Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem says, ‘‘The people of Nigeria's oil-rich Niger Delta are poor not because they do not have resources but because they do not have political power. Those who wield power in Nigeria are building skyscrapers in Lagos and Abuja while there is nothing in the Niger Delta. It is the same at the global level."

Mauritania is scheduled to hold a run-off round in its presidential elections on March 25th, as none of the 19 presidential candidates obtained an absolute majority (51%) in Sunday's first round.

A new government bill barring imams from engaging in politics has triggered controversy in Algeria as the country prepares for parliamentary elections. In a statement Tuesday (March 13th) to Algerian daily El Khabar, Algerian Minister of Religious Affairs Bouabdallah Ghlamallah stated that "those who wish to be involved in politics have only to give up their calling as imams and leave the mosque, since the latter is built for prayers, not the practice of politics."

Mozambique has strengthened its capacity to deal with natural disasters, and this is beginning to pay dividends as shown by better planning and greater internal cooperation during the 2007 flooding season. The Director of the National Disaster Management Institute (INGC), Paulo Zucula, said the country was better prepared to deal with the flooding caused by Cyclone Favio compared to previous cyclones.

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/295/DRC_collage.jpgProfessor Wamba dia Wamba presents a critical analysis of the concept of democracy in the age of globalisation, which equates with Western political democracy. He provides historical context to the recent elections in the Democratic Republic of Congo, in which outside influences continued to play a large part in the outcome of the elections, and concludes with reflections about the future of the democracy project in the DRC.

1. The World context: how do we orient our thinking about democracy?

Democracy, or more accurately democratic materialism, has become the dominant ideology. It is increasingly obligatory to be a democrat. It has almost become the single political thought. Democratic materialism asserts that there are only bodies marked by languages, and nothing else. There is only one market, one politics, one economy. In brief, there is only one order of things. That is all there is and that is how it is (Alain Badiou, 2006). There is no exception, unless it is to be totalitarian or terrorist. Bodies are interchangeable, and languages and opinions are equivalent. Anything unlike the only order of things is effectively and intrinsically anti-democratic. Democracy equals the Western political order of things. It is compulsory to have Western style democracy.

Is there a political truth? How do we give an account of it? We are in the epoch of a democratising mission, following the old civilising mission. Like the latter, set to impose, by force if need be, democracy on other countries. At the beginning of the war in Iraq, some people in the US were wondering whether or not one country can build democracy for another country. Whether or not the people of a country knew how to build democracy for other countries. There were no conclusive answers to those crucial questions. Democracy has become a package of 'techniques' — constitutions, electoral mechanisms, management systems — to be exported or imposed, top-down, on Third World countries. In these countries, the demos has been reduced to voters who are passive, without civic education. How is this a break from the liberal world: responsible for Atlantic slavery, colonialism and neocolonialism; a world created by slavers, colonialists and neocolonialists?

It is also true that the nation state as the horizon of political revolution, or a state policy of war — in the sense of war as the continuation of state policy through other means, and thus of a short duration — to get another other nation state to agree, is no longer possible. Ultra-liberalism or neoliberalism is opposed to nation states, and promotes weak states to which are assigned minimal functions of keeping order, to allow people to buy into its consumer governance. War is now conceived as opposing good and evil, waged to eradicate evil. Such conception calls for the intervention of law and crime. Proxy figures are identified as being responsible for crimes: Saddam Hussein, Milosovic, Interahamwe, Bin Laden. Some Cold War crusaders have suddenly become proxy figures. War against evil tends to be very protracted, even when the axis of evil is identified. It is not clear what victory in this war consists of. Is it imposed democracy? Is it the elimination of the criminal figure: the hanging of Saddam Hussein, for Iraq? Is it the destruction of a nation state and its people, or the grabbing of its strategic resources? The world becomes divided in a Manichean manner: good democracy versus bad democracy (the recent experience of the Palestinians); good Muslim versus bad Muslim (Mamdani 2004); good states versus rogue states; democrats versus terrorists. And are these the fuelling dynamics of globalisation?

Democracy is reduced to a certified formality. It is rare that protests against the democracy of covered fraud and buying votes, promoted through unjust laws, are taken seriously. It does not matter whether or not voters have seen or read the basic texts of the constitution or electoral laws. Especially since voting is the sole way, for most voters, of having access to some resources. Has being an observer not become a very satisfying activity? Electoral campaigns have ceased to be a way of debating different visions of 'national interest', instead becoming a way of distributing things (T-shirts, foods, appliances, etc.), and money. When you have nothing to wear, you capitalise on collecting t-shirts. When you have nothing to live on, you sell your vote for money. Is the one who buys your vote your representative in the institutions?

On the other hand, the national liberation mode of politics which opened up with the independence of India, died with the assassination of Salvador Allende and Amilcar Cabral in 1973. That was the most active period of transformative politics the world has seen — with leaders such as Ghandi, Mao Tse-tung, Fidel Castro, Frantz Fanon, Ho Chi Minh. The imposition of draconian structural adjustment programmes on impoverished countries, and the recent very aggressive imperial interventions — in Iraq, Afghanistan, Haiti, Lebanon, and the protracted resistance of people in those countries, are reawakening hope for other active, transformative politics in the world. Qualitatively different democratic elections have been taking place in Latin America, for example. The protracted character of resistance in the Middle East is exposing the bankruptcy of the dominant ideology of democracy. Will democracy cease to be closely tied up with a package of conditionalities?

Different experiences of democratic constructions could be identified in the history of democracy. Each has had specific obstacles, targets and concrete results. The US experience, for example, was born out of the genocide of indigenous people, the enslavement and discrimination of black people, the civil war, white Anglo-saxon supremacist bigotry, imperial new-frontierism, male chauvinism. The Indian experience has confronted the caste system, the external imperial pressures and colonial heritage, active religious differences. Today, most of Western European democratic experiences still confront the colonial heritage, the effects of neocolonial interventionism; the 'multinationalisation' of their nations, worsened by a refusal to deal correctly with the so-called ‘sans papiers’ or immigrants: foreign born workers. The new-frontierist US has gone as far as to build a wall to keep potential immigrants out. Most of these democracies, refusing to count every person as being worth one, no more or no less, cannot really be said to be truly democratic. There may be good cases of rules of laws — with some unjust laws, of course - but, they are not democracies, respecting the rights of the uncounted marginalised groups. Should it actually not be the excluded people of those democracies that may help us orient our thinking about democracy?

