Zambian former president Frederick Chiluba Thursday went back into the dock on charges of stealing 507,000 dollars (426,000 euros) in state funds in a trial again hit by legal technicalities. Chiluba, who is charged with two other private businessmen, sat in a tiny magistrate's court in the capital while two state witnesses gave evidence in the protracted trial.

Global economic growth is an extremely inefficient way of achieving poverty reduction and is becoming even less effective. Between 1990 and 2001, for every $100 worth of growth in the world’s per person income, just $0.60 found its target and contributed to reducing poverty below the $1-a-day line. This paper argues that we need to move decisively away from the inefficiency of relying on global growth for poverty reduction, towards a system in which policies are designed explicitly and directly to achieve our social and environmental objectives, treating growth as a by-product. Its central thesis is that it will be impossible to achieve the objectives of poverty reduction and environmental sustainability if global growth remains the principal economic strategy. The scale of growth this model demands would generate unsupportable environmental costs; and the costs would fall disproportionately, and counter-productively, on the poorest.

President Robert Mugabe has called on neighbouring countries not to interfere in Zimbabwe's internal affairs, while signalling that constitutional reform was on the cards, possibly to smooth the way for a chosen successor. Speaking in a televised interview to commemorate his 82nd birthday over the weekend, Mugabe said: "We have tolerated some of them because they are our friends. We hope in future they will keep away." He was responding to a question on what he thought of diplomatic interventions by South Africa and Nigeria in Zimbabwe's political crisis. Mugabe sneered at his colleagues in the African Union, suggesting their interest in resolving Zimbabwe's problems was more to do with pressure from western governments deemed hostile to his ruling ZANU-PF.

Nigeria is beginning public hearings on possible constitution change, including an amendment to allow President Obasanjo to run for a third term. The meetings have been organised by the Nigerian Constitutional Committee and will take place in six cities. Many opposition politicians have condemned the hearings, saying they are simply a political charade. There is intense speculation that the president will try to change the constitution to run for office again.

It was with sadness that I learnt of the death of Dr Beko Ransome-Kuti (See http://www.independentng.com/editorial/edfeb220603.htm for background information). Beko has died at the time of our national life when we need him more than ever before. His contributions to democracy, respect for the rule of law and human rights are unimaginable. We was both a leader and a follower. His passion for fairness, justice and due process were legendary. His love for the ordinary Nigeria was unimaginable. His loss is a national loss and a personal one for me.

Beko will be remembered for his struggles against military dictatorship in Nigeria. These struggles earned him stints in various prisons in Nigeria and constant harassment by bands of security operatives.

Rest in perfect peace Uncle Beko. You paid your dues to your country and all your sacrifices will be etched in our memory until the fullness of time.

On the campaign trail, Uganda's presidential candidates have ventured where they rarely go, deep into war-ravaged northern Uganda, where the votes of hundreds of thousands of displaced people could make or break their bid for the highest office in the land. As many as 10.4 million voters will go to the polls on 23 February to elect a president and legislators in the first multiparty elections in Uganda in 25 years.
Related Links:
* Uganda: Human Rights Watch letter to Election Observers
http://allafrica.com/stories/200602200001.html
* Uganda: Poll violence worries observers
http://allafrica.com/stories/200602211183.html

Kenya's Vice President now faces the threat of a 'citizens arrest' unless he resigns over corruption allegations. The country's civil society has threatened to move to the High Court to seek a warrant of arrest against Awori, the Head of Civil Service, the Attorney-General and the Solicitor-General. The group issued the threat at a press conference convened under the umbrella body, Name and Shame Campaign Network.

President Yoweri Museveni has said he is ready to hand over power if he loses the February 23 presidential poll. "I will give out the keys officially when elections are well conducted and I lose. I will even support the winner," Museveni said while appearing on a Radio talk show recently. Museveni was allaying fears raised that he may not gracefully quit if he loses.

The use of technical barriers by Western countries has become the biggest obstacle for developing countries trying to expand their trade. As a result of agreements negotiated at the World Trade Organisation (WTO), traditional trade protection measures such as tariffs and quotas are falling away. But they are being replaced by domestic regulations that permit countries to bar products from entering their markets if the products do not meet certain standards.

Democratic Republic of Congo on Saturday (February 18) adopted a new constitution aimed at bringing an end to decades of dictatorship, war and chaos in the vast country, and paving the way for elections by mid-2006. Thousands of people, including regional presidents, gathered in the gardens of the presidential palace in the capital Kinshasa, cheering and waving paper replicas of the country's new flag as President Joseph Kabila signed into law the new constitution.

African nations would benefit from stronger, more influential science academies, whose expertise could be brought to bear on the continent's pressing issues. Africa's existing academies may be small and limited in expertise, but this editorial in Nature says one of the main reasons they are not more influential is that they lack the skills needed to communicate effectively with policymakers or the media. It cites a ten-year project undertaken by the US National Academy of Sciences to strengthen science academies in Nigeria, South Africa and Uganda.

Jens Martens, Executive Director of Global Policy Forum Europe, regrets that the UN reform process neglects improvements in participation of NGOs. In 2005, governments largely excluded NGOs both from preparatory negotiations and from the Summit. What does this mean for the future participation of NGOs in the UN? Martens makes a number of practical recommendations, including extending NGO accreditation beyond ECOSOC to the General Assembly.

In this article, the Director of the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti, Brian Concannon, describes how the Interim Government of Haiti (IGH) engaged in a comprehensive program to suppress supporters of ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide's ally Rene Preval, comprised mainly of Haiti's urban and rural poor. From voter registration through election day, the IGH - with the help of the US, France and Canada - tried to steal the elections: they prevented prominent politicians from participating by jailing them illegally; discouraged poor voters from registering and voting by putting too few registration centers and voting offices in poor neighborhoods; and finally manipulated the votes by discarding Preval votes or declaring them "null."

