Nigeria's ruling People's Democratic Party (PDP) says it will replace all 52 of its candidates who have been accused of corruption by the anti-graft agency. The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) released a list of 135 politicians it alleges are too corrupt to run in April's elections. Most prominent is Vice-President Atiku Abubakar, an opposition presidential contender, who rejects the accusations.

Anti-graft officials from the Southern African region are meeting in the Zambian capital, Lusaka, to formulate a code of ethics aimed at curbing corruption in the business sector, the Herald newspaper has reported. The two-day meeting, organised by the Southern African Forum Against Corruption, a regional anti-corruption body, is expected to come up with a code of ethics and strategies in which the private sector could help fight the scourge in the region.

Local government officials in Nigeria's wealthiest oil-producing state have squandered rising revenues that could provide basic health and education services for some of Nigeria's poorest people, according to a Human Rights Watch report. Human Rights Watch found that the government's failure to tackle local-level corruption violates Nigeria's obligation to provide basic health and education services to its citizens.

FEATURES: Ben Terrell exposes UN human rights abuses in Haiti
COMMENT AND ANALYSIS:
- Henning Melber examines the state of the continent and presents a new African order
- African women are winning the fight for rights but they cannot afford to be complacent, writes Janah Ncube
- The China question sparked a fiery debate at the WSF. Walden Bello explains why
- There will be no peace without human rights in Somalia, says Birgit Michaelis
LETTERS: Jacques Depelchin calls for solidarity with Haiti
BLOGGING AFRICA: China, mobile technology and indentured slaves in Sierra Leone feature this week
BOOKS & ARTS:
- Poet Mshairi travels “Home”
- Kimani wa Wanjiru reviews prison literature and the politicisation of prisoners in Kenya
WORLD SOCIAL FORUM: It’s time for the masses to be heard, says Steve Ouma
AFRICAN UNION MONITOR: Ghana welcomed in as AU chair

CONFLICT AND EMERGENCIES: Historic pledge to free children from war
HUMAN RIGHTS: Tutu stirs African debate on homosexuality
WOMEN AND GENDER: International day against FGM
REFUGEES AND FORCED MIGRATION: Land clashes kill 60, displace thousands in Kenya
ELECTIONS AND GOVERNANCE: Kenya elections - Out with the Old….in with the Old
AFRICA AND CHINA: China’s environmental footprint in Africa
DEVELOPMENT: Will ethanol fuel prosperity or poverty in Africa?
CORRUPTION: Corruption and misuse robs Nigerians of rights
HEALTH AND HIV/AIDS: Spotlight on microbicide trials
EDUCATION: Keep schools open to Swazi Aids orphans
ENVIRONMENT: Carbon trading – Offsets for Whom?
LAND AND LAND RIGHTS: “We are not eating our own food”, say Ugandan farmers
MEDIA AND FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION: Community radio journalist held in Chad
INTERNET AND TECHNOLOGY: Shuttleworth Foundation gets linuxed
PLUS: e-Newsletters and Mailings Lists; Fundraising and Useful Resources; Courses, Seminars and Workshops

*Pambazuka News now has a Del.icio.us page, where you can view the various websites that we visit to keep our fingers on the pulse of Africa! Visit

Not the biggest investor but the most dynamic - Walden Bello discusses China’s investments in Africa and why China is so popular with African governments.

At the Seventh World Social Forum (WSF), held in Nairobi, Kenya, in late January, the most controversial topic was not HIV-AIDS, the US occupation of Iraq, or neoliberalism. There was a rough consensus on these issues. Aside, of course, from the lively internal politics of the WSF, perhaps the topic that generated the most heat was China’s relations with Africa.

At the “The China Question” seminar, organized by the semi-official “China NGO Network for International Exchanges,” the discussion was candid and angry. “First, Europe and America took over our big businesses. Now China is driving our small and medium entrepreneurs to bankruptcy,” Humphrey Pole-Pole of the Tanzanian Social Forum told the Chinese speakers. “You don’t even contribute to employment because you bring in your own labour.” Stung by such remarks from the floor, Cui Jianjun, secretary general of the China NGO Network, lost his diplomatic cool and launched into an emotional defence of Chinese foreign investment, saying that “We Chinese had to make the same hard decision on whether to accept foreign investment many, many years ago. You have to make the right decision or you will lose, lose, lose. You have to decide right, or you will remain poor, poor, poor.” At this point, Dale Wen, a Chinese environmentalist, intervened: “That’s not true. The Chinese people did not decide to accept foreign investment. Deng Hsiao Ping [the late Chinese leader] decided.” An African in the audience added: “You have to treat us with respect.” Great Promise or Great Harm?

The vigorous exchange at this panel and at another organized by the Fahamu Networks for Social Justice and Focus on the Global South was perhaps to be expected, since many Africans view China as having the potential of bringing either great promise or great harm. One sensed that if the African speakers were hard on China, this was because they desperately wanted China to reverse it’s course before it was too late to avoid the path trod by Europe and the United States.

The debate at the WSF took place amidst a marked elevation of Africa’s profile in China’s foreign policy. President Hu Jintao is now on his third trip to Africa in three years, following the success of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), which took place on November 4 and 5, 2006. Attended by 48 African delegations, most of them led by heads of state, the event was the largest international summit ever held in Beijing.

At the start of the meeting, Beijing unveiled a glittering trade and aid plan designed to cement its “strategic partnership” with Africa. The key items in the package were raising the volume of trade from US$40 billion in 2005 to $100 billion by 2010; doubling of 2006 assistance by 2009; provision of $3 billion worth of preferential loans and $2 billion worth of export credits; setting up of a China-Africa Development Fund that would be capitalized to the tune of $5 billion to support Chinese companies investing in Africa; and cancellation of all interest-free government loans owed to China by the heavily indebted and poorest African countries that matured at the end of 2005.

If not yet the biggest external player in Africa, China is certainly the most dynamic. It now accounts for 60 per cent of oil exports from Sudan and 35 per cent of those from Angola. Chinese firms mine copper in Zambia and Congo-Brazzaville, cobalt in the Congo, gold in South Africa, and uranium in Zimbabwe. Its ecological footprint is large, says Michelle Chan-Fishel of Friends of the Earth International, consuming as it does 46 per cent of Gabon’s forest exports, 60 per cent of timber exported from Equatorial Guinea, and 11 per cent of timber exports from Cameroon.

China is popular with African governments. “There is something refreshing in China’s approach,” said a Nigerian diplomat who asked not to be identified. “They don’t attach all those conditionalities that accompany Western loans.” Justin Fong, executive director of the Chinese NGO, Moving Mountains adds, “Whether accurate or not, the image Africans have of the Chinese is that they get things done. They don’t waste their time in meetings. They just go ahead and build roads.” An African development specialist working with a western aid organization claimed that Chinese projects are low-cost affairs compared to western projects. “Labour costs are low, they integrate African labour, so some transfer of skills takes place, and the Chinese workers live in the village, and this means living like the villagers, down to competing with them for dog meat!” This characterization of the Chinese impact would be disputed by many observers. However, most NGO’s are nuanced in their assessment of China. They acknowledge that China has a different trajectory in Africa than Europe and the United States.

Whereas the West began by exploiting Africa, China initiated its relations with Africa with “people-to-people” medical and technical assistance missions in the sixties and seventies, the most famous of which was the now fabled building of the Tanzania-Zambia (Tanzam) Railway. But with China’s rise as a modernizing economic superpower after the definitive decision in 1984 to use capitalism as the engine of growth, the old solidarity rationale has been replaced by a dangerously single-minded pursuit of economic interests—in this case, mainly oil and mineral resources to feed a red-hot economy growing at 8-10 per cent a year.

If African governments were accountable to their people, say NGO critics, Chinese aid could play a very positive role, especially compared to World Bank and IMF loans which come with conditions to bring down tariffs, loosen government regulation, and privatize state enterprises. But with non-
accountable, non-transparent governments, such as those in Sudan and Zimbabwe, say the critics, Chinese loan and aid programs instead, contribute to consolidating the rule of non-democratic elites. No conditions, in effect, means intervention on the side of the governing groups.

