From the stripping of forest resources in Zambezia province to concerns about the effects a multi-billion dollar dam will have on surrounding communities, Anabela Lemos and Daniel Ribeiro ask whether, after a long history under Portugese colonialism, Mozambique is not at risk of being colonised again under the flag of ‘economic partnerships with China’. They write that concerns in Mozambique centre around China’s weak social and environmental requirements, disregard for human rights protections, lack of transparency and policy of non-interference.

‘Cahora Bassa is ours’ are the first words Mozambique’s president, Armando Guebuza, said after signing an agreement with Portugal’s prime minister to transfer ownership of the 27-year-old hydropower dam on the Zambezi. The last link to Mozambique’s colonisation by Portugal is finally broken, but are Mozambique’s new economic ties following a similar pattern of exploitation and abuse?

Abusive economic interests are not something new in international relations, with extensive examples of the destabilising and crippling affects they can have on developing countries. These negative experiences have given foreign donors like the World Bank a bad reputation, and forced a number of donors to take social and environmental impacts more seriously and develop policies to address transparency, social justice and environmental sustainability. Past experience has shown that such protections are vital requirements in the quest for truly sustainable development.

However, one of the new overseas investors, the giant China, is rivalling the World Bank for honours as the biggest lender to African nations and undermining the lesson learnt of the importance of transparency, social justice and environmental sustainability. China’s expanding demands for new energy and raw material (as well as markets for its own goods) has made Africa a focus point for obtaining these valuable natural resources and many of its nations are increasingly important economic partners. China is the biggest consumer of zinc, nickel, copper and crude oil and the top importer of tropical woods.

China’s weak social and environmental requirements, disregard for human rights protections, lack of transparency and policy of non-interference in internal affairs of the countries they lend to has resulted in some African governments being shored up with funds while allowing them to avoid local and international pressure to clean up corruption. The result has been dictators maintaining power, centralising wealth, and avoiding true development.

Mozambique is one of the African countries that has latched onto China’s funding approach and grabbed the opportunity of non-interference and weak policies with both hands. Below are some recent examples of the negative results of this relationship.

Logging in Zambezia province

Chinese timber buyers are colluding with Mozambican business people and some members of the Mozambique government and their forest services to strip precious slow-growing tropical hardwoods from Mozambique’s semi-arid forests at a rate that could see the resource exhausted in 5-10 years, according to reports of the trade on timber and wood in the Zambezi. The unsustainable logging begins with Chinese support to timber buyers to acquire ‘simple licences’, which allow logging of a relatively small quantity in a specific area. These licences are given to local Mozambicans, in large numbers (146 in 2003 alone), thus starting a deforestation process often referred to as ‘the Chinese takeaway’.

Once an application has been approved, the licence holder pays for the licence (US$10–40 per cubic meter of forest logged depending on the species). Many of the local licence holders get credit from Chinese buyers to pay these expenses. The availability of this credit is the main factor driving the logging boom, attracting unqualified and unskilled people into the sector. Up to one-third of operators do not repay their debts, and this cost is passed on to other operators, in lower prices paid for the timber. On average the income generated by locals linked to the logging industry is below the legal minimum wage of US$30/month.

The quotas and licences give little indication of the quantity and area of logging; under-reporting is systematic and widespread. Inspections are rare, bribes common, and the computer-based control system of licensing and transport is purely cosmetic, according to reports and local experts. There is only one real checkpoint at Nicoadala, were copies of all the licences of all the operators are filed and were all drivers should stop. Anyone looking into the matter who spends time at the checkpoint will notice that the focus is on villagers with small volumes of hand-sawn timber and established industrial operators, while operators well connected to politicians, the Provincial Forests and Wildlife Services of Zambezia (SPFFB) and the timber buyers are allowed to escape. In 2002, the quota was set at 42,000m3 (1,132,000ha total area of concessions) but SPFFB reported only 33,200m3 (+/- 97,600 logs), of which only 28,400 m3 (+/- 83,500 logs) was exported. However, that year 17 bulk carriers and 27 container ships loaded logs in the port, totalling 51,000m3 (+/- 150,000 logs) based on the port authorities' record (also believed to be an underestimate by local experts).

For example in late October 2004, the bulk carrier Chang Ping docked in the port of Quelimane to load 2,000–2,500 tons of logs, according to the head of the company owning the ship. The local exporter (Madeiras Alman), however, officially declared a total weight of only 1,074 tons (4,715 logs with a total volume of 1,602m3). The ship was in port loading for 10 days into three holds simultaneously for 24 hours per day. Even with slow manual loading, at a rate of 20 logs per hour, and accounting for work stoppages, approximately 10,000 logs could have been loaded.

The manipulation does not stop with the statistics and data, but also involves the regulations. Originally, the main commercial species (Class 1) had to be processed prior to export. However, just as the regulations were coming into force, the ministry, under pressure from the logging industry, passed a special regulation (or ‘ministerial diploma’), reclassifying the commercial timbers to permit their export as logs. Now the unprocessed logs are exported to China, undermining local industry and transferring most of the benefits from one of the poorest countries in the world to what is becoming one of the richest. What is happening in Zambezia Province is replicated or even worse in other provinces such as Cabo Delgado, Nampula and Niassa. Rather than combating illegal logging, China, through measures including the manipulation of forest regulations, false technical information and statistics, bribes and indirect involvement in logging, is actually facilitating illegal logging and hindering sustainable development in the sector.

Mpanda Nkuwa dam

The proposed Mphanda Nkuwa dam is a good example of the problems linked to China’s lack of concern for human rights and the environmental impact of the projects they are financing. The US$2.3 billion Mphanda Nkuwa dam proposal has caused considerable debate in Mozambique with civil society and the potentially affected communities raising numerous concerns. The project's weak social and environmental assessment, high economic, environmental, social and technical risks and many other negative impacts, have put Western funders such as the World Bank off the project. In spite of these problems, early this year the China Ex-Im bank, China's overseas lending arm, agreed to back the construction of the dam project.

The Mphanda Nkuwa dam will have a capacity of 1,350 megawatts and will be on one of Africa’s most dammed rivers, the Zambezi. The dam's electricity will be directed primarily towards industry and southern Africa’s regional grid, completely ignoring the fact that less than 5 per cent of Mozambican’s have access to electricity. The production of the power will cause twice daily fluctuations in the river's flow, which will have adversely the people downstream that depend on the river for suitable and acceptable access to water, fishing, river navigation and flood recession farming.

The dam will also undermine years of restoration work in the Zambezi delta(East Africa’s richest wetland and a Ramsar ‘wetland of international importance’ site), which has been damaged by the mismanagement of the Cahora Bassa dam, just over 70km upstream of Mphanda Nkuwa. A daily flow regime and flood simulation is being suggested for Cahora Bassa dam to better support downstream ecology and meet environmental flow requirements. However, the Mphanda Nkuwa dam flow regime has been based on Cahora Bassa’s present destructive one, and the project environmental impact assessment states that if that is changed it could make Mphanda Nkuwa uneconomic. It is likely, therefore, that the years of work to begin restoring the Zambezi downstream of Cahora Bassa will be dropped in favour of getting more hydroelectricity out of the river.

