Pambazuka News - Pan African Voices For Peace & Justice

2013-05-16 - https://picasaweb.google.com/116324325963860842642In Africa’s last monarchy – the kingdom of Swaziland, the major question is: for how long multi-party politics should be construed as incompatible with Swazi tradition, when that tradition is static? It appears that Swazi tradition was not only hijacked by the monarchy but has arrested the development of genuine democratic participation of Swazi citizens

Do NGOs practice what they preach? 2013-05-15 - https://picasaweb.google.com/ngo.aakarThere is a clear disjunction between the world NGOs seek to create, and the world their governance structures reproduce

Putting Zimbabwe’s forthcoming general elections in the context of 2008 2013-05-16 - https://picasaweb.google.com/109466929960293981880The events of 2008 in Zimbabwe led to bloodshed and the present-day Government of National Unity. ZANU PF has exposed its cast-iron willpower to thwart the implementation of any meaningful reforms and the prognosis for the 2013 elections appears bleak

2013-05-16 - https://picasaweb.google.com/104510629571434738991If capital is to be believed, it is the worker who is the main source of South Africa’s contemporary social and economic problems

2013-05-15 - https://picasaweb.google.com/114660615615332767096Two years after French-led forces brought Allassane Ouattara to power, he is not yet in control of the country. Rebels run a parallel taxation system and looting of the country’s resources is in top gear

Pan-Africanism and today’s challenges: Obstacles and ways forward 2013-05-16 Toronto, ON -The Toronto chapter of the Group for Research and Initiative for the Liberation of Africa (GRILA), will commemorate the African Liberation Day 2013 on Saturday, May 25th 2013 at 5:00 p.m. This will mark the 50th anniversary of the creation of the OAU (Organization of African Unity). This public education event will take place at A Different Booklist which is located at 746 Bathurst (next to the Bathurst Subway station). In the New Scramble for Africa, the continent is facing the dual threat of militarization and capitalist-driven land grabs. In militarist terms, the US and its European allies are increasingly consolidating their imperialist stranglehold in the region. Under the auspices of the so-called United States Africa Command (AFRICOM), the US is seeking the recolonization of the continent in bid to secure unfettered access to vital resources in the wake of China’s ascendancy in Africa. The bloody military intervention in Libya was swiftly followed by deployment of Special Forces in Uganda, paving the way for militarization in the Central African region and the new escalation by President Obama of America’s two decades old war in Somalia. In the Sahel region, Mali has suddenly become the centre of a new global “war on terror.” Paradoxically, US-backed, French forces in Mali are fighting the same terrorist bands trained by US and NATO Special Forces, now justifying a full-fledged, neo-colonial invasion of Mali by France. Under the pretext of fighting terror, the French-led militarization strategy in Mali is rooted in AFRICOM’s hegemonic military objectives of securing vital resources, countering China’s strategy and confronting the revolutionary wave sweeping across the continent. The choice of Mali as a new staging ground for a joint AFRICOM/NATO military offensive on the African continent is not a mere coincidence. With proven oil reserves as well as gold and uranium deposits, resource-rich Mali is strategically located in the heart of the oil-rich Sahel region. Its proximity to oil-rich Libya to the north and the vastly oil-rich, Gulf of Guinea region to the south comprising of oil-producing states of Nigeria, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon and newly oil-rich Ghana, makes it a convenient springboard to direct a new phase of imperialist-driven, military intervention in the continent. Mali is touted as a potential site for AFRICOM’s proposed base in Africa. In addition to threats posed by AFRICOM/NATO militarization, there is also a growing threat to African food security and prosperity from massive land grabs by external capitalist forces. Africa is being used to bail out the world’s food crisis by secretive, powerful land grabbers seeking control over land and water resources. The new scramble for prime African land erstwhile dubbed the “Great Land Grab,” is driven by biofuel demands in the European Union and other industrialized nations and renewed global attempts to augment food security in other regions of the world, principally in the Persian Gulf and East Asia. The threat posed by AFRICOM’s militarization and ongoing land grabs calls for sustained Pan-African response from the grassroots level to national and continental level. On Saturday, May 25th, 2013, join concerned Pan-Africanists at an African Liberation Day Panel discussion on the unfolding situation in the continent. Date:Saturday, May 25, 2013 Time: 5pm - 7pm Location: A Different Booklist -746 Bathurst (South of Bloor), Toronto Brought to you by the Group for Research and Initiative for the Liberation of Africa (GRILA – Toronto Chapter) http://www.grila - http://www.grila .org Email: admin@grila.org, grilator@gmail.com Phone: (416) 721 – 4531 NOTE: A major international campaign around these issues (Militarization and Land Grab) will be announced the same day.

