A Malawian opposition MP says he has decided to withdraw a motion to impeach President Bingu wa Mutharika. Maxwell Milanzi of the United Democratic Front says the proposed impeachment was not popular with Malawians or international donors. In October, several donor countries warned Malawi that the impeachment proceedings were diverting attention from the country's food shortages

Former Kenyan government minister Raila Odinga has told the police he believes his life is in danger. Mr Odinga, who was sacked last month, says he has received assassination threats and is constantly being pursued by men in unmarked vehicles. Mr Odinga is leader of the Orange Democratic Movement which campaigned against the constitutional proposals backed by President Mwai Kibaki.

South Africa needs more women in its local councils, the country's local government association said yesterday (January 4). With women still under represented in some sections of local government, local authorities have a responsibility to appoint and train capable women within their structures, the organisation believes. Moera Marais-Martin, the Northern Cape provincial chair of the South African Local Government Association (SALGA), said that the province was already making plans for boosting women's role after the forthcoming local elections, reports the Millennium Campaign.

Surely things can't get worse! Or can they? Haven't we been asking this for over 5 years now? What can we expect from 2006 financially and economically? Let's take a look at what we can expect of the new year - bearing in mind, of course, that any form of prediction in Zimbabwe is whimsical, given the proven tendencies of this regime to interfere with economic forces in order to protect or better their own lifestyles, regardless of the effect on the people they are supposed to be serving. Will we see any improvement to our standard of living? The short answer is "probably not".

African Shirts - (http://africanshirts.blogspot.com/2006/01/prison-works.html) is surprised that Nigeria’s prison population is nearly 4 times less that of the UK. The Nigerian Government is set to release more than half of its 40,000 inmates, which again he finds surprising.

“Call me biased against Nigeria, but I'd never have expected this to be the case. I still think of Nigeria as a country where people get arrested and subsequently disappear forever, like Houdini gone wrong. “

He also questions the suggestion implied by the prison numbers that Nigerians are more law abiding than in the UK.

“This is rubbish. Lagos is probably the most crime-ridden and unsafe place in the world, except for Baghdad (which is in a war zone, so it doesn't count). Given the amount of crime in Lagos, its prison population alone should be 40,000. I suspect that Nigeria ranks lower than the UK because the Nigerian justice system grinds slowly, if at all.”

And here lies the crunch. Nigerian prisons are less populated probably because the justice system is slow and people can bribe their way out of jail! None the less he is impressed by:

“…the move as most of the inmates appear to have been held in violation of the number one right of the imprisoned - habeas corpus. This shows that the Nigerian government is, shock horror, interested in the rights of its citizens.”

Darfur blog, The Passion of the Present - Passion of the Present (http://platform.blogs.com/passionofthepresent/2006/01/a_movement_by_w.h…) reports on a movement by women in the DRC to fight the stigma associated with rape.

“These women are part of a growing movement of female community leaders who, with support from international donors, are fighting the stigma long associated with rape in northeast Congo, where a violent, ethnically driven conflict has raged for much of the past decade.”

The women are beginning to form local vigilante committees to protect and support women who have been raped and to provide them with counselling.

Ethiopian Politics - Ethiopian Politics (http://ethiopianpolitics.blogspot.com/2006/01/dictator-of-month.html) reports that Prime Minister Meles Zenawi has been chosen as “Dictator of the Month Dot Com” which
is an online magazine that features infamous works of “dictators, autocrats and monarchs of the world”. Dictators that have been featured on this website include: Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Kim Jong Il and Mengistu Halilemariam. This blogger along with other concerned Ethiopian citizens has been in contact with “dictator of the month” website informing them of the atrocities committed by Prime Minister Meles Zenawi. After reviewing all the evidence from all the major news sources they are finally convinced that Meles does indeed deserve this title.

Black Star Journal - Black Star Journal (http://blackstarjournal.blogspot.com/2006/01/38000-die-each-month-in-dr…) comments on the astounding figure of 34,000 people dying each month in the DRC and the lack of response from the global community.

He contrasts the response to the Asian Tsunami where 283,000 people lost their lives with a million displaced, and 9/11 when 3,000 people died.

