violent south africa

The murder of a British honeymooner in a Gugulethu township near Cape Town made the headlines but what about those who live there ?

While the murder of tourists is rare, and generates international headlines, the murder of residents is not. More than 700 people have been killed in Gugulethu in the last five years, according to the South African Institute of Race Relations. On average that is one homicide every two-and-a-half days in a population of roughly 300,000.
A country of 49 milion people, South Africa every year reports around 18,000 murders and 50,000 rapes. In England and Wales, with 53 million people, there are around 600 murders and 12,000 rapes a year.
The police reported 68,332 sexual offences last year – an average of one every eight minutes – and one in four men surveyed by the Medical Research Council admitted committing rape. Many of these crimes go unreported, with many victims remaining invisible, ignored not only by the media but by communities, police and courts. A 2002 survey found that only one in nine South African rape survivors report the attack to the police.

Dumisani Rebombo, a gender activist and senior manager at the community organisation the Olive Leaf Foundation. says "We live in a society that has known so much violence for so much time that it becomes normalised."

Bafana Khumalo, international programmes manager of the Sonke Gender Justice Network, rejects the notion that patriarchal African subcultures make sexual violence inevitable. "I find that sometimes people seek an easy escape into tribal 'tradition'. When you interrogate it further you find a certain practice was never done anywhere but it's being used to justify something now." and explains further,"Apartheid was predicated on violence – the army, the security establishment, the state apparatus used it to dominate for decades. That became a culture in our society. Violence was seen as a normal part of life."


http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/nov/18/south-africa-murder-rape

White Gold

Mali is a country so impoverished it is ranked 160th out of 169th in the United Nations Human Development Index. Life expectancy here is just 49.
Mali depends on cotton for its survival. Half of its export revenues come from cotton – it is the second-largest producer in Africa after Egypt – and it is estimated that more than 3.2 million Malians, 40% of the country's rural population, depend on the crop for their livelihoods.

Despite the fact that cotton prices are running at a 15-year high after crops in China and Pakistan were hit by floods earlier this year they are victims of an iniquitous global trading system. In the United States, the scale of government support to 25,000 cotton farmers has thrown the international trading system out of kilter. The political lobby for cotton is one of the strongest in US agriculture. in 2008/2009, cotton producers were awarded $3.1bn (£1.9bn) in subsidies, which, astonishingly, exceeded the market price by around 30%. The EU and China award its farmers similar grants, albeit on a lesser scale.The result has been overproduction, the rise of fast, disposable fashion and the artificial lowering of world cotton prices. The consequences are felt most deleteriously by the poorest farmers at the end of the supply chain. The price of west African cotton has fallen every year since 2003 and despite the recent spike in prices, there has been a long-term decline in real terms since the 1950s.

The American economy does not rely on cotton to anything like the same extent. In Mali, cotton is such a valuable commodity it is known as "white gold". According to Vince Cable, the UK business secretary, the elimination of global subsidies would raise cotton farmers' incomes in sub-Saharan Africa by 30%.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/nov/14/mali-cotton-farmer-fair-trade

the San

Socialist Banner has posted on a number of occasions about the plight of the San , the Kalahari Bushmen and makes no apologies for doing so again.

These weary Bushmen — four men, three women and an infant — were nearing the end of a two-day journey, walking their way toward water. Taoxaga was thirsty, and it angered and baffled him that he had to walk so far. Closer by was a borehole, the wellspring to underground water. But the government had sealed it up, and he supposed this was just another way to drive the Bushmen from the sandy home they had occupied for millenniums.

“The government says we are bad for the animals, but I was born here and the animals were born here, and we have lived together very well,” he said.

But most of the Bushmen have moved to dreary resettlement areas on the outskirts, where they wait in line for water, wait on benches at the clinic, wait around for something to do, wait for the taverns to open so they can douse their troubles with sorghum beer. Once among the most self-sufficient people on earth, many of them now live on the dole, waiting for handouts.

“If there was only some magic to free me into the past, that’s where I would go,” said Pihelo Phetlhadipuo, an elderly Bushman living in a resettlement area called Kaudwane. “I once was a free man, and now I am not.”

France's highest appeals court has authorised judges to proceed with an investigation into assets held in the country by three African leaders. They are Denis Sassou-Nguesso of the Republic of the Congo and Teodoro Obiang Nguema of Equatorial Guinea, as well as the late Gabonese leader, Omar Bongo.

The anti-corruption group Transparency International has accused the three of using African public funds to buy luxury homes and cars in France and estimates the total value of the three leaders' estates in France at 160m euros (£140m, $223m). President Obiang owned vehicles worth more than 4m euros, the late Bongo and his relations had 39 homes, and Mr Sassou Nguesso and his relations held 112 bank accounts. Investigations found that Bongo's wife Edith had bought a Daimler Chrysler car with a cheque drawn on a Gabonese government account in France. French police investigation found the leaders and their relatives owned homes in upmarket areas of Paris and on the Riviera, along with luxury cars including Bugattis, Ferraris and Maseratis.

Oil out - Guns in

Chinese and African Perspectives on China in Africa. Eds Axel Harneit-Sievers, Stephen Marks and Sanusha Naidu, Pambazuka Press £16.95. (Also available as an e-book from www.fahamubooks.org)

There may be a prevalent view of Africa as a continent immersed in poverty, but in fact it is rich in many things, minerals and energy for instance. Efforts by the wealthiest and most powerful countries to exploit these resources have carried on since the end of classical colonialism and the coming of ‘independence’, and these have helped ensure the continuation of poverty for the vast majority of Africans. As China joins the club of developed capitalist states, it also sees Africa as a source of raw materials and a market for exports. This volume gives a wide-ranging overview of China’s activities in Africa, with chapters by activists and academics from both China and Africa. Almost without exception, the most interesting essays are those by African authors, with those by Chinese contributors being largely bland and uncritical.

Bilateral trade between China and Africa has increased over the last decade to more than $US100 billion. As Chinese capitalism expands, it needs to import raw materials of various kinds, and nearly 80 percent of China’s imports from Africa are oil and petroleum products. For instance, 500,000 barrels of oil are exported to China from Angola each day, and it is only Chinese companies, with mainly Chinese employees, who carry out this work, so Chinese industry benefits from both the oil and the extraction work. Furthermore, China is a major producer of wood and paper products, but has relatively little by way of forestry resources, hence Chinese companies undertake logging in Mozambique and Tanzania. Minerals such as iron ore, copper and uranium are imported to China from Liberia, Zambia and Niger.

At the same time, China exports finished goods to Africa. In Nigeria, for example, cheap Chinese textiles have undercut domestically-produced goods, increasing local unemployment. Chinese companies export cheap, and sometimes dangerous, goods aimed specifically at the African market, where consumers have little money to spend. Arms sales from China to Africa are also an important source of profits, with Sudan, Ethiopia and Zimbabwe among the purchasers.

The book contains a few pointless policy ideas, such as the African Union playing a larger role in supervising Sino-African relations. Its usefulness lies elsewhere, in showing the extent to which China is acting in essentially the same way as the other capitalist powers, and how the workers and peasants of Africa remain subject to the exploitation and oppression of both ‘home-grown’ and global rulers.
PB

Book Review from November issue of the Socialist Standard

A blind eye

Jimmy Mubenga died as three security guards restrained him with what is believed to be excessive force while being deported to Angola. Last month, a senior journalist at a radio station, accused by the ruling party of trying to incite rebellion, was shot dead in Luanda. In 2004, Mfulumpinga Nlandu Victor, an outspoken politician, was also shot dead in the capital. In 2007, the leader of the main opposition party, Isaías Samakuva, survived an assassination attempt unharmed. There are many lesser known cases of systematic abuse, detentions, torture, deaths, but none of these appear on the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office's (FCO) country profile. Unlike nearby Zimbabwe, Angola does not even feature in the UK's list of countries whose human rights record are of concern.

British business interests, particularly oil interests, are undoubtedly the underlying reason. Angola produces about 1.9m barrels of oil a day. One of the UK's largest companies, BP, has substantial interests there and describes Angola as one of its "six new profit centres". BP's involvement in the country began four decades ago: to date it has invested $8bn. Other British businesses operating in Angola include De La Rue, Lonrho plc, Crown Agents, Pricewaterhouse Coopers, Standard Chartered and KPMG. According to Oxfam, British arms brokers were actively selling arms to Angola during the war.

The irony is that many British people take it for granted that our respect for human rights and justice is second to none. Often, when talking about dictatorships in other parts of the world, we assume we have a moral authority that other nations can only envy. The death of Mubenga while in the care of the British justice system suggests otherwise.

Letter from Zambia

Africa is a vast continent comprised of nations which because of their colonial past have different histories, just as they have variegated geographical landmarks that distinguish them. Thus African nations do not share many things in common except the forcible grouping together of tribes regardless of the interaction that existed before colonialisation.

In the attempt to create nations, different ethnic groups have been split between boundaries and the expression of nationalism has therefore not been through the medium of cultural or ethnic identity, but defined within the context of the country in which the language of the colonial master became the lingua franca.

