MIvoice.blog

Rwanda politician prompts row over genocide memorial

2010-01-20T13:20:00.003+04:00

A row has erupted in Rwanda about the genocide memorial not reflecting the plight of Hutus in the 1994 massacres.

During the 100-day genocide, Hutu militias systematically killed about 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus. But opposition politician Victoire Ingabire, who has returned to Rwanda for the first time since the genocide, says Hutus were also killed by Tutsis. Genocide survivors group Ibuka says her comments amount to "genocide negation" and she should be prosecuted. Theodore Simburudari, the head of Ibuka, told the BBC the opposition United Democratic Forces leader should also be tried for "fuelling ethnic hatred". The BBC's Geoffrey Mutagoma in the capital, Kigali, says Ms Ingabire made the comments during her visit to the Kigali genocide memorial on Saturday.

Following the furore sparked by her remarks, Ms Ingabire told the BBC's Great Lakes Service she was not attempting to belittle the genocide. "Clearly, reconciliation has a long way to go," she said in an interview conducted in Kinyarwandan. "People who were massacred in this country cannot simply be forgotten," she said. "Looking at this memorial, it only stops at the genocide committed to Tutsis; there is still another role that concerns the massacres committed to Hutus. "Their relatives were also killed and they are asking themselves: 'When will our concerns be discussed?'"

Judicial authorities have so far not commented on the request by the genocide survivors. But the BBC reporter says considering the sensitivity of the subject, constitutional statutes and other laws regarding the genocide, Ms Ingabire is undoubtedly courting controversy as she moves to register her party to run for the 2010 presidential elections. Ms Ingabire left Rwanda before the genocide began and has spent the last 16 years in Europe. The elections due in August will be the second presidential polls held since the genocide.

Guinea junta 'names civilian Dore as prime minister'

2010-01-20T13:14:00.005+04:00

Guinea's military rulers have chosen opposition leader Jean-Marie Dore to be prime minister, overseeing a return to civilian rule, officials say.

Junta spokesman Idrissa Cherif said 70-year-old Mr Dore had "experience and understanding of Guinean politics". Mr Dore has been a prominent critic of army rule and was hospitalised after a military crackdown on 28 September. The junta seized power in December 2008 but leader Capt Moussa Dadis Camara was shot and seriously hurt last month. Interim leader Gen Sekouba Konate is due to return to Conakry on Tuesday, when he is expected to make a formal announcement of Mr Dore's appointment.

Credible election?

Opposition groups chose Mr Dore as their candidate for prime minister after hours of talks and a vote. The BBC's Conakry correspondent Alhassan Sillah, currently out of the country, says Mr Dore and union leader Hadja Rabiatou Sera Diallo each received 94 votes. But he got the nomination because he has a university degree, our correspondent says. The unions, however, say the vote was not fair. Mr Dore said he would have no problem working with the military, describing Gen Konate as "competent and efficient". "The main thing to do is to make sure that the next election will be fair and credible and to start the restructuring of the armed forces," he told the BBC's Focus on Africa programme. Under the deal, Ms Diallo would become one of two deputy prime ministers. The unions had said the prime minister should not be a politician, as the role should be neutral. But the veteran unionist told the BBC she was now willing to be part of a team and that the future of Guinea was the most important thing

The unions are very powerful in Guinea, having staged several high-profile demonstrations since 2006. They had thrown their support behind Ms Diallo - who our correspondent says is venerated like a god by some unionists.

Charges mooted

Mr Cherif told AFP news agency that Mr Dore would steer the transitional government through its "roadmap". He said the administration would consist of 30 members - 10 from the ruling junta, 10 from the opposition, and 10 representatives from the regions.

Following September's crackdown on an anti-junta protest, involving senior politicians such as Mr Dore, several opposition leaders demanded that Capt Camara step down. After reports of a power struggle between his supporters and Gen Konate, Capt Camara agreed last week to take a back seat. In an agreement signed last week, a national election was pencilled in for six months' time. Capt Camara spent weeks being treated in Morocco for a bullet wound after he was shot by an aide on 3 December. Last week he was flown to Burkina Faso, where he is continuing to recover.

A UN report has said Capt Camara should be charged over the September crackdown in which more than 150 opposition protesters are thought to have been killed.

ANALYSIS
Caspar Leighton BBC News The civilian opposition is clearly not being included in the decision-making process. General Konate is supposedly in charge - but he remains in Burkina Faso allegedly for consultations with Capt Camara, who is weakened after an assassination attempt and has accepted exile. Ordinary Guineans are worried that Capt Camara is still pulling the strings. The agreement reached on Friday was heralded as the breakthrough that could avert disaster in Guinea. But until now it is only an agreement among the military and the civilian opposition has not put its seal on anything.

JEAN-MARIE DORE

•From a minority ethnic group in Forestiere region
•Critic of military rule
•Organised 28 September protest, claims he was beaten by soldiers
•Leads the Union for the Progress of Guinea party
•Stood for president against strong-man ruler Lansana Conte in 1993 and 1998
•Has never served in government

Guinea leader Camara breaks exile silence

2010-01-20T13:10:00.002+04:00

The sidelined military leader of Guinea has spoken in public for the first time since he was seriously wounded by an assassination attempt in December.

Capt Moussa Dadis Camara is in the Burkina Faso capital, Ougadougou, where he backed a plan to let his deputy manage the transfer to civilian rule. He said that his hand was not forced in signing the transition agreement. He also urged Guineans to put aside ethnic differences and support the transfer to democracy. The address to the nation given from voluntary exile by Capt Camara is a vital step on Guinea's path to civilian, democratic rule. He has a near-mythical status among his followers, and the public support given to Guinea's transition from military rule by the man once in charge of it should lay many fears to rest.

Hurdles ahead

Visibly weakened, Capt Camara ruled himself out of running in future presidential elections. With this speech, the key figures in Guinea's military hierarchy have all publicly vowed their support for the end of army rule. The agreement reached on Friday bars any member of the military government from contesting the planned presidential election. There are hurdles ahead, though. The civilian opposition has proposed two possible candidates to be prime minister in the transition government. Made up of political parties and trade unions, they were unable to agree a single candidate and want the current military head, Gen Sekouba Konate to make the final choice.

The event that ignited Guinea's political crisis was the army's killing of more than 150 opposition supporters at the end of September. The call for justice has been strong and the United Nations blames Capt Camara and others for the killings. The International Criminal Court is examining the case and if arrest warrants are eventually issued, they are bound to cause shock waves in Guinea's fragile society.

CAMARA'S RULE

•23, 24 December 2008 Strongman President Lansana Conte dies, Capt Camara takes over, promises 2010 election
•15 August 2009 Says he may stand for president
•28 September Soldiers kill protesters in Conakry, reports of atrocities and rapes
•October US, EU, African Union and Ecowas impose sanctions on junta
•3 December Capt Camara shot in the head in apparent assassination attempt
•4 December Flown to Morocco for surgery
•12 January 2010 Capt Camara leaves hospital in Rabat and is flown to Burkina Faso

Sudan would accept separation, says President Bashir

2010-01-20T13:04:00.004+04:00

Sudan would accept the south's secession if southerners were to vote for independence in a referendum next year, President Omar al-Bashir said.

Speaking at a ceremony marking five years since the end of the north-south war, he said his Northern Congress Party did not want the south to secede. But he said the party would be the first to welcome such a decision. Analysts say Mr Bashir struck an unusually conciliatory tone in the speech, which has been well received. In recent months tension has been rising between the two sides. Southern politicians have accused Mr Bashir and his allies of wanting to fix the referendum to ensure a "no" vote - to try to keep the south's oil wealth to themselves. Mr Bashir has denied the allegations.

Next year's referendum was part of the 2005 peace deal which brought to an end more than two decades of civil war. The agreement also stipulated that a national election must be held. The vote is due in April.

Scepticism remains

In a televised address, Mr Bashir promised that the north would act as "good neighbours" to the south. "The National Congress Party favours unity," he said. "But if the result of the referendum is separation, then we in the NCP will be the first to take note of this decision and to support it." The BBC's Peter Martell, in the south's capital Juba, says there is a generally positive feeling about Mr Bashir's comments - people in the crowd were cheering as he delivered his speech. But he says plenty of people in the south remain sceptical and prefer to wait and see if he will honour his promises. Mr Bashir is subject to an international arrest warrant for war crimes in the country's Darfur region. And many in the south believe he and his allies have been arming rival ethnic groups in the south to destabilise the region.

The election in April will be the first multi-party national election in a generation. Mr Bashir is standing for president, but the leader of Southern Sudan, Salva Kiir, is not. Mr Kiir's SPLM party confirmed last week that he would seek re-election to the post of Southern Sudan president rather than national leader. The SPLM is instead fielding another candidate for the post of national president, which correspondents says shows that the party's priority is independence for the south.

Economic connections

During the celebrations to mark the end of the war, Mr Kiir made a plea for southerners to accept the result of the referendum whatever it may be.

"The north and south will continue to be economically and politically connected whatever the choice of the people of Southern Sudan," he said. He stressed that oil, which makes up 90% of the south's wealth, would still be pumped through the north for processing until the south could construct its own facilities. After years of conflict, Southern Sudan is one of the poorest areas of the world. Last year, some 2,000 people died in conflicts in the region, which the SPLM say are being stirred up by allies of Mr Bashir in order to destabilise the region ahead of the elections. Mr Bashir's National Congress Party has denied the charges.

Nigeria religious riots 'kill 200' in Jos

2010-01-20T12:57:00.003+04:00

At least 200 people have been killed in violence between Christians and Muslims in the Nigerian city of Jos, says the monitoring group, Human Rights Watch.

Troops ordered by Nigeria's vice-president to help police restore order have arrived and are patrolling the streets, enforcing a 24-hour curfew. The fighting, which broke out on Sunday, has prompted thousands of people to flee the city. Houses, mosques and churches have been burnt down and many people arrested. It is believed to be the first time Goodluck Jonathan has used executive powers since President Umaru Yar'Adua left Nigeria for hospital treatment in Saudi Arabia in November.

Lt Col Shekari Galadima, a spokesman for the 3rd Division of the Nigerian Army, told the BBC's Network Africa programme the streets were calm and the troops in control of the situation. The area has seen several bouts of deadly violence in recent years. At least 200 people were killed in an outbreak of fighting between Muslims and Christians in 2008, while some 1,000 died in a riot in 2001.

Violence spreading

The current violence has forced at least 3,000 people from their homes. On Tuesday the violence spread beyond the city boundaries to neighbouring areas. The death toll has not been verified independently and it is not known how many Christians have died. Human Rights Watch say at least 200 have died in the latest outbreak of violence. Balarabe Dawud, head of the Central Mosque in Jos, told AFP news agency he had counted 192 bodies since Sunday. Muhammad Tanko Shittu, a mosque worker who was helping to prepare mass burials, told Reuters he had counted 149 bodies.

Jos is in Nigeria's volatile Middle Belt - between the mainly Muslim north and the south where the majority is Christian or follow traditional religions. Correspondents say such clashes in Nigeria are often blamed on sectarianism. However, poverty and access to resources such as land often lie at the root of the violence. It is unclear what the trigger was for the latest bout of violence.

Plateau State spokesman Dan Manjang told Network Africa there were reports that it may have started after a football match. But he said it would be surprising if football was the reason. Reuters quoted residents as saying the violence started after an argument over the rebuilding of homes destroyed in the 2008 clashes.

ANALYSIS
Shehu Saulawa, BBC Hausa

Jos has long been a time-bomb waiting to explode.

The town is split into Christian and Muslim areas. The divisions have been perpetuated by Nigeria's system of classifying people as indigenes and settlers. Hausa-speaking Muslims have been living in Jos for many decades but are still classified as settlers, meaning it is difficult for them to stand for election. The two groups are also divided along party political lines with Christians mostly backing the ruling PDP, and Muslims generally supporting the opposition ANPP. In Nigeria, political office means access to resources

Senegal offers land to Haitians

2010-01-19T13:09:00.004+04:00

Senegal's president says he will offer free land and "repatriation" to people affected by the earthquake in Haiti.

President Abdoulaye Wade said Haitians were sons and daughters of Africa since Haiti was founded by slaves, including some thought to be from Senegal. "The president is offering voluntary repatriation to any Haitian that wants to return to their origin," said Mr Wade's spokesman, Mamadou Bemba Ndiaye. Tuesday's earthquake killed tens of thousands and left many more homeless.

AFRICA HAVE YOUR SAY Africa should contribute to our Haitian brothers and sisters. In our sometime dire situation, a significant number of Africans find some money to have a drink or buy credit for our mobile phones Lawrence Barchue, London. Buildings have been reduced to rubble, the distribution of aid is slow, and people have been flooding out of the devastated capital, Port-au-Prince. "Senegal is ready to offer them parcels of land - even an entire region. It all depends on how many Haitians come," Mr Bemba Ndiaye said. "If it's just a few individuals, then we will likely offer them housing or small pieces of land. If they come en masse we are ready to give them a region."

The spokesman emphasised that if a region was given, it would be in a fertile part of the country rather than in its parched deserts, the Associated Press news agency reported.

Africa - 'dumping ground' for counterfeit goods

2010-01-19T12:59:00.004+04:00

It is early morning in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, and a small independent wholesaler is doing a roaring trade. The city's street traders and small independent retailers have come to stock up on household products, one of which is toothpaste.

This wholesaler stocks two brands. The first, the so-called genuine article, is manufactured by Unilever, one of the world's biggest consumer goods businesses. The other, the wholesaler describes as "Chinese" - Unilever calls it fake By close of business this wholesaler is justifiably pleased. He has sold more tubes of counterfeit toothpaste than the genuine article, which is excellent news for the bottom line. On the genuine product he has made a 13% mark-up, on the counterfeit an impressive 50%. Fair play to him, some might say - after all it is only toothpaste.

No joke

Fake toothpaste ranks low down the list of priorities for the continent's law enforcement agencies. According to Roberto Manriquez, a criminal intelligence officer in Interpol's intellectual property crime unit, counterfeit medicines are the number one priority of the world's biggest police organisation. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 30% of medicines sold in developing countries are fakes and a major problem is that high numbers of drugs bought by the state for use in public hospitals are being illegally obtained and then sold on for profit in the private sector.

For Unilever, whose claim to fame is that "160 million times a day, someone somewhere chooses one of its products", the growing trade in counterfeit goods is no joke. Copycat toothpaste can compromise a consumer's health, says Nick Hart, Unilever's brand protection director.

In the United States in 2007 counterfeit toothpaste labelled "Colgate" was found to contain a chemical known as diethylene glycol which is used in anti-freeze and is said to pose a low-grade health risk. As a global multinational, jeopardising a consumer's health or safety is not a risk Unilever can afford to take. On the other hand, for the counterfeiter - who has no brand to protect, has invested nothing in research and development, has probably paid no import duty or VAT and in all likelihood has used cheaper ingredients - there is much less to lose and far more to gain.

Indeed with the rising number of direct trade routes between Africa and China, together with porous border controls, outdated legislation and weak enforcement mechanisms, the continent has become fair game for counterfeiters - and the recession has made it worse. "Africa has become a dumping ground for the world's unwanted goods," says Darren Olivier, head of brand enforcement and a director at Bowman Gilfillan attorneys in Johannesburg.

As manufacturing techniques have become increasingly sophisticated, everything from electrical products to software and antibiotics can be counterfeited. In many cases even the packaging is replicated. So the consumer is tricked into buying a fake product which, at best, might be a second-rate radio set but, at worst, a pesticide with the capacity to wipe out entire crops, or an anti-retroviral without active ingredients.

Vastly inferior

This raises an important question: Do brand owners like Unilever have a responsibility to lower prices to the point where there is no market for counterfeit goods in Africa? For Unilever's Mr Hart, price is not the issue. "One of the biggest problems we face is the misconception that counterfeiting is a problem associated with luxury items like handbags, DVDs and music." But these goods, he adds, are sold at substantially reduced prices and the brand-savvy consumer is generally making a conscious decision. By contrast, fake household goods and consumer hygiene products are increasingly sold at prices on a par with the genuine item. "The consumer pays the normal price, believes she is buying the genuine article but is actually buying something that may be vastly inferior," he says.

But would a drop in prices not at least start to address the problem? "We can drop our prices but they [the counterfeiter] have much more margin to work with than we do because they haven't paid import duties and so on. Not in our wildest dreams could we lower prices to the same degree," Mr Hart says. The result is that many multinationals, but also small local companies, are being forced to shut up shop. For instance, Eveready East Africa, the battery company, has lost 70% of market share to counterfeit goods.

The implications are staggering, says Omari Issa, chief executive of the Investment Climate Facility for Africa (ICF)- a pan-African body that works with the public and private sector to remove barriers to doing business in Africa. "If you consider that each employed person in Africa supports between 10 and 20 people, then continent-wide this is affecting millions of people." Recent research by ICF found that in the East African Community (EAC), $500m (£310m) in revenues from unpaid taxes was lost to counterfeit goods. "Just think of the hospitals, roads and schools that could be built," says Mr Issa. Other "shocking data" from the study was that in Kenya over 30% of medicines on sale were counterfeit and fake electrical goods had caused numerous fires.

Challenges ahead

So what is being done about it?

Some headway has been made in the EAC which is expected to become a common market this year (thus allowing the free flow of goods across borders). This was one of the reasons that sparked discussions, driven by the ICF, about the need for an EAC-wide policy and common legislation to combat counterfeiting and piracy. It is hoped that this will be in place in 12 months.

But, as Mr Issa points out, there are significant challenges ahead and replacing existing outdated legislation is the easy bit. "It must then be enforced and consumers, government officials and even heads of state will have to be educated," he says. If it works, however, the hope is that an EAC policy will be used as a benchmark for the rest of Africa. Mr Issa also notes that the problem is much worse in West Africa which is home to some of the world's poorest countries.

Many of these are located on illicit trafficking routes and governance is weak.

The result is that the region has become a dumping ground for counterfeit goods, especially pharmaceuticals. A UN report published in July 2009 reveals that revenues gained from 45 million counterfeit anti-malarial medicines were worth $438m - more than the annual gross domestic product of Guinea-Bissau. West Africa is the next destination for Interpol, which to date has conducted three operations in East and southern Africa under the umbrella of the International Medical Products Anti-Counterfeiting Taskforce set up by the WHO.

Complex pressures

So far Interpol has checked 549 premises including wholesalers, pharmacies and clinics. It has closed 45 of these and opened 80 cases which local organisations must follow up. Part of the process is training and Interpol works with local police, as well as bodies like customs and immigration, drug regulatory authorities and the private sector. "Our strategy is to go into a country for a week, provide two days training and three days operational support," says Mr Manriquez. He adds: "Co-operation from local authorities has been excellent." Still, this remains a multifaceted and complex problem.

In Kenya, for example, pressure to implement anti-counterfeit legislation has been delayed because public health campaigners have argued that the definition of what constitutes a counterfeit product is too vague and could be used to prevent access to generic drugs. Clearly Africa needs access to cheaper medicine. But it does not need fakes.

Pope Benedict XVI urges Italy to respect migrants

2010-01-11T15:26:00.005+04:00

Pope call to Italy over migrants

Pope Benedict XVI has called on Italians to respect the rights of immigrants.

It comes after a wave of violence against African farm workers in southern Italy which left some 70 people injured. Police have evacuated hundreds of Africans by bus from the town of Rosarno, in Calabria. Correspondents say the problem is closely related to organised crime in the region.

Pope Benedict XVI spoke out strongly in favour of the rights of poor African farm workers, who have been the target of violence in recent days. About 70 people have been injured, including migrants, local residents and police officers trying to restore order. "An immigrant is a human being, different only in where he comes from, his culture and tradition," he told pilgrims gathered in St Peter's Square at the Vatican. "He is a person to respect and with rights and responsibilities, and should be respected particularly in the working world where there is an temptation to exploit." "We have to go to the heart of the problem, of the significance of the human being," the Pope said. "Violence must never be a means to solve difficulties. "The problem is a human one, and I invite everyone to look in the face of those nearby and see their soul, their history and their life and say to themselves: it is a man and God loves him as God loves me."

Mafia link

The BBC's David Willey in Rome says many of the migrants from north and west Africa have been earning starvation wages as fruit and vegetable pickers - backbreaking work which Italians do not want. The labour market is controlled by the local mafia, called the 'Ndrangheta, which is believed to employ ever growing numbers of illegal seasonal day labourers. The workers live in sordid conditions and are paid very low wages, out of which they have to pay kickbacks to their bosses, says our correspondent. Wages are handed out in cash, labour laws and safety and health regulations are ignored, and no taxes or welfare contributions are ever paid.

The Calabrian mafia has become one of the most powerful criminal organisations in Italy in recent years, controlling much of Europe's narcotics trade. Italy's Interior Minister Roberto Maroni prompted a storm of criticism from the leftist opposition by suggesting that the violence was the result of not addressing the issue of illegal workers in the country. "There's a difficult situation in Rosarno, like in other places, because for years illegal immigration - which feeds criminal activities - has been tolerated and nothing effective has ever been done about it," he said according to Italy's La Repubblica newspaper.

Opposition leader Pierluigi Bersani said: "Maroni is passing the buck ... We have to go to the root of the problem: mafia, exploitation, xenophobia and racism."

Nigeria criticises 'unfair' US air passenger screening

2010-01-05T12:56:00.001+04:00

Tougher screening of passengers wanting to fly to the US has been condemned as unfair by Nigeria - one of the nations singled out for special checks.

Information Minister Dora Akunyili said the rules, brought in after a Nigerian allegedly man tried to blow up a plane, discriminated against 150m Nigerians. Bomb suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab did not represent Nigeria, she said.

Nigerians are among 14 nations whose nationals face stiffer rules including body searches and luggage checks. Four other African countries - Algeria, Libya, Somalia and Sudan - are also subject to the new measures. It follows an alleged attempt to blow up a plane on Christmas Day.
US President Barack Obama has been under pressure to make visible security improvements. But Ms Akunyili said 23-year-old Mr Abdulmutallab's act was a "one-off". "Abdulmutallab's behaviour is not reflective of Nigeria and should therefore not be used as a yardstick to judge all Nigerians," she said. "He was not influenced in Nigeria, he was not recruited or trained in Nigeria, he was not supported whatsoever in Nigeria. "It is unfair to discriminate against 150 million people because of the behaviour of one person."

The BBC's Fidelis Mbah in Lagos says queues of people waiting to check in were longer than usual at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport on Monday after the new security directives came into effect. He says extra officials had been deployed to search luggage and frisk passengers. Nigeria has already said it has tightened its security measures since the alleged Christmas Day plot. Security agents prevented our reporter from speaking to people in the queues.

Man chews tenant’s 'balls'

2009-12-17T13:20:00.002+04:00

A resident of Somanya in the Eastern Region, Kwame Wayo Acheampong, has found himself in the grips of the law after pouncing on his tenant and chewing part of his scrotum in a fierce fight last Thursday.

Kwame Wayo, 45, went straight for the genitals of 37-year-old Sani Sulley, a tenant in his house, and took a ginormous bite at this important “property”, tearing half of it and leaving his victim in a pool of blood. The wife of Sulley was so mad about the attack she told DAILY GUIDE she was very determined to see to it that Kwame Acheampong was punished for what she described as ‘cannibalistic behaviour’. Both Sulley Sani and Kwame Wayo Acheampong were butchers at Somanya but Wayo was a landlord to Sulley.

DAILY GUIDE sources disclosed that the friends-turned-enemies had lived in the same house for the past two years but in the last three or four months, Acheampong had been insisting that Sulley left the house because he was giving him problems. Sulley was said to have reacted by saying that he would leave the house only if his landlord refunded a balance of GH¢600 as part of the total cost of GH¢900 he incurred in making the house habitable.

When DAILY GUIDE contacted the victim, he readily offered to tell his side of the story. According to him, he rented a chamber and hall apartment in Acheampong's house because both of them were working at the same slaughter house; but at the time of moving into the house, it was not fully complete, so he had to hire some artisans to plaster a greater part of the house including his room, install ceilings and extend electricity to the house which cost him GH¢900.

He indicated that the agreement was that he would pay a rent of GH¢10 a month to offset the cost incurred. Sulley told the paper that all of a sudden, Kwame Wayo decided to eject him from the house after he had stayed there for only two years. “What I told him was that if he is asking me to leave the house, then he should pay my balance of GH¢600 Ghana before I leave but this has become a problem for him”. He explained that because of the condition given him, the landlord decided to use 'rough tactics' to frustrate or force him out of the house.

He told DAILY GUIDE that things came to a head on Thursday December 11 after his wife, Rukaya, had finished preparing ‘fufu’ for the family. According to him, the wife of the landlord, Agnes Wayo, though unprovoked, went to where the food had been prepared and swept dust and sand into it. The victim said they then reported the matter to the police, with the food as exhibit. “After we came home, my landlord told me that that was the beginning of greater punishment for us and that he had instructed the wife that next time she should ease herself into our food and also in front of my room”. According to Sulley, around 8.00pm in the night, he asked his nine-year-old son to remove his school uniform from the drying line in the veranda, but before he could do that, he had to step on a little wall that served as a break to rain water in the house.

He narrated that just as his son stepped on the wall, the landlord came from nowhere and gave him a hefty slap for ‘standing on his wall’. “This action by the landlord infuriated me so much that I immediately confronted him as to why he should slap such a little boy”, adding that before he could say jack, the landlord grabbed his “balls” and took a ‘mighty’ bite.

He disclosed that the landlord had said he was going to kill him. “I felt terrible pains and I had to scream for help. I was wearing P.E. shorts and everything turned bloody. I was rushed to the Atua Government Hospital and sent straight to the theatre for some stitches and immediate attention. “As I speak to you, I feel serious pain in my abdomen and I am very weak”.

Wayo is expected to be put before the Odumase-Krobo Circuit Court Wednesday after he was arrested and charged with the offence of causing harm. He told the police that he slapped the little boy because the boy crossed his path while he bit Sulley's “balls” in defence because Sulley attacked him and held him by the neck.

Source: Daily Guide/Ghana

Millions at risk as East Africa rains fail, Oxfam says

2009-12-17T13:17:00.003+04:00

Aid agency Oxfam warns that a failure of rains across swathes of East Africa is putting millions of lives at risk.

This is the sixth successive season of failed rains in an area already hit by its worst drought in 20 years. Some 20 million people face starvation in vast areas of Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia, the UN has already warned. Oxfam says November rainfall was less than 5% of normal in much of Turkana in northern Kenya, all of Somaliland and Ethiopia's Central Highlands. In Turkana, one of the worst affected areas, nearly one person in three is malnourished.