2. The imported democratic project of the DRC

Is there a Congolese project of building democracy in the DRC? No serious debate has really dealt with the question. Building democracy should, normally, focus on the formation of the demos, the empowerment of its capacity to make sound choices, its mastery of the crucial issues of what a good democratic state would be like.

From the very beginning, with the precipitous granting of independence on 30 June 1960 by Belgium, the Congolese have never had a chance, by themselves and without external interference, to debate the parameters of the definition of the crisis they have protractedly been facing since the crusaders of the Cold War dismantled the nationalist regime and assassinated Patrice Lumumba. Even the so-called Sovereign National Conference (SNC), singling out Mobutu as the cause of every evil, ended up failing to grasp the significance of the impact of the Cold War on the country. It finally adopted a proposal by Herman Cohen — a former US under secretary of state for African Affairs — to keep Mobutu in power and reduce only his powers. Such a solution, later on, turned into a farce.

New rebellions could not have been avoided. These claimed to seek solutions to the crisis. Each time, proposals of solutions came from without, often offered as necessity for the democratic project. Once in power, AFDL, for example, kept postponing the implementation of its so-called democratic project. Another rebellion, claiming to be more committed to implement its democratic project emerged. This time also supported by African regional states and great personalities.

What appeared up to the signing of the Lusaka Accord (July-August 1999) to be an exclusively African initiative for the resolution of the crisis that often led to civil wars, rebellions or external armed interventions, got hijacked by the forces of international community. These, according to the late Mwalimu Nyerere, were responsible for imposing a bad solution in the person of Mobutu, who eventually destroyed the country. The financial package required to implement such a 'solution', could only to come from the international community; the African states could not afford it.

Each time an occasion to confront such a crisis arose, the Congolese were led to shift their focus, as demanded by interests of other forces: from the necessity of an organised people’s palaver to unearth the roots of the crisis, to power-sharing as a way of achieving peace by rewarding proportionally those with a capacity to threaten peace and continue the war. Warlords, being so rewarded, were transformed into democrats responsive to the needs and aspirations of the victimised and impoverished masses. Democracy built on that basis cannot but favour the same people.

What was supposed to be an Inter-Congolese Dialogue practically became UN-type conflict resolution in which the facilitating process becomes the initiating or imposing process. 'Dialogue' becomes technical and hierarchical. It ended up with CIAT almost getting power of veto over the transition. Without this external pressure, no objective of the transition could have been achieved. When crisis deepeners and crisis alleviators or pro-change people for the best and pro-status quo people are put on equal footing, it becomes difficult to reach consensus about where to begin and where to end — the main task of the transition. Mistrust among the actors was rampant. Of the five retained objectives of the transition, only two could be said to have been fulfilled: the setting up of the transitional institutions, and the rushed electoral organisation. All the others were either half done, or not done at all. National truth and reconciliation, for example, hardly took off.

The process of drafting of the constitution was fundamentally withheld from the-would-be Congolese demos. Senatorial consultations with targeted social categories were either rushed or very abstract — asking people to make choices on concepts they barely understood - form of the state, semi-presidential regime, federalism. Senators refrained, supposedly to not influence the results, from explaining things. Two days before the referendum vote, only 500,000 copies of the constitution were printed for 25,000,000 or so voters. Of those actually in circulation, four different texts of the constitution could be identified. This explains the frustrations of the lady who was asking for the picture of 'Mister Referendum' to help her decide how to cast the vote.

A necessary educational debate over the drafting of the constitution did not take place. The basic issues needing to be addressed by the constitution were hardly debated, namely: what sort of state are we in, and what do we want it to be in the future? What sort of relations do we want to have with the outside world? How should power be organised for it to be responsive to the basic needs and aspirations of the large majority of the people, in the present, and in the future? How can we empower the people to control the institutions? Debates on the variant experiences of constitutionalism were not entertained, except for the desire to copy the constitutions of others, on the ground that modernity can only come from elsewhere. The most creative experiences were hardly identified or discussed to help us draft a better constitution.

Because of the scarcity of fundamental debates involving all strata of society, laws tended to be tailored according to known possible candidates rather than for the entire foreseeable future. Crucial elements, such as levels of education, moral integrity, capacity for leadership, were not considered in a country torn apart by negative values and the exclusion of competency and workmanship. Looters and people who have become rich for being close to the treasury dominated the institutions. High financial fees were required, by law, to be paid by standing candidates, which excluded decent fellows, who did not have a chance to loot.

Although laws required that debates were part the electoral campaigns, no serious debates took place. A national consensus over what situation our country was in, what must be done to get it out of it, with whom to work, and the kind of leadership capacities to promote, was not achieved. The fact that our country is in a catastrophic and urgency situation, an exceptional situation calling for an exceptional response, was never addressed. Elections were an occasion for each person to display as much financial capacity as possible to get a post in a scheme of power sharing. Some people who could afford it got themselves elected to different posts. More accurately, they bought themselves different posts, and placed their relatives or clients in them.

It was not possible, due to the way the transition was unfolded, for the formation and development of a Popular National Democratic Coalition (PNDC) to be created. Such a coalition could have been the vehicle to promote necessary debates on pertinent issues. Etienne Tshisekedi’s UDPS, still suffering from oppositional politics — ‘what those in power are doing is no good, when we get in power, things will be better’ -, could not help organise such a coalition. To its credit, it did call for the need to have consultations at the summit to agree on the best way of organising the elections to everybody’s satisfaction. But nothing came out of it, and UDPS stayed away from participating in the elections.

