Zimbabwe tops African literacy rate list
This article was written by Our reporter on 8 July, at 03 : 21 AM
Zimbabwe has topped the African literacy rate ranking for a third consecutive year beating all countries on the continent.
The list is published by The African Economist magazine.
The United Nations Development Programme has ranked Zimbabwe at No. 1 since 2009 when it had a rate of 91.2%. On the current list by The African Economist, Zimbabwe is the only country on the African continent with a literacy rate of over 90%.
Shown below is the ranking of African countries by the literacy rate. This entry includes a definition of literacy and Census Bureau percentages for the total population, males, and females.
There are no universal definitions and standards of literacy. Unless otherwise specified, all rates are based on the most common definition – the ability to read and write at a specified age (15 and above).
Tunisia, which was ranked No. 1 in 2010 comes a distant No. 15 on the new list. Nigeria and Ghana which have had a long time reputation for good standards of education rank 21 and 33 respectively.
Country and Literacy Rate
1. Zimbabwe 90.70
2. Equatorial Guinea 87.00
3. South Africa 86.40
4. Kenya 85.10
5. Namibia 85.00
6. Sao Tome and Principe 84.90
7. Lesotho 84.80
8. Mauritius 84.40
9. Congo, Republic of the 83.80
10. Libya 82.60
11. Swaziland 81.60
12. Botswana 81.20
13. Zambia 80.60
14. Cape Verde 76.60
15. Tunisia 74.30
16. Egypt 71.40
17. Rwanda 70.40
18. Algeria 69.90
19. Tanzania 69.40
20. Madagascar 68.90
21. Nigeria 68.00
22. Cameroon 67.90
23. Djibouti 67.90
24. Angola 67.40
25. Congo, Democratic Republic of the 67.20
26. Uganda 66.80
27. Gabon 63.20
28. Malawi 62.70
29. Sudan 61.10
30. Togo 60.90
31. Burundi 59.30
32. Eritrea 58.60
33. Ghana 57.90
34. Liberia 57.50
35. Comoros 56.50
36. Morocco 52.30
37. Mauritania 51.20
38. Cote d’Ivoire 48.70
39. Central African Republic 48.60
40. Mozambique 47.80
41. Mali 46.40
42. Ethiopia 42.70
43. Guinea-Bissau 42.40
44. Gambia, The 40.10
45. Senegal 39.30
46. Somalia 37.80
47. Sierra Leone 35.10
48. Benin 34.70
49. Guinea 29.50
50. Niger 28.70
51. Chad 25.70
52. Burkina Faso 21.80
Labels: LITERACY, ZIMBABWE
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Full Text: Zanu-PF Manifesto 2013
This article was written by Our reporter on 7 July, at 00 : 01 AM
This People’s Manifesto of the Zimbabwe African National Union Patriotic Front (Zanu PF) for the 2013 harmonised elections comes against the background of the enduring and unforgettable fact that it is Zanu PF which liberated Zimbabwe after prosecuting a heroic
armed struggle.
It was this people’s resort to the bullet that won Zimbabweans the right to the ballot that everyone enjoys today as a legacy of our liberation struggle.
That legacy permanently connects past, present and future generations of this nation with one another. It is a legacy that we all own as Zimbabweans. Accordingly, this People’s Manifesto is a solemn call from the fallen and living heroes of our liberation struggle, indeed from the wailing bones that lie in many places known and others yet to be discovered, for every Zimbabwean to patriotically cherish and jealously guard the gains of our heroic liberation struggle.
The essence of Zanu PF’s ideology is to economically empower the indigenous people of Zimbabwe by enabling them to fully own their country’s God-given natural resources and the means of production to unlock or create value from those resources. Through our deliberate socio-economic policies and achievements since our heroic independence, we have laid a firm foundation for the attainment of this strategic goal. Notably, our achievements have been blighted since 1999 by the twin evils of regime change and the illegal economic sanctions. And the last five years of the awkward GPA government have exerted the greatest toll on the people’s aspirations.
Our People’s Manifesto provides the ways and means out of the quagmire created by the above obstacles to enable us to work together as Team Zanu PF to put our national development back on its revolutionary path. The ways and means in the Manifesto are anchored on Zanu PF’s policy of Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment, which seeks to enforce the transfer to local entities of at least 51 percent controlling equity in all existing foreign owned businesses. Over and above this, the policy is to empower indigenous entities to hold 100 percent of equity to start up or take over strategic enterprises across the economy, especially in key sectors such as mining, tourism and agriculture.
The targeted equity threshold recognises Zimbabwe’s total ownership of all its natural resources as an expression of our national sovereignty. This policy will create dignified employment especially for the youth, distribute wealth amongst citizens more equitably, cause a general improvement in the quality of life of every Zimbabwean and bring about sustainable national development which is homegrown. In response to widespread concerns and expectations that ordinary people should be the primary beneficiaries of the policy of Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment, the next Zanu PF Government will put in place robust measures to ensure an even more transparent, accountable, tangible and measurable implementation matrix in the national interest.
It is therefore the national duty of each and every one of us – young or old – to go out in our historic numbers to vote for Zanu PF in the forthcoming elections.
We must vote as Team Zanu PF regardless of our divergent political affiliations because Zanu PF is your Party which can guarantee you a secure future as the country’s liberator.
Zanu PF is the Party of our collective national aspirations. As we campaign for our Party, and when and after we vote, each and every one of us must draw inspiration from the eternal words bequeathed us by our beloved late Vice-President John Landa Nkomo that, “Peace begins with Me; Peace begins with You; Peace begins with all of Us”.
Let us go and vote in peace for Zanu PF and be the true masters of our God-given natural resources and our own destiny.
Pamberi neZanu PF!
Pamberi neIndigenisation!
Pamberi neEmpowerment!
Pamberi nekuhwina maElections!
Phambili leZanu PF!
Phambili leIndeginisation!
Phambili leEmpowerment!
Phambili lokuwina amaElections!
BHORA MUGEDHI IBHOLA EGEDINI
VOTE ZANU PF
Labels: 2013 ELECTIONS (ZW), MANIFESTO, ZANU-PF
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(BBC) Can South Africa avoid doing a Zimbabwe on land?
By Pumza Fihlani BBC News, Eston, KwaZulu-Natal
Farm owners at the Ziphophozele farm, outside Durban More than eight million South Africans depend on agriculture for their livelihoods
Continue reading the main story
Land reform is a thorny issue in South Africa; for some it conjures up images of Zimbabwe-like land grabs and raises tensions in small farming communities.
The 1913 Natives Land Act divided the country into white and black areas and a century later, most of the country's best land remains in the hands of a few thousand white commercial farmers, while tens of thousands of black peasants are crammed together in less fertile areas.
While some fear this powderkeg could explode, the sugarcane industry seems to be proving that reform can happen amicably.
Fifth-generation sugarcane farmer Alan Bruscow has been training his new neighbours, a group of 36 black farmers who were awarded a farm through the land reform policy four years ago.
Continue reading the main story
“Start Quote
We can't guarantee peace in this country unless we find an equitable solution”
End Quote Mathole Motsekga Former ANC chief whip
The two farms, the Bruscow farm and the Zibophezele farm, outside Pietermaritzburg in KwaZulu-Natal are about 50m (164ft) apart.
There is nothing separating them - if you didn't know you would think it is all one big farm.
Mr Bruscow describes his relationship with the black farmers as one of "trust and working together". It is a rare but admirable sight.
"I'd say that trust is a key element here and you build trust by working with people," says Mr Bruscow.
"They need to see that you're for them and they are for you, and you are there to try and make them as successful as possible and vice versa."
Set to fail?
One of the main problems with South Africa's land reform so far, experts say, is a lack of capital to sustain the farms under new ownership.
Sipho Xulu at the Ziphophozele farm, outside Durban Sipho Xulu says it is important to pass on his land to his children
The other is that many of the black farmers who win land claims have no skills to run a farm, let alone turn it into a successful business - these farms end up unproductive.
A study presented at the Land Divided conference in March showed that many land transfer projects were failures.
Peter Jacobs of the Human Sciences Research Council reported that only 167 land-reform beneficiaries from a sample of 301 farms were actively farming. And many of them used only a small piece of their land for agricultural activities.
But this is not the case on the Zibophezele farm, where Sipho Xulu is working his land with a tractor in preparation for this season's harvest.
Being a landowner has given him a sense of security.
"Land is extremely important - there is virtually nothing one can do without it. We live off the land - our children will also benefit from it. It has given me a real chance to leave a legacy for my family," he explains.
Mr Xulu says the mentorship he has received has been invaluable.
"There is a lot of suspicion about white farmers in this part of the world but our mentor has proven to be a good man - we wouldn't be where we are without his teachings," explains Mr Xulu.
Land or cash?
In South Africa, agriculture, land and labour are closely entwined.
The South African Sugarcane Association (Sasa) says the only way of securing the future of this industry is through partnerships between new and old farmers.
South Africa's Land problem
* The Natives Land Act of 1913 restricted black people from buying or renting land in "white South Africa", leading to the forced removals of black people
* After the end of apartheid in 1994, the ANC government said it wanted to return 30% of this land to its previous owners by 2014
* So far, only 7.5% of this land land has been returned
* Many of the land-reform farms fail due to a lack of skill transference and capital to sustain the farm
This is why Sasa took the pioneering decision to set up its own land reform unit.
"Unless both black and white farmers commercial farmers cross that barrier and understand that we need one another for our mutual successful and for the benefit of the country, we won't get very far," says Sasa land reform unit head Anhwar Madhanpal.
Of South Africa's 1,500 commercial sugar farms, about 300 are now black-owned and most are said to be doing well.
South Africa's land reform programme is divided into four pillars: Redistribution, restitution, development and tenure, according to Land Reform and Rural Development Minister Gugile Nkwinti.
The emphasis so far has been on redistribution - buying land from white owners and redistributing it to black people whose families were forced off it during white minority rule.
But Mr Nkwinti says more people have opted for restitution - cash payments - than having their land back.
The government says that in today's increasingly urbanised South Africa, choosing a financial settlement this "is a reflection of poverty, unemployment, and income want".
Nineteen years after the end of apartheid, there are no official figures on what proportion of land is white-owned.
Mr Nkwinti said his department is now working on getting a breakdown of private land ownership according to race and even nationality.
Racial tensions
Despite the progress made in the sugarcane industry, the government has had to concede that it will not meet its target of transferring 30% of South Africa's land to black hands by 2014.
