Africa: What is so wrong that possible death is an attractive option ?

New Times Rwanda ( opinion )

We still have a lot of work to do back home

                                                                      By Allan Brian Ssenyonga

The death of hundreds of Africans on rickety boats trying to cross to Europe is another pointer that indeed the more things change the more they remain the same. 

It is a shame that while our forefathers died in the high seas years ago as they were being taken as slaves, today Africans are dying in the same way only this time they are getting on the boats themselves. 

That is a perspective I hadn't thought about.

The tragedy of Lampedusa and Sicily begs the question of what is it really that compels Africans to do all they can to leave their motherland in preference for a life in the cold parts of the world. 

And let us not be blinded by the CNN/Al Jazeera images of those risking their lives on boats. Many other Africans each year will go an extra mile to find a visa to leave Africa. Many use the various sports trips to go and vanish into a new life. Others leave for studies but never return.

" Others leave for studies but never return."  

These are the people no developing nation can afford to lose on a permanent basis. When I was at university in Dunedin, New Zealand I had one black African friend from ( I think ) the Ivory Coast, he was an engineering student and today he builds roads, sewage treatment plants etc in New Zealand. We have no intention of giving him back. We have invested a lot of time teaching him the rules of rugby. :-)

Huge conferences are another window for many to invest in leaving the continent. For the asylum seekers, the options are quite many. Journalists will claim to be persecuted, some women will mention female genital mutilation while some from countries like my own (Uganda) will play the newest valuable card of ‘I am gay and my life is in danger.’

‘I am gay and my life is in danger.’

That is a bloody reasonable fear if you are gay and if you are not I wouldn't blame someone using it as an excuse to get away from a regime that has a bill before it's parliament that originally offered to kill you for being gay but I gather has now downgraded it to spending the rest of your life in prison.  Africans accept such idiotic ideas being screamed at them from pulpits and political parties never questioning the origin of such stupidity,  not realising that in doing this  you  are  not following God you  are following a perverted, white, right wing American " Christian " ( and I use the word loosely ) agenda. Follow the money or in this case the donations. 

Even those coming from fairly better backgrounds will be found in visa queues trying to leave the ‘dark continent.’ All of the above categories then appear in our faces, on Facebook in pictures where the background is snow, the underground trains station, a famous city monument and of course the picture just outside Manchester United, FC Barcelona or Arsenal stadium. 

I am not sure that is exactly fair. I can think of many European friends and family who have pictures of themselves on facebook in some fairly choice African locations. That said I take the point.

Now contrast all the above with the ‘Africa is Rising’ theme that we find in most of the media. Why do our leaders have to spend millions of local currency trying to persuade people to invest back home in Africa yet their own citizens are more concerned with leaving? What should we do back home in order to make it more desirable for people to stay and develop their countries instead of running away? 

In a word " leadership ". Africa has the youngest average population on the globe and the oldest average leadership age. And most of them are right bastards. 

At 68, Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni is nearly five decades older than his country’s newly sworn-in MP Proscovia Alengot Oromait, who wasn’t even born when her head of state was first elected to office 26 years ago. When a 19-year old girl gets voted into Uganda’s parliament by a majority of voters barely older than she is, is it too early to start speculating on the demise of the rest of Africa’s leaders, who tend to be two generations older than their voters? 

Have a read of TSM Ruge on the subject.

The former Portuguese colonies have proved the exception here. There is now evidence that due to the tough economic situation in Europe, many Spanish and Portuguese people are moving to Mozambique and Angola for work. 

That isn't a big surprise other than I was unaware of it.

In the recent years, Africa has been calling for a switch from aid to trade as the sure way to achieve development. In the same breath, it has been argued that intra-African trade has to increase if development is to be sustainable. 

So far what has been happening a lot is the switch from tapping aid from the West to getting it with fewer conditions from our new friends, the Chinese. But we also need to move away from them as well and look more at ourselves and each other.

There is in my opinion an argument that says aid is just a repatriation of wealth stolen over many generations by the west and as such aid is a misnomer. That said when Africa's leadership treat the public purse like a personal bank it is inevitable conditions on aid will be attached.