The crisis is most severe in parts of Somalia, where worsening conflict and the drought have left 3.6 million people - a third of the country's population - in need of aid. "The rains were many people's last hope, but they have failed again, said Oxfam's deputy humanitarian director Jeremy Loveless, who just visited Somaliland. He said more must be done to help communities cope with the dry years through long-term rural development and investing in national agriculture. "But in the short-term lives are at stake and emergency aid is needed now," Mr Loveless said. The aid group said 1.5 million cattle, goats and sheep - on which many rely - have already died. The cattle that survive are being sold off at rock bottom prices. To make matters worse, farmers are leaving the land to search for a living in cities already suffering from high unemployment.

Fears of constitutional crisis with sick Nigerian leader

2009-12-17T12:55:00.004+04:00

Senior lawyers in Nigeria are warning that a power vacuum in government is creating a constitutional crisis.

Nigeria's president is ill in hospital in Saudi Arabia - without him, there is no-one to swear in the country's Chief Justice. ''Follow the rules. Don't mess around with what has been laid down,'' warns Festus Adebisi Ajayi, firmly. He is eighty-four years old. In his youth, he helped draft Nigeria's first constitution. Fifty years on, and stooping slightly, he worries. ''Any gerrymandering always leads to trouble,'' he frowns.

Three weeks ago Nigeria's constitution suddenly became important, as President Umaru Yar'Adua was rushed to hospital in Saudi Arabia. He is still being treated for heart problems, which come on top of a long-standing kidney complaint. There is no sign of his return - and Nigerians have not been told who is running the country. “ It is a nightmare scenario ” Charles Musa, Lagos barrister, Meanwhile, a deadline is approaching.

The retirement of the chief justice on 31 December is posing a question: Who will swear in the new head of the Supreme Court? ''It is something I wouldn't like to imagine,'' says Charles Musa, a Lagos barrister. ''We need a president to appoint the chief justice by January 1st. If that does not happen, we have a constitutional crisis. The judiciary arm of government will be without its head.'' The idea of a headless executive - alongside a headless judiciary - troubles him. ''It is a nightmare scenario,'' he says. ''People will argue that without leadership from two branches of the government, it is not really a democracy.''

For some, it raises the prospect of flying the new Chief Justice, Justice Katsina-Alu, to take his oath in Saudi Arabia - inside the Nigerian embassy.

Why no handover?

Under Section 145 of the constitution, the president should have written a letter, formally handing power to Vice-President Goodluck Jonathan. Section 145 says the letter should go to the leaders of both chambers of parliament. It was never sent. ''When you bypass laid-down rules to do something, you are experimenting with trouble,'' says Mr Ajayi, quietly.

High stakes

Convention dictates that power rotates between north and south every two terms in office in Nigeria. Vice-President Jonathan is a southerner - and few from the north like the idea of him shortening their "turn" in office. “ For goodness sake, don't let us take a wrong turning ” Festus Ajavi They fear once in the presidential villa, he might find life too comfortable. But the failure to hand over to the vice-president has created a power vacuum.

There have been repeated calls from individuals and the political opposition for the president to stand aside on health grounds. Outwardly, officials from the ruling People's Democratic Party are stamping on the very suggestion. But inside and outside the country, the post-Yar'Adua era is being designed.

One version of the future has Vice-President Jonathan, stepping into the top job temporarily, until elections in 2011. Meanwhile, a new deputy would be appointed. At the polls, Mr Jonathan would step aside, and his deputy would run for the top job. The strength of the PDP makes that candidate likely to win. At least four names whispered in Abuja are considered front-runners. Nigeria's vast oil reserves mean the stakes are high, and the prize enormous.

Retired military leaders and elder statesmen - including former heads of state Olusegun Obasanjo and Ibrahim Babangida - are taking a keen interest, positioning their favoured candidates. Nigerians remember the brutality of military rule, and no-one wants it back. ''For goodness' sake, don't let us take a wrong turning,'' says Mr Ajayi. ''The constitution we had at independence... all of a sudden, it was kicked aside. Kicked aside, and we had a military regime. Because politics was messed up.'' ''I sincerely hope that will not happen again.''

By Caroline Duffield

BBC News Lagos.

South Africa HIV-row minister Tshabalala-Msimang dies

2009-12-17T12:49:00.004+04:00

South African ex-Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, criticised for questioning whether HIV causes Aids, has died aged 69 from liver disease.

Her critics dubbed her "Dr Beetroot" for her advocacy of healthy eating rather than drugs to fight HIV. As health minister between 1999 and 2008 she maintained that anti-retroviral drugs were too expensive and had possible harmful side-effects. She was removed from the post when ex-President Thabo Mbeki stepped down. But a study last year claimed that more than 300,000 people had died prematurely because of the delay in rolling out the drugs to people with HIV between 2000 and 2005. Some 5.2m South Africans have HIV - the highest number of people living with the virus in one country in the world.

Potato remedy

The BBC's Karen Allen in Johannesburg says Dr Tshabalala-Msimang remained popular among many South Africans for her liberation credentials. She was a member of the African National Congress during its days of struggle in exile against the apartheid government. Dr Tshabalala-Msimang recommended olive oil, lemon, beetroot and the African potato as elements of a healthy diet that could treat the symptoms associated with Aids. Her doctor told the South African Press Association that she had died from complications related to her liver transplant in 2007.

Earlier this month, current President Jacob Zuma announced an overhaul of the government's HIV policy. He said drugs would be available more widely to children and pregnant women instead of just those whose immunity levels have been significantly reduced by HIV, as has recently been the case.

Sierra Leone woman barred from becoming chief

2009-12-15T17:59:00.003+04:00

Members of a Sierra Leone traditional group have besieged a woman's house and stopped her from going home after she launched a legal bid to become a chief.

Elizabeth Simbiwa Sogbo-Tortu was barred from an election to the chiefdom because she was a woman. She lost an initial appeal against the ban - a ruling condemned by women's rights groups who are vowing to take her case to the Supreme Court. A BBC correspondent says politicians are afraid of angering traditionalists. The BBC's Umaru Fofana in Freetown says the politicians also do not want to antagonise women - making them afraid of the whole issue. Women are barred from becoming chiefs in the Northern Province and most of the east but they are allowed in southern Sierra Leone.

'Unlawful and wrong'

Ms Sogbo-Tortu was protected by armed police, UN officials and women's rights campaigners when she tried to return to her home in the eastern Kono district on Monday. But our reporter says the convoy had to turn around after they learnt that her house had been besieged and her supporters targeted.

Members of the Poro secret society then threw stones at the convoy in the town of Sewase 40km (25 miles) from the district capital Koidu despite the presence of the security forces. Ms Sogbo-Tortu is from a family of chiefs and after her disqualification, her nephew was chosen to be the new chief of Niminyama. "Ten of us were in the race including my nephews, and I was the only one denied the right to stand, despite being the eldest and coming from a ruling house," Ms Sogbo-Tortu told the BBC. "I want the courts to rule that it is my right as a woman to become paramount chief in my home district. And this is not just about me. It is about all women all over the country." She has now returned to the capital, Freetown.

Yasmine Jusu-Sheriff, vice-chair of the Human Rights Commission told the BBC that she would take the case to the Supreme Court. "We think [the disqualification] is illegal and unlawful and wrong."

Our reporter says that the position of paramount chief remains extremely powerful in Sierra Leone. He says they command huge respect and are able to mobilise large numbers of votes during elections. The chiefs are elected by local councillors.

Tackling Africa's deadly sleeping sickness

2009-12-15T17:06:00.004+04:00

By Nik Wood

BBc News, Bugala

It has been a long trek for Nassebawanga Fausta, and her 14-month-old baby girl, Nakirangwa, from the island of Bugala on Lake Victoria, where they live, to a sleeping sickness centre on the mainland Uganda.

"My child fell sick two weeks ago so I took her first to the local clinic but they were unable to diagnose her problem," said Mrs Nassebawanga. "Then I was sent to a district hospital far away from home and I had to pay for treatment for 10 days before they identified sleeping sickness as the cause of her problem." Despite a 10-hour boat trip and an uncomfortable bus ride to the hospital in Kampala, the pair now face another marathon journey - to Uganda's main sleeping sickness treatment centre at Namungalwe where, it is hoped, the child can successfully be treated for the disease. Trypanosomiasis, or sleeping sickness, has similar symptoms to malaria, making it difficult to diagnose. Untreated it moves to the spinal column and brain resulting in mental confusion and eventual death.

Chemical treatment

Several hundred kilometres to the north, in the village of Aburawak, young vet Patrick Opondo is overseeing a cattle spraying programme. Scores of local farmers have brought their animals to be treated for ticks and tsetse flies. It is a chaotic scene as noisy beasts are funnelled into a narrow passageway of fences known as a "crush", while their lower quarters are sprayed with chemicals to kill the flies.

The project is part of a new animal health programme that is helping to eradicate the deadly strain of sleeping sickness which is threatening the life of young Nakirangwa. Research carried out at Makerere University in Kampala and the University of Edinburgh, Britain, has identified cattle as the main source of the parasite that causes trypansomiasis. Tsetse flies feed on the cattle's blood and then bite humans, infecting them with the parasite.

The research has now proved a clear link between the movement of cattle in Uganda and the spread of the acute form of the disease.

Mr Opondo is one of a new breed of vets who are setting up in private businesses. They sell the chemicals for the spraying and spread the word among farmers that - by getting rid of the tsetse flies and ticks - they will protect the animals and their own families from infection.Cattle are also being "block"-treated with drugs to prevent the spread of the parasite.

'Ivory tower'

"When my cattle are sprayed they grow fat and very healthy, and when the animal is healthy the value is also healthy," says farmer Rose Amuge who lives in Aburawak. "After the spraying, the flies that cause the disease sometimes die or go out of the area of the villages, so that helps the people because they do not become infected and, actually, people are no longer attacked by them."

Mr Opondo trained at Makerere University but, like many young vets in Uganda, found it hard to get employment. "Setting up in private business is good for me because I am dealing in cash and not waiting for a salary," he said. "At first farmers were reluctant to take part but now they can see the benefits, the business is growing and we are also helping to fight a terrible disease."

The curriculum at his old university has now been changed to include this new, community-based approach to animal treatment, in the curriculum."We are transforming the curriculum for student vets from being an 'ivory tower' curriculum - where you turn out students to the street to look for jobs - to students who can now go to communities and solve problems so they are being trained directly to deal with the challenges," said Professor John David Kabasa, dean of the university's vet school.

Funds from the UK's Department for International Development are now to be used to expand the programme in Uganda. And the possibility of introducing similar networks of private, community-based vets throughout the areas of Africa affected by sleeping sickness is being considered. Meanwhile, for Mrs Nassebawanga and her daughter, the journey to seek help is finally at an end. Treatment for sleeping sickness is free in Uganda and they have reached Namungalwe Hospital, where the girl is responding to the drugs she has been given.

Ecowas mulls Guinea intervention force

2009-12-14T14:15:00.003+04:00

West African bloc Ecowas has proposed sending an "intervention force" to Guinea, whose military leader was shot and wounded earlier this month.

Ecowas official Abdel Fatau Musah told the BBC he wanted to ensure Guinea's problems did not affect its neighbours. But junta spokesman Col Moussa Keita called the idea an "assault on the authority of the state". Junta leader Capt Moussa Dadis Camara is still in hospital after the botched assassination attempt on 3 December.

Arrests and shootings

Mr Musah told the BBC's Network Africa programme that Ecowas and its partners "will not stand by while the situation in Guinea continues to deteriorate and threatens the very stability of neighbouring countries". "If the situation persists, Ecowas will have no alternative to send an intervention force," he said. But he said the force would not be purely military - rather it would include civilian observers and military officials. Col Keita dismissed the proposal, saying: "The sending of any foreign force onto Guinean soil without the government's prior authorisation will be considered as an assault on the authority of the state and on the integrity of the nation."

Last week the military launched a crackdown on anyone they believed could be linked with the plot to kill Capt Camara.The authorities say more than 100 soldiers have been arrested since the shooting. Reports from the capital, Conakry, said soldiers swept through the city rounding up civilians. Eyewitnesses told journalists of people being shot in the streets as they fled from patrols.

Guinea has been in turmoil since the military took over last December just hours after the death of long-time ruler Lansana Conte. Capt Camara initially promised to guide the country back to civilian rule, but soon dropped hints that he would stand for president himself. That led to a large protest in a Conakry sports stadium - which was brutally suppressed by the military with widespread reports of mass killings and rapes carried out by soldiers.

The crackdown was condemned by France, as well as the EU, US, the African Union and Ecowas.

CAMARA'S RULE

23, 24 December 2008 Strongman President Lansana Conte dies, Capt Camara takes over, promises 2010 election

15 August 2009 Says he may stand for president

28 September Soldiers kill protesters in Conakry, reports of atrocities and rapes

October US, EU, African Union and Ecowas impose sanctions on junta

3 December Capt Camara shot in the head in apparent assassination attempt

4 December Flown to Morocco for surgery

Tanzania anger at 'diplomatic spat' with Canada

2009-12-14T14:09:00.001+04:00

The Tanzanian Foreign Ministry has summoned the Canadian High Commissioner after a Canadian diplomat allegedly spat at a policeman and a journalist.

A Tanzanian ministry spokesman condemned the incident, saying that his country is considering whether to expel the diplomat concerned. Reporters say the diplomat, angered by a traffic jam, wound down his window and spat at the policeman on duty. The Canadian High Commission in Dar es Salaam said it was investigating. Tanzania's foreign ministry says the incident was a humiliation not just for the police officer and journalist concerned, but for the entire country. The alleged incident occurred in the Banana district on the outskirts of Dar es Salaam. The journalist was allegedly spat at after he went to the police station where the diplomat was taken after being arrested. The diplomat was freed because he had diplomatic immunity.

Nigerian police 'kill at will'

2009-12-14T12:30:00.000+04:00

9 December 2009

Amnesty International exposed the shocking level of unlawful police killings in Nigeria in a new report released on Wednesday.

“The Nigerian police are responsible for hundreds of unlawful killings every year,” said Erwin van der Borght, Director of Amnesty International’s Africa Programme.“Police don’t only kill people by shooting them; they also torture them to death, often while they are in detention. “The majority of the cases go un-investigated and the police officers responsible go unpunished. The families of the victims usually get no justice or redress. Most never even find out what happened to their loved ones.”

Police frequently claim that the victims of shootings were ‘armed robbers’ killed in ‘shoot-outs’ with the police or while trying to escape custody. These claims are often highly implausible.Fifteen-year-old Emmanuel Egbo was killed by a police officer in Enugu in September 2008. According to witnesses, he was playing with other children in front of his uncle’s house when three police officers came up to them. One officer pulled out a gun and shot the boy, claiming he was an armed robber. He was unarmed. In August 2009, his family discovered his body had disappeared from the mortuary. As of November 2009, the body is still missing.

Amnesty International said that some police officers see the killings of ‘armed robbers’ in detention as acceptable practice. In June 2009, the organization visited the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) detention centre in Abuja, which is located in a disused abattoir outside the city. Suspects are held in a vast warehouse previously used for slaughtering cattle. Chains are still hanging from the ceiling. When Amnesty International delegates visited the building, about 15 people were held in cells. Amnesty International delegates counted at least 30 empty bullet cases scattered on the ground. Unofficially, a policeman told Amnesty International that many “armed robbers” are taken there and shot.

Amnesty International said that one of the main problems is ‘Nigeria Police Force Order 237’ under which police officers are allowed to shoot suspects and detainees who attempt to escape or avoid arrest – whether or not they pose a threat to life. “Force Order 237 is so impermissibly broad. It simply gives police officers permission to shoot people. It is against international standards, and is being abused by police officers to commit, justify and cover up illegal killings,” said Erwin van der Borght. “The government must repeal Force Order 237 and publicly announce that the use of lethal force is only allowed when strictly unavoidable to protect life. This simple step could make a big difference to the number of unlawful police killings we are seeing in Nigeria.”

Enforced disappearances in Nigeria are rife. Typically, in the first days or weeks following arrest, families are allowed to visit their relatives in detention. Later on, police tell them their loved ones have been “transferred to Abuja”. Other times, they simply deny any knowledge of their whereabouts. The Nigerian government says that they do not condone extrajudicial killings. But they are not doing enough to stop them and bring the police perpetrators to justice. Even on the rare occasions when police officers implicated in an unlawful killing are prosecuted, they are often released on bail or escape custody. Some are simply transferred to other states. “Ending unlawful killings and enforced disappearances by the police will require serious legal reform and commitment and support from the Nigerian police force,” said Erwin van der Borght. “The Nigerian Police Force must introduce a new code of conduct throughout its chain of command – from the very top to the bottom. If not, the cycle of violence will simply continue.”

Culled from amnesty.org

Submitted by Kemi Bello

Bernard Kouchner accused over Guinea Camara shooting

2009-12-10T18:27:00.004+04:00

France's Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner was involved in a plot to kill the leader of Guinea's ruling junta, the country's military rulers say.

Junta spokesman Idrissa Cherif told the BBC that Mr Kouchner had "activated some networks" in order to "change the situation" in the West African country. France's government said the claims were "completely groundless". Junta leader Capt Moussa Dadis Camara is said to be recovering after being shot in the head last week. He was flown out to Morocco for treatment and the soldier suspected of the shooting, Lt Toumba Diakite, is still on the run in Guinea.

'No polemics'

Mr Cherif told the BBC's World Today programme he did not believe the shooting was official French government policy. "I wouldn't say that I am accusing France entirely. I said that certain services were used to make this attempt on Mr Camara's life, and the regime ruling the country," he said. "In the event, it's Mr Bernard Kouchner. Mr Kouchner activated some networks in order to change the situation here." French Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Christine Farges rejected the allegations. "We don't want to enter into any polemics with anyone in Guinea," she said.

"The international community... [is] waiting for Guinea to enter into a transition that is democratic and peaceful, and that will lead to free and fair elections as quickly as possible." Tensions between France, the former colonial power, and Guinea have been rising in recent days, culminating on Wednesday with France making an official complaint to the junta. Security staff stopped the French ambassador near Conakry airport and demanded to search his car - which the French said was a deliberate attempt to violate the Vienna Convention on diplomatic relations.

City crackdown

Meanwhile in Guinea, Capt Camara's deputies have moved to squash rumours of a power vacuum and confusion over who is in charge. Interim leader Gen Sekouba Konate appeared on television for the first time since last Thursday's shooting to urge unity. BBC West Africa correspondent Caspar Leighton says there are increasing signs that Capt Camara will not be returning to head the government in the near future. He says one of the junta's leaders, while vouching for the loyalty of Gen Konate, suggested the general would lead this interim period - even if it were to last some years.

Elections had been due in January 2010.

Earlier this week the military launched a crackdown on anyone they believed could be linked with Lt Diakite or the plot to kill Capt Camara. The authorities say more than 100 soldiers have been arrested since the shooting. Reports from the capital, Conakry, say soldiers have also been sweeping through the city rounding up civilians. Eyewitnesses have told journalists of people being shot in the streets as they fled from patrols. Guinea has been in turmoil since the military took over last December just hours after the death of long-time ruler Lansana Conte.

Capt Camara initially promised to guide the country back to civilian rule, but soon dropped hints that he would stand for president himself. That led to a large protest in a Conakry sports stadium - which was brutally suppressed by the military with widespread reports of mass killings and rapes carried out by soldiers. The crackdown has been condemned by France, as well as the EU, US and the African Union.

Sexual abuse prompts Senegalese legal reforms

2009-12-10T18:20:00.005+04:00

Growing numbers of girls in Senegal are being raped, with abuse often happening while they are at school.

"I wanted to be a lawyer, that was my dream," says a young Senegalese girl, smiling. But her facial expression suddenly changes: "I couldn't carry on studying because of what they did to me." Another young rape victim interjects: "People ask how I managed to get pregnant so young. I want some medicine to get rid of this pregnancy." Their perpetrators face trial, but these young girls' lives have been shattered. Statistics show a dramatic increase in the incidence of sexual abuse in the predominantly Muslim country, says Adama Sow, of the Group for Research and Action against Child Rape (Grave).

In 2007 there were 450 reported rapes. By 2008 the figure had shot up to 600. Rape, he says, has another hidden tragic side. He says that seven victims have now contracted Aids. "The youngest is six."

Prosecute parents

Most cases of sexual abuse in Senegal take place within the family, and the rest are happening in educational establishments like French or Koranic schools. Faced with a tendency for some Senegalese families to try to keep quiet about the abuse, the government is now trying to ensure that those responsible face justice. "You cannot educate children properly by allowing some to be raped," explains Judge Demba Kandji, director of Criminal Affairs and Pardons in the Justice Ministry. "The state has to get involved."

The ministry wants to allow state approved associations to bring suits as civil plaintiffs. "This will enable associations campaigning for the protection of the rights of women and children to press on with the process, even if the fathers and mothers of children who have been raped do not file a suit," says Judge Kandji. And that is not the only proposed reform. "In a family when a rape is known to have gone unreported, the fathers and mothers who knew but did not bring it to the attention of the relevant authority will be punished very severely, because the sentence can be up to two years imprisonment," he says. According to the judge, Justice Minister Moustapha Sourang also wants tougher rape sentences. "He has proposed a minimum of 15 years," he says.

Rape in school

According to psychologist Serigne Mor Mbaye, rape has always existed in society, but what is shocking is the increasing incidence of it and especially in schools. Fatoumata Sy, president of the Committee Against Violence Against Women, agrees. "Outside the family, it's at school that the greatest amount of sexual abuse against children has been recorded." Mr Sow remembers a case which shocked people in Senegal. "One of the girl victims was watching a television series," he recalls. "During the programme there was an erotic scene. The victim turned to her sister and said: 'That's what the Koranic school teacher does to us.'" "Starting out with that girl, it was discovered that 25 girls had been abused," Mr Sow says.

Ms Sy points out that "frequently it's people who are supposed to be educating children who are the prime rapists". "Given the growth of Koranic schools, we are seeing more teachers of the Koran who are to blame," she says. According to Mr Sow, school sometimes becomes a trap. "Often the Koranic school teachers live near to where the classes are held, so the teacher's bedroom is always close at hand." "Any girl who fails to master the lesson of the day is sent to the room. When the class is over, after the others have left, the teacher abuses her."

Cultural complicity

To make things worse "the victim often stays silent, and if it's an underage victim then the parents often don't talk - to protect the child," says Ms Sy, who has noticed another disturbing trend."If a rape is committed inside the family, then the tendency is to say that marriage is the answer, without taking into account the repercussions." "It is an extension of the rape," she says.

Dr Mbaye says this is a dangerous development. "The system validates the sexual abuse, by euphemistically calling it 'teenage pregnancy'."

Victim Support

Civil society, the judiciary, doctors and women's groups have now joined forces to stop the abuse. New criminal provisions are a step in the right direction, say experts. So too is a greater awareness of the need to protect those who have been raped. The young girl who had aspirations of becoming a lawyer says: "The people who raped me ruined my life. I'll never be a lawyer." But Judge Kandji hopes it is not too late to help. "A fund is being set up to support victims of sexual violence during the trial by taking care of their legal counsel. There will also be therapy sessions," he says. It is hoped that measures like these will help victims to rebuild their lives in the hope that even the girl who wanted to be a lawyer might one day fulfil her dream.

By Mame Less Camara
BBC, Dakar

S.African actors 'want Hudson out of Mandela film'

2009-12-07T23:28:00.001+04:00

JOHANNESBURG (AFP) – South African actors want to stop Oscar-winner Jennifer Hudson from playing Winnie Madikizela-Mandela in anew film on the ex-wife of the nation's first black president, reports said Monday.

The Creative Workers Union of South Africa said using foreign actors to tell the country's stories undermined efforts to develop the national film industry. "It can't happen that we want to develop our own Hollywood and yet bring in imports," the union's president Mabutho Sithole said in The Citizen newspaper . "This decision must be reversed, it must be stopped now," unionsecretary general Oupa Lebogo said in The Times. "If the matter doesn't come up for discussion, we will push for a moratorium to be placed on the film."

Hudson, who scooped a best supporting actress Oscar in 2007 for the musical "Dreamgirls", landed the role of Madikizela-Mandela last month.The film will be directed by South African film-maker Darrell J. Roodt, whose films include "Cry, The Beloved Country" and "Sarafina."The criticism comes just days before the opening of the Clint Eastwood film "Invictus", a drama about Nelson Mandela and South Africa's 1995 rugby World Cup victory which united the nation.Morgan Freeman plays the president and Matt Damon is the rugby team captain.

Madikizela-Mandela campaigned tirelessly for her husband's release during his 27-year imprisonment in the apartheid era. However, her image was tarnished by a series of scandals including her links to the kidnap and murder of a young activist and a 2003 conviction for fraud.She separated from Nelson Mandela in 1992, two years after his release.

Dadis Camara shot and wounded!

2009-12-04T12:10:00.004+04:00

Guinea's junta chief was shot and wounded in a murder bid by an aide on Thursday, officials said, amid uncertainty over his condition and high tension after a recent massacre of opposition supporters. One government official said on state radio that Captain Moussa Dadis Camara had been "lightly injured" in the incident, while another announced that the aide had been arrested.

Camara's spokesman said the junta leader was "doing well," but a Senegalese official said his country had sent a medical plane to evacuate Camara to Dakar. "Senegal has sent a medical plane to Conakry to bring Dadis to Dakar," the official said on condition of anonymity. [Why? Why, Abdoulaye Wade? Why try to save a murderer who has brought chaos to his own country? Birds of a feather or lapse in judgement?].

Witnesses had earlier reported hearing gunfire in the capital of the West African country and seeing soldiers deploying in the streets. The incident occurred with tensions having mounted in Guinea following a massacre of opposition supporters at a stadium rally in September. Idrissa Cherif, the spokesman for Camara, did not give further details on his condition, but warned the aide responsible would face a heavy penalty. "His ex-aide de camp, Toumba Diakite, made an attempt on the life of the head of state, but thanks to God, the president is doing well," Cherif told AFP by phone.

The murder attempt occurred at Camp Koundara in Conakry's administrative centre, he said. Witnesses had earlier reported hearing the sounds of gunfire coming from the camp. Diakite "has been located, meaning arrested," Cherif said. "When you attack a head of state, you attack state security," he said. "Those who wanted to make an attempt on the life of President Dadis will face a punishment in accordance with the gravity of the act that they wanted to carry out." [And what happens if you kill hundreds of people and publicly rape many women? Will the punishment carry the same gravity as the act?].

Asked what the motive was for the murder attempt, Cherif made reference to the stadium massacre. "The president called for transparency with the international commission of inquiry to find out what happened at the stadium," he said. "I am not saying that it is for that reason ... but know that the president has always wanted complete transparency". [Yeah right]. The aide, who had previously been in charge of personal security for the junta chief, has been accused by witnesses of being one of the leaders of the massacre. Asked about dissension within the military, Cherif said "the head of state is today with all the armed forces chiefs of staff. That has nothing to do with a small number of individuals who wanted to make an attempt on (his) life."

