Senegal :Anti - Democracy protests

 

The Socialist Party of Great Britain and its Companion Parties within the World Socialist Movement has always aimed for the transition from Capitalism to Socialism to occur through the democratic process and not through violent revolution.

It is considered that are seventy two countries in the world which qualify as democracies.

https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/democracy-countries

The Republic of Senegal is a West African country of eighteen million people.

It is numbered within the classification of heavily indebted poor countries.

The World Poverty Clock has seven per cent of Senegal living in extreme poverty. In Democratic Indexes Senegal ranks as the fourth most democratic country in Africa. ‘Senegal s one of the few African states that has never experienced a coup d'état or exceptionally harsh authoritarianism. There are seventy two political Parties there.’ Wiki

Senegal is currently undergoing violent protests because the President has postponed elections due to take place by ten months.

Senegal’s Parliament has supported the President. At present it is not known what the eventual outcome

‘On Saturday (FSb. 10) at least two people were confirmed dead after protests were held across Senegal, Friday (Feb. 09).

Demonstrators were not allowed to gather, and groups were dispersed by security forces.

The victims confirmed so far, two men in their twenties, were killed in Saint-Louis and in Dakar according to local media reports.

The victim in Saint-Louis was a student. He was killed on a school campus following demonstrations in the northern city, according to a statement from the public prosecutor.

Anger has mounted since President Sall last week postponed presidential elections scheduled this month.

The delay came hours before official campaigning was due to begin.

Parliament backed a delay until December and voted to keep Sall in power until his successor takes office, which is unlikely to be before early 2025.

Sall's second term was due to end April 2nd.

The president said he postponed the vote because of a dispute between parliament and the Constitutional Council over aspiring candidates who were not allowed to stand.

In an interview Friday (Feb. 09), he said he wants to rapidly organize a national dialogue that will pave the way for a peaceful electoral process.

Opposition lawmakers have filed an appeal at the Constitutional court while presidential candidates appealed to the Supreme Court.

A new round of protests is planned for Tuesday (Feb. 13).

Senegalese in the diaspora have also taken to the streets. In France where a large community of Senegalese lives, crowds gathered Saturday (Feb. 10) in major cities including Paris, Bordeaux (South west) and Nice (south).’

https://www.africanews.com/2024/02/11/election-protests-turn-deadly-in-senegal/

‘In his first interview since announcing the postponement of the presidential election, Senegal's Macky Sall argues his decision to intervene was necessary to prevent worse electoral chaos.

He spoke Friday (Feb. 09) as nationwide protests shook the country.

“I am for an inclusive, transparent and peaceful process that allows me to pass on the baton smoothly and in peace. That is the most important thing for our country today. You are right that West Africa is currently in a extremely difficult time, it's not at such a time when I am about to end my term that I will reinvent myself in a new career as a dictator or non-democrat," Sall told the Associated Press.

"That’s a picture they are painting, but it doesn’t correspond to my profile or my personality and that doesn’t correspond to reality. The reality is that if there hadn’t been this crescendo of successive crises, despite the breaches, we wouldn’t have gone in this direction''.

Last May, Sall held a national dialogue aimed at reducing political tensions after unprecedented riots.

However, rights groups continued to accuse authorities of repressing the media, civil society and the opposition.

Senegal's president now believes a new dialogue can solve the crisis the country grapples with.

“The dialogue for me can start anytime from next week, but I think there are prerequisites if we want to have success. First among these prerequisites is to establish trust between the actors, bring peace and enter a dialogue," Senegal's president said.

"So within one or two weeks maximum if the actors accept and I see a lot of interest from more and more actors who are okay with the idea of dialogue, that means we can get there quickly.”

Opposition lawmakers have filed an appeal at the Constitutional court.

The decree voted by Parliament to postne the election is also contested by candidates in the presidentialelection.

Out of 20, 14 appealed to the Supreme Court.

Senegalese faith in democracy has significantly declined under Sall, according to an independent survey by a research network.’

https://www.africanews.com/2024/02/10/i-am-seeking-for-nothing-except-to-leave-a-country-in-peace-sall-says-as-protests-erupt/

Senegal's Islamic Schools

Many are sent by parents in Senegal to Islamic schools, called daaras, where they are expected to receive food, shelter and teachings from the Koran. But tens of thousands of children in daaras across the West African nation are forced to beg in the streets to make money for their teachers, called marabouts, said rights groups such as Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Anti-Slavery International.

President Macky Sall in June ordered the removal of children from the streets and said those who force them to beg would be imprisoned in a drive to end a practice estimated by the United Nations to generate $8 million a year for Koranic teachers in the capital.

Yet fewer than 1,000 talibe [street-kids] of more than 30,000 in Dakar have been swept off the streets to date, with marabouts hiding them away or dressing them smartly to evade detection, said the state's national director of child protection Niokhobaye Diouf. "Many disappeared after Sall's announcement ... hidden by the crooked people who profit from their begging," Diouf said.

Sall vowed to close unsafe daaras after nine children died in 2013 in a fire, yet few have been shut down, while an anti-trafficking law passed in 2005 to stop the abuse of talibe has since led to only a dozen prosecutions of marabouts, HRW said. A draft law to regulate and modernise the daaras has stalled amid concerns from marabouts about the integration of the schools into Senegal's education system, activists said.

Many activists said prosecuting marabouts is key to ending abuses. "With the regulatory law in limbo and daaras not part of the education system, how else can Senegal ensure talibe are not subjected to begging and abuse?" said Lauren Seibert of HRW.

Yet few prosecutors choose to take on cases against marabouts, according to a spokesman for the justice ministry's anti-trafficking task force (CNLTP). Only a handful of marabouts have been jailed in cases of extreme abuse and deaths of talibe in recent years, activists said, while Senegal has only made two convictions for forced begging since 2014, found the U.S. TIP report.

"It may be harder to change the mindset of prosecutors than that of marabouts," said Laetitia Bazzi of the U.N. children's agency (UNICEF).

Islamic child exploitation in Sengal

In Senegal, thousands of children are exploited by their teachers in the name of Koranic education. Called talibes, the Arabic word for students, some 50,000 boys are forced into child labor, according to Human Rights Watch.