How much have we done to ease trade and movement within our continent? We have lots of lakes and rivers but water transport seems not a priority for any government. The only time we are reminded of its existence is when a ferry capsizes and kills hundreds. 

Agreed. The problem is that the African fleet of inland craft are outdated and largely designed for inland European waterways. A new Africa class is needed and they need to be simple and well thought out. Timber seating can save lives in a capsize unlike metal seating, in the Pacific like Africa we have learned some very hard lessons, many that are relevant to modern day African inland water travel. 

Look in the skies and see how hard it is to travel from one end of the continent to the other. Airport taxes are so high that airlines fear advertising fares without including taxes, lest they are accused of grossly misleading their clients. 

It is still harder for an African to get into most African countries than it is for someone holding an American, French or British passport. Yes they may both get visas at the border but the darker skinned fellow will have more questions to answer.

Yeah I believe it, but and it is an entertaining but, I face similar issues entering the UK if I am traveling on a NZ passport. I am a British citizen and have come fairly close to being refused entry to the UK I guess because they think I want to become an illegal immigrant in that god forsaken dump. Only after suggesting several times that they read my place of birth and then pointing out that they can't fucking stop me entering does it dawn on the fools that yes I have British citizenship by birth. Africa should be able to sort this out.

That means we are more afraid of each other than of people from far away. Many times we talk about how mobile phones have transformed our lives. What about the current roaming charges once you cross a border? 

Again that is an issue for the west as well, well at least New Zealanders. The first thing any Kiwi does on arrival at a foreign country is by a local pre pay sim.

We need to work on all these bottlenecks so as to boost trade and make live much more bearable on the continent. Maybe then we shall have less of our brothers and sisters selling their property to book a trip on a rickety boat hoping to find their way to Europe. Africa will only be developed by Africans but first we must respect and love each other a little more. 

Even better though would be getting rid of the Crocodiles who are largely to blame. Good leadership would deal with many of these problems.

Zimbabwe: The hypocrite speaks.

New Times ( Rwanda ) reports

Mugabe’s warning to government officials on keeping mistresses

                                                                                       Robert Mugabe

HARARE. Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has warned local officials to stay away from keeping mistresses, terming it a practice that is “not good to nation building.”

Well I guess that is debatable. Presumably if the mistresses are participating in procreation then one might argue it is actually quite a useful contribution to nation building. 

Mugabe told the third Zimbabwe Local Government Association biennial conference that he receives continuous reports of various national leaders lavishing their mistresses with expensive gifts such as vehicles and houses, the state-controlled Sunday Mail newspaper reported.

If I was a local government official I think that that might sort of piss me off a little. National leaders get to lavish their mistresses with " expensive gifts such as vehicles and houses " while local officials are warned not to have mistresses.

“When you cheat, people will not trust you, especially when the position you hold is an economic one. They will think you are abusing their money,” he said. The 89-year-old Zimbabwean leader said the trend of men keeping mistresses, commonly known as “small houses,” is to blame for the country’s rising divorce rate. Children will also suffer from the men’s loss of moral, he added.

Yes what else can I say ? The master hypocrite has spoken. 

Harare President Robert Mugabe has for the first time confessed that he is addicted to mistresses, from what are known as ‘small houses’ in Zimbabwe.

Speaking during a United Nations event on Thursday, Mugabe said in the Shona language, “Tiri vanhu vemeso meso. Chakabaya chikatyokera, tozviita sei? (We are easily tempted by different women. Once it is in and it has stuck right inside, what else can we do? Its an addiction, what can we do about it?)”

There are two types of marriages legally recognized in Zimbabwe -- the Marriages Act Chapter 5:11, which is monogamous, and the registered customary union, covered under the Customary Marriages Act Chapter 5:07, which recognizes man having more than one women partners.

But the government has been urging a shift from the customary marriage to monogamous marriage to avoid disputes and provide better upbringing environment for the children. Mugabe’s “morality call” is also seen as an attack on his arch- rival Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, who was embroiled in a relationship scandal last year when he tried to remarry. The 60- year-old former opposition leader’s first wife was killed in a road accident in 2009.

