algiers to help reach a permanent peace - the boundary commission and the UN force - have both run out of steam. At least the two sides have not returned to open war. But their enmity continues, and is played out by proxy elsewhere in the region, especially in Somalia.

When the African Union (AU) Heads of State committed to allocating at least 15% of annual government budgets to their health sectors In Abuja, Nigeria in 2001, they also called on high income countries to fulfil their own commitment to devote at least 0.7% of their GNP as ODA to developing countries and to cancel Africa’s external debt in favour of increased investment in the social sector.

The Abuja target, thus, consists of three components; African countries should:

- mobilise domestic resources for health (15% now);

- unencumbered by debt servicing (Debt cancellation now); and

- be supported by ODA (0.7% GNP to ODA now).

After the significant fall in public sector funding of the health sector funding associated with structural adjustment programmes and market reforms, most African countries clearly need to increase public sector investment in health. Poorer groups have considerably worse health than the better off and economic growth and achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in the region is seriously undermined by the prevalence of HIV and AIDS, TB, Malaria and other diseases. Eleven of the 16 countries in east and southern Africa spend in their public sectors less than the US$34 needed for the most basic interventions for these conditions, let alone the US$80 needed for more comprehensive health services. Very few East and Southern African (ESA) countries have health care spending levels anywhere near this amount, and there are thus major unmet health needs. Ten of the sixteen countries in the region, if they met the Abuja target, would, however, increase their public financing to health above the level of US$34/capita needed for the basic health programmes.

The world’s attention has been riveted in 2008, by election crises in Africa, first Kenya, and now Zimbabwe. In both cases, challenges remain in converting electoral victory to political power. Can a victorious opposition come to power in the face of an obstinate incumbent? This question is particularly relevant when the incumbent regime controls the coercive apparatus of the state and the opposition only has the ballot in its corner. In the battle of the ballot vs. the bullet, can there ever be a fair match?

Historically the answer has been no. But new developments on the democratic front in Africa in the last decade have strengthened election support and monitoring by key regional bodies, the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the African Union (AU). In 2004, SADC adopted ‘Principles and Guidelines Governing Democratic Elections’ aimed at ‘enhancing the transparency and credibility of elections and democratic governance as well as ensuring the acceptance of election results by contesting parties”. The African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance adopted by the AU in 2007 to, among other things, ‘promote the holding of regular free and fair elections to institutionalize legitimate authority of representative government as well as democratic change of government”, consolidated gains on the electoral front. These developments have strengthened the electoral process on the continent, creating the space for opposition parties to compete fairly. At a minimum, international supervision through these protocols compels sitting governments to desist from outright repression and undemocratic practices.

SADC Council of NGOs (SADC-CNGO), Southern African Trade Union Coordinating Council (SATUCC) & Fellowship of Christian Councils in Southern Africa (FOCISSA), representing broad membership in all SADC member states, are deeply concerned that the developments in Zimbabwe grossly undermines the regional community’s efforts to achieve regional integration and go against the spirit and objectives of the SADC Treaty.

Presidential run-off elections and their outcome are illegitimate and cannot be the basis for any solution for Zimbabwe. These elections took place under the conditions of politically motivated violence, arrests & detention, brutality and intimidation, which resulted in one party, ZANU-PF, contesting against itself, and subjecting citizens into submissiveness through repression, torture, murder, detention and destruction of property. Our leaders have allowed the Zimbabwean situation to deteriorate to where it is today, despite the fact that President Robert Mugabe and the ruling ZANU-PF party violated, and continue to violate fundamental values and principles of the SADC Founding Treaty, African Union’s Constitutive Act and United Nation’s Charter in that:

ZANU-PF MACHINATIONS
It is common knowledge that the Movement of Democratic Change (MDC) party won the parliamentary and presidential elections earlier this year. Based on its performance, it would therefore be fair to say that the MDC would probably have also won last week’s presidential run-off had it not pulled out at the last moment. Yet, despite these facts, Zanu-PF still remains in power today. Robert Mugabe has once again outmaneuvered his opponents in Zimbabwe and abroad.