EDITORIALS: As a corruption scandal rocks Kenya, political activist Onyango Oloo asks if it isn’t all just a convenient smokescreen
COMMENT AND ANALYSIS:
- Rights campaigners fear that efforts to restore UN leadership of human rights will derail, writes Akwe Amosu from the Open Society Institute
- Author and scholar Paul Tiyambe Zeleza argues against the cartoon crisis representing a “clash of civilizations”
- The Strategic Initiatives for Women in the Horn of Africa (SIHA) Network highlight the extent of Violence Against Women in Somalia
- Four years since the end of civil war, Human Rights activist Rafael Marques says peace is about all that Angolans have to enjoy
LETTERS: The debate over “just trade” continues
BLOGGING AFRICA: Sokari Ekine reports on an innovative blog mentoring programme
PAN-AFRICAN POSTCARD: Tajudeen Abdul Raheem compares the furore over Salman “Rush to Die” with the current Danish cartoon anger
BOOKS AND ART: Kenyan Indian poet and spoken word artist Shailja Patel writes about her latest performance experience in Nairobi
AFRICAN UNION MONITOR: Is the African Peer Review Mechanism helping Africa to move away from a “generation of despots”?
CONFLICT AND EMERGENCIES: International action plan for DRC?
HUMAN RIGHTS: Exploring transitional justice options in Zimbabwe
REFUGEES AND FORCED MIGRATION: Remaining Sudanese detainees released in Cairo
ELECTIONS AND GOVERNANCE: Three killed at campaign rally in Uganda – Human Rights Watch says 23 Feb polls will not be free and fair
WOMEN AND GENDER: Arrest of members of WOZA and their legal practitioner in Zimbabwe
CORRUPTION: Civil society mass action against corruption to kick-off
HEALTH AND HIV/AIDS: Poultry workers too afraid to take tests in Nigeria
EDUCATION: SA university strikes against corporatisation
ENVIRONMENT: Multinationals looting Africa's diversity, says report
MEDIA AND FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION: Bail conditions relaxed for Voice of the People executives
PLUS: Land and Land Rights; Advocacy and Campaigns; e-newsletters and mailing lists; Internet and Technology; Courses, Seminars and Workshops; Books and Arts; Jobs.

* Can trade in the era of globalisation be 'just'? Read our issue on the subject at http://www.pambazuka.org/index.php?issue=240

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It has been four years of peace in Angola since the end of a decades-long civil war, but for the majority of Angolans the absence of fighting is the only benefit they enjoy, writes human rights activist Rafael Marques. Scheduled elections have been endlessly postponed, allowing the ruling elite to remain unaccountable to the population of the country while they maintain international legitimacy through corrupt use of Angola’s vast oil wealth.

For more than a decade, while the ruling class has focused on its own transformation into a bourgeois class by plundering the country’s riches, the majority of Angolans have been reviving their hopes for the future on empty promises in a vacuum.

Those in power are managing such a vacuum and selling it as a kind of stability pact. It is a pact similar to that established between a robber who points a gun at a citizen in broad daylight and in public, strips the victim of his belongings and then, civilly, requests the understanding, silence and quietness of the victim. The robbed person, in turn, thanks the perpetrator for the common sense shown in sparing his life. It is in this sense that Angolans are grateful for peace.

Four years have passed since the achievement of peace in 2002 after decades of civil war. Another legislative mandate has come to an end, since the first and last elections of 1992, without people casting their ballot – and, therefore, without the opportunity for them to hold to account and choose their political leaders as well as legitimize the rule of power.

Once again, the President of the Republic, in his much awaited state of the union address, disappointed people’s hopes for elections in 2006. Showing his normal political expediency, he now suggests voting might take place in 2007. In 2000 he announced the possibility of elections for 2001, whether the war stopped or not, and that he would retire. However, he has been pushing the prospect further into the future ever since.

Apart from the question of elections, the speech by President Dos Santos to the nation had two more key points, the setting up of the Bank for the Development of Angola (BDA) and the construction of housing for those in need.

For the President, the bank will be the catalyst for the reconstruction of the country. However, it is little more than another expedient for the redistribution of windfall profits from oil among the ruling families and their particular interests. Similar initiatives in the past, particularly the now defunct Caixa Agro-Pecuária (CAP), have suggested the final end of government-funded commercial banks. Once the ruling families and their associates borrow all the funds at a bank’s disposal, it is declared bankrupt, dismantled and privatized. As for the money lent, the trick is to write it off as bad loans and let the matter rest for good. The oil funds in question stem from rocketing prices in the international markets. This has generated a windfall, over and above the budgeted oil income, of a magnitude of which Angolans have no idea. Due to a lack of transparency and to the creative accounting practices in the Angolan public sector, the real sums the government has amassed are, at this point, anybody’s guess (The Angolan Ambassador to Brazil, General Alberto Neto, reaffirmed in an interview to the daily O Globo (21.11.2005) that “the country’s oil income does not pass through the Angolan financial institutions”, and such a procedure makes it even more difficult to track the real sums derived from the oil revenues, which officially account for more than 80% of the country’s income.)

Secondly, as far as building houses is concerned, the government should promote job creation, ensure the payment of real salaries and introduce policies for housing development that provide the incentives for the private sector to take up the task and for citizens to afford access to credit and to be able to pay for their accommodation out of their own salaries. Angolans need decent wages for decent jobs, not permanent government or international charity.