Trucks at a sugarcane mill outside Durban Sugarcane farming is one of the main industries in KwaZulu-Natal
To date less than 10% of white-owned land has been handed over, with the delays blamed on the government's "willing buyer, willing seller" policy, under which white farmers are not compelled to sell their land.
"This policy has so far allowed property owners to block redistribution efforts, as it allows property owners to refuse to have their property expropriated and also allows them to hold the government to ransom by demanding that the state pay exorbitant prices for property intended for expropriation," says constitutional expert Pierre de Vos.
Continue reading the main story
“Start Quote
A government settlement is temporary but the relationships you can build with people are forever”
End Quote Alan Bruscow Farmer
In the face of the lack of progress, some activists are calling for a more drastic approach, including taking land from white farmers without compensation - something which the South African constitution makes provision for.
But many look at Zimbabwe's economic meltdown after it seized most of the country's white-owned commercial farms and caution against this approach.
Some 8.5 million South Africans depend directly or indirectly on agriculture for their livelihood.
"We have to co-operate because finding a solution is for the benefit of all South Africans, black and white," former ANC Chief Whip Mathole Motsekga told parliament recently.
"We can't guarantee peace in this country unless we find an equitable solution."
Mr Xulu and Mr Bruscow hope their model can be copied across the country to prevent the situation coming to that.
"It's about thinking of the future," says Mr Bruscow.
"A government settlement is temporary but the relationships you can build with people are forever. Our children will grow up to run these farms one day and we owe it to them to make sure that they are around for them."
Labels: LAND REFORM, SOUTH AFRICA
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If criticism of the Judiciary is valid, it must be made
By Editor
Sun 07 July 2013, 14:00 CAT
If criticism of the Judiciary is valid, it must be made. And no section of the community has all the virtues, neither does any have all the vices.
We are quite sure that some people try to do their jobs as best as they can, even if the result is not always entirely successful. He who has never failed to reach perfection has a right to be the harshest critic.
There can be no doubt, of course, that criticism is good for people and institutions that are part of public life. No institution - Judiciary, Legislature, Executive, whatever - should expect to be free from the scrutiny of those who give it their loyalty and support, not to mention those who don't.
But we are all part of the same fabric of our national society and that scrutiny, by one part of another, can be just as effective if it is made with a touch of honesty, gentleness and understanding.
Accordingly, no one should try to stop honest criticism of the Judiciary and its decisions. And we don't think that criticising the decisions of the Judiciary is a crime or something unacceptable. The Judiciary does sometimes get things wrong. And when the Judiciary is wrong it deserves criticism. But this criticism has to be honest criticism and done in a civil manner. There has to be honest and civility in the criticism.
And moreover, decisions of our judges are not shielded from criticism. Our whole appeal system is characterised by criticism of the decisions that judges make. Even the decisions of the Supreme Court, final as they may be, are open to criticism. And by criticism we mean honest criticism carried out with civility.
If the decisions of our courts, including the Supreme Court, over the election petitions are believed to be wrong, they are open to criticism. But not the criticism that we have been hearing from the opposition and other civil society organisations.
It is not honest and fair criticism to accuse the acting Chief Justice Lombe Chibesakunda of conniving with the ruling Patriotic Front to nullify MMD and opposition seats in a bid to give the Patriotic Front the parliamentary majority it is looking for. There is no truth and honesty in this type of criticism. Actually this is not criticism, it is criminal defamation of justice Chibesakunda and other Supreme Court judges who have delivered election petition judgments the opposition is not happy with. What we have been hearing from the opposition are prosecutable cases of contempt of court. And we are actually wondering why no contempt proceedings have been commenced against those who have been recklessly, maliciously and criminally attacking justice Chibesakunda and other Supreme Court judges.
If the decisions of the Supreme Court are faulty, let them be legally analysed and criticised.
It is interesting to note that those who have been making these criminal criticisms are not lawyers. The lawyers who were representing them in these petitions are quiet; are not speaking for them. Why? It is simply because the lawyers know the truth; they know they cannot defend or justify such criticism. But they want such criticism to be made and have allowed their clients to do so.
We are also surprised by the deafening silence of the Law Association of Zambia which is usually very quick to come to the defence of the Judiciary and judges.
It is a publicly known fact that the Law Association of Zambia is opposed to justice Chibesakunda being appointed Chief Justice. She is not the desired candidate for that job of the current leadership of the Law Association of Zambia. There are perfectly entitled to their own desires. They also have the right to point out and challenge any such appointments that are outside what the law permits.
We do not believe that the appointment of justice Chibesakunda as Chief Justice is outside the law. She may not be the desired candidate of some or many, but that does not make her appointment as Chief Justice illegal. If the appointment of justice Chibesakunda as Chief Justice is an illegality, then let those illegalities be brought out and give correct legal guidance to the nation and to all those involved in this process. If it is just a matter of one's desire then there is no issue because the issue of desire, when it comes to such appointments, lies only with the President.
And moreover, the law is clear on who should make such appointments. It is not the job of opposition leaders to make such appointments. It is also not the job of NGOs to make such appointments. Not even the Law Association of Zambia has powers to make such appointments. Of course, during the ratification process, the Law Association of Zambia and other civil society organisations are called by the appropriate select committee of Parliament to give their views on the presidential nominee for that job. These views aid the members of parliament in their decisions to ratify or not ratify the presidential nominee. It is not these civil society organisations, including the Law Association of Zambia, that ratify the presidential nominee. Of course, they have the right to lobby for or oppose the appointment of certain individuals. But the final decision on who becomes Chief Justice does not lie with them. If someone who doesn't qualify to be appointed Chief Justice is so appointed, they have the right to go to court and challenge that appointment so that it is declared null and void.
As for now, the Constitution of the Republic of Zambia vests in the President the power to appoint the Chief Justice. And the person so nominated by the President for the job may not always meet the desires of all or us as stakeholders. But we don't have a direct vote in this matter. Our judges, including the Chief Justice, are not appointed on the basis of a popular vote or approval. If we don't like this way of appointing the Chief Justice, let's change the Constitution to provide for that, instead of resorting to malice and slander of others.
We do appreciate the fact that we have had wrong or bad people as judges or even as Chief Justices. We had Mathew Ngulube - a man who was corrupted by the Chiluba regime - as our Chief Justice. Ngulube's corruption was exposed and he had to resign as Chief Justice. Of course, the Law Association of Zambia has no issue with corrupt Ngulube; they still invite him as the guest of honour at their annual general meetings. But what honour does Ngulube possess to be invited as a guest of honour by the Law Association of Zambia? This brings into question what the Law Association of Zambia really stands for or believes in.
Labels: JUDICIARY, LOMBE CHIBESAKUNDA, POLITICS
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Rupiah can flee - Scott
By Moses Kuwema and Christopher Miti in Chipata
Sun 07 July 2013, 14:01 CAT
VICE-PRESIDENT Guy Scott has defended the cancellation of Rupiah Banda's passport because the 'chap' can disappear. Vice-President Scott said the government didn't want to look stupid if Banda disappeared from Zambia like his son Henry.
"The problem that we have is that we have a chap Banda who is facing charges… we have a chap whose son is being sought by the police for the last 18 to 20 months and has not appeared in Zambia and has not answered any callout. They have not even made his whereabouts known.
Do you consider them a flight risk or not? I think it is only reasonable to say let us think about this thing and let us not let him disappear or go and start campaigning against us from outside like he is doing with Robert Amsterdam. They go to South Africa in order to hold a press conference against the PF. Or they write articles in newspapers against the PF in America," he said.
"We must take all factors into consideration. We will look stupid if he went off to some conference in Tanzania on smart partnership and we never saw him again. We will feel embarrassed. He is not locked up. He is free in Zambia but the question of leaving the country is a complicated one. It is not a simple one."
Featuring on Chipata's Breeze FM on Friday, Vice-President Scott said people should not confuse the cancellation of Banda's passport by the Ministry of Home Affairs with the court's order to have the passport returned to the former president after it was surrendered as a condition for bail.
The Vice-President said the cancellation of Banda's passport was totally different from the court order for the return of his passport.
"Don't confuse the two things. The court ordering the return of his passport which was surrendered to the court as a condition of bail and the cancellation by the Minister of Home Affairs of his diplomatic passport which is a matter subject to appeal and I think you have got 14 days in which to appeal and the minister has 14 days in which to explain. So the two things are different."
Vice-President Scott however, said the matter involving the cancellation of Banda's passport was being considered.
"Personally, I hope the conclusion of investigations will be that it is okay for him to travel," he said.
Meanwhile, Vice-President Scott said the PF has been telling opposition members of parliament not to resign from their political parties to join his party but instead work with them as ministers.
He said the PF had been avoiding by-elections as much as possible but that by-elections caused by the nullification of elections could not be avoided.
And paramount Chief Mpezeni of the Ngoni says the government should not give chance to the opposition to get rid of them.
Speaking when Vice-President Scott, who was accompanied by defence minister Geoffrey Mwamba, home affairs minister Edgar Lungu, foreign affairs minister Dr Effron Lungu, provincial minister Malozo Sichone and PF Chipata Central candidate Lameck Mangani paid a courtesy call on him at his Ephendukeni palace on Friday, Mpezeni urged the PF to do their best while in power in terms of service delivery.
"Don't give chance to your competitors to get rid of you. So make sure you give the best when you are in power. Don't give a chance to your enemy. When you enter the ring, don't give chance to your opponent, you have to guard. It is the same even here, don't let the enemy take advantage and say other things. So far you are doing well and the people that are seeing are able to appreciate, it is only the opposition who are complaining," he said.
Mpezeni also called for peaceful campaigns ahead of the July 25 by-election.
"If you kill a person, it means you have killed me. Arrest whoever is going to come with this bad habit of killing people. You know that we need clean game. We don't want anyone to be hacked with a panga like what occurred in other areas. Play your politics in a peaceful manner and let whoever wins the election do so in the right way," Mpezeni said.
Mpezeni also urged the government to consider declaring Feni a district and Chipata a city.
He also called for the expansion of the Great East Road, saying there were a lot of accidents on the road.
Labels: CHIPATA, GUY SCOTT, RUPIAH BANDA
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UPND doesn't mean well for MMD, says Lusambo
By Misheck Wangwe in Kitwe and Henry Sinyangwe in Lusaka
Sun 07 July 2013, 14:01 CAT
MMD Die-Hard youth wing national coordinator Bowman Lusambo says MMD youths will support the PF in the forthcoming Kafulafuta and Solwezi-East parliamentary by-election because of what he terms treacherous behaviour of Hakainde Hichilema's UPND.
