Posts Tagged ‘ 2009 ’

Winning hearts and minds with medical care
By Herve Bar (Sapa-AFP)

Too weak to hide her mutilated face with her scarf, saliva dribbling from her atrophied mouth and blood seeping through her bandage, the woman lies in the peacekeepers’ hospital next to Mogadishu airport.

Dhicisay Salat, 35, was selling khat to armed men on a market in the capital when “someone threw a grenade”, explained her sister, who brought her to the base of the African Union peacekeeping force in Somalia, AMISOM.

A grenade fragment shattered her jaw.

Alongside sick and wounded peacekeepers from the AMISOM force, this field hospital is also treating around 100 other patients, most of them war wounded like Salat.

The most serious cases can just show up at one of the entrances to the base, which are sandy tracks with Ugandan machine guns trained on them.

Less urgent cases can consult an AMISOM doctor at the base three times a week.

Currently hundreds of people are queueing up for treatment; some of them have been there since daybreak.

The most serious cases are escorted to the field hospital – a collection of big canvas tents housing lines of camp beds. Ugandan nurses in camouflage trousers and T-shirts, their hair hidden under a scarf, move from bed to bed.

The operating theatre has been set up in a container, the laboratory in a prefabricated unit. Two special wards house women suffering from suppurative inflammations.

“The majority of those we take in have bullet or shrapnel wounds,” explained the military doctor, Colonel James Kiyengo.

“Others have been wounded in road accidents or are suffering from serious illnesses.”

Many of the male patients, grouped together in the same tent, are fighters.

“We even treat the Shebab (insurgents),” said Kiyengo, pointing to a smiling adolescent who has had his right leg amputated.

Then there are the patients with cancer in its terminal stages or other incurable diseases.

Twenty-year-old Muslimo Isak has an angelic face but her chest is deformed by ugly cancerous growths. A widow with no relatives, she has nowhere else to go.

“We take care of these hopeless cases like their neighbours would in the village,” Kiyengo said.
Eleven Burundian and Ugandan military doctors work in the field hospital, where medical treatment is free. “Some patients come from a very long way away; AMISOM is their only hope,” said Kiyengo.

“If you don’t have money, you can’t go to Medina,” one of Mogadishu’s three hospitals, said Ise Abdi, a patient whose thigh was half ripped away by a mortar bomb.

For AMISOM it’s a case of trying to “win the hearts and minds” of Somalis, explained the spokesman of the force, Major Ba-Hoku Barigye.

“If the districts of town around the base are quiet, it’s largely because of the medical care given by the force,” said the military doctor.

These operations are also aimed at counter-balancing the devastating effects on Somali public opinion of the civilians killed by mortars fired by AMISOM in retaliation for insurgent attacks.

Unsurprisingly, Mogadishu’s Islamist insurgents take a dim view of medical care administered by AMISOM, a force they have vowed to chase out of town.

Just a few days ago a man had his throat cut after he was found with a prescription written by an AMISOM doctor.

AMANDA & NIGEL special No. IV
Canadian journalist released from Nairobi hospital (Calgary Herald)

Alberta journalist Amanda Lindhout recently freed after months of captivity in Somalia was released Tuesday from a Nairobi hospital, said a spokeswoman for the family.

“I can confirm that Amanda has been released from full-time hospital care. However, there are no other updates to report in regards to her expected return to Canada,” said Sarah Geddes in an e-mail.

“(Lindhout and her family) are taking it day by day and Amanda will return when she is ready. I can also confirm it won’t be anytime soon.”

Lindhout, a freelance journalist, and Nigel Brennan, an Australian photographer, were kidnapped at gunpoint on Aug. 23, 2008, outside of Mogadishu. The two were travelling to visit a refugee camp.

The two were moved to various locations over the following 15 months, kept in rough conditions, given little food and faced beatings and torture while holed up in dark, windowless rooms.

Their families reportedly paid a ransom for their release from a horrible hostage situation in Somalia.

‘Truly humbled’ Nigel Brennan says thanks
By Glenda Kwek

Freed Australian hostage Nigel Brennan has thanked everyone who helped to secure his release from captivity in Somalia.

The 37-year-old freelance journalist, who was held in Somalia by kidnappers for 15 months until a ransom of between $US600,000 and $US1 million ($1.08 million) was reportedly paid, issued a thank-you note through his family this afternoon.

“I know there was an enormous effort from countless people to secure my release; it is truly humbling to think that so many people I don’t even know have done this for myself and my family,” the statement read.

“As for my family and friends, this has been an exceptionally difficult ordeal for them, they did everything they could to achieve their goal and I am so pleased they did not give up.”

He expressed his delight at being free, but asked for privacy and space to deal with his current situation.

“There are no words that accurately describe the feeling of being free.

“I would like to ask the media to understand that it is going to be some time before I am able to talk about my experience. In the interim I would greatly appreciate if you would all respect my wishes for privacy and space to come to terms with the situation I now find myself in.

“My family is also going to need space, and privacy and I ask you to respect that as well.”

Brennan’s statement comes in the wake of Canadian reports of a dramatic end to his kidnapping ordeal.

Shots were fired by Somalian kidnappers at the vehicle carrying Brennan and his fellow hostage – Canadian freelance journalist Amanda Lindhout – during the night-time exchange that secured their freedom, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reported.

Brennan’s ill-treatment by his captors, which included being shackled and pistol-whipped, was triggered after an escape attempt, said the head of the British kidnap and ransom company AKE Group, which secured his release.

In January, they loosened bricks in a wall and made a dash for freedom while reportedly being held in the capital Mogadishu, John Chase of AKE Group said.

They reached the steps of a nearby mosque before the kidnappers caught up to them.

“Some people were too scared to help them and the gang caught up to them,” he told The Canadian Press.

“There was actually a story of some people trying to help them that got beaten down and they got recaptured.

“From that point on, things got a lot worse for them. They were shackled [and] kept in separate rooms.”

Rescue delayed

They were meant to be rescued a week earlier, Mr Chase said, but the operation was delayed until two Somali MPs, from the same clan as the kidnappers, stepped in to help.

A planned daylight transfer was delayed while their captors had a meal and prayed.

The exchange was finally carried out at night, with the kidnappers firing parting shots at the car carrying the pair to safety.

Brennan and Lindhout cried uncontrollably during their release, said Nur Aden Nur, one of the Somali MPs who helped in the negotiations.

“They started crying. There was no way to talk to them. But I gave them the phone to talk with their mothers,” he told CBC.

“Nobody told them they were coming to us.”

The pair were flown to the Kenyan capital Nairobi, where they were told they had parasites from eating contaminated food, Mr Chase said.

Ms Lindhout revealed she had suffered constant pain from an abscessed tooth.

Both families gave up on efforts by their respective governments a year after the kidnapping, turning instead to raising money to pay the ransom themselves.

Australian ex-hostage struggles with Somali ordeal
By Amy Coopes (AFP)

An Australian photojournalist held for 15 months in Somalia Wednesday broke his silence on the ordeal, expressing joy at his release but saying he’s still struggling to come to terms with the kidnapping.

Nigel Brennan, who was pistol-whipped and chained up for months after being snatched near Mogadishu in August 2008, said he was slowly recovering but remained unable to go into detail about his experiences.

“There are no words that accurately describe the feeling of being free,” he said in a statement released through his family. “I’m happy to report that I’m feeling better and getting stronger every day.

“I would like to ask the media to understand that it is going to be some time before I am able to talk about my experience,” he added.

“In the interim I would greatly appreciate if you would all respect my wishes for privacy and space to come to terms with the situation I now find myself in.”

Brennan was freed after his family and that of his fellow captive, Canadian journalist Amanda Lindhout, hired private hostage negotiators to hand over a ransom for their release.

Millionaire Australian businessman Dick Smith and a politician contributed to the 600,000 dollar (555,000 US) ransom after Brennan’s family sold property and held “sausage sizzle” barbecues to raise funds.

“It is truly humbling to think that so many people I don’t even know have done this for myself and my family,” Brennan said, paying special tribute to his loved ones.