It is imperative to note, therefore, that such a situation in which countries find themselves has made nation building and African unity a difficult task.
The political developments taking place in Zambia today are African in nature and therefore similar and comparable to political events taking place elsewhere. In Africa, parliamentary democracy defined through multi-party politics still remains a test case today. Political leaders in Africa are finding it hard to relinquish power through the medium of the ballot box. The current political scenario in Zambia may easily degenerate into political violence if left unabated. The Catholic church and some western NGOs have kept on to criticise the ruling MMD government both through the press and privately-owned radio stations. Radio ICENGELO – owned by the Catholic church has become the mouthpiece of the voiceless people on the Copperbelt.

The widening gap between the rich and poor is something the ruling MMD government of President Rupiah Banda does not seem to be concerned about. Indeed, privatisation of the Zambian economic sector can only succeed by strengthening the private- and profit-making social sector, otherwise than defending and safeguarding the economic upkeep of the peasants and workers.

Massive and periodic job losses in the formal and informal sector have come to characterise the economic policy of Zambia’s economic liberation ever since the MMD came to power in 1991 to date. During the leadership of Dr. Kenneth Kaunda education was subsidised by the state and every child had a right to free education from primary school to university level. Every year the UNIP government carried out massive recruitments of teachers, doctors, nurses, policemen and soldiers.

The change from one-party participating democracy to multi-party democracy saw the implementation of economic liberalism (defined as privatisation) under the MMD government of President Fredrick Chiluba. This entailed the liquidation of state-owned mining, industrial and financial companies. The privatisation of state-owned companies led to massive job losses – in most cases the retrenched workers have not yet received their retirement salaries.

But we cannot mop up the fact that the UNIP government had experienced economic decline from 1980 to 1991 – the MMD inherited a bankrupt economy as the case may be. But it must be emphasised that the manner in which privatisation was carried out by the MMD was less than transparent.
It was in an attempt to monopolise power that Kaunda introduced a one-party state in 1973 on the excuse that Zambia was facing tribalism under multi-party politics. He introduced the philosophy of humanism in order to weld the different ethnic groups together under “One Zambia One Nation”. He declared a state of emergency – political detentions without trial (political criticism was banned). It is a fact that both the ruling MMD and political opposition have shown no restraint in manipulating the masses through feeding them with prejudices against other tribes in order to win their support. Thus tribalistic sentiments in Zambia originate from politicians or political parties. The voting patterns that emerged from the previous three general elections depict tribal and regional allegiances in the sense that people voted on the basis of ethnic patronage.

Every economic gain achieved under the late President Levy Mwanawasa has been dissipated by the global economic downturn of 2009, making it possible for the PF leader Michael Sata to increase votes in the coming 2011 elections. General elections in urban areas of Zambia are determined by economic factors, especially for food prices, the cost of education and availability of employment. The ruling MMD has concentrated on building roads, hospitals, schools and subsiding peasant farmers. In rural areas where the party received massive votes, working class political consciousness is visibly absent in rural village communities. The failure of African leaders to relinquish power through the medium of the ballot box means that elections in Africa are conducted in a win-or-die situation. The experience of many African nations with regard to their armed forces have been sad in that they have stifled democracy with their intervention, purportedly in their attempt to correct the mistakes of their political bosses also had failed to adhere to the principle of democracy through perceived violations of the constitution. When military leaders come into power, they not only breach the constitution, they become traitors to the oath of allegiance they swore to the nation.

The reluctance of the ruling MMD to accept the PF and UPND as viable future political options is a bad omen for multi-party politics in Zambia.

Socialism is the only practical political alternative to capitalism and our message to the workers of Zambia remains the same – the creation of a classless moneyless and stateless society.
KEPHAS MULENGA

water rights

At present, there are 2.6 billion people living without safe sanitation, which means countless communities where people are exposed to their own and others’ faeces. Excreta is then transmitted between people by flies or fingers and also finds its way into water sources, resulting in a public health crisis.

In Africa, diarrhoea kills almost one in five children before their fifth birthday.

According to the 2009 census, an estimated one in five Kenyans uses the bush as a toilet - access to piped water covers only 38.4 percent of the urban population and 13.4 percent of rural residents. With Kenya’s population projected to grow by up to one million people per year, existing water and sanitation facilities will be stretched further. Rapid urbanization has meant more informal structures with little or no water and sanitation services are springing up. Slum conditions may make the settlements a breeding ground for tomorrow’s pathogens. Already, health problems such as malnutrition, diarrhoea, cholera and typhoid fever are common, especially when water is mixed with industrial and sewage effluent.

profit before people

The UK daily newspaper , the Independent , exposes the cant and hypocrisy of the British foreign policy. The UK Government is courting the regime of the indicted war criminal Omar al-Bashir by declaring that relations with Sudan have entered a "new epoch". Britain welcomed a trade delegation from the country which has near pariah status, for the first time since warrants for President Bashir's arrest were issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, over atrocities in Darfur. Khartoum's high-level delegation met British government officials and business leaders to encourage investment in a country still targeted by US sanctions. The change has already seen complaints that UK diplomatic missions have been reduced to commercial agencies to drum up business.It comes after a visit by Henry Bellingham, the new minister for Africa, to Khartoum in July to boost trade and business ties. He told reporters there that Britain would be a "candid friend" to the regime in Sudan.

The "Opportunities in Sudan" networking event brought a delegation including senior members of Mr Bashir's NCP party together with British counterparts including the UK ambassador to Sudan, Nicholas Kay. Representatives of major British oil, engineering, agriculture and banking companies who attended this event were told that Sudan was full of "untapped natural resources" and that there was "a lot of money to be made". A brochure for the meeting and "networking reception" said Sudan is "endowed with rich natural resources, including oil, and has been emerging as a major oil producer". Those listed as attending on a document handed out at the event included mining companies, investment banks and security firms.

While in opposition the Tory party called Darfur the "world's worst humanitarian crisis" and senior officials including Mr Hague, the current Foreign Secretary, and Andrew Mitchell, now the International Development Secretary, backed the campaign to get UK companies to disinvest from Sudan. In a foreign policy advisory in 2007 Mr Mitchell wrote of the need to "change national and international business behaviour in the face of manifest gross violations of human rights".But now a Foreign Office spokesman insisted that British companies were "free to pursue legitimate commercial opportunities in Sudan" The British Government's new commercial priorities have outraged human rights groups. The ongoing crisis in Darfur which has killed hundreds of thousands of people and displaced millions more as well as the North-South arms race ahead of a vote on secession are summed up in the investment booklet as small "exceptions" in "peripheral regions". Evidently we are happy to work with Sudan's Islamist regime as long as it restricts itself to killing its own people. Many Sudanese are risking their lives to create a pluralist society, but the international community is sanctioning the actions of Bashir's genocidal government.

African Narodnik

From a book review in this month's Socialist Standard

Africa’s Liberation. The Legacy of Nyerere. Edited by Chambi Chachage and Annar Cassam. Pambazuka Press. 2010.

If Julius Nyerere, President of Tanzania from independence in 1961 till 1985, had been a late 19th century Russian he would have been labelled a “Narodnik”, i.e. someone who thought that a basically agricultural country could move straight to socialism, on the basis of local communal villages, without having to pass through capitalism. The Russian Marxists denied this, but the Narodniks never got a chance to implement their ideas.

Nyerere did, with the Arusha declaration which adopted “Ujamma” (“socialism and self-reliance”) as the official state policy of Tanzania. As predicted by Marxists it failed. In fact one of the contributors to this tribute to Nyerere on the 10th anniversary of his death in 2009, Issa Shivji, once described the result as the development of a “bureaucratic bourgeoisie” in Tanzania. Today the present Tanzanian government openly embraces (is forced to) capitalist development.

This said, Nyerere comes across as sincere and principled, as genuinely wanting a society of social equality, democracy and without exploitation, and unlike nearly all the other historic African independence leaders power did not go to his head. However, the fact that he was sincere and incorruptible shows that the problem in Africa (and elsewhere) is not bad leaders but capitalism. Not even a saint can made capitalism - which African countries are currently obliged to accept – work in the interest of all.

It only remains to add that Tanzania in 1967 could have passed directly to socialism but only with the rest of the world following a world socialist revolution. Given that this did not happen, capitalism developed in Tanzania, as in Russia.

ALB

THE FISHING SLAVE TRADE

Shocking evidence of conditions akin to slavery on trawlers that provide fish for European dinner tables has been found in an investigation off the coast of west Africa. Forced labour and human rights abuses involving African crews have been uncovered on trawlers fishing illegally for the European market by investigators for an environmental campaign group. The Environmental Justice Foundation found conditions on board including incarceration, violence, withholding of pay, confiscation of documents, confinement on board for months or even years, and lack of clean water.

The ships are crewed by untrained, illiterate workers housed in dismally unsafe and unhygienic living conditions. Crews were working and sleeping show quarters with ceilings less than a metre high where the men cannot stand up. Temperatures in the fish holds on some vessels where men were being required to sort, process and pack fish for lucrative European and Asian markets were 40 to 45 degrees, with no ventilation, On some vessels the crews of up to 200 had little access to clean drinking water.