And NRP leader Cosmo Mumba says his party will support the PF in Kafulafuta. In an interview yesterday, Lusambo said the youths had resolved to rally behind the PF in the two by-elections except for Chipata Central where the party had fielded a candidate.
Lusambo said it had become apparent to all the youths in the party that UPND together with its leader Hichilema did not mean well for the MMD, adding that the UPND wanted to use the loose alliance that was formed over the forthcoming by-elections to manipulate the former ruling party and gain political mileage.
"The UPND is clearly insulting our intelligence. This party is insincere and selfish. It is sad that it is coming from our fellow opposition party the UPND. We had a loose alliance in Chipata over the by-election, where UPND pretended that they wanted us to trade, they give us Chipata, we give them Solwezi-East. They were stuck in Chipata. They didn't have a candidate. Little did we know that they were persuading our candidate to stand on their ticket but our candidate also rejected their idea," Lusambo explained.
"Few days ago, Hichilema issued a statement concerning Evelyn Mwanawasa that their party welcomes her decision to withdraw from the Kafulafuta seat. If HH was a politician, he would have not commented on Evelyn Mwanawasa, but the thing is, he mocked us at that press briefing over our awkward situation we found ourselves in over Kafulafuta after Evelyn withdrew from the race because of her health. It has become clear that HH and his UPND are not our friends so it's better we support the PF which is a more of a progressive party than the UPND."
Lusambo said MMD youths expected Hichilema to exhibit maturity and treat the problems in the MMD over Kafulafuta and Mwanawasa's withdrawal from the race as matters that were outside his boundary and he should not have commented over the issue.
He said the MMD youths would show Hichilema the real politics by vigorously campaigning with the PF in Kafulafuta and Solwezi-East to defeat the UPND because the party does not mean well in politics.
Lusambo said their stance to support the PF in the two by-elections was for the betterment of the MMD because the PF as a ruling party meant well in many areas compared to the UPND and nobody would reverse the decision of the youth wing in the party.
"No wonder the PF-UPND pact crumbled in 2011 before the elections. This is because the UPND is not trustworthy. They don't want to work with other opposition parties in honesty. And let them not be cheated, Dora Siliya is a very intelligent politician. She will not accept to stand on the UPND ticket knowing her character because we have heard that there were some links and they want to persuade her to stand in Petauke. It will not happen," said Lusambo said.
And Cosmo Mumba said he was on the ground drumming up support for the PF candidate.
He condemned Nevers Mumba's recent attack on the Judiciary.
He said it was disappointing that Nevers Mumba had launched an attack on the Judiciary following the Supreme Court's nullification of Siliya's election as Chipata Central Member of Parliament.
And Mumba who is National Revolution Party president said MMD has lost favour from God because its leadership had failed to live within the biblical tenets.
He said the nullification of the seats should not be blamed on President Michael Sata or the Judiciary.
"The nullification of Dora Siliya's results is loss of favour by MMD from God. They have lost favour with God because this leadership of Dr Mumba has failed to live within the biblical tenets because when Dora Siliya raised a middle finger in Parliament, Dr Mumba was quiet. When Michael Kaingu supported Dora Siliya for insulting, Dr Mumba was quiet," said Cosmo Mumba.
Labels: BOWMAN LUSAMBO, MMD, UPND
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It's political incest for UPND to poach MMD MPs - Kaingu
By Agness Changala and Mwala Kalaluka
Sun 07 July 2013, 14:01 CAT
DORA Siliya says she is still a member of the MMD, a party she is proud of. And MMD vice-president for politics Michael Kaingu says it is political incest for the UPND to continue poaching MMD members of parliament whose seats have been nullified.
But the UPND says there is nothing strange about the party's overtures to former MMD members of parliament to stand on its ticket during by-elections arising from the nullification of their parliamentary seats.
Responding to revelations by sources that UPND wanted Siliya and Maxwell Mwale to stand on the party ticket in Petauke Central and Malambo respectively,
Siliya, whose seat was nullified by the Supreme Court, denied having any links with the UPND.
"I don't know at what point somebody said me I was linked to UPND and who told you that information, because as far as I am aware, I am still MMD and that is where I have links," Siliya said in an interview.
Siliya, who said she had returned from the constituency, explained that she held talks with MMD there.
Siliya said her concern now was to try and attend to problems people were facing in Petauke Central Constituency.
She said Petauke has had no fuel for two weeks and there was no maize in the sheds.
Siliya said people in Petauke were also complaining because they did not get any fertiliser and could not afford three meals a day.
"They eat one meal a day. They have even given it a name. They call it one teleka (one pot) and they are saying now, we don't have three teleka but one teleka because there is real hunger. That is what I found in Petauke and that is what concerns me now," she said.
Siliya said when she was in Petauke, she also spoke with the general public and what she found were queues for ARVs because they were in short supply.
Siliya said patients were on monthly and weekly rations of drugs instead of three months in advance.
And commenting on revelations that the UPND wanted Siliya and Mwale, Kaingu yesterday wondered why the UPND had opted to start scoring in the MMD's goal when they were supposed to be a team.
"I am actually aware through The Post that our colleagues have approached our members for possible standing on their ticket in the forthcoming by-elections," Kaingu said. "The UPND have not discussed with us, to my knowledge. Unless they discussed with the other vice-president."
He said even if they discussed the issue with MMD leader Nevers Mumba, he would have been kept in the know because the matter fell directly under his political jurisdiction.
He said the UPND's argument that it worked well for the opposition when a member of the opposition resigns from his party and joins the UPND was questionable.
"I can't change their view but my views are that we are pockets of the same trousers. Does it really make sense? Does it make you change your position by taking money from one pocket into another pocket?" Kaingu asked. "Time will tell whether these modalities can work for the opposition because what is happening now is acrimony that is creeping into the opposition."
Kaingu said there was a ploy by the UPND and the PF to finish the MMD and he wondered why some of his members had made themselves vulnerable to being poached.
"We would not want to lose our members. If you were my relative, I don't think it would be good for you to be the one impregnating my children; let me use that metaphor. What I want from you is to be able to help me take the children to school," he said. "Our colleagues, they think that if we lose a member then it will be better for them. I have no evidence, they are enticing our members to join them."
Kaingu, who is also Mwandi MMD member of parliament, said the PF was going to consume the opposition parties if they continued operating in that manner.
"We constitute a team and then because someone believes that we must score then they start scoring in our own goal. I don't think that is a good team. Us and UPND are a team and I don't know why they are scoring in our goal," he said. "You saw that statement on TV by Bowman Lusambo and others. I don't know whether now the view of some of our members are such that we must interact with PF. Will it help our colleagues in the opposition if some of our members start speaking in the manner they are speaking?"
And UPND deputy spokesperson Cornelius Mweetwa said the issue of approaching members of parliament from the MMD whose seats had been nullified to stand on the UPND ticket was not unprecedented following what transpired in the recently held Kapiri Mposhi and Lukulu West by-elections.
"It is not something new. There is nothing special about it," he said. "There is nothing strange about these overtures and these approaches. It is something that is normal to the two parties."
Mweetwa said these were stubborn facts that would remain like the reality that sunlight always appeared every day.
"It is also factual that in some constituencies when you go for by-elections, it is easier for PF to decampaign MMD as a party than it is for them to decampaign UPND as a party because UPND has never been in government but MMD was in government for 20 years," he said.
Mweetwa said by getting former MMD members of parliament to stand on the UPND ticket, it would reduce the effects of the anti-MMD campaign messages that the PF would be unleashing.
"It is too early and pre-emptive for us to say we can give it Petauke Central and Malambo to the MMD for now because we believe our party is strong. It is growing. Our party stands a better chance in terms of campaign messages on the ground," said Mweetwa.
"We can't cannibalise MMD. They are our partners in opposing the PF. I do believe that UPND is not going to act unilaterally. If the UPND is desirous of fielding any of the former MMD members of parliament, it is something which they will not do in the dark because you can't hide such things. They will have to negotiate."
Labels: DORA SILIYA, MICHAEL KAINGU, MMD, MPs, UPND
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Mugabe threatens to pull out of SADC
By Dumisani Sibanda and Moses Matenga
Sun 07 July 2013, 14:01 CAT
President Robert Mugabe has threatened to pull out of the Southern African Development Community due to what he described as "stupid things" being done by "idiotic" people within the regional bloc.
SADC are the guarantors of the Global Political Agreement (GPA) brokered in 2008 following the disputed presidential run-off leading to the formation of the country's coalition government.
Addressing party supporters at the launch of the Zanu PF election manifesto in Harare, President Mugabe, in apparent reference to the spokesperson for the SADC-appointed facilitation team Lindiwe Zulu, said a "street woman" from South Africa had tried to block the holding of polls by end of July.
"SADC has no power. Let it be known that we are in SADC voluntarily. If SADC decides to do stupid things, we can pull out. For now we have a SADC that has good sense. Although from some quotas there was a stupid, idiotic woman saying elections cannot be held by July 31. Did such person ever think as an independent country we would take such utterances which were stupid and idiotic?"
The Constitutional Court last Thursday upheld the July 31 poll date, quashing moves by SADC to seek an extension.
President Mugabe's attack on Zulu and threats to pull out of SADC follow a series of meetings where regional leaders have taken a tough stance against the veteran leader.
Zulu has been consistent in outlining SADC position on Zimbabwe regarding elections, saying that the regional bloc was for a free, fair and credible election that could only be possible if reforms were implemented.
In an interview, Zulu said the facilitation team did not seek to interfere with the Zimbabwean court processes, but they were only worried with the reforms and the country's ability to hold a free and fair election.
"We will look at the reaction of the parties. What is important for the facilitation team and SADC is what the conditions are. Are the institutions ready to deliver credible, free and fair elections in Zimbabwe? We are to report to the facilitator not only on the date, but on what I have also mentioned," said Zulu.
"The reason why SADC had asked for an extension of elections was on the preparations. We don't want to be seen to be interfering in the legal processes, but what will happen is, we will hear from the interested parties."
President Mugabe (right) also took a swipe at United States President Barack Obama for supporting same-sex marriages saying "as a black man, it was surprising that he was for homosexuality".
President Mugabe attacked Morgan Tsvangirai, the MDC-T leader for his links with multiple women, saying that he "could not be trusted with running the country".
He said Zanu-PF was embarrassed in 2008 and had chosen to launch this year's manifesto in Highfield as it was a "sacred place".
"Highfield is a politically sacred place, but now l cry, 'Highfield, Highfield, Highfield, where are you?'," President Mugabe said.
