In parts of west Africa people are being forced to eat leaves and collect grain from ant hills, say aid agencies, and are warning that 10 million people face starvation across the region.In Niger more than 7 million people – almost half the population – currently face food insecurity in the country. According to UN agencies, 200,000 children need treatment for malnutrition in Niger alone.
Yet it is not a shortage of food thats causing the hunger but the they cannot afford the food.
"When you walk through the markets, you can see that there is food here. The problem is that the ability to buy it has disappeared. People here depend on livestock to support themselves, but animals are being killed on the edge of exhaustion, and that means they are being sold for far less money. And on top of that, the cost of food basics has risen" explained Caroline Gluck, an Oxfam representative.
"The question now is how many people do we have to see die before the world will act?" she asked.
Commentary and analysis to persuade people to become socialist and to act for themselves, organizing democratically and without leaders, to bring about a world of common ownership and free access. We are solely concerned with building a movement of socialists for socialism. We are not reformists with a programme of policies to patch up capitalism.
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Congolese Armies
Who's who in the DRC
Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR)
The FDLR was formed by Rwandan Hutus linked to the 1994 genocide and includes former members of President Juvénal Habyarimana’s army and Interahamwe militia. After they were routed by President Paul Kagame’s troops following the genocide, they regrouped in DRC to plot a return to power in Kigali, forming an armed group that eventually became the FDLR.
Former DRC President Laurent-Désiré Kabila formed an alliance with the FDLR to battle Kigali’s influence in eastern Congo after 1998 and some joined his army. But Kabila’s son Joseph, now DRC president, allowed Rwandan troops to enter Congo in 2009 and hunt the FDLR. UN security sources estimated the number of FDLR at 3,000, down from 6,000 in 2009.FDLR has allied with other groups, such as Michel Rukunda’s Republican Federalist Forces (FRF), a South Kivu militia claiming to defend the interests of the Banyamulenge (Congolese ethnic Tutsis) and some Mai-Mai groups.
Mai-Mai groups
Its fighters, who spray themselves with “magic water to protect themselves from bullets”, are essentially self-defence militias formed on an ad-hoc basis by local leaders who arm young men in villages, often along ethnic lines.
Some of the larger ones are better known, such as the Congolese Resistance Patriots (PARECO) or Alliance of Patriots for a Free and Sovereign Congo (APCLS), which joined the peace process in March 2009, promising to transform into peaceful political parties.
On 2 June, 500 members of the Kifuafua Mai-Mai group returned to their positions in Walikale in North Kivu, claiming that their agreed integration into the army had been delayed for too long. Most Mai-Mai groups are local forces known by the name of their leader. The Yakutumba group, which bears the name of the “major-general” at their helm, kidnapped eight aid workers in South Kivu in April.
National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP) The CNDP threatened to invade Goma, capital of North Kivu, in November 2008. Later, Rwanda placed its leader Laurent Nkunda under house arrest. Bosco Ntaganda, who is indicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC), replaced Nkunda and agreed to steer the group towards peace. In March 2009, the CNDP became a political party and 3,000-4,000 of its fighters joined the Congolese army. Some 1,000 to 2,000 are resisting integration.
Most observers believe the CNDP retained its chains of command within the army. The group administers much of Masisi district and is involved in a range of activities in North Kivu, from artisanal mining to charcoal trafficking and extortion. It is accused of organizing the transfer of its Rwandan supporters to Masisi, raising friction between Rwandese in DRC and other ethnic groups.
Patriotic Forces for the Liberation of Congo (FPLC)
The group, active in North Kivu, is led by General Gad Ngabo, who crossed into the Congolese district of Rutshuru from Uganda recently. Sources say he is recruiting across ethnic lines, gathering potential to compete with CNDP for control of some North Kivu areas. The group is estimated to number a few hundred fighters.
Allied Democratic Forces/National Army for the Liberation of Uganda (ADF/NALU)
Ugandan rebel leader Jamil Mukulu founded a Muslim militant group in the early 1990s, despite converting back and forth between Islam and Catholicism. Under pressure from the Ugandan army, he recruited officers from former dictator Idi Amin’s regime and amalgamated the NALU, another Ugandan rebel group believed to harbour supporters of former president Milton Obote.
The militia crossed into DRC in the mid-1990s and has remained in the Beni area of North Kivu. Analysts consider the group “dormant” with about 1,300 men. Peace negotiations between ADF/NALU, Uganda and the DRC began in 2009 with UN facilitation, but in April, the Congolese army blamed a deadly attack on a military training centre near Beni on a coalition of ADF/NALU and local Mai-Mai fighters.
Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA)
Joseph Kony founded the “Holy Spirit Mobile Force 2” in northern Uganda in 1987 after a rebel group by the same name was crushed while opposing President Yoweri Museveni’s government. In 1989, Kony renamed the militia the Lord’s Resistance Army, claiming that his objective was the establishment of a Christian-inspired theocracy in Uganda.
The LRA first moved into Southern Sudan in the mid-1990s but the 2005 Sudanese peace agreement and the indictment of Kony by the ICC forced the group to cross into DRC’s Garamba National Park.
In December 2008, Ugandan, Southern Sudanese and Congolese armies launched a joint offensive in Garamba, but failed to wipe out the LRA leadership. The group, which is divided into small groups, move on foot across the Uélés districts of northeastern Congo, the east of the Central African Republic (CAR) and parts of Southern Sudan.
Between December 2007 and April 2010, the group is believed to have killed 1,796 civilians and abducted 2,377 in Congo. It is particularly notorious for forced recruitment of child soldiers, turning boys into killers and girls into porters or sex slaves. It also mutilates lips and ears to terrorize the population.
Front for Patriotic Resistance in Ituri/Popular Front for Justice in Congo (FRPI/FPJC)
FRPI and its splinter group FPJC are active in the southern part of Ituri, where they battle government forces and UN peacekeepers. FRPI’s former commander Germain Katanga is on trial at the ICC with two other Ituri militia leaders for war crimes and crimes against humanity, including the recruitment of child soldiers, mass murder and rape. Analysts describe the group as “residual” yet its humanitarian toll remains high.
In 2009, about 5,000 people fled into the Mokato-Ngazi forest after fighting between the DRC army and FRPI/FPJC militants. When government forces and humanitarian agencies accessed the area three months later, an unknown number had starved to death. Jean-Claude Baraka, an FPJC leader, was recently arrested. But FRPI chief “Colonel Cobra” Matata, who had agreed to integrate the national army, reportedly deserted earlier this month to rejoin his militia in Ituri.
Enyele/Independent Movement of Liberation and Allies (MILIA)
Ethnic tensions dating back to the colonial era flared up last November in northwestern Equateur province. Members of the Lobala group, known as “Enyele” after the name of the village where the violence erupted over fishing rights, first attacked the border town of Dongo and defeated police sent to quash them. Civilians fled across the river to the Republic of Congo, and only 20,000 residents have returned.
Adopting the acronym MILIA, they moved southwards across the jungle and stormed the provincial capital, Mbandaka, on 4 April. They also disrupted supplies as far as the eastern city of Kisangani.
On 5 May, the DRC arrested Ondjani Mangbama, the Enyele leader, but his status remains unclear. The Enyele insurrection began in former Congolese ruler Mobutu Sese Seko’s Equateur home province, now a stronghold of Jean-Pierre Bemba’s MLC opposition party.
Last but not least :
Armed forces of the DRC (FARDC)
The FARDC has been accused by human rights groups of involvement in criminal activities, but the government denies the accusations. In 2009, its 213th brigade was cited in the deaths of civilians in Lukweti, North Kivu, during the UN-backed Kimia 2 offensive against the FDLR.
From here
Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR)
The FDLR was formed by Rwandan Hutus linked to the 1994 genocide and includes former members of President Juvénal Habyarimana’s army and Interahamwe militia. After they were routed by President Paul Kagame’s troops following the genocide, they regrouped in DRC to plot a return to power in Kigali, forming an armed group that eventually became the FDLR.
Former DRC President Laurent-Désiré Kabila formed an alliance with the FDLR to battle Kigali’s influence in eastern Congo after 1998 and some joined his army. But Kabila’s son Joseph, now DRC president, allowed Rwandan troops to enter Congo in 2009 and hunt the FDLR. UN security sources estimated the number of FDLR at 3,000, down from 6,000 in 2009.FDLR has allied with other groups, such as Michel Rukunda’s Republican Federalist Forces (FRF), a South Kivu militia claiming to defend the interests of the Banyamulenge (Congolese ethnic Tutsis) and some Mai-Mai groups.
Mai-Mai groups
Its fighters, who spray themselves with “magic water to protect themselves from bullets”, are essentially self-defence militias formed on an ad-hoc basis by local leaders who arm young men in villages, often along ethnic lines.
Some of the larger ones are better known, such as the Congolese Resistance Patriots (PARECO) or Alliance of Patriots for a Free and Sovereign Congo (APCLS), which joined the peace process in March 2009, promising to transform into peaceful political parties.