The elections were organised mostly on the basis of external financing. This gave external forces the leverage to control the process, its pace, scope and order of priorities. Ascendancy to their preferences made a mockery of national sovereignty in the elections: of the democratic project as a whole. Almost no funds were allocated to the crucial task of civic education for the electorate. Diaspora Congolese, among the most informed, and in some cases people living in democratic countries, were excluded from the process, on the dubious grounds of costs. Congolese in the security forces were not allowed to exercise their democratic right, as part of the electorate, for 'security reasons'. Violating the constitution, under the pretext of security, is arguably equivalent to a coup d’Etat. From the ICD, through the transition, up to the elections, no national consensus was reached about what constitutes the national cause. It was taken from the suggestions of the external forces that the organisation of free, fair and credible elections could be such a cause. Yet there was no real internal social process of popular self-organisation to ensure that those elections would actually be free and fair.

The attempt, by the Catholic Church, to do so fell short. The Union for the Congolese Nation (UN), formed around the second round contending presidential candidate, Jean-Pierre Bemba, failed to properly provide a national leadership to rally all the national forces interested in a transparent electorate process. The monitoring process which it set up was weakened from within — giving the impression of a lack of commitment or clear vision.

An important political space opened when it became obvious that the second round presidential elections results were fraudulent. Instead of organising a big protest against such fraud leading up to a great gathering around the Supreme Court of Justice, and requiring from the latter just justice, the leadership vacillated and finally gave in, on grounds of saving human life and salvaging peace — an unjust peace and saving a dying human life (about 1800 Congolese people die everyday). There was no space for the rise of a radical transformation. This would be a question of vision, aims and style of leadership. The latter seemed to have been trapped in the politics of power sharing after the electoral victory, not sticking to the two demands of the masses of people: to liberate the country from too heavy control by external forces, and to put in place a regime that would be responsible to the people and responsive to their needs and aspirations. It remains to be seen whether the promise of organising a rigorous and republican opposition, by J-P.Bemba, will achieve those demands.

Six provinces out of eleven voted against the incumbent president because they felt that he was too dependent on external forces. He was also accused of selling out on the country. He was for the most part unresponsive to the basic needs of the majority of the impoverished population. Bemba’s MLC’s programme, too lenient on liberalism in the epoch of ultra-liberalist globalisation, would not have realised those demands either. This may explain why the MLC was unable to genuinely lead the masses of people gravitating around the UN. Once again, the question of the relationship between fundamental changes and the leadership came to the fore. It is the actions and ideas of the rebelling masses of people that bring change; yet the popular masses credit the leadership for the changes. Their blind faith in the leadership is, very often, eventually betrayed. The same faith makes the people fail to be vigilant, and actually deal with the task of how to control the leadership so that it will not betray them. There was no way and no structure within the UN to control Bemba, for example, in his dealings with various people — including his meeting with the incumbent President, at a critical moment. Most often, the so-called ‘Political Council’ of the UN he presided over, meetings of which he was the only one to call for, did not meet.

Money and promises or hopes of big institutional posts were the only motives of the so-called Alliance of the Presidential Family. Its victory, which underlines the fact that we are in a 'corruptocracy' rather than a democracy, has made that camp suffer from what could be called ‘political drunkenness’ that makes them blind to see that legitimacy is not just a question of legal victory, but, more importantly, the capacity to rally everyone and thus generate mass enthusiasm for the new regime. Instead of working out a concrete policy to deal with those who voted against the Presidential camp, by rallying them around a convincing programme, the camp has tended to discriminate against them; in fact, an attitude of revenge has characterised the presidential camp. This attitude explains also why political matters have been increasingly assigned to police and military forces to treat them. Arbitrary arrests and even the Kongo Central massacre (31 January 2007— 1-3 February 2007) could account for much of that. The rumours according to which the President had said that he would reserve only two places - the prison and the cemetery - to the Bakongo who did not vote for him, appeared aposteriori to be credible.

Very briefly, the so-called democratic project has been, in the DRC, another process of grafting a Western experience of democracy, reduced to a 'universal model', on to an ill-prepared and un-attendant Congolese political soil, justified, aposteriori, as a necessary consequence of globalisation. No lesson seems to have been learned about the process of grafting from the history of the colonial state in the Congo; which although now decomposed and fragmented, still operates like a Western Trojan horse. Such a state readily represses the people rather than responding positively to their basic needs and aspirations. The newly 'elected' President is still surrounding himself with a militia that hardly is aware that in a democracy, the army is supposed to serve the people, and not harass them for its enjoyment. Western democracy experts - our democratic teachers - come and go, and democracy does not seem to be growing deeper roots. Goodwill is often found wanting.

The permanent paradox faced by the so-called Congolese elite remains. They want to lead the people, from whom they are culturally and socially detached. They claim to ‘liberate’ the country from the extended control of external forces, to which they are culturally and socially attached. While capable of producing a constitution and a nationality law that forbids holding dual-nationality concurrently, some members of the elite do actually hold dual-nationality. Those who genuinely believe that they can solve the fundamental problems facing the Congolese people — and who claim to have worked out some solutions — spend most of their time struggling to survive by devoting their time to reinforcing the very system that causes those problems. Change is always a task for tomorrow.

3. By way of conclusion: what future for democracy in the DRC?

The country remains divided on the issue: some have voted enthusiastically for the presidential camp that enticed them financially to vote, and are now marked by a sense of victorious crowing — forgetting that the strategic aspect of democracy is the protection and defence of the rights of the minority. Those who, around the UDPS, did not participate in the electoral process, and so far unclear about what type of oppositional position they are going to assume. Those who supported the UN camp have been mostly disappointed with J-P. Bemba, frustrated by the turn of events. The massacre of people in Kongo Central, the only place where a very active opposition against the corrupting democratic process took place, did not galvanise the various opposition forces into a movement. If if is the case that the Bakongo nation consisted of all the consistent anti-colonialists from 1921 (with Kimbangu’s Kintwadi) up until to 1959 (January 4th uprising), the core of the Congolese nation struggling for national independence,as F. Fanon and A. Cabral asserted, one should not be surprised that some of their descendants are leading the struggle against corrupting democracy.