“This has been an exceptionally difficult ordeal for them. They did everything they could to achieve their goal and I am so pleased they did not give up.”

Smith said Australian contributors paid all the ransom for both hostages, with Lindhout’s side still working to raise their share. He has denied a statement from the kidnappers that one million dollars was handed over.

“At the present time, all of the ransom has come from Australia. Nothing has come from Canada,” Smith told the AAP newswire. “I find that extraordinary. We’ve had to put up the money for the Canadians when that’s a wealthy country.”

The family’s negotiator, John Chase, said shots were fired by the Somalian captors during the night-time hostage release, which followed months of harsh treatment sparked by a failed escape attempt in January.

“From that point on, things got a lot worse for them. They were shackled and kept in separate rooms,” British-based Chase told Canadian media.

Chase said the pair, now recovering in Kenya, both had parasites from eating contaminated food, while Lindhout was in constant pain from an abscessed tooth.

Brennan lost about 10 kilograms (22 pounds) in captivity, and his family told The Australian newspaper he was unlikely to get medical clearance to fly home from the Kenyan capital Nairobi for at least 10 days.

Smith has attacked the Australian government’s handling of the case, saying it prolonged Brennan’s ordeal. Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said Canberra did all it could to help but does not pay ransoms for kidnapped citizens.

The full statement from Nigel Brennan:

There are no words that accurately describe the feeling of being free. I know there was an enormous effort from countless people to secure my release; it is truly humbling to think that so many people I don’t even know have done this for myself and my family. There have been countless kind queries from people regarding my health and I’m happy to report that I’m feeling better and getting stronger every day.

As for my family and friends, this has been an exceptionally difficult ordeal for them, they did everything they could to achieve their goal and I am so pleased they did not give up.

I would like to ask the media to understand that it is going to be some time before I am able to talk about my experience. In the interim I would greatly appreciate if you would all respect my wishes for privacy and space to come to terms with the situation I now find myself in. My family is also going to need space, and privacy and I ask you to respect that as well.

Thank you so very much to everyone.

Nigel Brennan

Aussies paid Canadian’s ransom in Somalia (UPI)

An Australian businessman says the family of a Canadian woman has yet to come up with their half of the ransom paid to Somali kidnappers.

Dick Smith told The (Sydney) Daily Telegraph that he and the family of Australian captive Nigel Brennan came up with the entire $600,000 that led to the release of Brennan and Canadian freelance journalist Amanda Lindhout earlier last week.

“At the present time, all of the ransom has come from Australia. Nothing has come from Canada,” Smith said. “I find that extraordinary.”

The newspaper said Wednesday that the pair was recovering in Kenya after a 15-month ordeal that began when Lindhout and Brennan, a photo journalist, were grabbed while travelling to a refugee camp in the strife-torn African nation.

The ransom negotiations were handled by a British firm that charged several thousand dollars for its services, the newspaper said.

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Kenya on high alert over Al-Shabaab
By Kenneth Ogosia and Abdullahi Jamaa

Latest capture of border town puts the militia at an advantage

Kenya has increased security surveillance along the border with Somalia to prevent the fighting in the lawless state from spilling over into the country.

Internal Security permanent secretary Francis Kimemia said on Tuesday that security committees chaired by district commissioners in North Eastern Province were monitoring the latest gains made by Al-Shabaab rebels, who captured the border town of Dhobley at the weekend.

Speaking during an induction course for newly appointed DCs at Kenya Institute of Administration, Mr Kimemia said all the fighting was taking place inside Somalia and not on Kenyan soil.

Al-Shaabab’s latest incursion into Hizbul-Islam territory yielded a huge battle that sent hundreds of refugees into Kenya.

“We couldn’t stand this latest flare-up,” Mr Ahmed Abdi, a Somali refugee, told the Daily Nation by telephone from the Dadaab Refugee Camp. “We had to do anything to cross into Kenya.”

But not all the displaced found their way into camps, and reports abound that a number of them have sought refuge in the Kenyan border town of Dhobley, which shares the same name with its Somali neighbour.

“Some of the people here came from as far away as Afmadow, the stronghold of Hizbul-Islam. Others came from Qoqaani, another town formerly controlled by the Hizbul militants,” a Dhobley resident confirmed.

The capture of the border town now gives Al-Shaabab dominion over the vast province of Lower Juba, which encompasses five towns, and which shares a long border with Kenya’s north eastern frontier.

At the Garissa Provincial Hospital, sources indicated that about 17 Somalis injured during the fighting between the rival rebels had sought treatment at the facility, and that they were yet to be released by Tuesday.

A health worker who spoke to the Daily Nation on condition of anonymity — perhaps because the Kenyan Government closed its border with Somalia in 2006 as the toppled Islamic Courts Union made its murderous forays into the country — said he had seen a number of injured foreigners in the hospital.

“I, however, cannot give you further details,” he said.

Minister Frattini meets with Executive Secretary of IGAD

Minister for Foreign Affairs Franco Frattini met today at the foreign ministry in Rome with Executive Secretary of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) Kenyan Mahboub Maalim.

The meeting confirmed Italy’s traditional support for IGAD, an organisation that unites seven countries of the Horn of Africa (Eritrea, Ethiopia, Djibouti, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan and Uganda), of which several had an Italian colonial past like Ethiopia, Eritrea and Somalia.

Minister reiterated Italy’s commitment to helping IGAD develop as an effective instrument in the pursuit of peace, with special regard to the Somalia situation, stability, democratic growth and the economic integration of the countries of the region. He then assured Italy’s contribution of 300,000 euro to IGAD for the development of those activities.

Eritrea denies aiding Somalia’s Islamist rebels
By Louis Charbonneau (Reuters)

* Eritrean envoy says no justification for UN sanctions

* Envoy urges UN council to take up its Ethiopia dispute

Eritrea’s U.N. envoy denied that his country has been supporting Islamist rebels intent on toppling neighboring Somalia’s fragile government and said there was no reason to sanction Asmara.

Ambassador Araya Desta was reacting to a Ugandan-drafted resolution circulated to members of the U.N. Security Council that would impose sanctions against the Red Sea state, including an arms embargo, travel bans and asset freezes for members of Eritrea’s government and military.

The United States and other council members accuse Eritrea of supplying al Shabaab rebels with money and weapons as they fight to topple the U.N.-backed transitional government of Somali President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, the official leader of the virtually lawless Horn of Africa nation.

“The draft resolution is based on unfounded accusations against Eritrea on the issue of Somalia,” Desta said in a letter to the Security Council made public on Tuesday.

“Eritrea does not favor or support a military solution, as it is convinced that there can be no military settlement in Somalia,” he said. “Nor does Eritrea favor one party as opposed to another. It does not work with one against others.”

Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki said last week that the international community would regret any moves to impose sanctions on the country.

In his letter, Desta hinted that Eritrea believes al Shabaab should be part of any future political solution for its neighbor in the Horn of Africa.

“Eritrea firmly holds that a durable and sustainable solution requires the participation of all key Somali actors in an inclusive political process,” he said.

It is unclear when the council will vote on the resolution, if at all. Diplomats say changes will be needed to avoid a veto from China and Russia, which dislike sanctions in general.

Fighting in Somalia has killed nearly 19,000 civilians since the start of 2007 and made 1.5 million homeless.

A U.N. arms monitoring body, set up to record violations of a 1992 arms embargo on Somalia, has said Asmara is sending plane- and boatloads of munitions to Somali rebels, as well as providing them with logistical support.

Somalia has been mired in chaos for nearly two decades and there is little sign the latest attempt to establish a central government is proving any more successful than the 14 previous efforts since a dictator was ousted in 1991.

Desta also urged the Security Council “not to ignore the real issue behind many conflicts in our region” — namely its long-running border dispute with Ethiopia, with which it fought a 1998-2000 border war that killed 70,000 people.

The envoy said council members must act against breaches of international law by Ethiopia and take steps “to ensure that Ethiopia … withdraws its troops from sovereign Eritrean territories that it is illegally occupying.”

