Zimbabwe's Rich List

A local firm X Research and Intelligence has released a list of Zimbabwe’s Top 50 richest personalities. On top of the pile is telecommunications guru Mr Strive Masiyiwa, followed by business magnate Mr Philip Chiyangwa, Mr Shingai Mutasa, Mr Moses Chingwena and Televangelist Prophet Emmanuel Makandiwa.

Class Struggle, ‘Xenophobia’ and the Local Elite

The xenophobic violence and looting following King Zwelithini’s statement that foreigners “pack their bags and leave” spread to cities and townships across the country. However, the recent attacks are not an isolated incident; nor is Zwelithini solely responsible for fomenting it. Local elites – particularly those linked to the ruling party – also encourage anti-immigrant attitudes and actions. This article, based on discussions with Abahlali baseFreedom Park activists, looks at how local elites stimulate ‘xenophobia’ to protect their class interests, as well as how progressive working class activists have responded.

Xenophobia and local elites

Freedom Park is among few townships where development is underway; RDP houses are being built etc. However, residents complain about corruption around tenders and contracts. The development agencies have been accused of playing local and foreign workers against each other to secure cheap labour. These agencies, linked to the local ANC elite, felt South African workers wouldn’t accept the low wages they were offering and so approached immigrant workers, often more desperate because of their precarious situation, and offered them jobs below the wages locals were trying to negotiate. This is one way local elites play immigrant and local people against each other, creating fertile ground for the spread of xenophobic sentiments.

But activists convinced the community to demand that all workers get a living wage, regardless of their nationality, and to demand community control over development in Freedom Park. This pushed the developers and local elite into a corner, threatening to undermine their profits and political legitimacy. They had to find a way to divert the community’s attention and redirect their frustrations.

An opportunity emerged in June 2014 when Freedom Park had no electricity for almost a week. Residents protested against this, to which the state responded with violence. The protesters fled through the township and some looted immigrant-owned shops, believing immigrants responsible for the crisis. This is because the local political elite had been carrying out propaganda, blaming the electricity crisis on Somali shop owners by saying they were using big industrial fridges that consumed the township’s power.

Activists knew this was untrue as there had been electricity shortages before these immigrants arrived in the township. In fact, knowing that Freedom Park was a fast-growing township activists warned government ten years ago already that the infrastructure would not support the growing population.

Another opportunity to divert attention from the real issues affecting the community came in January 2015, when looting of immigrant-owned shops broke out in neighbouring Soweto. The local political elite, around SANCO and the ANC, allegedly told immigrant shop owners to close because their trade was not wanted and they would be looted if they didn’t. They also tried to extort money from foreign shop owners in exchange for protection. However, people say it was the same local elite that tried to extort protection money from immigrant shop owners that also promised to buy people alcohol or give addicts drug money if they looted foreign-owned shops; which suggests that xenophobia, at least in some townships, is being fomented by local elites to protect their political and economic interests and is being carried out by an opportunistic minority, not the broader community.

Fighting xenophobia

Abahlali decided they had to respond. They started community patrols to deter looters and encouraged every household to have a whistle they could blow it if they saw people looting so that all the neighbours could come out to stop it. They also called a community meeting to explain to people that the township’s crisis was not caused by the presence of immigrant traders but by inadequate infrastructure and a profit-motivated system. The meeting was unsuccessful because those behind the looting – a small group being empowered by the local councillors and businesses – told the community there was no meeting and physically attacked activists.

Following that Abahlali started organising on a block-by-block basis as each block has foreign-owned shops and immigrant residents on it. They organised block meetings to discuss the real issues affecting community members. The community responded positively and people started saying that responsibility for the crisis in Freedom Park actually lies with government.

In addition to their struggle for community control of development and a living wage for all – immigrants included – Abahlali also tries to integrate immigrants into the community by, for example: encouraging them to register their children at the local schools so they can begin the process of integration, inviting immigrants to support their demonstrations and taking up issues like xenophobia as well as by supporting the People’s March Against Xenophobia in Johannesburg on April 23.

Working class self-oganisation is the solution

The case of Freedom Park – probably not an isolated one – shows that local elites use the spectre of xenophobia to misdirect the legitimate frustration of the local population caused by poverty, lack of service delivery and development and meaningful participation therein to protect their own political and economic interests; and that the solution to the problem is independent working class self-organisation and solidarity across nationality as exemplified by Abahlali baseFreedom Park.

FROM HERE

Profit Before Need

Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi on Sunday said a shortage of drugs in South Africa and worldwide is the result of profit-run pharmaceutical companies who do not distribute medicine based on the needs of the patient.

“In this problem of drug supply, all over the world, is that, the sales of these medicines are from companies that are in business.”

"This shortage is beyond our control," said Motsoaledi. "[There is a] problem of drug supply all over the world. We source these medicines from companies and their actions and decisions are not always based on the needs of patients but on what makes business sense," the minister said.

He said first-line antibiotics, in particular penicillin-based drugs, were also in short supply. The department believes the shortage is attributable to pharmaceutical companies moving away from manufacturing antibiotics in favour of producing drugs on which they can make more profit.

Une Societe Sans Argent

Depuis toujours je suis convaincue de l'inutilité de l'argent, de sa nocivité. Il est à la racine de toutes les déviations, il pourrit tout ce qu'il touche. Et cela me semble si évident qu'il me paraît superflu d'insister.

Partant de cette conviction, le tout est de savoir si l'on peut concevoir et mettre sur pied une organisation sociale sans argent, l'argent étant entendu comme «monnaie d'échange», le supprimer et ne pas chercher à le remplacer par quoi que ce soit.

Cela est dans certaines sociétés dites primitives, mais peut-on réaliser une société évoluée où, enfin, tout serait gratuit (et donc, au premier chef, le travail), où tout serait donné ? Où les besoins de chacun seraient satisfaits par ceux-là même qui les éprouvent en leur permettant de «prendre» librement ce qui leur est nécessaire.

Cela correspondrait enfin à la formule vieille et usée mais jamais appliquée «un pour tous, tous pour un».

Est-ce réalisable ? Oui, J'en suis convaincue, mais encore faut-il me le prouver. Et si je me le prouve, je le prouve en soi.

L'enfant naît.