Soldiers had been deployed into the streets of Guinea's capital and helicopters patrolled overhead after gunshots were heard in the city, witnesses said. "The town is plunged in darkness, filled with soldiers. Everything is closed, the service stations, the shops, everything," one resident told AFP.

One soldier who is a member of a guard close to the aide said the shooting occurred after Camara told him he wanted to denounce him as the ringleader of the stadium massacre.

But a high-ranking police official, speaking on condition of anonymity, provided a different explanation, saying the government had recently moved to arrest suspects close to the aide as part of anti-drug operations.

Culled from France 24 website, personal opinions in red.

COMMIT ACT DEMAND: Freedom of choice for women

2009-12-03T17:41:00.000+04:00

Introduction-MOREMI INITIATIVE

About Moremi

Founded in 2003, The Moremi Initiative for Women's Leadership in Africa strives to engage, inspire and equip young women and girls to become the next generation of leading politicians, activists, social entrepreneurs and change agents: Leaders who can transform and change institutions that legitimize and perpetuate discrimination against women. We firmly believe that the full and active participation of women in leadership is a pre-requisite for positive change and development in Africa, and addresses leadership imbalances. Moremi Initiative is headquartered in Ghana with offices in Nigeria and the United States- and works throughout Africa.

About MILEAD Fellows

I was honored to be nominated among 25 outstanding young African women leaders. As 2009/2010 MILEAD Fellows. The MILEAD Fellows represent some of Africa’s most extra-ordinary young women leaders with the courage and commitment to lead/effect change in their communities. The Fellows, selected from a pool of more than 500 applicants represent 21 African countries and the Diaspora and include emerging young women leaders engaged in actively leading change on critical issues that range from women’s health and HIV/AIDS, economic justice, community development to political participation and environmental justice. They are between 19 to 25 years but have already demonstrated their commitment to serve and lead society at large. Together, they form a unique community which can dramatically affect the lives of future generations.

About 16 Day of Activism Against gender Violence 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence which is an international campaign originating from the first Women’s Global Leadership Institute sponsored by the Center for Women’s Global Leadership (CWGL) at Rutgers University in 1991. Participants chose the dates, November 25, International Day against Violence against Women, and December 10, International Human Rights Day, in order to symbolically link violence against women and human rights and to emphasize that such violence is a human rights violation. This 16-day period also highlights other significant dates including November 29, International Women Human Rights Defenders Day, December 1, World AIDS Day, and December 6, which marks the Anniversary of the Montreal Massacre.

The 16 Days Campaign has been used as an organizing strategy by individuals and groups around the world to call for the elimination of all forms of violence against women by: raising awareness about gender-based violence as a human rights issue at the local, national, regional and international levels strengthening local work around violence against women establishing a clear link between local and international work to end violence against women providing a forum in which organizers can develop and share new and effective strategies demonstrating the solidarity of women around the world organizing against violence against women creating tools to pressure governments to implement promises made to eliminate violence against women .

The theme for this year’s campaign is: Commit ▪ Act ▪ Demand: We CAN End Violence against Women! Therefore, we all have a role to play; we all have a responsibility to end gender-based violence together as women, girls, men, boys, and individuals of all generations, religions, occupations, sexual orientations, abilities, political persuasions, and socio-economic backgrounds. In my capacity as the first and only Gambian to be awarded the MILEAD Fellowship 2009/2010 which enables us, the fellows to cross-examine concepts of leadership in a broad African context, cultivate the skills and experiences women need to occupy and excel in leadership positions and gain knowledge on cutting-edge issues critical to African women and their communities. We are each empowered and supported to create change in our community. Each fellow is leading change on a critical issue of importance to her community, and I am doing my part here in my community.

My project on early and forced marriage: In my fight against violence against women, I am looking at one of the major courses of domestic violence in my community which is early forced & arranged marriage which today results in profound physical, psychological and emotional consequences for affected girls and most often cut off educational opportunity and chances of personal growth for them. It further results in premature pregnancy and childbearing and potential lifetime of domestic and sexual subservience over which these girls has no control. These phenomena is destroying the lives of too many girls and young women in our community and denying them opportunities and rights that they may never have back. It requires urgent and immediate action Therefore, my project is a small but an important step in this direction- to mobilize and sensitize parents, girls and the community on the negative implications of this practice, promote community dialogue and action on the issue.

2009 marks the 10th anniversary of the United Nations’ formal recognition of November 25th as International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. There are many other landmark dates and documents that are the direct result of ACTION that women’s rights activists and defenders have taken. The anti-violence against women movement provides one of the best illustrations of how local activism can translate into global action. Individuals, organizations, governments, etc. should take action on the commitments they have made to ending Violence against women. Each commitment – be it a personal pledge to speak out, a local or national law, an international convention or resolution, the Beijing Platform for Action – should be seen as a promise that has been made to women. NOW is the time to act on these promises. Every action, no matter how big or small, can make a difference!

At the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995; women’s organizations from around the world met with government representatives and collaboratively produced the Beijing Platform for Action – one of the most forward-thinking government negotiated documents on women’s rights to date. This ground-breaking document set forth a list of actions, which, if implemented, would significantly reduce incidences of violence against women. 2010 marks the 15th anniversary of the Beijing Conference on Women. Therefore, we must all demand implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action, as well as other key documents, and demand state accountability for ending impunity, allocating adequate resources, and implementing good laws and national action plans to address Violence against Women. We also call on the UN to take bolder action on the UN Secretary-General’s “Unite to End Violence against Women” Campaign.

What each and every one can do to end violence against women:

Don’t abuse your daughter, wife, mother, girlfriend or any female
Speak out against violence against women when you see one
Parents must desist from forcing their young and innocent daughters into marriages that they are not ready or prepared for
The media should help create awareness about this important issue.
Those who want to be part of my campaign or wish to support my campaign can contact me on +220 6206600 or send an email to fcmalang@hotmail.co.uk

Submitted by Fatou C Malang.

Nigeria President Umaru Yar'Adua urged to stand down

2009-12-03T13:09:00.002+04:00

More than 50 Nigerian public figures have called on President Umaru Yar'Adua to resign, saying ill health has impaired his judgement.

Several Nigerian newspapers carried a statement asking him to step down that was signed by senior political figures and democracy activists, among others. But ministers dismissed the statement, saying there was "no basis" for the president to leave office. Mr Yar'Adua is currently being treated in Saudi Arabia for a heart problem.

In a statement, Information Minister Dora Akunyili said the cabinet had met and had "unanimously resolved" that the president "has not been found incapable of discharging his functions". She said: "Council wishes to inform all Nigerians that all organs of government are functioning and that government will continue to deliver."

'Leadership vacuum'

BBC Africa analyst Mary Harper says the statement issued by the group of political figures is blunt and to the point. It says the president's illness "has created a dangerous situation whereby no-one is in charge of the affairs of state".

AFRICAN VIEWPOINT

“ No journalist worth the description should subscribe to the rumour mill and I try not to, but the Nigerian environment is different ” Nigerian journalist Sola Odunfa The statement talks about "a vacuum of leadership" whereby ministers are "engaged in infighting" and "routinely flout the orders of the president".

Many of the people who have signed the statement are prominent figures in Nigeria - including Aminu Bello Masari, a former speaker of the House of Representatives, and Ken Nnamani, a former Senate president. Our correspondent says their words reflect the general mood in the country, where there is real concern that the president's recurring health problems have rendered him frequently unable to do his job. She says the front pages of Nigeria's newspapers regularly print photographs of a man who is obviously in ill health - his face deeply lined and ashen.

Although he has missed several important events, officials had kept silent on what was wrong with Mr Yar'Adua. Last week they finally confirmed he was suffering from acute pericarditis - an inflammation of the lining of his heart. He is also known to have a kidney problem.

Nigeria President Umaru Yar'Adua 'has heart problem'

2009-12-03T12:58:00.002+04:00

Nigerian President Umaru Yar'Adua has a heart condition, his spokesman has said, after he flew to Saudi Arabia on Monday for medical treatment.

Mr Yar'Adua has acute pericarditis, or inflammation of the lining around the heart, his spokesman told the BBC. He said the president, 58, was responding well to treatment. Officials earlier denied rumours that the president was seriously ill. Mr Yar'Adua has had a chronic kidney condition for at least 10 years. He has been unable to perform a number of official duties because of recurring health problems President Yar'Adua has twice been flown to Germany for emergency treatment and it is the second time he has visited hospitals in Saudi Arabia. He has refused to say exactly what condition he suffers from, and has repeatedly said in interviews that his life is "in the hands of God".

BBC health reporter Michelle Roberts says most cases of pericarditis clear up with rest and medication within a few weeks, although patients will initially need to be treated in hospital to check for complications. Our reporter says occasionally pericarditis is triggered by cancer, which is something doctors need to check for. Rarely patients may need surgery if the pressure around the heart becomes too great, a complication that could potentially be fatal, she adds.

Presidential spokesman Olusegun Adeniyi said the president felt pains after performing Friday prayers last week. "At about 3pm Friday November 20, after he returned from the Abuja Central Mosque where he performed Muslim prayer, President Yar'Adua complained of a left-sided severe chest pain," he said, reports Reuters. Mr Adeniyi said the initial diagnosis was pericarditis, which has since been confirmed. Officials had earlier been quoted as saying the president intended to make the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca this week.

Analysts say his continued ill-health poses a problem for Nigeria's constitution. If he were to step down or die, he would be replaced by Vice-President Goodluck Jonathan, who is from the country's southern Niger Delta region. But according to the ruling People's Democratic Party's own formula for sharing power among the country's regions, the president must be a northerner.

UMARU YAR'ADUA

•Born in 1951 in the northern Muslim state of Katsina
•Self-confessed Marxist as an undergraduate
•Became a chemistry teacher after university
•Married twice, has nine children
•Governor of Katsina from 1999 to 2007
•During his governorship Katsina adopted Sharia law
•Nickname since becoming president in 2007 - "Baba-go-slow"
•High point of his presidency so far - the amnesty for oil militants
•Has suffered from a chronic kidney condition for at least 10 years

Zambia's celebrity couple reveal wife-beating past

2009-12-02T15:02:00.002+04:00

One of Zambia's most famous singers has revealed how she was badly beaten by her husband. She now hopes to lift the lid on the country's ingrained acceptance of domestic violence.

"My husband will kill me," giggles Saboi Imboela nervously. "But, yes, he once beat me up so badly I reported him to the police." The 32-year old is one of Zambia's top vocalists. Her husband is a popular actor, Owas Ray Mwape. This is the first time she has spoken publicly about the beating she received at his hands, and she wriggles uncomfortably at the memory. "It was the police who begged me not to take it further," she recalls, revealing some of the engrained attitudes she is now taking on. "They told me: 'We know how you women are. We'll lock him up and in a minute or two, you'll change your mind and want him released.'" Her doctor also dissuaded her from reporting the assault, as did some of her friends.

'Part of growing up'

Campaigners believe more than half of Zambian women have suffered domestic abuse but cases rarely come to light because of the stigma attached to speaking out. Young women are taught by their elders to accept punishment from their husbands when they are disobedient. Even cooking a bad meal warrants a smack. "That's how you grow up in Africa," explains Mr Mwape. "To be a man, you need to discipline a woman, give her a slap or two. You know, in our culture, it's OK because that's how we feel we love our women."

It is a message driven home at boys' initiation ceremonies - chastisement is a sign of affection and a woman never achieves the status of an adult. Like a child she needs to be "trained" to behave well. In some parts of the country tradition allows a man to beat his wife if he survives a crocodile attack. In others, a wife's infidelity is revealed when her newborn baby coughs. She must take the consequences. "Tradition is used as a cover for domestic violence," complains Johnson Tembo. As chairman of the Men's Network, he tries to persuade his peers to alter their behaviour. But he believes women's attitudes need to change too. "Some women are foolish enough to think that if they are not beaten by their husbands, they're not loved," he says.

Marital-rape clause

It is a problem recognised by the Zambian government's Gender in Development Division. Director Christine Kalamwina is forthright about the challenges she faces in tackling domestic abuse. "The majority of women enjoy a beating, because they are made to believe it is part of our tradition," she says. She believes the answer is to create awareness that violence against women is discrimination. "Then they can stand up and claim their rights," she says. Those rights are being discussed with the drafting of an anti-domestic violence bill.

As it stands, the law does not recognise attacks on women as a specific crime. Cases are treated as simple assault. But the bill, which is designed to change that, is already running into difficulties. A clause outlawing marital rape has been dropped because of cultural considerations. And Ms Kalamwina says it is proving hard to reach agreement on where to draw the line between courtship rituals and sexual harassment in a country where women are expected to play hard to get.

'Partner or doormat?'

But even if the law is tightened, would it make a difference? The risks of taking a stand against domestic violence are too great for many women. They are often blamed for provoking their husbands and ostracised for exposing them. Divorce may follow, with devastating consequences.
"Abused women tell us they don't want their relationships to break up because the husband is the bread-winner, and they won't be able to take care of their children," says Hope Kasese Kumalo, the acting national co-ordinator for Woman and Law in Southern Africa. "There's a lot of glorification of marriage in this country," she says. "Some women who are economically independent will not speak out against violence because they want to stay married at all costs. "If you are married you are respected; if you are not, people will think there is something wrong with you." A battered woman who runs to her parents is often sent back to her abusive husband.

Fortunately, not all cases end badly. At home in Lusaka, Ms Imboela and Mr Mwape snuggle up on the sofa together. "He's a good husband, we've sorted out our differences," smiles Ms Imboela. Mr Mwape counts himself lucky. "I was ready to go jail for what I did; I deserved it. I have stopped hitting my wife for the sake of our boys. I don't want them to become what I became," he says. "I'm pleased Saboi has spoken about this. That's the way to go." Is he worried about his reputation? "No, I don't have concerns that people will think less of me now, because in Zambia, 99.9% of men have committed that crime before," he says.

Ms Imboela is now working on a song about women's rights, called Yenze Nthawi Yakayena (That Was Then). "Men have always mistreated their wives. But times have changed, and men must too," she sings. She says she hopes abused women will hear her song and "stand up and say: 'This is wrong'. "And that men will look at their situation and say: 'I love my wife and I shouldn't treat her like this. She's my partner, not my doormat'," she says.

Europe's press says Swiss ban sends wrong signal

2009-12-02T13:18:00.001+04:00

European papers are dismayed by Switzerland's popular vote to ban the building of minarets. Some fear it will backfire, sending the wrong signal to the Muslim world and setting a precedent for other parts of Europe.

Several papers criticise the type of democracy practised in Switzerland, which allows ordinary people rather than elected representatives to decide on such matters. However, one popular Swiss tabloid defends the ban as a starting point for a debate on tolerance.

Thomas Kirchner in Germany's SUEDDEUTSCHE ZEITUNG
This referendum is a disaster for Switzerland. Such a ban on construction exists nowhere else in Europe. If those six words - 'the construction of minarets is forbidden' - are in the constitution in the future, they will violate... freedom of religion and the prohibition of discrimination. They also blatantly violate the European Convention of Human Rights.

Juergen Dunsch in Germany's FRANKFURTER ALLGEMEINE ZEITUNG
Ultra-democratic, cosmopolitan, tolerant: this is how the Swiss have always liked to see themselves. But, in voting to ban any further building of minarets, the country has now revealed other traits: traits that testify to bigotry, timorousness, and a wish to isolate themselves.

Mathieu von Rohr in Germany's SPEIGEL ONLINE
The ban will damage Switzerland's credibility as a mediator in the eyes of Muslim countries, whether it be as a diplomatic representative of the US in Iran or in the conflict between Armenia and Turkey. And finally it will cause massive damage to the relationship between the Swiss and the Muslims living in the country, promoting exactly that isolation from the rest of society which the initiative was supposedly intended to address.

Editorial in Denmark's POLITIKEN
The signal has been sent. There is now a European country which openly acknowledges that it does not tolerate the sight of the symbols of a major religion. The fact that the decision will benefit completely the wrong forces in both the Muslim minority in Europe and in the Muslim world is self-evident.

Editorial in Denmark's BERLINGSKE TIDENDE
The moment we resort to special bans on religious symbols - including the building of minarets - we have also lost our belief in our own cultural foundation... Self-respect is the first step on the path to mutual respect - religious bans, on the other hand, are the complete opposite: undemocratic, un-Christian and un-Danish.

Taha Akyol in Turkey's MILLIYET
This is a sign that when the masses become authoritarian, democracies too can easily become authoritarian.

Erdal Safak in Turkey's SABAH
Demands to build minarets have already been refused systematically. That's why only four of 200 [Swiss] mosques have minarets. Despite that, the two extreme rightist parties aimed to legalise the ban, which was actually being applied, by making it a matter of referendum. Their intention was to gather political credit through an enmity against Islam by exploiting the public fear. And they have succeeded.

Editorial in Spain's EL PAIS
The danger today is of allowing... legitimate public concern to be monopolised by populist or far-right parties. Their toxic language has little to do with integration and a lot to do with fear.

Michel Lepinay in France's PARIS-NORMANDIE
No-one today could guarantee that if asked the same question, the French would have rejected a planned ban on minarets. Who thinks the death penalty would have been abolished if the French had decided in a referendum? In our democracy, the people's elected representatives are there to take decisions on their behalf and to shoulder the unpopularity that may ensue.

Dominique Garraud in France's LA CHARENTE LIBRE
The lesson of the Swiss minarets vote is valid for all democracies: its absurdity shows the dangers of referendums known as 'popular initiatives', a blessing and a fearsome weapon for all extremists who know how to surf the irrational fears of public opinion.

Christoph Wehrli in Switzerland's NEUE ZUERCHER ZEITUNG
The minaret provided a symbol for the threatened state of our identity, and banning it sent a message about who is in charge. In that respect, the initiators managed to pull off a stroke of genius. 'If it makes no difference, it can do no harm,' many of those voting 'Yes' will have told themselves. However, some harm to the climate of coexistence and to Switzerland's already damaged reputation is inevitable.

Ralph Grosse-Bley in Switzerland's BLICK
Should we be ashamed of the 'Yes' vote for a ban on minarets? No, we are not ashamed! The 'Yes' vote was not a 'No' to freedom of religion, not a 'No' to making people feel welcome, and not a 'No' to people of Muslim faith. The decision is an exclamation mark that means: We have to talk! About the causes of the fear of Islamisation. About the fact that tolerance cannot be a one-way street.

Swiss referendum 'reflects unease with Islam'

2009-12-02T13:10:00.004+04:00

As a Swiss referendum backs a ban on the building of minarets, the BBC's Islamic affairs analyst Roger Hardy looks at the often uneasy relationship between Islam and Europe.

It might be argued that Switzerland is a special case without much relevance to the rest of Europe. It is true enough that the country has its own individual form of popular democracy - and that it is home to only 320,000 Muslims, between 4% and 5% of the population. But it is not just in Switzerland that the presence of growing Muslim communities has polarised opinion.

A series of controversies from the Rushdie affair 20 years ago to the more recent row over Danish cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad have reflected the unease that many Europeans feel about this relatively new Muslim presence. This is not confined to a few tabloid newspapers or a few xenophobic right-wing parties. It is an Islamophobia driven by a variety of factors. Since the attacks of 9/11 in the United States, and the bombings in Madrid and London, Muslims have often been regarded as a security threat.

They are seen as not just resistant to integration, but determined to impose their values on the Christian or post-Christian societies of the West. For governments anxious to maintain social harmony at home and good relations with Muslim governments abroad, this poses a set of difficult dilemmas. And for many of the estimated 15 million Muslims in Western Europe, the Swiss vote will be seen as one more sign that - whatever governments may say - they are simply not welcome.

Swiss voters back ban on minarets

2009-12-02T13:06:00.002+04:00

Swiss voters have supported a referendum proposal to ban the building of minarets, official results show.

More than 57% of voters and 22 out of 26 cantons - or provinces - voted in favour of the ban. The proposal had been put forward by the Swiss People's Party, (SVP), the largest party in parliament, which says minarets are a sign of Islamisation. The government opposed the ban, saying it would harm Switzerland's image, particularly in the Muslim world. But Martin Baltisser, the SVP's general secretary, told the BBC: "This was a vote against minarets as symbols of Islamic power."

The BBC's Imogen Foulkes, in Bern, says the surprise result is very bad news for the Swiss government which fears unrest among the Muslim community. Our correspondent says voters worried about rising immigration - and with it the rise of Islam - have ignored the government's advice. In a statement, the government said it accepted the decision. It said: "The Federal Council (government) respects this decision. Consequently the construction of new minarets in Switzerland is no longer permitted." Justice Minister Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf said: "Concerns [about Islamic fundamentalism] have to be taken seriously. "However, a ban on the construction of new minarets is not a feasible means of countering extremist tendencies." She sought to reassure Swiss Muslims, saying the decision was "not a rejection of the Muslim community, religion or culture".

Switzerland is home to some 400,000 Muslims and has just four minarets. After Christianity, Islam is the most widespread religion in Switzerland, but it remains relatively hidden. There are unofficial Muslim prayer rooms, and planning applications for new minarets are almost always refused. Supporters of a ban claimed that allowing minarets would represent the growth of an ideology and a legal system - Sharia law - which are incompatible with Swiss democracy. But others say the referendum campaign incited hatred. On Thursday the Geneva mosque was vandalised for the third time during the campaign, according to local media. Amnesty International said the vote violated freedom of religion and would probably be overturned by the Swiss supreme court or the European Court of Human Rights.

'Political symbol'

The president of Zurich's Association of Muslim Organisations, Tamir Hadjipolu, told the BBC: "This will cause major problems because during this campaign mosques were attacked, which we never experienced in 40 years in Switzerland. "Islamaphobia has increased intensively." And there was dismay among Switzerland's Muslims upon hearing the result. Farhad Afshar, president of the Coordination of Islamic Organisations in Switzerland, said: "The most painful thing for us is not the ban on minarets but the symbol sent by this vote. "Muslims do not feel accepted as a religious community." Elham Manea, co-founder of the Forum for a Progressive Islam, added: "My fear is that the younger generation will feel unwelcome. "It's a message that you are not welcome here as true citizens of this society." Sunday's referendum was held after the SVP collected 100,000 signatures from voters within 18 months calling for a vote.

In recent years countries across Europe have been debating how best to integrate Muslim populations. France focused on the headscarf, while in Germany there was controversy over plans to build one of Europe's largest mosques.

World AIDS Day: The AIDS message in pictures

2009-12-01T14:53:00.001+04:00

An audio slideshow of some of the most iconic, captivating, subtleand dramatic posters in the history of the anti-AIDS campaign all overthe world. Please click on the sample poster above, on the title of this post or on the link below:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8387159.stm

Spread the message today!

Sudanese woman in trouser case defies travel ban

2009-11-27T07:20:00.000+04:00

PARIS, Monday (Reuters) - A Sudanese woman who was punished for breaching decency laws by wearing trousers has defied a travel ban by coming to France to publicise her new book.

Lubna Hussein was arrested in July and convicted of indecency charges in a case that made headlines worldwide. She was ordered to pay a fine or face a month in jail, but was spared an initial penalty of 40 whip lashes."I was banned from leaving Sudan by air, by land or by sea and I succeeded in getting out ... so I am sure this book will surface in Sudan," she told Reuters in an interview. Her book, "Forty lashes for a pair of trousers", has come out in French and will be translated into English, Arabic, Swahili and other languages. It details Hussein's arrest in July with 12 other women for wearing "indecent" clothing, a pair of green slacks. It also describes her struggle to find a job as a female journalist and upbringing in Sudan before aspects of sharia law were incorporated into the penal code in 1983."This law and practice deform the image of Islam. No one has been able to find a text in the Koran which justifies flogging a woman for the way she is dressed," said Hussein, wearing mauve trousers and jacket. Thousands of women have been convicted of offences similar to Hussein's and sentenced to beatings in recent years under Sudan's Islamic decency regulations. Hussein's supporters say she is the first to defy such treatment.

Many activists complain Sudan's decency regulations are vague and give individual police officers undue latitude to determine what is acceptable clothing for women. Hussein, a former reporter who was working for the United Nations at the time of her arrest, said she resigned from her job to give up any legal immunity so she could continue with the case, prove her innocence and challenge the decency law. "Thousands of women have gone to prison and been taken to court for the way they are dressed ... and have had no way of defending themselves," Hussein said. The authorities changed her punishment from 40 lashes to a $200 fine, which Hussein refused to pay, preferring to go to jail instead as a means of challenging the law's legitimacy. She was freed in September after the country's journalists' union said it had paid the fine on her behalf.

Hussein said the group that paid her fine had close ties to the Sudanese government, which wanted to end the case quietly. She said she planned to pursue her campaign through the courts and would ultimately go to the African Court of Justice if necessary. "I have received a lot of threats. Some were outright death threats. But I have faith, and I believe that I will die the day that I am meant to die," she said

Submitted by Rahab Njeri

Scholarship for Women Deliver 2010 Conference

2009-11-26T17:21:00.000+04:00

Submitted by Yvonne Laruni.

Scholarships are available for participants to attend ‘women deliver 2010 conference’ in Washington D.C in June 2010. The conference will be on Peace and Collaborative Development Network. Building Bridges, Networks and Expertise Across Sectors.

For more information please contact Mr. Godfrey Mukalazi ,gmukalazi@hotmail.com

Please don't respond on the mailing list.

Peace and Collaborative Development Network

Building Bridges, Networks and Expertise Across Sectors

Craig Zelizer

Check out the discussion 'WOMEN DELIVER 2010 CONFERENCE SCHOLARSHIP APPLICATION, Washington, DC, June 2010'

Discussion posted by Craig Zelizer:

WOMEN DELIVER 2010 CONFERENCE SCHOLARSHIP APPLICATION APPLICATION DEADLINE: December 15, 2009 Women Deliver 2010, a global conference to...

Discussion link:

WOMEN DELIVER 2010 CONFERENCE SCHOLARSHIP APPLICATION, Washington, DC, June 2010

Rising sea levels: A tale of two cities

2009-11-26T17:13:00.004+04:00

When Ana Tembe looks out to sea from her tiny straw shack, she knows she is living on borrowed time.

She is almost surrounded by water, and at least once a year it seeps through the cracks into her home. Year by year the problem is getting worse, and Ana is worried. "I want my children to be safe," she said. "We really need to relocate somewhere else, but we've got no money and no choice." Mozambique's government is trying to help people like Ana Tembe, who are not only in abject poverty, but are also at risk from floods, rising sea levels and coastal cyclones - all of which are caused or exacerbated by climate change.