“But if I told you there was a conflict that has cost almost 15 times as many lives as the tsunami, could you name that crisis? If I told you there was a crisis that, in mortality terms, was the equivalent of three 9/11s every week for the last 7 years, would you know which one I'm talking about?”

He rightly concludes that it is all about location, location, location!

Tunisian blogger Subzeroblue - Sub Zero Blue (http://www.subzeroblue.com/archives/2006/01/biodiesel_in_tunisia.html) writes about the rising cost of fuel throughout the world. The consumer is loosing whilst the big oil companies continue to bank their profits. Although Tunisians are lucky because their oil is subsidised by the Government, this will not last forever and like the rest of the world an alternative fuel needs to be found. One suggestion is BioDiesel,
“An option that I find really accessible for a country like Tunisia, that can't afford to invest a lot of money in hydrogen-powered fuel cells for example, is BioDiesel. Biodiesel is fuel made from renewable materials such as vegetable oils or animal fats, or even recycled fryer oil. It is biodegradable and non-toxic, and has significantly fewer emissions than petroleum-based diesel when burned. It also functions in current diesel engines and reduces engine wear by as much as one half.” Bio Diesel is already available in the UK and the US and there is a website which explains how you can make it yourself. Bio Diesel (http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_make.html)

Black Looks - Black Looks (http://okrasoup.typepad.com/black_looks/2006/01/a_56_year_old_e.html) comments on the sentencing to five years of a British paedophile for sexually abusing young children in Ghana.

“Obviously the arrest of this despicable individual is a relief but the reality is that in Africa alone there are millions of children being abused in this way whilst the number of prosecutions is relatively small. “

African countries are full of sex tourists, Gambia, Cameroon, Kenya and South Africa to name a few. Using Gambia as an example she explains how sex tourism operates. South Africa is a major destination and distributor of children from across the world.

“Child trafficking, child prostitution and child pornography have become major money making operations for individuals, gangs and syndicates in Cape Town, Johannesburg, Durban and other parts of the country; and around the world. Molo Songololo’s research revealed that children are trafficked across South Africa’s borders; both into and from South Africa, as well as within its border.”

* Sokari Ekine produces the blog Black Looks, http://okrasoup.typepad.com/black_looks

* Please send comments to [email protected]

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), Somalia, has run short of food after attempts to buy food from Kenya failed.According to the agency's Somalia deputy country director Leo van der Velden, they had planned to buy 2,000 metric tonne of food to feed one million starving Somalis.This has failed due to the famine in Kenya.

Tanzania's new Cabinet begins work tomorrow amid disappointment that greeted the new President's decision to drop 14 of 26 ministers who served in the last government. As the Cabinet was being sworn-in critics inside and outside the ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi pointed out that Kikwete had taken the first bold step towards scuttling a ring of powerful individuals that gravitated around his predecessor, Benjamin Mkapa.

Constitution of Kenya Review Commission are officially winding up business and each of its 27 members will take home between KSh2 million and KSh5 million as a send-off package. The Commission ceases to exist following expiry of the Act that led to its formation. Kenyan tax payers could end up forking out a minimum of KSh54 million to the commissioners.

Inspite of an assurance to Ugandans that he would leave if defeated, President Yoweri Museveni has said he will only retire if the people and his NRM party plan it properly. Addressing a campaign rally he said "you don't just tell the freedom fighter to go like you are chasing a chicken thief from the house."

The UN refugee agency, UNHCR, is expanding a transit site at Musasa in northern Burundi to accommodate thousands of Rwandans seeking refuge in the country, an agency official said on Friday (January 6). Some 2,000 people have arrived in the northern provinces of Ngozi, Muyinga and Kirundo since December 2005, bringing the number of Rwandan asylum seekers in Burundi to an estimated 8,000, said Didier Bukuru, the UNHCR information officer in the capital, Bujumbura.

The United Nations (UN) has launched its International Year of Deserts and Desertification to raise global public awareness of the advancing deserts, of ways to safeguard the biological diversity of arid lands covering one-third of the planet and protecting the knowledge and traditions of the two billion people affected by the phenomenon. As reported by Ghana News Today, the Secretariat of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) stressed the importance of recognizing that in addition to the human and environmental cost of the degradation that contributes to the problem, the dry lands are the location of some of the most magnificent ecosystems of this world: the deserts.