Again there is an irony in this. The Crocodile cries again. 

President Robert Mugabe ‘snatched’ his current wife Grace Mugabe from under the nose of then Air of Zimbabwe (intelligence officer) and husband Stanley Goreraza. The current First Lady then known as Grace Marufu worked as Mugabe’s secretary before she became his mistress while still married to Goreraza.

At the time Mugabe’s first wife Sally Mugabe was battling a chronic kidney ailment while Mugabe was having an affair with Grace. The affair resulted in two children, Bona, named after Mugabe’s mother, and Robert Peter, Jr.

Two women filed civil cases to court blocking Tsvangirai’s marriage last year, alleging they are already “married” to the prime minister. Mugabe and Tsvangirai are expected to compete against each other for the country’s top post in the elections later this year. The two were forced into a coalition government in the wake of the last disputed polls in 2008.

One can only again conclude the world will be a better place when Mugabe departs it. That day can't come soon enough.

Rwanda: Paul Kagame is a bastard.

Reuters reports 

Rwanda refuses visas for two U.N. Congo sanctions experts.

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon with Rwandan President Paul Kagame and Conogolese President Joseph Kabila. PHOTO/Reuters  newvision 

(Reuters) - Rwanda has refused to issue entry visas to two members of a U.N. expert panel that accused Kigali last year of arming rebels in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, describing them as biased, Rwandan and other diplomats said on Tuesday.

Several U.N. diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity, disputed the allegations of bias.

Rwanda seems to believe that it can invade the territory of the DR Congo with impunity and then when inconvenient evidence emerges that confirms Rwandan malfeasance the response is always to deny it.

The U.N. Security Council's Group of Experts, which monitors compliance with sanctions and an arms embargo on Congo, said in a report last year that Rwanda's defence minister was commanding the M23 revolt in Congo and that Rwanda was arming the rebels and supporting them with troops. It also accused Uganda of supporting M23.

There is of course the irony that Rwanda now holds the African seat on the Security Council. Rwanda should be removed from the Security Council. Paul Kagame runs one of the most brutal corrupt regimes in Africa. He is terrified of external scrutiny.

Rwanda's government was furious about the experts' report, as was the Ugandan government, and denied the allegations. U.N. officials and Security Council diplomats, however, said the Rwandan denials were not credible.

The allegations against Uganda were ( and I have read and blogged on the report ) not sustained in my opinion. They had a right to complain in fact one of the allegations was to accuse Uganda of offering support to M23 with the provision of administrational support in the on going peace negotiations. That is just stupidity.  Uganda I note though has not with held visa's.

A Rwandan diplomat confirmed the refusal to issue entry visas to Bernard Leloup of Belgium and Marie Plamadiala of Moldova. Several council diplomats dismissed the Rwandan allegations of bias, saying they suspected Kigali may be getting revenge over the group's revelations about M23's Rwandan links.

Absolutely. If Rwanda wish's to conduct itself in this manner the argument for removal from the security council just grows stronger. 

"We told the DRC (Congo) sanctions committee ... that no visa will issued to both of them," Rwanda's deputy U.N. ambassador, Olivier Nduhungirehe, told Reuters. He was referring to the Security Council's Congo sanctions committee.

How bloody ironic. Olivier Nduhungirehe might well find himself representing a government thta will face international sanctions along the lines of Zimbabwe if Rwanda carries on killing and fomenting unrest in the DR Congo.  Paul Kagame record on domestic oppression is fairly mind boggling. 

Several diplomats said the other four members of the expert group are currently in the Rwandan capital Kigali for discussions with the government regarding the panel's continued investigation of Rwanda's role in supporting M23.

Why bother. Rwanda will not play by the established rules of international behaviour so screw them. Issue the report and bring in sanctions against the regime.

Britain, France and the United States are among the countries that have urged Kigali to cooperate with all six members of the expert panel, council diplomats said, adding that they hoped Rwanda would relent.