Will the use of force or threat of force succeed in silencing the protests? The stability of the cemetery can not lead to a genuine construction of democracy. Dealing with the catastrophic and urgency situation with repression will not last as long as it did under Mobutu. Not only will more protests take place, political implosion is likely. The ways things are going, the next five years might turn out to be very rough indeed.

This piece was originally a lecture given at the University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania on 9 February 2007.

* Professor Ernest Wamba dia Wamba is a Senator, and was the vice president of the Senate Permanent Commission on Legal and Administrative Matters of the transitional administration of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

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

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/295/Street-kids-Kibera-Nai.jpg… Town's recent by-law, the 'City Streets, Public Places and Public Nuisance Act', not only adds to the vulnerability of the homeless, especially street children, by dispersing them to outlying locations around the city where there are no support mechanicisms, but may also lead to the criminalisation of poverty and homelessness in South Africa.

On 31 May 2006; the Cape Town City Council adopted a by-law relating to City Streets, Public Places and Public Nuisance after a vote yielded the result of 126 in favour and 82 against. The by-law deals with a range of issues such as trees in streets, control of goods offered for sale, the drying of washing on fences and boundaries, poison in streets and the conveyance of animal carcasses. The section which has been most problematic is that dealing with 'prohibited behaviour'. This includes intentionally touching another person or their property without consent, continuing to beg after someone has said no, starting or keeping a fire, erecting any form of shelter or sleepingor camping overnight and bathing or washing in public. The lumping together of human beings and toxic waste within one piece of legislation has sparked outrage in some quarters, with others taking offence at the references made to the poor and disadvantaged as 'nuisances'.

Despite the by-law having been adopted and published in the provincial gazette on June 23, 2006; a number of Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) and other concerned parties raised a number of concerns with the manner in which the by-law was passed through the system so quickly as well as the fact that it seemed to be utterly contrary to the inclusive spirit of the South African Constitution. It was then decided by the city to refer the by-law for further public participation, a process which is ongoing and often seems less than transparent. A number of NGOs, including Molo Songololo, SWEAT, The Big Issue, Tutumike, One Love, the Right to Work Campaign and the South African Congress of Trade Unions (COSATU) as well as a number of others have formed a task team opposing the by-law. The task team is a coalition of organisations that work with a diverse range of interest groups in and around Cape Town, they have stated that their opposition to the by-law is not allied to party political issues, but is instead a an independent and legitimate initiative of civil society organisations to engage organs of the state in the process of constitutional democracy.

According to a joint press statement by the task team, 'Despite minor alterations and claims to the contrary from the City, this by-law remains a pernicious piece of legislation which will impact inequitably on the poorest and most vulnerable members of our communities. It undermines the legitimacy of the law-making process and makes a mockery of the notion of Cape Town as a Home for All'. Key concerns include the manner in which the by-law specifically targets marginalised and vulnerable sectors of the community, prevents the poor and unemployed from making a living on the streets, criminalises the poor and does not compliment or support broader poverty alleviation, crime prevention and development strategies. There are also concerns as to whether or not the implementation of the by-law would be in violation of such constitutionally protected rights as equality, human dignity, freedom and security of the person and freedom of movement.

The Big Issue, a member of the task team, is a socially responsible job creation project which publishes a monthly magazine, which is sold to vendors for R6 and can then be sold for R12. Vendors are then allocated pitches at various points around Cape Town (such as intersections and outside shopping malls) from which they sell the magazine.

According to Do Machin, Social Development Manager at The Big Issue, 'The provisions of this by-law are going to create a more difficult climate for vendors to do the work that supports them and their families, whilst they are in the process of trying as hard as they can to create better lives and futures for themselves and those they support'. Machin also feels that the by-laws will have a detrimental effect on the developmental work being done by various NGOs. 'From our experience at The Big Issue we know that development work with people living and working on the streets is long-term, dependent on the kind of outreach work which builds relationships of trust and includes each individual as an active partner in that work. The provisions in the by-law which allow for the fining and arrest of people who find themselves in the position of having to survive from day to day, often hour to hour, are antithetical to the development process, and will not improve the situation in the long-term, as well as being an infringement of basic human rights and dignity'.

As to why The Big Issue is member of the task team, Machin unequivocally states that 'The Big Issue's participation in the task team is based on the belief that this City and its people, especially the poorest, most marginalised and vulnerable, need and deserve something much more forward thinking, humane and realistic than this piece of legislation'.

The problem which the City Streets, Public Places and Public Nuisance by-law highlights is an insidious one which affects a number of Capetonians and is a sad remnant of our oppressive past. For some people, the poor, whether they are children or adults, are viewed as a blight, an irritation and something which is best described by the age-old adage 'out of sight, out of mind'. They are seen not as fellow human beings but rather as something dirty and unpleasant, they are described as lazy and annoying and are ignored whenever they happen to cross our paths. This class discrimination is disturbingly evident in the public submissions made to the Mayoral Committee regarding the by-law, and include such shocking sentiments as 'citizens should be able to go about their daily business unhindered by these problems, there have been many occasions when I have avoided using shopping centres due to vagrants in the parking areas and entrances' and 'the implementation of this by-law will enable law enforcement to to stop my family from being harassed by beggars, illegal car washers, car repairers, car guards and hawkers'.

The Homeless and vulnerably accommodated in Cape Town remain soft targets and if promulgated the by-law would simply add to pre-existing discriminatory practices and attitudes. Perhaps none are more vulnerable than the children who call the streets of Cape Town home. These children are misunderstood and mistrusted by the general public. According to Sandra Morreira, Director of the Homestead (a project which works specifically with street children), her biggest fear regarding the by-law is that it 'will enable the Metro police to round up the children whenever they want to, if they refuse to move on when instructed to do so and lock them up for a while. It will also give the police many more ways of hassling them and making it impossible for them to survive on the streets'.