President Mugabe said his supporters must desist from the "Bhora Musango" (protest vote against the party) syndrome that haunted the party in 2008 and said the focus this time should be on ensuring the President (Mugabe) was voted for.
He also hinted at the possibility of amending the Constitution and pleaded with party supporters to ensure the party won the majority of parliamentary seats to make it easy for the party to effect necessary amendments.
President Mugabe said the government was carefully looking at the possibility of re-introducing the Zimbabwean dollar as the United States currency, while it was important for stabilising inflation, was inaccessible to many.
He said it was important for Zanu-PF to resoundingly win to enable it to form a government on its own rather than have a coalition as happened in 2008 when his party "made a mistake".
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Siavonga chief hails govt's timely distribution of inputs
By Steve Mwiinga in Siavonga
Sun 07 July 2013, 14:00 CAT
A TRADITIONAL leader in Siavonga district has commended the government for the early distribution of inputs for this year's farming season.
Chief Sinadambwe said that the early delivery of farming inputs would assist farmers produce more food as compared to the last farming season especially in Southern Province.
He said the government had revealed its seriousness in trying to improve food production in the country.
Chief Sinadambwe noted that the process of delivering agricultural inputs late contributed to poor yields, hence the need to deliver the inputs on time in order to have a more improved food security next year.
He said he did not know how his subjects were going to buy the inputs because the poor yield experienced last farming season had resulted in not having enough income.
Chief Sinadambwe said when the inputs were delivered in the rainy season, they usually go to waste because of the bad roads and streams especially in rural areas.
He has since urged the government to expedite the distribution process before the onset of the rainy season.
Labels: AGRICULTURE, CHIEF SINADAMBWE, CHIEFS, FERTILIZER
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(NYASATIMES) Malawi needs decolonization from poverty- President Banda
By Lusubilo Sichali, Nyasa Times
July 5, 2013
Malawi President Joyce Banda has challenged all Malawians to become actors in the unfolding effort of eradicating the “painful” legacy of poverty and economic stagnation, saying the attainment of the country’s independence 49 years ago will still be meaningless if millions of Malawians live under the scourge of poverty.
Speaking on Friday during a National Service of Worship in Lilongwe on the eve of Malawi’s Independence Day, Banda said Malawians must act with urgency to give meaning to the country’s liberation by freeing the majority from the “colonization of impoverishment.”
“Today, in this moment, we must declare that we are fed up, we are tired, of our social economic struggles, and like we did before, we have to join hands and fight to cease to be a colony of poverty,” said President Banda.
She added: “We are called upon to consolidate our hard-won freedom so that we realise our vision of attaining a better life for all. We still have too many people who are poor. There are also other problems we must confront as they impact negatively on the standard of living of the people.”
Banda hailed leaders of opposition parties for responding to her invitation to a meeting, which she held with them at Kamuzu Palace in the Malawian capital on Thursday, July 4.
“This vindicates the expectation of our people that working together across the divide of politics for the good our nation is possible,” she said.
Celebrating the achievements of her administration, and thanking everyone who formed the equation to make the difference, President Banda acknowledged that, regardless of the progress made, many Malawians are suffering and “every one of us must be concerned and do something in their aid.”
“We are, therefore, called upon to unite to speed up the process of change in order to realize the common dream of ensuring that all Malawians enjoy a better life,” she advised.
She said under her administration the country has witnessed many gains on many fronts “as we continued to work for the consolidation of a united, just and democratic society, marked by economic recovery and eradication of poverty.”
She added: “I would like to thank everybody in our country, whether in government, in the opposition, civil society, business and patriotic individuals for the work they have done, and I expect them to continue to do, to ensure that our country becomes the success we all want it to be.”
She said she was encouraged by the resuscitation of friendships across the continent and overseas, which has enabled Malawi to increase its capacity to meet its international responsibilities to the Continent and the rest of the world.
“Under my administration, government with the support of everyone including members of cabinet, our civil servants, all Malawians regardless of their social standing and our development partners continued to work towards eliminating poverty and socio-economic inequalities in our society,” she observed.
“We must use the foundations we have laid further to accelerate the access especially of the poor to adequate housing, accessible and affordable health care, critical basic services, education, water and sanitation, electricity and so on,” said the Malawi leader.
As she leads in this noble task, President Banda asked for support from everyone.
“I need your support,” she appealed, commending the clergy for keeping her spirits alive with the many biblical verses they send to her “everyday.”
During the prayers, themed “2013 Towards Peace, Prosperity and Breakthroughs”, the officiating clergy comprised Reverend Vasco Kachipapa, Moderator, Nkhoma Synod, Catholic Bishop Joseph Zuza of Mzuzu Diocese, Reverend Dr. Timothy Nyasulu, Moderator, Livingstonia Synod, Reverend Mercy Chilapula, Moderator, CCAP, Blantyre Synod, Bishop James Tengatenga, Anglican Dioceses of Southern Malawi, Pastor Fraxon Kuyama, Seventh Day Adventist Church of Malawi, Sheikh Dinala Chabulika, Muslim Association of Malawi and Sheikh Twaha Saidi, Quadria Muslim Association of Malawi.
Others were Reverend Dr. Osborne Joda-Mbewe, General Secretary, Anglican Council of Churches, Reverend Christopher Mwawa, General Secretary, Anglican Council of Churches, Bishop Gilford Matonga, Pentecostal Assemblies of Malawi, Reverend Francis Mkandawire, Evangelical Association of Malawi and Father Emmanuel Chimombo, Deputy Secretary General, Episcopal Conference of Malawi.
They were unanimous in preaching for unity amongst all Malawians regardless of differences in political, religious and other ideologies.
Also in attendance was Leader of Opposition in Parliament, John Tembo, Cecilia Kadzamira and Dr. George Chaponda of Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), top Government officials, civil society gurus among others.
Labels: JOYCE BANDA, MALAWI, POVERTY
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(BLACK AGENDA REPORT) Obama And Kikwete Want Uganda And Rwanda To Halt Their Congo Bloodshed
Kambale MusavuliJuly 03,2013
After visiting Senegal and South Africa, President Obama's last stop on his African tour was in Tanzania where he visited President Jakaya Kikwete and concluded his trip to Africa on Tuesday, July 2, 2013.
Both President Obama and Kikwete have made auspicious statements regarding the crisis in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
Last week, President Kikwete called on both Rwanda and Uganda to enter into dialogue with their respective rebel militia who are present in the Congo instead of continuously utilizing rebel presence as a rationale for repeated interventions in the Congo.
On Monday, July 1, 2013 during his state visit to Tanzania, responding to a question from a Congolese journalist, President Obama said "The countries surrounding the Congo, they've got to make a commitment to stop funding armed groups that are encroaching on the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Congo."
President Obama's response is fascinating in two respects. First, in spite, of sixteen years of intervention in the DRC by U.S. allies Rwanda and Uganda, which has triggered the deaths of millions of Congolese, President Obama still did not mention either country by name; he merely uttered the phrase "Congo's neighbors." Secondly, while U.S. has repeatedly acknowledged that its allies, Rwanda and Uganda are funding armed groups in the Congo, it continues to arm, train, finance and provide diplomatic and political cover for both countries.
Philippe Bolopion of Human Rights Watch says it best when he observed in a New York Times commentary: "So how do you get away with arming a rebel force that attacks U.N. peacekeepers, rapes women and recruits children? You need powerful friends, and Rwanda has had one. Born from the guilt of the Clinton administration's inaction in the face of the Rwandan genocide, and a recognition of Rwanda's relatively efficient use of development aid, the United States has proven to be one of Kigali's staunchest allies."
It would stand to reason that as the U.S. calls on its allies to cease funding of armed groups in the Congo, the U.S. itself would cease funding of Rwanda and Uganda as long as they continue fueling the conflict in the DRC. In fact, U.S. law calls on the Obama Administration to do as much. Section 105 of Public Law 109-456, the law that President Obama sponsored as senator and co-sponsored by Hillary Clinton and John Kerry, authorizes the Secretary of State to withhold aid from Congo's neighbors, should they destabilize the country. The Obama Administration has yet to fully implement this law.
Pressure has been mounting around Rwanda and Uganda's support of militia gangs in the Congo. In light of the UN Group of experts reports published in 2012, the United States government has said that "there is a credible body of evidence that corroborates key findings of the Group of Experts' reports - including evidence of significant military and logistical support, as well as operational and political guidance, from the Rwandan government to the M23."
The administration response to the report has been a suspension of $200,000 of Foreign Military Financing provided to a Rwandan military academy and a phone call from President Barack Obama to Paul Kagame to discuss Rwanda's role in the destabilization of the Congo. Unfortunately, these small steps have not been enough to stop Congo's neighbors from intervening in the Congo, nor are they commensurate with the level of suffering the people of the Congo face daily due to the brutal killings perpetrated by militia gangs.
One of the key changes needed in U.S. policy in the Great Lakes Region of Africa is to cease its support of U.S. allies who are fueling conflict in the DRC. As he did in his 2009 trip to Ghana, President Obama repeated again during his Cape Town speech that "we are interested in investing not in strongmen but in strong institutions." However, the US government's continued support of strongmen in Rwanda, Uganda and DRC, stands in stark contrast to President Obama's declaration in Cape Town.
A second key change required in US policy is for the U.S. to in fact support strong institutions and democracy both in the Congo and the region. The lack of democracy and democratic institutions and the militarization of the political space in the region have been a major driver of the instability in the DRC, Uganda and Rwanda. These structural changes in U.S. Foreign Policy are vital steps needed to advancing peace and stability in the Congo and the Great Lakes region of Africa.
Despite the millions of Congolese who have perished in the past 16 years in what the United Nations says is the deadliest conflict in the world since World War II, the response from the United States in particular and other global leaders has been lackluster at best in the face of what is arguably the greatest human tragedy at the dawn of the 21st century. The recently initiated "Peace, Security and Cooperation Framework for the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Region," is one such example; as it fails to hold Rwanda and Uganda accountable, lacks a serious justice component, did not include the Congolese people in its development and mistakenly argues that legitimizing Rwanda and Uganda's looting of the Congo under the guise of trade and economic integration will bring stability.
The degree to which action has been taken, to hold aggressor countries like Rwanda and Uganda accountable has been a result of global pressure on world leaders by ordinary people. We have repeatedly seen the constructive role that global pressure can play in advancing peace in the Congo. Recently, the UN Group of Experts on the DRC leaked a report documenting reduced support for Rwandan and Ugandan militias in the Congo. This is a clear sign that the pressure on the U.S. and its allies Rwanda and Uganda needs to be sustained and stepped-up.