The recent 7.5 earthquake and several aftershocks in Mozambique have justified already existing concerns about the seismic risk linked to the Mphanda Nkuwa project. The country is in the vicinity of the Nubia-Somalia plate boundary and straddles a highly active fault zone called the Shire trough, which runs southward from the southern point of Malawi almost all the way to Maputo. Thus the country is considered to be in a seismically active zone, but poor records in the area severely constrain scientists’ ability to determine the potential for large earthquakes. For example, the recent 7.5 earthquake was nearly 13 times bigger than had been thought possible along that fault.

The Mphanda Nkuwa dam will be in this seismically active area, just 200km from the heart of the Shire trough fault zone. In addition, the shape of the Shire trough means that the dam’s reservoir could increase the surrounding plates’ seismic potential as a result of the increased weight of the water – a phenomenon known as ‘reservoir-induced seismicity’ or RIS. Furthermore, the Estima fault crosses the reservoir 25 metres from the proposed dam wall. It is thought that this fault is active despite there being no activity in the recent geologic record. Mozambique’s lack of experience with and knowledge of large dams and China’s low social and environmental requirements, coupled with the weak data available for the area, increases the risk and creates the potential for a major disaster.

The China Ex-Im Bank's funding is intended to promote the export of Chinese mechanical and electronic products and high- and new-tech products, to support Chinese companies with comparative advantages, to ‘go global’ with offshore construction contracts and overseas investment projects. The bank’s involvement in Mphanda Nkuwa has removed the pressure on the Mozambique government to improve the social and environmental assessments of this project and has enabled the government to avoid addressing its various negative impacts. If the Mphanda Nkuwa dam project goes ahead in its present form, it will be another example of the negative impacts of large dams and will significantly handicap Mozambique’s development.

Other dam projects in Africa have not set an encouraging precedent. There have been serious human rights abuses around the Merowe dam in Sudan, for example (see the article by Ali Askouri). Its resettlement programme has been very poor, there has been no transparency, and it has a bad record on environmental and social assessment. Closer to home, in Zambia, state utility ZESCO is working with the Chinese company Sinohydro on the Lower Kafue gorge project.

It chose a dam site after a balanced assessment of the economic, social and environment factors. However, we have learned from an inside source that Sinohydro told ZESCO that it was not how they did things in China and that they wanted to see a site assessment that focused only on economic factors. In the end, the original ZESCO site was selected, but the role of the Chinese dam builders in trying to focus only on the economics of the project does not bode well.

We also hear allegations from the coastal fishing communities of illegal fishing from Chinese boats, using longliners and gill nets that not only capture turtles and sharks but are also destroying our coastal zone. It was reported that in October 2005 a Chinese ship docked in Maputo harbour with around 4 tons of illegal shark fins. No information was available on the species of the sharks, where they were caught or the method used. The Chinese illegal fishing boats are taking advantage of our government's lack of interest in or means to control and monitor our coastal area, and are destroying it and the livelihoods of the local communities.

The economic link with China is still a young and growing partnership with numerous investments in the pipeline. The few current investments have shown a tendency towards exploration and abuse. The secrecy of the negotiations, whether it is Cahora Bassa or Mphanda Nkuwa, the conditions of the funding and the disregard of the basic building blocks of development such as equality, social justice, a healthy environment and equity make us wonder if we Mozambicans are taking ownership of our country or just changing owners. What are the costs to our people and land? What will be the heritage of future generations? What is ahead of us? After so many years of being colonised by the Portuguese, are we now being colonised again, in the name of development but under the new flag of ‘economic partnerships with China’?

• Anabela A. Lemos is a Mozambican environmental activist and founder member and director of JA! (Justiça Ambiental). Daniel L.Ribeiro is a Mozambican biologist, researcher and environmental activist. He is a founder member of JA! (Justiça Ambiental) and coordinator of the Water Rivers and Development unit in JA!

• This is a shortened version of an article by Anabela Lemos and Daniel Ribeiro. The full version, including references, will be available in a forthcoming book to be published in January by Fahamu and called ‘African perspectives on China in Africa’. The full articles will also be made available as .PDF files on the Pambazuka News website.

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

Stephen Marks introduces the articles in this publication by reviewing the billion-dollar glamour on display in Beijing during a summit between African and Chinese leaders in early November. But behind the glitz, what does it all mean for Africa? Is it colonialism revisited, a mad dash for African oil and minerals? Is there a Chinese model of development that can be followed? And what is the true nature of Chinese involvement in Africa?

Heads of state and dignitaries from 48 countries flocked to Beijing in November 2006 to attend the largest international summit ever held in the Chinese capital. And China pulled out all the stops, not only, or not even, to make the VIP guests feel welcome, but also to leave China’s people and the world at large in no doubt of the meeting’s importance.

Bright red banners lined the streets with slogans lauding ‘Friendship, Peace, Cooperation and Development.’ China’s official news agency Xinhua declared that the visitors ‘brought a trend of the mysterious continent to the capital of China’. Giraffes and elephants frolicking on the savannahs were spread over giant billboards on all the capital’s main streets and squares.

But behind the official ‘Africa chic’ and the predictable warm words of the official communiqués, something substantial was going on. The declaration adopted at the end of the meeting on Sunday 5 November was strong on ‘motherhood and apple pie’ rhetoric promising ‘a new type of strategic partnership’ founded on ‘political equality and mutual trust, economic win-win cooperation and cultural exchanges’. But there was impressive substance too.

On Saturday 4 November, China’s Premier Wen Jiabao proposed that China and Africa should seek to bring their trade volume to US$100 billion by 2010. This would more than double the 2005 level, about US$39.7 billion. In the first nine months of this year, China–Africa trade had already surged to US$40.6 billion, up 42 per cent year-on-year.

On the same day China’s President Hu Jintao announced a package of aid and assistance measures to Africa including US$3 billion of preferential loans in the next three years and the cancellation of more debt owed by poor African countries. China, he pledged, would:

• Double its 2006 assistance to Africa by 2009

• Provide US$3 billion of preferential loans and US$2 billion of preferential buyer’s credits to Africa in the next three years

• Set up a China–Africa development fund, which would reach US$5 billion, to encourage Chinese companies to invest in Africa and provide support to them

• Cancel debt in the form of all the interest-free government loans that matured at the end of 2005 owed by the heavily indebted poor countries and the least developed countries in Africa that have diplomatic relations with China

• Increase from 190 to over 440 the number of export items to China receiving zero-tariff treatment from the least developed countries in Africa with diplomatic ties with China.

• Establish three to five trade and economic cooperation zones in Africa in the next three years

• Over the next three years, train 15,000 African professionals; send 100 senior agricultural experts to Africa; set up 10 special agricultural technology demonstration centres in Africa; build 30 hospitals in Africa and provide a grant of RMB 300 million for providing artemisinin and building 30 malaria prevention and treatment centres to fight malaria in Africa; dispatch 300 youth volunteers to Africa; build 100 rural schools in Africa; and increase the number of Chinese government scholarships to African students from the current 2,000 per year to 4,000 per year by 2009.