Relegation of the trade ministry to peripheral roles in anticipation that the private sector will drive development has made Uganda fail to benefit from regional and bilateral trade associations. A statement issued recently by the trade ministry and the Uganda Programme for Trade Opportunities and Policy said Uganda is a signatory to many regional and bilateral trade agreements. Some of them include Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa, World Trade Organisation, General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs and European Union-Africa Caribbean and the Pacific. "However, Uganda has not benefited from them because she paid more attention to conditionalities for international loans and grants at the expense of building capacity in the trade sector," the statement said.

Days before 2005 closed, Egypt and Turkey finally signed a free trade agreement (FTA) the negotiations of which began in 1997. The FTA - concluded after six rounds of bilateral negotiations - follows Egypt's partnership agreement with Europe that allows for the phased liberalisation of bilateral trade in agriculture, industrial products and services. "The agreement is the outcome of elaborate work and fruitful negotiations," Minister of Trade and Industry Rachid Mohamed Rachid said at a press conference held with his Turkish counterpart. "It lays the foundation of a new era of economic, political and social cooperation between the two countries," Rachid added.

Ethiopian Finance Minister Sufyan Ahmed has said the poor in his country would suffer if aid donors carried out their plan to withhold US $375 million in budget support because of the government's recent crackdown on opposition supporters.

Eva Dadrian tracks the aftermath of the massacre of Sudanese refugees in Cairo on Friday 30, December 2005, noting that it is an insult to the memory of those killed that the very regime which originally led to their flight to Egypt will soon be hosting an African Union Summit (in Khartoum, 14-16 January). Dadrian asks: “Will the African heads of state attending the AU Summit in Khartoum, in a humanitarian gesture, stand 60 seconds in silence in memory of the tragic incident in Cairo? I wonder whether any one of them will sense that 60 seconds is more than enough for a police truncheon to cut short the life of an African refugee?”

Human rights groups and opponents of the Sudanese government call the hosting of the African Union Summit by Khartoum (14-16 January 2006) an affront and an insult to the memory of the people of Darfur who have died at the hands of the very regime hosting the summit.

Observers and political activists are asking how a country which has a civil war in Darfur - where more than 2.5 million internally displaced people are still being subjected to attacks by government backed militias – and has some 500,000 refugees scattered in 5 neighbouring countries and more than 2 million Southern Sudanese IDPs in and around Khartoum, can be considered as the host of the AU Summit?

It is a further insult to the memory of those Sudanese refugees who were trampled to death or died of their wounds during and after the vicious attack by the Egyptian security police on the Mustafa Mahmoud Park, just across from the UNHCR office, on Friday 30, December 2005, where since September 26, 2005, they were staging a sit-in in protest at the UNHCR’s earlier decision to close their files and start their repatriation.

Whatever accusations can be had against the Sudanese refugees, like those made by Egyptian comedian Adel Imam, himself a UNHCR goodwill ambassador, who said, “they put their children in front of them as human shields” or a police officer, who said, “they were singing and dancing during the attack”, the high loss of life suggests that extreme brutality was used by the Egyptian security forces during the dawn attack.

Precise figures for the dead and wounded are still unclear. Various reports have put the death toll at 56, with 15 children and many women and elderly among them. According to Astrid van Genderen Stort, a spokeswoman from the UN refugee agency (UNHCR), there are also over “70 injuries of various degrees of severity”.

As shocking as it may sound to the readership of Pambazuka News, the Egyptian security forces aimed mainly at the heads, kidneys and genital parts of male and female refugees alike. All those who died and whose corpses are still lying in morgues have head wounds, brain haemorrhages, burst kidneys and burst pancreas. Many of the refugees, Muslims and Christians alike, who were later released from the military barracks they were taken to, and who had gathered in a number of churches in Cairo, said that a refugee from Darfur, who was bleeding from his head wounds, was thrown off by the police from the military truck taking them to Al Torah security barracks. His body was later recovered by fellow Darfurians from the road where he had bled to death.

