china and africa

Socialist Banner has carried several posts on the expansionism of Chinese capitalism in the continent so we are not at all surprised by the announcement that China has pledged to give Africa $10bn (£6bn) in concessional loans over the next three years.

We can understand the need for the Chinese to camoflage this as a form of humanitarian aid yet we are not at all convinced .

Last month a little-known Chinese company invested $7bn (£4.16bn) in a mining deal in Guinea, despite the international condemnation there has been for the country's military junta. In September the army in Guinea opened fire on demonstrators killing 150 people.Of course there are plenty of major Western companies operating in countries with oppressive governments.

The Egyptian independent MP Mustafa al-Gindi sees it as a battle between East and West for the biggest share of African spoils. He believes the old relationships in Africa are now being tested and he is hugely fearful of China's way of doing business.
"There is huge competition between East and West for Africa", he said. "And whatever they say, it is a fact that the Chinese come to Africa not just with engineers and scientists - they are coming with farmers. It is neo-colonialism.

"There are no ethics, no values, there is only one thing, 'I want the land and I don't mind how we get it'."

China is keen to invest billions of dollars of its foreign reserves. A lot of that money is tied at the moment to assets in the United States and to the weak dollar. Investment in new African projects offers a useful alternative.

Black Mercenaries

Doing the capitalists dirty work .

Watertight Security Services has been sending Ugandan security guards to Iraq since 2007. So far, more than 10,000 Ugandans have gone to work in the country. All eyes are now on Afghanistan.

Recruits at Watertight Security Services are desperate to escape from the poverty and unemployment that define their lives in Uganda.

Gun for hire!

from theory to practice

As first previously reported on Socialist Banner here ,it now appears that capitalism will be exploiting Africa's geography .A sustainable energy initiative that will start with a huge solar project in the Sahara desert has been announced by a consortium of 12 European businesses.

The Desertec Industrial Initiative aims to supply Europe with 15% of its energy needs by 2050 and hopes hopes to start supplying Europe with electricity by 2015. Companies who signed up to the $400bn (£240bn) venture include Deutsche Bank, Siemens and the energy provider E.On. The initiative has gained the support of the German government of Angela Merkel, who has already expressed a desire to offset a dependence on Russian gas supplies.

Desertec Industrial Initiative aims to produce solar-generated electricity with a vast network of power plants and transmission grids across North Africa and the Middle East. The first stage will be to build massive solar energy fields across North Africa's Sahara desert, utilising concentrated solar power technology , which uses parabolic mirrors to focus the Sun's rays on containers of water. The super-heated water will power steam turbines to generate electricity 24 hours a day, 52 weeks of the year.The electricity will then be transported great distances to Europe, using hi-tech cables that suffer little conductive loss of power.

Socialist Banner notes that Desertec is keen to stress some of the power generated by the Sahara solar energy fields will also be used by domestic African consumers. However, with the little or no benefit going to local people from those countries gifted with oil resources , we cannot be blamed for an element of scepticism . We readSouth Sudan's semi-autonomous government has received nearly $7bn (£4.2bn) in oil revenue since it took over after a 2005 peace deal, but many question whether it is doing enough for its people.
"They say they are building new roads, but I think the ministers just pocket the money." says Akot, the driver .
"Misuse of public funds, favouritism in hiring and the existence of ghost names on government payrolls are examples of corruption that plague government offices," says the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs

There exists a viable alternative to capitalism as a world system of production for profit and uncontrolled and uncontrollable capital accumulation? It's where all the productive resources of the Earth have become the common heritage of the people of the world—"make the Earth a common treasury for all", as Gerrard Winstanley put it —so that they can be used, not to produce for sale on a market, not to make a profit, but purely and simply to satisfy human wants and needs in accordance with the principle of, to adapt a phrase, "from each region on the basis of its resources, to each region on the basis of its needs".

Children of the Tobacco Fields

From November's Socialist Standard

We all know that tobacco harms those who smoke it. Few are aware of the damage it does to those who pick and process it.

The “children’s organisation” Plan International recently issued a report about children in Malawi, some as young as five, who toil up to twelve hours in the tobacco fields for an average daily wage of 11p. (Hard Work, long hours and little pay).