The Sudan is one country non-accountability and non-transparency is most evident. Using its membership in the United Nations Security Council, China has prevented a multinational peacekeeping force from being constituted that would protect people in Darfur who are being killed or raped by militias backed by the Sudanese government. One African diplomat sympathetic to China asserts, “China’s strong backing for the Sudanese government has discouraged African governments that are trying to push it to accept an African Union solution to the problem.”

China has very substantial interests in Sudan. These are set out in detail in an important collection of studies launched at the WSF entitled “African Perspectives on China in Africa”, edited by Firoze Manji and Stephen Marks. China obtained oil exploration and production rights in 1995 when the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) bought a 40 per cent stake in the Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Company, which is pumping over 300,000 barrels per day. Sinopec, another Chinese firm, is building a 1500-kilometer pipeline to Port Sudan on the Red Sea, where a tanker terminal is being constructed by China’s Petroleum Engineering Construction Company. Chinese investment in oil exploration is estimated by analyst John Rocha to reach $8 billion.

Chinese interests go beyond oil. Its investment in textile mills is estimated at $100 million. It has emerged as one of Sudan’s top arms suppliers, with one deal being a barter arrangement whereby it would supply $400 million worth of weapons in return for cotton. It is active in infrastructure building, with its firms constructing bridges near the Merowe Dam and on two other sites on the River Nile. It is involved in key hydropower projects, the most controversial being the Merowe Dam, which is expected to ultimately cost $1.8 billion.

The construction of the Merowe Dam has involved forced resettlement of the Hambdan people living at or near the site and repression and an armed attack on the Amri people who have been organizing to prevent the authorities’ plan to displace them to the desert. Local police and private agencies now provide 24-hour security to Chinese engineering detachments, but civil society observers say the aim of these groups is less protection of the Chinese than repression of the growing opposition on the ground. As Ali Askouri, director of the London-based Piankhi Research Group, puts it, “The sad truth is, both the Chinese and their elite partners in the Sudan government want to conceal some terrible facts about their partnership. They are joining hands to uproot poor people, expropriate their land, and appropriate their natural resources.”

Chinese and Sudanese officials tend to be dismissive of such criticism, which they often attribute to the machinations of western powers who are alarmed at China’s becoming the top international player in a country that they had long treated as being in the West’s sphere of influence but whose dismal record of colonial plunder deprives their statements of any moral authority. Defending its close relations with the Sudanese government, a Chinese Foreign Ministry official, Zhai Jun, noted the contrast of African governments’ reception of China and the West: “Some people believe that by ‘taking’ resources and energy from Africa, China is looting Africa…… If this was so, then African countries would express their dissatisfaction...they would approach China, as they did...countries that exploited the continent in the past.” Chinese officials are, however, wrong to think that African NGO’s are merely parroting the rhetoric of self-interested western governments. In fact, civil society groups are just as critical of such Western governments, considering them as hypocritical. Commenting on the remark of a World Bank official to the effect that “Chinese handouts without reforms” would not be beneficial to Africa, John Karumbidza, a contributor to the “China in Africa” volume, acidly remarks that “It is the case...that this same bank and Western approach over the past half century has failed to deliver development, and left Africa in more debt than when they began.” Other problematic partnerships being based on actual events, the criticisms are unlikely to go away, not only in Sudan but in many other countries where China has a deep involvement with controversial regimes.

With relations with the west and even South Africa deteriorating over his political record, President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe has increasingly turned to China, which one of his key ministers has characterized as an “all-weather friend.” Chinese investment in mining, energy, telecommunications, agriculture, and other sectors was estimated at $600 million at the end of 2004, with another $600 million pledged in June 2005. The price, however, has been high, according to critics, who claim that Mugabe’s government has handed de facto control of key strategic industries to the Chinese. A contract with China to farm 386 square miles of land while millions of Zimbabweans remain landless has also come under fire, with rural sociologist John Karumbidza blasting it as amounting “to nothing more than land renting and typical agri-business relations that turn the land holders and their workers into labour tenants and subject them to exploitation.”

The Nigerian government is another problematic Chinese partner, according to civil society activists. China has extensive interests in Nigeria, particularly in oil exploration and production. John Rocha notes that the China National Offshore Corporation (CNOOC), has acquired a 45 per cent working interest in an offshore enterprise, OML 130, for $2.3 billion; the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) has invested in the Port Harcourt refinery; and a joint venture between the Chinese Oil and Natural Gas Corporation and the L.N. Mittal Group, plans to invest $6 billion in railways, oil refining, and power in exchange for rights to drill oil.

These interests have led to an increasingly close alliance of China with the faction of the ruling People’s Democratic Party dominated by President Olusegun Obasanjo. This relationship has a controversial security dimension. As Ndubisi Obiorah, another contributor to the “China in Africa” volume who is also director of the Center for Law and Social Action in Lagos, notes: “The Nigerian government is increasingly turning to China for weapons to deal with the worsening insurgency in the oil-rich Niger Delta. The Nigerian Air Force purchased 14 Chinese-made versions of the upgraded Mig 21 jet fighter; the navy has ordered patrol boats to secure the swamps and creeks of the Niger Delta.” Not surprisingly, the rebel Movement for the Emancipation of the Nigerian Delta (MEND) has warned Chinese companies to keep out of the region or risk attack.

With their integrated political, military, economic, and diplomatic components, China’s “strategic partnerships” with governments such as those of Nigeria, Sudan, and Zimbabwe increasingly have the feel of the old US and Soviet relationships with client states during the Cold War.

The role of Civil Society is important in effecting change and many activists do not discount the possibility that things may yet be turned around. Though critical of current Chinese policies, Humphrey Pole-Pole of Tanzania appealed at the WSF Nairobi meeting, for a “win-win-win” strategy—that is, “a win for China, a win for African governments, and a win for African people. This is not impossible.” The key to such a change may be the growth of Chinese civil society organizations, some of which are increasingly independent of and indeed critical of government policies within China, according to Dorothy Guerrero, coordinator of Focus on the Global South’s China program: “If the Chinese government and business interests in Africa are to be moderated by concerns for local people, the environment, human rights, etc., it is of extreme importance that the international voices arguing for this are joined by a constituency of people within China who are also concerned about such principles.” She added that links must be forged between African and Chinese NGO’s and it was for that reason that representatives of Chinese civil society went to Nairobi.

But closer ties are not enough, said Justin Fong. Mechanisms have to be devised that could be effectively used to press for accountability on the part of the Chinese government. One point of vulnerability he identified is the practice of Chinese government entities, such as the China Export-Import Bank, of seeking co-financing for their Africa projects from international banks such as HSBC and Citigroup. When it came to controversial projects, he suggested, pressure might be indirectly placed on the Chinese by lobbying these institutions, which are more sensitive about their image than Beijing.

Others were sceptical that such tactics, which might have worked with Western governments and businesses, would succeed with China. But whatever their differences, African and Chinese civil society activists, have a consensus on one thing, it will be a hard, uphill struggle to change the Chinese juggernaut’s direction in Africa.

For further information read: "African Perspectives on China in Africa" published by Fahamu and can be obtained through their website - Fahamu.org

* Walden Bello is executive director of the Bangkok-based research and advocacy institute Focus on the Global South.

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

Henning Melber presents a “state of the continent” report and comments on the “new African order” as designed by the global power structures of the World Economic Forum.

Almost 50,000 people from social movements all over this world gathered in Nairobi during the second half of January at the World Social Forum (WSF). Originally initiated in the Brazilian city of Porto Allegre a few years ago, it is organised as a counter meeting to the annual World Economic Forum (WEF) during this time of the year in the Swiss town Davos. The WEF brings together those in command of politics and economy in this world and those “celebrities” who like to be close to them. They represent a world in which Africa remains at the receiving end of the global power structures and increasingly again the object of external interests. This article summarises and comments upon recent developments on the continent.