Quels que soient ses parents, ses besoins sont les mêmes (ce qui diffère dans notre société, c'est leur satisfaction). D'abord ses besoins essentiels de survie: être nourri, vêtu, logé, protégé; puis ses besoins d'instruction, d'éducation : physique, mentale et caractérielle, pour devenir adulte; enfin une activité adaptée aux dons, facultés, aspirations de chacun, de l'âge adulte à la mort - car chaque être éprouve le besoin de se réaliser et de se sentir utile par l'action (celle-ci allant des travaux matériels les plus simples, aux travaux intellectuels les plus ardus, les plus subtils ou les plus artistiques).

Pour satisfaire ces besoins, l'homme possède une tête, des mains et des membres; et il dispose de la terre et de tous ses produits (y compris marins) et des matières premières qu'elle contient. Ces éléments et eux seuls (pas l'argent), lui permettent d'être le créateur des produits qui lui sont nécessaires, ou utiles, ou simplement agréables, plaisants.

La monnaie d'échange n'est qu'un procédé artificiel inventé de toutes pièces et exploité par les uns contre les autres en créant des hiérarchies et des suprématies injustifiées.

Une société sans argent, cela revient à quoi ?

• à ce que chaque être travaille gratuitement,
• à ce que tout ce qui est créé soit mis gratuitement à la disposition de tous.

Pourquoi cela paraît-il impossible alors que la première objection est que cela paraît trop simple ?

J'y vois deux raisons:

• on se heurte à une conception si ancrée de la société actuelle que toute autre paraît inconcevable;
• et à une conception de l'homme le définissant comme inapte à tout autre mode de vie collective, et inéducable.

Or la base de toutes nos sociétés est l'argent, qui ne permet de vivre que contre autrui et non avec. Pourquoi ne remonte-t-on jamais à cette unique cause, à cet unique principe sur lequel notre société de profit est fondée, et qui veut que l'on ne puisse rien se procurer que contre une valeur d'échange équivalente ?

L'échange, c'est ne donner rien pour rien. C'est la négation du don gratuit.

Le système même, le principe, suppose le mépris de l'homme, l'idée que l'homme ne peut être généreux, qu'il est incapable de s'épanouir, de se réaliser s'il n'est sollicité par un profit personnel et égoïste.

La possession de l'argent est donc devenue une fin en soi, et les Etats, les partis, les syndicats, ne visent, au mieux, qu'à en organiser la répartition (toujours injuste) et l'équilibre (toujours instable).

Mais l'écrasante majorité des humains souffre d'un tel contexte. Combien se sentent rétrécis, angoissés, perdus, incapables de comprendre les rouages, les mobiles, les plans et les lois auxquels obéissent les gouvernements dont ils dépendent ? Ils sont légion.

Or nous savons (par de multiples exemples passés) que tous peuvent s'adapter à tout autre mode de vie. L'importance de l'influence de l'éducation est telle qu'en une seule génération le comportement de tout un peuple se trouve modifié.

Si l'argent - son gain étant un besoin absolu - a été et est encore un stimulant sur le plan individuel, il est devenu un frein puissant et nuisible sur le plan collectif, mondial, et nous emmène tous, et très vite, vers une fin tragique (que ce soit une guerre, que ce soit une révolution des Etats pauvres contre les Etats riches). Car nous avons actuellement,

• un groupe d'Etats à grand rendement industriel à système capitaliste individuel;
• un groupe de nations à concentration capitaliste d'Etat, et
• les Etats non-industrialisés et défavorisés sur le plan des ressources (mais - et en partie parce que - exploités par les premiers), classés sous la dénomination de Tiers Monde.

Alors que les premiers gâchent ou jettent des produits pour maintenir des prix hauts, que les seconds, depuis bientôt 70 ans, ne créent et ne répartissent que parcimonieusement les biens essentiels pour se maintenir sur le plan défensif, les troisièmes, témoins de tous les gâchis, meurent de faim.

Il serait intéressant de connaître, dans notre économie, la proportion de travailleurs qui se trouvent astreints à une activité consacrée aux exigences de la monnaie d'une part, et d'autre part à des activités également stériles, voire nuisibles (fabrication d'armes, par exemple). L'ensemble des citoyens ne semble pas y penser, tant chacun est obnubilé par le besoin impérieux d'un gain.

Mais, par hypothèse, supprimons l'argent. Nous libérons de ce fait une foule incalculable de bras, de cerveaux, d'énergies humaines, qui lui sont actuellement consacrés : tous les travailleurs des banques (y compris les CCP), des bourses, de l'URSSAF, de la Sécurité Sociale et caisses vieillesse, de la CAF, les caissiers et encaisseurs, les employés de toutes les assurances, de toutes garanties, les percepteurs et agents du fisc, les douaniers, de nombreux guichetiers de services divers, une foule de fonctionnaires ministériels et nous pouvons y ajouter tous les travailleurs qui se consacrent à la fabrication des billets de banque (papier et impression) et de la monnaie. Bien d'autres sans doute, répartis dans le réseau complexe des échanges.

Et toutes ces énergies qui peuvent devenir créatrices !

Et créatrices dans tous les domaines de la vie sociale où chacun y gagnerait, car la puissance de l'argent est pernicieuse dans tous les secteurs, que ce soit l'argent et la santé, l'argent et le logement, l'argent et la qualité des produits, l'argent et les transports, l'argent et le commerce, l'argent et l'éducation, l'argent et le choix de la profession, etc... et chacun de ces secteurs d'activité peut être organisé sans ce poids de l'argent qui est devenu un blocage.

Dans cette société sans argent, basée sur la conscience individuelle et la liberté, les services de police se trouvent singulièrement allégés ainsi que les tribunaux.

Et Il n'y a plus de chômage, plus le moindre, car il n'est dû ni à une sous-consommation, ni à l'évolution des techniques et machines-outils, mais bel et bien et uniquement à la nécessité absolue de toucher un salaire...

Chaque point peut, et doit être, examiné et approfondi, mais a priori il n'y a nul obstacle au bon fonctionnement de chaque secteur d'activité dans la société telle que nous la concevons.

Food Sovereignty Ghana Opposes Monsanto

For too long, Monsanto has been the benefactor of corporate subsidies and political favoritism. Organic and small farmers suffer losses while Monsanto continues to forge its monopoly over the world’s food supply, including exclusive patenting rights over seeds and genetic makeup.