Human rights groups and MPs from the Muslim Brotherhood are calling for an independent investigation into the violent clashes of last Friday. In a statement issued on January 2, the Egyptian Organisation for Human Rights (EOHR) is saying “the Egyptian Security Forces should immediately investigate these deaths and unjustified violent incidents” stating that the police used “excessive force” in breaking up the three-month long peaceful sit-in. EOHR urges also that “all those responsible be brought to trial”. Fingers of accusation are pointed at Habib Al Adly, the minister of interior known for his notorious heavy-handed techniques against demonstrators and opponents to the Mubarak regime.

Civil society activists who organised a demonstration last Saturday in protest at the “Friday massacre in Mustapha Mahmoud Park” and in solidarity with the Sudanese refugees, were defiantly holding banners and posters that read “We are All Sudanese” and “Down with Habib Al Adly”. Al Adly, whose name means “The Just one” has just been reinstated in a new cabinet and took his oath of allegiance on Saturday, January 1, 2006, a day after the Friday events.

After 5 days locked in highly secured military barracks and security forces’ camps around Cairo, the Egyptian authorities announced that they were preparing to deport some 656 Sudanese. The official reason for the deportations is as vague as the destination the refugees will be taken to. It is believed that they will land either in Khartoum or in Juba. Among these refugees are people from Darfur where there are already 2.5 million internally displaced people living in camps and at the mercy of banditry. No one can guaranty their safety when they will reach Sudan.

For three days, members of the foreign and Egyptian media, human rights activists, and members of non-governmental organisations managed to keep in touch with the refuges held in the 5 military barracks, through their mobile phones. Then, silence fell and all contacts were cut off as “the police have taken away cell phones and money from our pockets” confirmed a Southern Sudanese, who, thanks to his Blue Card giving him Refugee Status, was released from Manshiet Nasr barracks, just a few hours before I met him in the Sakkakini church in Abbasseya, Cairo.

Some refugees, accused of being the instigators of the “violence against the security forces” (by the way according to the ministry of interior, some 73 policemen and officers were wounded during the attack) have “disappeared”. Human rights activists fear for them as unconfirmed reports are mentioning that the so-called leaders are being held in the special units of the dreaded Amn Al Markazi at Al Darrassa (Central Security) for “further interrogation”.

On the other hand, the EOHR stresses the very valid point that the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, ratified by Egypt in 1981, should be implemented “through legislation consistent with the Egyptian constitution, which guarantees the right of refuge”. According to the UNHCR office, between 1994 and 2004, some 31,000 Sudanese were given refugee status and more than half were resettled in third countries. However, the vast majority of asylum seekers have not been granted refugee status and as such are disqualified from resettlement. Furthermore, the UNHCR changed its policies for the Sudanese refugees on the basis that the Naivasha Peace Agreement signed and ratified in January 2005, between the Khartoum government and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), has brought peace and improved the conditions in Sudan.

For the past 48 hours, contradictory reports have been circulating in Cairo and ambiguous declarations made by both the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Interior and the UNHCR Cairo office. Egyptian officials say that only those Sudanese whose asylum requests have been rejected by the UNHCR and who do not have legal residence in Egypt will be expelled, yet the UNHCR declares that the Egyptian authorities have promised not to repatriate any of the Sudanese refugees. There was no comment on the reports by the Egyptian officials. However, in a statement issued by the Sudanese government in Khartoum, some 100 refugees have been flown back to Khartoum “according to their wish to return home”.

Apart from the loss of life, the accusations and the blame, the consequences of these tragic events are already having serious repercussions on diplomatic relations between Cairo and the Government of Southern Sudan (GOSS). In a statement issued by GOSS, Vice President Riek Machar declares that his government is “greatly shocked by this callous act from the security forces of a friendly and sisterly country that has been known of spearheading the unity of the people of the Nile Valley, and particularly the peoples of Egypt and Sudan.”

The wording of the statement is extremely severe as it implies that what happened in Mustapha Mahmoud Park is a crime as it “breaks every known international law including the UN Human Rights Convention and the fundamental right to life.” In Southern Sudan politicians are already voicing a freeze on the diplomatic relations with Egypt, while unconfirmed reports from Sudan have mentioned the closure of the Egyptian consulate in Juba, on the request of GOSS.