Residents’ all-round participation improving in Somali State (WIC)

The Somali State Security and Justice Administration Bureau said residents’ participation in peace, development and democratization process is improving from time to time.

Bureau Head, Abdi Umer, said residents of the state are taking active part in various development and good governance sectors seizing the peace and security prevailed in the region.

He said the involvement of residents in development, good governance, and democratization activities is growing successively following the utmost efforts exerted by the government to ensue peace and development benefits of pastoralists as well as enable them lead sedentary lives.

He said the residents have been contributing their shares in the efforts underway to bring lasting peace and security by exposing and fighting anti-peace forces striving to deter development activities.

He said activities of anti-peace forces operating under the guise of religion and tribe have been stopped through the collaborated efforts of the residents.

He further said the efforts made recently by residents of Hamro woreda and Kebridehar areas to foil activities of the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) in particular showed their commitment to bring durable peace in the state.

He said the series of public conversation forums the state government organized in collaboration with various bodies have raised awareness of residents as well as improved their development participations.

He said residents and security forces of the state are also working closely to ensure peace and security in the state.

The Somali state has recently offered capacity building training to leaderships in all zones of the state so as to improve the development participation of residents, ensure peace and expedite democracy in the state.

Africa: Land grabs – new ‘resource curse’?
By Khadija Sharife (*) (Pambazuka)

It has been called the next golden commodity by investment firms, and ‘neocolonialism’ by the now repentant director general of the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Jacques Diouf.

The phenomenon better known as ‘land grabbing’ – i.e. large-scale purchase or lease of farmland (often packaged as ‘idle’, ‘under-utilised’ and ‘uncultivated’) in ‘land-rich developing’ regions – has catalysed a policy shift from geostrategic control over food production (institutionalised via structurally unjust trading mechanisms underpinning bodies such as the World Trade Organization), to that of sovereignty.

Whereas the US$1 billion per day in protectionist (Northern) subsidies served to artificially depreciate the price of primary commodities from developing regions, ‘land grabs’ are motivated by the intent of developed governments in ‘land-poor’ nations and representative corporate entities – composing over 50 per cent of the world’s largest economies, to secure exclusive rights to the assets used to produce food.

The global food crisis of 2008, forcing 100 million people below the poverty belt, may have been a catastrophe for the working poor of the world – peoples living in slums and on streets with no name, but for Wall Street, the ‘crisis’ – pushing up the price of grain by 140 per cent, was nothing less than the beginning of a new frontier: Harvesting power through dominion over farmland.

Though the US squarely laid the blame for increased food prices on scarcity and the rapidly growing ‘middle class’ segment of both China and India – estimated at 650 million – a leaked document written by senior World Bank analyst Don Mitchell, revealed that 65-75 per cent of the increase was caused by the conversion of ‘crops for fuel’ ie: biofuels.

Massive profits punctuated the poverty underpinning the crisis: Monsanto – the company which declared that people would have GM soy ‘whether they like it or not’ posted three-month profits of US$1.2 billion, an increase of about 50 per cent from US$543 million, with Cargill experiencing a similar jump. ADM, allegedly the largest agricultural processor and also known as ‘the supermarket to the world’, posted increases of 42 per cent.

The precedent certainly existed: In 2007, for example, almost 40 billion litres of corn-based ethanol was produced in the US, which also produced 40 per cent of global corn trade. And the usual suspects profited in the build-up: During the last two years, reported profits from the world’s top three grain producers (ADM, Cargill and Bunge), controlling 90 per cent of global grain, rose by 103 per cent. Meanwhile, the profits of the top three seed/agro-chemicals (DuPont, Syngenta and Monsanto) and the top three global fertiliser companies (Yara, Mosaic and Potash) rose by 91 per cent and 139 per cent.

This was not an accidental occurrence, but rather a well-planned strategy. As Dwayne Andreas, former chairman of ADM stated, ‘The competitor is our friend, the customer is our enemy. There isn’t one grain of anything in the world that is sold in a free market. Not one.’

Andreas should know – just as oil giants are subsidised to the tune of US$300 billion per annum, ADM remained a chief recipient of billions in subsidies from the US government injected into the corn industry – a policy backed by President Obama and subsidised by US taxpayers.

Unsurprisingly, ADM – one of several bundlers financing Obama’s ‘yes we can’ platform, recently stated that the company expected the percentage of ethanol allowed in US fuel supplies to increase from 10 per cent to 12 per cent or more.

The rising price of food dances in sync to that of oil – from 2004-2007, the prices of crude oil and food rose in tandem by 89 per cent and 84 per cent, revealing the interlocked need to secure oil resources. One tonne of US corn for example, utilises 160 litres of oil. This is synchronised with the corresponding rise in arms sales, exporting weaponry to regions rich in finite oil resources, and poor in rights. According to recent studies, there is a 92 per cent correlation with rising arms sales and oil prices and over 50 per cent of US clients in developing countries were ‘undemocratic governments or regimes that engaged in major human rights abuses.’

Seen from this angle, the ‘food crisis’ appears to be quite selective, the consequence of policies composed of several intertwined tentacles (biofuels-oil-militarisation) operating in synchrony and broadly spanning ‘global traumas’ from the war in Iraq, to the expanding presence of US African Command (AFRICOM).

Thanks to the ‘Made in Wall Street’ global recession, rooted in the deregulated trade in paper assets delinked from fundamentals, hedge fund specialists have hastened the pace in the financialising of ‘real assets’ with intrinsic value, and which constitute the basic building blocks of survival – farmland.

The power of food security should not be underestimated. In the ever-fertile but desperately undernourished and ‘impoverished’ Congo, where 200 000 hectares of land have been provided free of charge to South African farmers (characterised by tax exemptions, repatriation of profits, no export restrictions and other subsidies), one year’s food security holds the power to reduce debt from 70 per cent to 40 per cent. The vast raft of exemptions granted – including 10 million hectares for the taking – marks no break from the ‘business as usual’ policy of the Congo’s rentier regime, lead by Denis Sassou-Nguesso.

Generous as ever, Nguesso’s regime even offered to lend armed forces to securitise the ‘abandoned’ state farms, an offer quickly rejected by the farmers who were humbled by the warmth of the people. The 30 year lease, with priority access to a further 30 year period following assessments by a committee composed of six representatives – three from the Congolese state, and three from the commercial farmers unions, is the primary determining factor. Yet, at no time was the right of the Congo’s rentier regime to export ownership of farmland ever questioned, despite the Congo – a booming petro-state – being ranked as one of the world’s most corrupt countries.

Studies by the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) revealed, ‘Many countries do not have sufficient mechanisms to protect local rights and take account of local interests, livelihoods, and welfare. Moreover, local communities are rarely adequately informed about the land concessions that are made to private companies. Insecure local land rights, inaccessible registration procedures, vaguely defined productive use requirements, legislative gaps, and other factors all too often undermine the position of local people vis-à-vis international actors.’[1]

Sadly, this situation is not unique in Africa: In Sudan, where 95 per cent of land is state-owned, the North-South and East-West conflicts, rooted in access to scarce ecosystem services such as water and grazing land, have been exacerbated by the exploitation of oil, militarising the region. In the North, lies the Chinese-backed Khartoum government; in the South, where the bulk of oil reserves are based, the US-backed Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM). Jarch Capital, acquired 400 000 hectares of land from the son of SPLM General Paulino Matip, with a further view for 400 000 hectares before end 2009. Jarch, headed by ex-Wall Street banker Phillip Heilberg, was described by the Financial Times, as ‘believing that several African states, Sudan included, but possibly also Nigeria, Ethiopia and Somalia, are likely to break apart in the next few years, and that the political and legal risks he is taking will be amply rewarded.’

