For Jane Muthoni Mara, the memories of her experiences during British rule in Kenya are still horribly vivid - even though they took place more than half a century ago. She recounts that women who supported the Mau Mau, a militant group opposed to colonial administration, were subjected to various forms of torture by African soldiers under the supervision of the mzungu (the Kiswahili word for "white man") - to force the women to disclose what they knew about Mau Mau activities.

Madonna's "bending of the rules" in her haste to adopt 13-month-old David Banda is sending a message to child traffickers that Malawi is open for business, a southern African child welfare organisation said. Pop star Madonna, 48, who has an estimated fortune of US$462 million, was granted an interim adoption order last week in the High Court in the capital, Lilongwe, in contradiction of the country's laws, which state that "an adoption order shall not be made to any applicant who is not resident in Malawi".

Rwanda's ruling party will push for a law abolishing the death penalty in the east African state, a senior party official said on Thursday. Outlawing capital punishment would clear the way for the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and western countries to extradite genocide suspects to Rwanda. Servilien Sebasoni, the spokesperson for the ruling party, the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), denied suggestions that the party had made the decision to facilitate extradition of suspects to Rwanda.

With two weeks to go to the second round of the presidential election of the 29 October, Mr. Ibrahim Gambari, UN Under Secretary General in charge of political affairs, met with media representatives on 14 October, 2006 at MONUC headquarters to speak about the outcome of his meetings with the two remaining presidential candidates and the president of the Independent Electoral Commission.

Eritrea has moved 1,500 troops and 14 tanks to a buffer zone along its border with Ethiopia, which was created after the war between the two countries over their disputed frontier. The United Nations Secretary-General described the Eritrean incursion as a major violation of the ceasefire agreement.

Fighting has lulled again between the Senegal army and rebel factions in the restive southern Senegal province Casamance, but analysts say West Africa’s longest running conflict is far from being resolved. Senegal’s army overran the main base of a faction of rebels it had been fighting since mid-August on 6 October, and there have been three further skirmishes between the army and rebels since then, army spokesman General Abdoulaye Fall told IRIN.

The Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) on Tuesday demanded an urgent review of its ceasefire agreement with the Ugandan government, claiming that the army had opened fire on rebel fighters on their way to an assembly point in southern Sudan.

The Refugee Council believes that everyone has a right not to live in poverty and to contribute to the community in which they live. Having a job plays an important role in being able to achieve this. At present, a majority of asylum seekers are prevented from working. Although they are able to do voluntary work, the Refugee Council is concerned that excluding asylum seekers from paid employment leads to them becoming socially isolated.

With the growing number of ratifications of major environmental agreements suggesting that more countries are committed to addressing global ecological issues, the true test remains implementation and enforcement, especially with regard to greenhouse gases, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan has warned. “Action on climate change is particularly urgent, given its profound implications for virtually every aspect of human well-being, from jobs and health to growth and security,” he said.

The report, "Unprotected Migrants: Zimbabweans in South Africa's Limpopo Province", said Zimbabweans continue to stream into South Africa to escape their own country's deteriorating economic and political conditions. It said the vulnerability of the estimated 1.2 to three million Zimbabweans now living in South Africa is made worse by their frequent lack of legal status, effectively making them refugees.

Statelessness in Africa, like elsewhere, is attributable to a multitude of causes ranging from state succession, to gaps in national citizenship laws, to targeted discrimination against certain communities of people. However, a common contributing factor to statelessness in African countries is the colonial legacy which created borders that ultimately led to divided linguistic/ethnic/religious communities and interfered with traditional patterns of migration.

Quoting a Somali proverb, Dahir Mohamed Ali describes how long-time refugees living in Kenya fear they will be forgotten as a growing tide of Somalis fleeing conflict pour across the border. "When there is fresh water, do not forget the rivers that are drying up," said the former leader of Hagadera refugee camp, in northeastern Kenya.

Martha Atoch, a displaced widow and mother of four, was anxious to leave Lologo transit camp and return home so she could get treatment for appendicitis."I have told the administrators of this camp that I need urgent help for my appendicitis," she said. "But so many of us have medical problems that I don't know whether my case will receive any attention."

Assis Malaquias suggests that it is premature to suggest that positive peace is a reality in Cabinda. The Memorandum of Understanding which was signed by the Angolan government and the separatist group on 1 August 2006, “establishes five key pillars for ending the conflict in Cabinda: amnesty for rebel fighters, cessation of hostilities, the demilitarisation of the Cabindan rebels, reduction in the number of Angolan soldiers in the province, and integration of the Cabinda rebels in the Angolan military and government.”

After four decades of conflict, Angola welcomed a new era of peace in the aftermath of the death in combat of rebel leader Jonas Savimbi and the implosion of the once formidable military organization he created. The post-colonial conflict between Savimbi’s UNITA rebels and the governing MPLA gained international attention for several reasons: the global contexts associated with it (the Cold War and the international political economy of oil) the nature of the players involved: global powers (the U.S. and the former Soviet Union), sub-imperial powers (Cuba and China), regional powers (apartheid South Africa and the former Zaire), and national actors (Angola’s nationalist movements: FNLA [1], MPLA [2], and UNITA [3]) and the issues at stake (ethnicity, ideology, race, and resources, to name a few).