President Hu even pledged to build a conference centre for the African Union ‘to support African countries in their efforts to strengthen themselves through unity and support the process of African integration’ – perhaps a visible reinforcement of the final statement’s pledge to support ‘the African regional and sub-regional organisations in their efforts to promote economic integration, and [support] the African countries in implementing the ”New Partnership for Africa's Development” programs’.

Early on Sunday morning, the 2nd Conference of Chinese and African Entrepreneurs concluded with 14 agreements signed between 11 Chinese enterprises and African governments and firms, worth a total of US$1.9 billion. The agreements cover cooperation in infrastructure facilities, communications, technology and equipment, energy and resources development, finance and insurance.

There was more good news to come. The summit was followed by a two-day African Trade Fair in Beijing. According to Xinhua ‘Over 170 enterprises from 23 African countries filled a Beijing exhibition hall on Monday with varieties of their local specialties, including minerals, jewelry, textile, fur, spice, tea and coffee.’

But except for textiles, which are notoriously hard-hit by Chinese exports, all the items listed as on display were primary products which Africa was already exporting in colonial times. Perhaps this influenced Xinhua’s choice of Chinese entrepreneurs to interview on their view of future business prospects in Africa.

‘Wang Jianping, president of the Hashan Company in eastern Zhejiang Province, told Xinhua that after the summit, he decided to increase investment in Nigeria from two million dollars to six million dollars so as to boost the development of local shoemaking industry’.

’Sheng Jushan, general manager of the Guoji Group in central China's Henan Province, said his company has just set up an economic cooperation zone in Sierra Leone, which attracts about 20 Chinese small and medium-sized enterprises’.

A similar processing zone in Nigeria, according to Xinhua, ‘when completed and put into operation, will help boost economic activities in the state through processing local raw materials into manufactured goods, especially those that have to be imported now in the country.’

Colonialism revisited?

China’s race for Africa is certainly due in large part to the same causes as Europe’s 19th century scramble – the need for raw materials to fuel industrialisation. As the Economist summarised it before the summit: Its economy has grown by an average of 9% a year over the past ten years, and foreign trade has increased fivefold. It needs stuff of all sorts—minerals, farm products, timber and oil, oil, oil. China alone was responsible for 40% of the global increase in oil demand between 2000 and 2004.

‘The resulting commodity prices have been good for most of Africa. Higher prices combined with higher production have helped local economies. Sub-Saharan Africa's real GDP increased by an average of 4.4% in 2001-04, compared with 2.6% in the previous three years. Africa's economy grew by 5.5% in 2005 and is expected to do even better this year and next’.

In Beijing in 2005 Moeletsi Mbeki, deputy chairman of the South African Institute of International Affairs, spelled out to a conference organised by the Chinese Parliament what many feared might be the result; Africa sells raw materials to China and China sells manufactured products to Africa. This is a dangerous equation that reproduces Africa’s old relationship with colonial powers. The equation is not sustainable for a number of reasons. First Africa needs to preserve its natural resources to use in the future for its own industrialisation. Secondly China’s export strategy is contributing to the de-industrialisation of some middle-income countries ... it is in the interests of both Africa and China to find solutions to these strategies.

Clearly, many of the decisions announced at the summit reflect Chinese awareness of these fears of a ‘new imperialism’. So did the People’s Daily article before the summit indignantly denouncing ‘The fallacy that China is exercising “neo-colonialism” in Africa’ which was ‘apparently aimed at sowing discord between China and Africa’.

And on the eve of the summit the state council, China's cabinet, issued ‘Nine Principles’ to ‘Encourage and Standardise Enterprises' Overseas Investment.' The principles require Chinese companies operating overseas to ‘abide by local laws, bid contracts on the basis of transparency and equality, protect the labor rights of local employees, protect the environment, implement corporate responsibilities and so on.’

Is there a Chinese model?

Like Japan and the smaller ‘Asian tigers’, China did not develop by following the rules of the Washington consensus. Critical attention in the West and also in Africa, has been focused on China’s avoidance of good governance and human rights conditionality now commonly insisted on by the West, and this undoubtedly lies behind much of the enthusiasm for the ‘Chinese model’ on the part of Africa’s more repressive regimes.

But there is also substance to the idea that ‘South–South’ cooperation has merit in its own right. In areas such as rural development and intermediate technology China’s experience does indeed have much to offer that is of greater relevance precisely because China too is a developing country.

Code such as the African Peer Review Mechanism were not intended to be part of an aid conditionality package, and the perception that they are externally imposed has damaged their reputation even in the eyes of campaigners and activists who support their objectives.

Conversely, China’s avoidance of conditionality means that she can move faster to produce visible results on the ground. The statism which still characterises China’s economy means that China can offer a ‘one-stop shop’ approach, in which contracts guaranteeing China its desired access to oil or key minerals, as in Angola, or Nigeria, can be combined with soft loans and much-needed infrastructure projects such as highways and railways, and low-cost, high-impact ‘add-ons’ such as rural development projects, industrial parks for small firms, and training and scholarships.

This integrated approach can be a genuine plus-point, and not only for such regimes as those in Zimbabwe or Sudan. As in this example, the whole deal can be tied up and delivered in visits by top governmental figures, reciprocated by red-carpet treatment for African leaders, as at the recent Beijing summit.

But not all these factors are unique to China, and future analysis would benefit by looking at China’s approach in a wider context, rather than in the one-track contrast with the conventional model of liberal globalisation which characterises conventional Western approaches.

As Chris Melvile and Molly Owen have pointed out China is not the only player in the ‘South–South’ game, or the only one to promote the idea as offering ‘win-win’ benefits. India, Brazil and South Africa have established their own ‘south-south’ links. Each has also been welcomed as an alternative to the old imperialist powers. And each in its turn has been accused of pursuing its own ‘sub-imperialist’ agenda.

And as Chris Alden and Martyn Davies point out: Chinese MNCs are in many respects like other MNCs operating in Africa, for example France’s Elf-Aquitaine or South Africa’s Eskom. In the French case, Elf-Aquitaine has been highly politicised, building up or even defining France’s Africa policy in particular countries such as Gabon or Angola.

The close proximity between French business and political interests manifested by the presence of oil company executives in the inner circle at the Elysee Palace as well as the circulation of key political elites such as Jean-Christophe Mitterrand within political and business circles, has been a feature of France’s post-independence African policy from the outset.

Moreover the modus operandi of foreign policy makers in Paris has been to construct policy around a network of personal relationships with individual African leaders, bolstered by a web of bilateral agreements in trade, finance, development assistance and defence.

The nature of the Chinese multinational corporations

If the role of the Chinese state is not so different to that of at least some western and ‘Southern’ states, how does the Chinese MNC itself differ from its rivals in the way in which it operates as a firm?