Old wine in new bottles

It is anything but new that the African continent’s human and other natural resources are the object of more or less systematic looting from the outside world. Who still believes that “globalisation” is a very recent phenomenon simply needs to look in an African perspective on the devastating impact of the slave trade to understand, “how Europe underdeveloped Africa” (so the title of a seminal book published by the late Walter Rodney during the early 1970s). Already Karl Marx had observed (though in a rather insensitive language) in his Critique of the Political Economy that the hunt for black skins signalled the dawn of capitalism.

Since the days of the Trans Atlantic human resource transfer various subsequent forms of brutal exploitation through colonialism and imperialism were ultimately by means of formal decolonisation processes at least modified. But the “winds of change” created sovereign African states, whose societies remain to a large extent characterised by the structural legacy of an externally oriented dependency. Beneficiaries of such limited socio-economic development are still mainly externally based, with the limited participation of – all too often parasitic – small local elites, who exploit their political control over national wealth for their own gains.

They collaborate with those operating from the outside offering them the most convenient (and unashamed) access to the small slice of the cake they are able to keep for themselves in such sell out deals. Seen in this light, some (if not most) of the recent critical accounts of the aggressive expansion of Chinese interests into African countries and societies and their collaboration with local autocratic elites and despots has a hypocritical taste or at least bears traces of amnesia. After all, the Chinese penetration only rears the ugly face of predatory capitalism, which for far too long has already abused the dependency of the majority on the continent. One therefore is tempted to wonder, if the concern expressed is actually not more about the Western interests than about the welfare of the African people, given that what we witness today is anything but new with regard to its forms and effects. While this critical observation does not exonerate the at times appallingly imperialist nature of the Chinese expansion into Africa, it does undermine the credibility of those critics, who find no similar words for the other forms of imperialism, which for far too long had (and continue to have) crucial responsibilities for contributing to the state of misery many of the African people are in.

Africa since the end of the bipolar world order

The collapse of the Soviet empire and the end of a more than forty year period of bloc confrontation was by no means “the end of history” (as suggested by Francis Fukuyama). It was the beginning of a new global order for hegemonic rule with far reaching consequences also for African governments. Gone were the days, where in midst of a Cold War some manoeuvring space for limited opportunistic bargaining existed, which allowed for a bit of strategic positioning. Not that this was necessarily to the best of the African people: all too often, this constellation encouraged and protected self-enrichment schemes for dictators and/or small local elites through forms of rent seeking or sinecure capitalism, as examples from A (like Angola) to Z (like Zaire) document. The bi-polar world order was in no ways a suitable breeding ground for development “from below”, but offered parasitic agents the opportunity to position themselves as satellites in return for their own gains within the East-West polarisation.

The consolidation of the US-American dominance during the 1990s and its impact on the global order resulted in several changes also for the African continent. A regionally inter-linked “appeasement” strategy (with the Russian retreat from Afghanistan and the Cuban withdrawal from Angola) secured in Southern Africa the final decolonisation of Namibia (1990) and paved the way for an end to Apartheid and democratic elections in South Africa (1994). During this period the economic paradigms represented by the international financial institutions (World Bank and IMF) resumed the only power of definition. The World Trade Organisation (WTO) emerged as the broker to regulate comprehensively binding the global exchange relations of goods. The most to say in these regulating processes with far reaching implications for not only “classical” trade relations but wider defined exchanges has the club of the G8 members, which defines the rather one-sided rules of “global governance”.

Towards a new African order: NEPAD and AU

Significant inner-African dynamics complemented at the beginning of this century the global re-arrangements. With the democratically elected and legitimised new governments in South Africa and Nigeria the two economic powerhouses on the continent South of the Sahara left behind their pariah status. Based on internal and international acceptance, they resumed leadership roles in international policy arenas. At the turn of the millennium presidents Thabo Mbeki and Olusegun Obasanjo emerged (with active support by Senegal, Algeria and Egypt) as new figureheads representing the collective interests of the South and in particular Africa vis-à-vis the industrialised Western countries. Originally tasked to negotiate debt cancellation arrangements in direct communication with them they moved on to seek new forms of interaction under the premises of the acknowledged socio-economic premises as defined by the WTO. As kind of junior partners in the global market they became the architects of what was finally termed the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD).

After some incubation period and assumingly intensive political negotiations behind closed doors this blue print was upgraded to the status of an official economic programme and institution of the African Union (AU). The AU itself was a parallel transformation of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU). In the course of its change it undertook some significant corrections to the hitherto established continental policy pillars. Most importantly it moved away from the erstwhile almost holy principle of non-intervention into internal affairs of member states.

With a lot of confidence and trust and substantive political support offered by the G8 since its 2001 summit in Genoa the NEPAD-architects could bring back home the reassuring message that the industrial West is on board and willing to support the initiative. This contributed to the acceptance both in Africa as well as by the United Nations system, which in a General Assembly resolution officially recognised NEPAD as the economic programme for Africa. While this looks like a success story, the critical policy issues were to some extent at the same time aborted or at best watered down. The good governance discourse in line with the new uni-polar world system and to some extent imposed by the Western-capitalist hegemony was after all not only cosmetic rhetoric, but in some parts indeed a meaningful deviation from past practices of unquestioned autocratic rule by African despots and oligarchies.

The AU Constitution was adopted at the same summit in Durban when NEPAD was incorporated. It introduced a collective responsibility so far absent, justifying joint intervention for specified reasons. This has in the meantime provided several results, as cases like Darfur, the DRC, the Ivory Coast, Liberia and Togo have among others shown in different ways (and varying degrees of success), all seeking to contribute to conflict reduction or enhanced legitimacy of the political systems. In contrast to this new responsibility, the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM), conceptualised by NEPAD as a cornerstone for enhancing the notion of good governance, did not meet the expectations. The disappointment over non-delivery was maybe biggest when it came to the absence of any determined policy action by the NEPAD initiators in the case of Zimbabwe (where the South African president preferred his so-called silent diplomacy to any meaningful political intervention). Nonetheless, the demand for democracy, human rights and respect for constitutional principles articulated by the NEPAD blue print as a prerequisite for sustainable socio-economic development might have been a contributing factor to the new phenomenon of an increasing number of African heads of state more or less voluntarily (and peacefully) vacating their offices (which does not mean that the rotten apples have been eliminated, as Museveni, and even – though less successfully - Obasanjo as well as some others have shown in their recent efforts to extend their stay in office beyond the originally stipulated period of time).

New multi-polar tendencies and the competition for securing African resources

Systematic new efforts to access African markets and tap into the local resources became visible with the adoption of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) by the out-going Clinton administration. Through this initiative the USA openly underlined the relevance of the African dimension for its external trade relations (Africa ranks higher than Eastern Europe in the US trade balance). The break down of the AGOA trade volume, however, also discloses that with the exception of a few smaller niches (e.g. the temporary opportunities created for a locally based – though not owned – African textile industry with preferential access to the US market) the trade volume is mainly composed by exporting US-manufactured high tech goods and machinery and importing oil, strategic minerals and other natural resources for meeting demands of US-based industries.

Soon after AGOA was enacted, the trade department of the EU headquarters in Brussels initiated negotiations for a re-arrangement of its relations with the ACP countries of Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific through so-called Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs). The declared aim was to enter a post-Cotonou agreement phase meeting the demands for WTO compatibility. The EPA negotiations have since then entered critical stages meeting the resistance of many among the ACP countries. They are afraid of losing out on trade preferences and feel that Brussels seeks to impose a one-sided trade regime in its own interests, which also denies the declared partners the right to autonomous negotiations by re-drawing the map of regional configurations in Africa to comply with EU expectations.

Both initiatives, AGOA and the EPA negotiations, seem to reflect less so the genuine desire in fairer trade than securing access to relevant markets not least in the own interest of the USA and the EU. The competition for preferential trade agreements with South Africa (successfully negotiated by the EU during the late 1990s and currently facing an impasse with regard to the USA) are illustrating at the same time the point, that the industrialised states are anything but sharing the same interest when it comes to securing their individual links with other countries.