On 2 June, 500 members of the Kifuafua Mai-Mai group returned to their positions in Walikale in North Kivu, claiming that their agreed integration into the army had been delayed for too long. Most Mai-Mai groups are local forces known by the name of their leader. The Yakutumba group, which bears the name of the “major-general” at their helm, kidnapped eight aid workers in South Kivu in April.
National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP) The CNDP threatened to invade Goma, capital of North Kivu, in November 2008. Later, Rwanda placed its leader Laurent Nkunda under house arrest. Bosco Ntaganda, who is indicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC), replaced Nkunda and agreed to steer the group towards peace. In March 2009, the CNDP became a political party and 3,000-4,000 of its fighters joined the Congolese army. Some 1,000 to 2,000 are resisting integration.
Most observers believe the CNDP retained its chains of command within the army. The group administers much of Masisi district and is involved in a range of activities in North Kivu, from artisanal mining to charcoal trafficking and extortion. It is accused of organizing the transfer of its Rwandan supporters to Masisi, raising friction between Rwandese in DRC and other ethnic groups.
Patriotic Forces for the Liberation of Congo (FPLC)
The group, active in North Kivu, is led by General Gad Ngabo, who crossed into the Congolese district of Rutshuru from Uganda recently. Sources say he is recruiting across ethnic lines, gathering potential to compete with CNDP for control of some North Kivu areas. The group is estimated to number a few hundred fighters.
Allied Democratic Forces/National Army for the Liberation of Uganda (ADF/NALU)
Ugandan rebel leader Jamil Mukulu founded a Muslim militant group in the early 1990s, despite converting back and forth between Islam and Catholicism. Under pressure from the Ugandan army, he recruited officers from former dictator Idi Amin’s regime and amalgamated the NALU, another Ugandan rebel group believed to harbour supporters of former president Milton Obote.
The militia crossed into DRC in the mid-1990s and has remained in the Beni area of North Kivu. Analysts consider the group “dormant” with about 1,300 men. Peace negotiations between ADF/NALU, Uganda and the DRC began in 2009 with UN facilitation, but in April, the Congolese army blamed a deadly attack on a military training centre near Beni on a coalition of ADF/NALU and local Mai-Mai fighters.
Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA)
Joseph Kony founded the “Holy Spirit Mobile Force 2” in northern Uganda in 1987 after a rebel group by the same name was crushed while opposing President Yoweri Museveni’s government. In 1989, Kony renamed the militia the Lord’s Resistance Army, claiming that his objective was the establishment of a Christian-inspired theocracy in Uganda.
The LRA first moved into Southern Sudan in the mid-1990s but the 2005 Sudanese peace agreement and the indictment of Kony by the ICC forced the group to cross into DRC’s Garamba National Park.
In December 2008, Ugandan, Southern Sudanese and Congolese armies launched a joint offensive in Garamba, but failed to wipe out the LRA leadership. The group, which is divided into small groups, move on foot across the Uélés districts of northeastern Congo, the east of the Central African Republic (CAR) and parts of Southern Sudan.
Between December 2007 and April 2010, the group is believed to have killed 1,796 civilians and abducted 2,377 in Congo. It is particularly notorious for forced recruitment of child soldiers, turning boys into killers and girls into porters or sex slaves. It also mutilates lips and ears to terrorize the population.
Front for Patriotic Resistance in Ituri/Popular Front for Justice in Congo (FRPI/FPJC)
FRPI and its splinter group FPJC are active in the southern part of Ituri, where they battle government forces and UN peacekeepers. FRPI’s former commander Germain Katanga is on trial at the ICC with two other Ituri militia leaders for war crimes and crimes against humanity, including the recruitment of child soldiers, mass murder and rape. Analysts describe the group as “residual” yet its humanitarian toll remains high.
In 2009, about 5,000 people fled into the Mokato-Ngazi forest after fighting between the DRC army and FRPI/FPJC militants. When government forces and humanitarian agencies accessed the area three months later, an unknown number had starved to death. Jean-Claude Baraka, an FPJC leader, was recently arrested. But FRPI chief “Colonel Cobra” Matata, who had agreed to integrate the national army, reportedly deserted earlier this month to rejoin his militia in Ituri.
Enyele/Independent Movement of Liberation and Allies (MILIA)
Ethnic tensions dating back to the colonial era flared up last November in northwestern Equateur province. Members of the Lobala group, known as “Enyele” after the name of the village where the violence erupted over fishing rights, first attacked the border town of Dongo and defeated police sent to quash them. Civilians fled across the river to the Republic of Congo, and only 20,000 residents have returned.
Adopting the acronym MILIA, they moved southwards across the jungle and stormed the provincial capital, Mbandaka, on 4 April. They also disrupted supplies as far as the eastern city of Kisangani.
On 5 May, the DRC arrested Ondjani Mangbama, the Enyele leader, but his status remains unclear. The Enyele insurrection began in former Congolese ruler Mobutu Sese Seko’s Equateur home province, now a stronghold of Jean-Pierre Bemba’s MLC opposition party.
Last but not least :
Armed forces of the DRC (FARDC)
The FARDC has been accused by human rights groups of involvement in criminal activities, but the government denies the accusations. In 2009, its 213th brigade was cited in the deaths of civilians in Lukweti, North Kivu, during the UN-backed Kimia 2 offensive against the FDLR.
From here
Gun Trade
Arms spending in Africa is rising once again. Billions of dollars are being poured into armoured vehicles and logistics.Since the end of the Cold War, global military spending has fallen by 35%. But the Stockholm Peace Research Institute estimates that in sub-Saharan Africa it has risen by almost a third over the same period. In Uganda alone, spending on military hardware almost doubled in a single year (1997-98), according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies.Paramount Group, a South African-based firm and the largest privately owned defence contractor on the continent sales have been rising by a quarter year-on-year since 2005.
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
World Cup Losers
Socialist Banner makes no apologies for drawing attention yet again to the wasteful World Cup jamboree.
South Africa , a land of fabulous wealth, with 90% of the world’s known platinum reserves, 80% of its manganese, 70% of its chrome and 40% of its gold, as well as rich coal deposits. Plans to develop a satellite programme (in co-operation with India and Brazil). Ten stadiums newly built or upgraded at a cost of 15 billion rand. Rachael Zulu, a 43 year-old mother of two, says there is no way she could afford to buy a ticket to see the national side ''Bafana, Bafana'' play at any of the new stadiums. ''I don't know of anybody living here who is going to the World Cup; we are all poor .I don't know of anybody living here who is going to the World Cup; we are all poor,'' she says. In 2008 three-quarters of South Africans had incomes below 50,000 rand a year (83% were black ) – Only 0.6% of South Africans earned over 750,000 rand, (of whom three-quarters were white and 16% ,or about 30,000 individuals, black)
Rampant corruption and patronage throughout the public sector;
the world’s highest unemployment rate, with more than one in three out of work;
one in eight of the population infected with HIV/AIDS; public hospitals described as “death traps” by their own health minister;
80% of schools deemed dysfunctional;
terrible drug and alcohol abuse;
One in five teenagers aged 15-17 had tried to commit suicide
a crumbling infrastructure; lethal roads.
40% of the population still lives on less than $2 a day.
Although the world’s 24th-biggest economy, South Africa ranks 129th out of 182 on the UN’s Human Development Index (and 12th in Africa).
50 murders, 100 rapes, 330 armed robberies and 550 violent assaults are recorded every day. South Africa now has 300,000 private security guards, almost double the number of police. “We are scared to the point where we are no longer free.” Max Price, the vice-chancellor of the University of Cape Town, said after the murder in March of yet another member of the university’s staff: “We no longer trust strangers and we hate what we have become.”
South Africa , a land of fabulous wealth, with 90% of the world’s known platinum reserves, 80% of its manganese, 70% of its chrome and 40% of its gold, as well as rich coal deposits. Plans to develop a satellite programme (in co-operation with India and Brazil). Ten stadiums newly built or upgraded at a cost of 15 billion rand. Rachael Zulu, a 43 year-old mother of two, says there is no way she could afford to buy a ticket to see the national side ''Bafana, Bafana'' play at any of the new stadiums. ''I don't know of anybody living here who is going to the World Cup; we are all poor .I don't know of anybody living here who is going to the World Cup; we are all poor,'' she says. In 2008 three-quarters of South Africans had incomes below 50,000 rand a year (83% were black ) – Only 0.6% of South Africans earned over 750,000 rand, (of whom three-quarters were white and 16% ,or about 30,000 individuals, black)
Rampant corruption and patronage throughout the public sector;
the world’s highest unemployment rate, with more than one in three out of work;
one in eight of the population infected with HIV/AIDS; public hospitals described as “death traps” by their own health minister;
80% of schools deemed dysfunctional;
terrible drug and alcohol abuse;
One in five teenagers aged 15-17 had tried to commit suicide
a crumbling infrastructure; lethal roads.
40% of the population still lives on less than $2 a day.
Although the world’s 24th-biggest economy, South Africa ranks 129th out of 182 on the UN’s Human Development Index (and 12th in Africa).
50 murders, 100 rapes, 330 armed robberies and 550 violent assaults are recorded every day. South Africa now has 300,000 private security guards, almost double the number of police. “We are scared to the point where we are no longer free.” Max Price, the vice-chancellor of the University of Cape Town, said after the murder in March of yet another member of the university’s staff: “We no longer trust strangers and we hate what we have become.”