Last year's report by the Group of Experts caused significant grief for Rwanda. The United States, Sweden, the Netherlands, Britain and the European Union reacted to the experts' accusations by suspending some aid to Rwanda, which relies on donors for about 40 percent of its budget.

That gives a fair indication of just how awful this regime is.

ACCUSATIONS OF BIAS

The Rwandan U.N. mission prepared a memo complaining about Leloup and Plamadiala. In that memo, obtained by Reuters from a diplomatic source, Rwanda accused Leloup of "a clear pattern of a deeply-seated bias against the GoR (government of Rwanda)."

The memo said Plamadiala has "no demonstrated expertise" suitable to being a member of the expert panel and "demonstrates inappropriate professional boundaries not befitting a U.N. expert."

If think a diplomatic fuck off needs to be sent to Rwanda in terms that the leadership can't fail to understand. Something along the line if an ICC indictment for crimes against humanity would do it. 

Despite Rwanda's complaints, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon reappointed Leloup and Plamadiala to the expert group.

The U.N. press office did not have an immediate response to the question of whether the Rwandan memo complaining about the two experts had been received by Ban's office.

Plamadiala declined to comment in an email to Reuters. Leloup did not respond to an emailed request for comment.

Last year, Rwanda accused the Group of Experts' coordinator, Steve Hege of the United States, of bias and leaking information to the media. Several council diplomats told Reuters those allegations about Hege were unfounded. The experts' new coordinator is Emilie Serralta of France.

Hege won and that must really piss Rwanda off. Rwanda will discover sooner or later that just because it operates on an ideology of hate, denial and corruption the rest of the world does not. The message that the world should send this and other Crocodiles is simple. You will be held to account for your actions.

Recently the M23 rebellion started to implode, U.N. diplomats and officials say. Hundreds of Congolese M23 rebels loyal to warlord Bosco Ntaganda fled into neighbouring Rwanda or surrendered to U.N. peacekeepers over the weekend after being routed by a rival faction.

It would be interesting to know what deals and influence Rwanda had on the above events. The fall out from this will be informative and I suspect will show Rwandan interference. 

Ntaganda, the fugitive Rwandan-born former Congolese general, walked into the U.S. Embassy in Rwanda on Monday and asked to be transferred to the International Criminal Court, where he faces war crimes charges racked up during the rebellion.

African leaders signed a U.N.-mediated regional accord late last month aimed at ending two decades of conflict in eastern Congo and paving the way for the possible creation of a U.N. intervention force to combat armed groups.

I have been blogging about this talk fest for ever I have serious doubts as to whether the force will ever take the field.

Zimbabwe: A change in policy ?

Eye Witness News ( Zimbabwe ) reports

Zimbabwean govt stops farm seizures

Cartoon. Radio Netherlands Worldwide 

HARARE - Zimbabwe's government said on Friday it will not seize any more foreign-owned farms after losing multi-million-dollar compensation claims under a treaty aimed at protecting overseas investments.

I think the cartoon says it all.

President Robert Mugabe started giving white-owned farms to landless blacks over a decade ago, a policy that had the unintended result of devastating food output in a country that had been a regional breadbasket.

An estimated 4, 000 farmers were thrown off their land without compensation and, while efforts to get legal redress in Zimbabwe failed, some have successfully sued for compensation in international courts.

Successfully in this context means they got a judgement against the Zimbabwe government as far as I can see. The Harare line appears to be that Great Britain is the liable party. Maybe the British should pay up then invade Zimbabwe and take all of Mugabe and his cronies ill gotten gains as compensation for honouring his debt.  

Lands Minister Herbert Murerwa said that lawsuits brought by foreign investors at the Washington-based  had prompted a change in policy.

Really I doubt it. Policy is something governments have and government is not a a Zimbabwe policy option under Zanu-PF.  

A group of 40 Dutch farmers won a 25 million euro ($32.74 million) claim there against Zimbabwe in 2009 as their farms were covered by the Bilateral Investment Promotion and Protection Agreements (BIPPA).

"We have acquired many BIPPA farms, but we are not going to be taking any future farms," Murerwa told Reuters.