China’s government made its position clear in its official policy statement on Africa; ‘The Chinese Government encourages and supports Chinese enterprises' investment and business in Africa, and will continue to provide preferential loans and buyer credits to this end.’

As Mark Sorbara puts it ‘Investing in African extractive industries is a risky business, but China is desperately in need of raw materials to feed its booming economy, hence the government is willing to shoulder most of the risk for Chinese companies looking to invest in Africa.'

But the purpose of this state backing is not only to secure China’s access to raw materials. As Alden and Davies point out: In pursuit of its broader global ambitions, Beijing is intent on ‘picking corporate champions’ that, with the benefit of active and generous support from the state, are being groomed to join the ranks of the Fortune 500. Roughly 180 companies have been designated by the state to benefit from preferential finance, tax concessions and political backing to ‘go global’ and become true multinationals.

This aim to be global players in their own right was made clear by Fu Chengyu, chief executive of China’s oil giant CNOOC after the US Congress moved to block CNOOC’s takeover bid for Unocal, the US’ ninth-largest oil firm: ‘We aim to be a participant in the global industry, like all the international majors, supplying the global marketplace as well.’

The same seems to apply to the China–South Africa deal, concluded at the Beijing summit, to set up a joint company to expand ferro-chrome production in South Africa. Reuters’ report on the deal commented that ‘China has become a big investor in mining and natural resources in Africa as it seeks the raw materials to feed its economic growth, but unlike many Sino-African deals the purpose of Tubatse Chrome is to make money rather than to supply metal to China’. And the chairman of the South African partner was quoted as saying: ‘Sinosteel is a trading organisation, and Tubatse Chrome will be a profit-driven company. If China offers the best price we will sell it to China, but we will sell to wherever we can get the best price.’

Optimists may view this as a good sign. As Ndubisi Obiorah puts it: As global branding and reputation become more important to Chinese companies, they may become less willing to be associated with human rights abuses and repressive regimes in Africa and elsewhere.

As a result, he suggests, Chinese companies could become more vulnerable to ‘naming and shaming’ from NGO’s in Western countries and elswhere.

Optimists may also see some signs of this on the websites of Sinopec and Petrochina, which feature prominently their awards for corporate governance, and their ‘model’ policies on health, safety and environmental protection.

Does this establish the need for a ‘corporate China watch’ to be set up, for activists in Africa and elsewhere to bring this pressure to bear? But in that case why single out China? As Alden and Davies conclude: ‘Indeed even critics admit that if one sets aside the particular cases of Sudan, Angola and Equatorial Guinea, ”the rest of PetroChina and Sinopec activities on the African continent are not especially reprehensible” or at least no more so than many of their Western counterparts.

Perhaps the material distinction is not between Chinese capital and Western, but rather between the merely rapacious, and the more sophisticated. Even these are not two seperate categories, but at least as much two different faces, each of which may be presented as convenient.

In this context, those involved in corporate research could usefully examine the possibility that Chinese MNCs operating in Africa might themselves incorporate some Western capital, perhaps percolating not only through the obvious channel of joint ventures and shareholdings, but also through funds from Hong Kong and Taiwan.

Neil Tottman, head of commercial banking at HSBC China, has laid out aggressive plans for its commercial banking businesses in China, in anticipation of further deregulation of the sector this year. ‘The total volume of business referrals between Hong Kong and the mainland grew at an annual rate of 175 percent between 2002 and 2005. This year to date, volume between Taiwan and the mainland has increased 512 percent over the same period last year.’

The antidemocratic road?

But there is one other aspect of the concept of a distinctive ‘Chinese model’ which is certainly appealing to Africa’s more repressive regimes – the idea that it disproves the argument that democracy is an essential precondition for development. China is widely held to prove the opposite - the need for strong government.

Ndubisi Obiorah quotes a Nigerian example of this invocation of a ‘Chinese model’: ‘leading lights of the Obasanjo faction claimed that an absence of stability and visionary leadership were the principal cause of Africa’s underdevelopment and that it was these same qualities that had enabled Singapore and China to become contemporary economic miracles.’

As Obiorah points out, the rise of India might counter this self-interested vogue for authoritarian government. It could also be pointed out that before 1949 some of the main obstacles to China’s development were to be found in the close ties of ruling elites to forces at home and abroad opposed to modernisation; in archaic patterns of land ownership and authority; and in chronic national disunity and warlordism on a scale whose closest parallel in today’s Africa is the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). All of these were swept away by a massive popular revolution ¬– a prospect likely to be at least as unacceptable to Africa’s current repressive elites as a more gradual and reformist path to democratisation!

But the most powerful antidote to the idea that China validates an authoritarian road to development is the growing grassroots unrest in China over the cost of the country’s current economic model in its impact on employment rights, the environment and mounting inequality and social exclusion.

As Dorothy Guerrero has pointed out: China is now the world’s fourth-largest economy and many developing countries envy its record of economic progress. However, China’s phenomenal growth is producing a big misconception in that it is viewed as a big winner of globalisation.

Although it is true that market reforms and China's opening to the global economy gave millions of people there an increased standard of living, more Chinese people are suffering the consequences of its rapid transition to a market-based economy.

The majority of the Chinese people are not too concerned about when China will become the world's largest economy. Rather, they are asking, ‘When will the benefits of China's rise to superpower status start to affect our lives positively?

Even official sources in China and abroad are aware of the social costs of China’s free-market great leap forward. Members of the legislature have warned of the country’s impending employment crisis and the World Bank has confirmed that China’s poor are getting poorer.

As for the environment, no less a figure than Pan Yue, deputy director of China’s State Environmental Protection Administration, sparked controversy with a recent essay On Socialist Ecological Civilisation when he openly charged that: ‘The economic and environmental inequalities caused by a flawed understanding of growth and political achievement, held by some officials, have gone against the basic aims of socialism and abandoned the achievements of Chinese socialism.’

The march of neoliberalism within China and its impact on the Chinese people has advanced hand-in-hand with China’s growing imperialist role abroad. This apparent anomaly of an imperialist power itself subject to growing imperialist exploitation in alliance with local capital is not new – it also characterised Czarist Russia. And difficult though it may currently seem to act on the idea, the connection suggests that an obvious grassroots ally of activist and civil society groups in Africa will increasingly be their opposite numbers in China itself.

• Stephen Marks is a freelance writer and researcher specialising in development and human rights issues.

• This is a shortened version of an article by Stephen Marks . The full version, including references, will be available in a forthcoming book to be published in January by Fahamu and called ‘African perspectives on China in Africa’. The full articles will also be made available as .PDF files on the Pambazuka News website.

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

I was appalled at reading the letter from Rev Mmoja Ajabu . The fact that the Reverend is resident in America is the only one that is relevant. He is not here to know what happens on the ground. Never before in the world's history has a nation been so oppressed by its Government. The majority of people that have wealth are those in ZANU-PF. Corruption has never been worse and it is only those on the gravy train that are getting richer. It is in their interests to see this ZANU-PF Government stay in power. The few MDC elected officials were allowed there by ZANU-PF to mislead people like the Reverend into thinking that there is democracy in this nation. If democracy were a fact here then why is there no freedom of the press, or an unaltered Constitution as the nation is crying for? I could go on for hours but that can do to start with...