Musavuli is Spokesperson for Friends of Congo
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Labels: BARACK OBAMA, JAKAYA KIKWETE
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(BLACK AGENDA REPORT) Reparations: The Case For Settlement
Tue, 07/02/2013 - 21:28 — Courtenay Barnett
by Courtenay Barnett
The recent British monetary settlement with elderly Kenyan survivors of British colonial repression sets a precedent for reparations to all of the Empire’s victims. “The Caribbean has a very strong case to be brought for reparations for the Atlantic African Slave Trade.”
Reparations: The Case For Settlement
by Courtenay Barnett
“Whoever the advocate and whatever the question, the British government will resist the claim for reparations.”
In June, 2013, Her Majesty’s Government was required to pay 19.9 million pounds in compensation to some 5,000 elderly Kenyans who were tortured and abused during the Mau Mau (an English bastardised name for “muingi” or “muigwithania,” as the movement) uprising in the 1950s. This case bears lessons for the Caribbean and it also has much to teach about the true nature of the British Empire.
The British imposed themselves in Kenya and confiscated land. In 1948 a quarter million Kenyans were confined to 2,000 square miles, while 30,000 English settlers lived on 12,000 square miles of the most fertile lands in Kenya. Africans under an apartheid and colonial policy were forbidden to enter certain areas and confined away from the most arable land. Not surprisingly, the Kenyans rebelled and started a violent campaign against the white settlers in 1952. The colonialists responded and the Kenya Human Rights Commission estimated that 90,000 Kenyans were executed, tortured or maimed. There was the use of literal concentration camps (see the observations below of the then British Attorney General) as a nationwide network of detention for some 160,000 who were confined in the most appalling conditions. President Obama’s grandfather, Hussein Onyango Obama, happened to be one of those detained persons. He had pins placed into his fingernails and in his buttocks and his testicles were squeezed between metal rods. Other Kenyans were forcibly relocated in new villages. Within the camps the British inflicted beatings, castrated, raped and performed other forms of sexual abuse and torture applying brutal interrogation techniques against the Kenyans. It was against this background that elderly Kenyans who had suffered abuse when detained filed a claim in the English High Court. Two of the original five claimants had been castrated and an African lady who had been raped was included in the claim.
“The British inflicted beatings, castrated, raped and performed other forms of sexual abuse and torture.”
One might be astounded that despite the repeated public and international proclamations for many years by Her Majesty’s Government about defense of all types of human rights, it fought the Kenyan claims. In 2011 the High Court finally ruled that the four test cases were “arguable cases in law.” The Foreign and Commonwealth Office went as far, on the second round of the British government’s objections, of arguing that the claims were outside time limits. But, one knows in point of law that there is no statute bar on a crime against humanity, as one is aware that for murder and serious criminal offenses no statute of limitation applies. In October, 2012, the cases were permitted to proceed to trial, despite the best legal resistance that HMG could muster. The British government went as far as hiding an enormous secret archive consisting of more than 8,000 files from 37 former colonies, which researchers discovered and HMG was compelled to disclose. At Hanslope Park in Buckinghamshire, this secret archive was held separate from the National Archive at Kew, London. This discovery of the several documents corroborated the Kenyans’ claims. During this time one of the four elderly claimants died before judgment, then the case was finally settled out of court.
A part of British Foreign Secretary William Hague’s statement in response to the case reads:
“The British Government recognizes that Kenyans were subject to torture and other forms of ill-treatment at the hands of the colonial administration.”
The FCO expressed “regret” but then immediately drew semantic distinctions, stating that the expressed “regret” was not an “apology.” The reason for this, one surmises, is that the Caribbean has a very strong case to be brought for reparations for the Atlantic African Slave Trade once an apology is made and there is full acknowledgement of the crime against humanity.
The Caribbean case
Queen Elizabeth I by way of Royal Charter and ably assisted by Captain John Hawkins in the 1500s established a criminal enterprise, of funding for trips to Africa to kidnap Africans, place them on ships and via the Middle Passage sail them across the Atlantic to be enslaved on plantations and for centuries without pay, have the enslaved and each generation thereafter build wealth for Britain, being the principal slaving nation in the modern world. But while Berlin has a Holocaust museum, by contrast where are Britain’s many slave museums and public monuments of contrition? Not so, because of the persistent and prolonged collective denial about the catastrophic consequences of coercion, torture, and the damage wreaked on sizeable numbers of humanity by colonialism.
The Irish, truth be told, faced slavery, and the Irish famine, for which HMG apologized. One then knows that there is precedent for a similar apology to be tendered to the African descendants in the Caribbean, as Queen Elizabeth II did to the Maoris in 1995 for colonizing their lands and breaching the treaty of Waitangi in New Zealand.
As with the Kenyan claim, one expects all forms of continuing denials before the claim is filed and the case is finally compensated. Following the victory for the Kenyans, the British government hastened to state that it “…doesn’t accept liability for the actions of previous colonial governments.” This declaration is consistent with the central intellectual plank of resistance used by European historians to “racialize” and rationalize the kidnapping of Africans to state that Africans captured Africans to be sold, therefore no claim can be made for slavery reparations. So, might one honestly ask, when France warred with England or Germany with the rest of Europe, is that how European historians reasoned? That there was no wrong for want of European racial solidarity when lining up to fight their own kith and kin? I think not. If so reasoned, then war reparations would never have been imposed by Europeans. One Hermann J. Abhs, a German Jew (Director of the Deutsche Bank Abhs) financed Auschwitz, the concentration camp in which thousands of Jews were slaughtered. As Director of the Deutsche Bank Abhs definitely played a direct role in financially assisting the Nazi regime along with corporations that participated in war crimes.
“Following the victory for the Kenyans, the British government hastened to state that it ‘…doesn’t accept liability for the actions of previous colonial governments.’”
Clearly, tribes and nations exist in Africa and as with European warfare, so too did Africans fight Africans, but African leaders resisted the slave trade from its inception:
“And we cannot reckon how great the damage is, since the mentioned merchants are taking every day our natives, sons of the land and the sons of our noblemen and vassals and our relatives, because the thieves and men of bad conscience grab them wishing to have the things and wares of this Kingdom which they are ambitious of; they grab them and get them to be sold; and so great, Sir, is the corruption and licentiousness that our country is being completely depopulated, and Your Highness should not agree with this nor accept it as in your service. And to avoid it we need from those (your) Kingdoms no more than some priests and a few people to reach in schools, and no other goods except wine and flour for the holy sacrament. That is why we beg of Your Highness to help and assist us in this matter, commanding your factors that they should not send here either merchants or wares, because it is our will that in these Kingdoms there should not be any trade of slaves nor outlet for them. Concerning what is referred [to] above, again we beg of Your Highness to agree with it, since otherwise we cannot remedy such an obvious damage.”…
“And as soon as they are taken by the white men they are immediately ironed and branded with fire, and when they are carried to be embarked, if they are caught by our guards’ men the whites allege that they have bought them but they cannot say from whom, so that it is our duty to do justice and to restore to the freemen their freedom, but it cannot be done if your subjects feel offended, as they claim to be.” – Letter from African King of the Congo Nzinga Mbemba, a.k.a. Alfonso I, to the King of Portugal, dated October 18, 1526.
Britain’s Black Debt
The Caribbean claim for reparations was initially academically established by Dr. Eric Williams’ book Capitalism and Slavery and more recently advanced by Professor Hilary Beckles’ book Britain’s Black Debt. Every facet of British society has been astoundingly enriched from the period of African enslavement in the Caribbean. Slavery for Britain was central to the British economy, not peripheral, and at the time was proclaimed to be central and in the “national interest” for the enrichment of Britain. Royalty; the Church of England; the British Parliament with a dense population of slave owners; families whose wealth inure to this day – Queen Elizabeth II’s second cousin, the 7th Earl of Harewood (George Henry Hubert Lascelles, died July 10th, 2011) and his family in Barbados owns the plantation that produced the wealth for the family with 232 slaves, and they all owned slaves in the Caribbean. Barclays Bank was started from the profits of two plantation owners who traded in slaves. The insurers Lloyds of London started as insurers of ships that were transporting slaves from Africa to the Caribbean. The “Zong” case of 1781 involved the jettisoning of some 131 Africans thrown into the Atlantic ocean, for reason of a shortage of water on board ship. The case brought in the English courts was not for murder, but to reclaim the insurance money on the131 persons lost as “property.” The times and context of the case may be weighed, yet at the time the anti-slavery campaigner, Granville Sharpe, tried unsuccessfully to have the crew tried for murder.
“Every facet of British society has been astoundingly enriched from the period of African enslavement in the Caribbean.”
The real point is the enduring British judicial denial of “human rights” (as in contemporary times illustrated and confirmed bythe British government’s response to the Kenyan case) which exposes a stark contradiction between the basic professed tenets of English law, respect for the rule of law, human rights and justice and the conflicting set of views which to this day instinctively and compulsively deny the rights of others. Historical conditioning evidently makes it hard for some to yield to the just demands of others. As an exercise in advocacy, might the lawyer ask, What would your response be if it were your English persons, enslaved in England and treated as the Africans were in the Caribbean? But, whoever the advocate and whatever the question, the British government will resist the claim for reparations once the claim is made. First, by way of continuing the official British policy of no apology for enslavement complemented by efforts to refuse payment of compensation due from the British government, which built its economy on African slavery and will without shame maintain that position (as illustrated by the Kenyan case). Malachy Postlethwayt, a political economist, frankly and honestly wrote in 1745: “British trade is a magnificent superstructure of American commerce and naval power on an African foundation.”
It is no more or less than moral and intellectual dishonesty to attempt, as many European scholars and some African sympathizers have less than ably tried to do, to blame the Atlantic African Slave Trade on Africans, when the financing, the maritime and shipping arrangements, the insurance, the manning of the ships, the organization and ownership of the plantations and slaves related directly to a coordinated European led criminal enterprise, with profits directed back to Europe, without pay to the Africans.
“Barclays Bank was started from the profits of two plantation owners who traded in slaves.”