The finding that has attracted most attention is that these children are being poisoned by the nicotine “juice” they absorb through the skin – and also ingest, as they have no chance to wash hands before eating. Many of the ailments that plague them -- headaches, abdominal and chest pain, nausea, breathlessness, dizziness – are symptoms of Green Tobacco Sickness.

But much of their suffering has nothing to do with nicotine. All have blisters on their hands. All have pains – in the shoulders, neck, back, knees – caused by overexertion of their immature muscles. About a third of the children are coughing blood, which suggests TB.

Many of the children examined had been beaten, kicked or otherwise physically abused by estate owners or supervisors. Many of the girls had been raped by them. One boy had deep knee wounds as a result of being made to walk across a stony field on his knees as punishment for “laziness”.

Who owns the estates?
Who are these estate owners?
Commercial tobacco farming in Malawi began late in the 19th century, when it was the British colony of Nyasaland. White settlers seized much of the best arable land for plantations of tea, coffee, tung trees (for their oil, used as a wood finisher) and – mostly -- tobacco. Even today the majority of owners of large estates are descendants of the colonial settlers, although now there are also black owners.
In 1948 some tung and tobacco plantations (estates) were taken over by the Colonial Development Corporation, funded mainly by the British Treasury. After Malawi gained formal independence in 1964, these came under state ownership. Later they were reprivatised. Another recent change is the direct acquisition of some estates by international tobacco companies.

The estates were established on land stolen from traditional peasant communities. The process began in colonial times but continued even after independence, under the Banda regime. Land theft impoverishes local communities and compels those worst affected to offer themselves – or their children! – to the estate owners as wage slaves.
Tobacco is also grown on many small family farms. Here too, children work and suck in nicotine juice, alongside their parents.

The tobacco cartel
Malawi’s tobacco market is dominated – through subsidiaries -- by two international corporations, Universal Corporation and Alliance One International. These corporations operate a cartel, refusing to compete and colluding to keep tobacco purchase prices low. This in turn intensifies the pressure on farm owners to minimise costs by exploiting cheap or free child labour – a practice that the corporations hypocritically claim to oppose.

Representatives of the corporations sit on several committees that advise the government of Malawi on economic policy. By this means they ensure that their interests are served and block any initiatives to diversify the economy and reduce the country’s dependence on tobacco.

The main reason why child labour is so prevalent in Malawian agriculture is the poverty – in particular, land hunger -- of most of the rural population. This reflects not any absolute shortage of land but rather the highly skewed pattern of land ownership. Large tracts of land lie fallow on the big estates.

A pathetic contrast
How does Plan International propose to help the children on the tobacco farms?
Well, it will “educate farm owners and supervisors” and persuade them to provide the children with protective clothing. Taking the tobacco companies’ PR at face value, it will urge them to “scrutinise their suppliers more closely”. It will not, however, support a ban on children picking tobacco because that is “unrealistic” – as indeed it is if you refuse to challenge underlying social conditions.

But what a pathetic contrast such “realism” makes with Plan International’s “vision” of “a world in which all children realise their full potential in societies that respect people’s rights and dignity”!

Environmental degradation
Besides ruining people’s health, tobacco degrades the environment. The tobacco monoculture that dominates much of Malawi depletes the soil of nutrients. It also causes extensive deforestation, as trees are felled to provide firewood for curing the tobacco leaves, and this in turn further erodes the soil. Water sources are contaminated. After over a century of tobacco cultivation, all these processes are already far advanced. (For fuller analysis, see the chapter by Geist, Otanez and Kapito in Andrew Millington and Wendy Jepson, eds. Land Change Science in the Tropics: Changing Agricultural Landscapes, Springer 2008.)

Tobacco in socialist society?
Will tobacco be grown in socialist society? On a small scale, possibly, by addicts for their own use. But it’s hard to imagine socialist society making planned provision, within the framework of democratic decision-making, for tobacco production. People aware of all the harm caused by tobacco will surely prefer to halt cultivation of this noxious weed. They will seek to restore soil fertility, reverse deforestation and enhance local food supply.

Even if, for the sake of argument, we suppose that the decision is made to continue producing tobacco, will it be implemented? Will the free people of socialist society, no longer spurred on by economic necessity, voluntarily poison themselves just to feed others’ addictions?