But the conflict in Angola was unique because it involved two parallel civil wars: one on the mainland among the nationalist liberation movements and their external backers, and the second between the post-colonial state and a separatist movement in Cabinda – the northernmost province of Angola situated on the Atlantic and separated from the mainland by a strip of D.R. Congo territory. Half of Angola’s 1 million barrels of oil per day originate from Cabinda.

The first conflict ended in 2002 and the second in 2006 with the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between the Angolan government and the separatist group. This agreement established five key pillars for ending the conflict in Cabinda: amnesty for rebel fighters, cessation of hostilities, the demilitarisation of the Cabindan rebels, reduction in the number of Angolan soldiers in the province, and integration of the Cabinda rebels in the Angolan military and government. The Memorandum was the first step towards establishing a new relationship based on a “special status” for the province that include some form of political and economic autonomy without compromising the country’s territorial integrity. For the Angolan government, the end of the conflict in Cabinda has opened the door for exploration of the province’s massive onshore oil reserves.

The length and intractability of the conflict is a direct result of the colonial past and, more specifically, the process involved in creating the colony. Present day Angola, as is the case with most modern African states, is a European creation of the forcible merger of various peoples and territories into a Portuguese possession. Unsurprisingly, Angola also experienced some post-colonial instabilities associated with the demands of some pre-colonial formations to reestablish their independence after the collapse of colonial regimes. In Cabinda, these instabilities were fueled by the inability to agree on mutually acceptable formulas to divide post-colonial power and wealth. Cabinda is Angola’s richest province. In addition to major offshore and onshore oil reserves, it also has large diamond, gold, and uranium deposits. Despite its resource endowment, Cabinda’s population of 300 000 endures similar levels of poverty as elsewhere in Angola. This contradiction – poor people in a rich land – is critical in understanding why demands for independence find resonance among the province’s population, at least in the post-colonial era.

There is also a more historical argument for independence based on the 1885 Treaty of Simulambuco. This treaty – establishing the territory as a Portuguese protectorate – represented Cabinda’s rulers’ attempt to protect their territory from the “Scramble for Africa.” In other words, the rulers of Cabinda voluntarily chose to place their people and land under the protection of the devil they knew – Portugal, with whom they had contacts since Portuguese explorers first reached the Congo in 1482 – rather than become a colony of another European power. Cabinda’s fears were based on the fact that Belgium’s King Leopold wanted an outlet to the Atlantic for his extensive land holdings in central Africa. Cabinda remained a protectorate until 1956 when Portugal joined with Angola into a single colonial administrative unit.

As the 1960s began, Portugal’s colonial presence in Angola was jolted by the beginning of armed opposition by several nationalist groups. FNLA, MPLA and, later, UNITA were formed with the objective of liberating the entire Angolan “nation” from Portuguese colonialism. In 1963, FLEC [4]emerged as another liberation movement whose main objective was more narrowly focused on the liberation of Cabinda. But its military presence was mainly symbolic as the bulk of the fighting that took place in Cabinda was carried out by MPLA from its bases in neighboring Congo-Brazzaville.

The Portuguese colonial regime collapsed in 1974 partly due to the armed resistance in its colonies, including Angola where, ironically, Cabinda was one of the main battlegrounds. The new regime in Portugal quickly put in motion a decolonization process that eventually devolved sovereignty to its former overseas possessions. But since Cabinda had been incorporated into the Angola as an administrative unit it could no longer regain the sovereignty it gave up to the Portuguese in 1885. It was not recognized as a separate entity for purposes of decolonization; it was now an integral part of Angola and received independence only in that broad context. As far as Portugal was concerned, in 1974 Cabinda’s interests were represented by the three nationalist movements who considered the territory to be an integral part of Angola. For many in Cabinda, however, decolonization was incomplete unless their pre-Simulambuco status was re-established or the Simulambuco status quo was maintained. For colonial Portugal since the mid-1960s and Angola since independence, Simulambuco as a legal claim was trumped by an even more powerful reality – oil. The discovery of oil and the beginning of explorations in 1954 irreversibly changed Cabinda’s position within Angola and made its demands for independence harder to seriously consider.

Still, Portugal’s completion of the decolonization process in 1975 did not dissuade FLEC from continuing its armed struggle for independence, this time against Angola. In fact, FLEC made a lukewarm attempt – with the assistance of Mobutu’s Zaire – to seize power in Cabinda during the disordered and violent process surrounding independence. The attempt failed because MPLA, with the help of Cuban troops and Soviet weapons, was able to expel Mobutu’s troops from the country and seriously curtail FLEC’s ability to develop as a credible military opponent. Indeed, for the duration of the civil war, FLEC was unable to pose a threat against major economic interests in the province. Militarily subdued, FLEC settled for a minimal-intensity conflict against government troops interrupted by the occasional headline-grabbing abduction of foreign oil workers. Since FLEC never posed a significant threat to the mainland government, MPLA could focus its military attention on its more powerful rival UNITA which, since the 1980s with the help of South Africa, had penetrated Cabinda.