Electoral patriotism

As for the need for people to legitimize the exercise of power, society has been taking notice of the electoral mobilization the ruling Movement for the Popular Liberation of Angola (MPLA) has set in motion even though it remains silent on the setting of a date for elections. People have also been ready for elections to be called at three months’ notice (within the legal deadline). Nevertheless, Angolans still need to be registered to vote and there is no hint of when this will happen, along with other essential tasks to ensure a free and fair electoral process. These tactics could make it impossible for the opposition and public opinion to make any impression on the regime’s hold on power.

However, one fundamental question arises from this scenario of doubt and deceitfulness. What’s behind the regime’s postponement of elections for as long as it can? It has absolute control over the country’s riches, the media with a national outreach and the public administration. Furthermore, it uses the army and the national police as it pleases and as a means to achieve whatever ends it may pursue. It has support from the Western powerhouses in exchange for a large chunk of Angolan natural resources (oil and diamonds). There is also a Chinese bid for another slice of the country’s lucrative market with expensive loans, billions worth of construction contracts and so forth.

The factors mentioned above have been conspiring to eliminate the people as a fundamental factor for pressure and change. So the regime is afraid to hold elections because it is not sure whether it can control the emotions, anger and frustrations of the people. It is afraid of people’s reactions during an election campaign amid increased publicity.

Another element to take into account is the MPLA’s ideological problem or, more precisely, the lack of it. The end of socialism, or of the Marxism-Leninism it used to profess, led the MPLA to import, for its own survival, Western consumerism to provide a set of values required to regulate the dynamics of society.

Hence, the President’s appeal in his speech to patriotism is a mockery for he himself provides no example of it. Patriotism must be the sharing of a set of moral and national values which unite the citizens in the defence of their common interests, the country, and the dignity and the equality it reserves to each one of its children.

For its part, the government is hooked on corruption. It is unable to come up with a set of polices and the right course of action to effectively improve people’s lives and to develop the country. It is a regime with neither an ideology nor a nation-building project.

Corruption in Angola has taken on a life of its own. It serves the regime well to annihilate any signs of opposition, dissenting voices or alternative leaderships as well as to sabotage any action by the regime to deliver welfare to the people.

The absence of morals in the conduct of government officials and the gradual deletion of references to the people in public statements provides the necessary peace of mind for the very same government officials to pocket as they please the public funds assigned to them. The current Minister of Finances, Jose Pedro de Morais, and the Governor of the Central Bank, Amadeu Mauricio, are just the latest officials to present the country in recent months with financial scandals of an international dimension. The Brazilian daily O Globo (13.11.2005), in its coverage of a national corruption scandal (O Mensalao) that has shaken the presidency of Lula da Silva, exposed the Angolan connexion. A Brazilian businessman, Marcos V. de Souse, wire transferred around US$ 2.7 million to the personal bank accounts of the abovementioned Angolan officials. Days later, the newspaper, as a follow up to the same case, unearthed other remittances worth US$ 1,6 million to the personal account of the President of the Angolan Central Bank. In their defence, the Angolan ambassador to Brazil, Alberto Neto, told O Globo (21.11.2005), that “every man has a price, what matters is to know how much” The spokesperson for the Angolan Ministry of Finances stated that it was a duty for government officials to take 15% in commissions for the deals they close.

The Chinese Godfather

Once again the government, in its bid to re-legitimize itself, has turned abroad to seek credit and political protection. This time its port of call is China, after earlier docking at the White House (and its satellite Western allies) and, before that, mooring for a long time at the Kremlin and in Havana. In essence the government knows how to cuddle up to the permanent members of the UN Security Council, those with the power of veto.

The Dos Santos regime needs international legitimacy to keep in check its own people, its internal critics and its adversaries. The consequences of this extreme dependency upon foreign forces for the legitimization of power may be accounted for in terms of years of war, the slaughter of many Angolans and the never ending onslaught upon the country’s wealth. No less serious is the people’s feeling of a loss of dignity and self respect in its own household, humiliated and despised by the government’s friends of the hour. The example of the diamond rich territory of the Lundas is a point in case. The report ‘Lundas: The Stones of Death’ provides a detailed account of the complicity between the government, international diamond mining companies and dealers in spreading terror, destitution and misery in the region. The report is available at

For a long time shrewd foreigners have explored for their own benefit the political, economic, social and intellectual shortcomings of the ruling class and the vanity of its desire to mutate into an assimilated bourgeoisie – the elite. As a consequence, the MPLA is adrift. Its government has no influence over the Presidency. The President rules alone, under the influence of foreign interests. This tightens his grip on power, as well as being his major weakness, his Achilles, in his dealings with the society. Thus, in today’s Angola, the American lobbies, some Portuguese interests, the Chinese, and so on hold more true and meaningful power over the government than that collegial body holds itself, not to mention its forlorn individual members.

There is a power vacuum. The government, and especially the President, are held hostage by interests foreign to Angolan society. Individual members of the ruling class generally ponder that they are getting richer by the day and busy themselves with shopping sprees.

The Western government partners in these ransacking ventures settle their accounts among themselves. They only make a pretence of demanding some measure of respect for human rights, transparency and democracy whenever specific business projects with the government turn sour, or periodically, when their code of honour among thieves is violated. Only then do these Western governments choose to denounce the Angolan regime in international corridors as corrupt, incompetent and despicable. At the same time, their own countries welcome without any reservations the bank deposits, investments and profits from the looting of Angola.

The regime, represented by the MPLA, should reduce its propaganda efforts and goodwill-bolstering operations, like building dubious, cheap and short-lived housing projects. It must opt for a policy based on being near to the people and their problems. It must replace propaganda by respect for freedom of expression in the state media, which are the only ones with nationwide coverage. This would allow public debate to flourish and produce solutions as well as establishing a culture of checks and balances.