2013-05-16 The principal drivers of the Somali crisis are identifiable foreign powers exploiting the vulnerabilities of the Somali people rooted in clan rivalry, poverty, religion and selfish ambitious personalities

2013-05-16 Some of President Jonathan’s close allies are threatening, or prophesying, violence in Nigeria should he fail to be re-elected in 2015. His opponents are not taking this lightly. This alarming talk is raising political temperatures in the already deeply divided nation

2013-05-16 Youth unemployment and hopelessness pose a serious threat to development and peace in the north. Increased initiatives and budget spending on youth unemployment, poverty alleviation and empowerment programmes are quite positive. If sustained, these programmes could reduce the risk of violence

2013-05-16 What credits one’s life is not how much wealth he has piled up for himself but how good he has done for the rest of humanity. Dr Oladipo Fashina was very careful to ensure that he autographed his deeds with excellence

2013-05-16 The greatest enemy against achievement is negativity. And victory isn’t cheap; it’s accomplished through sweat, tears and braving betrayal from within

2013-05-16 Kenya’s Members of Parliament want a bigger salary. But the country is outraged by this demand. This week, protesters poured out into the streets of Nairobi to say No to the MPs’ greed

2013-05-16 The Committee to Protect Journalists, an independent, nonprofit organization that promotes press freedom worldwide, urges President Jacob Zuma not to sign the Protection of State Information Bill and to send it back to the National Assembly for further revisions that meet the standards of openness and transparency demanded by South Africa's Constitution

2013-05-16 It is a woeful tale that exposes the inhuman exploitation of workers and the neglect they suffer from their unions that are meant to agitate for their interests. For how long will this continue?

'If you consider your friend to be an animal he considers you to be shit' (Tshi proverb, Ghana). 2013-05-16 ‘His detailed plot summaries of the movies in the book are so well written that readers may no longer need to see the films after reading his book’

2013-05-16 Wednesday 29 May 2013, a fortnight away, is the 47th anniversary of the beginning of the Igbo genocide. Starting from that fateful mid-morning of Sunday 29 May 1966 and through the course of 44 months of indescribable barbarity and carnage not seen in Africa for 60 years, the composite institutions of the Nigeria state, civilian and military, murdered 3.1 million Igbo people or one-quarter of this nation´s population. The Igbo genocide is the foundational genocide of post-(European)conquest Africa. It inaugurated Africa´s current age of pestilence. This year´s commemoration will, as in the past, be a day of meditation and remembrance in every Igbo household in Igboland and the Igbo diaspora for the 3.1 million murdered, gratitude and thanksgiving for those who survived, and the collective Igbo rededication to achieve the urgent goal of the restoration of Igbo sovereignty. There will also be lectures, discussions and exhibitions on varying features and phases of the genocide organised by individuals, students, the youth, women, family unions, village, town, district, regional and professional associations. The 50 million Igbo people heartily welcome all peoples of goodwill across the world to join them in commemorating the 47th anniversary of the launch of the genocide. * Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe is the author of Readings from Reading: Essays on African Politics, Genocide, Literature (Dakar and Reading: African Renaissance, 2011).

2013-05-09 - https://picasaweb.google.com/116344589077076297327South Africa is this week hosting yet another major conference, the World Economic Forum for Africa, amidst increasing evidence that the nation is fast growing as a sub-imperialist power

2013-05-09 - https://picasaweb.google.com/112448479869362930381The kind of tragic exploitation of workers in Bangladesh is present all over Africa, where people are denied basic labour rights as part of state efforts to attract and retain foreign investment. Militant and sustained efforts are needed to resist this trend

Exiled Black Panther Party veteran has lived in Cuba for three decades 2013-05-07 - https://picasaweb.google.com/106339814614280647525On the 40th anniversary of the shooting and capture of Assata Shakur, the FBI and the State of New Jersey has now placed the African American revolutionary on the most wanted terrorist list

2013-05-07 - https://picasaweb.google.com/116985356763259670810A year ago, we were hopeful that your presidency would open a new chapter in overhauling the World Bank’s justice system. But a year later, the presidential mantle that we had hoped would dismantle the racist institutional culture seems to be drawn toward the center of gravity of the status quo