Food Sovereignty Ghana, a food advocacy movement, hereby serves notice to embark on a public march as part of a worldwide event comprising millions of marchers. This march is being organized in collaboration with the Kanyan Akuafuo Kuo Society, and is scheduled to take place in two locations: Accra and Goaso.
There are currently over 300 marches scheduled to take place around the world.
Out of respect to the Ga Traditional Council annual ban on drumming and noise making, which always precedes the Homowo festival, we have decided to organize a silent march in Accra and a more animated one in Goaso.


MISSION STATEMENT
On May 23, 2015, activists around the world will, once again, unite to March Against Monsanto.
 
WHY DO WE MARCH?
Research studies have shown that Monsanto’s genetically-modified foods can lead to serious health conditions such as the development of cancer tumors, infertility and birth defects. In the United States, the FDA, the agency tasked with ensuring food safety for the population, is steered by ex-Monsanto executives, and we feel that’s a questionable conflict of interest and explains the lack of government-led research on the long-term effects of GMO products. Recently, the U.S. Congress and President collectively passed the nicknamed “Monsanto Protection Act” that, among other things, bans courts from halting the sale of Monsanto’s genetically-modified seeds.
 
For too long, Monsanto has been the benefactor of corporate subsidies and political favoritism. Organic and small farmers suffer losses while Monsanto continues to forge its monopoly over the world’s food supply, including exclusive patenting rights over seeds and genetic makeup. Monsanto’s GMO seeds are harmful to the environment; for example, scientists have indicated they have caused colony collapse among the world’s bee population.
 
What are solutions we advocate for?
Vote with your cedis by buying organic and boycotting Monsanto owned companies that use GMOs in their products. Labeling of GMOs so that consumers can make those informed decisions easier. Rejecting the UPOV-compliant Plant Breeders' Bill Calling for further scientific research on the health effects of GMOs. Holding Monsanto executives and Monsanto-supporting politicians accountable through direct communication, grassroots journalism, social media, etc. Continuing to inform the public about Monsanto’s secrets. Taking to the streets to show the world and Monsanto that we won’t take these injustices quietly. We will not stand for cronyism. We will not stand for poison. That’s why we March Against Monsanto.
 
We will not stand for cronyism. We will not stand for poison.
For Life, the Environment and Social Justice!

from here

Urban Slums

Africa has more than 570 million slum-dwellers, according to UN-Habitat, with over half of the urban population (61.7 percent) living in slums. Worldwide, notes the U.N. agency, the number of slum-dwellers now stands at 863 million and is set to shoot up to 889 million by 2020.

“Slum-dwelling here in Africa has become normal, a trend to live with, which is difficult to combat owing to numerous factors ranging from political corruption to economic inequalities necessitated by the growing gap between the rich and the poor,” Gilbert Nyaningwe, an independent development expert from Zimbabwe, told IPS.

In South Africa, an estimated 15 million of the country’s approximately 52 million people live in densely populated informal settlements – a euphemism for slums.

Zimbabwe has an estimated 835,000 people living in informal settlements, according to Homeless International, a British non-governmental organisation focusing on urban poverty issues.

Nompumelelo Tshabalala, lives in Diepkloof township in Johannesburg, accuses city authorities of ignoring the mushrooming of informal settlements for selfish reasons.

“Slums here are sources of cheap labour that keeps the wheels of industry turning, which is why local authorities are not concerned about our living standards because they [local authorities] are getting more and more revenue from firms thriving on our sweat.”

It takes a person living in a slum to identify the root cause more astutely than all the experts working for NGOs...the same cause of the slums in 19th Century Europe and early 20thC America...CAPITALISM

NGOs - White Dominance and Lack of Ethnic Diversity

This year's ranking of NGOs shows that most are based in the West although they carry out their activities in the Global South; are disproportionately headed by white men, and many continue to display stereotypical and patronising images of Africans as poor and needy victims. Teju Cole wrote that a white saviour is someone who, “supports brutal policies in the morning, founds charities in the afternoon, and receives awards in the evening”.
Global_Geneva recently released the third annual Top NGO ranking, and unfortunately, it’s more of the same. In 2013, I reviewed the Board profiles of the previous ranking, focusing on their gender balance and diversity, and links to the tobacco, weapons and finance industries. The findings were troubling. Many of the listed NGOs were not adequately diverse or representative, and over half had links to the above industries.
This year’s ranking reveals similarly disturbing trends. Though 78% of the activities of the NGOs listed take place in the majority world, the ranking remains skewed towards NGOs headquartered in the West (64%). This once again sends signals about who has value and expertise, and reinforces the fallacy that citizens of Western countries are best equipped to change the world. 



c c PZ
 


Diversity continues to lag. Women and men of European origin are still over-represented in leadership positions (over 60% overall and by gender). The representation of women is still relatively low (40%, of whom 63% are of European origin). More disturbing, however, is the lack of ethnic diversity. 



c c PZ
 

 The statistics on Africa[1] and Africans (including the diaspora) are once again particularly disconcerting.
• Only 5% (26) of the 500 NGOs listed have their headquarters in Africa, yet 33% of activity takes place in that region. Of those 26, only 7 are in the top 100 and most (9) are found in the last tier (401-500).
• Only 4% of CEOs are of African descent.
• People of African descent are the only group in which there are fewer male than female CEOs. This implies an institutional bias against black men.
• In the regional rankings, only 25 NGOs have been selected for the top African ranking compared to 100 each in Europe, North America and Asia/Australasia. Moreover, of the 25, 8 are outside the African continent (2 in Bahrain, 3 in Israel, 3 in Jordan).
• Many NGOs continue to display stereotypical and patronising images and videos that portray Africans in particular as poor and needy victims devoid of agency.
In addition, a large proportion of the ‘top’ NGOs continue to appoint leaders who are not representative of the communities and groups they claim to serve, and retain links to corporate interests that appear to be inconsistent with their mandate or public identity.
 