Not a little ironically, Heilberg’s second in command is Joe Wilson, former senior director for African Affairs at the US’s National Security Council. Though an ‘independence’ referendum has been scheduled for March 2011, SPLM Secretary Pagan Amum has already declared that South Sudan will breakaway, even if majority votes are not forthcoming. (Once again, oil plays a crucial role. Since China’s entrance into Sudan in the 1990s, the Khartoum government – ‘evicting’ Chevron in the early 1990s, became the US’s ‘number one security concern in Africa’ in 1997, according to John Prendergrast of the National Security Council. Meanwhile, the UN’s Jean Christophe revealed that the villages of the displaced in Darfur, a region straddled by China’s oil block, ‘marked the oil concessions on the land.’)

African rentier regimes appear be using the same formula informing secretive development agreements, to exclusively negotiate and barter away natural resources, and relocating capital through tax competition.

Since June 2008, over 180 deals have been reported, with foreign entities seeking or securing a ‘coup d’état’ over 37 million hectares of land during the past three years. Africa alone has experienced acquisitions to the tune of 30 million hectares, chiefly negotiated between African states – often rentier economies, dependent on unearned resource revenues or rents from extractive industries, and private investors. More than 40 per cent of all deals negotiated were South-South.

In Africa, just 2-10 per cent of land is privately held, with the remainder constituting resources held in commons (aka the commons), large-scale land acquisitions, financialising agriculture, appears to recognise host communities only in the form of employment i.e.: a class of farm labourers, with ‘pre-existing users’ marginalised or displaced. The lack of land titles, of course, excludes the notion of compensation while in countries like Ethiopia, Mozambique and Tanzania, where land is nationalised, even legal recourse is difficult. Despite the ‘win-win’ rhetoric espoused by international finance institutions such as the World Bank and FAO, fundamental issues such as land reform, food security, tax exemptions including cheapened access to water, and other externalities including pollution, continue to remain private affairs.

In Madagascar, a 99-year lease on 3.2 million acres of land – 50 per cent of Madagascar’s arable land, granted to multinational Daewoo ‘ensuring food security’ for South Korea, lead to a coup. ‘In the constitution, it is stipulated that Madagascar’s land is neither for sale nor for rent, so the agreement with Daewoo is cancelled,’ said current president Andry Rajoelina, a baby-faced former DJ, backed by the army – and allegedly, the majority of Malagasys, 70 per cent of whom depend on farmland for income. ‘One of the biggest problems for farmers in Madagascar is land ownership, and we think it’s unfair for the government to be selling or leasing land to foreigners when local farmers do not have enough land,’ an official from Madagascar’s Farmer’s Confederation revealed to Reuters. The mentality of ‘grabbers’ could not be more different. ‘We are not farmers…’ stated an official from SLC Agricola, Brazil’s largest ‘farm’ corporation. ‘The same way you have shoemakers and computer manufacturers, we produce agricultural commodities.’

For many citizens in Africa, farmland is not a means to an end – it is the lifeline used to survive life. The lack of basic service delivery – the intended consequence of states deliberately reduced to ‘enabling environments’ via structural adjustment reforms, manufactured an Africa impoverished. States are thus dependent on resource revenues, and citizens, on direct ecosystem services, such as fisheries and farmland – composing 70 per cent of citizen ‘wealth’. This is in contrast to high-income nations, deriving 80 per cent of ‘wealth’ from intangible capital. But with Africa losing an estimated US$148 billion in development finance each year, 60 per cent as a result of multinational mispricing, in addition to the direct servicing of odious debts – (amounting to a global figure of US$560 billion per annum of an outstanding US$2.9 trillion), little or no rents derived from the liquidation of exhaustible resources is redistributed in intangible capital. This is precisely because across Africa citizens are not required to finance the state budget – as occurs in high-income countries through intangible capital – they lack the political representation necessary to influence policies and usurped power structures.

This is the primary reason why Africa remains on ‘the continent most vulnerable to climate change’ – despite 60 per cent of global ecosystems already having reached critical tipping points.

According to the UN’s Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), African farmers will experience a 90 per cent decrease in crop revenue by 2100, mainly affecting small farmers. Globally speaking, 40 per cent of the world depends on agriculture for survival and income. This figure is 70 per cent in the ‘South’, where 1.5 billion small farmers depend on less than 2 hectares of land, with these farmers ‘constituting two-thirds of the world’s food producers’. And though the world already produces twice as much food as is required to feed its entire population, the primary problem remains access and cost.

The terms differ from country to country, with the bulk of Ghana’s leased land allocated for export, in contrast to Ethiopia’s mixed status, but the issue remains one of control and exploitation, whether it is over local food monopolies or exported crops.

While African nations constitute three of seven countries estimated to hold over 50 per cent of the world’s ‘net land’ balances, the selling price marketed by investors ranges from US$300-$800 dollars, as opposed to Argentina, another ‘land-rich’ nations at US$5000. Despite over one-third of Africa lacking access to clean water, the resource is yet another ‘pull’ for the region, sold on the cheap.

Agriculture accounts for 70-90 per cent of water use annually. Though embedded water has yet to be taken into account, the 15,000 litres of water required for one kg of beef is a good indicator of hidden uses. But scarcity (real or perceived) is what defines the speculative profitability of markets. ‘Water is going to be a fantastically scarce asset,’ said Susan Payne, head of the UK-based Emergent Asset Management holding investments in Mozambique, South Africa, Botswana, Zambia and Swaziland.

Thus far, over 100 known specialised land funds and investments firms have embarked on ‘private sector’ land grabs, including well-known entities such as Morgan Stanley. Facilitating this process is the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the private sector arm of the World Bank group, ensuring for investors the ‘enabling environments’ and positive ‘investment climates’ required for the extractive industries, such as repatriation of profits and tax ‘competition’. From 1991-2002, deregulation proposed by IFIs composed 95 per cent of changes implemented in host countries.

According to the Bank’s Strategy for African Mining, ‘The private sector should take the lead. Private investors should own and operate mines. …Existing state mining companies should be privatised at the earliest opportunity. The overall drive of the Bank and donors should be directed at reducing country ‘risk’ for the investors.’ Part of this risk includes mandatory information exchange – revealing the source of illicit flight from countries, the various pit-stops and the end destinations i.e.: Secrecy jurisdictions connected to high-income nations such as the UK, head office to over one quarter of the world’s tax havens. Over 75 per cent of the world’s mining companies, for example, are headquartered in Canada and active in 100 host resource-rich host countries globally. Their presence is due to the country’s favourable law allowing for corporations to repatriate profits.

But development finance siphoned from Africa, whether through the extractive industries, or land grabs, are unlikely to be revealed as the IMF scrapped mandatory information exchange. Global watchdogs, such as the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) remained beholden to high-income nations as a ‘subsidiary’ unit in the Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Meanwhile, the International Accounting Standard Board (IASB), founded and finance by the ‘big four’ accounting firms – maintaining units in secrecy jurisdictions such as the Cayman Islands – prefers multinationals to self-regulate trade via arms length transfer. What this effectively does is enable multinationals, conducting 60 per cent of global trade within rather than between corporations, to determine the future of entire continents such as Africa, where primary commodities – extracted by corporations, account for 80 per cent of exports.

On a global scale, identified trends include biofuels, emphasis on climate change spurring land-poor nations to secure sources of agriculture, geostrategic control of oil supplies, and the relocation of investment funds toward ‘real assets’ i.e.: land. This lends to the expansion of ‘usable’ resources in Africa, traditionally limited to the capital-intensive extractive industries, where contracts bartering land for infrastructure or nominal land fees are exclusively negotiated following the same secretive formula.

It is in this context, amongst others, that ‘land grabbing’ should be contextualised. Certainly, Africa is already awake to this reality. But it is hard to stand your ground when it is being sold from right under your feet.

(*) Khadija Sharife is a journalist and a visiting scholar at the Centre for Civil Society (CCS) based in South Africa. This paper was presented at the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation conference ‘The Global Crisis and Africa: Struggles for Alternatives’ in Randburg, South Africa on 19 November 2009.

At midnight last night, the United Kingdom ceased to be a sovereign state
War has been declared on the people of Britain.