I am an African and I live in eKhayelitsha "the city's poor people dump site". The views expressed in the article ‘Our Mothercity is Motherless’ are true. Ever since Hellen Zille took over, Cape Town is becoming more and more like it was in 1652.

For me 1652 says an African is a foreigner, a worker for the white man, a slave, a stupid animal. When I walk the street of Cape Town I see the city of Van Riebeek and friends. I still see his statue and some white womens’ statues. Where is Saartjie's, Mandela's, Winnie's, Desmond Tutu's, and Boesak's statues?

When will I see the statue of Steve Biko somewhere in South Africa? We want to see statues of people who have offered this land of JAH peace among all walks of life. People who have fought for the good, respect and justice.

I would like to ask for Pambazuka News to concentrate on Cape Town more aggressively. Write more about Cape Town's evil because its the truth that will set us free.

It is perfectly understandable that South Africa should take the important step of recognising same-sex marriage: it is perhaps the last stage in the dismantling of all forms of legal oppression and discrimination against South African lesbian and gay people and the recognition of their right to full equality. The Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe (GALZ) congratulate all those who have worked tirelessly over the past twelve or so years to ensure that the sexual orientation clause in the country’s constitution is translated fully into law.

But, for those of us in Zimbabwe, same-sex marriage is not on the agenda and not even something we are considering, at least at this stage. Our relationships are not recognised and we still suffer from basic humiliations such as the criminalisation of sexual acts between men and vitriolic verbal attacks and ridicule from our national leaders. We also share all the major problems faced by the majority of Zimbabweans when it comes to the curtailment of fundamental rights and freedoms including the right to receive and impart information, the right to work and the rights to health and freedom from fear and poverty.

It is time for the Zimbabwean government to reflect seriously on its thinking around human rights including those of its lesbian and gay citizens and to follow the South African example by implementing measures which proactively encourage a culture of meaningful human rights protection in this country. Activists in Zimbabwe are not puppets of foreign imperialists, as government would have everyone believe: we want a responsible government that is responsive to the needs of all Zimbabweans and we are fighting for our own good and for our own benefit.

I want to thank Joel Bisina for the article, ‘Environmental Degradation in the Niger Delta’ which helped deepen our knowledge and understanding of all the processes going on in the Niger Delta. As we learned from Ike Okonta in previous articles http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/38119 published on Pambazuka News, we are witness to a socio-economic and political tsunami whose proportions are difficult to describe, let alone measure.

As a way forward, I would plea for us not to forget that processes such as those described by Joel,have a history which goes as far back as the process of stealing the land from the Native Americans, killing off the Arawaks in the Caribbean, and then stealing people in Africa, enslaving them in order to replace the most sought after resource of those times: labour, hunting it, maintaining it as cheap as possible has been going on ever since.

Native Americans are speaking up after, as some of them say, keeping silent for five centuries.

What is going on in the Niger Delta is just a microcosm of what James Lovelock has been describing in all his books about Gaia. Now, we hear from Al Gore in “Inconvenient Truth” (book and film) that the destruction of Earth cannot go on. He argues that the way of thinking which has led to this state of affairs has to stop, but I have yet to hear Al Gore say something like this: "Long before my great great grand father was born there were people in North America, who did see that this way of thinking advocated and propagated by European discoverers was not only killing people, but it was also killing Earth/Gaia. I suggest that we, the discoverers/destroyers atone for what our ancestors did, by taking those voices and today's, seriously." Would Al Gore, be willing to discuss with the people of the Niger Delta, with the Native Americans, with the Haitians, in short with all of the people and their descendants who have been screaming NO to a system which was born and continues to reproduce itself by way of a mind set which says it is ok for poor people to die?

Thank you Joel for letting us know about the kind of world your mother lived in, one we urgently need to hold on to.

Burundi blog, ‘’ introduces a new blog called ‘Breaking the Cycle Youth Council’

“In 1988, I was only 10 years old, there were massacres in Ntega and Marangara, in Burundi. At that time, my Brother then told me about what had happened and I was puzzled, as I recall, because I could not understand how People could kill one another for tribal differences…It was in that year that I discovered I was of the tribe of Tutsi. At that time, I still could not tell the difference from Hutu and Tutsi tribe, by looking at a person…There are different things that occurred, that caused me to be determined to lead another generation, not to follow what other generations had followed.”

The blog’s main focus is on the youth of Burundi. The blogger uses videocasts to emphasise the plight of the youth and their hopes for the future.

There are two posts this week on the subject of telecoms provision in Africa. The first comes from Ghana. ‘Ramblings of an African Geek’ explains why the state owned “Ghana Telecom sucks”:

“In order to use GT broadband, I must give up my right as a consumer to purchase bandwidth from any other ISP. They are in effect telling their consumers, who are overpaying them for service, how they can spend their money.

“I’m curious about the identity of the person who came up with this clause. I’m also curious about its legality and the competence of the lawyer who advised them on its inclusion. I mean, if this is legal then what stops my local pineapple vendor from banning me from occasionally buying fruit from her cheaper competitor? Or Sony from telling me I have to get rid of all Samsung TV’s before I can buy one of theirs.”

The second story comes from ‘Timbuktu Chronicles’ who points to a more positive piece in the Economist on the rise of African cellphone companies:

“Following a flurry of deals over the past 18 months, five African and Middle Eastern operators are now vying for supremacy. These regional powerhouses have worked out how to earn princely sums in the world's poorest places. So far they have mostly been too busy signing up new subscribers to compete vigorously with each other. But that is now starting to change, and the industry is preparing for a round of consolidation as the operators start to attack each other's markets…The arrival of Middle Eastern and African operators, with their innovative, low-cost business models, could put pressure on European operators. Celtel's One Network, for example, eliminates roaming charges for customers travelling between the adjacent countries of Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda.”

My recent experience in South Africa of cell phones is that despite the exorbitant costs, cell phone usage is expanding at a rapid rate. Clearly there is room for more companies to enter the market and through competition bring down the price.

Staying with cell phones, ‘ This initiative follows recent reports that Mugabe’s security agents are now confiscating radios in an effort to clamp down even further on access to information and objective news reporting."

An excellent example of activism at work, and an excellent example of the use of SMS to circumvent repressive actions by governments such as in Zimbabwe.

Kenyan blogger, ‘’ remembers Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe who was born on 5 December 1924. Sobukwe, the founder of the Pan Africanist Congress, was jailed in Number 4 prison by the apartheid government for 9 years.