STEFAN

Zambia: THE ABUSE OF POWER

Zambia: THE ABUSE OF POWER

On 8 August 2009 a Zambian magistrate delivered a final verdict on the long-awaited ruling concerning the corruption case of former and second republican President Fredrick Chiluba. The Court found that Chiluba was innocent from the alleged stealing of K200 billion and declared that all monies and assets seized from him by the Task Force be returned to him. The head of the Task Force, Mr Marx Nkole immediately resigned on the grounds that he was shocked by the Court’s ruling. This is the case in which a London magistrate had found Chiluba guilty of misappropriating K200 billion from the Zamtrop account (a government account) some time back in 2008.

The whole matter revolves around the head of State, President Rupiah Banda. Old and tired, Mr. Banda is slowly and recklessly making mistake after mistake, in a country in which the majority of workers and civil servants have lost interest in the ruling MMD. It is a fact that president Rupiah Banda is still haunted by the Vista of Humanism conceived under a One Party State. Banda is busy appointing and removing cabinet ministers without regard to public feelings. Indeed the Zambian constitution has invested so much power into the head of state: a head of state in Zambia is above even their judiciary, parliament and government. It is without doubt Mr. Banda who personally instructed the judiciary to quash the corruption allegations against Mr. Chiluba. Let it be remembered that Mr. Banda was among those UNIP malcontents who suffered very much under the leadership of Fredrick Chiluba. He was among those who were physically molested or detained by the MMD government in 1992 (during the abortive UNIP comeback bid to power).

Thus the pardoning of Mr. Chiluba is a well timed political gesture aimed at winning political support from Northern and Luapula Provinces where the MMD has been doing badly in previous general elections. Mr. Chiluba has a patriotic and fanatical following from Luapula and Northern Provinces—he is a Bemba-speaking politician. President Rupiah Banda is a sturdy politician and strongly appreciates the existing ethnic and tribal allegiances. There is a political crisis in Zambia and the recent judgment in the case of former republican President Chiluba duly testifies to the abuse of power by the head of state. Public service employees are living under unpredictable eventualities. The nurses and teachers who went on a prolonged three months’ strike had to forfeit their salaries by the period they were on strike. There is a law that forbids illegal strikes in Zambia.

The private media in Zambia is misleading workers by making the strikers into scapegoats of the political opposition. Because the workers in Zambia have not achieved its class consciousness—they may have recourse to ethnic and tribal loyalties and so jeopardise its political consciousness. The WSM does not support the recent electoral pact between the PF and UNDP (political opposition). We advocate socialism without regard to nationality, but we are not deaf to the plight of working-class labour movements and trade unions in their efforts to improve their living conditions.
KEPHAS MULENGA

A call to socialist action

Comrades and supporters, next year we are embarking on our long time planned goal of formation of Socialist Parties in Africa and particularly in our case Uganda.

We would like to have moral, material and financial support from anybody who thinks this a noble cause. The socialist fraternity here feels, given the 12 years' experience of socialist activities since we first came in contact with the Socialist Party of Great Britain, that we are now able to utilize our past achievements and mistakes to make a Socialist Party in Uganda. This is the best way we can carry our propaganda nationwide legally and make our case better heard and understood

Fraternal greetings.

South Africa - Inequality grows

South Africa remains the world's most unequal society, a report said

Development Indicators report showed that the income of South Africa's poorest 10 percent rose by a third from 783 rand (105 US dollars, 71 euros) in 1993 to 1,041 rand a month in 2008.The richest 10 percent got richer by nearly 38 percent over the same period.

Figures also show that while black South Africans' salaries increased by 38 percent, the incomes of white South Africans jumped by 83.5 percent between 1995 and 2008.

While other countries may occasionally come in below South Africa in inequality indices, as a nation with regular and reliable data it was "now singularly the most consistently unequal society in the world."

The report noted concerns about increasing mortality due to HIV/AIDS. Health expert David Saunders of the University of the Western Cape said South Africa was one of only five countries where under-five mortality was increasing.

In 1995, 31 percent of the population lived under the poverty line of 283 rand a month, which dropped to 22 percent in 2008.

Socialist Banner is reminded of what Marx said " A house may be large or small; as long as the neighboring houses are likewise small, it satisfies all social requirement for a residence. But let there arise next to the little house a palace, and the little house shrinks to a hut."

Riches thru the labour of others

Socialist Banner has said it , now COSATU says it .


"the black bourgeoisie benefits on the sweat of workers through BEE companies."