The trawlers have mostly been identified engaging in pirate fishing off west Africa. According to a recent estimate illegal fishing accounts for between 13% and 31% of total catches worldwide each year.

new nation , old problem

We read that Juba is a city poised to become the capital of the newly independent nation of South Sudan after a referendum in January. It is a city of at least a million people although it may be closer to two million. No one knows. But it will be a national capital like no other. One without a power grid, sewage system, garbage collection, water, gas or phone lines. There are only 17 kilometres of paved road in Juba. Most of the city's residents live in shacks made of sticks, mud and thatch on potholed streets that have no name. Much of the food is imported from Kenya and Uganda. It is not so much a city as a giant refugee camp.

Much of the tension between north and south Sudan hinges on the oil fields, mainly located in the south. But there is little evidence of oil money in Juba. Behind high walls there are a few mansions built for the governor and senior ministers. There are hundreds of UN officials in the city but they also live in relative isolation in gated compounds.

toxic waste dumping

The Scottish newspaper, The Herald, exposes the scandal of "re-cycling" , a cover for tens of thousands of tonnes of toxic waste from Scotland are being illegally dumped in Africa.

Mountains of broken televisions, defunct microwaves, worn tyres, contaminated paper and other waste exported from Scottish homes and businesses end up threatening the environment and endangering the health of people in Nigeria, Zanzibar, Ghana and elsewhere. Much of the wastes contained hazardous chemicals and metals which needed to be properly disposed of. But in developing countries, they were just dumped or burned, causing dangerous contamination. The exports are “dressed” as legitimate recycling operations, with waste electrical goods hidden behind a few rows of properly packaged and working TVs in shipping containers.Recent changes like the switch from analogue to digital displays and flat screens had created a “tsunami" of old TVs and computer monitors flooding ports in Ghana and Nigeria, . There they are often recycled in primitive and environmentally damaging conditions or simply dumped or burned if there is no market for it.

More than 100,000 tonnes of old TVs, computers, microwaves, fridges and other electrical goods are reckoned to be thrown away every year in Scotland. European Commission estimates suggest maybe half of that is unaccounted for. The huge trade in illegal waste has been condemned by environmental groups.
Duncan McLaren, chief executive of Friends of the Earth Scotland, said: “We are adding insult to injury by dumping our contaminated and toxic waste back in the very countries, like Nigeria, that have already been scarred so deeply by our thirst for cheap oil and resources.”

GM or starvation ?

South Africa produces too much maize. Its neighbours not enough. But rather than feeding those without , South Africa's surplus maize may feed Chinese chickens. South African farmers grew 13 million tonnes of maize in the harvest that ended around May. That included a surplus of four million tonnes, an excess that has pushed down prizes and threatens to bankrupt 10,000 farmers. Most of South Africa's neighbours had bumper harvests as well, driving down demand.
"The industry was not prepared for what happened. The surplus was causing panic. Over-production is not a sustainable way of producing," said Mariam Mayet of the African Centre for Biosafety.

Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Malawi, which suffer chronic food shortages, refuse to accept South African maize because of worries about importing genetically modified organisms. South Africa began planting genetically modified crops in the 1990s, and now they account for 57 percent of all maize planted in the country. Often the harvests are mixed together at mills, so that importers consider all maize as genetically modified. In April, Kenyan environmentalists blocked a shipment of 40,000 tonnes of South African maize at port in Mombasa.

eduction, education , education

Almost 70 million children across the world are prevented from going to school each day, a study reveals. Those living in north-eastern Africa are the least likely to receive a good education – or any education at all, an umbrella body of charities and teaching unions known as the Global Campaign for Education has found.

Kenya, which is rated in the 50 worst countries for education, delayed plans to provide a free primary school education to 8.3 million children in September.

Girls are far less likely to attend school than boys in many of the world's poorest countries. In Malawi, of those that enrol, 22.3% of boys complete primary compared to 13.8% of girls. In rural Burkina Faso, 61% of girls are married by the age of 18 and over 85% never get to see the inside of a secondary school.

Hershey, one of the largest chocolate manufacturers in the U.S., is lagging behind other companies in taking steps to ensure decent working conditions in its supply chain. In the United States, Hershey conjures up innocent childhood pleasures and enjoyable snacks. However, halfway across the globe, there is a dark side to Hershey. In West Africa, where Hershey sources much of its cocoa, the scene is one of child labor, trafficking, and forced labor. Hershey, which claims 42.5 percent of the U.S. chocolate market, has been slow to initiate adequate measures against abuses. The Hershey report notes that "modern slavery exists in diverse areas, including manufacturing, harvesting of raw materials, marketing commercial sexual activity (often aimed at the business traveler) and violent acts against workers."

Hershey's continued refusal to identify cocoa suppliers and "lack of transparency" makes it impossible for outside observers to verify the conditions on the farms. Hershey is also accused of "greenwashing" the problem, as opposed to instituting real reforms. Various charitable donations by the company display social responsibility, but there are no policies in place to combat the systemic issue of human rights within its own supply. Hershey does not have any third-party verification. Unlike its competitors, Hershey has not embraced the strongest system of certification, the Fair Trade label. Only one Hershey chocolate bar has the certification, leaving all the other popular products unaccountable.

"When you look at the amount of money in the cocoa industry and the enormous profits of companies like Hershey, the money dedicated to this issue is clearly inadequate," said Adrienne Fitch-Frankel, fair trade campaign director for Global Exchange.

what type of access?

Once more, from their own lips, capitalism is condemned as a social system that does not deliver.

Ten years after setting the goal of halving the proportion of people suffering from poverty and hunger by 2015, only mixed success can be found for the U.N.'s Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), and the degree of success is dependent not only on what country is examined but which evaluation is used.

"Most hunger is really a function of access rather than availability and with prices too high, access became much more difficult." said Alan Jury, director of U.S. relations at the World Food Programme.

the contradiction

We read in this newspaper "An estimated 265 million people are said to be chronically hungry when Africa is known to hold 60 per cent of the world’s remaining uncultivated farmland. With one quarter of the world’s arable land on our continent why can’t we adequately feed ourselves? Uganda is an agricultural country; but why are close to 18 million of her people food insecure? The answer must lie in the way we practice agriculture, the tools we use, the techniques we apply, the investment we put into farming, and the determination of our policy makers to turn things round."

The writer correctly pin-points the contradiction yet fails to identify the cause. The problem is capitalist economics - it is the drive for profits and only when there can be a commercial return will farm-land be turned into productive fields. Peoples need for food don't figure in the equation.

Biofuel Blues

A new World Bank report (8 September 2010) explicitly identifies biofuels as one of the driving forces of land grabs in Africa and acknowledges its detrimental impact on local livelihoods.

Friends of the Earth's food campaigner Kirtana Chandrasekaran said:
"This World Bank report confirms that high Western demand for biofuels and grain for animal feed is causing land grabbing in Africa - at the expense of local people, who are left hungry and unable to afford inflated food prices..."

Five million hectares of land - an area the size of Denmark - stretching across 11 African countries, is currently being acquired for biofuels. More land will be required for biofuels if the European Union is to reach its target of obtaining 10 per cent of transport fuels from renewable sources by 2020.

The Blair Commission for Africa report “celebrated” a quadrupling of foreign investment in Africa from 2003 to 2008. But it also made an important point: the vote of confidence in Africa that foreign investment represents should not be mistaken for a sign that the lives of most ordinary Africans are getting better.
"...the lives of most Africans remain unaffected by Africa’s growing economic power. Many Africans’ incomes have not improved. Poverty remains widespread, the region’s share of international trade remains tiny, and climate change and the global economic crisis are threatening to undermine progress made."

Bono , U2's front man and self appointed spokes-man for Africa , founded fashion brand Edun with the mission of revitalizing clothing manufacturing in sub-Saharan Africa. African produced-products now account for only 15% of the company's sales. The vast majority of the fashion collection, accounting for about 70% of overall production, is now made in Asia, with the remainder coming from Peru. The new fashion collection will be feature shirts starting at around $60 and jackets topping out at about $800.

Swazi PM threatens torture of union activists

Swaziland prime minister, Barnabas Dlamini, suggests that dissidents should be beaten on their feet with spikes. He also said foreigners who meddled in the affairs of sub-Saharan Africa's last absolute monarch should be subject to the traditional punishment, known as "sipakatane". The punishment involves using a pedal with metal or wooden spikes to beat someone's bare feet repeatedly, causing paralysis.

oil curse

Sao Tomé and Principe is the smallest countries in Africa, with a population of only 175 000 on its two volcanic islands. With a per capita GDP of $1 700 in 2009 it is not one of the poorest nations in Africa, but the wealth is unevenly distributed: 54% of the population lives below the poverty line and 15% in extreme poverty.

Now the Sao Tome government is getting ready to award the first contracts to exploit seven oil blocks in the waters off the island's shores with estimated reserves of about ten billion barrels. Interested companies include Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Petrobras and Tullow Oil. The oil deals give no cause for optimism. There were irregularities in procedures, political manipulation, insider trading and nepotism. Concerns about irregularities in Sao Tomé have already led to the country's de-listing from the Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative. The Human Rights Watch report warns that if the new government does not use the oil wealth for social ends, it risks suffering the unenviable fate of its neighbour to the south, Equatorial Guinea, where abundant oil wealth goes to a happy few, and most people still live in poverty.

tanzania child poverty

Following on from the previous post two hundred thousand Tanzanian children have died in the last 10 years simply because they were poor. More than half of the country's population are children and 54 per cent of them are malnourished. Babies account for 30 per cent of child deaths.