But officials in Cairo, Khartoum and even the UNHCR have all rejected calls for an international investigation, so who is to stand by the fundamental right to life of some 25 million African refugees, homeless and IDPs? Will the African heads of state attending the AU Summit in Khartoum, in a “humanitarian” gesture, stand 60 seconds in silence in memory of the tragic incident in Cairo? I wonder whether any one of them will sense that 60 seconds is more than enough for a police truncheon to cut short the life of an African refugee?

* Eva Dadrian is an independent broadcaster and Political and Country Risk Analyst for print and broadcast media.

* Please send comments to [email protected]

GCAP is conducting an external review of its past activities in 2005 in order to feed the discussion at the next International Facilitation Group meeting in March, 2006. The external review period will commence on January 16th and end on February 13th, 2006. In an effort to gather as many reactions and alternative ideas as possible for the external review, GCAP have widely distributed a consultation questionnaire on the future of GCAP beyond 2005 which can be obtained from www.whiteband.org The extended deadline for this questionnaire is January 9th, 2006. Please send to [email protected].

EDITORIAL: The night the screams never stopped - An eyewitness account of the bloody crushing of a Cairo refugee protest
- Eva Dadrian analyses the aftermath of the Cairo refugee massacre
COMMENT&ANALYSIS:
- Harrowing human rights testimony from Darfur
- Seatini’s Percy F. Makombe asks who will stand up for the poor after the December WTO fiasco
- What the WTO outcome means for African women: Mohau Pheko and Liepollo Lebohang Pheko provide insight
- Medicine Masiiwa from Trades Centre Zimbabwe on what Economic Partnership Agreements mean for Eastern and Southern Africa
LETTERS: Readers take issue with Tony Blair, neo-liberalism and naming of countries
BLOGGING AFRICA: Chasing the yahoo-yahoo boys, issues of identity and the African Cup of Nations
PAN-AFRICAN POSTCARD: Bye-Bye to Blair, Brown, Bob and Bono – the B stars in poverty pornography
CONFLICT&EMERGENCIES: DRC’s Katanga identified as looming disaster
HUMAN RIGHTS: Concern for detained Ethiopian activists; AU slams Zim over human rights
REFUGEES: UN agency blamed for Sudanese refugee deaths
ELECTIONS&GOVERNANCE: DRC opposition ends poll boycott; latest on jailed Ugandan opposition leader
WOMEN&GENDER: Mauritania ratifies women’s rights protocol
DEVELOPMENT: Hong Kong outcomes anything but development
CORRUPTION: Is the war on corruption another neo-colonial adventure?
HEALTH&HIV/AIDS: Loophole allows continuing brain drain
ENVIRONMENT: Tackling illegal fishing in Africa’s protected waters
MEDIA: Zim Government moots militia plan for trainee journos
ADVOCACY&CAMPAIGNS: South Africa: In support of Ashwin Desai
PLUS: Fundraising, e-newsletters, courses, jobs and books.

"Rather than being an important milestone towards the achievement of the much touted development round, Hong Kong has ended as a platform for anti-development outcomes. The declaration from the Hong Kong WTO Ministerial is a loss for African countries. They have been forced to concede on most of the positions with which they came to Hong Kong. And whatever comfort exists in the other areas is ambiguous at best, illusory at worst."
Related Link
* Third World Network
http://www.twnside.org.sg/

The United Nations Operation in Burundi (ONUB) is funding nearly a dozen new initiatives aimed at boosting education and health across eight provinces in the country, which is stabilizing despite continued rebel activities. Known as “Quick Impact Projects,” these small-scale endeavours serve to build peace at the grass-roots level. The new projects recently announced by ONUB involve rehabilitating primary schools, constructing new classrooms and sanitation systems, refurbishing college facilities, stocking libraries, and the installation of a water supply system at the Nyakabugu Health Centre.

Recent research by the Trades and Development Studies Centre Trust in Zimbabwe examines the implications of current Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) for Eastern and Southern Africa. There are many problems with the negotiations including a threat to existing regional integration efforts, a lack of negotiating capacity on behalf of the African-Caribbean-Pacific (ACP) group of nations and a threat to local producers, who will have to compete with more powerful European Union (EU) competitors. Faced with these problems is it prudent to continue with the negotiations for the EPAs with the EU? Are there any alternatives to the EPAs? These are the questions the Trades and Development Studies Centre Trust set out to answer.