The new offensive pursued by China, which expands aggressively into African markets and seeks access to the fossil energy resources and other minerals and metals it urgently needs to fuel its own further rapid industrialisation process, adds to the rivalry and conflicting interests. In a matter of time, India, Brazil and Russia (as well as a number of other actors such as Malaysia and Mexico) are likely to add further pressure on the scramble for limited markets and resources. This new stage of competing forces on the continent has resulted in a plethora of recent analyses dealing mainly if not exclusively with the Chinese impact and practices. Interestingly enough, the EU and US-policies and practices seem to almost fade away from the picture. The current type of Cassandra-prophecies presents at times a rather one-sided story. Such selected narrative tends to downplay if not ignore the damaging external effects, which the existing socio-economic imbalances and power structures have created and consolidated. It appears at times, that the criticism raised towards China is more so an indicator of an increasing fear for losing own interests than for being motivated by a genuine concern for the African people.

Into more dependency or towards enhanced manoeuvring space?

The global initiatives for liberalisation under the WTO regime pose the question, if the markets and producers in the so-called developing countries are able to meet the challenges of a relatively free competition with the industrialised world or instead would require continued protection. At a closer look, it becomes obvious that this is a question wrongly posed. It had been indeed the markets and producers of the industrialised OECD countries, which were one-sided beneficiaries of state protection and distorting subsidisation policies. This turned any form of proclaimed fairness in trade and market relations into an illusion and ideological humbug.

Those advocating a liberalisation of trade relations contribute to the misperception that such steps would be identical or at least similar to a de-regulation of exchange relations with goods. As a matter of fact, the trend is quite the opposite. The so-called liberal global trade structures and networks have never before been to such an extent contractually defined and put into clauses. Numerous additional rules, such as hygienic and sanitary specifications, regulate access to markets even more so at times than tariffs. They are open to abusive control resulting in undue pressure and could turn into a tool for sanctions in cases of disagreement.

The historically-structurally disadvantaged societies should however at least be enabled to gain socio-economic strength based on own initiatives. This requires a framework, which would as a matter of principle allow for a kind of protectionist policy as legitimate survival strategy to empower local producers and foster own markets. This could create preconditions, from which in subsequent exchange relations the people in both the industrial as well as the African societies could benefit (but maybe at the expenses of unhindered profit maximisation for those who earn most).

With new rivals such as China, India, Brazil, Russia and a series of further countries at the threshold to meaningful own industrial production the competition for entering favourable relations with African countries might increase. This is in itself not negative to the interests of the African people. But it requires that the tiny elites benefiting from the currently existing unequal structures put their own interest in trans-nationally linked self-enrichment schemes behind the public interest to create investment and exchange patterns, which provide in the first place benefits for the majority of the people.

Selected Further Reading

Alden Christopher/Daniel Large/Ricardo Soares de Oliveira (eds) (2007), China Returns to Africa: The Politics of Contemporary Relations. London: Hurst
Broadman, Harry G. et. al. (2007), Africa’s Silk Road. China and India’s New Economic Frontier. Washington: World Bank
Brüntrup, Michael/Henning Melber/Ian Taylor (2006), Africa, Regional Cooperation and the World Market. Uppsala: The Nordic Africa Institute (NAI Discussion Paper; 31) (accessible for download at
China in Africa. South African Journal of International Affairs, vol. 13, no. 1, 2006
Fombad, Charles Manga/Zein Kebonang (2006), AU, NEPAD and the APRM. Democratisation Efforts Explored. Uppsala: The Nordic Africa Institute (Current African Issues; 32) (accessible for download at
Manji, Firoze/Stephen Marks (eds) (2007), African Perspectives on China in Africa. Nairobi & Oxford: Fahamu
Melber, Henning (2002), The New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) – Old Wine in New Bottles? In: Forum for Development Studies, 29(1), S. 186-209
Melber, Henning (2004), The G8 and NePAD – more than an elite pact? University of Leipzig Papers on African Politics and Economics (ULPA), no. 74
Melber, Henning (ed.) (2005), Trade, Development, Cooperation. What Future for Africa? Uppsala: The Nordic Africa Institute (Current African Issues; 29) (accessible for download at
Melber, Henning (ed.) (2007), China in Africa. Uppsala: The Nordic Africa Institute (forthcoming)
Southall, Roger/Henning Melber (eds) (2006), The Legacies of Power. Leadership Transition and the Role of Former Presidents in African Politics. Cape Town: HSRC Press & Uppsala: Nordic Africa Institute
Taylor, Ian (2005), NEPAD. Towards Africa’s Development or Another False Start? Boulder & London: Lynne Rienner
Taylor, Ian (2006), China and Africa. Engagement and compromise. London & New York: Routledge
Tull, Denis M. (2006), China’s engagement in Africa: scope, significance and consequences. In: Journal of Modern African Studies, 44(3), pp. 459-479

* Dr. Henning Melber is Executive Director of the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation in Uppsala/Sweden. He has been Research Director of The Nordic Africa Institute (2000-2006) and Director of the Namibian Economic Policy Research Unit (NEPRU) in Windhoek (1992-2000).

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

A wave of strikes in Zimbabwe is making the threat of a "crippling" general strike by the country's largest union federation largely academic, as current industrial action or threats of more to come are already bringing the scenario to pass.

After a lengthy review process starting in April 2006, the renewal of the Kenya chapter of Transparency International (TI) culminated January 25 at a meeting of the Board of Directors of TI Kenya involving the stakeholders of TI Kenya, their international development partners and TI’s International Secretariat. That process of institutional review – conducted variously by independent auditors, a special review team with a mandate from the TI International Board and by the TI Kenya chapter – also has clarified outstanding issues in the chapter’s governance and management.

As Uganda recovers from civil war, levels of poverty have fallen significantly. However, the extent to which economic growth can help sustain poverty reduction is debatable. Some people have escaped poverty, while others have become poor. Different factors are behind these economic shifts and different policy responses are needed.

Somali Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi reshuffled his cabinet on Wednesday, February 7, stamping his authority on a government seeking to reassert itself in the chaotic nation after driving out rival Islamists. In a reminder of Somalia's instability, unknown assailants fired mortar bombs and rockets in the capital, Mogadishu, wounding at least eight people, a police official said. A resident said two children were killed in the attack.

During the World Social Forum in Nairobi, reported Kenya's Daily Nation, thousands of demonstrators paralyzed operations of the European Union office in Nairobi, protesting the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) now being negotiated as the new framework for economic ties between Europe and Africa. The demonstrators said further opening of African markets to European products would destabilize African economies and marginalize African farmers.

Ghana's Implementation Report was presented to ministers at the AU Summit in Addis Ababa last month. Ghana has made excellent progress implementing the recommendations of the African Peer Review Panel. Indeed, several leaders expressed their support of the peer review process. Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo told the press, "The measures taken are concrete and development - oriented." This article outlines Ghana's achievements so far.

The United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) has been blatant in its support of rightwing forces, including the Haitian police, and has been systematic in carrying out human rights abuses against the poor people of Haiti, supporters of Aristide and his Lavalas party, writes Ben Terrell.

As Kofi Annan moves on to life after the UN, it’s important to look at the less-discussed ‘regime change’ which the Bush administration engineered with Annan’s help. The outgoing secretary-general’s supporters argue he did what he could to register disapproval of the Iraq invasion, but in the case of Haiti, he actually helped facilitate a bloodthirsty imperial agenda.

MINUSTAH, the UN mission to Haiti, was put in place to support the illegal post-coup regime which ousted the democratically elected government of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in February 2004. Countries participating in the UN’s Haiti mission, whose mandate is currently up for renewal, curried favour with Washington, thereby repairing Iraq war-related rifts with the Bush administration. Brazil’s participation was seen by many observers as part of its bid to gain a seat on the UN Security Council.