As with the previous ranking, a number have Board members as well as funders with links to the tobacco, finance and weapons industries. Some, such as Room to Read for instance, pride themselves in such links: ‘Our leadership team is comprised of veterans of such venerable corporations as Goldman Sachs…’.
Others are partnered with corporations that have been accused of human rights and environmental violations: for example, Akshaya Patra with Monsanto to provide food for children, Care with Cargill to combat poverty, Vital Voices with Walmart to increase economic opportunities for women, Injaz-al-Arab with ExxonMobil to mentor Arab youth. The International Crisis Group receives support from corporate members of its International Advisory Council, including Shell and Chevron.
Some also have affiliations with individuals whose political or professional record is arguably inconsistent with the mandates of the NGOs they serve: examples include the International Rescue Committee (Henry A. Kissinger, Condoleeza Rice and Madeleine Albright, Overseers), the International Crisis Group and ONE Campaign (Lawrence Summers, Board member), and Operation Blessing (M. G. ‘Pat’ Robertson, Board member).
 
The rather broad failure of many of the listed NGOs to have representative leaderships is reflected in some of their publicity statements and attitudes. Some exhibit slogans that offer absurdly simplistic solutions (‘You can cure starvation’ – Concern Worldwide; ‘Change the World in 4 clicks’ – Ufeed). Others display hubristic attitudes (S.O.U.L. Foundation says that its President represents ‘a new generation of young American activists who are quickly growing into a group of enthusiastic non-profit entrepreneurs and leaders who are choosing a piece of the world and changing it’; GreenHouse’s ambition is ‘trying to save the world by developing new models of social change to better people’s lives’). FAME World even adopts a disturbingly traditional missionary approach: it takes ‘Christ to the unreached and underserved’ but provides no assistance to non-Christian organisations.
 
We are all incoherent. Recognising this, where is the line between incoherence and deceit?
As individuals, we can easily deceive ourselves into believing that we do not perpetuate global inequities and discriminatory attitudes we claim to oppose. Organisations are no different. When NGOs are challenged to meet standards of integrity and fail to do so, they start to fit Teju Cole’s definition of white saviours.
International aid and advocacy is a multi-billion dollar industry and the corporate structures of the largest NGOs increasingly resemble those of large businesses. At the same time, NGO appeals for public support and public money rely heavily and distinctively on their claim to moral authority. Given this, it is entirely reasonable to expect NGOs to demonstrate their institutional integrity, including accountability to those they claim to serve. Unfortunately, Global_Geneva takes neither of these criteria into account. By choosing to rank so many NGOs in the manner it does, Global_Geneva and those who support it reinforce paternalist models of decision-making and governance that should be challenged rather than lauded.


from here

The Burundi Debacle

Burundi is facing its worst turmoil since the 12-year civil war ended in 2005. Over 100,000 have left Burundi in recent weeks, escaping violence sparked by President Pierre Nkurunziza's decision to run for a third term. The biggest concern now is that the decade of peace Burundi has enjoyed could unravel, prompting fresh waves of refugees and spreading conflict to neighbouring countries. “The stakes for Burundi but also for the wider region are high,” Sarah Jackson, deputy regional director of Amnesty International, told the seminar.

Cholera has infected about 3,000 people in Tanzania, the UN has said, where many Burundians have fled seeking refuge from their country's unrest. Up to 400 new cases are being seen each day, the UN's refugee agency said. The epidemic has killed 31 people - two locals and 29 Burundian refugees, the UN's statement said.

A UN spokesman called the cholera outbreak a "new, worrying, and growing additional complication".

The UN described the cramped, dirty conditions in Tanzania's lakeside Kagunga area, where many of the migrants are staying, as "dire". It is trying to evacuate refugees from the region but warns the situation may get worse before it gets better. 20,000 are waiting on the Tanzanian island of Kagunga for transport across Lake Tanganyika to a camp at Nyarangusu. Conditions on the island are deplorable, “with village leaders expressing concerns regarding increasing tension and potential friction between the local population and asylum-seekers, according to UNHCR. The majority of those fleeing Burundi are women and children, including a large number of unaccompanied children, spokesman Adrian Edwards said. The refugee agency predicts that the number of people fleeing Burundi could double in the next six months. UNHCR is now contemplating a worst-case scenario that could see 300,000 flee. Tanzania has played host to vast numbers of refugees for decades and recently granted many citizenship. But recent years have seen its welcoming stance wane. In 2012, it ended the refugee status of almost 40,000 Burundians – on the grounds that their country was peaceful – and obliged them to return.

Rwanda’s president has asserted that fighters from the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), a Hutu rebel group based in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), have crossed into Burundi “and might get involved directly” in the unrest there. Remarks by Kagame critical of his Burundian counterpart’s handling of the situation have been interpreted as a veiled threat to send troops across the border.

“The last thing we want to see is for the Burundi crisis to develop to the point where the Rwandan government feels it has the need or the legitimacy to intervene,” said Jolanda Bouka, an analyst at Institute for Security Studies (ISS).

Writing in Kenya’s Nation newspaper, Nic Cheeseman, a specialist in sub-Saharan African politics at Oxford University, warned that “the memory of civil war and how to mount effective rebellions against the state is still fresh. This combination is a recipe for political disorder and, worse, a resumption of civil conflict."

The New York-based think tank Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect said the situation in Burundi remained very volatile and spoke of “catastrophic consequences” if the power vacuum wasn’t resolved soon.

“Paramount among these is the risk that any further escalation or militarisation of the current crisis could result in the commission of mass atrocity crimes against vulnerable civilians. Immediate steps must therefore be taken by all sides to de-escalate tensions, stabilise the country and protect the gains of more than a decade of peacebuilding,” it said.

http://www.irinnews.org/report/101497/what-now-for-burundi-five-key-risks

Rich and Poor in Angola

Angola, Africa’s second-largest crude exporter, which relies on oil sales for 95% of foreign-exchange revenue, slashed a third off its budget after a glut in global production caused a halving of oil prices last year. President Eduardo dos Santos ended petrol subsidies last month, a move supported by economists but resented by the poor, who felt the effects of a 30% rise in fuel prices. The central bank also restricted dollar sales as foreign-exchange supplies dried up, prompting a sharp fall in the kwanza, ramping up costs in a country that relies on imports for 80% of consumer goods. The kwanza is trading at 170/$ on the street, against 109/$ officially.

Those who have benefited from the country’s $50bn a year in oil sales are unlikely to support any dissent. "We’ve actually had more customers since the kwanza crashed. They can’t get dollars so they buy luxuries," says Louis Mendes, who runs a jewellery shop in Bela’s Shopping, a mall named for its owner, Isabel dos Santos. "There is an incredible disparity between super rich and super poor. No middle ground."