“Families do not have money to pay for the religious education of their children,” Miranda said, “so for them it is logical that the child himself be the one to finance their own education.” Housed in deplorable conditions in daaras, or schools, teachers demand talibes deliver daily begging quotas or be beaten, starved, or left out in the street.

http://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2016/03/talibes-senegal/475320/

Forgotten conflicts – Our silence is a shame to humanity

As you read this, there are more than 40 conflicts unfolding in countries around the world. Many of them don’t get the media or policy attention. Tales of war from places like Syria and Iraq are never far from the headlines but the toll of decades-long conflicts – from Colombia to the Ogaden, from Kashmir to Western Sahara – is just as devastating for the people who live there.

In South Kordofan journalists are banned by the Sudanese government from entering the rebel-held region, where civilians have taken to living in caves to survive the endless bombing. South Kordofan's death toll of 4,500 may seem insignificant compared with many other conflicts, but the rebels and the people of the Nuba Mountains fear Khartoum won't stop until they are all driven out. There are almost a 200,000 refugees and almost half a million are in need of immediate humanitarian aid.

Nagwa Konda, director of the Nuba Relief, Rehabilitation and Development Organisation (NRRDO) – a local NGO that struggles to cater for the desperate needs of the Nuba – said hope in her region was fading.  “There is a catastrophic humanitarian situation going on right now in the Nuba Mountains. Children in the Nuba Mountains are suffering from daily aerial bombardment, from hunger, dying from preventable diseases.” 

Omar al-Bashir and his Khartoum-based regime say they are fighting a rebellion in South Kordofan driven by vested interests and Western plotters that want to overthrow his government. The Nuba say they are fighting for their own survival. The Nuba, numbering between one and two million, are a collection of distinct peoples of black African origin who speak an array of different languages. Many are now Muslim, but there are Christian and animist Nuba too.  Along with a few Arab pastoralist tribes, they have the geographical misfortune of living on the fault line between Sudan’s largely Arab and Islamic north and its predominantly Christian, animist and black African south.  The origins of their oppression date back to the colonial era when the British segregated them, declaring the Nuba Mountains region a special “Closed District.” The Nuba were not allowed to stray northwards without a special permit and schooling was left up to missionaries. When Sudan emerged from British rule in 1956, the Nuba were already politically, economically and socially marginalised and lacked any educational system.

South Kordofan had been under the governorship since 2009 of Bashir’s trusted lieutenant Ahmed Haroun – like him indicted by the International Criminal Court for allegedly orchestrating atrocities in Darfur. By 2013, Bashir had deployed between 40,000 and 70,000 troops to South Kordofan. Local Arab tribes, the Misseriya, were coopted by Khartoum to fight their black African rivals. Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) pulled out of South Kordofan in January after its clinic was bombed for a second time, leaving Doctor Tom Catena at the Mother of Mercy Hospital as the last surgeon in the Nuba Mountains, performing around 1,000 surgeries a year.

"You  want to ask me why I fight?” Thayr Urwa Hamdan Said, a new rebel recruit, exclaimed.  “After the separation of the South, Omar al-Bashir  said that Sudan is now an Islamic Arab country that would be governed by Islamic sharia laws. They have to recognise and bear in mind that there are other people living with them in this geographical area called Sudan. That is why if we do not overthrow this government we would be second-class citizens in our own country.”

Atrocities in nearby Liberia and Sierra Leone have stolen the regional headlines over the years, but the separatist struggle in Casamance is West Africa’s longest-running civil conflict. Three decades of on-and-off separatist conflict in Senegal's southern region of Casamance have killed thousands of people, displaced tens of thousands more, crippled the rural-based economy and turned large tracts of territory into no-go zones due to landmines. A ceasefire was declared last year by an important rebel leader, but even if it holds, grievances and resentment linger and underlying socio-economic problems threaten to consign another generation of Casamançais to living like second-class citizens in one of Africa's supposed beacons of democracy. The rebellion was born out of the resentment of the southern Diola people for Senegal’s dominant Wolof group in the decades following independence from France in 1960. The Diola, who represent only 3.7 percent of the population but 60 percent of people in the Ziguinchor region, have traditional beliefs that set them apart from other Senegalese groups. According to the Association for the Development of the District of Nysassia (APRAN), a local NGO that has been working to help the displaced return home, 78 villages in Lower Casamance were completely destroyed during the fighting and more than 150,000 people lost their homes. Thousands of civilians remain internally displaced by the conflict, including some 6,000 in Ziguinchor, and at least another 10,000 refugees are split between The Gambia or Guinea-Bissau, many still harbouring deep resentment for Senegalese authority. Demba Keita, secretary general of APRAN, told IRIN that many people want to return home but feel conditions are not right to allow them to do so.

“Their villages were wiped out and now they have no means for reconstruction," he said. "The state of Senegal does nothing to help them. We cannot convince donors to engage in reconstruction, because they feel the peace process does not move forward.”

For the most part, the separatist struggle in Casamance has been fought in a media vacuum. International attention has focused on other, more immediately troubling conflicts with bigger bombs, larger death tolls, and more terrible atrocities. Amnesty International, however, did draw attention to the extrajudicial killings, disappearances and flagrant human rights abuses in an influential February 1998 report.

“Hundreds of NGOs have worked for the development of Casamance. But if you drive through Casamance, you don’t see any development,” said Abdou Elinkine Diatta, who fought with Atika in the 1980s and 1990s before becoming a rebel spokesman. “Maybe it has helped develop Dakar. But there has been no development in Casamance."

Robert Piper, then UN humanitarian coordinator for the Sahel, admitted last year that the situation in Casamance presents a real “dilemma” for the international aid community.

“On the one hand, there are very real needs here, particularly food insecurity. On the other hand, we also need to recognise that this is a well-endowed part of Senegal that should not have a humanitarian operation.”

Senegal's Land-Grab

Between 2000 and 2010, over 657,000 hectares of land, around 17 percent of Senegal’s arable land, was allocated to 17 private firms. Ten of the firms are Senegalese and the rest are foreign.

 Changes in ownership have coincided with serious food shortages in the sub-region, a global financial crisis and a growing emphasis on the promotion of bio-fuel, with Senegal heavily promoting the planting of the controversial Jatropha tree, the seeds of which are used for the production of fuel for diesel engines.