Brian Concannon, director of the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti and a former UN human rights observer in Haiti, points out that ‘until 2004, the UN, for good reasons, only deployed peacekeepers where there was a peace agreement to enforce. Only in Haiti has the Security Council deployed blue helmets to enforce a coup d’etat against an elected government. With the MIF [Multinational Interim Force] and then MINUSTAH, the UN abandoned a half-century of principles and common sense, with predictable results.’ Since replacing the US marines in July 2004, the UN troops have supported the Haitian police in crackdowns on the urban-poor supporters of Aristide and his Lavalas party.

Brian Concannon notes, ‘In contrast to its decisive action in Cite Soleil, MINUSTAH has been tolerant of right-wing paramilitary groups. For months after its deployment, MINUSTAH declined to dislodge the paramilitary groups that helped to overthrow the government from police stations. In August 2005 a paramilitary group called the Little Machete Army killed dozens of spectators at a soccer game in broad daylight near a MINUSTAH observation post. MINUSTAH never tried to stop the massacre or pursue paramilitary members, even though the group has terrorised the Grande Ravine area for two years.’

Since February 2004, thousands of non-violent activists and other civilians have been killed, arrested, tortured and exiled by the post-coup regime, which the UN mission in effect was set up to support. This essential fact rarely appears in media analysis of Haiti, so few in the US understand why some have taken up arms to defend their neighbourhoods. In defence of ongoing military operations in the poorest neighbourhoods of Port-au-Prince, UN commanders in Haiti claim they only launch assaults after they have been fired at. But during a week-long August 2006 visit to Haiti’s capital, I was told otherwise.

I witnessed a 24 August UN operation in Simon Pele (a community bordering the sprawling seaside shantytown Cite Soleil) which was stunning in its disregard of the dangers of using heavy calibre weapons in a densely populated area. Such operations had been carried out in Simon Pele throughout August in a UN campaign to ‘secure’ the area. Video footage taken by a photographer also on the scene shows a Brazilian soldier firing from the top of an armoured personnel carrier. I witnessed Brazilian troops running from two armoured personnel carriers into Simon Pele. The soldiers within the neighbourhood were also firing their weapons.

One of those shots killed a young man whose mother I spoke to four days later. Adacia Samedy told me how her son Wildert was fixing a radio on the roof of their family home when UN snipers shot him in the operation. Ms. Samedy told me, ‘My message to the UN is: Thank you for killing my son. I don’t see the sense in their work, they come in, shoot, and people passing can get shot.’ I asked her if any UN personnel had returned to see if civilians were killed, or to offer any assistance. Nobody with the UN had offered so much as a basic acknowledgement of her loss. Queries I have directed to UN spokespeople about the killing of Wildert Samedy remain unanswered.

Another family, that of wheelchair-bound civilian William Mercy, told me they were similarly ignored by the UN after a raid on their section of the Bel Air neighbourhood in Port-au-Prince. Brazilian UN troops swept through the alley outside their home in June 2005 and shot the top of Mercy’s head off, later killing several other unarmed civilians the same day.

I interviewed an older gentleman who was moving his family out of the area, which he told me holds nothing but misery for local youth. I asked him about armed groups the UN claimed it was fighting. He said, ‘I can’t say anything about that,’ but that many people had been shot and killed by the UN in the neighbourhood. None were linked to any armed groups, all were ‘workers’.

Near the bullet-riddled dwelling from which he was pulling out furniture was a church pockmarked by gunfire from UN forces. A Haitian journalist told me the UN claimed there were armed gang members in the church, but that, given the seriousness with which residents feel about Catholicism, no armed combatants would use such a sanctuary for a hideout. A school on the same side of the street was also destroyed by high calibre guns.

In 2005, Harvard Law Student Advocates for Human Rights and Brazil’s Global Justice Centre concluded, ‘MINUSTAH has provided cover for abuses committed by the HNP [Haitian national police] during operations in poor, historically tense Port-au-Prince neighbourhoods. Rather than advising and instructing the police in best practices, and monitoring their missteps, MINUSTAH has been the midwife of their abuses.’

Several months earlier, a University of Miami Law School report concluded, ‘Both forces admitted that it is a confusing “free for all” when the HNP conduct an operation in a poor neighbourhood because there are no radios shared by HNP and the MINUSTAH forces and, even if there were radios, nobody speaks the same language. On a neighbourhood operation, they admitted, there is no clear strategy or objective, but operations devolve into “just shoot before you get shot”.’

In 2004 and 2005 UN troops repeatedly stood by as Haitian police opened fire on non-violent protesters demanding the return of Aristide. In April 2005, Amnesty International noted that ‘Haitian national police officers (HNP) reportedly used live ammunition against Lavalas supporters as they peacefully demonstrated against the United Nations mission headquarters in Boudon, Port-au-Prince.’

But just allowing Haitian police to kill civilians was not enough for prominent rightwing figures in Port-au-Prince. In meetings with UN officials, the elite-owned media and veteran anti-Aristide figures pushed a steady drumbeat of demonisation of poor neighbourhoods that one Haitian activist told me reminded him of propaganda disseminated before the 1994 Rwanda genocide. In January 2006 Reginald Boulos, president of the Haitian Chamber of Commerce and a key supporter of the 2004 coup, told Radio Metropole, ‘You cannot make an omelette without breaking eggs. We think that MINUSTAH’s generals need to make plans to limit collateral damage. But we in the private sector are ready to create a social assistance fund to help all those who would be innocent victims of a necessary and courageous action that should be carried out in Cite Soleil. … When terrorists occupy some lawless zones, there are always innocent victims.’ Elsewhere in the interview Boulos called on UN troops to help police ‘neutralise all the armed criminals and terrorists who are terrorising the metropolitan area.’

Most poor adults in Haiti have strong memories of death squad terror during the first anti-Aristide coup in 1991–1994, which killed around 5,000 people. That history was frequently referred to as a ‘Solidarity Encounter With the Haitian People’ which Lavalas activists staged in Port-au-Prince in August 2006. The conference brought international visitors to share political insights and experiences with Haitians struggling on the ground. Jacques Depelchin, author of ‘Silences in African History: Between the Syndrome of Discovery and Abolition,’ and executive director of the Ota Benga Alliance for Peace, Healing and Dignity in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, spoke several times at the conference. He told me, ‘It is important for people to understand that Aristide and Lavalas members are connected through generations to the successful slave revolution of 200 years ago.’ Later, as we shared a car together in Port-au-Prince, he told me, ‘the problem of Haiti is really a structural one: they are not supposed to have succeeded or, worse, to have survived and still be resisting’.

As to the ‘great powers’, Depelchin said, ‘one should not harbour illusions: [the UN] is a club of states, structures which cannot even respect their own conventions (for example, the Convention Against Genocide, passed in 1948). In case the UN falters, there is now the G8 to make sure that ultimate power rests with the most powerful. Radicals around the world need to think in terms of the kind of emancipatory politics which drove the slaves to overthrow the system as it was then known. Democracy à la US/France/Canada is consensus politics around an agenda set up by financial and economic interests. That agenda is to ensure that what happened between 1791 and 1804 is forgotten forever or, if remembered at all, is a history written and propagated by the current powers that be.’

Haitian revolutionary leader Touissant L’Overture once wrote that any effort by plantation owners to reimpose slavery ‘would be to attempt the impossible: we have known how to face dangers to obtain our liberty, we shall know how to brave death to maintain it’.

Rene Civil, a Lavalas leader who spent much of the coup period in exile, struck a similar chord at the solidarity encounter, when he said: ‘The people of Haiti, who believe in freedom, who have tasted freedom, will never accept this criminal, slaving system.’ Civil also denounced the global system ‘which causes economic, political, military and social war on the people of the world’, and prevents poor nations like Haiti from exercising their independence.