As it is, Morreira says that there have been reports of children being forcefully removed from the CBD and dumped in Muizenberg or up Table Mountain, as well as general harassment such as pulling off their blankets and hitting the children.

Hip hop artist and founder of the Brown foundation, Ryan "Brown" Dalton spent three and a half years getting to know Cape Town's street children and now focuses on preventative work and he says that government generally employs strategies which tend to focus on getting rid of street children rather than helping them. Dalton sees the by-law as directly targeting children and adults living on the streets. 'By doing this we are criminalising the children and and introducing them to a life of crime, for very petty things. I have seen cases of children, with no history of criminal activity, being locked up for something as petty as loitering. In some of these instances the children get sent to a juvenile facility, where instead of being rehabilitated, they are introduced to gang life.' Of course, such a system then creates real criminals out of children who could have been reintegrated into society at a much lower cost.

According to Patric Solomons, Director of Molo Songololo (an NGO dealing with children's rights), 'the public has very little care for children living on the streets, they are seen as nuisances'. Molo Songololo has also received reports of children being removed from the city centre and dumped in areas such as Belville, Eerste River and Khayelitsha as well as being physically assaulted, having their possessions confiscated and officials soliciting bribes form them. Solomons says that if the by-law is promulgated the children will be harassed and criminalised and that the by-law is reactive rather than preventative. 'The by-law can be used to clean selected areas in the City of Cape Town, such an application will be equal to apartheid when certain laws applied to certain people.' Here Solomons hits upon an important point, the by-law will inevitably be selectively applied and enforced mostly in affluent areas or where there are large numbers of tourists and businesses. The by-law would make provision for people to live in informal settlements but not in doorways in the CBD, what is the difference? Whether or not the by-law is promulgated and openly enforced, one can only hope that the attitude of apathy and disdain, which many Capetonians seem to exhibit towards those who cannot afford nice houses, cars and three-ply toilet paper and are instead forced to make a life for themselves on the streets of our city. will eventually become more humane and inclusive. Until then, if you do not want to buy what they're selling or give them you're spare change, why not at least leave them with their dignity, it doesn't cost anything.

* Bronwen Dyke is assistant editor of The Big Issue Magazine in Cape Town

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

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/295/Genetically-modified-rice… introduction of genetically modified rice into Africa is being justified by presenting it as a solution to diarrhoea, responsible for 2,000,000 deaths per year (mainly children) in the global South. However there are other very simple means of reducing cases of diarrhoea such as improved sanitation and cleaner, free water supplies.

On 6 March 2007, it was reported in the media that a new variety of Genetically Modified (GM) rice containing human genes obtained preliminary approval from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) for large-scale planting in Kansas. California-based Ventria Bioscience, the developer of the rice, claims that it can be used to treat diarrhea. A BBC TV report on 6 March 2007 showed images of African children in a hospital as an example of some supposed beneficiaries of the new rice.

Friends of the Earth Africa believes that our continent does not need genetically modified solutions to diarrhea and condemns the use of African children as a tool to promote the new GM rice produced by Ventria Bioscience. Diarrhea is an illness that has well-known causes, and proven, inexpensive solutions. Ventria’s GM rice is unproven, unnecessary, and a distraction from ongoing programmes to save children suffering from diarrhea on our continent.

Monitoring activities undertaken by Friends of the Earth Africa in 2006 revealed that Africa has been contaminated by illegal GM rice LL601 in Ghana and Sierra Leone, main African recipients of rice as commercial imports and food aid from the US.

The dust raised by the revelation of the contamination of the food chain by an illegal rice variety, LibertyLink Rice601 (LLRice 601), had barely settled when news arrived of new contamination episodes in other parts of the world. On the 5 March 2007, the USDA announced that it was prohibiting the planting of another type of long-grain rice after confirmation of a new case of contamination. The genetically modified contaminant detected in a long-grain rice variety known as Clearfield CL131 was not authorised for commercialisation. Therefore, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) decided to prevent its planting and distribution.

Just a few days before this latest contamination episode, it was reported that the USDA had given preliminary approval to a large-scale planting of a new variety of GM rice containing human genes. The rice, produced by a company called Ventria Bioscience, has been engineered to produce recombinant human milk proteins to be extracted from the rice for a variety of suggested uses. In the media, Ventria claims these proteins will be used in oral rehydration solutions to treat diarrhea. But elsewhere, the company says it will use them as supplements in yogurt, sports drinks and granola bars.

If that earlier contamination was worrisome, the USDA’s support for planting up to 3200 acres of Ventria’s 'pharmaceutical rice' is even more so. We are particularly concerned that this massive planting of drug-containing rice is going forward even though the US Food and Drug Administration has refused to approve Ventria’s recombinant pharmaceutical proteins as safe.

The first GM food crop containing human genes is set to raise many socio-economic, cultural as well as ethical questions, besides environmental and health concerns.

This rice is being produced by Ventria Bioscience, a biotech company based in California, USA. According to Ventria Bioscience, the rice, which will be planted on up to 3,200 acres in Kansas, is endowed with human genes that produce recombinant versions of human proteins, including bacteria-fighting compounds found in breast milk and saliva. If Ventria’s application is fully approved by USDA, this will be the largest planting of a drug-producing food crop in the US.

Ventria has been field-testing rice engineered with human genes since 1996 to produce three pharmaceutical proteins–lactoferrin, lysozyme and serum albumin. When farmers, consumers and food companies protested against their field trials in California and Missouri, concerned that the engineered crops would contaminate rice destined for the food supply, Ventria shifted to Kansas.

According to analysts, pharmaceutical (pharma) crops such as Ventria's rice pose a threat to human food supply and public health, as the proteins they contain are intended to be biologically active in humans, yet have not undergone adequate testing or received FDA approval as drugs, and thus may thus be harmful if eaten accidentally. The chances of contamination are also high when such compounds are produced in food crops grown outdoors. The contamination routes are numerous, including cross-pollination and seed mixing during commercial growing and seed production.