‘Scribbles from the Den’ comments on the return of Cameroonian musician, the ‘Tribal Monk’, who has returned and released his first album in 6 years:

“After a six-year break, US-based Cameroonian artist, Wanaku a.k.a The Tribal Monk has released his third album, Afrikan Guitarstrophy, in collaboration with his band, Sunplug’d. In this album, Wanaku shuns the ‘World Music’ genre with its over-reliance on technology and heavy (in)fusion of Western pop sounds. Instead, he unapologetically uses the acoustic guitar as the main conduit for what he calls ‘Sweet Afrikan Kontry Muziki’. This is not ‘afro-pop’ by any stretch of the imagination; it is afro beat in its pure and unadulterated state.” Sounds worth waiting for.

‘Black Looks’ comments on the impact of impact of global warming on, and the consequences of recycling of waste products across the continent.

“The continent is having to pay the price of US consumption i.e. 5% of the worlds population are in the US yet they contribute to 25% of the worlds greenhouse gas pollution. Africa’s 14% population contributes a mere 3%.One of the consequences of global warming is desertification and one of the worst hit countries in Africa is Somalia (also recently a dumping ground for nuclear waste). But many other countries, particular those bordering the Sahara savannah regions in West Africa and the Horn of Africa will suffer from severe drought, failed crops and floods. Access to water is a major issue through out Africa where privatisation of water supplies is adding to the lack of water availability on very basic levels in countries such as Nigeria, Kenya, Niger and South Africa to name just a few.”

• Sokari Ekine produces the blog Black Looks, http://www.blacklooks.org/

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

The United Nations (UN) has initiated moves to curb inherent dangers posed in donations of developed countries of old possibly toxic computers, mobile phones and televisions, which could pose a hazard to the environment of poor countries.

FEATURE: Jody Kollapen argues that the main challenge to the human rights framework is how society makes a connection between social values and human rights. We must interrogate whether that connection is obvious, and what prevents it, writes Kollapen.
COMMENT AND ANALYSIS:
- Although Cape Town is one of the top tourist destinations in the world, it is a city characterized by inequality. Gael Reagon argues that Cape Town is being “enslaved and stratified according to who has material wealth and who does not.”
- In most African states, homosexuality is illegal. Juliet Victor Mukasa writes that in Africa, transgender people are punished and ostracised for being who they are.
- Joel Bisina explains that ecological devastation on the one hand, and neglect arising from crude oil production on the other hand, have left much of the Niger Delta desolate, uninhabitable, and poor.
OBITUARY: The incomparable Joseph Ki- Zerbo
PAN AFRICAN POSTCARD: Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem cautions that we need to stop criminalizing other Africans as smugglers’, ‘aliens’, or ‘illegal immigrants’.
BLOGGING AFRICA: Sokari Ekine reports on the actions of multinational mining companies operating in Ghana.
BOOKS & ARTS: Female sex practices in Africa
WORLD SOCIAL FORUM: WSF registration deadline extended
AFRICAN UNION MONITOR: Ministers propose 2007 as ‘year of science’ in Africa
CONFLICT AND EMERGENCIES: Links to news on Sudan, Somalia, Chad and the DRC
HUMAN RIGHTS: Army to probe human rights abuses in northeast Uganda
WOMEN AND GENDER: Creation of new UN agency for women
REFUGEES AND FORCED MIGRATION: Angolan refugees flee camps in Zambia for fear of repatriation
ELECTIONS AND GOVERNANCE: President Kabila sworn in
DEVELOPMENT: Diamonds, the curse of Africa
CORRUPTION: More needs to be done to fight South African corruption
HEALTH AND HIV/AIDS: Ugandan HIV/Aids campaign in crisis
EDUCATION: Africa’s hidden histories
ENVIRONMENT: First Horn of Africa regional environment meetings opens
LAND AND LAND RIGHTS: Grappling with land pressure
MEDIA AND FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION: Chad’s media goes on strike
NEWS FROM THE DIASPORA: World AIDS day, the free trade way
PLUS: e-Newsletters and Mailings Lists; Fundraising and Useful Resources; Courses, Seminars and Workshops

Cape Town, also known as the ‘Mother City’, is one of the top tourist destinations in the world. The city is also one of the most racially segregated cities in the world, and, further, the city is characterized by inequality. Gael Reagon argues that Cape Town is being “enslaved and stratified according to who has material wealth and who does not. The mother city is motherless.”

"An unjust law is itself a species of violence. Arrest for its breach is more so." Mahatma Gandhi

On 7 December 2006, the city of Cape Town will vote on a bylaw which, if passed or not, will be an acute measurement of our morality. The By Law Relating to Streets, Public Places and Prevention of Nuisances is a slim invidious document that outlines the strategic management of the central city’s spaces and of its people.

It is the social dimension of the ‘nuisances’ bylaw that concerns me heavily on the reasoning that the one operates in relation to the other – that how we treat each other in the same space (our public and natural resources) will indicate who or perhaps more cogently, what we are. In that a society is measured by its treatment of its least.

A reading of the new proposed consolidated nuisances bylaw reveals a political premise and ethical ethos that regard the poor as social untouchables to be driven legally and economically from the centre to the gods know where, the desolate dustbowl of Happy Valley seems the favoured destination. Having in the last few months been walking at all hours the city streets with a crew of thinking caring people - Nombulelo, Mimi, Buyaphi, Wasefa and Sibusiso - we can attest via personal experience and witnessing, that our city is in anomie, an advanced state of lawlessness that benefits the rich and beleaguers the poor.

Rohinton Maistry, in his astute novel, A Fine Balance, set in the crazed schism of the post- independence India/Pakistan split, intones it succinctly, that ‘when they said they would clean the streets of poverty, they meant clean out the poor’.

Here my children who live on the streets are unlawfully arrested daily and nightly; their takings via hustling, begging or work are taken from them by security forces; they are constantly shoved around by the police who will arrest them on the most fragile of pretences for “loitering” or for “riotous” behaviour; here, one of my children was dropped on the mountain for no reason and broke his leg trying to come down; here the peace officers have become pimps, taking the earnings of sex workers under threat of arrest; here my children are woken by boots and pepper spray at any time of day or night; here my disabled street friend Envor Mac was arrested two weeks ago for taking a duvet and sent to Pollsmoor Prison for 2 years; here the excessive needs of tourists and the native greedy ones are given priority over care, shelter and education for my children.

This blessed piece of the planet, in the embrace of two oceans and Table Mountain, a world heritage site; this mother city, our top tourist destination and earner; this city of hybridity , of all colours and tongues; this city is being enslaved and stratified according to who has material wealth and who does not. The mother city is motherless.

But let’s rewind to the legislative birth of this new proposed bylaw that faces us today. It reared its gorgon head four years ago when it was lopped off with the double-edged sword of NGO-led public resistance coupled with a change of city administration with the installment of Nomaindia Mfeketo as mayor. By all accounts, Mfeketo, who in her 2005/6 budget pledged nearly R18 billion to provide shelter and jobs for all the city’s citizens in the next decade, did not have the courage of her conviction (that the bylaw is inherently prejudiced towards the poor) and simply did nothing – she did not facilitate a vote for or against, instead launching her Smile-A-Child publicity campaign.

This suspended status of the bylaw changed this year when the current incumbent, Helen Zille slipped on the mayoral mantle and chain and inaugurated an aggressive revival of the nuisances bylaw.