Rene Civil was arrested shortly after I saw him speak at the conference, on charges Brian Concannon describes as ‘dubious’. Initially claiming that Civil was just being brought in for routine questioning, the authorities have moved the activist to Port-au-Prince’s downtown penitentiary. Dissidents in Haiti both fear for Civil’s safety there and worry that his arrest may signal a new round of judicial harassment of activists.

Dave Welsh, a US trade unionist who attended the solidarity conference, told me, ‘Haiti is still under military occupation. The occupiers hope the UN label will give a fig leaf of legitimacy to French, US and Canadian plans to benefit from the nation's labour and resources, control the Haitian state, and prevent any restoration of Haitian sovereignty and democracy. Countries like Brazil, who provide the UN troops that are brazenly and repeatedly killing civilians in their homes, undoubtedly have their own reasons for two years of willing support for this brutal occupation.’ Welsh was also in Haiti in July 2005 as part of a labour and human rights delegation which documented the aftermath of a massacre in which Brazilian troops killed up to 60 Cite Soleil residents in the midst of targeting a Lavalas militant and community leader. (I also spoke to survivors of that massacre, including a pregnant woman who was fired upon by UN troops in a helicopter. She lost her baby but was saved by Doctors Without Borders.)

Brian Concannon told me that in recent conversations, he has heard ‘over and over from poor Haitians that they wanted disarmament in their neighbourhoods, but in tandem with disarmament in the wealthy neighbourhoods that are the main source of guns that get to the slums, and the disarmament of death squads and former soldiers who kill Lavalas supporters with impunity.’

Concannon adds, ‘If the MINUSTAH operations really aimed to establish law and order, they would start by obeying the law: making legal arrests of those suspected of possessing guns, with a valid judicial warrant, rather than undertaking deadly indiscriminate attacks on poor neighbourhoods.’

But the UN shows no interest in following that direction. On 19 August, Amaral Duclona, a spokesman for armed groupings in Cite Soleil opposed to coup forces, told Reuters, ‘UN troops don't want peace and disarmament because they want a justification for their presence here.’ Duclona asked, ‘How can we hand over our weapons while UN troops continue to conduct heavy attacks against us?’

On 19 October 2006 Brazilian troops levelled dwellings in Cite Soleil to widen a road, and as angry residents demonstrated to stop the project, soldiers opened fire and killed at least three people. Two months later, the San Francisco Bay Area-based Haiti Action Committee, which keeps close daily contact with activists and human rights observers in Port-au-Prince, stated, ‘In the early morning of Friday 22 December, starting at approximately 3 a.m., 400 Brazilian-led UN occupation troops in armoured vehicles carried out a massive assault on the people of Cite Soleil, laying siege yet again to the impoverished community.’

Eyewitness reports said a wave of indiscriminate gunfire from heavy weapons began about 5 a.m. and continued for much of the day. Referring to UN soldiers and Haitian police, Cite Soleil resident Rose Martel told Reuters, ‘They came here to terrorise the population. I don't think they really killed any bandits, unless they consider all of us as bandits.’ The Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti estimates more than 20 civilians were killed, including elderly and children. A US doctor who interviewed survivors after the assault was told by survivors that ‘a UN helicopter circled [Cite] Soleil and fired bullets down on the homes of thousands of people’.

The 22 December operation was partly in response to a sustained campaign of rightwing pressure which blamed alleged gang leaders in Cite Soleil for kidnappings in Haiti. But Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine, coordinator of the September 30 Foundation, an organisation which supports victims of the first and second coups against Aristide, told me that the most widely covered kidnapping in the two weeks before the 22 December attack, that of anti-Lavalas Senator Andre Riche, was ‘political theatre’. Lovinsky told me that rightwing media outlets broadcast inflammatory editorials about the kidnapping without asking many essential questions, including why the heavily armed bodyguards of the prominent anti-Lavalas politicians kidnapped did not have their weapons taken away, and how the politicians managed to escape unscathed from captivity. Lovinsky points out that the media outlets calling for crackdowns on Cite Soleil ‘are in full support of Michael Lucius’, the former central director of the judicial police implicated in kidnapping operations.

The Haiti Action Committee noted, ‘The kidnappers are mostly well connected to the business elite and coup regime. Even Police Chief Andresol admits the national police are involved in much of the crime wave, including kidnappings.’ Canadian journalist Anthony Fenton spoke with ‘numerous sources’ (who could not go on the record due to security concerns) that connected Senator Youri Latortue, nephew of post-coup regime Prime Minister Gerard Latortue, to kidnapping rings. In August 2005 prominent businessman Stanley Handal was arrested for involvement in kidnapping; the Haiti Information Project reported, ‘Handal is a member of one of Haiti’s wealthiest families that supported the ousting of Aristide in 1991 and 2004. He was initially arrested along with eight members of Haiti’s police force for running a kidnapping ring after he attempted to use a stolen credit card taken from one of his victims. The judge who released them, Jean Péres Paul, is responsible for keeping Father Gerard Jean-Juste behind bars and for the arrest of journalists Kevin Pina and Jean Ristil on 9 September. The police officer responsible for the initial investigation into Handal’s case has reportedly been forced into hiding.’

Hopes for progressive change in Haiti were buoyed with the election of Rene Preval on 7 February 2006. Preval’s success was a victory against long odds by the popular movement which first swept Jean-Bertrand Aristide into office in 1990. Preval, who served as Haiti’s second democratically elected president from 1996 to 2001, ran with Espwa (Creole for ‘hope’), a party hastily assembled for the elections with little organising capacity. Because of the post-coup government’s refusal to release political prisoners and its continued repression of Lavalas, Aristide’s party (by far the largest political formation in Haiti, did not officially field candidates in the presidential election.)

But a year later, the police, the judiciary, and other ministries in Preval’s government remain controlled by coup figures, and major media are run by rightwing elites. Though Preval helped achieve the release of prominent political prisoners such as Annetee Auguste (‘So Anne’), Yvon Neptune, and others, hundreds of political prisoners illegally jailed by the coup regime remain behind bars. Preval also has little control over the UN mission.

In a 19 December 2006 report on the UN mission in Haiti, Annan recommended an extension of MINUSTAH’s mandate beyond 15 February 2007. Annan’s report gave no acknowledgement of charges of sexual abuse of Haitian women and girls by UN troops, or of documented killings of civilians in military assaults. Annan states, ‘The Mission’s continued deployment will be essential, since destabilizing forces continue to use violence to attain their objectives.’

But UN representatives seem disinterested in anti-Lavalas violence. A study published on 30 August 2006 in the prestigious medical journal ‘The Lancet’ concluded that in the 22 months after Aristide's removal there were 8,000 murders and 35,000 sexual assaults in the greater Port-au-Prince area alone. More than 50 per cent of these murders were attributed to anti-Aristide and anti-Lavalas factions including armed anti-Lavalas groups, demobilised army members and government security forces. The report also stated that UN soldiers ‘were identified by respondents as having issued death threats, threats of physical injury, and threats of sexual violence’.

The report’s co-author, Athena Kolbe, told me, ‘We notified more than a dozen UN staffers in Haiti of the report during last summer and told them that we would be in the country and available to share an advance copy of the report with them and discuss it if they had any questions. We had no response before or during the trip from anyone associated with MINUSTAH … [W]e got an email message from a UN staff person declining to meet with us, stating that she was busy and saying, “I don't know that you have anything of relevant [sic] to share with us”.’

In early January, Brazilian Major General Carlos Alberto Dos Santos became the fourth commander of the UN force in Haiti (consisting of 8,360 total uniformed personnel, as of 30 November 2006). Dos Santos said, ‘We are going to work in the same way as we have worked before. Nothing has changed about our mission or our obligations.’ Since Dos Santos made that commitment, UN military operations have continued. Among the civilians killed by UN gunfire in these attacks, as reported by the Haiti Information Project, are seven-year-old Stephanie Lubin, four-year-old Alexandra Lubin, and nine-year-old Boadley Bewence Germain.

Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine and other activists point to the unabated UN killings of civilians in their campaign against a renewal of the MINUSTAH mandate.