Were one to ask, How many persons killed in Auschwitz received reparations from the German government for the crimes committed against humanity? the answer would be: Not one; it was the descendants of the Jews and the group that was paid reparations. In the debates leading up to the 1838 Emancipation, British parliamentarians actually debated having the slaves pay to their English masters a sum for the loss of the services to the master as a precondition for their freedom. In the Kenyan case an equivalent modern day debasement of justice occurred when the British state’s lawyer actually advanced the legal concept of states succession to claim that the modern Kenyan state and government should be the defendant and potential payer of reparations. There is further illustrative consistent European historical parallel, in Haiti, after the slave revolution, when France demanded that the Haitian self-freed slaves pay reparations for the loss of the property the French had owned. In 1826 Haiti was coerced into incurring a debt of 150 million francs to France (see Myrtha Desulmé’s article, “Haiti needs Justice not Charity”). There was operative French and Euro-American blackmail, because Haiti could not trade internationally unless the debt was paid. In 1914 the United States of America bought the debt from France and continued collecting payments until the 1940s. In the British Caribbean colonies, after ensuring delay of emancipation until satisfactory payment of reparations were arranged, it was the slave owners who received £ 21 million (approximately£ 200 billion in today’s currency) from the British Treasury for the loss of their “property” when African slaves were freed. The enslaved throughout received not a penny from the British for the centuries of free labor. No land, no compensation, not a jot paid for the original captured nor to their generations. And, to this day – no apology from Britain.
Let it not come from the writings or words of a mere “colonial” born under British rule in the waning days of Empire, but from the words of no less a person than a British colonial Attorney General, Eric Griffith-Jones, and his description of the abuses of Kenyans which at the time read that they were “…distressingly reminiscent of conditions in Nazi Germany or Communist Russia.”
The foregoing is the true modern legacy of Britannia, coming undeniably from high authority who knew from the British side. But, one need not so much be astounded, nor even be annoyed by the depths of contemporary denials and contrivances, based as British views are, molded and conditioned over centuries and assisted by handmaiden intellectual support, for purposes of historical distortion, by sections of European academia. The misconceptions and cleverly constructed colonial myths inure against the crimes of British colonialism and imperialism that actually were committed (still committed, in Iraq?) against humanity, then become understandable, but not condoned. Admission of the crimes committed would actually cause psychological shock inversion, from the initial acceptance of “truths” to the shock of the rejection of an embrace of the romanticization of the illegality, exploitation, slavery and theft by the “benign Empire” once anyone is compelled to view the truly barbarous nature of the operations of the British Empire.
“It was the slave owners who received £ 21 million from the British Treasury for the loss of their 'property' when African slaves were freed.”
Kenya was a good and wonderful place to be born or live and be white in colonial times, as Elspeth Huxley tells us in her book The Flame Trees of Thika – but not so for the displaced Africans – and so through whose eyes do we see truth? If the Kenyan case was one of the darkest episodes of Britain’s imperial past, what then, in comparison would the Caribbean claim for reparations constitute? The Caribbean has a challenge, now bolstered by the Kenyan case, to take collective steps to commence a claim for reparations.
It is not that, on the demonstrated record, Britain wants to learn from the past. Rather, there is a decisive willfulness to distort, avoid, hide and minimize the true levels of compensatory payments and/or restorative sums lawfully due. This observation is factually supported by reference to certain colonial files being placed out of reach despite the stipulations of the UK Freedom of Information Act. Additionally, there is a case to be brought in England that the provisions of the Public Records Act 0f 1958 have been breached.
Making the case
The claim for reparations can be made in one or more of the following ways:
*
Placing the matter before the UN General Assembly. This was the declared intent of Chief Abiola, the elected leader of Nigeria. Sadly, it appears that he was killed by the military when he had been imprisoned and the intent to claim reparations through the Nigerian government’s efforts at the UN died with him.
*
Use of a specially constituted international tribunal to decide upon the terms of payment through a negotiated settlement.
*
A contested case argued before an international court. There being at present no international court with specific jurisdiction for the award of African reparations, the claim becomes one of political will to make the claim and establish a specially constituted court.
*
Reliance can be placed on the International Court of Justice through which an advisory opinion can be sought. This fourth point relates back to the first in that the General Assembly of the United Nations could make this request.
For some, the matter may seem something related to the distant past that has no contemporary bearing. History, however, is not disjointed. The negative self images of the African, in psychological, literary, economic and social terms are not conditions biologically determined, but rather are historical constructs. To the extent that an individual owes certain moral duties to self, to family, to community, to nation, to humanity, that mental state of moral resoluteness can be aggregated through Caribbean nation states and into the Caribbean community. Power never conceded anything without a demand, it never has and it never will. The conditions of African-Americans or Africans in Southern Africa under Apartheid seemed at a point in time immutable and were so proclaimed by Ian Smith for a thousand years to come. But, a vision accompanied by avowed collective purpose did within fleeting political time change the existing segregated and disconsolate order. Of course, there first had to be the will.
Assessing the value
The value that may be assessed due from Britain relates to a starting point of £200 billion, ably and vigorously debated in no less an august place than the British Parliament. Much of British aid money serves purposes that are disguised to promote sales of British produce and services abroad (arms included). Reconfiguring the existing aid funding and redesigning British foreign policy can do much good in shifting from hand outs of beguiling aid and supportive pursuit of wars of aggression to constructive payments of reparations for sustainable Caribbean development and indeed stepping along a path of global justice. It is not that the source of funding for reparations would have increased nor changed, but the acknowledgment of the criminal wrong inflicted and the purpose of the same funds would have. Reparations so paid would then involve mutual respect and the acceptance and acknowledgement of the crime against humanity that had been committed, as distinct from projecting to the world that some benign British aid money has yet again been handed out to the needy living in the post-independence exploited and dependent British colonies.
“Reparations so paid would then involve mutual respect and the acceptance and acknowledgement of the crime against humanity.”
If one were to take the first quarter estimate for expenditures on the Iraq war up to March, 2013, of £8.3billion (and when the maimed and psychologically wounded are returned from the lies of this WMD war there will be medical costs to the British state that will increase that figure for the remainder of the lives of the soldiers for their medical care) then, even on the basis of a hugely discounted settlement sum, if HMG can find the money to pay for destructive war there surely can be sums found for constructive reparations payments to the Caribbean for reparations and sustainable development. The result, as with other reparations claims, realistically will involve consultation and negotiation. The judgment thereafter might be quite simple, such as total British debt relief for all English speaking Caribbean nations accompanied by a 50 year educational trust for any Caribbean citizen who matriculates to be educated free of cost at any British university, and a reasonable sum in monetary reparations paid to each Caribbean government in the English speaking Caribbean. Of the total sum payable, there can be a tripartite weighted division of the total value between the proportions allocated for debt relief, education, and direct reparations payments.
Her Majesty’s Government cannot now afford the greater embarrassment of fighting a case of far larger historical significance than the Kenyan cases, so might avoid the cost of further debasing the professed value system of the British government and state and its global reputation, such as it stands. Little compensation, indeed, to claim for the centuries of exploitation and co-related economic benefits bestowed on Britain. Reparations remain justly due and a case inviting settlement might now be advanced. Since the idea of collective punishment came easily as policy for the British in Kenya, there then should not be a problem, in terms of the best traditions of British jurisprudence, in addressing collective restorative justice for the people of the Caribbean. The people of the Caribbean should now decisively bend the arc of history from assumptions of benevolent associations with Empire towards direct efforts in pursuit of this claim for justice.
Courtenay Francis Raymond Barnett is a graduate of London University. His areas of study were economics, political science and international law. He has been a practising lawyer for over thirty years, has been arrested for defending his views, has survived an attempt on his life and death threats, and has argued public interest and human rights cases.
Labels: COLONIALISM, REPARATIONS
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(BLACKAGENDAREPORT) Haiti: US to Re-Write Haiti Constitution to Better Service the One Percent
Tue, 07/02/2013 - 22:11 — Ezili Danto
by Ezili Dantò
When the U.S. overthrew Haiti’s government in 2004, Washington proclaimed the invasion a “humanitarian” enterprise. Now it turns out that Haiti’s earth and waters are filled with gold and oil. The U.S.-controlled World Bank has volunteered to help rewrite the Haitian constitution, to allow easier access for foreign extraction corporations. Haitians must, as always, “look out for themselves.”
Haiti: US to Re-Write Haiti Constitution to Better Service the One Percent
by Ezili Dantò
“It's a slightly repackaged imperial economic pillage but the same old arsonist/fireman modus operandi.”
The leech says, "I cling to you because without your blood, I have no life."
As long as white supremacy paints Haiti as a failed state because of weak public services, when Haiti is prevented by US unfair trade and World Bank/IMF structural adjustments from investing in its own local economy and paints the Clintons, Paul Farmers, UN, World Bank, the NGOs and their three-piece suited Eurocentric-Haiti collaborators with the mark of international distinction and service to humanity, Haiti's pains will continue to be their cash cow.
"The holocaust in Ayiti continues. The insane imperial narrative and custom of honoring rapists, murderers, torturers, degenerate pedophile maniacs, pillagers, plunderers, enslavers and poverty pimps, starting with Christopher Columbus, who set forth the most prolonged genocides and horrific terrors in recorded human history, continues today. Officialdom honors the UN and UN envoys to Haiti as ‘humanitarians’ or ‘God’ bringing security, stability, peace, law, Christian ethos and ‘Western civilization.’ Too many have jobs, egos, power and prestige invested in the profit-over-people system to see that the current saviors of Haiti extend mostly the same narcissistic, cultural blindness and denials as the initial ‘missionaries/humanitarians’ brought to Haiti in 1492."–Ezili Dantò of HLLN, Oct. 10, 2011 , Bill Clinton has more power in Haiti than Haiti’s president: The Holocaust Continues.
There's a new move by the discredited Haiti rescuers, led today by Obama/the Clintons/USAID/UN, the Paul Farmer-led NGOS and their International Financing Institutions to refocus their fundraising scam away from "earthquake reconstruction relief" now to "cholera relief," or to "local agriculture relief," and "mining protection relief for Haitians!" It's a slightly repackaged imperial economic pillage but the same old arsonist/fireman modus operandi. Same failures intended to enrich the global North, impoverish Haiti (UN Capitalizing on Cholera: playing arsonist and fireman and The Pain Rush in Haiti : Clorox Hunger lives in the same space that billions of dollars in "aid" are supposed to have being poured.)
The NGOs carry out US imperial policies in Haiti in exchange for "charity funding" - which means, they money launder US tax payer and donor dollars and put it in their pockets. US imperial policies is about destroying Haiti manufacturing and local economy, expropriating Haiti natural resources and making a larger Haiti market for their subsidized Wall Street monopolies.