Background

The African-Caribbean-Pacific (ACP) group of nations have traditionally been dependent on preferential market access into the European Union (EU) markets under the Lomé Agreement. The preferences were in the form of reduced or zero tariffs on key ACP exports to the EU. In addition, commodity protocols were incorporated in order to accommodate traditional ACP exports such as sugar, beef, veal and rum.

After the conclusion of the Uruguay Round of talks and the establishment of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in 1995, the trade preferences became illegal because they violated the WTO Most Favoured Nation (MFN) principle. As such, the EU and the ACP states had to get special permission (waiver) to temporarily continue their special trading favours at the WTO Ministerial Conference in Doha, It is in this context that the EU proposed new trading arrangements which are WTO compatible. The EU further argued that Lomé preferences had not brought any trade benefits to most ACP countries as compared to non-ACP countries. For instance, whilst trade between the EU and non-ACP countries increased, EU - ACP trade declined from 6,7 % in the 1970s to 3% in 1998.

At the insistence of the EU, a new ACP-EU co-operation Agreement was signed in June 2000 in Cotonou, Benin (Cotonou Agreement). Under this agreement, ACP states would enter into reciprocal trade arrangements called Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs). Under this scenario, ACP countries would be required to give the EU the same market access that the EU gives to them. Different regions in the ACP group can negotiate the trade issues and create their own EPA with the EU. The Southern African Development Community (SADC) and Eastern and Southern Africa (ESA) regions are in the process of negotiating such EPAs with the EU. These reciprocal trade arrangements are often described as WTO compatible in the sense that they are presumed not to violate the WTO rules on regional trade agreements. However it is far from clear that negotiating EPAs with the EU is the best option for the development of the ESA/SADC region.

There are many problems associated with the current negotiations. Reciprocal trade between the ESA/SADC countries and the EU is meant to start by January 2008. The negotiations for the EPA were meant to have started in September 2002. However these started way after this date around 2004. ESA/SADC countries are simply not ready for these negotiations. Important procedures such as analyzing the impact of the EPA on national and regional economies were done at a very late stage, and years after the ESA/SADC states had signed the Cotonou agreement.

ESA/SADC states have in the past been building institutions to promote regional economic development through trade and cooperation in various areas. These efforts saw the birth of the Southern African Customs Union (SACU, the oldest customs union in the world), Southern African Development Community (SADC), Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) and the East Africa Customs Union (EAC). Instead of strengthening these regional institutions the manner with which the negotiating groups have been structured risks dismantling these institutions and also historical efforts made towards regional integration.

Although ESA/SADC and the EU states have competing interests in these negotiations, the ESA/SADC states are largely dependent on the EU especially with respect to the funding of the negotiations. It is difficult to see how the ESA/SADC states can effectively promote and protect their producers in these negotiations over markets when they are financially and technically compromised.

ESA/SADC countries lack the effective capacity to negotiate the EPA with the EU. This includes the human and technical resources to do so. On the other hand the EU has a strong and technical bureaucracy with decades of experience in handling tricky international trade issues.

There are reasonable fears that opening up ESA/SADC markets will wipe out local producers and have them replaced by EU exporters. Further ESA/SADC economies are largely agro-based and local agricultural producers will find it difficult to compete against resource rich EU-based agricultural producers who are invariably cushioned by hefty subsidies.

Faced with these problems is it prudent to continue with the negotiations for the EPAs with the EU? Are there any alternatives to the EPAs?

It does not appear as if the Cotonou agreement gave ESA/SADC countries real alternatives to EPAs. Although Article 37 of the Cotonou agreement talks of alternative trade arrangements with those non-LDC ACP states which are not ready to negotiate EPAs with the EU, there is no real alternative mentioned in the agreement. Article 37 promises to give those non-LDCs not ready for EPAs alternative trade arrangements with benefits similar to those under the Lome conventions. This is a dubious promise. The only possible alternative under Article 37 is the Generalised System of Preferences (GSP), a system of favours which must be granted to all developing countries. By definition this cannot result in favours similar to those under the Lome conventions because the later were meant for particular (ACP) developing countries, not all developing countries. Effectively Article 37 offers no real alternative to EPAs. Having said this, it is ironical that despite claiming to be unprepared for EPAs all ESA/SADC countries are negotiating one with the EU, and none have attempted to use the so-called alternative under Article 37.