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Pervasive Poverty in Swaziland
With a population of about 1.1 million, Swaziland has over 759 000 people living below the poverty line.48 per cent of the population lived on less than US $ 1 per day which translates to about E7.50 in local currency while 78 per cent lived below US $ 2 per day. The United Nations Complementary Country Analysis which was published in April this year blames this problem to the inequalities in the distribution of wealth in the country and the HIV/AIDS scourge where the country remains with the highest HIV prevalence in the world.
Income distribution remains skewed, with 56 per cent of wealth held by the richest 20 per cent of the population, while the poorest 20 per cent of the population owns less than 4.3 per cent.
HIV /AIDS translates to an estimated loss of 20 years of life expectancy in the country.
20-25 per cent of Swazi households are food insecure.
29 per cent of children under the age of five are showing signs of stunting which is an indication of malnutrition over an extended period.
The mortality rate has risen dramatically, with maternal mortality increasing from 229 deaths per 100 000 births in 1996 to 589 per 100 000 in 2006.
In Swaziland there is limited access to and control of productive assets such as land and water for sustainable livelihoods for the poor, and inadequate capacity to participate in policy making and decisions.The UN noted that physiological and social deprivation which includes risk, vulnerability, lack of autonomy, powerlessness and lack of respect was prevalent in the country.
Income distribution remains skewed, with 56 per cent of wealth held by the richest 20 per cent of the population, while the poorest 20 per cent of the population owns less than 4.3 per cent.
HIV /AIDS translates to an estimated loss of 20 years of life expectancy in the country.
20-25 per cent of Swazi households are food insecure.
29 per cent of children under the age of five are showing signs of stunting which is an indication of malnutrition over an extended period.
The mortality rate has risen dramatically, with maternal mortality increasing from 229 deaths per 100 000 births in 1996 to 589 per 100 000 in 2006.
In Swaziland there is limited access to and control of productive assets such as land and water for sustainable livelihoods for the poor, and inadequate capacity to participate in policy making and decisions.The UN noted that physiological and social deprivation which includes risk, vulnerability, lack of autonomy, powerlessness and lack of respect was prevalent in the country.
Wednesday, June 09, 2010
For a One Big Union
From the ITUC 2010 annual survey of violations of trade union rights.Trade unions in Africa suffer from a general lack of respect for their organisations and their activities, both from employers and the authorities. This seriously hampers the free enjoyment of trade union rights. Demonstrations and strikes are often dispersed by the police, who often resort to violence. Sometimes trade union leaders are targeted directly, as shown by the assassination attempts on three union leaders in Burundi and Chad.
Violent repression of striking workers marked the year in South Africa. On several occasions, police and security guards fired at striking workers, most of whom were protesting about pay issues. During the year, a total of 16 workers were reported as having been injured.
Teachers in both Algeria and Kenya organised mass rallies connected to their struggle for better working conditions. In both countries, activists were injured in clashes with the police and many were arrested, and in Kenya, the Teachers’ Service Commission (TSC) subsequently ordered 90,000 teachers in senior and managerial positions to leave the teachers’ unions.
In Egypt, the Real Estate Tax Authority Union officially became the first independent union in over 50 years to be established in the country. However, since its inception, the union has suffered from interference in its internal affairs, with its members being intimidated, harassed and even assaulted, whilst the Egyptian Trade Union Federation, which is the only legally recognised national trade union centre and has close ties to the ruling party, has tried to pressure the authorities into withdrawing the recognition of the union.
Zimbabwe’s abysmal record of violence and repression of trade unions and their members caused the ILO to send a Commission of Inquiry to the country in February. During the year, trade unionists continued to be harassed by the police and supporters of Robert Mugabe’s ZANU-PF party, whilst mass dismissals of striking workers took place, numerous unionists were arrested, several workers were severely beaten by the police while others were shot, and one union leader’s home was raided.
Trade unions are the butt of constant harassment and repression in Swaziland, where the State of Emergency has been in force for over 35 years. Arrests of union leaders and beatings of protesters are not uncommon.
Violations of human and trade union rights are also a matter of serious concern in Sudan. The law only allows one trade union federation, which is controlled by the government and engages more in disciplining workers than protecting their interests. Unionists who operate outside the official union live under constant fear, and 2009 saw no improvement of the situation.
The demands of workers and their representatives are frequently ignored or rejected by employers or the authorities throughout Africa. Furthermore, even where a collective bargaining agreement has been concluded, it is often not honoured. This problem applies in particular to countries like Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Kenya, Liberia, Nigeria and Tanzania. The authorities also discriminate against independent or representative unions. In Benin, for instance, the government has favoured “patriotic” trade unions and associations and has refused to consult with the representative organisations. Unions have been unduly denied registration in Algeria, Swaziland and the Central African Republic, whilst in Equatorial Guinea the refusal has been systematic.The right to strike is frequently infringed in practice. Workers regularly suffer from retaliation for having participated in strikes, which are often broken up by the police. In Côte d’Ivoire, for example, the authorities took repressive measures against thousands of striking dock workers, leaving 60 people injured, several of them seriously. Strikers were also assaulted in other countries including Ghana, Morocco, Nigeria and Tanzania. Nearly 700 workers were arrested during the year for participating in legitimate trade union activities, mainly in Algeria and South Africa.
Thursday, June 03, 2010
Botswana V Bushmen
Socialist Banner previously reported on the plight of the indigenous San people (Bushmen) being deprived of access to water by the Botswana government here . We now read that in desperation the Bushmen are taking legal measures to assert their basic human right to water. They are taking the government of Botswana to court over its refusal to allow them access to a water borehole on their land. The case is due to be heard at Botswana’s High Court in Lobatse on 9 June 2010.
Jumanda Gakelebone, a Bushman from the CKGR, explained "The High Court said we have the right to live on the land of our ancestors. Surely that includes the right to drink our water. Many Bushmen, especially the old people and the young are suffering from lack of water. It pains us that the animals and tourists on our land can drink our water to their heart’s content yet we go thirsty. We pray that the court will give us back our water."
It is claimed by Survival International and others that the Kalahari was being emptied so that tourists would have uninterrupted views of wildlife. The Botswana Tourism Board, a government body, won a World Travel and Tourism Council award which recognizes "dedication to and success in maintaining a programme of sustainable tourism management". Wilderness Safaris built a safari lodge on the ancestral land of the Bushmen of the Central Kalahari Game Reserve in Botswana, without consulting the Bushmen or obtaining their consent.The lodge, sporting a bar and swimming pool for tourists, is situated on the ancestral territory of the Bushmen who are being deprived of water.Survival director, Stephen Corry, yesterday said, "The Botswana Tourism Board is violating UN norms on indigenous peoples. If this is prize-winning ‘sustainable tourism’, it highlights the emerging conflict between tribal peoples and the way their lands are used to benefit rich tourists and the companies which service them..."
At the same time, diamond firms are understood to have the government’s support for fresh prospecting in the reserve, which is the size of Denmark. It has given the Gem Diamond company permission to open a mine in the reserve.
Jumanda Gakelebone, a Bushman from the CKGR, explained "The High Court said we have the right to live on the land of our ancestors. Surely that includes the right to drink our water. Many Bushmen, especially the old people and the young are suffering from lack of water. It pains us that the animals and tourists on our land can drink our water to their heart’s content yet we go thirsty. We pray that the court will give us back our water."
It is claimed by Survival International and others that the Kalahari was being emptied so that tourists would have uninterrupted views of wildlife. The Botswana Tourism Board, a government body, won a World Travel and Tourism Council award which recognizes "dedication to and success in maintaining a programme of sustainable tourism management". Wilderness Safaris built a safari lodge on the ancestral land of the Bushmen of the Central Kalahari Game Reserve in Botswana, without consulting the Bushmen or obtaining their consent.The lodge, sporting a bar and swimming pool for tourists, is situated on the ancestral territory of the Bushmen who are being deprived of water.Survival director, Stephen Corry, yesterday said, "The Botswana Tourism Board is violating UN norms on indigenous peoples. If this is prize-winning ‘sustainable tourism’, it highlights the emerging conflict between tribal peoples and the way their lands are used to benefit rich tourists and the companies which service them..."
At the same time, diamond firms are understood to have the government’s support for fresh prospecting in the reserve, which is the size of Denmark. It has given the Gem Diamond company permission to open a mine in the reserve.
Monday, May 24, 2010
blessing or curse ?
Socialist Banner has posted several times on Africa's "oil curse", and Time carries an interesting article that is worth posting extracts from.
Auwal Musa Ibrahim a Nigerian anticorruption campaigner explains that "Our oil powers the world. But in Africa, it creates places in which no longer do people think about how to build a nation, only how they can steal from it."
Nigeria, with close to 3% of global oil deposits, is Africa's Great Shame. The World Bank estimates the country's generals and gangster politicians stole $300 billion in the three decades to 2006.