* Ben Terrell is a San Francisco-based writer who has visited Haiti four times since the 2004 coup which drove the democratically-elected Aristide government from office

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

To all prospective and existing long titled bloggers – Cut the long titles please!

Trials and Tribulations - Trials and Tribulations (http://ekbensahinghana.blogspot.com/2007/01/as-week-draws-to-close-in-a…) E K Bensah’s blog – the title is too long – has some thoughts on Africa Today and Kofi Annan who is in town (Accra). The headline and photo on the front page of Africa Today reads:

“Romancing China: Africa looks east for new trading partner”
I thought it was the other way around – “Romancing Africa: China looks west for new colonies to conquer and resources to seize” – I suppose it depends on where you are standing as to where you look – east or west?

Blogging for Darfur, Black Kush - Black Kush (http://bloggingjuba.blogspot.com/2007/02/chinese-are-coming.html) comments on the cry or is it a loud voice shouting “the Chinese are Coming”.

“This cry used to cause fear around the world, but it is too late now. They are already here, at least that is what the situation is in Sudan.”

What tricks do they (the Chinese) have up their sleeves or is it just business?

The Benin Epilogue Part 1 - The Benin Epilogue (http://africareadyforbusiness.blogspot.com/2007/02/inspiration-to-many-…) explains the inspiration behind his blog. No not his mother or Mama Ellen or even Nobel Prize winner Wangari Maathai, but Carol Pineau, American journalist and producer of “Africa Open for Business”.

“Now, it just so happened that around the time of me learning about Carol Pineau two critical things were happening. 1) the off line group that I had really grown to love over the last several months was beginning to drift apart, with each member moving into other areas and 2) I had just read Professor George Ayittey's book called Africa Unchained. One of the things that this book did was point me in the direction of another amazing messenger of Africa's business successes called Emeka Okafor (not the basket ball player), author of Timbuktu Chronicles. These two events-aided by the strong impression left upon me by the Africa Open for Business website helped provide me with the impetus for starting the blog that you are reading right now. Now, it just so happened that out of the blue, after I'd already started blogging one of my good friends who has been to The Benin Epilogue blog a few times called me to give me the time, date, and the place of a local viewing of Carol's documentary. Upon hearing this I immediately stopped all of my other plans for that evening and happily attended the showing.”

He reminds us Africa is not just about Darfur, poverty and wars but also a land of stock markets, high rises, growing middle class and oh yes the internet. True and just in case you have forgotten in the midst of human rights and social justice - there is also a rising number of people living in squatter camps, street children and rural and urban homeless kicked off the streets of Cape Town becoming part of the invisible masses. Still we have to keep those stock markets rolling so those middle classes can buy their new 4x4s and other symbols of “success”.

Ugandan blogger, Country Boy - Country Boy (http://dennozbug.blogspot.com/2007/02/mr-president.html) is rather frightening as he tells us he is a huge fan of President Museveni of Uganda.

“Despite the many things people have said about Museveni, I’m an extremely huge fan of his. He survived the five years of the bush war to become president of a country as complicated as Uganda. He’s done a number of good things, is very knowledgeable –he absolutely seeks to add value to himself by educating himself –by all means I do quite admire him a lot.”

And oh yes, he too (Country Boy) wants to become President one day. My advice, please don’t follow in Museveni’s footsteps!

Another Ugandan Blogger, JackFruity - Jack Fruity (http://jackfruity.blogspot.com/2007/02/hour-of-our-discontent.html) discusses blogging anonymously and the “Ugandan Best of Blogs Award”.

“A study done in 2004 showed that 42% of bloggers almost never reveal their identities online, and 36% have gotten in trouble for something they wrote on their blogs. I value the freedom to say what you want online without offline retribution (provided you're not inciting riots or calling for murder), and I will never criticize those who treasure their online privacy. My intention with the BOB awards and the Ugandan Bloggers Happy Hours is not to force the spotlight onto anyone who would rather remain anonymous (UBHH guests: I went through the photos and deleted those that showed the faces of anyone who asked me to protect their privacy). If you don't want your blog involved in the awards, just e-mail me and let me know so I can take you out of the running.”

White African - White African (http://whiteafrican.com/?p=365) continues his promotion of mobile technology as essential to Africa’s development and connectivity. Here he comments on “Mobile Phones as a Platform in Africa”.

“Any long time reader here will know that I believe that the mobile platform is the only real platform for mass market communication efforts in Africa. Whether that’s with eCommerce, payment services, information, news or entertainment. More and more companies are coming out with new applications designed specifically for usage by Africans…..TradeNet is more than just a copycat of some other software, it’s a new take on how to communicate and foster trade in Africa. Not just that though, it has a business model. It’s not just an development agency, it’s a business that’s here to stay. That’s huge. It’s a big idea that is actually being executed on.”

Black Looks - Black Looks (http://www.blacklooks.org/2007/02/1313.html) comments on the trade of slaves from the “Rice Coast” of West Africa, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Senegal on the one hand, and the movement of “freed” slaves from Canada to Britain and finally to Sierra Leone as indentured workers for the first colonialists setting up agricultural trade between West Africa and Britain.

“The first 411 returnees took place as early as 1787 from Canada to Britain and then on to Sierra Leone. 15 years later another 1400 arrived however realistically I would think that returnees were arriving consistently from 1787 in small numbers. As with Liberia the returnees were “sponsored” by humanitarians and philanthropists in name but who were in fact the first colonisers running an indentured slavery system using returnees to develop commercial agricultural farms that would trade with Britain…..
Ironically at the same time that the freed slaves from Canada (runaways from the US) were returning to Sierra Leone, plantation owners in South Carolina and Georgia were purchasing slaves from what they called the “Rice Coast” Sierra Leone, Liberia and up to Senegal for their special knowledge of growing rice often using Bance Island - a major slave trading factory in Sierra Leone”.

* 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 www.pambazuka.org

While the immediate impact of higher oil prices on general inflation, the cost of transport and the cost of agricultural inputs (inorganic fertilisers are petroleum derivatives) has attracted much concern in food insecure countries, a more disturbing dimension of the global energy crisis, which has received relatively little attention, threatens to have an even more significant impact on hunger and poverty in sub-Saharan Africa.

Ghana’s election as chair of the African Union has been welcomed by the Darfur Consortium, a coalition of civil society groups campaigning against the ongoing conflict in Darfur which was recently described by the new UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon as the world’s worst humanitarian disaster.

This policy research brief draws on the findings of a UNDP-supported book, Privatization and Alternative Public Sector Reform in Sub-Saharan Africa (Bayliss and Fine, forthcoming), to analyze the effects of privatization on the delivery of water and electricity. It concludes that privatization has been a widespread failure. This has hampered progress on the MDGs for both water and sanitation, and on many other MDGs dependent on energy.

As Nigeria prepares to go the polls in April of 2007, the continent and the world will be closely watching developments in the continent’s most populous nation. This will be the first civilian-to-civilian transfer of power in the country’s history. In the run-up to the elections, focus has been on the recently-released population census figures, the perceived incompetence of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) as well as the sheer number of candidates and parties competing.

The 2006 census puts the population at around 140 million. Although most analysts consider this a conservative, if not inaccurate figure, the main area of contention is the breakdown by region. According to the census, the North is more populous than the South. Southerners dispute this finding based on population densities and geographical realities. Rather, they perceive these findings as a means to bolster resource allocation disparities, gerrymandering, and even a precursor to vote-rigging in favour of the North.

The INEC recently extended the voter registration deadline by 14 days to allow for more Nigerians to register for the polls. The electoral body has come in for heavy criticism over its incompetence. There is concern about potential vote rigging, so the manner in which the INEC discharges its duties will determine how well the election results are received by the country and the world at large.

In such a populous and political volatile country, the sheer number of parties and candidates vying for election is by no means surprising. Of the thirteen-odd main parties vying for elections, four are fielding candidates in real contention for the presidency.