"The government treats us like dogs," says Claude Ambrosio, at a rundown market in Vianna, one of Luanda’s poorest suburbs. "The price of everything went up but we get no help. There are no schools, no hospitals and you can see how we live," she says, pointing to crumbling shacks and piles of rotting rubbish.

A series of protests in the capital, Luanda, were cancelled last month after warnings of a police crackdown, human rights activists told Reuters. Pres. dos Santos’s opponents say he uses the powerful military, which takes the biggest slice of the budget, to maintain power. They also accuse him of using oil funds to enrich friends and family. His billionaire investor daughter, Isabel, is Africa’s wealthiest woman and his son, Jose, was made head of a $5bn sovereign wealth fund in 2013.

Angola provides one of the starkest examples of inequality in Africa: the Gini coefficient, a World Bank measure of inequality, puts Angola at 169th out of 175 countries. Most Angolans in Luanda live on less than $2 a day but foreign oil workers and the Angolan elite pay more for a hotel room, dinner out or a bottle of milk than they would in Paris, Singapore or New York.

Farming In Mozambique - Whose Model?

Government of Mozambique is expected to approve Prosavana project this year The master plan of Prosavana, a large agricultural project to be implemented in three northern provinces of Mozambique, is due to be approved by the government by the end of 2015, the project’s coordinator said in Maputo. António Limbau also told Portuguese news agency Lusa that the master plan for Prosavana, to be conducted in partnership with the governments of Brazil and Japan, has already been through the stages of public consultation at district and provincial levels and now requires consultations on a national level, to be held in Maputo. This project has led to fears that the communities in the programme would lose their land and prompted protests from inhabitants of the Nacala corridor and by several non-governmental organisations, who questioned the results of a similar experience in Brazil. According to the programme’s coordinator, the main concerns raised by farmers during the public consultation meetings were related to the fear of land loss, despite government assurances that this would not happen in Mozambique and that joining the programme is not compulsory . The biggest steps “have been taken,” the programme coordinator said, who, after the approval of the master plan, expects to see Prosavana launched in 2016. Prosavana is intended to improve the living conditions of the Nacala corridor’s population, modernise agriculture, increase productivity and create new models of agricultural development, currently based on family subsistence production, and to guide them to the market.

from here

Resistance to Prosavana in Mozambique

PROSAVANA is a cooperation program between Mozambique, Brazil and Japan, which aims to create new models of sustainable agricultural development in Mozambique's savanna region, taking into consideration the conservation of the environment; searching for agrarian development; and oriented to the rural/regional competitive markets. This presentation looks at who is behind the project, the aims of the project and the resistance to the project. The resistance stems from the fact that PROSAVANA aims to integrate peasants in the production process which is exclusively controlled by large TNCs and multilateral financing institutions; there is manipulation of information and intimidation of communities and CSOs opposed to PROSAVANA; there are imminent land grabbing processes in local communities by Brazilian, Japanese and national (as well as other nations) corporations and governments. The presentation argues that with PROSAVANA, the Mozambican government is in fact importing the internal contradictions of the Brazilian agrarian development model.

    Download

from here

Not Just South Africa

Since the end of apartheid, South Africa has attracted millions of migrants fleeing political and economic turmoil in their own countries. Zimbabweans account for the largest population of migrants in South Africa, with some analysts estimating they make up 23% of the whole workforce. With a youth unemployment rate of over 50% and a slowing economy, cheap foreign labour is a hot political issue, with locals accusing foreign nationals of stealing their jobs. But while South Africa has borne the brunt of the harsh international spotlight, other similar African government operations, are flying under the radar.

The Republic of Congo last week launched the second phase of its operation “Mbata ya bakolo,” which in the local Lingala language means “the slap of the elders”. Some 600 foreigners were arrested over only two days. The first phase, carried out in April 2014 in the economic hub of Pointe-Noire, forced back an estimated 250,000 workers from neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo in only a few weeks. Churches and local charities say the operation was now a “full-blown manhunt” and employed violence and degrading treatment. The conflict-ridden DR Congo ranks last on the UN development index, and over the years tens of thousands of its nationals have found menial jobs in neighbouring Congo, where living conditions are slightly better. Official figures from Kinshasa in April showed around four million residents in Congo, equivalent to around one in 10 of the population, hailed from DR Congo. Realising targeting economic migrants attracts international backlash, governments now increasingly cite insecurity as a reason for targeting foreign nationals.

West African borders tend to be most porous, with emergent economies such as Ghana and Ivory Coast particularly popular with immigrants.

Nigeria has in recent years deported thousands of foreign immigrants, citing concerns of infiltration by Islamic extremists - though it protested the recent xenophobic attacks in South Africa. The country’s porous borders and lenient immigration officers have seen thousands of foreign workers easily move in, especially from Niger in the north, but also from Ghana, Chad, Benin and Cameroon, seeking to earn a better living. Immigrants now make up a significant part of the menial labour workforce in Lagos. But the country’s battle with terrorism has seen them targeted by authorities, with some 22,000 deported in 2013, while a crackdown was also carried out ahead of its March election.

Niger early this month deported more than 3,000 Nigerians fleeing Boko Haram, with refugees saying they were forced to walk back over three days after the insurgents attacked an island in Lake Chad. Niger is home to more than 100,000 other Nigerian refugees fleeing the militants.

Kenya has been a preferred destination from Somalis and South Sudanese fleeing conflict, but this year threatened to close the world’s largest refugee complex after deadly terror attacks by Somali militant group Al-Shabaab. But there have also been reports of friction with locals over the high visibility of Somalis in key areas of the economy, such as retail and real estate, a perception of illegality that peaked during the surge in piracy in the Indian Ocean.

http://mgafrica.com/article/2015-05-19-you-are-an-immigrant-from-africa-in-africa-tough-luckxenophobia-is-increasingly-regional

The Chinese Pirates

Number of Chinese fishing boats operating in Africa soared from 13 in 1985 to 462 in 2013, say Greenpeace, the environmental group, with ships ‘taking advantage of weak enforcement and supervision.’ Chinese companies have been illegally fishing off the coast of west Africa, at times sending incorrect location data suggesting they are as far away as Mexico or even on land. 

A two-year investigation by the environmental group found that four Chinese fishing companies, including state-owned China National Fisheries Corporation, carried out persistent “illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing activities and gross tonnage fraud” in west Africa.