This is TREASON – the writing has been on the wall for some time. The UK now ceases to exist in the eyes of “Europiles” (deliberate mistake get the suppositories ready) – traitors in our parliament… including titular heads who have been determined to bring this to fruition and thus have betrayed the people of these Isles. Are you prepared to relinquish your heritage, your inalienable rights as fought for by your ancestors?

Read here “Royal Assent given to the Treaty of Lisbon” http://archbishop-cranmer.blogspot.com/2008/06/royal-assent-of-treaty-of-lisbon.html

At midnight last night, the United Kingdom ceased to be a sovereign state

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danielhannan/100018459/at-midnight-last-night-the-united-kingdom-ceased-to-be-a-sovereign-state/

We woke up in a different country today. Alright, it doesn’t look very different. The trees still seem black against the winter sun; the motorways continue to jam inexplicably; commuters carry on avoiding eye contact. But Britain is no longer a sovereign nation. At midnight last night, we ceased to be an independent state, bound by international treaties to other independent states, and became instead a subordinate unit within a European state.

Yes, a European state. Take a quick dekko at the definition set out in Article One of the1933 Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States: “The state as a person of international law should possess the following qualifications: (a) a permanent population; (b) a defined territory; (c) government; and (d) capacity to enter into relations with the other states.”

Until yesterday, the EU qualified on grounds (a), (b) and (c). Now it has ticked the final box.

Under the Lisbon Treaty, which came into force today, it acquires “legal personality”, which gives it the right to sign accords and treat with other states. Nor is this right simply theoretical: the EU now has a foreign minister, a diplomatic corps (the European External Action Service) and 160 overseas embassies.

Until yesterday, the EU could not annex additional policy areas without a new treaty, which needed to be ratified by all its constituent nations. Now, it has the so-called “passerelle” clause, or self-amending mechanism. Parliament, in other words, no longer has the final say on extensions of EU jurisdiction. The EU derives its authority, not from its 27 members, but from its own foundational texts.

Until yesterday, Britain could simply walk out of the EU by abrogating the Treaty of Rome and repealing the 1972 European Communities Act. Henceforth, it will have to go through the secession procedure laid down in Lisbon. In other words – in the minds of Euro-lawyers, at any rate, if not of British constitutionalists – the EU gets to settle the terms on which its members are allowed to leave. Formal sovereignty has been shifted from the national capitals to Brussels.

It is appalling, demeaning, disgraceful that such a thing should have been done without popular consent, and in the absence of the referendum that all three parties had promised. “There’s no point in crying over spilt milk,” you might say. True. But there is every point in mopping it up.

We woke up in a different country today. Alright, it doesn’t look very different. The trees still seem black against the winter sun; the motorways continue to jam inexplicably; commuters carry on avoiding eye contact. But Britain is no longer a sovereign nation. At midnight last night, we ceased to be an independent state, bound by international treaties to other independent states, and became instead a subordinate unit within a European state.

Yes, a European state. Take a quick dekko at the definition set out in Article One of the1933 Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States: “The state as a person of international law should possess the following qualifications: (a) a permanent population; (b) a defined territory; (c) government; and (d) capacity to enter into relations with the other states.”

Until yesterday, the EU qualified on grounds (a), (b) and (c). Now it has ticked the final box.

Under the Lisbon Treaty, which came into force today, it acquires “legal personality”, which gives it the right to sign accords and treat with other states. Nor is this right simply theoretical: the EU now has a foreign minister, a diplomatic corps (the European External Action Service) and 160 overseas embassies.

Until yesterday, the EU could not annex additional policy areas without a new treaty, which needed to be ratified by all its constituent nations. Now, it has the so-called “passerelle” clause, or self-amending mechanism. Parliament, in other words, no longer has the final say on extensions of EU jurisdiction. The EU derives its authority, not from its 27 members, but from its own foundational texts.

Until yesterday, Britain could simply walk out of the EU by abrogating the Treaty of Rome and repealing the 1972 European Communities Act. Henceforth, it will have to go through the secession procedure laid down in Lisbon. In other words – in the minds of Euro-lawyers, at any rate, if not of British constitutionalists – the EU gets to settle the terms on which its members are allowed to leave. Formal sovereignty has been shifted from the national capitals to Brussels.

It is appalling, demeaning, disgraceful that such a thing should have been done without popular consent, and in the absence of the referendum that all three parties had promised. “There’s no point in crying over spilt milk,” you might say. True. But there is every point in mopping it up.

The Obama Manifesto
By Matthew Bergman (HP)

A specter is haunting Africa — the specter of Obama. All the governmental powers of repression and ineptitude have entered into a desperate alliance to exorcise this specter: Dictator and Kleptocrat, Bumbler and Demagogue, Militarist and Charlatan.

>From Massai herdsman, to Zimbabwean opposition leader; from woman micro-capitalist to death defying matouto driver; from urban slum dweller to Nigerian oil worker, what African citizen has not seen Obama as a sign of liberation from oppression? What entrenched African leader has not felt the cold wind of political change run down her neck and maneuvered politically to “get right with Obama”?

Two things result from this fact: Obama’s influence is already acknowledged by African governments to be a power; and it is high time that Obama openly, in the face of the whole world, set forth his vision for Africa with a comprehensive manifesto for change.

Obama does not conceal his policy for a new and dynamic relationship with Africa. He openly declares a new partnership will be based on advancing political freedom, fighting corruption, promoting female empowerment, fostering tribal reconciliation, improving public health, and supporting indigenous economic development. Let the corrupt dictators tremble at an Obama revolution. Africans have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win.

The paradigm for U.S.-Africa relations remains unduly influenced by an anachronistic dichotomy between colonialism and liberation. African leaders maintain political legitimacy by means of anti-colonialist bromides and corruption. Brutality and rank ineptitude are rationalized by decades-old memories of colonial abuse. Arthrosclerosis regimes like Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) cling to power by means of glorious tales of liberationist struggle while the Zimbabwean society collapses amidst political thuggery, million percent inflation and the meltdown of a once prosperous economy.

As African countries began to achieve independence in the early 1960s, Cold War politics provided a crutch to the autocratic political structures that colonialism left behind. Corrupt dictators like Mobuto Sese Seko — adorned by a radical chic leopard skin turban–enjoyed support from the United States while Soviet and Chinese communists found ideological kinship in the African Socialism of Tanzania’s Julius Nyerere. Ethiopia and Somalia traded their US and Soviet patrons several times during the Cold War years, making it clear that these relationships turned on the benefits they bestowed on the powerful, and not a deep or long-term allegiance. African governments on both sides of the Cold War enjoyed immunity from the need for popular legitimacy as a basis for political power.

Military and intelligence aid from Western patrons did away with the need to secure popular legitimacy, and lavish foreign aid absolved these governments from the obligation to create a functioning economy. Protected by Western and Soviet patrons, African governments were free to engage in horrific human rights abuses, endemic corruption, economic and civic ineptitude. Loyalty to post-colonial masters was paramount; popular support an afterthought. However, the demise of the Cold War has not been a uniformly good thing for Africa. Since the withdrawal of the Cold Warriors’ stabilizing hand, genocidal conflicts have continued for years in the Congo, Liberia, Rwanda and Darfur. It is sobering that since the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, 5.4 million have died as a result of the Congolese Civil War[1] alone and the continent has been ravished by the HIV virus.

Still, in the post-Cold War era, the colonialist paradigm continues to serve the mutual interests of African despotism and Western supremacy. African dictators, clothing themselves in anti-Western, pan-African rhetoric, deflect popular outrage against their corrupt ineptitude. The interests of African Kleptocrats and Western exploiters coincide in the Congolese jungle as marauding armies secure pretends of cobalt, cadmium and diamonds. Minerals thus extracted go on to be purchased by the cell phone users world wide. The Ethiopian junta, basking in American support for the War on Terror, overturns democratic elections and executes political opponents with impunity. Meanwhile, Nigeria reliably supplies oil to the West as its political democracy is subverted. Sudan holds fast to China’s Security Counsel Veto on intervention in the Darfur region.