In May this year, the bylaw was passed by majority vote in a full sitting of council (the ANC voted against it) whose R900 000 social spending budget allocates a third for street people according to Bantry Bay councillor Jean-Pierre Smith. On its promulgation through the Provincial Gazette on 23 June 2006, street people and civil society organizations, largely under the auspices of a 20-member NGO Task Team again registered their protest on the basis that there had been no public participation. The bylaw was withdrawn 3 days later and a 2-week public participation process, inviting the submission of written comments on the bylaw, instituted in late September. According to the NGO Task Team 115 submissions were sent to the city management: 32 from organizations of which 7 support the proposed bylaw and 25 reject it; the rest are from individuals, 14 of whom are neutral, 19 are against it and 43 are in favour of it.

Now, the city managers are ready to vote. They have also just adopted a draft policy on adult street people, developed by Jean-Pierre Smith and entitled A Foot in the Door, which shows some measure of concern for the city’s nearly 10 000 homeless but locates its concerns in a kind of pathological paternalism that brands street people as insane, as drunkards or as drug addicts. Furthermore this draft policy is pretty much the theory that informs the actions proposed in the bylaw.

I have to let you know that though the bylaw will again be formally voted on Thursday (7 December 2006), it has, in effect been law any way. This new ‘nuisances’ bylaw is actually just a consolidation and refinement of a collection of nearly 30 municipal bylaws in existence from Tygerberg to Fish Hoek to the City that have, in amended and non-amended forms, existed from 1903 to now. The 1917 bylaw for the city, last amended in 1944, for instance, prevents spitting in public spaces. This proscription co-incidentally, is still nestling in the new bylaw, the infringement of which will elicit a fine of R100.

Since there are no substantive changes and reformulations in the new proposed nuisances bylaw as it stands, and since the 115 written submissions - most from individuals living in wealthy suburbs - can hardly be viewed as a vigorous, comprehensive and inclusive public input (with much respect to those who made submissions in the limited time-span); our city managers will be voting on a bylaw which is already law.

That’s the complicated statutory position. The social implication is simple: the city, like all cities claiming the appellation world class through the capitalist discourse of economic development and its concomitant strategy of urban renewal or regeneration, is shaping itself as a home, boardroom and playground for the black-chip empowered and the dollar rich.

Since the document is in the public domain – you can access it via NGO Task Team members Anna Weekes (021 448 7875) or Patric Solomons (021 762 5423) – I am not going to outline its clauses and sub-clauses except to say that Sub-section 2, which deals with prohibited behaviour, is unashamedly targeted at the mother city’s homeless, jobless and youth subculture.

It proposes severe fines or imprisonment for, amongst others, washing and drying clothes in public, aggressive begging, selling goods or washing cars without permission, shouting, touching someone’s property without consent, dancing and drumming without consent, rollerblading or skateboarding, and for sex work. Fines are anything between R50 – R500.

And, since I do not own an SUV, I will propose to be your GPS and finesse some moral calibration in relation to law, and its bona fide, justice.

This post-fascist bylaw is fundamentally and constitutionally unjust. It denies the underclass the rights to work, live and play in the city. Resistance to this legislative and social deprivation is then criminalized and punished.

This is the law of rapacity. My city is being raped by the men and women who manage it and own it via the Cape Town Partnership – a private/public partnership between the City of Cape Town, property owners and business sealed in 1999 – led by Shaun Johnson, the chief executive of the Mandela/Rhodes Foundation.

It’s property namesake, the plush new Mandela/Rhodes Place in St George’s Mall owned by Eurocape, houses apartments that can be bought for anything between R1- R7 million.

The CTP manages the Central City Improvement District (CCID) which employs a private security firm, g4s, to implement its strictures to clean the streets of the homeless in a relentless campaign of low-intensity terror and petty avarice.

On the street and in the parliamentary session Patricia de Lille (Member of Parliament) held last week with street people the word is informed and unambiguous: NO. No, the street people are saying, we will not be treated like non-citizens and non-human beings because a few want too much.

Marwaan Abrahams aka ‘Kakkies’ says that the bylaw is “how they fight us”. “All they see is criminal, but they don’t know what is going on inside. All the wrong things that you did that you went to prison for, when you come out you are hunted and still treated the same. Me, I am on a level. I am transformed, they are not. We are in a war. A total war”.

• This article first appeared in the Cape Argus, and it is republished here with a kind permission of the author. Gael Reagon is a freelance journalist and is based in Cape Town.
• Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

A total of 2 296 cases of alleged corruption have been reported to the national anti-corruption hotline (NACH) since its inception in September 2004, the National Anti-Corruption Forum (NACF) said on Tuesday (5 December 2006).

The UN Security Council has voted unanimously to authorise a regional force to protect the Somali government - which is under increasing pressure from the Union of Islamic Courts - and also lifted an arms embargo to allow the force to be equipped.

The article “Will Bill Gates’ Millions Save Us? (www.pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/37900) is brilliant and exposes the stark reality of the failure of public health as well as the failure in prevention of communicable diseases, particularly in Nigeria. This has resulted in very low life expectancy. The life expectancy in Nigeria is 50 years, the lowest expectancy rate even in most developing nations in Asia, Africa & Latin America. The local government must channel increased percentages of its GDP into health promotion. It must subsidise the training of its medical and paramedic staff as well and introduce grassroots health programmes, like multi-purpose health worker schemes, to decrease overall mortalities.

I've just returned from a trip to meet survivors of the Darfur genocide at refugee camps in Chad. What I saw horrified and saddened me, but it also inspired me.

Accompanied by acclaimed actress Mia Farrow, I travelled to the region to learn about the lives of those displaced by the violence, to tell them that the world will not forget them, and to gather their stories to share with you.

We've posted photos and documentary film footage from the trip on our web site – visit the link below to view them.

In the Gaga camp, we met refugees who had just arrived after a ten-day walk from Darfur and were too shocked to speak in anything other than three- or four-word sentences.

At the Habile camp, we met the village chief of Louboutigue whose 300-person community was still waiting for grain rations eight days after their homes were burned and their food supply looted.

In the Goz Beida hospital, we met three men whose eyes were gouged out simply for being on their own land - land that someone else wanted.

In the Djabal camp, we met a woman who showed us a terrible wound on her back, caused by a bullet that had first killed the daughter she had been carrying as she tried to escape an attack by the Janjaweed.

And yet all the people we met believed that the world community would end the violence and allow them to recover their lives and return to their homes.

We met real people struggling to get through each day, grinding grain, and taking care of children. The children wanted to meet us and play with us. The adults had smiles for us. Most of all, they wanted us to tell the world that they were waiting to go home.

We must not let them down.

Upon our return, Mia Farrow and I held a briefing with media in Washington to share our experiences along with photos and video footage from Chad. The briefing and footage were also distributed by satellite to international media outlets to tell the stories of the people we met.

Please use the link below to visit our web site to see photos and film footage from our trip and the press briefing. Then share these stories in your communities so the people of Darfur can go home.