“While China extended a hand in friendship during the Ebola outbreak, rogue Chinese companies were unlawfully exploiting west Africa’s marine environment,” said Rashid Kang, head of Greenpeace East Asia’s China Ocean Campaign.

“If China wants to be a genuine friend of Africa, it should follow the path of the European Union’s Common Fisheries Policy, which is slowly rectifying the EU’s own history of irresponsible fishing in the region,” said Ahmed Diame, Greenpeace Africa Ocean Campaigner.

As well as fishing in prohibited areas, Chinese fishing companies systematically under-declare the gross tonnage of their vessels, allowing them to evade licensing fees and operate in areas where large boats are forbidden. The majority of these boats are bottom trawlers, which use one of the most destructive fishing techniques. Ironically, China is taking steps to eliminate some of the most environmentally damaging fishing practices in its own waters. Faced with more competition and stricter rules at home, Chinese fishing companies are looking further afield. The lack of rigorous fisheries management and enforcement in west Africa has made it an attractive destination for large Chinese companies with the resources to send boats to distant waters.

Comparisons with Colonial Days

The Cato Institute-backed HumanProgress website recently tweeted a claim by Princeton Professor Angus Deaton that “Today, children in sub-Saharan Africa are more likely to survive to age 5 than were English children born in 1918.” Before addressing the intrinsic dishonesty of such comparisons in general it is worth noting the absurdity of this comparison in particular. 1918 was the final year of the First World War and the first year of the Spanish influenza. Decimated by war, England struggled to combat “one of the deadliest natural disasters in human history” as the flu killed 228,000 people during the summer of 1918. Of course, if your criterion for “progress” is that you aren’t currently being devastated by world war and “the mother of all pandemics” then the entire world has been progressing for all of human history and the socialist world was a veritable utopia. No matter, three cheers for Africa and capitalism.

Libertarians’ assumption is that if sub-Saharan Africa is poorer than the Global North today it is merely because the former hasn’t yet “caught up” to the latter. But is this how capitalism developed and functions? Revealingly, HumanProgress measures progress in large part through income, which puts it in the uncomfortable position of defending colonialism. Their website notes, “Between the time of the European colonization in 1870 and African independence in 1960, a typical inhabitant of the African continent saw his or her income rise by 63 percent.” The fact that income rose during colonialism and the “Scramble for Africa” – in which the Belgians murdered 10 million Congolese among countless other European atrocities – might alert us to the fact that income hardly correlates to quality of life. Africans who were terrorized into wage labor had little initial need for income, and for the vast majority of human history people have survived without needing to sell their labor time for wages. But given that wage labor is the source of capitalist profit, colonial governments systematically undermined the indigenous population’s ability to support itself, destroying native economies and enclosing the lands on which people subsisted. This process, in which the North is enriched precisely through the impoverishment of the Global South, continues today.

Libertarian cheerleaders for the status quo want us to stay asleep.

Extracts from this article

Sickle cell V Cystic fibrosis

Sickle-cell disease – a common life-shortening genetic disease -  funding for research, drug development, and patient advocacy $66 million in America

Cystic fibrosis, another condition life-shortening condition - funding for research, drug development, and patient advocacy - $254 million— nearly four times the $66 million spent on sickle cell, even though the latter affects three times as many people.

The National Institutes of Health spends nearly four times as much per patient on cystic fibrosis research as it does on sickle cell. From 2009 to 2011, researchers published twice as many papers on cystic fibrosis as they did on sickle cell.

One disease inflicts mostly people of color. The other mostly white people.

You choose which is which

The original 'lebenstraum'

Namibia, once known as South-West Africa, became a German colony in 1884 under the rule of Otto von Bismarck and was lost to the British during the First World War.

In 1904 the Herero and Nama people launched a rebellion against German colonial rule, over the specific issue of land rights. After around 150 Germans were killed in the uprising, Lieutenant General Lothar von Trotha was appointed Supreme Commander of South-West Africa and landed with 14,000 reinforcement troops. The fighting had subsided and the Herero and Nama people were ready to start negotiations.

But to von Trotha, the idea of negotiating went against German and Prussian honour and military tradition. He was determined to crush the rebellion fully. After the Germans had defeated the Herero combatants at the Battle of Waterberg in August 1904, any survivors were either brutally slaughtered or driven into the Kalahari Desert. Von Trotha then built a 200 mile fence to seal off the desert and leave the Herero and Nama to die of thirst and starvation.

In a proclamation to his troops, Trotha clearly outlined the definition of genocide:

"Any Herero found inside the German frontier, with or without a gun or cattle, will be executed. I shall spare neither women nor children. I shall give the order to drive them away and fire on them."

"I believe that the nation as such should be annihilated, or, if this was not possible by tactical measures, should be expelled from the country."

When news of the atrocities reached Germany there was national outcry, but Kaiser Willhelm I refused to withdraw the Vernichtungsbefehl (extermination order). Only after two more months of hunting down and slaughtering them did von Trotha receive orders to accept the surrender of the Herero people. Any survivors, most of them women and children, were herded into concentration camps for slave labour and medical experiments.

The genocide cost the lives of an estimated 90,000 to 100,000 people, or 80 percent of the Herero population. German attitudes at the time foreshadow those used by the Nazis to justify their ambitions for territorial expansion and the Holocaust, such as the crusade for so-called 'Lebensraum' - or living space.

A young soldier Franz von Epp wrote in a letter home: "This world is being redistributed. With time we will inevitably need more space and only by the sword will we be able to get it".

Later on in his career, Epp became a senior Nazi and was appointed Reichskomissar for Bavaria.

Kick Christianity and Islam out of Africa

HP: Why do you think it is important to kick Christianity and Islam out of Africa?

Jd Otit (The administrator of World Atheists: Lets Kick Islam and Christianity out of Africa): Africa definitely would be a great place without foreign religion. We might not be able to eradicate the worship of African deities by Africans, however, the worship of African Gods is less problematic than the evils and atrocities associated with these two foreign doctrines Islam and Christianity.

Africa will fare better as one people. Islam and Christianity has divided us; it has torn the fabric of brotherhood that held us together; we see ourselves as Muslims or Christians; we do not recognize what bound us together anymore - our color, our Africaness, our common adversities as a people - we rejoice at the peril of Muslims or Christians because we do not think any more as “African” but rather we label ourselves according to some Middle Eastern idiocy introduced to us through slavery.