Under the previous administration of Abdoulaye Wade, the government pushed high profile schemes like the Return towards Agriculture plan (REVA) and the Grand Agricultural Drive for Food and Abundance (GOANA), with an emphasis on promoting agri-business and bio-fuels.

“These initiatives have led to a glut of private operators, including religious leaders and senior state officials moving in on land in rural areas,” complains Mariam Sow, coordinator of the Natural Protection Programme of international NGO ENDA. Sow says the loss of farmland in areas like Gandon is sapping farmers’ morale and not bringing the hoped-for benefits. “In losing their land, peasant farmers lose a part of their identity,” Sow argued. “With the amount of land allocated, the local population feels squeezed while only a small proportion of the land area is actually cultivated. The promises on creating jobs and infrastructure are not kept.”

In a May 2011 report, the Agricultural and Rural Prospective Initiative (IPAR), a sub-regional NGO which aims to provide “strategic analysis” of rural and agricultural issues, highlighted the volume of land deals in northern Senegal. IPAR drew particular attention to the case of Mbane in Saint Louis Region, where it said 232,000 hectares had been distributed to politicians, religious leaders and private operators with strong political connections under the GOANA project. The IPAR report noted that, at the time of writing, much of the land acquired had yet to be exploited.

Rosnert Alissoutin of Gaston Berger University in Saint Louis says there are obvious points of conflict between traditional land arrangements and modern legislation on land allocation. “Legislation passed at national level gives the state control over all land in the country, while the peasant farmer is convinced that the land he exploits is inalienably his, inherited from his ancestors,” he told IRIN. Inevitably, situations arise where the acquisition of land by private investors, although legally authorized, is at odds with the customary legal rights demanded by local farmers, the majority of whom do not have title deeds.

The main land legislation in Senegal dates back to July 1964 and stresses free access to land and the importance of communal ownership under state control. The law argues against land being re-appropriated by private owners. Land is awarded to members of the community on the understanding that the concessions granted are properly developed. But the laws give little indication of how the development can be properly evaluated.

Among the large-scale private sector operators to encounter strong local resistance has been the manufacturing conglomerate Senhuile/Senethanol, backed by Italian investors. It acquired 20,000 hectares by presidential decree near Fanaye in 2011 with the stated intention of cultivating sweet potatoes to produce ethanol and later sunflower oil for export. The project had its supporters, particularly those hoping it would bring jobs and generate wealth. But local communities bitterly resented the loss of pasture. The company had promised thousands of jobs, but as of today there are only 30 people from the community on Senhuile’s payroll. Given such conditions, young people do not have a reason to stay and so they leave for the towns.

From here 

Senhuile CEO Arrested, Accused Of Embezzlement

Radio France Internationale | 24 May 2014

Update on status of land grab in rural Senegal by Senhuile SA

Last month, Oakland Institute released a report about the 37 villages in the rural Ndiael region of Senegal who had their land illegally confiscated by Senhuile, an Italian-Senegalese agribusiness project. We have an update on the issue. Benjamin Dummai, the CEO of Senhuile, was fired by the company's board of directors this past week and was arrested by Senegalese authorities. According to the local press, Dummai is accused of embezzling nearly 300,000 euros. Frédéric Mousseau, the Policy Director at the Oakland Institute, gives RFI's Laura Angela Bagnetto an update on the palm oil project that has occupied 20,000 hectares in northern Senegal:

Listen to the interview: 

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from here

Land Deals In Africa: Senegal

The Ndiaël Collective, CNCR, ENDA Pronat, ActionAid Senegal, ActionAid Italy, Peuples Solidaires, Re:Common, GRAIN and The Oakland Institute

Senegalese farmers and herders demand shady transnational corporation Senhuile SA get off their land

Farmers and herders from northwestern Senegal have travelled to Europe to demand the scrapping of a land deal that threatens the lives and livelihoods of some 9,000 people. A murky international conglomerate, Senhuile SA, has leased 20,000 hectares of land in the Ndiaël Reserve, land which has been used for decades by residents of some 40 villages in the area. The villagers want the project stopped, saying it will cut off their access to grazing land, water, food and firewood – ultimately forcing them off their homes and land.

Senhuile SA is a joint venture controlled by Italy's Tampieri Financial Group, Senegalese investors, and Agro Bioethanol International, a shell company registered in New York. The herders, along with representatives of the Conseil National de Concertation et de Coopération des Ruraux (CNCR) and the Senegalese non-governmental organisations ENDA Pronat and ActionAid, are in Europe from today to 6 March 2014 to mobilise citizens to call on Tampieri, Senhuile's majority shareholder, to close down the project. The project was initially established in another location, Fanaye, where violence resulting from local opposition led to the death of two villagers and dozens more injured in 2011.

A new report released today by the Oakland Institute exposes the numerous flaws with this project, including the lack of consultation with and consent from local communities, the opaque nature of Senhuile's operations, as well as the devastating impact of the project on people's livelihoods. Some 6,000 hectares have already been cleared and planted with different crops. The company has built irrigation canals and fences that restrict locals' access to grazing land, water and firewood. "Villagers complain of harassment, intimidation and physical assault by the police and private guards hired by the firm," said Frédéric Mousseau, Policy Director of the Oakland Institute.

According to Ardo Sow, spokesperson for Ndiaël Collective of villages resisting the Senhuile project: "The disdain for local communities is far too obvious. An Environmental and Social Impact Assessment was only conducted months after the start of the project, and was never made available to the public. Moreover, the map produced by state technicians before the start of the project identified the existence of only 6 of the 40 villages and hamlets using the land to be leased to Senhuile."

The Ndiaël Collective, CNCR, ENDA Pronat, ActionAid Senegal, ActionAid Italy, Peuples Solidaires - ActionAid France, Re:Common, GRAIN, and The Oakland Institute are launching today an Urgent Appeal to get Tampieri to withdraw from the Senhuile project. "As concerned international organizations, we support the call of the communities for the project to be stopped and the land to be returned to the people," said Katia Roux, of Peuples Solidaires in France. "Local farmers and pastoralists need recognition and support to develop their own sustainable, small-scale food systems."