Save The Children accused the east African nation's government of ignoring deprived countryside kids and focusing limited efforts to cut child deaths on easy-to-reach youngsters in the better-off towns and cities.

save the children

Millions of children die before their fifth birthday because developing countries skew public health spending to the rich rather than the poor, a leading charity says today.

Save the Children says that 4 million child deaths could be averted over a 10-year period if the 42 developing countries which account for 90% of all under-five mortality took an "egalitarian approach". Although UN nations agreed to reduce child mortality by two-thirds from its 1990 level by 2015, progress has been steady and slow – and exacerbated by the rising inequalities within poor nations. In Kenya, where there was an increase of nearly 150,000 under-fives' deaths between 1993 and 2003, an "egalitarian approach", says the charity, would have actually prevented 214,000 deaths.

Save the Children says that in developing nations it is the children of the wealthiest fifth of the population who have disproportionately benefited from the focus on infant mortality to the extent that in some cases the poorest fifth of the population are no better or even worse off. In Burkina Faso, where a reduction in child mortality rates masks an actual increase in child mortality among the poorest 20% of the population.

Sub-Saharan Africa, where close to one child in seven still dies before their fifth birthday, faces the greatest challenge. Although the mortality rate in the region has fallen, high fertility levels mean the absolute number of child deaths has increased since 1990, from 4.2 to 4.6 million.

xenophobia in South Africa

"Xenophobia is part of life. We do not live easy here. We only survive," says Somali shopkeeper, Abdinasir Shaikh Aden. Aden was threatened with his life during the run-up to the Cup. He was chased away from his small grocery shop and told that foreigners would have no future in South Africa once the tourists and fans had gone home.

A dangerous combination of cramped living conditions and competition for jobs remains. The recession and deepening unemployment in South Africa is exacerbating the pressure on poor communities.Overcrowded and poverty-stricken areas are most at risk of a flare-up of tensions.

Liliane Mukangwa, who settled in South Africa with her husband and five children, moving back to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is not an option."It is hard for us as we have nowhere to go. We do not want to go home. It is too dangerous there." Mukangwa has been living in South Africa for eight years.She travels to her house every day during daylight hours accompanied by family and friends from the DRC. She is scared of travelling alone on public transport: "There is often tension on the trains."

South Africa is to start expelling Zimbabweans again, from 31 December, the government has announced. An estimated two million Zimbabweans are thought to be in South Africa. Human rights groups have condemned the South African government's decision. Zimbabwe exile groups fear that anyone forced to return could still face persecution.

Mozambique news

Protesters staged a second day of strikes and demonstrations Thursday over food price increases in Mozambique, one of the poorest countries in the world. The violence has so far left seven people dead and 288 wounded, the government says. Clashes between police and protesters broke out Wednesday and Thursday, as crowds in impoverished neighbourhoods on the outskirts of Maputo took to the streets.

They were protesting a 17-percent increase in the price of bread, as well as fuel, water and electricity rises. Mozambique has a per capita income of just 794 dollars (620 euros) a year. Prices in the import-dependent country have risen on the back of a South African rand whose value has appreciated 43 percent against the Mozambican metical since this time last year. In January there were 4 meticais to the South African Rand and 29.3 to the US dollar. Today the official rate is 4.9 and 36.3, a 25% devaluation in just eight months.

Domestic worker Mercela Manuel says she still has to go to work so she can feed her three children. "The cost of life is expensive. Very expensive. It’s difficult to live," she says. Her wage of 54 dollars (42 euros) already makes it difficult to afford the 12 dollars (9 euros) she pays for the family’s bread each month.

About half of Mozambique's 20 million people live below the poverty line, despite an average economic growth rate of 8 percent for the past 15 years, but in 2009 this slowed to five percent. Official unemployment is around 21 percent, but in Maputo, a city of about 1.5 million, the poverty level is estimated as high as 60 percent.

The prices of staple foods, such as maize and rice, have come under increasing pressure, despite "satisfactory" cereal production of maize, sorghum, millet and paddy rice - projected at 2.49 million tons, five percent lower than the record 2008/09 harvest

The Editorial Director of O Pais, Jeremias Langa, talks of the “enormous disenchantment with the widening gap between those who have an those who do not have”. It is said that Mozambique is a world example of economic growth but this is not reflected in the quality of live of most citizens. It is said the Mozambique has the most agricultural potential in SADC but agriculture has been left to subsistence production. “Instead of offering solutions of the citizens, we offer magician’s tricks to distract the citizens,” he concludes. Thus, “there is a class that manifestly feels itself excluded from the distribution of income, that feels that the state has broken the social contract, that does not see that state as a source of solutions but of problems – because its promotes accumulation by a few to the detriment of the majority.”

ANC - Anti Working Class

"Black economic empowerment has been a disaster because it created this massive economic inequality; it created this class of idle rich who have tons of money but do nothing." Moeletsi Mbeki explained.

South Africa's large working class was under the misguided impression that the ANC was "the party of the people".

"The unions in this country do not understand the political economy of South Africa. They think that the ANC is the party of the people. The ANC is the party of the black middle class. The fact that the masses vote for it does not mean they control it. The policies of the ANC favour the black middle class and the established businesses. They do not favour the working class. You just have to look at the types of houses that the ANC government builds for ordinary South Africans," he said. "If you had a party that was a pro-working-class party, it would not have built these so-called RDP houses that are being built by the ANC government. The unions have all along been under the illusion that the ANC is the government of the working class, and [Zwelinzima] Vavi and them are now beginning to realise that this is not the case." Mbeki said the striking public-sector workers faced a special dilemma. "They think the ANC is their ally but at the same time they feel they are not getting any benefits out of this alliance. Therefore you are beginning to get a very acrimonious environment emerging between the public-sector unions and the government."

His comments came on the same day Vavi delivered his strongest condemnation yet of Zuma's government at a press conference in Johannesburg. The general secretary of Cosatu said that the alliance was "dysfunctional" as the strikes continued, slamming the corruption of the state.

Socialist Banner finds it a shame that Mbeki fails to understand that there is no such thing as a benevolent capitalism to replace the crony capitalism he criticises.

Siyaya eSwaziland, 7th September!

The Swaziland Democracy Campaign (SDC), formed by trade unions, political parties, civil society groups and churches, has called for a global day of action on September 7, 2010. It will include a mass protest and show of “defiance” in Swaziland. Delegates from the international labour movement will join the action in Swaziland.

1.3 million inhabitants of the land-locked southern African kingdom live under the thumb of one of the world’s last absolute monarchies, repressive regime whose plunder of the country is systematic and comprehensive. King Mswati III controls the parliament, appoints cabinet ministers, judges and senior civil servants, and makes and breaks the law at will. Political parties are banned, along with most demonstrations and meetings. Strikes are illegal. Gatherings of any kind are often broken up by police assaults. The media is subject to constant harassment and intimidation. During the latest wave of repression, in May 2010, democracy activist Sipho Jele, who had been arrested and interrogated, was allegedly “found” by police hanging from the rafters in a prison toilet.

Swaziland’s autocracy is based on the “Tinkhundla” system through which royally sponsored traditional leaders dispense patronage and exercise control at local level. But Swazis themselves reap no benefits from it. Swaziland now suffers the world’s highest rate of HIV/AIDS infection – perhaps as much as 40% of the adult population and 42% of all expectant mothers. Swaziland has the highest annual rate of death from AIDS, about 10,000 a year - 1% of the population. Life expectancy has plummeted and is probably now as low as anywhere in the world. Fifteen per cent of households are headed by orphaned children.

While 70% of the population live on less than a dollar a day and 25% rely on food aid, the royal family make do on some $67,000 a day. According to US-based business magazine Forbes, Mswati’s personal net worth is an estimated $200 million.Mswati is also head of a multi-million pound conglomerate, set up in 1968 by royal charter, which owns a significant slice of nearly every major Swazi business and industry – sugar, mobile phones, mines, media, tourism. Theoretically, Mswati holds the conglomerate’s assets in trust for the nation, but the fund, like all royal assets, is shielded from public scrutiny. Six in ten Swazis are engaged in subsistence farming, mostly on communal land owned in trust by the king, whose family also directly own a major share of the remaining “privately owned” land. Forced labour is commonplace. Under Swazi Administration Order No. 6 of 1998, it is a duty of Swazis to obey orders from local chiefs to participate in compulsory works (which may include construction and agricultural labour or even weeding the gardens in Mswati’s palaces). There are severe penalties for those who refuse. The Swazi monarchy has maintained its grip by collaborating with the prevalent regional powers, first with the Boer republics, then the British Empire and in the 1980s with apartheid South Africa. Besides assisting in the arrest and killing of African National Congress members who had fled to Swaziland, the king denounced sanctions against South Africa, the only Commonwealth leader besides British PM Margaret Thatcher to do so. Coca-Cola, whose concentrate plant, exporting to much of Africa, is located in Swaziland because of favourable tax arrangements and access to cheap raw sugar. Coke accounts for up to 40 per cent of Swaziland’s GDP, and an unknown but sizeable chunk of this goes directly into the king’s pocket.