My experience of religious Africa is of people who are stupidly passive and numb due to faith and expectations of a greater reward in some paradise. African people have left the fight to “god” - Jewish and Arab Gods are now their escape route, due to fear and cowardice.

HP: Do you think Africa would be more prosperous without religion?

Jd Otit: Africa would prosper greatly without religion. People would not leave situations that require revolutions or human interventions to some invisible sky being, hence manufacturing the slave chains that will hold their next generations in captivity.

Today the people on top are enjoying the disunity and chaos amongst the ordinary people, these are distractions that is working very well for the African elite, “blame the devil, blame yourselves, pray to God , but never blame us, it’s always the devil’s work. “ That is the mantra of the African elite.

HP: Would Africa be less violent without religion?

Jd Otit: Africa would definitely be less violent, there would be less hatred amongst Africans due to different belief system.

HP: We are concerned about over-population in Africa, which has the world’s highest fertility rate.

Jd Otit: Africa is not overpopulated, we have more than enough for our needs, Africa is suffering not because of lack of resources to sustain its people, Africa is suffering due to the greed of the top few, Africa is facing hardship due to mismanagement that is encouraged by western powers. Everyone knows the richness within the African continent; sadly exploitation and encouragement of corruption by the West has impoverished the ordinary African. Overpopulation is not what we should be addressing, but rather corruption and confronting those who are benefiting from the African chaos.

Full interview here

When The War Came Back - South Sudan

KANDAK, South Sudan, 18 May 2015 (IRIN) 

Kandak, a small village in South Sudan’s Jonglei state, eight days walk from the Ethiopian border, has paid a high price for its unfortunate location in the midst of Sudan’s civil wars.
In the early 1990s, as southern Sudanese rebels battled Khartoum’s forces, the war brought starvation to Kandak and the surrounding area. Heavy fighting prevented much humanitarian aid getting in and thousands of people died.

Now, nearly four years after South Sudan gained independence, the people of Kandak yet again find themselves bearing the harsh consequences of nearby conflict. 
Since civil war broke out in South Sudan at the end of 2013, Kandak has received thousands of people displaced by the fighting. 
The latest influx has hit Kandak hard. Resources were already scarce. A lack of clean water forces the population to drink from muddy pools. Rising malnutrition combined with insufficient health care and the risk of water-borne disease make this a very vulnerable community.

With ongoing fighting in the area and no peace in sight, the humanitarian situation is predicted to deteriorate. Few aid agencies can make it here, to one of the most dangerous and remote parts of South Sudan. It is all a chilly reminder of what led to the devastating famine almost 25 years ago.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=BAgvT2WAIno

from here

The Real Black Economy

A Global Financial Integrity report conservatively estimates that between 2003 and 2012 $529 billion left Sub-Saharan Africa through illicit flows, growing an average 13.2 percent each year. If $529 billion seems hard to grasp, it's almost twice what Sub-Saharan Africa received in foreign direct investment and one-and-a-half times what it got in official development assistance in the same period. So for every $1 of foreign investment and aid, 84 cents leaves illegally. The system's like a sieve with billions of dollars falling through the cracks.

The lost billions are tied to expanding basic human rights and turning the continent's successful economic growth into things like jobs, service delivery, education and health. A leader of the World Bank has called illicit financial outflows a global priority, the White House has recognised the problem, the United Nations has a team on it and so does the African Union. On Monday, Global Financial Integrity president Raymond Baker said, “This is the ugliest chapter in global economic affairs since slavery.”

The Thabo Mbeki foundation traces the origins of illicit financial flows from Africa back to the 1960s, when elites in newly-independent governments were uncertain about stability and sought to stash money away in Western institutions. At the same time large corporations were globalising and looking to minimise corporate taxes. Essentially, the practice is the illegal transfer of money from one country to another, when funds are illegally earned, transferred or used. Think of tax havens and shell companies, a politician transferring dirty money offshore, criminal organisations laundering their cash through trade, terrorists doing wire transfers, or traffickers carrying suitcases of cash across borders.

Most importantly, think of multinational companies. According to Global Financial Integrity, corruption accounts for about five percent of illicit flows, criminal activity like drug trafficking and smuggling 30 to 35 percent, and transactions from multinational companies 60 to 65 percent. Addressing the African Union this year, Mbeki, chair of the high level panel on illicit financial flows, agreed “that large corporations are by far the biggest culprits responsible for illicit outflows, especially given their ability to retain the best available professional legal, accountancy, banking and other expertise”. They do it mostly through mis-invoicing, or lying about the commercial value of a transaction on invoices submitted to customs. It's often easy, because trading partners write their own invoices. Companies can evade taxes, claim certain tax incentives, and shift money into tax havens and secret accounts.

It's estimated that at least $122 billion was illegally transferred out of South Africa between 2003 and 2012, recording the tenth highest illicit outflows in the world (Nigeria was ninth). Ceasing illicit transactions does not mean the money would be available directly to spend on services, but to put it into perspective, the $29 billion estimated to have illegally left the country in 2012 exceeds the total 2015 education budget. It's something like 1,300 Nkandla upgrades. Curbing illicit financial flows would significantly boost tax collections in developing countries. Currently, these countries struggle to collect taxes from much of the population and those who can afford to pay, wealthy citizens and international companies operating in the area, are doing all they can to avoid paying, leaving governments with fewer resources to improve the lives of citizens. “Clearly, massive reductions in existing human rights deficits could be achieved by allowing poor countries to collect reasonable taxes from multinational corporations and from their own most affluent nationals, assuming the resulting revenues were appropriately spent,” said Yale University's Professor Thomas Pogge. 

  

The Libya and Mali Land Deal

In one of Africa's largest and most secretive foreign agricultural investment deals, oil-rich Libya, under the leadership of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, signed a 50-year, renewable lease for the land with Mali's government in 2008. Plans for the land deal were reportedly hatched in direct negotiations between two leaders who have since been deposed - exiled Malian President Amadou Toumani Toure and Libya's Gaddafi, who was captured and killed after being toppled from power.

Malian farmer Balima Coulibaly and his fellow villagers watched with dread as 100,000 hectares of fertile land they have farmed for generations were handed to Libyan investors with no discussion about the impact on their impoverished communities. Villages in the area remain without paved roads, phone lines or water pipes.