Also see here

madness of the market

The southern Senegalese region of Casamance produced 40 million dollars worth of cashews in 2011 – 40,000 tonnes – and employed more than 220,000 people, according to figures from the Chamber of Commerce in Ziguinchor, the regional capital. But as of April this year, production stood at only 8,000 tonnes, more than 15,000 tonnes less than at the same point last year. The sharp drop has been attributed to unfavourable growing conditions, a decrease in rainfall, conflict in Casamance – where anti-personnel mines have been laid on farms - and producers discouraged by low prices. Large-scale Indian buyers come to the capital, Dakar, and contract local traders to actually purchase cashews; these traders in turn dispatch freelance agents to the often remote villages where farmers have nuts for sale. "The Indians will never come to see us here. They pass the work on to intermediaries" Producers told IPS they faced numerous obstacles with respect to storage and transporting their crop from their villages to urban centres. They also said traders offered them laughably low prices for cashews, and argued that they were exploited by intermediaries who depress prices only to resell the nuts for far more to Indian exporters. The Indians will never come to see us here. They pass the work on to intermediaries
Idrissa Diatta, a farmer from Diattacounda, some 80 kilometres from Ziguinchor, said traders offer the equivalent of 60 U.S. cents per kilo at the farm gate, but are reselling it to exporters for nearly three times more, around 1.70 dollars. Abdoulaye Diatta, another planter, says traders sometimes claim prices are low because supply exceeds demand, or foreign currency exchange rates are unfavourable. "But if the dollar exchange rate has shifted, or there's really an oversupply, then we wouldn't see a single cashew nut plucked from the bush. But now every nut is sold. Right now, they're trying to swap us a sack of rice for two sacks of cashews: it's ridiculous."

Jean-Marie Badji, one of the much-maligned middlemen, says the price of unprocessed cashews varies according to changes in the world market, and traders are trying to make ends meet, not trying to dupe growers. "Look, we have to travel out to these villages to collect cashews. The roads are in terrible condition, and the truckers charge us heavily to transport goods over them. And we're talking about completely isolated villages. If we pay more than 250 or 300 CFA (less than a dollar), we risk going bankrupt," he told IPS.
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=107653

Piracy: From Somalia to Senegal?

Recently fishing unions in Senegal in West Africa warned that if unauthorized fishing by foreign trawlers in their waters is not reined in, piracy could take hold in Senegal and it could end up becoming an international threat to shipping like Somalia. The economic losses resulting from pirate attacks in Somalia is estimated at ten billion dollars. The British newspaper Guardian in a detailed article on this topic on April 3 focused on comparing the warnings issued by Senegalese fishers with the past warnings by Somali fishers and it concluded that the current warnings about the influx of Chinese, European and Russian fishing trawlers in North, East and West of Africa should be taken seriously.

The FAO, the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations, maintains that all the aquatic resources of West Africa have been exploited to the full capacity and even beyond. And currently over one and half million local residents of the region, whose lives depend on these resources, are facing deep economic hardship. Statistics reveal that European fishing vessels catch over 235 thousand tons of fish between the waters of Mauritania and Morocco alone while tens of thousands of tons are also caught with giant nets in the waters of Sierra Leone, Ghana, Guinea-Bissau and other countries.

The origin of piracy in Somalia goes back to the 1990s when the Siad Barre regime fell from power resulting in the disintegration of the navy and coastal guards.

At that time tens of thousands of people whose lives faced dire difficulties due to severe droughts and poverty in Somalia turned to coastal areas and formed fishing communities to provide for their needs and thus fishing became their only means of survival. When civil war broke out in Somalia, foreign fishing vessels began entering Somali waters illegally and catching large volumes of rock-lobster and other warm water fish along the tip of the Horn of Africa. In 2006 Somali fisher-men described the way illegal fishing trawlers not only deplete natural and aquatic resources, they also use various methods to stop local fishers from their activities. According to Somali local fishers, foreigners had torn their nets and made permanent bases for themselves near the coast. Now Senegalese fishers are stating similar statements and saying that catches are already down by 75 percent since 10 years ago because foreign illegal fishers have extensively depleted their aquatic resources and they are very worried about the approach of a big catastrophe.

Somali coastal residents who saw their livelihoods threatened by foreign trawlers took up arms and became a kind of coast guard. This however led to the creation of piracy in these waters. In time, ransom payments to poor fishermen of Somalia by these foreign fishing vessels encouraged the escalation of pirate attacks. Recently a number of local Senegalese fishers have warned that they will attack foreign vessels to protect their vital resources and local economy. They maintain that within the next ten years people will become armed and fishers will go fishing with guns aboard.

Therefore illegal exploitation of the natural resources, degradation of the marine environment, poverty and war created a vicious cycle of corruption, theft and destruction in Somalia and now the same may happen off Senegal waters.

http://www.payvand.com/news/12/apr/1109.html

Senegal'S Class Struggle

Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade has served Western interests dutifully.

The changes Wade has made to the constitution, enabling his personalisation of the state, were ushered in alongside a number of other changes that served to further open the country to foreign investment.

Wade's primary skill seems to have been signing cheques to foreign companies. By far the most significant achievement for Wade has been opening up mineral exploitation in the country's Toumbacounda region, facilitated by a $527m project to build the largest port in West Africa. The port is being built in a public-private initiative with DP World - an affiliate of the Dubai World Group, a company that also took on an $800m deal to build and run a special economic zone. The port facilitates the extraction of gold by a Canadian and Saudi company, Oromin Venture Group, and two other Canadian companies; Sabodala Mining and Lamgold Group. They are joined by Jersey-based Randgold, and the multi-national Arcelor Mittal. Numerous other valuable metals are found in the area, such as copper, chromium, lithium and uranium. The quantities seem to be less significant than the rare properties they offer for blending in new metal composites. These minerals will make their way to port via massive road rehabilitation and construction projects, which have been doled out to companies such as Swiss-based SGS Industrial, and China's Henan Industrial Cooperation Group and APIX, the government investment agency. Many Senegalese find it painfully insulting that, after 50 years of independence, they still cannot even build their own roads.