The days when ordinary Africans stood by as their continent's riches were plundered, by foreigners or by their own rulers, are drawing to a close. But a time when Africa's oil is nothing but a blessing still seems a long way off.
Auwal Musa Ibrahim a Nigerian anticorruption campaigner explains that "Our oil powers the world. But in Africa, it creates places in which no longer do people think about how to build a nation, only how they can steal from it."
Nigeria, with close to 3% of global oil deposits, is Africa's Great Shame. The World Bank estimates the country's generals and gangster politicians stole $300 billion in the three decades to 2006.
The days when ordinary Africans stood by as their continent's riches were plundered, by foreigners or by their own rulers, are drawing to a close. But a time when Africa's oil is nothing but a blessing still seems a long way off.
Saturday, May 22, 2010
Botswana inequality
In Botswana , Dr Kenneth Dipholo of the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning has said that the richest 10 percent of the population controls 42 percent of the total national income. The poorest of 50 percent of the population share 17.4 percent of national wealth.
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
the world crisis
Chief Economist of the World Bank, Africa region, Dr Shanta Devarajan in regard to the Millennium development goals said “The crisis has put us further off track...the estimated poverty rate in Africa would have been 36 per cent by 2015 but now we re-estimated it to be about 38 per cent.”
Two percentage points is 20 million people. So there is 20 million additional people who will be in poverty as a result of the crisis.
Another 30,000 to 50,000 African babies will die before their first birthday.
Two percentage points is 20 million people. So there is 20 million additional people who will be in poverty as a result of the crisis.
Another 30,000 to 50,000 African babies will die before their first birthday.
Sunday, May 16, 2010
The Pity Industry
Andy Storey a development studies lecturer at University College Dublin describes himself as "very critical" of Bono, the U2 singer . "His embrace of the powerful neuters what he can say. He is calling for increased aid but, at the same time, he is bolstering and legitimising the very people who are helping to maintain the huge disparity between rich and poor.He is a useful idiot for world leaders who like to look cool when photographed alongside him. And there's something utterly unseemly about Bono's obsequiousness with them."
In her book, Dead Aid, Zambian writer Dambiso Moyo is particularly scathing about Bono's contribution. She objects to how celebrities such as Bono have "inadvertently or manipulatively become the spokespeople for the African continent" and noted in an interview with The New York Times that on the only occasion in which she met Bono, at a party to raise money for Africans, she was the only African there. Moyo's central thesis is that Western aid has made Africa's poor even poorer. She argues that the West's "pity industry" has not only facilitated corruption among the dictators given access to vast sums of unaccountable cash, but aid has also stifled investment and free enterprise. Aid has come to provide 75% of the revenue of some African governments and this has distorted the local economy.
In her book, Dead Aid, Zambian writer Dambiso Moyo is particularly scathing about Bono's contribution. She objects to how celebrities such as Bono have "inadvertently or manipulatively become the spokespeople for the African continent" and noted in an interview with The New York Times that on the only occasion in which she met Bono, at a party to raise money for Africans, she was the only African there. Moyo's central thesis is that Western aid has made Africa's poor even poorer. She argues that the West's "pity industry" has not only facilitated corruption among the dictators given access to vast sums of unaccountable cash, but aid has also stifled investment and free enterprise. Aid has come to provide 75% of the revenue of some African governments and this has distorted the local economy.
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
legal vultures
Socialist Banner has previously reported on the Ivory Coast environmental disaster caused by the company Trafigura. Many of the victims managed to gain a share of £30million compensation for the health affects by the illegal dumping of toxic waste.
But it seems that the multimnational were not the only sharks . The lawyers ,Leigh Day and Co, who represented more than 30,000 victims , poor , uneducated citizens of the Cote d' Ivoire have claimed 105 million pounds legal costs including a £50 million success fee , £20 million more than the compensation reward. Not just that but they have failed to ensure that all the claimants received the money . Only 12,250 of them had cashed their cheques.
Civil litigation experts said that the costs were unusually high. "£105m is a very high figure – I don't think I've ever heard a higher one in over 25 years of practice," said David Greene, head of litigation at law firm Edwin Coe.
Monday, May 10, 2010
escaping into drink
Urbanisation is changing the way alcohol is drunk. Illicit brews smooth dealmaking and reconciliation in the countryside. But in the sprawling city slums, where most of Nairobi’s people live, they are more often a cheap way of blotting out a sense of abandonment.
The Korogocho slum is one of the poorest in Nairobi, Kenya’s teeming capital. Its 120,000 residents occupy a stinking square kilometre by the city rubbish dump. Nearly three-quarters are under 30 years old. Many are alcoholics.
The equivalent of $1 is enough to buy four glasses of illegally brewed chang’aa —and oblivion. Some drink the local special, jet-five, so called because the fermentation of maize and sorghum is sped up with pilfered jet fuel. It can damage the brain. Elsewhere in Nairobi, chang’aa is spiked with embalming fluid from mortuaries.The name, meaning literally “kill me quick”, is well chosen. This and other methanol-based kickers are sometimes fatal: 10ml of methanol can burn the optic nerve; 30ml can kill.
The UN’s World Health Organisation reckons that half of all alcohol drunk in Africa is illegal. Neighbouring Uganda may consume more alcohol per person than any country in the world. Much of this is waragi, a banana gin. Some 100 Ugandans died from toxic waragi in April alone. Botswana, arguably sub-Saharan Africa’s most successful country, serves up laela mmago, meaning “goodbye mum”.
The Korogocho slum is one of the poorest in Nairobi, Kenya’s teeming capital. Its 120,000 residents occupy a stinking square kilometre by the city rubbish dump. Nearly three-quarters are under 30 years old. Many are alcoholics.
The equivalent of $1 is enough to buy four glasses of illegally brewed chang’aa —and oblivion. Some drink the local special, jet-five, so called because the fermentation of maize and sorghum is sped up with pilfered jet fuel. It can damage the brain. Elsewhere in Nairobi, chang’aa is spiked with embalming fluid from mortuaries.The name, meaning literally “kill me quick”, is well chosen. This and other methanol-based kickers are sometimes fatal: 10ml of methanol can burn the optic nerve; 30ml can kill.
The UN’s World Health Organisation reckons that half of all alcohol drunk in Africa is illegal. Neighbouring Uganda may consume more alcohol per person than any country in the world. Much of this is waragi, a banana gin. Some 100 Ugandans died from toxic waragi in April alone. Botswana, arguably sub-Saharan Africa’s most successful country, serves up laela mmago, meaning “goodbye mum”.
Saturday, May 08, 2010
ivory coast misery
We read that Ivory Coast , once called the "economic miracle" of Africa, with rapid growth in the first two decades after independence from France in 1960, is one of Africa's major agricultural exporters - around 40% of the world's cocoa, and more rubber and cashew nuts than any other country on the continent. But despite these cash crops, Ivory Coast has large regions suffering from malnutrition.
A third of children nationally suffer from chronic malnutrition. A recent survey showed that malnutrition was now at emergency levels among children under two years old in two regions in the north-west, Bafing and Worodougou. Children with malnutrition do not always get the help they need because of the cost of modern medicine, the lack of the health facilities close by. According to the International Monetary Fund, the poverty rate rose from 38% to 49% between 2002 and 2008.
This is not a country facing a famine, but a series of factors has left large numbers of the population struggling to grow and buy enough food.
"The reason why people are malnourished is mainly not due to a lack of food, but mainly due to accessibility issues due to poverty," says Mr Gerard ,country director for the health charity, Merlin. "The food on the market is expensive..."
Once more its a matter of capitalism's principle law "Can't pay - can't have"
A third of children nationally suffer from chronic malnutrition. A recent survey showed that malnutrition was now at emergency levels among children under two years old in two regions in the north-west, Bafing and Worodougou. Children with malnutrition do not always get the help they need because of the cost of modern medicine, the lack of the health facilities close by. According to the International Monetary Fund, the poverty rate rose from 38% to 49% between 2002 and 2008.
This is not a country facing a famine, but a series of factors has left large numbers of the population struggling to grow and buy enough food.
"The reason why people are malnourished is mainly not due to a lack of food, but mainly due to accessibility issues due to poverty," says Mr Gerard ,country director for the health charity, Merlin. "The food on the market is expensive..."
Once more its a matter of capitalism's principle law "Can't pay - can't have"
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Environmental Racism ? Or Capitalism ?
We read that Shell's Opolo-Epie facility gives the lie to claims from oil multinationals and the Nigerian government that they are close to bringing an end to the destructive and wasteful practice of gas flaring.The Opolo-Epie plant is set to join at least 100 other flares burning across the swamps, creeks and forests of this oil-producing region, filling the atmosphere with toxins, seeding the clouds with acid rain and polluting the soil. The process of burning off unwanted "associated gas" brought up when oil is pumped out of the ground has been illegal in Nigeria since 1984. The government has set three separate deadlines for stopping the practice – the latest of which falls due at the end of this year – but still it continues. Medical studies have shown the gas burners contribute to an average life expectancy in the Delta region of 43 years. The area also has Nigeria's highest infant mortality rate – 12 per cent of newborns fail to see out their first year."This is environmental racism," said Alagoa Morris, an investigator with a local group, Environmental Rights Action. "What we are asking for is that oil companies should have to meet the same standards in Nigeria that they do operating in their own countries."