The days of the absolute monarchy are definitely numbered.

The Good Guys ?

In 1994, more than 800,000 people, mostly members of the ethnic Tutsi group in Rwanda, were slaughtered by the Hutu. Then when a Tutsi-led government seized power in Rwanda, Hutu militias fled along with Hutu civilians across the border to Congo. Rwanda invaded to pursue them, aided by a Congolese rebel force. Although Rwanda and Congolese forces claimed that they attacked Hutu militias who were sheltered among civilians, the United Nations report documents deliberate reprisal attacks on civilians. The report asserts that there was no effort to make a distinction between militia and civilians, noting a “tendency to put all Hutu people together and ‘tar them with the same brush.’ ”

The report says that the apparently systematic nature of the massacres “suggests that the numerous deaths cannot be attributed to the hazards of war or seen as equating to collateral damage.” It continues, “The majority of the victims were children, women, elderly people and the sick, who were often undernourished and posed no threat to the attacking forces.” The report contains a chilling, detailed accounting of the breakup of Hutu refugee camps at the start of the war in October 1996, followed by the pursuit of hundreds of thousands of Hutu refugees across the country’s vast hinterland by teams of Rwandan soldiers and the Alliance des Forces Démocratiques pour la Libération du Congo. Those forces were led by Laurent Kabila, who took over as president the next year, and who was the father of Congo’s current president, Joseph Kabila. The report presents repeated examples of times when teams of Rwandan soldiers and their Congolese allies lured Hutu refugees with promises they would be repatriated to Rwanda, only to massacre them. Extermination teams laid ambush along strategic roadways and forest paths, making no distinction between men, women and children as they killed them.

Timothy Longman, the director of the African Studies Center at Boston University, said that people in eastern Congo had long charged they were victims, too. “The reason it didn’t get more attention is that it contradicted the narrative of the Rwandan Popular Front as the ‘good group’ that stopped the genocide in Rwanda,”

christian dictatorships

Uganda's anti-homosexuality bill was introduced by parliament member David Bahati in October 2009. The bill seeks to eradicate homosexuality from Uganda and become a model for the rest of Africa. Among the proposals in the bill: prison terms for Ugandans who fail to report a homosexual within 24 hours; lifelong prison sentences for a single homosexual act; and the death sentence for a range of acts, including having gay sex while HIV-positive, having gay sex with a disabled person or being classified as a "serial offender" — that is, someone who has gay sex more than once.

Bahati is one of the Uganda leaders of an American evangelical movement called the Fellowship, or the Family — the secretive fellowship of powerful Christian politicians who wield considerable political influence, both in Washington and abroad. They support the idea of government being decided by small groups of elite leaders like Bahati, getting together and trying to conform government to their idea of Biblical law. A project to eradicate homosexuality in Uganda they hope will become a model for all of Africa.

American pastor Lou Engle, who leads a big Christian right group called The Call, said, "This is ground zero of the great war with homosexuality."

Bahati said that he wanted "to kill every last gay person."

Orwell's South Africa

Some reent developoments in South Africa re-affirms that the State exists to be the mouth-piece of the capitalist class.In recent years South Africa's press has been increasingly occupied by the rise of the "tenderpreneurs" – a new, wealthy elite who use their political connections to benefit from state contracts through the largely discredited Black Economic Empowerment programme that was meant to improve the lot of disadvantaged blacks but has helped to create a new, narrow elite. A company headed by Jacob Zuma's 28-year-old son Duduzane was shown to have received more than £80m in shares from Arcelor-Mittal. The company said the stake in the South African arm of the steel giant was allocated for "strategic assistance" with meeting its BEE requirements. Other beneficiaries included the reported girlfriend of the deputy president and an "empowerment advisory counsel" to the President. ANC Youth League Julius Malema boasts about his lavish lifestyle and links to firms that have earned millions of pounds in state contracts.

The South African government has been accused of resorting to censorship policies reminiscent of the Apartheid era in a bid to silence its critics in the media. The ruling African National Congress is pushing a series of measures which would, opponents say, undermine freedom of speech, criminalise investigative reporting and threaten whistleblowers in the civil service with lengthy prison sentences. The Protection of Information Bill, currently before parliament, where the ANC holds a two-thirds majority, is part of two-pronged effort to bring the media under closer control. The second stage is a proposed Media Tribunal which would make South Africa's press – often accused by the government of being anti-ANC – answerable to parliament.The information bill would give the power to heads of government agencies to classify whole swathes of information on the grounds that it was in the "national interest". This would then make disclosure of related information a criminal offence punishable with up to 25 years in prison. Lawyers are concerned with the vague language employed in the current draft with the national interest defined in terms such as "the survival and security of the state". The country's leading legal body, the General Council of the Bar, said several provisions of the bill were "plainly contrary" to freedoms enshrined in its constitution.

A petition of writers whose work was banned under the Apartheid regime drafted by Gordimer, André Brink, Njabulo Ndebele, John Kani and Achmat Dangor explain that "We are threatened again, now with a gag over the word processor." The writers described the tribunal as the "descent of a shutter over the dialogue of the arts" and the creation of the "Word Police". Critics accuse the ANC of exhibiting a paranoid tendency in response to legitimate journalistic criticism of abuses of power.

We need change

Agriculture is the most important source of livelihood throughout Africa, accounting for more than 70% of total employment. And 65% of that figure is made up of women farmers.

With one-quarter of the world's arable land, Africa produces only 10% of its total global output. More than 265 million people are still chronically hungry, yet Africa is estimated to hold 60% of the world's remaining uncultivated farmland.

Only 4% of farmland in sub-Saharan Africa is irrigated. In eastern and southern Africa, an estimated 596.7m hectares are suitable for irrigation, yet only 2% of this land has any irrigation system in place.

200 million Africans who rely on livestock for their livelihoods, or 20% of the total population and 70% of the rural poor. Livestock producers often work in difficult cross-border environments, and their success frequently depends on their ability to move freely.

Africa has the means to feed itself.

profits before people

A food crisis in Niger is being made worse by hoarders who sell grain at prices beyond the reach of most people, Save the Children says. Traders are buying grain cheaply from farmers as soon as it is harvested. They then hoard it for several months, waiting until grain runs into short supply. Farmers are then forced to buy their own crops back at hugely inflated prices. Many cannot afford it and they go hungry.

"These traders are using market fluctuations to make a profit at the expense of ordinary people," said Josh Leighton, food security and livelihoods officer at Save the Children. "They are helping to fuel the current food crisis and are putting hundreds of thousands of children's lives at risk."

300,000 children under the age of five in Niger are acutely malnourished, and aid agencies are struggling to feed them. Floods have left more than 100,000 people homeless across the country.

America, africom and africa

The United States’ interest in Africa is driven by America’s desire to secure valuable natural resources and political influence that will ensure the longevity of America’s capitalist system, military and global economic superiority – achieved through the financial and physical control of raw material exports. The U.S. has a long history of foreign intervention and long ago perfected the art of gaining access to other countries’ natural, human, and capital resource markets through the use of foreign trade policy initiatives, international law, diplomacy, and, when all else fails, military intervention. But diplomatic efforts have largely been sufficient for the U.S. to establish influence over other nations’ politics and economies.

Access to natural resources – particularly oil and rare earth elements - is critical for the U.S. to remain a dominant industrial and military power, especially since the U.S. has experienced a decline in natural resource production while China’s production and foreign access to strategic materials has only increased. A sustained increase in oil imports has been underway since domestic U.S. oil production peaked in the 1970s, with oil imports surpassing domestic production in the early 1990s. Strategic metals, such as the titanium used in military aircraft, and rare earth elements used in missile guidance systems are increasingly produced by China or under the control of Chinese companies. The issue is of such importance that 2009 saw the creation of the annual Strategic Metals Conference, a forum designed to address concerns related to US access to metals with important industrial and military uses. The second annual conference, held in Cleveland, Ohio in January 2010, saw dozens of engineers and military personnel express heightened concern over China’s near monopoly over rare earth metals. China controls around 95% of the world’s rare earth output and has decided to restrict the export of these metals, leaving international consumers short by approximately 20,000 tons in 2010.

The demand for raw materials has led to new policy initiatives in which Africa has taken center stage for Chinese investment. China has gained access to Africa by, in large part, offering favorable aid packages to several nations which include loans, debt forgiveness, and job training. In contrast to Western aid packages, Chinese aid has few if any strings attached. China’s platform for developing trade with and providing aid to Africa was of such importance that in October 2000, the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation was launched. Fifty African nations participate in the forum which serves as the foundation for building bridges of economic trade as well as political and cultural exchange. Africans see Chinese influence as being far more positive than U.S. influence.

Russia has also taken a renewed interest in Africa. Putin’s push to restore Russia’s international stature, power, and prestige has led Russia to purchase in excess of $5 billion of African assets between 2000 and 2007.