Numerous studies have been commissioned, carefully detailing the problems the country faces, and suggesting ways to combat these problems or adapt to the new reality. Mozambique is widely cited as one of the countries most affected by climate change - and one of the key concerns is rising sea levels. The country has one of the longest coastlines in Africa, stretching 2,700 km (1,650 miles). About 13 million people live in coastal areas, and even more live in river deltas. "Mozambican people are already suffering," said Environment Minister Alcinda Abreu. Climate change will affect "their living conditions and also their dignity", she added.

Making a start

Compared with other poor countries, Mozambique is often lauded as a nation that has engaged with the issue of climate change and is trying to do something about it. But while a lot of work has been done on paper, far less has been done on the ground. Of the few projects already under way, one of the most obvious is a large embankment just north of the capital, Maputo, which the government has constructed in order to protect a main road.

Further down the coast, the oldest and most established slum area, Mafalala, has been equipped with a large drainage channel, preventing annual flooding and the knock-on effects of disease and destitution. "We know how serious climate change is, and we're trying to do our best to find solutions," said Councillor Mario Macaringue, one of the main instigators of these projects. But he admits these interventions are just scratching the surface of the problem. "We're trying lots of different things because we weren't prepared for so many changes in such a short space of time," he said.

Realistic possibilities

Some of these solutions have proved far too expensive to sustain. As I walked up the coastal road, for example, I found that the new embankment quickly petered out. "It's made of concrete, and we were paying about $1,000 per metre," Mr Macaringue said. "We need to find a cheaper alternative." If keeping people's homes safe from the rising waters is not an option, another possibility is to move them to higher ground.

The government has already started relocating people - mainly as a result of the exceptionally large floods in 2000. But to move a family like Ana Tembe's, the government needs to provide more than just a house, the people need a livelihood as well.

Given that most people fish or farm for a living - and the best place to do that is by a river or the sea - it is hard to find a suitable area which is any less vulnerable as the area they have just left. If people cannot make a living, they become dependent on aid or move back again, leaving their new homes empty - as has already happened in some areas of Mozambique. "Relocating people is difficult, and generally very expensive," said Matthias Spaviolo from UN Habitat, the United Nations agency for human settlements.

Impossible task?

All this is a big challenge for a country still recovering from a civil war, the devastating floods of 2000, as well as a series of cyclones and droughts. Professor Antonio Queface, one of the authors of a national report on the impact of climate change, says there are some things Mozambique can do alone. "One of the key things we can do is monitor land use. We can avoid building more dwellings in areas at risk," he said. "The other thing is education, so people know what risks they run." But he added that other solutions would simply not work without substantial investment in infrastructure - something the West would need to help with.

Ms Abreu agrees. "What we need is more resources - in terms of financial resources, the transference of technologies and building a national capacity to deal with the issues provoked by climate change," she said. Mozambique is going to the Copenhagen climate summit next month to lobby for these things - as part of a united African delegation determined to win compensation for the damage caused by global warming. "Developed countries have responsibilities," said Ms Abreu, "and we expect these countries to assume such responsibilities in Copenhagen." Her opinion is echoed on the streets of Maputo. "The world is like a family," said Atanasio Muchanga, who lives near the sea just north of the capital, and has noticed the changing water levels. "In our culture, those who can do more in a family should contribute more than the others - so it's obvious that other countries should do more to help us."

For people like Ana Tembe, that help cannot come soon enough.

Liberia sued by 'vulture funds' over 1978 deb

2009-11-26T17:09:00.003+04:00

Two Caribbean-registered investment funds have launched a legal case in London against Liberia over a debt that dates back to 1978.

The firms, described as "vulture funds" by critics, are suing for more than $20m (£12m) - some 5% of the Liberian government's total budget this year. Liberia says it has no money to pay the debt back and has accused the firms of profiting from poverty. The country is recovering from a 14-year civil war which ended in 2003.

The details of the case are still unclear, but it is thought that Liberia borrowed $6.5m from the US-based Chemical Bank in 1978 and that debt may have been resold a number of times. The two funds are requesting that London's High Court grant a summary judgement in the case - making Liberia liable for the debt without the need for a full hearing.

'Tooth and nail' fight

In 2002 a New York court ruled that Liberia owed $18m - the current case is an attempt to collect that sum plus interest. At the time of the New York case Liberia was wracked by civil war and did not offer a defence. Liberian Finance Minister Augustine Kpehe Ngafuan told the BBC's Network Africa programme the country could not afford to repay the debt. "We're asking everybody, we are asking even the court not to grant them summary judgement. Let them go through the normal procedure," he said. "Our lawyers are going to work tooth and nail to battle this." He said he hoped that the international community would take action to make sure that "these people that survive on poverty do not thrive". UK activists are lobbying the government to change the law so such cases cannot be heard in UK courts. Nick Dearden, of Jubilee Debt Campaign, said: "This case is absolute proof that you can't tackle vultures by voluntary means."Currently these companies don't have to tell us anything about themselves because they're registered in tax havens - they can just turn up in London and sue one of the poorest countries in the world." Very little is known about the funds - Hamsah Investments and Wall Capital.

Hamsah was awarded more than $11m in a similar action against another poor country, Nicaragua. The BBC's economics correspondent Andrew Walker says vulture funds are controversial - especially when they target nations already receiving debt relief on what they owe to rich countries. Sometimes that debt relief is what frees the resources to pay creditors who take legal action, our correspondent says. The solicitor representing Hamsah has not yet responded to requests for comments on the case.

Congo fishing rights clashes ‘force thousands to flee

2009-11-20T23:13:00.001+04:00

More than 50,000 people have fled clashes between two ethnic groups in north-western Democratic Republic of Congo in recent weeks, the UN says.

Many of those fleeing are reported to be unaccompanied children, and some people have drowned trying cross a river into Republic of Congo.

The UN says at least 100 people have been killed in clashes between Lobala and Boba people in Equateur province. The violence started last month after a dispute over fishing rights. Local MPs have asked for more security in the region and a small number of UN peacekeepers have been deployed. But most of the UN's force is embroiled in the entrenched conflict in DR Congo's eastern areas - where they support government troops fighting local, Rwandan and Ugandan rebels.

Mass arrests

Rufin Mafouta, head of the office of Medecins d'Afrique group which works with the UN, said the number of refugees pouring over the border from DR Congo into the Republic of Congo had risen this week. "There's been a massive influx in the past few days because the fighting has become far more intense," he told AFP news agency. "We have noticed a lot of unaccompanied children who have certainly lost their parents, as well as pregnant women and elderly people." Late last month Lobala and Boba ethnic groups engaged in clashes after they pulled out of a traditional deal over the sharing of fishing rights. More than 100 people were killed, including 47 police officers. Shortly afterwards about 100 men were arrested and the authorities in DR Congo announced that the problem was over. But the BBC's Thomas Fessy, in DR Congo's capital Kinshasa, says Lobala tribesmen have now advanced southwards and are threatening other villages.

In the past three days at least 11 more people have been killed in an isolated area of Equateur. And our correspondent says observers fear the situation could continue to deteriorate.

Africa population tops a billion

2009-11-20T23:11:00.002+04:00

The number of people in Africa has passed the one billion mark, the UN Population Fund says in a report.

UNPF's Executive Director Thoraya Obeid told the BBC that the annual figures showed the continent's population had doubled in the last 27 years. "Africa countries are all growing fast... because there is large number of women who have no access to planning their families," she said. The populations of Nigeria and Uganda were growing the fastest, she said. "It's an African phenomenon of a large growing population and a large percentage of young people in the population," she told the BBC's Network Africa programme.

In its State of the World Report, the UNPF says the world's population currently stands at about 6.8 billion. Africa's population is estimated to reach 1.9 billion by 2050, it says.

Nigeria ex-leader Sani Abacha's son 'must pay $350m

2009-11-20T23:08:00.001+04:00

A Swiss court has ordered the seizure of $350m (£212m) in assets from the son of Nigeria's former military ruler, General Sani Abacha.

Abba Abacha was convicted of being a member of a criminal organisation and given a suspended custodial sentence. Switzerland began investigating the Abacha family in 1999 and has so far handed back about $700m to Nigeria. Nigerian state lawyers believe Sani Abacha, who ruled from 1993 until his death in 1998, may have stolen $2.2bn.

The Swiss authorities pursued Abba Abacha for six years before extraditing him from Germany in 2005. "The examining magistrate sentenced him to a suspended jail term, and ordered the confiscation of his assets of $350m," Geneva canton's justice office said in a statement. "[The money] is held by his criminal organisation and seized through international assistance in Luxembourg and the Bahamas."

Correspondents say Abba Abacha can appeal against the judgement.

Caster Semenya Testing Continues

2009-11-19T18:59:00.000+04:00

Gender tests on South African athlete Caster Semenya are yet to be completed, the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) revealed.
The 18-year-old had been expected to find out if she was eligible to compete as a woman on Friday.

But the IAAF said it will not discuss the case at its meeting in Monaco.

Irrespective of the results - as BBC Sport reported in September - Semenya will keep the 800m gold medal she won at the World Championships in August.

South Africa's Department of Sport and Recreation confirmed in a statement: "Because Caster has been found to be innocent of any wrong, she will then retain her gold medal, retain her title of 800m world champion, retain her prize money."

Semenya's achievement at the World Championships in Berlin were overshadowed by the gender test revelations.

Depending on the test results, she could be suspended, told to have surgery or cleared to run as a woman.

The IAAF statement read: "The IAAF, the South African ministry of sport and recreation and Caster Semenya's representatives have been and still are in discussions with a view to resolving the issues surrounding Caster Semenya's participation in athletics.

"The IAAF will not comment upon the medical aspects of Caster Semenya's case. The medical testing of the athlete is still to be completed.

"There will be no discussion of Caster Semenya's case at the forthcoming IAAF council meeting to be held in Monaco on 20-21 November 2009. No further comment will be made on this subject until further notice."

BBC Sport understands the tests are likely to reveal Semenya, who is currently training at the University of Pretoria, has an intersex status.

Semenya burst on to the world scene when she ran one minute, 56.72 seconds for the 800m in July, smashing her previous personal best by more than seven seconds.
She also broke Zola Budd's long-standing South African 800m record before arriving in Berlin as the newly crowned African junior champion.

The teenager then left her rivals trailing in Berlin to win by 2.5 seconds from 2007 champion Janeth Jepkosgei in 1.55.45, the fastest time of the year.

Before the race, it was revealed that the IAAF demanded Semenya take a gender test before the World Championships amid fears she might not be able to run as a woman.

Following the findings of initial tests, the IAAF asked South Africa to withdraw her from their team for Germany but Athletics South Africa (ASA) insisted she should run and has since said it is certain she is female, a claim backed up by her family.

Earlier this month, South Africa's Olympic governing body suspended ASA president Leonard Chuene after he admitted that he lied about whether Semenya had been gender tested before Berlin.

The ASA board and its members have also been suspended pending a disciplinary investigation into the matter.

Jennifer Hudson to star in Winnie Mandela film

2009-11-19T18:21:00.003+04:00

Hollywood actress Jennifer Hudson is to play Nelson Mandela's ex-wife, Winnie, in a film about her life, reports say.

Variety magazine reported Hudson was thrilled about the role and has described Ms Madikizela-Mandela as a "powerful and extraordinary woman". Ms Madikizela-Mandela played a vital role in freeing her husband after 27 years in jail but has since been linked to a murder and convicted of fraud. South African film-maker Darrell Roodt will direct the film. His work also includes world-renowned films Cry, The Beloved Country and Sarafina. Hudson is the second international actor set to play a South African icon in recent months. Hollywood is also preparing to release Invictus, a Clint Eastwood film about Mr Mandela in which US actor Morgan Freeman will play South Africa's first black president.

Nelson Mandela and Ms Madikizela-Mandela were divorced in 1996 just four years after his release from Robben Island. Her role in the release of her ex-husband is celebrated by many South Africans and she is still known as the "mother of the nation" but she is no stranger to controversy. She was implicated in the kidnap and murder of young activist Stompie Seipei, who was believed to be an informer for the apartheid government - although she has always denied the charges. She was convicted of theft and fraud in 2003.

Somali woman stoned for adultery

2009-11-19T13:23:00.000+04:00

A 20-year-old woman divorcee accused of committing adultery in Somalia has been stoned to death by Islamists in front of a crowd of about 200 people.

A judge working for the militant group al-Shabab said she had had an affair with an unmarried 29-year-old man. He said she gave birth to a still-born baby and was found guilty of adultery. Her boyfriend was given 100 lashes. It is thought to be the second time a woman has been stoned to death for adultery by al-Shabab. The group controls large swathes of southern Somalia where they have imposed a strict interpretation of Islamic law which has been unpopular with many Somalis.

'Lenient'

According to reports from a small village near the town of Wajid, 250 miles (400km) north-west of the capital, Mogadishu, the woman was taken to the public grounds where she was buried up to her waist. She was then stoned to death in front of the crowds on Tuesday afternoon. The judge, Sheikh Ibrahim Abdirahman, said her unmarried boyfriend was given 100 lashes at the same venue. Under al-Shabab's interpretation of Sharia law, anyone who has ever been married - even a divorcee - who has an affair is liable to be found guilty of adultery, punishable by stoning to death. An unmarried person who has sex before marriage is liable to be given 100 lashes.

BBC East Africa correspondent Will Ross says the stoning is at least the fourth for adultery in Somalia over the last year. Earlier this month, a man was stoned to death for adultery in the port town of Merka, south of Mogadishu. His pregnant girlfriend was spared, until she gives birth. A girl was stoned to death for adultery in the southern town of Kismayo last year. Human rights groups said she was 13 years old and had been raped, but the Islamists said she was older and had been married. Last month, two men were stoned to death in Merka after being accused of spying.

President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, a moderate Islamist, was sworn in as president after UN-brokered peace talks in January. Although he says he also wants to implement Sharia, al-Shabab says his version of Islamic law would be too lenient. The country has not had a functioning national government for 18 years.

All I want is justice, not revenge

2009-11-19T13:21:00.000+04:00

Even before International Criminal Court prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo came to Kenya last week, displaced people had been pleading with the government to increase the promised compensation sum. But for people like Ruth Njeri, monetary compensation is not enough. Njeri, who lives in Shalom City Mawingu, a camp for displaced people near Nyandarua, was raped and her husband brutally killed during the post-election violence.

The painful memories haunt her as she worries about providing for her two young children. “We want to see justice being done,” she says, “As far as we are concerned, the future of this country lies in Ocampo’s hands and we want him to know that thousands of people are looking to him for justice and also to ensure that this country does not have a similar experience such as the one that stole our loved ones and our livelihoods!” Talk of the violence evokes gruesome memories for Njeri as politicians worry about the fate of those who masterminded the post-election violence. “What happened cannot be wiped from my mind, and life has been hell for me,” says Njeri quietly. “When we gather in the camp to discuss the issue, our main hope is that Ocampo will not allow politicians to convince him to let them off. We want him to conduct investigations so that the individuals involved can be charged and tried at The Hague, not in Kenya, because we have no confidence in the government.”

Before all hell broke loose in January 2008, Ruth was living in Kericho with her husband and eight-month-old son, Douglas. Her husband owned a thriving shoe business and provided well for the family. “That evening, my husband heard about the looting going on in town and decided to go and check whether his shop had also been broken into,” she recalls. “I had prepared the evening meal and decided to do the laundry as I waited for him. When he came back, he was very shaken. He told me that the shop had been looted, but I told him that since it was happening all around, we should not worry too much because after things calmed down, we would work hard to regain what we had lost.”

Phone call

Njeri’s husband then went on to reveal that he had received a phone call from a friend in Londiani, where his parents lived. “He said he had been told that both his parents had been killed and buried in a mass grave,” she says, “I could see that even as he spoke, he didn’t believe what he was saying. He also told me that he had seen hundreds of youths wearing white T-shirts and red shorts being brought to the town in a lorry. When the phone rang again, I answered it, and what he had told me was confirmed. We were advised to go into hiding as soon as possible to save our lives.” Still in a daze, Njeri left her husband watching the evening news while holding their son and went outside to hang the washing. Out of nowhere, an arrow landed next to her foot and then she heard a strange sound. She looked up to see the low walls of the compound surrounded by painted faces. “They were howling like dogs and were dressed in white T-shirts and red shorts,” she recalls. “I stood rooted to the ground with fear, knowing that these were the men my husband had referred to earlier.

About seven of the men entered the compound and began kicking and pushing me into the house while the rest went away.” Once inside the house, they took the little boy from Njeri’s husband and flung him against the wall. They then attacked her husband. “They were prepared and well-armed,” recalls Njeri. “They had machetes, rungus, arrows and whips. I cried for mercy, then pleaded, but they would not listen. I ran to the bedroom and got them Sh40,000. I begged them to take the money and leave us but they just laughed. "One of them snatched the money from me, smelt it and threw it in my face. He reached into his pockets and pulled out many Sh1,000 notes, ‘We don’t need your money, we have been paid well to do our job,’” he said. “My husband cried out, telling me to look after our son — if we survived.

I felt helpless as I watched them beat him ruthlessly,” recalls Njeri, tears welling up in her eyes. One of the men came and brandished a panga in her face before using it to slash her husband’s neck. “They laughed. One of them picked my son from the floor, held him by his feet and then dropped him head first.” But they weren’t done yet. Next, the men dragged Ruth into the next room, kicking and slapping her. “One cut me slowly and deliberating above my knee while another, who was smoking, burnt my thighs with a cigarette butt several times,” she says, lifting her skirt to reveal the scars. Njeri was barely conscious when they began raping her in turns. But she remembers that each one would finish with her then help himself to some of the food she had cooked. Her last memory of that night is of the men pouring hot water on her naked body before leaving her for dead. Nearly three days later, Njeri regained consciousness in hospital but had no idea how she got there. After recovering a little, she joined the hundreds of displaced people at the local district officer’s compound, where she was reunited with her son, who had miraculously survived. Over the next few days, they were transported in lorries to the Nakuru Showground, where they would receive food and shelter. “At the showground I met several women who had also lost everything,” she says. “But that didn’t make my loss any easier to bear.

However, we all agreed that our politicians had turned the elections into a battle for power and used tribal tensions to disturb the peace in the country and the safety of the very people they claimed to speak for. It was the ultimate betrayal.” Unknown to Njeri, the attack would continue to haunt her in other ways. A couple of months after the incident, she reported to the health clinic within the camp that she has missed her period. She was tested, but the medical staff were evasive about the results although they continued counselling her. After six months, Njeri wanted to terminate the pregnancy but was not allowed to. “I wondered how I could have a child whose father I did not even know, and who would be a constant reminder of my humiliation,” she offers. “I tried to convince the authorities to let me have an abortion but they said it was too late. They told me not to hate the child because it was part of me, and that it was innocent.” Due to the damage to her body after the gang-rape, Njeri couldn’t give birth normally. Apart from special counselling, she also received clothing, food and medical aid before the baby was delivered through a Caesarian section. “I couldn’t bring myself to look at the baby or hold her,” she recalls. “Several of my companions and the nurses tried to convince me but I was angry, bitter and helpless. I wondered why this had to happen to me.

I knew many other women who had been raped during the violence, but why was I so ill-fated as to fall pregnant with a rapist’s child?” “It is God’s will, breastfeed your child and your love for her will flow,” Njeri repeats the words of an old woman at the hospital who understood what she was going through. “On the third day I breastfed the baby, Miracle Wanjiru, for the first time, and the bond of love broke the regret of how she had been conceived.” Miracle is now an active 14-month-old baby. Although the government is trying to resettle the displaced people, thousands like Njeri are still languishing in camps. Food and water are scarce, medical help is inadequate and diseases like cholera, typhoid, pneumonia and malnutrition continue to take their toll. Worst affected are young children and the elderly. Njeri and her children have been admitted to public wards at the local hospital several times for various infections. “We know that some people have already been resettled on the plots promised by the government, but we wish they would speed things up and provide the compensation money quickly.” Njeri has made no attempt to go back to Kericho because she feels there is nothing left to go back to. She works as a casual labourer on farms near the camp to pay for food for her family. Sometimes they sleep hungry because there is no food or no fuel to cook with. Their tent is leaking and when it rains, everything gets soaked.

The nights are cold and several times her few belongings have been stolen by other desperate people. Njeri finds herself swinging between depression and the will to rebuild her life. “At times I look at our condition and wonder whether it will ever end, or what kind of punishment this is,” she cries. “Then I look at others who are worse off… for women who were raped and contracted Aids, it is a sure death sentence. Then I count my blessings and console myself that although I lost my husband and my property, I still have the son of the man I loved, and I consider Wanjiru a blessing and another reason for me to live.” Njeri is eager to receive her parcel of land and compensation money because it will help her rebuild her life. She also needs money to seek treatment for her back and pelvis, which were injured when she was assaulted. Her son also suffered an injury in his private parts that needs to be corrected surgically.

Suffering

“Nothing can wipe out our suffering and no amount of money can compensate what we have lost, that is why we want justice, not vengeance,” asserts Njeri, wiping away her tears. “We want the perpetrators of these heinous crimes brought to justice, and the only way that can be done is through the ICC. We don’t want the politicians linked to these crimes to get off scot-free. We have seen criminals in high places walk away free when tried locally. We cannot allow them to continue living in luxury while thousands of innocent wananchi continue to live in squalid camps. These people have to answer to us and to the world for the crimes they committed. Aren’t we all human beings at the end of the day? If Kenya is to be saved from the crimes of these power-hungry politicians who can go to any length for personal gain, the government has to set a precedent and allow the ICC to do its work to ensure that nothing like this ever happens again here, or anywhere else,” she says passionately.

Submitted by Rahab Njeri

Tanzania hit by deadly landslide

2009-11-13T13:01:00.002+04:00

A landslide has killed at least 20 people in Tanzania after a torrential downpour triggered a flash flood.

Seven schoolchildren are among the dead and more people are missing, local officials said. Rescuers are digging out bodies in the village of Goha, Kilimanjaro province, which was swamped when the side of a mountain collapsed on Tuesday night. Until the four days of rain came, eastern Africa has been battling a drought for the past two years. "A landslide with a big chunk of mountain collapsed... and came down and fell on about seven houses," regional commissioner Monica Mbega told the Reuters news agency.

Gunmen kill Somalia pirate judge

2009-11-12T14:19:00.002+04:00

A judge known for jailing pirates and Islamists has been shot dead in Somalia's northern Puntland region.

Sheikh Mohamed Abdi Aware was killed outside a mosque in Bossaso, capital of the semi-autonomous region, where many pirates are based. Mr Aware had recently sent to jail four members of the Islamist al-Shabab group, which is fighting Somalia's UN-backed government. Bossaso is also a hub for smuggling people from the region to Yemen.

The high court judge was shot several times in the head and chest by two masked men, an eyewitness said. Three suspects have been arrested, said Puntland Security Minister Mohamed Said Samatar. Mr Aware was also a member of Puntland's Supreme Judicial Council which supervises the judiciary and nominates senior judicial officials. "He sentenced hundreds of pirates, people-smugglers and members of al-Shabab during his work in Bossaso," said a cousin, Abdulahi Jama. "These gangs hate him for his justice. We suspect one of them may have something to do with his assassination."

Also on Wednesday evening masked gunmen killed a Puntland lawmaker as he was heading to his house.

Alarm at Zimbabwe's growing child sex abuse

2009-11-12T14:13:00.000+04:00

Zimbabwean paediatrician Robert-Grey Choto spends most of his day counselling sexually abused children at a clinic in the capital, Harare.

On the day I visit the Family Support Trust Clinic he is with a 10-year-old girl who was abused by a neighbour last month. She had been at home alone when she was molested, as her parents had left the country in search of work. His next patient is 12-year-old Lewis (not his real name), who was gang-raped in a Harare township last month. "Four men waylaid me on my way from school," he says. "I was taken to a shop where they showed me pornographic material." He says he was then drugged and sodomised for more than a week. After examining the traumatised boy, Dr Choto confirms the abuse - to the horror of Lewis' father. "This is unbearable, all I want is justice for now," he says.

A medical report is prepared by the clinic for the police to investigate. Tests show Lewis is HIV negative. He is lucky and relieved. Dr Choto helped set up the clinic, part of the main referral hospital in Harare. During the past 10 years, it has become a centre of hope and help for tens of thousands of people. The clinic's statistics show an alarming rise in the abuse of children. "In the last four years we have seen over 29,000 cases, and in the last 10 years we have more than 70,000 at this clinic alone," he says. "It's a tip of the iceberg - the problem is enormous. We need drugs and any assistance we can get."

Dr Choto believes many hundreds of thousands of cases are going unreported because of the fear of stigmatisation, and because many parents are unaware of the free treatment and counselling clinics available. Despite this, he faces an increasing number of these cases every day. "It's horrifying. It rattles me so much so I don't know what to do. "All kinds of thoughts cross my mind, I want to be violent against the perpetrator, but the profession tempers you - you are helping the victim, the abuse, the survivor."

As I leaf through a file detailing countless cases of child molestations, some as young as two years old, another of the clinic's counsellors, Chipo Mukome, says she believes the absence of parents has compounded the problem. "Due to the economic situation where we have seen a lot of parents going to neighbouring countries, like South Africa, in search of greener pastures, they are leaving their children to the care of others - uncles and aunts for example," she says. "These people, in the end, are abusing these children."

'Exposed'

Parents of victims are now searching for more community-based programmes to stop the menace - and more counselling services, like that run by Dr Choto, are starting to open countrywide. "Raising awareness of this problem should start immediately," said Lewis' father. Zimbabwe's economic meltdown and political crisis during the past decade has forced millions into the diaspora - and nine months into a unity government, many Zimbabweans still survive on the remittances sent home.

There are also many orphans whose parents have died of HIV/Aids, who are left in the care of the extended family. Gillian Gotora, a sociologist at the University of Zimbabwe, says these issues are a cause for concern. "A family unit is the starting point of socialisation, but when children are left vulnerable, they are exposed - hence these cases of rape and abuse."

And the harsh economic realities in Zimbabwe - unemployment is thought to be about 90% - has also put a strain on families and relationships. Research psychologist Gwatirera Javangwe also tries to explain why the problem was occurring. "People having difficulties in their relationships deal with their inadequacies by pouncing on vulnerable children, who treat every adult like a parent," she says.

Ribadu tells of Nigeria corruption battle

2009-11-12T13:56:00.004+04:00

Nuhu Ribadu is a man who continues to divide Nigerian public opinion two years after the anti-corruption campaigner was forced from his job.

His supporters portray him as a relentless pursuer of the thieves in high places who have kept most residents of this oil-rich country mired in poverty. As chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Mr Ribadu even sent his own boss - the inspector general of police - to prison. He brought more than 1,000 cases to court, and secured 270 convictions. Before his appointment no company in Nigeria had ever been charged for bribery. However, his critics accused him of being a political hatchet-man. They accused him of only pursuing cases against enemies of former President Olusegun Obasanjo and leaving his friends untouched.