In a country where more than 60 per cent of the people have no reliable electricity supply the gas flares, some of which have been burning constantly since the 1960s ,is equivalent to more than one third of the natural gas produced in the UK's North Sea oil and gas fields and would meet the entire energy requirements of German industry.( Worldwide, the gas lost to flaring could meet one third of the EU's natural gas needs each year.) Making use of the gas being burned could produce 8,000 megawatts of power – three times Nigeria's current output. A single small- to medium-sized flare could power up to 5,000 homes, shops, schools and clinics as well as pumps and filters for drinking water.
The pollution generated from this flaring has been measured at up to 50 million tonnes of carbon dioxide, with unknown quantities of the far more damaging greenhouse gas: methane. According to Chris Cragg, an independent oil and gas expert. "It is one of the largest single pointless emissions of greenhouse gas on the planet, with obvious implications for climate change that will not only affect Nigeria, but also the rest of the world."
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
The South African Freedom Day
South Africans mark Freedom Day on Tuesday and South Africa still has a lot to achieve before all South Africans are really free, the Congress of SA Trade Unions (Cosatu) said on Monday.
"We cannot ignore the 58 percent of South Africans who live in poverty, who cannot really benefit from political freedom as they face a daily struggle to survive," spokesman Patrick Craven said in a statement.He said massive inequality had made South Africa the most unequal society in the world."Such inequality mocks our struggle to build a free, fair and equitable society. Neither can we celebrate freedom when our society is scarred by such high levels of crime and corruption."
He said there was a continued restructuring of the working class into a two-tier labour market.
"We suffer from the gross exploitation of workers, as capitalists seek new ways to enrich themselves at the expense of the working class and dodge around the labour laws." He explained that the first layer of workers enjoyed most of the rights contained in the constitution."They are covered by collective bargaining and enjoy better work security and better pay."
The second layer was of super-exploited workers without any rights or freedoms."For them, joining a union is a personal risk and upward job mobility is an illusion. It is a large and growing army of workers employed in low-paid, temporary, casualised jobs or employed through the enslaving labour broking system."
"The black working class, despite government provision of thousands of new houses, are still located far away from workplaces, forcing workers to spend a lot of the little wages they receive on ever-rising transport costs."
Workers bore the brunt of the recent capitalist crisis, caused by the greed of capital.In the first nine months of 2009 the country lost 959 000 jobs.
Craven said the only way for workers, their families and communities to win real and total freedom was for them to get organised in strong, fighting trade unions.And while Socialist Banner fully supports the efforts of the working class to unionize and resist the encroachments of capitalism , we need to heed the observations of Karl Marx and qualify the limits of trade unionism . Socialist Banner reminds the South African worker that only socialism will bring true emancipation from wage slavery and free the working class from capitalist exploitation.
"...the working class ought not to exaggerate to themselves the ultimate working of these everyday struggles. They ought not to forget that they are fighting with effects, but not with the causes of those effects; that they are retarding the downward movement, but not changing its direction; that they are applying palliatives, not curing the malady. They ought, therefore, not to be exclusively absorbed in these unavoidable guerilla fights incessantly springing up from the never ceasing encroachments of capital or changes of the market. They ought to understand that, with all the miseries it imposes upon them, the present system simultaneously engenders the material conditions and the social forms necessary for an economical reconstruction of society. Instead of the conservative motto: “A fair day's wage for a fair day's work!” they ought to inscribe on their banner the revolutionary watchword: “Abolition of the wages system! "
"We cannot ignore the 58 percent of South Africans who live in poverty, who cannot really benefit from political freedom as they face a daily struggle to survive," spokesman Patrick Craven said in a statement.He said massive inequality had made South Africa the most unequal society in the world."Such inequality mocks our struggle to build a free, fair and equitable society. Neither can we celebrate freedom when our society is scarred by such high levels of crime and corruption."
He said there was a continued restructuring of the working class into a two-tier labour market.
"We suffer from the gross exploitation of workers, as capitalists seek new ways to enrich themselves at the expense of the working class and dodge around the labour laws." He explained that the first layer of workers enjoyed most of the rights contained in the constitution."They are covered by collective bargaining and enjoy better work security and better pay."
The second layer was of super-exploited workers without any rights or freedoms."For them, joining a union is a personal risk and upward job mobility is an illusion. It is a large and growing army of workers employed in low-paid, temporary, casualised jobs or employed through the enslaving labour broking system."
"The black working class, despite government provision of thousands of new houses, are still located far away from workplaces, forcing workers to spend a lot of the little wages they receive on ever-rising transport costs."
Workers bore the brunt of the recent capitalist crisis, caused by the greed of capital.In the first nine months of 2009 the country lost 959 000 jobs.
Craven said the only way for workers, their families and communities to win real and total freedom was for them to get organised in strong, fighting trade unions.And while Socialist Banner fully supports the efforts of the working class to unionize and resist the encroachments of capitalism , we need to heed the observations of Karl Marx and qualify the limits of trade unionism . Socialist Banner reminds the South African worker that only socialism will bring true emancipation from wage slavery and free the working class from capitalist exploitation.
"...the working class ought not to exaggerate to themselves the ultimate working of these everyday struggles. They ought not to forget that they are fighting with effects, but not with the causes of those effects; that they are retarding the downward movement, but not changing its direction; that they are applying palliatives, not curing the malady. They ought, therefore, not to be exclusively absorbed in these unavoidable guerilla fights incessantly springing up from the never ceasing encroachments of capital or changes of the market. They ought to understand that, with all the miseries it imposes upon them, the present system simultaneously engenders the material conditions and the social forms necessary for an economical reconstruction of society. Instead of the conservative motto: “A fair day's wage for a fair day's work!” they ought to inscribe on their banner the revolutionary watchword: “Abolition of the wages system! "
Saturday, April 17, 2010
WHEN AID IS NO FIRST AID
Extracts from this article.
In 1960, South Korea was as poor as the African countries, but thirty years later, the country was wealthy enough to offer aid to Africa.
The African continent has struggled with chronic poverty and under-development since the advent of political independence more than fifty years, and many Africans view this problem as one of Africa's own making. African development experts and academics have blamed foreign aid for the continued and seemingly intractable development crisis confronting the continent. Africa's war on poverty is perceived as amounting to begging and submissiveness, leading to reforms that have made Africans poorer. The contention among many African experts is that the more the developed north co-operated with the south, the poorer Africa became. Foreign aid has generally benefited the ruling elites in Africa, by among other things, enabling and perpetuating corrupt governments' hold on power, and by extension, entrenching the pervasive underdevelopment. Poverty is a justification for aid, but it is seldom the main criterion used for allocating it.
Over the past five decades, foreign emergency assistance to Africa has helped to avert hardship for many of Africa's poor, but failed to promote any significant economic development.Providing assistance to Africa's poor is a noble cause, but the five decades long campaign of aid has turned out to be what one critic called “a theater of the absurd.” To-date, the record of western aid to Africa has been significant, amounting to more than $500 billion between 1960 and 1997, which is the equivalent of four Marshall Plans being pumped into Sub-Saharan African. And today, the national budgets of most Sub-Saharan African countries are dependent on foreign aid for up to eighty percent of the annual budgets. Apart from the relief aid and economic development, foreign aid assistance was also provided to support reforms and policy adjustment programs. And between 1981 and 1991 alone, The World Bank provided $20 billion towards Africa's structural adjustment programs. The purpose of the programs was to make public institutions, government agencies, and bureaucracies in Africa more transparent, effective, efficient and accountable. It is baffling that Africa still suffers from a poverty trap, considering the depth of governments' corruption and the missing billions in export earnings from oil, gas, diamonds and other resources.