Freedom of expression and of the press is fundamental to curb corruption and create a public mindset to generate enough pressure on the government to punish corrupt officials. Corruption is the institution holding the government together. Reassuring initiatives to fight it might enable the authorities to postpone the holding of elections without causing public anger. By taking on corruption, President Dos Santos could find the peace and rest that he wants and the MPLA could find its way back to being a popular movement.

As for the patriotism called for by Dos Santos, his regime must be capable of defending Angolans from many an international partner which finds in Angola a land of promise in which to sow discord under official patronage and treat Angolans as replaceable, unserviceable, undignified and undeserving objects. The logic is simple: if the government does not treat its own citizens with respect and in a dignified way, who else will?

By preserving the interests, dignity and respect of the Angolan people, Angola could evolve towards an open market, a safe haven for foreign investment, a hospitable destiny for tourists from all over the world and a second home for those who may choose it in their quest for sun and prosperity. Otherwise, direct confrontation between the people and power (in the sense of a privileged minority aided and abetted by foreign interests) will only be a matter of time. In the showdown of what will be a class struggle between the very rich and the totally destitute, due to the lack of intermediate social structures, all will end up as losers. The MPLA’s battle cry used to be “Hail the People’s Power”. Many still recall this power and keep it inside themselves, for the benefit of the majority.

* Rafael Marques is an Angolan Human Rights Activist ([email protected])

* Please send comments to [email protected]

Is the global row over the publication of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad the beginning of a “clash of civilizations”? Author and scholar Paul Tiyambe Zeleza argues not, locating the controversy firmly in the realm of politics. In this context, Muslims are challenged to find ways of defending their faith in a way that advances human freedom and decency. Those in the West, he argues, must not support aggression that hides behind freedom of speech.

Over the past couple of weeks an international crisis has erupted fueled by cartoons caricaturing and condemning the Prophet Muhammad as a terrorist figure first published in a Danish newspaper last September and subsequently reprinted with indignant insensitivity in some western countries. There have been mass demonstrations in several countries around the world, trade boycotts, withdrawals of ambassadors, travel advisories, dismissals and resignations of journalists, and sporadic outbreaks of violence that have resulted in several deaths, the burning of Danish flags and embassies, and soured the already strained communal relations within Europe and between the West and the Muslim world more generally.

To some this is a harbinger of the much-trumpeted clash of civilizations, a sign of the deep chasm between the West and Islam, between a tolerant modernity and a fanatical medievalism, or between a malicious secular culture and a maligned spiritual community. The outrage and controversy over the cartoons do point to widespread anger and anguish in the Muslim world and intolerance and indifference in the western world. But the conflict is not a clash of civilizations, rather the calculated incitement behind the publication of the inflammatory cartoons and the isolated violent overreactions in some quarters represent a clash of fundamentalisms over contemporary politics, not universal principles.

The religious dimensions of the conflict have encouraged many to see it as a contestation of implacably opposed values, a battle of rights - the right to freedom of expression and the right to freedom of religion, the right to offend and the right to be offended - and the moral equivalences of provocations and responses. This forced discourse of binaries is false. Publishers of the notorious, and to Muslims sacrilegious, cartoons and their rightwing defenders invoke freedom of speech as their unassailable defense, as an absolute value, the bedrock of western democracy under threat from ‘radical Islamists’ and other purveyors of the backward and bankrupt ideologies of political correctness. Even some of their liberal and leftwing critics concede the sanctity of this value, and only blame the publishers for their poor judgment, for bad taste. In reality, the issue is neither about freedom of speech nor indiscretion. It is about political provocation, the assertion of the supremacy of white Europe at home and abroad, the attempt to put Europe’s numerous ‘others’ in their place, especially Muslims historically so close to Europe and now so intimately a part of Europe, whose growing presence challenges European fantasies of cultural purity and whose ancestral lands continue to be ravaged by Euro-American imperialism that mock claims of civilizational superiority.

Freedom of speech is an important value, but in this crisis its value is largely ideological, deliberately deployed as a weapon of cultural aggression. There can be little question that by attacking the Prophet Muhammad the cartoons were intended to inflict the most egregious offense to Muslims, to inflame not to inform. Claims that caricatures of the sacred are normal and even healthy in a secular society not only flout against Islamic prohibition of iconic representations, but ignores the fact that there are secular taboos against which journalists in the western mainstream media dare not cross at the risk of breaching the law or popular conventions. Indeed, we are told the Danish newspaper that published the scurrilous anti-Islamic cartoons turned down cartoons lampooning Jesus Christ because readers would find them offensive. And the embattled editor of the paper was reprimanded and sent on indefinite leave when he announced his intention, in an act of misplaced bravado, to republish anti-Holocaust cartoons promised by a rightwing Iranian newspaper, Hamshari, in a gratuitous effort to test western commitment to freedom of speech.

In many cases the discourse of rights tends to suspend the rights concerned from the historical, material and institutional contexts through which they are expressed, enacted, and enjoyed. No less important to remember is the fact that the western mainstream media is a business—a huge business—subject more to the imperatives profit-making than advancing informed public discourse, more attuned to the interests of the powerful and pandering to popular prejudices than to the voices of the disenfranchised and disaffected who tend to be concentrated among racial, ethnic or religious minorities and the poor. Freedom of expression in the West would indeed be a good thing if it actually existed for all regardless of corporate status, class position, national location, ethnic or racial identity, and ideological orientation.

Nowhere in the western world is the right to the freedom of expression absolute in principle, let alone in practice. It is a relative right contingent on other rights, circumscribed by context. Rights entail responsibilities: the two are interwoven in threads of mutuality that are neither eternal nor universal but constantly negotiated in ongoing and often painful conversations within and between societies. The mainstream western media routinely avoids publishing or showing overtly racist, anti-Semitic, or pornographic materials. In fact, in many of these countries there are laws against hate speech, anti-Semitism, and child pornography, as well as libel and defamation. The laws and conventions that seek to protect groups are reactions to the sordid past of racism and genocide, the barbarities of slavery, colonization, and the holocaust that are as much a part of the western heritage as all the stylized positive values the West claims exclusively for itself, and which still cast ominous shadows over the western world.