No surprises there then, given that the government had set in motion a chain of events that were designed to pre-determine the outcome of the elections in its favour. Indeed, the MDC cited the systematic harassment, torture and murder of its supporters and leadership as the main reason for its withdrawal from the election.

Given this state of affairs and as the Pan-African parliament observer mission reported, the elections could not have been conducted in a free and fair environment. African leaders meeting in Egypt last week called for a government of national unity to be established in Zimbabwe, thereby conferring semi-legitimacy to Mugabe much to the dismay of the MDC and others who were hoping for outright condemnation and ostracisation.

However, the MDC was right to contest the elections in March even though it was faced with insurmountable odds. By participating in a contest they knew would be pre-determined and still registering more votes than the government, the party won a moral victory in the eyes of many Zimbabweans. That moral victory would have been enough to carry the MDC through last week’s presidential run-off election, which was also preceded by the same unfavourable conditions of the March election.

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/387/49322g8leaders.jpgThe Group of Eight came into being in 1975 as the G7 at a time that the world was embroiled in deep economic crisis, much like today. Its main aim was to coordinate the macroeconomic policies of the rich countries at a time of stagflation as well as to forge a common strategy vis-a-vis the developing world, which had loosened its political and economic dependency on the First World during the heady days of decolonization, national liberation struggles, and the emergence of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) as an economic power.

The G7 were not successful in coordinating their policies, with the US under Ronald Reagan aggressively pursuing a cheap dollar policy that brought on recession in Germany and Japan. They did, however, come together in a united front against the developing countries, putting their weight behind the neoliberal structural adjustment policies imposed by the World Bank and IMF on more than 90 developing and transition (post-socialist) economies. The structural adjustment programs rolled back the economic gains achieved by the South in the 1950’s and 1960’s.

In the 1990’s, the G7 became the main promoters of corporate-driven globalization, for which the road had been paved by the radical deregulation, radical liberalization, and radical privatization that took place in developing countries under structural adjustment. The G7 also provided strong support for the World Trade Organization (WTO) as the main agency for the process global trade and investment liberalization demanded by their corporations.

The late 1990’s, however, brought about, not the increasing prosperity for all promised by neoliberal, pro-market policies but rising absolute poverty, increasing inequality, and the consolidation of economic stagnation in the South. The collapse of the third ministerial of the WTO in Seattle in December 1999 marked the achievement of a critical mass by the forces of opposition created by the contradictions of globalization.

With the realities of globalization exposed, the summits of the G7—now G8 with the incorporation of Russia—became a lightning rod for the rising global opposition. At the G8 Summit in Genoa in June 2001, three hundred thousand people came together under the uncompromising program of “No to the G8.” The battle lines were clearly drawn, with the Italian police or carabineri contributing immensely to polarization by erupting in a riot that took the life of one activist and injured scores of others.

Elements within the G8 realized that the image of being a hegemonic directorate of globalization was not good for the future of the body. Led by the New Labor government of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown in Britain, the G8 underwent a facelift. A new discourse was forged, the key substantive elements of which were debt forgiveness for the poorest countries, the raising of aid levels to 0.7 per cent of the GDP of the G8 countries, a massive aid package for Africa, making trade serve development, and tackling climate change. The new watchwords when it came to process were “partnership,” “consultation,” “global social integration,” and the “millennium development goals.” The battle was for the soul of global civil society. The high point of this new look was the Gleneagles Summit in 2005, which was choreographed by an alliance between the Labor Government, entertainment superstars Bob Geldof and Bono, and influential British NGO’s. Several hundred thousand people who journeyed to Scotland found themselves manipulated into becoming a chorus for the glittering Aid for Africa concerts that were staged simultaneously in different parts of the globe.