The disadvantages of aid include the fact that funding provided is usually tied to the fact it must be spend in the donor countries regardless of the high cost of goods and services. Rather than create wealth, prosperity and economic development, most Africans have over the past few decades realized a net decline in their standards of living. Research shows that over the period that foreign aid was being pumped into Africa, the per capita GDP declined by an averaged of 0.59 percent annually, between 1975 and 2000. The Heritage Foundation in 1985 concluded that foreign aid is not the answer to Africa's economic troubles; and in fact, the organization maintained that aid was contributing to Africa's underdevelopment woes. It is now a popular belief that foreign aid has been found to do more harm, leading to the situation where Africans have failed to set their own pace and direction of development; free of external interference. The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development admits that aid to Africa has not been successful and despite many years of policy reform, no Sub-Saharan country has completed its adjustment program or achieved any sustained economic growth. Similarly, a Heritage Foundation study found that foreign aid retards the process of economic growth and the accumulation of wealth. The Foundation argued aid dependency pulls entrepreneurship and intellectual capital into non-productive activities, thereby blunting the entrepreneurial spirits of many Africans.In 1976, Tanzania began the $220 million Mufundi paper mill factory project financed by the World Bank. The project turned out to be a total failure, yet for twenty years, Tanzanians paid the bill for that ill-thought out experiment. In the early 1990's, the UNDP spent $900,000 over a three year period trying unsuccessfully to show farmers in north-east Ivory Coast how to cultivate onions. Meanwhile, 90 miles north, in neighboring Burkina Faso, the farmers there were growing onions profitably under similar agricultural conditions, but without any foreign aid. The decades of financial and technical aid transfers to Africa have not fostered economic growth, rather, it has left seventy countries, primarily in Sub-Saharan African, poorer than they were in 1980, and 43 are worst off than they were in 1970. The United Nations Development Program describes the 1980's, the period of highest foreign aid transfer to Africa, as the “lost decade.” Over much of that decade, 100 countries mostly in Africa, suffered major economic decline or net stagnation, and the conclusion is that foreign aid failed to create economic growth in aid recipient countries. The old belief that aid transfer allowed poor countries to escape the poverty trap has been refuted, because research has proved that poverty, contrary to the popular belief, is not caused by capital shortage. In fact, studies show that there is no correlation between aid and economic development, rather, most aid recipient countries have become and remained more dependent of foreign aid. Additionally, a World Bank study showed that food aid budgets in developed nations were mainly guided by prospects for commercial exports of surplus from donor countries, and not determined in accordance with the needs and objectives of recipient countries' to reduce dependence on imported food. Donors reduce food aid budgets when the prospect for commercial exports are good, and increase them when the prospects are poor. A U.S 1997 General Accounting Office report, criticized USAID for having no strategies for the assessment of the impact of its programs in enhancing the food security, and further, the Agency could not determine whether food aid was an efficient means of accomplishing food security goals in aid recipient African countries. Poor policy choices in Africa have caused development there to first stagnate and decline over the past several decades.The public image of foreign aid is of Western beneficence; nevertheless, studies show in some cases, foreign worker remittance to their countries of origin far exceeds the annual aid transfers from some European countries. In 1998, the officially recorded remittance from the Netherlands to forty-two low-income developing countries exceeded U.S. $1 billion; a sum equivalent to 115 percent of Dutch aid to those countries.
Foreign aid serves a useful purpose when it is provided to alleviate temporary hardship as in cases of natural disasters such as droughts, but, experience in Africa has proved that aid recipients could easily construe foreign aid as a substitution to their own productivity. Across the continent, food aid has suppressed food production, undermining the prices of local produced foods. A World Bank finding on food import into Somalia in 1998 concluded that aid had methodically undermined Somalia's civil society. Somalia had become more dependent on imported food than any other country in Sub-Saharan Africa. The report noted that until food aid began to arrive in Somalia, the economy was predominantly an agricultural and pastoral economy. And up until the early seventies, Somalia was self-sufficient in food grains production; however, Somalia's share of food imported in total volume of food consumption rose from less than 33 per cent in 1979 to over 63 per cent in 1984. This sea change ironically coincided with the period of highest food aid distribution to that country. By increasing the supply of food aid, Somalia's domestic food prices were dampened, and the prices of local food crops were prevented from rising, thus reducing the incentives for domestic food crop producers. This exacerbated Somalia's food deficit.
Studies show that there is overwhelming evidence that foreign aid has helped to under-write the misguided policies of the corrupt and bloated government bureaucracies across Africa. The Oxford International Group study revealed that the external stock of capital held by Africans in overseas accounts, was between $700billion and $800 billion in 2005, and nearly 40% of Africa's aggregate wealth was stacked in foreign bank accounts in Europe, United States and Japan. A former U.S Ambassador to Ghana, Edward P. Bryan, admitted that foreign donors have allowed what he describes as “a small, clever class that inherited power from the colonial masters to take us to the cleaners.” It will take a lot of resources and time to turn Africa around. In March 1990, a Paris daily, Le Monde wrote, “Every franc given to impoverished Africans, comes back to France or is smuggled into Switzerland by African bureaucrats and politicians.” And critics contend that donor agencies knew or should have known the motivation and activities of corrupt African leaders who spirit away billions into Swiss Banks and other western bank accounts. Even famine relief aid is not spared. As early as the late 1980's, a former head of Medicine Sans Frontiers, Dr. Rory Branman, lamented the failure of aid to Africa, saying, “We have been duped.” The Western governments and humanitarian groups”, he said, have “unwittingly fueled and are continuing to fuel an operation that will be described in hindsight in a few years' time as one of the greatest slaughters of our time.” The World Bank admitted that in most cases Western donors knew that up to 30 per cent of the loans to African countries and governments went directly into the bank accounts of corrupt officials, yet The Bank considered these officials and their governments as partners in development.A major debilitating by-product of foreign aid to Africa is the culture of corruption that has taken root at every level of every government. Today, corruption has become the way of life in every country in Sub-Saharan Africa, and the theft, bribery and embezzlement of aid, and other government resources are so endemic, they are not considered as crimes. African politicians and government officials have engaged in corruption practices, and a 2004-2005 World Bank Report showed that $148 billion were embezzled out of Africa by politicians and bureaucrats; a significant amount of it being aid and loans earmarked for development activities to benefit Africa's poor. Without transparency, accountability, and good governance, Africa's future will continue to remain bleak.
Because it is tied with geo-politics, trade and banking, foreign aid cannot be classified purely as gift-giving. During its first four decades, victory in the Cold War was the compelling and pre-eminent drive in the regime of aid giving. Today, experts have identified the predominant motives for aid giving as strategic socio-political, mercantile, and humanitarian and ethical. Official aid is seldom the tool of altruism alone, because the direction of foreign aid is dictated by political and strategic considerations, much more than the economic needs and policy performance of the recipient. However, the motives behind aid never come in fixed and stable proportions. Perhaps the one safest generalization to make is that foreign aid, when used alone or in combination with other policy instruments, has a unique ability to allow the donors to demonstrate compassion, while simultaneously pursuing a variety of other ulterior motives and objectives.
In 1960, South Korea was as poor as the African countries, but thirty years later, the country was wealthy enough to offer aid to Africa.
The African continent has struggled with chronic poverty and under-development since the advent of political independence more than fifty years, and many Africans view this problem as one of Africa's own making. African development experts and academics have blamed foreign aid for the continued and seemingly intractable development crisis confronting the continent. Africa's war on poverty is perceived as amounting to begging and submissiveness, leading to reforms that have made Africans poorer. The contention among many African experts is that the more the developed north co-operated with the south, the poorer Africa became. Foreign aid has generally benefited the ruling elites in Africa, by among other things, enabling and perpetuating corrupt governments' hold on power, and by extension, entrenching the pervasive underdevelopment. Poverty is a justification for aid, but it is seldom the main criterion used for allocating it.
Over the past five decades, foreign emergency assistance to Africa has helped to avert hardship for many of Africa's poor, but failed to promote any significant economic development.Providing assistance to Africa's poor is a noble cause, but the five decades long campaign of aid has turned out to be what one critic called “a theater of the absurd.” To-date, the record of western aid to Africa has been significant, amounting to more than $500 billion between 1960 and 1997, which is the equivalent of four Marshall Plans being pumped into Sub-Saharan African. And today, the national budgets of most Sub-Saharan African countries are dependent on foreign aid for up to eighty percent of the annual budgets. Apart from the relief aid and economic development, foreign aid assistance was also provided to support reforms and policy adjustment programs. And between 1981 and 1991 alone, The World Bank provided $20 billion towards Africa's structural adjustment programs. The purpose of the programs was to make public institutions, government agencies, and bureaucracies in Africa more transparent, effective, efficient and accountable. It is baffling that Africa still suffers from a poverty trap, considering the depth of governments' corruption and the missing billions in export earnings from oil, gas, diamonds and other resources.