Given these realities, the publication of these obnoxious Orientalist cartoons appears to most Muslims as hypocritical. It is a reflection of the rising tide of racism and xenophobia in Europe. It is the face of a new anti-Semitism, this time directed not against Jews, but against Muslims, who in the European imaginary are often racialized as Arabs. The cartoons draw on a long and hideous history of anti-Jewish cartoons that facilitated the dehumanization of Jews that preceded the Holocaust. The connections between the old and new breed of European anti-Semitism is usually not drawn by the defenders of the Danish paper’s right to publish the Islamophobic cartoons. Nor do those who seek to respond by recycling fascist cartoons against Jews and the Holocaust seem to appreciate their collusion with a new form of European anti-Semitism that targets them. There can be little doubt that the publication and republication of the cartoons has occurred in a context of growing anti-Muslim religious and racial bigotry in Denmark and across Europe.

It started as a localized crisis in a country becoming increasingly unsure of its national identity and intolerant of its minorities that cruelly exposed the national myth of Nordic tolerance and egalitarianism. The decision by the rightwing paper, Jyllands-Posten, to publish the cartoons resonated with the increasingly conservative political climate in which a strongly anti-immigrant and anti-Islamic party, the Danish People’s Party, is part of the parliamentary coalition of the center-right government of Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen that has passed draconian laws relating to the marriage, citizenship, religious and language rights of immigrants. The initial reaction in Denmark is quite revealing. The Prime Minister refused to meet the European Committee for Honoring the Prophet representing 27 Danish Muslim organizations and a group of diplomats from 11 Islamic countries protesting the publication of the cartoons, and many Danes expressed incomprehension at what the fuss was all about as Danish Muslims took to the streets. It is only when the furor of protests broke out in the Middle East and elsewhere that the gravity of the crisis hit the Danish government. Suddenly, Denmark was faced with its worst postwar crisis, its image in the Muslim world in tatters. The Prime Minister and the newspaper offered belated apologies for causing offense but not for the original decision to publish.

By then, the cartoons had been published in several mostly rightwing papers in various European countries ostensibly in solidarity with the Danish paper and the Danish people in their justifiable efforts to protect freedom of expression and European values that were ostensibly under assault from ‘Islamic radicalism’. Interestingly, the mainstream British media largely refrained from joining the jingoist chorus, so did the mainstream American media, another intriguing expression of the special relationship, perhaps reflecting their greater multicultural sensitivities, so some commentators claimed, or the fear of bearing the brunt of Arab and Muslim fury already inflamed by their wanton invasion of Iraq. Underlying this apparent cultural solidarity over the cartoons is the rising tide of anti-Islamic prejudice in many European countries, especially those enamored by the myths of national racial homogeneity or republican universalism.

Solidarity in the escalating crisis cut both ways. Many Muslims in Europe and in other parts of the world found common cause: the cartoons seemed to reinforce the collective vilification of their religion so central to their identity that had been escalating since the end of the Cold War and particularly following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 in New York and Washington, DC. In effect, the cartoon controversy brought together two crises: the profound feelings of fear and insecurity among marginalized European Muslims and the simmering sense of anger and vulnerability among Muslims in the Middle East who had witnessed the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, the latter under blatantly false pretenses, and were hearing ominous threats against Iran. In fact, the memories of western aggression in the Middle East went much deeper to the humiliation of the colonial invasion, occupation and pillage, and in recent decades the enduring tragedy of the Palestinians. It is not surprising, therefore, that the epicenter of Muslim outrage over the abusive cartoons has been in the Middle East, which has historically been at the receiving end of western terror.

The circuits and networks of transnational communication, both old and new, facilitated the fusion of the two crises. It was after the representatives of the Danish Muslim groups were refused audience by the Danish Prime Minister that the former began lobbying, first among diplomats from Arab governments, then after the latter too were snubbed, directly to governments and organizations in the Muslim world. They made the rounds of North African and Middle Eastern capitals with a 43-page dossier of the cartoons and other documents, and before long the outrage began to build steam, fanned by the region’s new spirited media, and sanctified by key bodies such as the fifty seven-member Organization of the Islamic Conference and the Islamic Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. The turning point came when Saudi Arabia withdrew its ambassador from Denmark, a move that was soon followed by Libya and Iran.

The besieged Muslim diaspora in Denmark and Europe was reaching out to the Islamic homelands seeking support and solace. This is of course not new—diasporas have always sought the protective mantle of homelands. But historically it is the European diasporas that could rely on their homelands to send gunboats to protect them from the restive natives. In fact, the annals of colonization in Asia and Africa are replete with wars of salvation for beleaguered settlers, although they were often characterized as crusades to save benighted ‘primitive’ souls, to spread civilization. Now, diasporas from the global South can more easily summon their homelands for support, although the structure of global power is still such that conventional military options are inconceivable. Clearly, the revolution in telecommunications and travel, which has compressed the spatial and temporal distances between home and abroad, offers these diasporas unprecedented opportunities to be transnational, to connect with each other across countries and continents, to retain ties with their old and new homelands in ways that were unimaginable a generation ago. This is what accounts for the rapidity and intensity of many global protests today, including the outbreak of the demonstrations over the cartoons. Cyberspace is the new medium of mass mobilization, a powerful mechanism to organize and express protest. The waves of demonstrations over the cartoons were driven as much by emails, blogs, cell phones and text messages as they were by satellite television, radio, coffeehouse talk, and street rumors.