Ventria’s rice has already been publicized in many written and audiovisual media as an important solution to one disease that particularly affects poor children in the Third World: diarrhea. On 6 March, a BBC report showed images of ill African children in a hospital as an example of some of the supposed beneficiaries of that new GM rice.

'We can really help children with diarrhea get better faster. That is the idea', said Scott E. Deeter, president and chief executive of Sacramento-based Ventria Bioscience. The proponents of this GM rice say they want to widely introduce their products into oral hydration solution,'which is consumed by at least half of the world’s children'. They define their product as 'the Holy Grail' of rice and assert 'that is what every mother would want for their child'.

From the company’s sources, an experiment using this technology has already been conducted in Peru on 140 infants from five to 33 months in age, in hospitals attended by the poorest sectors of the population. Several reports indicate that parents of the children were not adequately informed of the experimental nature of the treatment, and at least two mothers of infants in the clinical trial reported that their infants suffered from allergic reactions, causing the Peruvian government to launch an enquiry into the experiment.

Does Africa need a genetically modified solution for diarrhea? Diarrhea is responsible for over 2,000,000 deaths every year, the majority in the Third World. Despite being a major cause of deaths among children, particularly those under five years old, today there are already well-known measures to prevent and treat diarrhea. In fact, these proven and effective measures have already reduced the mortality rate of children suffering from diarrhea from 4.600,000 deaths in 1980 to 1,500,000 to 2,500,000 million deaths today, and is regarded as one of the greatest medical achievements of the 20th century.

Simply put, when a person has loose or watery stools, he has diarrhea. If mucus and blood can be seen in the stools, he has dysentery. It can be mild or very serious and may come suddenly or remain for many days. It is known that the disease is more common among young children and especially so with the undernourished ones. A well nourished child would usually recover from a case of diarrhea even without any medical treatment. For a poorly nourished child, on the other hand, an attack of diarrhea can easily prove fatal.

One of the most prevalent causes of diarrhea is linked to the limited access to safe water supply and sanitation coverage. In Africa, nearly 40 per cent of the population has an unsafe water supply and poor sanitation coverage. The World Health Organisation (WHO) found that a reduction in the number of diarrhea cases and deaths due to diarrhea was directly related to access to safe water supply and sanitation services. As the Water Quality and Health Council indicates, 'if access to safe water and sanitation coverage were improved there would be a smaller frequency of diarrhoea cases', which consequently would mean that patients would avoid costs related to treatment expenditures, drugs, transportation and time spent going to hospital and clinics. The WHO concluded in a 2004 study that simple technologies for improvement of water and sanitation 'would lead to a global average reduction of 10% of episodes of diarrhoea'. WHO concludes that if the level of intervention was higher, the reduction of diarrhea episodes could be higher: 'access to in-house regulated piped water and sewerage connection with partial treatment of waste waters, could achieve an average global reduction of 69 per cent'.

Diarrhea is a symptom of infection caused by a host of bacterial, viral and parasitic organisms most of which can be spread by contaminated water. It is more common when there is a shortage of clean water for drinking, cooking and cleaning, and basic hygiene is important in prevention. Water contaminated with human faeces, for example from municipal sewage, septic tanks and latrines, is of special concern. Animal faeces also contain micro-organisms that can cause diarrhoea. Diarrhea can also spread from person to person, aggravated by poor personal hygiene. Food is another major cause of diarrhoea when it is prepared or stored in unhygienic conditions. Water can contaminate food during irrigation, and fish and seafood from polluted water may also contribute to the disease (World Health Organisation).

It is important to note that diarrhea usually lasts a day or two and goes away on its own without any special treatment. Only prolonged cases, however, present indications of other problems Thus, special treatment for diarrhea is needed only occasionally. What children suffering from this condition need is rehydration as they lose a lot of water through the diarrhea. There are already very cheap and accessible ways of fighting dehydration by simple oral rehydration therapy.

It is obvious from the above that the world does not require rocket science in order to combat incidents of diarrhea. More than anything else, what is needed is basic hygiene, safe water access and the provision of infrastructure that would support that. Moreover, investing in GM solutions when 'simple' solutions exist constitutes a diversion of energies from the already challenging objective to guarantee the right to clean water and sanitation.

Interventions

Key measures to reduce the number of cases of diarrhea include:
- Access to safe drinking water
- Improved sanitation
- Good personal and food hygiene
- Health education about how infections spread.

Key measures to treat diarrhea include:
- Giving more fluids than usual, including oral rehydration salts solution, to prevent dehydration
- Continue feeding
- Consulting a health worker if there are signs of dehydration or other problems
(World Health Organisation).

African children have been used once again in the media in order to facilitate acceptance for a new product which is not needed in our continent. Diarrhea is a disease with well-known causes, as well as solutions. If deaths from a preventable disease such as diarrhea are to be stopped, more efforts should be undertaken to tackle its causes and greater investments should be made in improving basic water and sanitation conditions in our continent.

We once more state that Africans do not need GMOs and by no means want 'medicine crops' beyond the ones already supplied by nature. Africans do not need these expensive, experimental fixes.

* Nnimmo Bassey is the Director of Environmental Rights Action (Friends of the Earth Nigeria)

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

The Centre for Democracy and Development is organizing a seminar on the implications of Mr Wade's re-election for the future of democracy in Senegal, the impact it will have on human rights, civil society, socio-economic development or foreign policy in this West African country.

Mozambique ranks 168 out of 177 countries in the United Nations development index, with 54% of its people below the poverty line. Yet the statistics are improving – the economy has a steady annual 8% growth rate and there are megaprojects coming on line.

This passed week has seen the government of Mugabe reach an all time low in the violence committed against Zimbabwean citizens. Following the murder of the MDC activist, Gift Tandare, and the arrest and torture of senior MDC officials, including leader Morgan Tsvangirai, one begins to wonder whether this is the final push of Mugabe before he falls over the abyss and the people of Zimbabwe can begin finally to rebuild the country he has devastated economically and morally.