Dismissed

Shortly after Mr Obasanjo left office in 2007, Mr Ribadu was removed from his post and sent on a year's "training course". "I was dismissed," he told the BBC World Service's Outlook programme. "There was a clear signal that no-one should do anything about fighting corruption. That is very sad." He soon fled the country because, he says, two attempts were made on his life - one while he was driving. "Some people were hired, and their responsibility was to get me. "They came quite close. The individual behind the driver brought out his hand and shot three shots at my car. Luckily my car is bulletproof. "When they attempted that, I left the country the next day."

Raw cash

As head of the EFCC, Mr Ribadu found himself in a potentially lucrative position should he succumb to the same corruption that grips the nation. "They'll try everything," he said. "They will attempt to bribe you. If it fails, they will blackmail you and try to make a mess of your name." One extraordinary bribery attempt sticks out in his mind. "One of them gave me $15 million in cash. Raw cash. American dollars. "I got my people to take it to Central Bank of Nigeria and deposit it there. We used it as an exhibit in the trial against the individual. We got him locked for about two or three months in jail while I was office." But James Ibori, a former governor of the oil-rich Delta state and key backer of new President Umara Yar'Adua, was freed on bail and his case has since languished in the courts. Soon after this case Mr Ribadu was removed from his post.

'It's not over'

Since leaving the country, he has found himself at the centre of allegations over his own professional conduct - being accused of not declaring assets. He says he will not return to Nigeria to challenge the allegations. "The reason why they are doing that is simply thinking 'lets get him back in to the country. We'll seize his own documents, possibly get him behind bars.'" "It's as much as saying 'Go and get killed'. And I think that is not right. I love life, I want to live." He did, however, make a brief appearance in Lagos in September for the funeral of human rights activist Gani Fawehinmi, even though the authorities were supposedly desperate to find him. Mr Ribadu does vow to return home to finish his work. "I will certainly go back to Nigeria. It's not over. "This is the sad story of our own country. This is money belonging to the people.

"This is what is supposed to be used to solve the problem that we are facing. Look at how it's being wasted. See what is happening with our people. Today they use the money to fight for their own survival, they give it to lawyers across the world, they buy private jets.

"Total waste."

The governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria has told Gambian bankers and the Gambia government that Africans must endeavour to strengthen multilateral relations in order to eliminate the scourge of corruption.

2009-11-10T17:20:00.000+04:00

He also observed that Africans must take new banking reforms to stop the criminal practices of some banks from putting their depositors and creditors into dangers. Governor Lamido Sanusi was speaking last Thursday at the Sheraton Gambia Resort and Spa, where he had a day?s sensitisation of Gambian bankers and stakeholders on the recent banking reforms in Nigeria as apart of his official visit to some sub-Saharan African countries.

The new banking reforms in Nigeria sparked a wave of panic in the country?s banking system, showing a collateral shake-up in the country?s financial sector, leading to the sacking of eight major bank managers after an Economic Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) was established to look into the country?s banking abnormalities. In September, Sanusi announced unequivocally that he has no regrets over his controversial shake-ups and reform of the country?s banking system, saying his intention was ?to safe the banks? and in doing so, decisive actions had been needed.

In last Thursday?s meeting, he told Gambian bankers and stakeholders that he is still committed to see that Nigeria?s bank managers who are suspected of banking malpractices are prosecuted and if found guilty, the wrath of the law be applied on them.According to Sanusi, a combination of collapse in Nigeria?s economy puts the government finance in a massive depreciation on the Naira to 25% to the dollar. Before the global financial crises, he said Nigeria?s stock exchange was the best. Once the global financial crises started, he added, FTI?s commenced and a classic case of asset deflation started, which caused liquidity to take over completely from the market. ?Because of the importance of banking to Nigeria?s economy we could not allow ourselves to take any risk,? Sanusi told the gathering.

Sanusi explained that when he became Nigeria?s CB governor in June, he found that there were major sources of the liquidity problem. ?It is a lesson on why we would introduce a banking reform while we can all talk about the strength of our banks,? he said, and added: ?when I came first, we set up a general bank check-up assessment to make sure depositors and creditors are not at risk?.

The Nigerian CB governor further told the gathering that managers of banks that were suspected of malpractices were held responsible during the check-up which led them to the bringing down of the management of eight banks in the country with no single depositor or creditor losing their money. He said banks were using subsidiaries that are not approved by the central bank; banks used to own investment banks and this, he said led to the crash in the Nigerian economy. ?In the next few weeks, we will be working with the National Assembly to put everything in place and in two to three weeks everything will be at the back,? Sanusi vowed.

Governor Sanusi then cleared the air, telling Gambian bankers and stakeholders that Nigeria?s central bank did no encourage any of their banks to come and exploit them. He reminded bankers that in order to win the trust and confidence of their customers, they must play a catalyst role. ?The heads of all the banks we have removed was based on their exploitation of depositors and creditors. We handed over every document related to criminal acts to the EFCC,? he said.

Sanusi said it is not a crime to borrow money nor is it a crime to borrow and have bad money; but, he said, it is not equally a crime for one to borrow and his name be published for defaulting to pay back. ?If you want to go to equity, please always have clean heart?. He proudly announced before Gambian bankers that as at now Nigeria has recovered 179 billion Nairas.

SUBMITTED BY FC MALANG

Q&A: Put the New Women's Agency in Africa

2009-11-10T17:16:00.000+04:00

UNITED NATIONS, Nov 5 (IPS) - On Sep. 14, theUnited Nations (UN) General Assembly adopted a resolution that gave thegreen light to the creation of a new U.N. agency for women.

Itwill draw together under one umbrella all the existing entities forwomen in the U.N. - U.N. Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), Divisionfor the Advancement of Women (DAW), International Training and ResearchInstitute for the Advancement of Women (INSTRAW) and Office of theSpecial Adviser on Gender Issues (OSAGI).

Civil society organisations have long lobbied for a women'sagency, and in 2008 these efforts were combined in the Gender EqualityArchitecture Reform (GEAR) campaign involving some 310 organisations.

IPS spoke with Naisola Likimani of the African Women'sDevelopment and Communication Network (FEMNET) on the opportunities andchallenges that the new agency which will be headed by an undersecretary general faces. Likimani, based in Nairobi, Kenya, is also thefocal point for Africa for the GEAR campaign.

Excerpts from the interview:

IPS: Where should the headquarters of the new U.N. women's agency be located?

NAISOLA LIKIMANI: It should be in Africa, in an easily accessible capital.

Africa is terribly lagging behind in the realisation of women'srights, for instance in maternal and child mortality and morbidityrates; increased poverty rates and the feminisation of poverty in theregion; and gender gaps in primary and secondary enrolment, to nameonly a few.

Housing the new agency in Africa would call global attention to thesedisparities and hopefully lead to increased prioritisation and morestrategic resource allocation.

IPS: What will be the main challenges and opportunities of forming the new agency?

NL: Among the opportunities are that women's issues willbenefit from a higher profile, as has been accorded in the past toenvironmental issues and children's issues.

The new agency will also provide for a more coherent global policy ongender equality, and coherent and strategic resourcing rather than thecurrent fragmented way in which gender equality is handled at the U.N.

Among the challenges are bringing together four bodies tobecome one - like negotiating a merger. Harmonising the cultures of thefour entities into one that facilitates the work of the new entity isboth an opportunity and potentially a challenge.

There has to be a political commitment to provide the necessaryresources right from the start. It is important that the entity is notdependent on the occasional support from the super powers. It has tomaintain its independence in order to respond to the needs of womenboth in the global north and south.

IPS: What would you recommend the under secretary general's (USG) priorities be in her/his first year of office?

NL: FEMNET feels that it is imperative that the USG be female, particularly at the time of establishing this entity.

During the first year she should establish the office,negotiate and define the mandate of the new entity in relation to theother U.N. bodies, and mobilise ambitious, regularised funding.She mustensure a minimum of one billion U.S. dollar that is allocated to thisinstitution, with plans for growth over a few years.

A priority will also be accelerating implementation ofinternational human rights standards that protect and promote women'shuman rights.

IPS: There is much happening on gender empowerment between civilsociety and the U.N., that it seems only right that the agency adopts abottom-to-top approach taking its cue from civil society. Do you expectany conflict of interest here?

NL: It must be acknowledged that the new agency is a U.N. body and it is established by the member states.

Consultation will be key to its way of work with the memberstates, other U.N. bodies and civil society. What is most important isthat it should not lose touch with the realities of women's lives.

FEMNET anticipates systematic and meaningful participation of civilsociety in this new agency, particularly in its Executive Board. Thecampaign to establish this new agency is testament that the U.N. andcivil society can work in partnership for the realisation of a greatergood.

IPS: What will be the contribution of your organisation (as far as goals and information) to the new women's agency?

As a regional focal point in the GEAR campaign, FEMNET has been veryactive in promoting the proposal for establishment of the new entity.

As a regional membership-based organisation, FEMNET is also ready to bea key partner in Africa, through providing technical support to theagency and popularising the agency and its initiatives that are key forAfrican women's development.

*IPS is running a series of interviews on the U.N.'s decision to create a new women's agency.

(END/2009)

SOURCE: IPS NEWS

Tony Allen: Master Drummer

2009-11-09T23:24:00.004+04:00

I recently discovered a music sensation on RFI's "musique du monde" show. His name, Tony Allen; his genre, afrobeat. With a sound similar to Fela's but with more "Afro-American" influence, Tony Allen's music will take you across continents and fill your ears with the sweet, painful and jazzy sounds of Africa and her diaspora.

Born in Nigeria in 1940 of mixed Nigerian and Ghanaian parentage, Tony Allen is perhaps the most highly-regarded African drum set player to emerge since World War II. Drummers and other musicians of all backgrounds marvel at his uniquely polyrhythmic style. Allen belongs on one hand to a tradition of African drum set playing associated with the Ghanaian drummer Kofi Ghanaba (Guy Warren), and historically rooted in British military drumming, European ballroom dance music, big-band jazz drumming, and indigenous percussion traditions. However, he is also an African exponent of the African-American tradition of modern jazz drumming typified by musicians such as Art Blakey, Elvin Jones, and Max Roach.

Tony Allen's formative years were spent digesting these influences while apprenticing in various Nigerian bands during the late 1950s, performing the pan-Anglophone West African popular music style then known as highlife. But he came to international prominence in the 1960s as a member of the band of the late Nigerian bandleader Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, with whom he played for 15 years. Fela Kuti is himself recognized as one of the most important and influential African popular musicians/composers of the post-colonial era, and it is widely accepted that Tony Allen was his crucial collaborator in the synthesis of jazz, funk and highlife which resulted in the style known as Afrobeat. Tony Allen’s work with Fela is documented on over 30 recordings and today, he remains the primary exponent of Afrobeat.

Tony Allen's own recordings, made since leaving Fela’s band in 1978, are diverse in style and fascinating fusions of Afrobeat with other styles of world popular music. These works find him in the collaborative company of Nigerian juju musicians such as Fatayi Rolling Dollar, electronica musicians such as Doctor L, American funk musicians such as Michael "Clip" Payne and Gary "Bone" Cooper, and musicians from around Africa and the Caribbean. After playing for years in the shadows of better-known musicians, Tony Allen is now starting to receive the worldwide credit he deserves as one of the most dynamic players of the drum set. His recordings are widely available in Africa, Europe, Japan and America and he also tours regularly throughout these same areas.

So whether you want to unwind with a glass of wine after a long day or you want to shake your behind and wave a handkerchief, Allen's music will enable you capture and express a range of emotions. Please find samples here, enjoy and support an African brother's industry:

http://www.tony-allen.com/

African view: Guinea's rape horror

2009-11-06T15:24:00.002+04:00

In our series of viewpoints from African journalists, commentator and National Public Radio correspondent Ofeibea Quist-Arcton reflects on her conversations with survivors of a brutal crackdown on opposition supporters in Guinea.

Some reporting assignments stay with you. You just cannot shake them off, even when you think perhaps you have.

That has been the case with Guinea this time round.

The date, 28 September, was repeated by just about everyone I spoke with there - women and men - etched in their memories as if they had been branded. It is etched in mine too - and yet I was not at the main stadium in Conakry on that day. I did not witness the shooting of pro-democracy protesters or the public rape and sexual violence of women in and around the stadium. But I witnessed the fall-out. Rape is surely horrific, but becomes even more so when the images of alleged crimes are recorded on cell phones, because the alleged rapes happened in the middle of the day, in public.

Wailing outrage

The sometimes grotesque photos are then splashed on the internet, a record of the humiliation and shaming of women, making the violations even more painful. We are told it was mainly the "berets rouges", Guinea's presidential guard - with still unconfirmed reports that they were aided by hired guns, mercenaries from neighbouring Liberia - who committed the atrocities, targeting with their weapons the thousands who had gathered to hear opposition leaders denounce Guinea's military regime. First came the killings - then the brutal sexual assaults. Witnesses and survivors say the troops forced themselves on women of all ages in and around the stadium - students, professionals, market women, opposition campaigners - even grandmothers. Guns, bayonets, knives and other weapons were used to rip off their brightly coloured boubous (traditional West African gowns) - even their trousers. And some of those weapons were used to sexually violate them.

I had a sorrowful and emotional meeting with some of these women who said they had been subjected to all manner of abuse - and others who said they had been forced to witness men and women being shot and assaulted. You would think that the women might have been too frightened to talk in these circumstances, fearing retribution from their tormentors.

A lucky escape

They all kept saying, "C'est du jamais vu, c'est du jamais vu," meaning: "We've never before in our lives witnessed such a thing in Guinea." Guinean women have a robust reputation and a history of challenging the successive authoritarian regimes and poisonous military governments that have dominated the country's 51 years since independence from France. And the women I met wanted to talk. Some wept openly, wailing even, as they retold their experiences. Others were quietly determined. Without exception, the women all told me that, this time, there must be no impunity; that the soldiers who violated their dignity, so publicly, must be punished.

One woman was so angry, so outraged, so shamed - as she said herself - that her legs began trembling and then her whole body, as she recalled what she called a lucky escape - "by the grace of God". She said she managed to get out of the stadium, but was followed to her hiding place by a group of men in uniform. "At that moment, I said a final prayer," she confessed, "because I believed my last hour had come." But one soldier said, "Forget it, leave her alone," and they took off. She said she was shaking, wearing only an underskirt because her wraparound cloth had been torn off her. She managed to flag down a taxi, but began trembling all over again when she saw a soldier board the same vehicle. She said she prayed that he would not recognise her as having been among those at the stadium. He did not, she said, and hopped down from the taxi before she did. Only then was she able to calm down and take a deep breath and finally made her way home. I felt hot tears rolling down my cheeks as I tried to keep my microphone steady, recording her and other women's ordeals.

It is not the first time I have interviewed survivors of sexual violence, but it has generally been in a war setting or a conflict zone. This time, we were sitting in the heart of Conakry, right in the city, which the Guinean military had turned into a virtual combat zone. Yes, these women could be me, I could be them. It had me thinking that this kind of brutal assault is increasingly becoming a tool of repression, a way to try to keep women silent and submissive. But the women of Guinea will not be silenced.

Tune into the BBC World Service at 0830 GMT in East Africa or 1030 GMT in West Africa on Saturday 7 November 2009 to listen to Ofeibea Quist-Arcton reporting for

from Guinea. The programme can also be downloaded as a podcast.

Sahara Sun 'to help power Europe'

2009-11-05T12:32:00.001+04:00

A sustainable energy initiative that will start with a huge solar project in the Sahara desert has been announced by a consortium of 12 European businesses.

The Desertec Industrial Initiative aims to supply Europe with 15% of its energy needs by 2050. Companies who signed up to the $400bn (£240bn) venture include Deutsche Bank, Siemens and the energy provider E.On. The consortium, which will be based in Munich, hopes to start supplying Europe with electricity by 2015. Desertec Industrial Initiative aims to produce solar-generated electricity with a vast network of power plants and transmission grids across North Africa and the Middle East. "The time has come to turn this vision into reality," said the company's chief executive, Paul van Son. "That implies intensive co-operation with many parties and cultures, to create a sound basis for feasible investments into renewable energy technologies and interconnected grids." The first stage will be to build massive solar energy fields across North Africa's Sahara desert, utilising concentrated solar power technology (CPS), which uses parabolic mirrors to focus the Sun's rays on containers of water.

'Pivotal initiative'

The super-heated water will power steam turbines to generate electricity 24 hours a day, 52 weeks of the year. The electricity will then be transported great distances to Europe, using hi-tech cables that suffer little conductive loss of power. The move was "pivotal" in the transition of Europe, North Africa and the Middle East to sustainable energy supplies, said Mr Van Son. Currently there are some small initiatives across Spain and parts of North Africa, but the scale of the Desertec initiative will surpass any other comparable projects.

Strong desire

The initiative has gained the support of the German government of Angela Merkel, who has already expressed a desire to offset a dependence on Russian gas supplies. A number of North African countries have also expressed a strong desire to join the project, the company says, utilising their main sustainable natural resource - the Sun. Some of the power generated by the Sahara solar energy fields will also be used by domestic African consumers, Desertec is keen to stress. North Africa has a small population relative to the size of its desert terrain, it says. The concept was first announced in 2007 by the Desertec Foundation, with small pilot projects based in North Africa. Prince Hassan of Jordan has previously been mentioned as a big supporter.

Companies signed up to the consortium include ABB, Abengoa Solar, Cevital, HSH Nordbank, MAN Solar Millennium, Munich Re, M+W Zander, RWE and Schott Solar.

Marie Ndiaye wins France's top literary prize

2009-11-02T23:05:00.002+04:00

Marie Ndiaye won France's top literary award, the Prix Goncourt, on Monday, the first woman to do so since 1998.

The 42-year-old won for her novel "Trois Femmes Puissantes" ("Three Powerful Women"), a story about the interweaving lives of three women set in France and Senegal.

"This gives me great pleasure and I am also very happy to be a woman receiving the Goncourt Prize," NDiaye told reporters.

The prize is worth a symbolic 10 euros ($14.80) in cash, but much more in publicity-generated sales.

As it is each year, the winner was announced to a crowd of journalists jammed into the foyer of the Drouant restaurant in central Paris after the jury had made its decision over lunch.

NDiaye was born in 1967 to a Senegalese father who left France when she was one year old and a French mother. The author spent her childhood living in a Parisian suburb where she began to write at the age of 12. She lives in Berlin with her three children.

Taken from Reuters Life!

Massacres en Guinée: trois Africains dont 2 femmes à la commission d'enquête

2009-11-02T13:17:00.000+04:00

Le chef de l'ONU, Ban Ki-moon, a désigné trois personnalités africaines, dont deux femmes et l'ancien ministre algérien Mohamed Bedjaoui, pour composer la commission d'enquête sur les massacres du 28 septembre en Guinée, a annoncé vendredi sa porte-parole.

M. Bedjaoui présidera cette commission, dont les deux autres membres seront Françoise Kayiramirwa (Burundi) et Pramila Patten (Ile Maurice), a précisé la porte-parole, Michèle Montas.

Les trois membres de la commission sont attendus prochainement à New York pour rencontrer M. Ban, avant de se rendre à Genève et en Guinée, a-t-elle indiqué. Le bureau de la Haut commissaire de l'ONU aux droits de l'homme, situé à Genève, "apportera son soutien à la commission", a-t-elle dit. M. Ban avait décidé le 16 octobre de créer cette commission pour enquêter sur les incidents "afin de déterminer la responsabilité des personnes impliquées".

Une manifestation de l'opposition avait été brutalement réprimée par l'armée le 28 septembre à Conakry, suscitant l'indignation de la communauté internationale. La junte dirigée par Moussa Dadis Camara a avancé un bilan officiel de 56 civils morts et 934 blessés, tandis que l'Organisation guinéenne de défense des droits de l'homme estime que plus de 157 personnes ont été tuées et 1.200 blessées, dont de nombreuses femmes violées en public. L'ONU a évoqué un bilan d'au moins 150 morts.

Diplomate, juriste et ancien ministre des affaires étrangères, M. Bedjaoui a été notamment juge à la Cour internationale de justice (CIJ), la plus haute instance juridique de l'ONU, et président du Conseil constitutionnel algérien. Mme Kayiramirwa a été ministre de la solidarité, des droits de l'homme et du genre, ainsi que ministre pour le rapatriement et la réintégration des personnes déplacées du Burundi. Elle a aussi été conseillère pour les questions liées au genre et l'assistance aux victimes au Tribunal pénal international sur le Rwanda. Avocate, Mme Patten est membre du Comité des Nations unies pour l'élimination des discriminations contre les femmes.Selon l'organisation de défense des droits de l'Homme Human Rights Watch (HRW), les violences perpétrées à Conakry le 28 septembre "étaient organisées et préméditées".

Moussa Dadis Camara avait été porté au pouvoir par un coup d'Etat sans effusion de sang, le 23 décembre 2008, après la mort du dictateur Lansana Conté qui dirigeait le pays depuis 1984. L'officier putschiste envisage d'être candidat à la présidentielle prévue en janvier, après avoir maintes fois promis qu'au terme de la transition, il confierait le pouvoir à un président civil. C'était pour protester contre cette intention que les manifestants étaient descendus dans la rue le 28 septembre.

---

30 octobre 2009

Anger at Zimbabwe UN envoy snub

2009-10-29T17:04:00.001+04:00

The UN's torture investigator has made an angry return to South Africa after being refused entry to Zimbabwe.

Manfred Nowak was detained by officials in Harare who said he had no clearance to visit, despite his insistence he had an invite from the prime minister. "I have never in any other country been treated in such a manner," Mr Nowak, who had planned a week-long fact-finding mission, told the BBC. He blamed his treatment on the divisions within the unity government. "This is a major incident because you can't on the one hand invite a special rapporteur to meet the prime minister and on the other hand somebody gives an order to the immigration police not to let me in," he told the BBC's World Today programme.

His said his treatment showed there were clearly parts of the government who did not want him to assess "the current conditions of torture", and promised to file a strongly worded complaint.

'Cheap propaganda'

Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and his MDC party stopped co-operating with the unity government two weeks ago, accusing President Robert Mugabe's Zanu-PF party of failing to live up to its commitments in the power-sharing deal. Earlier this week, the MDC warned that Zanu-PF militia had launched a campaign of violence against it, reminiscent of last year's post-election violence. Human rights group Amnesty International has warned the country is on the brink of sliding back into violence. The BBC's southern Africa correspondent Karen Allen says this diplomatic snub reveals the tussle for power between two sides in an increasingly unhappy marriage. Mr Nowak's original invitation to come and investigate allegations of torture and mistreatment came from Zimbabwe's justice minister, who is a member of Zanu-PF. But it was withdrawn at the last minute, with officials citing a clash with a visit by a mediation team from the Southern African Development Community (Sadc).

Sadc is hosting a meeting in Harare to discuss the crisis. Nevertheless Mr Tsvangirai intervened and authorised the UN investigator to proceed with his visit. Earlier, the UN said in a statement that Mr Nowak welcomed regional efforts "to resolve the political crisis" in Zimabwe, but that the Sadc meeting was not a valid reason to cancel his visit. "Recent allegations that MDC supporters and human rights defenders have been arrested, harassed and intimidated during the past few days highlight the urgency of objective fact-finding by an independent UN expert," the UN said. Zanu-PF has described comments about allegations of violent attacks on MDC members as "cheap propaganda".

France halts African leaders case

2009-10-29T16:55:00.003+04:00

A French appeals court has halted a lawsuit against three African leaders accused of embezzlement.

Anti-corruption group Transparency International had accused the leaders of using African public funds to buy luxury homes and cars in France. But the court ruled the activists could not act against foreign heads of state. Denis Sassou-Nguesso of Republic of Congo, Teodoro Obiang Nguema of Equatorial Guinea and the late Omar Bongo of Gabon denied any wrongdoing.

The court's ruling was welcomed by lawyers for Mr Nguema, who were quoted by Reuters news agency as saying it showed that "attempts to use the French justice system for obscure purposes are doomed to fail".“ Those in France and Africa who organise and take advantage of the looting of African public money will be celebrating with champagne ” William Bourdon, lawyer. The case followed a 2007 French police investigation which found the leaders and their relatives owned homes in upmarket areas of Paris and on the Riviera along with luxury cars, including Bugattis, Ferraris and Maseratis. Transparency International had argued that it was not possible that the men and their entourages had bought the assets through their legitimate salaries.

Last May, a French magistrate had ruled that the case, which became known as the "ill-gotten gains" case, was admissible in a French court. But representatives of the leaders had contested that ruling, saying that as civil society activists, Transparency International had no right to act as plaintiffs against heads of state.

'Questionable'

Transparency International said it would appeal against Thursday's ruling. The organisation said it regretted the court's "legally questionable" decision to throw out their case. In a statement, it said the move was "all the more regrettable because it prevents the opening of a case even though there is no doubt that the holdings identified by the police could not have been made solely with the salaries and fees of the targeted heads of state".

The ruling showed that French law "still needs to evolve" to allow groups such as them to take legal action, it said. "Without that, we will continue to deprive victims of corruption of an indispensible means to guarantee their rights."

Gabon and Republic of Congo are former French colonies, while Equatorial Guinea is a growing oil exporter. Mr Bongo - who was African's longest-serving leader - died in June, but members of his family were also named in Transparency International's case.

Kenya to launch homosexual census

2009-10-29T16:51:00.003+04:00

Kenya is to carry out a census of its gay population in an effort to bolster the fight against HIV/Aids - despite homosexuality being against the law.

Nicholas Muraguri, head of Kenya's Aids prevention programme Nascop, told the BBC it was vital that the government reached out to the gay community. He said gay people suffered from a lack of information about the disease. But analysts say many gay people will be afraid to come forward in a country where homosexuality can result in jail. Mr Muraguri conceded that an accurate count was unlikely. “ Kenyans cannot actually afford to say that the gay community are isolated somewhere in the corner ” Nascop's Nicholas Muraguri

But he told the BBC's Network Africa programme that getting a clearer idea of the number of gay people would be a huge help with targeted interventions such as provision of condoms. He said the survey would involve gay men identifying each other, and officials carrying out HIV tests and providing along with information on safe sexual practice. "Kenyans cannot actually afford to say that the gay community are isolated somewhere in the corner - they are part of our lives," he said. "This group must be reached with information and services so they know how to protect themselves from getting infected."

Analysts say Kenya has made progress in its fight against HIV/Aids - one-in-10 people had the virus in the late 1990s, a rate that has now fallen to 6%. The BBC's Gladys Njoroge in Nairobi says the census, which will begin in June next year, will be the first of its kind in Africa. But Kenyans are divided over its impact, with some Nairobi residents saying they did not believe it would help control the spread of Aids.