As in all such conflicts, the manipulative machinations of governments are not hard to find. All governments whose populations are involved have sought to cynically exploit the conflict to their own immediate advantage, to appear resolute in the face of foreign agitation, to defend the values that their societies supposedly cherish. Authoritarian and unpopular Middle Eastern governments have sought to burnish their Islamic credentials and to contain the spread of political Islam and democratization pressures, both poignantly captured by the victory of Hamas in the recent Palestinian elections. Militarist and hypocritical western governments have tried to use the crisis to reinforce the case for the ‘war on terror’ and isolate the radical Islamic states and movements in the region that have put up the most resistance to their imperial project. This suggests that the forces most invested in the conflict over the cartoons are militants on both sides, the unrepentant ideologues of western imperialism and political Islam, who should be seen as political fundamentalists, and are committed to the clash of civilizations that the vast majority of westerners, many of whom are Muslim, and Muslims, many of whom are westerners, are fundamentally opposed to.

In so far as Islam and the West are not bounded mutually exclusive cultural and historical geographies, but social spaces where various peoples and cultures are mixed together, the conflict over the cartoons cannot be seen in grand civilizational or purely religious terms. Even if protagonists on both sides might prefer to talk in the calcified language of ancient hatreds, this is a quintessentially contemporary protest over specifically current conditions—the challenges of forging common citizenship and fostering cosmopolitan values in an increasingly globalized or transnational world. It is about how European Muslims and non-Muslims can live together in peace and equality, and by extension how the western world and the Muslim world can co-exist amicably. The two worlds have more ties that bind than separate them, going all the way back to their very foundations. Modern Europe is inconceivable without the contributions of Islam, and the modern Muslim world is inconceivable without the West, for better or worse. The webs of mutuality are so deep that even the fundamentalisms on both sides reproduce each other. Lest we forget contemporary political Islam is an utterly modern phenomenon, created out of forces constituted and reproduced through the historic and ongoing intersections of the mixed worlds of the West and Islam. Western imperialism bred political Islam, and political Islam provides a convenient scapegoat for contemporary western imperialism. In short, the histories of the two phenomena are tragically interconnected.

It is encouraging that the vast majority of Muslim leaders and organizations have encouraged peaceful and dignified protests, although the Western media ever so selective, sensational, and stereotypical has focused on the few incidents of violence in order to justify the fact that their denunciation of the violence has been louder than over the initial publication of the cartoons themselves that provoked the protests in the first place. The challenge for Muslims when confronted with the cultural assaults represented by the cartoons is to find ways of defending their religious faith and their political rights both in the West and in the Muslim world that advance the cause of human freedom and decency as well as open-ended inter-cultural and inter-religious conversation and civility based on the fact that ultimately we all share a common humanity in all our splendid diversities. For people in the West committed to similar values they must resist the easy temptation to support arrogance and aggression in their own countries and elsewhere hiding behind the veils of freedom of speech.

* Paul Tiyambe Zeleza is Professor of African Studies and History, Pennsylvania State University. He is the author of more than twenty books and winner of the 1994 Noma Award and the 1998 Special Commendation of the Noma Award for two of the books. This article appeared on his blog, which can be read at

* Please send comments to [email protected]

"Africa, which has suffered so much from human rights abuses, has the most to gain." With those words last month, Archbishop Desmond Tutu neatly encapsulated the case for African engagement on the UN's new Human Rights Council. Yet human rights campaigners are beginning to fear that current efforts to restore the UN's leadership in the human rights sector will derail, writes Akwe Amosu.

Negotiations in New York on how members of a new Council will be chosen are nearing a critical point and there's a real risk of failure if governments – and Africa’s states in particular - don't stand up to be counted.

The UN has long had a rights watchdog, the Commission on Human Rights. But its repeated failure to condemn blatant abuse, and a membership roster that sometimes looked like a dictators' club gave the Commission a bad name.

Some of the worst rights abusers cynically sought seats on the Commission in order to be in a position to block complaints about the repression they were visiting on their citizens. Prime African culprits such as Zimbabwe, Sudan, Eritrea and Swaziland were members in 2005. Libya even chaired the CHR in 2000.

So in his ‘In Larger Freedom’ report last year, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan called for a strengthening of international human rights machinery and suggested that the Commission should be replaced by a smaller Human Rights Council whose membership should include only states with good human rights records, elected by a two-thirds majority of the General Assembly (GA).

Since October 2005, negotiations have been going on in New York between regional blocs at the UN secretariat, including the African Group. But old habits die hard. The same countries that got the old Commission a bad name have been in the thick of the horse-trading, making it difficult for moderate countries to support a forward-looking agenda without clashing with habitual abusers.

All the same, just a few weeks left before the final resolution must be agreed, much progress has been made. Although African nations had serious difficulties with some aspects of the draft text and there were some hard fought debates, compromises have been found.

- All now agree that the new Council will meet regularly throughout the year, allowing for increased dialogue and engagement with member states, and for rights violations to be tackled before they result in condemnation of individual governments or measures that challenge national sovereignty.

- The new Council will be expected to promote and protect all human rights - civil, political, social and cultural - and importantly for Africa, the right to development.

- Whereas in the past, the Commission was sometimes accused of "naming and shaming" for political reasons, the new Council will use a broader range of interventions, including human rights education, advisory services, technical assistance and capacity building, to achieve improvement.

- The HRC will also undertake a universal periodic peer review of all member states, based on objective and reliable information, and the full involvement of the country concerned, a provision that African states felt was critical to their support.

Make or break

In fact, with the US proposal to exclude candidate countries that are under Security Council sanctions now rejected, the only "bracketed" (i.e. controversial) issue in the draft resolution is the percentage of votes a country needs from the General Assembly to be elected to the new HRC.