A message from some of the activists beaten last Sunday reads.

'The assaults on Sunday were so terrible and surreal. Like watching a movie except that one was part of the characters. Strangely if it were to happen again many of us would love to be in the front line again. They were hitting us but they were the ones afraid. Our wounds will heal but the scars on their souls are permanent and they will take them to hell.'

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/295/blog_thisiszim.gif - presents a photo essay of the arrest of Mogan Tsvangirai and writes a list of atrocities committed by the government.

'Gift Tandere murdered by the police; MDC faction leader beaten and seriously injured; Activists shot while attending a vigil; Arrests continuing two days after the rally; Police searching for ’subversive material’; Evidence of widespread use of torture against high profile civil rights activists; Senior opposition figures ‘missing; Denial of legal representation; Ongoing police intimidation of civilians in Highfields, including possible use of violence; Scores of activists arrested.'

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Enough is Enough - reports that all of the 48 activists who were injured by the police were kept waiting for medical attention.

'Silence gripped the courtroom as the 46 arrested activists found their place among the chairs. It looked more of a hospital ward that a courtroom. In fact, the whole bruised lot deserved to be in hospital and not in a courtroom. ….Those who were seriously injured included Tsvangirai, the National Constitutional Assembly chairman Lovemore Madhuku, the MDC’s deputy national treasurer, Elton Mangoma and deputy secretary for international affairs Grace Kwinje.'

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Final Push - has a report from SABC on how the Zimbabwean government justifies it’s violent actions against opposition leaders - Nathan Shamuyarira, secretary for information and publicity Zanu (PF), says Morgan Tsvangirai, has been 'asking for trouble for a long time'.

'Tsvangirai has been provoking violence in urban townships. "If you ask for that kind of trouble you'll get it," he said, referring to Tsvangirai. Morning Live's Vuyo Mbuli asked: "Was Tsvangirai beaten because he asked for it?" and Shamuyarira replied, "Yes he asked for it!"…………The Zanu (PF) representative maintains that the meeting held on Sunday was unlawful and all the people who attended it ignored government's call to ban mass meetings. He says all meetings, including those of the ruling party, have been barred. "The MDC is always playing to the gallery of the international community. They want to demonstrate to Britain and America that there is violation of human rights in Zimbabwe. So they provoke action with the purpose of impressing their overseas bosses.'

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Cry Beloved Zimbabwe - comments on the what he sees as the complicity of the South African government in the violence committed by Mugabe against the Zimbabwean people….

'The fact that South Africans cannot see nothing wrong even with surmounting evidence that MDC leaders have been tortured in custody means two things, they are complicit with the human rights abuses in Zimbabwe and they are also heading the same way. Mandela once said it "the greatest question one has to ask is what did I do to help another human being in need" when he was invited to the British Labour Party in 2000 South Africans are intellectually challenged its no secret, most of them South African politicians waffle, there is little substance to what they say, most of the times its not their waffle which surprises me but the amount of waffle they are capable of producing. While the whole world over condemns the unlawful arrest, detention and torture of Zimbabwean political figures such MDC President Morgan Tsvangirai'

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Black Looks - publishes at obituary to murdered activists, Gift Tandare. Zorora Murugare by Zimbabwean feminist, Isabella Matambanadzo.

'His death is the result of repression. His grave will be a marker of how rights denied, end.In Zimbabwe, we live in a country where police run riot. Where our rights to lawyers and doctors are denied because certain elements of the state want to hold on to a kind of power that they can see they no longer have.'

* Sokari Ekine produces the blog Black Looks, and is Online News Editor of Pambazuka News.

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

According to a new World Bank report, youth service programs empower young people to play an active role in development while gaining the experience, knowledge, and values necessary for employment and active citizenship. Around the world, service programs are enabling young people to build sustainable housing, fight HIV/AIDS, and improve literacy rates through tutoring programs.

Dear colleagues:

You probably have already heard about the tragedy that befell Malian families in the Bronx this past Wednesday night. Eight children and their mother were killed in a fire which devastated a three-storey building in the New York City borough of the Bronx. It is so hard for the communities here to come to terms with such a terrible tragedy. The fire is suspected to have been caused by an electric heater in the basement.

Members of the community and throughout New York are responding kindly to the families and friends undergoing great pain at this time. African communities within the New York boroughs are also collectively reaching out in different ways.

If you can in your individual capacity reach out to the families, I believe that your gesture will be very much appreciated. The African Services Committee is collecting donations to help victims of the fire, including those were were injured and are currently in the hospital. Here is the website of the African Services Committee. I plan to go over to the Bronx tonight to pay my respects.

Thank you for your kindness and please feel free to pass this on to anyone who can help

Doreen Lwanga

Tajudeen reports back from a conference in South Africa on sustaing Africa's democratic movement. The conference was an opportunity to audit the state of democracy, not only in Africa, but compared with other regions of the world. It brought together the electoral commissioners of most African countries, democracy activists, scholars, representatives from the private sector, multilateral institutions and agencies, and politicians of all hues and colour.

Where did you spend 6 March 2007, Ghana’s 50th anniversary? If you were not at a celebration party, you would have joined in the national celebrations in Accra remotely through the television, radio and other media. So powerful is Ghana a metaphor of Africa’s self-confidence and indomitable desire to be free. Everywhere globally, Ghana’s anniversary of independence was a reaffirmation of the possibilities of Africa taking responsibility for its own destiny.

I would have loved to be in Accra that day, but a previous commitment to participate in a conference ‘Sustaining Africa’s Democratic Momentum’ in Johannesburg, organised by the Electoral Commission of South Africa, the African Union and the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, meant I would be in the rainbow nation. But Ghana’s milestone was not far from the minds of all the conference participants. South African vice preseident, Phumile-Ngcuka, led the tributes to Ghana by appearing at the conference in a splendid Kente dress.