ESA/SADC states must think of options to the current EPA negotiations. But what are these options, and how effective can they be?

1. Maintaining the status quo. Ideally many producers in the ACP group, including those in the ESA/SADC region would like the Lome preferences to be kept or even improved upon. They would like to continue getting special favours over and above other developing countries. This would see ESA/SADC states keeping special market access on favourable terms for example, for sugar and beef exports. To keep these favours ESA/SADC countries and their ACP counterparts must wait for the EU to be given another waiver to permit these one-way favours. However this is increasingly becoming a remote possibility for a number of reasons:

- Banana producing countries of Latin America have bitterly complained against the EU’s ACP preferences, arguing that they are discriminatory. The WTO has ruled that these preferences are indeed discriminatory and violate the MFN rule;

- There is a strong lobby in the EU and beyond (e.g. certain Asian countries) which is against Lome type trade preferences and is advocating for their ban at the WTO.

2. No reciprocity. Under this option ESA/SADC would not need to enter into damaging reciprocal arrangements with the EU, but to create non-reciprocal schemes. These are limited by the WTO rules to those non-reciprocal arrangements which are WTO compliant. This entails schemes under the GSP which is open to all developing countries. There are other GSP schemes which favour LDCs over developing countries, e.g., the EU’s Everything But Arms (EBA which gives LDCs products - except arms - entering the EU zero percent duty) scheme which is exclusive for LDCs. In this respect ESA/SADC countries would split along LDC and non-LDC lines. The EBA and the general GSP must be measured with the real market access under the Lome preferences. Even with these preferences ESA/SADC exports did not achieve a high level of penetration into the EU market.

A number of barriers prevented this, such as:

- Non-tariff barriers; subsidies granted to EU producers, especially under the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) made it difficult for ESA/SADC producers to compete in the EU.

- Stringent rules for human, plant and animal health (Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) measures created obstacles against ESA/SADC exports as exporters could not afford to meet the requirements.

- Administrative procedures to satisfy rules of origin requirements also dissuaded ESA/SADC exporters from fully taking advantage of the Lome preferences. Already the beef, cereals and dairy sectors in ESA/SADC states are facing dwindling opportunities as a result of the CAP reforms.

These barriers are still relevant under the GSP and its EBA variety, if they are not removed the GSP and the EBA options are not really options for ESA/SADC.

3. Some level of Reciprocity. This option allows ESA/SADC states to partially open up their markets to the EU by liberalizing specific sectors whilst shutting out certain EU products and services for the protection of infantile producers. EU exports to the ESA/SADC region face tariff and non-tariff barriers. However the case for lowering barriers to EU imports may have several negative results, for example:

- government revenue losses, worst affected would be Mauritius, Zimbabwe and Tanzania which would lose more than 30% of customs revenue;

- local industry may not be able to compete with stronger EU-based competitors;

- there will be an increase in EU imports compared to a decline in ESA/SADC exports, there is a possibility that the food and beverages sectors would suffer as a result of more EU competing products entering the market; While the short-term result is that cheaper food imports will benefit consumers, the food processing and milling industries will face ultimate ruin;

- lower ESA/SADC duties on EU imports will negatively affect trade amongst ESA/SADC countries with respect to their own FTAs such as under, EAC, COMESA and the planned SADC FTA.

ESA/SADC states may opt to shut out specific EU products and unilaterally liberalise their economies in areas they are ready to do so. From an ESA/SADC perspective this is reasonable because it protects vulnerable sectors from damaging competition. However both light market opening (some level of reciprocity) and the non-reciprocal unilateral tariff structuring have to comply with the WTO rules. At present Article XXIV which caters for RTAs does not permit such deviations. To accommodate this option Article XXIV has to be amended to:

- recognize the disparities between industrialized and developing countries;

- make the interpretation of the requirement for “substantially all trade” to be liberalized more flexible for developing countries which have economic sectors which are too sensitive to competition from industrialized trading partners;

- grant developing countries in a proposed FTA with an industrialized country more time and opportunity to adjust to the new arrangement (transition period), for example by up to 18 years or more.