In fact, everything hinges on this "make or break" point. Earlier in the negotiation, there were attempts to agree that each region would have to put up a slate of countries for election comprising more candidates than the seats available. This would have given the GA a real choice.

Under the compromise reached, however, each regional grouping will put up exactly the number of countries for which it has seats. Thus out of a total of 45 seats on the HRC, 12 will be granted to African countries and the Africa Group will put up 12 names for election.

Each country will be voted on separately, however, allowing the GA to reject countries if it is felt that their record disqualifies them to be HRC members.

Human Rights advocates fear, however, that if only a simple majority of votes in the GA is required, the effect might be that all 12 countries are elected, no matter what their human rights record might be. That could leave the new Council with the same problem that the old Commission had – notorious abusers having seats on the Council.

If, however, a two-thirds majority in the GA is required, the challenge of getting elected will be that much harder. Even if a Zimbabwe or a Sudan is able to embarrass other African states into supporting its candidacy, many non-African countries will be needed to secure the two-thirds majority and they may not be so easily swayed.

Campaigners and civil society groups monitoring negotiations say that this is the only way to prevent the "slate" system helping to install poorly performing states on the new Council. They fear that if the bar is set at a simple majority, governments with poor records will use the "African solidarity" argument to ensure that they get all the African votes and thus enough to win a seat.

A two-thirds requirement would, however, make it more likely that serial human rights abusers would be rejected, and force the regional groups to submit alternative candidates.

Time to act

Effort by African civil society is now urgently needed to help shift the position of individual countries within the African Group, and get those countries to speak out.

South Africa is a co-chair of the overall HRC negotiations and must remain neutral, eliminating one natural African leadership voice. But countries such as Nigeria, Kenya, Senegal, Tanzania, Mali, and others could make a real difference to the outcome if persuaded to back the "two-thirds" proposal.

It is time to press our governments to endorse a requirement of direct, individual voting for countries who wish to be members of the new Council, with a two-thirds majority required for election. Further, a candidate state’s human rights record and its pledges to cooperate with the Council must be a qualification for candidacy.

But if success is achieved here, that won’t be the end of the story. Getting the rules for election right is only the first stage. After that, we still need to focus on getting credible candidates elected – and once again, civil society leadership will be key.

* Akwe Amosu is the Senior Policy Analyst for Africa at the
Open Society Institute

* Please send comments to [email protected]

The Durban High Court on Wednesday ordered the Scorpions to return certain documents seized from former deputy president Jacob Zuma and his lawyer, South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) radio news reported. The documents were seized during raids on Zuma's homes in Johannesburg and his KwaZulu-Natal homestead, and the Durban office of his lawyer, Michael Hulley, in August 2005. They relate to the investigation into Zuma's "generally corrupt" relationship with Durban businessman Schabir Shaik.

One of the greatest challenges in the aftermath of any violent conflict is the issue of accountability for serious human rights violations, begins this report from the Zimbabwe NGO Human Rights Forum. "Although impunity continues to characterise many post-conflict situations, since the end of World War 2 there has been perceptible progress in efforts towards securing justice and accountability and in undertakings to build polities based on fundamental rights and freedoms and respect for the rule of law." The report says that "policies of amnesia and avoidance" are on the wane while the trend to do nothing is becoming increasingly unpopular. Write to [email protected] for a copy of the report.

Henning Melber assesses the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) and its associated African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) in relation to African leadership. While warning against praising premature trends and noting some setbacks, he maintains that there has been a greater willingness of leaders to step aside – an improvement from the “generation of despots heading cleptocratic regimes that used to be the order of the day in many more countries”.

Until recently the principle of national sovereignty and non-intervention into the affairs of other African states guided the official norm of the Organisation of African Union (OAU). In contrast, the African Union (AU) in its Constitutive Act signalled a shift in the paradigm towards increased collective responsibility in crucial matters of human (and state) security. Heads of governments are since empowered to agree collectively on intervention into internal affairs of member countries under particularly grave circumstances. This newly introduced and practically enforced principle of collective responsibility has in the last years already borne fruits in several cases, where African leaders in bi- and multilateral efforts resumed mediating roles in controlling and reducing conflicts or even bringing them to an end.

The new political will has also manifested itself in the development of The New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) with a hitherto unprecedented emphasis within formulated programmatic African strategies on democracy, human rights and good governance as substantive elements for socio-economic development. While NEPAD has in the meantime been adopted as the economic programme of the AU, it should not be lost sight of the fact that it was (and should remain) far more than that.

The perspective offered by NEPAD was already in its infant stages welcomed by external partners - notably the G 7/8 and the EU - in support of African efforts towards development, including concerted arrangements to enhance peace and security. The NEPAD architects were, so to say, able to cash in on a confidence and trust bonus based on the declared aims of the blue print they were selling – interestingly first abroad before doing so on the ‘home front’. Once embraced and approved by the AU, NEPAD’s role was internationally endorsed as Africa’s official development strategy through a resolution adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 2004.

Ever since its successful promotion and consolidation, however, NEPAD had to face the challenge that its rhetoric was measured against its real achievements so far – as well as its lack thereof. Those generally in support of NEPAD, who are prepared not to close both eyes in blind loyalty to romanticising Afro-optimism, will have to admit that the road is long and winding and that the realisation of the declared goals has not always produced convincing results - if any. The NEPAD architects are not composed of an alliance free of own interests and agendas. The failed litmus test of Zimbabwe is just one among the more prominent examples to illustrate the point. There is sufficient reason to limit the expectations to at best a cautious optimism.