By the time 2007 came along, the glitter was gone. The idea of global civil society partnering with the G8 had soured as none of the G8 governments reached the 0.7 of GDP target, aid to Africa fell short of the $20 billion promised at Gleneagles, the “Doha Development Round” had become a big joke, and serious action on climate was nowhere to be seen. Instead, the G8 communique at the Heiligendamm or Rostock Summit emphasized techno-fixes for climate change, lectured developing countries about not restricting investment by transnational corporations, and issued a thinly veiled warning about China getting preferential access to raw materials in Africa. Under the leadership of civil society in Germany, militant denunciation and confrontation of the G8 was the preferred civil society response, with thousands of demonstrators trying to penetrate the site of the leaders’ meeting to shut it down. With the dominant cry being “G8—Get out of the way,” the Heiligendamm protests retrieved the militant tradition of Genoa that had been suppressed at Gleneagles.

So we come to the G8 Summit here in Hokkaido, Japan. We have not only in Bush, Sarkozy, Brown, and Fukuda a group of discredited leaders with very low ratings at the polls in their own countries. We have as well a G8 that is, more than ever, lacking in legitimacy as the typhoon unleashed by the project of globalization that it has promoted is wracking the globe in the form of the simultaneous crises of skyrocketing oil prices, rising food prices, global financial collapse, and worsening climate change. Against this backdrop, Japanese and Asian social movements are faced with the choice of taking either the Road of Genoa or the Road of Gleneagles—that is, to deepen the G8’s crisis of legitimacy or, as in Gleneagles, to salvage the G8 once again. The greatest gift that the Japanese movement can give to global civil society is by leading the struggle to make the Hokkaido Summit the final summit of the G8.

*Walden Bello is president of the Freedom from Debt Coalition and senior analyst of Focus on the Global South. This essay was first given as speech at the opening plenary of the People’s Summit, Sapporo Convention Center, Hokkaido, Japan, July 6, 2008.

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

The Permanent Representatives Committee (PRC) met between June 24-25 in Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt, ahead of the Executive Council (EC) that was to take major decisions ‘to breath fresh life into several organs of the continental body, and remove doubts over its efficiency’. According to the PRC Chairman, Tanzanian Ambassador Mohamed Maundi, the PRC meeting accepted 19 recommendations on the Audit reported, rejected 22 recommendations and referred 52 of them to the AU Commission. The President of the AU Commission, Jean Ping, expressing himself at the opening of the Assembly of heads of state and government, outlined major reforms he intends to undertake to improve his institution. He mentioned the importance of taking into consideration the recommendations suggested in the AU Audit report and giving priority to the values of competence, experience, efficiency and justice, as well as devotion to the AU.

The Peace and Security Council (PSC) presented their report on the security situation in Africa to the Assembly. Within the report were mixed findings on the progress of peace and security on the continent: countries like Burundi, Côte d’Ivoire, Central African Republic and Comoros showing improvements and, yet, new tensions arising in countries such Sudan, Chad and the Democratic Republic of Congo, with ‘persistent deadlock’ being recorded between Ethiopia and Eritrea. ‘On Kenya, the report said the post-election crisis in the country was overcome with the signing, on 28 February, of the national accord and the reconciliation law.’

The Eleventh summit of the heads of state and government was overshadowed by the presence of the Zimbabwean President, Robert Mugabe recently sworn in after a one man presidential run-off election. The chairperson of the AU, Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete, appealed to the international community to work with the Southern African Development Community (SADC) in the search for a solution to the crisis in Zimbabwe. The UN Deputy Secretary General Asha-Rose Migiro also echoed his sentiment by urging the leaders to seek a negotiated solution. Meanwhile, Human Rights Watch called for African leaders to impose sanctions against Mugabe and refuse to recognise his legitimacy while the United States urged the AU to denounce President Robert Mugabe’s inauguration. The US also strongly condemn ‘the actions of the Mugabe regime, which continues to reject the will of the Zimbabwean people, abuse their human rights, and deny them humanitarian assistance’. Stronger calls to intervene in the Zimbabwe situation came from two legal opinions commissioned by the Southern African Litigation Centre, based in Johannesburg. The opinions declared the run-off election unconstitutional. While ‘a case can be made for an AU intervention under the “Declaration on the Framework for an OAU Response to Unconstitutional Changes of Government,” signed in Lomé, Togo in 2000 and endorsed by the Zimbabwe Government’, ‘the role of SADC leaders will be paramount in supporting an AU intervention’. However, the 15-member PSC failed to reach a decision and referred the ‘thorny issue of how to deal with Mugabe’ to the Assembly of heads of state and government.