In November 2002, the U.S. based Corporate Council on Africa held a conference on African oil and gas in Houston, Texas. The conference, sponsored by ExxonMobil and ChevronTexaco among others, was opened by United States Assistant Secretary of State for Africa, Walter Kansteiner. Mr. Kansteiner previously stated that, “African oil is of strategic national interest to us and it will increase and become more important as we go forward,” while on a visit to Nigeria. With all of the concern over U.S. access to key natural resources, it is hardly a surprise that United States conceived of and finally launched United States Africa Command (AFRICOM) in 2007. The unveiling AFRICOM was done under the auspices of bringing peace, security, democracy, and economic growth to Africans. The altruistic rationale for the creation of a new military command was belied by the fact that from the start it was acknowledged that AFRICOM was a “combatant” command created in response to Africa’s growing strategic importance to the United States; namely, “the size of its population, its natural resource wealth, its potential". In fact, President Fradique de Menezes of Sao Tome and Principe said at that time that he had reached agreement with the United States for establishment of a U.S. naval base there, the purpose of which was to safeguard U.S. oil interests. Menezes revealed the new model for U.S. military outposts abroad. He stated, "It is not really a military base on our territory, but rather a support port for aircraft, warships and patrol ships so that they can come to this port and stay for some time." Since the establishment of AFRICOM, numerous training exercises have been carried out in Africa by U.S. military forces, and basing agreements have been worked out with several African partners across the continent – even in the face of strong dissent from the citizens of several countries. The U.S. has been able to create these relationships through the careful structuring of its operations, size and make-up of its staff, and public relations efforts.

Camp Lemonier in Djibouti, a key military outpost and strategically important piece of real-estate in the Horn of Africa, precisely where the Red Sea meets the Gulf of Aden, the United States government entered into an agreement with the government of Djibouti that has several striking features:
· U.S. military personnel have diplomatic immunity
· The United States has sole jurisdiction over the criminal acts of its personnel
· U.S. personnel may carry arms in the Republic of Djibouti
· The U.S. may import any materials and equipment it requires into the Republic of Djibouti
· No claims may be brought against the U.S. for damage to property or loss of life
· Aircraft, vessels, and vehicles may enter, exit, and move freely throughout the Republic of Djibouti.

Such an agreement allows the U.S. to maintain a small permanent presence in Djibouti, but staff and stock up with as many military personnel and weapons as it deems fit for any particular operation inside or outside of Africa as needed. Additionally, the agreement gives the U.S. the flexibility it wants to operate freely without interference from or liability to the people and government of Djibouti. The small size and staff of U.S. basing operations like Camp Lemonier is the new model for U.S. Forward Operating Locations (FOLs). FOLs are “smaller, cheaper, and can thus be more plentiful. In short, the FOL can lie in wait with a low carrying cost until a crisis arrives, at which point it can be quickly expanded to rise to whatever the occasion demands.” Arrangements have been made with several countries, north, south, east, and west, including Gabon, Kenya, Mali, Morocco, Tunisia, Namibia, Sao Tome, Senegal, Uganda, Ethiopia, and Zambia. A leaner, smaller, less intrusive, and more culturally engaged network of military outposts is America’s new blueprint for foreign intervention and global domination.

U.S. officials have long recognised African hostility to any efforts that could be perceived as neo-colonialist and imperialist. AFRICOM’s staffing structure is a military-civilian hybrid for two reasons: to convey the message that the combatant command does not have an exclusive military purpose, and to gain influence over African nations’ domestic and foreign policies. AFRICOM has a civilian deputy commander and a large civilian staff, in part made up of U.S. State Department personnel. These civilian personnel include foreign policy advisors from the U.S. Bureau of African Affairs, humanitarian assistance advisors from the U.S. Agency for International Development, as well as advisors from the U.S. Department of Treasury and the Department of Homeland Security. To overcome poor public relations, the command built several activities into the structure of AFRICOM, to include the building of schools in poor villages, air and sea port construction projects, the distribution of medicine and textbooks to children, military-to-military training programs, and legal operational support. The U.S. Army War College published a research paper in March 2008, entitled “Combating African Questions about the Legitimacy of AFRICOM”. It called for the increased use of “soft power that could be leverage by the U.S. Department of State in winning the public relations fight for Africa." The structure and domestic operations of AFRICOM also makes it more palatable to African leaders.

Taken mostly from here

NEW CAPITALISM

Socialist Banner read this article from Vince Musewe, an independent Zimbabwean economist based in South Africa.

He made these observations about Zimbabwe:

"In our naiveté in 1980 we assumed that once and for all the colonial master's hold on our economy and social life was now history and it was time to witness the rise and rise of a liberal and democratic social economy led by the new black generation who had been waiting in the wings for some time...However, we have seen the rise and rise of a black capitalist class whose behavior and interests mimic those of our colonial masters. We have seen the merging of the state and Zanu PF and a central command directing all social and economic activity to ensure that the party and the state remain as one."

And added these comments about South Africa:

"...the ANC-backed black capitalist class who in my view, as shown in Zimbabwe, are prone to behave in no way different to the very white capitalist class they seek to replace as they usurp economic control hiding under nationalisation or the misguided broad-based economic empowerment platform."

Animals and tourism before people

Prof Rosaleen Duffy from the University of Manchester, who has researched the issue for 15 years says the development of nature tourism has meant international pressure to save high-profile species is intense. Some conservation groups regard the protection of the gorilla, rhino and other endangered species as more important than human life. Subsistence hunting is banned in many parks and often only tourists with hunting licences on safari are permitted to kill animals. This can mean local people are regarded as threats to the wildlife that have to be halted at almost any cost. Private security firms and mercenaries were being used to train game rangers. Some conservation organisations in Africa are operating a shoot-to-kill policy against poachers. Military-style campaigns were occurring across the continent.

"Because private military operations and also park rangers are given authority to shoot on sight, the suspected poachers, then they can shoot first and ask questions later," she told the BBC."I think what happens then is that local people get justifiably very angry about people being shot because they're suspected of poaching whereas in fact what they might be doing is simply taking a short cut through a national park or they might be collecting grass for thatch."

The land grabbing - who profits ?

Howard Buffet , the son of the one of the richest billionaires in the world makes this interesting observation about the great African Land Grab

"It is estimated that 50 million hectares have already been leased to foreign entities with at least 20 African countries considering similar deals. Some of these leases—99 years at $1.00 per hectare—are unbelievable deals. But they are only available to a select few. Local farmers—people who struggle to feed their families, gain access to fertile land and secure water for both personal consumption and agricultural activity—are not eligible for the deals being promoted in countries where millions of people remain dependent on food aid.

Just a few months ago I was personally offered an equity stake in a land deal being brokered by a hedge fund. I was assured that the partners would receive cash up-front with no personal liability. I was also promised that the host government would provide 70 percent of the financing, all utilities, and a 98-year lease requiring no payments for four years. The cost? $2.91 per acre per year after four years. Another fund provided a prospectus that claimed it would generate returns of between 15 and 20 percent. U.S. agricultural land has averaged a return of about six percent over the past thirty years. Therefore, these deals are either that good for investors, or the managers of these funds are misrepresenting the facts. If I didn’t know better, this would sound like a great opportunity! But here’s what I’m sure of: these deals will make the rich richer and the poor poorer, creating clear winners who benefit while the losers are denied their livelihoods."

Independence for what ?

2010 is the year 17 countries celebrate 50 years of independence since colonial rule. Independence anniversaries in post-colonial countries used to be a time of celebration for those workers who believed they were commemorating their freedom. Africans resisted the colonialists on grounds of segregation, slavery, exploitation and domination. But today African countries still struggle with development and human rights issues and the governments in power have done nothing to change the situation.

Ghana was the first sub-Saharan country in colonial Africa to gain its independence on March 6, 1957. In Ghana 45 percent of the population live on less than $1 a day and 79 percent on less than $2 a day.

The Somali Democratic Republic received its independence from Italy on July 1, 1960 when they joined with their northern neighbour, Somaliland, who had gained independence from the British on June 26, 1960. In Somalia 60% population lives below the $1 per day poverty line. An estimated 40 percent of the population were in need of relief assistance in 2009 - the largest proportion of the population requiring relief of any country in the world. Somalia has the worst health indicators in Africa with less than 0.5 doctors and two nurses per 100,000 people.

On June 30, 2010, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) celebrated 50 years of independence. In Congo 70 percent of the population live in poverty. Congo was ranked 139 out of 177 countries in the 2007 UNDP Human Development Index. Life expectancy is 52.8 years and 49 percent of the population do not have access to an improved water source. Infant mortality rates are estimated at 93.86 deaths per 1,000 live births. In 2003 the adult HIV infection rate was estimated at 4.9%, with 100,000 deaths from the disease in the same year.

Burkina Faso received independence from France in August 1960. Burkina Faso is ranked by the World Bank as the 13th poorest country in the world in 2002. The UNDP's 2005 Human Development Index ranked it at 175 out of 177 countries. Life expectancy is 47.5 years.

Independence solved none of the problems resulting from exploitation. Independence for the vast majority has simply meant the exchange of one set of exploiters for another. Nothing changed except the personnel of the State machinery. Poverty in the midst of a potential for plenty remains a running sore, exploitation and massive disparities of wealth continue to exist. Environmental degradation continues virtually unabated. Independence will not solve the peasant or working-class problems, only the establishment of socialism can do that. The festering of tribalist, nationalist and racist sentiment are nurtured and sustained by the capitalist system of production which produces only for profits and not for needs. Religion, secessionist movements and nationalism are generally tools used by the ruling classes to perpetrate the status quo. But the only solution is to uproot the real cause of the problems – the overthrow of the unjust economic system in operation in today's world. Socialism will depend on contribution to society by individuals based on individuals' ability and individuals will take from society according to their self-determined needs. It's time for the people of Africa to discover the truth, that they need to unite and fight for socialism. The struggle remains the same – the class struggle. Masters are uneasy when servants are awake.