In the aftermath of the 1992 elections fiasco and the reigniting of the civil war after a short pause, and with UNITA seriously threatening to overthrow the government, the governing MPLA escalated its military presence in Cabinda to protect its main source of revenue. The deployment of 15 000 troops further reduced the FLEC’s military options. As a result, and partly because FAA [5] were focused on eliminating UNITA’s military threat on the mainland, FLEC was able to survive for another decade. In the aftermath of UNITA’s collapse as a military force in 2002, however, FLEC’s potion became completely untenable as FAA’s formidable power could now be shifted to Cabinda. It was, therefore, just a matter of time before Cabinda’s separatists were confronted by the same stark choices UNITA faced in 2002: defeat on the battlefield or a negotiated end of hostilities. The Memorandum of Understanding clearly suggests that Cabinda’s political and military forces have opted for the latter.

The Memorandum has silenced the guns in Cabinda. Does this mean that peace has finally been achieved? Yes, but only in a negative sense, i.e. there is no longer active, organized military violence taking place in Cabinda. But peace cannot simply be described in terms of absence of war. It must also be conceived more positively in terms of social justice. In other words, the elimination of physical violence is an insufficient condition for peace. Peace also involves the elimination of structural violence defined as social injustice. For Cabinda, the issue of social justice revolves around oil revenues and how they are (mis)used. As the main producer of oil in the country, the inhabitants of Cabinda justifiably expect a level of economic development commensurate with their contributions to the national treasury.

This expectation is yet to be met. Worse still, Cabindans are able to see how oil revenues have been used by national ruling elites to accumulate fabulous personal wealth that is then flaunted through conspicuous consumption. To a lesser extent, oil revenues are also used to provide comfortable lifestyles for foreign oil workers.

In sum, it is premature to suggest that positive peace is a reality in Cabinda. The end of the long conflict must be seen simply as an opportunity to create the conditions necessary to achieve that ultimate goal. Oil revenues can facilitate the attainment of peace if they are used to improve the living condition of the people. Failure to do so will continue to fuel deep-seated grievances and risk reigniting conflict.

• Prof. Assis Malaquias is the Associate Dean of International and Intercultural Studies & Associate Professor of Government St. Lawrence University, Canton, NY USA
• Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

References:

[1] Frente Nacional de Libertação de Angola (National Front for the Liberation of Angola).
[2] Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola (Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola)
[3] União Nacional para Independência Total de Angola (National Union for Total Independence of Angola)
[4] Frente de Libertação do Enclave de Cabinda (Front for the Liberation of Cabinda Enclave)
[5] Forças Armadas de Angola (Angolan Armed Forces)

In what has been seen as a victory for Namibia's increasingly vociferous former liberation war fighters, the government has created a war veterans' ministry in response to their accusations they have been ignored since independence. The South West African People's Organisation (SWAPO) government announced the establishment of the Ministry of Veteran Affairs earlier this month, 16 years after independence and within a few months of a slew of financial demands by the National Committee of War Veterans, which claims to represent 7,000 veterans of SWAPO's armed wing, the People's Liberation Army of Namibia (PLAN).

A split among top LRA commanders and the diaspora community that has been supporting them is threatening the future of the Juba peace talks. "Within the LRA, there is a split between those who are tired of fighting but are being held back, and those who don't want to go to Congo like Thomas Kwoyelo," a source said.

As EU-wide minimum standards for granting refugee status take effect, the UN refugee agency urged member states Monday to live up to their legal and moral obligation to protect refugees and asylum seekers by maintaining the highest possible asylum standards.By 10 October 2006, EU countries are required to have implemented the so-called "Qualification Directive," which sets out mimimum standards for qualification for refugee status or other forms of international protection in the European Union.

The United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, is expanding camps for Somali refugees in eastern Kenya to accommodate an increasing number of people fleeing the troubled Horn of Africa country."We are really concerned about the large number of refugees who continue to arrive every day," said Emmanuel Nyabera, spokesman for the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Nairobi.

Dozens of Somalis have allegedly been killed in South Africa's Western Cape Province in the past few months in what appears to be an escalating campaign of xenophobic violence. South Africa already struggles with some of the world's highest rates of violent crime, and is home to immigrant groups from throughout the continent. But Somalis in this region say the killings – as well as a string of brutal robberies and assaults – reflect a growing national trend fuelled in part by destitution and prejudice.

"I am pregnant because my husband refused to buy condoms," said Sarah while an equally expectant Janet blamed her pregnancy on the failure of her husband to use condoms consistently. For 19-year-old Sophie, the four-month pregnancy occurred because she couldn't tell her boyfriend why they should use condoms. And for Ida, they could simply not afford them. All the four women, whose names have been changed to protect their identity, are HIV positive.