Senegal has also been involved in the protracted process of privatising its water services, with an early electricity privatisation that initially involved Hydro-Quebec and later Vivendi, among others. Vivendi is the company so loathed in South Africa for its pre-paid meter system. These privatisation processes lead to rising household bills for working people whose wages have been stagnant.

Wade formed in ideological association with former South African president Thabo Mbeki's campaignaimed for Africa to undergo a renaissance that would include increasing social cohesion, democracy, economic growth and the establishment of Africa as a significant player in world affairs. The most obvious example of this has been the adoption of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), a vehicle to expand the reach of neoliberal free-market economic policy throughout the continent. In short, NEPAD further opened the continent to foreign investment - enshrining property rights, treating foreign firms on par with indigenous firms, cutting taxes, enabling the expropriation of profits, creating tax-free zones, and limiting the rights of workers.

According to Senegal Interior Minister Maitre Ousmane Ngom in 2009: "On the one hand, these reforms aim at improving the business environment, and on the other hand modernising the legal framework and the geological infrastructures to attract and develop foreign direct investments." Not surprisingly, international business interests have offered significant praise for Wade’s government over the years. Ousmane boasted that the World Bank's latest "Doing Business" report ranked Senegal as the top reforming country in Africa, and the fifth in the world.

The latest World Bank data shows the current account balance of Senegal at a deficit of $1.029bn. The country exports $3.236bn (2009) and imports $5.919bn. (This inclues foreign aid and remittances.) The exports are of course much larger in actual volume, leading to more shipments leaving the country, but those exports are primary commodities. The value of goods coming in is therefore much greater and is usually manufactured, such as mobile phones, clothing and electronics - the fate of neocolonialism.

Although the global scramble for Senegalese wealth is helping to enrich foreign business and a small local functionary class, the rest of the economy has been suffering. Unemployment rates at around 48 per cent mean Senegalese workers they do so in a highly degrading degrading fashion vy with one another for jobs and wages whose purchasing power constantly diminishes. Many feel a deep sense of despair and humiliation on a daily basis. Senegal has seen a growing division of society between those who can afford pay-per-use services, and those who cannot. Toll roads and new first-class trains sweep the wealthy out to the suburbs, while the rest make their way home in apartheid-style hardship. Agriculture still provides the main source of economic activity for 77 per cent of the labour force, but it remains highly dependent on increasingly unreliable weather patterns. Local peanut production - the most significant agricultural export - has declined, in part due to the privatisation of Sonacos, the state marketing and processing company, but also as a result of changes in climate and soil health. The fishing industry faces declining stocks as foreign trawlers poach along the West African coast with impunity.

Senegalese people need to stop looking for heroic leaders. Y’en a Marre ["Had enough"] members are starting to express some dissatisfaction with the culture of the M23 opposition movement, which is dominated by figureheads, whose politics closely resemble those of President Wade and people who simply want to occupy his throne. M23 prove themselves to be and self-interested, rather than political principled. Y’en a Marre members reveal a greater interest in popular education and grassroots action. They draw inspiration from a long history of non-violent anti-colonial resistance.

Demonstrations have managed to gain significant support outside the capital, Dakar, and taken place in smaller towns throughout the country. There have been a number of labour disputes. For example, most recently, taxi and transport workers managed to stop service for a three-day period with a near-100 per cent participation rate as they protested both the rise in fuel prices and police harassment and bribery. Before that, the union at the national broadcasting corporation participated in a protest and brief labour disruption over claims that the company was being used for Wade's propaganda purposes rather than upholding standards of journalism. For the past three months, there has been a nationally coordinated strike of college and university professors who face ever-growing class sizes but cannot afford basic housing. At the same time, the opposition is nevertheless rather disconnected from the everyday struggles of working people. The demonstrations reveal no practical links with the unions leading these struggles.

Adapted from here

Wades road to power

One year after President Wade of Senegal took power in 2000, he amended the country's constitution to impose a two-term limit for the presidency. He also reduced the presidential term to five years from seven, following the completion of his first term in 2007. After his re-election in 2007, President Wade promised to abide with the constitution and stick to the two-term limit, meaning he would not stand for election in the 2012 poll. He has though now announced plans to stand for a third term, saying the two-term limit did not apply to him because he was first elected in 2000, before the constitution officially took effect. Wade's candidacy for a third term has now been approved by the country's constitutional court. The credibility of the court has been questioned, as each of its judges were appointed by the president. Many people believe that the court is under Wade's influence, and that has prompted it to rule in his favour.

Wade also attempted to amend the constitution again, this time for his own good, by lowering the votes required to win the presidential election from 50 to 25 per cent. He however had to later backed down from the amendment, after thousands of people took to the streets in protest.

Wade's presidency has been marred by allegations of corruption and nepotism. Recently, he is said to have dished out millions of francs, and plots of land, to hundreds of his key party leaders. He has widely been criticised for excessive spending on what have been described as "prestige projects". This includes commissioning a 50m bronze statue (the African Renaissance Monument), for which Wade claims 35 per cent of all tourist revenues - because of his "intellectual property" in conceiving the idea!

Demonstrations have helped trigger a movement known as Y'En A Marre - French for "Fed Up!" They protest that since Wade took office, the prices of basic goods started (and have continued) to skyrocket, while the earning power remains stagnant or depreciating.

The polls are on February 26

The Liberation of who ?

"We were colonised by the French. We were forced to go to war. Forced to follow the orders that said, do this, do that, and we did. France has not been grateful. Not at all." Former French colonial soldier, Issa Cisse from Senegal, who is now 87 years-old, looks back on it all with sadness and evident resentment.

Papers unearthed by the BBC reveal that British and American commanders ensured that the liberation of Paris on 25 August 1944 was seen as a "whites only" victory. The BBC programme has seen evidence that black colonial soldiers - who made up around two-thirds of Free French forces - were deliberately removed from the unit that led the Allied advance into the French capital.Allied Command insisted that all black soldiers be taken out and replaced by white ones from other units.

By the time France fell in June 1940, 17,000 of its black, mainly West African colonial troops, known as the Tirailleurs Senegalais, lay dead.Many of them were simply shot where they stood soon after surrendering to German troops who often regarded them as sub-human savages. After the liberation of the French capital many Senegalese soldiers were simply stripped of their uniforms and sent home. To make matters even worse, in 1959 their pensions were frozen.

china africa

Chinese President Hu Jintao said he wanted to deepen Beijing's trade and investment links in Africa despite the global economic slowdown.