See also Financial wizards or great pretenders?

No easy escape from poverty

People are still stuck in poverty despite the intervention of multilateral organisations.

Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) were initiated in 1999 by the International Monetary Fund and World Bank for the eradication of poverty in Heavily Indebted Poor Countries. However, research shows that PRSPs are failing to deliver. Millions of dollars have been spent on development programmes that are having no real impact on the ground. Research suggests little or no political will to take forward policies that benefit the poor and marginalized. At the same time, the process has suffered from corruption and misuse of funds, with little accountability to the populations of recipient countries. More than 10 years on, PRSPs have thus failed to move communities out of poverty and, crucially, have largely ignored the plight of minorities and indigenous peoples, who are usually among the most marginalized and poor. The report gave two specific examples.

The Endorois of Kenya , who have been removed from their ancestral lands by successive governments, remain impoverished, with elevated levels of illiteracy, high HIV prevalence, poor health, and high maternal and child mortality rates.
The Karamoja of Uganda, the study found that they still lack basic social services and have endured marginalisation from the political, social and economic mainstream of Uganda despite a long-standing poverty reduction plan in the country.

In Capitalism Death is a Profitable Business

The Killing industries are making profits by selling arms to the third world countries when analysing arms trade to the third world, there is one fundamental question which precedes all others; why have the Third World countries felt a need to buy weapons in the first place? And why is it that the disastrous armament policies of the Western Capitalist countries over the past 100 years and the resulting bloodshed of two World Wars have not discouraged the Third World from adopting the same militarists’ policies?

Colonialism-Legacy of Militarism

The legacy of Colonialism has been a prime ingredient in killing a demand for weapons, particularly in Africa and Asia. During the pre-independence period, most colonies were disarmed by the imperial powers in order to prevent military uprisings from population. The absence of a national armoury stung the pride of new governments in countries which became independent in the 1950s and 1960s. Many therefore strove to establish indigenous armed forces where none had existed previously. This policy immediately preresnted problems as none of the countries concerned had any industrial base for producing weapons locally. At that time, the only source of modern weapons was (and usually still is) the industrialised, former colonial powers, of the west. Thus, when it came to equipping newly formed armed forces in the Third World, the governments concerned imported the weapons from abroad.

When looking more closely at Third World militarisation one finds that the scars of colonialism run very deep. For example, the borders of countries in Africa, Asia and the Middle East that became independent after 1945, were invariably based on artificial borders relating to the different colonial powers’ spheres of influence and not to any natural geographical divisions between peoples and cultures. This meant that many newly independent states contained several different ethnic and religious groups with which the newly independent government had to compete for its citizens loyalties. Under such conditions, the armed forces and their imported weapons came to be regarded as the symbol of unity and national pride.

In many newly independent states, the educated middle class elites who had acquired political power actually strove to model themselves on their former colonial masters, in military as much as in civil matters. This was to be expected as many of the leaders of these States had been trained in institutions like the British military College of Sandhurst.

Military rule:

Most newly independent governments started off on a very weak footing, rooted as they were in foreign colonial systems rather than indigenous forms of government. Their fragility has since been accentuated by their subsequent failure to represent the interests of the majority of their populations. In the process of decolonisation, the imperial powers tended to transfer political and economic power to wealthy, western educated and sympathetic elites.

In many countries, the armed forces have become so powerful that they have managed to seize power from civilian governments. For example, most African States are ruled either by military governments or by governments of mixed military and civilians. It’s this military influence which partly explains the willingness of some countries to spend money on armaments rather than on economic development. The per Capita military expenditures of military dominated governments are enormously high.

Perceptions of defence

Third World States generally perceive themselves to be more vulnerable than their counterparts (in the industrial world). The reasons behind this sense of vulnerability are manifold. They range from internal tensions such as those between rich and poor or between different ethnic groups to territorial disputes with surrounding countries and perceived external political threats, such as a revolution or a military coup in neighbouring countries. Whatever the cause of the tension, the response is much the same as it has been in Europe at times of major political upheaval: rearmament.

Arms Races:

Importing arms to bolster security usually creates further insecurity, as neighbouring countries feel bound to buy yet more weapons to match the new arsenals on their borders. In Latin America, the re-emergence of a number of long standing border disputes in the Late 60s and 70s promoted many of the regions’ countries to purchase more weapons from abroad. However these arms purchases served simply to raise tensions even further and led to yet more arms purchases. Similarly, in the Middle East, Syria and Israel remain locked in an arms race which continues to fuel more and more armaments on both sides. Therefore the world is not safe as long as the profit system existed including death profit.

By Michael Ghebre

Reference: Death on Delivery
The impacts of the arms trade on the Third World

Nigeria's child labour

In the past, children worked with their families, learning skills they would need as adults. But today, children are forced to work for their own and their family’s survival. Child labour is so widespread in Nigeria that it has been accepted by many as part of normal life. The end of the oil boom in the 70s, coupled with mounting poverty, has driven millions of children into labour.

Recent studies and reports, especially from the International Labour Organization show that child labour has been made worse in recent times because some of these children have no solid background, no education and no parental care. In the circumstances, they become street hawkers. They work in the streets during the day, and work even at night in some cases. Such lifestyles become very dangerous and nomadic types of life. There is little wonder therefore, that the future of these children is very dark and bleak. There are many children in Nigeria who work under inhumane conditions hidden from public view. The conditions of some of these children are compounded by the fact that they do not receive any kind of formal education. Because of the ramifications and consequences of child labour, it is no wonder that it is actually illegal in Nigeria, although the sheer scale of the activity gives the impression that it is legal.

In Nigeria quality education is no longer free. The ‘free education’ available in many local and state governments across the country does not provide the desirable tools for future freedom from ignorance or even preparation for work after education. Child rights activists also submit that lack of access to education is a major reason for the child labour quagmire. Statistics shows that these working children lose out on education because they have no time, money or energy to go to school. It also shows that about six million children, comprising of boys and girls, do not attend school at all, while one million children are forced to drop out of school due to poverty or because their parents demand for them to contribute to the family’s income. Over eight million children manage to stay in school and work at their spare time to pay school fees. But due to high demand at work, these children normally skip classes.Rabiu Musa, UNICEF Communications Officer stated 10 million children were not in school in the country. Missing out on education makes it impossible to break the cycle of poverty and exploitation.

Land Grab

Socialist Banner have repeatedly drawn attention to the Great African Land Grab and another story about it has been spotted. As commodity prices have soared on the back of rising global food demand, weather fluctuations and a growing biofuels industry, anti-poverty campaigners have grown increasingly concerned about speculative land-grabbing in Africa and other developing regions.

A World Bank report is due to be published next month, but a draft copy leaked to the Financial Times painted a picture of largely speculative investment badly lacking agricultural expertise, and a rush towards countries with lax laws. It mentioned only a handful of successes.

"Investor interest is focused on countries with weak land governance," the draft said. Although investment deals promised jobs and infrastructure "investors failed to follow through on their investment plans, in some cases after inflicting serious damage on the local resource base". The report also flagged that "the level of formal payments required was low", thereby fuelling speculative investment. Investors crowd out the poorest local producers and at the same time invest little in improving the agricultural processes needed to meet the huge jump in world food production required to feed a growing population.

Aurelie Walker, Fairtrade Foundation's trade policy advisor, said: "Governments with weak institutions laws and regulations are easy targets for wealthy investors."

The Looting of Africa

In terms of natural resources, Africa is the most abundant continent on earth.

BP has stated that Africa holds 127 billion barrels of untapped oil, almost ten per cent of global reserves.Oil was first drilled commercially in Africa in Oloibiri in the Niger Delta, in 1956 by the Anglo-Dutch oil giant Shell. There are now ten oil exporting nations in Africa, with another three soon to join that list.

There are ten major diamond producing nations in Africa, the largest being Botswana, where the industry is worth $158bn a year.Diamond production remains a major source of revenue for Africa. In Sierra Leone, income from the diamond trade rose by a quarter to $35m in the first six months of the 2010.

Coltan or "colombo-tantalite ore" is a mineral used to make electric capacitors in computers, gaming consoles and mobile phones. One of the world's largest reserves is in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

But rather than a blessing, most of Africa's commodities have proved a burden; allegedly stoking conflict, funding wars and leading to rampant labour market abuse.

Africa's largest single oil exporting nation is Nigeria. While no official figures exist, Standard Bank estimates the country has made $6 trillion in oil revenue over the last 50 years. The International Energy Agency says Nigeria holds 37 billion barrels of reserve oil, dwarfing that of Norway which has just 6 billion. Yet 70% of Nigerians live under the poverty line and the country has consistently been ranked among the most corrupt on earth by international observers.Despite its oil wealth, Nigeria has to import 60% of its own fuel.