The colonialist paradigm not only governs America’s pecuniary and diplomatic relationships with Africa but also effects how we do charity and make good. However laudatory, America’s philanthropic commitment to Africa does not result consistently in policies that advance political, economic and social development. The neo-colonialist paradigm is sustained by culturally supremacist notions of liberal pity and moral superiority. Foreign aid projects, however generous in motivation, are all too often based on a “top down model” which ignores existing African cultural and community structures. Ranging from genuine concern, to enlightened self-interest; from geopolitical advantage, to supporting American farmers, the foreign aid model has been disproportionately based on a notion of cultural and political superiority, working in collusion with naked self-interest.

Against this backdrop, the election of Barack Obama as president of the United States in November 2008 has the same revolutionary potential on African political culture as the 1978 election of Karol Józef Wojtyła as Pope had on the Polish nation. For the Polish people, Pope John Paul became an independent source of power and legitimate voice of authority free from the decrepit rulership of the communist bureaucracy.

By the early 1980s, Eastern European political consciences had become stultified in a hidebound ideological battle between communism and capitalism. Pope John Paul’s papacy offered a third way between the patch-worn ideological struggle between communist millenarianism and exploitative capitalism. The capitalist-communist dichotomy defined Polish political discourse and crippled political development. John Paul delivered as many encyclics on the evils of unbridled capitalism as on the moral decay of communist despotism. He provided an independent ideological foothold to unify the country around common principles. The contention between the communist and capitalist threats broke down to reveal that the Polish people had within itself – in the form of this newly masterless unity — the tools of political salvation.

>From the outset of his candidacy, Barack Obama has self-consciously sought to “turn the page” on the hackneyed struggles that had both polarized and paralyzed American politics since 1968. He seeks to move beyond ingrained cultural wars and unify Americans around common values and shared concerns. Obama recognizes that as long as Americans remain engaged in a cultural tug-of-war which has defined American political life for the last 40 years, progressive politics are unobtainable; so long as both sides hold on to the 1960s paradigm the struggle will be sustained. John McCain’s desperate attempt to tie Obama to William Ayers in the waning days of the campaign showed that these antiquated struggles and symbols are largely irrelevant to contemporary consciences.

Just as Obama’s election moves the US beyond the cultural divide between those who danced naked and Woodstock and those who cut their hair and went to class, his successful candidacy provides a template for African politics to move beyond the growing irrelevancy of the colonial-liberationist model. Racial pride is one of the major factors in drawing African attention and adoration to Obama, just as national pride was the catalyst for Poles’ initial reverence of John Paul. However, if John Paul had reverted to Cold War bromides rather than articulate a moral vision for political freedom, national pride in a Polish pope would have proved transitory. Similarly, if President Obama adheres to the neo-colonist paradigm of foreign aid, cultural supremacy and moral superiority, a grand opportunity will be forsaken.

Tribal Reconciliation

Africa’s political geography result from borders which are the products of colonial powers dividing the spoils of imperial conquest rather than an accurate reflection of the tribal and cultural borders that existed on the continent. Within each colonial prebend tribal jealousies and differences were exploited by colonial masters to maximize political power and economic advantage. As the colonial powers ceded the reigns of power, the tribal imbalances nurtured by colonial interests formed the basis for political and social tension in the newly independent states. Very few African countries approach the Western model of nation-state because national identities are subordinate to tribal loyalties. The Rwandan genocide and recent election violence in Kenya represent only more palpable eruptions of the tribal animosities that simmer beneath the surface of African politics. Less dramatic but equally crippling are the tribal loyalties that overlay all political negotiations and too often preclude the African polity from reaching political cooperation and compromise.

Obama provides tangible evidence that race as the defining schism of American society has been transcended. His ability to galvanize the hope and energy of African Americans for a new beginning while reassuring white traditionalists of a smooth transition to a pan-racial polity emulates Nelson Mandela’s miraculous ascendancy. Obama, as a proponent of nation over tribe, is in a position to address African audiences and forthrightly acknowledge tribal animosities. His political ascendancy can provide hope and solace to African tribes deprived of political power, as well as assurance to politically dominant tribes that power can be shared without social or economic disruption. Obama, as the leader of a powerful nation with a tawdry history of racial strife, can draw upon his own experience in a frank dialogue with African people.

Fortunately, the ideology that has driven Obama’s political career from a community organizer to American president provides the paradigm for a new African policy that does not and cannot seek to ignore these realities. The same factors that led to his success in American political scene can guide a new politics, just as the writings and career of Karol Wojtyła provided the model for his liberationist papacy.

Change Comes From Within

Two decades before taking the oath of office, President Obama worked as a community organizer on the south side of Chicago. A disciple of Saul Alinsky, Obama understood that economic and social change comes from within a community. As he ran for president, Obama repeatedly said that change does not happen from the top down but from the bottom up. “It’s not about me,” he declared to political rallies of 100,000 adoring followers, “it’s about you.” Obama’s political success was in mobilizing the longing of Americans for change, giving them a license to hope and an idealistic vision of community and shared purpose.

Alinsky’s empowerment principle is equally applicable to Africa as to the South Side of Chicago. As Obama’s speech in Ghana last July explained, the answers to Africa’s problems rest within the African people. Political development results from empowering social and cultural institutions that already exist in African communities, building on existing strengths to achieve a better future.
Economic development results from fostering entrepreneurial verve, working within the existing networks of trade and agriculture to enable Africa to feed itself. Progress is attained not by dictating a particular political or economic model for Africans to follow, but by nurturing the nascent political, social and economic organizations that already strive for bread and freedom. Foreign aid should not simply be a mechanism for delivering sacks of grain from subsidized American farmers.

Africa development policy has focused on large grants often made through governments. From 1960 until 2006, approximately $650 billion[2] in foreign aid has been directed at Africa with little tangible improvement. However, the recent phenomenon of micro-lending provides a model for future economic initiatives. Foreign aid should be oriented toward empowering and expanding existing economic relationships. Wherever possible, food aid should be purchased from indigenous agricultural farmers. The entrepreneurial spirit, particularly among African women, should be harnessed through expansion of micro lending commerce and tourism. Infrastructure projects should be focused on networks of toll roads where local entrepreneurs are provided loans to construct and maintain roads.

Africa is the beneficiary of billions of dollars of medical aid annually. This international effort has had some significant successes, such as the Bush initiative on HIV/AIDS prevention and the Gates Foundation and Carter Institute collaboration on Guinea Worm. However, most medical assistance programs suffer from the same “top down” paradigm that characterizes foreign aid and economic development assistance, granting short shrift to simple public health measures and indigenous health care delivery systems. Obama can use his bully pulpit to promote HIV/AIDS awareness and steer WHO and affiliated agencies toward simple measures like clean water and mosquito netting. Women’s health programs should work through existing networks of midwives and elders to provide sanitary napkins for school girls, promote family planning and, over time, substitute a pelvic examination for female circumcision.

Cultural Understanding and Mutual Respect

Central to Obama’s appeal is an essential humility manifest in his willingness to incorporate the wisdom and ingenuity of other cultures, disparate visions, and opposing ideologies. While decidedly liberal in his social outlook, Obama nevertheless gave cultural conservatives the sense that he understood their concerns and genuinely respected their right to assert them in the public space. While prior Democratic candidates castigated Evangelicals and cultural conservatives as backwoods yokels and intellectual midgets, Obama accorded this constituency with one basic thing: respect.

The son of a left wing Kenyan economist, Obama derived his values and sense of purpose from a Midwestern grandmother who was a Rosie the Riveter in World War II. A Chicago Democrat, Obama was the first Democratic candidate in 30 years to welcome evangelicals into his campaign and freely incorporate his religious faith into a progressive national purpose. The electoral support garnered from (younger) evangelicals, military families and southerners is not so much the product of superior “branding” or strategic positioning than a genuine inclusiveness and legitimization of constituencies that had been shunned by prior Democratic campaigns.