A policy document tabled by Mugabe's ZANU-PF party at its annual conference in December showed that out of a total of 153 farms protected by the treaties, 116 farms had already been seized by the government.

Why anyone would invest in Zimbabwe is beyond me. The Chinese do and Zimbabwe  Zanu-PF buy there instruments of mass oppression from the Chinese so I guess the Chinese have a measure of security not available to other investors.

The government had previously promised not to seize farms protected by BIPPA but continued to evict the farmers, citing Zimbabwe's constitution which allows authorities to take any land suitable for farming.

Justice for Agriculture (JAG), a group representing the dispossessed farmers, was sceptical about the government's policy change.

"It's ok to talk, but where is the action? They previously committed to stop disruptions on the farms but haven't done so. They have already taken more than two-thirds of BIPPA farms," JAG chief executive John Worsley-Worswick told Reuters.

Exactly. Mugabe and his merry men band of thieves have no intention of stopping farm evictions, home invasions, murders, rapes......  

"They just want to create a false perception that they will now respect property rights in order to attract investment. If they were sincere, they would have compensated the Dutch farmers back in 2009, when they undertook to pay within 28 days, but they haven't."

He said that last month a Dutch farmer was shot and injured on a BIPPA-protected farm.

South Africa: The end of the Rainbow Nation

New Vision ( Uganda ) reports

S.African women rights at risk as Zuma woos tribal chiefs

AMAHLUBI, South Africa - Pregnant and bereaved, Thandiwe Zondi considered killing herself and her five daughters when she was evicted from her marital home.

Under customary Zulu law, only males can inherit land. But Zondi had borne no sons when her husband, a chief, died of natural causes, so his successor moved into her house and turfed the family out.

She appealed to a traditional court of tribal leaders - but they sided with the new chief.

I just love the way that South Africa is destroying the progress woman had made in the country.

Traditional courts are the most accessible form of justice for poor, rural South Africans, and their power is growing, setting back the clock on women's rights in one of Africa's most progressive countries.

Their increasing influence is largely thanks to President Jacob Zuma, a proud Zulu who has four wives and a fondness for dancing dressed in a leopard skin cloak and a kilt of animal tails with a cow-hide shield and spear.

You get the feeling Zuma would just about do anything to join the ranks of the crocodiles but that is never going to happen. He seems to have decided that if he can't run South Africa as his personally owned country utilising the resources of the state to enrich himself ludicrously then he will wind the clock back to a distant past and ramp up his feudal dues.


As Zuma fights for re-election as head of the African National Congress (ANC) in December and as president in 2014, he plans to make traditional courts the only option for millions of South Africans by denying them access to civil courts.

South Africa and the ANC really needs to dump this idiot.

Zondi's eviction was not based on any statute, and it flew in the face of South Africa's post-apartheid constitution, which guarantees gender equality and outlaws "unfair discrimination". But that didn't make it any less real.

"They asked me who is going to look after me," she recalled, sitting in her father's cluttered mud home, overlooking a valley in KwaZulu Natal, Zuma's home province.

"They needed a man. I said there's no one. That's when they started getting angry and violent. It was very painful. I had all these thoughts of killing myself and my children."

Today, 18 family members spanning three generations squeeze into her father's three-bedroom home. Every inch is filled with bulging suitcases, cardboard boxes and furniture shrouded in sheets. Photographs of family members hang by her daughter's sporting trophies and pictures of Jesus.

That is Zuma's legacy not justice and equality but poverty and dispossession

BILL BEFORE PARLIAMENT

Presided over by tribal elders steeped in customary law, traditional courts in the densely populated apartheid-era "homelands" rule on everything from land rights and domestic violence to trespassing by livestock.

The Traditional Courts Bill, which had its latest round of public hearings in September, would subject the 18 million South Africans who live in the homelands - where the tribal chiefs still exercise power - to this separate justice system.

Speaking to traditional leaders about the bill last month, Zuma lambasted South Africans opposing it for trying to be "too clever" and aping "the white man's way".