China's trade with Africa has shot up 10-fold since 2000, soaring 45 percent to nearly $107 billion last year alone. China's investments in and imports from Africa are dominated by minerals and oil -- Angola is China's single biggest crude supplier. Chinese companies are expanding sectors such as mobile telephones as well as food and agricultural businesses, such as fisheries and sesame production in Senegal. Tanzania and Mali are also Africa's third and fourth biggest gold miners and Senegal has a burgeoning gold and iron ore sector. China's Sinopec is looking for oil in northern Mali, while the state-owned China National Petroleum Company signed a $5 billion deal to produce oil in neighbouring Niger. China has invested heavily in Africa, building parliaments, stadiums, bridges and roads in numerous countries. But critics say the hastily built infrastructure is nothing more than a bribe for access to Africa's vast mineral wealth, natural resources and bountiful coastline.
Fishermen in neighboring Guinea-Bissau say after their government accepted China's gift of a new parliament, their coastline was invaded by Chinese trawlers who have fished their waters dry.

Sudan claims China is working with it to head off a possible International Criminal Court arrest warrant for President Omar Hassan al-Bashir for alleged war crimes in Darfur. China, whose firms pump Sudan's oil, says a warrant would worsen instability. This trip , according to some observers , is also to counter the accusations that they only do business with resource-rich autocracies

islam and judaism

It hurts too much to lie on his back, so the 7-year-old has spent the past month stretched out on his stomach. His two grandmothers sit on the hospital bed beside him, fanning the pink flesh left exposed by his teacher's whip.

The Quranic teacher who did this to him is behind bars.

But what is most significant is that the boy's father — a poor farmer who sold part of his harvest to pay for the bus fare to the hospital — filed the charges against the teacher himself. In doing so, this man with cracked lips and bloodshot eyes braved the wrath of his entire village, including his own father, who considers all teachers in Senegal's Islamic schools to be holy .Even hospitals have become wary of treating beaten talibe, or Quranic students, for fear of retaliation from the religious community.

In hundreds of these schools in the mostly Muslim West African country, children are made to beg in the streets and are beaten if they don't bring back enough money. One 10-year-old was beaten to death with his hands tied behind his back and his mouth stuffed with rocks. Despite laws passed to protect children, the courts have convicted only a handful of Quranic teachers and quickly cave in the face of powerful clerics. The respect for Islamic schools comes from a centuries-old tradition of families sending their sons to study the Quran and till fields in exchange for food. In the 1970s, as drought devastated West Africa, schools moved to the cities and Islamic teachers sent children out to beg in the streets. These days, boys as young as 3 are beaten not for failing to master the Quran, but for failing to bring back enough money — a change families often are unaware of.

The boy also had to beg for food. Some days all he got was a discarded fish head, or a spoonful of rice.By the second week, he was hungry all the time. On July 2, he begged until dark and got the 50 cents, but spent part of it on biscuits. When the marabout found out, the boy says, he got whipped until the skin on his back fell off. Hospital officials believe the whip was laced with metal.With around 30 children in his care, the marabout was netting $430 a month, three times the salary of an average citizen and as much as a government official.

"Ask yourself, what is this money used for? The kids are not fed, so it's not for food. They wear rags, so it's not for clothes. They don't have mattresses, so it's not for their beds," says Paul Ndiaye, of the Swiss aid group Sentinelles, who has spent the last 10 years trying to get courts to take action against abusive marabouts. "This is a sham on a grand scale under the cover of religion."

In Senegal that the word for "to educate" — "yaar" is the same as the word for the stick to discipline students.

Meanwhile , Israel's Law of Return guarantees citizenship for any Jew in need, and these days the country is especially concerned about boosting its Jewish population to compete with the Arabs. But the Ethiopians have proved the hardest immigrant group to absorb, and the Falash Mura, some critics feel, is pushing the limits. As a whole they are poor, plagued by crime, violence and substance abuse, feeling shut out of a world very different from rural Africa. But despite all the preparations, most Ethiopian immigrants over age 35 go straight onto welfare after reaching Israel, according to the Jewish Agency.

That's no reason for shutting out the Falash Mura, says Mazor Bahyna, an Ethiopian in the 120-member Knesset, or parliament.

"I think Israel has an obligation to prove that it is not a racist state," he says. "If everyone was blond-haired and had blue eyes, they would bring them."

"There is no end to reunification," said the Jewish Agency's Konforti.

Israel has struggled for years to figure out which Ethiopians should be allowed in. Each time it has attempted to end the immigration by emptying the Gondar camps and airlifting their inhabitants to Israel, thousands more have flooded into the camps, scrambling to prove their Jewishness.The argument now seems to have come down to numbers: Israel says the last of the Falasha Mura who qualify for immigration arrived in Israel earlier this month, while the American groups say some 8,700 have been left behind.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has upheld the Israeli list, effectively marking the end

Food Price Protests

People across West Africa, and elsewhere in the world, have taken to the streets to protest price hikes in fuel, staple foods and other basic necessities.

A crackdown by police against Senegalese citizens who gathered in the capital Dakar on 30 March to protest the high cost of living was “brutal”, say human rights groups. Police used tear gas and batons to disperse a demonstration organised by the national consumers' union to protest recent hikes in the prices of rice, oil and soap. Security forces also allegedly brutalised journalists and confiscated cameramen’s video.

The Dakar-based African human rights coalition RADDHO (Rencontre Africaine pour la Défense des Droits de l’Homme) said in a statement on 30 March that it firmly condemns "unspeakable" acts by security forces which "violate" people's rights. It likened alleged beatings with electric prods to "torture" and called for an investigation into "all acts of violence and poor treatment suffered by demonstrators".

"The interior ministry or at least the police force believe that maintaining order means stepping up repression," Leonard Vincent, Africa director of the Paris-based group Reporters Without Borders

Opposition political leader Abdoulaye Bathily recently told reporters that rising poverty and a disregard for human rights has made Senegal "a bomb that could explode at any moment."

Meantime

At least a dozen protestors in COTE D'IVOIRE were wounded during several hours of clashes with police on 31 March as they demanded government action to curb food prices.