Thousands of Somalis have protested against US-backed plans to send foreign peacekeepers into the country in support of the interim government. Protesters, including women and children, gathered in a football stadium in Mogadishu, the capital, on Monday (4 December 2006) chanting anti-American slogans and accusing Ethiopia of planning to invade.

Joseph Kabila has been sworn in as the Democratic Republic of Congo's first freely elected leader as fighting continued in the east of the country. At least 12,000 people have fled across the border into southwest Uganda to escape clashes between government forces and rebel soldiers, a Ugandan army spokesman said.

'African Shirts' - African Shirts (http://africanshirts.blogspot.com/2006/11/nigerias-finest.html) points to a report by Amnesty International on the rape of Nigerian women by the Nigerian police force:

“What do Nigerian police do when they're not killing innocent people, taking bribes, and doing nothing? They rape Nigerian women. An Amnesty International report is doing the rounds…”

Nothing new here. The Nigerian Police, their paramilitary brethren, the Mobile Police locally known as the hated MOPO and the Nigerian Army have been raping and beating women and girls in the Niger Delta for the past 15 years. Hardly any of these acts of violence have been reported in the Nigerian or foreign media despite numerous reports by Human Rights Watch.

'The Concoction' - The Concoction (http://theconcoction.blogspot.com/2006/11/i-should-have-used-pankhurst…) compares the different organisational structures of traditional organisations in Northern Ethiopia with those of Western and Western like NGOs.

“I examined the organizational structures of the traditional organizations in one region in Northern Ethiopia and selected NGOs working in the country. Surprisingly, the traditional organizations are democratic, with the members on top of the organizational chart and the CEO all the way down. NGOs have the opposite - never mind the 'we-are-governed-by-our-contributors' marketing line. My recommendation to the organization that sponsored the research was you're damn fool if you don't make traditional organizations your development partners, especially in the program design stage."

Her point is that it is unfortunate that Western NGOs have failed to learn from traditional knowledge systems, not just in Ethiopia but throughout the Global South. Instead they work on the premise that their knowledge and organisational structures are superior and transferable to other cultures and systems.

'The African Uptimist' - The African Uptimist (http://agbe.typepad.com/the_african_uptimist/2006/08/putting_water_i.ht…) writes on the possibilities of producing and using hydrogen as a fuel in Africa.

“In a few years, we could be seeing hydrogen fueled cars, public mini-buses and other vehicles on African roads, running with nothing more than water in their fuel tanks. That was one possibility that came to mind upon reading David Adam's interesting piece ‘A fuel tank full of water’ (New Scientist, July 29, 2006). He reports that Tareq Abu-Hamed of the University of Minnesota, and colleagues at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel have developed a practical approach to producing hydrogen from water.

"This approach, which relies on simple, high-school chemistry (as described below), overcomes many of the obstacles that till now have prevented the dream of a hydrogen-powered car becoming reality."

'Jangbalajugbu' Jangbalajugbu (http://www.edwardpopoola.com/blog/?p=71) congratulates a young Nigerian student blogger, Edward Popoola, for winning the Top ICT Educator in Africa, an award by Forgeahead, a South African based ICT research and consulting house.

“I got to the final rounds and was mentioned among the top three finalists. At that point, it got more interesting and I was happy with myself. I googled Forgeahead and from their loud profile all over the Internet as a respected firm in South Africa, it was not enough for me to be just among the finalists, I hoped to be the winner…I got invited to the award ceremony, but as a result of the lateness of my visa application, I couldn’t make the award night in J’burg. Though it was not a case of visa denial, I was not happy all the same. I was however able to get Titi Akinsanmi, my sister from another mother, who is based in SA to accept the award for me.”

It was unfortunate that due to visa problems Edward was unable to attend the ceremony. Interesting that it is harder to enter South Africa with an African passport than with a European one. Nigeria is probably one of the most difficult passports to hold when it comes to getting a visa to travel anywhere!

'Friends of Ethiopia' - Friends of Ethiopia - (http://friendsofethiopia.blogspot.com/2006/12/hazardous-hand-me-downs-u…) reports on an environmental conference held in Nairobi last week - The Basel Convention - a treaty which regulates the movement of toxic waste across national boundaries. Friends refers specifically to the recent dumping of toxic waste in the Ivory Coast.

“On Thursday the Nairobi conference convened a high-level World Forum on E-Wastes to confront the growing reality that, in addition to its many benefits, the global consumer goods revolution is generating massive quantities of end-of-life computers and other obsolete electronic equipment…Some 20 to 50 million metric tonnes of e-waste are generated worldwide every year, comprising more than 5% of all municipal solid waste. When the millions of computers purchased around the world every year (183 million in 2004) become obsolete they leave behind lead, cadmium, mercury and other hazardous wastes…Similarly, the use and disposal of mobile phones - which like PCs barely existed 20 years ago - is increasing dramatically. By 2008 the number of cell phone users around the world is projected to reach some two billion. Leading cell phone manufacturers are collaborating through the Basel Convention's Mobile Phone Partnership Initiative to find better ways to reduce and manage this growing waste stream.”

'Black Looks' - Black Looks (http://www.blacklooks.org/2006/12/mining_violations_in_ghana.html) reports on the actions of multinational mining companies operating in Ghana. They are destroying the local ecological system as well as committing acts of violence against local communities. Only last week activists were arrested for meeting with local community leaders and are presently in prison having been refused bail.

“Ghana is presently on the edge of a biodiversity disaster as mining companies such as Anglo Gold Ashanti (AGA), Bogoso Gold Limited (BGL) and Newmont Gold Ghana (NGG). The use of toxic chemicals from the mining has led to contaminated water supplies. The forests which have been reduced from 8.3 million hectares in 1957 have been depleted to a mere 1.2 million with over 700 varieties of trees, plants, birds and animals all at risk of being destroyed forever. The Wassa Association of Communities Affected by Mining (WACAM) has been monitoring the activities of both the multinationals and the EPA. One of the main problems is the weakness of the environmental laws plus the Ghanaian governments unwillingness (like in the Niger Delta) to insist on the multinationals meeting international standards in their mining activities. Protests by WACAM and local communities are met with violence and intimidation.”

• Sokari Ekine produces the blog Black Looks,

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

The United Nations has said it will hold a conference in New York on Monday to address the issue of the sexual abuse of children by UN peacekeepers. The issue was highlighted in a BBC report earlier this week, with claims of children being subjected to rape and prostitution in Haiti and Liberia.

Three former ministers in Liberia's transitional government have been charged with stealing millions of dollars of public funds. Former deputy Finance Minister Tugbeh Doe spent the night in custody after problems with his bail. Former Finance Minister Lusinee Kamara and ex-Minister of Commerce Samuel Wlue were also charged.

Cotton growers, scientists and textile businesspeople in Benin, Burkina Faso, Mali and Chad have been supported by the African Development Fund (ADF) with a loan of US$ 51.9 million. Regional scientific cooperation and the sharing of genetic material is emphasised in the project.