I didn't know access to justice was a concept that was exclusive to caucasian races in fact the struggle against apartheid I would have thought behoved it on the leader of the ANC to strive to ensure justice was never again denied in South Africa.

Critics say the bill will almost certainly be kicked out as unconstitutional, but they say the fact it is before parliament at all, and that at least one other bill boosting the power of traditional chiefs are planned, harks back to apartheid.

"It's going to take us back to prior to democracy when, as women, our rights were not recognised," said Priscilla Matsapola, a lawyer with People Against Women Abuse, a rights group that provides legal advice and other services to victims of abuse.

Exactly.

The white minority government that ruled the country before the first democratic elections in 1994 created the homelands as a dumping ground for black Africans in pursuit of its goal of a racially segregated South Africa.

Many of the black majority were evicted from their homes and squeezed onto 13 percent of the land where they were ruled by tribal chiefs co-opted into the white segregationists' scheme. Others lived in crowded townships round the cities.

"It's ironic that the democratic government should be moving towards realising the goals of the apartheid government," said Sindiso Mnisi Weeks, a senior researcher at the University of Cape Town.

She and others argue that the government is distorting customary law by giving chiefs so much power and creating an illegitimate, unelected fourth layer of government.

"People are saying what's at issue here is the transition to democracy and you are selling us out on that," said Aninka Claassens, an expert on land rights at Cape Town University.

As I said Zuma would dearly love to join the ranks of Africa's crocodiles.

WIDOWS

Women, who make up 59 percent of rural residents, would be worst affected by the bill as traditional leaders and cultures tend to be patriarchal, critics say.

There are few working age men living in the simple mud homes that pepper the green and brown hills of KwaZulu Natal. Most migrate to the cities and mines. Half of rural households are run by women, usually grandmothers or single mothers who rely on pensions and child grants to get by.

In South Africa's traditional courts, women usually have to be represented by a male relative or neighbour.

Widows involved in disputes over their late husband's property, like Zondi, are particularly vulnerable. They are expected to go into mourning for at least six months, without appearing in public, because they are considered impure.

"When decisions are being made about their lives and the future of their children... they are not there," said Nomboniso Gasa, who writes on gender issues.

Instead, they are represented by their husband's relatives, often the very same people who are trying to evict them.

Since the introduction of South Africa's 1996 constitution, customary law has been evolving to reflect the new democratic values, such as allowing single mothers to be allocated land.

Critics regard the bill as a backlash by traditional leaders against these changes. Elders counter that the bill would bring the work of traditional leaders into line with the constitution.

"It's not going to violate women ... That is just an exaggeration," said Wilson Makgalancheche, head of the National House of Traditional Leaders, set up by the post-apartheid government to bring traditional leaders into discussions about the new democracy.

New democracy ? Wilson Makgalancheche shut the fuck up.

"Culture is definitely evolving. In as much as we want to cling to our culture and we want to hand over the culture from one generation to another, we need to be cognisant of the developments within the areas where we live."

'CODE FOR MISOGYNY'

The chiefs are lobbying for ANC support in exchange for their ability to deliver rural votes.

"The bill on the table now is about the kinds of stresses and pressures on the ANC to build as wide a support base as possible," said Nic Borain, a political analyst.

"They have made very direct appeals to the traditional leadership, which is very patriarchal, very conservative."

Zuma ousted Thabo Mbeki as ANC president in 2007 with the backing of traditional leaders whose power had been waning, said William Gumede, a professor at Witwatersrand University.

"Now they have credibility because they are aligned to the president... Now they are pretty powerful," he said.

Several ANC parliamentarians are chiefs, such as Phathekile Holomisa, who heads the Congress of Traditional Leaders of South Africa, a lobby group which wants the clause protecting gays and lesbians from discrimination removed from the constitution.

So much for the rainbow nation.

Gasa cites Zuma's polygamous lifestyle, rape trial - in which he was found not guilty - and his labelling of unmarried women as "a problem" as signs of a new cultural tone.

Gumede said: "He has set a new example, I think, of social conservatism and he has made it kosher again."  

He has to go.