People’s Democratic Party (PDP) is the ruling party. Its candidate is the present governor of Katsina state, Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, who is Obasanjo’s anointed successor. He has leftist leanings and is the only state governor untainted by corruption allegations.

The All Nigeria People’s Party (ANPP) is the main opposition party. Its candidate, former military ruler Muhammadu Buhari is contesting elections again, having lost to Obasanjo in 2003.

The Action Congress (AC) candidate is Vice-president Atiku Abubakar. He was a founding member of the PDP but was suspended in allegations of corruption. He switched parties while in office, which has raised a potential constitutional crisis. Because the AC and the ANPP have an election pact, he will have to challenge Buhari to be able to vie for the presidency. His campaign is based on his call for a ‘power shift’ from the South to the North, whence he hails.

Former military ruler and power-broker Ibrahim Babangida has yet to find a political party to support his bid. He left the PDP after Obasanjo allegedly refused to back his bid for nomination in favor of Yar’Adua. He also enjoys wide public support in the North.

The All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA) candidate is Chukwuemeka Ojukwu. He is the former leader of the Biafra secession uprising and a cult-figure of his Igbo people. His influence is more or less confined to South-Eastern Nigeria.

The spectre of violence and upheaval still hangs heavily over the country. There has been some unrest following the removal of high ranking officials and state governors by legislative process. The prominence of former generals in politics and in the elections is also a cause for concern given the country’s past experience of military rule.

Further reading and discussions:

INEC
The Vanguard http://www.vanguardngr.com
Nigerian Village Square http://www.nigeriavillagesquare.com/

Activists from social movements all over the world flocked to the Brazilian city of Porto Alegre six years ago for the first World Social Forum (WSF). It was organized under the slogan “another world is possible” to demonstrate impressively the counter position to the neo-liberal globalization project as represented and pursued by those in political and economic power. These meet every January for the World Economic Forum at the posh Swiss skiing resort of Davos.

Often erroneously referred to as anti-global movement, the activists mobilizing for the WSF represent simply another global movement, challenging the current forms of capitalist hegemony (and, as many would claim, capitalism as such). The “another world” they believe is possible represents the desire for “a better world” – a world without exploitation, discrimination, marginalization. They treasure global social conditions, which would allow for human security and a dignified life for all (well, at least most, given that there are those class interests represented by human beings, who would object to the implementation of such alternatives). Six years down the line, the latest WSF in Nairobi showed that while it’s rather easy to have such visions, it’s more difficult to implement them.

Some wear and tear resulted in a gradually increasing WSF fatigue among some of those who originally with enthusiasm mobilized and participated. The initial euphoria over the global bonds between “the wretched of the earth” (Frantz Fanon) remained not without mixed feelings over growing internal differences on the future course. Already at the first WSF a manifest of anti-capitalist youth was signed, criticizing the event for what they perceived as a reactionary policy of “humanizing capitalism” instead of trying to defeat it. An alternative “celebrity culture” with its inherent hierarchical structure was also emerging and suspiciously observed. It cultivated an aura of authority - if not personality cult - around some of the perceived, styled (or even self-proclaimed) alternative development gurus.

While the local grass roots crowds gathering during the earlier WSFs contributed to far above a hundred thousand participants in each case, the Nairobi WSF as the first of its kind on African soil provided a markedly lower turn out with less than 50,000 estimated participants. Many locals were simply denied access originally, because they were too poor to pay the registration fee. Others from further away were unable to fork out the travel costs and local expenses. Instead, the dominance of world wide operating NGOs (including foundations of political parties, the trade unions and the churches) as well as representatives of other institutions more or less directly linked to state agencies played a visibly dominant role and illustrated the obvious dividing lines between grass root activists, scholars and other professionally concerned “do gooders” from different spheres and social backgrounds.

As divided was the scenery at the Moi Stadium at the outskirts of Nairobi, where the sessions took place from January 21 to 24. Among those mingling with parts of the crowd were at least three Namibians: Alfred Angula represented the organized workers, Rosa Namises the women’s movement, and Ian Swartz from the Rainbow coalition strengthened the coming out of gays and lesbians, who used the opportunity to courageously fight the notorious local and continental xenophobia.

The opening and closing ceremonies were at the centrally located Uhuru (Freedom) Park. Among the speakers to open was Kenneth Kaunda, and I was certainly not the only one wondering about the basis of his merits. The mere fact that he finally behaved somehow decent as an “elder statesman”, after messing up the country and people with his earlier politics, was certainly not good enough a recommendation to address those committed to “another world”. The junior minister from Italy speaking at the closing ceremony and a number of other political office bearers and aid bureaucrats documenting their commitments to the common (?) cause left as dubious a taste and showed that the dividing lines are a contested issue. – Certainly not everyone among the WSF organizers and activists is immune against the flirting with power.

There were numerous other visible contradictions during the days in and around the Moi sports stadium adding to the mixed feelings. Ironically, this was built in the 1980s by the Chinese, had its peak moment when hosting the All Africa Games and is these days mainly reserved for paid leisure activities by the urban middle class. Those hundreds of thousands of shack dwellers in the slums nearby look at it at best as an alien object, which does not relate to their daily struggle for survival.

The professional North-South and global concern entrepreneurs occupied the best spaces in the venue. A local telecommunication company under foreign ownership provided a so-called special offer to participants, which maximized the company profits by means of a monopoly over services secured. The ordinary people running their humble food vendor businesses at affordable costs for the bulk of participants were forced to operate at the margins. The best-placed catering outlets were overpriced. The minister of inner security owed one of them. During an earlier stage of his career he was among those who tortured the same victims of the Mau-Mau movement, who testified at the WSF to their ordeal in the anti-colonial struggle some fifty years ago.

“Another world is possible”, yes, maybe. But the road to get there is long. And not all among those attending the WSF in Nairobi are (or should be) on board. That might, by the way, include myself too.

* Henning Melber had joined Swapo in 1994. He was the director of NEPRU in Windhoek (1992-2000) and the research director at the Nordic Africa Institute in Uppsala (2000-2006), where he is now director of the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation.

This article was first written for the Namibian Big Issue and is reproduced with the permission of the author.

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

FEATURES; Patrick Bond examines the future of the WSF concept
COMMENT AND ANALYSIS:
- Modern-day slavery is alive and well, says Emira Woods
- Doreen Lwanga stirs the debate over the Hollywood blockbuster Blood Diamonds
- Shack dwellers in Durban, South African are coming together to fight crime, writes S'bu Zikode
- Henning Melber reflects on whether another world is possible
LETTERS: Regular columnist Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem faces a challenge on his NGO views
PAN-AFRICAN POSTCARD: Tajudeen Abdul Raheem writes on the 8th Ordinary Session of the African Union
BLOGGING AFRICA: A round up of the African blogosphere
BOOKS AND ARTS: Betty Wamalwa Muragori gets creative about land
AFRICAN UNION MONITOR: There’s been much news coming out of the African Union this week

CONFLICT AND EMERGENCIES: China defends African arms sales
HUMAN RIGHTS: Call for release of DRC human rights lawyer
WOMEN AND GENDER: Challenging gender discrimination in universities
REFUGEES AND FORCED MIGRATION: Counting immigrants in cities across the globe
ELECTIONS AND GOVERNANCE: A quick guide to the Nigerian elections
AFRICA AND CHINA: Chinese premier visits Africa
DEVELOPMENT: The politics of the water justice movement
CORRUPTION: Zambia misses the point on corruption
HEALTH AND HIV/AIDS: People before patents in South Africa
EDUCATION: Early childhood care and education
ENVIRONMENT: Enforcing the law in forests
LAND AND LAND RIGHTS: Land, agriculture and conflict in West Africa
MEDIA AND FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION: New report from Article 19 on freedom of expression in Senegal
INTERNET AND TECHNOLOGY: Open source, information sharing and Five Minutes to Midnight
PLUS: e-Newsletters and Mailings Lists; Fundraising and Useful Resources; Courses, Seminars and Workshops