Throughout the 1980s, Pope John Paul deftly managed his political popularity among Eastern block people by avoiding specific policies and political pronouncements in favor of building mutuality on broad unassailable principles. Obama is positioned to follow this model in his African policy. He should remain above the fray of competing political parties and tribal loyalties by articulating a broad vision of political freedom, gender equality and economic development while avoiding direct confrontation wherever possible. Every African leader will seek to benefit from Obama’s popularity, in effect redirecting those leaders’ attention to seeking popular legitimacy.

This vision is better served by broad consistency that fosters mutualilty through respect than by lurching initiatives and policy shifts, as evidenced by the relative success of the Bush policy toward Africa and failure of the Clinton years’ splashy changeability. Obama should continue to articulate the administration’s stance as a major policy initiative. Once set out, the policy should be implemented consistently and without fanfare. The focus of the policy should stress the following elements: female literacy, ending corruption, establishing a free market, and supporting public health.

Female literacy as a rallying cry is the most effective vehicle to gender equality because it does not directly challenge cultural tradition. Because educated girls are far more likely to delay marriage, practice birth control and safe sex, resist female circumcision, and participate in the market place, they transform the male-dominated social structure from within. Sending girls to school — particularly if accompanied by school feeding programs – is far less threatening (and much more effective) than hectoring adult men and women to jettison traditional sexual roles and practices. Promoting female literacy is a great role for the personal diplomacy of Michelle Obama and the powerful charisma of Hillary Clinton. Female literacy has long been recognized as the most significant factor in economic development, and the United States should actively advocate for it. Public pronouncements and private initiatives should recognize the entrepreneurial force of women and promote policies that advance the economic and political empowerment of women. Most importantly, in the new communication environment, United States policy should actively connect with and target women listeners.

Embracing the Communications Revolution

Utilizing the internet, Obama transformed political fundraising: his campaign raised 750 million dollars with average donations of less than a hundred dollars. Campaign updates were provided on a daily basis by email and text messages, informing supporters of key campaign decisions and turning out the vote. The “Yes We Can” music video by Wil I am was viewed on YouTube by to 22 million individuals over the course of a weekend.

Direct connection with the voting public cuts through the traditional hierarchies of communication. Participatory democracy takes on newfound meaning as voters experience a more direct connection to a candidate. The contact between the Obama campaign and US voters did not only empower the campaign; it empowered the electorate. Citizens divided by region, class and race were able to connect in virtual meet-ups exploring their common belief in a better future.

Spontaneous neighborhood and community Obama organizations were formed without any direction from the Obama campaign and, at times, in spite of such directions. Internet and mobile technology leveled the economic advantage of political elites by allowing spontaneous and direct communication between political compatriots.

Similar opportunity is available in Africa. Thanks to wireless technology, cell phone coverage in Africa is better than it is in many regions of the United States. Maasai herdsman living in dung huts carry cell phones (often with Obama’s image in the screen), and swap dead batteries for live ones at local trading posts. These technologies offer the possibilitiy of direct communication between President Obama and African people, unmediated by government elites, or local media. Just as the proliferation of cell phones has enabled the continent to leapfrog 80 years of communications technology, internet-based political communication will enable the continent to skip a generation of costly television and radio ads, along with their attendant slanting by the media and political elite. A single solar powered lap top and satellite receiver — attained for less than $500 — provides a freestanding means of political recruitment, indoctrination and communication and an independent means of fact-checking.

Acknowledge Unpleasant Truths

By moving beyond the political and cultural wars of the 1960s, Obama brings a new honesty to political discourse and gains credibility by speaking unpleasant truths. By advocating in Detroit for tougher mileage standards for US automobiles, or exhorting African American fathers to assume greater responsibility for their children, or forthrightly urging Americans to make sacrifices, Obama demonstrates a rare willingness to challenge established power and question the shibboths of the Democratic mainstream. Similarly, from the moment of his emergence on the national stage Obama challenged established orthodoxy regarding Africa. After his Senatorial election, Barak and Michelle traveled to Kenya in what could easily have been the vacuous victory lap of a triumphant native son. Instead, Obama used his trip to Kenya to excoriate the Kibaki government on its widespread corruption and to take an HIV test with Michelle. Obama’s actions cut through the docile niceties of diplomatic platitudes.

Just as Obama refused to invoke America’s history of slavery and racism exonerate absent black fathers, so should the legacy of colonialism and exploitation be overtly rejected as an excuse for the economic failure and political ineptitude that typifies so many African countries. As America’s first African American president, Obama has a unique opportunity to speak openly and frankly to Africans on the political failings of their societies. Speaking in Ghana this week he explained:

…despite the progress that has been made — and there has been considerable progress in many parts of Africa — we also know that much of that promise has yet to be fulfilled. Countries like Kenya had a per capita economy larger than South Korea’s when I was born. They have badly been outpaced. Disease and conflict have ravaged parts of the African continent…Now, it’s easy to point fingers and to pin the blame of these problems on others. Yes, a colonial map that made little sense helped to breed conflict. The West has often approached Africa as a patron or a source of resources rather than a partner. But the West is not responsible for the destruction of the Zimbabwean economy over the last decade, or wars in which children are enlisted as combatants. In my father’s life, it was partly tribalism and patronage and nepotism in an independent Kenya that for a long stretch derailed his career, and we know that this kind of corruption is still a daily fact of life for far too many.

Corruption must be named and dictatorial repression acknowledged. Obama can restore Amercian credibility by simply telling the truth about governments and economies. He can get his message directly to the many Africans interested to hear his words by means of the technology already in place.

For too long, African politicians have practiced corruption with impunity. The body politic becomes resigned to corruption as a perquisite of power. Even when politicians are exposed publicly for their corrupt misdeeds –as in the robust Kenyan press–resignations are infrequent, prosecutions bumbling, and punishments unprecedented. Obama needs to speak out forcefully and frequently on corruption’s corrosive effect. Where strategic realities prevent open criticism against a corrupt but friendly government, Obama can speak in generalities. Where the regime can sustain direct criticism without harming national interests, Obama should openly identify these as specific instances of corruption. In either case, the target audience for Obama’s criticism of a regime should be the population, not the regime itself. By direct communication through innovative media, Africans can hear from Obama that they do not need to tolerate corruption and that a government that actually responds to their needs, hopes and aspirations is possible. Just as John Paul gave the Polish people the prospect of a country free from Communist repression, so can Obama instill in African people the hope of a society where government officials serve the people instead of themselves.

Embrace the Love

The United States can best promote African development and further American interest by overtly rejecting the shopworn paradigm of donor and mendicant and openly proclaiming that engagement with the African people is beneficial to both societies. While Africa can learn from American technological, educational, economic and medical programs, Americans have a much to learn from African practices. For example, in Maasai tribal custom, the greatest transgression a person can commit is to refuse hospitality to a traveling stranger. While human frailties such as adultery and fornication are handled through a established system of fines and sanctions, a family’s failure to take a traveler into their home, share whatever meager food they have and make the stranger feel comfortable and welcome in their one room hut is a mortal sin resulting in the family being cursed for eternity. Americans who blithely step over the homeless person blocking the coffee shop doorway, anxious to spend five dollars on a double macchiato, have much to learn from the African concept of community and mutual obligation. As Americans debate whether a 21st Century post industrial society has a moral obligation to provide health care to all citizens, we should be informed by the example of generosity and social obligation found in remote villages throughout Africa. While Africa has a lot to learn from us, America has just as much to learn from Africa.

The election of Barak Obama provides a galvanizing effect on the broad love that American people have for Africa. There is wide concern for Africa within American culture. Americans of all economic and cultural varieties — from church-going evangelicals to medical missionaries; from rock stars to politicians; from high-tech millionaires to international sex symbols — have focused philanthropic attention on Africa. Helping Africa is not only popular in America; it is cool. Obama can simultaneously urge Africans to assume the mantle of their own destiny and focus the idealism and generosity of the American people toward a common good. This will not only help Africa but help Americans transcend the legacy of post-colonial cultural heritage, and into a recognition of common values. Helping Africa will help America; we have a world to win!