Gay Kenyans told the BBC they would be willing to be counted - but only if their identities were protected. Homosexual activity is punishable by up to 14 years in jail in Kenya.

Our focus is to give PEACE A priority in Bissau

2009-10-28T19:52:00.000+04:00

In what could be described as a boost to the peace and reconciliation efforts in Guinea Bissau after the landmark July 26 presidential run-off election, veteran opposition leader of the Social Renewal Party, Kumba Yala has stated that their main focus and interest today is to give priority to peace in their country.

The veteran politician was speaking to a group of journalists at State House in Banjul yesterday afternoon, shortly after his closed door meeting with the Gambian leader, His Excellency Sheikh Professor Alhaji Dr Yahya Jammeh. Yala, an ex-president of the former West African Portuguese colony who was on a private visit to The Gambia told journalists about their commitment to foster dialogue and consultations with a view to ensuring continuous peace, democracy and development in Guinea Bissau, a country that is currently witnessing fresh democratic dispensation under President Malang Bachai Sanha.

The SRP leader went on to indicate that he and the president have been friends for a very long time, saying ?we share the same political view in defence of Africa and its democracy in our own way, especially based on the realities existing in each country,? he stated. This, he continued, is what they are doing to exchange ideas from time to time and to find ways and means of achieving common objectives, he concluded.

It can be recalled that Kumba Yala contested under the banner of his Social Renewal Party in the first round of the June 28 2009 presidential election in Guinea Bissau. However, as no candidate won a majority in the first round of election, Yala went into the run-off poll on the 26 July, 2009, contesting against Malang Bachai Sanhna (now president), of the governing African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde. The peaceful election that was described as free and fair by observers saw Sanha sweeping the polls by 63 percent of the votes, allowing Kumba Yala to consoled himself with only 36 percent of the votes.

That political development has gone a long way in restoring peace, democracy, normalcy and hope among not only Bissau Guineans but as well as goodwill friends of the country. Going by the words of Kumba Yala, it is worthwhile to state that the Bissau-Guineans are indeed ready to put the past behind in the interest of national unity and have also heeded to the advice of President Jammeh, who has since championed the peace and reconstruction process of Bissau, resulting to the current political dispensation.

source: daily observer

Submitted by F.C. Malang

'Guinea scam cost a year of my life'

2009-10-28T19:48:00.000+04:00

Jonathan Ngolo, a 65-year-old retired lecturer from Kenya, tells the BBC how he was kidnapped and held hostage for one year and 16 days after being scammed in Guinea's capital, Conakry.

When you get beautiful business, think twice. Make sure that you have physical contact with those people who are saying they are doing business, and do not rely on e-mail. What happened is that my son who lives in the US got in touch with some people in Conakry. He told me he was going to Guinea to set up an agreement with a Guinean mining company to supply his people in the US with 1,000kg of gold dust. But then he was unable to fly as his travel documents were not in order and so I went on his behalf. Guinea does not have an embassy in Kenya and so the people in Conakry sent me a form to allow me to enter into the country and get a visa on arrival. I flew via Accra. On arrival in Conakry, I came out of the arrivals, and the ones who were receiving me shouted my name and so I went to them. They said they were taking me to the company's guest house; what they called a villa.

Blasting water

But then when we got to the villa they told me they were arresting me under the terrorist act. The place they confined me in was a six-by-six room with no ventilation. I stayed inside that room for one year and 16 days.

They only opened it to give me food three times in a week but it was very, very irregular. I was sleeping on the floor without anything to cover myself. They stole all my belongings - my clothes, my phone, my wallet, everything I had on me. All I was left with was underwear and a vest. They would clean me by blasting water on me every morning. This was usually at the same time as when they were giving me my food. Every now and then they would make me call home and ask for money. They said if they didn't get money, they would not be able to feed me. My family sent them money - they sent a total of 900,000 Kenyan shillings [almost $12,000, £7,000]. My son, he didn't know what to say when he heard about what was happening to me. He got in touch with the authorities in the US and they in turn contacted the Guinean ones. But all that time, they never traced my location.

Ransom

All that time the people who were holding me were telling me they had consulted their oracle and they had been told they couldn't sacrifice me to their god and so, instead, I should pay them some ransom. The ransom they wanted was $500,000. They used to say that I was not keen to ask for the bail money to save my life - because no-one was sending the money, and so, they tortured me. The one that was in charge - the older one - put a cigarette in my eye and another would hit me. I still have the marks. They beat me. They kicked me severely, they broke three ribs and they hit me on the legs. One is very swollen, even now, it is very painful. I didn't wonder would I ever get out of there or would I survive? I had faith. It is faith in God. What kept me going was prayer. I was praying to my nation, to the world leaders.

Strangely on the 25 September they came to me, they opened the door. Then they told me to come out and they took me to another room. They told me their spirits had said they were to release me on the condition that when I went home, I must then send the ransom.

'A lot of joy'

They told me: 'Thank your God, you are going to be going back home to your family to your country.' They shaved me and gave me back one of my shirts. Then they decided I should leave and so they allowed me to use their telephone to call my family. They gave me 25,000 Guinean francs [$5] and told me to leave. I made my way to the airport and stayed there until my family could send me money to pay for a flight. The money they gave me wasn't even enough to pay for a good meal. I was so hungry. Now I am back in Kenya I am thankful. I thank my God. My neighbours, my family members were praying for me and thinking about me; it gives me a lot of joy. I thank God for them.

I prayed for peace in that country [where there was a coup in December after the death of long-time Guinean leader Lansana Conte]. And when the killing happened [of opposition supporters at a stadium last month] I prayed for restoration of peace, even now I am praying for peace in that country.

Submitted by Martha Mutale

Pupils are missing as Guinea school reopens

2009-10-23T13:27:00.002+04:00

On 28 September, Guinean troops opened fire on a mass opposition rally at a stadium in the capital Conakry.

The Guinean Human Rights Organisation said 157 were killed in the violence and over 1200 injured. The military government put the death toll at 57. In the weeks since the massacre, this head teacher has been struggling to reopen his school. Here is his account of school life since 28 September: Schools across the country were due to reopen on the day of the massacre

Lessons resumed a few days ago with just 65 of 400 pupils present [less than 20% of the school]. We are still trying to discover whether any of their pupils were among the victims of the massacre. The school is directly affected: significant numbers of my students have left the country, and others had gone into hiding. We have teachers who had fled to Sierra Leone and they are very skeptical of coming back to Guinea.

Our school in Conakry is a few miles from the national stadium where crowds converged to protest against the Military leader on Monday September 28, 2009. We were to start classes the day the incident took place - but had to call off and I was at the school campus with a few teachers to send kids home and give parents information. Our area was calm, though there were sporadic gun shots just few a miles from us. The streets were very tense with military convoys armed to the teeth.

At around noon, the news spread about the massacre that took place at the stadium. The streets became completely empty, and everyone is murmuring the numbers and wondering what next? I managed to come close to the stadium the next day, Tuesday, but it was no go zone. We proceeded to the hospital which is a mile from the stadium and the numbers of victims at hospitals were overwhelming. There were people crying, others are desperately looking for their loves one but couldn't find them. The atmosphere in the hospital is very, very shocking. I left the hospital without seeing any sign of my students, teachers and parents among the victims. We will do whatever we can to support our pupils.

Education means everything to my students. They come to school even on weekends. Each child is bright light of promise for the family. I have never seen kids who are so eager to learn.

Three killed in violent Kampala riots

2009-10-23T13:22:00.000+04:00

By Vision Reporters

THREE people were reported dead as violent riots linked to the Kabaka’s planned tour of Kayunga district spread to the city and across Buganda.

By press time, 39 people had been injured in the riots, triggered off by false reports that Katikkiro Walusimbi had been arrested on his way to Kayunga. He was expected to prepare for the Kabaka’s visit which was slated for tomorrow. The city suddenly flared up into chaos in the afternoon as Kabaka supporters engaged the Police in running battles. They pelted vehicles with stones, barricaded roads with logs and huge boulders, lit bonfires, looted property and torched buildings.

The chaos first erupted around Kiseka Market and spread quickly to Wandegeya, Bwaise, Kawempe and Maganjo-Kagoma on Bombo Road, stretching the Police to the limit. Military Police moved in with armoured vehicles to take charge of the situation. Offices and shops closed down and motorists vacated the roads amid sporadic gunfire, teargas explosions, a heavy presence of regular and anti-riot Police backed by military Police.

In Bwaise, demonstrators set a huge store on fire before going on a looting spree. The Police fire brigade put out the fire. The rioters also set ablaze the Natete Police station, and the vehicles parked there. A Police woman in Natete was stripped naked and beaten up. Reports also said some shops in the city were looted.

In the city centre, Kabaka supporters barricaded Entebbe Road near Centenary Bank with logs and burned tyres. They turned all vehicles away, threatening motorists and stopping them from going to Market Street.

Commotion erupted in Kawempe when four policemen, attempted to stop a rowdy group from barricading the road. They were disarmed and their guns taken. Kawempe Police boss Joel Aguma confirmed the incident.

Outside Kampala, too, rioters resorted to violence and looting. In Kyengera, on the Masaka highway, youth seized a truck loaded with sodas. They grabbed the sodas before burning the truck. In Nabbingo, also on Masaka highway, irate youth stopped buses and roughed up passengers. In Mukono angry youth attacked a bus, smashing the windows and injuring passengers. The Police rescued them.

Two of the dead were reportedly killed by stray bullets near Shoprite on Ben Kiwanuka Road. One was a Saracen private security guard and the other a Congolese businessman who was shopping. A bullet ripped through his stomach. A third man was shot in the eye in Bwaise and died on the spot. The bodies were taken to Mulago Hospital. “The guard was standing in the door when I suddenly saw him fall down after a military truck fired live bullets in the air,” said a shaken Annet Namusisi, a telephone booth operator.

By evening, more than 30 people had been rushed to the casualty ward at Mulago Hospital with various injuries, ranging from gunshot wounds to broken limbs. Most of them were from Bwaise, Kalerwe and Kanyanya suburbs.Four policemen were also rushed to Mulago Hospital with injuries. One of them, Alex Wabwire, an Assistant Superintendent of Police, had his leg shattered. He was reportedly shot by rioters who snatched a gun from a guard. Eliphaz Sekabira, the hospital spokesperson, said 39 people were being treated. Three people were arrested and detained at the Central Police Station in connection with the riot, said Kampala metropolitan deputy Police spokesperson Henry Kalulu. However, many others were reportedly detained at Wandegeya Police Station.

It took the combined effort of the Police and the army to quell the riots in the city centre, which returned to relative calm at around 4:00pm. Thousands of commuters were stranded till late for lack of transport, forcing many to walk home. The few taxis on he road charged exorbitant fares.By press time, major roads such as Masaka, Jinja, Gulu, Hoima and Entebbe roads, were still blocked by angry protesters with logs and bonfires. Riots were also still going on in the suburbs of Kampala, such as Nateete, Bwaise and Busega, as well in the districts of Mityana, Mukono and Wakiso.

A motorist on Mityana Road said the road was blocked by protesters at Bira, causing a long queue on either side. Stranded motorists and passengers, including foreigners, threatened by violent youth, were calling The New Vision journalists, pleading for help. In Kampala, mambas with military policemen criss-crossed the city at night, while foot soldiers patrolled in single file.

Reported by Steven Candia,Chris Kiwawulo, Charles Ariko and Patrick Jaramogi

SUBMITTED BY YVONNE LARUNI, UGANDA

How does corruption impact women?

2009-10-23T11:51:00.006+04:00

Although some may assume that corruption is gender-neutral in terms of its lack of ethics and resource-depleting impact, corruption compounds the discrimination women already experience on large and small scales.

By Masum Momaya

Defined as “an inducement to do wrong by improper or unlawful means,”[1] corruption exists on all scales – through bribes exchanging hands in interpersonal transactions, through leaking local and national coffers and through transnational deals made outside of, or in spite of, regulatory mechanisms and oversight.

While some may assume that corruption is gender-neutral in terms of lack of ethics and resource-depleting impact, research shows that corruption compounds discrimination already experienced by women and other marginalized groups.[2] Generally, this compounding occurs as women attempt to take part in decision-making processes, seek provision of and protection for their rights and gain control over resources.[3]

Largely due to their social roles as caretakers, many women may be familiar with petty corruption – the kind that forces them to pay bribes for things like accessing utilities, securing school enrollment for their children, obtaining a driver’s permit or business license, taking out a loan or getting medicines or an examination by a doctor. Add a layer of corruption to gender-based discrimination, and these routine transactions become difficult.

In such situations, poor women often cannot pay bribes and some are forced to pay with sexual services or find a male patron to secure basic rights and services.[4]

Similarly, corruption at the macro-level in the political arena, in public sector contracting, in transnational business transactions and in development aid processes also compounds discrimination women already face in these spheres.

Corruption in the Political Arena

Worldwide, women are underrepresented as voters and candidates in elections. In the histories of most nations, women were legally prevented from casting ballots or standing as candidates. Today, even though these laws have been repealed almost everywhere, women still face barriers in politics due to corruption.

In the absence of strong campaign finance laws or oversight, many candidates receive money from sources that are corrupt or potentially corrupt. Not only are the sources of funding not often disclosed but sitting public officials, the majority of which are men, sometimes abuse government resources like office space, materials, phone and internet access and voter lists in their campaign operations.[5]

Since women are less likely to be tapped into the ‘old boys network’ when they stand as candidates, they have a marked disadvantage against those with money and access.

Similarly, candidates with access to money and power can bribe voters directly with food, cash and clothing – or threaten to withhold basic services if people do not vote for them. In Mexico, for example, voters testified that they had been “threatened with the withdrawal of subsidies under the state poverty-alleviation programme, Progresa, if they voted for the opposition.”[6]

Many voters also face electoral fraud and vote stuffing when they go to the polls. For instance, in the 2008 national elections in Pakistan, due to power imbalances within the home, men were able to take the identity cards of their female relatives, dress up in burqas, and go to the polling stations to cast extra votes as women. Party-affiliated workers working in concert with these voters oversaw the stations, and they did nothing to prevent or rectify this fraud.[7]

In Kenya, political candidates like Green Belt Movement leader Wangari Maathai have provided a counterexample to this ‘business as usual’ in politics by building a strong grassroots base of mainly women voters and small donors to succeed in elections.[8]

Corruption, however, is not just confined to elections. The ongoing presence and strength of lobbyists ensures that those with the ability to offer money and gifts gain privileged access and undue influence on policymakers.[9]

Also, once in power, high-level politicians, most of whom are men, often experience immunity from persecution and enjoy immense personal power.[10] For example, many heads of state have not been adequately tried and prosecuted for their part in war crimes, including the use of rape as a weapon of war.

On a day-to-day level, many high-level leaders also cannot be held accountable for their lack of delivering basic goods and services like food, water, electricity and medicine to their citizens. Here, with little access of channels of accountability alongside growing burdens as caretakers, women bear the brunt of providing for such goods and services when governments or their contracted suppliers fail to deliver.

Corruption in Public Sector Contracting

According to Transparency International, a global coalition against corruption, “on average, approximately 70% of central government expenditure turns in one-way or another into contracts. Contracts are sources of power to those who give them out, and targets of ambition for those who may receive them, making [them] particularly prone to abuse at the expense of public need.”[11]

Moreover, “public contracting is one way in which public policy is implemented, and it is an enormous and lucrative area of business. Think of pharmaceutical companies vying to supply a government vaccination program, the privatization of a government-owned telecommunications company, or the awarding of contracts to reconstruct destroyed infrastructure in Iraq.” [12]

Most of the awarding of contracts takes place through the informal meeting spaces of the old boys network rather than open and fair bidding processes. Women who, in addition to being shut out of these networks, have a hard time obtaining credit and licenses to start and grow businesses are rarely contenders for these contracts.

Meanwhile, since genuine efforts to serve the public interest and provide accessible, affordable services are often not the foremost criteria for awarding contracts, public funds are misused, fair competition is distorted, and basic needs are neglected.[13]

Again, women are often forced to compensate with their time and labor. For example, when private sector leaders with relationships to public officials were brought in to manage water distribution in places like Bolivia[14] and South Africa,[15] water was either not delivered or distributed at exorbitant costs. In addition to mobilizing to resist this, women had to find other means to get water and ward off ensuing health and sanitation challenges due to lack of clean, potable water

Corruption in Transnational Business Transactions

Until the recent formulation and adoption of the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention in 1999, not only was it legal for companies to pay bribes to foreign public officials to secure contracts, they received tax breaks from their home governments for doing so. Today this is illegal, but the process of prosecution is so expensive and cumbersome that such bribery continues, often through the smokescreen of intermediaries.[16]

The arms trade and energy sector are particularly vulnerable to this form of corruption.[17] Due to its clandestine nature, it has been difficult to hold companies responsible for illegally selling arms to public officials, and the flood of arms into many countries has increased civilian violence and overall militarism, in which women and children are often victimized.

In the energy sector, as poor countries discover oil or gas reserves, the proceeds often seep into pockets of public officials and intermediary deal brokers.[18] Artificially high prices for fuel are set, and this, in turn, also inflates costs of fuel-dependent goods such as food. As women are most often the ones to compensate for changes in the cost of living, the burden of corruption’s effects bear down on them.

Corruption in Development Aid

Similarly, development aid can fuel corruption. Civil society organizations in countries with weak governance and large influxes of aid have warned that foreign assistance can sometimes present perverse incentives to invest in sectors and projects not prioritized by the receiving governments.[19] Aid can also distort salary structures and create opportunities for corruption by the private sector in countries where regulatory mechanisms are weak.[20]

Gender-differentiated impacts also ensue. For example, in the 1960s and 1970s, donor countries and agencies, and their private sector subsidiaries, including pharmaceutical companies, largely managed population control projects in the developing world. Sterilization and largely untested contraceptives were the primary means used to control population growth - in contrast to investment in sexual and reproductive health education and comprehensive services that accounted for the socioeconomic realities of women’s lives.[21] In some cases, relatively weak governments were unable to push back on such policies whereas in other cases, public officials in receiving countries were fully cooperative, pocketing some of the aid and profit for themselves.

Nevertheless, aid can also serve as an anti-corruption force – not through conditionalities – but by building strong transparency, accountability and regulatory systems. Implementing such an agenda takes foresight, skill and cooperation on the part of both donors and recipients and some international donors are taking active steps to implement anti-corruption measures.

Changing, Not Playing, the Game

In the end, regardless of the spheres in which corruption occurs, in order for women, other marginalized groups and ordinary citizens to not be multiply disadvantaged, nepotism, bribery, the undue influence of special interests and illegal, unethical dealings must be uprooted. Simultaneously, women and all other groups need more access to information. In many cases, women do have rights but are not aware of them or how to exercise them. In such cases, corrupt decision-makers are not challenged. Overall, the goal is not that more people enter the networks where corruption takes place so that they can ‘play the game’ but rather to change the rules of the game such that corruption doesn’t consume and monopolize resources that need to reach and benefit people.

References:

[1] www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/corruption

[2] www.transparency.org/publications/publications/working_papers/working_paper_no_03_2007_gender_and_corruption

[3] www.government.fi/ajankohtaista/puheet/puhe/en.jsp?toid=2236&c=0&moid=2239&oid=269212

[4] www.government.fi/ajankohtaista/puheet/puhe/en.jsp?toid=2236&c=0&moid=2239&oid=269212

[5] www.transparency.org/global_priorities/corruption_politics/political_finance

[6] www.transparency.org/global_priorities/corruption_politics/vote_buying

[7] www.imow.org/Wpp/Learn/Podcasts/Popup?id=83

[8] www.imow.org/wpp/stories/viewStory?storyId=1239

[9] www.transparency.org/global_priorities/corruption_politics/corporate_funding

[10] www.transparency.org/global_priorities/corruption_politics/corrupt_politicians

[11] www.transparency.org/global_priorities/public_contracting

[12] www.transparency.org/global_priorities/public_contracting

[13] www.transparency.org/global_priorities/public_contracting

[14] www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&ct=res&cd=1&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.menschen-recht-wasser.de%2Fdownloads%2FElizabeth_Peredo_Beltran_Water_Privatization_and_Conflicts_in_Bolivia.pdf&ei=1RrOSr7mLYKwNsHP5bYK&usg=AFQjCNGhS9XSl9hntTjVwz03JjfZ-OM3sg&sig2=3eaqKpztKfMWWjiX1husLA

[15] www.cbc.ca/news/features/water/southafrica.html

[16] www.transparency.org/global_priorities/corruption_politics/corporate_funding

[17] www.transparency.org/global_priorities/corruption_politics/corporate_funding

[18] www.transparency.org/global_priorities/corruption_politics/corporate_funding

[19] www.transparency.org/global_priorities/poverty/corruption_aid

[20] www.transparency.org/global_priorities/poverty/corruption_aid

[21] Bandarage, Asoka. Women, Population and the Global Crisis: A Political Analysis. London: Zed Books, 1997.

Ethiopia asks for urgent food aid

2009-10-22T17:08:00.004+04:00

The Ethiopian government has asked the international community for emergency food aid for 6.2 million people.

The request came at a meeting of donors to discuss the impact of a prolonged drought affecting parts of East Africa. The UN's World Food Programme says $285m (£173m) will be needed in the next six months. Some aid officials say the numbers of hungry could rise. Aid agency Oxfam has called for a new approach to tackling the risk of disaster in the country. In a report marking 25 years since the famine that killed around one million Ethiopians, Oxfam said that imported food aid saves lives in the short term but did little to help communities withstand the next shock.

The report, named Band Aids and Beyond, called on international donors to adopt a new approach focused on preparing communities to prevent and deal with disasters before they strike. "Drought does not need to mean hunger and destitution," said Penny Lawrence, Oxfam's international director, who has just returned from Ethiopia. "If communities have irrigation for crops, grain stores, and wells to harvest rains then they can survive despite what the elements throw at them."

'Total wipe-out'

Ethiopia has been hit by the food crisis affecting a large part of East Africa and the Horn. Last month Oxfam launched a $15m (£9.5m) emergency appeal for the whole East African region, where it is suggested that 23 million people in seven countries are under threat. The WFP, which is also calling for aid to the region, says cuts in its funding have made it more difficult to feed people. It says it is particularly concerned about Eritrea, where it is unable to collect data because of restrictions on movement. The drought, brought on by four years of bad harvests, has been made worse by conflict, climate change and population growth. BBC Africa analyst Martin Plaut says government policy banning land sales to keep people out of urban areas has also contributed. All these other factors combined are at least as important as lack of rainfall, he says. Fields of maize, burnt and withered by the sun, are the evidence of an emerging crisis, says the BBC's Mike Wooldridge in the Ethiopian town of Mekele.

In both the hardest-hit south of Ethiopia and in places in the north, farmers have told the BBC they face a total wipe-out of their harvests. Some said they planned to sell their livestock, so damaging their livelihoods further. Many aid officials say the figure of 6.2 million affected could rise further when the government makes its next assessment in mid-November.

On its website the WFP gives a figure of more than 10 million people in total affected by drought in Ethiopia. The problem is compounded by high food costs, the WFP adds, with cereal prices doubling on many markets. But the UN body's greatest concern is that there is currently no funding at all for a feeding programme to prevent moderately malnourished children from slipping into severe malnutrition and the risk of death.

•Drought costs $1.1bn a year
•70% of humanitarian aid from US
•10m people affected by drought
•4.6m threatened by hunger and severe malnutrition
•38% of under-fives under weight

ANALYSIS

Martin Plaut, Africa analyst There is no doubt poor and erratic rains have hit the Ethiopian harvest. But large parts of the country have not been hit by drought. So why the current crisis?
It is in part the result of policies designed to keep farmers on the land, which belongs to the state and cannot be sold. So farms are passed down the generations, divided and sub-divided. Many are so small and the land so overworked that it could not provide for the families that work it even with normal rainfall.

At present only 17% of Ethiopia's 80 million people live in urban areas. Keeping people in the countryside is a way of preventing large-scale unemployment and the unrest that this might cause.

Africa - the board game

2009-10-22T12:55:00.003+04:00

From Nelson Mandela to Muammar Gaddafi, national leaders have long dreamt of a united Africa. Now, the developers of a new board game are promising to help realise that vision.

Scattered about are 25 small squares, each of which covers a little piece of Africa. “ The aim is to make the African youth be aware of the need to work closely together and to quickly achieve the United States of Africa ” Salif Tidiane Ba

Players use a dice and banknotes in the traditional African currency of the cowry, and they have to answer questions on the challenges facing Africa, or on Africa's history. An example: "Which African country used to be called Dahomey?" The answer, for those who could not guess, is Benin. As they answer the questions, the players gradually fit the map of Africa back together. This is Jekaben, a board game designed by committed pan-African Salif Tidiane Ba.

Huge challenge

Mr Ba thinks it could breed a new generation of pan-Africanists across the continent. The game's name, Jekaben, is a term in the Bambara language which he says means "let's unite and decide together". "The aim is to make the African youth be aware of the need to work closely together and to quickly achieve the United States of Africa," he says. Although he concedes it is a huge challenge which many leaders have failed to meet, he is confident it can become a reality. Well, within the limits of the game at least.

As well as answering questions about the continent, players of the game can also grab some of the new opportunities offered to the continent, such as mining concessions. And they can collect trump cards - from a pack entitled "Wise leaders of Africa". The statesmen - including Col Gaddafi, Mr Mandela and Senegal's Abdoulaye Wade - are regarded by Mr Ba as symbols of pan-Africanism. "Their cards are used as trump cards, they allow the player to move faster towards the United States of Africa," he says. But he is aware that not all of his "wise leaders" will meet with universal approval. Included in the pack is Nigeria's Olusegun Obasanjo, a former military strongman.

The late Omar Bongo of Gabon, who was accused of massive embezzlement of his country's oil wealth during four decades in power, is also featured. And Ghana's Kwame Nkrumah, who was overthrown in a coup after his rule descended into authoritarianism, also gets a card of his own. Mr Ba admits that the choice is a very personal one.

Not child's play

But he hopes that the end justifies the means. At the end of the game, an African map should be drawn on the board. The players then get their African passport - the final step and ultimate reward. The game already exists in English, Arabic and French and is also being translated into Spanish and Portuguese. Mr Ba also hopes African languages will soon be catered for. "We are planning to have it translated by next year into Swahili, Mandingo, Hausa, and other African languages," he says. So far, the game is being made in local workshops but Mr Ba is hoping to produce it on an industrial scale and sell it across the continent.

One of his main challenges will be to generate enough interest to popularise the game and reach the masses. Not all of the questions are child's play. Another example: "Which African author wrote Things Fall Apart?" Perhaps pan-Africanism will not prove so easy after all.

Guinea junta faces EU sanctions

2009-10-22T12:51:00.002+04:00

Guinea's military junta is facing the prospect of an arms embargo imposed by the European Union, reports say.