The demonstrations took place in Cocody, where Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo has a residence, and in Yopougon, a thriving area for shopping and nightlife. Ivorian police used tear gas and batons to disperse protestors who were burning tires and overturning parked cars.

At the height of the demonstration, before riot police started firing tear gas, IRIN saw around 1,500 protestors chanting “we are hungry” and “life is too expensive, you are going to kill us.”

A kilo of beef has increased from 700 CFA (US$1.68) to 900 CFA (US$2.16) in just three days One litre of oil has increased from 600 CFA (US$1.44) to 850 CFA (US$2.04) in the same time.

“We only eat once during the day now,” said another protestor, Alimata Camara. “If food prices increase more, what will we give our children to eat and how will they go to school?”

Elsewhere , in Cameroon protests against food prices in late February turned violent and in Burkina Faso this year there have been food riots in all the major towns in the country in which hundreds of protestors have been arrested. In Mauritania the high price of imported wheat and rice products brought people onto the streets in late 2007.

Africa: Kosovo Revives Hopes for Secession

The recognition of Kosovo by some of the West’s major powers is boosting the hopes of secessionist movements across Africa , according to this news item . In an article titled “Kosovo—the precedent that will enflame Africa,” a columnist for the Ivoirian newspaper Notre Voie predicts a revival of secessionist groups across the continent and doubts that the international community will be able to resolve the resulting crises.

“The world is about to witness… another political and diplomatic revolution which may give birth to some new nations," reads an opinion piece published on Somalilandnet.com, a website that caters to the autonomous region of the same name that seeks to secede from Somalia.

“Kidal will follow the example of Kosovo to become independent,” reads a forum entry on Kidal.info, a website named after a city in the northeastern part of Mali that is home to a Touareg rebellion that has clashed sporadically with governmental forces.

“This hard-won freedom by Kosovar citizens will serve as an example for the future autonomy of Kabylia,” wrote a contributor to Kabyle.com, a website committed to the affirmation of Algeria’s Kabyle Berbers, who resent the arabization of the country at the expense of the Amazigh culture.

At Rewmi.com, one of Senegal’s major news sites, one commentator wonders if the Senegal's government’s recognition of Kosovo will not reignite the separatist tendencies of MFDC, a rebel group that wants independence for the southern Casamance region.

Africa’s strongest case will likely come from Western Sahara, which has been recognized as an independent country by the African Union but whose sovereignty is not effective because of Morocco’s insistence that it is a province of its kingdom. A Saharawi blogger at Saharaopinions.blogspot.com, noted what he regards as the inconsistency of Western powers: “In Kosovo they imposed an independence that was not based on international legality, but in Western Sahara they’re opposed to self-determination that has been recommended multiple times by that same legality.”
Another wrote “Kosovo is an example of how we can effectively make our case,”

Article 20 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights affirms "the unquestionable and inalienable right to self-determination," but this has to be balanced against the inviolability of territorial boundaries that resulted from colonization (the so-called uti possidetis principle under Article 4 of the African Union’s Constitutive Act).

The Class Struggle in Senegal

Police in Senegal's capital, Dakar, have fired teargas at hundreds of protesting street vendors . The clashes came in response to police enforcing a new government policy to remove the vendors. Thousands of people earn a living peddling goods on Dakar's streets. The violence broke out shortly after trades unions held their own demonstration against rising food and fuel prices. Both demonstrations came down to one thing: poverty. The World Bank considers that one in three Senegalese is poor. Unemployment rate estimates are as high as 40 percent, and the vast majority of jobs are in the informal sector.

Police began evicting the thousands of street vendors on Thursday, three days after President Abdoulaye Wade sought an end to informal trading in the city. He said uncontrolled street vending had cost the country some 125m Euros because traffic jams were putting off investors. annd the vendors were protesting a move by President Abdoulaye Wade to force them off Dakar’s busy streets in an effort to improve traffic flow. For months, the government has been giving Dakar a facelift, building new roads and hotels, as it prepares to host an international Islamic conference in March. The authorities in Senegal's capital, Dakar, have now offered concessions to street vendors after violent protests. Several officials moved swiftly to announce measures, including the provision of market areas and reopening some streets for roadside sales .

“Prices of basic commodities have reached incomprehensible levels,” Mademba Sock, coordinator of the United Front of Central Unions representing 14 of Senegal’s unions

Union representatives had been demanding a reduction in food and housing prices, an increase in salaries, and support for struggling businesses. Demonstrators included teachers complaining of empty government promises, public servants let go without pay and average citizens who simply cannot afford to feed their families.

“Senegalese people do not eat three meals a day,” said Fatou Samba, a former teacher. “The president spends millions of dollars here and there while his people are suffering and dying of hunger.”

“In my home, there are eight people,” said teacher Cissé Sow. “I pay the water, electricity, phone, medical care and food. It’s one salary…. And there are 30 or 40 other people who depend on me...Meanwhile, the people in power are all driving fancy American cars

Need a life , Will travel

Migration has been an essential mechanism for survival in the harsh climate and erratic agricultural conditions of the Sahara and Sahel regions for as long as people have lived there.

Tens of thousands from Niger work in Libya. Between 65,000 and 120,000 sub-Saharan Africans enter the Maghreb (Mauritania, Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, and Libya) yearly, according to estimates collated by Hein de Haas, a researcher at the International Migration Institute at Oxford University. The money they send back to Niger forms a major part of Niger's economy. Official remittances in 2005 totalled some US$60 million, according to the World Bank, with undocumented remittances to Niger believed to be even higher. This report describes the futility of discouraging migration

"Living in Tripoli means accepting all kinds of inhuman and degrading treatment: Libya is a land of all kinds of discrimination between people; it is not a welcoming place, and that's why I have taken the chance to come back to Niger"

International Organisation for Migration spokeswoman for West Africa Jo-Lind Roberts added that only once people have arrived in their destinations do they find out there are very few opportunities for them. "And that's also something that only someone who has tried to cross either by sea or desert has experienced. People here [in West Africa] have no idea about the lack of opportunity when they travel."