Se mèt ki veye kò - The Haiti Population Must Look Out for Itself
Racism continually allows the Haiti perspective and non-colonial narrative to be marginalized. But Ezili's HLLN has been the voice ahead of all to sound the alarm, to consistently and almost daily provide the tools for Haiti defense for nearly ten years now. We cover all things Desalin, Dantò and about Haiti riches, Haiti epistemology.
Back in 2004, when Ezili's HLLN noted that the US occupation of Haiti wasn't because the US wanted to protect Haiti civil rights and stop a supposedly abusive Haiti elected government under Aristide. It was about stopping that popularly elected government from nationalizing Haiti resources. When we pointed this out, not one of the charitable industrial complex organizations today purporting to be helping Haiti protect itself with "good mining" laws would quote our work, not then and not now.
We were called the apologists for Lavalas and most of the foreign Haiti experts announced that Haiti had no resources the US could want. Today, the US occupiers are freely announcing their intent to change Haiti's mining laws with little public dissent of their nefarious occupation and resource pillages in Haiti. Ezili's HLLN is still the only voice out here exposing Oxfam, World Bank and the other fake philanthropic folks involved in protecting the interests of the one percenters, re-writing Haiti mining laws.
The invaders in Haiti finally admit Haiti has gold, iridium, uranium. It seems Haiti's $20 billion in gold exist only when the "discoverers" are ready to proclaim Haiti has riches. They've still strategically refuse to acknowledge that the US has built its fifth largest embassy – after Iraq, Afghanistan, China, Germany – in Haiti because Haiti oil is an Olympic pool to Venezuela's glass of water. (See, Haiti Riches and Haiti rich in unexplored hydrocarbons (with potential oil reserves larger than those of Venezuela) , gold, copper, uranium 238 and 235 and strategic metals and Did mining and oil drilling trigger the Haiti earthquake?)
If you want to be ahead of the corporate lies, there's a Kreyòl, Lakou New York Interview where HLLN’s Ezili Dantò talks about environmental degradation concerns, Haiti resources and the foreign mining of Haiti resources. It was broadcasted in 2009 before the earthquake, before foreign cholera, before the public pillage of earthquake donor dollars. The English parallel (the text is here) to the 2009 Kreyòl interview may be listened to at Ezili Dantò with Chris Scott- CKUT on Haiti Riches.
At the point we did the interviews, it had just been announced that Haiti was no longer the "poorest" country in the Western Hemisphere, Nicaragua was. This was because of all the billions the foreigners had made in Haiti from 2004 to 2009 during the US occupation of Haiti. The economic elites made billions upon billions before the $9-billion the US "big-hearted humanitarians" would add to their coffers from laundering earthquake relief dollars largely back to US groups.
“The US occupiers are freely announcing their intent to change Haiti's mining laws with little public dissent of their nefarious occupation and resource pillages in Haiti.”
These interviews on Haiti Riches were done before the UN poisoned the Artibonite river with cholera. Haitians wondered then, in terms of US mining, what happens if mining chemicals poison the Artibonite river? Very uncanny this foreshadowing. For the invaders found another way to poison Haiti waters with greater market effectiveness.
We point to these unheralded Haitianist efforts to defend Haiti because of the current multinational and NGO efforts in Haiti to link mining to Haiti development! (See, Haiti must avoid the resource curse ; Haiti gets $35.5M grant to improve water services and World Bank says its helping Haiti draft mining legislation.)
Our "rescuers’" benevolence is the decoy used for manufacturing consent to the US occupation in Haiti. Period, no comma. OXFAM, the IDB, the UN and the World Bank are simply howling a wolf's care for the sheep they're tearing apart.
Neither Oxfam, nor the World Bank are questioning that US Newmont mining, VCS Mining and Canada’s Majescor et al, have managed to get the puppet Haiti president to WAIVE Haiti environmental and mining laws – its Constitutional laws – in order for US mining do open pit mining in areas close to earthquake fault lines in the North, in a country devastated by the last earthquake and with its water already poisoned by UN cholera. But the corporate media – liberal and conservative – are blithely writing PR articles about the World Bank "helping" Haiti draft mining laws. There's no outrage or concern that mining and oil drilling trigger are known to cause earthquakes.
Se mèt ki veye kò – Haiti look out for yourself.
HLLN on the cholera case
Infecting over 650,000 and killing 8,200 Haitians with cholera in less than 2-years provides the NGO and multinational companies commercializing poverty and their Paul Farmer/Jim Yong Kim ilks with 1) more opportunity to raise funds that will be laundered back to this corporatocracy but called "Haiti aid" 2) the more Haitians die, the better to bring demand down and balance the elites' capital markets and 3) our deaths provide the multinational companies with the opportunity to privatize all sources of Haiti water under the pretext of cleaning Haiti water for the public's good health.
In October 2010, the very month that the UN imported cholera to Haiti, before the charitable industrial complex saviors entered the fray as big-hearted humanitarians to delay and defer Haiti justice, HLLN wrote:
"The accused cannot investigate itself. The United Nations being the prosecutor, the judge, the jury and the executioner, all in one, in the Haiti cholera case, is contrary to established traditions as well as established national and international laws. (Listen to Oct 30, 2010 interview with Yves Point Du Jour
"HLLN has never subscribed to the callous and profiting-on-misery notion of letting the UN independently investigate itself while Haiti's people die unmercifully. " --- Excerpt from HLLN complaint against the US occupational forces for bringing cholera to Haiti.
"The Alien Tort Statute (28 U.S.C. § 1350) of the United States Code reads: ‘The district courts shall have original jurisdiction of any civil action by an alien for a tort only, committed in violation of the law of nations or a treaty of the United States.’ This statute is notable for allowing United States courts to hear human rights cases brought by foreign citizens for conduct committed outside the United States." --- Excerpt from HLLN complaint against the US occupational forces for bringing cholera to Haiti.
Do not be shocked if the UN/PAHO/WHO stealthily concludes and garners public consensus for the proposition that justice for Haiti cholera victims shall be served if a law is passed that makes all sources of Haiti water property of a foreign company like Bechtel and it shall clean Haiti's water and sell it back to Haitians.
“Our deaths provide the multinational companies with the opportunity to privatize all sources of Haiti water under the pretext of cleaning Haiti water for the public's good health.”
The Bolivian water wars is a good parallel to study in order to understand why Brian Concannon's Institute for Justice for Democracy (IDJH), a Dr. Paul Farmer affiliate, is "legally representing(?)" the Haiti cholera victims. IDJH like Paul Farmer have glaring ethical conflicts of interests issues that makes it impossible for them to vigorously defend the cholera victims by naming their own funders, employers, business associates and the primary funder of the US occupation – the US government that occupies Haiti, their consulting firms and NGO cohorts as the Respondiat Superior for the destruction of Haiti government and water systems.
A first-year law student readily understands that Haiti needs immediate injunctive relief, restitution and damages. Injunctive relief is not subject to immunity laws. Neither the US government nor the UN are too big to be prosecuted for human rights crimes, tort or gross negligence. As the largest funder and the main orchestrator of the UN presence in Haiti, the US government, is legally, the Respondiat Superior for the cholera wrongdoings in Haiti along with the UN.
But the NGOs and their Hollywood, media and academic cohorts play firemen to the US government's arsonist role in Haiti and the global south. The professional posers – the white industrial charitable complex – play an underhanded game. For instance "The Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) analyzed the $1.15 billion pledged after the January 2010 quake to Haiti and found that the "vast majority" of the money it could follow went straight to U.S. companies or organizations, more than half in the Washington area alone." (See also US military company DynCorp gets $48.6 million contract in Haiti to staff officers for UN mission ; Capitalizing on Cholera: playing arsonist and fireman and Haiti's earthquake generated a $9bn response – where did the money go?)
Yet, CEPR and such foreign "policy researchers" on Haiti also claim IDJH/Paul Farmer and their fake cholera "lawsuit" against the UN along with the US/UN non-funded $2 billion proposal for privatizing clean water in 10-years in Haiti is a DIFFERENT, more positive paternal step for Haiti. That this sort of bait and switch, fraudulent Haiti aid and NGO funding always further weakens Haiti’s ability to handle its own affairs is of no consequence.
US to re-write Haiti Constitution, Again
(with change in mining laws)
ARTICLE 36-5 of the Haitian Constitution, states:
"The right to own property does not extend to the coasts, springs, rivers, water courses, mines and quarries. They are part of the State's public domain."
So, how is it legally possible for the US to re-write Haiti mining laws? To legally change the Haiti constitution on ownership of Haiti resources at mines, coasts, springs, rivers, water courses and quarries? Who will stop this US occupation forces' re-writing of the Haiti Constitution to benefit US resource extraction companies and for privatization of Haiti's water? Ayisyen kote nou ye? – Where are the Haitians? (See World Bank says its helping Haiti draft mining legislation.)
Se mèt ki veye kò – Haiti must look out for itself!
Haiti’s current law doesn’t allow drilling without a signed mining convention. But US Newmont mining got a “waiver” to the current Haiti law without the approval of even the puppet Haiti legislature. Martelly signed it in violation of the Haiti Constitution. (Gold Rush in Haiti: Mining Investment Good for Whom?)
The US companies were offered a friendly, public-private partnership by the Aristide government to exploit Haiti oil, gold, iridium, uranium and other strategic resources. That idea of equitable revenue sharing with Haiti peoples insulted the northern US-Euro monopolies so much, they hired and trained death squads in the Dominican Republic from former Haiti army officials to take down Haiti's duly elected government. And when the hired jackals and US mercenaries, including Guy Philippe/Louis Jodel Chamblain paramilitaries, could not do the US regime change themselves, US Special Forces along with Canada and French troops landed in Haiti on February 29, 2004, and through extraordinary rendition put President Aristide and the first lady on a plane to Africa. This merciless and shocking malevolence was followed by a brutal 3-months US Marines sweep of Site Solèy, Bel Air, Solino and other dissenting areas and then covered up with US MINUSTAH's permanent war in Haiti behind NGO imperialism.
“The US is re-writing Haiti mining laws for its corporations.”
Between 2004 to 2006 the US occupation behind UN guns slaughtered 14 to 20 thousand Haitians. If it wasn't for organizations like Ezili's HLLN the Wall Street assassination squads in Haiti might have slaughtered more in the same manner the CIA orchestrated paramilitary death squads in Guatemala killed 200,000 Guatemalans on behalf of US United Fruit companies. In Haiti, with former UN employee Gerald Latortue illegally imposed as Prime Minister, the oligarchs urged Brazil commanders to kill more poor Haitians so that Haiti oil and gold can now freely be carted off to service the Northern vampires as Haiti majority die of Clorox hunger, UN cholera, unfair trade, endless debts and World Bank neoliberal death plans. (The Pain Rush in Haiti : Clorox Hunger lives in the same space that billions of dollars in "aid" are supposed to have being poured.)