The land in the Office of Niger, the agricultural heart of the West African country, was provided rent free, with water rights included, on the condition that Libya build canals and roads to cultivate rice and cattle there. But seven years on, with Libya in chaos following Gaddafi's ouster and drought-hit Mali grappling with an insurgency, the project has stalled. Mali's government admits it's unsure what will happen with the deal since the collapse of Libya's government. Tens of thousands of poor families living and growing crops on the land say they remain uncertain what their future holds.

“We don't know what will happen to us," said Coulibaly,an aging local leader, "We have a big hunger problem. At the moment, we are just trying to survive." More than half of the country's 15 million people live below the official poverty line and nearly two million are hungry, says the U.N.'s World Food Programme. Coulibaly believes his village, where many are illiterate, doesn't have a lot of barganing power in international business deals. "We worry that we won't be allowed back if the project starts again," said Balima. "We invested a lot in these lands, planting trees and building things - but one day they could come and take it all away."

An estimated 60,000 small farmers reside within the area, each farming less than half a hectare. Sangha and Finn residents do not have formal title to the land they farm, although Malian law recognises customary tenure. They say they were not consulted ahead of the Libyan deal and have no idea what is happening now or could happen next. A 40 km (25 mile) canal was built to irrigate rice fields on the Libyan land but local people aren't allowed to use the water. Authorities have ignored their requests for water access and pipes.

Backers of land deals say they bring much-needed investment to Africa, and can provide jobs and improve the productivity of the land. But rights activists say local people are rarely well compensated for their losses and handing over land could exacerbate local food shortages. At the time, terms of the deal weren't publicly released but it was rumoured all rice grown there would be exported. Many large-scale foreign land investment deals in Africa are designed to shore up food security in the country acquiring the land or on international markets, not in local ones, experts say.

Chantal Jacovetti, a researcher with Mali's Coordination of National Farmers' Organisations, a rights group, said foreign investors often want land, but not the farmers on it. Jacovetti said small-scale farmers in the Office du Niger could triple their food production if they had government support to build infrastructure and, crucially, access to formal land tenure.

"Some communities have been on that land for 800 years," Jacovetti said. "But now they are totally precarious. Companies want to grab this land and get rid of the peasants."

Moussa Djire, a University of Bamako legal scholar who analysed the Malibya investment, said secrecy over the agreement led some to suspect shady dealings but personality politics probably played a bigger role in creating the project than illicit cash. An undated copy of the contract obtained by the Thomson Reuters Foundation showed the deal granted Malibya, a subsidiary of Libyan sovereign wealth fund Libyan African Investment Portfolio, land for 50 years with no mention of exports. Despite Mali facing three droughts in the past decade, the contract gave investors water "without restrictions" from June to December with some limits in drier months.

"How can they guarantee water for foreigners and not us Malian people?" fumed Binan Coulibaly, a local farmer. "It's already difficult for us to survive."

The Office du Niger, with green trees and healthy herds of cattle grazing by the roadsides, contrasts with Mali's desert north where almost nothing grows. Irrigated by a dam built by French colonialists in the 1930s, the agricultural area operates as a separate administrative unit from other parts of Mali's government and is responsible for much of the country's food. It could produce more if better managed, experts say. "We have the potential to be the great bread basket of Mali," said Sinaly Thiero, deputy director of Office du Niger, who coordinated the Malibya project on the government side. With no-one from Libya visiting the site since civil war erupted there in 2011, Thiero is uncertain about the project's future. The concession could be revoked unless food production and infrastructure investment goes ahead, he said, but he refused to give a deadline. "Whether the Libyans keep the concession depends on the Libyan government," Djire said. There are deadlines for developing the assets but Malian law allows for extensions under certain circumstances, he said. The Libyan Investment Authority (LIA), which financed the Malibya project, refused to comment on its African land deals through its London-based public relations firm, Consulum Strategic Communications.

Family farmers - including those in rich countries - produce about 80 percent of the world's food, according to the U.N's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). A study by Sweden's Lund University found more than 32 million hectares of land globally - an area larger than Poland - has changed hands in similar land deals up to 2012, but often the bankers, speculators and sovereign wealth funds behind these deals don't have much expertise in farming. Farmers' rights advocates said several similar large land deals from Mali to the Democratic Republic of Congo and Pakistan have not met the desired results for anyone involved.

Child Soldiers In South Sudan

President Obama couldn’t have been more eloquent.  Addressing the Clinton Global Initiative, for instance, he said:
 “When a little boy is kidnapped, turned into a child soldier, forced to kill or be killed -- that’s slavery.” 

Denouncing Joseph Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army, or LRA, and offering aid to Uganda and its neighbors in tracking Kony down, he said,
 “It's part of our regional strategy to end the scourge that is the LRA and help realize a future where no African child is stolen from their family, and no girl is raped, and no boy is turned into a child soldier.” 

In support of Burma’s Aung San Suu Kyi, whom he has lauded as “not only a great champion of democracy but a fierce advocate against the use of forced labor and child soldiers,” he’s kept her country on a list of nations the U.S. sanctions for using child soldiers in its military.  And his ambassador to the U.N., Samantha Power, has spoken movingly in condemnation of the use of child soldiers, which she’s termed a “scourge,” from Syria and the Central African Republic to South Sudan. 

Only one small problem, as Nick Turse, author of Tomorrow's Battlefield: U.S. Proxy Wars and Secret Ops in Africa, points out in his latest reportage:
 the young, desperately divided nation of South Sudan is something of an American-sponsored creation, its military heavily supported by Washington, and so its child soldiers -- and it has plenty of them -- turn out not to be quite the same sort of scourge they are in Burma, Syria, or elsewhere.  Somehow, they’ve proved to be in the American “national interest” and so, shockingly enough, as Turse reveals today, were the subjects of a presidential “waiver” that sets aside Congress’s 2008 Child Soldiers Protection Act.  

The willingness of a president to sideline a subject he’s otherwise denounced in no uncertain terms is worthy of a riddle that might go something like: when is slavery not slavery?  And the answer would be, when it gets in the way of U.S. policy.  With that in mind, let Turse take you deep into South Sudan, where children tote AK-47s and the sky is not cloudy all day. 

read on here