African leaders were divided on Zimbabwe and refrained from criticising Mugabe outrightly. Nevertheless, some leaders openly criticised Mugabe, such as Kenyan Prime Minister, Raila Odinga, and Vice President Mompati Merafhe of Botswana who said that allowing him to participate in the AU summit gave "unqualified legitimacy to a process which cannot be considered legitimate." Others such as South African President Thabo Mbeki opted for continued dialogue. The AU eventually reached a compromise decision calling on Zimbabwe’s political parties to initiate a dialogue aimed at establishing a government of national unity. Suggesting the Kenyan model to solve the electoral crisis of Zimbabwe, the AU Chairperson and president of Tanzanian led others in praising the Kenyan President and Prime Minister for having put the country’s welfare before their personal interests in forming a coalition government. Leaders also expressed ‘caution that conflicts arising from disputed elections were on the rise and a mechanism for reducing or avoiding such incidents should be developed at the continental level’.

In other news from the summit, the Senegal’s senior Minister of Foreign Affairs, Cheikh Tidiane Gadio, a key advocate of the Union Government said some fifteen AU member states or so that are ready for the establishment of a Union Government should be allowed to go ahead stating that the failure to act now would hinder Africa’s unity. Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade echoed his minister saying that ‘the African federal government will be set up next January by those countries that are ready to do so’. His announcement followed a compromise by the heads of state and government who directed the chairman of the AU Commission, Jean Ping, to draw up a report on the road map and mechanism for the establishment of a continental government. Ping is expected to present his report during the January 2009 summit.

Side meetings of the summit also included the African Peer Review Mechanism, the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (Nepad) Heads of State and Government Implementation Committee and the Organization of African First Ladies against HIV/AIDS, among others. Finally, AU leaders paid tribute to the late Aimé Césaire, a poet and humanist from Martinique, who died on 17 April last at the age of 94.

Equatorial Guinea's President Teodoro Obiang Nguema has accepted the resignation of the country's government, calling it "one of the worst ever," national television reported Saturday.

Moussa Toybou has been confirmed the winner of Anjouan's hotly contested presidential run-off by the Constitutional Court, beating his challenger, Mohamed Djanfari. Mr. Toybou, 46, polled 52.42% of the votes against Mr. Djanfari's 47.58%, official results showed. Unlike his challenger, who was formerly the Vice President of the Comoros federal government, Toybou had been a complete novice in politics.

Video footage which appears to show ballot-rigging taking place in Zimbabwe's recent presidential run-off election has been posted on the website of a British newspaper. The footage had reportedly been smuggled out of the country by Shepherd Yuda, an officer at a prison in Harare, Zimbabwe's capital.

Mauritania's government has resigned, just seven months into its term, pre-empting a censure motion filed by dissident's within the ruling party. Sidi Mohamed Ould Cheikh Abdallahi, the president, immediately reinstated Yahya Ahmed El Waghef, the prime minister, on Thursday, asking him to form a new cabinet.

Levy Mwanawasa, the president of Zambia, is reportedly recieving intensive care treatment in a French hospital, the vice-president said.Rupiah Banda also denied claims on Thursday that Mwanawasa had died. "The president had [a] satisfactory night at the Percy military hospital in France. The news reports ... are not true," Banda said in a statement.

Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe, defiant despite growing African condemnation of his re-election, said on Friday the opposition must drop its claim to power and accept that he was the rightful head of state.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has criticized the outcome of Friday’s run-off presidential election in Zimbabwe – which went ahead despite international appeals for a postponement given the violence and intimidation that preceded it – as illegitimate. “The outcome did not reflect the true and genuine will of the Zimbabwean people or produce a legitimate result,” Mr. Ban’s spokesperson said in a statement issued today in Tokyo, where the Secretary-General is currently on an official visit.