The anti-colonial struggles represent an historic opportunity for popular mass movement for liberty and democracy across the African continent, and among all colonised peoples, including in Asia and Latin America. The movement united in a shared quest for freedom priests and peasants, leaders and proletariat, the elite and the masses.

After independence, many countries faced the challenge of building nations out of the artificial colonial states they inherited. The alliance between the masses and the leaders fell apart, giving way to military dictatorships, one party states and other forms of authoritarian rule which provoked protests, rebellions and even revolutions.

The challenges were not only internal. Externally the Cold War, neo-colonialist policies, and the new bourgeois elite and militated against the new states. Sometimes states tried to play the powers off against one another, but mostly they became proxies and agents for the wars and agenda of others: in the looting of their countries and the degradation of their peoples.

However, African people did not remain helpless victims, continuing to struggle against dictatorship in many forms, directly and indirectly. In the past two decades Africa has seen renewal, in spite of all kinds of people (African and non African) bad mouthing the continent, paid to derive huge sums of money from Afro-pessimism.

The Jo'burg conference could not have come at a better time, coinciding with Ghana’s 50th anniversary. Ghana was the first independent black African country. South Africa was the last country on the continent to be liberated from racist minority rule. Ghana was inspiring to African nationalist struggles. Today, South Africa represents the spirit of Afro-optimism, African responsibility and leadership, despite the challenges of giving real power and prosperity to its majority population.

The conference was an opportunity to audit the state of democracy, not only in Africa, but compared with other regions of the world. It brought together the electoral commissioners of most African countries, democracy activists, scholars, representatives from the private sector, multilateral institutions and agencies, and politicians of all hues and colour. The topics discussed included: representation and participation; the role of electoral systems in enhancing or limiting participation; the role of political parties; constitutional frameworks and constitutionalism; the nexus between democracy and development; the capacity, integrity and legitimacy of electoral management bodies as umpires of the democratic space; and the role of civil society and other stakeholders, both national and international, in deepening, expanding or limiting democratic spaces.

Political parties in Africa The session that interested me the most was ‘enhancing the capacity of political parties as agents of democratisation: towards creating political parties that are democratic, representative and trusted by voters'.

Political parties are vehicles for putting forward alternative public policies in dynamic confrontation, and in competition for citizens' votes. No competitive democratic political system can endure without a viable party system. The independence struggles were led by political parties with various strategies and tactics for getting rid of colonialism. They mobilised the public who voluntarily funded, supported and voted for them. In many countries, the colonialists intervened directly or indirectly, to control, manipulate, compromise and subvert those processes. But still the nationalists won - and without writing proposals for funding to any foreign power. The masses supported and funded the struggles, and actively participated in political parties.

Today we have no political parties that present alternative policies, values, or ideologies. Instead, they resort to taking issues of the lowest common denominator such as ethnicity, region, religion or race to mobilise support. Many parties are nothing more than family businesses, or machines for rolling out voters, who can be easily discarded after the election. For instance, in Kenya, `almost no MPs are members of the party or alliance, the platform on which they ‘won’ their seats. If parties mattered, how would it be so simple to cross the carpet without apparent sanctions? If elected members can change their allegiances so capriciously, why should people vote for parties at all?

It is the ultimate privatisation of politics to have MPs who are neither accountable to a party, nor to the people who voted them. Multi-party Kenya today is closer to neighbouring Uganda’s ‘no party democracy'. Uganda is struggling to evolve into a viable multi-party democracy with a reluctant president and ruling political clique. Even in some of our much vaunted stable democracies, such as Botswana, one must question whether such stability does not derive from an environment where one party dominates? What would happen, for instance, if the ANC lost power in South Africa? At the other extreme, what would be the political implications are if Museveni were no longer President in Uganda? Would their fate not be similar to that of Ghana, once Jerry Rawlings was no longer president or presidential candidate?

Different again is a country like Nigeria with more than 40 political parties, yet no where near being truly a democratic state. Nigeria basically is a two-party country. And the irony is that neither the ruling party nor the many opposition parties make any pretense of democracy.

Hence one of the biggest challenges to democracy in Africa is trying to develop a democratic society without democrats, whether in government or opposition, at home or in the work place. Democracy is always work in progress renewed from one generation to the next. But the main engine remains political parties. Therefore citizens have a duty to form them, join them, and be active in them in order to produce leaders that will serve their interests.

Dr Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem, is Deputy Director, Africa, UN millennium Campaign and more recently General-Secretary of the Global Pan-African Movement.

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

Kenya's justice assistant minister has accused the European Union (EU) members states of putting in place barriers to Kenya`s bid to recover over US$1 billion allegedly stashed in foreign banks by corrupt leaders.

The Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) has reportedly intensified corruption investigations against former president Bakili Muluzi, casting the net wide to include Tanzania and South Africa after probes in the United States and the United Kingdom allegedly yielded nothing incriminating

Reuters reports that a Nigerian court has reinstated a central state governor on Thursday nearly five months after he was impeached over allegations of corruption. Joshua Dariye is the third governor to be reinstated by the courts in the last four months in a sign the judiciary is not comfortable with a series of impeachments that swept across Nigeria, raising tensions ahead of landmark polls in April.

According to a Reuters report, South Africa's interior ministry will introduce biometric testing, closed circuit television and a document-tracking system in its own buildings to crack down on corruption many say is rampant.

World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz has pressed Burundi’s leader to crack down on corruption and reduce red tape to speed the recovery from a 13-year civil war. The cost of opening a business, at twice the average income, curbed economic growth, Wolfowitz told Burundi’s President Pierre Nkurunziza when they met this week.

African countries may not meet the millennium development goals on health, former President for Mozambique Joaquim Chissano has said. Although progress had been made in the health sector, more effort and resources were necessary in the remaining seven years to ensure the goals, popularly known as MDGs, were realised.

Rape is a weapon of war and the world fails to treat it as a crime, two U.N. agencies said on Wednesday as the Security Council called for justice for women and girls who are victims of violence.