"Providing information to people is fine, especially so they are aware of the very present dangers," said Hein de Haas, a researcher at the International Migration Institute at Oxford University. But he noted: "These campaigns portray migrants as victims and as vulnerable people who don't know what they are doing. Based on my own experience interviewing migrants I don't have that impression,"

In his view migration is an economic imperative for many Africans. "The fact remains that the income gaps between sub-Saharan Africa, north Africa and Europe are huge, so the main rational for economic migration is still there."

Tens of thousands of people make dangerous boat journeys across the Atlantic to Europe each year, driven by poverty and a search for the relative wealth they see other successful migrants have achieved.
Pape Demba Fall, a senior researcher focused on migration at Cheikh Ante Diop University in the capital Dakar said . "It should not be forgotten that people who choose to leave are already well aware of the risks," he said. "They know it very well, they have seen it themselves, but that doesn't change their minds, and that is shown by the fact that more not less people are migrating every year from Senegal."

The IOM estimates that 31,000 people attempted the journey to Europe by sea from Senegal in 2006, of whom some 6,000 died or went missing at sea.

To feed oneself , to provide for ones family , men and women will always seek other lands , and while the grass is still literally greener on the other side then men and women will endeavour to reach it . Only when it is possible to maintain an adequate living standard at home , will men and women stay at home . That is something Capitalism will never be able to offer many people throughout Africa

State and class in pre-colonial West Africa

Was the state instituted for mutual protection or did it arise when society became divided into classes?

Long before Marx and Engels, political thinkers and philosophers had written extensively on the concept of the state. In the 1640s, Thomas Hobbes had argued that the state was essentially a contract between the individual and the government. The alternative, called by Hobbes the state of nature, was a thoroughly unpleasant life—solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.

This, according to Hobbes, the state emerged to improve mankind's lot. However, Engels, summing up his historical analysis in The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, argued that the State was a product of class society: "It is an admission that this society has become entangled in an insoluble contradiction with itself, that it has split into irreconcilable antagonisms which it is powerless to dispel." As if to echo Engels, Marx pointed out that the state could not have arisen, let alone maintained itself, had it been possible to reconcile classes. According to Marx the state is an instrument of class rule, an organ for the oppression of one class by another.

Marx revealed that a definite level of development of labour productivity is essential before there is real opportunity for humans to exploit other humans. If people produce only the minimum of products required to maintain their physical existence and reproduction, any systematic appropriation of someone else's labour is out of the question. The opportunity to appropriate someone else's labour appears only when the productive forces have developed to the level at which the quantity of goods produced somewhat exceeds the minimum required to maintain the direct producers' lives. The question then arises: Did Africa's labour productivity reach a level that provided the opportunity for humans to exploit their fellow human beings? The answer is both no and yes. The appropriate answer to this question would enable us to determine the original of the state in pre-colonial Africa.

But it would be absurd to think of only the level of productive forces without the relations of production. Productive forces cannot be developed in a vacuum. People produce them jointly—in groups rather than on their own. People's relationship to the means of production determine their position and place in the production and the mode of distribution of the products. Where one group of people makes its living by appropriating the labour of the other, then society is divided into the exploiter and exploited. The need to maintain this vampiric relationship of production leads to the rise of an apparatus of coercion and conditioning to systematically brainwash the exploited into accepting their exploitation as a normal condition of life or to crush their resistance.

Before private ownership

If this analysis of state and class is anything to go by then one cannot authentically talk of the state among some of the communities in Ghana before the 14th century. The predominant principle of social relations was that of the family and kinship associated with communalism. Among the Gur social groups in the Upper East Region of Ghana, for example, every member of the society had their position defined in terms of their relationship with their mother's or father's family. Leadership was based on religious ties to the Tindana, or custodian of the land, who ran the affairs of the people with a committee of elders chosen from all the families and clans of the territory. This committee administered land, the major means of production not as its personal property, but as the property of all the people in Gurum-Tinga (Gur land) who had the right to till it. Hunting, fishing and grazing grounds for animals were organised in a similar manner. No-one starved whilst others stuffed themselves with food and threw the excess away or sold it for profit. The basic economic law was that of providing the members of society with the necessary means of subsistence through communal ownership of the means of production.

The absence of private property in the means of production, of the division into classes and the exploitation of man by man excluded the need for a state. Production was essentially of use values; and there was no alienation of the producer from his means of production.
The fundamental flaw in the social organisation of the Gur however was that the position of the Tindana was supposedly sanctioned by the gods, and therefore permanent. This notion also applied to the elders of families and clans who served in the committee of elders. Only death could loosen their grip on authority. This meant that people occupying positions of trust could use their positions for personal gain, taking a significant share of communal property and becoming rich; indeed vestiges of private ownership of property began to rear its ugly head in the Gur community around the 16th century. However this development did not reach its fullest maturity before the violent intrusion of British colonial rule. To a very large extent, this explained why the British colonial government had to create chiefs in Gur land and use them as instruments of its policy of exploitation and dehumanisation.


It is also important to note that once African societies began to expand by internal evolution, and the instruments of labour were perfected, people obtained more means of subsistence than was essential for their survival. The restricted nature of communal property and the egalitarian distribution of products of labour that characterised people such as the Gur acted as a drag on the further development of the productive forces. The need for joint labour disappeared with the appearance of sickles, iron-tipped hoes, spears and arrows. What this meant was that the possibility of individual labour also emerged. But individual labour brought about private ownership, private ownership brought about inequality between the people; and rich and poor people emerged. In the Mali empire, for example, the dominant mode of production was feudalism even though the communal and slave modes of production had not completely died out. By the end of the 15th century there were both chattel and domestic slaves in Mali comparable to the feudal serfs in Europe. In Senegal Portuguese traders also found that there were elements in the population who worked most days for their masters and a few days per month for themselves—a budding feudalist tendency.


A cursory look at the socio-economic and political scene in Africa before colonisation does not reveal one dominant mode of production. Also it is not easy to compartmentalise the socio-economic formations and arrange them in a sequence as some writers do, because the social and economic terrain reveals considerable unevenness in development. There were social formations representing hunting bands, communalism, feudalism while other formations represented a mixture of these. It was upon these that colonialism was superimposed.
ADONGO AIDAN AVUGMA

First published Socialist Standard May 1999