The portability and high value of diamonds have made them a favourite source of funding for rebel groups across the continent. Angola, Congo and the Cote D'Ivoire have all been subject to the trade in so called "blood diamonds"..During the brutal 10 year civil war in Sierra Leone, the diamond mines in Kono were controlled by the rebel RUF forces, led by Foday Sankoh. Diamonds smuggled from the region were allegedly passed on to Charles Taylor, president of neighbouring Liberia, who in turn helped arm the rebel movement.Diamonds from blacklisted countries like Zimbabwe are still routinely being traded on the international market.

Most of the coltan mines in the DRC are in the remote South Kivu district. In 2001 a report by the United Nation Security Council claimed that rebel forces, regrouping in the country after the Rwandan genocide, had taken control of the mines and were using coltan to fund their operations, often using forced or child labour. These groups included the CNDP, a Tutsi rebel force led by General Laurent Nkunda, and the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, a Hutu rebel group responsible for the Rwandan genocide of 1994, which had the backing of the Congolese government under President Mobutu.The report concluded that the DRC was suffering a "systemic and systematic" looting of natural resources, with the CNDP alone raising $250m over 18 months by selling coltan.A follow up report by the UN in 2008 claimed the looting of the mineral in the DRC was still rife. Rwanda is estimated to have made $19m from coltan sales in 2008, a rise of 72% on the previous year, even though no coltan is mined within Rwandan borders.

food but no money again

In Malawi there is food but no money to take it to the people. Another year with a surplus harvest of maize, the staple food, is good news for Malawi which has the capacity to provide "all the maize needed for humanitarian response for the year, thanks to this surplus," the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWSNET) said in its latest report. Dry spells in the south have left around 700,000 people in need of food assistance. But the bad news is that distributing the food aid has been delayed because funding for operational costs has not yet been made available. Malawi's Department of Disaster Management Affairs does not have a budget for this aspect of its response.

Politics of Poverty

The loss of a parliamentary constituency in Mufumbwe keeps on to erode the political majorities of the ruling MMD come the 2011 presidential elections. This took place on 28 April after the death of MMD Member of Parliament for Mufumbwe Misheck Bonshe.

The PF/UPND pact won by a landslide victory—in an election characterised by political violence in which a police officer was assaulted. Indeed, north western provinces as at now is slowly sliding into a PF ally and the loss of Mufumbwe brings to two constituencies won by the PF ever since Rupiah Banda came to the presidency in 2008.

Talking in terms of ethnic and tribal loyalties, it is correct to infer that the ruling MMD lost the original political majority when the late President Levy Mwanawasa came to power in 2002. Mwanawasa flushed out Bemba political following from the MMD in order to distance himself from the corrupt regime of his mentor Fredrick Chiluba.

This switch in ethnic loyalties came to the fore during the 2006 general election, when the MMD lost heavily in Northern and Ivapula provinces (Bemba-speaking provinces).

People in Zambia tend to vote for political leaders to whom they have close ethnic and tribal affinities—though that seems not to be the case in the urban mining towns (in the Copperbelt Province), where voting is determined by economic and social factors. Let it be understood that both UNIP, MMD, UPND and PF started as tribal political movements—commanding ethnic support in their respective tribal homelands. There we find political leaders in Zambia tend to evade the fact on the pretext of massing a natural following.

It is a fact that the Catholic clergy in Zambia proves to be a thorn in the flesh of every ruling political party, especially during the presidential elections. More or less the Catholic is always siding with the political opposition. On 10 April a group of unidentified women staged a demonstration at the Vatican embassy in Lusaka, calling for the removal of the Catholic Archbishop in Zambia Telesphore Mpundu. It is a well-known fact that Mpundu does openly advocate for régime change in Zambia. Investigations that were carried out by the political opposition revealed that a group of women who had staged a demonstration at the Vatican embassy were not Catholic women as was alleged by the ruling MMD—but a clique of political thugs hired by the MMD.

It is now a common experience in Zambia for political journalists and Catholic clergy to be assaulted in public by MMD party cadres. The flamboyant Catholic priest of Kitwe, Father Frank Bwalya was recently detained by the police when he was found distributing and brandishing RED CARDS during the youth day holiday celebrations. The meaning behind this red card politi8cal campaign calls for the unilateral vote of NO CONFIDENCE in President Rupiah Banda. Frank Bwalya has formed a political movement called CHANGE LIFE Zambia that openly advocates for the resignation of Banda.

The Catholic church plays a major rôle in the social and community upkeep of ordinary people—it runs mission schools and health institutions in some rural areas of the country. More or less the Catholic church supplements the government’s economic programme. Indeed the Catholic church does play a part in influencing political consciousness among poor and disgruntled majorities.

As befits a Zambian cultural and traditional setting, the untimely death of Levy Mwanawasa has been attributed to witchcraft either from his relatives or political enemies. It is a taboo among Zambians to speak ill of the dead, thus many politicians keep mum on the political defects of the late president Mwanawasa. Indeed, it is wantonly difficult to change the ethnic mindset of village dwellers in rural areas—thus socialist propaganda must be concentrated in urban areas among workers and students. It may come to pass that many an ordinary Zambian may want to know whether the former and second republican President Chiluba’s heart problem was induced by corruption allegations slapped upon him by the late Mwanawasa. Indeed, even since he won his corruption case, Chiluba does not go for medical check-ups in South Africa unlike it was [sic] in the past years.

We in the WSM do not advocate for régime change either in Zambia or elsewhere—we advocate world socialism—a classless, moneyless and stateless society.

K. MULENGA, Zambia

Letter from Zambia

Democracy is an all-encompassing word used to describe the political state of modern times. More or less democracy describes a political state in which fully fledged parliamentary legality flourishes and political parties come to power through the ballot box. The art of constitutional government as we know and practice it in Zambia is derived from British colonialism (parliamentary democracy). But parliamentary democracy is not a static condition—political constitutions have been revised in Africa day in and day out to suit respective political parties that may happen to be in power. In Zambia the ruling MMD has been experimenting to revise the current political constitution, in a move aimed to make it impossible for opposition leader Michael Sala to stand for the 2011 presidential election.

It is the case in Zambia today that the methods of political change are fraught with many difficulties—chief among these is the regional fragmentation of voting patterns, i.e. people still vote on tribal allegiances. Zambian politics is heavily influenced by political charisma. The first president Dr. Kenneth Kaunda was a charismatic leader and still remained a flamboyant personality. Charismatic politicians have a propensity to capture public worship either through making articulate speeches or wearing fine suits. Both Kaunda and Chiluba had a gift of making inspiring speeches and a flair for clean and smart clothes. Chiluba is said to have possessed two hundred pairs of shoes worth hundreds of dollars.

Both Kaunda and Chiluba had the gift to foresee what the masses’ feelings were and used to take advantage of a given moment by seemingly voicing those feelings. And it became very problematic for many ordinary Zambians to rally behind the late president Levy Mwanawasa, who lacked a magnetic personality and was a poor speech-maker. Indeed, the current president, Rupiah Banda lacks a political flair for publicity and lacks a flair for speech making.

Freedom for expression in Zambia has been conceived in wrong terms. It has meant incessant political criticism of ruling government in methods likely to provoke political violence. We in the WSM abhor the methods of political criticism that is spearheaded by the PF and UPND because they border on intimidating certain individuals instead of offering an alternative political system against the existing political status quo (capitalism). Political demagogy by itself is not an antidote to unemployment and inflation. The vicissitudes of human rights, gender equality and freedom of expression will not exist in socialism because a socialist will entail the actual embodiment of political and gender emancipation.

Indeed, the failure of political groupings in England to win an outright parliamentary majority during the May 2010 general election did not result in political violence and was resolved in an amicable manner. It is a test case for parliamentary democracy from which political leaders in Africa must learn a lesson. Presidential elections do not give rise to political violence in England unlike it is the case in most African countries.

In an election portrayed to be a poetical tragedy, Prime Minister Gordon Brown has been voted out of power through incessant criticism by the mass media. It is the case that ever since he replaced Tony Blair as Prime Minister and leader of the Labour Party, he was dubbed as an out of fashion political figure in contrast to the charismatic and flamboyant Tony Blair. The Conservatives and Liberals have formed a coalition government held together by trust—both of them failed to win an outright majority in the House of Commons.

K. MULENGA, Zambia

A "deadly financing gap"

Poor sanitation and bad hygiene cause the deaths of one in five Liberians, according to the World Health Organization.Diarrhoea kills 20 percent of children who die aged five or under in Liberia according an Oxfam report.

Three out of four Liberians have no access to safe drinking water and six out of seven cannot access sanitation facilities, such as toilets.

Water and sanitation receives less funding than health, education, transport, energy and agriculture, according to the global Annual Assessment of Sanitation and Drinking Water

The Gravy Train

After resisting calls to pay income tax for years, MPs in Kenya finally agreed yesterday night to pay the tax, but only after giving themselves a sweetener of 240,000 shillings (£1,960) taking their monthly pay to 1,091,000 shillings (£8,920)- a monthly pay rise of nearly 25%, making them some of the best-paid legislators in the world.Instead of seeing their take-home pay reduced, ordinary MPs will be £100 richer each month, even after tax, thanks to the salary boost.

In Kenya the minimum wage was last month raised to £50 a month for employees in cities and £25 for farm workers.