EU member states are believed to have voted on the decision on Wednesday, although it still has to be formalised. Sources told the BBC there had been a "consensus" between voting members that the action was necessary. The move comes after 150 unarmed opposition supporters were killed by soldiers in the capital, Conakry. A UN investigation has already begun. During the unrest Guinean troops opened fire on opposition protesters angry that the country's military leader, Capt Moussa Dadis Camara, intends to run for president early next year. It was claimed women were stripped and raped in the streets during the protest.

'Travel ban'

The Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) has already imposed an arms embargo on Guinea over the killings. France also quickly suspended military ties with Conakry. Now EU sanctions and arms embargo could come as early as next week, reports the BBC's Chris Mason, in Brussels. Leaders also face a travel ban and a freeze on financial assets once the sanctions are signed by foreign ministers. According to draft conclusions, the EU decided to target members of Guinea's junta and their associates, "responsible for the violent crackdown or the political stalemate in the country," the AFP news agency reported.

Last week, the EU's development chief Karel de Gucht said Capt Moussa Dadis Camara should be put on trial for crimes against humanity. Guinea's previous government was overthrown in a bloodless coup last December, after the death of former head of state Lansana Conte, who had ruled the country since 1984.

HIGHLIGHT/AFRICA: Uneven Progress on Development Goals

2009-10-21T06:51:00.000+04:00

Evelyn Kiapi interviews SYLVIA MWICHULI, deputy director of the U.N. Millennium Campaign Africa

KAMPALA, Oct 15 (IPS) - The Millennium Goals cannot be achieved at the United Nations. The U.N. can create a platform for governments to make commitments but cannot force compliance by member states.

Only citizens and their elected representatives – at the national level – can hold governments to account for the promises to reduce poverty made in 2000 at the UN General Assembly in New York.

The U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon and his predecessor Kofi Annan both repeatedly stated that the missing ingredient is political will.

As the annual Stand Up, Take Action campaign on the Millennium Development Goals kicks off around the world, Sylvia Mwichuli, deputy director of the U.N. Millennium Campaign (UNMC) in Africa spoke to IPS about the need to demand accountability in both North and South. Excerpts of the interview below.

IPS: What MDG has seen the most dramatic progress?

SYLVIA MWICHULI: This is a general question which may hide the tremendous progress being made in individual countries. Different countries are scoring differently. Goals that may be met by one country may not be met by another and the reverse is also true.

That said, the goal of universal primary education is most likely to be met by all. According to 2008 United Nations MDGs report, by 2006 the net enrolment ratio exceeded 71 per cent in most of sub-Saharan Africa.

Great strides are being made on gender empowerment. Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania, Nigeria, South Africa, Malawi and Zambia are on course to realise this goal.

Ghana and most of the North African states are on course to meet all and even surpass some of the targets.

 IPS: Where has there been the most dramatic failure?

SM: There are challenges in meeting Goal Three, gender equality and women's empowerment, and Goal Five, improving maternal health.

Girls' primary education enrolment still lags behind that of boys and their dropout rates widen as they go up the ladder of education.

African women still die in great numbers while giving birth. In fact, an African woman's risk of dying from treatable or preventable complications of pregnancy and child birth is 1 in 22 compared to 1 in 7,300 in developed countries.

IPS: What are the major stumbling blocks towards the achievements of the MDGs?

SM: The major stumbling block is failure of political will by both countries of the South and those of the North.

The developed countries - except a notable few - have not kept their end of the bargain on Goal 8 (develop a global partnership for development, including dealing with debt and creating a more open, and non-discriminatory trading and financial system).

With the exception of just 16 countries, Africa's debts have not been cancelled as promised. The countries of the North have not eliminated trade barriers like tariffs on goods from Africa as promised.

And they haven't increased overseas development assistance to the levels promised, while the quality of aid is still a source of concern.

Whereas African states dedicated themselves to creating favourable conditions in their countries, a look at their national action plans and budgetary allocations, shows a lack of commitment.

Many of them think of MDGs as yet another begging opportunity. MDGs aren't about aid but (about) prioritisation and proper use of our own nationally-generated resources.

In fact, some countries do not need aid at all, they just need a caring, accountable and a democratic government. But all we see are local and international development funds draining into pockets of government officials, politicians, local and foreign private companies. This denies the poverty-stricken, the expectant mothers and the children an opportunity to have an education or to get medication.

Goals number 1 to 7 can only be achieved at the national and local levels and not from New York or London.

IPS: Besides MDG 3, many of the millennium goals are specifically tied to the situation of women. Goals on maternal health, on education, and ultimately on reducing poverty, which in Africa particularly has a woman's face. How do government and civil society efforts to attain MDGs recognise the fact that reducing poverty is underpinned by women's rights and empowerment?

SM: Seventy per cent of world’s poor are women and children. The economic crisis that started in 2008 is expected to have the most devastating effects for women, who perform 66 percent of the world's work but earn only 10 percent of the world's income and own 1 percent of the world’s property.

It's against this background that the MDGs 2, 3 and 5 (were designed). It is evident that eradicating poverty is a function of ensuring women rights, ensuring girls attain education and also that women occupy key decision making positions to influence policy.

Governments recognise that poverty has a female face but what is lacking is the political will.

IPS: What is Piga Debe? What successes have been achieved with Piga Debe for women's rights?

SM: Piga Debe is a Swahili word for making a loud noise. This is a campaign started to fast track MDGs 3 and 5 that relate to women's health, gender equality and women's empowerment.

These are the goals that face the most risk of not being met by 2015 even by countries like South Africa, Uganda, Ghana and Rwanda that have made real progress on MDG 3.

IPS: How has the framework of attaining MDGs helped strengthen development in East Africa?

SM: Greater focus on universal primary education, poverty and women's empowerment and gender equality.

For example Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda have greatly increased budgetary allotment to the education sector, to 20 percent which is way above the global target.

We are also seeing more national funds being devolved, like the Community Development Fund in Kenya. Forty-eight percent of seats in the Rwandan parliament are women.

All this has been as a result campaign initiatives like MDG Parliamentary caucuses set up in Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda.

IPS: With less than seven years to 2015, do you think the MDG’s will be met? Wasn’t 2015 a farfetched target?

SM: Given the context in 2000 when the Millennium Declaration was adopted, the date was realistic. The MDGs have minimum targets realistic enough to be met by 2015 even in the least developed countries.

It seeks ‘halving’ the proportion of people whose income is less than US$1.5 a day by 2015? Why not say eliminate? Why should we halve it? It’s because different countries had to work in different situations. Given the resources the world has 2015 is reasonable and the goals are Simple, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time bound.

In the call to action on the MDGs developed before the UN General assembly at the High level Events in September 2008, it was estimated that an infusion of US$75 billion annually will accelerate the achievement of MDGs globally. This is peanuts compared to trillions of dollars being thrown at greedy bankers and financial speculators who caused the current global financial crisis. It is not bankers who need to be bailed out but the poorest and weakest peoples of the world.

IPS: What should be done differently to hasten the progress and endeavour to achieve the MDGs?

SM: National budgets, Plans and policies need to reflect the MDGs, especially those that still lag behind like poverty eradication, gender empowerment, maternal health and other health related MDGs.

It means that our legislatures at national level and elected councillors at local levels need stay awake to their responsibility of holding the executive to account while citizens at all level need to mobilize and advocate for people-based budgeting and monitor the delivery of services.

The current global crisis has shown us that the orthodox neo-liberal market-driven policies that our governments have embraced uncritically for so many decades cannot solve our problems.

We need to find a strategy that works, a strategy that delivers good health, decent jobs and human security to our peoples. Greed and corruption which have become culture of public officials and private corporations need to be checked ruthlessly as they undermine our development. Indeed corrupt government and individuals should be seen as mass murderers directly and indirectly. 

SOURCE: IPS News

Africa trade bloc suspends Niger

2009-10-21T06:30:00.001+04:00

West Africa's trade grouping Ecowas has suspended Niger after President Mamadou Tandja went ahead with a controversial parliamentary election.

Ecowas had called on Mr Tandja to postpone the vote indefinitely to allow talks with opposition politicians - who have boycotted Tuesday's election.

They are angry at the president's attempts to extend his time in power.

Mr Tandja dissolved parliament earlier this year and had the constitution changed to let him seek a third term.

After talks at the weekend, Ecowas had warned the 71-year-old president to delay the election or face "full sanctions".

'Pariah' status

On Tuesday the bloc's political director, Abdel Fatau Musa, told the BBC's Focus on Africa programme it was clear Mr Tandja had rejected the decision of Ecowas.

He defended the decision to suspend the nation, saying it would affect Mr Tandja.

"If you are considered a pariah, an outcast, from an organisation you have ratified the conditions of, then psychologically it will affect you," he said.

He warned that the issue could end up in the UN Security Council, and Niger could be left in international isolation unless Mr Tandja backed down.

The president's move to stay in power in the uranium-rich nation sparked international outrage and dismay among opposition groups.

He had been due to stand down in December after serving two five-year terms.

But his supporters say the people want him to stay in power because he has brought financial stability to one of the world's poorest nations.

In January, French company Areva signed a deal to develop what it said would become the world's second biggest uranium mine.

The mine is in the semi-desert north, where ethnic Tuareg rebels have been fighting for more autonomy.

President Tandja has signed a peace deal with several Tuareg groups.

Six million people are eligible to vote to elect a new 113-member parliament, but correspondents say the campaign has been marked by indifference among residents.

SOURCE: BBC News

UN man starts Guinea deaths probe

2009-10-21T06:26:00.000+04:00

A senior UN official has started his investigation into the killing of opposition demonstrators in Guinea.

UN Assistant Secretary General Haile Menkerios is to investigate the events of 28 September, when Guinean soldiers opened fire on the protesters.

They were calling on Guinea's military ruler not to stand for election.

A BBC correspondent says Mr Menkerios' arrival is the most powerful sign yet that the world beyond Africa intends to pursue the case.

Human rights groups say some 157 people died in last month's clashes, but the junta puts the toll at 57.

On Sunday, Mr Menkerios met the military ruler, Capt Moussa Dadis Camara, Guinean Prime Minister Kabine Komara, and members of the opposition.

"The prime minister assured me that the government welcomes the investigation and will co-operate with it," Mr Menkerios said, reports the AFP news agency.

The Guinean authorities have blamed the September killings on out-of-control soldiers and opposition provocation.

Capt Camara has himself called for an investigation.

BBC West Africa correspondent Caspar Leighton says the arrival of the UN team in Conakry adds to the broad international pressure being put on the military government to write itself out of Guinea's political future.

So far Capt Camara has yet to yield, despite Saturday's African Union deadline for him to do so.

"Legally speaking, the deadline has expired but politically, we are still working to put pressure on the junta. It's the result that matters most," said AU Peace and Security Commissioner Ramtane Lamamra.

Capt Camara seized power in December 2008 and initially said he would not stand in the elections he announced for January 2010.

His coup after years of authoritarian rule under Lansana Conte was initially popular.

But rumours that he would seek election led to massive street protests, culminating in last month's bloody crackdown.

SOURCE: BBC News

Ode à la Guinée

2009-10-20T00:15:00.000+04:00

Et par le soleil installant sous ma peau une usine de force et dàigles
et par le vent sur ma force de dent de sel compliquant ses passes les mieux sues
et par le noir le long de mes muscles en douces insolences des sèves montant
et par la femme couchée comme une montagne descellée et sucée par les lianes
et par la femme au cadastre mal connu où le jour et la nuit jouent à la mourre des eaux de sources et des
     métaux rares
et par le feu de la femme où je cherche le chemin des fougères et du Fouta-Djallon
et par la femme fermée sur la nostalgie s'ouvrant
                                    JE TE SALUE
Guinée dont les pluies fracassent du haut grumeleux des volcans un sacrifice de vaches pour mille
         faims et soifs d'enfants dénaturés
Guinée de ton cri de ta main de ta patience
il nous reste toujours des terres arbitraires
et quand tué vers Ophir ils m'auront jamais muet
de mes dents et de na peau que l'on fasse
un fétiche féroce gardien du mauvais oeil
comme m'ébranle me frappe et me dévore ton solstice
en chacun de tes pas Guinée
muette en moi-même d'une profonder astrale de méduses

Aimé Césaire, Soleil cou-coupé, 1948

Ode to Guinea

2009-10-20T00:06:00.000+04:00

And by the sun installing a power and eagle factory under my skin
and by the wind elaborating the passes it knows best over my power of tooth and salt
and by the black rising along my muscles in sweet sap-like effronteries
and by the woman stretched out like a mountain unsealed and sucked by lianas
the woman with the little known cadastre where day and night play mora for springhead waters and
          rare metals
and by the fire of the woman in which I look for the path to ferns and to Fouta Jallon
and by the closed woman opening on nostalgia

                                                   I HAIL YOU

Guinea whose rains from the curdled height of volacnoes shatter a scarifice of cows for a thousand
           hungers and thirsts of denatured children
Guinea from your cry from your hand from your patience
we still have some arbitrary lands
and when they have me, killed in Ophir perhaps and silenced for good,
out of my teeth out of my skin let them make
a fetish a ferocious guardian against the evil eye
as your solstice shakes me strikes me and devours me
at each one of your steps Guinea
silenced in myself with the astral depth of medusas

Aime Cesaire, Soleil cou-coupe, 1948

Guinea embargo over 'atrocities'

2009-10-18T19:52:00.001+04:00

West African states have imposed an arms embargo on Guinea over the mass shooting of opposition supporters.

It comes amid growing criticism of the junta, led by Captain Moussa Dadis Camara, which seized power in December.

The Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) condemned "atrocities" in September in which Guinean troops opened fire on an opposition rally at a stadium in the capital Conakry.

Human rights groups say 157 people died but the junta puts the toll at 57.

It says most of the victims were trampled to death rather than shot, as opposition activists say.

Human rights groups say soldiers raped and sexually abused women during the crackdown, and the International Criminal Court (ICC) has opened an investigation into the deaths.

The EU has called for Capt Camara to be tried for crimes against humanity, while the African Union has called for him to step down.

Banditry

An Ecowas statement issued on Saturday at the end of a special summit in Nigeria said: "In view of the atrocities that have been committed... the authority decides to impose an arms embargo on Guinea".

The 15-member group called on its chairman, Nigerian President Umaru Yar'adua, to take "all necessary measures" to obtain the support of the African Union, European Union and United Nations to enforce the embargo.

Former colonial power France has already said it will stop weapon sales to the military government.

France on Friday urged its nationals - thought to number some 2,500 - to leave the mineral-rich country.

The French foreign ministry said the security situation in Guinea had worsened since the 28 September protests.

"Banditry, in particular armed robberies, have increased and there is no short-term prospect that the situation will improve," said a statement on the ministry's website.

Criminals had been following travellers from the airport and then robbing them when they get home, it added.

Meanwhile, Guinea's information minister, Justin Morel Junior, became the third minister to step down in a week, saying he no longer had the "moral strength" to speak for the government.

After September's protest, Capt Camara pointed the finger of blame at "controllable soldiers", adding that the opposition should not have held a banned rally.

When he took over the country last year, Capt Camara promised he would not stand in an election he scheduled for next January.

But recently he has hinted he would stand, sparking widespread condemnation and opposition protests.

SOURCE: BBC News

HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATION

2009-10-17T15:15:00.000+04:00

A CONCERN FOR ECOWAS HUMAN RIGHTS NETWORK

The ECOWAS Commission has expressed concern over reports of grave violations of human rights in The Gambia, Guinea and Niger.

This is contained in the final Communiqué of the meeting of the Network of National Human Rights Institutions of ECOWAS Member States after successfully completing a three day meeting in Banjul. The main objective of the meeting, amongst others, was to consolidate on the achievements of the February 2009 meeting of the Network held in Cotonou, Benin.

The Network also recognised and called on the government of The Gambia to be more tolerant of human rights activities and opposition groups in the country.

The communiqué also stressed the need for the Gambia government to ensure the protection of media practitioners in the practice of their profession.

On Guinea, the report called on ECOWAS Authority of Heads of State and Governments to immediately organise an election in which serving members of the ruling military junta, the CNDD, will not participate and that will usher in a credible civilian and democratic government. It also stated that the upcoming summit of the Authority of Heads of State and Governments should facilitate the imposition of sanctions targeted at the military Junta.

On Niger, the Network recommended their immediate suspension from ECOWAS until democratic structures and the rule of law are restored in the country. It also called for the release of journalists and other political prisoners being held by the government in Niger. The Network also called on ECOWAS to encourage dialogue among political stakeholders in Benin and Togo in their preparation for the forthcoming elections in their respective countries.

According to the final Communiqué, the National Institutions of Human Rights during their presentation highlighted some of the challenges that the National Networks are confronted with. These include inadequate financial resources for the institutions to perform their roles effectively, the inability of governments of Member States to safeguard citizens, social, economic and cultural rights due to inadequate resources and corruption, slow dispensation of justice and prison congestion, inadequate judicial personnel in some Member States, were mentioned as challenges. The other challenges highlighted also include mariginalisation of women in the political space and violence against women, and coordination with the Ministry of Justice.

In order to avert such challenges, the Network stressed the need for a provision to ensure annual evaluation of country’s human rights report in the region by the ECOWAS Commission and the Network.

The need for human rights institutions for information exchange among the commission was also mentioned.

They also called on governments to establish and strengthen Human Rights Institutions in accordance with the Paris Principe.

The final communiqué also stressed the need for the Network to be involved in ECOWAS Election Observation Missions and that civil society involvement in the network’s activities should be enhanced.

The following Member States were represented at the meeting. Republic of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cote D’ Ivoire, The Gambia, Guinea Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Togo.

Submitted by FC Malang

Ghana out to make history at U20

2009-10-16T11:43:00.002+04:00

Ghana have the chance to make history on Friday when they take on Brazil in the final of the Under-20 World Cup.

The Black Satellites and their Nigerian counterparts have both been runners-up twice, but no African team has ever gone on to win the event. Ghana coach Sellas Tetteh firmly believes it is time for that to change. "Africa will win the tournament and Africa will change that trend," he said the day before the game. "An African player has scored 8 goals at the tournament (Ghana's Dominic Adiyiah) and that has never happened before."

Standing in their way are a Brazil team who are the second most prolific goal scorers in the competition, behind Ghana. "I look at a team holistically. I take any member of the team seriously. I don't like to pinpoint individuals," Tetteh said. "They are wonderful, very skilful, technically sound, fast on the ball - so composed, such a high scoring side and especially a team to beat!" The difference between the two sides is in the number of goals they concede. Where Ghana have let in eight goals, Brazil's defence has been breached only three times in the whole tournament.

Brazil coach Rogerio says that is down to the organisation of his whole side. "From the beginning, the main goal was to achieve balance between the whole team," he said. "The defence is working that well because the team is balanced and working as well in other areas of the pitch." Brazil have won this event four times, compared to their great rivals Argentina's six. But Sellas Tetteh thinks this is the time for Africa to win for the first ever time, as the continent hosts three global tournaments in 10 months. "It is a massive tournament, it's like the tournament is being staged in our country," he said when asked about the reaction back home in Ghana. "Getting this far, people have a lot of focus and tomorrow we need to bring joy to the country and to the continent.

Guinea ruler 'must face charges'

2009-10-16T11:40:00.002+04:00

The leader of Guinea's new military government should be put on trial for crimes against humanity, the EU's development chief has told reporters.

Karel de Gucht says the suppression of a opposition rally in the capital Conakry last month was "an act of brutality never seen before". He said that sooner or later leader Capt Moussa Dadis Camara would have to stand in court. More than 150 people were killed when troops opened fire on demonstrators. "This is a crime against humanity. It is a crime against the citizens of Guinea," Mr de Gucht told reporters in Ethiopia. "The international community has agreed that, if such things happen, those individuals have to be brought to justice. But Guinean Prime Minister Kabine Komara told the BBC it was premature to talk of criminal acts and that a full inquiry was needed first to establish the facts.

Bloodless coup

Capt Camara was internationally criticised after gunmen opened fire on protesters in Conakry on 28 September, killing more than 150 people and wounding around 1,000 more. He has denied any responsibility for the incident, saying it was the fault of foreign mercenaries, unruly army elements and a crowd stampede, reports say. Guinea's government was overthrown in a bloodless coup last December, after the death of former head of state Lansana Conte, who had ruled the country since 1984. On coming to power, Capt Camara said he would curb corruption and drug trafficking, improve army discipline and set up elections for early next year, in a bid to transfer power.

The Conakry protests were sparked by persistent rumours that Capt Camara intends to stand as a presidential candidate in elections scheduled for next January - something he had previously ruled out. Ministers of the West African economic group, Ecowas, have also been meeting in Nigeria this week to try to resolve the crisis. The bloc suspended Guinea after last December's coup. On Tuesday, the International Contact Group on Guinea said the country's military leadership should stand down and make way for a transitional authority.

Nigeria lifts gunshot medical ban

2009-10-16T11:37:00.001+04:00

Nigeria has lifted a law which forced hospitals to withhold emergency treatment from victims of gun attacks until a police report had been filed.

Officials revoked the law, in place since the 1980s, over concerns about a rising death rate from bullet wounds. It comes weeks after newspaper editor Bayo Ohu died from bullet wounds after a hospital reportedly waited for a police report rather than treat him. Nigeria is notorious for gun-related crime including kidnapping and robbery. Earlier this year its commercial capital, Lagos, topped a poll of the world's most dangerous places to work. The BBC's Raliya Zubairu, in Abuja, says the government is threatening to withdraw the licences of any clinics failing to abide by the new ruling.

'Inhuman and callous'

The killing of Mr Ohu, who worked on Nigeria's Guardian newspaper, increased the clamour to change the law on emergency treatment for gunshot victims. He was attacked by gunmen in his home on 20 September. After his death senior politicians including Senator Osita Izunaso launched a campaign to have the law changed. He told the senate: "A situation where our medical practitioners, on the basis of police report, refuse to treat victims of gunshots who are left to die is inhuman and callous." Police chief Uba Ringim confirmed that all police stations had been ordered to inform clinics in their vicinity that the rules had changed. "We have sent out circulars and have warned our men not to query any hospital that treats accident or gunshot victims," Nigeria's This Day newspaper quoted him as saying.

"It is unfortunate that hospitals refuse to give care. What is important is to protect lives, treat them, give them all the attention and later contact the police with all the information."

Guinée Conakry : Le soutien de Ticken Jah Facoly à Dadis ?

2009-10-15T19:22:00.000+04:00

Au cours d’un point de presse organisé le mercredi 14 octobre 2009, à son domicile Bamakois, Ticken Jah Facoly, célèbre musicien ivoirien du reggae, après avoir condamné les tueries du 28 septembre 2009 à Conakry, s’est dressé contre la politique de deux poids deux mesures des Etats occidentaux en Afrique.

La Guinée va mal. Et cela coupe le sommeil à Ticken Jah Facoly. Après l’exemple ivoirien, le reggaeman ne souhaite plus voir un autre pays de l’Afrique de l’ouest sombrer dans une crise qu’on peut éviter. Pour cela, il a pris son bâton de pèlerin pour prôner le dialogue serein entre les différentes parties guinéennes avant qu’il ne soit trop tard. « Il faut poser des actions anticipatives en Guinée pour éviter que ce pays ne connaisse une guerre civile aux conséquences désastreuses », a-t-il déclaré. Après avoir soutenu que sa démarche ne vise pas à soutenir un ou combattre un pouvoir ou une opposition, Ticken Jah Fakoly a indiqué que les leaders d’opinion en Afrique doivent dénoncer un certain nombre de choses, notamment la politique de deux poids deux mesures que les occidentaux appliquent en Afrique au gré de leurs intérêts.

Ensuite, Ticken s’est souvenu qu’il a été parmi les premiers a demander au pouvoir de l’époque en place en Côte d’Ivoire de laisser Alassane Dramane Ouattara allé à la compétition présidentielle. « Mais, à l’époque, j’ai pas été entendu et aujourd’hui, après des milliers de morts et une guerre qui peine à prendre fin, les autorités ivoiriennes sont en passe d’accepter la candidature de Alassane Dramane Ouattara », a-t-il indiqué. Avant de déclarer que la Guinée n’est pas aujourd’hui loin de l’exemple ivoirien. « Il faut éviter que la Guinée ne s’embrase comme cela a été le cas en Côte d’Ivoire », a-t-il souhaité. Selon lui, si rien n’est fait pour une réconciliation en Guinée, il faut craindre que ce pays ne sombre dans une guerre irréparable et dramatique.

Ticken Jah Facoly a indiqué qu’il a été en Guinée à deux reprises depuis l’arrivée de Dadis et du CNDD au pouvoir. Selon lui, sa première visite en Guinée, avait pour objet d’aller soutenir les guinéens dans leur transition. Et surtout de demander au Capitaine Moussa Dadis Camara de s’inspirer du cas du Malien Amadou Toumani Touré et de ne jamais choisir de faire comme feu le général Robert Guei de la Côte d’Ivoire. Ticken Jah Facoly s’est rendu en Guinée pour la deuxième fois dans le cadre de sa tournée africaine placée sous le thème d’ « Un concert une école ».

« Pour moi, si le Capitaine Moussa Dadis Camara réussissait sa transition, la Guinée allait entrer dans une nouvelle ère et son échec allait symboliser le désespoir pour tout un peuple », a-t-il révélé. Mais, Ticken Jah Facoly, comme tous les africains qui ont vu, à un moment donné, en Moussa Dadis Camara, une nouvelle race de dirigeants africains qui sont prêts à dire non aux dirigeants occidentaux, pense que la campagne médiatique initiée par les organes de presse internationaux depuis le 28 septembre 2009, n’a qu’un seul objectif : faire partir celui qu’ils considèrent comme étant contre leurs intérêts en Guinée. Malgré, les nombreuses tueries de Conakry, Ticken Jah Facoly invite les africains, notamment les guinéens à réfléchir sur l’acharnement des occidentaux contre le Capitaine Moussa Dadis Camara.

Refuser la manipulation des occidentaux

Tout en condamnant ce qui s’est passé à Conakry le 28 septembre 2009, Ticken Jah Facoly, avec des exemples à l’appui, pense que Moussa Dadis camara est victime d’une politique de deux poids deux mesures de la part des occidentaux. « Au Togo, aux lendemains des élections qui ont conduit Faure Gnassigbé au pouvoir, les contestations ont fait plus de 400 morts et personne n’a levé le petit doigt en France pour lui demander de quitter le pouvoir. A Madagascar, il y a eu de nombreux morts qui n’ont pas été médiatisés.