The ACP states have tabled this proposal before the WTO for possible negotiation at the December 2005 summit. However the weight of influence seems staked against the ACP proposal. Japan and Australia are opposed to this proposal, added to these is the traditional hostility to ACP preferences as shown by Latin American countries, and sometimes with USA backing.

Tying Trade Liberalisation to Developmental Benchmarks

Proposals forwarded by Trades Centre under its study on New Enhanced Economic Agreements (ERA) provide practical options for future EU-ACP trading co-operation. Essentially, the proposal ties trade liberalisation by African countries to certain developmental benchmarks which include:

- Agreed measures of development and overall vulnerability of each African Regional Partner (e.g. SADC or ESA). For example, opening up of Africa’s markets to the EU must be tied to substantial debt relief by the EU to Africa. In other words, the EU pays a price for preferential market provided to it.

- LDC members retain their special access to EU markets without reciprocity for an extended period.

- Opening up of Africa’s markets is related to agreed benchmarks in reform of the CAP.

- EU trade diversion avoided by liberalizing at own pace within the WTO frameworks thus giving improved access to non-EU markets.

- Aid component of ERA is used to enhance trade capabilities and increase export diversification.

- Aid is also used to cushion the transition to more liberal trading conditions (especially changes in protocols).

- There is a contract enforcement mechanism (including dispute procedures) in place.

- Rules of origin are simple and facilitate cumulation.

- Review of WTO provisions on RTAs.

More aid, investment, and new issues.

ACP states (inclusive of ESA/SADC countries) seem to be involved in the EPA negotiations for the purposes of accessing more aid and investment from the EU. It is not clear that more aid and investment will only come from the EU if ESA/SADC states agree to EPA arrangements with the EU. Above this ESA/SADC states have committed themselves to supporting negotiations on investment, competition and intellectual property related issues both at an EPA level and at the WTO. This is despite their resistance to the discussions of these issues at the Cancun WTO summit. This shows a level of confusion as there is no guarantee that more aid and investment will materialize from the EU as a result of the EPA under negotiations.

Recommendations

The EPA negotiations should either be drastically slowed down or stopped. This will give ESA/SADC time to make real assessments of future trade relations not only with Europe but with the rest of the world. The present concern for ESA/SADC states like the rest of the ACP group is to maintain historical favours from the EU. At the same time ESA/SADC states want to benefit from the multilateral framework under the WTO. As explained above there is a conflicting legal responsibility here. In the short-term ESA/SADC states should:

- engage WTO partners to ensure that post-Lome trade arrangements do not get implemented by 2008 as planned under the Cotonou agreement.

- actively table alternatives to the EPAs proposal. This involves having to pull out of the current negotiations, or seeking a reprieve. The short-term plan obviously includes conflicting positions, the more reason why it is not ideal.

- ESA/SADC states should revisit their regional integration commitments and give effect to deeper integration. Emphasis should be on food security as the priority for the region. And with respect to trade relations with the rest of the world ESA/SADC states should.

- assess their historical dependence on Europe in the light of shifting geopolitical priorities. EU trade preferences have not and will not increase African productivity and economic security. Some sectors of ESA/SADC economies are at the mercy of EU CAP reforms and the EU is no longer a viable market for them.

- work collectively with other developing countries to ensure that the WTO framework works to the advantage of developing countries. ACP states have used the WTO summits as a place to secure the continuity of EU preferences. Instead better use of the multilateral framework can be made if ACP states focus on issues common to the trading prospects of all developing countries. Though some ACP states are active on issues common to all developing states, there is always the EU trade preferences issue.

- take a lead in negotiating the implementation of development country friendly WTO concessions, in this case the market access commitments of developed countries under Part IV of GATT. These concessions do not require reciprocal action from developing countries especially with respect to liberalization commitments. The WTO rules did not make flexible rules to govern RTAs involving developed-developing country configuration precisely because it makes no economic sense. Hence ESA/SADC states should insist on the actualization of those rules made with developing countries in mind.

* Many thanks to Dr. Medicine Masiiwa from the Trades and Development Studies Centre Trust (Trades Centre) for providing this summary of research into EPAs being conducted by the Trades Centre.

* Please send comments to [email protected]