Today, the US is re-writing Haiti mining laws for its corporations.
"Now that these ghouls think we indigenous Haiti are all infected with vampire blood and dead, it's no surprise that the NGO OXFAM/World Bank is howling out a wolf's care for the sheep they're tearing their fangs into – funding conferences, issuing action alerts with the other wolves guarding Haiti from the mining companies? I would laugh out loud at these media missives if the depravity these hidden war criminal collaborators bring forth wasn't as evil to the Haiti majority as a Hitler's holocaust was." (Excerpt from [ezilidanto] NGO false benevolence manufactures consent for the US occupation in Haiti: OXFAM & World Bank howling a wolf's care for the sheep they're tearing apart; or here.)
The global North's insane sense of entitlement knows no bounds, no law, no morality, no ethics. The US government destroys Haiti farmers, Haiti manufacturing, Haiti water system, Haiti politics, Haiti spirituality in order to reshape, privatize and call Haiti resources their own. (Se mèt ki pou veye kò.)
With respect to this sudden US public effort via coup d’etat NGO, Oxfam USA, purported to be about securing protection for occupied Haiti from US mining giants. This false benevolence is a way to do the mode soufle.
In Haiti, mode soufle (bite and blow) is where the cunning rural rat takes a bite while you're sleeping, then blows on the injury in order to lessen the pain, keeping you asleep longer so the rat increases its chances for getting a second bite before the peasant awakes from the piercing pain. While the US is destroying the provisions in the Haiti Constitution protecting Haiti from foreign mining companies, Oxfam and its other international cohorts are sent forth to do PR for America's commitment to protect Haiti's poor from the giant mining companies!
But keep your eye on the ball Haitians and true friends of Haiti. For they must especially eradicate these protective local Haiti laws that give the local Haiti inhabitants the right to exploit the mines or to participate in mining exploitation before the government may legally offer that opportunity to outsiders. To wit:
ARTICLE 39 of the Haitian Constitution, states that the "inhabitants of the Communal Sections have the right of preemption for the exploitation of the State's land in the private domain located in their locality."
ARTICLE 36-6 of the Haitian Constitution, states that "law shall establish regulations governing freedom to prospect for and work mines, or bearing earths, and quarries, ensuring an equal share of the profits of such exploitation to the owner of the land and to the Haitian State or its concessionnaires."
ARTICLE 36-5 of the Haitian Constitution, states:
"The right to own property does not extend to the coasts, springs, rivers, water courses, mines and quarries. They are part of the State's public domain. "
US occupiers mining on fault lines, stealthily privatizing Haiti water
Peruvian peasants have been struggling against US mining company Newmont's $5billion Conga gold project which is effectively privatizing certain public lakes:
"Lake Perol is one of several lakes that would eventually be displaced to mine ore from the Conga project. Water from the lakes would be transferred to four reservoirs that the U.S. company (Newmont) and its Peruvian partner, Buenaventura, are building or planning to build. The companies say the reservoirs would end seasonal shortages and guarantee year-round water supplies to towns and farmers in the area, but many residents fear they would lose control of the water or that the mine would cause pollution...'Why would we want a reservoir controlled by the company when we already have lakes that naturally provide us water?' asked…a peasant patrol group..."-- Peru protesters push to stop $5 billion Newmont mine, June 17, 2013.
Where are the Haitians – Ayisyen kote nou ye – concerned with the taking of Haiti water to mine $20 billion in gold for foreigners with open pit mining chemicals known to kill, pollute and cause earthquakes?
“Who will stand for justice, stop this US occupation force, its rampage and re-writing of the Haiti Constitution.”
Where's the public outrage when one notes media missives such as, World Bank says its helping Haiti draft mining legislation. Shouldn't the international community – these self-defined "big-hearted humnitarians" – be shouting that defenseless "Haiti can't take anymore Made-in-the-USA devastations. That human life and environmental health is more important than Northern profit?"
If Peru's $5 billion Newmont mine project requires displacing huge amounts of Peruvian water sources, how much more is Haiti's $20 billion gold mine project going to take of Haiti water sources which are already in grave shortage because of UN cholera poisoning? (Peru protesters push to stop $5 billion Newmont mine.)
It is only possible for the US to re-write Haiti mining laws because Haiti is under US tutelage and might makes right. Who will stand for justice, stop this US occupation force, its rampage and re-writing of the Haiti Constitution to benefit US-Euro resource extraction companies and for privatization of Haiti's water? Ayisyen kote nou ye? Haiti must look out for itself - Se mèt ki veye kò.
For those foreign charity workers reconciling with injustice like Farmer's Partner and Death, for the Haitian technocrats and diaspora collaborators pretending amnesia, proclaiming ignorance or innocence, occupied Haiti runs thus: “Recently, there was a government press conference. There was nothing ‘government’ about it; we organized it and told them what to say, explains the spokesman for one of the largest UN organizations in the Haiti." (Full article at The NGO Republic of Haiti).
The hidden US occupation of Haiti
On December 31, 2003 this author was in Haiti to honor the bicentennial of Haiti's independence. It was very late, I'd already gone up to my room for the night. But my good friend Jafrikayiti (Jean St-Vil) had come to the Montana Hotel in Petion-Ville to meet up. He called from the front desk. I took the elevator down and found a heated conversation in progress with US career diplomat and current member of the Council on Foreign Relations, Luigi R. Einaudi, who was then the Assistant Secretary General at the Organization of American States. Journalist Kevin Pina was arguing with him. What Einaudi said as he exited towards the elevator up to his room was so astonishing, I took out pen and paper and wrote it down. On the eve of Haiti's 200-year independence, the OAS's Luigi Einaudi said, "the international community is so screwed up they're letting Haitians run Haiti."
One month later, in February 2004, the international community got itself together and started ruling Haiti. The US occupation of Haiti has been going on for nearly ten years now. Its colonial, bipartisan violence is hidden behind a UN and NGO humanitarian cover. (See, 30 U.S. Humanitarian and Advocacy NGOs Encourage Support for Royce-Engel Amendment to Farm Bill to Reform Food Aid to Feed More People, More Quickly, at a Lower Cost.)
The US occupation of Haiti is hidden by the white saviors, their educational and professional institutions and media outlets. These operatives hide the re-enslavement of Haiti by centering the uninformed persons' attention on the UN or, on their own "good works" in Haiti. Empire's various celebrity front-men are constantly awarded and elevated with the highest international distinction for their "service to humanity." When one lifts up the white supremacy visor, the stark reality is that the fake US progressives control the conversation on Haiti to improve the rabid elites' global feudal system, not to take it down.
Haitians require an end to the US occupation of Haiti, a stop to the mining companies and the NGO republic. If the Haiti government was sovereign and free from US bullying neoliberal World Bank/IFIs policies; if Haiti oil, gold, iridium, marble and uranium resources were not privatized but used for Haiti's public welfare, there would be no need for food-aid in Haiti.
“These operatives hide the re-enslavement of Haiti by centering the uninformed persons' attention on the UN or, on their own ‘good works’ in Haiti.”
If the Haitian government would be allowed by Paul Farmer's partner at the World Bank, President Jim Yong Kim, to invest in its own health care, its own people's education, water management and to protect its own local economy from unbalanced US trade with protective Haiti tariffs, there would be no need for NGOs in Haiti. There would be no need for a Paul Farmer hospital in Mirebalais, Haiti, not accountable to the Haitian public; no need for food-aid, no need for the NGO pèpè schools and "orphanages."
USAID just launched its newest money laundering scam – Feed the Future North – to capitalize on the media brainwashing of US tax payers and carry forth its usual extortions in Haiti. Media misinformation on Haitiallows death squad-maker USAID to freely use tax payer dollars and "aid" monies for creating new markets in Haiti for their biotech, pharmaceutical, shipping and big-agribusiness companies.
How much sense does it make to empower NGOs to provide local agricultural aid in Haiti while keeping the Haiti government weak and unable to respond to its farmer constituents. When will the human rights community stop getting funds from the imperialist, divest from the system killing the poor and commercializing poverty. Use their platform to act as real humanitarians to confront subsidized big agribusiness destructions, Monsanto genetic poisons and World Bank/IFS priorities inhibiting local agricultural and manufacturing growth? The current NGO push to "help" Haiti local agriculture is nothing more than another means to further increase NGO capacity and to create more unwilling markets for the US biotech and big agri-business industries instead of increasing Haiti governmental capacity and supporting autonomous Haiti community-based organizations that are the real engines of progress and Haiti's only hope for sustainable development. (Feeding Dependency, Starving Democracy: USAID Policies in Haiti Grassroots International and Ezili Dantò' at Foreign Investment means Death and Repression: A Historical Perspective.)
Haiti misery and the general American public's cluelessness is their cash cow. US false benevolences in Haiti, its fairly uninterrupted corruption, has been going on for over two centuries. But as recently as in 1997 when a similar USAID initiative was analyzed, Grassroots International noted :
"CARE has been 'helping' people in the Northwest for decades. But each year, the misery of the people of the Northwest increases. What is the real impact of this aid? To make people more dependent, more vulnerable, more on the margins?...The aid is not given in such a way as to give the people responsibility, to make them less dependent....This is what you call ‘commercializing’ poverty....The people's misery should not be marketed – Samuel Madisten, Haitian Senator.” (Feeding Dependency, Starving Democracy: USAID Policies in Haiti Grassroots International 6 March 1997.)
Unless Haitians start protesting like the Peruvians, the World Bank, NGOs and US mining companies will gather together as one and with depraved indifference to Black life and environmental health in Haiti successfully amend the Haiti constitution as the US marines did during the first occupation (1915-1934), to destroy more Haiti life than UN cholera, privatize all sources of Haiti water.
Ezili Dantò is an award winning playwright, a performance poet, author and human rights attorney. She was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and raised in the USA. She holds a BA from Boston College, a JD from the University of Connecticut School of law. She is a human rights lawyer, cultural and political activist and the founder and president of the Ezili’s Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network (HLLN). She runs the Haitian Perspectives on-line journal and the Ezili Dantò Newsletter.
She can be contacted at http://www.ezilidanto.com/zili/contact-us/.
Listen to us on the Black Talk Radio Network at www.blacktalkradionetwork.com
Labels: HAITI, NEOLIBERALISM
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