[1] The IRC

[2] Finance and Development, quarterly magazine of the IMF, December 2006, Vol. 43, No.4.

We do not send pictures with these reports, because of the volume, but picture this emetic scene with your inner eye:

A dying Somali child in the macerated arms of her mother besides their bombed shelter with Islamic graffiti looks at a fat trader, who discusses with a local militia chief and a UN representative at a harbour while USAID provided GM food from subsidised production is off-loaded by WFP into the hands of local “distributors” and dealers – and in the background a western warship and a foreign fishing trawler ply the waters of a once sovereign, prosper and proud nation, which was a role model for honesty and development in the Horn of Africa. (If you feel that this is overdrawn – come with us into Somalia and see the even more cruel reality yourself!) – and if you need lively stills or video material on Somalia, please do contact us.

There is no limit to what a person can do or how far one can go to help
- if one doesn’t mind who gets the credit !

ECOTERRA Intl. maintains a register for persons missing or abducted in the Somali seas (Foreign seafarers as well as Somalis). Inquiries by family member can be sent by e-mail to office[at]ecoterra-international.org

For families of presently captive seafarers – in order to advise and console their worries – ECOTERRA Intl. can establish contacts with professional seafarers, who had been abducted in Somalia, and their wives as well as of a Captain of a sea-jacked and released ship, who agreed to be addressed “with questions, and we will answer truthfully”.

ECOTERRA – ALERTS and pending issues:

PIRATE ATTACK GULF OF ADEN: Advice on Who to Contact and What to Do http://www.noonsite.com/Members/sue/R2008-09-08-2

NATURAL RESOURCES & ARMED FISH POACHERS: Foreign navies entering the 200nm EEZ of Somalia and foreign helicopters and troops must respect the fact that especially all wildlife is protected by Somali national as well as by international laws and that the protection of the marine resources of Somalia from illegally fishing foreign vessels should be an integral part of the anti-piracy operations. Likewise the navies must adhere to international standards and not pollute the coastal waters with oil, ballast water or waste from their own ships but help Somalia to fight against any dumping of any waste (incl. diluted, toxic or nuclear waste). So far and though the AU as well as the UN has called since long on other nations to respect the 200 nm EEZ, only now the two countries (Spain and France) to which the most notorious vessels and fleets are linked have come up with a declaration that they will respect the 200 nm EEZ of Somalia but so far not any of the navies operating in the area pledged to stand against illegal fishing. So far not a single illegal fishing vessel has been detained by the naval forces, though they had been even informed about several actual cases, where an intervention would have been possible. Illegally operating Tuna fishing vessels (many from South Korea, some from Greece and China) carry now armed personnel and force their way into the Somali fishing grounds – uncontrolled or even protected by the naval forces mandated to guard the Somali waters against any criminal activity, which included arms carried by foreign fishing vessels in Somali waters.

LLWs / NLWs: According to recently leaked information the anti-piracy operations in the Gulf of Aden are also used as a cover-up for the live testing of recently developed arsenals of so called non-lethal as well as sub-lethal weapons systems. (Pls request details) Neither the Navies nor the UN has come up with any code of conduct in this respect, while the Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Program (JNLWP) is sponsoring several service-led acquisition programs, including the VLAD, Joint Integration Program, and Improved Flash Bang Grenade. Alredy in use in Somalia are so called Non-lethal optical distractors, which are visible laser devices that have reversible optical effects. These types of non-blinding laser devices use highly directional optical energy. Somalia is also a testing ground for the further developments of the Active Denial System (ADS) Advanced Concept Technology Demonstration (ACTD). If new developments using millimeter wave sources that will help minimize the size, weight, and system cost of an effective Active Denial System which provides “ADS-ACTD-like” repel effects, are used has not yet been revealed. Obviously not only the US is developing and using these kind of weapons as the case of MV MARATHON showed, where a Spanish naval vessel was using optical lasers – the stand-off was then broken by the killing of one of the hostage seafarers. Local observers also claim that HEMI devices, producing Human Electro-Muscular Incapacitation (HEMI) Bioeffects, have been used in the Gulf of Aden against Somalis. Exposure to HEMI devices, which can be understood as a stun-gun shot at an individual over a larger distance, causes muscle contractions that temporarily disable an individual. Research efforts are under way to develop a longer-duration of this effect than is currently available. The live tests are apparently done without that science understands yet the effects of HEMI electrical waveforms on a human body.

WARBOTS, UAVs etc.: Peter Singer says: “By cutting the already tenuous link between the public and its nation’s foreign policy, pain-free war would pervert the whole idea of the democratic process and citizenship as they relate to war. When a citizenry has no sense of sacrifice or even the prospect of sacrifice, the decision to go to war becomes just like any other policy decision, weighed by the same calculus used to determine whether to raise bridge tolls. Instead of widespread engagement and debate over the most important decision a government can make, you get popular indifference. When technology turns war into something merely to be watched, and not weighed with great seriousness, the checks and balances that undergird democracy go by the wayside. This could well mean the end of any idea of democratic peace that supposedly sets our foreign-policy decision making apart. Such wars without costs could even undermine the morality of “good” wars. When a nation decides to go to war, it is not just deciding to break stuff in some foreign land. As one philosopher put it, the very decision is “a reflection of the moral character of the community who decides.” Without public debate and support and without risking troops, the decision to go to war becomes the act of a nation that doesn’t give a damn.”

ECOTERRA Intl., whose work does focus on nature- and human-rights-protection and – as the last international environmental organization still working in Somalia – had alerted ship-owners since 1992, many of whom were fishing illegally in the since 1972 established 200 nm territorial waters of Somalia and today’s 200nm Exclusive Economic Zone (UNCLOS) of Somalia, to stay away from Somali waters. The non-governmental organization had requested the international community many times for help to protect the coastal waters of the war-torn state from all exploiters, but now lawlessness has seriously increased and gone out of hand – even with the navies.

ECOTERRA members with marine and maritime expertise, joined by it’s ECOP-marine group, are closely and continuously monitoring and advising on the Somali situation. (for previous information concerning the topics please google keywords ECOTERRA (and) SOMALIA)

The network of the SEAFARERS ASSISTANCE PROGRAMME and ECOTERRA Intl. helped significantly in most sea-jack cases. Basically the East African Seafarers Assistance Programme tackles all issues of seafarers welfare and ECOTERRA Intl. is working in Somalia since 1986 on human-rights and nature protection, while ECOP-marine concentrates on illegal fishing and the protection of the marine ecosystems. Your support counts too.

Please consider to contribute to the work of SAP, ECOP-marine and ECOTERRA Intl. Please donate to the defence fund.

Contact us for details concerning project-sponsorship or donations via e-mail: ecotrust[at]ecoterra.net

Kindly note that all the information above is distributed under and is subject to a license under the Creative Commons Attribution. ECOTERRA, however, reserves the right to editorial changes. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/uk/. The opinion of individual authors, whose writings are provided here for strictly educational and informational purposes, does not necessarily reflect the views held by ECOTERRA Intl. unless endorsed. With each issue of the SMCM ECOTERRA Intl. tries to paint a timely picture containing the actual facts and often differing opinions of people from all walks of live concerning issues, which do have an impact on the Somali people, Somalia as a nation, the region and in many cases even the world.

Send your genuine articles, networked or confidential information please to: mailhub[at]ecoterra.net (anti-spam-verifier equipped)

Pls cite ECOTERRA Intl. – www.ecoterra-international.org as source (not necessarily as author) for onward publications, where no other source is quoted.

Press Contacts:

ECOP-marine
East-Africa
+254-714-747090
marine[at]ecop.info
www.ecop.info

ECOTERRA Intl.
Nairobi Node
africanode[at]ecoterra.net
+254-733-633-733

EA Seafarers Assistance Programme
Mshenga Mwacharo (Information Officer)
+254-721-513 418 or +254-734-010 056
sap[at]ecoterra.net

SAP / ECOTERRA Intl.
Athman Seif (Media Officer)
+254-722-613858
office[at]ecoterra-international.org

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