The APRM
A marked new dimension introduced by NEPAD has more recently been the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM). It took several stages with at times sensible and delicate negotiations (and a lot of compromises) from its original concept to its concretisation and ultimate first implementation. After all, the idea and its applicability signalled a final turning point in the common grounds of African continental cooperation. Although a voluntarily entered process, the APRM has a high degree of legitimacy for those countries prepared to undergo the assessment. It is hence an attractive opportunity to increase international reputation and to thereby secure additional external support for national policies.

The peer review process was widely welcomed and accompanied by rather high expectations. The APRM translation into a practical instrument, however, also showed the limits of designing, producing, and applying the tool. Many of the African governments preferred to keep a close control on the mandate and applicability of the APRM as well as the defined and agreed priorities of the assessments to be undertaken. Given their concern that the APRM might support undue interference and impose unwanted explorations upon those willing to undergo the review procedures, ownership of the process was transferred from the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) to the AU itself and hence incorporated into those structures composed by those now responsible for reviewing each other.

Furthermore, the APRM was not firmly rooted in a legally binding document such as a protocol.
The power of decision making and taking remains vested in the countries prepared to be reviewed, which casts doubts over the true degree of autonomous and independent reviewing. The review results will only be accessible with the consent and authorisation of the country reviewed. This means a high degree of control remains executed by those who try to prove their accountability to others. The legitimacy of such a limited and constrained fact-finding mission in cases of differences of opinion among the parties involved might be dubious.

The few experiences so far suggest that there are major variations in the permissiveness of the approach shown by those states and governments willing to enter the APRM procedures. At the beginning of 2006 close to 30 countries have registered for the APRM. This is a large number. But many haven’t done so yet, and some among them would be considered as problem cases. The APRM process has initiated during 2004 the first country missions (Ghana, Kenya, Mauritius, Rwanda) and prepared since then six further missions (Algeria, Mali, Mozambique, Nigeria, Senegal and South Africa). But little is so far known in terms of visible results, against which the countries subject to the review process could be measured.

Challenges
The APRM is supposed to be in the first place a tool designed for enhanced collective responsibility within the family of African countries. However, it will for obvious reasons become a criterion for measurement of the African governments’ performances in terms of good governance issues. There is no way to escape this perception and effect. The APRM therefore needs to consolidate further a highest possible degree of international credibility. This in turn requires clear guidelines securing transparency and accountability towards a wider community of interest groups and stakeholders – both at home and abroad.

The following pertinent issues remain to be addressed:

- The direct and open involvement of non-state actors in the process (churches, trade unions, universities, the private sector, independent media and many other civil society organisations and advocacy groups representing both mainstream and minority interests in the political, cultural and economic spheres) would add to the credibility and legitimacy and would especially enlarge the ownership over the process.

- The unsolved challenge remains of how governments in non-compliance with fundamental principles of good governance are treated within the AU and by its member states. After all, the APRM is a voluntary exercise, controlled mainly by those under review, and with results shared only on a consensual basis. This in itself reduces differences in opinion over good governance matters to undisclosed draft statements. But those not willing to undergo the APRM will avoid even the process of seeking an acceptable formula with those supposed to make the assessment.

Some of the questions resulting from this current state of affairs include:

- What then is the real progress (as measured against the rhetoric or lip-service) in terms of collective responsibility and common denominators for joint positions and actions resulting thereof?

- To what extent constitutes the APRM more than a club of mutually adoring, enlightened actors who are able to read the signs of the time without abandoning their policies in non-compliance with the principles suggested to guide good governance notions?

- How can the APRM help to separate pseudo-legality (aiming to create the misleading impression that everything is sanctioned by law – even the unethical and immoral – and hence formally in order) from serious efforts to improve good governance, which deserve the full support from all interested in political and socio-economic progress?

- What role should donor countries play vis-à-vis the continentally driven APRM initiative and its variety of results in terms of transparency and accountability (or the limits thereof)?

Conclusion
The following perspectives by African scholars based on the continent provide no answers but reinforce the questions. They are necessary to be posed. Premature praises of current trends would be as premature and destructive. As so often in transitional socio-political processes, the existing realities are most likely located somewhere in between those extremes.

The recent concerted efforts to provide the increasing number of retired African presidents with meaningful tasks to at least neutralise them if not to turn them into a constructive additional ingredient to enhance the notion of so-called good governance is just one case in point. This relatively new phenomenon on the continent is illustrated not only by the drastically growing cases of a peaceful and constitutionally anchored transfer of political power in African countries. It is also documented among others by the ‘Bamako Declaration of the African Statesmen Initiative’ adopted on 8 June 2005 as well as the ‘Africa Forum’ of former heads of state established upon initiative of former president Joaquim Chissano in mid-January 2006 in Maputu.

On the other hand, various dubious moves by political leaders in power (notably Museveni in Uganda, Kérékou in Benin, but also Obasanjo in Nigeria) seem to suggest that the willingness to vacate office in due course and according to the rule of the law existing is still not a generally accepted and internalised notion among all those occupying the positions.

Notwithstanding such visible evidence of setbacks and contrasting manoeuvres remains the fact that leaders in much bigger numbers opt out today than they did in the past. This might not be good enough yet to secure meaningful and lasting advancements for countries and their people – but it’s certainly better than the generation of despots heading cleptocratic regimes that used to be the order of the day in many more countries. If therefore the AU, NEPAD and its APRM at the end turn out to contribute to an increased shared awareness among the elites in African countries to adhere to certain principles of democracy and human rights in governing practices, one should not simply shrug shoulders and disregard this as a meaningless symbolic act. After all, processes of social transformation seem to be a long and time-consuming affair in our days, where revolutions are anything but the order of the day.

* Dr. Henning Melber is Research Director of the Nordic Africa Institute in Uppsala/Sweden and had been director of NEPRU between 1992 and 2000. Parts of this article had been presented as an input paper for a meeting between Nordic and African Foreign Ministers in January 2006.

* Please send comments to [email protected]