The disadvantages of aid include the fact that funding provided is usually tied to the fact it must be spend in the donor countries regardless of the high cost of goods and services. Rather than create wealth, prosperity and economic development, most Africans have over the past few decades realized a net decline in their standards of living. Research shows that over the period that foreign aid was being pumped into Africa, the per capita GDP declined by an averaged of 0.59 percent annually, between 1975 and 2000. The Heritage Foundation in 1985 concluded that foreign aid is not the answer to Africa's economic troubles; and in fact, the organization maintained that aid was contributing to Africa's underdevelopment woes. It is now a popular belief that foreign aid has been found to do more harm, leading to the situation where Africans have failed to set their own pace and direction of development; free of external interference. The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development admits that aid to Africa has not been successful and despite many years of policy reform, no Sub-Saharan country has completed its adjustment program or achieved any sustained economic growth. Similarly, a Heritage Foundation study found that foreign aid retards the process of economic growth and the accumulation of wealth. The Foundation argued aid dependency pulls entrepreneurship and intellectual capital into non-productive activities, thereby blunting the entrepreneurial spirits of many Africans.In 1976, Tanzania began the $220 million Mufundi paper mill factory project financed by the World Bank. The project turned out to be a total failure, yet for twenty years, Tanzanians paid the bill for that ill-thought out experiment. In the early 1990's, the UNDP spent $900,000 over a three year period trying unsuccessfully to show farmers in north-east Ivory Coast how to cultivate onions. Meanwhile, 90 miles north, in neighboring Burkina Faso, the farmers there were growing onions profitably under similar agricultural conditions, but without any foreign aid. The decades of financial and technical aid transfers to Africa have not fostered economic growth, rather, it has left seventy countries, primarily in Sub-Saharan African, poorer than they were in 1980, and 43 are worst off than they were in 1970. The United Nations Development Program describes the 1980's, the period of highest foreign aid transfer to Africa, as the “lost decade.” Over much of that decade, 100 countries mostly in Africa, suffered major economic decline or net stagnation, and the conclusion is that foreign aid failed to create economic growth in aid recipient countries. The old belief that aid transfer allowed poor countries to escape the poverty trap has been refuted, because research has proved that poverty, contrary to the popular belief, is not caused by capital shortage. In fact, studies show that there is no correlation between aid and economic development, rather, most aid recipient countries have become and remained more dependent of foreign aid. Additionally, a World Bank study showed that food aid budgets in developed nations were mainly guided by prospects for commercial exports of surplus from donor countries, and not determined in accordance with the needs and objectives of recipient countries' to reduce dependence on imported food. Donors reduce food aid budgets when the prospect for commercial exports are good, and increase them when the prospects are poor. A U.S 1997 General Accounting Office report, criticized USAID for having no strategies for the assessment of the impact of its programs in enhancing the food security, and further, the Agency could not determine whether food aid was an efficient means of accomplishing food security goals in aid recipient African countries. Poor policy choices in Africa have caused development there to first stagnate and decline over the past several decades.The public image of foreign aid is of Western beneficence; nevertheless, studies show in some cases, foreign worker remittance to their countries of origin far exceeds the annual aid transfers from some European countries. In 1998, the officially recorded remittance from the Netherlands to forty-two low-income developing countries exceeded U.S. $1 billion; a sum equivalent to 115 percent of Dutch aid to those countries.
Foreign aid serves a useful purpose when it is provided to alleviate temporary hardship as in cases of natural disasters such as droughts, but, experience in Africa has proved that aid recipients could easily construe foreign aid as a substitution to their own productivity. Across the continent, food aid has suppressed food production, undermining the prices of local produced foods. A World Bank finding on food import into Somalia in 1998 concluded that aid had methodically undermined Somalia's civil society. Somalia had become more dependent on imported food than any other country in Sub-Saharan Africa. The report noted that until food aid began to arrive in Somalia, the economy was predominantly an agricultural and pastoral economy. And up until the early seventies, Somalia was self-sufficient in food grains production; however, Somalia's share of food imported in total volume of food consumption rose from less than 33 per cent in 1979 to over 63 per cent in 1984. This sea change ironically coincided with the period of highest food aid distribution to that country. By increasing the supply of food aid, Somalia's domestic food prices were dampened, and the prices of local food crops were prevented from rising, thus reducing the incentives for domestic food crop producers. This exacerbated Somalia's food deficit.
Studies show that there is overwhelming evidence that foreign aid has helped to under-write the misguided policies of the corrupt and bloated government bureaucracies across Africa. The Oxford International Group study revealed that the external stock of capital held by Africans in overseas accounts, was between $700billion and $800 billion in 2005, and nearly 40% of Africa's aggregate wealth was stacked in foreign bank accounts in Europe, United States and Japan. A former U.S Ambassador to Ghana, Edward P. Bryan, admitted that foreign donors have allowed what he describes as “a small, clever class that inherited power from the colonial masters to take us to the cleaners.” It will take a lot of resources and time to turn Africa around. In March 1990, a Paris daily, Le Monde wrote, “Every franc given to impoverished Africans, comes back to France or is smuggled into Switzerland by African bureaucrats and politicians.” And critics contend that donor agencies knew or should have known the motivation and activities of corrupt African leaders who spirit away billions into Swiss Banks and other western bank accounts. Even famine relief aid is not spared. As early as the late 1980's, a former head of Medicine Sans Frontiers, Dr. Rory Branman, lamented the failure of aid to Africa, saying, “We have been duped.” The Western governments and humanitarian groups”, he said, have “unwittingly fueled and are continuing to fuel an operation that will be described in hindsight in a few years' time as one of the greatest slaughters of our time.” The World Bank admitted that in most cases Western donors knew that up to 30 per cent of the loans to African countries and governments went directly into the bank accounts of corrupt officials, yet The Bank considered these officials and their governments as partners in development.A major debilitating by-product of foreign aid to Africa is the culture of corruption that has taken root at every level of every government. Today, corruption has become the way of life in every country in Sub-Saharan Africa, and the theft, bribery and embezzlement of aid, and other government resources are so endemic, they are not considered as crimes. African politicians and government officials have engaged in corruption practices, and a 2004-2005 World Bank Report showed that $148 billion were embezzled out of Africa by politicians and bureaucrats; a significant amount of it being aid and loans earmarked for development activities to benefit Africa's poor. Without transparency, accountability, and good governance, Africa's future will continue to remain bleak.
Because it is tied with geo-politics, trade and banking, foreign aid cannot be classified purely as gift-giving. During its first four decades, victory in the Cold War was the compelling and pre-eminent drive in the regime of aid giving. Today, experts have identified the predominant motives for aid giving as strategic socio-political, mercantile, and humanitarian and ethical. Official aid is seldom the tool of altruism alone, because the direction of foreign aid is dictated by political and strategic considerations, much more than the economic needs and policy performance of the recipient. However, the motives behind aid never come in fixed and stable proportions. Perhaps the one safest generalization to make is that foreign aid, when used alone or in combination with other policy instruments, has a unique ability to allow the donors to demonstrate compassion, while simultaneously pursuing a variety of other ulterior motives and objectives.
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Black Empowerment - or - Crony Capitalism
The Economist carries an article on South Africa's Post-Apartheid policy of “black economic empowerment” (BEE).
Instead of redistributing wealth and positions to the black majority, it has resulted mainly in “a few individuals benefiting a lot,” President Jacob Zuma says.The richest 4% of South Africans — a quarter of whom are black — now earn more than $80,000 a year, 100 times what most of their compatriots live on.
The idea of legislating for black economic empowerment was originally promoted by big white businessmen to ward off post-apartheid calls for nationalisation. If a few well-connected black people were given chunks of the action, big business would, they hoped, be left alone. In that sense, BEE has been a roaring success, as whites still own the bulk of the country’s wealth. Whites still hold three-quarters of senior jobs in private business whereas blacks have 12%, the exact reverse of their share in the working population. Among the 295 companies listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE), blacks account for just 4% of chief executive officers, 2% of chief financial officers and 15% of other senior posts. In non-executive ones, they do a bit better, accounting for just over a quarter of board chairmen and 36% of directors.
Instead of redistributing wealth and positions to the black majority, it has resulted mainly in “a few individuals benefiting a lot,” President Jacob Zuma says.The richest 4% of South Africans — a quarter of whom are black — now earn more than $80,000 a year, 100 times what most of their compatriots live on.
The idea of legislating for black economic empowerment was originally promoted by big white businessmen to ward off post-apartheid calls for nationalisation. If a few well-connected black people were given chunks of the action, big business would, they hoped, be left alone. In that sense, BEE has been a roaring success, as whites still own the bulk of the country’s wealth. Whites still hold three-quarters of senior jobs in private business whereas blacks have 12%, the exact reverse of their share in the working population. Among the 295 companies listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE), blacks account for just 4% of chief executive officers, 2% of chief financial officers and 15% of other senior posts. In non-executive ones, they do a bit better, accounting for just over a quarter of board chairmen and 36% of directors.
Monday, April 05, 2010
rice
UNICEF estimates 40 percent of under-five children in the arid Sahel are chronically malnourished because they lack the vitamins and minerals needed to bolster their immune systems and mental skills. Another estimated 300,000 die every year from malnutrition.
“Rice is a poor source of essential vitamins and minerals, either because these compounds are not present in rice, especially when it is polished [white], or they cannot be absorbed by humans,” UNICEF nutrition specialist Roland Kupka told IRIN. “Diets that are primarily based on polished rice may thus lead to deficiencies in iron, zinc, vitamin A, and thiamine [B1] deficiency, which in turn impair growth, immunity, and mental development among children.”
Rice does little to boost nutrition, unlike vegetables.
The director of Africa Rice Centre, Papa Abdoulaye Seck, told IRIN “Rice is a strategic commodity… We can do business with rice. Imagine if the US$2 billion dollars [2006 estimate] that Africa spends on rice imports every year were reinvested in the agricultural sector - do you think Africa would now have 265 million starving people?” asked Seck, referring to an estimate from UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
“Rice is a poor source of essential vitamins and minerals, either because these compounds are not present in rice, especially when it is polished [white], or they cannot be absorbed by humans,” UNICEF nutrition specialist Roland Kupka told IRIN. “Diets that are primarily based on polished rice may thus lead to deficiencies in iron, zinc, vitamin A, and thiamine [B1] deficiency, which in turn impair growth, immunity, and mental development among children.”
Rice does little to boost nutrition, unlike vegetables.