Au Soudan, après de nombreux crimes commis au Darfour, les chefs d’Etat africain ont fait bloc pour soutenir le Président soudanais menacé par le tribunal pénal international », a-t-il dénoncé. Avant d’indiquer que les occidentaux ont toujours eu la petite manie pour faire partir les leaders africains qui les empêchent de piller les ressources du continent. Il dira que Samory Touré a été accusé de tous les maux, avant d’être arrêté en 1898, pour mourir en déportation au Gabon, loin de son peuple. De même, il a révélé que Patrice Lumumba a été arrêté et assassiné après une compagne de dénigrement orchestrée de mains de maîtres.

Plus proche de nous, il dira que Thomas Sankara, arrivé avec une politique particulière a été dénigré et assassiné. « Est-ce que la jeunesse africaine doit rester placide pour assister les occidentaux qui les privent de tous leurs leaders qui arrivent avec des propositions concrètes de nature à conduire leur pays vers le développement. L’Afrique doit-t-il perdre tous ses leaders qui sont en contradiction avec les pays occidentaux qui n’aspirent qu’à piller nos richesses », s’est-t-il demandé. Ticken Jah Facoly veut savoir pourquoi les occidentaux qui n’ont jamais bougé le petit doigt pour condamner et chasser du pouvoir les chefs d’Etat africain qui ont fait des exactions contre leur peuple, se dressent subitement contre le Capitaine Moussa Dadis Camara et le CNDD.

« Est-ce parce qu’il a mis en cause les termes d’un certain nombre de contrats de concessions minières et menace de revoir la concession du marché de téléphonie dans l’intérêts de la Guinée », s’est interrogé l’artiste reggae, avant d’inviter la jeunesse africaine et tous les leaders du continent à une profonde réflexion sur le cas guinéen, pour mieux comprendre le drame qui se joue à Conakry. Selon Ticken, la Guinée de Sékou Touré est l’un des pays africains qui n’a pas encore touché à au moins 75% de ses ressources naturelles. « Ni Sékou Touré, encore moins Lassana Conté, n’ont pas touché à cette richesse minière qui fait encore de la Guinée un scandale géologique. Et, cela, dans un monde où les grandes puissances ont soif de ressources, cela attire des convoitises », a-t-il déclaré. Avant d’inviter la jeunesse africaine à se mettre debout comme un seul homme contre le pillage de ses ressources par ceux qui lui ferment leurs frontières.

« Est-ce que, malgré quelques faiblesses du Capitaine Moussa Dadis Camara, on doit oublier ce qu’il a fait en 9 mois, dans le domaine de l’électricité, de l’eau potable et de la lutte contre la drogue en Guinée. Les guinéens doivent laver leur linge sale en famille et refuser de livrer Dadis mains et pieds liés aux occidentaux qui n’aspirent qu’à piller les ressources du pays », a-t-il estimé. Après les tueries de Conakry, Ticken pense qu’il fallait rapidement mettre sur pied une commission internationale d’enquêtes pour situer les responsabilités, arrêter les auteurs et les juger.

Mais, il est surpris que les européens qui nous ont habitué aux enquêtes qui n’ont jamais donner les résultats escomptés ailleurs, se précipitent pour désigner de coupables en Guinée, sans le minimum de précaution. Il pense qu’il est aussi injuste de laisser le général mauritanien légitimer son pouvoir par des élections controversées et d’encourager Tandia à tripatouiller la constitution du Niger pour se maintenir au pouvoir et à vouloir s’opposer à une candidature du Capitaine Dadis en Guinée. « Nous devons refuser la manipulation des occidentaux », a-t-il conclu.

Assane Koné

SOURCE: Maliweb.net

ECOWAS Network of National Human Rights Institutions Meets

2009-10-15T18:59:00.000+04:00

The Network of National Human Rights Institutions of ECOWAS Member States have convened a three day meeting in Banjul to review the state of Human Rights in member states.

The meeting, which opened on Tuesday, will lay emphasis on the challenges and achievements in the various member countries.

In his welcoming remarks, ECOWAS Commission Adviser, Democracy and Good Governance, Prof. Ade Adefuye, said the existence of Human Rights Institutions is an important means by which ECOWAS intends to build, sustain and strengthen institutions that contribute towards democracy and good governance in the region.

“The existence of these National Human Rights Institutions as well as regional and continental human rights networks are means by which governments seeks to ensure the existence of human rights of its citizens,” he said.

Prof. Adefuye added that every ECOWAS Member State has its national human rights institution headed by top government officials armed with the mandate to ensure the survival and implementation of human rights principles.

He, however, noted that they are not entirely satisfied with the level of autonomy granted to these national institutions by their respective national governments. He said that there is much that needs to be done as far as their mode of operation is concerned.

“No matter the level of development within the political entity, if the citizens are deprived their human rights, they cannot feel happy and contented,” Prof. Adefuye remarked.

He added that one of the things they hope to achieve from this meeting is to seek ways by which the cause of human rights in the region can be enhanced and strengthened.

As part of the meeting, Mr. Adefuye further stated that they will consider a draft Constitution which will provide a guide for their activities and assist them in the objective of promoting human rights in the region.

The Commission Adviser on Good Governance and Democracy said ECOWAS at every level is doing all it can to ensure proper adherence to the ideals and principles of their Protocol. He said the objective of the founding fathers of ECOWAS can only be achieved if the human rights of the citizens are maintained, protected, given the expression in their ability to elect their own governments, enjoying equality before the law amongst others..

In officially opening the meeting, on behalf of the Minister of Justice, Isatou Graham , Senior State Counsel, said the Gambia is yet to establish a national human rights institution but noted that they are working closely towards that direction.

Madam Graham highlighted some of the strides achieved in the areas of human rights such as the signing of the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa that recognises that women have a right not to be subjected to violence, injury, abuse and harmful traditional practices. She said they have also domesticated other significant Conventions as substantive law such as Trafficking in Persons Act 2007, and the Children’s Act of the Gambia 2005.

Editor’s note

According to Article 35 of the Protocol on Democracy and Good Governance

1 .”Member states shall establish independent National Institutions to promote and protect Human Rights

2. “The executive Secretariat shall take measures to strengthen their capacities. The institutions shall be organised into a regional network.

“Within the framework of this network, each national institution shall systematically submit to the executive secretariat, any report on human rights violations observed in its territory.

“Such reports and reactions of governments shall be widely disseminated through the most appropriate means.”

Article 36 states that “Member states shall institutionalise a national mediation system”.

There is therfore no room for violation of human rights with impunity in any ECOWAS state.

Source: foroyaa news paper
Submitted by Fatou C Malang

Guinea confirms huge China deal

2009-10-13T20:43:00.000+04:00

Guinea's military rulers have agreed a huge mining and oil deal with China, officials have told the BBC, amid continuing criticism of the junta.

Guinean Mines Minister Mahmoud Thiam said a Chinese firm would invest more than $7bn (£4.5bn) in infrastructure.

In return, he said the firm would be a "strategic partner" in all mining projects in the mineral-rich nation.

Guineans are currently on strike to remember dozens of protesters killed by soldiers during a rally two weeks ago.

The shootings were widely condemned by international leaders and opposition groups within Guinea.

Agricultural Minister Abdourahmane Sano resigned on Monday, saying he could no longer show solidarity with the government.

And the president of West Africa's economic bloc, Ecowas, warned that the country was in danger of slipping into another dictatorship.

There are widespread calls for junta leader Captain Moussa Dadis Camara to step down.

After last December's coup he promised to lead a transitional government and hand power back to civilians after an election scheduled for January 2010.

But there has been growing anger at reports that he intends to stand for president.

'Placing foundations'

China has been praised recently by think-tanks and African leaders for choosing to invest in infrastructure and business in Africa, rather than doling out aid money.

But analysts say the timing of the Guinea deal is likely to stir controversy, as the legitimacy of Guinea's government is under question.

Mr Thiam dismissed those concerns, saying the government is trying only to help the people.

"We are all in a transition, putting down foundations. We hope that the government that follows us will follow suit," he told the BBC's Network Africa programme.

He did not name the firm involved, but said it was the same firm that has invested billions in Angola - the Hong Kong registered China International Fund.

He said the firm would help build ports, railway lines, power plants, low-cost housing and even a new administrative centre in the capital, Conakry.

He said a national mining firm would be set up, with the Chinese company becoming "strategic partners".

"All the government's stakes in various mining projects will be put in that mining company. Future mining permits or concessions that the government decided to develop on its own will be put in that company," he said.

Guinea is thought to have the world's largest reserves of the aluminium ore, bauxite.

Source: BBC News

Q&A: Women's Empowerment: 'Men Are Interested' Evelyn Matsamura Kiapi interviews CHRIS BARYOMUNSI, Ugandan member of parliament

2009-10-13T20:36:00.001+04:00

ENTEBBE, Uganda, Oct 12 (IPS) - A trident of gender legislation will be debated in Uganda's parliament in November: the Marriage and Divorce Bill, the Domestic Violence Bill and the Female Genital Mutilation Bill.

One of the voices expected to be heard backing the bills is that of a man: Chris Baryomunsi is the vice chairperson of the parliamentary committee on social services and well-known in Uganda for his defence of women's rights.

He argues that a paradigm shift is needed if gender equality and women's empowerment is to be achieved. In his view, the term "gender" was largely understood to mean women, excluding men from a movement for women's rights. Messages of gender equality, he says, must be packaged to convince men to become involved and participate in the changes.

Baryomunsi participated in a two-day workshop at the end of September intended to enlist men as partners to advocate for the proposed bills.

The workshop was organised by the Uganda Women's Parliamentary Association (UWOPA) in partnership with Uganda's ministry of gender, the United Nations Development Fund and the Norwegian government. Excerpts of his interview with IPS follow.

IPS: Why has there been so much male resistance to passing gender-related legislation in Uganda's Parliament?

CHRIS BARYOMUNSI: Our society, traditions and the environment have given a lot of powers to men compared to women, which to me is an injustice. And while these laws are trying to cure that injustice, men view it as part of their power going away.

As a natural reaction, they would oppose anything which is taking away their power.

I think what is important is to package the whole issue in a manner that will convince men that we are trying to empower them so that we can remove these gaps and enjoy our human rights as individuals; not that they are intended to disempower men and empower women to the disadvantage of men.

But definitely, it is a question of tradition, the environment and society in which we live, where it has become socially acceptable that the man is more powerful than the woman.

IPS: So why is male involvement important at this time?

CB: Because we are basically tracing the power relations between a male and a female and it is true that in our society, the balance of power disfavours the female gender. So we are trying to address this balance by empowering the female so that she can enjoy her rights.

And of course this is now a bargain between the man and the woman. So it becomes very important for the males to be involved, fully on board and to appreciate the importance of this legislation.

And in any case, it is the men who make the decisions. Even the Parliament which will be the final authority over the legislation has more males than females. So if the men are not brought fully on board to appreciate what the purpose of this legislation is, then you cannot win.

Once male legislators are on board, it becomes easy for them to communicate to the rest of the men in the country. When we present this law (as one that is) good for us the leaders, then men in the community will definitely accept and know that it is good for them. But if we present that this is a very dangerous law to the men, then you will get resistance.

Male involvement should therefore be addressed as a priority.

IPS: How can we create effective and culturally-sensitive strategies which can get men on board?

CB: Some of these things will not be easy to legislate upon because culture evolves and evolution sometimes is very slow. We have to critically look at these legislations.

And I think not everything must be put into a law. If we evaluate how far we have gone in terms of addressing these gender issues, we can see what to include in the laws and what to leave out.

But a law in itself is not the final solution. You can have a law, but also continue with interventions on the ground which will interrogate the culture, tradition and societal behaviour to ensure that people continue to be mobilised.

It therefore becomes important to design culturally-sensitive programmes and interventions that will challenge some of these harmful perceptions and behaviours.

And that calls for involvement of all the stakeholders. Cultural and religious leaders and opinion leaders within the communities must be brought on board.

Gradually and eventually, some of these stereotypes of the attitudinal beliefs will be discarded as everybody appreciates the need to empower both men and women and not really to disempower anybody.

IPS: How do men internalise the notions of what it means to be a man and how does that affect their ability to accept and appreciate gender-sensitive laws?

CB: Society imparts a lot of powers on men. So men see masculinity as giving them the power to domineer on others, especially women.

As a man, you want to make decisions in the home and be the one to support your family materially and financially thus seeing yourself as superior.

And then on the other side, women are seen as the weaker sex who should do the household activities as cooking, child bearing and laying beds.

These legislations are interrogating this kind of attitude and behaviour. Therefore, it becomes very crucial in empowering the man to understand that even a woman can do some of the things that men think are traditional male roles.

But it takes time. It should not be rushed. With increased exposure and mobilisation, the men will appreciate that their being powerful as a man should not be to the disadvantage of a woman.  IPS: What is the way forward to ensure that this Marriage & Divorce Bill is passed in to law?

CB: The women parliamentarians with support from their partners have done a good job to mobilise the male legislators before these laws are debated in Parliament. Part of the way forward is to mobilise both the men and women - because it is wrong to assume that it is only the men who are opposing the provisions in this Bill. We know that the failed Domestic Relations Bill was also resisted by some women.

So we must simplify these messages which are contained in the Bills and explain them to the public. The people behind these legislations could use the men who are already on board to explain to the public that the fears men could be having that these laws will undermine their power are far-fetched.

We shall make sure that we pass a law that is good for this country; a law that should not undermine the powers and responsibilities of men but also not undermine the powers and rights of women.

Source: IPS News

Guinea: My Thoughts

2009-10-12T12:22:00.004+04:00

Dear MILEAD Sisters,
we have read and talked about Guinea a lot in the past few weeks. It is a pity that it is usually bad news that brings a country into the spotlight. Throughout my reflections on the issue, two things continue to strike me:

1. Why rape as a tool of oppression/punishment/war? How has sex been constructed in our society such that it can be used to "punish" women in the domestic, social or political sphere? I think one way of answering this question is to understand first of all how the male and female bodies have been socially constructed in our settings.

I am definitely no expert on the issue. As the title of this post suggests, these are my thoughts. My musings as an African womn who observes her surroundings and is very concerned by a number of things. Some of you may remember that I once said in class that I shout at men who urinate by the side of the road in order to "shame" them into stopping their nasty actions. I still marvel at how increasingly brazen men have become in Ghana, in exposing their penises. They no longer face a wall to do their business, Oh no. I have now seen men urinating anywhere they please, their penises and their faces right in the middle of the road/path.

What is the link to rape in Guinea? Bear with me, we will get there.

I have not seen a women urinate in public the same way men do. Women who urinate outside must squat (biology demands it, I suppose), but they must squat in the bushes, behind trees or behind a wall. In effect, they remain hidden. Are you starting to get my drift?

Through something as commonplace as urinating, we get a glimpse of how the male and fermale bodies, especially the male and female sex, are constructed. Men may bare their goods to the world. Indeed, it is a source of pride, posterity, the bigger the better etc. Women must hide their sex, their bodies. It is a source of shame, of temptation, of sin. Again the link to rape? Stay with me.

So here we have the male sex organ as an image of strength, imbued with the moral authority to punish a woman. Is this too far a leap? Think back to half the rape cases you have heard of on our continent and the age old defense "she was asking for it." Indeed just last weekend my grandmother admonished me against going out in shorts or else "the boys will attack you and rape you." She was not lying. It's happened. Boys and men in Ghana have been known to rape a woman because she "deserved it. She was dressed like an ashawo, a whore." Are we closer to rape in Guinea? In Liberia? In the DRC?

Perhaps not, because I do not know how the male and female bodies are constructed in these settings. But if they are anything like Ghana, then the recent mass rape of women in Guinea does not come as a schock to me. In fact it is simply an extreme (but inevitable) manifestation of sexual patriarchy.

In a nutshell, patriarchy is not limited to the economic realm, to job opportunities or to whether or noy a woman can be a pilot. Patriarchy is PERVASIVE on our continent, from who has the right to pleasure in sex, to who has the right to be abusive in a relationship, all the way to who has the right to "punish" a woman for the use of her body.

What does all this mean to us? Stay tuned for Guinea: My Thoughts II.

France and US want Guinea massacre probe: Kouchner

2009-10-11T02:00:00.000+04:00

GENEVA — Paris and Washington want an international probe into last month's massacre by Guinean troops of opposition demonstrators in Conakry, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said on Saturday.

"There is a common position between the United States and us... we want an international commission of enquiry," Kouchner said after meeting US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Zurich. "The killing of all these women, all these children, is really an unbearable event," Kouchner said.

The United Nations says that at least 150 people were killed when government troops opened fire on a demonstration at a Conakry stadium calling for junta leader Captain Moussa Dadis Camara not to stand for election. Amid mounting international pressure on Camara, rights groups have also reported many cases of rape and other abuses at the stadium, where more than 1,200 people were injured. France suspects that Camara "took part in the decision" which led to the massacre, the foreign ministry said on Wednesday. Camara seized power in December last year after the death of Guinean strongman Lansana Conte, who had ruled the resource-rich west African country since 1984.

A delegation of members of the Guinean opposition, including witnesses to the massacre, left for Abuja on Saturday to attend a special meeting of the ECOWAS regional grouping on Monday. Foreign ministers from the Economic Community of West African States will discuss the massacre. The bloc has already named Burkina Faso President Blaise Compaore to try to reduce tensions in Guinea.

SOURCE: AFP

Video: Special report on Guinea's junta leader, Moussa Dadis Camara

2009-10-11T01:57:00.000+04:00

SOURCE: Youtube/ France 24

EU backs away from Guinea sanctions

2009-10-09T18:32:00.000+04:00

BRUSSELS — The European Union backed away on Friday from sanctioning members of Guinea's military junta responsible for last month's massacre, preferring to let African nations take the lead, an EU diplomat said.

"It was decided that leadership in this crisis should be left to the African Union," the diplomat said, after talks in Brussels between members of the 27 EU nations.

The African Union is due to meet on October 17 to discuss possible targeted sanctions against junta members, and the EU "will coordinate with the African Union following its decision" at that meeting, he said.

Guinea's health ministry has said that 56 people were killed and 934 people injured during a bloody crackdown on a protest in Conakry on September 28.

The United Nations and aid organisations say at least 150 people were killed when soldiers opened fire in a crowded stadium in the Guinean capital.

Local human rights groups say 1,200 people were injured including many women who were raped by soldiers during the crackdown.

The protestors had wanted to show their opposition to any bid by junta leader Captain Moussa Dadis Camara to stand in a presidential election it plans to organise next January.

France has announced the suspension of military aid to its former colony and in a statement on Thursday, Amnesty International urged Paris to ensure that a ban extended to weapons used by riot police and in crowd control.

"These kinds of munitions have been persistently used in serious human rights violations -- including unlawful killings, the grossly excessive use of force, and sexual violence -- during a decade of violent repression by Guinean security forces," said Erwin van der Borght, head of Amnesty's Africa programme.

The EU diplomat said that EU nations would "be ready to contribute to a peacekeeping mission" should the African Union decide to organise one in Guinea.

On Tuesday, the EU threw its weight behind Burkina Faso President Blaise Compaore as Guinea mediator and urged all sides to work to restore order.

SOURCE: AFP

Obama wins Nobel Peace Prize to mixed reviews

2009-10-09T18:27:00.000+04:00

The Norwegian Nobel Committee said it honored Obama for his "extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples."

The decision appeared to catch most observers by surprise.

The president had not been mentioned as among front-runners for the prize, and the roomful of reporters gasped when Thorbjorn Jagland, chairman of the Nobel committee, uttered Obama's name.

Nominations for the prize had to be postmarked by February 1 -- only 12 days after Obama took office. The committee sent out its solicitation for nominations last September -- two months before Obama was elected president.

The president, who was awakened to be told he had won, said he was humbled to be selected, according to an administration official.

Obama will make a statement Friday at 11 a.m. ET from the Rose Garden, administration officials said.

The Nobel committee recognized Obama's efforts to solve complex global problems including working toward a world free of nuclear weapons. Watch the announcement of Obama as 2009 Nobel Peace Prize recipient

"Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future," the committee said.

Jagland said the decision was "unanimous" and came with ease.

He rejected the notion that Obama had been recognized prematurely for his efforts and said the committee wanted to promote the president just it had Mikhail Gorbachev in 1990 in his efforts to open up the Soviet Union.

"His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world's population," it said

The announcement caught the White House off guard. One senior administration official said "we were quite surprised."

Some analysts have speculated that the prize could give Obama additional clout as he forms a strategy for the war in Afghanistan and attempts to engage Iran and North Korea. Another senior administration official told CNN he hopes the White House can "use it for the positive."

The domestic political consequences are unclear. Supporters hope the prestige associated with the prize will strengthen the president's hand in the health care reform debate. A top Republican from George W. Bush's administration, however, argued that "this will backfire on them for a while" and asserted it was "a gift to the right." Laureates to Nobel winners: Prepare for 'lightning bolt'

Obama's recognition comes less than a year after he became the first African-American to win the White House. He is the fourth U.S. president to win the prestigious prize and the third sitting president to do so.

Jagland said he hoped the prize would help Obama resolve the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Listen to Jagland explain why Obama was this year's choice »

Former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari, last year's laureate, said it was clear the Nobel committee wanted to encourage Obama on the issues he has been discussing on the world stage. Praise, skepticism greet Nobel announcement

"I see this as an important encouragement," Ahtisaari said.

The committee wanted to be "far more daring" than in recent times and make an impact on global politics, said Kristian Berg Harpviken, director of the International Peace Research Institute.

And Wangari Muta Maathai, the Kenyan environmentalist who won the 2004 Peace Prize, said the win for Obama, whose father was Kenyan, would help Africa move forward.

"I think it is extraordinary," she said. "It will be even greater inspiration for the world. He has shown how we can probably come together, work together in a cooperative way."

The award comes at a crucial time for Obama, who has initiated peace missions to key parts of the globe.

Obama's envoy to the Middle East, George Mitchell, has returned to the region to advocate for peace negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians. Mitchell met Thursday with Israeli President Shimon Peres. He plans to meet Friday with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu before talking with Palestinian leaders in the West Bank.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton starts a six-day trip to Europe and Russia on Friday. On the trip, the secretary will discuss the next steps on Iran and North Korea, and international efforts to have the two countries end their nuclear programs.

The centerpiece of the trip will be her visit to Moscow, where she will work toward an agreement to take the place of the Start II arms control pact, which expires December 5. She also will address the new bilateral presidential commission that is working on a broad range of issues, from arms control to health.

Mohamed ElBaradei, who won the 2005 peace prize for his efforts to prevent nuclear energy being used for military means, said Obama deserved to win for his efforts to bring Iran to the table for direct nuclear talks with the United States.

"I could not think of anybody who is more deserving," said ElBaradei, the chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

As the news of Obama's win broke online, postings on social network sites Twitter and Facebook expressed surprise. Many started with the word: Wow.

The last sitting U.S. president to win the peace prize was Woodrow Wilson in 1919. The other was Theodore Roosevelt in 1906. Jimmy Carter had been out of office for more than two decades when he won in 2002.

This year's Peace Prize nominees included 172 people -- among them three Chinese dissidents, an Afghan activist and a controversial

SOURCE: CNN

Guinea to probe rally shootings

2009-10-08T21:32:00.004+04:00

Guinea's military government has announced it is setting up a commission to investigate the shooting of protesters in the capital last week.

Its members are to be drawn from political parties, unions and civic organisations as well as the military. Human rights groups say 157 people were killed in the incident, while the government puts the figure at only 57. Opposition parties have rejected meditation talks until those behind the stadium killings face justice.

COMMISSION'S COMPOSITION

Seven judges

Five lawyers

Two doctors

Four opposition representatives

Three representatives of parties loyal to the military

Three representatives from unions and civil society

National Public Radio's West Africa correspondent Ofeibea Quist-Arcton, who is in Guinea, told the BBC the military government is coming under pressure from home and abroad to address the outrage over the deaths. She says while businesses have reopened, there is still a sense of shock in the capital, Conakry. Witnesses say Guinean soldiers fired on an unarmed crowd that gathered inside a stadium in Conakry to protest against the government. They also say many women demonstrators were raped. The military government urged all parties to nominate their representatives to the commission as soon as possible, but no time-frame for the investigation was given.

'Vile violation'

On Wednesday French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said he suspected Guinea's military leader Capt Moussa Dadis Camara had participated in the decision to launch the bloody crackdown. Guinea's strongman has blamed "uncontrollable soldiers" for the violence, as well as the opposition for calling the rally in the first place. Last week's protest was called after rumours that Capt Camara , who took over in a coup last December after the death of long-time ruler Lansana Conte, indicated he may run in January's elections, having initially ruled himself out.

Earlier US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Washington was appalled and outraged by the "vile violation" of people's rights and intended "to pursue appropriate actions" against Guinea's military rulers. Burkinabe President Blaise Compaore is mediating in the dispute on behalf of the regional body Ecowas and has proposed that the military leadership and opposition meet in Ouagadougou for talks.

A Massacre in Guinea

2009-10-08T15:37:00.001+04:00

The Dadis Show turns nasty

And the captain is unrepentant

When an unknown army captain called Moussa Dadis Camara seized power at the head of a scrum of soldiers in Guinea at the end of last year, most Guineans and some foreigners rejoiced. No one likes coups; but surely Captain Camara could only be better than his shockingly corrupt and despotic predecessor, President Lansana Conte, whose death sparked the army uprising. Now it seems, Guineans have their answer, after government security forces-according to a respectable human-rights group-killed at least 157 and injured more than 1,200 people to quell protests in the capital, Conakry, on September 28th. Soldiers reportedly ran people through with bayonets; some raped women in the streets.

It had all seemed to start so well. Captain Camara said all the right thing and seemed to act on them too. He promised to root out the corruption that, under Mr Conte, had plagued the resource-rich country, which has the world’s biggest reserves of bauxite. He got the former president’s son to confess to his part in a drug smuggling ring. Former ministers and a prime minister agreed to hand back money pilfered in office. Moreover, the captain promised a swift return to civilian rule and elections in 2010. And he apparently wanted to end Guinea’s cycle of military rule-by accepting that he himself could not be a presidential candidate.

All this made him popular. But from the start he plainly had an elevated sense of his own importance. A half-admiring, half-nervous public quickly dubbed his swaggering and very personal style of government the Dadis Show, which was the name of a television programme in which the captain himself questioned and berated miscreants. He soon became intolerant of dissent and began to wrangle with opponents who suspected he had always wanted to run in next year’s election.

A protest by tens of thousands of people against Captain Camara’s candidacy for president, demanding that he step down immediately, provoked a clumsy and bloody response. Despite sharp criticism by the African Union, the United Nations and France, the former colonial power, the captain sounds unrepentant. He blamed the violence on troublemakers who would be “severely punished” and banned all meetings and gathering that could be “subversive” to public order. Under his definition, this would apply to any event he might object to. Guinea’s decades-long agony seems set to continue.

The Economist, Volume 393 Number 8651.
Octobrt 3rd-9th 2009
www.economist.com