The director of Africa Rice Centre, Papa Abdoulaye Seck, told IRIN “Rice is a strategic commodity… We can do business with rice. Imagine if the US$2 billion dollars [2006 estimate] that Africa spends on rice imports every year were reinvested in the agricultural sector - do you think Africa would now have 265 million starving people?” asked Seck, referring to an estimate from UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
Friday, April 02, 2010
Blood and Treasure
The tragic and often bloody conditions of the Congo is rarely out of the news and it is often commented upon . Socialist Banner read this about the Democratic Republic of Congo .
One of the world's richest countries is also one of its poorest.As far back as Congo's history is recorded, the wealth from this vast natural treasure house has flowed almost entirely overseas, leaving some of the planet's best-endowed land with some of its poorest people. It is often heard, "We wouldn't have so much trouble if we weren't so rich."
Gold is only one of a half-dozen or more lucrative minerals to be found in Congo, and together they constitute what may be the worst case on Earth of what has come to be known as the "resource curse" . As inevitably as oil drew the United States into Iraq, it is the temptations of this wealth—more than ethnic rivalries, the legacy of colonialism, or anything else—that has turned Congo into the horrific battleground it has been in recent years. A country with a lavish array of natural riches and a dysfunctional government is like a child heiress without a guardian: Everyone schemes for a piece of what she's got. Multinational corporations prefer a government weak enough not to tax and regulate heavily but strong enough to guarantee order.A failed state fails its people in many ways, and one of them is that, in a world of powerful corporate players, a weak and corrupt government has no bargaining power.
Congo has been in the grips of a fiendishly complex and brutal war whose exact toll no one knows. It may well be in the millions if you count those who died because fleeing their homes or living in packed, disease-ridden refugee camps cut them off from adequate food and medical care. Women and girls by at least the tens of thousands have been gang-raped by government soldiers and rebel militias. This has not been a civil war driven by ideology, but rather a multisided free-for-all driven by plunder.The warring militias assume that multinational corporations would have few scruples about dealing with warlords if the stakes were high enough. They turn out to be right.Congo has virtually no public health system, and AngloGold Ashanti,the world's third-largest gold mining company, a multinational company spending millions prospecting for gold in the desperately poor community, have largely ignored pleas for help.While spending millions of dollars prospecting, it has made only small contributions to a local hospital, schools, a soccer tournament, and the like, keeping at arm's length a coalition of local groups and churches lobbying for this desperately poor community. "Of everything we've put in our list of demands and grievances," says Richard Magabusini, an elected chief .
AngloGold Ashanti recently finalized a series of agreements with the government. Four other multinationals—based in London, Canada, and South Africa—have likewise concluded closed-door agreements over mining rights. No one will ever know what Congolese government officials may have reaped from these deals in the way of quietly promised jobs, favors, or money under the table, in a country where such rewards are routine. As the company takes its slice of the African cake, only a tiny percentage of the proceeds from those 2.5 million ounces of gold is likely to stay in Congo—and even then, much of what does will probably leak into high officials' private bank accounts.More than 97 percent of Congo's gold leaves the country without ever being taxed, according to one recent estimate by the Ministry of Mines. AngloGold Ashanti mined more than $1.5 billion worth of gold in neighboring Tanzania between 2000 and 2007, but only 9 percent of that money has remained in the country as taxes or royalties. Where do the profits go instead? A good chunk comes to the United States, for even though the company is based in South Africa, its largest single shareholder—hedge fund billionaire John Paulson—lives on the Upper East Side and summers in the Hamptons. He owns 12 percent of the company, and a number of other Americans have shares.
The big money in gold mining comes to those who can afford to dig massive mines and build refineries to process the ore. But those who cannot, an estimated 70,000 to 100,000 people in Congo's northeast—including some 10,000 children—dig for gold literally by hand, much the way men did in California in 1849. Sometimes, risking great danger in the hope of richer ore, these freelance miners slip into abandoned, partly flooded underground mines with rotted roof supports and hack out new tunnels. Health and safety regulations are in long-forgotten law books only, and no one even records the number of miners maimed or killed each year.
In the 60s, many Americans boycotted Californian grapes to help farmworkers unionize; in the '70s and '80s, many boycotted South Africa to help the anti-apartheid movement. In the late 1990s there was the push to ban "conflict diamonds," which led to the 2002 agreement, now signed by some 75 countries, to boycott diamonds produced by armed rebel groups in Africa and elsewhere. Shouldn't we help war-torn Congo by boycotting "conflict minerals"? Unfortunately, it's not clear that a boycott would do much more than put tens of thousands of miserably paid miners out of work. Take the rather toothless conflict diamonds accord (which came about only because the international diamond cartel saw "blood diamonds" undercutting its inflated prices): It already applies to Congo, but makes no practical difference since the country's diamonds, like the overwhelming majority of its other exports, don't come from areas currently at war.The real problem is not conflict minerals, but the fact that Congo's long-suffering people reap only a tiny share of their country's vast wealth.
One of the world's richest countries is also one of its poorest.As far back as Congo's history is recorded, the wealth from this vast natural treasure house has flowed almost entirely overseas, leaving some of the planet's best-endowed land with some of its poorest people. It is often heard, "We wouldn't have so much trouble if we weren't so rich."
Gold is only one of a half-dozen or more lucrative minerals to be found in Congo, and together they constitute what may be the worst case on Earth of what has come to be known as the "resource curse" . As inevitably as oil drew the United States into Iraq, it is the temptations of this wealth—more than ethnic rivalries, the legacy of colonialism, or anything else—that has turned Congo into the horrific battleground it has been in recent years. A country with a lavish array of natural riches and a dysfunctional government is like a child heiress without a guardian: Everyone schemes for a piece of what she's got. Multinational corporations prefer a government weak enough not to tax and regulate heavily but strong enough to guarantee order.A failed state fails its people in many ways, and one of them is that, in a world of powerful corporate players, a weak and corrupt government has no bargaining power.
Congo has been in the grips of a fiendishly complex and brutal war whose exact toll no one knows. It may well be in the millions if you count those who died because fleeing their homes or living in packed, disease-ridden refugee camps cut them off from adequate food and medical care. Women and girls by at least the tens of thousands have been gang-raped by government soldiers and rebel militias. This has not been a civil war driven by ideology, but rather a multisided free-for-all driven by plunder.The warring militias assume that multinational corporations would have few scruples about dealing with warlords if the stakes were high enough. They turn out to be right.Congo has virtually no public health system, and AngloGold Ashanti,the world's third-largest gold mining company, a multinational company spending millions prospecting for gold in the desperately poor community, have largely ignored pleas for help.While spending millions of dollars prospecting, it has made only small contributions to a local hospital, schools, a soccer tournament, and the like, keeping at arm's length a coalition of local groups and churches lobbying for this desperately poor community. "Of everything we've put in our list of demands and grievances," says Richard Magabusini, an elected chief .
AngloGold Ashanti recently finalized a series of agreements with the government. Four other multinationals—based in London, Canada, and South Africa—have likewise concluded closed-door agreements over mining rights. No one will ever know what Congolese government officials may have reaped from these deals in the way of quietly promised jobs, favors, or money under the table, in a country where such rewards are routine. As the company takes its slice of the African cake, only a tiny percentage of the proceeds from those 2.5 million ounces of gold is likely to stay in Congo—and even then, much of what does will probably leak into high officials' private bank accounts.More than 97 percent of Congo's gold leaves the country without ever being taxed, according to one recent estimate by the Ministry of Mines. AngloGold Ashanti mined more than $1.5 billion worth of gold in neighboring Tanzania between 2000 and 2007, but only 9 percent of that money has remained in the country as taxes or royalties. Where do the profits go instead? A good chunk comes to the United States, for even though the company is based in South Africa, its largest single shareholder—hedge fund billionaire John Paulson—lives on the Upper East Side and summers in the Hamptons. He owns 12 percent of the company, and a number of other Americans have shares.
The big money in gold mining comes to those who can afford to dig massive mines and build refineries to process the ore. But those who cannot, an estimated 70,000 to 100,000 people in Congo's northeast—including some 10,000 children—dig for gold literally by hand, much the way men did in California in 1849. Sometimes, risking great danger in the hope of richer ore, these freelance miners slip into abandoned, partly flooded underground mines with rotted roof supports and hack out new tunnels. Health and safety regulations are in long-forgotten law books only, and no one even records the number of miners maimed or killed each year.
In the 60s, many Americans boycotted Californian grapes to help farmworkers unionize; in the '70s and '80s, many boycotted South Africa to help the anti-apartheid movement. In the late 1990s there was the push to ban "conflict diamonds," which led to the 2002 agreement, now signed by some 75 countries, to boycott diamonds produced by armed rebel groups in Africa and elsewhere. Shouldn't we help war-torn Congo by boycotting "conflict minerals"? Unfortunately, it's not clear that a boycott would do much more than put tens of thousands of miserably paid miners out of work. Take the rather toothless conflict diamonds accord (which came about only because the international diamond cartel saw "blood diamonds" undercutting its inflated prices): It already applies to Congo, but makes no practical difference since the country's diamonds, like the overwhelming majority of its other exports, don't come from areas currently at war.The real problem is not conflict minerals, but the fact that Congo's long-suffering people reap only a tiny share of their country's vast wealth.
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